Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 03/28 – Apple Wins Best Picture Oscar

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

Apple wins a best picture Oscar. Bigger camaras mean bigger bumps in upcoming iPhones. Urgent Chrome update you need to be aware of. You probably guessed that that person bugging you on LinkedIn might be faked. And Fashion Week, but in the Metaverse. Sponsors: OurCrowd.com/ride Priceline.com Links: Apple Is First Streamer to Win Best Picture Oscar for ‘CODA’ (Variety) Kuo: iPhone 14 Pro's Larger Camera Bump Due to New 48MP Camera System (MacRumors) Apple to cut iPhone, AirPods output amid Ukraine war uncertainty (NikkeiAsia) HP buys Poly for $3.3 billion to ride hybrid work boom (TechStartups) Emergency Google Chrome update fixes zero-day used in attacks (BleepingComputer) That smiling LinkedIn profile face might be a computer-generated fake (WNYC/NPR) NFT Collection Failures Begin to Mount in Flashback to ICO Bust (Bloomberg) Metaverse Fashion Week Draws Big Brands, Startups (WSJ) 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 Monday, March 28th, 2022. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Apple wins a Best Picture Oscar. Bigger cameras mean bigger bumps than upcoming iPhones. Urgent Chrome update you need to be aware of. You probably guess that that person bugging you on LinkedIn might be fake.

And Fashion Week, but in the Metaverse, here's what you miss today in the world of tech. I've been joking for a while now that covering tech suddenly means covering Hollywood. More proof of that today. The movie, Kota won three Oscars last night, including the Best Picture Oscar, giving Apple its first Oscar, period, and making Apple TV Plus the first streamer to win the Best Picture Oscar. Somewhere, some folks at Netflix are probably pretty bummed this morning, quoting variety. Apple original films Koda, which has a predominantly deaf cast, marks the first time a streaming service has won the Best Picture Oscar with Apple TV Plus beating rival Netflix to the punch.

Coda took the top prize over Netflix's The Power of the Dog from director Jane Campion, which was the other leading contender in the category. In addition, Cota star Tony Kotzer won the supporting actor trophy the first time a deaf male actor has landed in acting Oscar, and the second deaf actor ever to do so after Cota co-star, Marley Matlin won for Children of a Lesser God in 1986. In the film's third win of the night, Cota director Sean Hedder won in the Adapted screenplay category. The three Oscars for Coda were Apple's first ever. Coda also made history as the first Sundance Film Festival movie to take home the Oscars Best Picture Prize. And it's the first film

to win Best Picture without having been nominated in the directing and editing categories. Apple is estimated to have spent more than $10 million on the Oscars campaign for Cota, more than the movie's sub-10 million dollar production budget. Overall, Netflix, which has spent millions of dollars heavily campaigning for its awards, hopefuls, picked up just one Oscar. Campions win for directing the Power of the Dog. That was after Netflix led the field again with 27 nominations, including 12 for Power of the Dog and four for Adam McKay's Don't Look Up, both of which were in the running for Best Picture. Apple won the three trophies after six nominations total, three for Coda and three for Joel Cohen's The Tragedy of Macbeth. Apple acquired the rights

to Cota for $25 million after a bidding war following its premiere at Sundance's last year. The film produced by Vendomay Pictures and Pathet premiered on Apple TV Plus in August, end quote. Now, as Joe Rosignoll tweeted, quote, it's worth noting that Apple did not produce Coda. Apple acquired the worldwide rights to the film for a reported $25 million after it premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, an impressive win, but not really a true Apple original, end quote. But as one of the editors in the tech meme slack this morning said, this probably not. nonetheless makes Netflix or Amazon Prime video teams twice as mad. And you know, also you could insert your Will Smith slapping Chris Rock joke here.

A couple other Apple items for you this morning, Ming Chi Kuo says that the camera bump on the forthcoming iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max smartphones will increase about 5% in each dimension due to a larger 48 megapixel sensor, quoting Mac rumors. In a tweet, Quo responded to leaked schematics recently shared by Max Weinbach. The schematic showed that the rear camera plateau of the iPhone 14 Pro models will increase by about 5% in each dimension, increasing from a width of 35.01 millimeters to 36.73 millimeters, and a height of 36.24 millimeters to 38.21 millimeters. The bump itself is also set to protrude further from the device, increasing from about 3.60 millimeters on the iPhone 13,

