Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty.
Speaker 2: From KFI AM six forty Handle here. It is a
Speaker 2: Tuesday morning, April twenty two. The big news we are covering.
Speaker 2: Pope Francis is still dead and they are going to
Speaker 2: be bringing him right He's probably on his way to
Speaker 2: the Basilica, the courtyard in front Saint Peter Square, as
Speaker 2: opposed to inside the Basilica where he is going to
Speaker 2: be in front of the basilica, lying in state, which
Speaker 2: is the other way of saying. They're parking him right
Speaker 2: there in the basilica, where are in front of the
Speaker 2: basilica where people are going to be passing his coffin
Speaker 2: and looking at the Pope as he continues his death. Okay,
Speaker 2: now it is time for Tech Tuesday with Mike Busky,
Speaker 2: who is the ABC News technology reporter who joins us.
Speaker 1: Mike is always thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Now some enormously huge news which somehow has not gotten
Speaker 2: well we know why it has not gotten the attention
Speaker 2: that it should get because of the issue with tariffs
Speaker 2: and now the Pope, et cetera. But that is the
Speaker 2: trial of Google and the judge looking at it already
Speaker 2: viewed Google.
Speaker 1: As a monopoly. What is going on and what is
Speaker 1: going to happen?
Speaker 3: This, of course, is the Google search engine monopoly case
Speaker 3: decided last year by a judge who ruled that Google
Speaker 3: was operating an illegal monopoly in the world of online
Speaker 3: search engines, that it wasn't just creating a product that
Speaker 3: people liked to use and therefore was popular as a result,
Speaker 3: but rather was using its market power, it's billions of dollars,
Speaker 3: it's troves of data with regards to how people search
Speaker 3: online to muscle out competitors and make for an anti
Speaker 3: competitive environment and therefore a less good competitive market for consumers.
Speaker 1: Okay, with that being said, let me interrupt for a moment.
Speaker 2: If the judge has already ruled that's the case, what
Speaker 2: is this trial about.
Speaker 1: This trial is.
Speaker 3: About what to do about it. Essentially, this is how
Speaker 3: we figure out what the remedy of that monopoly is
Speaker 3: going to be. This is expected to be a three
Speaker 3: week hearing. It kicked off yesterday in Washington, d c.
Speaker 3: And there are many potential remedies on the table here.
Speaker 3: The Department of Justice is going pretty big in this case.
Speaker 3: One of those remedies would be to force Google to
Speaker 3: sell off Google Chrome, which is their very popular web browser,
Speaker 3: also the driver of a lot of Google search traffic,
Speaker 3: about thirty five percent according to the federal government. They
Speaker 3: are also targeting some of the deals Hello hello.
Speaker 1: Oh there you go. I'm sorry, we're we're glitching up there.
Speaker 1: So at the.
Speaker 3: Tech Tuesday, you know that's gonna come.
Speaker 1: That's part of Yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 2: It's a great time for this thing to fall apart
Speaker 2: is on Tech Tuesday. So I think you had just
Speaker 2: said that some of the remedies Chrome may go by
Speaker 2: the wayside, and what.
Speaker 3: Else Chrome could go by the wayside? Also, Google has
Speaker 3: spent many billions of dollars striking deals with Apple and
Speaker 3: Samsung and others to be the default search engine on devices. Right,
Speaker 3: so if you go to the Safari web browser on
Speaker 3: your iPhone, you need to type something in, not a
Speaker 3: web dress or anything like that. You just type in
Speaker 3: a term, You're going to do a Google search, right.
Speaker 3: And Google spends many billions of dollars for that privilege,
Speaker 3: according to the government, and according to a court, is
Speaker 3: anti competitive because it doesn't give consumers the choice of
Speaker 3: what search engine to use in that scenario. So the
Speaker 3: government is asking a judge to force Google to unwind
Speaker 3: some of those deals, and Google says that they're open
Speaker 3: to that possibility of potentially renegotiating some of those deals,
Speaker 3: despite the fact that they're a huge part of their business.
