Microsoft may launch a mobile game store next year in one of its most ambitious attempts to take on Apple and Google.
In an interview with Financial Times, via CNET, CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer said the decision is contingent on the company’s Activision Blizzard acquisition being approved.
“We want to be in a position to offer Xbox and content from both us and our third-party partners across any screen where somebody would want to play,” Spencer told said. “Today, we can’t do that on mobile devices but we want to build towards a world that we think will be coming where those devices are opened up.”
Microsoft plans appear to line up with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) that will require Apple and Google to allow third-party app stores on their platforms. Once the legislation goes into effect in March 2024, Microsoft will be able to compete on far more level ground.
Apple has acknowledged missteps and said it will “make changes” after reports it mishandled 15 women’s allegations of sexual abuse.
Apple has long prided itself on being inclusive and focusing on human rights issues. In spite of that, a new report from Financial Times, via Business Insider, indicates the company’s PR team was dismissive and hostile towards 15 women who came forward with complaints.
In one case, a woman said a male colleague took her home after “a casual co-worker’s happy hour” and then undressed her and took photos of her after she fell asleep. In another case, a woman said she received constant sexual messages from a male colleague.
In the women’s cases, as well as 13 others, Apple’s HR team did little to nothing to help. Known as the People Team within the company, the department reportedly favored managers over employees, refusing to take action even when the women had hard proof of the alleged misconduct.
In some cases the complaints led to the women leaving Apple, while others were offered lump financial sums to keep quiet and not speak badly of the company.
“There are some accounts raised that do not reflect our intentions or our policies and we should have handled them differently, including certain exchanges reported in this story,” Apple told the FT. “As a result, we will make changes to our training and processes.”
As Insider points out, Apple’s veil of secrecy is increasingly being pierced by employees unhappy with the company’s decisions and directions. While many previous revelations have been about remote work and employees’ unwillingness to go back to the office, this revelation is far worse and does much more to tarnish Apple’s image.
For a company that prides itself on ‘thinking different,’ the People Team’s response to these allegations is a little too much ‘same old, same old.’ Hopefully, the company can address the issues and root out such unacceptable behavior.
H2L Technologies has developed technology to allow users to experience real pain in response to their metaverse activities.
The metaverse is the convergence of virtual, augmented, and in-person reality, with an emphasis on the virtual aspect. Companies in virtually every industry are racing to stake their claim in the metaverse, with banks opening offices and purchasing land in it.
H2L Technologies wants to make the virtual world as real as possible, developing tech that brings real-world pain into the metaverse.
“Feeling pain enables us to turn the metaverse world into a real [world], with increased feelings of presence and immersion,” H2L CEO Emi Tamaki told Financial Times, via The Byte.
Pain isn’t the only sensation the tech can provide, however.
H2L technology conveys weight and resistance feeling to users and avatars on the Metaverse, not only pain. Please read also her interview.
Tamaki sees her company’s tech as a way of creating fully immersive experiences, especially for those whose health limits their ability to travel and engage in certain activities, as is the case with her.
Space X CEO Elon Musk pushed back on accusations his company is cluttering space with its Starlink satellite constellation.
SpaceX has been racing to deploy its Starlink constellation in an effort to provide high-speed internet access worldwide. Unfortunately, the constellation’s rollout hasn’t been without controversy. Astronomers have complained that having thousands of satellites in the night sky will negatively impact their work. China recently complained to the UN that its space station had to make emergency maneuvers twice to avoid collision with the satellites.
Despite the growing complaints, Musk says his company’s satellites are not crowding orbit, and there is plenty of room.
In an interview with the Financial Times, via BBC News, Musk said “tens of billions” of satellites could safely be in orbit.
“Space is just extremely enormous, and satellites are very tiny,” said Musk.
“This is not some situation where we’re effectively blocking others in any way. We’ve not blocked anyone from doing anything, nor do we expect to,” he continued.
“A couple of thousand satellites is nothing. It’s like, hey, here’s a couple of thousand of cars on Earth, it’s nothing,” he added.
US officials are warning the EU not to single out American companies with “protectionist” tech policies.
The EU has a much higher standard for consumer protections and privacy, policies that have put it on a collision course with numerous US companies. In addition, some specific EU countries, like Ireland and the Netherlands, have worked out favorable tax deals with US companies. The EU has repeatedly tried to end those deals, although courts have so far ruled in favor of keeping them in place.
