Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 06/07 – TikTok Avatars

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

TikTok now has avatars, to keep up with Bitmoji and Memoji. The SEC seems to be seriously probing Binance. The death of the lighting port really might be nigh. Bits and pieces that fell through the cracks from WWDC. And potentially a huge breakthrough in keeping your data encrypted and secure, but still usable and searchable. Sponsors: KeeperSecurity.com/techmeme Links: TikTok’s new Bitmoji-like Avatars feature lets you record videos as an animated version of yourself (TechCrunch) US Probes Binance Over Token That Is Now World’s Fifth Largest (Bloomberg) USB-C will be mandatory for phones sold in the EU ‘by autumn 2024’ (The Verge) Security Fixes Won't Require Full iOS Update in iOS 16, Will Be Installed Automatically (MacRumors) Apple Announces M2 SoC: Apple Silicon for Macs Updated For 2022 (AnandTech) A Long-Awaited Defense Against Data Leaks May Have Just Arrived (Wired) Classified: [e-mail] 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 Tuesday, June 7th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. TikTok now has avatars, the better to keep up with Bitmoji and Memoji. The SEC seems to be seriously probing Binance.

The death of the lightning port really might be nigh, bits and pieces that fell through the cracks from WWDC, and potentially a huge breakthrough in keeping your data encrypted and secure, but still usable and searchable. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. TikTok has announced TikTok avatars, similar to Snap's Bitmoji and Apple's Memoji, which lets users customize their appearance, add voice effects and more, quoting TechCrunch. You can access the new avatar feature by opening the TikTok camera and navigating to the effects section in the app and clicking on TikTok avatars. From there, you'll see a panel with template avatars. You can try out the template avatars or click new to create your own customized avatar.

You can create your avatar by selecting from an array of hairstyles, accessories, piercings, and makeup. TikTok says it built the avatar feature to be inclusive from outfits to skin tones and hair color down to texture. Users can also try out the avatar voice effects to give a new voice to their avatar by choosing a voice style and speaking into the microphone. You can try out different voice styles and choose the one you like the most. Tapping on the different voice styles adds or removes them from your avatar. Once you're happy with your avatar, you can start recording. videos. When you record a video, you can become your avatar as it mimics the way you move and follows your gestures. There's also a miniature avatar option where you can choose an avatar and

add it to your video. You can adjust the size of the miniature avatar and place it anywhere on your screen. Users also have the option to change their miniature avatar's reactions by tapping the different expressions displayed on the screen. TikTok's new avatars can be compared to Snapchat's Bitmoji feature, which has existed since 2016 and has been been updated over the past few years. Among the various updates is Bitmoji TV and the ability for users to play as their Bitmoji in third-party games. TikTok's new feature is also similar to Meta's avatars, which were in response to bitmojis. Meta recently brought its avatars to Instagram and rolled out updated avatars to Facebook and Messenger. The company also now allows users to bring the same avatar

across all meta platforms, including VR. TikTok's avatars can also be compared to Apple's Memoji, and quote. Rolling out globally today to all users. Sources are telling Bloomberg that the SEC is probing Binance and its 2017 ICO of the BNB coin, now the world's fifth biggest token. And they're probing whether BNB is a security after all, which should have been registered as such at the beginning. Quote, scrutiny of BNB's beginnings may be a troubling development for Binance as it faces multiple investigations in Washington. The SEC has brought dozens of enforcement actions over ICOs, which involve issuing virtual coins to raise money. B&B has been a feature of Binance's expansive

crypto empire. Binance, which runs the world's biggest exchange and says it's not domiciled in any one country but has affiliates scattered across the globe, has emerged as a focal point for American investigators seeking to rein in the crypto industry. Bloomberg News has previously reported it faces investigations from the Justice Department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Internal Revenue Service. Ahead of BNB's launch in 2017, Binance laid out its plans in a white paper. The document said its circulation would be limited to $200 million, with half of the tokens being sold through the ICO, which took place on multiple platforms throughout the world. Another $80 million would be reserved for Binance's founding team, which includes its

billionaire chief executive officer Chang Peng Zhao. In the white paper, which was reviewed by Bloomberg. Binance said as much as 85% of the funds raised in the ICO were to be used to build and market Binance's global exchange. It made no mention of restrictions on who could participate. In order to entice investors to BNB, Binance has offered lower fees for traders paying with the token. It's also paid many of its contractors in the currency, including at least one U.S. resident who said he purchased BNB during the ICO, a detail that could be key for the SEC asserting jurisdiction in any case it might bring. An SEC enforcement investigation may not lead to the regulator suing a firm or individuals. The probe involving BNB is likely months away from any

conclusion. One of the people familiar with the matter said, beyond BNB, the SEC, is also probing possible trading abuses by Binance insiders and whether Binance.us, an American affiliate formed in 2019, is appropriately hived off from its global counterpart, one of the people said. Another person with direct knowledge of the review said the SEC is also looking at market-making companies tied to Zhao, who is widely known as CZ. The SEC has expressed interest in Zhao's ownership stakes of marketmakers on Binance.us, and whether the exchange has conducted broker-dealer activities, the person said, end quote. This might finally be happening. EU lawmakers have reached an agreement on legislation that will mandate USBC on smartphones and other electronic devices, starting in the fall of

