Techstrong News Recap – April 27, 2023
On April 27, William Willis covered an appeals court ruling in favor of Apple for its control of the iPhone App Store, GM and Samsung’s plan to create a new EV battery cell factory in the U.S. and the UK prohibiting the Microsoft Activision Blizzard deal. He also talked about the music artist Grimes allowing anyone to use her voice for AI-generated music. Finally, he previewed articles from Digital CxO, Cloud Native Now and Security Boulevard, which covered industries that are at the forefront of no-code, implementing zero-trust Kubernetes and CrowdStrike working with Google to secure ChromeOS devices at the edge.
Transcript
Hi again, everyone here the headlines for April 27th. First up. The US ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has appelled Apple's control over the distribution of iPhone apps denying an antitrust lawsuit filed by epic games.
The lawsuit allege that Apple's App Store had turned into an illegal Monopoly stifling competition and Innovation while collecting billions of dollars in profit through developer fees which charge a commission at 15 to 30% unsubscriptions and other transactions. The decision also supported the lower courts ruling that Apple's app store wasn't violating Federal antitrust law and that epic hadn't proven that consumers didn't have the freedom to switch to other alternatives. However, the court did find some of Apple's App Store rules to constitute unfair competition under California law as a result the court ordered Apple to allow developers throughout the US to include links to other payment options besides its own which could potentially impact billions of dollars in Revenue annually.
This being said epic games is pursuing a similar antitrust lawsuit against Google and its Play Store. Next up General Motors in South Korea Samsung SDI are set to invest over three billion dollars and a new electric vehicle battery cell plant in the United States the factory which is expected to begin operations in 2026 will make nickel-rich Prismatic in cylindrical cells and is expected to create thousands of jobs. GM and Samsung SDI playing the jointly operate the factory, but the location is yet to be announced.
This is GM's fourth joint venture battery cell Factory and comes after some Chevrolet bolt batteries made by LG caught fire forcing GM to recall about 142,000 vehicles. 9 billion dollars and the automotive automobile maker said it was reimbursed for the cost by LG. Hopefully this time around it works out better for GM.
In other news UK Regulators have blocked Microsoft 69 billion dollar purchase of the video game maker Activision Blizzard citing concerns that it would stifle competition in the fast-growing cloud gaming Market. The competitions and markets Authority said that the only affected remedy to the substantial loss of competition was to prohibit the merger. From the start the AllCast deal face stiff opposition from rival Sony.
It was being scrutinized by Regulators in the US and Europe over fears that it would give Microsoft control of popular game franchises like Call of Duty World of Warcraft and Candy Crush. This being said though. It is all not said and done.
Both companies have vowed to appeal the decision. Next up the Canadian musician Grimes has invited musicians to use artificial intelligence to clone her voice and create new songs. Grimes who explored the relationship between humans and machines in our work has already been working on a program to simulate her voice well Additionally, she has offered to split royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses her voice.
This comes after the music industry has been grappling with the use of AI to generate music that may violate copyright law. Recently Universal Music succeeded in getting a song called hard on my sleeve removed from streaming services, which use deep-faked vocals from the artist Drake and the weekend. Zooming out though, the US copyright office recently ruled that AI generated art including music cannot be copyrighted at is not a product of human authorship.
This being said with ai's potential and music expect there to be future rulings in the digital cxo. We've an article looking at the industries that are at the Forefront of no code. Organizations are always looking for ways to make complicated processes into simpler workflows and no code is an incredible tool to do just that.
com On cloud native now. We have an article looking at zero trust kubernetes in the service mesh. If you're working with security in regards to kubernetes, the term zero trust may have at least popped up on your radar.
com Finally on Security Boulevard. We have an article that looks at how crowdstrike is working with Google to better secure instances of Chrome OS being used at the edge. Using crowd strikes Eagle Insight detection in response service.
It will eliminate the need to use a separate mobile device management platform for the Chrome OS to learn more go to Security Boulevard calm. And that's today's Tech strong news recap.
