Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 09/04 – Ad-Pocalypse (Not) Now

Episode Date: September 4, 2020

The Attorney General seems to want an antitrust case against Google within weeks. Apple has delayed the Ad-pocalypse. Why the games industry is where Epic has all the leverage against Apple. Will a new display tech bridge the gap between e-ink and traditional displays? And of course, the weekend longreads suggestions. Sponsors: Metalab.co Today In Digital Marketing Podcast Links: Justice Dept. Plans to File Antitrust Charges Against Google in Coming Weeks (NYTimes) Apple to Delay iOS Change Roiling Mobile Ad Market (The Information) Apple App Store Draws New Scrutiny in Japan, Epicenter of Gaming (Bloomberg) Oculus halts headset sales in Germany (GamesIndustry.biz) TCL's new paper-like display can also play videos (Engadget) Weekend Longreads: Cash App’s Surge During Covid-19 Pandemic Fuels Square Stock (WSJ) The Digital Future of Tabletop Games (A16Z) Robot Boats Leave Autonomous Cars in Their Wake (WSJ) Tech Startup, Trying to Be Amazon for Farms, Runs Into Ag Giants (WSJ) Inside Fitbit’s Plan to Detect Covid Symptoms With a New Wearable (OneZero) How I hacked my Lego NES into a real console (Input) 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, September 4th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. The Attorney General seems to want an antitrust case against Google within weeks.

Apple has delayed the ad apocalypse for now. Why the Games industry is where Epic has all the leverage against Apple. Will a new display tech bridge the gap between E-Inc and traditional displays? And of course, the weekend long read suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Believe me, this has been turning heads overnight. The New York Times is out with a story saying that the Department of Justice plans to file antitrust charges against Google by the end of the month, after U.S. Attorney General William Barr apparently overruled career lawyers inside the DOJ who said that the case needed more time to build into a stronger one. Quote, Justice Department officials told lawyers involved in the antitrust inquiry into Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, to wrap up their work by the end of September, according to three of the people.

Most of the 40-odd lawyers who had been working on the investigation opposed the deadline. Some said they would not sign the complaint and several of them left the case this summer. Some argued this summer in a memo that ran hundreds of pages that they could bring a strong case, but needed more time, according to people who described the document. Disagreement persisted among the team over how broad the complaint should be and what Google could do to resolve the problems the government uncovered. The lawyers viewed the deadline as arbitrary. While there were disagreements about tactics, career lawyers also expressed concerns that Mr. Barr wanted

to announce the case in September to take credit for action against a powerful tech company under the Trump administration. But Mr. Barr felt that the department had moved too slowly and that the deadline was not unreasonable, according to a senior Justice Department official. A former telecom industry executive who argued an antitrust matter before the Supreme Court himself, Mr. Barr has shown a deep interest in the Google investigation. He has requested regular briefings on the department's case, taking thick binders of information about it on trips and vacations and returning with ideas and notes, end quote. So this is why this has been raising some eyebrows. What people have been gaming out in whispers is this. On first blush, this looks bad for Google,

right? Bar really seems to have it in for them, come hell or high water. Except, what if the case is actually being rushed? And what if that turns out to be a blessing in disguise for Google? Because what if that would end up meaning a weak case that might actually fail to achieve what the government wants? What if Google could get off the hook because the government can say they tried to rein them in, but then ultimately fail? Because if one case goes to trial, it would be highly unlikely that there would be any capital for a second one somewhere down the road if people, you know, didn't get the results that they wanted. Quoting Will Aramis on Twitter, This has been a pattern with the Trump administration on tech.

They take important, much-needed oversight processes, Section 230 reform, scrutiny of TikTok, antitrust, and execute them so ham-fistedly that it amounts to something more like sabotage, end quote. At Apocalypse, not now, I guess. Apple has confirmed it will delay the enforcement of IDFA changes in iOS 14 until early next year, quoting the information. Developers will still be able to ask users, for permission to share their IDFA, when iOS 14 is released this fall, though asking users

through the prompt won't be mandatory. Quote, we want to give developers the time they need to make the necessary changes, and as a result, the requirement to use this tracking permission will go into effect early next year, and Apple spokesperson said in a statement. On a call with reporters, Apple said it made the decision to delay enforcement of its IDFA prompt after consulting with developers. Since announcing the IDFA change in June, Apple's App Store team has asked a handful of gaming. firms, including Activision Blizzard, Tencent-owned Supercell, and Network to share how the change will impact their businesses, according to people familiar with the talks.

