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Tech Newsletter

March 26-April 1, 2023

Apple VR/AR headset is facing some doubts internally

Apple’s VR headset has been rumored for a very long time but recently it is said that the headset may be announced for WWDC this year. This was somewhat confirmed when Apple’s invite teased something with lenses, like a headset. There are some doubts about the product from executives. Apple has allegedly demonstrated its mixed reality headset to its top 100 executives recently. While executives are keen on the product, others within Apple are not sure that it would be a big success and I can see why. The headset is rumored to cost $3,000, require an external battery, and some testers say that the design was uncomfortable. It is unclear what the product would bring to the headset market, considering that it would be 3 times the price of the Meta Quest Pro, which also was a flop. So far, the only practical use of VR is to play games. What Apple is probably hoping on is that when they announce the headset to developers, they would develop content for it. Also, historically, whenever Apple does something, other companies, like Samsung or Google, would respond with their own flavor of headset. We will have to see if the headset comes out and what sort of aftermath comes after it.

Pay to hack malware targeting banks

The malware called Nexus was recently discovered by Cyble Research and Intelligence Labs. It first appeared in June last year and it is now being openly advertised by its creators. Nexus’ target is 450 banking and cryptocurrency apps. It is now being distributed through fishing websites posing as YouTube Vanced, a discontinued third-party YouTube app. The malware is capable of performing overlay attacks, like pretending to be a legitimate interface to trick you into entering your credentials. It can also steal SMS messages to access two-factor authentication codes. Luckily, this insane kind of malware can not be accessed by anyone, since the price of it is $3,000 a month. In order to be protected from infection, only download stuff from trusted sites or only from the Google Play Store. Also be careful of what permissions you give to apps.

Twitter sunsets legacy verification and changes For You page

Last Thursday, March 23, Twitter Verified publicly announced on Twitter that anyone with a blue checkmark would have to pay for Twitter Blue in order to keep it. This went into effect on April first and Twitter Blue costs $8 a month. Another change to Twitter's checkmark system is that the $1,000 a month company gold checkmark would be free to Twitter’s top 10,000 organizations. Also, if you are a member of a company with a gold checkmark, you will also receive a blue checkmark and the company that gave you the checkmark would be displayed next to it.

On March 27, Elon Musk announced that only verified accounts would be allowed on the For You page. Musk claims that this is because “The is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over” (CEO of Twitter can’t even spell “This”). He also said that you have to be verified in order to vote in a poll for the same reason. One day later, he confirmed that people you follow directly would still be visible. This change to the For You page would only promote people that paid for Twitter Blue that don’t have a significant follow base. This would mean that the For You page would basically become an advertising page and would make Twitter like a pay to win game. That is just what I think would happen.

Amazon releases dev kit for its sidewalk network

Amazon’s Sidewalk network is a long-range, low-bandwidth network that is inside of every Amazon smart home device. This would allow Amazon to still receive your data even if your internet is down. Scaringly, it has penetrated 90% of the U.S population. Now that it has opened up, it is possible to connect your devices to the network and have it act like a cellular connection. The Verge tested this by going into a national forest in South Carolina with a dev kit and they still received coverage. This sounds like cool technology, but the fact that it is run by Amazon, I will never use it willingly.

Google removes features from Fitbit

Google did what Google does best. Discontinuing platforms and features. Even though it was technically Fitbit that did this, Fitbit is owned by Google and this only happened because Google is trying to consolidate Fitbit into its ecosystem. The features that Fitbit are removing are: Challenges, Virtual Premium Challenges, Adventure Races, Solo Adventures. What these have in common are that they are social activities meant to keep you active. I believe that companies should not be allowed to just completely remove features from their products. These features were one of the main selling points of Fitbits. Instead of just removing the features, Fitbit should have just announced that they were going to stop updating the features. This would allow them to stop putting resources into maintaining it and the consumer would still be able to do challenges.

Leading tech figures call of a pause of AI development

Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and the CEO of Stability AI are among the leading figures in the broader tech industry who have signed an open letter calling for a six month "pause" on the development of advanced artificial intelligence systems including ChatGPT. The letter was published by the Future of Life Institute and has around 2,500 signatures from across the world at the time of writing. The letter states that “AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity". The letter also states “We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least six months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. This pause should be public and verifiable, and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium". It is true that the last few months have been huge for tech development. OpenAI’s GPT-3 was limited to just text input, while the newer GPT-4 supports text, audio, video, and images. Plugins have also allowed these models to send emails, execute code and do things in the real world like book flights through internet access. I don’t believe that language models will take over the world but, it is changing the world, for better or for worse.

E3 had been canceled

The video games expo was due to take place between June 13th and June 16th at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The expo also did not take place in 2022 and the 2023 expo was not supported by major games companies, such as Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Some of the blame could be placed on Geoff Keighley, the creator and host of The Game Awards. He announced that he would not attend E3 2020 before it was canceled. He then made the Summer Game Fest, which is still running to this day. Another reason E3 has been declining is because major game companies are hosting their own events to announce their games.

Italy bans ChatGPT

Italy’s privacy watchdog has banned ChatGPT, due to a recent data breach and the legal basis for using personal data to train a chatbot. The Italian Data Protection Authority described the move as a temporary measure “until ChatGPT respects privacy”. OpenAI said on Friday that it had disabled ChatGPT in Italy and that it complies with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. OpenAI has also stated that the company limits the use of personal data in systems such as ChatGPT. Some of this could be from fear after the AI vid of Will Smith eating spaghetti. Or it could be because an AI generated image of the Pope that fouled the internet into thinking that the Pope had a lifestyle brand.

The U.S Restrict act is too restrictive

This is a tech newsletter and while this is political, I am going to point out a few things. Since the act is very broad on the definition of who should be affected by this, it is possible for the government to arrest U.S citizens with VPNs. When some people were asked about this, they basically said “We will never do such a thing” (This is not a quote). But, instead of saying that you will never do it, just put it into the bill so you can’t do it. There is a big difference.

Ads are coming to Bing Chat

In a blog post earlier this week, Microsoft VP Yusuf Mehdi said the company was "exploring placing ads in the chat experience," one of several things the company is doing "to share the ad revenue with partners whose content contributed to the chat response." Adding ads to their chatbot was most likely an effect of their chatbot reaching 100 million daily active users. Adding ads to the chatbot could be what kills Bing again, since the chatbot was the only thing bringing people to Bing.

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Bonus news

France bans all recreational apps from government devices (even Candy Crush)

Gordon Moore, Intel Co-Founder, Dies at 94

FTC bans car warranty scams

Xbox game pass $1 free trial ends

Farming Simulator is just product placement

Australia is cracking down on mobile gambling

GM is ditching CarPlay in favor of a Google infotainment (“at no extra cost for 8 years”)