Archive

Artificial Intelligence

Meta’s Large Language Model AI “Galactica”, trained on good quality training data is shut down immediately following harmful and false outputs

…the training data used included 48million or so academic papers, text books, lecture notes etc. It was not scraping off the internet full of uploads of uncertain origin. Galactica was touted to be able to summarise academic papers, solve mathematical problems, generate Wiki articles, write scientific code, annotate molecules and proteins, and more. Output sounded authoritative, but harmful and biased despite the quality of training data.

Note

What is a Large Language Model?: These are machine learning algorithms that can recognize, predict, and generate human languages on the basis of very large text-based data sets. They work out statistical connections between different words.

What is the difference between Natural Language Processing and Speech Recognition?: NLP is a system that can understand language, understand sentiment, understand meaning and respond to inputs or come up with further questions. Speech Recognition is the ability to interpret spoken words and convert them into text.

One generative AI music hits 100million streams

…Generative AI is a category of machine learning where computers can generate original new content in response to prompts from the user [I’ve taken VC firm a16z’s definition here]. In short, it’s more than working out patterns and creating something from patterns – the AI can come up with new patterns. In terms of music, I guess you can input Taylor Swift type pop music in baroque/drum and base fusion form sung by the Beatles – to come up with a random example. Using generative AI, out pops new music.

Chinese BigTech Tencent said they’ve created over 1000 tracks with vocals created by “patented voice synthesis technology”, one of which going viral, amassing 100million streams. TikTok parent ByteDance is at it too. Following acquisition of UK AI music start up Jukedeck, it has launched Mawf – machine learning based music making app. BTS must now serve the Korean army so they are [or rather the label is] looking into the use of the technology whilst they are in service.

BigTech/ Data / Platforms

Privacy

Following Germany, France bans free Office 365 and Google Workspace offering for schools

…this is all about compliance with EU citizens’ data and safeguarding them from being turned over to the US government (per the CLOUD Act) in violation with the GDPR. Office 365 and Google Workspace are cloud based tools, which may transfer data about users to US data centres. To address the problem, EU and the US are trying to put in place a Transatlantic Data Privacy Network. An agreement in principle has been reached, and last month President Biden signed the Executive Order limiting US intelligence authorities access to what is necessary and proportionate to protect national security, with oversight by a non-governmental court (Data Protection Review Court). It is now down to the EU to process the next steps.

App developers say Apple collects data (such as browsing history) from first party apps (App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, Books and Stocks) despite users explicit withdrawal of consent for Apple to collect data – class action now filed

…however, according to information received by appleinsider, the data complained of is likely to be taken on the server side – which is a different issue from settings on the device, and Apple tracking your activity on the device (despite there being no consent). Even where the user specifies that the device should not track user activity, the server-side (the app-side) can continue to collect data, it is explained, just like Netflix might need to record your view history on the app to provide the service (eg. so it can stream you content from where you left it last).

Human rights advocate sue Meta in the UK for failing to honor requests not to gather information and carry out profiling in contravention of GDPR

…and the equivalent UK data protection law. Article 21 of GDPR gives persons the right to object to processing of personal data. The Claimant, who is reportedly a senior fellow at the advocacy group Foxglove claims that Meta disregards her wishes and continues to send “surveillance ads”. Incidentally Foxglove is lobbying the UK’s Competition Markets Authority to block Amazon’s purchase of home vacuum robot Roomba. Foxglove says Roomba can hoover up data on users’ home layouts and use that, in conjunction with other devices such as Ring and Alexa to carry out surveillance.

Content Moderation

He’s back on Twitter!

…I am of course referring to Trump. His last post? On 6 January 2021. As if he wanted a reminder. New Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk held a Twitter poll on whether Trump’s account should be reinstated and the people have spoken, it has been reported. This presents a reversal from the life time ban imposed before the Musk takeover. Trump himself now has his own platform Truth Social although take up on that platform has been reported to be less than patchy. Trump has legal and financial reasons why he needs to exclusively stick to Truth Social, so the BBC explains. Many anticipated Musk who has branded himself a free speech absolutist (albeit one that respects the bounds of the law) will bring Trump back. But he did so after a Twitter poll, not out of principle, which is interesting. Musk said that he will ensure “freedom of speech but not freedom of reach”, meaning those statements that are imbued with hate will be deboosted. Misinformation will be struck off following five violations. In effect, you could be harmful, but either they will end up speaking to a void, or in the case of misinformation be taken off the platform.

UK to criminalise encouragement of self-harm

…there has been much debate surrounding UK’s Online Safety laws. Initially, it included responsibility of platforms to remove “legal but harmful” content. But this was criticised as being vague – does it mean you can’t post content concerning different types of diet methods, which may be arguably harmful, but may not be? Spotlight on the law intensified as the inquest found that a UK teenager’s suicide was influenced by consumption of suicide and self-harm content on social media. The government has solved this issue by making it an actual offence to encourage self-harm.

ESG

Vodafone to sell second hand phones – as part of a drive to reach net zero operations by 2027

…some concerns about data security and battery life but survey response reportedly positive on such offering.

Finnish fuel provider Neste completes delivery of 500,000 gallons of Sustainable Aviation Fuel to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

…says Neste, its SAF blend is made from “100% sustainably sourced renewable waste and residue raw materials, including used cooking oil and animal fat waste,” and reduces carbon emissions by up to 80%.

EVs/AVs

Sony-Honda venture plans to attract buyers using attractive in-car entertainment offering

…says the FT article. To my mind that was obvious from the outset, given that future customers have been touted to make decisions based on car UX [user experience]. Chip analyst at Gartner is reported to have opined that some car manufacturers are designing own chips to gain control of product development process and supply chains (as well as of course controlling cost).   Sony-Honda plans to offer music, movies and PlayStations in car. What I am not sure is whether the content would also be made available through other car makers, or whether it will be exclusively offered by the venture – or somewhere in between (in which some offerings will be available by other car makers but some will be exclusive content or features for Sony-Honda cars).

Livent – Lithium supplier to Tesla, GM and BMW says no way is there enough Lithium to meet the total demand

…such was also the opinion of Carlos Tavares, head of Stellantis. Cheaper EVs will suffer as car makers prioritise higher value cars, middle class will be squeezed out of vehicle ownership and there will likely be a delay in phasing out ICE (internal combustion engine) cars. This piece segues nicely to the next piece…

Car makers resist cutting China out of the EV supply chain

…and this includes Ford, which are supplied batteries made by the largest battery maker CATL of China. The Inflation Reduction Act gives maximum tax credit of $7,500 for EVs which must not have battery components made or assembled by “a foreign entity of concern” [ie: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea]. This means cars which fall foul of the Inflation Reduction Act will be at a significant competitive disadvantage. European car makers are though the biggest opponents of an outright ban of Chinese content – Volkswagen is reportedly suggesting 10%. The article linked notes that China controls the processing of 35% of the world’s nickel, half the lithium, 60% of cobalt and 90% of rare-earth elements. Note also that significant proportion of class 1 nickel comes from Russia.

Lyft, US’s biggest e-bike-sharing operator to partner with Redwood Materials to recycle its e-bike and e-scooter batteries

…Redwood Materials founder is Tesla co-founder J.B. Straubel. Redwood also recycles EV batteries from Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Volve, Specialized, Amazon, and others. Every step of the recycling process will be carried out in the US. The article notes that e-waste recycling can be carried out in countries which lack the infrastructure causing harm and damage.

Tesla to build a gigafactory in South Korea – home of LG Energy Solution

…the second largest EV batter maker.  Makes sense. But how does Elon Musk have the time to set this up when he appears to be tied up in constructive (? – some will disagree) destruction.

Gaming/Metaverse/NFTs

Instagram enables creators to trade NFTs including those with exclusive benefits

…this will mean followers can support their creators and have closer access. Creators can build a community more easily. NFTs can be normalised [with a potential to feeding into Meta’s Horizon World Metaverse – somehow?]. Collectors of NFT can display what they own.  And it can present an extra revenue stream from the NFT transactions, although in order to facilitate adoption Instagram will not be taking a cut until 2024.

The real opportunity for the Metaverse is not in the consumer metaverse says Chief Executive of Nokia

…but in enterprise and industrial metaverse. Enterprise metaverse is where you co-design with customers , and industrial metaverse is where you manufacture, he explains. You may be more familiar with the concept as digital twins. The article provides links to leading builders of digital twins, GE and Siemens – which are both excellent to read with videos to accelerate your understanding on how it all works.

The Gaming world embraces Diversity and Inclusion in Character Creations – by removing gender restrictions

…for example, if you were playing World of Warcraft Dragonflight, you won’t be asked if you would like your avatar to be male or female, but you can choose between Body Type 1 or Body Type 2. You can be a typically male body type, but have more female costumes, or non-gender. This does not apply just to World of Warcraft, but other games too, such as Nintendo’s Animal Crossing, EA’s The Sims 4, SquareEnix’s Harvestella and even Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy (given author JK Rowling’s stance on transgender persons). Given that one fifth of Gen Z Americans identify as LGBT, the gaming world is fast catering to that significant proportion of potential gamers who were perhaps not as included as before [and note, it isn’t just Gen Z, the rise of older people dabbling in gaming is noted]. Gamers can relate to their avatars better, the community will normalise non-binary in the gaming community, and more games will be sold. Everyone is a winner.

Telecoms

Vodafone phone carrier (including in O-RAN) to develop next generation 5G platforms based on chips from EdgeQ – leading maker of a base station on a chip

…you probably know Vodafone (but did you know that they were pioneers in O-RAN?) but you may not have heard of EdgeQ. EdgeQ is a start-up led by executives from Qualcomm, Intel, and Broadcom, and is described as pioneering converged connectivity and AI that is fully software-customizable and programmable. The chip will not be based on the ARM architecture, but based on RISC-V, which is an open standard. What Vodafone is doing by adopting EdgeQ’s software defined chips is to spread the cost of building up and adding new features to the network. As I understand it, traditional business models require the network operator to pay upfront for equipment including all features whether wanted or not.   

“Our partnership with Vodafone elevates the aspirations of OpenRAN. We are able to assemble best-of-breed hardware and software solutions to set new industry benchmarks. This in turn enables operators to embrace a holistic 4G-5G platform that is frictionlessly scalable, massively integrated, but yet openly customizable,” said Vinay Ravuri, CEO and Founder of EdgeQ.

Note

What is Open RAN:  The current wireless connections are provided by a hardware/software integrated platform (there are three main ones in the world – Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei – and maybe ZTE and Samsung too) that provide a service end to end. In an Open RAN configuration, technologies are not integrated – software has open interfaces and can be sourced by variety of suppliers, and are hardware neutral – so hardware too can be sourced by a variety of suppliers, and in fact commercial off the shelf parts for PCs can be used. So if you need to upgrade a piece of hardware or software, you have a number of vendors you can source from.  And for sure, there is scope for cost cutting because it is much more competitive in the Open RAN system in some respects (but maybe not others – integration costs/ energy costs may be higher).

Nokia launches Core Software-as-a-Service for 5G

…Nokia explains that this eliminates large up front capital expenditure and avoids the need to perform on-site software maintenance and updates. This follows Nokia’s launch of a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), AVA Charging, to help communication service providers (CSPs) and enterprises quickly commercialize new offerings for 5G and IoT use cases (examples given are cloud gaming, utilities, logistics and healthcare).

BT’s networking division Openreach to limit its reach of fibre broadband network due to cost cutting needs

…this is an issue not just for BT (formerly British Telecom), but all over the world. The issue has become acute due to:

• Inflation
• …and hence rise in the Interest rate
• Factory closures in Russia (which produce Helium, which is a critical ingredient for fibre optic cables)

Network companies are calling on the EU to compel BigTech companies (GAFAM & Netflix) to pay their fair share, given that they account for 55% of the traffic, from which they profit amply (SK Telecom of South Korea successfully sued Netflix to pay up because they were compelled to upgrade the network owing to the very popular Squid Games viewing traffic), and major cable businesses in the US are reported to have decided to upgrade their copper networks instead due to the cost of fibre upgrade.

The lack of cashpile comes at a critical point for BT as private investor (think KKR, Goldman Sachs, Macqarie…) backed alternative networks (or altnets – examples include CityFibre, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear and Community Fibre) have joined the digging race – in the belief that if they get there first, BT won’t go over the conquered ground. BT’s Openreach division makes money by selling its broadband to internet service providers such as Vodafone, TalkTalk, and Sky. The reduction in scope of fibre roll out is aimed at reducing broadband prices, to keep these large customers as well as attract new ones. Competitors are claiming that it is an attempt to undercut rivals.

Delving Deeper

Over 30 US State General Attorneys rally to support the US FTC’s plan to pass GDPR like rules to protect consumers from harm caused by sweeping collection of data by businesses

…when you think that the GDPR was proposed just over 10 years ago, one can’t help but be impressed about how right the EU was back then, regardless of how the proposal came about. Very roughly – my own take on it is that the EU realised that it had been a little sleepy at the wheel, realised that the digital economy has been taken over by the US (ie: GAFAM), and thought about how it can compete with it in the future. One measure was the GDPR. Its objective was to prioritise EU citizens’ rights – the right to control their own data, and to strengthen consumers’ trust in the European digital economy. Alongside this, they proposed other measures to fully unlock the value in the data economy, such as strengthening cybersecurity within the EU, creating EU wide sector-specific data spaces, opening up use of public data for others’ use where possible, and now passing the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act to encourage competition and further limit harmful content respectively.

Back to the letter. The Attorney Generals are concerned about the scale of the taking of sensitive consumer data which has led to commercial surveillance economy and the exposure of consumers’ privacy and security to those who seek to steal digital identities or otherwise misuse data (including scamming, defrauding, doxing (disclosing identifiable information), blackmailing).

The letter provides a good summary of what main types of sensitive data are subject to collection and how they are traded:  

Location Data

• What’s the sensitivity: reveals intimate details of daily life—such as where they live and work, their shopping habits, their daily schedule, or whether they visited the doctor or pharmacy.

• How use can cause harm: advertisers can predict who is likely to visit a nearby store if nudged by an advertisement, identification of vulnerable consumers, to discriminate between consumers (this is called “digital redlining” – prime example is where loans are withheld based on data which indicates the users’ race or location of residence).

Biometric Data

• What’s the sensitivity: it cannot be anonymized. It uniquely identifies the person.

• How use can cause harm: Companies collect employee biometric data for security purposes of entry, clocking in or out, and verification of identity, meaning abuse can lead to major breaches in security. Biometric information can also be used to discriminate.

Medical Data

This includes data collected by wearables (such as smartwatches or heart monitors), health “Internet of Things” (“IoT”) devices (like smart scales, thermometers, pill dispensers, or sleep monitors), and health or wellness mobile applications.

• What’s the sensitivity: It can reveal sensitive information about the person (eg. HIV status)

• How use can cause harm: Google and other search engines store consumer internet queries, including health-related internet searches. That can then be sold to advertisers. A person whose data indicates that she is pregnant can be targeted with pregnancy or baby related advertisements. It can also reveal termination of pregnancies (which can be illegal in some states).

Issues with data brokers

• Data brokers typically collect data using “surveillance technologies” , which includes tracker software development kits (“SDKs”), advertising IDs, and tracking cookies to monitor consumers
• Even anonymised data can, when such data are pieced together, enable identification of a person.
• The letter explains that data brokers can:
  • profile consumers by scouring social media profiles, internet browsing history, online and offline purchase history, credit card information, and government records, including driver’s license/motor vehicle records, census data, birth certificates, marriage licenses, and voter registration information.
  • use profiled information to categorize consumers into audiences based on susceptibility to certain advertising or likelihood to buy certain products, such as “Thrifty Elders,” “Truckin’ & Stylin’,” or “Underbanked. [part of me is intrigued to know what bucket I’m in]
• Data brokers have no relationship with the data subjects and do not obtain knowing and meaningful consent from consumers before tracking them and selling access to their profiles
• No easy way for consumers to prevent data brokers from exploiting their data.

