Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 12/30 – Apple Loses A Copyright Lawsuit

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 Tech Meme Right Home for Wednesday, December 30th, 2020, the final episode of the year. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Apple loses an interesting copyright case. Get ready to see TikToks in your Google searches.

Starting point is 00:00:48 Amazon's other business is becoming a monster. The tech that consumers did and did not as much partaken over the holidays. And, of course, the weekend long read suggestions for the final time in 2020. Here's what you missed in the world of. Tech. A federal judge has dismissed Apple's claims that mobile device virtualization company Correlium violated copyright law with its software that allowed folks to run iOS on PCs, quoting the Washington Post. In a ruling that has wide-reaching implications for iPhone security research and copyright law, a federal judge in Florida threw out Apple's claims that Correlium had violated copyright law with

Starting point is 00:01:34 its software, which helps security researchers find bugs and security holes on Apple's products. Correllium, co-founded in 2017 by husband and wife Amanda Gorton and Chris Wade, was a breakthrough in security research because it gave its customers the ability to run virtual iPhones on desktop computers. Corallium's software makes it unnecessary to use physical iPhones that contain specialized software to poke and prod iOS, Apple's mobile operating system. The judge in the case ruled that Corallium's creation of virtual iPhones was not a copyright violation, in part because it was designed to help improve the security for all iPhone users. Corellium wasn't creating a competing product for consumers, rather. It was a research tool for a

Starting point is 00:02:17 comparatively small number of customers. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the lawsuit, Apple argued that Corellium's products could be dangerous if they fall into the wrong hands because security flaws discovered by Correlium could be used to hack iPhones. Apple also argued that Correlium sells its product indiscriminately, a claim Correlium denied. Judge Rodney Smith called Apple's argument on those claims, quote, puzzling, if not disingenuous, end quote. Smith found that Correlium used a vetting process before selling its products to customers. Apple initially attempted to acquire Correlium in 2018, according to court records. When the acquisition talks stalled, Apple sued Corallium last year, claiming its virtual iPhones, which contain only the bare bones functions

Starting point is 00:03:00 necessary for security research, constitute a violation of copyright law. Apple also alleged Correllium circumvented Apple's security measures to create the software, thereby violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That claim has not been thrown out, end quote. So I was already to say this was a dumb lawsuit, but apparently companies have won similar cases in the past around copyright, but most in the digital security community praised this result. Let me quote, at Pone All the Things on Twitter, quote. This is a big deal for security research in particular, but also other parts of tech. Apple's case was an insanely broad assertion that emulating iOS firmware on something that's

Starting point is 00:03:42 not Apple's own hardware violates iOS copyright rather than covered by fair use. Imagine if that argument had prevailed. That emulation of a binary, even for wildly different purposes, such as as security testing that binary is a litigable copyright infringement. Might as well have backronymed AFL to automatic federal lawsuit in that scenario was such a dangerously broad claim. And if the logical conclusion of your lawsuit is Windows being a terms of service change away from overnight bankrupting VMware to force everyone to use Azure and turning

Starting point is 00:04:18 security testing of compiled binaries into lawsuits, then sorry, your lawsuit is bad and you should feel bad, end quote. If you could swear you've been seeing TikTok videos show up in Google searches recently, you're not imagining it. Google is apparently testing an expansion of its short videos feature at the top of mobile search. This will surface TikTok as well as Instagram videos in a dedicated carousel, quoting TechCrunch. To be clear, this short videos carousel is different from Google's stories,

Starting point is 00:04:55 which rolled out in October 2020 to the Google Search app for iOS and Android. Those stories, previously known as AMP Stories, consist of short-form video content created by Google's online publishing partners, like Forbes, USA Today, Vice, Now This, Bustle, Thrillist, and others. Meanwhile, the short videos carousel had been focused on aggregating social video from other platforms, including Google's own short-form video project, Tangi, Indian TikTok competitor Trell, as well as Google's own video platform YouTube, which has also been experimenting with short-form

Starting point is 00:05:28 content as of late. We found the short videos carousel appears when you scroll past the Google knowledge-based box for the Green Bay Packers, followed by the scores, top stories, Twitter results, top results, images, videos, and other content like a listing of the players, standings, and more. Both Instagram and TikTok videos were available in the short videos row. When clicked, you're taken to the web version of the social platform, not the native mobile app, even if it's installed on your device. The end result is that Google users are more likely to remain on Google, as all it takes is a tap on the back arrow to return to the search results after watching the video, end quote. So, how might this change the sort of videos that people create?

