Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 01/05 – US Banks Can Now Issue Stablecoins

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

The OCC clears US banks to run crypto nodes and issue stablecoins. Microsoft wants to make One Outlook to rule all your email and calendar apps. Looks like Haven couldn’t solve healthcare. Why haven’t we seen Jack Ma in public for going on two months now? And Singapore says SYKE on that whole, not using Covid tracking data to keep track of citizens. Sponsors: SmartAsset.com/techmeme Links: US regulator: Federally chartered banks can facilitate stablecoin payments, issue their own (The Block) Twitter acquires social podcasting app Breaker, team to help build Twitter Spaces (TechCrunch) Microsoft’s new ‘One Outlook’ app leaks online (The Verge) Haven, the Amazon-Berkshire-JPMorgan venture to disrupt health care, is disbanding after 3 years (CNBC) Kuo: Apple to Unveil AirTags, Augmented Reality Device, and More in 2021 (MacRumors) Alibaba Founder Jack Ma Has Been Missing For 2 Months (ZeroHedge) Singapore police can access COVID-19 contact tracing data for criminal investigations (ZDNet) Dell built a range of monitors for video conferencing (Engadget) Dell's new Latitude 9000 laptops feature an automatic webcam shutter (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 TechMeme ride home for Tuesday, January 5th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, the OCC clears U.S. banks to run crypto nodes and issue stable coins. Microsoft wants to make one outlook to rule all your email and calendar apps. Looks like Haven couldn't solve health care. Why haven't we seen Jack Ma in

public for going on two months now? And Singapore says, psych on that whole not using COVID-tracking data to keep track of citizens. Here's what you missed. today in the world of tech. One thing we missed talking about over the holiday break was that Bitcoin has soared above the $30,000 mark for the first time, currently sitting at $32,000 a coin as I type this. And look, it continues to be an exciting time for crypto. Other coins have been rallying lately, and now the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the currency, or OCC, has announced that banks and savings associations

can now run crypto nodes and use associated stable coins for what it calls permissible payment activities. Quoting the block. This means banks can use public blockchains to validate store, record, and settle payment transactions as long as they're compliant with existing laws. It also specifically mentions the use of stable coins for transactions, saying blockchain networks can mitigate costs for cross-border transactions as a, quote, cheaper, faster, and more efficient means of payment. For that reason, it's empowering banks to utilize blockchains and their stablecoins for converting

to and from fiat during remittances and even issue stablecoins if they so choose. Acting comptroller of the currency and former Coinbase head of legal Brian Brooks said the letter is in response to a recent statement on stable coins issued by the president's working group on financial markets. That report said regulators may consider limitations on multi-currency stable coins and highlighted possible risks of one-to-one tokens. Our letter removes any legal uncertainty about the authority of banks to connect to blockchains as validator nodes and thereby transact stablecoin payments on behalf of customers who are increasingly demanding the speed, efficiency, interoperability, and low cost associated with these products, said Brooks in a statement, end quote.

Crypto folks seem to be pretty jazzed about all this, saying that this could end up heralding the beginning of the end of the traditional financial system as we know it. As the great Michael Errington tweeted, quote, I thought this was years away at best. This is a BFD, end quote. And as Ross Galloway tweeted, quote, so how much of the recent price action is from rumors of this news leaking out to well-connected people? Interesting to see major bullish news coming out right after a huge rally, end quote. Though I thought I might note, stable coins as a a settling mechanism for bank transactions. Wasn't that what XRP wanted to do? Twitter has acquired social podcasting app, Breaker, whose team will join Twitter to help it

build out Twitter spaces, that clubhouse competitor of Twitters. I should probably qualify that by saying Twitter has basically aqua hired the breaker team, the well-known Eric Berlin, Leah Culver, and Emma London, quoting TechCrunch. On January 15th, 2021, Breaker will shut down for good. Up until that point, Breaker users will be able to export their OPML file to transfer their subscriptions to another podcasting app. Breaker recommends apps like Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, PocketCast, or Castro as an alternative. For those hosting a podcast on Breaker, these can be transferred elsewhere

via the RSS feed. The breaker acquisition adds to a string of recent podcast MNA activity, but unlike recent deals that involved podcast content, Breaker's sale is made up of staff and technology not podcasts themselves. This maps to Twitter's general focus on collating content from others instead of making its own, end quote. So if you're listening to me on Breaker right now, which according to my server logs, only about 240 of you are, you're going to need to find a new podcast app now. I guess Microsoft really is serious about throwing a new coat of paint on everything this year. Back at the verge, today Tom Warren is reporting on a leak that shows Microsoft is working on One Outlook, a unifying version of its Outlook app that will merge existing mail and calendar apps for desktops.

