War with Epic Games? Apple tries to see what it can get away with in the EU. US (still) at war with TikTok, it goes on the offensive 🔐 #WEEKLY ~ March 10th
Eu fines Apple. Meta outage. IAB popups violate GDPR. Elon Musk sues Open AI. Music disappears from TikTok.
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Czech banks warn against tricky ATMs. The operator blames them (iDnes)
The EU has fined Apple nearly $2 billion for what it says are unfair rules for music streaming app developers. (WSJ)
The EU Commission fines Apple €1.8B for stifling competition from rival music streaming services, the EU's third-largest antitrust fine; Apple plans to appeal (FT)
Apple claims that Spotify was the "main proponent" and "biggest beneficiary" of the EU's decision that Spotify pays Apple nothing and that "free is not enough" for Spotify. (Apple)
Tuesday afternoon around 5 o'clock brought one of Facebook's most extensive outages, along with Instagram, Messenger and Threads. Judging by the graphs on the usual "is X down" services, the outage is extremely widespread. (TechRadar, Search Engine Land)
Threads partially came to life a few minutes before 6 p.m.. Instagram a little after 6 p,m., Facebook is also available, new login required with two-factor verification.
Meta has confirmed that its services were affected by the widespread outage, which began at 10 a.m. Eastern time (4 p.m. in Europe) and affected Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Graph API, Ads, Manager and more. (The Verge)
Epic claims Apple removed its iOS developer account, derailing its plans for an app store, and shares a letter from Apple's lawyers calling Epic "demonstrably untrustworthy." (The Verge)
In letter to Epic, Apple's lawyers cite Tim Sweeney's public attacks, including an X post, and say Epic is part of a “global effort to undermine” Apple's rules (9to5Mac)
The EU confirms requesting further explanations from Apple over removing Epic's developer account under the DMA, and is examining if Apple broke any other rules (Bloomberg)
Apple's handling of Epic's account closure turned a US contract dispute into a DMA enforcement priority due to the appearance of a gatekeeper silencing critics (Games Fray)
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Epic says Apple has reinstated its developer account, clearing the way for its Epic Games Store in the EU. Tim Sweeney says the move follows a swift investigation by the EU. (9to5mac)
Apple Reverses Move to Ban ‘Fortnite’ Maker Epic Games From European Union (Bloomberg)
The army in Germany, a NATO ally, is offering soldiers and other federal employees communications apps in the app store of Chinese phone maker Huawei, even though the U.S. and the European Union consider the telecommunications giant a security risk. (Newsweek)
Internet, webdesign
The news farm impersonates more than 60 major media outlets: the BBC, CNN, CNBC, Guardian... These "news" websites, whose owner in India has been traced, publish articles from credible media and research organisations without attribution. (Bleeping Computer)
Google has introduced updates to comply with the EU DMA. Changes to search that will prioritise large intermediaries and aggregators, new tools for app developers ... (Reuters)
Airlines, hotels warn Google changes may benefit large intermediaries (Reuters)
Google rolls out search ranking updates, including downgrading content that summarizes the work of others, to prevent AI content from proliferating in results. (The Verge)
Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft will comply with the EU DMA requirements before 7 March. But experts are skeptical that the rules will have the desired effect. (FT)
Netflix subscription prices worldwide (Voronoi)
The European Court of Justice finds IAB Europe liable for pop-ups with the consent of "TCF" on the internet. IAB Europe is guilty of multiple violations of the GDPR in the processing of personal data within TCF and the "Real-Time Bidding" (RTB) online advertising system. TCF is being used to falsely legitimise the indiscriminate broadcasting of the personal data of millions of people in Europe to companies everywhere, including companies in China and Russia. (ICCL)
Hardware
AMD can't release an open source implementation of HDMI 2.1 after the HDMI forum rejected its proposal. The forum closed public access to the specification in 2021. (Phoronix)
HP wants you to subscribe to the next printer. Rather than force you to buy one of their expensive, anti-consumer printers, they'd rather lease it to you through the "HP All-In Plan". (LifeHacker)
HP wants you to pay up to $36/month to rent a printer that it monitors. "Never own a printer again." (Ars Technica. gHacks)
Apple announces the new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air with M3, which offers an 8-core processor and up to a 10-core graphics processor, priced from $1,099 or $1,299 and will go on sale March 8. (9to5Mac)
Nothing represents Phone (2a). Building on the award-winning flagship Phone (2), it delivers a balanced user experience at an affordable price. (press release)
Logitech introduces MX Brio, its most advanced webcam yet for changing the way you work and stream (press release)