Speaker 3: But they say that going any further than that, forcing
Speaker 3: them to break up the company by selling off Google
Speaker 3: Chrome and to crack down on some other aspects of
Speaker 3: their business, would be going too far. So that's what
Speaker 3: they have to decide in court this week. It's not
Speaker 3: the only anti trust trial that Google is facing. Just
Speaker 3: a few days ago, they were ruled to be operating
Speaker 3: an illegal monopoly in the world of online advertising as well.
Speaker 3: It's the second week of the Facebook anti trust trial,
Speaker 3: and the DOJ is also leveraging cases against Apple, the
Speaker 3: FTC against Amazon Bill. What this means it's a tough
Speaker 3: time to be a tech executive in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Except there, Let's say they spin off these various companies.
Speaker 2: Now they're competing against those companies, and obviously if they
Speaker 2: are spinning off and getting cash, they're going to be
Speaker 2: so cash rich it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: They're going to be able to buy entire countries.
Speaker 2: But do you foresee legitimate competition well, and will they
Speaker 2: stay and will they stay in the business.
Speaker 3: It's a good question, right. We don't really know what
Speaker 3: a future without a dominant Google search looks like.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: And Google has been making the argument in court that
Speaker 3: spinning off Google Chrome would kill Google Chrome, right, that
Speaker 3: it just needs to be a part of Google in
Speaker 3: order to operate. There's also the question of who would
Speaker 3: buy it, right. Google is a one point eight trillion
Speaker 3: dollar company. A lot of that valuation comes from it's
Speaker 3: cadra of services like Google Chrome. Who could afford a
Speaker 3: company like Google Chrome if they were to sell it off?
Speaker 3: And would that attract the attention of antitrust regulators? Again,
Speaker 3: So those are the questions that are facing the government
Speaker 3: right now. That's kind of what they have to prove
Speaker 3: in court to this judge saying that this is the
Speaker 3: actual only remedy. It's actually really difficult to break up
Speaker 3: a company. That's not the way our system usually does things.
Speaker 3: The plaintiffs in this case need to prove that that's
Speaker 3: the only option, right, They need to take every other
Speaker 3: possibility off the table before a judge would ultimately side
Speaker 3: in that case. But even still the government is going
Speaker 3: after them in that regard. Another big part of this
Speaker 3: is search engine data. Right every time you Google something,
Speaker 3: Google learns a little bit about you and learns about
Speaker 3: the search engine habits of Americans. The Department of Justice
Speaker 3: is also asking a judge to make Google make that
Speaker 3: information freely available. Right now, it's proprietary to Google. One
Speaker 3: of the reasons they say that Google has become dominant
Speaker 3: is because other competitors don't have access to as wide
Speaker 3: a trove of information as as ar Eagle does.
Speaker 2: Mike Weird new truck out there that de Bezos is backing,
Speaker 2: What is this about? Because I love new you know,
Speaker 2: we have not had years where nothing new. We have
Speaker 2: had years where nothing new has come up, and then
Speaker 2: the last few years it has exploded with new companies,
Speaker 2: new products, new vehicles.
Speaker 1: So what's this one about?
Speaker 3: Yeah, speaks to just how hard it is to build
Speaker 3: cars in the industry. But thanks to flush you know,
Speaker 3: VC cash, there are now you know, a whole lot
Speaker 3: of new startups kind of floating around out there. The
Speaker 3: latest one is Slate Auto and this is one to
Speaker 3: keep an eye on this week. This is a new
Speaker 3: automaker that's promising a small, all electric pickup truck for
Speaker 3: just twenty five thousand dollars. There's really nothing else out
Speaker 3: there that is a pickup truck that is twenty five
Speaker 3: thousand dollars that runs on battery power. There are vanishingly
Speaker 3: few cars out there for twenty five thousand dollars anymore,
Speaker 3: and this is a pretty big promise. Tesla for a
Speaker 3: long time was promising a thirty five thousand dollars electric vehicle,
Speaker 3: but they were never quite able to get that over
Speaker 3: the line. So this is a pretty ambitious project. But
Speaker 3: even still, speaking of that VC cash, this company has
Speaker 3: been able to raise over one hundred and ten million
Speaker 3: dollars in Series A funding. One of those major investors
Speaker 3: is Jeff Bezos, so some big names attached to this
Speaker 3: and throwing their name behind this new company. What we
Speaker 3: know about the truck is kind of sparse at this point.
