PassW0rd – 13th December 2017

Speaker A: This program is brought to you by Resonance 104.4 FM.

Speaker B: If you like what you hear and want to support our work, please make a donation at fundraiser.resonance.fm. Hello and welcome to Password with me, Jane Wyatt. It’s the season for buying presents and snapping up bargains. With prices tumbling on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and then again in the Boxing Day and January sales. The holidays give you a chance to watch your favourite team, play a new computer game, get to know a toy robot, or snuggle up with your favourite human for some adult fun and games. Only a Grinch or a Scrooge would want to spoil your enjoyment, but the Password Crew at Future Intelligence have some timely reminders about how to shop wisely. And we’ve been talking to experts and lawmakers about what protections we need as digital consumers in or out of the European Union.

Speaker E: I think in European terms, the idea of a digital consumer, first of all, is a top priority. Whenever this idea of a consumer having a right to justice, privacy, good service, a right to reliability in the use of the internet, e-commerce, in terms of rights of privacy. I think the EU approach and certainly the approach of the European Parliament has been to prioritize this. You know, even for critics of the EU, they cannot argue that consumers have not been at the heart of EU legislation, even those who dislike the EU or are Eurosceptics. So for that reason, I think on the digital side, on privacy, on technology generally, and consumers, I think we’ve seen a good strong emphasis.

Speaker B: That’s London MEP Claude Morais. It’s important to bear in mind that if you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer. You’re not consuming. The company that’s offering you goodies is actually consuming you in the form of your personal data. That’s what makes those adverts pop up on your screen for the very things you just thought about buying. The latest toys recognize your face and voice and learn all about you. Anki’s Cozmo is a robot that plays games and sulks when it loses. The Star Wars Star Trooper with an augmented reality app from ObTech Robotics knows your face. Many others are available: robots, dolls, drones. But any toy, app, or gadget that’s connected to the internet can also be hacked. So how to play safe? Here’s Troy Hunt talking to me from Australia’s Gold Coast, where the weather today is a sunny 27 degrees and the hot topic is “Have I been pwned?” That means, “Have I been hacked, spoofed, or otherwise interfered with in my online communications?” Troy Hunt set up this website so that anyone, anywhere in the world, who suspects something’s not quite right with their online bank account or email or connected toys can report it. Some of the most worrying are toys like CloudPets that record children’s messages and send them via an app to mum or dad’s mobile device. Troy Hunt says there’s a potential danger here.

Speaker F: Well, it really depends on the data. So if we look at a case such as CloudPets, well, the data that was exposed ultimately led to the voice recordings of children. Now, what could happen if an attacker or an adversary gets hold of the voice recordings of your kids? They’re probably not going to be able to do much with it, but as a parent, I’d feel pretty terrible if my little girl’s recordings in the teddy bear, in a very sort of intimate moment, if you like, alone in her bed trying to send a message to Mum, for example, I’d feel pretty rotten if that data got out. In that particular case, it’s voices. It feels icky, but but it doesn’t pose a direct threat. There are other cases which are more worrying. So for example, a couple of years ago, a company called VTech had a data breach where they lost a large amount of data about children, which included their names, their birthdates, their photos, and then references to their physical addresses. Now the greater concern we have there is that this almost becomes like a shopping list of kids. And if there was a, you know, our sort of greatest concern is what if there’s a pedophile or something like that out there and they get this list? Well, you can actually track down children. ‘Now look, I mean, how much of that is sort of unfounded fear versus a real risk is up for individuals to decide.’ But that is a very different situation to just having anonymized voices exposed somewhere. In terms of control, this really then depends on the device. Now we’ve seen cases where there’s been vulnerabilities in IoT cars, for example, where you can control things like the climate control. In toys, we’re seeing that toys are less frequently remotely controllable and more frequently just collecting data that we’re worried about exposing.

Speaker B: Some of these toys have been banned in some European countries, and in the UK, the consumer watchdog Which? is campaigning for a ban on all connected toys whose manufacturers cannot prove that they are unhackable. The Which? publicity team says it’s the equivalent of a campaign they ran in the 1960s to get poisonous lead-based paints banned from being used in children’s toys. And the British National Cybersecurity Research Centre, part of the government spy centre GCHQ, has endorsed the Witch campaign for a ban. Troy Hunt is not surprised.

Speaker F: Well, we’ve sort of seen a similar reaction in Germany. So they really hit the news earlier this year when they banned the Cayla doll, which is a doll that could listen to a child’s voice and then send it up into the cloud. So I’m not sort of overly surprised to see that from a consumer protection perspective. In terms of whether it is perhaps going too far on behalf of government, to be honest, I’m on the fence. I would not give one of those to my kids, but also I’m in a little bit more of a unique position of understanding a bit more about how these risks manifest themselves. And as much as I’d like to say, look, let parents make the decision for themselves, ultimately parents aren’t very good judges of what the security profile of a connected toy is and what the ramifications of something going wrong are. So I made a very tongue-in-cheek blog post only a few weeks ago where I said, look, connected toys should have warning labels on the front of them the same way as we do cigarette packs here in Australia. And in fact, this was in response to VTech, who I mentioned just before. There was a little bit of news about how part of their terms and conditions effectively say, look, we can’t be responsible for any hacking, you know, whatever you give us may one day be released publicly. And my tongue-in-cheek response to this was, well, if that’s the way you feel, maybe you should put that on the front of the PAC. Now, just by pure coincidence, the Australian government at the same time is talking about having some form of rating, a cybersecurity rating if you like. In fact, they called it a Cyber Kangaroo, which brings up some interesting images in my mind. They said, you know, maybe we should have like a Cyber Kangaroo rating on IoT devices, the same way as we’d have like a health rating on, say, food products. Now, I think that There is some merit in that insofar as the consumers of the product aren’t particularly good at making judgment calls on how safe they are or whether or not they should have them in their homes. So maybe there needs to be some sort of legislated measure or warning such that at least it brings it a little more to the forefront of people’s minds.

