Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 09/29 – Could Apple Have Bought Bing?

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 TechMeme right home for Friday, September 29th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. What if Apple had bought Bing and turned it into its own search engine?

Starting point is 00:00:43 Why did France's Competition Authority raid we believe in Vindia's offices? Big layoffs and peel-offs from Epic shows that the gaming industry is still hurting, and of course, the weekend long-read suggestions. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. I've not been covering it much, but the ongoing government antitrust trial against Google has been shaking loose some interesting details. Like, did we almost get a deal where Microsoft would sell Bing to Apple in order for Apple to replace Google with this Bing as their default search service? Quoting Bloomberg. Microsoft discussed selling its Bing search engine to Apple around the year

Starting point is 00:01:26 2020, a deal that would have replaced Google as the default option on the iPhone maker's devices according to people with knowledge of the matter. Executives from Microsoft met with Apple's services chief Eddie Q, who brokered the current search engine relationship with Alphabet's Google to discuss the possibility of acquiring Bing said the people who asked not to be identified because the situation was confidential. The talks were exploratory and never reached an advanced stage, they said. Over the years, the companies have discussed other ways to make Bing the preferred option, though Apple ultimately stuck with Google, those talks have taken on fresh significance now, that the U.S. Department of Justice is in a legal fight with Google to show that the company abused

Starting point is 00:02:04 its search dominance. Apple's relationship with Google, which pays billions of dollars to give its search engine a prime spot in the iPhone and other devices, is central to the case. Apple and Microsoft are now embroiled in the government's suit against Google with executives from both companies testifying at the ongoing trial. The Justice Department is using the Apple deal as evidence that Google unfairly dominates the search market. In testimony earlier this week, Apple's Q pushed back on that assertion, saying his company uses Google because it's the best search option available. Apple and Google struck their first search engine accord in 2002, ahead of Apple releasing its first Mac web browser. Over time, the agreement expanded to Apple's new devices, most notably the iPhone. By 2020,

Starting point is 00:02:43 Apple was collecting $4 to $7 billion annually from the arrangement, according to the DOJ. The agreement covers the Safari web browser for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and the Cooper Tino, California-based company gets a percentage of the revenue that Google makes from searches in the Apple browser. The money generated by the Google deal was a key reason why Apple declined acquiring Bing, to the people. The company also had concerns about Bing's ability to compete with Google in quality and capabilities, they said. In court on Thursday, Microsoft Business Development Executive John Tinter said that his company weighed making a multi-billion dollar investment in its relationship with Apple in 2016, an effort to outspend Google and make Bing the default option on Apple devices.

Starting point is 00:03:23 The chief executive officers of both companies Tim Cook and Sachin Nadella even met to discuss a deal, Tinter said. In his testimony, Apple's Eddie Q stressed that Apple sees no need to develop its search tool because Google clearly is the best option. That differs from the company's approach in other areas, though. It competes with Google in mapping software and voice assistance as well as operating systems for phones and computers, end quote. Google is letting publishers use a robots.comtext flag to opt out of the company using their data to train its AI models, while remaining accessible to Google search, though. Quoting the verge, Google just announced it's giving website publishers a way to opt out of having their data used to train the company's AI models while

Starting point is 00:04:10 remaining accessible through Google Search. The new tool called Google Extended allows sites to continue to get scraped and indexed by crawlers like Googlebot while avoiding having their data used to train AI models as they develop over time. The company says Google Extended will let publishers, quote, manage whether their sites help improve Bard and Vertex AI generative APIs, adding that web publishers can use the toggle to, quote, control access to content on a site. Google confirmed in July that it is training its AI chatbot barred on publicly available data scraped from the web. Google extended is available through robots.com, also known as the text file that informs web crawlers whether they can access certain sites. Google notes that,

Starting point is 00:04:50 quote, as an AI application expand, it will continue to explore additional machine-readable approaches to choice and control for web publishers, and that it will have more to share soon, end quote. I don't know if this will amount to anything, but I'm going to flag it now. in case it becomes something. France's Competition Authority apparently rated what is being termed a graphics cards sector company this week as part of a cloud computing inquiry. Sources say the target was NVIDIA, quoting the journal. France's Competition Authority rated NVIDIA's offices last week on suspicion the company engaged in anti-competitive practices. The first significant regulatory scrutiny the company has faced since its rise to be the paramount supplier of

