Tech news, tech news, tech news.
Ha ha ha, tech news. Google has agreed to pay $700 million in damages
to US consumers as part of a settlement with every state attorney's general, everyone,
over the search giant's alleged anti-competitive play store rules.
I say alleged because Google has admitted to no wrongdoing as part of the settlement, of course.
Classic. 700 million is less than what the play store
makes in a month. And of course, Google Play users make up
a not insignificant percentage of the US population.
Thus, the settlement only guarantees a minimum payout of $2 per user
with more going to higher spending users. But hey, that's just enough money
to buy Super Meat Boy forever, twice.
Didn't think about that. Two forever's. Google has also agreed to simplify
side loading for at least the next five years and allow Android phone OEMs to pre-install
more apps on new phones for at least seven years. Yay, more Facebook apps you can't uninstall.
That's raised some concerns that phone manufacturers might pack devices with bloatware
even more than they currently do. In addition, Google's user choice billing system,
which was in the pilot phase, will be expanding so more developers can avoid paying
the play store's default 30% cut. They'll now have the option to pay
a much cheaper Google service fee of only 26%.
It's not so much better as it is slightly less worse.
Not a very good discount, but it would be a rich milk.
It seems that messaging service Beeper is struggling to find a permanent fix
for its Android-based iMessage app, Beeper Mini, after a few weeks of Apple whack-a-moling
the loopholes it was using before. Beeper's new, apparently temporary solution
requires users to have access to a max unique registration data.
The update allows users to share that data with others,
but there's still a finite number of Macs and a finite number of people willing to share that data
just so you can send fancy blue bubbles from your Nokia.
But cool kids will definitely stop swirling you now. One advantage of Beeper's new method
is that the Mac associated with the registration data has no access to the user's account or messages.
Another advantage is that the server farm method used by other bridging services,
and by Beeper themselves before Beeper Mini, potentially creates an anomalous number of users
all supposedly using one single computer,
which is exactly the kind of thing that draws the eye of Sauron,
and by Sauron, I mean Tim Cook. You cannot hide.
I see you. There is no life in the void.
Only death! AI is undoubtedly coming for everyone's jobs,
but Deloitte, one of the world's largest consulting firms,
wants to use AI to reduce the need for layoffs.
Deloitte hired 130,000 additional staff this year,
but found at the same time that thousands of their employees were at risk of redundancy
due to reduced demand for certain services. Rather than go through large swings of hirings and layoffs,
the entire tech industry, the past year and a half or two years, something,
Deloitte is using AI to assess existing employees' skills,
then creating a plan to shift them into higher demand roles.
And strangely, that's not the only positive AI news
today. Waymo has announced that a statistical analysis of over 7.1 million miles driven by its driverless cars
has found an 85% reduction in crashes resulting in injuries
and a 57% reduction in crashes reported by police
compared to human benchmarks. It's because AI's don't narc.
I feel like they'll narc even more. Stitches get stitches.
Is that AI? Though anyone interpreting that data
needs to account for the fact that Waymo only operates within a geofenced area in three US cities
and that robotaxis are far more likely to report minor accidents than humans,
many of whom just silently pray that nobody saw them back into that dumpster.
But just in case you thought your job was safe again, an AI has also used its little robot fingers
to beat humans at a rotating wooden maze game,
an unusual case of an AI surpassing people at a task that is both intellectual and physical.
So if that's your job, you're in the little maze game. Yeah, I'm the wooden maze, man.
You're in trouble. Let's close out this story with one of the funny reflections
on our changing relationship to technology. YouTuber Jay Schlatt posted a recent video
about the growing subgenre of AI covers inexplicably featuring his voice
and distinctive New York accent, to which he responded by releasing his own,
actually kind of amazing cover of Frank Sinatra's My Way.
I did it my way.
Quote, you for trying to replace me.
Hard warming. I'm gonna replace myself.
The only person who's gonna replace me is me. We can forgive scientists for mistakenly thinking
that the atom was the smallest possible unit of matter for decades,
when actually it's the quick bit, but you know, it's okay.
Telecom giant Comcast says that thanks to the widely exploited network hardware vulnerability
known as Citrix Bleed, 36 million of their Xfinity customers
have had personal data like names, contact info,
answers to security questions, and the last four digits of social security numbers
stolen by hackers. You know, hey, it's a tough world out there.
You know, nothing Comcast could do. Except maybe apply the patch that Citrix provided for them
on October 10th instead of waiting a week to get started.
What? They were busy. The internet pipes don't clean themselves.
Comcast CEO is in there wiping them manually.
There's a lot of gunk. Intel thinks it's still on track
to launch its next gen Battle Mage GPUs in 2024,
according to a roadmap shared by the company's Japanese branch.
If that launch goes the way that the first Arc GPU launch went,
this means that just before Christmas 2024,
you'll be able to go to the store and pick up your phone to read a press release about it.
It's not, because it's not, it's not gonna be there.
Intel's Arc gaming cards have gotten way better thanks to driver updates.
And by the time Battle Mage comes out, Team Blue may have a DLSS frame generation competitor
of its own if Intel sponsored research from the University of California is any indication.
So get excited for Intel's new GPUs or at least nice pictures of them to launch next year
or at some other time. Mercedes-Benz wants to use turquoise taillights
to communicate when a car is driving itself.
Only Nevada and California have approved testing of the light color,
but that's mainly because they're the only two states where the automakers conditionally autonomous
self-driving technology is legal. Frankly, I'm in favor of the choice.
I can't think of a more soothing color to see before your legs are taken out by a rogue AI.
Oh, that's so beautiful. You can always get a job in the metaverse.
Cause they got no legs.
The virtual reality ship keeps sinking, even though Zuck keeps plugging the holes
with billions of dollars. It's not watertight. Industry research firm, Cercana,
says sales of VR and AR devices declined by 40% this year,
even though Mark Zuckerberg specifically asked Santa
for the metaverse this Christmas. He even added tongue tracking to the Quest Pro
to better appeal to his fellow reptiles. But it turns out most bearded dragons
can't afford a $1,000 headset. Someone needs to do something.
And the EU is adding three adult sites, Pornhub, Strip Chat, and X-Videos.
I haven't even heard of the middle one. Strip Chat's just about chicken strips.
Just a bunch of boys getting together to discuss the best candies.
The EU's adding them to their list of very large online platforms or VLOPS.
These sites are now in the strictest regulatory classification
under its Digital Services Act, alongside heavy hitters like Amazon,
Meta, TikTok, Twitter, and Wikipedia. This decision will likely lead
to user age verification gates on all three sites,
but also provokes an interesting semantic discussion. Is Pornhub in some sense a social media site?
Can you be a Pornhub influencer? You can add other users as friends on there.
You also probably shouldn't, unless it's the guy- Who does calculus.
Yeah, he's having a great time. But you should come back on Friday for more tech news.
I promise, they won't get weird. It's not like, it'll be fine.
Please.