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| Welcome to Inside Tech! Today's issue covers: - Cruise refutes claim that robotaxis delayed ambulance after fatal accident.
- Lionel Messi drives surge in Apple MLS subscriptions.
- Meta mandates return-to-office for some employees.
If you find this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thank you! Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | Protesters rallied outside Cruise's San Francisco headquarters Monday after authorities claimed two of the firm's self-driving cars allegedly blocked an ambulance carrying a patient who later died. GM's Cruise has refuted the claim, providing video footage showing the first car promptly clearing the area and the second yielding to first responders. More: - According to SF Fire, a pedestrian was struck by a driver in the city at around 11 p.m. on Aug. 14.
- While the agency claims two Cruise robotaxis blocking the road led to a delay in transporting the pedestrian to the hospital, video of the scene appears to show otherwise.
- TechCrunch and NBC Bay Area reviewed the footage and confirmed the incident happened as Cruise described, showing the ambulance squeezing by a stopped Cruise car.
- Supervisor Aaron Peskin noted that there are still over 70 documented incidents of self-driving vehicles interfering with first responders.
Protest: - The incident took place shortly after California regulators permitted Cruise and Waymo to expand their robotaxi services in the city.
- On Monday, protesters urged the shutdown of both Cruise and Waymo, holding signs saying "No Mo Robos" and "Greed Kills." They expressed worries about job displacement in San Francisco due to robotaxis.
Q: In light of the concerns, do you think California regulators should maintain or revoke the approved expansion of self-driving taxis in San Francisco? Join the conversation here. |     | |
| 2 | | Soccer star Lionel Messi is helping Apple benefit from its $2.5B agreement for exclusive rights to stream all Major League Soccer (MLS) games. Under the deal inked last year, Apple became the MLS exclusive broadcaster in over 100 countries for 10 years, streaming games live through MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV+ app. The deal came before Messi officially joined the Inter Miami club of MLS earlier this year. 
What the numbers show: Apple's MLS Season Pass subscriptions surged to over 110,000 U.S. sign-ups on July 21 — the day Messi made his Inter Miami debut — compared to 6,143 the day before, according to data from analytics firm Antenna. Apple TV+, which gives soccer fans access to the entire MLS season at a discounted price, also jumped in July for the best month of new U.S. subscribers so far this year. The bigger picture: Despite the decade-long deal with Apple boosting MLS's global media rights revenue to €250M annually, the U.S. soccer league still lags far behind its European counterparts. In the elite soccer arena, broadcasting rights come at much higher costs. The Premier League, for instance, generated €3.5B in revenue in the 2021/22 season, far surpassing other major European leagues. These high costs can lead to expensive viewing experiences for fans. 
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| 3 | | Spotify is removing white noise podcasts from its Ambassador Ads program, where creators receive advertising perks and payouts. Spotify believes it could boost gross profits by $38M annually by shifting focus away from white noise to more engaging and profitable content, according to an internal memo viewed by Bloomberg. More: - White-noise podcasts offer ambient relaxing sounds for sleep, meditation, and study.
- Starting October 1, white noise podcasters will no longer qualify for Spotify's "Ambassador Ads" program, which pays hosts to read ads.
- An anonymous source revealed that white-noise podcasts didn't align well with Spotify's marketing budget for the program.
- The decision was based on the finding that users typically play white noise podcasts in the background, making the advertising spend ineffective.
- Reports noted that Spotify's white noise podcasters can earn up to $18,000 a month in ad revenue.
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| 4 | | Meta is discontinuing the Facebook News tab in the U.K., France, and Germany in December. Despite the move, users will still have access to news article links, and European publishers will retain their Facebook accounts and pages. More: - While Facebook's existing news agreements with publishers will be honored, the company said it won't forge new commercial deals for news content on "Facebook News" or introduce news-related product advancements in these countries.
- Meta is encouraging news outlets to transition to more short-form video content using features like Reels and advertisements.
- The "Facebook News" tab, which aggregates news articles, is located within the Facebook app's bookmarks section.
- News makes up less than 3% of global Facebook feed content.
Zoom out: - Last month, Meta began blocking news on Facebook and Instagram in Canada due to a new law requiring internet companies to make payments to news publishers.
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| 5 | | Meta's new return-to-office policy took effect on Tuesday, requiring employees to work in the company's physical offices for a minimum of three days per week. Employees assigned to an office must work in person those days while fully remote workers are exempt. More: - The company believes "distributed work" remains important moving forward, especially as its technology advances, a spokesperson said.
- Meta is "being thoughtful and intentional about where we invest in remote work," the person said.
- In March, CEO Mark Zuckerberg hinted at the change as part of Meta's "Year of Efficiency," citing an internal analysis showing that engineers early in their careers perform better when working in person.
- The move matches the trend seen among other big tech players like Amazon and Google, which have also changed their remote work policies.
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| 6 | | X, formerly Twitter, plans to use public data to train AI and machine learning models. According to Elon Musk, the policy only applies to public data, not direct messages "or anything private." More: - The policy change is set to take effect on Sept. 29.
- It states that X "may use the information we collect and publicly available information to help train our machine learning or artificial intelligence models for the purposes outlined in this policy."
- The update is not unexpected, as prior reports said Musk's separate AI venture, xAI, planned to use public tweets to train AI models, though it's unclear which models it refers to.
- X's updated privacy policy also includes the collection of biometric and employment data.
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- Walmart has paid $3.5B to raise its stake in e-commerce platform Flipkart, which has now reached 80%.
- AI research company Anthropic plans to sublease the former Slack headquarters building in San Francisco.
- Meta and LG are reportedly collaborating on a new high-end virtual reality headset, set to release in 2025, while a low-cost Quest headset is also rumored for 2024.
- Apple Arcade is introducing four new games in September, including "Cypher 007," a modern James Bond spy adventure.
- Instacart, ARM, and Klaviyo just filed for an IPO. Get access to the Top 25 pre-IPO deals like Stripe, OpenAI Databricks and Anduril.
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 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is the curator and writer of the AI and Tech newsletters at Inside. With a career in journalism and editing that began in 2007, she has written for publications including USA Today, The Arizona Republic, Arizona Business Gazette, and more. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by NO ACCOUNT ASSOCIATED WITH THE EDITOR | |
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