Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 10/28 – Does The iPhone 12 Have A Secret Reverse Wireless Charging Feature?

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 right home for Wednesday, October 28th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, does the iPhone 12 have a secret reverse wireless charging feature just waiting to be turned on? More signs Apple might also be building its own search engine. The headlines from today's

Starting point is 00:00:50 Section 230 Senate hearing, is the DOJ got to prevent Visa from acquiring Plaid, and how much would you pay Elon Musk to beam you internet from space? Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Does the iPhone 12 have a secret reverse wireless charging feature built into it that Apple has failed to mention, maybe because the products that they want to take advantage of such a feature aren't ready yet? Quoting the Verge. Apple's iPhone 12 lineup has the ability to wirelessly charge an external accessory, according to a series of newly unveiled FCC filings that just went public yesterday. The documents first spotted by Venture Beats Jeremy Horowitz says the phone, quote,

Starting point is 00:01:33 supports a built-in inductive charging transmitter and receiver, end quote. Apple has not officially announced any such functionality that could be used to charge future AirPods or Apple's long-rumored tile competitor dubbed air tags. Quote, in addition to being able to be charged by a desktop WPT wireless power transfer charger, 2020 iPhone models also support WPT charging function at 360 kilohertz to charge accessories. One of the documents reads. It sounds like the iPhone. 12's reverse wireless charging may be limited, at least at first. The documents say that,

Starting point is 00:02:07 quote, currently the only accessory that can be charged by iPhones is an external potential Apple accessory in future, and that reverse charging currently, quote, only occurs when the phone is connected to an AC power outlet, end quote. The FCC's testing appears to have been conducted using only a wall charger and USBC cable, presumably the same USBC to lightning cable bundled with each iPhone 12. It sounds like the technology is meant to allow you to reduce the amount of charging clutter on a nightstand by, for example, wirelessly charging a pair of AirPods magnetically attached to an iPhone that's plugged into the wall. However, this may change in the future, as the document goes on to suggest. Quote, future designs and accessories may support

Starting point is 00:02:48 true portable use condition, with the host client pair able to be placed in a pocket or backpack, end quote. Didn't we just do a story about those next generation AirPods seemingly coming down the pike? Pocket charging would be a killer feature. Your AirPods. case stuck via magnet to the phone in your pocket. Not saying this would be possible, but what would be really wild is if it went both ways. We're assuming that you would use your phone to top up your AirPods, which only get, you know, the six hours or whatever of usage. But what if you could do the reverse?

Starting point is 00:03:23 What if your phone was running low on battery and your AirPods case was reasonably charged and you could use your AirPods to get a couple more. hours out of your phone. This would be a huge story, even bigger than wirelessly charging your AirPods in your pocket. Industry sources are saying that changes to iOS search indicate that Apple might be stepping up its efforts to build its own search tools since, as we've discussed recently, that big search deal they have with Google is firmly in the crosshairs of antitrust scrutiny, quoting the Financial Times. In a little notice changed to the latest version of the iPhone operating system iOS 14, Apple has begun to show its own search results and link directly to websites

Starting point is 00:04:12 when users type queries from its home screen. Search marketing experts also point to increased activity from Applebot, the iPhone maker's once obscure web crawler, which is used to build the vast database of online material that forms the foundation of any search engine. Saganthan Mohan Dassen, a digital marketing consultant, said Applebot has shown up, quote, a ridiculous number of times on his client's websites in recent weeks, quote, when the crawl rate increases that tells us they are trying to gather more information, end quote. Most significantly, iOS 14 nudged aside Google for certain search functions. Queries made in the search window access by swiping right from the iPhone's home screen,

Starting point is 00:04:51 which Apple calls the Today View, shows an Apple generated list of search suggestions rather than Google results. These results include auto-complete-style suggestions generated by Apple, showing that it is learning from its one billion users' most common queries. building a true rival to Google search engine could take years, but with profits this year predicted to exceed $55 billion and $81 billion of net cash reserves at the last count, Apple can afford to make long-term investments, end quote. Yes, and I would point out that Apple has a very credible team in place if it wants to do search. When John G.N. Andrea joined Apple a couple years ago, everyone said it was to make Siri specifically