Starting point is 00:06:12 Because now you can create SEO-friendly videos? Might we see people incentivized to create a ton of topics? specific videos now. And as Chris Messina tweeted, quote, now that Google is indexing stories from Instagram and TikTok, can we agree that this is how a digital monopoly expands its empire, i.e. by ingesting and building an auction on top of new media formats, end quote. We haven't checked in on this in a little while, but remember that quote-unquote other business unit at Amazon? It's largely the placeholder for its ads business. the ads business, the reason that it's basically become impossible to find the product that you

Starting point is 00:06:59 actually want to buy when you search on Amazon, all those sponsored results and so-called Amazon's choice results. Don't even get me started on how friggin frustrating it was to try to shop for the kids this Christmas. Forget building a better Google. If you could build a better product search on top of Amazon, you'd be doing the Lord's work, believe me. Anyway, yeah, that other business unit at Amazon was apparently up 47% in 2020 to $21 billion in total revenue, quoting from the Financial Times. I don't think there's enough recognition for just how big of an advertising business Amazon is on the way to creating, said Andrew Lipsman, principal analyst at e-marketer. We still expect solid, if not strong growth by traditional standards for Google in both 20 and 2021, but increasingly Amazon is eating into that growth, end quote. offers advertisers data that is irresistible, a closed loop that shows them how effective every dollar

Starting point is 00:07:57 they spend is, and more than two decades of insight into the actual buying habits of consumers rather than just their web browsing habits. Quote, I can understand better the value of a dollar spent on Amazon because I can literally see the transaction, said Eric Heller, who runs the Amazon Center of Excellence at WPP, the world's largest ad agency, which advises on how best to use Amazon's platform. Mr. Heller noted several studies had shown that people were increasingly searching for things to buy directly on Amazon rather than on Google. For marketers, Mr. Heller said it was the difference in reaching the person searching for athletes' foot cream rather than, why does my foot hurt? End quote. Yeah, when you put it that way, it really is kind of shocking to realize how oblique Google Search for products actually is.

Starting point is 00:08:45 And it's worth noting how much this really is that sort of zero-scentry. some game that we've been talking about recently, Amazon is eating slices of Google's pie directly. They're stealing the business away from Google, quoting again. It all amounts to the foundation to eventually turn the Facebook Google duopoly into a three-way fight. In just over two years, Amazon has gone from languishing behind Microsoft and Verizon in the digital marketing space to being a comfortable third. This year, Amazon is on course to command 10.2% of U.S. digital ad spending versus Facebook's 23 and a half percent and Google's 29.8 percent. By 2022, Amazon's share is predicted to be almost 13 percent, a slow but meaningful encroachment into a

Starting point is 00:09:30 high-margin industry. Some critics argued that Amazon's sponsored results were effectively a listings tax, an additional cost of doing business on top of the commission the group already takes, which itself was more than $20 billion in the last quarter alone. Quote, Amazon is becoming more and more a paid. to play platform, said Mitchell Bailey from Caspian, a company that provides advertising services for brands on e-commerce. Quote, unless you're willing to invest in their advertising platforms, it's much more difficult to compete, end quote.