Starting point is 00:05:37 artificial intelligence chips. The French Competition Authority, which disclosed the dawn raid on Wednesday, didn't say what practices it was investigating or which company it had targeted beyond saying that it was in the graphics cards sector. But people familiar with the raid said the operation had targeted NVIDIA, which is the world's largest maker of chips used both for artificial intelligence and for computer graphics. Typically, such raids are hours-long exercises in which officials turn up early in the morning, search of company's premises, sees physical and digital materials and interview employees who arrive for work. The French Authority said it had received approval from a judge for the raid. The French Authority said that its operation this week followed a broader inquiry into the

Starting point is 00:06:18 cloud computing sector in which it cited concerns that cloud computing companies could use their access to computing power to exclude smaller companies. A spokeswoman for the French authority declined to comment on the companies targeted in Tuesday's raid. French Business magazine challenges earlier reported that Invidia was the subject of the visit. Invita declined to comment, end quote. Epic Games is laying off 16% of its workforce are around 830 employees, also divesting itself of music storefront band camp. It also intends to spin off kid tech company Super Awesome, quoting the Verge. In a statement from Tim Sweeney, Epic has confirmed the layoffs will impact around 830 employees. He wrote that the company intends to sell band camp.

Starting point is 00:07:05 an independent music storefront company, Epic acquired just last year, to music licensing platform song trader and spin-off super-awesome, a kid tech company that specializes in creating safe online experiences for kids. He also explains that the layoffs are a result of the company, quote, spending way more money than we earn. Notably, Sweeney does not apologize to his employees for making the business decisions that have resulted in the disruption of over 800 lives, saying only that his optimism that such spending would not result in layoffs was, quote, unrealistic. There were rumors that Epic was expected to implement layoffs this year. According to Verge reporter Alex Heath, the company was seeking investment and

Starting point is 00:07:42 speculated layoffs as a means to reduce expenses might make it easier to raise funds. It's been a rough few months for the video game industry. After a spate of high-profile acquisitions, including buying Lord of the Rings IP rights, Embracer Group, canceled multiple projects, shuttered an entire studio, and may sell off another after a $2 billion dollar investment deal fell through. Activision Blizzard has recently laid off employees in its hearthstone division after laying off employees in its e-sports departments earlier this year. BioWare has also experienced layoffs, including longtime employees notable for their contributions to foundational games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Even earlier today, Sega announced it had

Starting point is 00:08:21 canceled live service shooter hyenas before the game's launch and that layoffs are expected at the game's developer creative assembly. Now, with Epic's layoffs expected to impact a staggering amount of people, the video game job market is looking to be as tight as it's ever been, end quote. Also confirming again, music licensing marketplace song trader has acquired Bandcamp and says it plans to keep operating Bandcamp as a marketplace and community with an artist-first revenue share. Time for the weekend long read suggestions. First up from the Washington Post, do you call anyone these days without texting first? I don't call anyone without getting the go-ahead, even with close business relationships like with Chris. We text all day long, but I would never dream

Starting point is 00:09:09 of calling him just out of the blue. Even with my parents now, I always text them earlier in the day and ask when they'll be available. Is this the new etiquette? The Washington Post makes a compelling case, quote, The unwritten rules of chatting on the phone differ wildly between generations leading to misunderstandings and frustration on all sides. We spoke to an etiquette expert and people of all ages about their own phone pet peeves to come up with the following guidance to help everyone navigate phone calls in 2023. These will vary depending on your relationship, your age, and the context of the call. The closer you are to someone, the less the rules apply. Go ahead. FaceTime your mom with no warning while brushing your teeth. But calling someone without warning can feel stressful to the recipient. Instead,

Starting point is 00:09:50 text them ahead of time to ask if they're free to talk now. If they can, you call when they're free, or if they pick a time they'd like to chat. If it's someone you call regularly, find out what their ideal times are, like after work or only on Sunday afternoons. Wording and context are key for these pre-call texts. A simple, call-me text can feel urgent and make someone think there's an emergency. Clarify if it's urgent or just a catch-up. If it's about a specific topic, mention it in the text, what you'd like to talk about so they can be prepared. These steps are especially necessary for video calls. Catching someone on video at an unexpected time can be embarrassing for all involved. You should almost never start a FaceTime or other

Starting point is 00:10:28 video call without warning, end quote. Other suggestions from the piece, don't leave a voicemail, don't use speaker phones in public, which, yeah, why do people do that all the time? And this is a good one. Emotions are for phone calls, facts are for text, and not vice versa. Like, if it's just I've landed, that's a text. If it's something emotional or nuanced, well, text does not do nuance. Then Wired has an interesting look at the whole effort to revive FTF. because, you know, it was a hell of a business. How do you think Sam Bankman-Fried got all that money? Quoting Wired. In May, a group including Rabit began to gather on the messaging platform telegram to discuss an idea that to many ears might sound impossible, restarting FTCS without

