Samsung Unpacked Highlights; Apple Tap To Pay; Car Radio Glitch Locks on Single Station; Twitter Rolls Out Playback Speed for Videos

As is not uncommon, most of what Samsung rolled out at the latest Unpacked today had already been leaked. Theverge.com reports that the star of the show was the flagship Galaxy S22 Ultra. It is basically a Note, without the name…something Samsung has been running away from since some had fire issues a few years ago. That said, the Note has had a fiercely loyal following, so here’s the Ultra with an S Pen silo. Besides that, it is pretty much an evolutionary update. The handset has a 6.8 inch screen, the same cams as before, in a somewhat more boxy shape like the old note. The Galaxy S22 will go for $1199, and can be preordered today in phantom black, phantom white, green, or new burgundy. It goes on sale February 25th. 

Apple has announced its Tap to Pay for iPhone. We reported about this last week, but there’s a new wrinkle that was revealed today. According to 9to5mac.com, Apple will be partnering with third-parties, and making the platform available to app developers and other payment platforms besides Apple Pay. The NFC driven feature will be live late this year, and will support contactless payments over an iOS app on iPhone XS or later. It will work with either another phone or credit card that has a chip. The surprise vendor already on board is Stripe. They already have a landing page up to let businesses express interest in Tap to Pay on iPhone for Stripe Terminal. Apple announced that Tap to Pay will appear in an upcoming iOS software beta, and will be available to payment partners and app developers via new SDKs.

A software glitch in Mazda cars that is every radio programmer’s dream (if it is your station locked in, anyway) has confounded drivers of Mazda cars from model years 2014-17. Suddenly, the cars will only pick up public radio station KUOW. Geekwire.com notes that in a few cases, the infotainment systems have quit all together. Dealers report they are hearing from plenty of owners. The problem is apparently related to the switch to 5G. In my own case, I had update the software in my 2018 Honda by a certain date or lose connectivity, as that maker dropped 3G support. The cars still can use 4G (LTE) and 5G. If the Mazda issue is similar, some of these people who didn’t download the software update may have to get a new part at dealers installed. Not cool. At least Mazda says the dealers can submit a ‘goodwill request’ to the warranty department, but of course….the part is backordered everywhere!

Twitter has dropped another test feature. This time, it’s a speed adjustment for videos, ranging from quarter speed to double speed. According to Mashable.com, such a feature has been available on both Netflix and YouTube. The rub is, the video length is still 140 seconds for us regular humans, and up to 10 minutes for important content providers. In light of that, it appears that Twitter is going after TikTok more than trying to compete with the likes of YouTube. Twitter is also trying out a downvote button…but you can’t use it to give a thumbs down to Tweets….only to replies to Tweets. 


Nvidia Arm Buy is Off; Peter Thiel Leaves Facebook Board; Under Pressure, IRS Drops Facial Recognition; Critical Year for EVs

The huge $66 billion dollar deal for Nvidia to buy Arm has blown up. According to arstechnica.com, this was primarily due to regulators in the US, UK, and EU raising serious concerns about the effect of the deal on competition in the world wide semiconductor industry. The deal would have given California based Nvidia virtual control over the tech at the heart of the majority of mobile devices. Arm is based in the UK. Among others, Qualcomm and Microsoft had objected to the purchase. The sale’s failure is a big hit for SoftBank, which would have raked in a huge windfall had the deal gone through. SoftBank will now likely do an IPO sometime this year for Arm.

Peter Thiel isn’t seeking reelection to be a member of the Facebook (Meta) board, so will leave the company. Techcrunch.com reports that Thiel has become increasingly political, and has strongly supported Donald Trump and those running for office closely associated with him. This makes him a bit of a hot potato on the Meta board at this point…with the investigations both in the US and the EU into the company, and their platforms Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. 

The backlash was quick, strong, and surprisingly bipartisan. After public outcry and a strong negative reaction for members of Congress, the IRS will drop their plan to make people use facial recognition via a third party company to verify their identity. Engadget.com notes that the shift away form the ID.me system will happen over weeks to try to minimize disruptions during tax filing season. The IRS is now working on a less intrusive, and less flakey system…as even the folks in Congress know that the face ID system has issues, and is prone to error…particularly in the case of minority faces. The susceptibility to cyber attacks, and lack of audits or accountability also raised the ire of Congress members from both sides of the aisle. 

