Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 04/15 - Don't Ignore Those Office Updates!

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. everybody, quick reminder to check out our new ride home podcast, the primary ride home hosted by our friend Chris Higgins, giving you the latest news from the campaign trail every day at 5 p.m. I explained more about the show at the end of last Friday's episode, so listen to that if you

Starting point is 00:00:45 haven't. But please do me a favor and search and subscribe to give the primary ride home a try. Thanks. Welcome to the tech meme right home for Monday, April 15th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough today. You really need to run those office updates. it turns out. Rumors of chaos at HQ trivia, further details on Apple Arcade and Apple News Plus, and a hands-on with the Galaxy Fold. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Over the weekend, Microsoft confirmed that hackers had compromised a support agent's credentials, or at least some super user's credentials inside Microsoft, to gain access to Microsoft managed

Starting point is 00:01:30 web-based emails on services like Outlook, MSN, and Hotmail. This more than it appears that the breach might have been worse than originally reported. In short, hackers broke into a customer support account or some high-level account again at Microsoft and then somehow use that to gain super access to customer email accounts. The hackers could apparently see subject lines of emails, who the emails were sent to, email folder names, etc. And then maybe it was even worse than that. Quoting Motherboard, who is basing their reporting on an unnamed source, quote, In March before Microsoft publicly confirmed the hack, the source told motherboard that this abuse of a customer support portal allowed the hackers to gain access to any email account as long as it wasn't a corporate level account.

Starting point is 00:02:18 This means that while paid enterprise accounts that businesses pay for weren't affected, normal consumer accounts were. The source described the attack, including how it relied on abuse of Microsoft's customer support tool. On Sunday, the source reiterated those details and provided further information and screenshots of what kind of action. access the hackers had to motherboard, end quote. And according to that source, the further information is that the hacking technique might have allowed full access to an email's contents. So actually having access to users' emails might be on the table here. Apparently, some users are getting notifications from Microsoft alerting them that their accounts

Starting point is 00:03:00 may have been compromised. And Microsoft has responded saying that it noticed the breach sometime between January 1st of this year and March 28th when they apparently disabled the compromise credentials. Just one tweet to share about this one. It's from George Bevis. I cannot imagine why Microsoft staff should ever be able to read the body text of customers' email. That they can is more troubling than that they were hacked, end quote. This is not exactly related, but I'm going to throw this here.

Starting point is 00:03:35 in a presentation at its annual security conference, Kaspersky Labs reported that around 70% of the attacks, its products detected in Q4 of 2018, were trying to take advantage of a Microsoft Office vulnerability. That's more than four times the percentage the company was seeing two years ago. Quoting from ZDNet. Kaspersky said that one of the reasons why office bugs often become the target of malware distribution campaigns is due to an entire crime ecosystem existing around it.

Starting point is 00:04:07 Once details about an office vulnerability become public, an exploit for it appears on the dark market in a matter of days. Bugs themselves have become much less complex, and sometimes a detailed write-up is all a cybercriminal needs to build a working exploit, Kaspersky said, end quote. The company said even if the vulnerabilities don't affect the office apps themselves, they are often exploited by office files. So I know it's annoying that seemingly every week Office asks you to update, but maybe take the time to do so because it certainly seems like if you're going to get got at the moment, Office is apparently how they're likely to get you.

Starting point is 00:04:52 We didn't get to it last week, but earlier the news broke that Scott Rogalski, the popular host of the once hugely popular HQ trivia app, was leaving the app and the company. and the rumors were that it wasn't exactly an amicable parting of ways. Well, a big piece from TechCrunch suggests there's even more to it, a lot more. Quote, according to multiple sources, over half of the startup's staff signed an internal petition to depose CEO Russ Uzapov, who they saw as mismanaging the company. But Usapov then fired some core supporters of the mutiny, leading to a downward spire of morale that mirrors HQ's plummeting App Store rank, end quote. You're going to have to read the full piece for the blow-by-blow,

Starting point is 00:05:40 but to say that Yusupov has been controversial, and his public and private behavior is sometimes described by observers as mercurial, is putting it mildly. But according to the piece by Josh Constine, there are also some hints of basic mismanagement that has allowed the company's early momentum to flag. Quote, with HQ's bank account, count full, sources say Yusupov was extremely slow to make decisions, allowing HQ to stagnate.

