Just as some movies are notorious for their soundtracks (everyone knows the "Rocky" and "Jurassic Park" theme songs), music in video games is just as important.
Sound design in video games is what makes virtual worlds come to life.
Tech companies, digital devices and apps are reshaping childhood and education.
Have Chromebooks been a positive influence on children’s learning and what do teachers have to do now to offset the problems that come with technology?
We’ve all heard the rumors of Google harvesting its users’ data without their consent, but it’s rare that we actually see consequences to these accusations.
A class action lawsuit resulted in Google paying $135 million to Android users for potentially stealing data, while not directly admitting fault.
Guests:
- Alex Sallade, music researcher with focus in sound design, The Ohio State University
- Natasha Singer, tech reporter, The New York Times
- Russell Holly, director of commerce content, CNET
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to Tech Tuesday from All Sides with Amy Juravich. This is a show where we share stories about science, technology, and the future of our environment. Just as some movies are notorious for their soundtracks, everyone knows "Rocky" or the "Jurassic Park" theme song, music in video games is just as important. You are just listening to some music from the game "Genshin Impact."
Sound design in video game builds tension in climactic moments and keeps players engaged in video-game worlds they are playing in. Music in video can transform. A visual scene into a multi-dimensional world. And joining us to talk about music in video games is Alex Sallade, a music researcher with a focus in sound design at Ohio State University. Welcome to the show, Alex.
Alex Sallade: I'm happy to be here.
Juravich: So when I think of video games, the first thing I think about is the graphics, basically. But would you say that the sound design and the music is an underrated aspect of video game production?
Sallade: Um, I wouldn't say maybe not underrated, but under misunderstood or less understood. Um, and yeah, it's a lot of sound design, music design. The intention is for it to be subtle and to sort of impact the player in a subtle, uh, subconscious way. But I think soundtracks especially do stick around with people. Um, some of the big ones, um, like "Legend of Zelda," "Mario," those are huge, uh with their soundtricks. But yeah.
Juravich: Yeah, so you think it's kind of the situation where if the music was missing, you would notice immediately that it was missing but you don't think about it when it's there.
Sallade: Yes, exactly. Yeah, you would definitely notice if something were missing. And I think a lot of, you know, even beyond the the musical scoring and the soundtrack, even the sound design, I think there's a lot of aspects that if those things weren't there, you would notice it and it would feel weird and it would feel unimmersive.
Um, and that's, you know, every little sound effect, such as just like someone walking, um, all of those little elements have to be input into the game pretty carefully. Um, And also if they're put in, in a sort of repetitive, annoying way, then that's also unimmersive and annoying and, uh, ineffective. So yeah.
Juravich: So what, you've used the word immersive a couple of times. So what does it mean for music to be immersive?
Sallade: Yeah, immersion is a difficult term. Immersive can mean a lot of different things, and it means different things for different people. It's difficult because sort of in an academic context, there isn't a good solid definition of what immersion is.
However, it still does, it is still something that people experience, all gamers, all media consumers experience immersion to some degree. And it's not, the question is not, Are they using this term correctly when they use this term, but rather what sort of about their subjective experience is leading them to use this term that is sort of an umbrella term that can mean a lot of different things?
Juravich: Hmm, so is the idea with the immersion the video game designer wants you to play the game longer?
Sallade: Yes, yeah, I think a big pull is staying in the game, playing it longer, feeling committed to it, building up player investedness so that you feel like you need to finish it out. You can't just stop a story halfway through. I think all those are reasons that game developers want their games to be highly immersive.
Yeah, but the ways in which they achieve that, there's many different ways to do that and many different way of combining different techniques to achieve that. And I think as technology has improved, it's become easier and sort of more immediate for game developers to achieve types of immersion. But still looking at like, what are the biggest games and how do they do it successfully? That's how the sort of smaller game developers can build up their own techniques and develop their own games to be sort of on par with those highly developed games with all the funding and stuff like that.
Juravich: Well, and earlier I mentioned that everyone knows about music soundtrack or music soundtracks in movies, right? Because they can, you know, something like the "Jurassic Park" theme will come to mind immediately when you think of or "Indiana Jones." Like they know that. But how would you compare the role of music in video games to the role music in movies? Is it similar? I mean, is the intention similar?
Sallade: Yeah, so what you're mentioning about sort of sticking with people and being immediately memorable, that's definitely a huge part of video game soundtracks. Again, like "Legend of Zelda" is so big and there's such a big fan base that understands all of the "Legend of Zelda" music and the musical cues and the meaning behind each of the different melodies and just the different musical elements that are put into it.
