Netflix-TikTok Type Feed for Mobile App; Apple Adding AI Search Partners to Safari; Jury-NSO Owes WhatsApp $167 Million for Hacking; Trump Administration Plans to Drop Energy Star program

Posted: May 7, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Netflix is testing a TikTok style feed of vertical video for its mobile app as a way to help you discover new programs to watch. Theverge.com reports the test will start in just weeks. From the clips, you’ll be able to watch the show or movie right away, or you can add it to your list of saved things to watch or pass the clip along to a friend. The controls are in the bottom-right corner of the screen, much like on TikTok. Netflix is also going to roll out a revamped design for its TV app…all to help you binge even more and stay on Netflix longer. 

Apple is adding AI search providers to the Safari browser on iPhones, iPads, and Macs. According to 9to5mac.com, word of this comes from court testimony by Apple SVP Eddy Cue. He said “we will add them to the list — they probably won’t be the default” in reference to providers like Perplexity and Anthropic. Cue also said that the number of searches through Safari fell for the first time ever in April, suggesting users are looking to AI sources as alternative ways to find information. Apple has had a deal for years with Google whereby Google payed them a large sum to be the default search on the Safari browser…currently Apple takes in about $20 billion a year from its share of revenue from Google searches using Safari on Apple devices. While it is unlikely that Apple can replace that sum with one AI provider like OpenAI, it certainly might using multiple ones. 

WhatsApp has won a jury award of $167 million in punitive damages against NSO Group out of Israel for hacking the phones of thousands of users. Arstechnica.com notes that the jury also awarded $444 million in compensatory damages. WhatsApp sued NSO in 2019 for an attack that targeted roughly 1,400 mobile phones belonging to attorneys, journalists, human-rights activists, political dissidents, diplomats, and senior foreign government officials. NSO, which works on behalf of governments and law enforcement authorities in various countries, exploited a critical WhatsApp vulnerability that allowed it to install NSO’s proprietary spyware Pegasus on iOS and Android devices.

The Energy Star program for appliances, around since 1992, is getting terminated if the Trump Administration has its way. Engadget.com reports that the program has helped people save some $500 billion in energy costs the past 33 years. It’s technically illegal for a presidential administration to end this program without Congress, but the same goes for many of Trump’s pronouncements and executive orders. It’s a curious move, since if you crunch the numbers…for $32 million a year, it has saved families over $40 billion a year in annual energy costs…an annual return of $350 for every federal dollar invested. 

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

OpenAI-Nonprofit Retains Control of Co; Microsoft-New Surface Tablets; Kindle iOS App-1 Button Book Buying; Tesla Sales Drop by Half in Germany

Posted: May 6, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

After considerable outside pressure from political types and former employees, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has announced in a blog post that the non-profit will retain control of the company…even as it restructures into a public benefit corporation. CNBC.com reports that the Microsoft-backed company was recently valued at some $300 billion. The decision to keep the control with the non-profit came after meetings with the Attorneys General of California and Delaware. Altman said in a video call  “We will be converting the limited liability company, that is a subsidiary of that nonprofit, to a public benefit corporation. By doing so, it will change the equity structure of that company so that employees, investors and the not-for-profit can own equity in that PBC.” 

Microsoft has bowed a new Surface Pro tablet today..it has a 12 inch screen, and a few design changes from the bigger 13 inch Surface Pro 11. According to theverge.com, the Surface Pro 12 inch runs on an Arm processor. It is fanless, and doesn’t have a Surface Connect charging port. The keyboard is different as well. Besides the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core processor, it comes with 16 gigs of RAM, 256 gigs of storage, and starts at $799. A keyboard will run you another $149.99. Expect to tack on $100 more to the tablet price if you wan t 512 gigs of storage. You can order directly from Microsoft or at Best Buy. It ships May 20th to consumers, and July 22nd to businesses. 