Speaker 3: There have been a couple prototypes, a couple mock ups
Speaker 3: cropping up around particularly like trendy neighborhoods in Los Angeles
Speaker 3: for people to take pictures of, but there's no details
Speaker 3: on it. In fact, one we're was able to climb
Speaker 3: under one of those models and discover that there's actually
Speaker 3: not an engine in it. It's just kind of a
Speaker 3: model that they've put there for people to look at.
Speaker 3: We are expected to get more details on this thing
Speaker 3: when it is officially unveiled later this week on Thursday, So.
Speaker 1: We don't know when it is coming out. Any idea
Speaker 1: or the range or the actual price. Is that a
Speaker 1: We hope to be able to do it for twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: I think we're going to get more information on all
Speaker 3: of those fronts on Thursday when it is officially unveiled.
Speaker 3: The target seems to be twenty five thousand dollars, and
Speaker 3: they seem to be pretty committed to, if not exactly
Speaker 3: that number, somewhere.
Speaker 1: Close to it.
Speaker 3: In fact, one of the early reports here indicates that
Speaker 3: the car will have optional air conditioning, which when was
Speaker 3: the last time that you remembered optional air conditioning in
Speaker 3: a vehicle? That seems to be a tactic that they
Speaker 3: are using to get this thing under that twenty five
Speaker 3: thousand dollars mark. It's really difficult, right, mass producing a
Speaker 3: car at scale, especially when you're a startup, is an
Speaker 3: expensive proposition. Right. You have to contact suppliers, you have
Speaker 3: to spin up factories, hire workers, do marketing and all
Speaker 3: that sort of thing that costs a lot of money
Speaker 3: that's eventually transferred onto the cost of the car. Does
Speaker 3: seem like there's some pretty deep pocketed investors behind this
Speaker 3: company that might be able to absorb some of that cost.
Speaker 3: But will this be a going concern will this be
Speaker 3: something that lasts? I think that remains to be seen.
Speaker 3: It's also going to be interesting for me to just
Speaker 3: look at, you know, who is this targeted at?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Is this an everyday person's car. Is this designed to
Speaker 3: be a commuter vehicle for people who you know might
Speaker 3: need a small pickup truck like this, or is this
Speaker 3: for work?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Is this for small businesses? Some of the mockups that
Speaker 3: have been cropping up have had little attachments to the
Speaker 3: back of them to go over the bed of the
Speaker 3: pickup truck, a little sort of coverings, or they kind
Speaker 3: of make it look a little bit different. So it
Speaker 3: seems to be aimed kind of at small businesses and
Speaker 3: people who use the vehicle for that purpose, But again
Speaker 3: we just don't know for sure yet.
Speaker 2: How about those other companies that have come out. You've
Speaker 2: got Rivian on, you have I'm trying to think about AID.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Lucid, Yeah, I haven't even seen a Lucid vehicle
Speaker 1: out there. I've seen some Rivians.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how are they? How are they doing? Is there
Speaker 2: anybody succeeding other than Tesla.
