0:04

Welcome to the Tech Meme Ride Home for Friday, March 22nd, 2024. I'm

0:08

Brian McCullough. Today, everyone is analyzing

0:10

the DOJ's case against Apple. An

0:13

unpatched vulnerability in Apple Silicon has

0:15

been uncovered. Threads joins

0:17

the Fetaverse. How that whole

0:19

Microsoft hiring the Inflection AI team

0:21

actually maffs out and of course

0:23

the weekend long range suggestions. Here's

0:26

what you missed today in the world of tech. So

0:33

the fallout from the DOJ

0:35

suit against Apple is roiling.

0:38

Lots of people are taking note of the fact that

0:40

in its lawsuit, the government

0:42

alleges CarPlay lets Apple exert too

0:44

much control over the auto industry.

0:48

Some analysts say the DOJ may

0:50

be misunderstanding CarPlay or that this

0:52

is flat out wrong, but this

0:54

is an interesting detail. Quoting

0:56

the Verge, the DOJ says that

0:58

like smartphones, vehicle infotainment systems have

1:00

become a new way in which

1:02

Apple exhibits anti-competitive behavior to harm

1:04

consumers as well as its competitors.

1:07

Apple's plans to introduce a more immersive

1:10

version of CarPlay in which the system

1:12

displays key aspects of the vehicle's functions

1:14

like speed and HVAC are

1:16

further evidence of the company's illegal monopoly

1:18

over smartphones, prosecutors say. By

1:21

applying the same playbook of restrictions to CarPlay,

1:23

Apple further locks in the power of the

1:25

iPhone by preventing the development of other disintermediating

1:28

technologies that interoperate with the

1:30

phone but reside off-device, the

1:33

lawsuit says. The inclusion

1:35

of CarPlay as well as digital key

1:37

functions through Apple's wallet feature came as

1:39

a surprise to some analysts who say

1:42

that the DOJ may be misunderstanding the

1:44

utility and functions of the phone mirroring

1:46

system. This is especially

1:48

true for the next generation version,

1:50

which prosecutors described insidiously as quote,

1:52

taking over all of the screens,

1:55

sensors and gauges in a car,

1:57

forcing users to experience driving as an

1:59

iPhone. centric experience if they want to

2:01

use any of the features provided by CarPlay."

2:05

That's misleading. Sam Abuel-Samid, Principal Analyst

2:07

at Guidehouse Insights and an expert

2:09

on vehicle software, said, "... even

2:12

with the next-generation systems, OEMs don't actually

2:14

have to let Apple take over all

2:16

the screens," he said in an email.

2:18

"... they can limit the interface to

2:20

whichever screens they want." Automakers

2:23

still need to build a basic software

2:25

interface so vehicle owners can adjust their

2:27

air conditioning, change the radio station, or

2:30

operate native navigation maps, Abuel-Samid

2:32

said. "... they can't assume

2:34

every vehicle owner has a smartphone, let alone

2:36

an iPhone, that they'll project on their car's

2:38

infotainment screen, and the car needs to be

2:40

able to function in the absence of a

2:42

smartphone." I

2:44

will note the news, though, recently that

2:47

GM was abandoning CarPlay in coming years

2:49

and ginning up its own Android-based system.

2:54

Over at Six Colors, Jason Snell

2:57

says that the DOJ's case has

2:59

some strong points but also makes

3:01

silly arguments like Apple affecting the, quote,

3:03

flow of speech via Apple

3:05

TV Plus. Quote, "... the

3:08

document alleges that Apple talks a good game

3:10

when it comes to privacy and security, but

3:12

that it favors them when it's convenient and

3:14

not when it's not. It calls

3:16

Apple's privacy and security justifications and, quote,

3:18

elastic shield that can stretch or contract

3:20

to serve Apple's interests. The

3:23

examples in the document include continuing to rely

3:25

on the insecure SMS protocol for cross-platform text

3:27

and letting Google be the default search engine

3:29

when more private options are available." Many of

3:32

the DOJ arguments come down to this. "...