Acting after a court order (which Apple has appealed), Amazon has made it much easier to buy books on an iPhone. Previously, Apple rules made it hard for users to leave the app to buy a book, then come back. 9to5mac.com notes that basically you had to browse and buy titles separately in your web browser, before returning to your Kindle app to read the downloaded books. Now, there’s a nice big ‘get book’ button with each listed title in the Kindle app. Hitting that takes you right to the book’s Amazon listing in your browser…you can buy with ‘1-Click,’ then jump right back into the Kindle app and start reading the downloaded book. It’s still not as elegant as just buying the thing directly in the Kindle app, but a lot quicker and cleaner. Whether this can continue depends on who wins in court, but it’s a nice feature for readers. Maybe Apple has given up enough on its failed Books app to let things go…but probably not. I have read books on my phone, but prefer to throw my Kindle in my bag when traveling…it’s small and light and the battery lasts forever. Of course it’s great for home…only really missing that book ‘smell and feel.’

Tesla sales in Germany went off a cliff in April. Mashable.com reports that the Musk-helmed EV firm sold less than 900 vehicles there in April. That’s a drop of 45.9% from last April. Since April is in 2nd quarter, these numbers won’t show up in Tesla’s earnings until the end of the quarter, that wraps the last of June. Meanwhile, total German EV sales were up 53.5%, with the bulk of those sales going to Chinese EV maker BYD. BYD sold 1566 EVs in Germany in April. 

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

Biggest Reveal-iPhone 20; Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge; TeleMessage- Government Signal Clone Hacked; Mr Deepfakes Shuts Down Forever

Posted: May 5, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Even though it isn’t due out until 2027, lots of rumors are out about the upcoming iPhone 20…or will they call it XX? Now, a new leak has a pretty major reveal, should it pan out. The Information’s Wayne Ma says that with the 20th anniversary iPhone, Apple will finally deliver an all-screen design. That means Face ID and front-facing cam elements will all be under the screen…no unsightly area at the top that takes up part of the screen area. In addition, it’s expected that Apple will use its own modem chip, which has already been introduced on a lower line iPhone this year. Before the 20th Anniversary iPhone, we expect the iPhone Fold to debut next year, in 2026. Apple is expected to go to a new release schedule with phones, leaving the higher line Pro models in September, with the less-expensive iPhones coming out in the Spring.

Samsung is leaky as always, and now we have more on the upcoming Galaxy S25 Edge. According to mashable.com, the phone will have a 6.7 inch AMOLED display, Snapdragon 8 Elite chips, 12 gigs of RAM, either 256 or 512 gigs of storage, a 200 MP main rear cam, and 3900 mAh battery. Pricing may not be firm with the tariffs and all, but is expected to be starting at around $1400. It should bow this month, but as of this report, Samsung hasn’t given a date.

TeleMessage, the platform that makes available modded versions of encrypted apps like Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp, has been hacked. TechCrunch.com says the app had been used by US government officials. TeleMessage is based in Israel. It offers clients a way to archive messages, including voice notes, from encrypted apps. According to reporting, messages of cabinet members, including former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, were not compromised. The hacked data, however, contained contents of messages; contact information of government officials; backend login credentials for TeleMessage, and more. Data pertaining to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, crypto exchange Coinbase, and financial service providers like Scotiabank were extracted by the hacker.

In a good piece of news for every decent person, Mr. Deepfakes, the most widely used site for making deepfakes of celebrities and others appear to be in porn has shut down permanently. Arstechnica.com reports that at its peak, researchers found some 43,000 videos were checked out over 1.5 million times. Those videos were generated by some 4,000 users, who made money illegally off the videos with famous faces stitched into porn movies. According to a notice posted on the platform, ‘a critical service provider’ terminated the service ‘permanently. “Data loss has made it impossible to continue operation,” Mr. Deepfakes confirmed, while warning not to trust any impostor platforms that pop up in its absence. “We will not be relaunching. Any website claiming this is fake. This domain will eventually expire and we are not responsible for future use. This message will be removed around one week.” Good riddance!