2024 in order to reduce e-waste. So will the lightning port die with this year's iPhone, or maybe next year's, quoting the verge. European Union lawmakers have reached an agreement on legislation that will force all future smartphones sold in the EU, including Apple's iPhone, to be equipped with the universal USBC port for wired charging by fall 2024. The rule will also apply to other electronic devices, including tablets, digital cameras, headphones, handheld video game console, and e-readers. Laptops will have to comply with the rule at a later date. The legislation has been under development for more than a decade, but an agreement on its scope was reached this morning following negotiations between different EU bodies. The legislation still needs to be approved

by the EU Parliament and Council later this year, but this appears to be a formality. In a press release, the European Parliament stated clearly that the law will be in place, quote, by autumn 2024. By this date, all devices covered by the law and sold in the EU will have to use USBC for wired charging. The introduction of a common charger is an attempt by the EU to both cut down on e-waste and make life easier for consumers. Lawmakers hope that in the future, phones and similar gadgets won't need to come with a charger in the box, as buyers will already have the appropriate accessories at home. The EU estimates that the legislation could save consumers 250 million euros per year on, quote, unnecessary charger purchases, end quote,

and cut down on around 11,000 tons of e-waste annually. The agreement will have the biggest impact on Apple, which is the only major smartphone manufacturer to still use a proprietary port instead of USBC. In 2021, Apple sold 241 million iPhones globally, of which about 56 million were sold in Europe. However, the EU's press release says the new legislation applies to devices, quote,

that are rechargeable via a wired cable. This means that Apple may be able to avoid adding USBC to its devices by creating a phone that only charges wirelessly, as has been previously rumored. However, recent reports say the company is testing iPhones with USBC internally, and Apple analyst Ming Chi Quo claims Apple could make the switch as early as next year. Apple already uses the USBC standard on laptops and some tablets, end quote. Speaking of Apple, let's pick up some of the crumbs and some of the things that fell through the cracks with WWDC. First of all, Apple has indeed added support in iOS for Nintendo's joycons and pro controller for the Nintendo Switch,

expanding on support for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X controllers. iOS 16 beta code is showing multiple references to an always-on display, which is a rumored feature for the iPhone 14 Pro models coming at the end of the summer. And I cut this one for time, but in the keynote yesterday, Apple also announced safety check in iOS 16, which is meant to protect people in abusive relationships by letting them review and revoke access to apps and passwords. I think this one was mentioned in the keynote, but maybe not. Apple has introduced a rapid security response feature

in iOS 16 designed to deploy security fixes more easily and quickly without needing a full iOS version update, quoting Mac rumors. Security updates will be able to be automatically applied between standard software updates, so implementing security fixes will not. not require a full new version of iOS. It's also going to let Apple automatically install security updates on many devices without people even having to think about it. There's a new install system and data files options in settings, general software update that lets users toggle on automatic security

updates independent of iOS updates. For those who prefer not to have security updates, such as jailbreakers, the toggle does make it possible to avoid all security updates when it is disabled. It's worth noting that the install system and data files option is enabled by default when installing iOS 16, so you'll need to manually turn it off if you are not interested in using the feature, and quote. Apple also has replaced the Dark Sky API with Weather Kit, which will let developers create apps for Android and Apple's own operating systems using Apple's own weather data. And finally, if you want to deep dive into what's new with the new M2 chip, well, who better than a Nantec?

The launch of the M2 gives us our first real glimpse into how Apple is going to handle updates within the Apple Silicon ecosystem. With the iPhone family, Apple has kept to a yearly cadence for A-Series systems on a chip updates. Conversely, the traditional PC ecosystem is on something closer to a two-year cadence as of late. M-2 seems to split this down the middle, coming about a year and a half after the original M-1, though in terms of architecture, it looks closer to a yearly A-Series S-O-C. update. From a high level, there has been a limited number of changes with the M2, or at least as much as Apple wants to disclose at this time, with the focus being on a few critical areas versus the bonanza that was the initial M1 SOC. While all of this is preliminary, ahead of either