Starting point is 00:05:34 and Apple's AI efforts generally better. But before joining Apple, Gian Andrea was head of search at Google for a decade. So, you know, if anyone could do it, what would happen to Google if it lost the firehose of search queries coming from iOS devices? Though one wonders in this environment if Apple could box Google out completely, as Benedict Evans tweeted, quote, An Apple's search engine is an interesting competition puzzle. What do regulators do if Apple tries to use its market dominance on the device, preloads, defaults,

Starting point is 00:06:08 search boxes, data capture to break Google's market dominance in search? How does market definition work here? I wanted to cover today's hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee talking about Section 230 protections for major tech platforms where Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai are all testifying. But three hours into this hearing, at the time of this writing, they are only now getting to the first line of questioning about Section 230. The rest of this has just been a lot of grandstanding by senators, more than usual, I'd say. Also, Wi-Fi and networking issues on

Starting point is 00:06:48 behalf of the participants. The Republican senators are accusing the executives of selective censorship. The Democrats are focusing on misinformation and extremism. Jack Dorsey is getting the brunt of the ire at this point. Mark Zuckerberg is sparring with Democrats over the upcoming election, and as per usual, Sunder Pachai seems to be laying back in the cut and avoiding most of the fireworks. In fact, from what I saw, the primary questions directed at Pachai had to do with the antitrust suit from the Justice Department, which wasn't even supposed to be the subject of this hearing. But again, this summary from the New York Times pretty much sums up the state of things, at least as I saw in the first three hours, and as of 1 p.m. Eastern when I had to stop

Starting point is 00:07:30 watching to write these words and start editing the show. Quote, At a hearing to discuss the legislative options for updating Section 230, the liability protection extended to websites for content created by users, one subject was rarely discussed, Section 230. The questions from the Senate Commerce Committee to the chief executives of Twitter, Facebook, and Google ping pongs from antitrust concerns, privacy measures, the demise of local news, and diatribes about politicizing the policies of content moderation. While there were many questions about specific decisions made by the companies to take down or keep up a piece of content, there were few questions about the consequences of the liability shield of Section 230 or how it might be changed. One exception came from Senator Deb Fisher, a Republican from Nebraska. She asked Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, about what changes he would like to see in Section 230 with regard to content moderation. He responded with a talking point.

Starting point is 00:08:20 More transparency into how content was moderated would help to build trust among users, he said, end quote. Really quickly. Microsoft earnings. Q1 revenue up 12% year over year, net income up 30% year over year, intelligent cloud revenue up 20% year over year. Microsoft is seemingly another story of cloud growth powering strong earnings for a major tech platform. Server products and cloud revenue were up 22%. Azure up 48%. Even Office 365 revenue up 21%. But Microsoft might also be a story of doing well in COVID times, right? Microsoft Teams passed 115 million daily active users up more than 53% just since April. For regulatory issues, sources are telling the Wall Street Journal that the DOJ might be scrutinizing Visa's purchase of Plaid, which you'll recall

Starting point is 00:09:23 helps fintech apps connect to users' bank accounts. The possible rationale for blocking such a deal would be what Plaid does is they help enable fintech disruptors. So visa taking them out might limit some of the nascent competition we've been seeing in the fintech space. Quote, the Justice Department has been making preparations for potential litigation, including lining up potential witnesses for a trial, some of the people said. No final decision has been made. The department late Tuesday publicly signaled its concerns in a rare legal action that asks a Massachusetts federal judge to order that Bain and Co, which has done consulting work for Visa, comply with a civil subpoena and hand over work material related to the PAD deal.

