Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 05/24 – Now ETH Gets An ETF

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

Out of nowhere, the SEC has approved spot ETFs for ether. Spotify is killing its Car Thing. Google’s AI Overview is giving crazy answers all over the place. But Meta already wants to charge more for their AI bots. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions. Sponsors: Miro.com Links: US SEC approves exchange applications to list spot ether ETFs (Reuters) Spotify is going to break every Car Thing gadget it ever sold (The Verge) Google's AI search feature suggested using glue to keep cheese sticking to a pizza (Business Insider) Save $200+ on your upgrade to The Information Pro (The Information) The Daylight DC1 is a $729 attempt to build a calmer computer (The Verge) Weekend Longreads Suggestions: VCs and the military are fueling self-driving startups that don’t need roads (TechCrunch) Two students find security bug that could let millions do laundry for free (The Verge) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Texas. Meem right home for Friday, May 24th, 2024. I'm Brian McCullough today. Out of nowhere,

the SEC has approved Spot ETS for Ether. Spotify is killing its car thing. Google's AI overview is giving crazy answers all over the place, but Meta already wants to charge more for their AI bots, and of course, the weekend long-rate suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has, in a surprise move, approved applications from the NASDAQ,

CBOE and NYSE to list spot-ether ETFs, potentially paving the way for them to begin trading later this year, quoting Reuters. While the ETF issuers also have to get the green light before the products can launch, Thursday's approval is a major surprise win for those firms and the cryptocurrency industry, which until Monday had expected the SEC to reject the filings. Nine issuers including Van Eck, Arc Investments, 21 shares, and BlackRock, Hope to launch ETFs tied to the second-largest cryptocurrency after the SEC in January, approved Bitcoin ETFs in a watershed moment for the industry. Thursday was the deadline for the SEC to decide on Van X filing.

Market participants were bracing for the thumbs down because the SEC had not engaged with them on the applications. But in a surprise move, SEC officials on Monday asked the exchanges to quickly fine-tune the filings, sending the industry scrambling to complete weeks of work in just days, sources said. Raiders could not ascertain why the SEC appeared to have a change of heart. When asked about the Ether ETHR EFs by reporters at an industry event earlier on Thursday, SEC Chair Gary Gensler, a crypto-sceptic, declined to comment. An SEC spokesperson said in an email announcing the approval that the agency would not comment further. The exchange applications had sought SEC approval for a rule change required to list new products,

but the issuers still need the SEC to approve ETF registration statements, detailing investor disclosures before they can start trading. Unlike the exchange filings, there is no set time frame in which the SEC has to decide on those statements. Industry participants said it was unclear how long that would take, but two sources familiar with the process said many issuers are ready to launch, but the corporate finance division of the SEC has indicated it is likely to request changes and updates in the coming days and weeks. The SEC rejected spot Bitcoin ETFs from more than a decade over-market manipulation worries, but was forced to approve them after gray scale investments won a court challenge last year.

Sui Chong, CEO of CF benchmarks, the index provider for several of the Bitcoin and Ether ETFs, said Ether is more complex than Bitcoin and it could take months for the SEC to review the statements. But since the Bitcoin ETFs offer an established template, there's only so much slow rolling the SEC can do, he said. An array of investors, including hedge funds, wealth advisors, and retail investors have poured more than $30 billion into crypto ETFs, end quote. Spotify is notifying customers that its car thing dashboard accessory will stop working on December 9th,

less than a year after it went on sale, and they're not offering any refunds, quoting the verge. Spotify's brief attempt at being a hardware company wasn't all that successful. The company stopped producing its car thing dashboard accessory less than a year after it went on sale to the public, and now two years later, the device is about to be rendered completely inoperable. Customers who bought the car thing are receiving emails warning, that it will stop working altogether as of December 9th. Unfortunately, for those owners, Spotify isn't offering any kind of subscription credit or automatic refund for the device,

nor is the company open-sourcing it. Rather, it's just canning the project and telling people to responsibly dispose of Car Thing. We're discontinuing Car Thing as part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our product offerings. Spotify wrote in an FAQ on its website. We understand it may be disappointing, but this decision allows us to focus on developing new features and enhancements that will ultimately provide a better experience to all Spotify users, end quote. The company is recommending that customers do a factory reset on the product

and find some way of responsibly recycling the hardware. Spotify is also being direct and confirming that there's little reason to ever expect a sequel. As of now, there are no plans to release a replacement or new version of Carthing. The FAQ reads, Carthing was initially made available on an invite-only basis in April 2021, with Spotify later opening a public wait list to buy the accessory later that year. The $90 device went on general sale in February 2022, and production was halted five months later. The Carthing Hardware was quite nice, considering it was Spotify's first go, but the product

was more of a remote control for Spotify on your mobile phone than any kind of standalone player. That limited its appeal, though the device still found a niche community, end quote. Well, if you've been on social media at all over the last 48 hours, then you've likely seen people posting screenshots of Google's AI overview giving bizarre answers, including involving Pisa, quoting Business Insider. The tool, which gives AI-generated summaries of search results, appeared to instruct a user to put glue on pizza when they search cheese not sticking to pizza.