3:34

every feature that Apple builds that makes it

3:36

harder to switch to an Android phone

3:38

is fundamentally anti-competitive. It's clear that

3:40

the DOJ envisions a competitive smartphone

3:42

market or, if that doesn't work,

3:45

performance smartphone market as one in

3:47

which there's as little friction as

3:49

possible when jumping between platforms." This

3:52

would mean Apple offering third-party app access to

3:54

features it currently keeps for itself. One

3:56

could argue that Apple's behavior has already begun to change

3:59

due to pressure as it launched its new

4:01

journal app alongside an API that gives

4:03

other apps access to the same data

4:05

as its own app. It also suggests

4:07

that policies against game streaming and web

4:09

apps would also come under scrutiny. Some

4:12

arguments in the document seem silly. A

4:15

section describes how Apple will use its

4:17

sinister market powers to dominate the automotive

4:19

industry by inflicting CarPlay 2.0 on

4:22

users. Not only is Apple

4:24

struggling to get CarPlay into cars by

4:26

major American manufacturers, but I'm not sure

4:28

how better integrating our phones, which we

4:30

love, into our car infotainment systems, which

4:32

we frequently do not love, is some

4:34

sort of tragic outcome. Update,

4:36

Neelai Patel of The Verge suggests the

4:38

implication is that Apple won't let carmakers

4:40

support CarPlay in the future unless they

4:42

let Apple take over the entire auto

4:44

interface. That would certainly be a

4:46

power move, but the DOJ will need to prove

4:49

that for it to become more than another scary

4:51

story told around a campfire. And

4:53

then there's the danger of Apple tech

4:55

giant affecting the quote, flow of speech.

4:58

How you might ask? The answer is

5:01

Apple TV Plus, where Apple has committed

5:03

the grave sin of quote, controlling content.

5:05

Be right back. Gotta find some pearls to

5:07

clutch, end quote.

5:09

And finally, I'll share these threads

5:11

from Ian Beterage. Quote, Lord,

5:14

this Apple DOJ stuff is reminding

5:16

me of writing about Microsoft DOJ

5:18

and Microsoft European Commission a lot.

5:21

You start to be able to read the

5:23

subtle between the lines, parts of statements. For

5:25

example, when Apple says in its response, the

5:27

accusations, quote, threaten who we are. It's not

5:30

just fluffy words. It's sending a signal to

5:32

the DOJ that it regards this fight as

5:34

existential. And so an early

5:37

cheap settlement is unlikely. It's like

5:39

reading runes. So much fun.

5:41

Aside, it's worth remembering that the DOJ

5:43

historically loves a quick consent decree over

5:45

a long trial. But few people remember

5:48

is that Microsoft DOJ kicked off in 1993 and

5:50

was settled with a

5:52

consent decree in 1994. It took Microsoft

5:55

breaking that consent decree to take the

5:57

case back to court, end quote. Unrelated,

6:05

but I'll note here that researchers

6:07

have found an unpatchable vulnerability in

6:09

Apple's M series of chips that

6:11

lets attackers extract secret keys from

6:14

Macs during cryptographic operations.

6:16

Cloning ours Technica. The

6:18

flaw, a side channel allowing end-to-end

6:21

extractions when Apple chips run implementations

6:23

of widely used cryptographic protocols, can't

6:26

be patched directly because it stems

6:28

from the microarchitectural design of the

6:30

silicon itself. Instead, it

6:32

can only be mitigated by building

6:35

defenses into third-party cryptographic software that

6:37

could drastically degrade M series performance

6:39

when executing cryptographic operations, particularly on

6:41

the earlier M1 and M2 generation.