This is shaping up to be a pivotal year for electric cars. The EVs are still only 9% of the market, but that’s up from 2.5% in 2019, so a big jump. The New York Times reports that the industry over all will drop a trillion dollars the next 5 years to transition EVs. Tesla is still leading at a million sold a year, but looking at orders over at Ford (which we’ve covered here), FoMoCo had thought they might sell 75,000 of the new F-150 Lightening pickups, but have stopped orders for now at 200,000. They will sell a like number of Mustang EVs this year, too. Mercedes delivered almost 100,000 EVs in 2021…up 90% from the previous year. VW delivered 17,000 ID.4 SUVs in the US, but say they could have sold 4 times that number if it hadn’t been for production bottlenecks like the chip shortage. The biggest impediment to EV sales (besides the chip shortage) is the lack of enough charging stations. Right now, there are only 50,000 public charging stations in the US. The infrastructure bill passed last fall has funds for an additional 500,000, but even that won’t be enough to keep up with EV sales at the rate people are ordering them. 


Amazon Doubles Big Cheese Max Base Pay; Meta Threatens to Shutter Facebook & Instagram in Europe, Next Apple Event & Entry MacBook Pro; Cost of Replacing Chinese Cell Equipment Explodes

Amazon has just more than doubled maximum base pay for corporate and tech workers, citing competition in the labor market. Geekwire.com reports the new figure is $350,000, up from the previous $160,000. This will bring them in line with other major tech firms like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft. Up to now, Amazon had been trying to keep its base pay low by offering RSUs for its stock, but that is no longer holding people the often 3-4 years before the employee can cash out. 

Due to a new data transfer agreement being considered, which prevents transferring data from the EU to the US, Meta is threatening to shut down both its Facebook and Instagram platforms in Europe. According to CNET.com, the sticking point is the EU’s very strict privacy protection. The latest data transfer agreement was found invalid in 2020 by a top European court. Data transfer allows the company…and others…to transfer, store, and process data at their data centers in the US. Meta is not the only tech company dealing with this, but is the largest affected by far. The company hopes to light a fire under the US and EU negotiators to get a new agreement in place so they can continue operations. 

The next Mac event appears to be slated for March 8th. 9to5mac.com says the expected rollout will include an updated iPhone SE3 with 5G, a new iPad Air…and possibly a new Mac. Mark Gurman over at Bloomberg has written that we should look for a new entry-level MacBook Pro with a proprietary Apple system on a chip…probably called the M2, later this year. In order to continue charging more for the M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pros, Gurman says the new laptop won’t have the Touch Bar, and will have a lower quality display, processor, and less storage. It won’t get the MiniLED screen or ProMotion, in other words. He and others see Apple as finishing the switch to their own silicon across the entire line this year, ending a long run with Intel processors. 

The cost of removing and replacing Chinese made cell equipment from Huawei and ZTE has exploded. CNBC.com reports that the government had called for replacing the equipment…deemed insecure…and Congress allocated $1.9 billion for that in December 2020. Now, carriers have applied for a whopping $5.6 billion to cover the job! The whole issue came up when it was found that the Chinese equipment were national security risks. The FCC says is will work with carriers and Congress to make sure the carriers aren’t hit with the costs, since the government has mandated the switch out of gear.


Facebook Down on Earnings Report; Netflix Finally Adds Delete to ‘Continue Watching’; Alphabet Took in Over $75 Billion 4th Quarter; Cruise Opening RoboTaxis to Public

Facebook whiffed on earnings, and the stock took a 20% haircut today. CNBC.com reports that in addition to disappointing earnings, the company gave weak guidance…saying that user growth had stagnated. The earnings per share were $3.67, while $3.84 was what was expected. Revenue was $33.67 billion…which did beat the $33.4 that was expected. Daily Active Users was 1.93 billion, and they had been looking for 1.95 billion. Facebook says first quarter revenue will be between $27 and $29 billion. They blamed inflation and supply chain issues on lower ad budgets from their clients. 