And I think that when game developers develop their soundtrack, they do have the intention of it sort of extending outside of the game. Into the fan base, into the the fan culture around it. Yeah, I think it's perhaps more important than in film in some aspects because of the way in which a player can sort of interact with a game.
And when a player interacts with a game, it feels more personal. And sort of every game experience is a little bit different and that makes it more personal and more. I think that the memories people have with games, I think they stick with them longer when they have that sort of personal investment or personal involvement in making that thing happen.
Juravich: You mentioned as technology improves, the sound in video games can improve too, or smaller companies can do a better job. How is AI changing the sound design for video games?
Sallade: Oh gosh, can't say I can really speak too much on AI and sound design. However, I do know actually, funny example, I had a presentation on sound design last week and one of the audience members came up afterwards and has like a small app game that he has worked on and has published.
And I believe he was using AI in this, but he basically took a bunch of techniques that I defined and categorized and he sort of fed them into this, asking it to then implement a few of these sound design techniques into his game and it did it pretty immediately. I don't know all the details of what happened with that specific example but it seemed to me like he was able to put this in and just have descriptions of like this is what I want to happen and things that were added in was it was a game involving like riding a bike.
Things were added like wind sound effects that change and adapt as you're riding slower or faster which contribute to a more realistic sound effect and of course leads to more immersion in the game in that sense. So I think with game engines and sort of AI being embedded within game engines, certainly it's going to start affecting sound effects.
It's going start affecting the way in which sound adapts like in real time to player input. But I can't say much about AI generated music and its place in video games. AI generated is, I mean, personally as a musician, I have some issues with AI generated.
And I think gamers would not like to see AI-generated music in video games, because I certainly know that gamers have a huge negative reaction to finding out that games use AI visuals to any degree in their games. So even though I think it's a thing that might be possible and more accessible and easy to implement, I don't necessarily think it'll be a positive thing for the industry and for different games that choose to go that route.
Juravich: This is Tech Tuesday from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about music in video games with Alex Sallade, a music researcher with a focus in sound design at Ohio State University. But you mentioned sound design is more than music, right? Because you were just talking about wind. So there's more to sound design. We're not just talking about needing the score or like the background music. I mean, what else do you need besides? Wind you need different you need you need tones for jumping you need tones for the sword swinging and all that yeah
Sallade: Yeah and in some cases it's tones like you're saying sort of earlier video games like say like 8-bit era video games all of all of the sound effects are beeps and boops right that's sort of that's my era yeah yeah that's like the classic video game but a lot of modern games use realistic sounds and like actual recordings of sounds and part of the reason earlier games didn't do that well actually I think the big reason earlier games didn't do that was because simply that just took up too much sound that it was the files were too big. And it was too much for a single game to handle.
But I don't remember the exact year, but it was like the first game that introduced recorded human voice in it. That single, like, audio file took up such a huge amount of the game, even though it was such a short clip, but the game developers felt it was impactful and important at that moment to sort of make the player feel more connected to what was going on in the game.
But of course modern games have like, you know, they'll be like 100 gigabytes. So they have plenty of room for actual recordings, actual recordings of music, actual sound effects, all kinds of things. But yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the sound design is underappreciated in video games because we kind of just assume, like of course it's there.
But, you know, anyone playing games, I challenge you next time you play it to really think about every sound that you're hearing because every single thing had to have been coded into the game to happen at an indeterminate time. A time that is determined by the player, which the game producers might not be able to predict or fully just, yeah, they can't exactly design around how the player is going to interact with the game because the player has their agency. But every little element needs to be tied to some other game mechanics so that it's triggered at some point. Um, yeah.
Juravich: So, a popular video game series, you know, when I think video games, I think "Mario." So let's listen to some music from "Mario Kart." So, there's a trend that says if you listen to "Mario" music while you're studying, you'll feel more motivated.
Speaker 4: Mm.
Juravich: And whether that's true or not, I don't know. But why do certain soundtracks create a sense of alertness or I guess urgency?
Sallade: Yeah, well, I think what you're maybe referencing is certainly "Mario Kart" music is something people use for studying a lot. Yeah. And that's because-
Juravich: And old school "Mario," like the original, yeah.
Sallade: Well, it's very high tempo. It's sort of just chugging along type music. And I think that a big part of the immersive effect of, or the immersive goal of "Mario" games is, you know, it is not making you feel like you're Mario, because that's not exactly their goal, because you're playing as Mario, or you're controlling Mario, but rather just this like, the amount of attention that you're giving to the game and the... Just the amount of space it's taking up in your brain so that you're sort of exiting the real world to be in that world and "Mario" games yeah they can be simple and they're sort of like games for everybody but like the high level players like they play the most difficult stuff they do the most difficult things and so I think the sort of fast paced music is building into this idea of fast pace like you have to keep doing new things you're keep trying to shoot higher, keep trying to achieve a better score.