Speaker B: So cyber kangaroo symbols may soon be hopping onto the boxes of products down under. Now, for his next trick, the Grinch feels the need to warn you that playing computer games can cause addiction. Children can get addicted to gaming. That’s not necessarily bad and might even become a career choice. More on that in a minute. But the gateway from gaming to gambling is wide open, according to our Future Intelligence gaming editor, Brad Davies. He’s a bit of an addict himself.

Speaker G: I don’t recommend games based basically on ethically how they handle their content. You know, whereby you pay full premium price for a game and you expect to have what’s in the game ready to play with. Whereas, you know, nowadays an increasing thing is microtransactions, and microtransactions lock away content, so to speak, which you can only unlock either through many hours of gameplay, or usually, as microtransactions indicate, You get that content more instantly by paying more above what you’ve already put into the game.

Speaker B: So actually, you’re not using your skill or even your luck to win the game. You’re paying to win.

Speaker G: It’s— yes, yes. Well, in some games, yes. It can also just be purely content-wise though. It can be a nice skin that you’d like. It can be a playable character. Yes, yes. Which is very pay-to-win.

Speaker B: Sorry, tell me about skin.

Speaker G: Skin, sorry. Added costumes or different colors of costume already available in the game, you know, to your character. There are some which are more desirable than others, different tiers of said costumes and the such. Of course, the higher the tier, the more desirable said costume is at the end of the day.

Speaker B: So can you give an example of one of these games where you have to keep paying?

Speaker G: Well, two very good examples at the moment are Star Wars Battlefront II, a lot of backlash over that one at the moment, and one which has been around for a while, which is Overwatch. We’ll do one by EA, one by Activision respectively.

Speaker B: Okay, so suppose you buy Star Wars Battlefront II the new Star Wars game, and then what might happen?

Speaker G: Well, what will happen is you start the game with a few basic characters, a few droids, a few average background characters, the rest of it, but to unlock your heroes, say you want to play as Han Solo during certain parts, the rest of it, you will either have to plough several hours into the game, several hours into the game, or you will have to spend out on microtransactions. And what it comes down to though is that you cannot actually buy that specific character You cannot buy the specific weapon you want. You can never go for specifics. It’s done on a gambling system called loot boxes. And these loot boxes completely randomize the gear you get out of it for a set amount of money, which is just basically gambling at the end of the day.

Speaker B: And how much money might you have to pay to get a loot box?

Speaker G: Well, the predictions I’ve read myself, it can be upwards to $1,000 or so, and you still may not actually get the content you’re looking for because, as I say, it’s completely random. It’s just gambling, but to assure you get it for the best chances, a number that’s been floated around a lot is $1,000 on Star Wars Battlefront.

Speaker B: Wow. So I’m assuming from what you’ve just said about having to pay possibly up to $1,000 that these are adult games, they’re for the over-18s, is that right?

Speaker G: You would assume so, yes, but no. Both Star Wars Battlefront and Overwatch are restricted to 12 years old. That’s the highest restriction they have. And that’s by parental guidance. So you could find children of a lot younger on these games at the end of the day. And it’s also glorified in a way by the surge of YouTubers, because YouTubers will be sponsored by these companies, given loads and loads of loot boxes to unbox 50-odd loot boxes. And it’s a big thing in the community. People go mad over it when they get good stuff out of a loot box. It’s exactly like the rush you get if you get a big win off a gambling machine.. It’s actually quite ludicrous at the end of the day for, you know, for basically virtual items, things you can never physically use. But it’s promoted and pushed in such a way that kids are seeing this and they’re being normalized towards it. They’re being normalized towards this thought of, okay, to get the best gear out of this game my parents already spent £60 on, I need to keep using their credit card. I need to get into these microtransactions. There’s, ooh, I’ve got this fantastic item once, and you get the buzz and you go, ooh, I want to get the next thing, I want to get the next thing, I want to get the next character, and it just stems from there at the end of the day.

Speaker B: I suppose if you’ve bought the game using a credit card, those details are already with the merchant, with the supplier of the game, and so it would be quite easy, probably, just with a couple of clicks to repeat a transaction without the parents knowing.

Speaker G: On every platform, that is very easy to do now. On your PlayStation, your Xbox, Xbox and on Steam as well, which is the general PC platform. Your card details are saved there, and then it’s up to the parent themselves to put in passwords to block anyone from using it. But in a lot of cases, the parents are not aware of this, and the child can just easily go, “Oh, I need extra loot boxes.” They click on a couple of options on the title screen. Those couple of options take them straight to loot boxes where they can spend easily £80, above £80. Just straight off your credit card, and you only know when the SMS comes through at the end of the day. Non-refundable, definitely non-refundable, that’s part of the terms and conditions. If Lil Johnny buys it, you’re stuck with it.