Starting point is 00:06:09 The novelty of playing trivia for money via phone has begun to wear off, and people increasingly ignored HQ's push notifications to join the game. But beyond bringing in some guest hosts and the option to buy a second chance after a wrong answer, HQ ceased to evolve. HQ fell to the 196th rank game in iOS and the 585th overall app as concurrent players waned, end quote. And then subsequently, of course, was co-founder Colin Kroll's tragic death, and Krolls seemed to be very popular internally. After that event in February, an attempted coup d'etat by staffers, the machinations of which reportedly included an attempt by Raghowski himself to organize a staff strike.

Starting point is 00:06:58 Again, the whole story is messy, so read the piece if you want all the details. But note this one extra detail, quoting Constine. Two sources said HQ recently only had around $6 million in the bank but was burning over a million dollars per month, meaning its runway could be dwindling. But its early investors are reluctant to hand Usapov any more cash, end quote. A few folks got their hands on the Galaxy Fold and their reviews were surprisingly positive. I kind of say surprising because I feel like any excitement around these foldable phones has faded. But here's Deeter at the verge, quote, here's the TLDR most of you are waiting for. It feels much more stable and polished than I expected going in, but there is still some work to be done on the software.

Starting point is 00:07:51 And okay, here's what you are really waiting for. You can see and feel the crease in the folding screen, but it's really not that noticeable and perhaps worth the tradeoff. for having a big screen that you can fold up, end quote. And at CNET, Jessica Dolcourt, said that the phone felt solid and sturdy. The hinge mechanism moves smoothly and actually feels high end. Yes, there's a crease, but she too felt like it was a non-issue. TechCrunch's Brian Heater concluded his review by saying, quote, While the fold doesn't feel like a phone that's achieved its final form, it's a surprisingly well-realized first-generation phone,

Starting point is 00:08:31 quote. But one detail that a lot of people mentioned that is giving me paused, when closed, the device is 17 millimeters thick. That's basically two S-10 phones stacked on top of each other. And the weight? 263 grams. As Jeffrey Fowler tweeted, quote, Samsung's fold has bigger challenges than a crease. Number one on my list, weight, 9.3 ounces. That's a approaching a can of soup, end quote. A couple of Apple stories here, updating the recent services push with a few more details, but again, not the details like price and when they're coming our way. In a quick story noting how Apple is shutting down texture, because now, well, they have Apple News Plus, and hey, Android users, you're out of luck. There was this little detail. We thought that Apple only

Starting point is 00:09:32 paid around $100 million to acquire texture, which it then turned into Apple News Plus, but texture was sort of like a Hulu for print media in the sense that big print companies were all partners in founding and running texture. Turns out the $100 million price tag was only the upfront money. The real price tag was somewhere in the neighborhood of $485 million. Quoting from The New York Post, the sale price of $485 million included a $100 million up front payment to four publishers who teamed up to launch texture. Condi Nast, Meredith, and Hearst, and Rogers in Canada, plus their venture backer, KKR. Going forward, the four publishers got a minimum of $145 million in the first year,

Starting point is 00:10:19 followed by a minimum of $240 million for the second and third years, pushing the payout to at least $485 million Media Inc. has learned, end quote. Now it makes more sense why a lot of big publishers were willing to dance with the devil here. At least for the next few years, all of that money really is additive. Meanwhile, Digidae says the launch of Apple News Plus has been bumpy to say the least. Lots of wags noticed. At least so far, there is no format consistency if you read publications on Apple News Plus. But sources from publishers say that Apple promised design help including splashy custom templates. The sources say Apple has been stingy in providing design

Starting point is 00:11:02 support for these templates. There's also apparently only a handful of people assigned to help publishers migrate content. Smaller publishers say they are being left to their own devices. The article describes a special Slack channel that some of the bigger players have been invited to for design support coaching. And when the smaller players learned of this via Digidae, they accused Apple of playing favorites. Quote, there are also logistical puzzles to think through. For publishers that sell separate digital sponsorships around packages that appear in the print editions of their magazines, there is confusion and indifference from Apple about whether the Apple News Plus launch could potentially cannibalize the digital audience for that package, one source said.