But while the work is going on right now this year, apparently the release goal is next year. 2022, quote, code named Monarch and One Outlook. The app is, quote, a new version of Outlook design for large screen experiences, according to a leaked version of the app. While the leaked app isn't functional without a full internal Microsoft account, the One Outlook app will replace desktop Win32 and UWP versions of Outlook, Outlook Web Access, and the MacOS desktop client. Microsoft is also hosting the full web version of this new Outlook online. Microsoft is building a single desktop client that will be based on the web version of Outlook. The leaked app is clearly in an early state, and Microsoft even warns employees that it's currently designed for Braille dog fooders and doesn't include an offline mode. Dog fooding, of course, is a term used by Microsoft

and other software companies to test and use early versions of their own code, end quote. Not sure what to make of this one, but remember when Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and J.P. Morgan made waves by announcing Haven, a joint venture that the three companies claimed would disrupt the entire healthcare industry and ecosystem. Yeah, well, not so much, apparently. The venture is disbanding after just three years, quoting CNBC. The announcement three years ago that the CEOs of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and J.P. Morgan Chase had teamed up to tackle one of the biggest problems facing corporate America, high and rising costs for employee health care, sent shockwaves throughout the world of medicine. Shares of healthcare companies tumbled on fears about how the

combined might of leaders in technology and finance could ring costs out of the system. The move to Shutter Haven may be a sign of how difficult it is to radically. improve American health care, a complicated and entrenched system of doctors, insurers, drug makers, and middlemen that cost the country $3.5 trillion every year. Last year, Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett seemed to indicate as much saying that there were no guarantees that Haven would succeed in improving health care, end quote. Yeah, the idea was that these companies would solve the problem of storing health care costs for their own employees, thus helping their own bottom lines, and then they'd pass

the learnings on to the rest of us. What does it say that they've apparently failed at this? As Howard Foreman tweeted, quote, The least surprising but very disappointing news of the day. If three massive employers can't figure out how to exert power on payers and providers, harder to effectuate successful market-based strategies to lower cost and improve quality in ESI, end quote. And as Hamza Shaban tweeted, quote, stares directly at free market solutions to America's health care dysfunction, end quote. Ming Chi Kuo is out with his predictions for Apple's releases of products in 2021. Air tags are finally coming this year, he says, as well as the first Apple devices to make use of mini-LED

displays. More Apple Silicon Macs are coming, of course, new AirPods are coming. And yes, some sort of AR device will be at least announced, according to Quo, quoting Mac rumors. As for the augmented reality device, Apple is widely rumored to be working on an augmented reality headset, glasses, or both, but Quo did not specify. iPhones and iPads also offer augmented reality features, so there is ambiguity here. Quo previously said that Apple plans to release redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with Apple Silicon and mini-LED displays in 2021. He also previously forecasted that a new MacBook Air with Apple Silicon and a mini LED display will launch in 2022, but it is unclear if that notebook will also sport a new design, end quote.

So folks have been concerned trolling for a couple days now that Alibaba founder Jack Ma has not been seen in a public setting since that late October forum in Shanghai, where he was critical of China's regulatory system and thus knocked over a series of dominoes that led to the canceling of the ant IPO and a crackdown on Alibaba as well. Quoting Zero Hedge, about 14 months ago during an interview with Real Vision, investor Kyle Bass, who has been one of the most prominent American critics of the Chinese Communist Party, while also anticipating the political troubles in Hong Kong that inspired the protest movement of 2019, predicted that retiring Alibaba chairman Jack Ma would be, quote, disappeared by Beijing within a year. The gist of Bass's argument was that Ma had outlived his usefulness and that Beijing would never

tolerate a billionaire with so much power and influence, both at home and in the West. As it turns out, Bass was off by about one month. Because following some rumblings published by the Financial Times on New Year's Eve, it appears that the Western press has just woken up to the fact that nobody has seen Jack Ma in two months. Late last night in New York, Yahoo Finance reported that Jack Ma is officially missing. The Financial Times reported a few days ago that Ma had been abruptly replaced by an Alibaba executive for the taping of the finale of his show, Africa's business heroes, end quote. So Twitter has been rife with speculation that Ma has been imprisoned or worse, which is why I went with a non-traditional

outlet to quote from just to give you a flavor of the speculation that has been out there. However, I think it's probably more likely what David Faber reported on CNBC this morning that Ma is simply, quote, lying low for the time being. He is being less visible purposefully. And you can expect that that will continue to be the case for some time. He ran a foul of the, as Jim just said, the government, the PRC. and like a lot of people there, he understands when you have to sort of,

as it was expanding to me, lay down a roll over and kind of, you know, just say, no, you're not going to hear from me. And so that is the case. Is he not going to show up to things? Yeah, is he not going to put himself in any position where he's going to be speaking? Yeah, he's not going to do that.

It could be months. But it doesn't mean that he's missing. He may be not showing up, but he's not missing. He hasn't been captured. He hasn't been taken. This is not a Chairman Wu situation. Of course, Mom, Bong, nothing like that.

