Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 05/06 – Rage, Rage Against The Dying Of Moore’s Law

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

IBM says it has created the world’s first 2nm chip. Google really wants everyone to use two factor authentication. Twitter is enacting more speed bumps to get you to stop trolling people in your tweets. Apple’s delicate dance with Netflix over in app payments. And SpaceX finally gets its Mars rocket to… not blow up on landing. Sponsors: AirMedCareNetwork.com/tech offer code TECH Cybereason.com Links: IBM Creates First 2nm Chip (AnandTech) Google is going to start automatically enrolling users in two-step verification (ZDNet) Google relaxes work from home rules to let more staff be remote (Bloomberg) Twitter rolls out improved ‘reply prompts’ to cut down on harmful tweets (Tech Crunch) Emails reveal Apple’s attempts to stop Netflix from dropping App Store In-App Purchase support (9to5 Mac) EXCLUSIVE China's Tencent in talks with U.S. to keep gaming investments -sources (Reuters) SpaceX successfully lands its massive Starship for the first time (New Atlas) 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 May 6, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. IBM says it has created the world's first two-nanometer chip. Google really wants everybody to use two-factor authentication. Twitter is enacting more speed bumps to get you to stop trolling people in your tweets.

Apple's delicate dance with Netflix over in-app payments. And SpaceX finally gets its Mars rocket to not blow up on landing. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. tech industry is continuing to rage, rage against the dying of Moore's law. IBM says it has created the first ever two nanometer chip, which IBM says could improve performance by 45% at the same power or 75% energy at the same performance compared to seven nanometer chips, quoting Anantec. Every decade is the decade that tests the limits of Moore's Law, and this decade is no different. With the arrival of extreme ultraviolet or EUV technology, the intricacies of multi-pattering techniques developed on previous technology nodes can now be applied with the finer resolution that EUV provides. That,

along with other more technical improvements, can lead to a decrease in transistor size, enabling the future of semiconductors. To that end, today IBM is announcing it has created the world's first two-nanometer node chip. Just to clarify here, while the process node is being called two-nanometer, nothing about the transistor dimensions resembles a traditional expectation of what two nanometers might be. In the past, the dimension used to be an equivalent metric for 2D feature size on the chip, such as 90 nanometer, 65-nanometer, and 40-nanometer. However, with the advent of 3D transistor design with Finfetz and others, the process node name is now an interpretation. of an equivalent 2D transistor design.

Some of the features on this chip are likely to be low single digits in actual nanometers, such as transistor fin leakage protection layers, but it's important to note the disconnect in how processed nodes are currently named. Often the argument pivots to transistor density as a more accurate metric, and this is something that IBM is sharing with us. Today's announcement states that IBM's 2-nanometer development will improve performance by 45% at the same power, or 75% energy at the same performance compared to modern 7 nanometer processors.

IBM is keen to point out that it was the first research institution to demonstrate 7 nanometers back in 2015 and 5 nanometers in 2017, the latter of which upgraded from Finfetz to nanosheet technologies that allow for a greater customization of the voltage characteristics of individual transistors. IBM states that the technology can fit 50 billion transistors onto a chip the size of a fingernail. We reached out to IBM to ask for clarification on what the size of a fingernail was, given that internally we were coming up with numbers from 50 square millimeters to 250 square millimeters. IBM's press relations stated that the fingernail in this context is 150 square

millimeters. That puts IBM's transistor density at 33 million transistors per square millimeter, end quote. Are you a user of Google services at all? Yeah, that probably is all of us. Well, get ready for two-step verification to be the norm, because Google has announced it is going to start automatically enrolling users in two-factor authentication for its various services, quoting ZDNet. Soon we'll start automatically enrolling users in 2SV if their accounts are appropriately configured. You can check the status of your account in our security checkup. Mark Risher, director of product management in Google's identity and user security group notes in a blog post. You may not realize it, but passwords are the single biggest threat

to your online security. They're easy to steal. They're hard to remember. And managing them is tedious, he says. That second factor, be it a security key or a smartphone, means that someone in possession of your username and password, in most cases, can't log into your account unless they have physical access to your device. Google has refined its processes over the years to make two-step verification less of an obstacle, but it can still be fiddily if you change a mobile phone number. Today, after signing in with a username and password users who have enrolled in two-step verification, get a code via SMS, voice call, or the Google app. The other option is a security key like Google's Titan key. Google has also built its security keys in Android phones, and last