Speaker B: Game over. Still, gaming is a big business, and it’s even sucking global brands from the real world into its digital space. For example, Disney now owns all the Star Wars game brands, and Manchester City Football Club has brought the Manchester City FIFA game team of the same name. Esports offer players lucrative career prospects, and the UK’s first degree course in competitive computer games is now recruiting. Stuart Costers is a part-time lecturer at the University of Staffordshire at Stoke-on-Trent. He works for this new academic programme, and he explains that you’ll need distinction, merit, merit in BTEC, or 2 Bs and a C in A-level grades to get a place on the 3-year course. And maybe join the top UK athletes in Call of Duty, League of Legends, or another eSport.

Speaker H: Let’s start off with one of the ones on that, you know, fans usually quite like on that. What about our athletes? Well, yeah, we do have athletes, successful athletes as well. We have Craig Irafa Rathbone, and as one of the UK’s top SMITE pros, he won the World Championship in SMITE in 2016. With Epsilon Esports. And we have another one called Joshua Lee, Josh Shepherd. He’s currently the highest earning console player in the UK, I believe, and he plays Call of Duty for Splyce. So, you know, a couple of different teams as well. This will show the diversity of teams as well that our players have. Let’s take another one. So if got Reece Rated Price. He’s another UK Call of Duty player. We have— to show you a bit more diversity as well— we have Demon, a Foxy Grandpa Jones. The names are always very creative as well. Demon is one of the UK’s top players in fighting games community, and he’s played Mortal Kombat X, just to add on to that. And just to give One more as well, we have James Baker Baker. He’s one of Team Dignitas’s Heroes of the Storm players. So, you know, much like other sports in other countries, yes, we do have professional UK athletes. Is it gaining popularity in England? Well, the answer, quite frankly, is yes. As I stated earlier on that with the statistics of people playing games, as these statistics This is on that follow-on that with people watching esports. And, you know, if not, we wouldn’t have also declared that we’d have a degree available. There wouldn’t be esports facilities now being built in the UK. You wouldn’t have, you know, some of our most well-known and biggest esports— sorry, biggest Premier League teams are also interested in putting together esports teams themselves. So from that point of view alone, it does support quite a lot that yes, popularity in England is growing, not only with the community, but with also respected businesses inside the UK as well. Simply put, how do fans follow? Well, if you’re not following already, you can go on Twitch, which is an incredible platform for broadcasting many esports You can go on YouTube as well, just as a couple of examples. And these are two of the biggest platforms to, to watch esports. Facebook is another one as well where streamers actually practicing their games for people to watch them. And I myself watch many streams on Twitch so I can follow these people as well. And this is something that the community have a closer relationship, I think, with most of the athletes athletes and top players, because quite a few of them stream as well. And, you know, this is not only good for them as players, as it’s more income, but it’s also a nice experience for the viewer as well, as they feel that, you know, that a personal win for a player in esports is a win on that that feels like it’s almost personal for the follower as well. They supported them throughout and donations, etc. So, you know, in comparison to other sports, I think that’s something quite— that’s quite unique. And, um, it’s quite— it’s quite— yeah, it’s quite nice. There are many noticeable events as well that you can go to. Well, yes, I mean, um, in Wembley, obviously I mentioned on that we had a grand finals, um, for the, uh, LCS on a few years ago. We’ve had many ESL tournaments that you can go to. Go to the NEC as an example in Birmingham. There are lots of Smash tournaments that you can go to and feature on that in Manchester. Our, ourselves at the university hosted a successful tournament against our local rival Keele. So there are many different places that you can go, and with the creation of more infrastructures being built in the UK for esports events. It’s only going to grow. So yeah, keep your eye out and just type into Google, simply put on that, local esports events, and you’ll find quite a few options. But it wouldn’t be possible again without, you know, the successful events that are run throughout, you know, these incredible passionate businesses that, you know, are dedicated to giving the best form of electronic entertainment. But just to stay on finding as well, since we’ve been talking about that, it’s, it’s to show how esports has grown as well. You know, esports is now involving card games as well. So, you know, you have Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon, these are all things on that with, with prize pools at the end. And, you know, host teams are— but Hearthstone is an example of a card game on electronic use, but it just shows how diverse esports is growing. And with more games being created and the large amount of popularity, I can only say that esports is on the growth and it’s an exciting time for everyone.

Speaker B: Stuart Costas and the esports degree is open for student applications at UCAS code S100 or S101 if you include a foundation year. The open day is on the 24th of March. Of course, it’s not all games, but also business studies and multimedia content production. So much music and art and storytelling technique goes into the new games, and Brad Davis and Peter Warren have been reviewing the new releases to find one of the best.

