It’s October Prime Days; Fourteen State Attorneys General Sue TikTok; China Hacked Verizon and AT&T; Google-Must Open Android for 3rd Party Stores

Posted: October 8, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

It’s here…Christmas in October for a lot of folks. Amazon’s October Prime Days…or Big Deal Days, as they are trying to re-brand them. Engadget.com reports that as usual, many of the best deals are on Amazon’s own hardware…like an Amazon Echo Spot for $45…$35 off. They are also shaving prices on Apple gear, with AirPods Pro for $169, an $80 discount. You can score and Anker MagGo 3-in-1 charging stand for $72, which is $28 off. Looking for a robot vacuum….well you can buy an iRobot Roomba Combo j9+ vacuum and mop for $799…that’s a whopping $600 off. Oh, and can’t forget Lego…a number of Lego sets are 20% off, including a Star Wars set and a Super Mario set. 

The Attorneys General of 14 states have sued TikTok, claiming it damages young users’ mental health and that the platform collects the kids data without consent. According to NBC, the states say TikTok violated their laws by falsely claiming the service is safe for young people. The suits are all separate, but the Attorneys General of New York and California have taken the lead. TikTok put out a statement saying  “We strongly disagree with these claims, many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading. We’re proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we’ve done to protect teens and we will continue to update and improve our product.” The states include California, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington state and the District Of Columbia.

Chinese government hackers pierced AT&T and Verizon’s networks and were able to snoop around for months. Arstechnica.com says they were likely able to access information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping requests. The hacking group has been named Salt Typhoon. Investigations are proceeding by the FBI and other intelligence agencies, but they are apparently in early stages. The hackers were able to get some of Verizons data by reconfiguring Cisco routers…which they did without detection. Of course the Chinese Embassy, when reached for comment, claimed this was all false information made up by the US intelligence community and cyber security companies.  

In a final court ruling in the Epic v. Google case, Judge James Donato ordered Google to effectively open the Google Play app store to competition for 3 years. Theverge.com reports that Google will have to distribute rival third-party app stores within Google Play, and it must give rival third-party app stores access to the full catalog of Google Play apps, unless developers opt out individually. These were Epic’s biggest asks. A permanent injunction was also issued blocking Google from other behavior that the court found to be anticompetitive. As you might imagine, Google has said it will appeal.

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

YouTube Goes After TikTok With Longer Shorts; Google Lens Now Lets You Search With Video; Tesla Dropped its Cheapest Model; Amazon to Hire Quarter Million for Holidays

Posted: October 3, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

YouTube has expanded the length of YouTube Shorts. So maybe now they are YouTube Bermuda Shorts? Ok, enough with the snark. Shorts will now be able to be up to 3 minutes long. Techcrunch.com reports that YouTube is hoping to be more competitive with TikTok now. TikTok, though, already allows videos of up to 10 minutes when recording, and uploads of up to an hour. It also makes participating in trends easier for users. YouTube says the new Shorts player is designed to streamline the look of these short videos, making the creator’s content stand out by placing it front and center in the user interface. The addition of templates by YouTube will allow creators to more quickly jump on trends. You will be able to tap a ‘Remix’ option in a Short, then choose ‘Use this template’ to make your own video. The race continues to be trendy. Hey, these tech reports are on YouTube and they are generally short…but trendy….nope…I’m afraid I missed the boat on that! I’ll just try to keep YOU up on tech trends!

Google Lens is now letting you search with video. Previously, you could search with just a picture. In addition, you can use your voice to ask about what you are seeing. According to theverge.com, the new feature will bring up an AI Overview and search results based on the video’s contents and your question. It is rolling out in Search Labs on both Android and iOS today. This is a feature Google promised and previewed at I/O in May. Google Lens is also updating its photo search feature with the ability to ask a question using your voice. To try it, aim your camera at your subject, hold down the shutter button, and then ask your question. Note that the voice part is only available in English for the time being.

With Elon Musk’s lates hype fest coming right up…with more on the robotaxis that have been promised for several years…Tesla has dropped its entry level car. The EV maker has stopped selling the Model 3 Standard Range Rear-Wheel Drive. Engadget.com notes that it had had a price of $39,000. Now, the cheapest Tesla will be the Model 3 Long-Range Rear-Wheel Drive version at $42,500. Tesla gave out their third quarter numbers yesterday, delivering 462,890 units between July and the end of September. This was short of analyst expectations of 469,000 vehicles. 