year developed the same capability for iPhones via its smart lock app for iOS. Multifactor authentication authentication does work. According to Microsoft, 99.9% of the compromised accounts it tracks every month did not use multifactor authentication, end quote. Speaking of Google, from the returning to some form of post-COVID normality, whatever that may end up looking like file, according to a memo seen by Bloomberg, Google is relaxing work-from-home rules to allow more staff to work remotely, expecting 20% of staff to eventually be fully remote, 20% to eventually move sites, and around 60% to return to offices at least a few days a week. Quote, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai outlined the plan to staff in a note Wednesday morning. The influential Silicon Valley Giant, one of the first to send employees home in 2020, has slowly opened its offices but said its employees can work remotely until September.

Google has arranged offices to create more features for what it calls a hybrid return to work in the email. Pachai said he expects about 60% of Google staff will work in the office, quote, a few days a week. Another 20% will be able to relocate to other company sites, while the remaining one-fifth can apply to permanently work from home. Google's parent, Alphabet, ended the first quarter just shy of 140,000 direct employees, end quote. Twitter says it is rolling out improved prompts that discourage harmful language on its platform, first to iOS and then to Android, after internal studies showed that these prompts were actually effective in cutting down on trolling, quoting TechCrunch. A year ago, Twitter began testing a feature that would prompt users to pause and reconsider

before they replied to a tweet using, quote, harmful language, meaning language that was abusive, trolling, or otherwise offensive in nature. Today, the company says it's rolling improved versions of its prompts to English language users on iOS and soon, Android, after adjusting its systems that determine when to send the reminders to better understand when the language being used in the reply is actually harmful. The idea behind these forced slowdowns or nudges are about leveraging psychological tricks in order to help people make better decisions about what they post. Studies have indicated that introducing a nudge like this can lead people to edit and cancel posts. They would have otherwise regretted. Twitter's own tests found that to be true too. It said that 34% of people revised their initial reply after seeing the prompt, or chose not to send the reply at all. After being prompted once, people then composed 11% fewer offensive replies in the future on average. That indicates that the prompt, for some small group at least, has a lasting impact on user behavior. Twitter also found that users who were prompted were less likely to receive

harmful replies back, but didn't further quantify this metric, end quote. Checking in on the Apple Epic Games trial, there weren't a whole bunch of headlines made yesterday, though I thought this little nugget was interesting. Apparently, a few years ago when Netflix was prepping limited tests designed to see if they should drop Apple's in-app payments, which they eventually win and did, Apple warned Netflix away from doing this, telling Netflix these tests might do things like, quote, limit comor. marketing opportunities, including one-on-one featuring, end quote, quoting 9 to 5 Mac. New internal emails and presentation documents revealed as part of the Epic versus Apple trial

show how Apple attempted to convince Netflix to continue using the App Store in-app payment system. As Netflix was plotting its roadmap, Apple made a multitude of last-ditch efforts to win the company over. The backstory here is that Netflix dropped support for new users to sign up for a subscription in the Netflix for iPhone app in December 2018. In the months leading up to that, Apple was scrambling internally to convince Netflix to change its mind. As part of the Epic v. Apple trial, a detailed new email thread has come to light showcasing internal communication at Apple once the company became aware of Netflix's plans to roll out an AB test focused on the use of the app stores in-app purchase system.

A higher than usual amount of people paying via Apple's AIP system were, ending their Netflix subscriptions than on other platforms. Apple internally suggested that this could be due to people getting Netflix gift cards, therefore requiring them to switch to the Netflix website for payment. Netflix seemed to imply that this was not the case, but specific data is redacted. Also in the email, Carson Oliver, director of App Store business management, questioned whether Apple should take any, quote, punitive measures in response to Netflix's planned test to remove IAP support in certain markets. Quote, do we want to take any punitive measures in response to the test?

