Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 07/15 - Don't Naruto-Rush Area 51

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 Monday, July 15th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough today. The FTC is readying a record fine for Facebook, but is it just a glorified parking ticket?

Starting point is 00:00:46 Qualcomm refreshes the Snapdragon lineup. Governments want to make money off of selling your data to. Microsoft Office is quietly winning in mobile, and the Air Force warns, do not storm Area 51. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Right around published time on Friday, a bunch of publications were reporting that sources were reporting that in a three to two vote, FTC commissioners had approved a record $5 billion settlement with Facebook over the company's privacy violations. The vote was along party lines with the Republican majority voting for the agreement and the Democrats voting against.

Starting point is 00:01:27 Quoting the Wall Street Journal, the settlement would easily exceed the previous record penalty for violating an FTC order, a 22.5 million dollar fine levied against Google in 2012. The commission has limited powers to impose fines for first-time privacy violations, but has broad latitude to sanction repeat offenders. Facebook shares gained 1.8% on Friday, even though the reported settlement amount was $2 billion more than the company had reserved for the settlement. Facebook's profit for the first quarter before accounting for the penalty was slightly more than $5 billion. After Facebook set aside the funds, some Democrats criticized the amount as too little, and the party-line decision this past week could expose Republicans to further criticism.

Starting point is 00:02:17 The FTC has sometimes been attacked as being toothless on privacy, end quote. Indeed, in other reporting I read, it seemed that the Democrats wanted more stringent oversight going forward in addition to the fine and for CEO Mark Zuckerberg to be held more accountable for past missteps. The settlement will still need approval from the Justice Department, but apparently justice rarely rejects settlements reached by the FTC. Quoting the New York Times, in addition to the fine, Facebook agreed to more comprehensive oversight of how it handles user data, according to the people, but none of the conditions in the settlement will impose strict limitations on Facebook's ability to collect and share data with, third parties. And that decision appeared to help split the five-member commission. The three-to-two vote taken in secret this week drew the dissent of the two Democrats on the commission because they sought

Starting point is 00:03:09 stricter limits on the company, the people said, end quote. This week, there are hearings in Congress about to ramp up over things like this. Tech malfeasance, data privacy, monopoly. Tech executives will be called before the cameras to provide politicians with their sound bites. And mostly I'm waiting for these hearings to actually happen before covering them, but there have been some behind-the-scenes stories in the last few days about jacking for position. And one thing that I've been reading and hearing is that, as always, Facebook might get the headlines in these hearings and maybe Amazon 2, but the knives might also finally be out for Google, especially by advertising competitors of Google, who don't want to miss this opportunity

Starting point is 00:04:02 to stick a shiv in over alleged advertising market bullying on Google's part. Bloomberg has a piece up airing the grievances from ad brokers like AppNexus and content networks like Vivo and Machinima over YouTube. If the FTC is about to rule on Facebook, remember that the DOJ drew the straw to deal with Google. So in the interest of slightly getting ahead of a potential story, be prepared for any action or any questioning that comes down on Google that might come down over stories like this surrounding YouTube. Again, quoting Bloomberg, quote, Brian O'Kelly built AppNexus to help companies advertise anywhere on the internet. Its software plugged into virtually every digital ad trading hub, including those from Google, the biggest ad seller and Google's

Starting point is 00:04:54 YouTube video service. By 2014, AppNexus was valued at $1.2 billion. Then in 2015, Google stopped letting companies buy ads on YouTube using outside software. The move got more marketers to use Google ad services. It also created a glaring hole for AppNexus. The startup could no longer give customers access to the largest supply of online video. It never really recovered. Quote, they crushed our growth and ruined our product, said O'Kelly, who stepped down as AppNexus chief executive officer last year.

Starting point is 00:05:30 YouTube represented a huge portion of the video inventory that AppNexus offered to advertisers. Those marketers couldn't just ignore YouTube, quote, because it's pretty much a monopoly in that space, he added. Quote, it's not a supply and demand problem. It's a, you just broke our entire business problem, end quote. The story is familiar to advertising and media entrepreneurs who built businesses around YouTube, only to be hobbled when the video giant change the rules of engagement. Google used YouTube's popularity to lur creators, media companies, and tech firms onto the service, gaining access to more videos and ad space. YouTube then used that supply to control ad prices and amassed data about viewers, squeezing out anyone that tried to compete, according to interviews, with more than a dozen partners, rivals, and former employees. Many asked not to be identified discussing sensitive information about a powerful industry player. YouTube didn't wipe out competition in one fell swoop or act maliciously, according to these people.

