iPad Air with 12.9 Inch Display rumored in 2024; Threads Users Can Keep Posts Off Instagram and Facebook Now; Tesla Threatens to Sue Cybertruck Resellers; WhatsApp Unveils New Discord-esque Voice Chat Feature

We have been seeing reports about new iPads in 2024…some are saying the entire line will be refreshed. Now, appleinsider.com has picked up a report from noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo that says there will be a new 12.9 inch iPad Air. Up to now, most of the reports have been about the Mini and the Pro. The 10.9 inch Air and 12.9 inch new model won’t have the mini-LED tech of the Pro iPads, but will get the better Oxide backplane the the Pros will sport. The two Air models should go into mass production first quarter of next year. The 10.9 inch one is supposed to stay at the same price level as before, but the larger 12.9 inch new tablet will come in at a higher price….of course.

Threads users are getting the ability to opt out of having their posts shown in Instagram and Facebook. According to the verge.com, you can tap the two lines at the upper right of the Threads app and choose Privacy, then Suggesting posts on other apps. There, you will find a couple of toggle switches that let you turn off suggestions on Instagram or Facebook. The feature is being rolled out slowly, so you may not see it for a week or two. 

In a really unusual move, Tesla is including a ‘Cybertruck Only’ clause in their purchase agreements that stipulates that buyers can’t sell their new vehicle within a year without explicit permission from Tesla…or the car maker can sue them for $50 grand! Engadget.com says that the Tesla contract indicates that the EV maker “may seek injunctive relief to prevent the transfer of title of the Vehicle” if buyers breach its resale provision, or it may “demand liquidated damages from you in the amount of $50,000 or the value received as consideration for the sale or transfer, whichever is greater.” The terms also warn that offending resellers could be barred from buying vehicles from Tesla in the future. This type of unusual and threatening behavior by a seller of a product will no doubt bring a lawsuit or two as buyers decide to test out the validity of such a clause. 

WhatsApp has unveiled a new Discord-esque voice chat for large groups. The feature is intended to be less disruptive than a group call, which rings every member in a group. TechCrunch.com reports that the voice chats start quietly without any ringing involved with an in-chat bubble you can tap on to join. WhatsApp has been testing the feature since summer, and it will roll out globally to large groups of 33 or more in the coming weeks. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Disney+ & Hulu Apps to Merge; Sony Passes Big PS5 Milestone; OpenAI Hit with DDoS Attack Affecting ChatGPT; New Open Standard for Smart Locks

As reported here and elsewhere, Disney has bought out Comcast’s share of Hulu to become the sole owner of the platform. Now, bgr.com reports that the two platforms will be available in a single app starting next month…provided you subscribe to both, of course! Be advised that the new app will be in beta, however…the wider rollout for it is planned for the first quarter of 2024. 

The last quarter was a biggie for Sony…particularly for sales of the PS5. The company has announced that they sold 4.9 million PlayStation 5’s third quarter (which is Sony’s 2nd financial quarter), bringing the total number of PS5’s out in the world to 46.6 million! According to engadget.com, that number didn’t match last year’s holiday figure, but it was still 1.6 million more than in the same quarter of 2022. Sony is shooting for shipping 25 million units this financial year…that will be a tall order, even with the holiday season, because they will need to sell 16.8 million more gaming systems by the end of the year. 

There have been ‘periodic outages’ affecting ChatGPT and its developer tools. Now, OpenAI has confirmed that DDoS attacks…denial of service…are behind the problem. TechCrunch.com says the outages have been happening on and off the last 24 hours. Users have seen a message saying “ChatGPT is at capacity right now,” and have been unable to log into the service. OpenAI says the problem was fixed at about 1 PM yesterday afternoon. Hacktivist group Anonymous Sudan took credit for the alleged attack.

Theverge.com reports that Apple, Google, and Samsung have teamed up with lock makers and chip makers, including the makers of Schlage and Yale locks…as well as Qualcomm and NXP, to build an open standard for smart locks and digital keys, using devices like your smartphone or smartwatch. the standard is called Aliro, and it is out today. Obviously, it will take a while for everything to come to market, but look for this to work a lot like the smart home standard Matter…it will just make various smart locking systems work nicely with your digital devices without having to download a proprietary app or carrying around some kind of tag or card reader. From what they have released, it sounds a lot like Apple’s Home Key…a digital key stored in your phone’s digital wallet and accessible on your watch that doesn’t require a proprietary app and works with any door lock that supports the standard. Access to the key could be controlled and managed by the owner of the lock through an app. If you are the type of person who misplaces keys, this will be a boon…just don’t also lose track of your phone or watch!