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

GOP Wants to Tax EV Drivers $200 a Year; Meta’s Standalone ChatGPT Competitor; Wikipedia Will Use AI, but Not Replacing Humans; Waymo & Toyota Partner on Self-Driving Vehicles

Posted: April 30, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The present Republican party seems determined to hate on, and fight against electric vehicles at every turn. Now, arstechnica.com reports that they have tucked into their proposed tax bill a new $200 per year tax on battery EVs. Hybrids will be dinged for $100. How about gas guzzling pickups, SUVs, and performance cars? Oh, they will pay a measly $20 per year…and even then only after October 1, 2030! Before that, nothing. Commercial vehicles are exempt, too. An argument the GOP makes is that EV drivers don’t pay any gas tax, and hybrid owners pay less gas tax than internal combustion engine vehicle owners. Of course, the EVs aren’t belching smog into the atmosphere either…to the climate change deniers, this tax is a win-win if it passes. This is a big ripoff for EVs and hybrids, as 39 states already charge EV drivers a registration fee and 28 states charge hybrid drivers. DISCLOSURE: I drive a hybrid, and have for the past 7 years…so yes, I have already been paying the gas tax…this is just an added tax penalty from the party that allegedly hates taxes.

Meta has its standalone ChatGPT competitor, which is pretty much the same as what you get with actual ChatGPT…but with an added feature. According to theverge.com, you can type to or talk with the app, generate images, and get real-time web results. The new wrinkle is that it has a Discover feed…which gets you a feed of interactions with Meta AI that other people…including, of course, your friends on Facebook and Instagram…have chosen to share on a prompt-by-prompt basis. Naturally since it is a meta product, you can like, comment, share, or remix the shared AI posts on your own feed. OpenAI is planning a social feed to ChatGPT, and Musk’s X is pretty intertwined with his Grok. Worth noting…Meta actually is using much of the View companion app for the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses to underpin the freestanding Meta AI app.

Wikipedia is jumping into the AI game, but it stresses that artificial intelligence won’t be used to replace the community of editors and volunteers. Techcrunch.com says Wikipedia will use AI to build new features that “remove technical barriers,” allowing editors, moderators, and patrollers tools that allow them to accomplish what they need to do, without worrying about how to “technically achieve it.” Amid concerns that AI could eventually impact jobs held by people today, especially in terms of content creation, Wikipedia indicates that it intends to use AI as a tool that makes people’s jobs easier, not replace them.

The Waymo division of Alphabet and Toyota have announced a preliminary partnership to explore bringing robotaxi tech to personally-owned vehicles. “The companies will explore how to leverage Waymo’s autonomous technology and Toyota’s vehicle expertise to enhance next-generation personally owned vehicles,” the two companies announced. The companies said they aim to use the partnership to more quickly develop driver assistance and autonomous vehicle technologies for personal vehicles. Toyota is the world’s largest automaker by sales. Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said the strategic partnership could also result in the Google-owned company incorporating Toyota’s “vehicles into our ride-hailing fleet.”

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

Amazon-Tariff Cost Display ‘Not Happening’; iPhone Fold on Track for 2026; Android Gets Separate Showcase Week; ChatGPT Adds Shopping Features to Search

Posted: April 29, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

The White House went ballistic this morning with a report that Amazon was going to start posting the added costs of the Trump tariffs on items…calling it a ‘hostile and political act.’ Now, geekwire.com reports that Amazon has stated that this is not going to happen. An Amazon spokesman, Tim Doyle, said “The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products. This was never approved and is not going to happen.” On the other hand, China owned Temu is now adding ‘import charges’ of about 145%…that according to CNBC. One place you will see tariffs impact Amazon pricing…that’s from the third-party sellers, which make us some 60% of the company’s store sales. 

Apple appears to be on track to release its first folding iPhone in the second half of 2026. According to 9to5mac.com, it will come with a premium price of between $2100 and $2300…a couple hundred less than has been suggested previously….but still a ton of money. Folding phones had been growing by some 40% per year until 2024, when they are just up about 5%, and now they are expected to see a sales decline in 2025, so Apple entering the market will be a real boost. As we have reported, Ming-Chi Kuo predicts the apple folder will have an inner 7.8 inch display, with a 5.5 inch display outside, and no dreaded crease on the inner screen. It will be a book style like the Samsung Fold series. Some predictions are for less cameras, due to the thinness of the device, and also no Face ID..they will have Touch ID on a button. The iPhone Fold is predicted to be skinny at 4.5 mm unfolded and 9 mm folded. 

