dth: Difference between revisions

==DTH 2023 : DTH 3/20/2023==

These are the Daily Tech Headlines for Monday March 20, 2023. I'm Sarah Lane.

Netflix announced 40 games are slated for launch on its platform this year, with 70 in development with its partners and 16 currently in development in-house. Netflix launched its first games in November 2021 with 55 current titles overall. Ustwo’s Monument Valley 1 and Monument Valley 2 are among the games coming to Netflix, as is Ubisoft's Mighty Quest: Rogue Palace which launches April 18. Netflix has a 3-exclusive game partnership with Ubisoft, the first of which was Valiant Hearts: Coming Home, that launched in January.

 

Bloomberg's sources say Netflix's ad-supported service tier reached about 1 million monthly active users in the US after its second month. Netflix already has 74 million customers in the US, but as the company tries to curb password sharing, it will likely see the $7 ad-supported version gain more traction among users who don't currently pay at all. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/20/netflix-release-40-more-games-this-year-add-monument-valley-2024/

 

===Apple, Google to face comp from Microsoft in (gaming) app stores ===

Phil Spencer, chief executive of Microsoft Gaming, says the company is preparing to launch an app store for games on iOS and Android as early as next year… if its $75bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard is cleared by regulators. Spencer says the deal could boost competition on smartphones, where Apple and Google dominate the distribution of games and other apps. Apple and Google will need to open up their mobile platforms to app stores owned and operated by other companies starting March 2024 under the EU’s Digital Markets Act. https://www.ft.com/content/7707705e-b288-4531-b30d-7fa993325018

 

NBC reports that according to a strategist advising TikTok, when CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before Congress on March 23, he'll announce that the app has 150 million users in the US, up from the company's previously reported 100 million. TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has raised concerns that it poses a potential threat to national security through spying and data collection. Globally, TikTok has more than one billion users.

 

Meanwhile another ByteDance-owned app, a video-editing tool called CapCut that launched in 2020, now has more than 200 million monthly active users, according to Shanghai-based data tracker Diandian. CapCut's privacy policy says in order to provide services, it collects uploaded photos and videos, locations, genders and birthdays, and stores the data in the U.S. and Singapore, same as TikTok. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/tiktok-now-150-million-active-users-us-ceo-tell-congress-rcna75607

--- https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktoks-chinese-parent-has-another-wildly-popular-app-in-the-u-s-e14c41fc?mod=djemalertNEWS

 

is now live in the US. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Instagram that the blue verification badge on Facebook and Instagram offers "proactive impersonation protection" and direct access to customer support. It's $12 per month through the web or $15 per month through iOS or Android. Verified members also get some stars each month that can be used to "tip" creators and extra stickers for Stories and Reels. Meta brought verification to Australia and New Zealand last month. https://www.engadget.com/metas-paid-verification-program-goes-live-in-the-us-152337732.html

 

A research project from the University of Chicago called Glaze has launched a free, non-commercial "cloaking" app for artists trying to combat theft of their ‘artistic IP’ that can be scraped into data-sets to train AI tools. A paper published by the team explains how the app adds tiny “perturbations” to each artwork it’s applied to, which interferes with an AI models’ ability to read data on artistic style, tricking the systems into outputting styles that don't resemble the original artwork. The creators say Glaze can "cloak" some artistic styles better than others, but faculty lead on the project Ben Zhao tells Techcrunch that since AI and humans read data differently, the app can distort the machine learning side of things with minimal distortion to the artwork seen by humans. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/17/glaze-generative-ai-art-style-mimicry-protection/

 

