Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 8/21 - Netflix "Tests" an End-Run Around iTunes

Episode Date: August 21, 2018

Microsoft uncovers more Russian political hacking, a possible MacBook Air successor, Netflix “tests” bypassing the App Store, and are you paying for Amazon’s electricity bill? Links:New Russian Hacking Targeted Republican Groups, Microsoft Says (NYTimes)Apple Is Planning a New Low-Cost MacBook, Pro-Focused Mac Mini (Bloomberg)Netflix Tests Promotional Videos but Users See ‘Commercials’ (NYTimes)Netflix tests a bypass of iTunes billing in 33 markets (TechCrunch)Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to 1 (The Washington Post)Amazon Isn’t Paying Its Electric Bills. You Might Be (Bloomberg Businessweek)Here are the 63 startups that launched today at Y Combinator’s S18 Demo Day 1 (TechCrunch) 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, August 21st, 2018. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Microsoft uncovers more Russian political hacking, a possible MacBook air successor,

Netflix tests bypassing the app store, and are you paying Amazon's electricity bill? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Microsoft said this morning it has uncovered more activity by hackers linked to Russian. military intelligence who have been making renewed efforts against U.S. political targets this time against conservative U.S. think tanks that have broken with the Trump administration by pushing for continued sanctions against Moscow. The hacking group in question known as Strontium or Fancy Bear or APT28 created fake websites that Microsoft has seized and shut down just in recent weeks. Quote, the sites appeared meant to trick people into thinking they were

clicking through links managed by the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute, but were secretly redirected to webpages created by the hackers to steal passwords and other credentials. Microsoft also found websites imitating the United States Senate, but not specific Senate offices or political campaigns. The shift to attacking conservative think tanks underscores the Russian intelligence agency's goals to disrupt any institutions challenging Moscow and President Vladimir Putin of Russia. The Hudson Institute has promoted programs examining the rise of kleptocracy and governments around the world with Russia as a prime target. The International Republican Institute, which receives some funding from the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development, has worked for decades in promoting democracy around the world, end quote.

On the board of the International Republican Institute are Senator John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, who have all spoken to various degrees against the United States. the Putin regime, sometimes in conflict with the official Trump White House position on Russia more generally. In conjunction with the announcement of the seized websites, Microsoft made a further announcement, quote, were concerned that these and other attempts pose security threats to a broadening array of groups connected with both American political parties in the run-up to the 2018 elections. That's why today we are expanding Microsoft's defending democracy program with a new initiative called Microsoft Account Guard.

This initiative will provide state-of-the-art cybersecurity protection at no extra cost to all candidates and campaign offices at the federal, state, and local level, as well as think tanks and political organizations we now believe are under attack.

The technology is free of charge to candidates, campaigns, and related political institutions using Office 365. This story broke late yesterday, so yesterday was a Mark German's Scoop Monday, and I missed it. In Bloomberg, German and Debbie Wu are reporting that Apple will debut a pro-focused upgrade to the Mac Mini,

as well as a low-cost laptop like the MacBook Air, but not the MacBook Air, later this year. First on the Mac Mini, it will apparently get a refresh with new storage and new processor options, which will likely make them slightly more expensive, but for Mac Mini fans, any updates are always welcome, right? As for the low-cost laptop, apparently it will have a look-endip. similar to the current MacBook Air, but will have new thinner bezels and a 13-inch retina display, and will be priced to target consumers looking for a cheaper laptop. So if you're one of those people who believe that the perfect laptop would be merely an updated MacBook Air with a retina display, you're going to get your wish maybe-ish.

German has no specifics on storage or processors, and of course the number and types of ports on offer will be a key factor for a lot of people as well, so it remains to be seen if this is a true MacBook Air replacement or not. If Apple sticks to tradition, the Mac lineup will likely be refreshed in October after the iPhone event, which is a mere weeks away at this point. A couple of interesting Netflix stories. First, the streaming service seems to be testing 10 to 20 second promotional videos which pop up in between episodes of shows when you're binging.