General issues which need to be addressed

• Free-apps which take data in return for providing a free service
• Consumers are unaware that data are being collected / or they are aware but feel powerless to prevent it
• Businesses also unaware that it is storing personally identifiable information
• Unclear privacy policies
• Lack of choice on how to prevent collection of data (eg. turning off GPS location (to prevent the taking of location data) on a phone may not be enough, as Bluetooth, nearby wi-fi networks, IP addresses, or other identifiers are still used to determine location)
• Dark patterns (“manipulative design practices” that trick or manipulate users into making choices they would not otherwise have made and that may cause harm)
• Privacy policies which are not complied with by developers
• Developers not understanding how third party tools on their own apps can utilise collected data

The solution they say lies in passing GDPR-like laws which compel data minimization to mitigate concerns surrounding data aggregation, and more. They urge the FTC to provide illustrative examples of compatible and incompatible data practices.

Short break – No News during this period

The World

US and Taiwanese companies sign Memorandum of Understanding to enhance co-operation and stabilise supply chains

…the subject technical fields include renewable energy and 5G communications. The agreement was struck in Washington.

Taiwan side businesses are: state-run Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower), Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. (AIDC), Quanta Cloud Technology, HTC Corp., TMY Technology Inc. and Edgecore Networks Corp US side businesses are: General Electric Co. (GE), Intel Corp., RingCentral, Inc., Lumen Technologies and DuPont.

Artificial Intelligence

Cambridge University Researchers say AI tools that purport to reduce bias for recruitment purposes don’t work

..the study noted that, out of 500 HR professionals, nearly one quarter used AI to acquire talent. In which case, it is quite concerning that AI cannot cut out bias. The researcher explained to the BBC “These tools can’t be trained to only identify job-related characteristics and strip out gender and race from the hiring process, because the kinds of attributes we think are essential for being a good employee are inherently bound up with gender and race”. If this is true, could it mean that bias can never be eliminated in a recruitment process?

BigTech/ Data / Platforms

Business

Microsoft promotes its Cloud Healthcare service to “Ease provider burden and help create customers for life”

…to support both patients and caregivers:

• Patient snapshot – optimises patient view summary
• Patient trends – insights about patient activities, for example, the number of days since the last appointment or the number of hospitalizations in the last year
• Missed appointment prediction – organisations can predict the likelihood that a patient will miss their next appointment
• Care plan management – view upcoming, completed, overdue activities, and modify the status of an activity
• Various Data management services

Challenge Amazon! TikTok proposes to start its own fulfilment centres in the US

… TikTok proposes to fulfil orders, by carrying out warehousing, delivery and returns. In Asia TikTok live shopping is big. Fancy that jacket that the influencer is wearing? Speculations are that [so it might not turn out to be true] you could be one click away from purchasing that item.

TikTok is also reported to be in talks with music labels to build out a music-streaming service, in a challenge to Spotify. Would it also make it easier for influencers to lawfully use copyright protected music on their posts I wonder.

Amazon challenges price comparison sites for home and contents insurance in the UK

…it will be called Amazon Insurance Store. Amazon is no stranger to financial services. It has a hand in offering insurance to SMEs in the UK (in partnership with Lloyd’s broker Superscript) and motor insurance in India and buy now pay later service in the UK with Barclays.

Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) to buy controversial platform Parler – described as “uncancellable free speech platform”

…Ye himself is certainly not devoid of controversies, having had is account frozen by Twitter and Instagram for anti-Semitic expressions and other controversial comments. Both Musk (self-styled free speech absolutist) and Ye thereby have a common interest – the quest to possess a digital megaphone they can fully control. They understand the power of influence, and they’ll pay a pretty price to avoid the fate that befell Trump.  

Such proposal comes amid New York governor and Attorney General’s calls to make platforms liable for violent criminal content posed on platforms. They say fringe online platforms, like 4chan, radicalized the Buffalo shooter (by whom 10 Black individuals were killed and three others were injured); livestreaming platforms, like Twitch, were weaponized to publicize and encourage copycat violent attacks; and a lack of oversight, transparency, and accountability of these platforms allowed hateful and extremist views to proliferate online, leading to radicalization and violence. They recommend changes to Section 230 of the Federal Communications Decency Act (basically says platforms not liable for content uploaded by third parties) to increase accountability of online platforms and require companies to take reasonable steps to prevent unlawful violent criminal content from appearing on their platforms.

Uber to be more active placing ads

…expect more ads on Uber apps, displays with ads on back of front seats (with user being able to control sound level), ad-studded emailing campaigns. Drivers will be rewarded for displaying ads, which would help contain fares for passengers. Another way would be to offer passengers ads in relation to nearby shops (eg. coffee shops) with the passenger being able to buy coffee on the way, for example [a little bit like what Waze does]. If the passenger can get a discount for every purchase bought through the ad, even better.

Expect more advertising – Netflix has u-turned on its philosophy and has started offering ad-supported services at a lower price point. BBC’s services outside the UK is ad-supported for several years. The shift is inevitable, one journalist says, with Apple allowing users to opt out of third party tracking and Google due to pull the plug on cookies (which will prevent advertisers from being able to track users’ behaviour on websites).

Privacy

Texas Attorney General sues Google for collecting biometric data (face, voice etc) without consent and profiting from it

…collection is said to have been made through Google Photos, Google Assistant, and Nest Hub Max. Google says there is an option to turn those functions off.

Crypto/ NFTs

Are NFTs securities? US SEC is investigating the best known and high value NFT collectible, Bored Apes

…to be precise, they are investigating the driver of Bored Apes, Yuga Labs. Yuga Labs have a string of businesses and celebrities as investors, such as Andreessen Horowitz, Animoca Brands, The Sandbox, FTX, Google Ventures, Adidas, Snoop Dogg, Mark Cuban, Steve Aoki, Tiger Global, Timbaland, Dez Bryant and Samsung.

The critical question reported to be at play, is whether the Bored Apes NFTs are Securities, and should be subject to securities regs. The apply to securities trading to prevent money laundering and to protect consumers. It is true that a lot of the NFTs are purchased because the buyer hopes to profit from it. But some people do that with art and wines, and they are not treated as securities. Same here, some people buy it because they think it’s cool – just like when Warhol started selling his prints and buyers flocked. Warhol prints were never considered as securities, although many purchasers may have bought them to sell on later. Bored Apes may be a tricky target in this respect because it has become such an iconic commodity and gives the buyer street cred, access to exclusive offerings, not just on Bored Ape related projects but publicly too. For example, no doubt it is much easier to get traction on Twitter if your profile was backed by an authentic Bored Ape NFT. But then again, you can buy NFTs from marketplaces, like a stock. It may be that if you have governance rights or access to revenues, the NFT is more likely to be treated like securities, says one SEC commissioner. The SEC is also reportedly looking into how ApeCoins, the Ethereum-based governance and utility tokens and issued by ApeCoin DAO, are used within the APE ecosystem – these might be closer to the bone.

Note

The U.S. Supreme Court has provided the four-prong Howey Test, which states that an investment can be regulated as a security if:

1. There is an investment of money.
2. The investment is made into a “common enterprise.
3. The investors expect to make a profit from their investment.
4. Any expected profits or returns are due to the actions of a third party or promoter.

Therefore, any type of investment could potentially be a security, and in some cases it is unclear.

According to one academic, Ether is liable to be treated as securities

…last month, the Ethereum blockchain changed the way in which it operated from proof of work to proof of stake. Under the proof of work system, those that are running the nodes of the network vied to calculate a complicated mathematical problem involving prime numbers as fast as possible. The calculation uses huge amount of compute power and consumes a significant amount of energy – so much so that the level exceeds the energy consumption of a small country. It also meant that the transaction costs were significant. Depending on how quickly you demand the transaction to be completed and the time of day, you could spend more than $10 to convert $10 worth of Ethereum into fiat currency for example. The node which won the maths competition are rewarded with cryptocurrency for the work.

Proof of stake is much cheaper. Those operating the nodes stake some Ether [Ethereum blockchain’s currency] as a collateral, which enable them to participate in a lottery. The probability of winning that lottery depends on the amount you have staked. The winner gets to solve a difficult piece of maths, and then be rewarded with cryptocurrency. Interestingly, the article says that because staking is a highly centralised business, the proof of stake mechanism will lead to centralisation of the blockchain – which goes against the philosophy of decentralised systems. Anyway, because the stakers pool the Ether together to profit from their stake, it is said that it could be treated as a security (see Howrey test above).

Turner prize winner and artist Damien Hirst invites buyers of his art to choose between a physical piece and an NFT, burns the physical artwork if NFT is chosen

… What is striking to me is that half the buyers chose physical art and the other NFT.   Could Damien Hirst artwork be regarded as a security? If yes, what would be the status of the physical version of the artwork?

Cybersecurity

End to end encrypted messaging service Signal to phase out SMS

…Signal is phasing out SMS which had been offered in parallel to the encrypted messaging service because of lack of security and cumbersome billing in some cases.

Apple to argue its copyright case against security company over infringement of copyright in its iOS software

…Some time ago, Apple sued a cyber security company for selling virtual environments of the iOS to enable detection of bugs. The creation of the virtual iPhone was argued by Apple as entailing infringement of copyright. The defendant cyber security company said it was fair use and so did not constitute infringement. Apple lost on the copyright infringement claim (now subject to appeal) and the parties settled the claim that they violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by overcoming the anti-circumvention measures.

EVs/AVs

iPhone assembler Foxconn launches prototypes of two new EVs

…Foxconn already assembles a wider variety products, from smartphones (including iPhones, iPads and MacBooks), PCs, gaming consoles to industrial robots. It has partnerships with several car companies: Taiwanese carmaker Yulon for which Foxconn mass produces EVs, and a significant partnership with Stellantis in a venture to make auto chips and smart cockpit solutions. Recently it announced that it will start making chips in India with Vendanta, a natural resources conglomerate. It will not produce its own brand, but will make cars for others.

Sony Honda Mobility to start taking orders for their EVs in 2025 in the US

…surprisingly, ahead of Japan. I am assuming that is because the EV infrastructure is somewhat more developed in the US. The company said it will look to explore “new entertainment possibilities through digital innovations such as the metaverse”. This will likely be subscription based. Sony has a head start with contents and an established gaming business. It is considered widely that consumers will choose cars on the basis of value adds such as software and entertainment. According to a Nikkei Article, Auto manufacturer Continental considers that around 30% of value of the car pertains to software. The unit that enables this is the Electronic Control Unit (ECU) which controls high performance GPU and the software that processes the data units. In short, ECU will represent the cutting edge. Unsurprisingly businesses want as much ownership and control over it, and the venture will be no different in this respect.

VW Software unit Cariad to invest $2billion in Chinese technology firm Horizon Robotics

…the new venture will build autonomous vehicle solutions on a single chip, which will only be made available in China. Thereby, VW will get access to Chinese chip supply and perhaps forge closer ties with the Chinese government. The article notes VW’s positioning on chips in the US with a partnership with Qualcomm and in Europe, with STMicroelectronics, although these partnerships do not entail chip technology development. There is a trend – as noted Tesla embarked on this years before, and recently GM has said it will start developing chips. Chipmaker Horizon boasts Chinese auto majors such as BYD, Li Auto and SAIC as its customers as well as Audi (a VW company) and Continental. Horizon founder CEO is Kai Yu, founder and formerly head of deep learning at Baidu (China’s answer to Google). Horizon’s investors are interesting: chipmakers Intel and SK Group, major Venture Capitalist company Sequoia and carmakers including Tesla rival BYD, and CATL, the world’s biggest electric vehicle battery maker. This is an interesting development against the backdrop of US / China trade war that is heating up.

Russian and Chinese companies poise to extract Lithium from Bolivian resources

…the social Bolivian government is aligned with Russia and China.

Chinese carmakers aims to exploit supply chain weakness to break into German car market

…Great Wall Motor, Geely (owns Polestar and Lynk & Co), BYD and SAIC Motor have recently launched or planning to launch EVs in Germany. This is the moment – calculates the Chinese businesses. They have prioritised Germany amid production shortage meaning the wait time for these cars is only 3-5 months, compared to their European counterparts, 10-15 months.  They come with good safety records. Price will also be a factor.

Fintech

Apple to provide high yield saving accounts – with the assistance of Goldman Sachs

…with the interest rate on the rise, this is a great time for Apple to do it. More valuable data to Apple too [which will lead to more ad revenues etc].

Metaverse / VR / AR / MR / XR

US Soldiers using Microsoft HoloLens suffer physical illness in field tests

…the issues are said to be light that is emitted from the Mixed Reality headset. You can see the physical environment but they add holograms to it, which you can interact with (hence HoloLens). The US Army has a 10 year contract with Microsoft for 120,000 HoloLens-based headsets. No doubt it would get sorted in due course.

India’s answer to Amazon – the eCommerce giant Flipkart to launch Flipverse, a shopping experience in the metaverse

…the company (in which Walmart has 77% stake – Walmart has also recently entered the metaverse) is offering “gamified, interactive and immersive” experience, enabling customers to collect loyalty points, or Supercoins, as well as digital collectibles from partner brands.

Google’s Starline technology – a more immersive, no headset version of video calls to be used by selected partners

…who are Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile and Hackensack Meridian Health. Looks impressive and will put an end to moonlighting during those video calls…

Semiconductors

Semiconductor makers all over the world significantly hit by US sanctions on Chinese chip industry

…all non-Chinese semiconductor players are ceasing support for Chinese fabs, pulling out staff from Chinese based chipmakers, presale negotiations, stopping all support services to China. Some companies, such as TSMC and SK Hynix have been given authorisation to extend business in China for an additional year.

One More Thing…

Stocking fillers anyone? Burnt Hair perfume by Elon Musk – worth a try for the man that has everything, if you happen to have $100 spare

…“Just like leaning over a candle at the dinner table, but without all the hard work”, “Stand out in a crowd! Get noticed as you walk through the airport” says the website, which describes the scent as “the essence of repugnant desire”. “With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable – why did I even fight it for so long!?” said the entrepreneur, who has changed his profile to perfume salesman. He has managed to sell $1million worth in just a few hours.

The World

Biden signs Executive Order on a new EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework

…The Executive Order introduces new binding safeguards with the aim to address all the points raised by the Court of Justice of the EU (Schrems II decision), (i) limiting access to EU data by US intelligence services to what is necessary and proportionate to protect national security and (ii) establishing a Data Protection Review Court. The European Commission will now prepare a draft adequacy decision, as well as launch its adoption procedure.

The framework thereby establishes a new two-layer redress mechanism, with independent and binding authority:  

First layer: EU individuals can lodge a complaint with ‘Civil Liberties Protection Officer’ of the US intelligence community.

Second layer: individuals will have the possibility to appeal the decision of the Civil Liberties Protection Officer before the newly created Data Protection Review Court. The Court will be composed of members chosen from outside the US Government, appointed on the basis of specific qualifications.

Previously individuals could turn to an Ombudsperson, which was part of the US State Department and did not have similar investigatory or binding decision-making powers. The EU will have 6 months to consider, but privacy advocates are expected to challenge the framework as being inadequate. One such person, Max Schrems said that he, through his privacy advocacy group Noyb will challenge the proposal.

Artificial Intelligence

WHO releases Florence, its AI powered chat bot designed to provide reliable information on health, including Covid

…it is usable in English, with Arabic, French, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, and Russian to follow.

There are other types of health chat bots. This article mentions the following:

• Ada Health, Healthily and Sensely – combines symptom checkers with information
• Woebot, OneRemission – provide psychological and behavioural support to patients with specific health concerns
• Babylon Health and Gyant – appointment management and connecting patients remotely with clinicians.

