Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 08/09 – Mac Mini To Get Mini-er?

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

Apple’s new EU rules still aren’t acceptable to Spotify and Epic. Could we be getting a new, smaller Mac Mini this year? Perplexity AI is showing some real numbers in its effort to unseat Google Search. And, of course, the weekend longreads suggestions. Links: Apple announces new fee structure for apps in the EU that link out to the web for purchases (9to5Mac) Spotify and Epic Games call Apple’s revised DMA compliance plan ‘confusing,’ ‘illegal’ and ‘unacceptable’ (TechCrunch) Apple’s Mac Mini With M4 Chip Will Be Its Smallest Computer Ever (Bloomberg) ChatGPT now lets free users generate up to two images per day made by DALL-E 3 (The Verge) Perplexity’s popularity surges as AI search start-up takes on Google (Financial Times) Weekend Longreads Suggestions: Why are so many car YouTubers quitting? (The Verge) Moscow’s Spies Were Stealing US Tech — Until the FBI Started a Sabotage Campaign (Politico Magazine) 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 Tech meme right home for Friday, August 9th, 2024. I'm Brian McCullough today. Apple's new EU rules still aren't acceptable to Spotify and Epic. Could we be getting a new smaller Mac Mini this year? Perplexity AI is showing some real

numbers in its effort to unseat Google search. And of course, the weekend long read suggestions. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Apple has debuted new rules and fees for apps in the European Union that link out to the web for purchases. including allowing links to any website, and has also removed some other restrictions, but with apparently some new fees as well. Quoting 9 to 5 Mac. Previously, Apple enforced strict rules that dictated how apps in the EU were allowed to link out. This included requirements that the link be statically defined and go directly to their own website

without any parameters to identify the logged-in user in the URL. This limited the ability of apps to directly send users to a webpage where they could pay and add upgrades to their account. Under today's changes, all of those restrictions are now gone. Apps can offer actionable links with as many dynamic URLs as they please. These links can take the user to anywhere, including as a way to promote other sales channels like alternative app marketplaces. The URLs can include parameters as long as those parameters are not used for advertising

or user profiling. These links also used to be required to kick the user outside of the current app and into their web browser like Safari. However, Apple is now allowing. these links to be opened inside the original app as a modal web view. Moreover, developers can now take advantage of these capabilities in the EU without agreeing to alternative business terms. That means they can remain in the app store and avoid paying the core technology fee on installs. However, there is a new substitute fee structure instead, end quote. Yes, about that, apparently,

it's not good enough for the likes of Spotify, quoting TechCrunch. Shortly after Apple announced the updated version on Tuesday, including loosened restrictions, along with the addition of two more fees. Spotify shared a statement with TechCrunch calling the plan unacceptable and claiming Apple was once again disregarding, quote, the fundamental requirements of the DMA. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, meanwhile, called the revisions another case of, quote, malicious compliance involving, quote, junk fees. The European Commission had already determined that Apple's first attempt at DMA compliance had failed and was investigating the new fee structure proposed under Apple's DMA rules, which included a new core technology.

fee for the privilege of using Apple's technology to build mobile apps. Under Apple's new policy proposed today, developers who want to link out to their websites from inside their iOS apps now don't have to accept Apple's DMA rules to do so, but those developers will still have to pay Apple even if they no longer face the core technology fee that comes with Apple's new DMA rules. In its place, Apple added two new fees in initial acquisition fee and another store services fee. The former is a commission of sorts for connecting users. with the app through the App Store that applies during the first 12 months, while the latter

helps fund Apple's App Store operations. It is charged on a 12-month fixed basis, meaning it would apply to those users who continue to make new purchases of digital goods and services through the app. Both fees are being applied to developers who do accept Apple's new DMA terms, too, adding on new charges on top of the core technology fees for app installs. The changes are confusing, so much so that even Spotify isn't yet quite sure what to make of them, according to statement, end quote. Meanwhile, Mark German's sources say Apple is planning a Mac Mini refresh in 24 with M4 and M4 Pro options, but also a redesign that will cut the size of the current mini basically in half, the first major redesign to the Mac Mini apparently since 2010, quoting Bloomberg.

The device will be far smaller than its predecessor approaching the size of an Apple TV set top box, according to the people who asked not to be identified because the work is secret. The updated mini is one of several new Macs coming over the next several months. The company is preparing versions of the iMac desktop and MacBook Pro with chips from the M4 line, also for as early as this year. There are MacBook errors in development for the spring, and Mac Pro and Mac Studio models are planned for the middle of next year. The mass upgrade to the M4 processor marks another milestone for Apple.

