Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 08/29 - Apple Bends On "Right To Repair"

Episode Date: August 29, 2019

Apple makes nice with repair shops (and saves the date for the iPhone launch next month), an undersea cable mostly already built could be axed cause… China stuff, YouTube says it’s made progress on cleaning up its algorithm, and a machine learning betting company that says it can make sports betting a no-lose proposition. Sponsors: Castro Listennotes.com Links: Apple is allowing independent repair shops to officially service iPhones (9to5Mac) Indictment says accused Capital One hacker also used exploited cloud servers for cryptojacking (GeekWire) National Security Concerns Threaten Undersea Data Link Backed by Google, Facebook (WSJ) YouTube to adjust UK algorithm to cut false and extremist content (The Guardian) Former MLB Pitcher’s DC Startup Lands $23M for Sports Betting Platform (DCInno) Inkitt raises $16M led by Kleiner Perkins to publish crowdsourced novels in 'mini-episodes' (TechCrunch) Netflix ships milestone 5 billionth disc (CNET) Subscribe to the ad-free feed! 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 Thursday, August 29th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough today. Apple makes nice with repair shops and saves the date for the iPhone launch next month.

An undersea cable, mostly already built, could be axed because China stuff. YouTube says it's made progress on cleaning up its algorithms and a machine learning betting company that claims it can make sports betting a no-lose proposition. Here's what you missed today in the world. of tech. We haven't really covered it, but there's been a sort of brouhaha simmering around the ability of third parties and independent businesses to repair parts for iPhones. Some repair companies and others like I Fix It have accused Apple of consciously making it more difficult for users to get devices repaired. Reports surfaced about a month ago saying that if you replace, say,

a battery on an iPhone 10R, S, or 10S Max, the phone stops displaying battery health readings because of a chip Apple recently installed. Basically, it was starting to feel to a lot of people like Apple wanted you to go only to them for any repairs and was basically Xing out the entire third-party repair business slash ecosystem. But many people wondered, what if you have a broken eye device and an Apple store isn't nearby. The recent announcement that Best Buy stores in the United States were becoming authorized Apple device repair centers was supposed to help with that. But still, and then, of course, there was the whole idea that Apple was basically jealously killing off an entire industry. Well, there's been a major thaw in this controversy because Apple has announced a new repair program

in the U.S. that will extend access to genuine iPhone repair process. parts for independent repair businesses, quoting the announcement from Apple itself. There is no cost to join Apple's independent repair program. To qualify for the new program, businesses need to have an Apple certified technician who can perform the repairs. The process for certification is simple and free of charge. To learn more and apply, visit support. Apple.com forward slash IRP-program.

Qualifying repair businesses will receive Apple genuine parts, tools, training, repair manuals, and diagnostics at the same cost. as Apple approved service providers, end quote. And quoting 9 to 5 Mac. Apple says the program targets the most common out-of-warranty repairs. This presumably includes repairs such as cracked screen replacements or back glass replacements. Previously to this announcement, Apple has mostly left independent repair businesses out in the cold. Enterprising businesses have instead resorted to buying Apple device parts from the gray market to conduct unofficial repairs.

Interested independent businesses can apply for free to qualify the business will need to train its employees to become Apple certified technicians. Again, Apple will offer this online training for free. If a company is accepted into the program, they will have access to Apple parts and tooling at the same cost as Apple authorized resellers, end quote. Apple says it trialed this new initiative at 20 stores across the globe. The program launching today is only available for repair companies in the U.S., but Apple says it will expand the program to, further regions in the near future. And late-breaking PS, Apple sent out invites this afternoon to an event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino for Tuesday, September 10th. That's your iPhone announcement day, naturally. Invitation Cremlinologist, I don't know what to tell you. It's an Apple

logo sliced into five translucent colors. So I don't know. I guess the new colors for the new iPhones. Follow-up story here. Remember that former Amazon engineer who allegedly exploited the servers of Capital One and, it turns out, allegedly 30 other companies. Well, in a federal grand jury indictment today, it is alleged that she also used those servers to mine cryptocurrency, quoting Geekwire. There had been previous hints that Thompson was engaged in cryptojacking as part of the alleged scheme.

