Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
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Hey @Leo just wanted you to know that the old rotary phones did not work on sound but rather they signalled the central office via a series of electrical break/make circuit pulses. As the dial rotated along, it would pass over contacts that would repeatedly break the circuit (which was established when you took the phone off hook.) In fact, if you were talented, you could dial just using the “hang-up” plungers which also would break/make the circuit as they went down/up. (I used to do this as a child all the time, to the amazement of few. 
)
Google says:
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Just to muddy the picture, there are retro phones available with dials that generate touch tones. A possible giveaway would be if the dial includes holes for “*” and “#” then it’s a modern fake - those values didn’t exist in the pulse dialling environment.
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D’oh of course I was confusing rotary clicks with DTMF. Nevertheless, I’m surprised there are switching networks that still understand the signals.
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There are also companies that retrofit old rotary phones with digital innards.
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We have an old bakelite rotary phone. Still works here in the UK on the phone network. What’s the bet there is still some old legacy but critical kit out there that depends on pulse so they can’t turn it off?
End of 2025 is when they say all the copper will be turned off. A quick Google suggests you can still use pulse signalling over VoIP?
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On the Alexa makes no money stuff, I use it extensively as an integrator for all my smart home kit. Works very well, written many routines to do stuff like triggering outside lights from sensors in other cameras, heating, lighting.
I’m surprised they don’t make a couple of $ for each Echo they sell, are they really sold at cost? However, there’s an ecosystem play here too of course. My Alexas play nicely with Amazon’s other kit. So that’s why I use Ring as an example.
Hannah Fry has a series on modern tech and how it works at the mo. What’s in an Echo was the last episode. How the voice has developed over time is interesting.
BBC iPlayer - The Secret Genius of Modern Life - Series 1: 3. Virtual Assistant
I would guess the devices are sold at cost or a small profit, but don’t forget most of the money goes into the backend and keeping that going. How much do you pay per month/year to keep the devices connected to the Amazon backend?
I suspect they were hoping on adverts and people buying through Alexa to help finance the backend.
That’s true. I could pay nothing and it would all work. I do have Prime though.
I’m waiving any charge for all the data they are obtaining from me though
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I suspect the backend for Echo devices is almost nothing compared to the backend for the Amazon set of sites and services. The one thing they may spend money on that they don’t technically need to, is to spider the web to get the most current content for the service. (I am not an Echo user, I have Google Home devices though.)
When they talked about it losing money, they also talked staff reductions, and that is where I think there largest cost lies with the service. If you have 10,000 people to lay off, then that has to cost a lot of money right there… if we assume each body is worth at least $100K in salary and benefits, a 10K reduction in staff means saving $1B/year.
On the other hand, if you don’t have anyone running the ship and bringing in new content and features, there is some possibility the service will atrophy and it will never bring any value from its user base. I can’t imagine Amazon would wholesale abandon the devices, so either they will eventually require Prime or there will be a monthly or annual fee to use them. If they go that route, I bet half the user base gives them up because they were addicted to a free service and don’t value voice driven timers and weather checks enough to pay a fee.
100K per engineer? You must be Canadian.
Unclear how to take that @Leo? Do you mean I am low-balling or that is too much? I have a friend who works remote as a software developer for a small company who makes software for musicians and his salary is in the $120K US range and he tells me he is under paid.
On Apple in China:
I think Leo made his case quite well and his position on the matter aligns closely with my own view i.e., if a business makes the conscious decision to operate out of a (contentious) country it has to follow the rules, laws, and common terms of that jurisdiction. If the company doesn’t agree with those conditions on any grounds, including morally, then it well within their rights to cease doing business there. If however they do choose to continue operating in that country then it is with implicit agreement and full complicity. No one is forcing Apple to be in China, that’s their own choice (admittedly in no small part through the pressure of shareholders who probably couldn’t bring themselves to accept the loss of a major market both in terms of production and consumption of iPhones).
Meeting the letter of the law doesn’t mean the company should be absolved of all scrutiny just because they complied with the requirements of operating in a foreign land. As was mentioned on the show Apple makes a big song and dance about how they are the only white knights in Silicon Valley. More holy than thou is the crux of their whole PR campaign. Are you really Apple? Are you really?
Consumers should definitely know about these things (as Leo strenuously notes) and reflect on how such issues weigh on their personal purchasing criteria however I fear that in practice most people either don’t know, don’t want to know, or don’t care either way.
@Leo one interesting, but unsubstantiated story that might be worth following up for a future episode is that at least one person is alleging their Huawei phone, or the cloud it connects to, is deleting video footage of the protests in China:
This is absolutely chilling. One has to assume that Huawei are taking action upon the request of the government and hence it seems inevitable that will Apple receive the same request. And what will they do about it? From the discussion on the episode and above, the conclusion is that Apple would need to do the same heinous thing. It’s terrifying to think about that our phones may no longer capture reality but rather a fantasy image as determined by the regime we live under. As mentioned this story is unsubstantiated but worth a quick thought experiment and discussion in any case.
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Definitely low-balling.
Any decent engineer is going to be at least $150K a year (often two or three times that). Add at least 30% for benefits (again much more than that if there are stock options) and you’re talking at least $200K savings per engineer.
At a company like Twitter I’d bet it’s twice that.
Remember we don’t have public health in the US so a health plan is a significant cost to the employer.
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