Starting point is 00:10:03 Let's wrap up with some stats from the holiday period. For example, Censor Tower says that consumers worldwide spent $407.6 million on the App Store and Google Play on Christmas. 34.5% year over year. Mobile games were the biggest chunk of that, rising 27% year over year to $295.6 million in sales, led by apparently Honor of Kings. And meanwhile, a Flurry Survey says that U.S. smartphone activations on Christmas Day fell 23% year over year. iPhones dominated the top 10 activated smartphones, but at the same time, budget devices from the likes of LG and K-30 surged, quoting Flurry. Apple's budget device, the iPhone SE, as well as LG's K-30s, saw the largest

Starting point is 00:11:02 Christmas Day surge compared with the prior seven-day average, with 34% and 181% increases, respectively. In addition, the success of past year's models, notably the iPhone 11 and iPhone 10R, may demonstrate that American consumers were more price-sensitive to this holiday season. Notably absent from this year's list is the flagship iPhone 12-Mil. Mini, which brings the features of the iPhone 12 and a smaller device. With a discount of only $100 compared to the iPhone 12, however, the mini version has yet to catch consumers' attention, end quote. And finally, it is apparently a disappointing watch when you actually sit down to watch it,

Starting point is 00:11:40 but Wonder Woman 1984 might have given a boost to HBO Max. AppTopia, says the streamers saw around 554,000 app signups over the Christmas holiday, and that's just on mobile, quoting Bloomberg. While mobile devices are just one entry point for customers using a streaming service, the data provides a way to measure traffic. HBO Max's total mobile users now stand at just under 12 million, Aptobius said. Meanwhile, Walt Disney's Disney Plus streaming service had about 2.3 million global installations of its mobile app over the Christmas holiday, a 28% increase from the prior weekend, according to the market research firm Censor Tower. The Pixar animated feature,

Starting point is 00:12:21 Seoul, which was released on Disney Plus on Christmas Day, took in about $7.6 million in its theatrical debut in several international markets, including China. The weekend will be closely analyzed by Hollywood executives and investors because studios decided to release two big films, Wonder Woman and Seoul, on their streaming services on the same day they were released in cinemas. Wonder Woman took in $16.7 million in domestic theaters over the weekend. AT&T's Warner Media said nearly half of the customers who have subscribed to HBO Max directly from the company watched the film on the day of its release, end quote. Time for the final weekend Longreads suggestions of 2020.

Starting point is 00:13:06 First up, Fast Company features an essay from Roheet Prasad, head scientist for Alexa, who argues that the good old Turing test is an obsolete yardstick when it comes to measuring AI developments. We need a new metric, quote, while Turing's original vision continues to be inspiring, interpreting his test as the ultimate mark of AI's progress is limited by the era when it was introduced. For one, the Turing test all but discounts AI's machine-like attributes of fast computation and information lookup features that are some of modern AI's most effective. The emphasis on tricking humans means that for an AI to pass Turing's test, it has to inject

Starting point is 00:13:46 pauses in responses to questions like, do you know what is the cube root of 3434756, or how far is Seattle from Boston. In reality, AI knows these answers instantaneously, and pausing to make its answers sound more human isn't the best use of its skills. Moreover, the Turing test doesn't take into account AI's increasing ability to use sensors to hear, see, and feel the outside world. Instead, it is limited simply to text, end quote. The Wall Street Journal looks into something I've been wondering about, actually, because I'm old enough to remember when, once all my friends jump to AOL, the McCullough family abandoned prodigy for AOL. And I even remember when some of your friends were on AIM and some were on Microsoft Messenger or Yahoo. So what's going on these days?

Starting point is 00:14:35 Quote, I interviewed five teenagers across the country to learn what nearly a year of living virtually has been like for them. A common theme is that their tech choices, or those of their parents and even their friends' parents, dictate with whom they have stayed in touch. That was the case, to some extent, before the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has become starker in the months since many in-person interactions came to an abrupt end in March. Nearly half of the 849s surveyed by common-sense media late last spring, reported feeling less connected than usual with their friends after schools closed. Students who had once talked to certain friends every day in the school cafeteria or in the hallway suddenly lost touch with all, but their closest pals once schools shut down, unless they

Starting point is 00:15:18 happen to be connected on the same social media apps. Some even lost touch with their best friends because of the technology they do or don't use, end quote. Next, a bunch of stories that touch on themes that we've been talking about all year. For example, we spoke a bunch about Mukesh Ambani and how everyone in the world fell over themselves this year to give him $27 billion just to get a piece of Reliance Geo. Now, 2021 is when he's going to have to start delivering on the promise he sold, quote. Reliance is planning to showcase its line. of 5G products at next year's shareholder meeting, which typically takes place sometime between July and September, one of the people said. The company is also working with Google on an Android-based