But then with "Mario Kart" specifically, I know people use that for studying because in "Mario Kart," you get to the third lap, which is the final lap in whatever you're racing, and the music speeds up, where it has a different sound effect to it and it feels more rapid and it feel more frantic.
And that's something that would be called adaptive audio that is sort of a way in which the scoring has been changed in real time based on what the player is doing to reflect what that player is doing. And that faster pace in that third lap is like really pushing you like, oh, you've got to speed to the end. This is your final chance. And it's also an aural, an audio cue for the player. Like you better pick it up. Now's your final change.
Juravich: So talk to me more about making the audio and the visual components cohesive, because I have to think that for Mario, like, I mean, I guess there are, in "Mario Kart," there's sounds of, you know, the tires squealing and if you crash or that kind of thing, but that had to have adapted over time because the Mario I remember from my childhood didn't necessarily change tone unless you, you don't, died, so.
So talk to me about like how technology has helped the visual and the audio like work together because everyone's doing a different thing in the game So the game doesn't know what you're gonna do next
Sallade: Yeah, yeah, I think, yes, there's all these kinds of little sound effects that's tied to all the types of motion, how you're interacting with other players, what your vehicle is doing, how fast or slow you're going, those all sort of contribute to this idea of, like, immersion as being the most realistic thing and just seeing that immediate audio feedback for visual things that are happening on screen.
Other ways in which sort of the the more modern "Mario" stuff might, and the technology might better sort of facilitate this, is different levels in "Mario" are sort of focused on different areas. There might be like a desert area, an underwater area, a cave area, and above ground area.
And all of these have sort of different, normally have different musical backing tracks to them, soundtracks to them that are supposed to reflect those environments. And A lot of that has to do with instrumental choices. And so earlier, beeps and boops and stuff like that, they couldn't have as many different types of instruments or it was kind of vague what instrument they were trying to replicate. But modern games can certainly use real recordings of sort of world instruments from different cultures or really whatever to better communicate their idea of like, this is the environment we're trying to portray right now and the mood we're trying to portray.
Juravich: One of my student producers said her parents would never let her play "Minecraft" with the sound on because the music was so depressing. Here's a short clip. So why is the music in "Minecraft" so melancholy?
Sallade: Yeah, "Minecraft's" a great example, and I love "Minecraft" music, but... "Minecraft" music, um, oh, I can't remember the artist's name right now, but all of it is rather ambient style Like that's just how we would define the style of the music as ambient or maybe minimalist in some degree and I think the the reason that it was designed in that way is because "Minecraft" is such a Open expansive world that is unique to you everyone when you join like your own "Minecraft" world It's its own unique seed and I mean there's like infinite options for the world and you have to go out and discover it for yourself And these "Minecraft" worlds are nearly infinite in size as well.
But what I think is even more interesting about the "Minecraft" soundtrack, the way it's implemented while you're playing the game, it's not consistent. It's not always there. The music isn't constant in the background, but rather you're exploring around the world and at random points, the music starts and it'll be a different track and that sort of random triggering of these atmospheric soundtracks, I think leads to a it's sort of like it's imaginative, it's like you just discovered something for the first time, it's your own world that you're in. And I think most people play "Minecraft" as solo and that sort of light, easy soundtrack backing suits a single person just contemplating. I think that is sort of what they're trying to get with.
Juravich: Contemplating building. Yeah. Well just to end on what do you see happening in the future of sound design in video games?
Sallade: Um, I think with more technology things are gonna become more and more immersive. So VR headsets are already super big and that's already like reducing your visual, your realistic visual stimuli to focus on only the game. But with sound cancelation headphones, that makes it more, that's again, canceling out the real stimuli to replace it with artificial stimuli.
And once we get into more haptic, um, like, like a physical feedback in games, which they already have, of course, like vibration and controllers. But that will become more advanced. I think all of this is gonna lead to more like full body immersion in games. That looks potentially something more like there's an anime called "Sword Art Online," which is about full body dive into a video game.
I don't think we're ready for that yet. I don't think that's gonna be possible anytime soon. But with all of the talk of, you know, like meta glasses or just like, there's talk around like brain chips and stuff like that. All of that type of stuff, I think will kind of start in the video game world. And then make its way into the public.
Juravich: Yeah, meta glasses maybe didn't take off because they tried to introduce them in the real world. Maybe they need to start with the video games instead. Yeah, well we've been talking about music and video games with Alex Sallade, music researcher with a focus in sound design from Ohio State University. Thank you for your time today.
Sallade: Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me.
