- What's Appening
- Posts
- Big Tech vs... 🌍🥊
Big Tech vs... 🌍🥊
What's Appening: EU Bites Apple, AI & The Law, OpenAI Sora, Ransomware Up, Autoglyphs NFTs
3Advance Team
February 20, 2024
ZUCK’S VISION PRO ENVY PROMPTS A RESPONSE
👀 TLDR:
In this week’s What’s Appening, we wade into Big Tech brawls. Apple has been handed a huge fine from the EU, which accuses the iPhone maker of blocking music apps from informing their users of cheaper deals outside the App Store. New EU rules are also prompting Apple to drop PWAs, and it's all getting a bit messy over there as firms grapple with the Digital Markets App. Back home, they are grappling with each other. We also discuss AI and the law this week, looking at how one airline tried to frame its chatbot as an independent entity - a person, separate from its business. We have tales on Nvidia, OpenAI’s Sora, and good ‘ol Tinder, and our Stat of the Week has a ransomware warning. What’s dAppening sees some big spending on NFTs. Finally, we have a GPT of the Week that is a must-try for anyone thinking about getting a new job.
What's Appening is brought to you by 3Advance, the product development team that eats, sleeps and breathes apps. Not diggin' the apps? You can opt-out below. Forwarding to a friend? Please do 🙏. They can subscribe here or just listen on Spotify. Our monthly video series can be found on YouTube 📺.
Top Takes 🎬
🍏⚖️ Apple – EU Fine and Questions Raised Over Bloc’s Big Tech Rules
It’s no secret that the EU is quite belligerent with America’s biggest tech companies, but Apple had largely escaped hefty fines – until now. The EU Commission will rule that Apple broke the law by blocking music apps from informing users that cheaper alternatives exist outside the App Store. And by music apps, we mean Spotify, which launched the initial complaint with the EU in 2019. Apple is expected to face a 500-million-euro ($540 million) fine. Overall, it’s a messy picture for Apple and other Big Tech titans as they fight to get to grips with the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Just last week, Mashable confirmed that Apple was killing home screen web apps (PWAs) in EU countries as it makes big changes to comply with the DMA. #EUBitesApple Read more here.
✈️📃 AI – Airlines and Patents Shine Spotlight on Law and Regulation
Who should be legally responsible if your AI chatbot provides misinformation? According to Air Canada, the chatbot is a “separate legal entity”, so it was entirely accountable for misleading a customer, Jake Moffatt. Moffatt took the case to court and won, with a judge pouring scorn over Air Canada’s claims of AI personhood. The case comes at a time when we are seeing more instances of the law and regulation scrambling to keep up with the technology. Indeed, we also came across an important ruling from the US Patent and Trademark Office this week, which ruled that AI models can’t hold patents. The USPTO ruling does make clear, though, that a patent can be filed if a human made a “significant contribution”. So, if you are using AI to invent a flying car or an inkless printer, be sure to show your work. #AILaw Read more here.
🦾 GPT of the Week: Merlin🧙♂️
This week’s Custom GPT is Merlin, the job application wizard. Merlin is an AI companion that takes you through ten steps to land your dream job. It doesn’t just help with applications and resumes, but in other areas like researching the job role and the company you are applying to. Merlin is adaptable, so you can jump in at any stage of the process. The GPT is particularly adept at creating cover letters, with testing confirming it creates better personalization and more engaging prose than using ChatGPT. Looking for a new job? 🧙♂️ Try it here.
Other Stories 🗞️
🥽 Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Pull Punches in Vision Pro Review. Who better to review your product than your rival? The Meta boss did a video review of Apple’s latest hardware, and he was quick to declare Vision Pro as inferior to the much cheaper Meta Quest 3. The video was a bit awkward though less awkward than his UFC appearance! Read more here.
📽️ Sam Altman Showcases Sora, AI for Text to Video. “Gulp” was probably the collective response from movie industry workers as they witnessed OpenAI’s unveiling of Sora, an AI generator that creates videos of anything based on a prompt. See it in action here.
📈 Nvidia Is King of Wall St Amid Chip Demand. Last week, we touched on the need for more chips to fuel the AI revolution, and Nvidia is one of the main beneficiaries of that. Its stock has rocketed to overtake Amazon and Google as the third largest company in the US. Find out why here.
😍 Tinder Rolls Out Advanced ID Verification in the US. Hey, do you want to know if your crush is really a human being? Course you do. That’s why Tinder is bringing out a new ID verification system to help sort the real-life Romeos from the Fraud-eos. More on that here.
🧐 Stat of the Week: $1.1B
🦹♂️💸 Ransomware – Gangs Bouncing Back as Payments Doubled Last Year
Ransomware came back with a bang in 2023, with criminal gangs securing double what was paid in 2022, totaling $1.1 billion worldwide. The study was conducted by crypto firm Chainanalysis, reflecting the propensity of gangs to demand crypto as payment. But the other trend leading to the rise in payments is simply that businesses are now deciding it’s easier to cough up the dough rather than play hardball. There is a lot of talk swirling around Congress about banning ransomware payments outright. But it’s a complicated scenario, and many experts believe it’s a bad idea, including, surprisingly, impacted businesses. #RansomwareUp Read more here.
🕸️ What’s dAppening?
🖼️📈 NFTs – Autoglyphs Collection Sells for Over $14.5 Million
Are NFTs back? They never really went away, you know. But as the wider market bounces back from the Crypto Winter we are starting to see signs of the exuberant spending that characterized the 2021 NFT boom. A case in point was the recent sale of 10 Autoglyphs, an NFT art project from LarvaLabs, AKA the team behind CryptoPunks. The 10 NFTs sold for a cool 5,000 ETH – that’s just over $14.5 million in old money. As for the Autoglyphs, well art is subjective, so we will reserve comment. But an anonymous buyer felt they were worth the price of a private jet or two, so who are we to argue? #NFTSales Read more here.
Meanwhile at 3Advance...
Last week, Paul was back in New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras — and, of course, to catch up with new and old clients! It was amazing to meet Dr Pierre Johnston (and Ingrid Clay, ever so briefly) for the first time. Pierre was back in his old stomping grounds where he met fellow premedical students Max and Joe back in 1998. This brotherhood ultimately led them to writing Pulse of Perseverance and the founding of their 501(c)(3) organization of the same name. We’re proud to be involved in the final delivery of their mentor apps, due to go live in the next few months. Before departing NOLA, Paul also caught up with Teletour’s Ashley Martinez, a client and friend of 3Advance since 2020, when we embarked on the development of virtual travel app, Teletour. Ashley checked out the Vision Pro and shared the excitement and potential of bringing Teletour to Vision Pro. We’ll have more on this soon.
🎧 📺 Check out the What’s Appening Podcast and Video Episodes