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| Here's a look at today's tech briefing: - DOJ sues Apple, claiming illegal monopoly over smartphones.
- Reddit starts trading on NYSE.
- Neuralink video shows first human patient.
- Microsoft unveils AI PCs for businesses.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | The U.S. Justice Department and 16 states filed a major antitrust lawsuit against Apple, accusing the company of illegally monopolizing the smartphone market. Thurday's landmark lawsuit accuses Apple of violating federal antitrust laws through practices that keep users dependent on iPhones and discourage switching to competitors. More: - The DOJ, along with 16 state and district attorneys general, accused Apple of building a dominant iPhone ecosystem and imposing restrictions in its App Store instead of lowering prices or improving terms.
- The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, charges Apple with fostering iPhone loyalty through anticompetitive actions, like downgrading third-party messaging apps to favor its own.
- It claims Apple has monopolized the app market by blocking innovation, impeding rival payments and Android messaging on iPhones, and limiting integration with other smartphones.
- Attorney General Merrick Garland argued that Apple's policies harm consumers and smaller competitors through higher prices.
Response: - Apple denied the lawsuit's allegations, warning that it could lead to too much government involvement in tech design.
- The company said the lawsuit "threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets."
- If successful, it would limit the company's ability to deliver "the kind of technology people expect from Apple," the company argued.
Zoom out: - U.S. regulators have filed lawsuits against other big tech companies, including Google, Meta Platforms, and Amazon, in recent years.
- In January 2023, the DOJ filed its second antitrust complaint against Google over its alleged dominance in the digital advertising market. The other suit accuses Google of suppressing competition in the online search market.
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| 2 | | Reddit became a publicly traded company on Thursday, listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RDDT. Reddit shares opened at 38% above their IPO price, valuing the social network at $8.87B, down from its peak private valuation of $10B+ in 2021. More: - On Wednesday, Reddit priced its IPO shares at $34 each, the high end of its target range, valuing the company at $6.4B.
- The IPO offered 22 million Class A common shares, with 15.28 million sold by Reddit and the remaining 6.72 million by existing shareholders.
- At $34 per share, the sale of 22 million shares raised $748M, but Reddit will only receive proceeds from the 15.2 million shares it sells, totaling just over $519M.
Zoom out: - Reddit, founded in 2005, has never turned a profit in its 19 years of operation.
- Condé Nast acquired Reddit for $10M in 2006 before spinning off the company in 2011.
- The Newhouse family, owners of Condé Nast, is set to gain about $1.4B in the IPO.
The bigger picture: - Reddit marks the first major social media IPO since Pinterest in 2019, and the second high-profile stock market debut this week after Astera Labs.
- Astera Labs' share price soared 72% on its Nasdaq debut on Wednesday. If Reddit's IPO performs similarly, it could signal a revival in the U.S. IPO market, which has been sluggish after a record-breaking 2021.
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| 3 | | Elon Musk's Neuralink released a video demonstrating its first human patient using a brain implant to move a mouse cursor and play chess. In January, Neuralink used a surgical robot to implant the brain-computer interface (BCI) into Noland Arbaugh, 29, who was paralyzed following a diving accident eight years ago. More: - The video is Neuralink's first public footage of a human using the implant, which allows paralyzed patients to control outside technologies using their neural signals.
- In the video, Arbaugh shares that the surgery was "super easy" and he was able to leave the hospital after a day.
- He compared the Neuralink implant to "the Force" in Star Wars, allowing him to move the cursor by looking at the screen.
- In the demo, Arbaugh navigates a cursor on a laptop and pauses a music player, noting the implant lets him play chess and Civilization VI for about eight hours before needing a recharge.
Zoom out: - The brain implant, called Telepathy, will first help people who have lost the functioning of their limbs.
- Other companies, including Paradromics, Synchron, Blackrock Neurotech, and Precision Neuroscience, have created BCI systems with similar capabilities.
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| 4 | | Microsoft on Thursday announced new AI-driven Surface PCs for commercial customers. The Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 for businesses feature Intel's latest Core Ultra processors, Microsoft's Copilot key, and a neural processing unit to boost AI-powered features in Windows 11. More: - The devices, set for release in April, are priced starting at $1,200.
- Both are equipped with new Intel Core Ultra 5 and 7 processors, with performance enhancements compared to the 12th-Gen Intel Core processors in the Surface Pro 9 and Surface Laptop 5
- They also feature a dedicated Copilot key between the Alt key and arrows, allowing for quick access to the Windows Copilot AI assistant.
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| 5 | | OpenAI could potentially release its latest AI model, GPT-5, later this year, according to sources cited by Business Insider. GPT-5 will power the company's popular ChatGPT chatbot. More: - According to Insider, some enterprise customers have been shown demos of the newest model and its improvements to ChatGPT.
- One CEO, who was not named, said GPT-5 is "really good, like materially better" than GPT-4.
- He hinted at future features, including GPT-5's ability to summon AI agents to autonomously perform tasks.
- Another source said OpenAI is finalizing GPT-5's training before doing internal safety tests and external "red teaming."
- The successor to GPT-4 could be released in mid-year, possibly this summer, sources said.
Zoom out: - During a new podcast interview, CEO Sam Altman said OpenAI will "release an amazing new model this year," without confirming if it's GPT-5.
- "I think before we talk about a GPT-5-like model we have a lot of other important things to release first," he said.
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| 6 | | A judge declined to sanction former Trump attorney Michael Cohen for mistakenly submitting fake legal citations created by AI. Cohen, Trump's former fixer, accidentally used fake legal citations from Google's Bard chatbot in a motion filed last year. More: - Cohen gave his lawyer, David Schwartz, the fake citations to three nonexistent court cases.
- Cohen said he mistakenly thought Google's chatbot was a "supercharged search engine," not realizing it generates text and can create citations and descriptions that appear real "but actually were not."
- Cohen and Schwartz later apologized. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan called Schwartz's conduct "certainly negligent, perhaps even grossly negligent," but saw no harmful intent to warrant sanctions.
Zoom out: - Furman also declined to end the court-supervised release for Cohen, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance violations in 2018 and served time in prison.
- The ruling coincides with Cohen's preparations to testify at Trump's upcoming New York criminal trial.
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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 publications including USA Today, the Arizona Business Gazette, and The Arizona Republic, where she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for collaborative reporting on state pension cost increases. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Eduardo Garcia | |
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