Speaker 3: Well, there's it's kind of an open question whether Tesla
Speaker 3: is still succeeding really. I mean, they have good point
Speaker 3: to a point, but we are expected to get information
Speaker 3: on their latest quarterly earnings later today. That's going to
Speaker 3: be kind of our clearest look yet into the actions
Speaker 3: of Elon Musk and whether that's having an impact on
Speaker 3: his his electric vehicle business. With regards to Rivian and Lucid,
Speaker 3: those kind of seem to be the most prominent electric
Speaker 3: vehicle startups out there as opposed to Tesla. Rivian makes
Speaker 3: electric trucks, Lucid makes an electric sedan. They are about
Speaker 3: to bring an electric suv to market. I actually got
Speaker 3: a chance to drive it last week at the New
Speaker 3: York International Auto Show. It's a really interesting new product.
Speaker 3: They are backed by the Saudi Investment Fund, which is
Speaker 3: a hugely you know, wealthy investment fund out there, so
Speaker 3: they have some some backing behind them. But again they're
Speaker 3: not really making money just yet. Rivian, on the other hand,
Speaker 3: has major partnerships with the likes of Ford and used
Speaker 3: to be with Amazon as well. So it's really not
Speaker 3: even about settling a car and making you know, a
Speaker 3: margin on each individual vehicle. It's kind of about what
Speaker 3: relationships that you're able to strike. So that's kind of
Speaker 3: where they find themselves right now.
Speaker 1: All right, Uh, Mike, thank you always great information. You
Speaker 1: have a good day. You do too, take care all right.
Speaker 2: I want to tell you about Milan Milon Pandy, who
Speaker 2: is a business person and.
Speaker 1: This has to do with drones. Now.
Speaker 2: You know, drones are we're originally used for uh you know, observation.
Speaker 2: They would be used for, you know, photographing for example
Speaker 2: of photographing real estate projects houses. I use the drone
Speaker 2: at my wedding to uh video part of the wedding,
Speaker 2: and so they're used kind of it for everything. Here's
Speaker 2: one that you probably haven't heard of. Milan Pandy has
Speaker 2: a company that is using drone at Mount drones at Mount.
Speaker 1: Everest and how does that work.
Speaker 2: He's a drone pilot and what he's doing is probably
Speaker 2: going to change things forever on Everest and other high
Speaker 2: very high mountains, Ladders, ropes, oxygen cylinder cylinders can be
Speaker 2: transported via drone to aid the sherpas. The sherpa is
Speaker 2: helping the climbers on Mount Everest. You can't do it
Speaker 2: without a sherpa. The most famous sherpa real quickly neil
Speaker 2: do do do do do?
Speaker 1: Do do do do do the.
Speaker 2: First man to actually the first man to actually go
Speaker 2: on top of Mount Everest.
Speaker 1: Everybody says it's Edmund Hillary. It was not. It was
Speaker 1: the sherpa. His name is Tensig Norgay. In case you
Speaker 1: ever get.
Speaker 4: It up with the no sherpa, no shoes, no service.
Speaker 2: Very good, very strong. In any case, keep me off
Speaker 2: like nope, yep, nope. The Sherpas live up there in
Speaker 2: the regions of Nepal and they are the guides.
Speaker 1: They navigate.
Speaker 2: They set the trial for climbers half for seven decades
Speaker 2: and dozens have lost their lives. So pande Is company
Speaker 2: is airlift Technology. He starts uh the local drone mapping startup,
Speaker 2: and he says that using drones combined with the sherpas
Speaker 2: decades of mountaineering knowledge, makes it safer to climb Everest.
Speaker 2: Have you seen picture of Mount Everest during the season.
Speaker 2: Right now, it's the season for climbing. It is at
Speaker 2: the top of the mountain. There are hundreds of people
Speaker 2: waiting to climb the mountain. It's like a new ride
Speaker 2: at Disneyland. The lines go on forever and it's dangerous
Speaker 2: because people wait for hours to get up there. So
Speaker 2: base camp is located at about seventeen thy five hundred
Speaker 2: feet above sea level. Camp one is at about twenty
Speaker 2: thousand feet. The distance between the two points and you
Speaker 2: have to go to base camp and then up to
Speaker 2: Camp one, and then you go to Camp two going
Speaker 2: up the hill. Of course, the hill going up the mountain.