In a previously reported Slack message, Thompson wrote, I'll be employed again soon, and if I had a partner, I could have them take over my cryptojacking. enterprise and be a stay-at-home, end quote. In addition to Capital One, other hijacking victims include a state agency, a foreign telecommunications conglomerate, and a public research university. Neither the state agency or the university are located in Washington State. Israeli security company Cyberint has suggested that Michigan State University, Vodafone, and the Ohio Department of Transportation may be among the victims based on file names referenced in Thompson's online messages. Thompson allegedly used software

to identify companies whose firewalls were vulnerable to outside commands. She then sent requests that returned the security credentials of customers with access to data on the servers. The indictment says Thompson concealed her location and identity using virtual private networks and the Onion Router, aka Tour, software for anonymous online communication. Through these methods, the indictment says, Thompson gained access to information on 100 million customers who had applied to Capital One for credit cards. Thompson does not appear to have sold or shared the information, according to investigators, end quote.

If found guilty, Thompson would face up to 25 years in prison. More China, U.S. tech, Cold War stuff. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that U.S. officials are trying to block an undersea cable that has been backed by Google and Facebook that would connect Los Angeles to Hong Kong. The officials are citing national security grounds, once again, again, but there's one big problem. Most of the cable has already been laid, and millions of dollars have already been poured into the project. As someone joked on Twitter, this gives new meaning to the term sunk cost. Quote, the Justice Department, which leads a multi-agency panel that reviews telecommunications matters, has signaled staunch opposition to the project because of

concerns over its Chinese investor, Beijing-based Dr. Peng Telecom, and Media Group, and the direct link to Hong the cable would provide, the people said. Ships have already draped most of the 8,000-mile Pacific light cable network across the seafloor between Chinese territory and Los Angeles, promising faster communications for its investors on both sides of the Pacific. The work so far has been conducted under a temporary permit expiring in September. But people familiar with the reviews said it is in danger of failing to win the necessary license to conduct business because of the objections coming from the panel known as Team

Telecom. Team Telecom has consistently approved past cable projects, including ones directly linking the U.S. to mainland China or involving state-owned Chinese telecom operators, once they were satisfied the company responsible for its U.S. beachhead had taken steps to prevent foreign governments from blocking or trapping traffic. If the U.S. rejects Pacific Lights application, it would be the first time it is ever denied an undersea cable license based on national security grounds, and it could signal regulators are adopting a new, tougher stance on China, projects, end quote. It's estimated that the cable, based on the length of its route, probably cost $300 million all in as a project. And again, Facebook and Google are among the investors. In fact,

Google is apparently responsible for the land connection on the U.S. side. 6,800 miles of the cable have already been laid, and service was supposed to be turned on in December or January. And follow up YouTube's efforts to clean up its algorithms, or as I once angrily put it, stop sucking out loud. In the UK, YouTube says it is experimenting with an algorithm change that can reduce the views from recommendations of what it is categorizing as borderline content by as much as 50%. YouTube says it is extending the trial soon to Ireland, South Africa, and other English language markets. I didn't cover this, but earlier this week, YouTube CEO Susan Wojicki released her quarterly letter to the YouTube creator community, quoting the Guardian.

Reducing the spread of borderline content is one of the four R's that Wajiki says underpins the company's approach to stewardship in its community. In her quarterly letter to the site's creators, the chief executive said the three other principles were to, quote, remove content that violates our policy as quickly as possible, and we're always looking to make our policies clearer and more effective, as we've done with pranks and challenges, child safety, and hate speech just this year. To, quote, raise up authoritative voices when people are looking for breaking news and information, especially during breaking news moments. And to, quote, set a higher bar for what our channels can make money on on our site, rewarding trusted, eligible creators.

Not all content allowed on YouTube is going to match what advertisers feel is suitable for their brand. We have to be sure they are comfortable with where their ads appear, end quote. Quoting one more time, a commitment to openness is not easy. Wajiki added, it sometimes means leaving up content that is outside the mainstream, controversial, or even offensive. But I believe that hearing a broad range of perspectives ultimately makes us a stronger and more informed society, even when we disagree with some of those views, end quote. Yeah, about that, here's a quick thing that was almost a longer story today, but then I had to delete most of it from my running order because it quickly became a non-story. Remember how InfoWars was recently banned from YouTube completely? Well, the InfoWars War Room channel relaunched on YouTube yesterday, and in videos posted to the channel, the hosts cited Wichickie's letter to creators as a reason why they felt they were allowed to relaunch on YouTube.

But then shortly after the news of the channel's resurrection hit the internet, YouTube deleted the channel once more. Sometimes on Thursdays I like to do interesting raises to try to keep our eye on new and up-and-coming companies. Well, today we've got two interesting raises in areas that we don't often talk about much. Jambos Picks is a startup that leverages machine learning and database models to make betting recommendations on NFL, NCAA, NCAA football, NCAA basketball, and MLB games. Yes, sports betting is slowly becoming legal in the U.S. and there's been a rush of startups into this space. Jambos Picks has raised $23 million in seed funding to be one of them.

But that's not what I found interesting. What I found interesting was that Jambos Picks is so sure of their tech that they guarantee their betting picks will be profitable for you, or they will refund you and give you a little extra money on top. So unless I'm understanding this wrong, they're basically offering you can't lose betting. quoting DC-NO. The discounts vary depending on subscription length. The full 17-week plan costs $3,000 and has a $10,000 refund if the picks don't make money overall. But you'll need to bet a lot.

For example, on a $3,000 subscription including $1,000 recommended bets, you would receive $10,000 back if you followed the Jambos method, $300 plus bets, and did not profit. During eight months that began in December 2018, Jambos made 2,522 recommendations and finished up 234.95 units, according to SBC Americas. That works out to $70,000 of profit for the methods recommended $300 bets, or about 10% profit on a deposit of $756,600. The platform combines the financial guarantee with transparency for all of its bet recommendations, Jambos says, recognizing the industry is difficult to track and in need of more integrity, end quote. Jambos Picks was founded by ex-Mager baseball pitcher Michael Schwimmer.

And IncIt is a crowdsource publishing platform that has 1.6 million readers and 110,000 writers with some 350,000 uploaded stories on its platform. It's just raised a $16 million series A led by Clarend. Kleiner Perkins, quoting TechCrunch. Inkett got its start several years ago with a very basic idea, an app for people, usually unsigned authors, to upload excerpts of fictional works in progress or entire fiction manuscripts, novels specifically, to connect them with readers to provide feedback. It would gather data that it collected from these readers to provide more insights into what people wanted to read, to feed its algorithm, and to give feedback to the writers.

It was a simple concept that competed with a plethora of other places where unpublished writers can get their work out there, including Kindle. But then six months ago, that concept of database crowdsourced writing and reading took an interesting turn with the launch of Galatea. With Galatea, Inc. It selects the stories that perform the best on its first app, most readers, most often commented reading, best feedback, most recommended and so on. and its in-house team of editors and developers reformat them for the Galatea as short-form, bite-size, mini-episodes that come with specific effects attuned to each page you read to make the experience more immersive. This includes features like sound, haptic events like the phone vibrating with crashes and heartbeats, fire spreading across the screen in a burning moment, and a requirement for users to swipe to proceed to the next section. It's a fitting name for the app. Galatea was the ivory statue that Pygmalion carved that came to life, end quote. So, mobile reading, I guess, with a mix of gamified reading, and a throwback to the days of

serialized stories. A reader gets what Inc. It calls an episode on Galatea, or about 15 minutes of reading for free every day. But then readers are encouraged to buy credits to unlock the rest of the story. It basically costs around $12 to read an entire book. Inket claims that the average writer that has made use of Gallataia's platform earns 30 to 50 times more than they would if they self-published on Amazon. Though the article does not reveal the royalty split, it's interesting to note that this is not an exclusive arrangement. You can publish on Galatea and other platforms at the same time. Some authors on the platform have already. reportedly earned more than $1 million from publishing there.

Finally today, a milestone for Netflix. Well, not what you would think, though. The company says it has shipped its 5 billionth disc. That's right. It's easy to forget this, but Netflix will still mail you video discs for playing in something called a DVD or Blu-ray player, which are legacy physical media devices. Kids ask your parents about it.

Quick aside, someone pointed out on a podcast that I was listening to recently that the plot of the very first fast and furious movie was about street gangs dealing in stealing and fencing DVD slash VHS combo players. It's kind of weird to think about where that franchise started before it evolved into, you know, basically superheroes with literal superpowers and such. But I digress. Yes, Netflix still ships a million physical discs each week, quoting CNET. The 21-year-old company made its bones as a DVD-by-mail rental service, but has steadily been pushing subscribers towards its streaming service for the past decade. Netflix announced last month that it had surpassed the 150 million streaming subscriber mark, but it still has 2.4 million DVD rental subscribers,

which translates to roughly 157 million in revenue. So what was the movie tucked into that familiar red envelope that pushed Netflix across the five billion threshold? Hold, Entertainment Weekly reports that it was the Elton John biopic Rocket Man that propelled Netflix past its milestone, end quote. Of course, as CNET also points out, Rocket Man is not yet available to stream on Netflix. So, maybe that's why people are still willing to pay for those little red envelopes to show up. Man, these long last days of summer, I've again got nothing pithy to offer you in closing today.

Although remember our subreddit is our slash right home where you can pitch me stories and discuss them with fellow listeners. And the link to the ad-free version of the show is the very last link in the show notes. Talk to you tomorrow.