Netflix at long last had added a way to delete the shows in ‘Continue Watching’ that you just watched a bit of and hated, or got tired of. According to engadget.com, you can just go to the title you want to drop, and there will be a little ‘Remove from Continue Watching’ icon under the menu of user preferences. Not everyone is seeing this just yet. It’s several years later than would have been cool, but better now than never. 

While Facebook took a hit on earnings, Google parent Alphabet did nicely…reporting forth quarter revenue of $75.3 billion. 9to5google.com says that figure was up 32% from the same quarter of 2020 (which was $56.9 billion.) It was also up from the $65.1 billion take for 3rd quarter of last year. 

They have been relentlessly patrolling San Francisco for the last several years, and now the ubiquitous Cruise self-driving cars will become available for driverless ride hailing. TechCrunch.com reports that SoftBank has dumped another $1.35 billion into the startup. As of now, the rides will be free, and there is a wait list on the Cruise website. Cruise says riders will not have to sign a non-disclosure agreement before using the service. It will run from 11 PM to 5 AM initially. Also, for the time being, the driverless service is limited to certain areas and streets within the Haight-Ashbury, Richmond District, Chinatown and Pacific Heights neighborhoods.


Tesla Recalls 54,000 Over FSD Stopsign-Rolling; Sony Buys Bungie; Google Messages Rolls Out iMessage Reactions; Tablet Shipments Down

There was some noise last month when Tesla pushed out its latest iteration of it’s so-called Full Self-Driving software. There was an ‘assertive mode,’ which allowed cars to roll through stops. Cnet.com reports that the NHTSA was not amused, and now the feds have issued a recall notice for 53,822 Teslas…including Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Model Y cars. According to the NHTSA, the beta software “allows the vehicle to travel through all-way-stop intersections at up to 5.6 mph before coming to a complete stop, if certain conditions are first met.” If you own a Tesla with the software, you won’t have to go in…it will be fixed with a free over-the-air update. 

Sony has opened their cash vault and dropped a sweet $3.6 billion to buy Bungie. According to gizmodo.com, this will get them a larger player base and steady stream of income from Destiny players. They could conceivably make that game exclusive on their platforms in the battle against Microsoft, but really can’t do so with banner game Halo, which Microsoft holds the rights to. Gizmodo speculates that gaming might not be the only reason for the buy…they wonder if Sony is contemplating producing a Destiny TV series or movie. 

Google Messages has started rolling out iMessage reactions in beta for Android users. 9to5google.com says the emoji translations aren’t spot on—for example,  the iMessage Heart becomes ‘Smiling Face with Heart-Eyes. The reactions…often called Tapbacks, will now show up as emojis instead of a text version, which frankly looks silly. So far, the rollout is limited, so you may not see them right away. 

Tablet shipments were off in the 4th quarter of 2021. That said, Apple continues to lead the market with a 38% market share. Appleinsider.com notes that Samsung is 2nd with 15.9%, followed by Lenovo at 4.6%, amazon at 3.6%, and Huawei with 2.5%. Every maker’s shipments dropped except Amazon, which was up 1.3%. Apple was off 8.6%, but Samsung took a 21.6% hit, with Lenovo down 25.4%, and Huawei off 13.9%. Some of the drop has been attributed to supply chain constraints. 


Spotify Blinks-Sort of; Amazon Banned China Sellers Move to Walmart; Cal Net Neutrality Law Upheld; Teen Replies to Musk on Tracking- Pay $50,000

After Neil Young started a mini-exodus over Spotify allowing Joe Rogan’s misinformation on COVID-19, the platform issued a mealy-mouthed statement on how they don’t censor (not mentioning the $100 million they paid Rogan to be exclusive to their platform.) Their valuation had dropped by $4 billon last week over the flap, but has recovered a chunk of that. Now, Rogan has responded, defending his podcast in an almost 10 minute video on Instagram. Theverge.com reports that he defends his decision to book contentious guests in the piece…but does apologize to Spotify for the backlash, and alludes to how things might change in the future. “I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspectives so we can maybe find a better point of view,” he says. “I don’t want to just show the contrary opinion to what the narrative is. I want to show all kinds of opinions so we can all figure out what’s going on and not just about COVID, about everything, about health, about fitness, wellness, the state of the world itself.”