Speaker G: Yeah, The Count Lucanor follows Hans, who upon his 10th birthday is very frustrated to find that his mother cannot afford him sweets or any presents. So in his frustration, in rage, He declares that he’s leaving home and marches off to find adventure and fortune. Oh, sounds like quite an objectionable little child. What does that involve? Not very long after leaving his house and going through the majestic, lovely countryside, stumbling across a spirit, and the spirit lures him towards a castle, and once inside, he’s offered a deal. He has to guess the spirit’s name, and if he guesses the spirit’s name, he inherits the Count Lucanor’s estate his wealth and all his status, as if all his dreams suddenly came true. Right, so it sounds like some sort of lovely children’s fairy tale. What does it involve then? How does he have to— well, essentially the game is an exploration puzzle-solving game, so you’ll be exploring the castle, going into its many rooms, and working out puzzles while you’re in the rooms. Physical puzzles, it could be moving boxes, or it could be just timing yourself to run down a fiery corridor. And even though it is very tale-like, it is a very grim fairy tale, because when you get to these scenes, it suddenly turns very dark and there’s monsters wandering around the corridors meaning to cause you very much harm. Okay, so sounds very eerie. What are the pros of this game? Well, the pros are definitely the atmosphere. Even though its pixel art does design, the creators have somehow managed to always make it seem very foreboding. And even though the corridors are wide, because you cannot see far because of the darkness, it’s always very claustrophobic. And generally the noises instill dread in you. You can hear the monsters long before you can see them. You can hear them getting closer. And that just really builds up a magnificent atmosphere. So with this atmosphere, how does the story actually Essentially, you go from room to room trying to find clues as to the spirit’s name. In each room there is a clue, and along the way there are false clues as well. So using logic puzzles and deduction and suchlike, you ultimately have to venture to each room, gather all the clues you need, and guess the name of the spirit. So what were the other things that really struck you as good about this? The main thing which I’m very surprised I liked was the candle mechanic. Where you make your own light in the castle. The castle itself is pitch black, and even though you can’t see anything, they can certainly see you in the darkness. So you place candles down at various points in the castle so you’re not ambushed at any point around a dark corner, and it is actually a very good mechanic which helps you progress through the game quite nicely. On the whole, you seem to have quite liked it. What were the bad things? There’s always got to be a bad thing, isn’t there? Oh yes, yes, there’s always a bad side. Mainly, what I have to niggle at is the game’s length. It is a 5-hour campaign, and for the price, you may say it’s worth it, but it just struck me at the end of it that I just wanted more from it, and it just felt very short at the end. Something else which got to me a bit was the music. Even though the ambiance and the sounds were spot on, the music itself, bar a couple of pieces, I found very jarring and grating, and I was glad when it was over. Well, how do you mean jarring and grating? Very plinky plonky is the best way I can describe that. And Hans, I mean, was he good? Was he— was it fun being Hans? Was it, um, yeah, initially it’s hard to get over the fact that Hans, even though he’s a 10-year-old child, cannot break into everything above a very casual slow walk, which is of course a mechanic that the game uses to build tension, you know, so the monster’s always a constant threat. But initially I did find that rather jarring that a 10-year-old boy could not run away from danger. But overall, it is a mechanic you get used to, and that one you can just ignore after a little while. But so, out of 10, what’s your rating for this? Oh, I’d say A Cow Lookin’ All’s a very solid game. Yeah, for teenagers and above, it does need a more mature audience, but very solid game. Unfortunately, because of the music and because of the length of the game, I’d say 7 out of 10.

Speaker B: That’s The Count Lucanor, and you can buy that game for between £7.99 and £14.99 depending on your platform. But maybe you’d rather spend your money to help people. As well as Cyber Monday, there’s also Giving Tuesday, and the charities won’t mind if you miss the date. They need the money all the year round. At the new Choose Love shop online and in London’s Broadwick Street, you can donate the exact amount for specific items that refugees actually need, like meal ingredients for £5.61, a child’s winter jacket, or a course of psychotherapy for people who are fleeing from torture or trauma. If you want to help Resonance FM survive as London’s alternative voice, free from adverts and sponsors, you could save your end-of-year bonus and go to fundraiser.resonance.fm, where you can bid for special cultural experiences in our online auction. It’s more interesting than sending a goat to Africa that you’ll never hear from ever again. You’re listening to Password on Resonance FM, and after this you can hear DJ Ritu with A World in London. One of the prizes we’re offering in the fundraiser is a Switch Kit. It’s a small, light gadget that turns any normal bicycle into an electric-powered bike. The inventor, Oliver Montague, told me how it works.

Speaker I: You can use your bike like a regular bike still, but then you can instantly upgrade it to an electric bike whenever you want to. So it’s kind of two bikes in one. So the motor we use is a really compact, lightweight geared hub motor, which means that it’s very low drag. So you can leave it on your bike all the time and your bike carries on looking like a bike and working like a bike. So you can hop on it and ride to the shops just around the corner and you wouldn’t notice any difference. But if you need to go further up a hill or kind of a longer commute to work, everything else about an electric bike we’ve compacted into one power pack which is patent pending and comes with a connector bracket that goes on the handlebars. So there’s no wires, it’s plug, it’s no nothing complicated to do. You simply slot it on the front of your bike and then in an cost, and it has the same specs as a typical electric bike that would normally retail for over £1,000.

Speaker B: And Oliver’s on a mission, not just to crowdfund a commercially viable gadget, but also to save the planet from climate change by getting people to switch from cars to bikes with his battery pack kits.

Speaker I: Well, most electric bikes have a removable battery, but they’re quite clunky, heavy things made of hard plastic or aluminium. To charge them, you either need to take the bike inside to charge it, or you need to unclip the battery and take that inside, but it’s not designed to be easy to carry. With our power pack, you can easily remove it from the bike. It’s in a bag form, so it’s easy to carry, and you simply take it inside and you plug it into the mains. It takes about 3 hours to charge, and that will give you about 25 miles on average.