6:43

The vulnerability can be exploited when

6:45

the targeted cryptographic operation and the

6:48

malicious application with normal user system

6:50

privileges run on the

6:52

same CPU cluster. The

6:54

attack, which the researchers have named GoFetch,

6:56

uses an application that doesn't require root

6:58

access, only the same user privileges needed

7:01

by most third-party applications installed on a

7:03

Mac OS system. M series

7:05

chips are divided into what are known as

7:07

clusters. The M1, for example, has two clusters,

7:09

one containing four efficiency cores and the other

7:12

four performance cores. As long as

7:14

the GoFetch app and the targeted cryptography

7:16

app are running on the same performance cluster,

7:18

even when on separate cores within that

7:21

cluster, GoFetch can mine enough secrets to

7:23

leak a secret key. The

7:25

attack works against both classical encryption algorithms

7:27

and a newer generation of encryption that

7:29

has been hardened to withstand anticipated attacks

7:31

from quantum computers. The GoFetch app requires

7:33

less than an hour to extract a

7:35

2048-bit RSA key and a little over

7:39

two hours to extract a 2048-bit Diffie-Hellman key. The

7:43

attack takes 54 minutes to extract the material required

7:45

to assemble a Kiber 512 key

7:48

and about 10 hours for a Delitium 2

7:50

key, not counting offline time needed to

7:52

process the raw data. The GoFetch

7:54

app connects to the targeted app and feeds it

7:56

inputs that it signs or decrypts. abstracts

8:00

the app secret key that it uses

8:02

to perform these cryptographic operations. This

8:05

mechanism means the targeted app need not

8:07

perform any cryptographic operations on its own

8:09

during the collection period." META

8:18

has rolled out Thread's FED-averse integration

8:20

into beta in the US, Canada,

8:22

and Japan, letting users

8:24

cross-post and view likes from federated

8:26

platforms like Mastodon, quoting

8:28

the Verge. Thread's previewed its

8:30

FED-averse integration earlier this week during the FED-a

8:32

forum. As outlined on its support

8:35

page, META says that you must have a

8:37

public account to turn on FED-averse sharing, which

8:39

will allow users to share to other servers,

8:41

to search for and follow your profile, view

8:44

your posts, interact with your content, and share

8:46

your content to anyone on or off their

8:48

server." There are

8:50

still a few limitations, though. The beta currently

8:52

doesn't let users view replies and follows from

8:55

the FED-averse, for example. META also

8:57

can't promise that when you delete a federated post

8:59

on Threads, it will also get deleted

9:01

on the other platforms it was shared on,

9:03

end quote. More

9:10

interesting details on that whole Microsoft

9:12

hiring Mustafa Suleiman and the Inflection

9:14

team. A source says, Microsoft

9:16

agreed to pay Inflection around $650 million when

9:19

hiring its staff, mostly

9:22

via a licensing deal that makes Inflection's

9:25

models available for sale on Azure, quoting

9:27

the information. The startup is

9:29

using the licensing fee to help provide its

9:31

investors with a modest return on their capital,

9:34

according to a second person who is briefed

9:36

on the arrangement. To cushion the blow for

9:38

its investors, Inflection has promised to pay them

9:40

more than the value of their original investment

9:42

while allowing them to retain equity in the

9:44

startup, an unusual move for a company that

9:47

hasn't been acquired or liquidated. Users

9:49

in the company's first major round of funding a $225 million

9:51

investment from venture firm Greylock

9:54

hedge fund Dragonear Investment Group and others

9:56

will receive one and a half times

9:58

their investment, according to the person involved

10:00

in the deal. Investors in a subsequent

10:02

$1.3 billion funding round last year will

10:04

receive 1.1 times their

10:06

investment, the person said. Microsoft invested

10:08

in both rounds but the vast

10:10

majority of the funding came from

10:12

other investors such as former Microsoft

10:14

CEO Bill Gates, former Google CEO

10:17

Eric Schmidt, Nvidia and Inflexion co-founder

10:19

Reed Hoffman, which together led the

10:21

later round. Inflexion likely hasn't spent

10:23

much of that capital, which means it could also

10:25

use that cash to give the investors a return.