A screenshot of the summary it generated shared on X shows it responded with cheese can slide off pizza for a number of reasons and that the user could try adding, quote, about one-eighth cup of non-toxic glue to the sauce to give it more tackiness. According to another X user, the suggestion seems to have been based on a Reddit comment from 11 years ago, which was probably a joke. Google started testing the AI overviews feature in the U.S. and UK earlier this year and announced it would roll out more widely by the end of 2024. Liz Reid, the head of search, introduced it as Google will do the Googling for you at the company's I.O. conference last week. The Pizza Glue advice highlights the pitfalls of using

the AI feature to search for information. In other cases, such as Business Insiders Peter Kafka, pointing out one issue with generative AI engines is that they can just make things up. Kafka used AI overviews to ask if the Tower of London was damaged by German bombs in World War II. The summary mixed up the monument with the clock tower known as Big Ben. The summary said the roof and dials were damaged in an air raid, but that is not correct. Social media users have shared other examples of AI overviews generating inaccurate responses, including when it said a dog has played in the NHL. A Google representative previously told Business Insider that such examples were, quote,

extremely rare queries and aren't representative of most people's experiences. They added that the vast majority of AI overviews provide high-quality information and that it carried out extensive testing before it launched the feature. Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider made outside normal working hours, end quote. No worries. It's full speed ahead over at Meta, which sources say is considering charging users for a more advanced version of their meta-AI and is also developing AI agents that can complete tasks

without human supervision. Quoting the information. Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic each offer $20 per month subscriptions to their chatbots. These subscriptions let people use those companies' chatbots inside workplace apps such as Microsoft Word and give people priority access when usage is high, among other things. The features Meta might offer any premium tier and how much Meta might charge couldn't be learned. Its plans may change. Meta is also developing AI agents that can complete tasks without human supervision,

to the internal post. They include an engineering agent to assist with coding and software development, similar to GitHub co-pilot, according to the internal posts and to current employees. The post also cites, quote, monetization agents that one current employee said would help businesses advertise on meta's apps. These agents could be for both internal use and for customers, the employees said. Metas competitors, including Google, Microsoft, and Open AI, are also working on AI agents. The internal posts distributed earlier this week also included, to details of a wider reorganization of Meta's generative AI group. A meta spokesperson declined to comment. The new AI initiatives come after Meta said its capital expenditures this year may total

$40 billion, largely to support AI. The company has also incorporated Meta AI, its answer to OpenAI's chat, GPT, into Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and its Rayban smart glasses amid questions from investors over how those investments will pay off. Meta has made many of its large language models, including its flagship model. Lama open source, meaning it doesn't charge users for them. Unlike Google and Microsoft, Meta doesn't offer cloud computing services to others, giving it one fewer path to revenue. Senior leaders have hinted at plans to charge for some AI services in recent months. In a call with analysts in April, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said meta could charge for, quote, bigger models or more compute or some of the

premium features and things like that, but added, that's all very early in fleshing out, end quote. Okay, so all the AI hardware devices thus far haven't exactly worked out, but as I said when discussing humane, that doesn't mean I'm not a fan of people at least trying things, experimenting with new form factors or products. There has to be some future of technology that's something slightly beyond just a flat glass screen. To that end, say hello to daylight computers DC1, a 10.5 inch, 729. tablet that feels like a hybrid of an iPad and a Kindle. It runs on a custom Android-based OS called Soul OS and quoting the verge. The DC-1's main hook is its display. Daylight calls it a live paper screen and says it looks like E-ink, but is smooth and responsive like a traditional LCD. This is not otherwise a thing that exists, at least not yet, and in general, anyone that promises

and E-ink-like LCD screen is seriously overselling their product. But daylight believes it has invented something genuinely new and better. If so, it would be a pretty exciting combination of iPad and Kindle. We'll see. The tablet also has a backlight with no blue, which means the DC-1 will glow an amber color. Daylight is jumping on the blue blocker bandwagon here, based on the popular notion that exposure to blue light can be harmful to your sleep and cause eye strain. There's some evidence for the sleep part of that, though eliminating blue light,

is only part of the tech and sleep dilemma. There's much less real connection between blue light and eye strain. The device otherwise sounds like a fairly normal Android tablet. Well, not exactly Android. It runs an operating system called Sol OS, which Daylight describes as, quote, a custom Android-based operating system designed to facilitate deep focus. It's based on Android 13. It has a Media Tech Helio G99 processor, 8 gigabytes of RAM, and 128 gigabytes of storage, comes with a passive Wacom stylus and has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The whole thing weighs 1.2 pounds. It appears to have all the standard Android apps and services. Daylight's bet seems to be that just changing the hardware can change your experience with the software too. Daylight CEO,