Speaker B: Oliver Montague has proved he’s invented a disruptive technology by wildly exceeding his crowdfunding target on the Indiegogo website. Site, raising a cool $238,957 promised by 835 backers. With a Switch bike kit, journeys can get easier, and you can also record the data of how far you went by pedalling and how far using the electric motor. It’s ingenious, like many of the new fitness gadgets. 7 of the most popular of these apps have already had more than 16 million downloads worldwide, according to Mobile Health News. That’s a lot of calories. And for an even more enjoyable way to burn calories and count how many you’ve burned, Jakub Konik has invented the Lovely sex toy. It tracks your performance just like a pedometer and stores it in an app. Password’s Charlotte Roundtree’s been finding out why.

Speaker J: So Lovely is quite a niche thing, quite a new sort of gadget. Is it just a bit of fun, or does it go a bit deeper than that? So what are people really getting from using Lovely?

Speaker D: I think that first of all, Lovely is a gadget, but also it goes deeper than that, because thanks to the app that we are using, we are able to help the couple with communication, can help them to have even better sex. So the way it works is the Lovely records movement data during sex, and afterwards this data is matched with the couple’s feedback and desires in the Lovely app.. And based on that, we provide the couple with various tips and suggestions and ideas.

Speaker J: So another feature of Lovely is it’s been called a bit of a Fitbit for sex because it tracks the calories burned during it.

Speaker D: Basically, that was the idea for the whole product, to track calories. It was just a gimmick, a feature, nothing special. But then when we started to actually work on the Lovely, we talked to some sexologists and some other people, and they said that if we can get that sort of data, we can use it for much more. So some sexologists suggested that we could take the data and try to help couples. And we also want to open up our app to people who do not have the device, because what we realized is that, you know, some features of our app can be used without Lovely and still do a lot of good.

Speaker J: So another big goal of the device, you said earlier, it was to encourage sort of discussion and communication. How is Lovely going to help couples that maybe are having trouble with that, to speak more honestly about sex?

Speaker D: We believe that there’s a lot of different issues around our sexuality. First of all, there’s a lot of stereotypes, there’s a lot of, you know, miscommunication in the media. For example, you know, men are supposed to know everything about sex. They are afraid to ask, they are afraid to learn. So people tend to learn from pornography, and I think that’s the main reason behind low quality of sexual satisfaction. And I think people are afraid to talk about it because they are afraid to sound like they don’t know what they’re doing. And we wanted to simply help every couple to be able to speak honestly about their desires and maybe what’s not right for them. And the way we try to do it is every time that the couple uses Lovely, they go to the Lovely app, they generate the Lovely tips and ideas, and to do that they have to answer 3 questions together.. And to make that choice, you have to talk with your partner. This is, this is the model that we actually developed with 3 different sexologists who worked with us.

Speaker J: So it’s almost like offering a platform, like a structure for people to talk about something they’re a bit uncomfortable with.

Speaker D: Yes, exactly. And we try to do it in a positive way, you know, shame-free way, so everybody’s happy and nobody is feeling judged or anything like that.

Speaker J: Sexual well-being— could you explain a bit more what you mean about sexual well-being and sort of how devices like this can help people?

Speaker D: Yes, yes. So that’s actually our mission. Our mission is to, you know, help people from all around the world to enjoy their sex lives and help them with their sexual well-being by means of the latest technology. We believe we are a technology company. We just, you know, approach an industry that’s been very, let’s say, offline. And, you know, sexual well-being, it’s a broad topic. So it’s not only about the technique you’re using or, you know, how often you are having sex. It’s simply about being happy with your sexuality, with your partner. And there’s a lot of different variables that come into that. So one study said that there’s over 120 different variables that go to sexual satisfaction, and most people have no idea about these. And we think, you know, once you are happy in your relationship from a sexual standpoint, it also helps you to live a better life and be in a happier relationship.

Speaker J: There is obviously a concern about the kind of information it’s collecting about people. So what is Lovely doing with the information that it’s collecting from devices?

Speaker D: As you said, the data is very intimate, it’s very, let’s say, delicate. We know about that, we knew about that from the start. So what we actually did to prevent any kind of disaster is we basically stopped and we never actually collected any personal data. What we collect is we collect data from our sensors, so we are able to tell how long someone is having sex, what’s the speed of the movements, what’s the force of the movements. Actually, sex doesn’t last long. So people tend to think, because of the stereotypes, that good sex should last, you know, 20, 30, 40 minutes, and it’s actually not true. So we know from our data that the average sexual encounter takes between 7 to 10 minutes. And that’s completely fine, that’s normal. But we are unable to connect that data to any living person. It was very hard to collect such data before Lovely because if you wanted to do some kind of clinical studies about sexuality, you had to recruit, you know, at least 30 couples. You had to connect them to different sensors and tell them what to do. People had to have sex, you know, based on a script that they were given. So it was very unreliable. And with Lovely, we have very reliable data, and it’s not tainted by outside factors. So people are having sex in their homes as they usually do, and this data is actually very useful to different people like sexologists or doctors, and we are constantly asked about different people, different doctors or sexologists, to get access to that data. But of course, it’s not given freely. It’s kept secure and only people who have a medical background and who have clear goals connected to, you know, advancement of human sexology are given the access. I’m very sad to say that, but there were some devices that were not treating the data in a nice way. So I think, you know, people should think about what kind of toys they are using, because I personally know about two that were not actually very secure. And I think it’s a very, very important issue for all connected, you know, toys or devices. So IoT, Internet of Things, there’s more and more devices coming to life every day, and some of them might not be secured very, very, very well. When you are buying a smart sextoy, you should be aware that it may track and share information that you do not want tracked. I think it’s a very important problem, and it’s actually a huge problem for for the whole Internet of Things industry.