A Supercell spokesperson declined to comment, Activision Blizzard, and Network didn't respond to requests for comment. Last week, Facebook said that the change would essentially kill its multi-billion-dollar business that delivers ads for developers in non-Facebook apps, and that it would no longer ask its users to share their IDFAs, quote, while developers await more detail. details on this policy, end quote. A Google spokesperson said the company was, quote, still trying to understand how Apple's plan changes to iOS 14 will impact our partners and our users, end quote. Oh, and I forgot about this one, so let me squeeze it in real quick. TCL, that company that you

might know best for producing the highest quality smart TVs at reasonable prices, has announced a completely new display technology that it is calling Next Paper. TCL claims NextPaper will provide better eye protection by reducing flicker and blue light on tablets and e-readers, while still delivering full HD video playback and 25% higher contrast than traditional E-ink. So this is not exactly an E-ink technology, but some sort of hybrid that TCL claims will get some of the benefits of E-ink like power consumption and contrast, but with some important bells and whistles that E-ink typically can't do like video, quoting in Gadget. Compared to E-ink, TCL said its version will offer 25% higher contrast.

It uses a highly reflective screen to reuse natural light, doing away with backlighting in the process. TCL said NextPaper will be 36% thinner than typical LCDs while offering higher contrast. Because it doesn't require its own lights, the company said the new screen tech is also 65% more power efficient. This way, devices won't need large unwieldy batteries for prolonged use. typically e-ink devices refresh at very slow rates, making it difficult to enjoy videos or animations on them. If TCL's next paper does support smooth video playback at a respectable frame rate, it would be noteworthy. But besides a render provided by the company, we have yet to see any demo of the tech that would show that one way or another. While there is no word yet on availability, TCL said we can expect the display tech to show up in an actual product, quote, in the near future, end quote.

Which, I'll grant you, is pretty vague, but TCL also stressed that this is not for small. smartphones. Expect to see this, they say, if we ever do see it, on, again, tablets and e-readers. A couple of quick follow-ons before we get to the long reads, two stories we've been discussing recently. First, Japan's antitrust regulator says it will be stepping up scrutiny of Apple's app store practices as gaming industry developers in that country and execs of gaming companies have begun speaking out about Epic's battle with Apple. Quote, the iPhone is a huge revenue driver for game creators in Japan, including established names like Square Enix, which gets 40% of its group revenue from smartphone games and Bandai Namco holdings.

Sony has a multi-billion-dollar mobile hit called Fate slash Grand Order. With 702,000 registered developers, Japan is home to one of the most creative developer communities in the world. A recent study commissioned by Apple estimated the App Store ecosystem in Japan generated $37 billion dollars in billings and sales in 2019, 11 billion in digital goods and services, and 24 billion via physical goods and services, and 2 billion from in-app advertising, end quote. Which is why I'm sharing this. It seems to me that the hinge in the battle between Epic and Apple is what this battle does or does not do to the larger gaming industry.

Gaming is so huge now for so many players that, as we've already seen from the language from that judge's initial injunction in this case, if too many after, shock or secondary waves end up rocking the gaming industry, that would apply some serious pressure on Apple to find a resolution. And Oculus has been forced to end the sale, at least temporarily, of Rift and Quest VR systems in Germany. Pending talks with regulators in that country who have cast doubts on the legality of requiring Oculus devices to be linked to a Facebook account, quoting gamesindustry.biz. The headsets have been pulled pending discussions with German regulators, but Facebook did not specify the issue that had to be resolved before

the headsets could be returned to shelves. However, German site Hesse Online has received a statement from the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, casting doubt on the legality of Facebook's recent announcement that Oculus users will be required to create a Facebook account and tie it to the hardware. The commissioner was particularly skeptical about Facebook imposing that requirement on existing Oculus headset owners. Facebook said it will stop supporting original Oculus accounts after January 1, 2023. The regulator was less certain, though, about the legality of applying that requirement to new customers, but it said it also might violate German laws against coupling products to services, end quote. A Facebook spokesperson clarified

that the company will continue supporting users who already own Oculus devices in the interim. Time for the weekend long read suggestions. And first up, a story that I haven't been able to get to yet, but you should be aware of, is the success of the company's Square during the pandemic months this year. Square stock is up yada yada percent, but what is really important for you to know is that Square's success has been fueled by its cash app, quote, cash app revenue more than doubled to $325 million, excluding sales of Bitcoin in the second quarter from a year earlier. Thanks in part to Squares making it easy for individuals to accept their stimulus checks and unemployment benefits in cash app, the amount of money stored there reached $1.7 billion in the

