Apple Announces Event in March; Homeland Security Letters to Tech Companies About Anti-Ice Posts; Entertainment Industry Riled Over Seedance 2 Video Generator; X Was Down Again

Apple has released an announcement that there will be a ‘Special Experience’ on March 4th. Bgr.com reports that the event will take place in New York City, London, and shanghai, starting at 9am Eastern. Media personalities have been invited to attend. Apparently mine got lost in the email…again! What is expected? Mark Gurman suggested in his Power On newsletter this weekend that we may see new Macs, iPads, and almost certainly the iPhone 17e. The iPhone 17e is rumored to get a Dynamic Island like the more expensive iPhones, instead of the 16’s notch. A more useful feature…MagSafe charging, again like the rest of the iPhone line already has had for years. We may well see the new M5 Pro and M5 Max Mac MacBook Pro laptops, and maybe the MacBooks will have the rumored iPhone chip…that would be handy. We will have coverage…even if delayed an hour or two so I can pout about not being invited. 

Letters have been sent off from the Department of Homeland Security asking tech companies for information on accounts posting anti-ICE material. According to engadget.com, administrative subpoenas have gone to Google, Reddit, Discord, and Meta. Homeland Security wants names, email addresses, telephone numbers and any other identifying detail for accounts that have criticized the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency or have reported the location of its agents. Google, Meta and Reddit have complied with some of the requests. Shades of Nazi Germany or the old USSR! It is really outrageous that the platforms have complied at all, as administrative subpoenas are not judicial subpoenas which have been issued by a court of law. Companies can basically choose to comply or not with them…it is a sad state that some are giving out users’ information…which could endanger those users…even if they have only been poking fun at ICE, and not threatening or giving out location information of agents.  

ByteDance released a new version of its AI video model, dubbed Seedance 2.0. Hollywood entities have immediately branded it as a tool for ‘blatant’ copyright infringement. TechCrunch.com notes that Bytedance’s tool is similar to OpenAI’s Sora in that it lets users create videos…presently limited to 15 seconds in length…by simply entering a text prompt. Entertainment companies have cried foul over the model lacking guardrails. It gives users the ability to create videos using the likeness of real people…an example was given of a view showing Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt. The Motion Picture Association put out a statement demanding that ByteDance ‘immediately cease its infringing activity.’ Actors union SAG-AFTRA said it “stands with the studios in condemning the blatant infringement enabled by Bytedance’s new AI video model Seedance 2.0.” Besides the Cruise/Pitt death match, a number of Disney-owned characters have been pirated. Disney has sent a cease and desist, as has Paramount. Stay tuned…this theft of intellectual property, and people’s’ likenesses and voices will be a real battle going forward. 

Maybe Elon Musk needs to revive the old Twitter ‘Fail Whale’ slide. X was down for many users worldwide for around an hour and a half Presidents’ Day morning. Thenextweb.com reports that Downdetector got as surge in reports from the US, UK, and India. Some just got nothing, others couldn’t log in. Many just saw a ‘something went wrong’ message. The platform seems to be back up and working again as of this writing. 

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