Starting point is 00:06:27 Instead, YouTube made decisions to consolidate the video ad buying process with little regard for partners or competition and few regulatory checks. That left a graveyard of failed companies in its wake and fewer choices for advertisers, the people said, end quote. Qualcomm has unveiled an update to its flagship mobile processor. Meet the Snapdragon 855 Plus, which runs the CPU at up to 2.96 gigahertz instead of the previous 2.84 gigahertz and delivers a 15% graphics speed boost. Quoting in gadget, those aren't giant leaps, but Qualcomm is betting that they'll be ideal for gaming where GPU performance is more important than raw number crunching. The tweaks also make the 855 plus helpful for VR and AR experiences. and anything else that's particularly taxing. This isn't your dream chip for 5G, though.

Starting point is 00:07:26 The built-in modem can't handle more than LTE, so devices will still need a separate X-50 modem and potentially make compromises in size and battery life to reach next-gen cellular speeds. You won't have to wait long to see the 855 plus in use, at least. Qualcomm is expecting devices built around the new system on a chip to ship in the second half of 2019, end quote. This announcement was a bit of a surprise coming mid-cycle in Qualcomm's traditional yearly flagship chip refresh.

Starting point is 00:07:58 As Engadget points out, this actually makes more sense because any flagship phones that do get released this fall won't have the unfortunate distinction of using months-old processors, but of course the true next-generation chip still won't be announced for at least half a year. The word is out everywhere, I guess. personal data is one of the most valuable commodities out there. And you know, who has more personal data on you than the government? So why can't the government get in on the action? A local news station in Florida over the weekend uncovered how the Florida DMV earned more than $77 million in 2017 by selling driver and ID cardholder information to more than 30 private companies, including data broker. like Axiom. Quote,

Starting point is 00:08:54 Tanya Batson moved from Idaho to Florida last year to live with her twin sister, Sonia Arvin, who is now her legal guardian because Batson has an intellectual disability. We take her to get an ID because she's a Medicaid patient, said Arvin. Days later, Arvin said Batson started receiving direct mail offers for lawn service, credit cards, cell phones, and insurance. She also now receives constant robocalls and salespeople have even started showing up at her door. She had no digital footprint until she got an ID, end quote. Now, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles says it has a policy that companies buying data on Floridians

Starting point is 00:09:34 are not allowed to use that information for marketing purposes. Well, but as Facebook learned with Cambridge Analytica, not everyone plays by the rules. And if you're not watching closely, well, selling data on residence is in line with state and federal law. But, hey, big money flowing in does have a way of influencing priorities, right? So what would happen if governments realize they could suddenly make tons of money from companies looking to mine your data? And the government is the one that writes the laws governing what is acceptable. And then the companies are making a lot of money and the government is making a lot of money, so their interests are aligned. Yeah, I'm sure this is all fine.

Starting point is 00:10:27 We've spoken several times about how and why Microsoft has swung back to tech relevancy in recent years after about a decade in the wilderness, Satcha Nadella and all that, smart bets on the cloud as the next true platform, but also subscriptions, and that does not mean that Microsoft has a the consumer side of the equation, nor does their abandoning of Windows mobile software and hardware mean that they've not found success in the mobile paradigm. In fact, quite the opposite. For example, the Android edition of Microsoft Word recently passed the $1 billion mark for installs on Google Play. And, quoting the verge, the company's other office apps are also doing pretty well. Spreadsheet app Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and OneDrive, each have more than 500 million

Starting point is 00:11:20 installs, while email client Outlook for Android has more than 100 million installs. And quoting Android Police, quote, as with most apps that reach this many installations, the count isn't made up entirely of downloads from the Play Store. Microsoft has agreements with Samsung and other manufacturers to pre-install Word and several other apps on phones and tablets. So there's a good chance many of those billion installations came from devices where the app has never been opened, end quote. But hey, whatever works, right? In that interview with Bill Gates that I played not too long ago, where he bemoaned the fact that Microsoft didn't end up with something like Android, he prefaced those comments by pointing out that Microsoft's productivity business,

Starting point is 00:12:03 all of those office apps, that was all still doing just fine. So while Microsoft might wish it had its own OS on every smartphone in the world, there are worse things than having your productivity apps on almost every smartphone in the world, especially when each of those is a gateway to Office 365 and that sweet, sweet, recurring subscription revenue. A little bit of local news reporting, despite Amazon's retreat from New York City over HQ2, that hasn't stopped it or other tech giant. like Google and Facebook from continuing to seek to rent millions of square feet and employ thousands of folks here in New York City.