As brick and mortar stores do for the holidays, and as online retailers also have done for a number of years now, Amazon is gearing up for the holidays….and planning to hire a whopping 250,000 workers. Geekwire.com says this will at least match their hiring effort for the holidays last year, so they expect a robust holiday selling season. The online giant has also announce a buck and a half boost in pay to $22 per hour for US hourly workers, and for seasonal workers, the rate will be $18 an hour or more.  Full time seasonal workers will have health care benefits from day one on the job. Amazon claims that seasonal work is often a path to long-term employment…although long term is relative. Amazon is known for a strong ‘churn’ of employees leaving due to the conditions in the warehouses.

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

Open AI Sets Investment Round Record; Microsoft Sunsets HoloLens 2; iOS Privacy Change May Screw New Social Apps; Threads-More Time to Edit Posts

Posted: October 2, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

OpenAI has wrapped up its latest venture capital round, raising $6.6 billion dollars…that’s the biggest venture capital round of all time. Techcrunch.com reports that now OpenAI is valued at $157 billion. Total VC funds including this latest blast of cash brings OpenAI’s total raised to $17.9 billion. OpenAI has asked investors to avoid backing rival startups in AI like Anthropic and xAI. Trying to get investors to not hedge their bets seems like a fool’s errand. Elon Musk’s xAI raised over $6 billion, and is now valued at $24 billion…a long ways from OpenAI’s valuation. Anthropic has raised some $9.7 billion. 

Mixed reality headsets are all still too expensive, too heavy, and not quite good enough…save for Apple’s ridiculously expensive Vision Pro. Now, according to macrumors.com, Microsoft is dropping the HoloLens2 headsets. They will sell off the remaining stock and then that’s it. Microsoft will support security updates until the end of 2027, then support will end all together too. Right now, there are no rumors of a new HoloLens headset. My take is that Facebook is on the right track…until you can get things miniaturized enough to fit into a pair of Buddy Holly thick glasses, instead of a big headset…and price said glasses at the price point of a top smartphone or less…mixed reality vision gadgets will stay very much a niche item. 

A change in iOS 18 intended to provide better privacy for users may really take a toll on new social apps. 9to5mac.com says contact sharing is more restrictive than ever under iOS 18. Up to now, apps like Instagram or WhatsApp would request access to your contact and you could either grant that access or deny it. Personally, I always deny…I think it is not cool to share your contacts…many of whom are friends in real life…with an app you are on, so that company can pester them to join up.  iOS 18 makes matters a lot more granular than before. If an app requests access to your contacts post-update, you can select exactly which contacts you’re okay sharing….if any. This change will make it harder than ever for new social platforms to grow, compared to giants like Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, or TikTok. I look it this way….it’s like if you buy a car, and they ask you to write down all your friends who might be interested in buying one from that dealer, too…or a credit card that offers you a little cash for referring your friends and family. Go get your own prospects, you lazy bum new social apps!

Meta’s Threads platform has been slow of late at adding features, but has just bowed a nifty one. Theverge.com notes that you will now have 15 minutes to edit posts on Threads…up from 5 minutes. This does mean, however, if you have the fediverse switched on, you won’t see your post on other platforms like Mastodon for 15 minutes. Even though tripling time to edit, 15 minutes is a bit miserly compared to other platforms. X, for example, gives you up to an hour if you have a paid subscriptions. Mastodon lets you edit your posts at any time after they are published for free. Another feature add…Threads will now show you who follows you and likes your posts from other fediverse servers like Mastodon. 

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

YouTube Hype-To Boost Small Creators; Discord Rolls Out End-To-End Chat Encryption; CA Gov. Newsom Signs AI Bills; Biden Admin. Awards $3 Billion to Intel

Posted: September 18, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

YouTube is making a move to help out smaller creators. Apparently when a YouTube creator hits 500,000 subscribers, it is a real tipping point as far as growth and revenue. Theverge.com reports that the new feature is called Hype, and it is aimed at smaller creators and helping people discover and share new creators. Hype is an entirely new promotional system inside of YouTube: there’s a new button for hyping a video, and the most-hyped videos will appear on a platform-wide leaderboard. It’s a bit like Trending, but it’s focused specifically on smaller channels and on what people specifically choose to recommend rather than just what they watch.