Also, Microsoft’s AI can predict who is likely to miss a doctor’s appointment. It can be used to remind patients and schedule appointments so that doctors’ practices can account for no-shows

Former Google engineers release character.ai which enables you to talk to figures, such as Trump, Xi, Musk…

…there is clear warning to users that it is all made up. It’s a bit like the end of a film, reminding everyone that the story is fiction, so the explanation goes.

New AI uses spotted this week

• Now Google’s Imagen can do Text to Video AI – type in a description and a video based on the description will be generated. Check out Imagen Video.  Meta released a similar tool recently.
• Alphabet’s DeepMind has a new AI system, AlphaTensor which can do some serious matrix multiplications speedily. These are complex and key for engineering and physics simulations.

BigTech/ Data / Platforms

Business

Microsoft – Meta partnership: Microsoft’s Teams, Office, Windows and Xbox Cloud Gaming (including the “Netflix of games” Game Pass) to be delivered via the Oculus

…this is a clever partnership. Both parties announced very similar visions of the Metaverse at similar times, about this time last year. Yet they have decided to collaborate, which will no doubt accelerate the concept. Meta’s internal notes revealed this week that it was struggling with take up even within Meta’s employees. The article notes Microsoft gets to trade on what it does best (purveyor of software, especially productivity tools) and Meta gets to access enterprise clients. But thought leader Ben Thompson says Meta may be in danger of becoming what IBM was to Microsoft all those years ago – IBM invested all the R&D in the hardware (PCs) only for Microsoft to benefit from it.

Content Moderation

Now you can influence your feed on Facebook

…you can get the Facebook algorithm to show more or show less on a post to ensure you have a better chance of getting what you want. At the same time, you show more of yourself to Facebook, which enable them to ad-target you better, and incidentally perhaps Facebook can better defend themselves should any content moderation issues crop. Users though will have the benefit of seeing more of what they want, and get better targeted ads. Some users will see it as a win win. Last week I reported on a case which looks at YouTube’s liability for using AI which resulted in a recommendation of a post uploaded by a terrorist organisation. If the recommendation were controlled by the users, the platform could have more of a defence? It might also be less likely to be attacked for content moderating inappropriately, if users had a hand in formulating its own algorithm.

Twitter expands its crowd-sourcing fact checking measure Birdwatch

…misinformation, perpetrated deliberately or not, is rife on Twitter. To combat that, Twitter provided for Birdwatch, a group of people who have proven that they are capable of writing helpful notes. They will then be monitored to see how helpful their contributions are.  Birdwatch algorithm looks at consensus across those with differing viewpoints. This will increase the chances of identifying misleading posts for removal. Users can rate Birdwatch notes as Helpful or Not Helpful. If a Birdwatch member’s scores dip, then they could get their Birdwatch status stripped. Twitter will now be making the Birdwatch fact check tweets visible to all users.

Roblox, Discord, Meta and Snap sued for suicide attempts of girl

…apparently caused by predators, despite various measures which are said to be available on the platforms – such as the scanning of images and GIFs to identify instances of child exploitation. This is a US case, but it comes in the wake of the UK Coroner’s finding that Meta, Pinterest, and other social media platforms are legally to blame for the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell who was exposed to self-harming images and posts as a result of the platforms’ recommendations.  

The present case though concerns the lack of monitoring of messages. On the one hand, users consider that platforms should not have access to messages and on the other hand, platforms are said to be liable for failing to identify illegal and harmful conduct. Striking the balance between privacy and child protection is notoriously difficult and the EU is debating what to do – privacy concerns have been raised against the draft Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse which would allow national courts to issue “detection orders,” requiring messaging and hosting companies to actively monitor and files for signs of child sexual abuse and grooming.

One of the complaints was that the platform provided no age verification. This is likely to come soon enough it has been said – not just on porn sites, which was originally targeted in the UK (and then withdrawn owing to potentially fuelling blackmailing activities in case of data breach) but to all sites accessible by children in the UK, EU, US, Australia and beyond, from search engines to social media.

Privacy

Dutch Court rules that forcing employees to turn their webcam on throughout the working day is violation of European Convention on Human Rights

…the decision was made against Chetu, a US company which had hired a Dutch telemarketer. Chetu also had requested the employee to share screen as well. The employee refused and was sacked. The Dutch Court ruled that the business’ requirement conflicted with the respect for the privacy of the workers (Art 8).

Cloud Computing

Google ramps up Cloud offering

…these include:

• Translation Hub: enterprise-scale translation AI Agent for self-serve document translation, available in 135 languages
• Vertex AI Vision: makes powerful computer vision and image recognition AI more accessible to data practitioners. It also reduces the time to create computer vision applications from days to minutes at one-tenth the cost of current offerings.
• Advanced security tools: including Confidential Space will help unlock the value of secure data collaboration. See also the provision of Google Cloud Ready – Sovereign Cloud (which it says complies with EU regs)

And lots more!

Google cloud has also announced new relationships with Coinbase [see below], Prudential plc, Rite Aid, Snap, T-Mobile, Toyota, and Wayfair.

Connectivity

EU Commission thinking about making BigTechs pay for infrastructure upgrades as the world tries to get 5G deployed

…56% of global traffic were derived from just six companies Amazon, Apple, Google,  Meta, Microsoft and Netflix so why not make them pay [and incidentally they are all US companies, not EU] for the upgrade from the copper networks to fiber, to help the struggling telecom companies?

The BigTechs say they are already investing in data centres, subsea cables and helped telecom companies to store content local to deal with traffic spikes – and that besides it’s the telecom companies fault for failing to properly monetise on their infrastructure.

Crypto

Cryptoexchange FTX partners with Visa to enable users to buy items using cryptocurrencies with debit cards

…Visa already has partnerships with Coinbase and Binance, and others. Mastercard has also partnered with Coinbase on NFT. Merchants can now easily deal with users wanting to buy with crypto – Visa and FTX essentially deal with the backend. FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried said it will likely be used most widely in countries where inflation has spiked, such as Turkey (83%) and Argentina (78%). Yikes.

Google partners with Coinbase to enable customers to pay for its cloud services using cryptocurrencies

…Coinbase will get a commission from the transaction [which is a bit ironic because one of the attractions of cryptocurrencies is the removal of bank commission charges]. Coinbase will move its cloud supplier from AWS to Google Cloud.

BNY Mellon now licensed to carry out crypto custody service

…fund managers can use one custody platform for traditional and crypto currencies. Basically, crypto is getting more mainstream. See also above.

Cybersecurity

Former Uber executive convicted on charges for covering up data breach

…Sullivan (a former lawyer) had be found to have paid $100,000 as reward under the bug bounty program and asked the hackers to sign up to a non-disclosure agreement not to disclose the incident [ he had managed to track down the hackers – and meanwhile they went on to hack other businesses]. The hackers had stolen the data of 50 million customers and 7 million drivers. The conduct took place when the Federal Trade Commission was investigating Uber. New Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi found out and fired him. This is the first time an executive has been found guilty for covering up a hack. Sentencing is due which could involve imprisonment, up to 8 years. 

CISOs (chief investigation security officers) are now concerned that it is never acceptable to pay the ransom fee to keep stolen data private.

EVs/AVs

Ford and GM follows Tesla by taking fate into their own hands by securing supply of raw material for batteries

…Tesla leads the trend. Two years ago, it purchased the right to mine Lithium in Nevada, and last month it revealed that it was considering building a refinery in Texas. He will be applying for tax credits made available by the Inflation Reduction Act. This is available for those that are sourcing the minerals from the US or free trade partners and are not having these extracted, processed or recycled by a “foreign entity of concern”. The Australia’s Jervois Global has opened a new Cobalt mine in Idaho which will be helped by the Act. Note that the EU Commission is unhappy about the Act – because it discriminates against EV makers that do not produce in the US, and so is thinking about initiating an action before the WTO.

Batteries for EV requires rare metals, such as Cobalt (Co), Lithium (Li), Manganese (Mn), Nickel (Ni). Prices for these have soared, as has the demand for EV.  But the following make it difficult to contain price rises for the rare metals:

• Geopolitics [especially the Russia/Ukraine war]
• Child labour involved in mining these
• Environmental issues

Other car makers are also implementing measures to secure these materials:

• GM has agreed to pre-pay Livent, a lithium mining group $200million to secure supply
• Ford is paying Liontown Resources to develop a lithium mine.
• Stellantis has invested in Vulcan Energy Resources which has plans to produce lithium in Germany.
• Nikola has purchased battery supplier Romeo Power.

Recall that GM is following Tesla in other ways too – recently it announced that it was designing its own chips.

Rio Tinto plans $500million investment to mine titanium and scandium to reduce China dependency

…these materials are used in aerospace, medical products and fuel cells. 75% of finished products and 61% of scandium are produced in China. Canada has attracted attention of others as well:

• Cathode producers such as Germany’s BASF, Belgium’s Umicore and Korea’s Posco are apparently planning to invest in Canada too.
• Canada has received love calls from German and South Korean governments to secure supplies of Nickel and Cobalt for use in German cars and Korean batteries.

Tesla says it will bin ultrasonic sensors and rely on camera only

…Ultrasonic sensors were primarily used for short-range detections utilised for parking assist, auto summon and collision detection. The former two features will not be available for Teslas that drive using camera only for now.

Note that this is opposite of what Volvo are doing, which is to put laser technology (LiDAR) on all new models. Tesla have never relied on LiDAR, with Musk claiming that anyone relying on LiDAR is doomed.

Metaverse/ VR / AR / MR/ XR

The rise of the digital influencers

…the Chinese BigTechs, ByteDance (TikTok parent), Alibaba and Tencent have poured in cash into the “virtual idol industry” as they have proven to be safer bets compared to human influencers. Virtual idols are much less scandal prone, age-defying, and their IP is easy to control. SoftBank and US fund Sequoia are also investing, and brands such as Bulgari and Pandora are utilising virtual influencers. 

Will it become vogue in the western world too? I think perhaps not, or not as much – the manga culture isn’t as pervasive in the west as it is in the east. But we shall see.

Semiconductors

US implements new export controls restricting sales of semiconductors with US technology

…unless sellers obtain an export licence (which it is understood is difficult to obtain). Targeted Chinese companies cannot now be supplied with hardware or software which contain US technology (this is the so-called “foreign direct product rule” pioneered by the Trump administration – and includes non-US made chips provided US technology is implicated). The aim is to stop China from progressing its AI, supercomputers and other high performance computing capabilities that could be used to develop military applications in particular nuclear and hypersonic weapons. US companies which do business in China are hard hit (Nvidia, AMD, Applied Materials etc). Note there is a carve out – for US and its allies who are making chips in China (eg. Apple – but they are quickly shifting that to other parts of the world, such as India and Vietnam), albeit Korean companies (allies of the US) are concerned that its chipmaking capability in China will be hit. It fears it will not be able to upgrade its lithography plant and its memory plants in China may be affected.

Note also that it might not be that simple, just to effectively ban the export of certain products to China. The assembling of those chips, installing them to devices etc are generally done in China. So who will do that job? Further still, clever corporate structuring involving shell companies may enable Chinese companies to defeat export controls. There are Chinese companies that have a good level of capability and they will just get more funds no doubt from the Chinese government. China boasts the biggest chip subsidy programme. Those Chinese chip makers will also gain more business from Chinese EV companies too, which will in turn allow them to flourish.  Therefore, US measures may not be as effective as it might be hoping.

Headline in Tech news of the week

US Supreme Court to decide the scope of law removing liability for harmful third party content on platform

…Platform companies are shielded by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which generally protects websites from liability over content uploaded by users or third parties even when they disseminate illegal, violent conduct or materials, especially if the company has acted diligently removing illegal material.

In this case, the family of the victim of a shooting in Paris by the terrorist organisation ISIS sued YouTube/Google for recommending videos uploaded by ISIS which concerned brainwashing and recruiting new members, which it claimed breached the Antiterrorism Act. The Ninth Circuit said that YouTube was shielded by s.230. The family says s.230 can give platforms protection only insofar as a particular complaint seeks to treat that service as a publisher.

In Twitter v. Taamneh, there is a similar issue – the question there is whether Twitter could be liable because they could have been more proactive about taking down terrorist content.

Had this been a newspaper, then it would likely be found liable. Newspapers have full control of, and so are responsible for the content on its own media. But, is a platform responsible because their algorithms decide what should be on the recommendations page?

Recently, the Texan Federal Court ruled that state law banning content moderation (excludes instances where material uploaded is illegal) by platforms of at least certain size were not unconstitutional whilst a Court in Florida came to a different conclusion. It would seem that a review by Supreme Court would be necessary to clarify the position.

Artificial Intelligence

White House identifies 5 principles in its Non-binding AI Bill of Rights

…The framework applies to (1) automated systems that (2) have the potential to meaningfully impact the American public’s rights, opportunities, or access to critical resources or services.

The 5 principles identified are

• Safe and Effective Systems – Automated systems should be developed with consultation from diverse communities, stakeholders, and domain experts to identify concerns, risks, and potential impacts of the system. Test the product to ensure it is safe and effective and minimise harms.

• Algorithmic Discrimination Protections – proactive and continuous measures should be implemented to protect individuals and communities from algorithmic discrimination.

• Data Privacy – implementation of protection from abusive data practices via built-in protections and ensuring users’ agency over how data about the user is used. Consent should only be used to justify collection of data in cases where it can be appropriately and meaningfully given.

• Notice and Explanation – notifying users that an automated system is being used and explain how and why it contributes to the outcomes.

• Human Alternatives, Consideration, and Fallback – provision of opt out from automated systems in favour of a human alternative, where appropriate

Some states have parallel laws which deal with these concepts.

Meta discloses its text to video AI system Make-a-Video

…Meta said it will use its Responsible AI Framework to evolve its approach. The Framework considers 5 pillars which are:

• Privacy & Security – careful use over face and speech recognition, use of AI to improve privacy                                  
• Fairness & Inclusion – detecting certain forms of statistical bias, AI-driven Portal Smart Camera designed to accurately focuses on people on-camera regardless of apparent skin tone or gender presentation
• Robustness & Safety – working on developing deepfake detection models and multimodal hate speech detection
• Transparency & Control – be more transparent about when and how AI systems are making decisions that impact the people who use Meta’s products, to make those decisions more explainable, and to inform people about the controls they have over how those decisions are made
• Accountability and Governance – give people a way to appeal and seek additional human review of a broad range of content-takedown decisions, which are sometimes first made with the assistance of AI systems

These principles very much overlap with the AI Bill of Rights just published.

New AI uses spotted this week

• Mayo Clinic shows its AI algorithm can pick out patients with atrial fibrillation.
• Microsoft’s AI can predict who is likely to miss a doctor’s appointment. It can be used to remind patients and schedule appointments so that doctors’ practices can account for no-shows.

BigTech/ Data / Platforms

Business

Google to change its search format into a more visual system for the TikTok Generation

…Google search works almost perfectly well, right? But Google must not sit on its laurels for the TikTok generation are more and more carrying out searches on TikTok, rather than Google. According to Google’s own research, almost 40% of young people will search places to lunch in TikTok or Instagram. This is really an incredible shift in habit. Certain Google searches, like that for a travel destination will present various types of results, such as weather, images and videos of sight-seeing spots, how to get there. You can also carry out searches more easily using your camera – take a photograph of your maths homework and Google will solve it for you, for example.

Content Moderation

Advertisers pull plug on Twitter as adverts displayed alongside child exploitation accounts

…YouTube has been there, done that too – when an Argos ad popped up next to a video of  someone emulating kidnapping. But that was 5 years ago. In the case of Twitter, the illegal accounts were not subtle, featuring words such as rape and teens, trading teens/child. The article notes that Twitter has become a hive of adult content (which Twitter does allow), although a very clear line is drawn between adult and child sexual content, latter being illegal.  However Twitter’s policing is reportedly not adequate.