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These are the Daily Tech Headlines for Friday, March 17, 2023.  I'm Rich Stroffolino Belkin [[confirmed]] to the Verge that it [[paused]] [[development]] of Matter smart home devices, saying it will “take a big step back, regroup, and rethink’’ its approach to the smart home. It said it will release Wemo products that support Matter when it can find a way to differentiate them. https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/15/23641930/belkin-matter-wemo-smart-home The US Federal Communications Commission finalized rules to require carriers to block text messages from "invalid, unallocated, or unused numbers." The rules also say carriers must establish a means for senders to inquire about blocked texts. The order does into effect 30 days after its published in the Federal Register. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/03/fcc-orders-phone-companies-to-block-scam-text-messages/ Volkswagen showed off a concept of an affordable mass-market electric vehicle called the ID.2all, aimed at a starting price of 25,000 euros with an estimated 279 mile range. The company expects to put the hatchback into production in 2025. VW says it will be front wheel drive and offer 10 to 80 percent charging in 20 minutes on DC fast chargers. https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/16/23643047/vw-id-2-all-ev-price-photo-specs Google’s Project Zero security team disclosed it reported 18 zero-day vulnerabilties impacting Exynos modems to Samsung, including four top-severity bugs that could remotely compromise a modem with no user interaction. Project Zero gave Samsung 90 days to patch the flaws, but no patches have been released. Samsung did confirm vulnerabilies in Exynos modems in a March security listing. Google said users can mitigate the vulnerability by turning off Wi-Fi calling and Voice-over-LTE. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/16/google-warning-samsung-chips-flaws-android/ At its Reinventing Productivity with AI event, Microsoft announced Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Word will all start using OpenAI’s GPT-4 platform, with AI-powered assistance as part of Microsoft's new 365 Copilot assistant which is able to generate entire documents, emails and slide decks from scanned corporate files and recorded conference calls. Copilot will provide transparency about where it found the information it uses, with links to sources. Microsoft says it's already testing the new tools with 20 unnamed companies. https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/16/23642833/microsoft-365-ai-copilot-word-outlook-teams Twitter added a counter on iOS to show how many users bookmarked a tweet, although unlike Likes or Retweets, you can't see who bookmarked it. Help documents say Twitter "plans to expand" the feature. In other Twitter news, Platformer's Zoë Schiffer reports the company down-ranked some corporate accounts from TikTok, Snap, and Instagram, meaning tweets from them will largely not show up in the For You tab. https://twitter.com/zoeschiffer/status/1636519278534066176 --- https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/16/23643591/twitter-bookmark-counter-silent-likes-elon New Zealand banned installing TikTok on devices used to access its parliamentary network, citing cybersecurity concerns. The ban goes into effect at the end of March. https://www.reuters.com/technology/new-zealand-ban-tiktok-devices-linked-parliament-2023-03-17/ Amazon will shut down its Kindle Newsstand in September 2023. In the announcement, Amazon encouraged publishers to submit magazines and newspapers to Prime Reading or Kindle Unlimited. https://goodereader.com/blog/kindle/amazon-will-discontinue-newspaper-and-magazine-subscriptions-in-september SVB Financial, the holding company for Silicon Valley Bank, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The filing state it believes it has about $2.2 billion in liquidity. The filing does not impact SVB Capital or SVB Securities, which are legally distinct entities. Any sale of the company or its assets would now be subject to court approval, although it also allows SVB FInancial to resume operations outside of the FDIC's control. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/17/svb-financial-files-for-ch-11-bankruptcy-protection-says-it-has-2-2b-in-liquidity/ On a community web forum, Second Life developers said a mobile version of the game will launch later this year. Second Life launched in 2003 and has only been available on PCs. The app will be built on Unity, making it easier to releasing it on both iOS and Android. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/03/20-years-later-second-life-is-launching-on-mobile/ Midjourney announced an alpha of version 5 of its text-to-image synthesis service, available for testing to subscribers on its Discord server. Early testers report "incredibly realistic" skin textures and facial features, more realistic eyes, and generating hands that generally have five fingers. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/03/ai-imager-midjourney-v5-stuns-with-photorealistic-images-and-5-fingered-hands/ US employees at the Epic Games-owned music platform Bandcamp announced the formation of a union called Bandcamp United. The group authorized the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU)’s Tech Workers Union Local 1010 division to represent it. That organizer also supported the Kickstarter United union in 2020. Bandcamp United asked Epic Games for a fair and timely election through the National Labor Relations Board. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/16/employees-at-epic-owned-bandcamp-form-union/ 9to5Mac reports Apple began testing a new natural language generation feature codenamed "Bobcat" on the latest tvOS 16.4 beta. Currently the system is used for telling jikes with Siri on Apple TV. Code for the feature also appears across iPhone, iPad, and Mac software. . https://9to5mac.com/2023/03/16/apple-testing-siri-natural-language-generating-chatgpt/ A European Commission filing shows Microsoft offered remedies in an attempt to gain approval of its Activision Blizzard acquisition. The filing offered no specifics, but the company recentely entered into several long term licensing deal with Nintendo and Nvidia for access to the Call of Duty franchise. Sources tell Reuters the remedies will likely win EU clearance for the deal. https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/microsoft-offers-eu-remedies-seeking-ok-activision-deal-2023-03-17/ Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 SoC, designed for midrange phones. Compared to the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, this switches production from Samsung's to TSMC's 4nm process and uses a faster Cortex-X2 core for its main performance core. Qualcomm saying it can hit up to 50% better CPU performance and 2x GPU perormance compared to its predecessor. The SoC also supports dual SIM dual active, meaning both sims can access 5G or 4G radios at the same time. Handsets with the SoC are expeted later this month. https://www.anandtech.com/show/18775/qualcomm-announces-snapdragon-7-gen-2-premium-segment-gets-a-cortexx-core For more discussion of the tech news of the day subscribe to DailyTechNewsShow.com, [MWF] you can find show notes and links to all headlines there as well, [T-Th-Sat] and if you enjoy the show, remember to tell a friend to check it out! http://dailytechnewsshow.reddit.com Thanks for listening, we'll talk to you next time.

