Tech Brew Ride Home - Wednesday, June 20, 2018 - Instagram Debuts IGTV

Episode Date: June 20, 2018

The immigration controversy comes to Silicon Valley, Instagram debuts IGTV, Disney ups its bid for Fox, and a new phone finds a new way around “the notch.” Links:Facebook launches gameshows platform with interactive video (TechCrunch)Oppo’s Find X ditches the notch for pop-up cameras (The Verge)Crypto Exchange Bithumb Halts Withdrawals After $31 Million Hack (CoinDesk) 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 Wednesday, June 20th, 2018. I'm your host, Brian McCullough. Today, the immigration controversy comes to Silicon Valley.

Instagram debuts IGTV. Disney ups its bid for Fox, and a new phone finds a new way around the notch. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Well, it's a controversy that's been reaching a boiling point all week, and if there's anything we've learned, it's that tech can no longer consider itself, above the political fray. More than 100 Microsoft employees have signed an open letter to CEO Satcha Nadella protesting Microsoft's work with ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency,

which has been involved in separating migrant parents from their children. Microsoft has a $19.4 million contract with ICE involving data processing and artificial intelligence. The open letter said, quote, We believe that Microsoft must take an ethical stand and put children and children and families above profits. As the people who build the technologies that Microsoft profits from, we refuse to be complicit.

We are part of a growing movement comprised of many across the industry who recognize the grave responsibility that those creating powerful technology have to ensure what they build is used for good and not for harm, end quote. Indeed, we've seen this growing movement for ethical tech development

in things like Google's recent seven principles for AI. But there is also a growing movement across the tech industry of people speaking out against specifically the Trump administration's so-called zero tolerance policy with regard to immigrants. And Microsoft's such a Nadella himself is among those raising his voice. Nadella sent an email to all Microsoft employees yesterday which said, quote, like many of you, I am appalled at the abhorrent policy of separating immigrant children from their families at the southern border of the U.S. As both a parent and an immigrant, this issue touches me personally, end quote. He did not

however, address Microsoft's contract with ICE in that email. Nadella joins a chorus of tech CEOs, ranging from Apple, Facebook, Google, Airbnb, Twitter, and others who have spoken out against the zero-tolerance policy. Apple CEO Tim Cook told the Irish Times in an interview, quote, It's heartbreaking to see the images and hear the sounds of the kids. Kids are the most vulnerable people in any society. I think that what's happening is inhumane. It needs to stop.

We've always felt everyone should be treated with dignity and respect. In this case, that's not happening, end quote. And Microsoft's Mark Zuckerberg went so far as to host a fundraiser on his personal Facebook page for charities who are working to benefit immigrants. Quote, organizations like Texas Civil Rights Project and races are doing great work, helping families at the U.S. border get legal advice and translation services, as well as documenting what is happening on the ground to make sure these stories are shared. I've donated to them and I encourage you two as well. We need to stop this policy right now. A couple of Facebook items.

Facebook is beginning to allow Facebook group administrators to test a feature that charges members of those groups between $4.99 and $29 and $29 a month for access to groups. So essentially group subscriptions. During the test, Facebook will not be taking a cut of those subscriptions, but given that groups has grown to a billion users, it might be useful for them to do so at some point. The example that TechCrunch's Josh Constine used to describe the test was Sarah Mueller's Declutter My Home Group, which is launching a 1499 per month, Organize My Home Subscription Group that will teach members how to stay tidy with checklists and video guides.

So, yet more ways and platforms for creators to monetize their work with. More on that in a second. But I didn't have a chance to squeeze this in, yet. Facebook also announced that it's debuting what is essentially a game show platform creators will now be able to add quizzes polls and more to live and on-demand video in Facebook's Facebook watch platform it is also testing the ability to award prize money to viewers so this would put that HQ trivia app right in Facebook's crosshairs you would imagine launch partners for these new features include Fresno's what's in

the box where viewers guess what's in a box and BuzzFeed News's outside your bubble where contestants guess what others are thinking. Facebook's VP of video product, Fiji Simo, told TechCrunch, quote, video is evolving away from just passive consumption to more interactive two-way formats, end quote. When asked if this move was directly inspired by HQ trivia, Simo responded by saying, I think they're part of a much broader trend that is making content interactive. We've seen that across much more than one player.

And speaking of Facebook-related video play, at an event in San Francisco today, Instagram debuted what it is calling IGTV, or essentially Instagram TV, a hub for high-profile video creators. IGTV will have its own standalone app, but you'll also be able to access IGTV content from a tab at the top of the Instagram home screen.

On the one hand, IGTV will focus on videos from Instagram celebrities and the like, and major creators will be able to develop Instagram channels that people can subscribe to. But then you can do the same. Just like as on YouTube, you can create your own channel, and since Instagram made official the long-remered ability for anyone to upload videos,

as long as an hour in length, IGTV won't just be for the Insta-Famous and fabulous. And Instagram is leaning into its native format. The focus will be on vertical videos, videos shot on mobile designed to be viewed on mobile screens. Quote, it's time for video to move forward and evolve. Instagram CEO Kevin Sistram said on stage at the event. IGTV is for watching long-form videos from your favorite creators, end quote. At the moment, IGTV will have no ads and no revenue sharing agreements with creators,

but that's for now. Right now we're focused on building engagement, Sistram said. Sistram noted that with old-style TV, you just turn the thing on and start watching. In comparison, most video apps, he said, make you search or browse through a directory. IGTV will simply start playing video as soon as you open it. That's part of the reason why. Though it will have space inside of Instagram, IGTV will also have its own standalone app. Instagram is apparently looking for a sort of user experience where you sit back and settle in to do some veging out.