Google has enough going on with Android that they are going to give the mobile system its own showcase a week prior to Google I/O. Engadget.com notes that this is the first time they have done so. Google says  it has “so many new things to share” regarding Android, hence this edition of The Android Show. The presentation will feature Android Ecosystem president Sameer Samat. Android will still be featured at I/O, where Google is promising to reveal “even more special announcements and surprises.” Multiple Android keynotes are scheduled for the event. The Android Show: I/O Edition will air on May 13 at 1PM ET. Google I/O takes place a week later, starting on May 20.

ChatGPT is adding shopping features to let users look for products and then purchase them from a merchant websites after a redirect from ChatGPT. According to arstechnica.com, the feature resembles Google Shopping. When you click on a product image, ChatGPT will serve you multiple retailers like Amazon and Walmart on the right side of the screen, complete with buttons to finish the purchases. Unlike Google’s algorithm-based approach to product recommendations, ChatGPT reportedly attempts to understand product reviews and user preferences in a more conversational manner. If someone mentions they prefer black clothing from specific retailers in a chat, the system incorporates those preferences in future shopping recommendations. One key distinction between ChatGPT shopping and Google Shopping involves how products appear in results. While Google often includes sponsored product placements, OpenAI’s product results merely come from search—for now. Chat”GPT search product lead Adam Fry says “They are not ads…they are not sponsored.” 

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

Meta AI Chatbots-Sex Convos with Minors; Temu and Shein Goose Prices Over Tariffs; Tesla Robot Production Stopped-Short of Chinese Rare Earth; California Revising Self-Driving Regulations 

Posted: April 28, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Meta AI chatbots have been caught with their pants down, metaphorically speaking. Engadget.com reports that they have been caught having sexual role-play conversations with accounts labeled underage…some of them are celebrity voice chatbots, too! In test conversations conducted by WSJ, both the Meta AI official chatbot and user-created chatbots would engage in — and even steer towards — sexually explicit conversations. The fantasy sex conversations continued even if the users were said to be underage or if the chatbots were programmed as minors, according to WSJ. Some of the voices were from the likes of Kristen Bell and Dame Judi Dench. Meta says it has now taken “…additional measures to help ensure other individuals who want to spend hours manipulating our products into extreme use cases will have an even more difficult time of it.”

A couple of bargain basement sites used by a lot of folks are getting some hefty price hikes due to the Trump tariffs. Temu and She-in are seeing some items get bumped up in price by up to 377%! According to cnet.com, She-in’s beauty and health products are up an average of 51%, with kitchen goods up around 30% on average. There are, however, some big jumps…a kitchen towel that was $1.28 is not $6.10..up 377%, and a meat shredder has gone from $2.91 to $9.02…up 219%. This may be moot to an extent…the Port of Los Angeles is seeing 33% less shipping containers from China, and Seattle says none are in the pipeline for that port right now. 

Of late, Elon Musk has really been putting a lot of emphasis on his Optimus robots…which he claims will revolutionize factory production and give us in-house robot servants like Rosie from The Jetsons. Well, technewsday.com says it may be a while longer than anticipated now. There is a shortage of a rare earth from China needed for the magnets used in the robots compact actuators. China produces the entire world’s supply of heavy rare earth metals, from ore mined in China and Myanmar, and 90% of magnets made with these metals. Analysts warn that the tightened controls on these essential materials—used in everything from electronics to defense systems—will be difficult to bypass or replace quickly. Musk had wanted to build thousands of the robots by the end of this year, but now it looks like that will be delayed…the Trump tariffs strike again.

California is re-tooling its rules for testing and deployment of self-driving vehicles. CNBC reports that the California DMV has announced that it is now seeking public comment on proposed regulations that would apply to self-driving vehicles from light-duty robotaxis like Waymo’s to heavy-duty driverless trucks like those from Plus.AI. The state is taking comments from now to Jun 9th, then will schedule a public hearing before rolling out new regulations. Personally, I am hoping they don’t allow any vehicles without steering wheels and a brake pedal in event of emergencies. Neither people nor computers are infallible!