Discord, a platform widely used by gamers, which is one of the largest group chat apps in the world, has announced that audio and video calls will all be end-to-end encrypted. According to techcrunch.com, even Discord won’t know what users talk about in the conversations. Many other popular chat apps like iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal, and Facebook Messenger already have end-to-end encryption. Discord has 200 million monthly users. 

California Governor Newsom has signed a couple of AI bills that had the strong backing of the SAG-AFTRA entertainment union. Variety says that the bills build on the protections the union got following signing of deals after the 4 month actors strike against major studios last year. The studios’ Motion Picture Association had initially opposed the bills, but dropped its opposition after changes that were put in that protect standard post-production techniques and free speech rights. SAG-AFTRA is not trying to prevent producers from using AI to replicate performances. But it does want to ensure that actors and other performers don’t see their likenesses used without their consent and reasonable payment for their use. One bill basically applies to living actors and their likeness and voices, while the other puts protections in place for dead performers…granting their rights to their estate, so the heirs can give or withhold consent…and get paid. James Earl Jones, who just recently passed, had signed an agreement allowing AI to imitate his Darth Vader voice, which should provide a nice little income stream for his heirs. 

The Biden Administration has awarded Intel another $3 billion under the CHIPS and Science Act for the ‘Secure Enclave’ program. CNBC reports that Intel is building foundry plants in 4 states to ramp up domestic semiconductor manufacturing. They had already received $8.5 billion under the CHIPS act. The Secure Enclave program is the latest development in the relationship between Intel and the Department of Defense, which includes projects to build Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes, or RAMPs, and State-of-the-Art Heterogeneous Integration Prototypes, or SHIPs.

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

Instagram Moves Teens into Private, Restrictive Accounts; Meta Bans Russian Media RT; Amazon-Back to Office 5 Days; Google Plan to Reveal AI Images

Posted: September 17, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Instagram has started putting all users….both current and new ones that are age 18 or under…into new ‘Teen Accounts.’ Theverge.com reports that the move will affect how tens of millions of teens are able to interact with Instagram. The new account type automatically applies a set of protections to young users, and only users 16 years of age and older can loosen some of these settings. The most notable thing for the teen accounts is that all the minors will have private accounts by default, and will prevent strangers from direct messaging them. Also on the way will be a Sleep Mode that silences interactions between 10 PM and 7 AM. Instagram is also updating parental controls. Parents that want to supervise their kids on the app will be able to see who the child has messaged in the past 7 days (but not the contents of the messages.) They can also view what topics their teens have looked at most often. The Teen accounts are rolling out to users in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.  They will show up in the EU later this year. 

Meta has banned Russian media outlet RT, and other Russian state media outlets from all its platforms. According to 9to5mac.com, that includes Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp. The reason? Meta says ‘foreign interference activity’ in the US presidential election. in a statement, Meta said “After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets. Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity.” Just a few days ago, the US Department of Justice announced charges against two employees for allegedly funneling almost $10 million to a Tennessee-based shell company that was providing controversial and misleading online content. 

You may have heard that after getting non-warehouse workers back in the office 3 days a week, that Amazon will now require staff to be in the office 5 days a week beginning the first of the year. Geekwire.com says that the company is planning to flatten management layers, and that they actually expect the return to office mandate to get staff to self-separate. Sounds like a neat way to do a layoff without having to get hit for an increase in your unemployment insurance contributions, actually. Amazon is really swimming against the tide on this return full time to the office….time will tell if it works for them, or if they lose top talent who will flee to the open arms of startups and other tech companies that are still doing partial or total work from home.

Google (as well as Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI) has been working on tech to watermark AI created images or modified content. Engadget.com reports that Google is touting its latest version of Content Credentials as more secure and tamperproof. They claim it should soon be easier to tell if an image was created or modified using generative AI tools in your Google search results. If an image pops up that has C2PA metadata…C2PA is the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity…you should be able to find out what GAI has been used on it and how much with Google’s ‘About this Image’ tool. It will also be available in Google Images, Lens, and Circle to Search. They are working on how to use C2PA to tell YouTube viewers when footage was captured with a camera. Expect more on that later this year. 

