Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 12/01 – iPhones To Go All-Action (Button)

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 Tech meme right home for Friday, December 1st, 2023. I'm Brian McCullough today. The action button is coming to all the iPhones with increased functionality. Reconstituting the cable bundle, example number 972. Microsoft wants to create a mobile gaming app store sometime soon, and of course, the week on long-read suggestions. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Mac rumors has seen internal documents that suggest Apple is planning to include the action button on the entirety of the iPhone 16 lineup, which would include a force sensor and tact switching functionality. Quote, designs and plans for the action button date back to at least 2021, as the button was intended

Starting point is 00:01:21 for release alongside haptic volume and power buttons on the iPhone 15 Pro. While the haptic volume and power buttons were abruptly canceled due to unresolved technical issues, the action button remained, eventually making its way onto final mass production units of the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. On the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, the action button replaces the mute switch previously found on all iPhone models. Unlike the mute switch, which only served a singular purpose, the action button provides iPhone users with a variety of uses. With the iPhone 16 lineup, Apple plans to add even more functionality to the action button by changing the button from mechanical to a capacitive type button. The revamped action button developed under the code name Atlas is expected to function similarly to the touch ID home button on older IIS.

Starting point is 00:02:06 iPhone models or the Force Touch trackpad found on more recent MacBooks. According to internal documentation, the updated Action Button will feature a force sensor, which detects changes in pressure as well as tact switching functionality, although exactly what the latter entails is currently unclear. The new Capture Button plan for the iPhone 16 lineup is also set to include the same functionality as the improved action button. As with the iPhone 15 Pro, even the earliest known designs and prototypes of the base model iPhone 16 featured an action button.

Starting point is 00:02:35 The presence of the action button has remained constant across different development stages and even different hardware configurations. Apple has also experimented with different sizes for the action button, with certain hardware configurations featuring an action button larger than the one currently found on the iPhone 15 Pro, and more closely resembling the volume buttons in size. The action button has been seen on multiple iPhone 16 prototype units and has also appeared in internal documentation related to the new devices. The action button is also set to appear on the next iteration. of the budget-oriented iPhone SE fourth generation, reportedly planned for a 2025 launch, thereby effectively eliminating the dedicated mute switch from all future iPhones currently in development, end quote. Sources are telling the journal that Apple and Paramount have been talking about offering a bundle

Starting point is 00:03:28 of Apple TV Plus and Paramount Plus that would cost less than subscribing to both services separately. Quote, the discussions between Apple and Paramount come as most entertainment giants are dealing with competitive pressures. They have been raising prices sharply in recent months in an effort to bring their streaming businesses to profitability, but have in turn faced rising levels of customer defections. Because most streaming services are available through a monthly subscription, it is easy for viewers to cancel when they are done binge watching a specific show. Offering multiple services as part of one package decreases the likelihood that subscribers

Starting point is 00:04:02 will cancel on any given month, according to data from Antenna, a subscriber measurement company. The re-bundling of streaming services is happening for, faster than we thought, said Aaron McPherson, Senior Vice President and Chief Content Officer at Verizon Communications, which launched its own marketplace of streaming services last year. It's clear that bundles are here to stay, end quote. Two high-profile streaming services, Netflix and Max, are being bundled together as part of a deal with Verizon. The Wall Street Journal reported in November, similar deals are expected as Warner Brothers Discovery Chief Executive David Zazlov recently said he was open to bundling Max with other streaming services. Both Apple TV Plus and Paramount Plus had a customer defection rate known in the industry as churn of more than 7% in October, a higher rate than the 5.7% average for the streaming industry as a whole, according to antenna data.

Starting point is 00:04:51 Streaming companies typically don't share data on customer defections. Disney has been offering Disney Plus Hulu and ESPN Plus a la carte, as well as part of a package, and has seen lower rates of subscriber defections for its bundle offering, according to antenna data. Also, quick note that Apple released yesterday emergency security updates for iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS to fix two zero days that may have been exploited, according to Apple, which makes 20, zero days patched by Apple in 2023 alone. A U.S. District Judge has issued a preliminary injunction blocking Montana's first-of-its-kind state ban on TikTok, which was scheduled to take effect on January 1st, quoting Reuters. U.S. District Judge Donald Maloy issued a preliminary injunction to block the ban on the Chinese-owned app, saying the state ban, quote, violates the Constitution in more ways than one and oversteps state power. Tick-Tock owned by China's bite dance, sued Montana in May, seeking to block the U.S. state ban on several grounds, arguing that it violates the First Amendment's free speech rights of the company and users. TikTok users in Montana also filed suit to block the ban, approved by the state legislature, which cited concerns about the personal data

