The famous German camera company Leica has just had its best-ever year of sales. Are physical cameras making a comeback? CC-licensed photo by Sherman Geronimo-Tan on Flickr.
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A selection of 9 links for you. Me? No Leica. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. Observations and links welcome.
Don’t break up Google • The New York Times
Herbert Hovenkamp is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the Wharton School:
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The entire point of antitrust law is to promote competitive markets. Antitrust remedies are not designed to punish a wrongdoer but rather to correct the effects of a monopoly. The test for a successful remedy is whether the market becomes more competitive, with higher output or a better experience for consumers.
At this point, the Justice Department has not sufficiently explained why its proposed actions are an appropriate remedy. Some of the proposals were not addressed at any length in the judge’s opinion in the Google trial at all. Others would split up complementary products, which often leads to poorer quality outcomes and higher coordination costs, both of which would be passed on to consumers. If the government gets everything it wants, the result could remove some of the features that have made Google products so successful and result in a fractured system that requires greater user effort to get inferior results.
History has shown us that courts are generally poor instruments for restructuring industries. Too often they simply make firms less competitive. The record of success is particularly poor in situations involving highly innovative companies that, like Google, have developed mainly by internal growth, rather than through acquisitions.
Breaking up Standard Oil in 1911 created firms too small to be as efficient as their predecessor was, which coincided with an increase in the price of gasoline mainly caused by increased demand. And breaking up United Shoe Machinery in 1968 was followed soon after by that firm’s closure as an independent entity.
In his earlier ruling, Judge Mehta concluded that Google’s monopolization of the market owed in part to the fact that it pays hardware makers large sums to ensure its products are the default option on their products. But if people were completely free to choose, Google would likely be the most popular option regardless — in the European Union, where Google’s Android system is required to ask users to select from a choice of browsers, most of them choose Google search.
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Hovenkamp doesn’t appear to be one of the (many) American academics who gets funding from Google, and his arguments here are forceful. He writes a lot on antitrust (such as this) and I’d certainly agree that the DOJ’s proposals don’t seem like a remedy; they just make life worse for lots of people.
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X’s objection to the Onion buying InfoWars is a reminder you do not own your social media accounts • 404 Media
Jason Koebler:
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On Monday, X filed an objection in The Onion’s bid to buy InfoWars out of bankruptcy. In the objection, Elon Musk’s lawyers argued that X has “superior ownership” of all accounts on X, that it objects to the inclusion of InfoWars and related Twitter accounts in the bankruptcy auction, and that the court should therefore prevent the transfer of them to The Onion.
The legal basis that X asserts in the filing is not terribly interesting. But what is interesting is that X has decided to involve itself at all, and it highlights that you do not own your followers or your account or anything at all on corporate social media, and it also highlights the fact that Elon Musk’s X is primarily a political project he is using to boost, or stifle, specific viewpoints and help his friends. In the filing, X’s lawyers essentially say—like many other software companies, and, increasingly, device manufacturers as well—that the company’s terms of service grant X’s users a “license” to use the platform but that, ultimately, X owns all accounts on the social network and can do anything that it wants with them.
“Few bankruptcy courts have addressed the issue of ownership of social media accounts, and those courts that have were focused on whether an individual or the individual’s employer owned an account used for business purposes—not whether the social media company had a superior right of ownership over either the individual or the corporation,” Musk’s lawyers write.
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Musk’s lawyers are right: just because you tweak their database (by adding an email and choosing a username), that doesn’t give you property rights over any aspect of the account. As Koebler observes, though, Musk doesn’t have to get involved in this, and the fact he has indicates that he is treating this network not as one for “free speech”, but his little projects. And that’s bad.
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Philippines recruits civilian tech talent to fend off cyber attacks • Rest of World
Julia Ornedo:
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Earlier this year, the Philippine Army put out an unusual call on Facebook, inviting civilian hackers to join its cybersecurity unit. “We have a greater enemy that wants to devour us. Do we want to let them?” Joey Fontiveros, founding commander of the Cyber Battalion, said in a Facebook Reel that has been viewed over 2 million times. “Why not join us?”
The Philippines is among the countries most vulnerable to cyber attacks, with tens of thousands of cyber threats targeting its government agencies, academic institutions, and corporations in recent years. Cyber attacks on the email servers and websites of the Philippine Coast Guard and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. this year were traced to China, authorities said. China has denied this.
In response to the threats, the Philippine government has adopted a new five-year national cybersecurity plan, formed a defense network with the U.S. and Japan, and asked the military to reinforce the security of its systems. The Cyber Battalion, which was set up in 2020, was initially staffed by soldiers. The army then decided to actively recruit civilians. It targets young IT professionals who may be open to lower wages for greater job security and the pride of working for the nation, Lieutenant Colonel Ariel Alejandro, the Cyber Battalion’s commander, told Rest of World.
“The cyber practitioners in our military force are very limited. We need a lot more,” Alejandro said. “Our limitation is we cannot afford to offer the same benefits as private and multinational companies. [But] joining the Philippine Army through the Cyber Battalion is a way of helping the country for our young bloods.”
The Cyber Battalion currently has a staff of about 120. The unit has so far hired about 70 civilian experts in their 20s and 30s. Civilian recruits receive months-long training, including the basics of life in the military, such as morning calls, exercise drills, and some weapons training.