Angen Kata, has said he started the company to both help himself combat eye strain and distraction, as well as try to redefine our relationship with gadgets altogether. In recent months, he's been waxing poetic a lot, particularly on crypto-friendly podcasts. Kata is evidently a big Bitcoin fan. He's talked about the problems with modern devices. The thing I like to think about is, he said on the healthier technology podcast last year, what would have happened to like Tolstoy if he grew up like this? What would have happened to Maya Angelou if she had a distracting blue light emitting phone? Would she still have been able to write the poetry she did? It's all a little cringe-inducing at times, but daylight is poking at a really interesting question.

are smartphones really the right idea? Companies like light and humane are asking the same thing in different ways, but all are trying to find tech answers to tech problems rather than just encouraging everyone to throw their phones in the sea and move into the woods. It's impossible to escape technology. It's not even realistic, Kata said on that podcast. Instead, he argued we should rethink the computer. Listening to Kata's podcast tour,

it sounds like daylight is a display company more than a tablet company. He has mentioned wanting to make monitors, laptops, watches, alarm clocks, and other devices, but said he believes that a live paper-equipped foldable phone is ultimately, quote, how will change the world. The DC-1 is still in the pre-order phase. The company says it already sold out the first batch, which requires a $100 deposit to reserve and costs $729. It's supposed to ship for real in June, which is when we'll get to see whether it's possible to build a screen that is both easy to use and easy to put down, end quote. Time for the weekend long-reach suggestions. And first up, we know about developing autonomous vehicles that can success. successfully navigate our roads, but what this piece asks is, what about navigating off-road? Is that a thing?

Quoting TechCrunch. A new crop of early-stage startups, along with some recent VC investments, illustrates a niche emerging in the autonomous vehicle technology sector. Unlike the companies bringing robotaxies to city streets, these startups are taking their tech off-road. Two recent entrants, Seattle-based Overland AI and New Brunswick-Canada-based potential are poised to get a first-mover advantage on this segment of autonomy. While these startups are applying their tech in different ways, Overland AI and potential do share some common off-road ground. Founders of each startup believe they've cracked the code to one of the more challenging applications of automated driving by building software that doesn't rely on some of the main crutches of testing and deployment, such as detailed

maps, large swaths of training data, and the ability to fall back on remote assistance. The U.S. Department of Defense and Venture Capital investors are taking notice. Overland AI, which is developing a self-driving system designed for military operations like reconnaissance, surveillance, and delivering electronic warfare packages, was awarded in April up to $18.6 million from the U.S. Army's Defense Innovation Unit. The funds will be used to build a prototype autonomous software stack for its robotic combat vehicle or RCV program over the next two years. This week, the startup, which was founded in 2022, raised a $10 million seed round led by 0.72 ventures. The funds will be used to expand Overland's team and continue developing overdrive, the company's autonomy stack,

according to CEO and founder Byron Boots. Meanwhile, potential, which is making advanced driver assistance systems, or ADAS, that allow ATV's underground mining vehicles and passenger cars to handle off-road environments has raised 2 million Canadian extension to its seed round led by Bright Spark Ventures, a Canadian early-stage VC. That brings potential's total funding to 8.5 million Canadian. The startup has spent the last six years developing its technology and is now doing several pilot projects across power sports, motorcycles, and automotive. Potential in Overland AI aren't the only companies trying to apply autonomous vehicle technology to areas outside of public streets.

The high-cost pursuit of commercial robotaxy and self-driving truck operations has thwarted dozens of startups over the past several years. As those shut down, a new batch of startups such as polymath robotics, Pronto AI, Bear Robotics, and Outwriter have emerged with more grounded ambitions. av tech to warehouses, mining, industrial, and off-road environments. Most of the off-road companies that Autotech ventures is investing in today are in the agricultural and construction sectors, products like autonomous mining vehicles, forklifts, and tractors. Andri says for those sectors, it's about addressing the labor shortage while increasing productivity and making farms and construction areas safer. The high-level idea is that currently just about every ground vehicle that the military uses has a person inside it, Boots told TechCrunch in a video interview,

and you can imagine that if you can just pull the person out of the vehicle, that confirms safety and tactical advantages, end quote. To pull the person out means vehicles must autonomously navigate complex off-road terrain using only onboard sensors, mainly cameras, according to boots, and compute without relying on maps, GPS, or remote human operators. That means overland software has to understand the geometry of the ground, including things like vegetation and mud, every step of the way, and how that affects vehicle dynamics, end quote. And then finally, I won't quote from it, but I don't quote from it, but I, I will include a link to a verge piece about that story you might have heard about, how students found a security bug and internet-connected laundry machines that are used by millions, especially in dorms and colleges. It's an interesting story, but I wondered, like others did,

why they did the right thing and told the manufacturer about the bug? Why nark out what you found when you could have given millions of people free laundry cycles, Robin Hood style? No weekend bonus episodes for you this weekend, and a notice that I probably am taking Monday off, because it is a bank holiday here in the United States. I say probably. I'm 90% sure I am.

So probably talk to you on Tuesday.