Speaker 2: The difference between the two points is one point eight miles.
Speaker 2: It takes sherpas six to seven hours to make that
Speaker 2: one point eight journey one point eight mile journey. It
Speaker 2: takes a drone six to seven minutes.
Speaker 1: To make that distance.
Speaker 2: So if you think of drones delivering food, medical supplies, oxygen,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you have a much safer way
Speaker 2: to climb mount efforts. Have you seen pictures of these
Speaker 2: climbers and videos documentaries, They go past all these dead
Speaker 2: bodies that litter the trails on Mount Everest.
Speaker 1: It's really weird.
Speaker 2: And they don't bring the dead bodies down because they
Speaker 2: are dead weight, so to speak.
Speaker 1: It's super dangerous.
Speaker 2: All of it is super dangerous. I mean, there's so
Speaker 2: much garbage. There is so much garbage going up the mountain.
Speaker 4: They people, I think they found a body that they
Speaker 4: believe might have been somebody who reached the summit before Hillary.
Speaker 2: George Mallory, British, and they did find him, and they
Speaker 2: didn't know whether or not he actually reached the summit.
Speaker 2: The last known sighting of George Mallory was seven hundred
Speaker 2: feet below the summit and at that point they don't know.
Speaker 2: And then he got fogged in and they don't know
Speaker 2: whether he actually reached the summit.
Speaker 1: And then he fell with his.
Speaker 2: Climbing partner, Irving, and he fell and they found they
Speaker 2: did find his body, and it was and think about this,
Speaker 2: this was in the twenties, Brits.
Speaker 1: These guys are crazy.
Speaker 2: All the BRIT's early explorers to the or the Arctic
Speaker 2: and the Antarctic were all Brits and they were out
Speaker 2: of their minds. So here goes George Mallory up the
Speaker 2: mountain and he's wearing wool woolen clothing, hobnail boots, big hemp,
Speaker 2: the hemp ropes.
Speaker 1: It was they had oxygen, but it leaked.
Speaker 2: It was almost a waste of time because the early
Speaker 2: technology on the oxygen tanks, and that's how they used
Speaker 2: to climb up the mountain. Today, of course it is
Speaker 2: the various parkas that are made out of artificial material
Speaker 2: and they're warm as hell, and.
Speaker 1: You have the proper boots, and you have the ropes
Speaker 1: that are.
Speaker 2: Very very thin made out of nylon, and then the
Speaker 2: grandpas that they hammer into the rock and its or
Speaker 2: the crampons. That's it, and it's just a whole different
Speaker 2: world in any case. So technology in terms of gear
Speaker 2: that they used to climb up the mountain today is
Speaker 2: a million miles ahead of what happened, what was around
Speaker 2: in the twenties when George Mallory was climbing, And now
Speaker 2: they're adding drones to it to deliver emergency supplies, deliver food,
Speaker 2: also grab garbage from.
Speaker 1: The mountain, bring down used oxygen tanks.
Speaker 2: Every drone can go up there and bring down sixty
Speaker 2: six pounds of trash and they already have brought down
Speaker 2: eleven eleven they've already brought down how many eleven hundred
Speaker 2: pounds I believe, which is just a drop in the bucket.
Speaker 2: But now it's going to happen more and more, the
Speaker 2: use of drones. By the way, that George Mallory story,
Speaker 2: I watched Jeopardy.
Speaker 1: That's how I knew that.
Speaker 4: I don't know how you do it. You forget the
Speaker 4: most basic things. You bring your your iPhone to me
Speaker 4: all the time. How do I answer email?
Speaker 1: Again? You ask I can't charge my car.
Speaker 4: There's so much you can't do, and then you have
Speaker 4: these dumb ass facts in your head from the twenties.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's theirst plot. Well there you go, yes, you
Speaker 1: lose the yes. All right.
Speaker 2: We're going to end the show with the Education Department,
Speaker 2: soon to be the non Education Department. And this has
Speaker 2: to do with what the Trump administration is doing.