US officials are now warning the EU not to go too far in targeting US companies, according to the Financial Times, via Ars Technica. Of particular concern were comments by Andreas Schwab, a member of the European Parliament.
“We are particularly concerned about recent comments by the European Parliament rapporteur for the Digital Markets Act, Andreas Schwab, who suggested the DMA should unquestionably target only the five biggest US firms,” said an email, sent by National Security Council staff to the EU delegation, seen by the Financial Times.
The email continued: “Comments and approaches such as this make regulatory co-operation between the US and Europe extremely difficult and send a message that the [European] Commission is not interested in engaging with the United States in good faith to address these common challenges in a way that serves our shared interests.
“Protectionist measures could disadvantage European citizens and hold back innovation in member-state economies. Such policies will also hinder our ability to work together to harmonize our regulatory systems,” the email said.
US and EU officials have stressed the importance of working together to improve regulation of Big Tech. Not surprisingly, an NSC official told the Financial Times the segments the outlet saw did not reflect the full context. Either way, it’s clear fair scrutiny of American, as well as non-American, companies will likely be a critical negotiating point in any future agreements.
Fastly has said a single customer caused yesterday’s outage, an outage that had widespread repercussions.
Fastly made headlines yesterday when an issue with the company’s network led to a major outage. As a content delivery network, some of the biggest companies in the world rely on Fastly, including Amazon, the BBC, CNN, Financial Times, The New York Times, Reddit, Spotify, GitHub, Twitch, Stack Overflow, Hulu, HBO Max, Quora, PayPal, Shopify, Stripe and Vimeo.
According to TheStreet, the company rolled out a software update in May that introduced a bug that could be triggered under very specific circumstances. The bug only needed a single customer to have a very specific configuration for the bug to active, which ultimately happened.
“Even though there were specific conditions that triggered this outage, we should have anticipated it,” the company said. “We apologize to our customers and those who rely on them for the outage and sincerely thank the community for its support.”
A glitch at Fastly, a popular CDN, led to outages for some of the internet’s biggest sites Tuesday morning.
CDNs, or content delivery networks, are distributed networks of servers designed to help websites and web apps manage their user load and remain responsive. Fastly is a popular CDN option that helps power some of the biggest websites on the net.
Early Tuesday, a glitch at Fastly led to outages at the BBC, CNN, Financial Times, The New York Times, Reddit, Spotify, GitHub, Twitch, Stack Overflow, Hulu, HBO Max, Quora, PayPal, Shopify, Stripe and Vimeo.
Fastly confirmed the issue, and was able to quickly resolve it, although the outage illustrates the challenges associated with so many websites relying on a single point of potential failure.
“Today’s outage of major websites once again highlights the importance of access to online news and government services, underlining the importance of the internet for day to day living,” Matthew McDermott, Senior Officer, Access Partnership, a global tech policy consultancy, told WebPronews. “Fastly responded quickly to restored the issue but this serves as a reminder that resilience is an important part of digital infrastructure to modern life. Organisations and government bodies need to look at implementing the steps that look to assess, stabilize, improve and monitor to ensure this issue do not pose further problems in the future. Assessment is needed to determine the server’s bottleneck then stabilizing the issue with implementation of quick fixes will mitigate impact to broader stakeholders and users. After this, stakeholders will need to improve by augmenting and optimize server capabilities to ensure it meets the necessary needs. Lastly, regular monitoring will need to be set up using automated tools to help prevent future issues.”
Tesla is poised to take the unusual step of paying for semiconductors in advance in an effort to stay ahead of the shortage.
Semiconductors are in short supply as a result of the pandemic. Initially, production was hurt due to lockdowns and quarantines. The issue was later exacerbated by increased demand for computers, tablets and consoles, as individuals worked from home and increasingly turned to gaming for entertainment.
The end result has been a major semiconductor shortage, one that has impacted tech companies and automakers alike. Multiple automakers have had to suspend production, or ship vehicles without their full compliment of computer chips.
Tesla may be taking a novel approach, buying chips in advance to ensure it has the supply it needs, according to Financial Times, via Business Insider.
According to FT’s sources, Tesla is also looking at the possibility of buying its own semiconductor plant. The move, while ensuring its independence, would be extremely expensive and difficult to get off the ground.