Juravich: And coming up, we're gonna talk about whether Chromebooks in schools are good for kids. That's when Tech Tuesday from All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to Tech Tuesday from All Sides with Amy Juravich, a show where we share stories about science, technology, and the future of our environment.
Since COVID-19 sent students home from the classroom, schools started to restructure their curriculum. The clearest result was the introduction of Chromebooks into classrooms. At first, they were seen as an invaluable way to prepare students for a more digitized world, but that feeling may have been premature.
Have Chromebooks been a positive on children's learning, and what do teachers have to do to offset problems that come with technology? New York Times reporter Natasha Singer covers technology in schools and writes about how tech companies, digital devices, and apps are reshaping childhood and education.
Her most recent article is titled "Chromebook Remorse, Tech Backlash at Schools Extends Beyond Phones." And in September, she also has a book coming out on the subject called "Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools." Welcome to the show, Natasha.
Natasha Singer: Thanks for having me, Amy.
Juravich: Yeah, so one eye-opening paragraph from your reporting was that studies found that digital tools have not actually improved academic results or graduation rates. So why do you think there was so much optimism whenever we brought all these Chromebooks into schools? Well,
Singer: The tech industry made the argument that if we gave every kid their own laptop or tablet that they could use freely at home and at school, then kids would have unfettered access to all these important educational resources and they could follow their own curiosity and learn more and also it would be democratizing because kids whose families were low income who didn't have laptops or wifi at home. Would be able to have their own devices, so it would equalize educational opportunity.
And also, the makers of laptops told us that kids needed to use these things so that they would get better jobs and be digitally fluent. And all of those arguments are really, really appealing. They just didn't turn out to be true. Yeah
Juravich: Yeah, so how do we figure that out? Like, are we, we're just not seeing better grades or better graduation rates since the pandemic whenever we shoved Chromebooks into every kid's hand? Well, I think-
Singer: This one laptop per child idea started around 2005. And the idea was that, especially in lower-income countries, that that would be really, really helpful and lower-resource districts. And so Peru did this experiment where they gave laptops to thousands of kids, and they did a randomized trial over a decade to see what would happen. And we know, you know, randomized is kind of the most rigorous kind of study.
And so what Peru found after 10 years of giving laptops to kids in more than 500 primary schools was. That there was no effect of the laptops on students' performance, like their academic performance or their graduation rates. What happened was the main result of giving every kid a laptop in school is kids spend more time on computers. The researchers did find that kids' computer skills improved, but their cognitive skills did not improve.
Juravich: Why did schools decide widely to adopt Google's Chromebook over an iPad or other competitors?
Singer: OK, so this is also a fascinating story. Google developed the Chromebook, and they were hoping that it would work for businesses. They were sturdy. They were cheap. They were internet connected, so you could store everything in the cloud. But it turned out that businesses wanted much more sophisticated devices and a very enterprising business enterprise relations person at Google.
Named Jamie Kassop came up with the idea that actually these would be perfect for schools because they were sturdy and cheap. And that way, like, actually, if everything was stored in the cloud, when you gave a kid a laptop, that you could give a kid a laptop one day and give them a different laptop the next day, and they'd be able to access their stuff.
And so he began evangelizing these Chromebooks to schools as devices that would open opportunities to education. And schools quickly adopted these en masse, you know, somewhere around by 2015, the Google Chromebooks were more popular than, um... Apple iPads or Microsoft devices in schools.
And like, you know, there's a consulting group called Future Source that tracks the shipments of these devices to schools. And they found that like last year, for example, there were more than like 15 million laptops and tablets shipped to US schools and Google accounted for about 60%. So that's more than 9 million Chromebooks shipped to us schools last year. It's the number one device in public schools.
Juravich: Wow. This is Tech Tuesday From All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking with New York Times reporter Natasha Singer who writes about tech companies, digital devices and apps and how they're reshaping childhood and education.
A recent article of hers is titled "Chromebook Remorse, Tech Backlash at Schools Extends Beyond Phones." So while introducing technology was meant to be beneficial, some students are also using it for things they weren't supposed to, what was some of the harmful ways? That they were using these laptops in schools.
Singer: So I visited a school recently outside of Wichita in McPherson, Kansas. And they are pulling back on Chromebooks. And I interviewed the principal, Inge Esping, who was Kansas' Middle School Principal of the Year last year. And she recounted a long list of problems. One was kids were using their Chromebooks to bully each other.
They were using Google Docs. And so you can create a shared Google Doc among dozens or more students. And then they would just write mean things about each other that everybody could see. They were also using Google email, Gmail, and they were using their school issued Google Gmail to send each other bullying, harassing messages. They were also, you know, during class time and in between classes, they just get on their devices and play video games or watch YouTube.