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

After a Year,Threads Has 175 Million Users; Noplace-New Twitter/MySpace-Like Platform for Gen Z; Tesla EVs Finally getting YouTube Music; Michigan Building first US Smart Highway

Posted: July 3, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

In just a year, Threads…the Meta answer to X, has reached 175 million monthly active users. CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement today. Theverge.com reports that although that is a strong number, Threads has yet to report its daily numbers. This may mean they are still getting a lot of traffic from users than haven’t yet become regulars. On the other hand, X hasn’t shared comparable metrics since he took over Twitter and…changed it, to put it nicely. It may be pie in the sky CEO hype, but Zuckerberg claims that Threads may become Meta’s next billion dollar app. Right now, it runs at a loss, though. Apparently, they are thinking about starting ads next year. 

Yes, it’s yet another social media platform…and one which claims to ‘bring the social back to social media.’ According to techcrunch.com, the new app is called noplace, and it is aimed at Gen Z. It has rocketed to the top of the Apple App Store. What’s the draw? The platform is something of a mashup of Twitter and MySpace. The idea is for users to be able to connect with friends or with people who have shared interest. It is colorful, customizable profiles that allow people to share everything from relationship status, to what they’re listening to or watching, what they’re reading or doing, and more.Although aimed at Gen Z and younger users, noplace (no capitalization…that kind of says younger generations right there) will add extra moderation to users under 18. The platform has built their own internal dashboard for just that purpose. It doesn’t use algorithms, they claim, but leverages AI to drive suggestions and curation. Time will tell if the notoriously fickle Gen Z crowd will continue to embrace noplace.

Tesla is adding YouTube Music and Amazon Music as native apps by a software update. Androidpolice.com says the update is 2024.26, and it should start rolling out soon to Models S, 3, X, & Y. Some cars have both Apple’s Car Play, and Android Auto…I have one of those…but lately, some manufacturers are doing a one or the other thing. Meanwhile, always dancing to a different drummer…or maybe a drum machine…Elon Musk won’t use either one, opting from the start for the home brew Tesla OS. Tesla vehicles already support Spotify, Apple Music, Slacker, Tidal, and TuneIn. 

Michigan is making a 3 mile section of I-94 into the first US smart highway. Engadget.com reports that an Alphabet backed startup has started building it out. It will use cams and sensors to talk to connected cars…any autonomous or semi-autonomous car…really, most any with built in guidance systems. The state will get data, and divers will get traffic updates, weather, and stranded vehicle info…as well as other congestion advisories. The pilot program roadway is between Ann Arbor and Detroit. The plan is to extend it to 40 miles in the future. 

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

EU Goes After Microsoft for Teams Bundling; Meta Replies Visible on Other Federated Platforms; Uber Locking Drivers Out of Apps; Apple Works to Automate iPhone Assembly

Posted: June 25, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

The European Union has called out Microsoft for breaching competition rules. Techcrunch.com reports that the EU has put out a formal statement of objections to what they call abuse of antitrust rules, due to bundling Teams with their cloud based suites for businesses…those would be Office 365 and Microsoft 365. The EU just opened an antitrust probe a year ago, after 2 years of complaints from Teams rival Slack. Microsoft did partially unbundle Teams last August (which wasn’t fully in place until April of this year), but the EU says Microsoft has to do more. The EU says the bundling of Teams gives Redmond a ‘distribution advantage’ over rivals like Slack and German platform alfaview. They also point to the lack of interoperability between Teams and rival programs. Microsoft was invited to respond to the charges, but as yet hasn’t acted. 

Meta is getting set to let Threads users like and see replies to their Threads posts on federated platforms. According to theverge.com, up to now, if you made a post on Threads that was syndicated to another platform like Mastodon…you couldn’t see responses to that post while still on Threads…you would have to head over to Mastodon. Now, you can see those likes and replies right in Threads…although to reply to a reply on Mastodon, you will have to actually log in to it. 