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Google Wants EU to Force Apple’s iMessage to Play Nicer With Android; Meta Will Mark Altered Political & Social Ads in 2024; Rivian Vans No Longer Amazon-Exclusive; Chamberlain Dumbs Down Smart Garage Door Openers

Google and European cell carriers have written to the European Commission, pressing them to make Apple provide better messaging interoperability between platforms. In other words, they want iMessage to play nicer with Android. Androidpolice.com notes that Apple was able to have iMessage excluded from the EU’s Digital Markets Act. iMessage is, however under investigation. Google argues that iMessage’s popularity and revenue make it eligible for regulation, while Apple downplays its importance in the EU. Google has demanded for years to have governments force Apple to adapt RCS support for iMessage. Let’s just say what this is really about…younger users favor iMessage to iMessage chats over iPhones which display the ‘blue bubble.’ Messages from Android have a green bubble, and they don’t have the cool factor that Google desperately wants for their platform to entice and keep younger users. 

Meta says it will require advertisers to disclose whether the ads submitted to its websites have been digitally altered, included via the use of AI tools, if the ads are political or social in nature. According to engadget.com, ads that have been digitally altered will be marked as such on Meta’s platforms, in the same way some advertisements come with a “Paid for” disclaimer. The company will start implementing the rule in the new year, just as the campaign period for what’s expected to be a brutal and divisive 2024 US presidential elections heats up. This seems like a way to keep the revenue coming in, but cover Meta’s butt to an extent. A really consumer friendly policy would be to refuse AI altered ads in those categories all together. Note that advertisers don’t have to notify Meta if pics are only size adjusted, cropped, color corrected or sharpened. The platform owner did say that repeated violations of their rule ‘may result in penalties.’ 

Amazon poured a billion dollars into Rivian back in 2019, and has some 100,000 electric vans on order. Now, techcrunch.com says Rivian has modified their deal so they can sell the vans to others before delivering the entire 100,000. They will still sell Amazon the 100,000 units by the end of the decade. Last month, Amazon said they have 10,000 of the E-vans on the road. Amazon retains a 17% stake in the EV maker. 

Here’s a story that has saved me money. Chamberlain Group…which has the MyQ smart garage door tech…is blocking ‘unauthorized access’ to its APIs. This will stop integration of MyQ doors with Homebridge and Home Assistant. Theverge.com reports that Chamberlain had hardy cut Apple HomeKit and Google Assistant integration. This really sucks because Chamberlain has their own brand, plus Liftmaster, and Sears Craftsman garage door openers. They control about 70% of the US garage door market. There are already some companies making work arounds, but they are pretty convoluted. Chamberlain only wants you to use their ‘authorized’ security partners. Those require a paid subscription, and are cloud based. Sure seems like restraint of trade to me. I won’t be upgrading to one.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

OpenAI Bows GPT-4 Turbo; Instagram Paid Subscribers Trail Patreon; Facebook Bans Political Campaigns from Some Ad Tools; Waze Warns of Crash-Prone Freeway Spots

OpenAI has rolled out GPT-4 Turbo. The latest, greatest chatbot is touted as having larger memory, lower cost, and new knowledge. The debut happened yesterday during the OpenAI DevDay event. Arstechnica.com reports that OpenAI also introduced an API for DALL-E 3, and custom, sharable, user-defined GPTs. Up to now, the knowledge base for ChatGPT-4 ran through 2021…now, the latest version has knowledge of events through April of 2023. Running GPT-4 Turbo as an API will cost a third less than GPT-4 for input tokens, too…a penny per thousand tokens, down from 3 cents per 1000. 

Instagram has hit a milestone…a million paid subscribers to creators that use the platform. That is a relative drop in the bucket when compared to the some 2 billion monthly Instagram users, but it’s a start. According to theverge.com, the platform has a long haul to catch up to other platforms in this regard…Patreon has some 30 million paid subscriptions. It should be noted that Patreon has about a 10 year head start, though. Meta has announced that now creators will be able to offer 30-day free trials, and another new feature will let creators bulk direct message new subscribers to chat with them. Instagram is also expanding its ‘Instagram Gifts’…its euphemism for tips…to more countries. 

Meta has announced that political campaigns advertising on Facebook will not have access to the site’s generative AI ad tools. This policy update comes just a month after Facebook announced an expansion of its AI-powered ad tools that can make changes to images, create backgrounds, write copy, and more — all on the fly. The tool is expected to be available to all advertisers by 2024. Meta has also blocked its AI virtual assistant from creating images of public figures and committed to watermarking content generated by AI to ensure it doesn’t spread false information.

Almost any traffic reporter will tell you that repeated crashes tend to happen at certain places on the freeway system. Caltrans studies have verified this. Now, engadget.com says Waze will let you know if you are taking such a route. Waze will send you a prompt that says ‘history of crashes.’ The prompt is designed to give you time to slow down or make extra effort to keep alert. Waze has been accumulating crash data for several years, and the feature will work on both freeways and local roads. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Apple-Updating Whole iPad Lineup in 2024; More X Antics from Elon; College Students Ditch Dating Apps; Google Drops Android COVID Exposure Notice 

Word is out via Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman that Apple will update the entire iPad line next year. There had already been rumors of some of the tablets being refreshed, but Gurman says they will all get at least a metaphorical fresh coat of paint…if not faster, more powerful processors. Gurman had already reported that the low-end and mid-range iPads will be updated in March, but now apparently the iPad Pro models will be freshened as well. Expect the next iPad Air to get the M2 Apple silicon, and the Mini will get upgraded to an A16 Bionic chip. It’s likely that the Pro line will jump up to the just released Apple M3 chips. 