Google's new ultra-modern office building has terrible Wi-Fi. Could it be the weird roof design? (TechSpot)
Artifical Intelligence
Elon Musk may be suing OpenAI because he's a troll and has a grudge, but his lawsuit highlights the empty humanitarian posturing of AI companies. (Bloomberg)
Elon Musk claims that OpenAI "not only develops but actually improves AGI to maximize Microsoft's profits", and claims that GPT-4 represents AGI. (TechCrunch)
OpenAI execs reject Musk's claims, say OpenAI is committed to benefiting humanity and has yet to achieve AGI. Altman says the “attacks will keep coming” (Axios)
A look at Elon Musk's claims in his OpenAI lawsuit, which seeks to open up GPT-4's source code, end Microsoft's exclusivity, and stop OpenAI's for-profit work (Bloomberg)
Legal experts say Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI is a stretch because handshakes and expectations are hard to enforce, but it does make a strong policy argument (Venture Beat)
Elon Musk's OpenAI lawsuit repeatedly cites a disputed Microsoft Research Lab document , which claims that GPT-4 exhibits AGI "sparks" to prove that GPT-4 is AGI. (New York Times)
OpenAI is opposing Elon Musk's lawsuit, accusing him of suing the company when it "began to make meaningful progress toward OpenAI's mission without him." (Bloomberg)
Court filings, and internal documents detail how a flourishing partnership between Sam Altman and Elon Musk turned sour, culminating in Musk's lawsuit (WSJ)
OpenAI claims that when negotiating the profit structure, Elon Musk "wanted us to merge with Tesla" or "a majority stake, initial control of the board of directors and the CEO position". (The Verge)
An interview with Groq's CEO about its AI chips, which allow chatbots to answer questions almost instantly, and the call to "cease and desist" X.ai over Groq's trademark. (Wired)
Researchers have created an AI worm that can spread among generative AI agents via a "hostile self-replicating stimulus" that can steal data or spread malware. (Wired)
Some users are turning to AI chatbots as therapists because they find them cheap, fast, available 24/7 and easy to talk to, but experts warn of a lack of human contact. (The Guardian)
Anthropic announces Claude 3 Opus, Sonnet and Haiku, which aim to reduce the hallucinations of AI models. Opus and Sonnet are available now, Haiku in the coming weeks (Bloomberg)
Anthropic says Claude 3 outperforms GPT-4 and Gemini Ultra on some benchmarks, and adds multimodal support for photos, charts, docs, and more for the first time (CNBC)
Microsoft engineer Shane Jones warns the FTC and Microsoft's board of directors that Copilot Designer creates violent and sexual images, violates copyrights, and much more. (CNBC)
Tests have shown that GPT 3.5 systematically creates biases that disadvantage protected groups based solely on their name when screening and ranking job applicants. (Bloomberg)
Software
StatCounter: In February 2024, Linux reached 4.03% of the desktop operating system market share after taking 30 years to reach 3% share in June 2023 as distributions adopted a more user-friendly design. (Linuxiac)
Microsoft will discontinue support for the Android subsystem in Windows 11 on March 5, 2025, and therefore support for the Amazon Appstore in Windows. (The Verge)
Mobile applications
Following criticism, Apple says iOS 17.4 will not remove web apps on the home screen in the EU , which will continue to be built on WebKit and its security architecture. (9to5Mac)
Google confirms that it is blocking the use of RCS on rooted Android phones, citing the need to comply with the "operational measures" of the RCS standard to prevent spam and abuse. (9to5Google)
Apple releases iOS 17.4 with new default EU browser prompts, alternative stores, third-party browser support , transcripts for Podcasts, 118 new emoji... (MacStories)
Apple says alternative app stores will stop working and apps installed from them will stop updating if a user travels outside the EU for "too long". (9to5Mac)
Games
Tropic Haze, developer of the Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu, has agreed to pay $2.4 million to settle a lawsuit with Nintendo and shut down the emulator entirely. (The Verge)
The New York Times has filed at least three DMCA takedown requests for Wordle clones hosted on GitHub, citing ownership of the Wordle name and game style. (404)
Marketing, communication
TikTok is moving its creativity program out of beta and renaming it the Creator Rewards Program, which requires videos to be longer than a minute in order to be monetized. (The Verge)
CCDH: Midjourney, DreamStudio, ChatGPT Plus and Microsoft Image Creator created misinformation for voters in 41% of tests. Midjourney was the most common. (CNN Business)
Analysis: Temu and Shein spend billions on Facebook, X and YouTube ads in the US. Temu placed ~1.4 million ads globally on Google last year. (New York Times)
Temu became Meta's top advertiser by revenue in 2023 by spending nearly $2B on ads, and became one of Google's top five advertisers by spending in 2023 (WSJ)
One of the biggest scams that the world's flood of media jumped on. Today, at least it has a chance to get fitted with ChatGPT and communication will not be completely controlled by a hidden operator.