Starting point is 00:06:15 of Montana users and potential Chinese spying. TikTok said it was pleased the judge, quote, rejected this unconstitutional law and hundreds of thousands of Montanaans can continue to express themselves, earn a living, and find community on TikTok. Montana could have imposed fines of $10,000 for each violation by TikTok in the state, but the now blocked state law did not impose penalties on individual TikTok users. Maloy said Montana sought to exercise foreign policy authority held by the federal government and the state's action was to sweeping, end quote. Sources are saying that Tiger Global has cut valuations of its portfolio companies. It did this actually in September, including Superhuman down by 45 percent, Duck Duck Go, marked down 72 percent,

Starting point is 00:07:05 Yuga Labs, which is the board ape yacht club people down 69 percent, and OpenC, down 94 percent. Quoting Bloomberg. Investors in Tiger Global Management's biggest venture fund were sitting on an 18% paper loss at the end of September after the firm slashed valuations for multiple portfolio companies according to people familiar with the matter. The venture capital industry is facing a reckoning as startup struggle with cash flows amid higher interest rates. Philippe LaFantz Co2 management also slashed its internal valuation for OpenC by 90% and marked down its stakes in Calendley and Notion, Bloomberg previously reported. Tiger Global Cut valuations in its venture funds last year by about 33% resulting in a $23 billion decline in value.

Starting point is 00:07:47 The PIP-15 fund had its final close early last year, end quote. Xbox head Phil Spencer says that Microsoft is talking to partners to help launch a mobile gaming store to take on Apple's and Google's app stores but offered no launch date, quoting Bloomberg. It's an important part of our strategy and something we are actively working on, not only alone, but talking to other partners who'd also like to see more choice for how they can monetize on the phone. Spencer said in an interview in Sao Paulo, during the CCXP Comics and Entertainment Convention. The executive declined to give a specific date for a launch of the online store, which earlier reports suggested could be next year. I don't think this is

Starting point is 00:08:32 multiple years away. I think this is sooner than that, he said. Microsoft earlier this year expanded its Game Pass subscription service for players on personal computers to 11 new Latin American countries, leading to a 7% increase in customers. Peru and Costa Rica are the standouts in terms of customer interests, accounting for almost half of new signups, Spencer said. Globally, Brazil is the second biggest market for the PC game pass. In many ways, Brazil leads a lot of the trends that we see globally, Spencer said. But mobile is also really important in Brazil, and their Microsoft lags significantly. Microsoft may be able to use longstanding resentment against the market leaders to Marshall's support for its store offering. Xbox's cloud gaming technology already lets users

Starting point is 00:09:14 stream blockbuster games to mobile phones. We've talked about choice, and today on your mobile phones, you don't have choice, Spencer said, to make sure that Xbox is not not only relevant today, but for the next 10, 20 years, we're going to have to be strong across many screens, end quote. Time for the weekend long read suggestions. First up, it has officially been a year now since ChatGPT was released and kicked off this AI era. Over at the verge, David Pierce took a look back, quoting his opening.

Starting point is 00:09:48 There have been a handful of before and after moments in the modern technology era. Everything was one way, and then just like that, it was suddenly obvious. It would never be like that again. Netscape showed the world the internet. Facebook made that internet personal. The iPhone made plain how the mobile era would take over. There are others. There's a dating app moment in there somewhere, and Netflix starting to stream movies might qualify to, but not many. ChatGPT, which OpenAI launched a year ago today, might have been the lowest key game changer ever. Nobody took a stage and announced that they'd invented the future, and nobody thought they were launching the thing that would make them rich. If we've learned one thing in the last 12 months, it's that no one not OpenAI's competitive.

Starting point is 00:10:27 not the tech using public, not even the platform's creators, thought Chat Chapti would become the fastest growing consumer technology in history. And in retrospect, the fact that nobody saw Chat Chapti coming might be exactly why it has seemingly changed everything, end quote. Then, everybody at this point knows the story of Jensen Huang and the founding of Invita, but few people know the story of Nvidia's other founder, Curtis Priam, quoting Forbes. An inventor who has almost 200 patents, he helped design the first graphics processor ever for PCs in the early 1980s and later co-founded semiconductor firm Invidia, where he spent a decade working as its first chief technology officer. Following Nvidia's 1999 IPO, he transferred most of his shares to a charitable foundation after deciding it was, end quote, excessive amount of money to hold on to. A few years later, he left the company, in part due to a highly litigious first marriage that ended in divorce and,

