A little bit of tech news in my life, a little bit of tech news by my side,
a little bit of tech news is all I need, a little bit of tech news is what I see.
ARM has given Qualcomm 60 days notice that their architectural license agreement will be cancelled,
according to Bloomberg, based on alleged trademark infringement and breach of contract in 2022.
The loss of this license would be potentially devastating for Qualcomm,
which uses ARM architecture in almost all of their products.
Shares for both companies fell in response to the news.
Qualcomm by 3% and ARM by 6.4%, indicating that people watching the market are nervous
that this escalation could cause harm on both sides.
If you didn't know, ARM was already suing Qualcomm over this issue,
and in fact their trial is coming up on December 16th.
Only 53 days from now, and only a handful of days before ARM's deadline.
They can start the trial, I guess, and then see what happens.
It's a bit of a weird time to send a 60-day notice. At the heart of the disagreement is Qualcomm's 2021 acquisition of server CPU startup Nuvia.
At the time, both Qualcomm and Nuvia had separate licenses from ARM,
but ARM contended that Nuvia's license and the chip designs based on that license
were non-transferrable, and that Qualcomm had a duty to renegotiate its contract upon acquisition
of Nuvia. Qualcomm, of course, went ahead and incorporated Nuvia's tech into its latest
Snapdragon X series of laptop chips. The suspicious timing of this most recent
threat has led commenters, who, quote, weren't born yesterday, to speculate that ARM is trying to
force, nay, strong ARM, a resolution in its own favor. They just, like,
they like a certain kind of limb. According to Korean news outlet MK, Intel has proposed a
foundry alliance with their foundry rival, Samsung, so they can come together in their fight against
industry-leading semiconductor foundry, TSMC. There's a lot of drama in the foundry world.
It's kind of a, the enemy of my enemy is also getting his ass beat kind of situation.
Classic. Samsung is doing somewhat better than Intel's struggling foundry division with a foundry
market share of 11.5%, but TSMC has a 62.3% share of the foundry market and a 92% share
of advanced semiconductors. There's plenty of ways that an Intel-Samsung team-up could help
both companies, such as sharing facilities or R&D collaborations, which isn't to say that TSMC's
situation is all roses. The company recently notified the US government that some of their chips
wound up in high-end Huawei devices, which would violate US imposed export restrictions.
Of course, that's only if TSMC knew about the diversion of its chips, which I don't,
we just put them out the door. We don't know where they go. Both companies deny working with each
other, and there's some indication that TSMC identified the client they produced these specific
chips for and halted chipmints to them in mid-October. Which is right now.
It's exactly how somebody not guilty might act in these circumstances,
but it wouldn't be the first time a major company intentionally violated a trade ban with China.
The opium war is for one. In AI news, Anthropic has released a new tool called
computer use that allows their chatbot, Claude, to follow multi-step instructions and complete
basic tasks by taking control of a user's mouse and keyboard. While in the grand scheme of things,
it's a somewhat minor and obvious progression in AI ability, it also feels like foreshadowing
from a Black Mirror episode. Despite these kinds of new and unnerving advances, Microsoft and Open
AI have announced that they will be giving a small group of local media organizations
$10 million to have their newsrooms try using AI tools. Because this is a technology so valuable,
you have to literally bribe businesses to use it. It'll help you, we swear. Just try it.
The AI isn't making us do this. Trust me. While there's probably some value in local news outlets
getting access to high-tech resources, we should probably be relatively cautious about introducing
computers who lie into the news. There may be some hope for the concept of reality though,
as Google is now making SynthID, its developer tool that watermarks AI content,
more widely available. Even without a watermark, however, Alcon Entertainment is pretty sure that
Tesla used an AI-generated image based on Blade Runner 2049 at a promotional event for the CyberCab.
In part, it's because Tesla approached Alcon to lease the rights and the entertainment company
refused, which is why Alcon is now suing. See how that works? Honestly, it's like yesterday,
your co-worker's dog went missing and then you show up with an almost identical dog in a fake
mustache. This is Alberto. He has nothing to do with your dog. Always being watched is a reality
of the modern world. I'm being watched by you while you're being watched by interdimensional
beings called QuickBits. Some of them are friendly. A lawsuit has been filed in Norfolk,
Virginia, over a network of 172 AI-powered cameras that track what cars are driving by
using license plate recognition. The cameras are sold by Flock, who has sold similar networks to
more than 5,000 other communities in the United States. The lawsuit claims that police can track
citizens' daily habits and routines using the cameras. Because they've got nothing else to do.
It argues that police can infer where one of the plaintiffs, Lee Schmidt, is going,
based on where he turns at a monitored intersection near his house. And Schmidt essentially can't
leave his neighborhood without being caught on camera. And since he's always on camera,
he always looks 10 pounds heavier than he is. This is an issue. They don't even get his good side.
Apple is reportedly working on a new dedicated game store and social app for iPhone, according to
a report from 9 to 5 Mac. Sources tell the outlet that the app will feature game suggestions and
tabs for friends and challenges. Apparently, Apple is even experimenting with FaceTime and
iMessage integration to help gamers connect with each other. The timing is a little suspect,
seeing as Epic just won the right to put their game store on iOS in the EU. If Apple is copying
Epic, I really want to see Tim Cook promote a Fortnite clone at WWDC. Alright squad, where are
we dropping? I will end you. A proposed FCC rule that would require carriers to unlock phones for
use on other networks 60 days after activation is shockingly unpopular with the aforementioned
carriers. In a filing with the FCC, T-Mobile, who locks their phones for up to a year, said that
mandating earlier unlocks would mean that consumers risk losing access to the benefits of free or
heavily subsidized handsets. A risk that T-Mobile would be powerless to do anything about. AT&T
agrees, saying such a policy would harm consumers by creating upward pressure on handset prices. Why?
Why do quarks spin? Because little tiny overpaid executives make them, obviously. Fun fact in
Canada, phones are legally required to be unlocked. And it's okay, it's fine. TikTok's STEM tab,
which shows curated educational material, is now enabled by default on the app,
meaning that it's now just as easy to fat-finger away into an explanation of the Doppler effect as
it is somebody's sleepstream. The tab itself isn't new, it was added on March 14th, aka
Pi Day last year. Its increased prominence is probably an attempt by ByteDance to convince
lawmakers that an app as addictive as heroin is somehow educational. Hold on, there's something
there. Maybe we should give students heroin. And a satellite designed and built by Boeing,
of course, mysteriously shattered, oh god, this fucking company, I don't understand. And a
satellite designed and built by Boeing mysteriously shattered into at least 57 separate pieces.
Did they start building their things with paper glue or something? What's going on?
Just slam dunked it like Ramazern. This is while two astronauts sent into space by
Boeing's Starliner in June are still stranded on the International Space Station. It's not
going that much better for the company on land, either, as Boeing is trying to convince its workers
not to strike pleas for a sixth week. Of course, there was also the cabin panel blowout of a Boeing
Max jet back in January, so space, air, and land are losing fronts. Maybe try the sea?
Actually, maybe don't. But maybe you should try coming back on Friday for more tech news.
We promise there will be no incidents.