 

TikTok announced a new monetization feature called Series, which lets creators post Collections of content behind a paywall. Each Series can include up to 80 videos, each up to 20 minutes long. The feature launched wil select creators, and will open up to more users in the coming months. At launch creators get 100% of Series earnings, but its unclear what a future revenue split will look like. https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/tiktok-series-creators-sell-premium-episodes-1235545326/

Salesforce released Einstein GPT, an OpenAI-powered tool that will generate sales emails, answer customer questions,and create marketing content. The company also announced an invite-only beta for a ChatGPT Slack bot, which can be used to summarize channel or thread content, as well as a general research tool. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/07/salesforce-launches-chatgpt-slack-app-einstein-gpt-for-sales-service.html

Medium opened up its Mastodon instance to all paying Medium community members. Existing Medium usernames will be reserved on the me.dm instance until March 20th. Users will also received hand-picked user recommendation and Medium's Trust and Saftey team will handle moderation on the instance. The company also said it may roll out a "Share to Mastodon" button on Medium in the coming weeks. https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/7/23628642/medium-opens-mastodon-subscription-membership-twitter

SoundCloud began testing a vertical discovery feed on iOS and Android. With this, SoundCloud also rolled out 30-second previews, users can like these snippets to add the full version to a playlist. SoundCloud also redesigned the Feed tab, which features a new Disocvery page with algorithmically suggested content, as well as a Following page. The Discover page will show captions saying what likes or followed artists it used to determine the suggestion. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/06/soundcloud-is-testing-a-tiktok-like-feed-for-music-discovery/

Sonos announced two new speakers. The $250 Era 100 is designed to replace the Sonor One speaker, with tweeters able to output stereo channels and a 25% larger subwoofer. The $450 Era 300 supports spatial audio and can be paired with a Sonos soundbar as rear surround speakers. Both support Bluetooth, USB-C line-in, and Trueplay tuning for room optimized audio. https://www.engadget.com/sonos-is-betting-big-on-spatial-audio-with-the-450-era-300-speaker-140041530.html?src=rss