You know how when you're watching a show and you just let Netflix auto play the next episode in the series? Well, you might now see a promo in between episodes for a different show on Netflix. Again, Netflix would call them promos but users are calling them commercials

and are taking to social media to complain as user Gigi tweeted If Netflix gives us commercials, I will absolutely cancel my subscription. I literally pay for no commercials, end quote. Netflix spokeswoman Smita Saran told the New York Times, quote, we have been looking at ways to insert rich video into our experiences for several years. These video promos are actually personalized recommendations for titles we think a member might enjoy watching. In this particular case, we are testing weather surfacing recommendations between episodes,

helps members discover stories they will enjoy faster. End quote. And also on the Netflix tip, TechCrunch has confirmed that in 33 different countries, Netflix is also testing new subscription methods that bypass iTunes or the app store and thus avoid Apple's 30% cut of the revenue. New or lapsed subscriptions and selected markets in Europe, Latin America, and Asia will be unable to pay for re-upping using iTunes.

Instead, they will be redirected to a mobile web version of Netflix's own website, to pay for their subscription there. Apparently, this test has been rolling out since June, and Netflix insists that it's only a test, but it certainly adds to what seems to be a trend where super popular apps are beginning to buck against the need to pay the platform tax to the app stores. Spotify has moved users away from subscribing via iTunes.

In May of this year, Netflix stopped allowing new or renewing customers to re-up using Google Play. And, of course, popular game, Fortnite, has avoided the Google Play Store altogether. As TechCrunch notes, quote, Apple has something of the upper hand, especially when it comes to newer apps or those still building their user bases.

It controls the App Store on iOS devices and with active billing details for a large number of these users, Apple greatly reduces friction for enticing users to sign up and subscribe to a service. The same goes for in-app purchases too, although that is less relevant to Netflix.

But the math and strategy change for the biggest app publisher, who have their own brands and even their own memes, these might be willing to take the chance of creating a little bit more friction in exchange for a bigger return, end quote. Yeah, in the grand scheme of things, 30% is quite a large bite into revenue.

The Washington Post is reporting that Facebook assigns a trustworthiness score to each of its users, tracking things like whether an article a user flags as false, turns out, after review, to be true. Now, that headline sounds nefarious, another way that Facebook is tabulating us, keeping track on us, all that sort of thing. But the details in practice actually seem to me like something Facebook should be doing. The trustworthiness system, which was developed over the past year, apparently, is part of its battle against fake news.

Facebook has long relied on users to flag inappropriate or problematic content for it. So identifying users who routinely cry wolf would be useful not only for purposes of a efficiency and efficacy, but also to weed out bad actors. Tessa Lyons, the product manager at Facebook in charge of combating misinformation, told the post, quote, it's not uncommon for people to tell us something is false simply because they disagree with the premise of a story or they are intentionally trying to target a particular publisher, Lyons said. Users' trustworthiness score between zero and one isn't meant to be an absolute indicator of a person's

credibility, Lyons said, nor is there a single unified reputation score that users are assigned. Rather, the score is one measurement among thousands of new behavioral clues that Facebook now takes into account as it seeks to understand risk. Facebook is also monitoring which users have a propensity to flag content published by others as problematic and which publishers are considered trustworthy by users, end quote. Critics say it's unfair for Facebook to judge our veracity. without being transparent about how the system works. But as one such critic pointed out in the piece,

they can't tell us how they're judging us, because if they do, the algorithms that they built will be gamed. When a big tech company wants to build a major data center near your town, your municipality is usually thrilled. Data centers mean jobs, good paying jobs, though not usually a lot of them. And obviously, it's long been common practice to give tax breaks as sweeteners, to bring jobs to a given area. But data centers, be they for Microsoft or Apple or Facebook or whoever,

mean huge electricity usage. And Bloomberg is reporting that when Amazon's AWS opens a data center, it often allegedly strikes secret deals with energy companies and state regulators for electricity discounts that critics say pass on the costs to households and local businesses. Quote, over the past two years, Amazon has almost doubled the size of its physical footprint worldwide to 254 million square feet, including dozens of new data centers with vast fields of servers running 24-7. In at least two states, it's also negotiated with utilities