Starting point is 00:12:52 Quoting the Wall Street Journal, Alphabet's Google last week closed a deal to lease 1.3 million square feet in lower Manhattan, part of Google's plans to add 7,000 in staff to the city over 10 years. Facebook is in talks to lease 1 million square feet of office space at 50 Hudson yards, a skyscraper under construction on Manhattan's far west side, according to a person familiar with the talks. Uber and Amazon have been looking for large office space at the Farley building, say people briefed on the matter.

Starting point is 00:13:22 Part of the former James A. Farley Post Office will be used as a train hall for Penn Station. New York is emerging as an East Coast hub for technology because of the size of its labor force, its extensive transportation infrastructure, and the cultural and entertainment activities that come with a big city, analysts and real estate executive said, end quote. Yes, and as I've said before, the history is that NYC became a tech hub originally because it was sort of accidentally a multimedia hub in the early 90s. And then when the web came around and got monetized by ads, Madison Avenue was here, so there you go. Part of that equation still holds true, of course, and even though nobody wants to admit to being in the media business, New York is still the headquarters for a certain type of media. and also the bottom line is there is plenty of tech talent here, quoting again from the piece.

Starting point is 00:14:18 A company like Facebook and others are expanding because they are running out of talent in Silicon Valley in San Francisco, said Paul Leonard, a managing consultant at Co-Star, end quote. So not to take a side on this, but it is worth pointing out that some of the critics of HQ2 coming here were not concerned about Amazon coming here, full stop. they were concerned about giving billions in tax breaks to Amazon to get them to come here. They said, Amazon will still want to come here anyway, so why pay them to do so? You can get the jobs and the tax revenue without giving anything away. Be smart about this.

Starting point is 00:14:58 And the piece is kind of hinting at the fact that maybe they were right. As Rakesh Argoal tweeted, quote, yep, companies go where talent is. Extorting tax breaks is a nice to have, end quote. And Anon Jirid Haradas tweeted, quote, New York played poker with Amazon and New York won, end quote. Quick follow up to a previous segment. AT&T is still going to go ahead and auto block fraud robocalls for their customers for free.

Starting point is 00:15:37 but if you want to block all spam calls, that is still going to cost you extra, quoting ZDNet. As spotted by Ars Technica, AT&T's new default-on free robocall blocking service only includes, quote, automatic fraud blocking and suspected spam call alerts, but won't automatically block spam calls. AT&T told the publication that spam calls may be considered a, quote, nuisance by customers, but that definition is subjective. The free version rolling out to millions of users does allow users to block spam calls. However, users need to add the unwanted numbers themselves. The feature available in the paid-for version of AT&T call protect that would automatically address spam calls is called custom call controls, which AT&T's website says, quote, gives you the control to allow send to voicemail or block calls by entire categories, end quote.

Starting point is 00:16:37 And finally today, you might have seen this pinging around Twitter and Reddit. all day long, but more than 400,000 people have apparently joined a Facebook event page calling for the storming of Area 51, that famous Air Force Base in Nevada where folks think all that alien stuff went down, or I guess continues to go down. The proposed event is scheduled for September 20th, and the plans are to storm, literally, quote, we will all meet up at the Area 51, Alien Center tourist attraction, and coordinate our entry. The event description reads, if we Naruto Run, we can move faster than their bullets. Let's see them aliens, end quote. Well, the Air Force wants you to know that, you know, this is an Air Force base. They're armed,

Starting point is 00:17:29 live fire situation, and they mean that, quoting deadline. Naruto Run refers to the unique running style of the protagonist, Naruto U.S. Uzimaki in the Japanese anime series Naruto, where he is often depicted sprinting with his hands behind him to decrease wind resistance. The Washington Post on Friday asked how officials will deal with anyone showing up for the event. Air Force spokeswoman Laura McAndrews declined to elaborate on specific details of the military's plans. However, she did issue a warning, quote, Area 51 is an open training range for the U.S. Air Force, and we would discourage anyone from trying to come into the area where we train American Armed Forces, McAndrew said. The U.S. Air Force always

Starting point is 00:18:15 stands ready to protect America and its assets, end quote. That is all for today. F. Why I am getting a rash of people telling me that this podcast has not updated on the official Google Podcasts app since Monday. I've been in touch with Google to try to work on this, but, you know, we'll see when and if they can find a fix. In the meantime, can anyone, get in touch who listens on Android, on an app that is not Google Podcasts. Is it just that one app that is borked or are all Android apps having issues? Any tweets welcome? Also posts in the subreddit R-slash right home.

Starting point is 00:19:01 Thanks in advance for anything you can share. And I apologize for any inconvenience to those inconvenienced. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 07/15 - Don't Naruto-Rush Area 51

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