Crypto/NFTs

Argentine low cost carrier Flybondi to issue tickets in NFTs

…NFTs are essentially a tamper proof receipt. It says you own the thing. If that is a ticket, you can prove that you own the real thing. The difference between an NFT ticket and your standard e-ticket is that you can trade the former knowing it be a real ticket. Contractual terms can be embedded to ensure that the original ticket issuer (eg. Flybondi) gets a commission upon transfer. If the ticket is then re-sold, the issuer gets a further cut and so on. Can be used for concert tickets and other events as well.   The Flybondi ticket will allow you to change the name on the ticket etc, of course. There may be a possibility of using stablecoins in the future [and talking of which see below].

Other interesting NFT use cases I have heard about

• Software licence: I have also heard that you could use NFTs for software licences as well. You buy a 10 year licence, but suppose your company becomes insolvent. You can sell off that licence to other businesses.
• Debt: If you are in debt, you could sell tokens for that debt. If the company survives and does well you could profit from that token. Bitfinex (the Crypto exchange) did this by issuing LEO tokens. Thanks to the increase in bitcoin price increase and recovery of lost $4billion after a hack, the price of LEO tokens went up and lenders got their money back.  

Stripe (the leading online digital payments processing service provider) to deal in USDC stablecoin

…these are cryptoassets, but much less volatile (hence the term stablecoin). It means the unbanked can join the economy and those that get paid in a currency which is not their local currency can duck the exchange rate commissions and the payment processing lag. The latter is incredibly important as engineers and developers in countries such as India, other Asian territories and Easter European territories are increasingly engaging in work for western companies (notably the US).

Apple now supporting NFT trading and reportedly insisting 30% commission

…note though Apple levies 15% commission for developers that generate under $1million in revenue. Apple’s position is simple. NFTs are digital assets, so buy NFT using the iOS platform, then 30% commission should be levied (although quite how the cryptocurrency transactions are carried out on iOS I am not sure).  Note that Apple’s move to support NFT trading could signal a tipping point on NFT popularity. This is because the great majority of NFT trades occur on a desk top and not on mobile phones.  

However, there are question marks over whether Apple’s proposal would work. Suppose an NFT on the NFT marketplace OpenSea is being traded. Note that OpenSea trades are often in secondary markets, in which case OpenSea merely brokers the transaction (a bit like Ebay in this regard, they match-make seller and buyer). All OpenSea does is to connect the digital wallets, they will process the transaction, take the 2.5% fee, and the NFT is transferred. Apple is saying that they want the 30% of the entire transaction from OpenSea, not the seller. In this case, OpenSea will lose money.

EV / AVs

Leading LiDAR company Velodyne acquires AI company specialising in providing traffic solutions

…the pair have been working together for some time to provide smart city applications using LiDAR technology. LiDAR is laser sensor technology that is used to enable vehicles to sense the environment around them.  

Gaming

Google terminates its cloud gaming platform Stadia

… Google ploughed in large swathes of cash into cloud based gaming, to build a service marked with low latency and fidelity – meaning users could play great games on low spec devices (because all the complex high graphics rendering is done on the server end). However, the Achilles’ heel, being the internet connection at the users’ end was too much, as those technical advantages were lost. Early on in the project, Google closed down its own gaming studio, leaving it too dependent on others to provide it with the top titles. There simply was not enough content, which meant that Google didn’t have the traction it needed to get Stadia properly off the ground. Developers that had created games especially for Stadia are now left on the lurch. Some commentators have said that Google’s habit of mothballing projects often at an early stage could mean future developers may be wary of developing works for Google.

Stadia technology will be recycled for use in other initiatives such as AR.

WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) and Take-Two (gaming publisher) have to pay tattoo artist for including wrestler Randy Orton’s tattoos in WWE 2K video-game series

…defences such as fair use and licenced use were rejected. Similar case is pending in Ohio.

Green technology

University of Illinois Chicago discovers a way to convert virtually all carbon dioxide from industrial exhaust into ethylene – critical material for making plastics

…the process uses electrolysis, and the conversion rate is better than previously achieved.

Semiconductors

US is likely to impose tighter restrictions on exporting cutting edge products to China

…especially chip technology. The US aims to prevent China from using its technology for military use, supercomputers and AI applications and to cement US’ position as leading technology developer.

US chipmaker Micron to receive $320m worth of subsidies from Japan

…the aim is to reduce dependence on China and Taiwan amid geopolitical tensions.

US chipmaker Micron to invest $100billion to build a chip factory in New York state

…with the help of US subsidy.

One more thing…

What is art? Tyga x MSCHF collab piece “Wavy Baby” causes beef with Old Skool TM owner Vans

..this is the question before one Second Circuit panel. Tyga [appears to be a singer] and MSCHF [pronounced mischief  – it’s a product studio] dropped [another term for launched these days] the Wavy Baby sneaker which resembles Vans’ sneakers. One party relies on freedom of expression, saying it’s art or parody. The other says TM infringement, and that the First Amendment does not allow a distortion of TM.

The World

FT analysis shows concern over potential China/Taiwan conflict at all time high

…analysis based on annual regulatory filings. Technology sector (especially as they are dependent on semiconductors) most concerned, then Healthcare. US likely to apply more pressure on key suppliers to ban exports to China, it is reported.  

It is probably no coincidence that Apple has said that it will set up a factory in India. India has just announced a chip making incentive scheme, (which Foxconn (who assembles iPhones for Apple) said will be taking up) and it has the second largest number of smartphone users (though I don’t think iPhones dominate there).

Artificial Intelligence

EU Commission proposes new Liability rules for those users harmed by the use of AI

….there are in fact two proposals:

• Revised Product Liability Directive: Modernises the existing rules on the strict liability of manufacturers for defective products (from smart technology to pharmaceuticals). The commission says that it will ensure that victims can get fair compensation when defective products, including digital and refurbished products, cause harm. Eg. compensation for loss arising out of cybersecurity vulnerability.

• AI Liability Directive: Harmonisation of national liability rules for AI – making it easier for victims of AI-related damage to get compensation. The Commission explains: where a relevant fault has been established and a causal link to the AI performance seems reasonably likely, the so called ‘presumption of causality‘ will address the difficulties experienced by victims in having to explain in detail how harm was caused by a specific fault or omission. They will have right of access to evidence from companies and suppliers, in cases in which high-risk AI is involved. This could mean that the businesses will have to disclose trade secrets to show that they are not liable.

Photo distributing company Getty Images are removing AI generated artworks

…Getty cites copyright liability concerns. The AI software may have been trained on scraped copyright protected images. This then has implications for the output of the AI Process. Identifying AI generated images for removal is however, not an easy process.

In the US there is a question about whether the output can be exempted from copyright infringement relying on fair use – the position would be harder for a commercial company like Getty whose business concerns dealing in images.

In the UK, the government has said that data mining will not require permission from the copyright owner by anyone with lawful access to the material even if it is protected by copyright. The aim of the policy is to make UK a location of choice for data mining and AI development.

In the EU, the data mining exceptions under EU’s Copyright Digital Single Market Directive (applicable across the EU), are quite narrow although it is possible to data mine without permission if there are no express reservations prohibiting data mining (for example coding on the webpage, contractual terms).  

OpenAI open sources Whisper – a neural network that transcribes speech in multiple languages and translates into English

…Google, Meta and Amazon all have good speech recognition systems, but Whisper sets itself apart from these because it claims to be able to recognise heavy accents, background noise and technical jargon. Having said this it is reported that it has not escaped the common pitfalls; it is less good at recognising less well represented language owing to the lack of training data and some words remain wrongly recognised.

Nvidia unveils two new large language model cloud AI services, the NVIDIA NeMo Large Language Model Service and the NVIDIA BioNeMo LLM Service

…What do these large language models do?

NeMo: Developers can customise the natural language processing models for content generation, text summarization, chatbots, code development.

BioNeMo: There are two, one for chemistry and one for biology.  Developers can customise the AI application for protein structure, and biomolecular property predictions – for drug discovery. Nvidia says ” It helps researchers identify patterns and insights in biological sequences by supporting protein, DNA, and biochemical data.”

What’s so good about Nvidia’s AI service? Developers can utilise their own training data, but it takes only “minutes to hours” not “weeks or months” to train from the start. This is because it uses “Prompt Learning” – the model is already trained using “billions of data points” – which enables the developer to adapt the AI for its use more swiftly.

Note

What is a Large Language Model?: These are machine learning algorithms that can recognize, predict, and generate human languages on the basis of very large text-based data sets.

What is the difference between Natural Language Processing and Speech Recognition: NLP is a system that can understand language, understand sentiment, understand meaning and respond to inputs or come up with further questions. Speech Recognition is the ability to interpret spoken words and convert them into text.

T-Mobile will help Pano-AI, a “disaster preparedness company” to deploy 5G connected cameras to detect wildfires in high risk areas

…the cameras will be installed in high vantage points such as cell towers. The cameras can see miles away. Pano-AI have humans in the loop, but uses AI to detect smoke as fast as possible.  

Microbots – the width of a hair could be at some point crawling inside our bodies and clean up our pipes

…the possibility is still way into the future, but scientists are now developing tiny bots that can autonomously operate. The link is to a very short YouTube clip. Take a look!

New AI uses spotted this week

Some interesting ones:

• Text to Image AI which generates new Pokemon characters (you input for example, Donald Trump – take a look, it is fun)
• AI which tracks construction site projects and identifies issues – allowing remote workers to monitor progress and identify problems early.
• Raydiant’s Digital menus at fast food places could scan you, determine your age (eg. wrinkles), mood (face scan, weather), gender, and provide you with recommendations.  

BigTech/ Data / Platforms

Content moderation

TikTok bans political fundraising

…TikTok says that it…”is an entertainment platform where people come to share their stories… including current events like elections and political issues…We …keep harmful misinformation off the platform, prohibiting political advertising, and connecting our community with authoritative information about elections. Today, we are building on that approach by making a series of changes to government, politician, and political party accounts…. This means accounts belonging to politicians and political parties will automatically have their access to advertising features turned off, which will help us more consistently enforce our existing policy….Additionally, we will be prohibiting these accounts from accessing other monetization features…. like gifting, tipping, and e-commerce, and will be ineligible for our Creator Fund.

…all in preparation of keeping out of troubles in the run up to the midterm elections.

Why is TikTok so controversial?

• Chinese owned – US citizens’ data may be accessible to the Chinese Communist party. To allay the concerns, all TikTok data has been transferred to Oracle’s data server. However, TikTok has not committed to cut off all data to China.
• TikTok can be used to brainwash users [and there are many] – by spreading propaganda by tweaking its alogorithm

TikTok will be introducing a dislike button to help Algorithms point user away from content which is inappropriate or not desired

…your dislike vote will not be shown and those that uploaded the undesired content will not be notified. This will inform TikTok about the users further, but also avoid bullying by creating numerous accounts and piling on dislikes against any particular content maker. The idea may be that content generators of bad taste end up shouting into a void unbeknownst to him or her.

You can also retract the dislike as well. It’s great – a way of content moderating your own content, and tailor things to your taste.

Inquest into the suicide of UK teenager after consuming self-harming images on Instagram and Pinterest questions social media company policies

…Instagram owner Meta’s representative said it allowed graphic pictures to be displayed to enable those in need to cry for help, and seek for community. It explained that damage could be caused by silencing those that are struggling. Instagram changed its policy to ensure that posts encouraging self-harm was removed, although it did not take down posts which admit vulnerabilities.

Pinterest admitted that its site was not safe before the teenager’s death. Meta has apologised.

The posts included close-ups of individuals cutting themselves up with a razor blade, which the coroner said was “almost impossible to watch”.

Both social media companies had recommended content about depression.

The inquest is heard as the UK considers to pass its Online Safety Bill, which includes responsibility for platforms to remove “legal but harmful” content – this includes bullying, extreme dieting, and of course self-harm. Prime Minister Liz Truss is inclined to remove such obligation (although perhaps with stricter rules for minors?), but the inquest could change her mind. A Texan appeal court has recently held that its state law which prohibits content moderation was not unconstitutional – the issue is being appealed to the US Supreme Court as the effect of the Eleventh Circuit (Florida) decision is opposite to that of the Texan Court.

Content moderation issues are incredibly difficult, and would seem to require careful evidence based policy making. However, Meta official at the inquest commented that the impact of certain material can affect people in different ways and different times and that it was really complicated to carry out research in this area.

Competition

UK Regulator OfCom to look into the competition landscape in Cloud services – Amazon, Microsoft and Google to be probed

…these hyperscalers account for about 80% of the UK cloud market. Ofcom’s aim is to identify competition issues (if any) at an early stage to prevent the market from becoming entrenched. FT reports that Ofcom is worried about barriers to market entry.  

I think they may be a bit too late. Hyperscalers had the foresight (and cash) to invest significant amounts into buying up data servers and securing data centres across the world. One benefit of this is that they have the bargaining power to purchase servers cheaply. Furthermore, they have done well to build their businesses early for at present, the world is riddled with supply chain disruption and chip shortages. Not only that, these companies have invested heavily into emerging technologies such as data processing and AI that enable them to provide tailored, useful cloud service to their customers. As a consequence, there is naturally a large moat around their cloud services. A big part of their dominance may not be due to any particular business conduct. In short, the first mover advantage may have paid off big time.

Ofcom plans to also look at how audio-visual services such as WhatsApp, FaceTime and Zoom are affecting traditional services such as telecommunication and messaging.

Connectivity

T-Mobile and Helium in partnership to provide new 5G Network

…the partnership enables subscribers to the Helium Network to have access to both Helium and T-Mobile 5G Network. Helium Network is a decentralised wireless network for IoT devices powered by cryptocurrency (Helium Network Token HNT). The network is made up of antennas owned and placed by individuals in their homes/offices (costs about $500) which can send data packets over long distances (using LoRa, or Long Range – its range is long like cellular, but data rate is lower so the infrastructure and running cost are cheaper). It is quite clever as it makes enterprising individuals help set up the network – otherwise, the cost of setting up such a network could be significant. The network’s bandwidth is hired out and owners can receive tokens for IoT businesses to use (governed by smart contracts).  One use case is the tracking of e-scooters or e-bikes which are dotted around a city. A company can track their electric scooters without having to enter into expensive cellular connectivity contracts with a network operator.

Crypto/Blockchain

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) enforces a DAO and its members for breaching regulatory laws

…arguably, this action puts a lot of cold water over one of the most interesting feature in web3 – DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation – in short a company on a blockchain).

The charge is illegally offering leveraged and margined retail commodity transactions in digital assets using a blockchain based software protocol; engaging in activities only registered futures commission merchants (FCM) can perform; and failing to adopt a customer identification program (ie: KYC) as part of a Bank Secrecy Act compliance program.

Defendants was bZeroX and its founders. Although the bZx Protocol purported to offer users the ability to engage in these transactions in a decentralized environment—i.e., without third-party intermediaries taking custody of user assets, the company was a centralised company so the CFTC was able to enforce. Those charges are settled.

The key aspect of this development is the enforcement against the successor DAO, Ooki, apparently an unincorporated association which is carrying on using the software protocol of bZeroX. According to Coindesk interview, CFTC is enforcing against members of the DAO – making those that voted with the tokens personally responsible (and query is whether there is a distinction between the voting persons and those that are just holding the tokens). Another question which is raised is how the court papers will be served.

EVs

All Volvo’s new models to be fitted with laser sensors (LiDAR)

…these are very expensive and other auto makers have announced laser use too, but only on certain models. Volvo is known for its safety credentials, and it is thought to reinforce this reputation by its use of LiDAR. Volvo said the technology will help reduce collisions by about 9%, and accidents involving fatalities/injuries by about 20%. Volvo will also use cameras and radar systems as well.