Starting point is 00:10:06 The Department alleged Bain, quote, has tried to stymie the investigation and has claimed legal privilege over important documents at Visa's direction. The legal filing said the Justice Department is considering whether the Plaid acquisition, quote, will allow Visa the dominant provider of debit services in the United States to create or maintain. a monopoly, end quote. How much would you be willing to pay SpaceX to beam internet to your house from a satellite? Well, according to an email seen by CNBC, when the Starlink satellite service goes live, SpaceX thinks you'll be willing to pay $99 a month for internet from space after a $499 up front

Starting point is 00:10:54 cost to order and set up special Starlink hardware. quote, SpaceX is expanding the beta test of its Starlink satellite internet service, sending emails on Monday to people who expressed interest in signing up for the service. Called the Better Than Nothing Beta Test, according to multiple screenshots of the email seen by CNBC, initial Starlink service is priced at $99 a month, plus a $499 up front cost to order the Starlink kit. That kit includes a user terminal to connect to the satellites, a mounting tripod, and a Wi-Fi router. There is also now a Starlink app listed by SpaceX on the Google Play and Apple iOS app stores. Quote, as you can tell from the title, we are trying to lower your initial expectations. The email

Starting point is 00:11:35 said, signed Starlink Team. Quote, expect to see data speeds vary from 50 megabits per second to 150 megabits per second and latency from 20 milliseconds to 40 milliseconds over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all, end quote. The emails sent to an unspecified number of users marks the launch of SpaceX's public beta test of the emerging internet service. For the last few months, SpaceX has conducted a limited private beta test with employees, which the company has said showed strong results in both latency and download speeds, key measures for an internet service provider. Those who received the emails would have filled out a form on the Starlink website which asked for potential

Starting point is 00:12:17 subscribers' contact information and location. Elon Musk's company posted that form. in June, and less than two months later, SpaceX said that nearly 700,000 individuals across the United States had indicated interest in the service, end quote. I hadn't realized how crucial Starlink is to SpaceX's overall plans going forward. According to the article, even though the entire satellite network will cost $10 billion to deploy, SpaceX thinks that eventually it could earn as much as $30 billion a year, or 10 times the annual revenue of its rocket business, via its internet business. Let's end with an interesting raise today.

Starting point is 00:13:02 I believe we talked about Woop before. Woop is such an interesting niche business that when you think about it might not be all that niche at all. And certainly a lot of boldface names think so too. Woop makes fitness trackers and provides performance metrics for athletes. And Woop just raised $100 million at a $1.2 billion valuation

Starting point is 00:13:23 from IVP SoftB Vision Fund, and athletes including Eli Manning and Patrick Mahomes, quoting Bloomberg. The wearable technology startup charges a monthly subscription fee in exchange for providing data to users, collected from the whoop strap, it supplies at no additional cost that can influence how they work out, recover, and sleep. After four months of use, members dedicated an additional 41 minutes to sleep each night and reduced their resting heart rates by about 4.4 beats per minute the company touts on its website. Quote, Woop data shows users are making different lifestyle decisions such as consuming less alcohol in order to improve quality of sleep, said IVP general partner Eric Liyah, who has joined Woop's board.

Starting point is 00:14:05 Both he and Ahmed referred to the company's hypergrowth, but declined to provide specific information on Woop's subscription base or other metrics. The company's data may help indicate if a user has contracted COVID-19. In June, despite not experiencing other symptoms, professional golfer Nick Watney, sought a test after whoop data showed his breasts per minute were elevated. He tested positive for the virus and ultimately withdrew from the RBC Heritage. Existing investors such as basketball star Kevin Durant's 35 Ventures, golfers Rory McIllroy and Justin Thomas and billionaire cryptocurrency bull Mike Novigrats also participated in the funding round, as did firms including Two Sigma Ventures, Accomplice

Starting point is 00:14:45 Collaborative Fund, Thursday Ventures, Next View Ventures, Promis Ventures, Cavo Ventures, and D20 Capital. Earlier investors who didn't join this round include Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Moose Partners, which manages the wealth of the brothers who own the luxury Chanel Empire, Ahmed said, end quote. After several weeks of seemingly slow news days, today was actually chock-full of stuff. I tried to fit in what I could, and I still ended up cutting like four stories for time. And I didn't even wait around for that AMD GPU event today, where they're apparently going to unveil new radion cards, which have real-time hardware accelerated ray tracing.

Starting point is 00:15:30 I guess we'll get to that tomorrow. Maybe. Talk to you then.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 10/28 – Does The iPhone 12 Have A Secret Reverse Wireless Charging Feature?

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