10:28

In addition to a $620 million licensing

10:30

fee, Microsoft has also agreed to pay

10:32

Inflexion about $30 million to waive any

10:34

legal rights related to the mass hiring,

10:36

and it renegotiated a $140 million line

10:39

of credit that aimed to help Inflexion finance

10:41

its operations as well as pay for Microsoft

10:43

services, said the person involved in the deal.

10:46

The details of the Inflexion deal provide

10:48

a window into the intricate partnerships inked

10:51

between major providers of cloud services and

10:53

AI startups, which have voracious computing needs

10:55

related to their large language models. Microsoft,

10:58

Google and Amazon have poured billions of

11:00

dollars into AI startups such as OpenAI

11:02

and Anthropic. Those startups in turn pay

11:04

the cloud companies for compute services and

11:06

also sometimes benefit from revenue sharing agreements.

11:08

These deals, whose terms are often closely

11:11

guarded, have given big tech companies access

11:13

to highly coveted AI technology and researchers.

11:16

They have also allowed those big companies

11:18

to sidestep the type of antitrust scrutiny

11:20

that waylaid potential tech acquisitions such as

11:23

Adobe's $20 billion attempted purchase of design

11:25

software company Figma. The Federal

11:27

Trade Commission, however, has recently said it is looking

11:29

into some of the cloud providers' startup investments. This

11:32

is the new way the magnificent

11:34

seven tech stocks are going to

11:36

do acquisitions. You get the intellectual

11:38

property and team without FTC scrutiny

11:40

or approval, said Venki Ganisman, a

11:42

managing director at Menlo Ventures, which

11:44

recently led an investment in Anthropic,

11:47

a rival to Inflexion that has received

11:49

funding from Google and Amazon. Anthropic's

11:51

arrangement with Inflexion is another reminder that

11:54

many investments in generative AI may not

11:56

enjoy the same rocket ship trajectory as

11:58

OpenAI, whose monthly revenue the 130

12:00

million dollars last year. There are increasing

12:02

signs that many of these startups will

12:05

find it challenging to grow revenue in

12:07

a crowded market. Inflection has said it

12:09

struggled to find an effective business model."

12:17

Did you know that even if you have a 401k for

12:20

retirement, you can

12:22

still have an IRA? Robinhood

12:24

has the only IRA that gives you a 3%

12:26

boost on every dollar

12:28

you contribute when you subscribe to

12:30

Robinhood Gold. But get this, now

12:33

through April 30th, Robinhood is even boosting

12:35

every single dollar you transfer in from

12:37

other retirement accounts with a 3% match.

12:40

That's right, no cap on the 3%

12:42

match. Robinhood Gold gets you the

12:44

most for your retirement thanks to their IRA

12:47

with a 3% match. This offer is good

12:49

through April 30th. Get

12:51

started at robinhood.com/boost.

12:54

Subscription fees apply and now for

12:56

some legal info. Claim as of

12:58

Q1 2024 validated by Radius Global

13:01

Market Research. Investing involves risk, including

13:03

loss. Limitations apply to IRAs

13:05

and 401ks. 3% match

13:08

requires Robinhood Gold for one year from the

13:10

date of first 3% match. Must

13:12

keep Robinhood IRA for five years. The 3%

13:14

matching on transfers is

13:16

subject to specific terms and conditions. Robinhood

13:19

IRA available to US customers in

13:21

good standing. Selling

13:27

a little or

13:29

a lot? Shopify

13:32

helps you do your thing however you

13:34

can change. Shopify is the global commerce

13:36

platform that helps you sell at every

13:38

stage of your business from the launcher

13:40

online shop stage to the first real

13:42

life store stage all the way to

13:44

the did we just hit a million

13:46

orders stage? Shopify is there

13:48

to help you grow whether you're selling

13:50

scented soap or offering outdoor outfits. Shopify

13:52

helps you sell everywhere from their all

13:55

in one e-commerce platform to their in-person

13:57

POS system wherever and whatever you're selling

13:59

Shopify. got you covered. Shopify

14:01

helps you turn browsers into buyers with

14:03

the internet's bus-converting checkout, 36% better

14:06

on average compared to other leading commerce

14:08

platforms. And sell more

14:10

with less effort thanks to

14:12

Shopify Magic, your AI-powered all-star.