second quarter, three and a half times more than in the same period last year. Monthly active users topped 30 million in June, end quote. But also, as I said on Twitter, the real story here is the absolute rock star growth team, the best in the world that is behind the cash app, which the piece does get into a bit, but when you know the whole story, the overnight success of the cash app is really amazing. Next, we have one of those periodic great essays from the folk at Andreessen Horowitz. The premise of this one is interesting. What if the next thing going digital is going to really blow out is board games, tabletop games. Quote, tabletop games, a quintessentially analog experience that encompasses board games, card games, and parlor games,

are being dramatically improved by digital tools. While the first attempts at modernizing tabletop games sought to merely replicate games in the digital realm, the next generation of games goes a step further, integrating tools such as live streaming, user-generated content, audio products, and community platforms. This digital transformation is reinventing the way we learn, play, and connect with one another over tabletop games. As a result, modern tabletop games have the potential to be bigger than ever before. Board games are resurgent. The overall market reached $12 billion in 2018 and is growing at a 9% compound annual growth rate. Parlor games such as Werewolf and Mafia,

in which players act and deceive each other, have grown into global hits. China's Werewolf Kill app reached over 70 million users within a year of launch. Even one of the oldest tabletop games chess is making a mighty comeback. 605 million people around the world play chess today, and traffic to the official chess.com website roughly doubled in the first half of the year to 94 million monthly visitors, end quote. Next, we've spoken about this before, but our friend Chris Mims has a piece up about something that I find endlessly fascinating.

Forget self-driving cars. We can and should have autonomous boats, and we should have them now. quote, when compared with autonomous cars, ships have the advantage of not having to make split-second decisions in order to avoid catastrophe. The open ocean is also free of jaywalking pedestrians, stoplights, and lane boundaries. That said, robot ships share some of the problems that have be deviled autonomous vehicles on land, namely that they're bad at anticipating what humans will do and have limited ability to communicate with them, end quote. Imagine a future not of cargo ships filled with containers, but imagine in the future,

fleets of containers shipping themselves autonomously around the globe. Also, I can't remember the name of the startup at the moment, but I once did a story on here about tiny autonomous sailboats. No need for fuel, just sailboats. Tens of thousands of them. All around the world, all over all the oceans in the world. We should have them now for weather, for science, for navigation, and it sounds like we will be getting that soon. Back to the land, the Wall Street Journal takes a look at Farmers Business Network, which is trying to become the Amazon for farms. The only problem is, big agro-business doesn't want that to happen. Quote, FBN ran into bigger roadblocks with seed and pesticide makers who largely refused to

directly supply the platform and allow it to sell Farm Belt staple products like Syngenta's force insecticide or Corteva's Pioneer Corn Seed. FBN executive said in some cases they are able to procure name-brand farm products from brokers or wholesalers, but at higher prices than traditional retailers. They said the startup has otherwise been shut out by manufacturers intent on protecting the existing network of farm retailers and its established profit margins, end quote. And I mentioned this one only in passing as part of a larger story, so let's dig deep into Fitbit's plans to develop devices to help detect COVID symptoms. A deeper dive on that comes from 1-0. Quote, in May, Fitbit opened an opt-in COVID study of

100,000 Fitbit wearers. By the end of the study, about a thousand of them had been tested positive for COVID-19. Suddenly, the company's researchers had a remarkable opportunity. They could look backward through those people's data to see if, buried in the biometric data, there were any signs that indicated a COVID infection. The answer was yes. According to the Fitbit study, a COVID infection drives your breathing rate up, your resting heart rate up, and your pulse variability down. About half the time, those metrics change a day or two before you feel any symptoms, end quote. And finally, for the long holiday weekend, another one of those, well, here's maybe a project for you to try, which you may or may not be able to actually replicate. But at input,

Raymond Wong outlines how he turned his Lego NES into an actual functioning NES console. Quote, I knew I had to make this mod happen the moment Lego and Nintendo unveiled the 2,646 piece set of the NES. How could I not? The boxy console, complete with faithful port cutouts and flip-up cartridge slot, and 80s-style CRT, we're begging to be brought to life, end quote. And so he did. That's all for today, but not for this week,

because I've got a weekend bonus episode coming at you tomorrow. We're going to talk about the electric vehicle space beyond just Tesla. I mean, we're going to talk about Tesla, too. It's impossible to talk about the EV space and pretend Tesla doesn't exist. But I wanted to explore other players out there. how are the legacy automakers doing and who are the startups in the EV space that aren't Tesla that are having success? So we're going to talk to Martin Lee of the EV News Daily podcast. Look for that conversation on Saturday or maybe save it for Monday because Monday is Labor

Day here in the U.S. a federal holiday. So if you wanted, save that listening for Monday and use that to replace the normal show on Monday because I'm taking Monday off. Talk to y'all on Tuesday. Enjoy your weekend.