And it was really hard for teachers to keep kids on task. There are all kinds of levers. There's a dashboard that school districts get where they can turn certain things on and off. But school administrators say that actually some of these things are really hard to actually prevent kids from accessing because they're workarounds.
And also because they had given Chromebooks to these middle school kids to take home, the principal told me that kids would take their Chromebooks home and say to their parents like, oh, I have all this homework and spend hours on their Chrome books. But when the school checked, it turned out that like, they maybe had 20 minutes of homework and they were spending the rest of the time on YouTube and video games on their school devices at home and saying to the parents, oh, we can't do this family activity because I have to do this homework on my Chromebook.
I think there were also kind of human factors that bothered the principal and teachers, which was that because kids were carrying around these Chromebooks all day, they were embedded in their screens and not talking to their friends or teachers, even at lunch.
We've seen many, many school districts, and you've covered this, pull back on students being able to use their personal devices, was there cell phones in school? Um, but what happened was after this middle school barred students from using or bringing their cell phones to class, you know, then they even more use Chromebooks to do non-school things.
And I think nationwide, a lot of schools are realizing, you know, we thought about phones as small computers, but actually computers are just big phones. And all this stuff we didn't want kids to do on their phones, they're doing on their Chromebooks. And it's not just Chromebooks because I talked to elementary schools and kids have iPads. And the iPads have cameras, right? So they hold up their iPads, they take photos of things, and their teacher, their peers, and then they make really mean memes, which they circulate via Google Docs or however.
So it's not just Chromebooks. I think that Chromebooks are a metaphor for the malaise and the regret that schools that went all in on these devices are feeling. And like, we came up with this phrase, Chromebook remorse, to describe this phenomena, because I think like we're not seeing at least I'm not seeing schools like say you can't touch a computer all day.
What they're saying is we're gonna take back these devices we gave kids to use at home and freely use in class and they're using these carts called Chromebook carts where you have 24 or 30 devices in a kind of box that will charge the laptops and teachers stick these Chromebook cards in a corner and they are saying to the kids. Okay, we have a specific activity like it's science class I want you to watch this video of a chemist chemical reaction, and then they get out their Chromebooks and they watch this video. Or teachers will say, like, we want you to collaborate on writing an essay or a story or doing a presentation, and then kids will get out the Chromebooks and that's what they're allowed to use them for.
But what schools are pulling back on is kind of knee-jerk laptop use. Let's use it for everything all day long.
Juravich: So in my kid's school district, the elementary and middle school students no longer have an assigned device like you were just saying and the Chromebooks stay in the classrooms. There's those carts that you were just mentioning, they can no longer take them home. But the school district said that this change was made because too many Chromebooks were getting lost or broken or disappearing. So, but now you're making me think that there were other reasons too. I mean, I- Is that Columbus schools?
Juravich: Yes, Columbus.
Singer: So I read this that like these Chromebooks cost $430 each in Columbus City Schools and that like there were more than 40,000 Chromebooks and they were getting broken. And the, and like that's one thing that parents and school districts are thinking about, which is the cost of buying these things is huge. And then the cost and maintaining these things as huge.
And again this group Future Source Consulting that tracks school tech. They told me they had surveyed US superintendents and school tech directors. And I think it was something like I wrote it down. It was something like 60% of those school leaders they surveyed said that they were going to switch from this take-home model to shared devices.
Juravich: Yeah. So I guess it is that they were getting lost and broken, and the school districts just couldn't afford to keep replacing them to have every student have one at home. I think high school students still can take them with them, but elementary and middle school and Columbus City schools leave them at school.
Now, Ohio has also banned cell phones from schools, and a lot of districts before this ban, a lot districts in Ohio had a no phone policy, but now the schools have this state law that back them up, you know, no phones in schools. Do you think we're gonna see laws that are like a Chromebook ban next and we'll go back to pencil and paper.
Singer: So, I have been talking to parents groups that are springing up all around the country that want to see more intentional tech use in schools and maybe some restrictions. And we are seeing that different states are introducing bills about school device use. And so, for example, Tennessee, the legislature just passed a bill that would bar schools from giving kids devices. From kindergarten to fifth grade.
And what's so interesting is that Vermont is holding a hearing today. They have a bill in the Senate Education Committee that basically would require the state of Vermont to develop a procedure to vet all school tech for efficacy and safety before schools could be allowed to use it. So I think it's beyond screen time what's happening. I think parents want to know that. Are these devices useful? What important skills are they teaching my kids? What risks are there? And how are these things being vetted for safety and accuracy?
And so I think that that's both the device concern. Parents are saying, I don't want my kid to have an iPad in kindergarten and first grade, period. I won't have either the option to opt out or I want my school district to have a device-free elementary school from K through third grade. Then I think we're seeing concerns about what kind of software is being used on these devices and are there certain math apps that are like too video game like and distracting for kids.