We spoke recently about how the whole exposure notification and tracing app solution hasn't exactly panned out during the whole coronavirus pandemic. If you think back to when this all started, a lot of people were skeptical of technology solutions for testing and tracing because they were worried about governments taking advantage of the crisis to infringe further on civil liberties. Thus, Apple and Google bent over backwards to create a system that protected privacy, perhaps overly so, as some governments say their systems are anonymized to the point of being useless for the purposes of testing and tracing. But remember, governments also swore up and down that they wouldn't take advantage of this time to grab more

abilities to spy on us, except the government of Singapore now says local law enforcement can access COVID-19 contact tracing data, which they might want to do because apparently 78% of the population of Singapore has adopted the Traced Together app, quoting ZDNet. This figure is double that of the adoption rate just three months ago in September when Traced Together had clocked 2.4 million downloads or about 40% of the population. A recent spike likely was fueled by the government's announcement that use of the app or token would be mandatory for entry into public venues in early 20, 21 when it was able to distribute the token to anyone who wanted one. In its previous efforts to ease privacy concerns, the Singapore government had stressed repeatedly

that COVID-19 data would, quote, never be accessed unless the user tests positive, end quote, for the virus and was contacted by the contact tracing team. Personal data, such as unique identification number and mobile number, also would be substituted by a random permanent ID and stored on a secured server. The Singapore government now has confirmed local law enforcement will be able to access the data for criminal investigations. Under the criminal procedure code, the Singapore police force can obtain any data, and this includes traced together data according to Minister of State for Home Affairs Desmond Tan. He was responding to a question posed during Parliament Monday on whether the traced together data would be used for criminal probes and the safeguards governing the use of such data. The traced together

statement was updated Monday to reflect the latest revelation about potential police use. It now contains this statement, quote, also we want to be transparent with you. Traced-together data may be used in circumstances where citizens' safety and security is or has been affected. Authorized police officers may invoke criminal procedure code powers to request users to upload their trace-together data for criminal investigations. The Singapore police force is empowered under the CPC to obtain any data, including traced together data for criminal investigations, end quote. As Sean McDonald tweeted, quote, while this is a stark example, it's frustrating to see it treated as surprising. This is why people

talked about privacy and why privacy centrism in public tech debates is so dangerous. We won't tech our way out of unchecked government power. Quite the opposite, end quote. Finally today, a sign of how video conferencing has taken over everything. Dell's new Latitude 9,000 laptops feature an automatic webcam shutter, quoting and gadget. The latitude 9420 and 9520 laptops come with a feature called Safe Shutter. Dell says it's the industry's first automatic webcam shutter which can open or close on its own by syncing with video conferencing applications. No more need to put a tape over your laptop camera anymore, so long as you don't forget when you're on a video call.

In addition, the new 9,000 series laptops have secure much. mic and mute keys, end quote. Something, something Jeffrey Toobin joke here. But they're not stopping there because Dell has also built a full range of monitors designed specifically for video conferencing. There are now a trio of monitors on the Dell website that feature dedicated buttons for Microsoft Teams. Each monitor has high-quality webcams and sound, i.e. a 5-machyxel IR camera, dual 5-watt speakers, and a built-in noise-canceling microphone. Quoting and Gadget again. You can grab the monitors in one of three sizes, 24, 27, and 34-inch, with the largest of the bunch getting a curved screen. Since Dell knows you'll be staring at these

things for far too long each day, it's also boasting that its Comfort View Plus system helps reduce blue light emissions without sacrificing color accuracy. All of these monitors will arrive in the U.S. on February 16th, setting you back $520 for the 24-inch version, $720 for the 27-inch version, $1,150 for the 34-inch curved version, end quote. How much you want to bet, after years of absolutely giving us the lowest-end cameras possible, among the new Apple Macs released this year, I bet we'll see upgraded webcams, and Apple will probably crow about how they're the biggest breakthrough we've ever seen in video conferencing technology. Hint to anyone out there, integrate that camera tracking feature that Facebook has put in their portal devices

and become a legend. Also, adding a ringlight is a nice touch if you want to really knock this out of the park. So I got my first COVID test yesterday. I'm recording some video at MKBHD Studios in New Jersey later this week, and they do the full Hollywood production style COVID protocols thing, taking it real seriously, which is actually why I agreed to participate in the first place. And they take it so seriously, paid to send a nurse to my house yesterday afternoon to shove a swab into my skull as I sat outside on my stoop. And it actually wasn't that bad. It just made me want to sneeze right on the poor nurse's face, which thankfully I didn't, though she was wearing a face shield anyway, so I guess they know that that can happen. Anyway, if you've avoided getting COVID tested because it looked like such a

gross procedure, take it for me. It's not that bad. And I'm a giant chicken when it comes to medical procedures. I pass out from needles and the like. So if I tell you it's not that bad, it's not that bad. Talk to you tomorrow.