What’s good about LiDAR

• Precise detection – it can detect “a black tyre on a black road at 120 meters ahead, or a pedestrian at 250 meters
• Can function well in darkness (unlike cameras)
• Faster detection – LiDAR works at the speed of light, radar works at the speed of sound.
• Facilitates emergency breaking capabilities which the EU is requiring all cars to have.

Volvo will purchase its LiDAR from Luminar, a company in which Volvo has a stake.

Google’s attempts at developing eVTOLs ends

… the 12 year project was called Kittyhawk, and was Google founder Larry Page’s baby. Kittyhawk did give rise to Cora, a two-seat autonomous eVTOL under a joint venture with Boeing called Wisk Aero. This JV is expected to continue, and focuses on autonomous flights, unlike other rivals.  Good to know that even Larry Page fails sometimes. He would consider that as just a step to success I’m sure.

Metaverse / VR / AR / MR / XR

Walmart land and Walmart Universe of Play enter Roblox

…Walmart hopes to attract Gen Z. It says ” Walmart Land will bring the best fashion, style, beauty and entertainment items directly to the global Roblox community of over 52 million daily users. The retailer will continue to bring the fun with Walmart’s Universe of Play – the ultimate virtual toy destination in Roblox”.

Walmart Land will have:

• Electric Island – learn to mix different beats. In October, well known artists will have concerts there.
• House of Style – virtual dressing room, strike a pose challenge

Walmart’s Universe of Play will have

• Immersive games featuring well known toys (eg. Paw Patrol)
• Rewards – collect virtual toys, earn coins and then redeem against an avatar merchandise (called verch)

Accessible on PCs, smartphones, game consoles and VR headsets.

Zepeto – Korean derived Asia’s biggest metaverse

…it is owned by Korean tech group Naver. It is reportedly a long way behind Roblox, but I would not bet against the Koreans judging by their dominance in the pop world thanks to acts like BTS, Black Pink, Super Junior (all knowledge gained thanks to my primary school aged daughter). And a lot of metaverse at the moment centers around “pop”, like gaming, fashion, cosmetics etc.

But Zepeto is an avatar centric social media platform unlike Roblox which is more a channel to chat to others whilst gaming. Unlike a normal social media platform, participants are expect to be whoever they want to be through their avatars. On the flip side you don’t really know who you are talking to (a point well illustrated in the movie Ready Player One). As you might expect from a popular metaverse it has partnerships with luxury brands and you can drive Korean cars like a Hyundai or have Korean appliances such as Samsung – to fit in your virtual home (ie: metaverse no longer a place for fashion brands only).  

Naver uses AI to identify inappropriate behaviour on its metaverse, but says policing is tricky. Brand owners may have to check out a platform’s guardrails before they do a partnership deal.   

Must check out: Nreal AR gives users an IMAX screen in the comfort of their own phone

…play whatever on your smartphone and visualise through these AR glasses. They look more like sunglasses rather than ski goggles. Nreal seems to have definitely upped the game for everyone working in AR.

Patents

Google challenges the video codec field as Project Caviar set to take off…

…the intention is to topple Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos (also royalty free for streaming services only, but licences hardware companies and users instead) by offering purportedly royalty free formats for High Dynamic Range (HDR) Video and 3D audio.  Google can thereby avoid paying licence fees for their hardware and help increase sales of Android devices by keeping costs of hardware lower than those that opt to adopt Dolby’s video codec technology. YouTube is a must have app on devices. By having YouTube support the technology (for a more immersive experience), Google hopes to gain wide adoption both by streaming businesses and device makers.

The article notes that these technologies may in the future also contribute to VR and AR devices.

Quantum Computing

Novo Nordisk puts up $200million to create Quantum Computer especially for Life Sciences

…such device can be used for

• Formulating personal medicines, relying on analysis of genome data
• Making drug discoveries
• Modelling reactions

Semiconductors

ARM explores “strategic alliance” with Samsung

… If so in what form? An acquisition is thought to be unlikely. Nvidia bid for and failed to acquire ARM on antitrust grounds (because it would then make it very difficult for other businesses to share their IP with ARM). The same barrier is highly likely for Samsung, should it wish to acquire ARM. The great majority (estimated 90%) of today’s processors are based on ARM architecture. A strategic alliance with such a company would be more welcomed by Samsung, which has been reported that it is losing the technical edge in Smartphone Application Processors (the computer that runs the operating software, apps, processing commands, graphics, memory management etc). Chipmaker Qualcomm will be looking at the strategic alliance closely – it relies on ARM intellectual property, has been vociferous about anticompetitive effects of Nvidia/ARM acquisition, and have recently announced a multi-year strategic partnership with Samsung. ARM is also suing Qualcomm – so could ARM be trying to get some sort of leverage in the litigation by sidling up to Qualcomm’s customer?   

GM’s EV venture Cruise also to start designing chips

…buying chips of vendors too expensive so they are doing it in-house, GM says. It will also help them take control of the edge; for the edge is likely to be highly dependent on the chips and software when it comes to future cars. Which is certainly not going to be about engines. One of GM’s chips will be based on ARM architecture but it says that it is also exploring RISC-V, an open source architecture. These define the kind of software the chips can run. RISC-V can be said to be ARM’s greatest rival and threat.

Satellites/Space

NASA successfully hits an asteroid – to test our capability in averting planet killing hurtling asteroids

…the collision took place 7million miles away. SpaceX provided the engine for the satellite.

One more thing…

Ohio Jury to decide on the question of whether game maker NBA 2K infringed a tattoo artist’s copyright for depicting real life athelete’s tattoos in its games

…was the game maker’s use of the art work within the scope of US copyright fair use exemption/ de minimis use? Further, did the artist authorise the players to allow third party use of his work? Those are the questions.

Headlines in Tech news of the week

Biden Administration issues Executive order on Ensuring Robust Consideration of Evolving National Security Risks by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States

…In short, the US is tightening up on national security and strengthening self-sufficiency.

It’s not a new legislative measure, but the Executive Order (E.O.) gives guidance for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) in reviewing national security risks – there is no change to the CFIUS powers or the review process. Rather it builds on the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 (FIRRMA), under which the government increased scrutiny over foreign investments which concern critical technologies and infrastructure.  

It’s worthwhile taking a look at what the E.O. deals with because it gives us a good summary of what the US is most concerned about strategically and economically for the coming years and decades.

The E.O. directs the Committee to consider five specific sets of factors:

• A given transaction’s effect on the resilience of critical U.S. supply chains that may have national security implications, including those outside of the defense industrial base – eg. looking at

concentration of control by the foreign person in a given supply chain, and how diversified that supply chain is.

• A given transaction’s effect on U.S. technological leadership in areas affecting U.S. national security, including but not limited to microelectronics, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and biomanufacturing, quantum computing, advanced clean energy, and climate adaptation technologies [overlapping with UK’s NSIA – as to which see below]  – note that this is not a pure national security issue; it concerns the US maintaining pole position when it comes to emerging technologies too.

• Industry investment trends that may have consequences for a given transaction’s impact on U.S. national security – even where the investment may appear to be a limited threat – this is likely to cause uncertainty on deals and so businesses may be better off reporting to CFIUS at an early stage.

• Cybersecurity risks that threaten to impair national security – this may well be the case where the investment is made by a foreign entity into widely used software or operating systems which support critical services and infrastructure.

• Risks to U.S. persons’ sensitive data – clearly getting hold of sensitive data of US citizens (which will include public figures and military personnel) could seriously undermine security, which enable foreign actors to carry out surveillance, blackmail etc.

Note that the UK implemented the National Security and Investment Act, in which certain transactions (including restructuring and re-organisations, even within the same corporate group) need to be reviewed by the government where the target entity has activities in 17 defined areas – all of which are technically advanced areas (such as AI). A summary can be gleaned here. And on a similar matter…

Pressure on Biden to list YMTC on the blacklist

…Apple’s memory supplier YMTC needs to go on the blacklist, says US lawmakers as reports revealed that it was selling memory chips to Huawei, which may mean that the company has violated the US Foreign Direct Product Rule. This Rule says that companies are prohibited from selling Huawei with technology made in the US (the question is did YMTC know the destiny of their chips?).

Artificial Intelligence

Israeli AI company D-ID releases AI which helps you make videos from a single image of a person

…suppose a company were to create a promotional video by a busy CEO. It can upload the CEO’s image, provide it with text/audio and sentiment (eg. excited) and the program will automatically generate the video. It is also possible to select a language. Alternatively, you can pick an image of pre-created presenters, or premium paid customers can access premium pre-created presenters who are more expressive. There is scope for abuse so the company has put in some safeguarding measures such as:

• Filtering offensive language – using Microsoft Azure text moderation API
• Cannot use images of public figures – prevent deepfakes of public figures
• Cannot make political videos

Artist exposes backstory of influencers’ posts using technology

…What the artist was able to do is to show footages of influencers before they took the posts that got eventually uploaded, unbeknownst to the influencers. Take home point is that technology is around us everywhere and AI makes it possible to locate people (you don’t have to be an influencer) using limited data points.  This is a work of one artist. Imagine what large corporations/ states would be able to do. The steps were:

1. Record footage from EarthCam, which live streams videos from certain spots in cities around the world [who knew…]
2. Scrape Instagram photos that were taken nearby from Influencers with significant followers
3. Use AI and facial recognition to scan the videos and match it to influencers’ posts and identify the footage of influencers as they take the snapshot.

UK based Engineered Arts releases a video of a humanoid robot able to converse with people

…the YouTube clip is very impressive, albeit there is a small lag between conversations. It is not pre-scripted. The Robot uses a speech synthesizer and OpenAI’s GPT 3 (this uses deep learning to produce human-like text)

Harvard Medical School and Stanford University says its AI diagnostic tool CheXzero that can detect diseases on chest X-rays directly from natural-language descriptions contained in accompanying clinical reports is as accurate as human radiologists

…the report explains that the “step is deemed a major advance in clinical AI design because most current AI models require laborious human annotation of vast reams of data before the labeled data are fed into the model to train it….By contrast, the new model is self-supervised”. The code for the model has been made publicly available.

BigTech/ Data / Platforms

Competition

EU’s Second Highest Court (the General Court) largely confirms the Commission’s decision that Google was anticompetitive by imposing restrictions on manufacturers of Android mobile devices and network operators

…Essentially, Google compelled Android device makers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome browser apps, among other things.

General Court considered it appropriate to impose a fine of €4billion on Google (a little less than what the EU Commission had ordered) – largest fine levied against a company. Google can appeal to EU’s top court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). According to the EU Commission 80% of smartphones in 2018 are Android (note that Apple overtook Android in the US this month, accounting for over 50% if the market – one commentator said this was akin to a premium brand, like a Porsche being the most popular car maker – it’s a bit of a stretch, but it is nevertheless remarkable). Further detail on the various restrictions are explained in the Delving Deeper section, below.

Note that the upcoming Digital Markets Act will prevent platformers from installing default software alongside an operating system.

The Court found that issue with pre-installed Google apps was that the users would just use them and not bother installing competing apps – one issue is that Google’s search apps are so good, users would not think to download other search apps. It may well have been the case that even if there were no pre-installation requirements, users would in any event go and try download Google’s search apps. Now that Google can’t bind phone manufacturers [albeit, it is likely to be appealed], we shall see whether Google can continue to maintain dominance.

Following Washington DC, now California sues Amazon for uncompetitive conduct by prohibiting sellers on its platform to sell goods elsewhere at a price point cheaper than Amazon prices

…The court in Washington had tossed the case on lack of evidence showing that Amazon’s policies had led to higher prices for consumers. This case is on appeal. Causes of Action are breach of California’s Cartwright Act (ie: restraint of trade) and the California Unfair Competition Law among other things.

The Californian case [which is very similar to the Washington DC, so it has been described] is levelled at two types of sellers; the retail level via third-party sellers that sell on Amazon’s Marketplace, and the wholesale level via wholesale suppliers that sell directly to Amazon.

More detail on Amazon’s alleged restrictive practices are described in the Delving Deeper Section. It is interesting to know how Amazon’s business model works (if true).

Note

• In the DC case, Amazon said that the term ensures prices are kept low on Amazon, and so it is pro-consumer.

The key here is that the case has been advanced in the very large state of California (compared to DC). Indeed California Attorney General said: “If you think about the number of individuals who use the Amazon platform each day and you multiply that by the number of days in a year and 10 years, the scope and scale of this case is enormous”.

US FTC issues report on Dark Patterns

…FTC said that if business conduct violates the FTC Act, it will take action as the nation’s leading consumer protection agency.

Dark Patterns are “manipulative design practices” that trick or manipulate users into making choices they would not otherwise have made and that may cause harm

These include (and most of us will have encountered many):

• Inducing False Beliefs – eg. purportedly neutral comparison-shopping sites that actually rank companies based on compensation
• Hiding of delaying Disclosure of Material Information – eg. hidden fees
• Unauthorised charges – eg. the green button is the button they click to advance from one level to the next level. And then suddenly, that button is suddenly a ‘Buy’ button
• Obscuring or subverting privacy choices – eg. include default settings that maximize data collection and sharing
• Misleading endorsements – eg. “24 other people are viewing this listing”
• Scarcity – eg. “Only 1 left in stock – order soon”
• Urgency – eg.Creating pressure to buy immediately by showing a fake countdown clock that just goes away or resets when it times out
• Obstruction – eg. Making it easy to sign up but hard to cancel
• Interface interference – eg. user clicks the X in the top right corner of a pop-up but, instead of closing the box, it downloads software
• Coerced Action – eg. Asking repeatedly and disruptively if a user wants to take an action, forcing purchasers to create an account.
• Asymmetric Choice – eg. “No, I don’t want to save money” appears when a shopper selects a one-time purchase over a recurring one.

Businesses should, first and foremost, aspire to become good stewards of consumer personal information. Consumers should not…have to look for settings buried in a privacy policy or in a company’s terms of service: they should be presented at a time and in a context in which the consumer is making a decision about their data, said the FTC.

Over in the EU, the upcoming Digital Markets Act addresses this for gatekeepers (platforms). Article 13(6) says gatekeepers shall not … make the exercise of those rights or choices unduly difficult, including by offering choices to the end-user in a non-neutral manner, or by subverting end users’ or business users’ autonomy, decision-making, or free choice via the structure, design, function or manner of operation of a user interface or a part thereof. In another clause it provides that the gatekeeper shall ensure that the conditions of termination can be exercised without undue difficulty.

Apple hit with proposed class action suit in the UK for knowingly selling iPhones with defective batteries in contravention of competition law

… it is said that the lithium-ion batteries that were defective in that they were unable to deliver the necessary peak power required by the iPhone central processing unit (“CPU”) the graphics processing unit (“GPU”) and operating system and which caused the smartphones to stall or shut down without warning. Apple’s automatic software updates then increased the Affected iPhones’ power demands further beyond the capabilities of their batteries, making things worse. As a result, users suffered prolonged substandard performance of their premium handset which did not provide the performance which users were led to believe they would experience. There are parallel claims in other jurisdictions (including the US) on the same point, albeit under consumer protection law.

Content Moderation

Fifth circuit says Texan law prohibiting platforms from moderating content is not unconstitutional

… In short, the Court said that platforms are not the same as newspapers, they are the “modern public square”. The court held that H.B.20  protects Texans’ ability to “freely express a diverse set of opinions through one of the most important communications mediums used in that state” and it did not contravene the First Amendment which protects a person’s right to free speech.

Bit more info for those that are interested

The Texan law in question is called Texas House Bill 20, or H.B.20 for short, and it prohibits large social media companies from moderating content on the grounds of “the viewpoint of the user or another person”. It was implemented last year. As I understand it, it means that platforms – such as Twitter- can’t moderate content because of what the user says, or how the user says it. It also mandates disclosure to the public as to how any content moderation is being undertaken by large tech practices, together with the explanation of available remedies.