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

EU Slaps Apple & Google with Big Fines; Google Messages Can Now Blur Unwanted Nudes; Tesla Profits Down 71%; OpenAI Wants to Buy Chrome

Posted: April 23, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

The European Union strikes again under its Digital Markets Act, fining Apple $571 million and Meta $228 million for breaches of the act. CNBC reports that the EU says Apple failed to comply with so-called “anti-steering” obligations under the DMA. Under the EU’s tech law, Apple is required to allow developers to freely inform customers of alternative offers outside its App Store. The tech giant was ordered by the EU to remove technical and commercial restrictions on steering and to refrain from perpetuating its non-compliant conduct in the future. As for Meta, the EU Commission found that the social media group illegally required users to consent to sharing their data with the company or pay for an ad-free service. This was in response to Meta’s introduction of a paid subscription tier for Facebook and Instagram in November 2023. Both companies will appeal. 

Google Messages is getting a useful new feature…the ability to blur unwanted nudes. Now, if some clown sends you an unsolicited picture of his equipment, Google will blur it out and give you a Sensitive Content Warning on Android. According to arstechnica.com, the option isn’t live on all Androids yet. If you are an adult, you will just get the warning, and then can peek if you like. If it is a supervised teen’s phone, the feature is enabled, and can’t be disabled on the child’s device. Only the Family Link administrator can do that. The detection of the nakedness is done on device. Google says the feature is a part of its Android System Safety Core. Apple just calls their version of this feature Sensitive Content Warning. Google’s should be available soon on all devices running Android v. 9 or higher. 

Tesla’s earnings call was yesterday, and the headline is everywhere that their profits dropped 71% on weak sales…due in no small part to people angry at Elon Musk’s meddling in the government. TechCrunch.com says the electric car maker reported $409 million in net income on $19.3 billion in revenue. They sold nearly 337,000 cars first quarter. First quarter of last year, Tesla did $1.4 billion in profit. The thing is, even the $400 million wasn’t due to car sales! Tesla made about that much on interest from investments, and made another $595 million by selling zero-emissions tax credits to other car makers. According to its earnings report — without those, it would have posted a loss. Elon Musk is now promising to put out the formerly cancelled cheaper Tesla yet this year, and has put off the robo-taxi vehicle to next year. He also promised to only spend one or two days a week at DOGE for what he said was as long as the president wants him.

With the Department of Justice vs Google trial continuing, and the government set on breaking up Google if they prevail, now a new twist has emerged. OpenAI is throwing its hat into the ring to buy Chrome, should Google be forced to sell it. Arstechnica.com notes that while OpenAI is in bed with Microsoft and their lousy Bing, they are eyeing Chrome. Of course there are other suiters too, but OpenAI would look to make it a fully AI first browser. Chrome with its 4 billion users and 67% market share would be a gigantic boost. Google has said that Chrome can’t make it on its own, but that is still another alternative….making it a free-standing company. With Google Ad placement and others, it likely could survive…but it is a fascinating thought that OpenAI could end up with it…with ChatGPT search instead of Google’s Gemini AI.

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

Meta Bulking Up AI Age Detection; China Firm-EV Battery Charges as Fast as Gassing Up; Bluesky Gets Blue Checkmarks; New RAM 10,000 Faster

Posted: April 22, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Meta is expanding AI use in its age detection program for Instagram. Theverge.com reports that it started using AI last year, spotting things like wishes for a 16th birthday (when an account claimed to be 18 or over.) Meta puts restrictions on teen accounts that they don’t have once over 18. Strangers can’t send them messages, and some content is limited. With the AI, Meta will be more proactive…and will actually change settings on accounts it suspects are kids masquerading as adults. The Meta folks say they know there will be errors, but feel like protecting kids will be worth it…plus, no harm in their not seeing adult content or getting messages from strangers. 

The EV range and recharging battles are heating up. Now Contemporary Amperex Technology…CATL…out of China has revealed its latest battery cell tech, which they say will charge as fast as filling a gas tank, and potentially lower costs. According to electrek.co, CATL is the world’s largest battery manufacturer by quite a ways. The new sodium-ion battery cells not only charge as fast as filling up, but you can drill into a cell or cut one in half without a ‘thermal event,’ or in plain English, catching fire! So how fast is fast? A 45 minute charge can get you 300 more miles of range, depending on EV model. They expect the tech to be in some 67 EV models by the end of the year. Arch competitor BYD also has a fast charging battery. Are you hearing this, Tesla? 