Starting point is 00:11:41 In addition, some publishing sources say there is frustration with Apple News Plus's uneven user experience, with some publications splurging on custom design and others simply uploading PDFs of their print issues. Quote, you think of Apple, and they're so design conscious, a second source says. This doesn't feel like that at all, end quote. Maybe the previous story informs this one, and this is just me speculating on a hypothesis, to quote Miller's Crossing, but maybe some of the bigger publishers are on board, getting big payments and big support, and Apple hopes to get big fast, like it did with Apple Music,

Starting point is 00:12:17 then everyone will later have to come on board no matter what. Problem is, for now, it all sounds a bit chaotic. Or again, as they say in Miller's Crossing, it's just a damned mess is all. And over the weekend, the Financial Times was reporting that Apple is soups serious about its new subscription gaming service. Serious to the tune of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Apple Arcade with a total budget for the project likely to exceed $500 million in order to simply lock down exclusives to the service. Apple is apparently playing nice with game developers, trying to woo them with terms that say even if developers agree to make their games exclusive to arcade. at launch, they will still be free to release their games everywhere after only a few months. Why is Apple being so generous?

Starting point is 00:13:12 Quoting the Financial Times. Apple has not said how much it will charge subscribers for arcade or TV Plus, but analysts at HSBC have estimated that Apple Arcade revenues will grow from 307 million in 2020 to 2.7 billion by 2022, and 4.5 billion by 2024, by which time HSBC predicts, it will have 29 million users paying $12.99 each per month. Those figures are greater than its revenue estimates

Starting point is 00:13:42 for Apple TV Plus at $2.6 billion by 2022 and $4.1 billion by 2024. And Apple News Plus, which it predicts will generate $1.7 billion and $2.7 billion respectively, end quote. Finally, today, of course, Airbnb is one of the highest profile of the cavalcade of unicorns looking to IPO.

Starting point is 00:14:06 And Fortune has an interesting piece up That has some numbers that were surprising to me, even though I think we might have spoken about this somewhat recently. Since 2007, 748 million guests have stayed at homes, apartments, or unique listings like Yurts and Igloos listed on booking.com, according to its parent company, booking holdings. During that same period, Airbnb says 500 million guests have stayed at one of its listings. The numbers show heated competition between the longtime travel service booking.com and its buzzy home rental competitor, Airbnb. Booking, long a big player in hotel reservations, wants the world to know

Starting point is 00:14:49 it's also a powerhouse in home rentals. It is growing faster than our core business and we're pleased with that, said Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogle, end quote. So bottom line here, an incumbent travel player, arguably an incumbent because booking.com is not an old school hotel chain by any means. It's an online booking service, nay, priceline.com. But an incumbent player is doing more business in Airbnb's core business than Airbnb is, and it's possibly still growing when there have been hints that Airbnb's business might be leveling out. Wonder what that might do to Airbnb's public market valuation when it has one. Booking.com, by the way, has a market cap at the time of this writing of $83 billion.

Starting point is 00:15:35 I had a whole thing planned for today to end with to talk about what a great weekend I had, Tiger Woods, Game of Thrones. But as I'm recording this in the 3 o'clock hour Eastern Time US, I'm too heartbroken to do that at the moment. You know how much I adore and adulate history. So I'm not ashamed to say that watching the live videos of the Notre Dame fire did cause me to cry a a couple of times. Of course, I hope no one has been hurt or worse, but in a world full of so much tragedy, this is one tragedy too far for me today.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 04/15 - Don't Ignore Those Office Updates!

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