further disclosures from Apple or getting hands-on time with the hardware itself, the M-2 looks a lot like a derivative of the A-15 SOC similar to how the M-1 was derived from the A-14. As a result, at first glance, the M1 to M2 upgrade looks quite similar to the A14 to A15 upgrade. According to Apple, the new system on a chip is comprised of roughly 20 billion transistors, which is 4 billion or 25% more than the original M1 and 5 billion more than the A15 SOC. The chip is being made on what Apple terms a second generation 5 nanometer process, which we believe is likely TSM's N5P line, in the same line used for the A15 SOC. N5P offers improved performance characteristics versus N5, but not density improvements. So while Apple doesn't disclose die sizes, the company's side-by-side

die shots are at least accurate in that the M2 is going to be a bigger chip than the M1. Starting from the top in terms of their arm architecture CPU cores, the M2 retains Apple's four performance plus four efficiency core configuration. Apple is not disclosing wet generation CPU cores they're using here, but based on the performance expectations and timing, there's every reason to believe that these are the avalanche and Blizzard cores that were first introduced on the A15. With regards to performance, Apple is saying that the M2 offers 18% improved multi-threaded CPU performance versus the M1. The company does not offer a breakdown of clock speeds versus IPC gains. But if our hunch about M2 being Avalanche or Blizzard is correct, then we already

have a good idea of what the breakdown is. Relative to the Firestorm Corps and the A14 M1. Avalanche offers only modest performance gains as Apple invested most of their improvements into improving overall energy efficiency. As a result, the bulk of the performance gains there come from increased clock speeds rather than IPC improvements. The performance CPU cores on M2 also come with a larger pool of L2 cash, which also serves to improve performance. Whereas M1 had 12 megabytes of L2 cash shared among the cores M2 brings this up to 16 megabytes, a 4 megabyte increase over both the M1, and for that matter, the A15. Based on what we've already seen with the A15, this bigger update in this generation is on the efficiency core side of matters. The Blizzard CPU cores are increasingly

behaving like not so little cores, offering relatively high performance and a much wider back-end design than what we see with other arm efficiency cores. Among other things, Blizzard added a fourth integer ALU, which combined with the other changes gave A-15 a significant 28% performance increase in those cores. Carried over to M2, it's not unreasonable to expect similar gains, though the wildcard factor will be what clock speeds Apple dials things to, end quote. Finally today, MongoDB has announced queriable encryption, which it says will let users search data that remains encrypted, available in preview as part of MongoDB 6.0. If you know what that means, then you realize already that this could be a huge deal, quoting Wired. After years of data breaches, leak.

and hacks leaving the world desperate for tools to stem the illicit flow of sensitive personal data, a key advance has appeared on the horizon. On Tuesday, MongoDB is announcing queriable encryption, a feature that will allow database users to search their data while it remains encrypted. The tool, which is debuting in preview as part of MongoDB 6.0, attempts to bridge academic cryptography findings and real-world environments so users can adopt the feature without needing advanced theoretical expertise. Crucially, queriable encryption, is built to work with existing databases rather than requiring users to re-architect their systems before they can take advantage of it. Institutions from businesses to governments,

health care facilities, and critical infrastructure already lean on encryption to render data unintelligible and therefore not worth stealing when it's traveling across networks or sitting in storage. But none of that protects data when it's actively being used for legitimate reasons. Looking up a patient's medical records, say, or setting up a car rental reservation, that means an attacker, including a rogue employee, could potentially gain access to data the same way a doctor or customer service agent does. This is a nut everyone wants to crack, and the database maker MongoDB has been working on possible solutions for years. Now the company says it has one. Quirable encryption could let a bank agent investigate your account for possible fraud on a range of dates without knowing which dates specifically flagged the system.

Or it could allow a customer service rep to type the first few letters of a name and start a contract. claims process while leaving the name encrypted and indecipherable. Many of these breakthroughs came from Brown University cryptographer Senni Kamara and his longtime collaborator, Tariq Moitas. Several years ago, the pair co-founded a searchable encrypted database startup known as Aroki Systems, along with entrepreneur John Partridge. Aroki collaborated with MongoDB on a database security feature announced in 2019, and Kamara and Motaz continued working on a prototype of a truly searchable encrypted database. In 2021, MongoDB acquired Aroki. The queriable encryption system is built with a combination of established cryptographic protocols and conceptual advances Kamara and

Moitas have been working on for years in an area of cryptography known as structured encryption. The approach involves encrypting data with a specific architecture so it can be searched with special tokens specific to each query without data ever being decrypted. Other techniques such as homomorphic encryption allow users to do computations on encrypted data like adding two columns in an encrypted spreadsheet. But structured encryption is specifically focused on organizing encrypted data so it can be found without exposing the data itself, end quote. Nothing for you today, but I do have this classified from one of your fellow listeners to the show. If you want to run a classified ad yourself, get in touch. But for right now, listen to this.