Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 03/16 - What REALLY Happened W/That Google Coronavirus Project?

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

Apple fined by France, the FCC nets a bundle at auction, new Beats earbuds, all the specs for the new Xbox Series X, and how Google got caught by surprise by President Trump’s announcement regarding Coronavirus work. Sponsors: Tinycapital.com TryExpressVPN.com/ride Links: Apple fined a record $1.2 billion by French antitrust authorities (CNBC) FCC’s largest spectrum auction nets $4.47 billion for 5G mmWave bands (VentureBeat) Beats announces $149 Powerbeats with 15 hours of battery life (The Verge) Inside Xbox Series X: the full specs (Eurogamer) Microsoft hits its goal of 1 billion devices running Windows 10 (The Verge) Trump Oversold a Google Site to Fight Coronavirus (NYTimes) Trump’s Google testing announcement mixed up several real projects (The Verge) Silicon Valley Was First to Send Workers Home. It’s Been Messy. (WSJ) Coronavirus Impact: Netflix Shuts Down Film, TV Work in U.S. and Canada as Production Nears Standstill (The Hollywood Reporter) 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 Techmeme ride home for Monday, March 16th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. Apple is fined by France. The FCC nets a bundle at auction, new beats earbuds, all the specs for the new Xbox Series X, and how Google got caught by surprise by President Trump's announcement regarding coronavirus work. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Apple has been fined around $1.23 billion by French authorities for anti-competitive behavior. within its distribution networks. Apple says it will appeal. Quoting CNBC, the French Competition Authority said the iPhone maker was guilty of creating cartels within its

distribution network and abusing the economic dependence of its outside resellers. Two of Apple's wholesalers were also fined for agreeing on prices. Tech data and Ingram Micro received fines of 76.1 million euros and 62.9 million euros, respectively. Both companies were not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC. The French authorities said this penalty, totaling 1.24 billion euros, was the largest ever handed down in one case, end quote. The FCC says it has netted $4.47 billion for its 5G millimeter wave spectrum auction and $2.7 billion for the 24 gigahertz and 28 gigahertz bands, quoting Venture Beat. Touted as the largest.

auction of spectrum by quantity in U.S. history, auction 103 effectively adds three additional millimeter wave bands to previously auctioned 24 gigahertz and 28 gigahertz frequencies, giving carriers the ability to offer exceptionally high bandwidth wireless services on a national basis. The 24 gigahertz and 28 gigahertz auctions raised $2.7 billion, led by top bidders, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, with large cable companies and smaller regional carriers participating to lesser extents. Verizon led the latest bids winning 4,940 licenses followed by AT&T, 3,267 licenses, DISH Network, 2,651, and T-Mobile, 2384. Collectively, the recent auctions have opened nearly 5Ghertz of additional millimeter wave spectrum for 5G use, with the latest round adding

3.4 gigahertz in total across three bands. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai notes, that the quantity of auction spectrum now eclipses that, quote, used for terrestrial mobile broadband by all wireless service providers in the United States combined, end quote. Has unveiled a $149 power beats four earbuds with 15 hours of battery life, Apple's H1 chip for quick pairing, and an IPX4 rating for water resistance. The Beats 4 will be available as soon as Wednesday, quoting the VEX4. verge. Beats says they should sound basically the same as the Powerbeats Pro, which remains among the best true wireless earbuds on the market in terms of audio quality. There's a power button

on the left earbud, a volume rocker, and a multifunction B button on the right earbud only for controlling music. Color options are black, white, and red. The Power Beats charge over lightning. A USBA to lightning cable comes in the box, as does a soft carrying pouch. They'll be available starting March 18th from Apple, Best Buy, and other retailers that carry beats headphones, end quote. Microsoft has officially released the specs for the Xbox Series X, and they are this. The Project Scarlet System on a chip is revealed to be a custom 8-core 3.8 gigahertz AMD Zen 2 CPU. Also, there's a custom 1.825 gigahertz AMD, R&A, 2 GPU, 16 gigabytes of RAM, and a 1 terabyte SSD with expansion card support. Quoting Eurogamer, 12 terraflops was our goal from the very beginning.