Starting point is 00:11:23 domestic violence allegations against his ex-wife. By 2006, he'd sold off his remaining shares. Had he held on to his entire stake, he'd be worth $70 billion. Instead, Forbes estimates that Priam has a fortune that's closer to $30 million, just over one-tenth of what he's given to his alma mater. That includes a $6 million home near Fremont, California, where he lives off the grid with unreliable cell service and writes manifestos filled with equations about how to solve world problems like repairing the earth. None have been published anywhere. He says he often communicates by giving out unique email addresses, 16 digit strings of numbers, including one given to this Forbes reporter as a way of avoiding spam. He says he hasn't gotten any since 2000, end quote. And yesterday,

Starting point is 00:12:08 everybody was all hype for the unveiling of the cybertruck, but another vehicle was unveiled yesterday that might have an even bigger impact on the world. Anderil's new drone thingy takes a page out of SpaceX's reusable rockets, quoting Bloomberg. Military combat drones keep getting better, cheaper, and more dangerous. Unmanned aircraft are now affordable enough for terrorist groups such as Islamic State to procure large quantities of them. Meanwhile, the best counter systems cost many millions of dollars to deploy and use. It's an out-of-whack equation that military analysts say will likely become only more troubling over time in terms of both costs and the threats to the safety of ground troops. Anderil Industries, a startup in Southern California, fashioning itself as a new age

Starting point is 00:12:53 defense technology and weapons maker, has created a product dubbed Roadrunner that it bills as an answer to the U.S.'s rising drone threat. Developed in secret over the past two years, a roadrunner is akin to a mini-autonomous fighter jet, powered by two turbines and equipped with a warhead, it takes off vertically like a rocket and then turns to fly at hundreds of miles per hour like a plane towards its target. And in a first for this type of weapon, a roadrunner can return home, land, and be reused when it doesn't engage a target in the air. Although Anderil declined to disclose a price, it says each roadrunner will cost in the low six figures. A Patriot missile, the U.S. military's higher end drone deterrent, can fetch four times that amount. The company

Starting point is 00:13:35 based in Costa Mesa, California, has set up a new factory line for Manuptuio. manufacturing and expects the cost of each roadrunner to drop as it ramps up production and improves underlying technology. It's radically different than anything people have been doing, says Palmer Lucky, a co-founder of Andorill, end quote. And finally today, you might have heard the word that Shane McGowan, lead singer of the Pogues, finally died. I say finally, not to be funny, because all across the world, people probably exclaimed he made it to age 65. How did he do that? because if you know the man's life, his life story, you know that no one deserved that sort of reaction more, maybe aside from Keith Richards. But even then, I'd say that Shane lived a harder life than just about anybody. If you've spent just about any time at all in a bar in New York City, you'll have been exposed to his band The Pogues. I'm talking about bars, not nightclubs, a proper New York City bar. The Pogs are the official soundtrack of New York City bars. I'd say South Oshunds. Australia or the body of an American are their better songs. But if you know the Pokes at all,

Starting point is 00:14:43 you probably know them from that song, Fairy Tale of New York, which is the most New York City in December song that ever existed. It's what that Mariah Carey Christmas song for the rest of the world is for New York City. It's the unofficial soundtrack of the holiday season here. So, from the New York Times, the real story behind the boys of the NYPD choir, we're singing Galway Bay, quote. After the song was released in 1987, it needed a video for the hugely popular MTV network, so it needed scenes from the city, a working jail cell and a castle-like police building in Chelsea, and notably the people whom Mr. McGowan had invented the boys of the NYPD choir. Actual musically inclined policemen were required to make the video successful, and

Starting point is 00:15:30 stepping into that role were the members of the Pipes and Drums of the Emerald Society of the New York police department. At least some NYPD musical influence noted Brian McCabe, a retired police officer and member of the Emerald Society, if not a choir, actually. It was November 1987, babe. We were playing a dinner dance function on the Upper West Side, said Kevin McCarthy, 62, a former officer who is still in the band, which includes current and retired officers. After that, we were to get on a bus and head downtown to Washington Square Park where we were going to participate in a music video. Nobody on the bus had ever heard of this band called the Pogues or the song, end quote. There, in the bracing cold, the police band met the rock band. They obviously started their party much earlier, Mr. McCarthy

Starting point is 00:16:15 said, end quote. Reminder once again, you're going to want to listen to the bonus episode this weekend, as Forbes's Alex Conrad and I did the best summation of the whole Sam Altman saga that you'll hear anywhere. Enjoy that. Talk to you on Monday.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 12/01 – iPhones To Go All-Action (Button)

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