Clark Reid Tech Report

Spotify continues to be the 800 lb. gorilla of streaming, as it continues to gain users for the platform…but despite layoffs the first of the year, it is losing money. Appleinsider.com reports that the company bled away a quarter billion dollars first quarter, even after the reduction in staff. On the plus side, Spotify has 515 million active monthly users, which is a 22% increase from the previous year…their largest ever first quarter increase. The number of folks that pay to subscribe is up 15%, but attempts to expand into new types of audio hasn’t really helped the bottom line. The company projects that in this quarter, they will grow to 530 million users, with premium paid subscribers increasing to 217 million. 

Microsoft is expected to stop bundling Teams with the Office productivity suite. This is being reported by Financial Times, and it appears to be aimed at evading a European Union antitrust investigation. The Times says companies will eventually be able to buy Office with or without Teams installed, but how that will work is not clear yet. Microsoft is in talks with EU regulators right now. In 2020, remote work platform Slack, which is now part of Salesforce, complained to the EU about the bundling of Teams with Office. Microsoft hasn’t had to wrangle with the Europeans over restraint of trade since 2009, and seems to be keen on avoiding litigation and big fines. Stay tuned. 

On the word that a Pixel Fold phone may be imminent, Samsung is considering launching the Galaxy Z Fold 5 early, Instead of waiting until August for their next Unpacked event, Samsung may move it into July. According to  Androidcentral.com, Samsung expects the Pixel Fold to pretty well go head to head with the Z Fold in specs and design…not to mention price, which has been rumored to be $1799…right in the wheelhouse of the Z Fold. The Pixel appears in leaks to have a rather chunky hinge, and Samsung may have a leg up with a new hinge design that allows a thinner phone. The hinge is also expected to be more durable, and give the phone more water resistance and the Z Fold should sport wider displays, too. 

A lot of folks have been using Google Authenticator form their phones, just like lots of folks use Microsoft’s Authenticator. A problem has been, if your phone got lost or stolen, you were basically screwed. Now, zdnet.com reports that you will be able to back up and sync your one-time 2FA codes to your Google account via the cloud. That means you can access those same codes from a different device signed in with your Google account…especially if your primary device is unavailable. The updated apps are available now for both Android and iOS.

I’m Clark Reid, and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

After taking away thousands of legacy blue checkmarks on April 20th, Twitter has restored a number of them for accounts with large numbers of followers…even if they didn’t pay for Twitter Blue. This Blue check change has become a huge disaster for Elon Musk. Over the weekend, a number of dead celebrities have showed up with accounts after someone paid Twitter $8, and claimed to be the dead celeb. Accounts showed up with blue checks for Chadwick Boseman, Kobe Bryant, Anthony Bourdain, Paul Walker, Barbara Walters, Bob Saget, Kirstie Alley, and Michael Jackson…among others.

The Supreme Court has taken up a case on free speech and social media. According to reuters.com, the High Court will look at whether or not a public official can block their critics on social media. The case is an appeal of one from a couple school board members in Southern California. A lower court had ruled that they couldn’t block school parents on Facebook and Twitter when the parents were critical of the board members. Also rolled into the appeal is a case from a Michigan city official who blocked a citizen complaining about a local government’s COVID-19 response. It will be interesting to see the fusty old court wrangle with free speech as it applies on social media. 

The TV and video streaming market is quite fragmented at this point, but Netflix remains king of the hill for streaming. Bloomberg.com says Netflix accounts for between 7-8% of viewing every month, based on Nielsen research. No one else is close, except YouTube with a bit over 4%. In fact, Netflix has more watch time than Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max combined. Netflix also has the most shows in the top 10, followed by Disney. 

More details about Apple’s mixed reality headset we think will be unveiled at WWDC in June. 9to5mac.com reports that it will have a MagSafe connector that will run to a battery pack which is about the size as an iPhone MagSafe one. The pack will go in a pocket or clip to your belt, and give about 2 hours of run time for the headset. Apple obviously expects people to carry an extra battery pack or two…so you can fork over more money to them if you want to use the thing for longer. The MagSafe cable is not removable from the battery pack, and it plugs into the headset and locks in with a turn. No change in one thing…it’s still expected to cost around three grand.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Another terrible, very bad week for Elon Musk. Tesla reported net income for the first quarter yesterday of $2.51 billion. That’s down 24% from first quarter of 2022. TechCrunch.com notes that the EV maker has repeatedly dropped prices on its four models, the Model S, Model X, Model Y, and Model 3 in the US, Europe, and China. That’s boosted sales, with revenue up 24% over last year…but at the expense of profit margins. Meanwhile, this morning, SpaceX’s enormous Starship exploded 4 minutes after liftoff. “Starship just experienced what we call a rapid, unscheduled disassembly,” said John Insprucker, SpaceX’s principal integration engineer. Talk about double-talk…he could have cut to the chase…the sucker blew up!