Security, privacy, law
A U.S. judge has ruled that Google must face an antitrust lawsuit from advertisers, but has dismissed some claims, including those aimed at ad buying tools used by large advertisers. (Reuters)
A Ukrainian model is eager to meet. Dating scams can cost the victim millions. The Czech Republic is the sixth most vulnerable country in the world to this type of fraud, according to the anti-virus company GEN. (Novinky)
After Elon Musk sunk a $55 billion compensation package, lawyers are now asking a Delaware court for about 11% of those Tesla shares for their fee. (Business Insider)
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Apple over the 5GB limit on iCloud and the limit on iPhone backups. The free tier of iCloud has been limited to 5GB of storage since Steve Jobs introduced it at WWDC 2011. (9to5Mac)
Twitter's former CEO, CFO, chief legal officer and general counsel are suing Elon Musk over more than $128 million in unpaid severance and Musk's claim that he had cause to fire them. (WSJ)
Microsoft files a motion to dismiss the NYT's copyright lawsuit, accusing the NYT of "doomsday futurology" for predicting that ChatGPT could destroy the news business. (FT)
Spanish data protection regulator AEPD is demanding that Worldcoin stop collecting personal data in the country, giving the company 72 hours to demonstrate compliance. (FT, TechCrunch)
A former Google software engineer has been charged with stealing Google's artificial intelligence technology while colluding with two Chinese companies, according to the US Department of Justice. (AP)
Microsoft says Russian state-sponsored hackers Midnight Blizzard gained access to some of its "source code repositories and internal systems" after the January hacking attack. (The Verge)
CISA confirmed that it shut down two systems in February after finding signs of abuse through vulnerabilities in Ivanti products the agency was using. (The Record)
The Berlin Tesla Gigafactory will be without power for a week after the eco-terrorist attack. Musk called them the world's dumbest eco-terrorists. (TechSpot)
A bug in the first Creative Commons licenses allowed a new kind of superpredator to emerge. To make matters worse, this new breed of predator targets in particular people who are acting in good faith and only use materials they have been given explicit permission to use. (Pluralistic)
Social networks
X reinstates policies against deadnaming and misgendering. The company quietly rescinded the rule last year. (Engadget)
Meta plans to make the Threads API widely available to developers by June 2024 and is currently testing it with some partners, including Techmeme and Hootsuite. (TechCrunch)
With music from Universal Music Group artists disappearing from TikTok, creators are turning to royalty-free and almost context-free audio clips. (Wired)
Audio and video calls in X, which are enabled by default, are peer-to-peer, so users will reveal their IP addresses to each other unless they enable privacy settings. (TechCrunch)
The White House is backing a bipartisan bill that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok if it wants to stay in US app stores. (Punchbowl News)
TikTok sends US users a push notification saying Congress plans a total ban, with a link to find representatives, after the White House supported a TikTok bill (The Verge)
Congressional offices are being flooded with calls from angry constituents following TikTok's push notification asking users to call their representatives (Axios)
The US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee is passing a bill that would force ByteDance to divest from TikTok after a TikTok campaign reportedly enraged lawmakers. (Semafor)
Donald Trump supports TikTok and claims that the ban will double the business of "Facebook and Zuckerschmuck" and that Facebook is "the real enemy of the people". (Axios)
TikTok's US popularity is not just a national security issue but also highlights the failure of the US tech industry to come up with an equally addictive app (Bloomberg)
Sensor Tower: Total Instagram app downloads grew 20% year-on-year to 768 million in 2023, making it the most downloaded app globally. TikTok recorded 733 million downloads, a 4% year-on-year increase. (FT)
Instagram has overtaken TikTok as the most downloaded app in the world. The Reels imitation is helping the Meta app fight its Chinese rival. (The Guardian)
X Announces Articles. Allows you to write and share long content using a basic text editing interface. For verified organizations and Premium+ subscribers only. (Engadget)
The National Music Publishers Association said in a letter to its members that it does not anticipate renewing TikTok's license when the contract expires on April 30. Perhaps if they had done so before AI came on board, it would have had some effect. Right now it's just empty gestures. (Variety)
Startups and economics
Poland's Allegro has written off another huge portion of its investment in Mall Group. Of the 23.5 billion crowns, a third is left (Hospodářské noviny)
Bitcoin has surpassed the $69k mark, surpassing its previous all-time high set on November 10, 2021, with US spot bitcoin ETFs the likely catalyst for the latest bull run. (CoinDesk)
FBI: in 2023, Americans reported losses due to online fraud of over $12.5 billion, a 22% year-over-year increase. Losses due to investment fraud increased 38% year-over-year to $4.57 billion, of which $3.94 billion was related to cryptocurrencies. (The Record)
Apple blew $10 billion on a failed car project, considered buying Tesla (Ars Technica)
Nikon acquires US camera manufacturer RED.com, LLC (Nikon)
E-books and podcasts
Spotify launches Audiobooks Access Tier, allowing free users in the U.S. to stream 15 hours of audiobooks each month from a catalog of more than 200,000 titles for $9.99 per month. (TechCrunch)
#TYDEN/#WEEKLY is e-mailing published on sunday, available also on Bluesky @tyden.bsky.social and Threads @rychlofky. From august 2022 ocassional podcast in czech langauge (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts). From April 2023 english version as #WEEKLY. #TYDEN is czech language.
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