To the weekend in Elon Musk…the new AI venture he calls xAI soft-launched over the weekend. According to Engadget.com, it has been released to ‘a select group,’ although Musk hasn’t identified who they might be. In typical Elon hype, he says “in some important respects, it is the best that currently exists.” It’ll be competing with big-time offerings by OpenAI, Google, Meta and numerous others, so we’ll see what “important respects” make it the best that currently exists. 

In other X news, the platform is fishing for users who are willing to pony up $50,000 for recycled handles from inactive accounts. Musk had already warned that X was going to start purging accounts that have gone dormant. There is apparently an @Handle Team. They probably won’t let us know if there are any takers for this princely fee to get an X handle, but it would be interesting. Who would be willing to drop that kind of cash, when Musk could later take it away from you and sell it to someone else?

A new survey shows that college students are steering clear of dating apps. Perhaps they are turning back to in-person meetings…as the old joke goes…. back to the alcohol and bad judgment method. Axios and Generation Lab surveyed college students nationwide, and found 79% of college and grad students don’t use any dating apps…even once a month. Of the apps that are still being used, Tinder is the most popular…12% said they used it monthly or more often. 

Back in 2020, both Google and Apple developed COVID-19 notifications for Android and iOS to help people track COVID exposures. Last year, the Association of Public Health Labs, which managed the servers for the feature, ended support. Now, android central.com reports that Google has shut down the feature. They note that with the number of cases declining and vaccines widely available, it makes sense to retire this feature. The World Health Organization has declared the pandemic over, but COVID is still endemic…and continues to sicken people. It is still a good idea to keep up on your vaccination just as you should do yearly for the flu.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

White House Issues Draft AI Rules; Disney About to Own 100% of Hulu; Upcoming Apple Watch to Monitor Blood Pressure; Ford Picks Up EV Power Startup

Shortly after an Executive Order moving the government to start putting up guardrails to protect the public from artificial intelligence abuses, the Biden administration has issued draft rules that would require federal agencies to evaluate and constantly monitor algorithms used in health care, law enforcement, and housing for potential discrimination or other harmful effects on human rights. Wired.com reports that the rules could force changes in US government activity dependent on AI, such as the FBI’s use of face recognition technology, which has been criticized for not taking steps called for by Congress to protect civil liberties. The new rules would require government agencies to assess existing algorithms by August 2024 and stop using any that don’t comply. The proposed OMB rules would add testing and independent evaluation of algorithms bought from private companies as a requirement of federal contracts, which the office can do in its role of coordinating departments with presidential priorities. 

Disney is buying out Comcast’s stake in Hulu. The House of Mouse has announced that it “expects it will pay” $8.61 billion to acquire Comcast’s 33 percent stake, giving Disney full ownership of Hulu. According to theverge.com, Disney expects the deal to close sometime next year. With Hulu barely seeing a shift in subscribers last quarter, Disney announced a price hike across all of its streaming services and hinted at a password-sharing crackdown. Password sharing crackdowns have threatened to cause big drops in subscribers, but after Netflix found that not to be the case, actually increasing subscribers after an initial dip, it looks like Disney and others are on board with whacking all of us with higher fees. 

It still looks like the holy grail feature of smart watches…blood sugar monitoring…is a ways off yet, but Apple is apparently planning to build blood pressure monitoring and a sleep apnea tracker into the next Apple Watch. CNBC says they also will introduce a paid health service. Apple is keen on getting more people on monthly services. Last quarter, Cupertino’s services business raked in $9.6 billion, a 12% increase year over year. Apple’s blood pressure sensor will reportedly detect when a user’s blood pressure is elevated, though it won’t show their exact measurements. Apple is working on introducing specific diastolic and systolic metrics in a future watch. Samsung already offers blood pressure monitoring in some markets. Next year’s Apple Watch will also reportedly monitor breathing and sleeping habits to predict if a person has sleep apnea, a condition where breathing stops and starts during the night.

Ford is picking up a startup charging tech company. Techcrunch.com reports that the Blue Oval company is getting Auto Motive Power…or AMP, and will fold the company, and roll up its tech and talent into Ford. They will keep the Santa Fe Springs, CA facility. AMP has designed power management  for everything from autonomous rideshare vehicles to drones and hyperloop-style transport. Top employees previously worked at Virgin Hyperloop and on Tesla’s engineering team. Ford says they are “focused on accelerating EV adoption and improving charging experiences,” and this particular deal is about “accelerating that effort.” Faster and easier charging is one of the key factors as car makers move on from early adaptors and try to woo more mainstream car buyers who aren’t as savvy about electric vehicles. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.