Whatever route Tesla chooses, the company’s deliberations illustrate the desperate situation companies are finding themselves in.
Investors are reportedly urging Amazon to stop pressuring workers amid the first-ever vote on unionization by the company’s workers.
Amazon is notoriously anti-union, even going so far as to hire Pinkerton detectives to monitor and impede unionization efforts. The company has also been accused of illegally firing individuals who supported organizing. Most recently, Amazon has made waves with employees, pressuring workers in Bessemer, Alabama to vote against unionization.
According to The Financial Times, via Bloomberg, some of Amazon’s investors have had enough, urging the company to stop interfering with unionization efforts. The group is made up of more than 70 investors, collectively holding some $20 billion of the company’s shares. The comptrollers for the state of New York and New York City, BMO Global Asset Management, Sweden-based Folksam and Ohman Fonder, as well as the Church of England Pensions Board are just a few of the investors in question.
“As these workers seek to organize with [the union] for health, safety, and protection, Amazon’s investors are watching,” New York City comptroller Scott Stringer said, according to the FT. “There is power in their unity and power in labour, and they have my full support as they fight for a safe, fair workplace.”
The investor backlash is just the latest setback Amazon has faced, due to its dealings with employees. The company recently settled a case with the FTC over stealing some $62 million in tips from its Flex drivers. If the company doesn’t make some major changes, it will likely continue to face fallout and backlash from employees, lawmakers and investors alike.
Microsoft Teams is one of the primary corporate communications platforms, but recent information suggests it collects disturbing amounts of information.
Since the start of the pandemic, Microsoft Teams has experienced meteoric growth, surpassing rival Slack in the corporate messaging market. The company has continued to add features and abilities, making Teams a full-featured platform. As such, the product is increasingly important to Microsoft.
In March 2020, CEO Satya Nadella said Teams had “become critical infrastructure for people who are doing remote work.” Similarly, Nadella told The Financial Times that he sees Teams being as big and important as the web browser.
ZDNet’s Chris Matyszczyk decided to take a look at the information Teams collects and reported his “head is spinning” after what he found. Per Microsoft’s own documentation, the company collects the following information:
Microsoft Teams Data Collection
As Matyszczyk points out, employees have little say in the data collection, a point confirmed by Microsoft. When he reached out to the company, a spokesperson told Matyszczyk:
At Microsoft, we believe that data-driven insights are crucial to empowering people and organizations to achieve more.
The spokesperson reiterated the company’s commitment to privacy, but made it clear the Teams administrator is the one that has all the control:
We also believe that privacy is a human right, and we’re deeply committed to the privacy of every person who uses our products. Only the global administrator has rights to the analytics and reporting experience, which provides insights into the ways in which the organization is using Microsoft Teams, not the message content itself.
In many ways, it’s easy to see why Microsoft has built such extensive data collection into Teams. The company is battling Slack for dominance of the corporate messaging market, and is facing further competition from up-and-coming rivals. Given Nadella’s prediction about the important of the platform, Microsoft clearly wants to provide every advantage it can to companies who use its product over competitors. One big advantage is a treasure trove of data that can give insight into how a company’s workers, especially remote workers, are doing their job.
At the same time, there’s no denying that many companies have gone to extreme measures to monitor their remote employees, measures that have even been labeled “spying.” If Microsoft isn’t careful, it could find itself facing backlash for making it that much easier to spy on workers.
More evidence would suggest that Apple is working on its own search engine to help challenge Google’s dominance.
In many ways, the new report doesn’t add much to previous reports from August. When the news first broke, Coywolf founder Jon Henshaw noticed a web crawler called AppleBot crawling his website. At the same time, AppleInsider noticed changes in how iOS 14 handled search vs iOS 13.
Now the Financial Times says that multiple search experts are saying that Applebot is showing a steep increase in activity. The company also points to Apple’s poaching of John Giannandrea, Google’s head of search, two and a half years ago. He currently serves as Apple’s senior vice president of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, putting him in a strategic position to have a significant impact on the company’s efforts.
Other experts believe Apple has the technical expertise to build a successful search engine.
“They [Apple] have a credible team that I think has the experience and the depth, if they wanted to, to build a more general search engine,” said Bill Coughran, Google’s former engineering chief, according to FT.