It's the first time the company is putting the same chip generation in all its Mac. The M4 Silicon already featured in the iPad Pro is meant to power new artificial intelligence features that Apple is beginning to roll out later this year. Despite the smaller overall design, the new Mac Mini may be taller than the current version. Today's model is about 1.4 inches high. The updated edition will still feature an aluminum shell. The Apple TV box, meanwhile, is about 3.7 inches across, currently less than half the size of the Mac Mini. Apple has tested models with at least three USBC ports on the back of the mini, in addition to an area for plugging in the power cable and an HDIPort for connecting the device to TV sets and monitors. People involved in the development of the new Mac Mini say it's essentially an iPad Pro in a small box, an approach that takes advantage of the lower power requirements of the company's in-house Silicon. The current Mac Mini starts at $599, and while the new model may be cheaper to make, it's unclear if the company will pass along any savings to the consumer.

Apple is preparing two versions of the new Mac Mini, both of which are codenamed J773. The first will use the base configuration of the M4 chip similar to the component inside the iPad Pro. There will also be a high-end Mac Mini that uses a yet-to-be-enounced M4 Pro chip. That component includes support for additional memory and more graphics horsepower. Apple suppliers are planning to begin shipping units of the standard M-4 version this month for release later in the year. Units with the higher-end M-4 Pro won't be ready for consumers in 10. October. The Mac Mini was last updated in early 2023 with M2 and M2 Pro Chips. It gained the M1 chip in November 2020 as part of the first range of Macs with Apple Silicon, end quote.

Now, this is very interesting to me for this simple reason. If it's as small as an Apple TV sort of gadget, then, you know, who needs a laptop? If you have a screen where you want to be and a screen at home, all you got to do is throw the little puck in your bag and go. OpenAI has rolled out the ability for ChatGPT free users to create up to two images per day with Dolly 3. After launching Dolly 3 to plus subscribers only back in October, quoting the verge, one of Dolly 3's key improvements is that chat GPT can come up with a prompt to make an image, which should make it easier to make images. OpenAI says the ability to create images with Dolly 3 is rolling out, but you might already have access.

While writing this article, I was able to make two images with the ChatGPT Mac app before getting a notice that I had reached my image creation limit for the day. It's been a busy day also for OpenAI news. The company released a safety assessment of its GPT40 model, added a new person to its board of directors, and CEO Sam Altman was sent a letter from Democrats in Congress pushing for answers about OpenAI's safety record, end quote. Perplexity says its AI search engine answered around 250 million queries just in July. That's versus 500 million in all of calendar year, So sources say perplexity also recently raised $250 million fresh dollars at a $3 billion valuation, quoting the FT. The new figures underscore perplexity's position as one of the fastest-growing generative AI applications

to emerge since OpenAI's ChatGPT launched to huge acclaim in November 2022, despite controversy over the startup's data-gathering techniques. San Francisco-based perplexity, which was founded by former Google intern Aravinds Srinivaz, just three months before Chat-GPT launched, uses AI software to answer questions using information pulled in real time from the web, including news websites. Perplexity started the year with $5 million in annualized revenues, a projection of full-year revenues based on extrapolating the most recent month's sales, and is now making more than $35 million on the same basis, according to a company insider. Now the startup is pivoting its business model from subscriptions to advertising, bringing it into closer competition with Google,

which dominates the $300 billion search ads industry. Its growth comes as Google steps up its integration of AI features into its core search product, and OpenAI launches Search GPT, a prototype AI search tool available to roughly 10,000 testers. At the end of the day, the smaller player in the space has two advantages, velocity and focus. Chevalenko said, our users and team only think about one thing when it comes to perplexity, a place where you get your questions answered. Competition sharpens our focus even more, end quote. To fuel its fight against larger rivals, perplexity recently,

closed a new $250 million investment from investors, including SoftBanks Vision Fund 2, said people familiar with the deal tripling its valuation from $1 billion in April to $3 billion, Bloomberg previously reported on the funding negotiations. Its existing investors include AI chipmaker, Nvidia, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as well as several prominent names from the AI industry, such as OpenAI co-founder, Andre Carpathie, and Meta's chief AI scientist Jan LeCoon, end quote. Time for the weekend. Long read suggestions. First up, The Verge asks,

Why are all the car influencers on YouTube quitting? The answer is, private equity has acquired lots of major YouTube car channels, and it's doing what private equity does. Quote, many of the world's most popular creators are fleeing the channels they helped make famous. They're going solo, often not long after those former channels received high dollar acquisitions. According to endless ponderings and pontifications from YouTubers,

influencers, influencers, and commenters, profit-minded venture capitalists are sucking the life out of some of the internet's most popular channels. While there have been dozens of departures at many brands in the time since, few have set tongues wagging like the very public departures of Jeremiah Burton and Zach Job from Donut Media. In June, the pair announced their departure with a YouTube video that launched their new channel big time, while simultaneously throwing shade at recurrent ventures, the private equity firm that acquired Donut Media back in late 2021. Burton and Job expressed frustration about how the creative process changed, from experimenting and failing fast to constantly having to make hits. We just got to where we were trying to make videos that we knew would do well, Burton said in the video, instead of making videos that we just wanted to do.