Bluesky is joining the blue checkmark club. The platform is beginning to grant official verification through blue checkmarks to “authentic and notable” accounts. It will also allow some “trusted organizations” to verify users as well. An example of that: they will allow major news organizations to give the check to their reporters. By the way, the ‘trusted organization’ checkmarks will be surrounded by a badge with scalloped edges, instead of just a circle. At this point, they are just giving out the trusted organization ones, and will encourage other users to verify themselves via a custom domain. 

Things are picking up speed all over…not just fast charging for EVs, either. Now, a team at Fudan University in Shanghai, China has unveiled a big leap in memory tech. Bgr.com reports that this new next generation RAM can write data in 400 pico seconds. That’s some 25 billion operations per second…and it’s 10,000 times faster than the flash memory in your regular b-flat laptop! The new RAM utilizes two-dimensional graphene instead of the usual silicon. It’s non-volatile memory, too…so if the data is written and power cut, the data is intact. This could slash energy consumption, bring powerful AI right on to smartphones, and heaven knows what the military will do with it!

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

Automatic Leveling Coming to YouTube Music; 3 Big Siri Upgrades in iOS 19; OpenAI o3 Model-Fudging on Benchmark; Nintendo Switch 2 Preorders Start Thursday 

Posted: April 21, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Here’s a feature I can really get behind, and plead for all others to follow suit…consistent volume on songs! YouTube is apparently going to bring automatic audio leveling to YouTube Music. This has been something radio has had for decades. Who wants to keep turning the volume up and down all the time…whether at home or in the car? Arstechnica.com reports that the automatic gain control…or ‘normalizing,’ in more recent computer audio lingo, won’t just make the songs all the same volume throughout…so you can still have the normal soft passages you would expect…but at least the average level between the songs will be consistent. I hope that the folks over at Apple will follow suit! It is ridiculous in 2025 to have to manually go for the volume control so you don’t get your eardrums fried when a new song comes on!

Apple has been known for years to wait in the wings, then come out with hardware that leaps past competitors. That certainly isn’t the case with Siri, which is a poor excuse for an also-ran of an assistant. According to 9to5mac.com, after delaying promised upgrades that should be out now, Apple will roll out improvements in Siri this fall…in iOS 19. What can we look for? For starters, personalization. You might ask ‘When is Mom’s flight landing?’ It will supposedly scan your texts, calendar, contacts, and email and pull the info, then hit the web and check flight tracker to give you the touchdown time. Another feature will be actual hands-free computing. Up to now, you could set timers, turn things on and off, and so forth…but that’s about it. The upgrade will let you do things across apps. You could tell Siri to add a photo to one of your notes, for example, and it will find and pull the pic, and drop it into the note described, without opening either app. Thirdly, it should get onscreen awareness…you might get a text from a friend with a new address. You can just ask Siri to add it to that person’s contact card. My big complaint about this and all the ‘assistants,’ whether Siri, Google, or Alexa…is that hands-free computing will be annoying in public or on public transit. We already have those nuts who hold their phone in front of them on speaker mode and talk loudly into them. Use your earbuds! Actually, I rather prefer the quiet and privacy typing brings!

We just reported on how Meta had exaggerated their latest AI model…and now along comes OpenAI with their newest o3 model and surprise…there’s a discrepancy between first and third party benchmarks! More fudging, it seems. To me, this seems silly as hell since no regular people outside the world of AI makers and those who test them has any idea about these benchmarks, but here we are. Techcrunch.com says in December, OpenAI claimed the model could answer just over a fourth of questions on FrontierMath, a challenging set of math problems. That score blew the competition away — the next-best model managed to answer only around 2% of FrontierMath problems correctly. As it turns out, Epoch AI, the research institute behind FrontierMath, released results of its independent benchmark tests of o3 on Friday. Epoch found that o3 scored around 10%, well below OpenAI’s highest claimed score. That’s a bit more than a rounding error! In OpenAI’s defense the 25% was the ‘upper-bound’ score, and the ‘lower-bound’ score for version o3 was around 10%. This reminds me of the ‘stereo wars’ of the 70’s, when some makers claimed a big number of watts for their rigs…and then it turns out that that was driving only one channel at a time…they were way less powerful when running music through both channels…you know, like the way people actually listen to the things! Do better, AI makers…you don’t need to BS us on how magical your large language model is.

