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Tag: #Apple

Apple Antitrust Suit: Let the Games Begin – Again.

Apple Antitrust Suit: Let the Games Begin – Again.

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Let’s face it: the good people at Apple believe that they’re just smarter than the rest of us. When Epic Games sued the company over their monopolistic practices – taking such a huge vig from products in the app store, Apple did win most of the civil suit, but had to make concessions to comply with California law.

Apple attempted to block Epic from starting a competing app store. Until Apple Reverse(d) Course and Allow(ed) Epic Games to Start (One), said the New York Times. “Days after Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, complained publicly that Apple had blocked it from starting a competing app store in Europe, the technology companies said Apple had reversed course and would allow Epic to go ahead with its plan.” But only did so to comply with a new European tech competition law.

Think Different might not always be such a good idea after all and damn those pesky laws! What’s a mother – or monopoly – to do? Read More...

Web 2.5: A Dangerous Crossroads

Web 2.5: A Dangerous Crossroads

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Image by Lisa Johnson from Pixabay

Web 3 is not about to take over any time soon, especially given the damage that FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried have done to reinforced the public’s view that crypto (an element of Web 3) is rife with fraud and no, we have idea why Bankman-Freed isn’t in prison (‘Why aren’t you in jail already?’ Internet erupts after Sam Bankman-Fried confirms participating in New York Times’ DealBook). Yet according to MSN, We’re Witnessing the End of Social Media, and while the Age of Social was supposedly about ‘connecting,’ it has mostly been responsible for the disconnections that have been going on between people and groups.

So, we seem to be in a strange tech stasis: a no man’s land between the last and the next phase of tech.

Even FAANG – Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google stocks – isn’t FAANG anymore

Now it’s MAMAA – Meta Platforms FB, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple – although we propose MAMMAA, and although not stock related, Musk definitely belongs in the cabal mix and make no mistake about it: The Web 2 cabal is still alive and kicking – and not about to surrender their lead positions to the so-called next iteration of tech and yet a new crop of tech wunderkinds any time soon. Read More...

Health Tech and Big Tech: An Unhealthy Alliance

Health Tech and Big Tech: An Unhealthy Alliance

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Image by ElasticComputeFarm from Pixabay

HealthIT funding is up right now,  despite the downturn in global digital health investment, with data collection being such a big part of the reason why investors are all in on the HealthIT sector.  Do note that Big Tech et al is paying close attention to the space and making acquisitions.

Dr. Amazon Will See You Now, said the Wall Street Journal, noting that “Amazon and other companies are trying to disrupt the giant, inefficient U.S. healthcare sector. They’ve made little headway but a crop of upstarts is offering industry giants a chance to buy their way in.

“Amazon.com’s repeated failure to disrupt the industry underscores just how hard it is to make meaningful change.. As hard as healthcare has proven to crack, it is also too big of an opportunity to ignore. That explains why Amazon is trying again: It agreed in July to pay $3.9 billion for One Medical, a concierge-type primary-care service with nearly 200 medical offices in 25 markets… and will give Amazon the foothold in healthcare it struggled to build organically. In a not-too-distant future, your Prime membership may include a free annual checkup.” Read More...

Same Schmidt, Different Day

Same Schmidt, Different Day

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It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on the tech cabal,. You know that there’s always something to see. And something they’d prefer you’d not see.

One of the latest reports is that Apple and Meta Gave User Data to Hackers Who Used Forged Legal Requests. It seems the two behemoths “provided customer data to hackers who masqueraded as law enforcement officials,” Yahoo!finance reported, including “basic subscriber details, such as a customer’s address, phone number and IP address, in mid-2021 in response to the forged “emergency data requests.””

It seems that rather than hacking Apple and Meta (nee Facebook) directly, given their armies of coders, instead, the hackers breached law enforcement agencies worldwide. For the record, the hackers who sell this information to various and nefarious, only charge $100-$250 for this service. In 2021, Meta received 21,000+ ‘emergency requests’ which do not need to be signed off by a judge, and complied with 77% of them, while Apple received over 1100 and complied with 93% of them. Read More...

EPIC!!!

EPIC!!!

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Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

The news of the week was that the closely-watched trial between Apple Computer and Epic Games concluded. It was not a win all around, but it did deal “a massive blow to the walled-garden business model of Apple’s App Store.”

According to CNBC, “Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers…issued an injunction that said Apple will no longer be allowed to prohibit developers from providing links or other communications that direct users away from Apple in-app purchasing. Apple typically takes a 15% to 30% cut of gross sales.”