The timing may ultimately work in Apple’s favor as the company’s deal with Google, to make its search engine the default on iOS, is one of the factors in the government’s antitrust lawsuit against Google.
As US-led sanctions take a toll, Huawei is increasingly shifting its focus to the cloud to help secure its future.
Huawei is one of the main network equipment providers worldwide, competing with Nokia and Ericsson. In addition, it is one of the top smartphone makers. Despite its success, it has been under increasing pressure from the US over security concerns.
While all Chinese companies must comply with the Chinese government, Huawei is largely seen as having unusually strong ties to the Chinese intelligence and military community. As a result, US officials have been adamant in their accusations that Huawei represents a threat to the national security of any country allowing the company’s equipment on their networks. This has led the US, Australia, New Zealand and the UK to institute bans of the beleaguered company.
The US has also modified its Entity List and Foreign Direct Product Rule to exclude Huawei from accessing products based on US technology, even if those products are manufactured by non-US companies. This effectively cut Huawei off from TSMC, one of its biggest chip suppliers, causing Huawei to admit it will likely have to stop making its own chips as a result.
According to the Financial Times, Huawei is now shifting its focus to its cloud business in an effort to stabilize and ensure its future survival. Recognizing the growing importance of its cloud unit, Huawei elevated it to equal footing with its telecoms and smartphones units back in January. The company still has much ground to cover before it catches up with rivals Tencent and Alibaba, but FT reports the Chinese government is planning to give Huawei more public cloud contracts to help it stabilize.
According to Quartz, and originally reported on by the Financial Times, Amazon and Goldman Sachs may soon team up “to offer small business loans in the U.S.”
Goldman Sachs has already shown itself willing to work with big tech, as it partnered with Apple to launch the Apple Card. If the report is accurate, Goldman Sachs may be “developing technology to provide lending through Amazon’s lending platform, potentially reaching thousands of enterprises that sell through the e-commerce giant.”
As Quartz highlights, Goldman Sachs has a lot to gain by working with big tech. A latecomer to the consumer banking industry, the company has no branch locations and is likely looking at big tech as a good way to gain market share. In fact, according to Quartz, “the Wall Street bank explicitly outlined partnerships (pdf) and co-branded relationships as part of its strategy for Marcus, its fledgling consumer brand.”
Big tech companies have increasingly been looking to expand into the financial industry, seeing it as a way to keep customers involved in their ecosystems. At the same time, regulators are growing more concerned as tech companies expand beyond their traditional realm. If the report is true, a deal between Amazon and Goldman Sachs is likely to draw further scrutiny.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming the ‘next big thing’ in the technology industry, with ramifications that are only now being discovered. At least one Silicon Valley giant believes the development of AI needs to be further regulated.
In an op-ed for the Financial Times, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai lays out the case for stricter regulation over the development of AI. Pichai starts out citing examples of how Google’s AI developments are helping industries, including improving breast cancer screenings, weather forecasting and the company’s latest deal with Lufthansa to reduce the impact of flight delays.
Pichai then highlights the potential dangers of burgeoning technology, technology that can do a lot of good but also be used to cause tremendous harm. In the realm of AI, he cites deepfakes as an example. Deepfakes are a type of AI-assisted photo and video manipulation designed to make it appear as if someone has said or done something they haven’t by transposing their face or head onto another person’s body. Companies such as Facebook and Reddit have taken measures to minimize the damage deepfakes can do, but experts fear the worst is yet to come as the technology matures and advances.
As a result of the potential for AI to be used improperly or dangerously, Pichai outlines Google’s stand, including emphasizing the importance of companies taking responsibility for the technology they create, market and benefit from. Rather than simply opening Pandora’s Box and leaving others to sort out the mess, Pichai says companies have the responsibility to make sure the technology they create is used for good.
“Now there is no question in my mind that artificial intelligence needs to be regulated,” Pichai writes. “It is too important not to.”
The CEO goes on to highlight the European Union’s GDPR privacy laws as a “strong foundation” for future regulation. Given that Google has often been accused of not respecting user privacy, it’s encouraging to see Pichai cite one of the most comprehensive privacy regulations as a template for moving forward.
All in all, Pichai’s op-end is a fascinating insight into the thoughts of one of the individuals who has a tremendous influence over the future of AI and well worth a read in its entirety at the Financial Times.