Speaker B: Jakub Konik talking to Charlotte Rountree. And don’t worry, he isn’t a robot, he just sounds like one. And although the gadget collects your very private data, it doesn’t link it to your identity. For singles or people whose partner is absent, technology has the answer too: an immersive virtual reality headset for watching 3D pornography. And Charlotte’s been talking to Xavi Clot from Badoink VR to get a feel for how it works.

Speaker A: I think it’s the path to go because it’s a different experience. You can watch the action in a totally different way. So it’s something that is going to be growing and growing. So I’m sure the producers are going to produce more and more content.

Speaker J: So what sort of audience have you found is watching films like this?

Speaker A: Yeah, we have a little bit of data about it, and yes, male, 20 to 40, and then it’s interesting because the income that they have is quite high. It’s a well-educated customer, and you see it on the feedback on the comment community that we have. There’s good conversations there. Like, they open a thread like, is VR cheating to my girlfriend if I’m doing, or if I’m watching VR porn?

Speaker J: I know that a lot of the VR you create is from a male viewpoint. Is there any sort of plans, any videos that are from female perspectives so that, you know, women could be watching?

Speaker A: Yes, we have two videos already in our platform that which the, the point of view is is female. And then we have virtualsexology.com, which is a side project. It’s a sex education program in VR for males, and the other one is female-oriented. And it’s a set of exercises that help you to be a better lover. It’s quite interesting, and women like it. I mean, because it’s— there’s not that much content in VR for for women? I mean, general porn, it’s a male, let’s say, dominant industry. So to be honest, I mean, VR is so niche. So if you’re going to cover like VR plus female-oriented videos, you’re going to have such a small market. I mean, for instance, in our platform, only 6% of users are women, which is surprising because we only have 2 videos. Compared with the more than 200 that we have for males.

Speaker J: So obviously VR is a lot more realistic, it’s more immersive. How do you think people are being affected by adult films that are so realistic and so immersive?

Speaker A: Yeah, we got tons of feedback in our community, and as you were saying, it’s much more immersive. So they really want a lot of intimacy in the action. They don’t want like the classic porn shot where like you’re going direct to the action. They want to have this connection with the girl, like talking, whispering, have this kind of the girlfriend experience. So at some point they are trying to use VR to simulate like something that maybe they don’t have.

Speaker J: Do you think there might be a danger in that, people wanting something so realistic in videos like this?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you have always like the extreme, like people that will be so addicted to it and will forget about having sex with real persons because that feels so real. And we are evolving, we will add more sense, we’ll have toys in the future that are going to be connected. So for sure you have some people, but it’s like everything. So you have people addicted to drugs. It’s, it’s— but in general, I mean, to me, like, the normal use is instead of watching 2D porn, you’re going to watch 3D porn, which is better. You have more intimacy. I mean, it’s something new. It’s like when we move from black and white to color TV. So now you move to VR. So So it’s something exciting. I don’t— I mean, not everyone is going to be addicted to it.

Speaker J: Why do you think people are seeking out sort of cyber and VR and toys and sort of these sort of more advanced ways of having or experiencing sex?

Speaker A: I mean, to me the answer is clear. I mean, we live in a world that, like, every day, like, people is having less and less contact like real contact with other people. If you want to meet someone, you go to Tinder and you use your phone. So we are kind of becoming an isolated society. So that’s the next step. Why spend time like having or trying to find a way to have sex when you can have it at home without moving?

Speaker B: So it’s kind of It’s not the same. No, Xavi, it’s not the same, but it just shows how far technology has evolved to suit the individual consumer. Commentator Simone Saldan, writing in Germany’s Spiegel magazine, declares that we the customers are now gods. The COVID of the magazine shows a picture of the baby Jesus being delivered by Amazon to the stable, to the consternation of Joseph and Mary. That wasn’t what they’d ordered. And since the customer is now the king of kings, they have some redress. In 2017, new European Union rules gave all citizens the legal right to a minimum 2-year guarantee free of charge when buying any goods online. 70% of consumers surveyed said they’d use this provision. And there’s more to come as the European Union takes on the big technology companies like Google and invents new rules to protect citizens’ rights like the General Data Protective Directive, or GDPR. Claude Morais, a London Labour MP, chairs the powerful LIBE committee of the European Parliament where these new policies are being created.

Speaker E: Yeah, I think the large corporates have immense power and they will find their way around legislation. Legislation is not the only thing. Corporate power is very, very, very powerful, and I think they will find their ways around it. And I think They are using their immense power. I think GDPR is a very good assistance, and I think those who criticize it need to understand that you do need good quality legislation. You need it. You need that regulation, and you need it not just for the boring sort of rules to protect consumers and basic privacies, but you need it to ensure there are no injustices or that big companies don’t create monopoly situations. I think the EU has been quite good on dealing with— and you see this with the mobile phone companies, telecom companies, for example. But the point is that it is not perfect by any means. And, you know, corporate power in this area is very high and strong. They call many of the shots. And I think this is why I think I think if you speak to the Digital Commissioner here, if you look at what the Commission is doing, you look at what the Parliament, the ambitions of the Parliament here is to actually keep moving fast in this area. So I think, I mean today in the European Parliament when I was speaking to you, there’s a, you know, there are, you know, high-level conferences on blockchain and geoblocking and all sorts of issues. Just today. And, you know, there is— it’s a very active atmosphere here to get this balance right. As you see, you never get the balance fully right, but this hasn’t stopped the EU moving into these areas because we believe it’s necessary. The privacy regulation is another very, very important aspect of that. Again, lots of criticism criticism from industry on that one. But you have to again understand whether in the Internet of Things and the advances which are being made in technology, whether there is a need for some of these protections. And the answer is yes, there is. But you’re going to get bitter complaints coming. It’s a question of getting the balance right.