And when you have to convince people who are paying for it to do the videos you want to do, it gets old fast, Job said. Mike Spinelli, a former VP of Content at Recurrent Ventures and Current Head of Content at Motorsport Network, says that these new media brands have a lot to learn about man. managing talent. In TV and movies, talent is everything, he said, where contract renegotiations are commonplace. But I don't know whether these sort of kinds of media companies were talking about really understand or are used to dealing with talent in that way, end quote. Claims of pressure and interference are a common refrain by anyone who's ever worked for a brand owned by private equity. Alanis King has, King now editor at large for Motorsport Network owned by GMF Capital, was previously an editor at Jalapnik when it was acquired by Great Hill Partners.

King made a remarkably balanced video detailing her perspective on the current situation in automotive media. It's not possible really ever to grow at the rates that investment firms want, King said. The people creating stuff say, hey, that's not possible. The people funding this stuff say, we don't really care, do more. And you just end up with this conflict of ideas and expectations, end quote. And finally today, a look at Operation Entering, an FBI-led sabotage campaign in the 1980s to secretly ship millions worth of faulty chips to the Soviet block. Quoting Axios. At the time, the Cold War had been heating up for decades of the U.S. had forbidden the export of dual-use technology, items with civilian as well as military applications, to the Soviet block. Sanctions tightened

further after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979. By the early 1980s, the FBI knew the Soviet Union was desperate for cutting-edge American technology, like the U.S. produced microchips, then revolutionizing a vast array of digital devices, including military systems. Moscow's spies worked assiduously to steal such dual-use tech or purchase it covertly. The Soviet Union's ballistic missile programs, air defense systems, electronic spying platforms, and even space shuttles depended on it. The Soviets, quote, saw Silicon Valley as a critical area to infiltrate precisely because they needed to access as much of this technology as they could, said Chris Miller, author of Chip War, the fight for the world's most critical technology, and there was no better place to get knowledge of it and try to

acquire the tools and the chips involved, end quote. The CIA assessed that in the late 1970s, Moscow spies had illicitly acquired thousands of pieces of Western microelectronics worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The Soviets were stealing us blind, said Milt Bearden, a retired senior CIA official who ran the agency's Soviet operations. It was a vacuum cleaner of tech theft, he said. There is a long but shadowy history of U.S. covert action in this domain. A reputed explosion of a major oil pipeline in Siberia in 1982 may have been the fruit of a White House-directed campaign to infiltrate the Soviet's technology supply chains. And at least since George W. Bush's administration, U.S. spy agencies have overseen programs

to cede faulty tech into Iran's nuclear enrichment and missile programs, as well as sabotage North Korea's missile capabilities. But most sabotage campaigns remain shrouded in secrecy and details about their actual mechanics are few and far between. With U.S. Russia relations at their lowest ebb since the 1980s, and with Moscow more voracious for prohibited American technology than in decades, it is a good bet that U.S. intelligence agencies are currently rethinking ways to infiltrate Russia's illicit supply chains to stymie their war machine, which brings us back to Operation Inner Ring, a never-before-reported massive multi-year transcontinental effort. Along the way, the FBI would seed faulty tech to Moscow

and its allies, drain the Soviet bloc's coffers, expose its intelligence, and its intelligence. intelligence officers and secret American conspirators, and revealed to American counterspies exactly what tech the Soviets were after. This article is based on extensive interviews with five former FBI and CIA officials with knowledge of Operation Intering and similar U.S. authored covert sabotage operations, as well as contemporaneous supporting court documents and media reports. An FBI spokesperson declined to comment. Because of ittering, the Soviet bloc would unknowingly purchase millions of dollars' worth of sabotaged U.S. goods. Communist spies ignorant that they were being played would be fetid with a literal parade in a Warsaw-packed capital for their success

in purchasing this forbidden technology from the West. But as the operation gained momentum, it would become increasingly risky, including to the lives of those involved, end quote. No weekend bonus episodes for you this week. Talk to on Monday.