Speaker 1: Two students who are in default.
Speaker 2: There are more than five million borrowers in this country
Speaker 2: who are in default and owe money to the Feds,
Speaker 2: because these are federal student loans that have not been
Speaker 2: paid back to the point where already indeed at default,
Speaker 2: which is.
Speaker 1: This defined as two hundred and seventy days without payment.
Speaker 2: Now pandemic hits and a moratorium is put into place.
Speaker 2: Biden puts in a moratorium, saying everything is on hold.
Speaker 2: Interest is on hold, payments are on hold. And now
Speaker 2: the government is saying, okay, we're done with that. It's
Speaker 2: time to start paying back. And if you don't pay back,
Speaker 2: we're gonna garnish wages. We're gonna take money from your
Speaker 2: tax refund, which is what they do. And of course
Speaker 2: there's an uproar. How dare you do that, you government.
Speaker 1: Of the United States?
Speaker 2: You Trump administration? Well, how long does a moratorium continue?
Speaker 1: That's my question? Forever? So you don't have to pay
Speaker 1: back your loan.
Speaker 2: Boy, wouldn't you like to borrow money under those terms
Speaker 2: where you don't have to pay it back?
Speaker 1: Where do I sign up for that one? Because when
Speaker 1: I borrowed money to go to school.
Speaker 2: Damn it, they asked me and they forced me to
Speaker 2: pay it back with interest.
Speaker 1: And so here's the argument.
Speaker 2: You've got those people in favor of the students, former
Speaker 2: students who say it's a different world today.
Speaker 1: The mount of money you have to borrow.
Speaker 2: To have an education, to get an education is astronomical.
Speaker 2: The chances of getting a job are minimal compared to
Speaker 2: what it used to be. It used to be you
Speaker 2: borrowed money, you went to school, you graduated college, you
Speaker 2: got a job. It used to be when I went
Speaker 2: to law school, you graduated, you generally got a job,
Speaker 2: except I couldn't get one.
Speaker 1: So therefore I went out on my own.
Speaker 2: And because I'm a hustler, it's because I couldn't get
Speaker 2: a job in any law firm.
Speaker 1: And fine, that is the argument.
Speaker 2: You have, too bad, what do you expect then don't
Speaker 2: borrow the money. Figure out another way of doing it,
Speaker 2: because allowing you to not pay or to extend, let
Speaker 2: me tell you how crazy it was under the Biden administration.
Speaker 2: If you paid your loan, if you made your payments
Speaker 2: over ten years, the rest of it was forgiven.
Speaker 1: How do I sign up for that one?
Speaker 2: So what the Trumpet administration is saying, hey, welcome to reality.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the.
Speaker 2: Real world where you actually have to pay back your
Speaker 2: loans and if you're in default, we're going to go
Speaker 2: after the money. So I completely agree with what's going on.
Speaker 2: The Education department, well, it's not going to be an
Speaker 2: education department very long. Well, what used to be the
Speaker 2: Education department whose services will be absorbed by other agencies.
Speaker 2: Is ending the pandemic area pause that began roughly five
Speaker 2: years ago, and they're going to start the Treasury Offset program,
Speaker 2: collecting debts by gardnishing federal and state payments, tax retures,
Speaker 2: social Security benefits. Yeah, you know, pay your money, you know,
Speaker 2: you know. There are programs that extend for years and years. Fine,
Speaker 2: and there are programs that are set up based on
Speaker 2: what your income is. Take advantage of that. But it's
Speaker 2: still a payback. It makes all the sense in the world. Okay,
Speaker 2: we're done, guys, coming up Gary and Shannon. Tomorrow morning
Speaker 2: we start all over again. Wake Up Call with Amy
Speaker 2: and Will Neil and I come aboard and of course
Speaker 2: with the extraordinary and marginal help from Kono and Ann.
Speaker 2: This is KFI. Oh, by the way, Pope francis still dead.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six. You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2: Catch My Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
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