Last year, Amazon started kicking tens of thousands of Chinese sellers off its platform for fake customer reviews. According to bloomberg.com, a lot of them have simply moved over to Walmart’s e-commerce site. The iffy Chinese sellers now account for 1 in 7 of the sellers on Walmart’s site. As they just really geared up in 2021, it isn’t likely Walmart with give them the boot so quickly, so if you do business with Walmart online, caveat emptor….let the buyer beware.

In a nice victory for users over Big Telcom, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Friday upheld California’s net neutrality law, saying a 2017 decision by the Federal Communications Commission to reverse federal internet protections could not bar state action. Reuters.com notes that the US Justice Department withdrew its legal challenge to the law last February. The ruling was 3-0. California’s 2018 law barred internet service providers from blocking or throttling traffic, or offering paid fast lanes, but it only took effect last year. The appeals court said, “The stakes in this case are high for the industry and consumers,” and noted that without net neutrality rules, internet providers could “open the door for anticompetitive, discriminatory behavior that could disadvantage important segments of society.”

A teen named Jack Sweeney has been posting the coming and going of Elon Musk’s private jet on Twitter (ElonJet), much to the displeasure of Mr. Musk. Musk has previously offered the 19 year old $5,000 to knock it off. According to engadget.com, the Twitter account has her 180,000 followers breathlessly keeping tabs on Musk’s whereabouts (or at least those of his jet.) Sweeney also tracks the jets of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and others. Now, Sweeney has made a counter offer. He says $50,000 might do the trick…which would help with college expenses, or the programmer says he could even buy a Model 3. Musk replied he would think about it, but has been silent since. He has taken steps to make it harder to track his jet, though. 


Samsung Unpacked; Apple Self-Driving Tests Expand; Google Assistant-STOP Talking; Microsoft Teams Growth

Samsung will show off what their president calls “the most noteworthy S series device we’ve ever created” at the next Galaxy Unpacked event. Engadget.com reports it will be Wednesday, February 9th at 10 AM Eastern. As all lately, it will be a virtual event you can watch on Samsung’s website, and will be streamed elsewhere as well. Unless Samsung changes up their naming policy, the flagship should be some iteration of Galaxy S22. Rumored changes include a slot for the S Pen and a more squared off design. 

Even in the midst of several high profile execs exiting Apple’s car/self-driving division, Cupertino is expanding its autonomous vehicle testing in California. According to 9to5mac.com, the DMV now shows Apple with 89 drivers. The number of vehicles hasn’t increased, though…still at 69. There was a time when Apple fielded some 200 drivers, but they have been at 69 for quite a while. They list a total of 148 crew members with the state. This is a shadow of what Waymo has fielded. They have 1526 drivers, and a fleet of 690. It should be noted that Apple is running their self-driving systems on Lexus SUVs, not the fabled Apple Car. The SUVs are tricked out with an array of LiDAR, radar, and cameras. Their Project Titan is rumored to have the goal of shipping a self-driving EV with NO steering wheel by 2025! Personally, I could never own such a car. I hope Apple and others at least come up with a pop-out steering control, something along the lines of the self-driving cars in the movie ‘The Demolition Man.’

Apparently, it’s a hassle to try to shut up Google Assistant when it’s talking. You may have had to say “Hey, Google…stop” multiple times. Well, engadget.com says Google has made thinks easier with a software upgrade. Now, you can just say (or YELL) “STOP,” without the Hey Google part. This comes as the result of several features they are testing out to allow you do address the Assistant without wake words. One other feature being tested is allowing you to activate Assistant by proximity alone…no word on when or if that might materialize for users.

Microsoft Teams has edged above 270 million monthly active users in December. Although Teams is adding users at a slower pace, that is still up 20 million from last summer. Geekwire.com reports that Teams only had 75 million users in April 2020. Teams and competitors Zoom and SalesForce’s Slack have all seem big growth since the start of the pandemic and millions switching over to work from home. Microsoft launched a stand alone version of Teams for small businesses in December…which works separate from the Office suite of products…and is more of a direct threat to Zoom. 