For examples, pulling all global featuring during the test period, Oliver wrote. If so, how should those punitive measures be communicated to Netflix? End quote. The Apple executives on the email thread arranged a variety of meetings with Netflix to discuss the company's planned tests regarding IAP. After Netflix had started rolling out, its tests of removing IAP support, Apple created a detailed slideshow presentation for the company in an apparent attempt to convince the company to keep supporting the payment method. Ultimately, Apple's attempts to convince Netflix to keep using,

the app store's in-app purchase system did not work. The streaming giant stopped supporting app store billing for new customers in December 2018 and has not budged on its position since then, end quote. As Chance Miller, who is covering the trial in person, tweeted, among the things Apple tossed out as ideas for Netflix to convince them to keep using IAP, some form of bundled offer, Netflix plus Apple services for one monthly price. Today at Apple, U.S. in-store events supporting Netflix launches and some form of Apple TV bundle. Eli Patel tweeted, quote, Apple here is wondering what else it can do to justify taking a 30% cut of Netflix signups on iOS. The only reasons it's doing that are number one, it knows it's not doing enough to keep Netflix from removing IAP, and two, it has,

has the threat of Netflix app signups going down to rely on, end quote. Steve Trouten Smith tweeted, quote, There should be no app store in which the platform owner discusses taking punitive measures against a Netflix that is experimenting with its own transaction model, like any business should be free to do. Netflix removing IAP should be none of Apple's damn business, end quote. Sources are telling Reuters that Tencent is in talks with Cepheus. I never remember how to pronounce that acronym, to negotiate agreements that would allow the company to keep its ownership stake in riot games. And speaking of epic games, quote, Tencent has been in talks with the committee on foreign investment in the United States, again, what I continue to call Seifius, which has the authority to order the Chinese technology giant to divest U.S. holdings since the second half of last year, the sources said. Seafius has been looking into whether Epic Games,

and Riot Games handling of the personal data of their users constitutes a national security risk because of their Chinese ownership, the sources added. Tenson owns a 40% stake in Epic Games, the maker of the popular video game Fortnite. Tenson also bought a majority stake in Riot Games in 2011 and acquired the rest of the company in 2015. Riot Games is the developer of League of Legends, one of the world's most popular desktop-based games. Tenson is negotiating risk mitigation features so it can keep its investments according to the sources. The details of the proposed measures could not be learned. They typically involve ring fencing the owner of a company from operations that have national security implications. They often call for the appointment of

independent auditors to monitor the implementation of these agreements, end quote. And finally today, SpaceX has successfully landed its massive starship rocket for the first time. You might have been aware there have been some failures of this particular maneuver for this particular rocket in the past. The Starship is the thing that will hopefully allow SpaceX to get to Mars one day. Quoting new Atlas. Following a series of impressive yet explosive attempts to bring down its giant spaceship built for interplanetary travel, SpaceX has today successfully landed its Starship prototype without exploding for the first time. The achievement is a major one for the company as its efforts to reach Mars.

continue apace and validates its approach to an unprecedented and highly complex landing maneuver that will be key to landing on the moon and eventually other planets. Designed to be reusable, the Starship is the next generation vehicle SpaceX hopes to use to transport people and cargo to the moon and Mars, and over the past six months, has been put through a series of high-altitude flight tests as engineers continue to optimize the design. This included the first suborbital flight of the SN8 prototype in December, which hit the ground at high speed on return, and exploded in a fireball. SN9, which reached an altitude of 10 kilometers or 33,000 feet in February, and exploded in a

fireball. And then the SN10, which managed to land momentarily in March, before also exploding in a fireball. The SN15 prototype flown today as Starship's fifth high-altitude test carried a number of design improvements, according to SpaceX. These include an updated avionics suite and propellant architecture and a redesigned configuration of its three Raptor engines. These engines are what powered SN-15 to an altitude of 10 kilometers again today, shutting down in sequence prior to reaching altitude. On the way back down, Starship shifts to a horizontal orientation and uses four

flaps to slow its descent and steer its way back to Earth, much like a skydiver in what's described as a belly flop maneuver. As it nears the Earth and its landing location, the Raptor engines are reignited and the Starship returns to a vertical orientation before touching down on the pad. It is at this point that the previous prototypes failed, but no such fate awaited SN15, with the prototype managing to land on the pad and remain intact, aside from a small fire at the base, which was promptly extinguished, end quote. There's actually a video of this landing. If you want to see for yourself, click through to the bottom link in the show notes. We did not do the Twitter space last night, which means we will do it tomorrow night.

So mark your calendars for 9 p.m. Eastern Friday. Talk to you tomorrow.