And then I also think we seeing parents want to have more transparency. So Utah recently passed a bill that will require schools to have some kind of dashboard or something where parents could see what their kids were doing on the devices and how long they're spending on them in schools. So, I think... Your question is school tech the new cell phones? And I think, yeah, that's true.
I think that this is happening because parents and nonprofit groups that are children's advocacy groups saw a lot of success with limiting cell phones in schools. And I thinks schools, many of them saw, even if we don't have concrete academic benefits from restricting students' personal cell phones, anecdotally, teachers are like, well, the kids are less distracted, they're talking to each other more. At recess, they have to play together because they don't have phones.
And so, why not actually have some more oversight in place to make sure that the technology in schools benefits kids, whether it's digital skills or it's gonna benefit learning. And so I think that like, this is a reckoning for the ed tech industry that we supported with a lot of enthusiasm and hope. And they're going to have to deal with the same kind of questions that social media companies are doing.
Juravich: Yeah, okay, so the book you have coming out in September, the title is "Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools." So did you find in your reporting to create that book that the tech companies convinced the schools that this was a good thing and then it went too far? I like, where's the line here?
Singer: So I took a year off from my job at the New York Times to report this book and I did a lot of historical reporting. And one of the things I found is that there are these tech hype cycles that we have charismatic innovators and they come up with a new technology and they want schools to use it and they're convinced that their technology is going to transform education.
And I went back and looked at old newspaper clippings about Thomas Edison because he'd invented this portable, um... device that showed moving pictures. And so he said to the schools, like, your books are boring. They're one size fits all. Kids don't want to read books. Teachers don't wanna teach books. If you just put my moving picture machine and my moving pictures about history and plants and animals and news in schools, like kids will never skip school and they'll be much more engaged, right?
And then fast forward, you know, decades and we get Steve Jobs. And he's got this device, the Apple IIe desktop computer, and he is like, this will help children be much more creative and more self-driven. If we just put my computer in every classroom, it will transform education. And that's where we come up with this notion of computer literacy, right?
Kids have to learn how to be literate with computers to get better jobs, and we have to compete with Japan where all the kids have all this technology. And so then there becomes this incredible competition starting like in the 1980s to get devices in school and so we get from let's have one computer for school to like let's how these huge computer labs or every kid can learn how to use a computer to one laptop per child and the tech industry has a playbook for driving this the same argument right.
Your kids will be left behind if they don't use how to use this tech this tech will transform education this tech will give kids better skills and they will have better job opportunities and we fall for it each time, right?
Juravich: Yeah, sounds like it.
Singer: And so one of my questions in this book is like, why have we given tech companies carte blanche to shape schools and why do we repeat their narrative? There's all these headlines. Bill Gates says AI chatbots will transform education within two years. Like, why are we still listening to him? Who told us that computers and personalized learning would transform education? Um, and the common core would transfer education. Like we, we love charismatic innovators in the United States, both the executives, the billionaires and the tech companies, and we want what they say to be true. I want what, they say it to be. I want technology to transform education, but so far, I don't think we've seen it yet.
Juravich: Well, I want to invite you back when your book comes out because this is fascinating. So we'll talk again. But right for now, we'll leave it there. We've been talking about tech in schools with New York Times reporter, Natasha Singer. Thank you so much for your time today.
Singer: Thanks so much, Amy.
Juravich: And coming up, we are going to talk about Apple CEO, Tim Cook stepping down and who will be the new head of the company and what Apple's future looks like. That's when Tech Tuesday from All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to Tech Tuesday from All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping aside. It's a job he inherited 15 years ago from the late Steve Jobs. Now he will hand CEO duties over to the company's head of hardware engineering, John Turnis. Cook plans to stay on with Apple as the executive chairman. During his time as CEO, the company market value soared by more than $3.6 trillion. Joining us to discuss this transition for Apple is Russell Holly, Director of Commerce Content at CNET. Welcome back to All Sides, Russell.
Russell Holly: Thank you.
Juravich: So there have been rumors about Tim Cook stepping down for months now. We even did a whole segment on it a few weeks back on Tech Tuesday. But did the timing, I mean, finding out yesterday, did that surprise you at all?
Holly: It surprised me in that the announcement is coming for something that is actually happening in September. So this is something that the markets and audiences are gonna have near around six months to process before that actually happens. It also means that we will likely see this sort of passing of the baton happen live on stage during the next iPhone launch, which almost always happens in the middle of September. So I imagine that this will be somewhat ceremonial in nature when that next iPhone goes to be announced. And then that may be why we're getting sort of that early look now, so as not to get in the way of the actual announcement that will happen in September.