NetChoice, a trade association of businesses (eg. TikTok, Google, Twitter, Facebook etc) and Computer Communications Industry Association (members include Amazon, Apple, BT, Cloudflare, Deliveroo, Dish, Google, Facebook, Uber, Twitter etc) who share the goal of promoting free speech sued Texas because the law forces businesses to carry objectionable speech (eg. hate or extremist speech, discriminatory content, health (eg. Covid), foreign propaganda, pornography). They say they should not be forced to treat such content equally to content of decent users. Not only will platforms be forced to carry objectionable speech, they are concerned that advertisers will withdraw support.

Although the Court upheld H.B.20, it said that prohibition on viewpoint-based censorship did have qualifications such as the ability to content moderate where authorised to do so under Federal law. Such cases include threats of violence targeted against a person or group because of their race, color, disability etc. Social Media platforms are in between a rock and hard place; they may have to content moderate (or is it just an option to do so?) where there is incitement of violence/threats, but must not content moderate otherwise. These decisions are not always easy and it could make it precarious for platforms to overly rely on AI to carry out the decision making. In addition, the platforms are also subject certain duties, such as disclosing how any content moderation is carried out and publish biannual transparency report setting out the content moderation activities of the platform.

There is conflicting finding by the 11^th Circuit. It may well be appealed to the Supreme Court. I should think that Supreme Court ruling is necessary as otherwise social media platforms may end up violating one state law or another. The present findings might also clash with the Digital Services Act of the EU, which has “the objective to ensure a safe, predictable and trusted online environment, addressing the dissemination of illegal content online and the societal risks that the dissemination of disinformation or other content may generate” (Recital 9).

Privacy

Class action hits Meta alleging it collected personal data despite users rejecting request to enable third party App tracking on iPhones

…the complaint explains how Facebook’s tracking works:

• Meta tracks Facebook users’ online activity and communications with external third-party websites by injecting JavaScript code into those sites [JavaScript is programming language for the web. 98% of websites use JavaScript, not to be confused with Java programming language]

• When a user clicks on a web link within the Facebook, Instagram, or Messenger app, Meta automatically directs them to the in-app browser Meta monitors instead of the user’s default browser [an example might be the Safari app. I’ve tried this – most users won’t think which browser they are using at this stage]. The complaint says injecting JavaScript into the code of third-party websites can allow a malicious actor to intercept confidential information (including payment information) communicated to those sites.

• One can work out whether a particular in-app browser is injecting JavaScript code into third-party websites by using a tool called InAppBrowser. This is how the plaintiff was able to verify.

• There is no notice to say the user is being tracked

• Tracking occurs even if the user does not consent to being tracked.

Cause of Action: Violation of Wiretap Act, California’s Invasion of Privacy Act, Unfair Competition Law, common law claims of Unjust Enrichment and invasion of privacy. The complaint notes that a staggering 97% of Facebook’s revenue is sale of digital advertising space. That income was significantly impacted when Apple changed its privacy policy requiring apps to obtain users’ affirmative consent prior to be tracked across applications or on external websites because 96% of Apple users in the United States [no reason to believe the proportion is any different elsewhere] had not consented to being tracked by apps on their iPhone.

Connectivity

Amazon asks FCC (Federal Communication Commission) to open up use of unlicensed field disturbance sensor (“FDS”) devices onboard drones in the 60 GHz band

… Amazon Prime Air wrote to the FCC. It said the authorization is in the public interest because it enables Amazon and other innovative companies to develop and deploy Near Surround Detection (“NSD”) systems to enhance the drone’s ability to sense and avoid persons and obstacles in and near its ascent and descent path. It also asked for horizontal and vertical transmission to identify obstacles surrounding the drone. It said that doing so would not interfere with other uses, such as Earth-Exploration Satellite Service (“EESS”) and Radio Astronomy Service (“RAS”) operations. No doubt any permission would help eVTOL (electric air vehicles) business. Amazon has a stake in eVTOL startup, Beta Technologies.

Crypto

White House Releases First-Ever Comprehensive Framework for Responsible Development of Digital Assets

… frameworks and policy recommendations advance the key areas identified in the Executive Order of March on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets:

• Consumer and investor protection – required because crypto assets are volatile, the market is plagued by false promises, fraud, scams and theft. To combat this, the administration will actively enforce against bad actors, issue guidance, share data on consumer complaints, increase public awareness. [Note: In the UK, crypto exchange and wallet providers need to register with the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) for anti-money laundering supervision if that is being carried on by way of business in the UK. It has warned UK consumers this week that dealing with FTX [one of the largest crypto exchanges, based offshore in the Bahamas] will not be provided protections such as Financial Ombudsman or Financial Services Compensation Scheme]

• Promoting Access to Safe, Affordable Financial Services – Some digital assets could help facilitate faster payments and make financial services more accessible, but more work is needed to ensure they truly benefit consumers. Agencies will encourage the adoption of instant payment systems, create a federal framework to regulate nonbank payment providers.

• Fostering financial stability –  identify and mitigate cyber vulnerabilities / identify, track, and analyze emerging strategic risks

• Responsible innovation

• U.S. leadership in the global financial system and economic competitiveness – includes increase collaboration with—and assistance to—partner agencies in foreign countries through global enforcement bodies, explore further technical assistance to developing countries building out digital asset infrastructure and services.

• Fighting Illicit Finance – amend the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), anti-tip-off statutes, and laws against unlicensed money transmitting to apply explicitly to digital asset service providers, raise penalties.

• Exploring a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) – the Administration has developed Policy Objectives for a U.S. CBDC System

Nasdaq to offer Crypto Services

…Nasdaq which is one of the largest stock exchanges (most tech giants are listed on Nasdaq) is preparing to offer crypto services to institutional investors despite the cratering of the cryptocurrencies market. It will initially begin custody of crypto tokens for institutional investors, but likely eventually to include trading of digital assets.

EVs/AVs

Farming equipment maker John Deere expects 10% of its revenue to come from software fees by end of the decade

…as the population and so food demand is expected to carry on rising on into the future, the humankind is likely to have to rely on AgTech to make food production more efficient. John Deere, which is US agriculture equipment company, which is said to control over 50% of US farm tractor market said its revenues arising out of tech – in particular, software is expected to occupy 10% of its income. How is this done? It will sell software subscription for its smart vehicles. It estimated 1.5millions of machinery will generate data and fed into John Deere Operation Centre which can identify which patch will have weeds (distinguished from crops) that require herbicides, for example. The farmer can then save on herbicide and concentrate spraying in particular areas. Farmers are concerned:

• Data generated in all the fields will be used to service other fields.
• John Deere will own data generated in the farmers’ fields
• John Deere can wield enormous power over farmers with the ability to shut down tractors in the event of missed payments. [Indeed, tractors were stolen from Russian forces in Ukraine and John Deere was able to block them].

A complaint has been filed by to the US FTC because John Deere makes it impossible for farmers to get independent tractor repairers to repair tractors by refusing to share software and technical data, citing security issues. Indeed John Deere’s tractors have been hacked.

 [cf: there are rules in place in the EU to allow independent car repairers to do repairs (although there are complaints about the ease with which independent car repairers can utilise that data – awaiting decision from EU’s top court), and the upcoming EU Data Act also facilitates the opening up of after sale markets by allowing independent repairers to access data].

Note:

• John Deere unveiled its fully autonomous tractor at the CES event this year. John Deere makes it possible to convert a legacy tractor into a smart tractor.

• AgTech will help farmers save cost, for example, reduce tractor drivers, minimise herbicide use, fuel use, and water use by being specific about which patch require what

• With the use of Big Data, AgTech will help farmers be more efficient by helping farmers make better decisions on which crops to plant where, which herbicide to use and where, exactly which day to plant (sometimes called precision farming).   

Auto parts major Magna is making Pizza delivery “bots”

…which is a three wheeled vehicle. It has recently made two significant moves, an investment in Yulu – an Indian company that makes wheeled EVs and entering into a partnership with Cartken – a Californian autonomous delivery robot company.

Satellites/ Space

UK Government has to decide, should satellite company OneWeb (now owned by French Eutel) be a strategic asset or an investment piece?

..the UK Government poured $500million worth of tax payers’ money into OneWeb (one of the few providers of broadband services from satellites) to ensure it has a stake in the Satellite/Space field. Money was required to upgrade (and keep up with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos’ space ventures), and the decision was made to sell OneWeb to Eutel. As part of the deal, UK retained control over OneWeb, enabling the use of OneWeb network for national security purposes. But more money is needed and it is losing government and business deals which it was targeting, to Starlink which has better technical capabiltiies. EU is not allowing any funding to go to OneWeb unless the UK concedes some of OneWeb control.  Decision time for the UK government.

Supply Chains

EU seeking emergency powers to bolster supply chain resilience

…such measures follow that of US and Japan that have similar frameworks. 

Under the regime businesses could be compelled to…

• prioritise production of key products
• stockpile goods

Any measures are unlikely to come into force in the immediate future, but those businesses that are entering into new supply relationships should think about such potential outcomes in their terms anyway to carve out a case for breach of contract being made against them, if they have to comply with emergency orders.

Supply chain management isn’t easy today – as the FT points out, businesses will need to ensure they can meet demand in the deadline but also factors such as carbon footprint, biodiversity impact and working conditions of suppliers need to be borne in mind.

Delving Deeper

Further detail on EU General Court’s antitrust decision on Google’s conduct of compelling device makers to pre-install Google Search etc

So, in further detail, what were the restrictions which were considered anticompetitive?

What were the restrictions which were considered anticompetitive?

• Imposing “distribution agreements” requiring Android manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome browser apps in order to be able to obtain a licence from Google to use its app store (Play Store) [this enables Google to gather data on what people search for and use that data to ad-target (and receive advertising revenue)];

• Imposing “anti-fragmentation agreements” under which the operating licences necessary for the pre-installation of the Google Search and Play Store apps could be obtained by mobile device manufacturers only if they undertook not to sell devices running versions of the Android operating system not approved by Google [what this means is that, because Android is open source, developers can make their own version of the Android operating system – Google restricts manufacturers that pre-install its apps from selling these alternative Android phones (eg. Amazon’s Android Fire Operating System)].

• Imposing “revenue share agreements”, under which the grant of a share of Google’s advertising revenue to the manufacturers of mobile devices and the mobile network operators was subject to their undertaking not to pre-install a competing general search service on a predefined portfolio of devices.

The commission had found that the objective of the restrictions was to reinforce Google’s dominant position in relation to general search services and, therefore, the revenue obtained by Google through search advertisements. The General Court confirmed the first two points, but did not find there to be any abuse on the third point.

Further detail on Californian state claim against Amazon on uncompetitive conduct by prohibiting sellers on its platform to sell goods elsewhere at a price point cheaper than Amazon prices

What’s said to be the problematic conduct?

Amazon restricts sellers from selling goods at a cheaper price point on other platforms (the restriction).

• It means third party platforms can’t compete with Amazon because they are prohibited from lowering their prices.
• Sellers have the burden to continuously monitor various platforms to make sure that products are not sold on other platforms more cheaply.
• Amazon’s restriction means Amazon’s high commission and fees are mandated on other platforms, when they could be offered at lower prices without those fees. Consumers are prohibited from being offered lower prices. Therefore, the term is anticompetitive. [note that, the EU Commission, have already stamped down on Amazon on the issue for its e-Books ]
• Amazon compelled wholesale suppliers to guarantee a minimum margin specified by Amazon, by making them make up for any shortfall if Amazon’s price-matching in response to other online stores’ lower prices results in Amazon making less than the “minimum margin”. This induces wholesales to deny discounts on competing online stores, and keep prices high.
• Even when Amazon removed the restriction, it is said that it penalised sellers which sold cheaper products elsewhere by demoting their offers to the bottom of Amazon’s organic search results, and blocking them from creating new offers in their third-party seller accounts altogether (de facto restriction).

Amazon penalises certain sellers

• Amazon penalises sellers that do not use Fulfilled By Amazon service [where Amazon does the picking, packing, and shipping, and provides customer service to complete the order] – products will not receive the Prime badge (qualifies for express shipping for Prime subscribing customers – which are most lucrative customers – there are 160 million households) in Amazon’s store, which adversely affects sale. In other more serious cases, Amazon can terminate the privilege of being able to sell on its platform.
• Made sellers pay for advertising to appear at the top of relevant search result, or appear as recommended alternatives. Sellers had no choice but to pay for advertising.
• Amazon decides which seller’s offer to include in the Buy Box (i.e. which seller will make the sale if the shopper clicks on the “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” button in the Buy Box) – consumers don’t pay attention to other sellers that sell the same item. For example, sellers have to use Amazon’s price matching tool (to keep up with other competitors – which could include raising prices) to stay eligible for the Buy Box.

What is the rational for Amazon’s policy? 

Amazon says that customers can be assured that the prices offered on Amazon are the lowest customers can get.

What are the relevant points to bear in mind (according to the complaint)?

• Sellers and wholesale suppliers cannot afford to lose Amazon because of their market dominance
• Amazon operates the largest online retail store in the United States, accounting for an estimated over 49% of all sales in the Online Retail Store Market by gross merchandise value. That number is many multiples of those figures for Walmart and eBay, the two next largest online retail stores.
• 160 million Prime members are already paying Amazon $139 per year for unlimited free and fast shipping, they are generally reluctant to pay Amazon’s competitors for the same kind of service
• This means Amazon can—and does—charge substantially higher fees and demand substantially higher profitability on its sales of their products than it could in a competitive market – yet it can remain dominant because sellers/suppliers can’t sell goods cheaper elsewhere

One more thing…

What’s the difference between a typeface and a font?

…that happens to be at the heart of a case between a restaurant chain Shake Shack and House Industries, which is described as a “font foundry”. Shake Shack is seeking a declaratory judgment in response to House’s demand for a licence fee.  Shake Shack’s logo looks like this:

Bit about the font: Complaint says it uses a typeface called Neutra developed in the 1930s by architect Richard Neutra.

Shake Shack says: Logo is a bespoke design created expressly for Shake Shack by an internationally renowned graphic design firm

Law: US Law says typeface cannot attract copyright protection (section 202 Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations) [Note in the UK, typeface is copyright protectable but there is wide-ranging limitation to the extent of protection].

Difference between a Typeface and a Font: Typeface is the design of the lettering. Font is what you use to produce the typeface (eg. wooden blocks or software programs. The claimant develops various pieces of code which produce a variety of typefaces). The complaint says that the software may well be protected but not the outcome of the software (ie: Typeface).

Headlines in Tech news of the week

White House’s Listening Session with experts identify Core Principles on Tech Platform Accountability

…any business designing digital products or services could do well to take these principles in mind from the outset. Having to remedy later could be an expensive business…Indeed, the FTC has recently said it will be making rules on Commercial Surveillance.