Starting point is 00:16:00 $54 smartphone, part of the strategy to get more Indians to use mobile data for services, including streaming video, online games, and shopping. Reliance views the integration with WhatsApp's recently approved payment system as a crucial step in the development of its online shopping services, the people said. The companies are working together as Reliance's e-commerce platforms look to tap hundreds of millions of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram users. And Bonnie's biggest challenge now is to earn a return on these investments, said James Crabtree, author of The Billionaire Raj, a journey through India's new gilded age, end quote. And all year, I personally have turned to Ed Young in the Atlantic to keep me abreast of where we are

Starting point is 00:16:42 in terms of the pandemic. I'm not going to quote from it right now, but in his final piece of the year, Young outlines how he sees 2021 playing out, including the vaccination endgame, and how the virus itself may or may not evolve in response to vaccines. The New York Times looks at something we've discussed several times. Trump might be leaving the White House, but his trade war with China has had many domino-falling results, including China's recent drive to kickstart a homegrown semiconductor industry. Quote, China is in the midst of a mass mobilization for chip mastery, a quest of a question. whose aims can seem just as hairbrained and impossible, at least until they are achieved,

Starting point is 00:17:24 as sending rovers to the moon or dominating Olympic gold medals. In every corner of the country, investors, entrepreneurs, and local officials are in a frenzy to build up semiconductor abilities, responding to a call from the country's leader Xi Jinping to rely less on the outside world for key technologies. Their efforts are starting to pay off. China remains far from hosting real rivals to American ship giants like Intel and Nvidia, and its semiconductor, manufacturers are at least four years behind the leading edge in Taiwan. Still, local companies are expanding their ability to meet the country's needs, particularly for products such as smart appliances and electric vehicles that have more modest requirements than supercomputers and high-end smartphones.

Starting point is 00:18:05 The turbocharged chip push could prove one of the most enduring legacies of President Trump's pugilistic trade policies towards China. By turning the country's dependence on foreign ships into a cudgel for attacking companies like Huawei, the administration made Chinese business and political leaders resolve never to be caught out that way again, end quote. And finally, the end of the year makes you think of time passing of life. Bit of an elegant segue there, I'll admit, but the New York Times takes a look back on 50 years of John Conway's Game of Life. If you're not familiar with this early attempt at simulation, get educated, quote, because of its analogies with the rise, fall, and alterations of a society

Starting point is 00:18:51 of living organisms, it belongs to a growing class of what are called simulation games, Mr. Gardner wrote when he introduced life to the world 50 years ago with his October 1970 column. Life swiftly eclipsed Dr. Conway's many other mathematical accomplishments, and he came to regard his missive to Mr. Gardner as, quote, the fatal letter. Life ultimately became way too popular for Dr. Conway's liking. Whenever the subject came up, he would bellow, I hate life, but in his final years, he learned to love life again. He narrated a documentary with the working title Thoughts on Life by the Brooklyn-based mathematician and filmmaker Will Cavendish. Explored the deterministic game of life versus free will theorem, a result Dr. Conway proved

Starting point is 00:19:34 with his Princeton colleague, Simon Coacham. I used to go around saying, I hate life, Dr. Conway says in the film, but then I was giving a lecture somewhere, and I was introduced as John Conway, creator of life. And I thought, oh, that's quite a nice way to be known. So I stopped saying, I hate life after that, end quote. As hinted at all episode, I will be taking tomorrow and Friday off, and there will be no bonus episodes this weekend. So we won't be speaking again until Monday. Until 2021. Happy New Year to all of you. I love you all. Thanks for sticking me in your head every day. I truly appreciate each and every one of you. My best to you and everyone you care about in the new year. Here's hoping for good fortune and good health to all of us in

Starting point is 00:20:30 2021. Talk to you next year.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 12/30 – Apple Loses A Copyright Lawsuit

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