We wanted a minimum doubling of performance over Xbox 1X to support our 4K-60 and 120 targets, and we wanted that doubling to apply uniformly to all games, explains Andrew Gousson. To achieve this, we set a target of 2x, the raw terraflops of performance, knowing that the architectural improvements would make the typical effective performance much higher than 2x. We set our goal as a doubling of raw terraflops of performance before architectural improvements were even considered for a few reasons. Principally, it defined an audacious target for power consumption, and so defined our whole system architecture.

But also, in the early stages of design, it's difficult for us to accurately predict the uplift from architectural improvements across our worst cases. Our bar was a doubling in all cases, not just an average. So the most practical engineering way to ensure baseline 2x improvements across the worst cases logged in all games was to set a goal of twice the raw terraflops performance. So then we concentrated our efforts on making the effective performance even higher with architectural improvements and new features, end quote.

Your gamer goes on to explain how hardware accelerated ray tracing will make games look better, how fast storage could be a game changer, pardon the pun, how Microsoft is battling lag and screen tearing, and also how HDR is coming for even older games. Read the piece for more info, or, of course, listen to Kyle over at the gaming ride home. Since we've been talking platform numbers lately, I thought it was worth noting that Microsoft has announced one billion devices worldwide are now running Windows 10. that includes PCs, laptops, but also those Xbox One consoles and the HoloLens headsets, quoting the Verge. Microsoft had been planning to get Windows 10 running on a billion devices within three years of its release,

but the company extended that timeline after Windows phone failed to challenge iOS and Android. The milestone comes less than five years after the original release and less than six months after Windows hit 900 million devices for Windows 10. Windows 10 is now, quote, the only operating system at the heart of over 80,000 models and configurations of different laptops and two and ones from over a thousand different manufacturers reveals Microsoft, end quote. So we are definitely through the looking glass here, people. Today is my first official day broadcasting to you from my house. That's why the audio sounds a little bit different, if you can detect the change at all. I should have a clone of my usual studio setup by tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest. But look,

I can't pretend like Corona News isn't all the news right now. I can no longer shove it into its own little segment anymore. I will do my best in the coming days to try to find pure tech news to share with you every day. That's not Corona-related, but right now, all the tech news is about tech responding to Corona. So, in his press conference on Friday, President Trump announced that the administration was working with Google to announce something, a website or something, some sort of tool that would help expand testing. It was sort of unclear. And also, this was, it turns out, news to Google, quoting the New York Times. It started as a series of conversations this past week between officials working with Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, and the chief executive

of Verily, a life sciences subsidiary of Google's parent company, about how it might help the Trump administration in the fight against the coronavirus. Verily was developing a website that would let people evaluate their symptoms and direct them to nearby drive-through location. for testing. Desperate to tap the private sector to satisfy the public's demands for more robust response to the rapidly spreading virus, Mr. Coushner was quickly sold on the idea. But on Friday, President Trump inflated the concept far beyond reality. At a news conference in the Rose Garden, he said that the company was helping to develop a website that would sharply expand testing for the virus, falsely claiming that, quote, Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now,

end quote, and adding that, quote, they've made tremendous progress. And, quote. In truth, the project at Verily, which has a total of about a thousand employees, is in its infancy. A pilot program is planned for the San Francisco area, but a website has yet to be unveiled. Testing locations have not been identified, and the coronavirus tests themselves are not yet widely available, end quote. And quoting from the verge. Saturday night, Google laid out everything it's doing in response to the coronavirus outbreak, in its own words. After days of confusion over exactly how the search giant is collaborating with the White House in the face of growing public health crisis. As Google's official PR described it in a string of tweets,

there are at least three distinct projects at work. First, alphabet medical subsidiary Verily is building a system for triaging individuals for testing as reported on Friday. But the project is in the early stages of development and current plans are limited to a pilot in the Bay Area far from the national testing system described by Trump. At the same time, Google now says it is partnering with the government to build, quote, a nationwide website that includes information about COVID-19 symptoms, risks, and testing information, something ever so slightly closer to what Trump described at the press conference, but still not a website that facilitates tests and delivers results. Alongside those two projects, Google is also pushing

verified information, usually from the CDC or WHO, through search, YouTube, and its various other web outlets. As Google framed it, those projects were all President Trump was talking about in his confusing announcement on Friday. Quote, we are fully aligned and continue to work with the U.S. government to contain the spread of COVID-19, inform citizens, and protect the health of our communities, the company said, end quote. Well, those two pieces were from the weekend. Verily actually launched its coronavirus screening website this morning, and indeed, it's just a website about symptoms, and it's limited to the San Francisco Bay Area for now,