Juravich: Hmm. What does it say for Apple's future if they picked their chief hardware maker? So basically he's the chief iPhone maker and now he'll be the new CEO. What does that mean for Apple in the future?
Holly: So much more than just the chief iPhone maker. John Ternes and the teams that he have led over the last 10 years have been responsible for all of the upgrades to the iPad, the iPhone, Apple Silicon, the unique Apple made processors that are now in basically everything Apple makes, a bunch of the AirPods that have come out.
Like all of those projects were under teams that reported to John Tternes. And this is happening at a time where a lot of folks with AI creeping into every facet of our lives, people are looking to Apple and seeing if Apple will join the rest of the world in becoming an AI first company or at least announcing that they are an AI-first company.
I think that by announcing that the new CEO is one of the people who has touched more hardware at Apple than arguably anybody else that has ever worked there. That this is, you know, Apple is still very much a hardware first company and a services and software company second.
Juravich: Yeah, I read in a few different places that the Tim Cook era will be marked by the iPhone becoming wildly popular. So now the chief iPhone maker is in charge. Do you think he's going to make another product popular? Like, is that the goal or are we just going to get more and more iPhones?
Holly: I mean, you can point in so many different directions for what it is that Apple wants to do next. You know, there's been quite a few folks in the wake of its gigantic AR headset not exactly being successful that we will see smart glasses at some point. You know, there's quite a bit in the way of anticipation for Apple eventually announcing an iPhone that folds in half in the same way that Google and Samsung and several other companies have done.
So it's, you know, not impossible for this to kind of all come together as a way to usher in the era of John Ternes as CEO is for some of these more fantastical announcements to come in September, but a lot of that is going to be pretty wild speculation until we get there. Apple's usually pretty good at keeping this kind of stuff. You know kind of under the collar until it's time to announce it
Juravich: All right. Well, I'm sure we'll be talking about John Ternes again. So for now, we'll move on to Google. So we've all heard rumors of Google harvesting its users data without their consent. But it's rare when we actually see consequences for these accusations. A California class action lawsuit. And Google has agreed to pay $135 million to Android users for potentially stealing data while also not directly admitting fault. So why did Google agree to pay the settlement while not admitting any fault?
Holly: I suspect that a settlement like this makes it a lot more difficult for details of the case to go live. We won't know for sure because there is still a final approval hearing that is going to on June 23rd, and part of that hearing will be... An understanding of what exactly will be disclosed from the case here in California.
But this is something that has been a weight around Google as a company and Android as a platform for quite some time. In the very early days of Android, it was not immediately clear what data was going where. Apple kind of nudged Google into being a little more open about this by the way that you disclose things both in the app store when you go to install an app and when those apps have access to certain parts of your data, you can now go and kind of individually turn those things on and off.
But a lot of that came from Apple and several other companies kind of pointing a spotlight at Google, one for marketing benefits, but two for personal security and saying you don't actually know what's happening to the data on your phone. I can't go... A week without running into someone who, as a tech writer for more than 15 years, has someone come up to me and say, does Facebook really listen in on my phone and provide me ads? And a lot of that comes from folks who have Android phones and have seen court cases like this go out and just kind of don't trust that the data that they have on their phone belongs to them.
Juravich: Hmm. So they agreed to pay 135 million to Android users. I mean, what does that make per person? Like, what are we talking here?
Holly: That will entirely depend on how many people take advantage of the settlement. There is a settlement website that is available now that if you have had an Android phone that was connected to a cellular network. Any time from November 12th, 2017 until now, you know, that you have the ability to put yourself into this lawsuit and get a portion of that.
So, you know that will be divided evenly among the total number of people that fill that out. There are a lot of Android owners across the United States. So, in California is not exactly a small place. So I would say that the more people that know about this, you the less your particular, you know, chunk of this is going to be, but it is a good idea to go and find that website and put your information in anyway if you fit those qualifications.
Juravich: So, but this is an opt-in, like you're not, they're not gonna send you a check. They're not going to.
Holly: They're not going to reach out to every known Android user. Anybody who opts in using the website that was established earlier this week is going to be a part of that. That has to happen before June 23 for that final meeting, where that final dollar amount will be disclosed.
Juravich: This is Tech Tuesday From All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about some recent tech news with Russell Holly, Director of Commerce Content at CNET. Another lawsuit, Ticketmaster Live Nation, with the nightmare of purchasing concert tickets through Ticketmaster or Live Nation over the past few years, people have been demanding justice for extra charges, and a jury recently found both companies guilty of monopolizing the market. Finally giving millions of fans validation that they have been seeking. So, Russell, Live Nation and Ticketmaster, they're a monopoly after all, who knew?