New York City has had a pay rule for a half dozen years that has made companies like Uber and Lyft pay the drivers even during idle time between fares. Now, engadget.com says for the past month, Uber has been locking drivers out of its apps during low-demand periods. Lyft has threatened to follow suit. At least one drivers’ union says it may consider a strike if the lockouts continue. The drivers, of course are mad. Some of them blame Uber for over-hiring…saying that is one of the main causes of the problem.

Apple has been concerned for years about over reliance on production of iPhones in China. Macrumors.com reports that Apple has instructed managers at Foxconn and other assembly partners to reduce the number of workers on assembly lines by up to 50% the next several years. There is already a significant amount of automation in the iPhone 15 lines, but some work is just too complex yet to automate. Cupertino has shelved some further automation for iPhone 16 due to a ‘high rate of defects.’ The goal doesn’t seem so much to cut humans to save costs as to be able to move even more iPhone assembly to countries outside of China, such as India, Vietnam, and Thailand.

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

How Americans See News on Major Web Platforms; X Makes Likes (Mostly) Private; Apple Stock Hits All-Time High After WWDC Keynote on AI; Waymo-2nd Recall After Robotaxi Hits Phone Pole

Posted: June 12, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Pew Research.org has just released a study on how Americans get news and information from the likes of TikTok, X, Instagram, and Facebook. The study surveyed over 10,000 adult internet users in the US between March 18th and 24th of 2024. Here are some interesting headlines. First, the majority of Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok users say keeping up with news is not a reason they use the sites. X (formerly Twitter) is the exception to this pattern: Most X users say that keeping up with news is either a major or minor reason they use the platform, and about half say they regularly get news there. That said, users do see news on all four platforms…particularly through opinion or humor based content…in other words, they’re seeing news through memes! Those who regularly get news on Facebook and Instagram are more likely than those on TikTok and X to get news from friends, family and acquaintances. More news consumers get news from influencers or other people they don’t know personally on TikTok than on other platforms. And news outlets or journalists are a more common source of news on X than on any other site. Lastly, and in general, Democrats tend to be more skeptical than Republicans of the news they see on X, while the reverse is true on Facebook. Among those who regularly get news on X, for example, 42% of Democrats and independents who lean toward the Democratic Party say they often see news there that seems inaccurate, compared with 31% of Republicans and GOP leaners. As one talk host I used to manage used to say…and still does, actually…’We’re doomed….doomed!’

The platform known as X (why do I feel like I’m echoing the old ‘artist formerly known as Prince) will now make likes mostly private. Engadget.com says this is coming from Elon Musk, who calls it an important change so people can  “like posts without getting attacked for doing so.” Hiding likes up to now has been a feature of the paid X Premium tier. Premium costs $16 a month and does cut ads from timelines. You will still be able to see who liked your own tweets and the count of likes and other metrics…but others won’t be able to. 

Apple got a nice stock price boost after introducing ‘Apple Intelligence,’ its flavor of AI at the WWDC keynote Monday. The stock moved above the $200 per share mark, and hit a new all- time high in intraday trading, according to macrumors.com. We had reported that Nvidia had briefly passed Apple last week to become the world’s second most valuable company after Microsoft, but Apple has retaken the #2 spot…with a market cap of $3.1 trillion. Microsoft is at $3.2 trillion at the moment. 

Waymo has put out a recall for all 672 of its iPace EV Jaguars after one hit a phone pole in Phoenix. Techcrunch.com reports that the Alphabet division had to recall software for vehicles in February after two one them hit the same pickup that was being towed by a tow truck. According to Waymo spokesperson Katherine Barna, this is just the 2nd voluntary recall by the autonomous vehicle company. Waymo is being proactive after incidents with GM-owned Cruise, including one where a Cruise vehicle hit and dragged a pedestrian  in San Francisco last year.  

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

Spotify Hiking US Prices Again; New Breakthrough May Allow 1 Minute Charging; X Formally Allows Adult Content; Instagram Confirms Testing Unskippable Ads

Posted: June 3, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

It’s only been a year since Spotify bumped up prices for Spotify Premium in the US…and oops…they’re doing it again! Theverge.com reports that Premium is being increased a buck to $11.99 a month. Spotify Duo is going up two bucks from $14.99 to $16.99 a month. Family will go from $16.99 a month to socking you for $19.99 a month. In an email, Spotify says this is needed “So that we can continue to invest in and innovate on our product features and bring users the best experience.” Also so they can make more money. 