Speaker B: Blockchain, geo-blocking, Those Euro MPs are really getting down with the kids now, trying to work out how to regulate digital currency and deregulate online movies and music. Geoblocking has been scrapped for many goods and services, so the skull and crossbones flag of the Pirate Party is flying high. Geoblocking is the technical way of stopping you from buying a product that is in a different country or pricing it differently in different member states. We all loved it when the European Parliament abolished roaming fees for mobile phones when travelling around Europe, and the logic of the digital single market is that content such as music, films, and TV shows should be universally available at a price point that suits the country you are in at the time. But MEPs have voted against this total free-for-all. They were swayed by the arguments of producers’ groups, who fear that international giants like Netflix will destroy the market for homegrown culture, especially in minority languages and specialist genres of music or movies. OK, it’s convenient if you can catch your favourite Scandi Noir crime serial in Danish whilst on holiday in Greece, say, but if that means the Danish film industry can’t compete with all those big blockbusters from American tech giants, Well, perhaps there just won’t be a new season, or box set, or industry. Daniel Castro believes this is a groundless fear. He’s American, Vice President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and he’s been telling Peter Warren that the internet is all about economies of scale that benefit the consumer and may even save lives.

Speaker C: Well, I think the digital consumer is just increasingly the consumer today. I mean, you know, basically everyone has some kind of digital footprint, interacts and uses something digital, whether it’s their mobile phone to make purchases or consume content or use electronic services like WhatsApp for messaging, or even just uses digital services when they’re at the airport or buying gas for their car, whatever it is they are using. They have interactions that are digital. Right. So increasingly what you’re saying is a consumer is unlikely to make any buying decision at all without making some sort of digital consumption, whether it’s going out to find some information about something or maybe even buying it online. Exactly. I mean, there’s almost no part of our kind of average consumer life that doesn’t involve a digital component now. And that’s why, you know, that’s kind of the magic of what’s happened, you know, since the internet. Has begun, is that now there’s just so many opportunities to have information at your fingertips, to have shopping at your fingertips. But, you know, it’s certainly created some challenges as we’ve kind of wrestled with these changes. And do you then think that, you know, European ideas about sort of just seeing the digital consumer as someone who consumes digital media, what do you think about that? Well, I think it’s a necessary change. I mean, you know, the idea of For example, not being able to cross borders within the EU and have your cell phone either work or, you know, be charging different rates is I think frustrating to many consumers. I think the challenge with being able to, you know, purchase a movie and then watch it in another country, you know, or stream a television show, I think this is just one of the kind of sources of frustration where the average consumer looks at this and says, you know, what’s going on, this doesn’t make any sense to to me. Why can’t this be easier? And that’s the trend, is can we make this technology more convenient, more accessible, more usable for everyone? And within Europe, there were just so many political challenges to doing that because of the way the economies were set up for a world with borders. And now we’re living in the digital space in a world where borders are less meaningful, especially to consumers. It’s important that we— I think that idea of the digital consumer looking at digital media is one example of policymakers focusing on the usability question, which is what’s the experience like for the user, and let’s focus on improving that and using that as the metric for success rather than some kind of arbitrary definitions of a consumer in this area or a consumer in that area. Do you think the consumer interest is being misrepresented? Yes, I mean, I think there’s a number of problems. One problem is that I think privacy interests are overrepresented in EU policymaking. Every member state has basically a privacy commissioner, a privacy organization that has substantial authority in reviewing policy and regulations that affect the digital market. And there’s not an equivalent that’s focused just on consumer innovation. And so whenever there’s this tension between privacy and innovative uses of data, privacy is always winning out. And I think that’s frustrating because that’s not what every European— that’s not how every European thinks about these issues. But because of the way the policymaking process is structured in Europe, it’s a dynamic that has shaped these results. I also think that there’s a tendency within EU politics and the policy community to focus on protecting small businesses as opposed to recognizing the value of scale in the digital era. Where larger networks are actually more valuable, where people don’t want to go on to 5 social networks to connect with their friends. They want to go on one social network, and that social network happens to be Facebook right now. And the fact that there’s convenience and benefits from scale and network digital economy, I think, requires European policymakers to rethink some of the ways they approach issues where they were very concerned with antitrust., but not necessarily antitrust only when it has a negative consumer impact. What is an innovative use of data? What is an innovative use of technology as far as you’re concerned? Yeah, I mean, I think it’s anything that creates a consumer benefit or saves money or creates a new product or service that is valued by consumers or businesses. So it can be everything from better comparison shopping that empowers consumers to save money to new health applications to help identify, you know, somebody’s opportunity to, you know, have a medical intervention that has better results. But there seems to be some inherent tensions, don’t they? The EU says European single digital market. Well, in that case then, I mean, just for argument’s sake, say that Britain had remained in the EU, then in that, then surely the BBC would become quite a big player because it— and it should be, you know, ubiquitous across the EU, surely. Certainly there’s an appetite for BBC everywhere. I mean, when I watch BBC from the United States, you know, I stream it, I get a slightly different experience than, you know, when I’m in London and pulling up the same web pages because of some of the privacy rules. I mean, it’s just the way they interact. You get different ads, and some of that is reasonable and some of that isn’t. But what I think people don’t want is to travel to another country and suddenly, you know, they go to BBC and they’re blocked, and they say, sorry, it’s not available. In this country because your political leaders haven’t worked out an agreement to allow this content to be shared, that’s not very useful either. And how about then this idea, this European idea about pluralism and about these local markets? So for example, let’s use the UK again. Welsh TV, Channel 4 develops TV for the Welsh. There’s not exactly going to be a massive market for Welsh TV in Slovakia, is there? No, there’s not. But what’s interesting to me about having more interconnections like this is that you can actually build communities that couldn’t exist without these networks. So it might actually be very difficult to build up a— and I don’t know specific demographic patterns for the Welsh, but if you have enough people living outside the country that actually creates a bigger market that can be advantageous to companies. And if you can form different groups to have unique interests, whether it’s around shared language, common interests, you can create basically new communities and then provide services to them that were otherwise impossible to do before. And a great example of where we see this is in rare diseases. It’s very hard to do rare disease research, especially hard in the past because it was hard to find all the people and then be able to actually, you know, have enough people together to do any kind of medical studies. But in an online environment where you can identify people all around the world, you can actually build that community to enough of a size, even if it’s a rare disease sometimes, that you can then, you know, start looking at interventions and doing research that was otherwise impossible.