The Biden-Harris administration announced the following core principles [the below is my own summary – please refer to original for what exactly was said]:

1. Promotion of competition – Dominant platforms are charging commissions and gathering information to their own advantage [eg. use of data of business on its own platform which is not public to further the platform’s offering – which the EU already regulating in the Digital Markets Act]. SMEs need to be able to compete effectively. Requires appropriate antitrust legislative provisions.
2. Federal protection of citizens’ privacy – clear limits need to be implemented on the ability to collect, use, transfer, and maintain personal data. Burden on platforms to minimise data that they can collect, and must not leave it to citizens to read the terms and conditions. Sensitive data (geolocation, health etc) need to be especially safeguarded [Note under GDPR (s.9) circumstances in which sensitive data (special categories of personal data) can be processed are stricter than data which is not sensitive]. Requires appropriate privacy legislative provisions.
3. Strong protection for childrens’ data – Safety and wellbeing of the young to be prioritised over profit in their design, including restricting excessive data collection and ad-targeting [Note: personally I think it should apply to vulnerable people generally or where vulnerable people might be exposed eg. gambling sites]. Recall Instagram has been recently fined for their past services which was held to be not adequately protecting young persons’ data in breach of GDPR. Some platforms are implementing system already to protect children’s wellbeing [eg. Instagram is rolling out nudges to encourage teens to switch to a different topic if it detects obsessive patterns concerning the same type of content (eg. dieting), TikTok’s feature reminding minors to take a break if they are watching videos for a prolonged period]
4. Remove special protection for large tech platforms – Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of the United States generally protects websites from liability over content uploaded by users or third parties even when they disseminate illegal, violent conduct or materials. S.230 provisions need to be revised. [Recall Apple and Google have been asked by Senator Brown what measures they are taking to ensure scammy crypto apps are not downloadable from their App Stores (and Apple was able to rely on s.230 recently on such a case). Note that executives of Alphabet, Reddit, Twitter and Meta have been subpoenaed by the US House Committee to explain their potential contribution to the Capital Hill riot of 2021, which includes explanation of what they have done to prevent it (if anything)]
5. Increase transparency about platform’s algorithms and content moderation decisions – public and researchers need to understand how and why such decisions are made, their potential effects on users, and the very real dangers these decisions may pose. [China has recently implemented a rule that algorithm based services have to disclose the algorithms – the US should look at how this is being implemented, and how helpful it is, and carry out an assessment on the impact on competition].
6. Stop discriminatory algorithmic decision-making – protections need to be afforded to protected groups by ensuring opportunities are shared [eg. A case where housing advertising that was not shown to a minority on Facebook, based on user profile] and prevent exposing vulnerable communities to risky products [eg. A case where gambling advert was alleged to have been shown to those that are likely to be gambling addicts], or through persistent surveillance. [As the data on which AI is being trained is likely to be inherently biased, platforms may need to implement positive measures to ensure there is no discrimination. Note: US FTC Commissioner Slaughter is reported to have stated that ” We need to be actively anti-racist”, and that the agency will research into how systems can ensure racial equity].

Note that there does not appear to be any forward looking measures such as getting large platforms to carry out a risk reduction analysis to reduce risk associated with among other things, dissemination of illegal content on an ongoing basis, provided for by the up-coming EU’s Digital Services Act.  

Artificial Intelligence

Meta to spin out its PyTorch AI platform to Linux Foundation’s newly formed PyTorch Foundation

…PyTorch was created and open-sourced by Facebook in 2016, and has become a well-used framework for deep learning, supporting machine learning applications. Its popularity owes itself to some features such as:

• Use of Python as the main programming language for AI
• Based on GPU accelerated framework
• It supports tensors which provides a versatile tool to manipulate data
• Torchvision module – image processing
• Torchaudio module – audio processing
• Wide community contributing to the framework, including AWS, AMD, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia.

Meta says it will continue investing in Pytorch, and will use it for AI research and product applications.

AI software company Defcon AI launched with the backing of former Pentagon officials

…last week I covered the new AI accelerator platform Tradewind, which was set up by the US government. This week, a new AI software company has been announced, involving former Pentagon officials. The AI developed is a tool for generating operationally relevant insights for decision making in global mobility and logistics in distressed situations such as natural disasters, unanticipated events, and war.

Text to Video generator coming soon – Runway

…it will use Stable Diffusion AI.

South Korean AI software company Infiniq launches AI which anonymises video called Wellid

…the software deletes faces, number plates in video. Can be installed in data logging vehicle, for example.

BigTech/ Data / Platforms

Privacy

Sony, Bloomberg, AMC and Realtor.com sued for allegedly gathering and sharing video watching behaviour to Facebook

…In a proposed class action, the plaintiff says that sharing such information with third parties without consent violates Video Privacy Protection Act.

Gamestop hit with class action that it wiretapped and shared users’ sensitive conversation with third party without consent of users in the US

What the complaint says

Cause of Action: Breach of California Invasion of Privacy Act

What did Gamestop do wrong: create transcripts of visitors’ conversations on its website using “secretly embedded wiretapping technology” and/or share that with a third party without consent of users. The plaintiff says Gamestop shared the transcripts with Zendesk, “a third party that publicly boasts about its ability to harvest highly personal data from chat transcripts for sales and marketing purposes”.

According to the plaintiff website visitors typically share highly personal and sensitive data with Defendant. I’m not sure why this is – is it the nature of the gaming community?

Business

Amazon buys more robotics companies – Cloostermans, a century old company with specialism in mechanotronics

…in particular the machinery can move and stack palettes.  Amazon has been Cloostermans’ biggest customer. So Amazon knows what it’s buying. The company was founded in 1884!

Amazon’s robot projects include:

• Purchase of Kiva (has robotics that streamline the process of picking, packing and shipping e-commerce products for delivery) in 2012
• Purchase of Canvas Technology (warehouse robotics) in 2019
• Releases autonomous warehouse robot, Proteus – designed to carry packages around Amazon warehouses

Amazon has faced employee defiance, shortage of employees and of course, it would like to cut down on costs. Some of these robotic capabilities might eventually lead to robots in our houses (and more data sucking from our private lives). The lure of a robot unloading the groceries and dishwasher would be difficult to resist.

Cybersecurity

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence to build a laboratory for developing solutions to lessen 5G cybersecurity risks

…The result will be the generation of security reference architecture for 5G networks that bridges the gap between IT and telecommunications cybersecurity capabilities outside the scope of 3GPP’s 5G security architecture. For the benefit of operators and users of 5G networks.

EVs/AVs

Alphabet subsidiary Waymo to test its self-driving capabilities using Jaguar cars on wet roads

…specifically, Bellevue, Washington. The location was chosen not only because of its weather but because the roads and overall driving environment are similar to other places where Waymo operate such as Phoenix and San Francisco, so it has been reported. Amazon-owned Zoox and GM’s Cruise have also carried out tests in the Seattle region.

EV maker Rivian partners with Mercedes Benz to build electric van factories

…Capital expenditure to set up an EV factory is notoriously high (higher prices for energy, steel (to actually build the factory) and other metals). They will save costs by using Mercedes’ existing factory. Thereby, the pair hope to gain cost savings and to scale production quickly.

Toyota/Panasonic JV Prime Planet chief says to FT that difficulties in developing solid state battery and potential of liquid based ion batteries means the latter will likely dominate for the next 10 years

What is so good about solid state batteries? It’s lighter, safer and better functionality (charging time, capacity)

What is the difference between the two? Solid state batteries have a solid electrolyte and use lithium at the anode instead of graphite

Which companies are in the solid state batteries space? The article mentions Honda, Nissan, Volkswagen (via investment in Quantum Scope) and Ford (via investment in Solid Power). Prime Planet hopes to roll out the technology by as soon as 2025.

Tesla considering building refinery to make battery grade Lithium Hydroxide in Texas

…Couple of reasons:

• Price of lithium has spiked – by vertical integration Tesla aims to control costs
• Reduce dependency on China – more than half of the world’s lithium processing and refining are controlled by China.

Tesla says it also depends on the assessment of a competing site in Louisiana, and the grant of tax breaks.

Tesla to let the public decide where EV superchargers should be located

…its supercharger network is to be opened up to other EV makers by the end of the year. Interesting that they are not using the data they have. Maybe they are doing that too, and it is seeking to get public buy in.

BMW strikes supply agreement with two Chinese battery makers – CATL (world No.1) and EVE Energy

…CATL will be prioritising the use of renewable energy and recycled materials for production. The batteries from both suppliers are said to be new cylindrical ones, which use more nickel and less cobalt, and has a higher energy density. Batteries define the performance of EVs in terms of range, driving performance and charging time, so procuring the cutting edge range is important for BMW, which plans to incorporate them in its Neue Klasse range.

Uber signs 10 year agreement with Nuro to deliver food

…Nuro is an autonomous vehicle company in particular specialising in delivery. It does not look like your ordinary car; it has no passenger seats, no windows, just a vehicle with compartments. Nuro says “With its specially designed size, weight, pedestrian-protecting front end, operating speed, electric propulsion, and cautious driving habits, Nuro is ready to begin service as a socially responsible neighborhood vehicle”. Nuro was the first company to be granted a commercial deployment permit by the State of California.

For a venture that is starting up, the agreement seems long. Slowly and surely, human jobs are being replaced.

United Airlines to buy 200 electric air taxis (eVTOLs) from Eve Air Mobility

…it would be interesting to see if any other airlines will follow suit. It already has a stake in Archer, another eVTOL company.

Note on eVTOLs (ee-veetols)

This stands for electric vertical take-off and landing

How does it move? The clue is in the name, it can hover, and takes off and land vertically. You need to have a vertiport for access.

What is so revolutionary about it? It’s powered by electricity and possibly will become autonomous

What is the limitation? The batteries. It can do about 20km right now, so we are looking at a maximum 10km radius when you factor in the return leg. The weight of the battery occupies half of the total weight (so the proportion isn’t that different to an EV)

Gaming

Struggling Netflix attempts to increase revenue by bolstering games offering by partnering with Ubisoft

…Netflix will have 3 exclusive mobile games. Ubisoft is one of Europe’s biggest gaming company behind the popular title Assassin’s Creed. Chinese giant Tencent has recently increased its stake in Ubisoft amid increasing Chinese regulatory clamp downs.

Metaverse / VR / AR / MR / XR

Sony releases toolkit for AR developers

…[slightly old news – June 2022] Sony has released ToF AR (Time of Flight Augmented reality) toolkit which enables efficiently development of Unity AR applications.

The toolkit enables developers to convert a photograph into graphics, and manipulate it in a 3D way, convert yourself into anime characters and bring to life by easily controlling their movements. The toolkit uses LiDAR technology on smartphones. It will make creating gaming/metaverse, V-Tuber, Movie contents much easier and cheaper. Other purveryors of similar technology include Pokemon Go maker Niantic (superimpose a Pokemon image on a photo/video),  Adobe (makes virtual showrooms for furniture makers), Samsung (creation of 3D avatars, tracks your facial expressions). Other uses include visualising outfits or shoes before purchase.

Starbucks launches Starbucks Odyssey, an NFT loyalty program

…but in order to include the uninitiated, users will not know that it is an NFT based system. Users can download an app on the mobile using their present loyalty program credentials, and play interactive games, or complete of challenges (eg. purchasing a new type of latte) or increase knowledge about Starbucks coffee to increase engagement with the brand, collecting NFTs on the way – which the program calls “journey stamps” [hence Odyssey – I wonder if Homer would approve…] to limit putting off non-techy Starbucks fans. These which come with exclusive benefits (free coffee, access to events) upon payment of an NFT and can be traded within the Starbucks’ digital community. NFTs which come with real world benefits are likely to fare better in the long run. 

Patents

US ITC judge says iFIT, Peloton and Lululemon infringe DISH patent concerning streaming technology

…technology concerns improving video content quality over the internet. The patents are entitled “Apparatus, system, and method for adaptive-rate shifting of streaming content” or “Apparatus, system, and method for multi-bitrate content streaming.” Reasoning and initial final determination are yet to be published.

Semiconductors

Apple warned about using Chinese memory chips (specifically Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC)) to store data on smartphones

…. Republican lawmakers and the Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said that Apple will face intense scrutiny if it so, it has been reported. Apple said that iPhones with YMTC memory were those to be sold in China only and in any event the data will be encrypted. 

Why is this thought to be a risk?

• YMTC owned by the state, and Chinese military supplier
• The chip will contain customer data such as Apple ID data, the relevant and sensitive customer information from iCloud, the App Store, and other Apple online stores, iMessage, and FaceTime
• Cyberattacks can be carried out via semiconductors
• Chips can be compromised during the design process so it is difficult to protect.
• Even if the phones were only sold for the Chinese market, one cannot control the secondary market

Apple also needs to be able to shift position in case YMTC is listed on the US black list (aka entity list).

Vendanta and Foxconn to take up India chip making subsidy

…the venture will see one of the largest natural resources conglomerate Vendanta (India) finance and electronics contract maker Foxconn (Taiwan – makes iPhones and Kindles) provide the technical input for building a new semiconductor fab in Prime Minister Modi’s home state of Gujarat. Modi had recently announced a $10billion subsidy for semiconductor projects – now set to be increased. Note that the US has set aside $52billion and EU has proposed €43billion, with France investing separately to support STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundaries in their manufacturing plant [compare with TSMC that announced a budget of $44bn for this year to boost its manufacturing facility – it has promised to outspend to secure and increase the lead].

Telecoms

Apple launches iPhone 14

…the consensus view seems to be that it was nothing too major but the following 2 features are perhaps worth noting:

• You can connect to a satellite to send SOS signals (for now just in the US – Apple has partnered with satellite communication company Globalstar – Elon Musk said he has had promising talks about a deal with Apple)
• Includes high-dynamic range gyroscope and new dual-core accelerometer – in case of a crash. This will help you call emergency services and emergency contacts.

It is difficult to make further significant improvements when the smartphones are already pretty smart. Apple have gone for including safety features that users may be pleased to have.

Note that Huawei’s new Mate50 model will also have a satellite connectivity capability, even though the latest model cannot offer 5G owing to US’s export restrictions.

Note also that Google has spun out Aalyria, which is in engaged in the business of speeding up satellite communications, WiFi on planes and ships and cellular connectivity. The technology relies on laser communications called Tightbeam which keeps data “intact through the atmosphere and weather and offers connectivity where no supporting infrastructure exists.”

One more thing…

The Royal Family’s Twitter account releases the news of the death of Queen Elizabeth II before the BBC

…they say that King Charles III is intent on modernising the royal family. This is a huge departure from tradition.

Headlines in Tech News of the week

Nvidia and AMD ordered to stop exporting cutting edge machine learning chips to China

…the news broke as I was issuing last week’s digest, so it’s a week old now, but there has been some further developments and rumours…

US government has imposed a new license requirement, effective immediately, for any future export to China (including Hong Kong) and Russia of the companies’ cutting edge AI chips to China. In particular, what is being banned is electronic design automation software which are needed to design high-end chips. System designed to integrate those are also affected. Chinese companies affected are said to be mainly cloud service providers, internet and AI companies.

The US government says the new license requirement will need to address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a ‘military end use’ or ‘military end user’ in China and Russia. This means Nvidia and AMD stand lose if they cannot fulfil their contract with their Chinese customers. The government has since given Nvidia the green light on developing one of its AI chips in China, and to continue exporting AI chips from its Hong Kong facility to 2023 [but this would seem to defeat the purpose of the export ban].

US is rumoured to step up the restrictions on Chinese companies by limiting how Chinese internet companies can collect data on U.S. citizens and set out the technologies that cannot be exported to China.

Learning point from this is that, businesses will be in the future required to think about possible regulatory pressures in advance. It seems a bit unfair for the regulation to come down on the chipmakers so suddenly. It may be wise if contracts could address what happens if there are sudden tightening of regulations which means that the promised supply cannot be fulfilled through no fault of the supplier – this will all depend on the relative bargaining position of the parties. 

It’s a tricky one because we just don’t know where the line lies. If not cutting edge machine learning chips, what about not-so cutting edge machine learning chips?  What about other products that could possibly be used for military use, but has plenty of civil uses?

Artificial Intelligence/ Algorithms

Promptbase – a marketplace for AI art created by text to image AI engines such as Dall-E

…now everyone can make and sell art.  But what stops people from trying to get something similar using Dall-E or other, text to image AI? There is still skill required in editing the AI generated art though, and complicated art will be difficult to replicate even where it is generated by AI, at least for the moment.  

Interesting copyright questions are likely to arise. What is the copyright status of all the data which was scraped to make the AI engine the first place? What does that mean for the generated AI art?

