Episode Title: #57 (TECH NEWS) “GTA 6 will feature a Latina playable protagonist” — Net neutrality bill. Russia withdrawing from ISS.
Episode Description:
First up – Last Thursday, the democrats on Capitol Hill introduced legislation that could restore net neutrality and the authority of the Federal Communications Commission to regulate broadband.
Our second story – Russia will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024 and build its own orbital station, according to the head of the Roscosmos state space agency.
And for our last story… GTA 6 will feature a Latina playable protagonist and takes place around Miami AKA Vice City.
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What is going on everyone? I’m your host Kevin Muñoz. This is the LEO podcast tech segment, where we discuss all things tech.
For today’s tech news episode. I have 3 juicy stories for you!
First up – Last Thursday, the democrats on Capitol Hill introduced legislation that could restore net neutrality and the authority of the Federal Communications Commission to regulate broadband.
Our second story – Russia will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024 and build its own orbital station, according to the head of the Roscosmos state space agency.
And for our last story… GTA 6 will feature a Latina playable protagonist and takes place around Miami AKA Vice City.
All this, coming up on today’s free episode today is Monday, August first, and if you want early access to episodes and bonus episodes you can find that right now on our patreon.com/latinamericaneo, and if not then enjoy this one!
Article 1:
For our first story!… Last Thursday, the democrats on Capitol Hill introduced legislation that could restore net neutrality and the authority of the Federal Communications Commission to regulate broadband.
Now some of you may recall that this has been an ongoing battle. To give you a refresher. Net neutrality is the principle that all traffic on the internet should be treated equally, regardless of whether you’re checking Facebook, posting pictures on Instagram, or streaming movies from Netflix or prime video. Supporters think that the rules are necessary to ensure the broadband companies aren’t taking advantage of their power over the infrastructure that delivers content to your internet-enabled TVs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. But according to broadband companies and Republicans in congress and on the FCC, the old rules gave the agency too much power, stifling broadband investment. So as a result for the past decade there has been this back and forth of federal net neutrality regulations based on the political party that is in charge.
In 2015, the FCC with a Democratic majority adopted regulation under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. In addition to preventing companies from blocking or slowing access to the internet, it also imposed utility-style regulations for broadband. In 2017, a Republican-led FCC repealed the rules under Chairman Ajit Pai, who argued against the “heavy-handed” regulations.
Since then, Democrats on Capitol Hill have repeatedly tried to revive federal net neutrality protections. This included last-ditch efforts to reverse the net neutrality repeal by the FCC. But Republicans have opposed these efforts.
The back-and-forth on regulation was expected to continue with the nomination of Biden’s pick to fill the fifth seat on the FCC, Gigi Sohn. A long-time net neutrality supporter and activist who advised former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler, who adopted the 2015 rules, Sohn was expected to give the Democrats the FCC majority that would lead to a new set of net neutrality regulations.
But for more than 500 days, the FCC has operated with a 2-2 split between Democrats and Republicans as Sohn’s nomination has languished awaiting a Senate confirmation vote. With time running out before Democrats potentially lose the Senate in the midterm elections, Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill are looking to make net neutrality and the FCC’s authority law.
The new bill is expected to face opposition from Republicans. The broadband industry says it’s not opposed to a law codifying the basic protections of net neutrality, but it will likely fight any provisions of the law that would reestablish the FCC’s authority to regulate broadband networks.
[middle of episode ad break]
Don’t go anywhere we’ll be right back after this quick break
Article 2:
For our second story…Russia will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024 and build its own orbital station, according to the head of the Roscosmos state space agency. Yuri Borisov said Russia will remain on the ISS through 2024 to fulfill its obligation with the U.S. and other international partners.
The ISS was originally intended to be decommissioned sometime around 2024, but NASA shifted its official retirement date to 2030. Roscosmos and NASA set an agreement earlier in July to still continue to exchange rides for American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts aboard each other’s respective launch vehicles.
This obviously has to do a lot with the tensions around the longstanding U.S./Russia collaboration on the ISS beginning to mount when Russia invaded Ukraine in February, with public statements from former Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin seeming to threaten an end to cooperation as one potential outcome of U.S. condemnation of Russia’s unprovoked aggression.
Article 3:
For our third and final article… Grand Theft Auto 6 will feature a female playable protagonist and takes place around Miami AKA Vice City. Bloomberg reports that a Latina woman will be one of the two “leading” characters in the game, and the story is influenced by the infamous bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde.
I for one am super excited for a female protagonist, especially a Latina. However, not everyone shares this excitement and a GOP congressional candidate Lavern spicer is one of those people. On Twitter, she wrote “GTA 6 is going to go woke. They’ll also go broke”
One upset player wrote “Here go again” “I’m expecting there won’t be any female prostitutes or strip clubs.” and another said, “I don’t know why it’s suddenly so bad to have products specifically for men.”
As for the game’s release date… it’s likely two years away. Industry analysts anticipate that the next Grand Theft Auto will be out sometime between April 2023 through March 2024, but developers are skeptical since the game has been in development in some form since 2014.
THE END
That’s all for today on the LEO podcast. I’m Kevin Muñoz and as always feel free to send me a message with your thoughts or with any interesting topic that you’d like to see covered.
and for those of you on Patreon, I’ll see you in the bonus episode.
Otherwise, I’ll see you all in next week’s episode!
Sources:
Article 1:
https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/congressional-democrats-introduce-net-neutrality-bill/
Article 2:
Article 3:
