Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 12/19 - What If Apple Owned James Bond?

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

That big NYTimes piece about location data, is Facebook taking another run at creating its own OS, is Apple considering buying James Bond, is Spotify building a social graph, and do e-athletes need gaming socks? Sponsors: TinyCapital.com Rhone.com/ridehome Links: Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy (NYTimes) Facebook will bar posts, ads that spread disinformation about the U.S. Census (Washington Post) To Control Its Destiny, Facebook Bets Big on Hardware (The Information) Apple Held Preliminary Talks With Pac-12 Conference, MGM (WSJ) Spotify prototypes Tastebuds to revive social music discovery (TechCrunch) A milestone: Earthquake early warning system sends first public alert to smartphones in California (Los Angeles Times) TiVo to Merge With Entertainment-Tech Firm Xperi in $3 Billion Deal (Variety) Puma’s first ‘active gaming footwear’ is a sock (Engadget) 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 Thursday, December 19th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, that big New York Times piece about location data is Facebook taking another run at creating its own OS.

Is Apple considering buying James Bond? Is Spotify building a social graph? And do e-athletes need gaming socks? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. The New York Times has a major piece up looking at a data set that it got its hands on. representing 50 billion cell phone location pings for more than 12 million Americans' cell phones. Quote, each piece of the information in this file represents the precise location of a single smartphone over a period of several months in 2016 and 2017.

The data was provided to Times opinion by sources who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to share it and could face severe penalties for doing so. The sources of the information said they had grown alarmed about how it might be abused and urgently wanted to inform the public and lawmakers, end quote. But as the Times itself pointed out, the data that it reviewed, quote, didn't come from a telecom or giant tech company, nor did it come from a governmental surveillance operation. It originated from a location data company, one of dozens, quietly collecting precise movements using software slipped into mobile phone apps. You've probably never heard of most of the companies, and yet to anyone who has access to this, data, your life is an open book. They can see the places you go every moment of the day,

whom you meet with or spend the night with, where you pray, whether you visit a methadone clinic, a psychiatrist's office, or a massage parlor, end quote. So basically, if you've ever allowed an app to track your location on your phone, you very likely are represented in data sets like these, and again, not owned by companies like Facebook or Google, but companies you might never have heard of like Skyhook, Fizzup, Inrix, Ground Truth, Near, and actually Foursquare, which you probably have heard of. Now, I actually hesitated in leading with this story today because I thought wouldn't everyone listening to this show know that this sort of stuff was going on,

but maybe not, and click through to the story because it's one of those timespeas that really and truly benefits from the digital graphics and illustrations to make its point. But if you weren't aware to what degree this sort of stuff is going on, companies can triangulate your location all day, every day with a high degree of thoroughness. Let me quote one more time from the Times piece where it makes its point specific. Today it's perfectly legal to collect and sell all this information. In the United States, as in most of the world, no federal law limits what has become a vast and lucrative trade in human tracking. Only internal company policies and the decency of individual employees prevent those with access to the data from, say, stalking an estranged spouse or selling the evening commute of an intelligence officer to a hostile foreign power. Companies say the data is shared only with vetted partners.

As a society, we're choosing simply to take their word for that, end quote. Facebook says it is banning misleading posts, photos, ads, and other content about the 2020 U.S. census on Facebook and Instagram, even if this sort of stuff is posted by a politician, interestingly enough, quoting the Washington Post. Under the new rules, Facebook will ban posts from misrepresenting when and how the census occurs, who can participate, and what happens to the personal information people submit to the government, company executive said. The policies also apply to ads limiting even what politicians can say, despite rules

that otherwise allow office seekers to lie in Facebook posts that they pay to promote to the companies more than 2 billion users, end quote. So I guess Facebook is aligning its rules with its existing policy around election interference. At least I think I'm getting that right. If you run an ad or do a post, for example, saying that election day is Wednesday instead of Tuesday, that ad is banned, that post is banned, except if it's made by policy politicians themselves. Like, I do this for you every day as my job, and I can't even be sure that I'm following the logical pretzel going on with Facebook's policies at this point.

And another day, another interesting report from the information, actually staying on the Facebook tip, Facebook has apparently tasked a co-author of Windows NT with building an entire new OS from the ground up from scratch for Facebook so that it can stop relying on Android as the underlying operating system for its hardware products. Does this mean that they're making another run at a Facebook phone? No. They apparently know that that battle has been lost. So they're essentially trying to leapfrog ahead and make sure that they will control their own destiny in whatever the paradigm is in tech that comes next. Alex Heath at the information spoke with Andrew Bosworth, who is heading this OS development and larger Facebook push into

next gen hardware with things like Oculus and Portal, quote, we really want to make sure the next generation has space for us, Bosworth told Heath. We don't think we can trust the marketplace or competitors to ensure that's the case. And so we're going to do it ourselves, end quote. Obviously, this is about Facebook wanting to control its own destiny and not be reliant on Google and Apple to reach customers for its own efforts. But again, this is not about a new OS for phones. This is about a custom OS for hardware stuff or next generation tech, things like augmented reality.

Oh, and quoting Josh Constine in TechCrunch, one added bonus of moving to a Facebook-owned operating system, it could make it tougher to force Facebook to spin out some of its acquisitions, especially if Facebook goes with Instagram branding for its future augmented reality glasses, end quote. But back to the original piece. in the information. Mark Lakovsky is the former Microsoft engineer and co-author of Windows NT who is being tasked with developing the new OS. While Facebook's current Oculus and portal devices run on modified versions of Android, the company's work on its own operating system means it's possible that future Facebook

hardware products won't rely on the Google software, according to Kirkpatrick. Bosworth is also overseeing an effort to develop a voice assistant akin to Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa. While Facebook has taken stabs at building such technology in the past, including a chatbot for its messenger application that relied on humans to respond to queries, its latest move appears to be more serious. During the second half of last year, the company approached Microsoft to licensed data from its Bing search engine with the goal of training the assistant, according to a person familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for Microsoft declined to comment on the talks, Facebook had no comment, end quote. And one more scoop from the piece.

In an effort to own the entire hardware stack, earlier this year, Facebook apparently held acquisition talks with Cirrus Logic, which makes silicon chips for Apple and everybody else, which has been around since 1981, and which has a $4.5 billion market cap. No word on how far the talks went or why they apparently didn't go anywhere. I've asked knowledgeable people time and again why sports hasn't been a bigger part of the streaming wars. occasion up until this point, and I've never really gotten a satisfactory answer. However, sources are telling the Wall Street Journal that Apple executives met with MGM representatives, as well as representatives of the Pact 12 college sports conference earlier this year, to maybe cut a deal that might broaden the appeal of Apple TV and Apple TV Plus. Though the conversations with MGM and the Pact 12 were preliminary and have yet to reach the

advanced stage, the talks show Apple's openness to start. breaking a multi-billion-dollar content agreement in support of its TV service, even as it forges ahead with a preferred strategy of developing its own shows, those people said. A deal with the PAC-12 would be Apple's first foray into live sports, end quote. Now, the sports deal would be interesting, but something tells me we might be more likely to see something happen on the MGM deal front for the reason that, number one, MGM has a huge library, a ton of content, and also it seems to be getable. Like, Disney's not going to want to sell Apple it stuff.

Nobody that is testing the streaming waters and has its own library would want to give anything to Apple at this point. But, quote, MGM could fetch as much as $10 billion, some of these people said. The company is owned by several private equity firms, including Anchorage Capital. A deal for MGM would give Apple rights to a film library. that includes James Bond and Silence of the Lambs, as well as TV shows such as Fargo and the Adams family. Apple could offer the shows and films on demand or create new versions of them without having to pay licensing fees, end quote. Music discovery is an inherently social thing, right? You often hear about new songs and new artists from friends. And yet, as of now, Spotify really hasn't had any real features for directly interacting with your friends around the music that you listen to, at least on the music.

the mobile app, I know. It used to have inbox and there's friend activity, that tab that's on the desktop app as TechCrunch notes. It seemed like Spotify was purposefully restricting social features to force users to rely on the company's own playlists and discovery surfaces. This gave Spotify the power to play Kingmaker, massively influencing which artists got featured and rose to stardom. This in turn gave it leverage in its combative negotiations with record labels, which worried their artists might get left off playlists if they don't. don't play nice with Spotify in terms of sustainable royalty rates and access to exclusives, end quote, which certainly has worked out well for Spotify thus far. And yet maybe things are changing

because TechCrunch has spotted that Spotify is prototyping TasteBuds, a social feature that allows users to interact with and discover music by searching people you follow, quoting TechCrunch again. TasteBuds is designed to let users explore the music taste profiles of their friends. TasteBuds lives as a navigation option alongside your library and home slash browse sections. Anyone can access a non-functioning landing page for the feature. The feature explains itself with text noting, what's taste buds? Now you can discover music through your friends whose taste you trust, end quote. The prototype feature was discovered in the web version of Spotify by reverse engineering sorceress and frequent tech crunch tipster.

Jane Manchin Wong, who gave us some more details on how it works. Users tap the pen icon to search the people you follow. From there, they can view information about what users have been playing most and easily listen along or add songs to their own library, end quote. I guess make your own jokes about Apple's long dead ping social network here. My Shake is an app that uses data from the U.S. Geological Survey alert system to warn folks of an earthquake. On Tuesday, it sent out its first public alert for a small earthquake that registered 4.3 in the mountains of California's Central Coast and the San Joaquin Valley. Quoting the Los Angeles Times. More than 40 people received the warning, said Jennifer Strauss.

Project manager for the My Shake app, which was created by UC Berkeley and released publicly in October. It is available on iOS and Android systems. The My Shake app relies on earthquake information calculated by the U.S. Geological Survey's backbone shake alert system, which gathers earthquake sensing data from a network of hundreds of ground sensors throughout the West Coast. Earthquake early warning systems can operate because today's communication systems are able to send warnings about shaking faster than the seismic waves can move through rock. Such systems can work particularly well in strong earthquakes, providing seconds of alert that could allow Dennis to remove drills from mouths, elevators to let passengers off, and allow people to drop, cover, and hold on before strong shaking hits. In Tuesday's quake, the system took 8.7 seconds to issue an alert, USGS scientist Robert de Groot said, end quote.

Tevo, that poor star-crossed pioneer of the modern TV era, has decided not to split itself into two companies in a bid to stay alive. Instead, it has announced a merger with Ex Perry, a company that sells audio imaging and computer tech. The combined company will have a $2.4 billion diluted equity value with TiVo owning 53.5% of that, quoting variety. The new merged entity will take the Experi name, but will continue to sell entertainment services under the TiVo brand, along with Experi's DTS, HD Radio, and IMAX enhanced brands. The all-stock deal will combine TiVos DVRs and other consumer products, entertainment metadata, and patent portfolio with Experies, Entertainment,

and Semiconductor products and intellectual property. TiVo had previously planned to separate its product and patent licensing businesses in April 2020, but opted to merge with Experi instead. The combo will create a company with more than 10,000 patents and patent applications with minimal licensee overlap, according to TiVo and Expeary. They claim the new Exbury. will be one of the largest technology licensing companies in the world, spanning entertainment content, consumer electronics, and semiconductors, end quote.

Which would certainly make it a useful acquisition for somebody someday. Finally today, remember when I did those segments about shoe tech? Shoe tech is a serious thing. This may not be a thing like that, though. Puma has unveiled its first active gaming footwear. Sox. Sox for gamers. Retailing at $105. On the one hand, does this make any sense? Quoting and Gadget exactly how these socks will improve your gaming performance is unclear, although Puma says the product

has been designed for indoor and in arena use to deliver, quote, seamless comfort, support, and grip so gamers can adapt to different active gaming modes and game their best, end quote. So they might not make much of a difference if you're gaming on the couch, but it does seem like they could have a role to play in more physical AR and VR environments, end quote. But on the other hand, as we've been discussing, e-sports are increasingly becoming a bigger and bigger thing in sports overall. And, you know, apparel brands want to get their name on sports apparel, so you got to get your brand on athletes for whom their game doesn't even require shoes

or even pants somehow, I guess. maybe soon we'll see Adidas Pajama bottoms. Oh boy, really running late today. So if I have any hope of getting this out to you by 5 p.m., I got to start recording Pronto, which actually you can hear I did. But whatever, you get what I'm talking about. I'm late. Talk to you tomorrow.