In an amazing study which just appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at University of Colorado Boulder have discovered a new cutting-edge technique that could make it possible to charge devices almost instantaneously. This would make charging phones, laptops, and even electric cars much more efficient and convenient. The foundation of the new technique is based on new insights into how ions move through supercapacitors. According to bgr.com, the key is to make moving ions more efficient. This allows charging a phone battery from dead to 100% in a minute or less! The scientists made a discovery that modifies the Kirchoff circuit law, which has been the rule for 175 years. It’s a bit dense to get into, but they say that the discovery may be the ‘missing link’ they have been looking for. With phones and electric vehicles that could be charged in a minute or less, it would be a whole new world! Let’s hope this gets from lab to general use soon!

When Elon Musk renamed Twitter ‘X,’ there was a certain amount of ribbing about that making it sound like a porn site. Well now, it is moving a little bit in that direction. Arstechnica.com notes that there have been some not safe for work communities on the platform for some time, and now X has added clauses to its rules, formally allowing users to post adult and graphic content on the platform — with a few caveats. Users can now post consensually-produced NSFW content as long as it is prominently labeled as such. The new rules also cover AI-generated videos and images. About 13% of posts on the platform in 2022 contained adult content, according to a Reuters report in 2022 that cited internal company documents. Adult content on X has seemingly gone up since then, especially as porn bots have proliferated on the platform.

Instagram has confirmed that it is testing out unskippable ads. Techcrunch.com reports that the new ad breaks will show a countdown timer that stops your browsing on the app until you have viewed the ad. This will be something of a copycat function to YouTube’s….where you have and ad roll before your video with the little timer in the corner and ‘skip’ appears when you can finally view the video you wanted to watch. Instagram declined to say where in the Instagram app the ad breaks show and whether the company was testing the feature globally. The screenshots, however, show the ad breaks appearing in the app’s Feed while watching video posts. It’s not clear at this time if Instagram creators will have any control over these ads’ appearance. So far, it is just a test…but you might as well brace for it…it will be coming.

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

Apple AI-Totally ‘On-Device’; TikTok Says US Ban Tramples Free Speech; Tesla Cuts Prices-Models S, X, & Y; Twitter Wannabe Post News Closing Down

Posted: April 22, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

In his latest Power On Newsletter, Bloomburg’s Mark Gurman says that the AI feature in Apple’s iOS 18 will be ‘entirely on-device.’ Apple will tout this as giving users more privacy and speed than with AI running from powerful server farms…although the AI Model..code named Ajax…won’t really be as powerful as the ones backed by monster servers. Apple feels that with their tight software and hardware integration that this is the best way for their users…at least for now. Cupertino is doing what all the other big tech firms are…dumping billions into AI, so we may see them open up more to server based large language models before long. We’ll know more after WWDC, which starts June 10th. 

With the passage over the weekend of a bill over the weekend in the House of Representatives that…in addition to foreign aid, demanded that TikTok must be sold to owners not affiliated with the Chinese government or army, a TikTok spokesman has said  the move “would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate seven million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the US economy annually”. BBC.com reports that the company went on to say that its owner ByteDance “is not an agent of China or any other country”. ByteDance points to the many global investment firms that own 60% of it. If signed into law, the bill would give ByteDance a year to sell TikTok to non-Chines owners…or else be blocked in the US. 

As business has slowed, in part due to prospective customers tiring of Elon Musk’s antics, as well as the tepid reception then recall of Cybertrucks…Tesla has chopped two grand off the base prices of their Models S, X, and Y. Engadget.com says the price reductions were posted on X Friday night. Tesla is also cutting its referral program in all markets as of April 30th. This all follows on the heels of the company laying off over 10% of employees worldwide. It should be noted that Tesla had just grown their workforce by 10% over the last couple of years. 

It’s kind of sad to report that Post.News is calling it quits. The Twitter wannabe site was started by the former CEO of Waze, and theverge.com notes that it just never got enough traction to be viable. I was on Post from the start, and it was a real seat of the pants operation…very little staff, and really only had about a half million users….compared to the over 100 million that Meta’s Threads got right away. 

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

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