So separating the two might encourage different behavior and use cases. But it's also an attempt to become a destination for watching videos like YouTube currently is. So even though at first glance, this might look like another case of, of Instagram moving into Snapchat's turf. Quite frankly, this is an aggressive move against YouTube as well. And why not? As a part of the announcement today,

Instagram announced it had reached one billion monthly active users. The last time we got an update on Instagram user growth was in September of last year when the number of monthly active users was 800 million. At that rate, Instagram is growing almost 5% a quarter. E-marketer recently estimated that Instagram will generate close to

$5.5 billion in ad revenue for Facebook this year. So, as Brian Krogzgard noted on Twitter, most of us made fun of the Instagram acquisition when Facebook made it back in 2012. Since then, Instagram's monthly active user numbers have increased 20x. And since Facebook only paid a billion dollars back then, and a billion users, that only represents an acquisition cost of $1 per user. BitThumb, one of the largest cryptocurrency. exchanges in South Korea has suspended all deposit and withdrawal of assets on its cryptocurrency

exchange following the news of a $31 million hack that took place between late Tuesday and early Wednesday. Bittham said it will fully reimburse any losses by customers. South Korea is actually one of the more crypto-crazy countries and Bitthum is actually the sixth largest crypto exchange in the world by volume. About two weeks ago, a smaller South Korean crypto-eastern crypto exchange, Coinrail, also saw a hack that security experts believe resulted in the loss of around $40 million worth of cryptocurrencies. So the great philosophical debate about notches on smartphones continues, and there's a new phone with a new take on the whole thing.

At a live-streamed event yesterday, Oppo announced a new phone, the FindX, which has a 6.4-inch display that has no notch, and what Apo says is a screen-to-body ratio of 90s. So if it's almost all screen, where does it hide the cameras? Well, you can't find the cameras anywhere unless you open the FindX's camera app. When you do so, the entire front part of the phone slides up, revealing a 25 megapixel front-facing camera, and 16 megapixel and 20-magixel dual rear cameras. Close the phone app and the section slides back down because, well, you're not using it. According to The Verge, the overall look of the phone is similar to the Samsung Galaxy

S9 Plus with an OLED panel and curved glass sides. Other bona fides, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, 8 gigabytes of RAM, up to 256 gigabytes of storage, and running Android 8.1 Oreo. The FindX is available to order in China already, with announcements about carrier and pricing availability for North America and Europe soon. A few follow-ups here to previous stories. Tesla is suing a former employee for allegedly exporting gigabytes of confidential data, according to a lawsuit filed in Nevada this morning.

The employee in question is named as former process technician Martin Tripp. Quoting from the lawsuit, Tesla has only begun to understand the full scope of Tripp's illegal activity, but he has thus far admitted to writing software that hacked Tesla's manufacturing operating system and to transferring several gigabytes of Tesla data to outside entities. This includes dozens of confidential photographs and a video of Tesla's manufacturing systems, end quote. And the lawsuit goes on to mention that Tripp complained that he had not been given a more senior role in the company. So this would seem to be the incident that prompted those unusual Elon Musk emails about sabotage that we spoke about yesterday.

While it's officially a bidding war, the Walt Disney company has raised its bid for, 21st Century Fox's film and TV assets to $38 a share, up from the initial bid of $28 a share. That represents an offer of $71.3 billion in cash in stock, which is more than Comcast's recent all-cash offer. Fox quickly agreed to the deal with Fox's executive chairman Rupert Murdoch releasing a statement saying, quote, we are extremely proud of the business we have built at 21st Century Fox and firmly believe that this combination with Disney will unlock even more value for sharehold. as the new Disney continues to set the pace at a dynamic time for our industry. We remain convinced that the combination of Fox's iconic assets, brands, and franchises with Disney's will create one of the greatest, most innovative companies in the world, end quote.

It's unclear at the time of this recording if Comcast will counter this by raising its bid, but if they do, they'll have to act quickly as Fox is scheduled to have a board meeting soon to vote on the offers. Over the weekend, I listened to some interesting analysis. of all this from EMJ Capitals Eric Jackson. You might think that an all-cash offer, such as the one that Comcast made, would be immediately snapped up because cash is king, right?

And usually it is, but in this case, for various tax law reasons, the Murdoch family might prefer a deal that it came mostly in stock, as they would take less of a tax hit that way personally. Of course, if Comcast does come in again with a higher bid, other Fox shareholders might demand that the Murdox take the deal

that would benefit all shareholders. Right now, that point is moot, though, as the highest bid on the table remains Disney's. Remember that new European Copyright Directive that I put on your radar yesterday, the one that would require companies to preemptively screen for copyrighted content and effectively outlaw memes?

Well, this morning, the vote took place on moving that directive forward in an EU Parliamentary Committee, and it passed. The two most controversial sections, Article 11 and Article 13, were adopted by a 13 to 12 and 15 to 10 margin respectively. So what happens next?

Well, there could be another key vote next month. EU member state representatives in the EU Council will need to vote before the directive can become law, though many analysts are saying a majority of European governments appear to back the proposals. Then a final vote would have to happen in full parliament, possibly by the end of the year. So, insert Captain Picard face palm meme here, while you still can.

That's all for today. I've been your host, Brian McCullough. As always, I produce the show by standing on the shoulders of the incredible editors at TechMeem.com. Check out their great work every hour of every day at Techmeme.com.