Speaker B: I’m not sure that I want to think of the Welsh language as a rare disease, but of course it’s obvious that there’s an international market for all the diverse cultural offerings, as long as they can be sustained by a strong community either in their home country or a global community of interest, like lovers of experimental jazz or whatever. The question is, how can they be sustained? What about the musicians, the filmmakers, the writers, and the artists? We don’t only buy stuff, we buy creativity. Don’t the creators deserve to get paid well?

Speaker C: Here’s Claude Moraes again.

Speaker E: Yeah, a lot of these very tough, I would say very emotive issues, and very, very tough issues came up in the copyright directive. And our committee, which looks at the kind of, you know, the internet aspects of that, you know, adopted a very sensitive opinion on the copyright directive. You know, as you probably know, it’s highly contentious issue as to how we proceed with these points. And what we ended up with as you can imagine, a quite balanced legislative opinion which sort of clarifies the measures to ensure kind of enforcement of licensing arrangements which, you know, wouldn’t include general monitoring obligations for internet companies. But it would ensure that users would have access to a court or another competent authority to react to potential unlawful actions against their online content.

Speaker C: Content.

Speaker E: And that gave you an example of where we were moving. You know, and it’s a kind of very detailed and difficult area, this. Because, you know, this broad area of pluralism you’re talking about is in one way, it’s okay to discuss it. But when you start to make rules and legislate on it, then it becomes a very, very tough area in my view. I think what we’ve what you’ve got to do is ensure that, you know, you don’t stifle entrepreneurship, inventiveness, investment in this area, but you do protect artists and innovators and people that are— that rely on income with their innovation. I mean, it is a very, very difficult and fraught area, this. And this is why the Copyright Directive has become one of the most controversial directives in the time that I’ve been a—

Speaker B: a legislator here in the European Union. The Copyright Directive, GDPR, and e-privacy rules will of course only apply in the European Union unless and until the British government decides to bring them into our national laws. This is already happening with the GDPR. Of course, the main obstacle to the digital single market is not a virtual fence called geoblocking, but a language barrier. No doubt there are brilliant TV shows in Sorb, Galician, Ruthenian, and so on, but are we going to watch them with or without geoblocking? Probably not. So when you’ve talked to your app and air cuddled your VR girlfriend and played with your sulky toy robot and unwrapped all the shiny new things that the season has to offer, what does it all add up to? In the United States, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday formed a spending spree that showed a 3.6% growth on last year, according to Bill Thorne of the US National Retail Federation. Britain’s retail intelligence company Springboard had a different result. It was not Black Friday but mid-grey week, according to Springboard’s Diana Verla. The difference is down to local factors. The US economy has moderate growth at the moment, and the UK was holding its breath, waiting for the Chancellor’s budget. And Brexit. In uncertain times, it’s wise to play safe, and the tech industry has a saying: nobody ever got sacked for buying IBM. So let’s give the last word to the IBM management consultant Paul Crick. He’s a very busy man, so Pete interviewed him on a hands-free phone in his car.

Speaker C: If you’ve never had certain things, it’s difficult to turn round to people and say, well, I’m sorry, societies have a tremendous number of problems and therefore you can’t have your flat-screen telly, your Apple Mac, and your mobile phone. You have to be a good world citizen and contribute to solving the problems. I don’t think you can do that. I think, however, there are systemic issues that do need to be considered a bit more fully than they are at the moment on the agenda of policymakers such as the EU. To say, for what purpose are we consuming? If we’re just filling a void, then is that the right way that we want society to go? And what are the consequences upstream and downstream of allowing that to continue in the way that it’s happening?

Speaker B: That’s all from this edition of Password. Thanks to Blue Buffery, the producer, Charlotte Rountree and Brad Davis, the reporters, and the editor Peter Warren. I’m Jane Wyatt. You can find out more about the ramifications of technology in society at our website, Future Intelligence. Thanks for listening and goodbye. This programme has been brought to you by Resonance 104.4 FM. If you liked what you heard and want to support our work, please make a donation at fundraiser.resonance.fm.