14:14

Shopify transformed resumewriters.com from the

14:16

spaghetti code back-end I cobbled

14:18

together in college to the

14:21

world-class commerce platform it sits on today. And

14:23

Shopify can do the same for your business.

14:25

Sign up for a

14:27

$1 per month trial period at

14:29

shopify.com/ ride, all lowercase. Go

14:32

to shopify.com/ride now to

14:34

grow your business no

14:36

matter what stage you're

14:38

in. shopify.com/ride. Quick

14:42

omnibus section here to note

14:44

that the Microsoft event yesterday was

14:46

sort of a big nothing sauce for our purposes.

14:49

They unveiled the Surface Laptop 6

14:51

and Surface Pro 10, largely targeting

14:53

enterprises, adding a copilot key, a

14:55

neural processing unit for Windows 11's

14:57

AI features and more. And

15:01

Reddit closed up 48% on its first

15:03

day of trading yesterday at $50.44

15:05

per share valuing the company at

15:07

about $9.5 billion on

15:09

a fully diluted basis. Hitting

15:11

your valuation is one thing, first day

15:14

pop is another. Shows that

15:16

public market investors are salivating for certain

15:18

types of opportunities and I would

15:20

have maybe suspected Reddit was maybe one of

15:22

the weaker ones. As

15:24

the morning brew thread I re-threaded yesterday

15:27

said, looks like IPOs are back on

15:29

the menu boys. Time

15:36

for the weekend long-range suggestions and I won't

15:38

quote as much today just for the purposes

15:40

of time but I still have plenty for

15:42

you. First up, Steven Levy

15:44

has an in-depth look at the 2017 Attention

15:47

is All You Need paper, the breakthrough that

15:49

led to this AI moment and what will

15:51

probably go down as epoch making and defining

15:54

in the history of technology. He

15:56

also profiles the eight Google researchers

15:58

who co-authored the paper Quote,

16:01

Uzkorite thought a self-attention model could potentially

16:03

be faster and more effective than recurrent

16:05

neural nets. The way it handles information

16:07

was also perfectly suited to the powerful

16:09

parallel processing chips that were being produced

16:11

en masse to support the machine learning

16:13

boom. Instead of using a

16:15

linear approach, look at every word and sequence, it

16:17

takes a more parallel one, look at a bunch

16:20

of them, together. If done

16:22

properly, Uzkorite suspected you could use

16:24

self-attention exclusively to get better results.

16:26

Not everyone thought this idea was

16:28

going to rock the world, including

16:30

Uzkorite's father who had scooped up two

16:32

Google Faculty Research Awards while his son was

16:34

working for the company. People raised

16:37

their eyebrows because it dumped out

16:39

all of the existing neural architectures.

16:41

Jacob Uzkorite says, say goodbye

16:43

to recurrent neural nets? Here say, from

16:45

dinner table conversations I had with my

16:47

dad, we weren't necessarily seeing eye to eye.

16:50

In the higher echelons of Google, the work

16:52

was seen as just another interesting AI project.

16:55

I asked several of the Transformers folks whether their

16:58

bosses ever summoned them for updates on the project.

17:00

Not so much. But, quote, we

17:02

understood that this was potentially

17:05

quite a big deal, says Uzkorite, and

17:07

it caused us to actually obsess over one of the

17:09

sentences in the paper towards the end where we comment

17:11

on future work, end quote. That

17:14

sentence anticipated what might come next, the application of

17:16

Transformer models to basically all forms of human expression.