Pro to 4.17 millimeters on the iPhone 14 Pro. Quo said that, quote, the main reason for the larger and more prominent camera is due to upgrading the rear camera to 48 megapixels. He added that the diagonal length of the iPhone's contact image sensor, or CIS, is set to increase by 25 to 35% with the jump to 48 megapixels. Likewise, the height of the camera's lens system will increase by 5 to 10%. Along with the replacement of the notch with a new pill and hole punch true depth camera array design, the 48 megapixel wide camera is among the iPhone 14 Pro's most widely rumored features, having been repeatedly mentioned by Quo, Taiwanese research firm Trendforce, and Haithong International Securities analyst Jeff Poo. The 48 megapixel camera system is expected to be

limited to the iPhone 14 Pro models and allow for 8K video recording, offering a significant upgrade over the iPhone 13 pros, 12 megapixel camera, and 4K video. recording capabilities. High resolution 8K videos recorded with the iPhone 14 Pro are also said to be suitable for viewing on Apple's long-rumored AR VR headset, end quote. And sources are telling NICA Asia that Apple plans to cut iPhone SE orders by around 20% for the next quarter. As war and inflation, dampened demand for such a device, they've also reduced AirPods orders by more than 10 million units for all of 2022, quoting Niki Asia. Apple launched the iPhone SE as its first 5G-capable budget phone less than three weeks ago, but is now telling multiple suppliers that it aims to lower production

orders by about 2 to 3 million units for the quarter, citing weaker than expected demand for people told Nika Asia. The U.S. tech giant also reduced orders for its AirPods, earphones by more than 10 million units for all of 2022, as the company predicted lukewarm demand and wanted to reduce the level of inventories. shipped about 76.8 million units of AirPods in 2021, counterpoint research data showed, but people with knowledge of the situation said overall shipments for 2022 could likely see a decline. Apple also asked suppliers to make a couple of million fewer units of the entire iPhone 13 range than previously planned, but said this adjustment was based on seasonal demand. It is not surprising

that the company has turned conservative for the June quarter. An executive at an Apple supplier told Nika Asia, quote, the war has affected spending at the European markets. It is understandable consumers will save the money for food and for heating, end quote. Well, the pandemic times might be over for companies like Zoom, but that doesn't mean that hybrid work is over. Making a bet that this is true is HP, which apparently plans to acquire Polly, formerly known as Plantronics, which makes audio and video devices for conference calls for a total of about $1.7 billion in cash, though the deal is larger when you don't include debt. Quoting tech startups. The rise of the hybrid office creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity to redefine the way work gets done, said Eugene Lores, president and CEO of

HP. Combining HP and Polly creates a leading platform of hybrid work solutions across a large and growing market. Polly's strong technology, complementary go-to-market and talented team will help to drive long-term profitable growth as we continue building a stronger HP, end quote. Polly will help drive the growth and scale of HP's peripherals and workforce solutions businesses. Peripherals represent a $110 billion segment opportunity growing 9% annually, driven by the need for more immersive experiences. Workforce solutions represent a $120 billion segment opportunity that is growing at 8% annually, as companies invest in digital services to set up, manage, and secure more distributed IT ecosystems. Polly's devices, software, and services combined with HP's strengths across compute,

device management and security create a robust portfolio of hybrid meeting solutions, end quote. Warning to immediately update your web browser, depending on which one you use, because Google has updated Chrome for Windows, Mac, and Linux to fix a high severity zero day being exploited already in the wild, the second such patch for Chrome this year, quoting bleeping computer. Google is aware that an exploit for CVE 2022 1096 exists in the wild, the browser vendor said in a security advisory published on Friday, the 99.0.4844.84 version is already rolling out worldwide in the stable desktop channel, and Google says it might be a matter of weeks until it reaches the entire

user base. This update was available immediately when bleeping computer checks for new updates by going into Chrome menu help about Google Chrome. The web browser will also auto check for new updates and automatically install them after the next launch. The zero-day bug fixed today, tracked as CVE 2020-1096 is a high-severity-type confusion weakness in the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine reported by an anonymous security researcher. While type confusion flaws generally lead to browser crashes following successful exploitation by reading or writing memory out of buffer bounds, attackers can also exploit them to execute arbitrary code. Even though Google said it detected attacks exploiting this zero-day in the wild, the company did not share technical details

or additional info regarding these incidents, end quote. From the, I probably could have guessed this myself file, researchers have identified thousands of computer-generated profile pictures being used on fake LinkedIn profiles for lead generation and product promotion and all sorts of stuff, quoting WNYC. NPR found that many of the LinkedIn profiles seem to have a far more mundane purpose, drumming up sales for companies big and small. Accounts like Keenan Ramsey's send messages to potential,

customers. Anyone who takes the bait gets connected to a real salesperson who tries to close the deal. Think telemarketing for the digital age. By using fake profiles, companies can cast a wide net online without beefing up their own sales staff or hitting LinkedIn's limits on messages. Demand for online sales leads exploded during the pandemic as it became hard for sales teams to pitch their products in person. More than 70 businesses were listed as employers on these fake profiles. Several told NPR they had hired outside marketers to help with sales. They said they hadn't authorized any use of computer-generated images, however, and many were surprised to learn about them when NPR asked. NPR has not independently verified who created