Microsoft has dropped Twitter from its ad platform. According to mashable.com, Redmond will no longer support Twitter starting April 25…just 5 days from now. From that date, users will no longer be able to access their Twitter account through its Digital Marketing Center’s social media management tool, according to Microsoft. Users will also no longer be able to schedule, create, or manage tweets or tweet drafts. In addition, users won’t be able to view their past tweets and engagement on the Microsoft Advertising platform. In true form, Elon Musk is threatening to sue.

After Microsoft integrated ChatGPT into its Bing search engine, Google has been in high gear, rolling out the first tools of its Bard artificial intelligence chatbot in the next few weeks for search. Theverge.com says some employees have complained in internal messages that the system is a ‘pathological liar’ and have begged Google not to launch it. A Bloomberg report about this was based on talking to some 18 current and former Google employees. one employee noted how Bard would frequently give users dangerous advice, whether on topics like how to land a plane or scuba diving. Another said, “Bard is worse than useless: please do not launch.” Bloomberg says the company even “overruled a risk evaluation” submitted by an internal safety team saying the system was not ready for general use. Caveat emptor…let the buyer beware…and you ARE the buyer…you pay to use Google with troves of your data!

Well connected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo now says the upcoming 15 inch MacBook Air will have 2 different M2 chips available…but neither will be the Pro chip. 9to5mac.com reports that the M3 chip should be going into production in the second half of this year, followed by the M3 Pro and M3 Max versions. The 15 inch Air will just get an M2 chip with a couple varieties available…but really only more cores in one. This will pretty much be the same setup as the 13 inch MacBook Air. the bigger Air is expected this summer, and will probably be previewed at WWDC in June.

I’m Clark Reid, and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

The European union has agreed to a $50 billion dollar plan to boost production of semiconductor chips there. Thenextweb.com reports that the production will generate chips for everything from phones to cars to refrigerators. The EU plans to double their market share from 10% to 20% of the semiconductor market by 2030. This, coupled with the plants being built in the US that should come online next year should reduce both the US and Europe’s dependence on China for the essential components. 

Netflix is still angling to ding users for account sharing, but now it looks like the extra fee won’t hit US users until the 2nd quarter. According to engadget.com, Netflix has already imposed fees in 4 countries. They estimate there are over 100 million non-paying households mooching off friends or family. The fee hasn’t been set in stone yet, but the video streamer wants the skaters to at least pay something. In other news, Netflix will shut down its DVD rental business in September. I know, who knew people were still getting DVDs mailed to them? Netflix started with shipping DVDs about 25 years ago with the first DVD shipped a copy of Beetlejuice on March 10th, 1998. Netflix says it has shipped over 5.2 DVDs. The company says the most popular movie they ever shipped is The Blind Side. 

As announced earlier, Meta is continuing with another round of layoffs today. Vox.com says that in this stage, there could be another 4,000 employees that get chopped. The total for this group of cuts is supposed to be around 10,000 if Meta is to be believed. When the platform fired 11,000 back in November that was supposed to be all at the time…then Zuck announced these additional layoffs last month. This group is supposed to be mainly tech departments, with the next round in may to be primarily from the business portion of the company. Meta had about 86,000 employees at the end of 2022.

This week, a photograph won a contest, and the person that submitted it refused the prize, announcing that it had been made by artificial intelligence,. We also know that voices can be duplicated, and have talked here about deepfakes…where some creep uses the tech to put someone’s face on another body. Well hold on to your wallets! TechCrunch.com reports that the FTC is warning that AI tech like ChatGPT will be used to ‘turbocharge’ fraud. The FTC is already staffing up and putting in new tech to track fraud, and in February they launched a new Office of Technology to support blocking or tracking down fraudsters. 

I’m Clark Reid, and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.