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After a court ruled that Google has abused its market dominance in internet search,
the U.S. Department of Justice says that it's considering structural remedies,
which is a boring antitrust term that means forcing the company to sell off parts of its business.
Breaking up Google is only one of a suite of potential remedies that the DOJ will be recommending
as options to the judge in the case, Omic meta,
who is almost definitely not just Mark Zuckerberg in a black robe and rubber mask.
It's hard to believe that Google might actually get chopped up and sold for spare parts,
mostly because it's been over 40 years since the last time
U.S. antitrust regulators actually broke up a company,
the 1982 breakup of the Bell system. Microsoft nearly got the Solomon baby treatment 24 years ago,
but that case was appealed and then eventually settled out of court with serious restrictions
for how Microsoft was allowed to do business going forward. Google is clearly taking the possibility seriously,
however, and has argued that the DOJ's proposals
are radical and sweeping and a potential risk
to consumers, businesses, and developers. That's what I say whenever I got a broom in my hands.
I'm radical and sweeping. Google plans to appeal the decision,
but it won't have the opportunity until meta, the judge, not the company,
decides on an appropriate remedy, most likely by August 2025,
meaning that this case will most likely drag on for at least a few more years.
In far lower stakes, Google antitrust news, a judge has ordered Google to allow third-party app stores
to access the Play Store's app collection. Google likewise plans to appeal this decision,
though it might be cheaper if Sundar Pichai just challenged Epic CEO Tim Sweeney to a fistfight
in the nearest Waffle House parking lot. Just an idea.
Hackers connected to the Chinese government have infiltrated several US internet service providers,
including AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen. They were scared off by the customer service.
The hackers reportedly had access to these networks for several months, and they gained that access
through a system of security backdoors that are legally required by the US government
for use in wiretapping. Okay.
The extent of the attack and what information the hackers had access to is still being investigated,
but if you're wondering how bad this is, the answer is very.
The Chinese government has denied being behind these attacks and even pretended to be hurt by the accusation,
despite the fact that their government, and basically every other government,
is pulling stuff like this all the time. But not us.
However, this kind of attack highlights a deeper problem with the US government's approach to system security,
where it has long-pressured tech companies to embed hardware and software backdoors in their products
for the sake of its own convenience. Despite the very real risk that a malicious actor
could exploit the exact same route to cause serious harm,
like what we're seeing right now. This was Apple's argument when they were pressured
by the FBI to access devices belonging to alleged mass shooters,
and the company has largely been vindicated. Buy your mom an iPhone,
because she's probably not a terrorist. When would she launch the attack?
She spends all her time with me. Barbara, are you doing something I don't like?
Barbara, you're in big trouble. EV startup Fisker has run into a potentially serious snag
in its bankruptcy plans. It has no way of migrating its EV's cloud operations
onto its new owner's servers. For context, in June, Fisker reached an agreement
with New York-based rental company, American Lease,
to buy its remaining fleet of 3,300 vehicles
for $46.3 million. However, Fisker only informed American Lease
that they couldn't transfer the EV's server links last Friday, when they had already paid $42.5 million
and accepted 1,100 ocean SUVs. It is currently unclear how long Fisker has known
about this extremely relevant technical issue. American Lease has therefore filed an emergency objection
to Fisker's liquidation plan. They wanted the liquidation plan to be more solid.
Psst, psst. The Department of Justice has filed its own objection
in response to claims that Fisker has been trying to make ocean owners pay for their own recall repairs,
which is very much illegal. Fisker is likewise attracting ominous attention
from the SEC, who are investigating the company,
but haven't said exactly why. That's just what happens when you're a struggling company
failing to meet its contractual obligations. You start seeing the silhouette of SEC chairman Gary Gensler
every time you close your eyes, like the Grim Reaper.
Does that happen to people? Believe it or not, in 1964, this show won the Nobel Prize
for quickest bid. Now that's something to tell your grandkids. YouTube has started hiding the Skip Button Timer
on its mobile app just a week after some Reddit users
reported seeing a grayed out Skip Button Timer on desktop.
Now it might not be the worst thing, as seen in a screen recording from Android Police,
the length of the unskippable portion is still shown in the SEC bar,
and the Skip Button appears after that portion is done.
And a YouTube spokesperson said the change is meant to allow users to focus on the ads.
Yeah, that's why I don't watch YouTube ads. The distracting Skip Button.
Just can't take my eyes off it. It's gorgeous.
ASUS's new Nitropath RAM Slot design
can apparently boost speeds by up to 400 mega transfers per second in a peculiar way.
The tech has no direct improvements for populated RAM Slots, but for the unpopulated ones.
Turns out that the metal contacts in empty slots
act like antennas, generating electrical noise
that interferes with RAM at high speeds.
It's like how everyone's wisdom teeth accidentally pick up secret CIA transmissions.
That's everyone, right? That happens to you, right? Nitropath Slots solve this by shortening the contacts.
Though the tech was announced back in August, it's finally arriving on select high-end ASUS motherboards
and should come to other OEMs sometime next year,
according to YouTuber Der Bauer and my teeth.
Leaked slides allegedly from Intel's imminent unveiling
of its Core Ultra 200 series desktop CPUs, AKA Aero Lake, show the upcoming flagship
Core Ultra 9285K, providing lower FPS on average
than its predecessor, the Core i9-14900K.
Unless we're gonna get a Ultra 9295K at some point, we don't know.
Although the Aero Lake chip is using 80 watts less than the older model, and it has eight fewer threads
thanks to Intel removing hyperthreading, it's a bit weird that Intel is advertising
their new product with a promise of more modest performance.
I don't know, maybe that's their marketing angle. This CPU isn't big and flashy, it's very demure,
very mindful of how much power it's using. This guy uses TikTok.
Meta has now confirmed that they will be training its AI on pictures and videos taken
using Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, after previously refusing to publicly discuss
whether or not they do so. Oh, I guess, why would that be?
It's not, guys, this isn't, why are we even worrying about this? You can technically opt out of the training
by not using the multimodal AI capabilities
of your multimodal AI-powered smart glasses.
Meta will also use your voice convos with the AI for training,
though you can actually opt out of that the first time you log in to the Ray-Ban Meta app.
But please don't if you're in Australia or the UK,
both countries that just got access to the AI. Zuck needs that voice data
so he can learn how to tell what the hell you're saying. He has no idea that New Zealand even exists.
Don't tell him that. Why do you say words like that? And speaking of, AI won big at this year's Nobel Prizes.
The Prize for Chemistry was awarded to American biochemist David Baker,
as well as Demi Hassabi and John Jumper of Google DeepMind
for their involvement in the development of protein structure prediction AI, AlphaFold.
They're doing chemistry, I guess. The Prize for Physics went to professors John Hopfield
and Jeffrey Hinton, whose work laid the foundation for modern neural networks.
This is confusing. All science is just AI now. You know, AI, physics.
And the Nobel Prize for Biology is gonna go to Boston Dynamics.
Hinton, often called one of the godfathers of AI,
has expressed regrets about his life's work and was reportedly flabbergasted to receive the prize.
You and me both. Many in the scientific community were equally flabbergasted
with German physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, and also a YouTuber now,
noting that the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics
wasn't even being awarded to an achievement in physics, but she seems just kinda grumpy all the time,
so I can see that. But your award for sitting through an entire episode
is an invitation to come back on Friday for more tech news.
We're gonna do the same thing. But different.
But different.