Hackers Seizing Instagram Accounts for Ransom; Panasonic’s Higher Capacity Tesla Batteries Coming; Twitter ‘Close Friends’ Feature; Nvidia About to Throw in Towel on $40B Arm Acquisition

Hackers are grabbing the Instagram accounts of companies and also influencers with large followings. The hacking was in a new phishing campaign by Secureworks, according to zdnet.com. A friend of one of my friends in real life had this happen, and they demanded thousands to unlock the account…which the person uses in their business. the crooks send a message from ‘Instagram,’ saying there has been a copyright infringement. Yep…there’s a link…click on it, and you’re screwed. It goes to a site controlled by the hackers, where they ask for your IG login info. Bingo, you have been owned. Some ransoms are running $40,000! Don’t click on links, first of all…and if you are using sites like IG…especially for business or you are an influencer, use two part verification. The hackers appear to be in Russia and Turkey. 

Tesla cars could get Panasonic’s new higher-capacity batteries by next year. Engadget.com reports that the new batteries could boost EV range by over 15%! The batteries are twice as big as previous iterations, BUT they have five times the energy capacity! Panasonic is dropping $704 million into new equipment to produce the 4680 cell. Considering that the $30 million they had put into Tesla is now worth $3.6 billion, they can afford it! As a bonus…the new cells are cheaper to produce. That might mean less price increases on the cars…though with Elon Musk, you can’t ever tell about that.

Twitter is apparently working on a feature that lets you share tweets just with a certain group of people. Theverge.com says it seems to be their version of Instagram’s ‘Close Friends’ feature. Twitter may call this close group your ‘Flock.’ You will be able to put about 150 members into your Flock group. You can delete people from the Flock at any time, and they don’t get a notification, too. To alert members that it is a private Flock Tweet, they will see “You can see this Tweet because the author has added you to their Flock” underneath the Tweet. No indication yet on when the feature might go live to all Twitter users. Twitter did confirm that ‘Twitter Flock’ is just a placeholder name, so it may be called something entirely different. 

Nvidia may be about ready to throw in the towel on acquiring Arm. According to appleinsider.com, this is at least in part due to increased scrutiny. The FTC sued to block the deal in December of 2021, saying it would stifle innovation and hurt competition in the chip market. The deal would “give one of the largest chip companies control over the computing technology and designs that rival firms rely on to depend their own competing chips.” the UK government is also scrutinizing the deal. If the deal doesn’t go through, SoftBank will probably do an IPO for ARM. 


Crypto Drops $130 Billion in 24 Hours; Apple-Biggest New Product Release Ever; WhatsApp to Let Chats Xfer From Android to iOS; EU Backs Limits on Tracking Ads

With a big market drop today due to Russian saber rattling near Ukraine and the Fed to bump interest a bit, another financial nosedive has been overshadowed. CNBC.com reports that crypto markets had about $130 billion in valuation wiped out in 24 hours over the weekend. Stocks have been correcting downwards since the first of the year, Bitcoin dropped about 4% and Ether fell 7%…both are now at about half of their all-time high marks. Investors are now eyeing Bitcoin to see if it falls through the $30,000 level. Bitcoin was at 36,458 15 minutes before markets close on Monday. 

According to macrumors.com, citing Mark Gurman over at Bloomberg, Apple is gearing up to release the ‘widest array of new Hardware products in Its history’ this fall. That would include the 4 refreshed iPhone models, and updated low-end MacBook Pro, a freshened iMac with a bigger screen, a new Mac Pro (running Apple silicon), a MacBook Air update, three new Apple Watches, a low end iPad and new iPad Pro models…plus the 2nd gen AirPods Pro! These will likely come out in two separate events…with the usual iPhone and Watch release in September, and the rest to follow in October or maybe November. This spring, Apple will probably drop a refreshed iPhone SE, iPad Air, and maybe a new, higher end iMac. It appears that by Fall, Apple will have migrated 100% of its computers to its own silicon, finally dropping all Intel chips. 