Holly: Everybody, everybody knew except the U.S. Government, which turned down the opportunity to prosecute Live Nation and Ticketmaster last year for this exact thing. There was a case that was brought before the Department of Justice and it was turned down. Since then, there have been several local state cases. This is one of two that have actually gone out this week against Ticketmaster.
This first one here is Ticketmaster and Live Nation. The state of New York now understands them. As being guilty of the way that they're anti-competitive. But in Washington, DC, Live Nation and Ticketmaster are going to have to pay out nearly $10 million to DC residents for the price gouging that has happened over the last couple of years across all of the events that have happened in venues across that city. So there's there's, you know, quite a bit in the way of consequences showing up for these two, technically one organizations.
Juravich: Okay, so even though Live Nation and Ticketmaster have been found guilty of overcharging though, are the prices going to drop? Like if I go buy concert tickets to something tomorrow, will they be cheaper?
Holly: Absolutely not. Ticketmaster and Live Nation have not made any public statements saying that they are going to change their behavior anymore. I imagine that there will be an appeals process that goes this. The last statement for them is that there are pending motions that will determine liability and damages and things like that. So I imagine the especially in the New York case, this is very much not the end of that particular story, and we know that they are already going to make an attempt to appeal the $10 million settlement in D.C. as well. So I suspect that this is something that will bear out for quite some time.
Juravich: So, will we ever see any changes to entertainment tickets, or is it just going to be years and years of fighting this out in court and everyone will just keep paying, whatever?
Holly: Unless someone in a government capacity steps in and says, hey, this needs to change unless there are some rules or like an actual, uh, anti-competition suit filed on a, on a federal level, it is unlikely that this will change terribly. But with cases like, uh, New York and DC, uh it, you know, it could be that specific states, uh start to push back in ways that, that could, uh lead to, you know more and more states, implementing rules that they'll create kind of an odd patchwork for these companies to navigate.
Juravich: All right, in the couple minutes we have left, one more topic. If you love audio books, but still want a physical copy of your favorite stories, you may want to head over to Spotify. There's a new feature allowing users to purchase copies of books through partner indie bookstores. So Russell, why is Spotify wanting to get into bookstore business?
Holly: Actually, it's a fairly common practice now for companies that allow you to listen to audio books, as long as they are not owned by Amazon, to give you a place where you can go and purchase the actual physical copy of the book if you decide that you would like to own an actual physical of that book.
This is a surprisingly common practice. For folks who will listen to an audio book and they decided that they like it so much that they want, you know, kind of a physical copy to either go on the shelf or to have, you know, kind of the visuals that go along with it or to loan to somebody because they they now know that it's good.
So there are quite a few, you know ways in which you can do that, but almost all of them lead to either Amazon or another great big bookstore. This change here on Spotify's behalf allows people to order those books from local bookstores that can be picked up instead of shipped to your house or, you know, shipped if that's the option that you want. But you're directly supporting your local bookstore when making those purchases instead of, you know, some of the larger organizations that are typically the default for this sort of thing.
Juravich: So can the Spotify user pick which bookstore they want?
Holly: Yeah, so bookshop.org, if you've never used it, is super good at taking kind of your location and giving you a set of options. And so that functionality will be a part of that. If you go to look for a book, at least in my area, it'll list prices and availability for different bookstores in the area that are not kind of the larger chains.
Juravich: Can any Spotify user do this?
Holly: Any Spotify user that has listened to an audiobook by way of Spotify can go make, because it's a function. You know, when you're listening to the book, there's a button that allows you to buy the book or to buy a physical copy of the book. And now instead of going to, you know, Amazon or Books-a-Million or something like that, it'll go to bookshop.org and give you a bunch more options to choose where you want to make that purchase from.
Juravich: And in the minute we have left, can you tell me about the page match feature too?
Holly: PageMatch is really interesting. A lot of audiobook services in the early days would give you the percent of the book that you have completed, but not the page that you are currently on. And if you are someone like me, who listens to an audiobook when he is running or riding a bike or doing chores around the house, but still likes to sit down and actually read a book.
And maybe is in the middle of one book and doesn't want to start another, then this page match function allows you to just pick up where you left off using another tool. So if you pick up a Kindle or a Kobo e-reader or something like that, and you are using this page-match function, or just your phone, you can open up the e-book version of that book, and it will take you to where you were on that page based on where you are listening.
Juravich: Wow, all right. Well, thank you. Russell Holly, Director of Commerce Content at CNET. Thanks so much for your time today, Russell.
Holly: Thanks for having me.
Juravich: This has been Tech Tuesday. From All Sides, on 89.7 NPR News, I'm Amy Juravich.