Dall-E says users get full usage rights to commercialize the images they create with DALL·E, including the right to reprint, sell, and merchandise – but Open AI claims to own the original image. Other text to image generating AI have their own terms; including a stake in the proceeds should the art be onwardly traded.

Where the terms as to ownership are unclear, the outcome may depend on the law of copyright, which may differ depending on the jurisdiction. In the UK, it is arguable that AI generated by copyright is protectable as a computer-generated work under s.9(3) Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), in which case the author/owner will be “the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken” [there may be argument over who actually undertook the arrangements necessary]. The EU position may be different, as case law indicates that human creation is required to attract copyright (eg. Case C-145/10 (Painer), Case C-683/17 (Cofemel)). In the US, the argument is likely to centre around the scope of fair use – which is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances.  

Worth checking out is Dall-E’s new feature, Outpainting “which helps users extend their creativity by continuing an image beyond its original borders”. Check out the Girl with a Pearl Earring in her surroundings, here.

US Department of Defence opens a marketplace Tradewind – to find, fund, and accelerate the adoption and transition of AI technologies to solve DoD challenges and problems

… The marketplace is led by the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO)

Meta uses AI to decode speech from brain activity

…no need for transplants, and gives those with brain injury/ stroke victims so severe that they cannot type to communicate, much hope. Facebook AI Research Labs (FAIR) scientists have been able to show “from three seconds of brain activity… [the ability to] decode the corresponding speech segments with up to 73 percent top-10 accuracy from a vocabulary of 793 words, i.e., a large portion of the words we typically use on a day-to-day basis.”

Reddit undertakes AI acquisitions for Ad-targeting purposes in amid data use restrictions

…Last year Apple gave iPhone users the option to stop third party apps tracking what users do with their mobiles phones (such as Apps and Websites). Tracking enabled those third parties (for example, supermarkets, car makers, fashion brands – you name it) gather data about users and understand their likes and dislikes. That was then used to target ads – car makers could spend cash on advertising on eg. Facebook only on users that liked cars, Gucci might advertise on users that had more expensive buying habits, or bought other luxury brand items, for example. The users took up the option to block this commercial surveillance with zeal such that brands could no longer ad target effectively, and advertising space providers such as Facebook and Reddit experienced a cratering in its revenue. Added to that are ever tighter regulatory restrictions on the horizon to ensure users’ data are not taken and exploited without regard for their rights, privacy or security.

Reddit is now on a shopping spree to buy AI technology that enable it to glean the conversations on its platform to better understand trends – so they can better ad-target, and so reap higher income from advertisers now that data is less available. It can also use the technology to content moderate, provide a better service to users by enabling them to get to the most relevant content (without having to develop super indexing algorithms like Google), and perform on point automated recommendations (like TikTok). It has so far purchased:

• Spiketrap – a company that uses artificial intelligence to contextualize audience understanding
• MeaningCloud – a natural language processing platform that enables developers to build apps that can extract meaning from written content.
• Spell – platform for running machine learning experiments

Who is liable? Truck drivers subcontracting for Amazon blame Amazon’s AI for poor working conditions in Japan

…the unionised truckers say the AI diverts them to overly narrow roads [lots of narrow roads in Japan], and doesn’t take into account driving conditions [such as weather]. This increases their working load. The truckers are subcontractors and technically work for a third party logistics company so Amazon says it is not legally responsible. The union for the truckers say they get the orders from Amazon through the Amazon App, so they work for Amazon, who should be responsible. Employment lawyers, take note – this issue may arise in other jurisdictions.

BigTech/ Data / Platforms

Content moderation

Cloudflare, the internet infrastructure company decides to remove support for Kiwi Farms – a notorious hate speech site

…Cloudflare protects websites from DDOS attacks (bombarding of traffic on target websites – think website crashes when in demand tickets are released). The threats on the site escalated enough in the last 48 hours that, in spite of proactively working with law enforcement, it became enough of an imminent emergency we could no longer wait for them to act – said Cloudflare CEO. The site was particularly known for harassing and doxxing (publishing malicious private info) trans people.

Competition

Apple caves and settles with App Developer Flicktype

…the complaint concerned an activity known as Sherlocking. This refers to a time when Apple sunk a popular App priced at $29 called Watson by later releasing its own finder app with capability of carrying out a search on the web and files on the device – called [aptly named?] Sherlock. Since then Sherlocking came to describe the move where a popular app becomes redundant because it becomes integrated within the operating system. The idea is not dissimilar to Amazon using non-public data of sellers on its platform to inform itself of which best-selling products it should focus on selling on the same platform – the EU Commission is currently investigating whether such practice is anticompetitive. 

Flicktype was an app offering keyboard for the Apple watch. The suit says that Apple was interested in buying the company, but then the App was told that it needed to be removed because the app is a keyboard for the Apple Watch. Apple then launched its own swipe keyboard app alongside the new Apple Watch Series 7. Reportedly, there are a number of instances of Sherlocking by Apple. As pointed out by FOSS patents, the better course may be to see if the functionality of the apps can be patented.

The settlement with Flicktype is significant because there are rumours that the US Department of Justice is preparing an antitrust suit against Apple for “abused its market power to stifle smaller tech companies, including app developers and competing hardware makers.”

This again is perhaps an example of BigTechs making moves before antitrust suit is filed against them. Recently, Apple has enabled users to delete wallets from iPhones, and will allow third party web browsers to work with Apple Pay – following a complaint made to the EU Commission. Last year, Apple enabled a Report button enabling users to report scammy apps – which may have been due to the up-coming EU’s Digital Services Act which oblige “very large platforms” to analyse systemic risks they create and to carry out risk reduction analysis to reduce risks associated with, among other things, dissemination of illegal content.

Platforms

Apple not liable for making available phishing app Toast Plus on app store says Judge (Northern District of California)

…interestingly one of the class action plaintiffs was not a resident in the US, but Japan (who lost out big time by the scam). Plaintiffs downloaded a scam e-wallet app which stole cryptocurrencies. Plaintiffs believed that Toast Plus was a version of Toast Wallet, a well known cryptocurrency wallet, as the names were similar and the logo used for the application in the App Store was the same or nearly identical.

The plaintiffs point out that Apple is representing in its campaign (eg. against antitrust complaints concerning App Store monopoly – ie: not allowing third party apps on the iOS ecosystem) that App Store is “a safe and trusted place” and that “that the apps we offer are held to the highest standards for privacy, security, and content”, yet it had listed Toast Plus, a fraudulent app, on its app store.

That was not enough to make Apple liable, the Court said. It was immune from liability arising from content created by third parties under § 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”).  It was a publisher in that it reproduced a work intended for public consumption, the third party content for which Apple did not have any hand in developing. Claims under consumer protection laws failed, and Apple was able to rely on its terms limiting liability.

Amazon to deliver prescription pills in Japan by partnering up with pharmacies

…Amazon has recently invested (not acquired) in iStyle, a Japanese cosmetics company, with a rich source of online discussions. In Japan, a relatively wide variety of cosmetics are sold in pharmacies. Perhaps there is some sort of synergy with that business too. Japan is a lucrative country for pharmaceutical companies as a significant portion of the population prefer originator drugs to generics. That’s another reason for expanding into Japan. Further, it may be trying simply to grow internationally. The antitrust climate in the US is pretty hot, so in order to increase revenue and perhaps access to data – which can aid business to be sharper if data is processed right – it may be expanding into other countries.

Separately, on a health related business point, Amazon was outbid to buy Signify Health, value-based care and provider enablement business in the US. CVS will be buying it for $8billion. Amazon may have lost the bid, but it may have done some collateral damage to would be rival CVS (if Amazon gets the go ahead to buy One Medical) by pushing up the acquisition price tag.

Privacy

Instagram fined €405million by Irish data regulator for not keeping children’s data safe in breach of GDPR

…Instagram explains that the breach concerns an old feature in which all users, including under 18’s default setting was not private when it is changed to a business account, as a result of which childrens’ data (eg. phone numbers, emails) were automatically disclosed. That has now been remedied. In any event, Instagram said they will appeal. #

UK has been leading the efforts to protect childrens’ data with the Children’s Code, with many countries following that lead with stringent rules obliging businesses to keep childrens’ data private. California has last week approved age-appropriate design code for certain sized businesses, which includes privacy by default settings.

Crypto/NFT

Proceeds of Actor Bill Murray’s charity NFT is stolen – Ethereum worth $185,000 …the interesting point is the use of the NFT with a real world element. Bill Murray auctioned “Beer with Bill Murray” NFT – the winner got to have a beer with the actor, the scene of which an artist painted on canvas and then converted into a digital copy.

Cyber Security

Criticism over decision of Lloyd’s of London to exclude state-sponsored cyber attacks in insurance policies

…Lloyd’s say, it is (i) akin to exclusions for acts of war and (ii) owing to the scale of potential losses it could make policies prohibitively expensive.

Critics say state backed attacks are so frequent that businesses might decide not to buy a policy. Policy prices have increased sharply in the recent year.

EVs/AVs

UK Data Protection Regulator prosecutes theft of data from Vehicle Repair Garages

…voluminous data of 100s of thousands of people relating to those involved in car accidents were stolen to obtain leads to make insurance claims. They were prosecuted under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, which carries a custodial sentence of up to two years.

Uber partners with fintech Moove in London

…London has ever burgeoning strict and expensive low emission zones. These leave EVs out of reach for most drivers who would work for Uber, who has the ambition to become a 100% electric platform in London by 2025. To drive under the UberX banner, cars must be at least a hybrid.

Nigerian fintech Moove, which has an established presence in the African and Indian regions, proposes to help with the financing to add 10,000 extra Uber cars on London’s roads to rent out to drivers on a weekly basis. Drivers need not undergo credit checks or a deposit, instead preferring to use alternative credit scoring technology which is expected to be more financially inclusive. Moove will also provide Moove Charge, an app for Uber drivers, giving them access to 6600 charge points.

A day after GM’s Cruise gets Robotaxi (no driver) licence in California, it causes an accident – leads to software recall and update in 80 Robotaxis

…not the best timing, but the accident was not fatal. The Robotaxi failed to avoid an oncoming traffic speeding in the wrong lane – 40 miles per hour in a 25-mph restricted right-turn/bus-only lane. As the Robotaxi started to make a left turn, it predicted that the oncoming traffic would turn right – and so it hard-braked. Instead, the car drove straight on and the two vehicles collided.

Query I have is what percentage of human “competent and careful” drivers [to borrow the standard the UK Government is proposing to use] would have been able to avoid it.

Metaverse / VR / AR / MR / XR

Meta enters into a “multi-year broad strategic agreement” with Qualcomm to build custom chips for Meta’s VR headsets

…think I heard that one before…. Qualcomm recently entered into a multiyear broad strategic partnership with Samsung. And what do Samsung and Meta have in common? A common competitor in the name of Apple – in the mobile (Samsung) and VR (Meta) space.  Apple itself has locked horns with Qualcomm, unhappy with Qualcomm’s pricing and pricing structure for its chips and intellectual property, leading to a 2019 settlement following a global battle that ended with Intel being pushed out of the chip-making market [though Intel is now entering back into it]. The leftover skirmishes of that battle ended about two months ago. Apple itself is doing all it can to reduce its dependency on Qualcomm, by designing own chips [it’s forthcoming anticipated VR headset to be based on in-house designed chip, the M2] and getting the top manufacturer TSMC to make them. Qualcomm/Apple licence ends in 2025.

Product and engineering teams will deepen technical collaboration to develop next generation Snapdragon XR chipsets. Meta’s current VR headset, the Quest 2 uses Snapdragon XR2. Notable points:

• Chip will be optimised for Meta’s system specifications, but will not be exclusive to Meta.
  • Note Qualcomm has a partnership with ByteDance [TikTok parent] who owns VR headset company Pico, and also working with Microsoft on custom chips for next-gen AR glasses.

• Meta is trying to custom silicon of its own for its VR/AR headset. Mark Zuckerberg is reported to have said “Unlike mobile phones, building VR brings novel multidimensional challenges in spatial computing, cost and form factor”

• The agreement covers only VR devices.

Note

AR (where information is overlaid over the physical world) is much more difficult than VR in terms of technology, which is why VR is being launched first. Companies will then probably move onto MR (mixed reality) – where there is an out-ward facing video camera so the real world can be blended with the virtual (apparently called “pass through” – so it’s not really AR) – you do not see the real world direct, but the processed videoed images.

Lenovo to sell platform neutral AR glasses (which looks like ordinary sunglasses)

… Lenovo Glasses T1 will be usable with Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS devices.

Semiconductors

India moves in on the chipmaking act!

…We’ve seen the US Chips and Science Act and the EU Chips Act with $52billion and €40billion worth of subsidies respectively. Now India is offering $10billion worth of incentive to lure chip makers to manufacture there too.

As the FT points out, as a result of US blockade of exportation of cutting edge chips into China, China is also likely to provide some sort of semiconductor package.

And so is Micron in the US

…it will be the first memory semiconductor manufacturing plant by a US company over the last 20 years. The company says that the support provided by the US Chips and Science Act enabled to embark on the venture. The chips will be made for multiple markets including data centres and autos, where Micron chips are currently being widely used.

Supply Chain

Amazon to provide low-cost long-term storage that gives sellers the option to store their inventory in Amazon distribution centers

…when it comes to logistics, Amazon is king. Here, what Amazon is really offering, is supply chain resilience.

When supply chain disruptions erupted during the pandemic, Amazon was the business that was capable of routing its cargo, using smaller vessels that can pass narrower channels and better able to utilise smaller ports, avoiding the larger ports that were clogging up. It has own cargo ships and containers, has control over every node across their supply chain, have the predictive logistics capability to manage and prioritise goods, and make distribution as seamless as possible, as explained by CNBC.

The new service, “Amazon Warehousing & Distribution (AWD)” gives third parties the opportunity to rely on Amazon’s logistical prowess to buy the supply chain resilience businesses desperately need. Amazon will also have the opportunity to collect more data in the process, although the freedom to use such data as it sees fit, might be restricted by upcoming regulatory measures. Owing to supply chain issues, some businesses are expected to order more than they need so that they can fulfil their contracts come what may. Some companies – like Peloton have found it extremely difficult to predict future demands leading to excess inventory (so much so that it had to do a deal with Amazon to sell them on its platform). Whatever the case, any storage for stock needs to be available and accessible and devoid of further supply chain issues, such as lack of truck drivers. In Amazon’s world, where there’s pain there is gain – a true mark of success.

Telecoms

Senators urge the Federal Communications Commission to “proceed with an evidence-based rule making” when deciding on whether to allow 5G wireless service to the 12 GHz (1 2.2-12.7) Band

…the concern is interference with incumbent satellite services that serve rural areas. The digital divide can only be closed by using the spectrum efficiently and wisely, senators said.

T-Mobile wins 90% of the licences in the 2.5GHz Spectrum from the Federal Communication Commission auction

…the interesting features are:

• most of the available spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band are located in rural areas
• Mid-band spectrum such as 2.5 GHz can boost capacity and speeds over relatively long distances, heavily used in 5G – T-Mobile is actively utilising the 2.5GHz band (cf 3.7 GHz to 3.98 GHz range, which is also in the mid-band range, is used by Verizon and AT&T which had issues on deployment owing to potential interference with airplane navigation systems)

With remote working, there may be scope for development in rural areas, and less competition. T-Mobile’s plan may be to get into rural areas quick and integrate into the rural network, and essentially be the best at providing good network across the country.

One more thing…

Surgeon successfully completes vasectomy despite power outage with the help of Rivian

…the patient couldn’t reschedule, so he consented to have the surgery powered by the EV. Thankfully the outcome was positive. On a bit more serious note, EVs are essentially stored energy on wheels – it can potentially do a lot more things eg. rescuing people in remote areas.