WhatsApp is apparently working on a feature that will allow people to migrate their chat history from Android to iOS. Theverge.com says such a feature has been sighted in the latest beta version for iOS (22.2.74.) This matches up with a similar feature observed in a beta of Android (2.21.20.11.) WhatsApp had previously had the ability to move chat histories from iOS to Samsung phones (that happened last September), then added the ability to transfer to Google Pixel phones and other Android 12 devices. 

The European Parliament has moved to install big limits on behavioral advertising. TechCrunch.com reports that the action came during a vote on amendments to the EU Digital Services Act. This would really ratchet up pressure on big tech…especially on Facebook And Google, which make most of their money through mass surveillance and microtargeting of Internet users. The two ad titans dodged a much bigger bullet as the EU dropped an amendment that would have meant a total ban on behavioral advertising. The upshot of these votes is that the elected representatives of EU citizens have signaled strong backing for significant restrictions to microtargeting and related ad tech practices (like manipulative consent flows) which — if they make it through into the final law — will put a significant squeeze on surveillance-based business models, increasing pressure for adtech reform.


Instagram-Trialing Paid Subs for Creators; Google Killing Free G Suite Level; Sony Dropped 12% Post Microsoft Buy of Activision; Battery Breakthrough-5X EV Range

Every tech platform is grubbing for more of your money these days, it seems. Now Facebook-owned (or Meta…which is about like Alphabet for Google…no one really will call it Meta) is trialing a paid subscription feature for creators, using in-app purchases. According to 9to5mac.com, the feature launches today over the iOS and Android apps. It is essentially to compete with platforms like OnlyFans, which are enjoying good growth. Despite the continued haggling with Apple over their App Store fees, the subscription fee charged by Google will get the 30% haircut that Apple gives to most apps and app features before the creator gets any cash. Google is apparently working on a way for creators to see ‘how much they pay to Apple.’ Only a small group of creators will initially get the new subscribe button as this is a test right now to see how it works. It does include special exclusive live broadcasts (really webcasts), stories that can only be seen by subscribers, and messages that note that you are a subscriber. 

Google is killing off its legacy freebie G Suite tier as of July 1st. Engadget.com reports that this is in conjunction with the rebranding of G Suite as Workspace. Users with the free version will be migrated to a paid account as of May 1st…Google will automatically select a subscription plan for users who don’t pick their own by that date. Users who are migrated to paid plans won’t actually be billed for at least 2 months, but if they don’t furnish billion info to Google by July 1st, they will be suspended. Business and enterprise Workspace accounts start at $6 a month per user. Google says it will offer ‘deep’ discounts to those affected by the decision. NOTE: if you use Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and others via a free Google account, you will NOT be affected by this move. Google will also keep offering free Workspace plans to nonprofits and schools that qualify for its Fundamentals tier. 

With the announcement as covered here yesterday that Microsoft was buying Activision for a huge sum, Sony shares have tanked today. CNBC.com says they were down over 12% in Tokyo Wednesday morning. The hit is due to investor worry that Microsoft will be able to syphon off popular games from the PlayStation platform. Up to now, Sony has had a better stable of third party games for its boxes, but this will bring Microsoft into a much more competitive position (some are saying the deal is anti-competitive, as it seriously consolidates the industry.) Activision’s Call of Duty has been out on both Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation, but should MS pull future updates from Sony’s boxes, it could seriously impact them. There are some market watchers who follow the gaming industry who think the market badly overreacted to the deal, and they expect Sony’s continued efforts to line up third party games to keep them plenty competitive. 

Some geniuses at the University of Michigan have figured out how to build a biologically inspired membrane that could quintuple the range of EVs using batteries with the tech. Inceptivemind.com reports that they have patented their system of a network of aramid nano fibers, made from recycled Kevlar bulletproof vests. It dispenses with the issue of cycle life for lithium-sulfur batteries. (Lithium-sulphur batteries have big sustainability advantages over lithium-ion…no rare cobalt is needed for the electrodes.) The article gets way into the weeds on the tech, but the net is, you can get over 1,000 cycles of fast charging without losing capacity, PLUS the batteries work well over the whole temperature spectrum…from desert hot to frigid winter weather. The team is forming a company to bring the membrane to market right now.