After a delay in both the US and Canada, Nintendo will open preorders for the new Switch 2 on Thursday. The base price is $450, according to engadget.com. This price is unchanged even in the face to the Trump tariffs. If you actually want a game though, it will be $500 for Mario Kart World in a ‘bundle.’ I love how it’s now a bundle…at least on the original Nintendo you got one cartridge game so you could play the damned thing. Nintendo did warn that it may adjust the price of Switch 2 accessories due to ‘market conditions.’ It should still be available June 5th. This was a topic of discussion at a family lunch over the weekend. You might just want to wait until another game or two drops for the Switch 2.

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

Google-Online Ad Monopoly Says Court; ChatGPT-Reverse Location Search Fad; iPhone 16e Now Made in Brazil; Tesla Odometer Uses ‘Predictive Algorithms’-Suit Claims to Void Warranty

Posted: April 17, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A federal judge has ruled that Google is a monopolist in online advertising. Engadget.com reports that US District Judge Leonie Brinkema from the Eastern District of Virginia found that the company broke the law to maintain its ad tech dominance. “In addition to depriving rivals of the ability to compete, this exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web,” the judge said. The case flows form a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice and eight states in January 2023. They accused Google of illegally monopolizing the ad market and using that power to charge more and take a higher portion of sales. The government says Google holds an 87% market share in ad-selling tech. It doesn’t take a judge or a rocket scientist to understand that 87% is the definition of a monopoly! A previous federal court in the District of Columbia made the same finding last year. Stay tuned to see if the courts go hard and try to make Google sell parts of its ad tech business. 

We just reported yesterday on the very high energy use at server farms which came from so many people using AI to make action figure pictures of themselves. Now, according to TechCrunch.com, there is yet another viral trend…people using ChatGPT to figure out a location shown in pictures. OpenAI just pushed out its latest AI models this week…o3 and o4-mini. Both are said to be able to ‘reason’ through uploaded images. The models can crop, rotate, and zoom on photos…even blurry and distorted ones as they analyze them. Combining this with a web crawl, it turns out the new models are quite good as a location-finding tool. This was possible with the older models, but apparently the new ones are much more quick to respond and more accurate. We are still dealing with far from perfect, though. Version o3 got stuck in a loop in tests a number of times, or gave the wrong location a fair amount of the time. It’s a cute parlor trick, but as has been common for AI, breezes past any privacy or safety concerns. I hope it doesn’t take something awful happening to one of them for the politicians to wake up and pass some guardrails on this tech. 

We’ve noted here before that Apple has been building iPhones outside of China…including in India, Vietnam, and South America. Now here is a little update. Bgr.com says Foxconn’s factor in Sao Paulo, Brazil has begun producing iPhone 16e models there. It was previously disclosed that they were making them in India. The Brazil Foxconn factory hasn’t grown in the last decade, but with the Trump tariffs, it is likely that Apple will be expanding production in Brazil as well as India. Apple is even looking at making all US iPhones outside of China due to the outrageous tariffs decreed by Donald Trump.

A California lawsuit claims that Tesla cars are falsely exaggerating odometer readings to make warranties expire prematurely. Arstechnica.com reports that the suit comes after Reuters found that Tesla EVs exaggerated their efficiency. For the odometers, the lead plaintiff bought a used Model Y with less than 37,000 miles showing. In 6 months, it had gone past the 50,000 mile mark, putting the owner out of warranty. The Model Y showed he had driven 13,228 miles. His 3 prior vehicles had only registered 6,086 miles for the exact same commute over 6 months. The suit alleges that Tesla “employs an odometer system that utilizes predictive algorithms, energy consumption metrics, and driver behavior multipliers that manipulate and misrepresent the actual mileage traveled by Tesla Vehicles” and that his car “consistently exhibited accelerated mileage accumulations of varying percentages ranging from 15 percent to 117 percent higher than plaintiff’s other vehicles and his driving history.” Other owners had shared similar experiences on Reddit. The class action suit applies to all California Tesla customers. The success of the suit is far from guaranteed as a US district court found that individual owners must take part in arbitration with Tesla and can’t form a class.  **I later spoke to someone who opined that this may not just be to avoid warranty payouts. It also serves to pad the miles driven with the so-called ‘Full Self-Driving’ package…so it’s a double cheat!

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

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