General Motors announced details about its next-generation Ultra Cruise driver-assistance system. THe system will use lidar sensors behind the windshield and under the rearview mirror, with cameras on the side mirrors, and radar sensors on the bumpers, grill, taillights, and hood ornament. GM says this will cover 95% of driving maneuvers on 2 million miles of roads in the US, although GM still classifies this as a Level 2 system. https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/7/23627656/gm-ultra-cruise-sensor-radar-lidar-hands-free

Microsoft announced a new "experimental" feature for Edge called Video Super Resolution, which upscales 720p or lower quality video without DRM protection. It works on Nvidia RTX 20, 30 and 40 series cards and AMD Radeon RX 5700 through RX7800 cards. Currently some users of Edge's Canary builds can access the feature.

 

And Outlook for Mac is now usable for free. You could always download it but until now you needed a Microsoft 365 subscription or license to use it. Now you don't. https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/6/23627080/microsoft-edge-video-upscaling-ai-super-resolution-vsr

Bloomberg's sources say Meta plans to do another round of layoffs as early as this week, potentially impacting thousands of jobs. This comes after Meta cut 13% of its workforce, roughly 11,000 workers, back in November. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/meta-plans-thousands-more-layoffs-as-soon-as-this-week/ar-AA18iIeE

The autonomous trucking company Embarkk Trucks plans to cut 70% of its staff and shut down two offices. CEO Alex Rodrigues informed employees remaining staff will focus on winding down operations, saying "we have been unable to identify a path forward for the business in its current form." https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/03/embark-trucks-lays-off-workers-explores-liquidation-of-self-driving-truck-assets/

Weightwatchers announced it intends to acquire the digital health company Sequence for $106 million. Sequence offers telehealth doctor visits who can prescribe medication. Weightwatchers plans to create programs aimed at people using weight-loss drugs to emphasize additional exercise and diet options. https://www.wsj.com/articles/weightwatchers-moves-into-the-ozempic-market-with-telehealth-deal-6ae088b6?mod=djemalertNEWS

Samsung denied a report originally published in Business Korea that it began development on its own mobile CPU cores as part of a Galaxy Chip series, rather than using core designs from ARM. Samsung said the report is "not true" saying "we have long had multiple internal teams responsible for CPU development and optimization, while constantly recruiting global talents from relevant fields." https://9to5google.com/2023/03/06/samsung-denies-developing-cpu-cores-galaxy-chip/

Intel recently re-entered the discrete GPU market with the Xe GPU architecture. A lot of times we talk about their Arc consumer GPUs, but the company also introduced Max and Flex series GPUs for high performance computing and data centers last year. Now Intel updated its GPU roadmap, cancelling the follow up cards to its first generation Max and Flex cards. It also pushed back the released of what would have been the third-generation Max Series card to 2025, which will introduce a new “flexible chiplet-based architecture." These cards will introduce CPU cores to this chiplet design after 2025. Intel did not provide a release window for a follow up Flex Series card. https://www.crn.com/news/components-peripherals/intel-makes-cuts-to-data-center-gpu-road-map-delays-falcon-shores-to-2025

Apple announced it will launch Apple Pay in South Korea with support for in-store, in-app, and online purchases. The company also announced a new yellow color for the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus. https://9to5mac.com/2023/03/07/apple-pay-south-korea-launch/

YouTube will discontinue overlay ads as of April 6th. These ads only appeared on YOuTube's desktop site. YouTube called them "disruptive for viewers" and said it will move to "higher performing ad formats on desktop and mobile devices."

Mark your calendars folks. Nothing will announce the Nothing Ear (2) wireless earbuds during a livestream announcement March 22. The Nothing Ear (1) was Nothing's first released product. https://gizmodo.com/nothing-ear-2-wireless-earbuds-announcement-1-stick-1850191945

For more discussion of the tech news of the day subscribe to DailyTechNewsShow.com, [MWF] you can find show notes and links to all headlines there as well, [T-Th-Sat] and if you enjoy the show, remember to tell a friend to check it out! http://dailytechnewsshow.reddit.com

Thanks for listening, we'll talk to you next time.