and it requires users to log in with their Google accounts to even use them. the website, which lots of people are scratching their heads about. Here's Natasha Singer at the New York Times, quote, to use the Google slash Verily screening program to see if you are eligible for COVID-19 testing, you have to create a Google account or connect it to your existing Google account. This is both a barrier to entry and a major privacy problem. Your personal and COVID-related data may also be shared with services providers, quote, including but not limited to Google and sales force, end quote. But Joseph Flatterty pushed back on this on Twitter, quote, unbelievable. Google mobilizes in record time to try and address an unprecedented global health crisis that could claim millions of

lives. New York Times tech is like, what about privacy? I'm guessing the reasons they chose this architecture and are using their boilerplate legal language is because it's the most expedient approach. Should they spend an extra week working out HIPAA issues at the cost of 100,000, of thousands of lives, end quote. Some folks have taken notice of the fact that Apple has been conspicuously more reticent to embrace the current work-from-home ethos, at least compared to the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Twitter. That's not to say that Apple is foregoing social distancing, not taking it seriously.

It's just that Apple seemingly has not been as on the front foot as others. Well, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that some Apple employees are still working at Apple HQ, due to Apple's obsession with secrecy and the company's restrictions on external access to some systems, as well as prohibitions on unreleased products leaving Apple's campus. In recent days, software developers sent home by Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook have complained of slow download speeds and mounting confusion over still evolving new internal rules about what work they are allowed to perform, staffers say. Some workers can't access crucial internal systems from home due to strict security.

security policies meant to fend off outsiders, which now includes off-site employees. Though Apple has encouraged staff to stay away from the office for health reasons, many engineers say they continue to come into headquarters, heating company policy that forbids unreleased products from being removed from campus. The company has loosened some security restrictions, but maintains them on any software that might reveal the nature of off-limits projects, staffers say. Apple has instituted daily health screenings at the security desk for all staff on campus. quote, it's all about lowering the density, an Apple employee said, explaining the importance of having fewer people in the office, end quote. The other company apparently struggling with true remote work

is Facebook for similar reasons and yet reasons that are just kind of so Facebook. Quoting again, while Facebook recommended employees stay home when feasible, it required large blocks of staffers to remain at the office to press on with certain work, such as the policing of videos or images related to child abuse or pornography, which are deemed too sensitive to perform remotely. Quote, there are certain sensitive content review areas that can't be done off-site, a Facebook spokesman said. In recent days, the company has started experimenting with allowing some contractors handling less charge issues to work from home, he said, end quote. And finally today, Netflix is not immune either. Netflix has shut down physical production

and production prep work for its scripted TV and film releases. The shutdown is currently scheduled for two weeks in the U.S. and Canada, but let's not kid ourselves. It's probably going to be longer than that. And yes, I know all you work from home, stay at home people, trying to social distance and flatten the curve. The idea that there might not be new Netflix content in the near future would probably make you panic. But look, this is happening all across Hollywood. Apple shut down production on the morning show season two on Thursday, The Bachelorette, Young Sheldon, Batwoman, Stranger Things, Grace and Frankie, all production is shutting down across the board, quoting the Hollywood reporter. The fate of scripted television production is very much in flux, as the world grapples with the coronavirus. As of late Thursday evening, NBC Universal has either suspended production or accelerated the season wrap schedules on 35 shows, scripted, unscripted, and syndicated as a precaution.

CBS, meanwhile, is taking a similar strategy and has done the same with a fair amount of its series. Other networks and studios are taking things on a case-by-case scenario. While every network, streamer, and studios scrambled to make decisions about staffers working from home and what to do with series productions, everyone had one thing in common, a sense of uncertainty, given the unprecedented nature of the global pandemic, end quote. It's weird. I worked from home for 15 years. My first company, the one that I still own, had 70 workers at its height, all remote. I founded four companies now, and none of them have ever had an actual physical main office. I actually only got my first office at a co-working space six years ago because I started podcasting and I needed a studio. But when I was working from home all those years, I was a single guy.

I had no kids. Working from home with a crowd is different, but weirdly fun so far. My wife said last night that two weeks ago she was asking me to be home more and now she can't escape me. I'm sure a lot of you are on the same boat now. Check out the Coronavirus Daily briefing for the latest news on that front. Be well, everybody. Talk to you tomorrow.