the profiles or images or found anyone who authorized them to be used, nor has NPR found any illegal activity. But these computer-generated LinkedIn profile photos illustrate how a technology that has been used to propagate misinformation and harassment online has made its way to the corporate world. From a business perspective, making social media accounts with computer-generated faces has its advantages. It's cheaper than hiring multiple people to create real accounts and the images are convincing. A recent study found faces made by AI have become, quote, indistinguishable from real faces. People have just a 50% chance of guessing correctly whether a face was created by a computer, no better than flipping a coin. If you ask the average person on the internet, is this a real person

or a synthetically generated one? They are essentially at chance, said Henny Farid, an expert in Digital Media Forensics at the University of California, Berkeley, who co-authored the study with Sophie J. Nightingale of Lancaster University. Their study also found people consider computer-made faces slightly more trustworthy than real ones. Verreid suspects that's because the AI sticks to the most average features when creating a face, end quote. Another check-in on the health of the NFT market, an analysis of 19.3 million NFTs across around 8,400 collections, posits that one in three three NFTs have little or no trading activity at this point, and another third trade below their original minting cost, quoting from Bloomberg. As failed projects pile up, long-time crypto observers

are having flashbacks to the initial coin-offering bust of 2018, when thousands of digital tokens quickly became worthless after regulators warned they're probably unregistered securities. Much like ICOs and their heyday, NFTs have become one of the hottest corners of the cryptocurrency world as speculators seek to take advantage of the surging interest and, prices for the digital certificates of authenticity, most commonly representing art or collectibles. The semblance is uncanny, said the anonymous collector known as Whale Shark, who is thought to be one of the largest NFT holders in the world. Money is flowing too fast and too ignorant into the space, they said, end quote. While purchases of board apes by celebrities such as Madonna

for more than $500,000 kept the collections in the headlines, overall NFT sales have ebbed recently. The 30-day sales volume is down 40% from the prior month, according to Nansen. volume at OpenC, the biggest NFT marketplace is down 67% in the last 30 days, DAP radar data show. Industry participants say the decline is more a sign of frenzy demand cooling rather than a bubble bursting. NFTs are still being touted for use in everything from video gaming to commerce. We are at a stage of stabilization in the NFT market after the crazy peaks of last year, said Gotti Zuppinger, a co-founder of the non-fundurable markets data platform, end quote. Finally today, that previous story,

like this one will either reinforce your prior conviction that Web3 is just a fad, or else it will reinforce your faith that things in Web3 are still early, but progressing nicely. Brands including Forever 21, DKNY, and Estee Lauder participated in the first ever Metaverse Fashion Week, which began on Thursday and ended yesterday, Sunday. It took place in the Central Land, quoting the Wall Street Journal. Digital-only fashion shows have taken place in the past, but the four-day event is one of the highest profile efforts to gather big brands around or inside the concept of the Metaverse, a virtual world where people can interact, work, and shop.

Luxury fashion brands and smaller startups are using the virtual event to host fashion shows and open stores in DeCentraland, selling both physical items deliverable in the real world and digital goods, accompanied by non-fungible tokens, the digital assets known as NFTs. It sends a signal that virtual fashion is here to stay and virtual fashion will continue to become something that is of interest for brands, said Kathy Hackle. chair of Metaverse Fashion Week and Chief Metaverse Officer at Futures Intelligence Group, a consultancy. For Metaverse Fashion Week, S. DayLodder is giving away 10,000 NFT-backed digital wearables

that it says will give avatars a glowing aura. Forever 21 has rented the equivalent of 450,000 square feet of space into Centrallands Fashion District to open a virtual store with digital avatars acting as sales associates and 10 NFTs for sale. These NFTs offer outfits for avatars to wear or collect. Some participants in the event don't sell physical items at all. The digital fashion company NFTXR Couture, whose website urges people to wear clothes that don't exist, sold 18 NFT-backed virtual outfits ahead of Metaverse Fashion Week and is opening a headquarters in DeCentraland, end quote. For a couple of years, about a decade ago, my wife and I lived in a high-rise overlooking

Lincoln Center in Manhattan. That's where they used to do Fashion Week every year. We actually overlooked the back of Lincoln Center, which was great because there's a park there where they would do summer concert series and such, and we would just go out on our balcony in the evenings and listen to opera drifting up from the street. But also, it was on the back side along Amsterdam Avenue that all the limos lined up to pick up and drop off celebrities. So it was also fun to go down on the street and just sort of stand there and celebrity spot. I guess you could replicate that sort of experience in the metaverse as well. Who knows? Talk to you tomorrow.