Starting point is 00:11:13 SBF. They had all lost money on the exchange. At the end of the bankruptcy, they can expect to recover a portion of that money, though probably not all of it and not for years to come. Firing up the exchange, they think, could provide a route to a faster and full of recovery. to a large extent FTCS was SBF. It was the sum of his entrepreneurship, marketing, lobbying, and risk-taking. Now the brand is in tatters. The group of creditors who call themselves FTX 2.0 Coalition believe the exchange has a future without him. The business was essentially good, Rebeat insists. The plan to reboot the exchange has its detractors, though. The main objections revolve around the damage done by Bankman-Free to the FTCS brand and the cost to an outside

Starting point is 00:11:53 investor of rebuilding a viable business from the wreckage. Reports compiled in the wake of the collapse, after all, suggested FTCS had next to none of the accounting, data security, and corporate government systems that one might expect of a legitimate business. So what precisely would an investor be purchasing? A reboot is certainly optimistic. It's highly unlikely from a practical standpoint, says Alan Rosenberg, a partner at the law firm Markowitz-Ringell trustee and Hartog, and member of the American Bankruptcy Institute. FTCS was a total mess. There was nothing right about it. An investor would need to be willing to invest in the time, energy, and money to completely restructure and revitalize the exchange,

Starting point is 00:12:30 end quote. Although a reboot is possible from a legal perspective, says Rosenberg, the deficiencies of the FTCS business mean restarting the exchange will require large amounts of capital and a wide range of expertise. It's a huge undertaking. You have to create a whole new company, he says, I don't know what there is to sell beyond the customer base, end quote. Then I'm not going to quote from it, but the Washington Post has a cute look at over the years how Hollywood has a A.I. Either taking over or becoming sylphil-we-a-a-a-a, as Arnold says, everything from Blade Runner to data from Star Trek. It was cool. Check it out. This is not tech, but it is nerdy. Well, it's a little tech, actually. Let me introduce you to Nerf Ball, Nerf's smartest game design yet.

Starting point is 00:13:14 Quoting the Verge, Hasbro has found another intriguing way to take back possession of its Nerf brand. Today, it's launching what it calls Nerf's first ever official sport, a game called Nerf Ball. and it comes with its own high-tech foam to keep track of the score. On September 22nd, Hasbro recruited 12 popular college athletes to play the first exhibition match in Florida and separately previewed a suit that contains smartphone pads. Originally designed by Utah's Exo Nano to measure football helmet impacts, the pads weren't actually used during the September 22nd game. Hasbro now confirms, but the company promises they'll detect dart hits while promising to filter out every other kind of motion. NERF general manager Adam Kleinman tells the verge that running, falling, breathing, and even

Starting point is 00:13:59 accidentally bumping the suit with a blaster are all ignored, while a successful dart hit makes your suit light up red, sending you back to respawn and wirelessly scoring a point for the opposing team. And while Hasbro is not sure the final consumer product might have quite the same features because of the price point, we're still finalizing what this will look like at home. Kleiman tells the verge he genuinely expects to bring hit detection gear to consumers in late 2024. or perhaps early 2025, end quote. And finally this week, the old red envelope side of Netflix's business, the actual mailing of physical DVDs, comes to an end.

Starting point is 00:14:34 From the New York Times, some of the folks involved take a look back, quote. At its height, Netflix was the Postal Service's fifth largest customer, operating 58 shipping facilities and 128 shuttle locations that allowed Netflix to serve 98.5% of its customer base with one-day delivery. Today, there are five such facilities. The others are in Fremont, California, Trent, New Jersey, Dallas, and Duluth, Georgia. And DVD revenue totaled just $60 million for the first six months of 2023. In comparison, Netflix's streaming revenue in the United States for the same period reached $6.5 billion.

Starting point is 00:15:10 Netflix's DVD operations still serve around 1 million customers, many of them very loyal. Despite the reduced staff, the envelope operation still receives and sends some 50,000 discs a week with titles ranging from the popular Avatar the Way of Water and the Fableman. to the obscure the 1998 Catherine Deneuve crime thriller plus Van D'Am. Each of the employees at the Anaheim facility has been with the company for more than a decade, some as long as 18 years. 100 people at Netflix still work on the DVD side of the business, though most will soon be leaving the company, end quote. Reminder, I got a cool bonus episode coming at you this weekend.

Starting point is 00:15:51 It's basically a half hour of me and the developer that helped me create my resumewriting.com experiment go back and forth about mostly what I love. learned from doing this project? As I say, there are some really salient lessons in terms of how you have to design AI products differently, at least right now. So look for that. Talk to you on Monday.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 09/29 – Could Apple Have Bought Bing?

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