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| Here's a look at today's tech briefing: - Apple releases iOS 17.2 with new Journal app.
- Apple blocks app that lets Android users send blue texts to iPhones.
- Amazon asks courts to dismiss U.S. antitrust lawsuit.
- Netflix pushes further into live sports with tennis match.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | Apple has started releasing iOS 17.2 to all iPhone users, featuring its new health and wellness-focused Journal app and other updates. Apple says Journal, a core iPhone app, allows users to "reflect and practice gratitude through journaling." Users can create their journal entries using text, voice notes, photos, or videos. More: - The Journal app taps into an iPhone's data, including locations, photos, and workouts, to create personalized writing suggestions.
- For example, the app could suggest journaling about a recent trip using photos from the iPhone's camera roll.
- Users can control the type of content that appears in the "Suggestions" and create journal entries with the suggestions they select.
- The app also shows users "Reflections," which prompt users to write about certain topics, such as "Who cheers you up when you're feeling down?
- Third-party developers can use Suggestions API to prompt users to write entries based on their app activity.
- The Journal app is end-to-end encrypted, and data can be stored locally or synced to iCloud.
Related: - iOS 17.2 also lets iPhone 15 Pro users set up the Action Button for instant translation using the Translate app when speaking with people in different languages.
- iPhone 15 Pro users now have the option to record spatial videos, which will be viewable in 3D within the upcoming Apple Vision Pro headset.
- The update also introduces Qi2 support for iPhone 13 and 14, new Weather widgets, and improvements to the Messages app.
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| 2 | | Apple took action to shut down Beeper Mini, an app that allowed Android users to use iMessage. Beeper Mini, launched last week, allowed Android users to send blue-bubble texts rather than green text bubbles to iPhone users. More: - Beeper Mini worked by reverse engineering a way to access the iMessage protocol without requiring an Apple ID or using Apple hardware.
- The app was touted as a way to improve Android-iPhone texting and offer better security by giving Android users access to iMessage encryption.
- On Friday, Apple blocked the app, saying it exploited "fake credentials" to gain access to iMessage and posed security and privacy risks.
Zoom out: - Apple's move drew criticism from U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who wrote that "Big Tech executives are protecting profits by squashing competitors."
- Apple has repeatedly said it has no plans to bring iMessage to Android, though it does plan on adopting the cross-platform Rich Communication Services (RCS) advanced communication protocol that's meant to replace SMS.
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| 3 | | Amazon has asked a federal court to dismiss the U.S. government's antitrust lawsuit accusing the company of abusing its market dominance to push out rivals. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 17 states sued Amazon in September, accusing the company of anti-competitive practices, including concealing lower-priced listings and forcing high fees upon sellers. Background: - The lawsuit claims Amazon violated antitrust laws through anti-discounting measures that punished merchants for offering lower prices elsewhere.
- In particular, the FTC accused Amazon of earning over $1B in extra profit through a hidden algorithm, codenamed "Project Nessie" that controlled pricing.
- It claims the algorithm raised prices for products on Amazon and monitored if other retailers, like Walmart, would do the same.
- When competitors matched or raised prices, Amazon kept selling at higher prices. If they didn't, the algorithm would return the Amazon listing to its initial price.
Amazon rebuttal: - In its filing to dismiss, Amazon said it "promptly matches rivals' discounts" and prices deal competitively.
- It said that the FTC complaint doesn't pinpoint a single product or category where prices have gone up due to its practices.
- "Those practices—the targets of this antitrust complaint— benefit consumers and are the essence of competition," it added.
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| 4 | | Netflix is expanding further into live sports with plans to stream a tennis match between champions Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz in March. The move comes after Netflix aired a recent celebrity golf tournament, "The Netflix Cup," featuring Formula One drivers. Big tech companies are venturing more into live sports streaming, challenging traditional TV-focused companies, though Netflix lags behind as one of the less popular streaming services for sports in the U.S. 
Details: Nadal and Alcaraz will compete in the "The Netflix Slam," set to take place March 3, 2024, in Las Vegas. The match will air live in both English and Spanish. Netflix said it plans to announce more tennis players and matchups later. Why it matters: Netflix's live sports streaming could boost its fledgling advertising business, which was launched about a year ago. Streaming platforms are adding move sports events due to their live viewership, which attracts advertisers that favor a more engaged audience. Amazon Prime Video and YouTube have secured major deals for NFL games, while Comcast's Peacock offers Premier League soccer and Big 10 football. | | | |
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| 5 | | TikTok will spend $840M to acquire most of GoTo's Tokopedia, Indonesia's biggest e-commerce platform. The move will allow TikTok to relaunch TikTok Shop, its online shopping business, in Indonesia after the country banned e-commerce transactions on social media platforms. More: - TikTok, owned by China's ByteDance, will now combine its TikTok Shop business in Indonesia with GoTo Group's Tokopedia.
- Under the plan, TikTok has agreed to invest a total of $1.5B in a joint venture with GoTo Group.
- TikTok will acquire a 75.01% stake in the combined entity, which will be responsible for managing shopping features within its social media app in Indonesia.
- GoTo will become a passive backer of the Tokopedia operation.
Zoom out: - The move comes shortly after TikTok committed to investing billions of dollars in Southeast Asia, including support for small vendors looking to join TikTok Shop.
- The online shopping feature has gained popularity in Indonesia, TikTok's largest and primary market for the service.
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| 6 | | A promotional video for Google's new AI model, Gemini, included aspects that were staged, according to an op-ed by Bloomberg. Google has since acknowledged that the video, "Hands-on with Gemini: Interacting with multimodal AI," had edited outputs, and its real voice interaction was edited. More: - Google launched Gemini on Wednesday, saying the advanced AI model is now powering its Bard chatbot.
- A promo video featured spoken user-chatbot conversations and showed Gemini's visual recognition capabilities.
- A description of the video on YouTube notes, "For the purposes of this demo, latency has been reduced, and Gemini outputs have been shortened for brevity."
- Google has since verified to Bloomberg that the demo did not occur in real-time; instead, it used still image frames and fed text prompts to Gemini that the AI model responded to.
- The company told CNBC that the video was "an illustrative depiction of the possibilities of interacting with Gemini, based on real multimodal prompts and outputs from testing."
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- X has rolled out Grok, its "rebellious" AI chatbot from Elon Musk's xAI startup, to its premium+ subscribers in the U.S. Musk said the bot will expand to all English language users in about a week.
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 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for notable publications like USA Today and the Arizona Business Gazette. During her time as a public policy reporter at The Arizona Republic, she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for her collaborative reporting on pension cost increases. Beth also authored a book on the solar photovoltaic industry in 2016. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Eduardo Garcia | |
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