“Apple will now be required to allow developers to direct users to third-party payment processors, meaning developers can now collect revenue directly, and can no longer disallow developers from using account registration data to contact users outside the app,” Gizmodo reported. “…but it’s very far from a complete victory. Gonzalez Rogers ruled against the gaming company on every single other count, finding that while Apple violated California’s Unfair Competition law, the case did not establish Apple to be an illegal monopolist…It’s not clear, as of this moment, how wide the ramifications will be beyond the App Store specifically. Google, which also booted Fortnite from its Play Store in response to Epic’s moves, is facing a similar lawsuit that has yet to be resolved.” Read More...

The New Apple, to the Core

The New Apple, to the Core

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Apple recently announced that they’re going to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse, “drawing applause from child protection groups but raising concern among some security researchers that the system could be misused, including by governments looking to surveil their citizens,” according to Yahoo News.  

Apple is all about protecting children, as we well know. After all, Apple knew a supplier was using child labor but took 3 years to fully cut ties, despite the company’s promises to hold itself to the ‘highest standards,’ report says. “Ten former members of Apple’s supplier responsibility team (said) the company has refused or has been slow to stop doing business with suppliers that repeatedly violate its labor policies when doing so would hurt its profits.”  

So, obviously Apple is not driven by protecting children, although claiming so does tend to pull at the heartstrings and move people to quickly surrender yet another aspect of their privacy/allow surveillance. As Matthew Green, a top cryptography researcher at Johns Hopkins University, pointed out in the Yahoo piece, “abuses could include government surveillance of dissidents or protesters…”What happens when the Chinese government says, ‘Here is a list of files that we want you to scan for,’” Green asked. “Does Apple say no? I hope they say no, but their technology won’t say no.”   Read More...

About Those Cell Phones: Is It Really Your Call?

About Those Cell Phones: Is It Really Your Call?

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We reported a month or two back that Apple and Google were building a coronavirus contact tracking system into iOS and Android. “The new system, which is laid out in a series of documents and white papers, would use short-range Bluetooth communications to establish a voluntary contact-tracing network, keeping extensive data on phones that have been in close proximity with each other,” The Verge reported.

Not that these two esteemed members of the tech cartel are known for serving the public good uber alles, and note to self: “At least eight global companies identified as benefitting from China’s enslavement of Muslim minorities published statements celebrating Juneteenth, an American holiday marking the end of slavery in the country.” Of course the list includes Apple and Google – as well as Abercrombie & Fitch, Amazon, FILA, General Motors, Nike, and Ralph Lauren. Read More...

Post-Covid Tech: The Tipping Points and the Breaking Point

Post-Covid Tech: The Tipping Points and the Breaking Point

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Om Malik did an excellent piece recently entitled The Inevitable has happened. And in a hurry, on fairly recent past crises and the opportunity zones that they created for technology. Head’s up, people: take note of this current crisis, especially since we’re still in medias res and observing first-hand where the shortfalls are. Case in point: The Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020.

It’s not tech,but it’s there. Read More...

Giving Thanks to Tech

Giving Thanks to Tech

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Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Thanksgiving is upon us, and how often do we all truly stop and give thanks for all that we have, sometimes whether we know it or not. Here are a few examples, with tongue held firmly in cheek:

First, here was a time when you had to read a map or ask for directions when you were driving or walking somewhere you’d never been before and weren’t quite sure where you were going. Men notoriously hated to ask for directions, and would often get lost or go in circles, from what we hear. Now, all you need do is enter the destination into that map app on your phone, and no worries. In fact, Apple or Google, depending on your map of choice, often knows precisely where you’re heading, even before you’ve finished inputting the information. Wouldn’t you be lost without them?

Google knows better than you. The Wall Street Journal reported on How Google Interferes With Its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results and let’s be honest: Google has been tracking you for so long now that the company no doubt knows you better than you know yourself. Or at least, knows what’s best for you, so may gently sway you in that direction… Say amen, somebody. Read More...

The Myth of the Gig Economy

The Myth of the Gig Economy

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Image by 1820796 from Pixabay

The so-called sharing/gig economy is under fire – in California, anyway, with State Assembly Bill 5 (AB5). “Under the new “ABC” test (which is part of the new law), an individual is presumed to be an employee, unless the company can prove all of the following: A) that the worker is free from control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of the work and in fact; B) that the worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and C) that the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed,” The National Law Review explains.

There’s very little genuine sharing going on in the so-called sharing economy. Sharing/gig economy unicorn DoorDash had to change its tipping model after it was discovered that tips that were meant to go to the workers were being kept by the company. Even after they promised to change that, Vox reported that DoorDash was still pocketing workers’ tips, almost a month after it promised to stop. Now it’s Instacart that’s in the crosshairs for taking that page from the Bad Behavior in Tech playbook. “’You have demonstrated a pattern of behavior as CEO of eviscerating our pay and pirating our tips,’” Instacart independent contractors wrote in an open letter to CEO Apoorva Mehta, ahead of a three-day walkout, Mashable reports.

Meanwhile, according to Forbes, California Destroys $1 Trillion Gig Economy With New Law. Read More...