After refusing to comply with Apple’s new terms for in-app subscription payments, the Financial Times has seen both their iPhone and iPad apps pulled from the App Store.
Apple had set a June 30th deadline for all apps to meet compliance, which was to allow purchases and third-party subscriptions outside of the App Store to be offered at a lower price, according to AppleInsider.
Financial Times says that their biggest gripe with Apple is its control over subscriber data, not the 30 percent cut that Apple claims as their own.
“The FT iPad and iPhone apps will no longer be available to new users through iTunes … We are directing readers to the FT‘s new web app available at app.ft.com. iTunes will remain an important channel for new and existing advertising based apps.”
Taking matters a step further, FT launched a HTML-5 web app back in June as a workaround to Apple’s in-app subscription stance. The app can be loaded via Safari on iOS devices.
Other apps such as The Wall Street Journal, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon have all complied with Apple’s new rules. Do you think the Financial Times will ever comply with Apple?
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg got a lot of press for being Time’s Person of the Year, but the Financial Times has someone else in mind. And no, it’s not Juilan Assange.
The FT has declared Apple CEO Steve Jobs person of the year, as the "visionary who put Apple on Top". It’s fair. Jobs has made a pretty big impact in 2010, most notably with the iPad. The publication writes:
Critics often talk disparagingly of the “reality distortion field” generated by the Apple boss: his ability to convince onlookers that technologies that would seem unformed in other hands have reached a peak of perfection at Apple. Generating this suspension of disbelief is essential to stirring up demand for gadgets most consumers had no idea they needed, and is an art form of which Mr Jobs has long been the acknowledged master.
Speculation had been building in the tech world for months about what was rumoured to be Apple’s latest ground-breaking product. A touch-screen computer without a keyboard, it might even rival the impact of the iPod, introduced in 2001, and the iPhone, in 2007. In the event, the iPad that Mr Jobs carried on to the stage with him that day did not disappoint.
Of course the iPad hasn’t been the only release from Apple this year, but it has been the most talked about by a long shot.
Speaking of the iPad, there is a photo (whether or not its real is as of yet unconfirmed) of an iPad Mini, said to be coming in early 2011.
If making Person of the Year wasn’t enough for Jobs, President Obama also cited him as an example of the American Dream.
Rumor has it that Google is not using Windows internally anymore, and security companies don’t necessarily find this to be a great solution if security is the concern. More than one has emailed WebProNews with reactions to this story.
The Financial Times posted a somewhat controversial article on Monday talking about Google phasing out the internal use of Microsoft Windows due to security concerns. This information came from "several Google employees", the publication said, through apparently not through any official confirmation from the company itself. "In early January, some new hires were still being allowed to install Windows on their laptops, but it was not an option for their desktop computers," reported the Financial Times. "Google would not comment on its current policy."
Well, a lot of other people had comments. For one, Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc had this (and more) to say on the Windows Blog (via PC World):
When it comes to security, even hackers admit we’re doing a better job making our products more secure than anyone else. And it’s not just the hackers; third party influentials and industry leaders like Cisco tell us regularly that our focus and investment continues to surpass others.
Symantec tells WebProNews that trying to improve security by getting rid of a particular platform is a misconception for 2 reasons:
– Firstly, the main security risks are not rooted in the underlying platform; most attack activity is aimed at web browsers, plug-ins or humans making bad security choices
– One platform is no less vulnerable than another; it is often not a matter of whether an application is vulnerable, but whether someone spends time finding the vulnerabilities and fixing them – however the more popular applications are most likely to be attacked
Trusteer CEO Mickey Boodaei says, "Enterprises that are considering shifting to an operating system like Mac or Linux should realize that although there are less malware programs available against these platforms, the shift will not solve the targeted attacks problem and may even make it worse."
"Mac and Linux are not more secure than Windows," he adds. "They’re less targeted. There is a big difference. If you choose a less targeted platform then there is less of a chance of getting infected with standard viruses and Trojans that are not targeting you specifically. This could be an effective way of reducing infection rates for companies that suffer frequent infections."
Trusteer tells us that reports that Google is planning to drop Windows for security reasons may lead other enterprises to follow this practice.
When it comes to security, even hackers admit we’re doing a better job making our products more secure than anyone else. And it’s not just the hackers; third party influentials and industry leaders like Cisco tell us regularly that our focus and investment continues to surpass others.