17:20

We are excited about the future of

17:22

attention-based models, they wrote. We plan to

17:24

extend the Transformer to problems involving input

17:26

and output modalities other than text, and

17:28

to investigate images, audio, and video. A

17:30

couple of nights before the deadline, Uzkorite

17:32

realized they needed a title for the

17:34

paper. Jones noted that the team had

17:36

landed on a radical rejection of the

17:38

accepted best practices, most notably

17:41

LSTMs, for one technique, attention.

17:44

The Beatles, Jones recalled, had named the song All

17:46

You Need Is Love. Why not call the paper

17:48

Attention Is All You Need? The Beatles? I'm

17:51

British, says Jones. It literally took five seconds of

17:53

thought. I didn't think they would use it, end

17:55

quote. Businessweek takes a look at the

17:57

super cheap electric vehicles, trying to get the best of the best of the best of the

17:59

best. China is currently churning out,

18:02

quote, no American car buyer today can

18:04

purchase a Chinese brand's electric vehicle. And

18:06

no one is really sure when these

18:08

EVs will arrive on US shores. But

18:10

the prospect of cheap Chinese made EVs

18:12

is already causing sleepless nights in Detroit.

18:15

The primary threat comes from cars

18:17

such as BYD's Seagull hatchback, which

18:20

features angular styling, a two-tone dashboard

18:22

shaped like a seagull's wing, and

18:24

six airbags. There's even a 10-inch

18:26

rotating touchscreen for its infotainment system.

18:28

BYD's company slogan, build your dreams,

18:31

is embossed on the rear of the vehicle. But

18:33

the car's most extraordinary feature is its

18:35

$9,698 price tag. That

18:39

undercuts the average price of an American EV

18:41

by more than $50,000 and

18:43

is only a little more than a

18:46

high-end Vespa scooter. Such aggressive

18:48

pricing by BYD, which surpassed Tesla in

18:50

late 2023 to become the world's largest

18:52

producer of electric vehicles, is indicative of

18:55

how Chinese auto manufacturers will likely force

18:57

US makers to pivot away from mainly

18:59

producing expensive second cars for the affluent

19:01

and toward more reasonably priced EVs for

19:04

the everyman. For now, the

19:06

Chinese onslaught is being kept at bay in

19:08

America by stiff tariffs and moves to erect

19:10

even tougher trade barriers against the US's geopolitical

19:13

adversary. But the Chinese market accounts for about

19:15

70% of all EVs

19:17

sold globally. So China's push to lower

19:19

prices is causing a ripple effect that

19:21

can't be ignored in the long term,

19:23

even if political maneuvering by American lawmakers

19:26

manages to slow the Asian giant's automotive

19:28

advance towards the US, the world's most

19:30

profitable car market." End quote. Finally,

19:33

not tech, but The Verge

19:35

takes a look at the sad, slow

19:37

death of the seminal music blog Pitchfork.

19:40

Quote, Pitchfork didn't stop doing good

19:43

work, but another wave of changing

19:45

tech in music and on the broader internet

19:47

has seriously reduced its power as a tastemaker.

19:49

As a result, the internet native publication was

19:51

acquired and then bungled by an old school

19:54

magazine publisher. Speaking with former Pitchfork staffers

19:56

and music writers, I wanted to know what is

19:58

the purpose of a music magazine And

20:00

more critically, without journalism, what happens to

20:03

music? After conversations with eight people, I

20:05

have come to believe that Condé Nast

20:07

certainly doesn't know. Does anyone

20:09

else? End quote. No

20:20

weekend bonus episodes for you this weekend for

20:22

the second week in a row. Our

20:25

distinguished guests had to reschedule, which means

20:27

that we might have two bonus episodes

20:30

next weekend, we shall see. Ah,

20:33

scheduling and admin, how the sausage of

20:35

podcasting is made. Talk to you on

20:37

Monday.