and politicians to stick other people with the bills, piling untold millions of dollars on top of the estimated $1.2 billion in state and municipal tax incentives the company has received over the past decade. Other companies, including Google and Tesla, have taken advantage of the power industry's hunger for growth, and the relative secrecy that followed its 1990s deregulation in dozens of states. But Amazon stands out for its success in offloading its power costs and also because it dominates America's cloud business, which has gone from non-existent to using 2% of U.S. electricity in about a decade. Amazon has a huge advantage because there weren't a lot of other sectors growing in the electricity market, says Neil Elliott, Senior Director of Research at the American Council

for energy-efficient economy. A Green lobbying group. The company also has ratcheted up the secrecy around who's paying for electricity, says Environmental Advocate Greenpeace, which calls Amazon the single biggest obstacle to industry transparency. Amazon declined to comment for this story, end quote. The Bloomberg piece points out that, unlike tax incentives, which have to be disclosed to the public by law, since electricity deals are technically struck between two private companies, they can technically be kept private.

For example, in Virginia, where there are apparently 29 Amazon data centers and 11 more on the way, the company's 78-page application for a special deal on energy rates has two versions, a heavily redacted public one and another, which is under seal with state regulators. Finally, today, Wycombinator showed off its 2018 batch of early-stage startups at the Computer History Museum

yesterday. A total of 63 companies took the stage for demo day one, and it was the usual mix of companies. Here's a random sampling of some of the participants in no particular order or sorting by newsworthiness. This is just a random sampling, but if I am biasing a bit, it's probably toward things that might eventually have consumer-facing applications or products that you might be able to buy yourself someday. Jet lenses, for example, wants to bring down the cost and reduce the friction involved in contact lens, e-commer. Summers. Honey Love wants to make better shapewear apparel with what are essentially a modern take on the corset. They've already sold half a million dollars in product, apparently. Plexus wants to make low-cost flexible gloves for controlling augmented reality. Oxygen wants to provide working capital loans for freelancers to free them from the boom and bust feast or famine cycle that freelancers have always had to contend with. Milk Guys is a vegan online grocer that calls itself the online vegan Trader Joe's. Milk, by the way, is spelled M-Y-L-K. Viop wants to be a sort of Uber pool for shipping,

looking to make use of the roughly 35% of cargo space in the trucking industry that goes underutilized every day. Seattle Food Tech is another company trying to make plant-based meat substitutes that actually taste good. Fire is a augmented reality navigation app for cars that aims to show drivers exactly where they are and where to go without taking their eyes off the wheel.

The software can run on a dash-mounted iPhone. Sturbu wants to use drones to inspect things like power lines and wind turbines, something that I've thought should have been a big business by now. My wife is an architect, and every time she's 10 stories up on scaffolding, I'm always wondering why they're not using drones. MacD is a build-your-own Mac and Cheese restaurant. Buycoins is a cryptocurrency exchange for Africa. Foregrowers is robotic farming. Inscribe uses image forensics to spot digital forgeries on online documents. Grab it will turn the rear or side window of your car into a full color display so that you can earn a little extra money by showing ads like you see on the sides of buses

on your own car. If memory serves, there was a dot-com era startup who tried something similar. And Camelot is a mobile app for e-sports betting. So one of what I'm sure will be a slate of companies to capitalize on the fact that it will soon be legal to bet on. on sporting, in this case, bet on e-sporting. There's plenty more companies to scroll through. The whole list is linked in the last link in the show notes. That's all for today. I've been your host, Brian McCullough.

Follow me on Twitter at Brian MCC. Many thanks, as always, to the TechMeme editors for finding and organizing all the stories we talk about every day. Follow them on Twitter at TechMeme to get their headlines in real time. Though, as listener Brent Billings pointed out to me last night, you can get their headlines in real time. unless you use a third-party Twitter client, in which case, it will be a little delayed. Talk to you tomorrow.