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Quite why you’d train a bunch of hackers in weapons training when the idea is that they are, you know, hackers, escapes me.
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Bluesky is working on addressing the EU’s DSA complaints. – The Verge
Wes Davis:
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Bluesky spokesperson Emily Liu confirmed in an email to The Verge that the platform is “actively working” with its lawyers to ensure Bluesky’s compliance with the EU’s Digital Services Act’s information disclosure rules, as Bloomberg reports.
On Monday, the European Commission called out that Bluesky has no page listing “how many users they have in the EU and where they are legally established,” as required by the DSA.
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In the Bloomberg story it was Bluesky’s lawyer, singular, who was on the job, which to be honest sounds more believable than lawyers, multiple.
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Elon Musk has pledged to settle Mars. This book offers a reality check • CNN
Katie Hunt:
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The promise of starting life anew on Mars may appear alluring, even feasible, as the climate crisis intensifies and space and rocket technology advances.
But the reality would be dreadful, according to one book that argues that Elon Musk’s intention to settle the red planet within the next 30 years is doomed to failure.
Written by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, “A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?” won the 2024 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize and was published in November 2023.
The husband-and-wife authors investigate what life would actually be like in the unforgiving environment of the red planet and clear up any misconceptions about what it might involve.
Kelly Weinersmith, a biologist and an adjunct assistant professor at Rice University in Houston, and, Zach Weinersmith, a cartoonist, delve into all sorts of questions that humans would face if we became a multiplanetary species. How would we build space farms to feed everyone? What about giving birth to babies and raising kids? Would settling Mars unleash a new space race?
Initially enthusiastic about the prospect of humans living on Mars, the authors said their research turned them into space settlement skeptics. “Leaving a 2 (degree Celsius) warmer Earth for Mars would be like leaving a messy room so you can live in a toxic waste dump,” they wrote in the book’s introduction.
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There’s an interview, but you get the idea (which has also been examined by Maciej Cieglowski, aka Pinboard, who also reckons there’s no point in humans going to Mars because “nature cannot be fooled” – quoting Richard Feynman).
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Shop like a Pro • Perplexity.ai
“Perplexity team”:
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Today, we’re excited to launch a new experience for shopping. Perplexity is now a one-stop solution where you can research and purchase products. It marks a big leap forward in how we serve our users – empowering seamless native actions right from an answer. Shopping online just got 10x more easy and fun.
Here’s what’s new:
• One-click checkout to save time. For Perplexity Pro users in the U.S., we’ve built a first-of-its kind AI commerce experience, Buy with Pro, which lets you check out seamlessly right on our website or app for select products from select merchants. Just save your shipping and billing information through our secure portal and select “Buy with Pro” to place your order. We’ll take care of the rest. Plus, you’ll get free shipping on all Buy with Pro orders as a thank-you for shopping with Perplexity. If Buy with Pro isn’t available, we’ll redirect you to the merchant’s website to complete your purchase.• Snap to Shop, a visual search tool that shows you relevant products when you take a photo of an item. Now, you can easily find what you’re looking for, even if you don’t have a product description or name.
• Discover the best product. When you ask Perplexity a shopping question, you’ll still get the precise, objective answers you expect, plus easy-to-read product cards showing the most relevant items, along with key details presented in a simple, visual format. These cards aren’t sponsored—they’re unbiased recommendations, tailored to your search by our AI.
This new discovery experience is powered by platform integrations including Shopify, which gives access to the most recent and relevant information on products across Shopify-powered businesses globally that sell and ship to the US.
You no longer have to scroll through countless product reviews. Perplexity gives you comparisons in clear, everyday language, so you can narrow down the best choices quickly and confidently.
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Tanks parked firmly and thoroughly on Google’s lawn.
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Leica just recorded the highest revenue in its entire 100-year history • PetaPixel
Jaron Schneider:
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Leica Camera announced that its 2023/2024 fiscal year saw it achieve the highest revenue in the entire history of the company. It saw 14% growth to 554 million euros over last year’s already spectacular 485 million euros.
Last winter, Leica announced that it had set a sales record for the 2022/23 financial year and it has shattered that achievement now in 2024. The company says it was able to build on its successful business and sustain the growth of its earnings. The biggest driver of the company’s success remains unchanged: cameras. While Leica has bolstered its business with its Mobile Imaging segment (smartphone technology and partnerships), the core of its business remains stand-alone cameras and the support of photography.
Specifically, Leica says that the most potent revenue driver this year was the Leica Q3. However, it did not elaborate on sales numbers for this camera.
2024 is the best fiscal year so far in the almost 100-year history of the company and Leica says that this result confirms its “strategic alignment” of the Leica Camera Group as it continues to foster its core business as well as expansions into other markets.
…Leica’s success is global. It saw the most significant growth in the Asia region with a 25% increase in revenue while Europe (not counting Germany) saw growth of over 10%.
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No word on profit; Leica has been a private company (owned by two investment firms) since 2012. It’s like the vinyl renaissance.
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Sonos’ smart TV plans might have found an OS • The Verge
Chris Welch:
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After its foray into headphones, the next major new product category from Sonos is rumored to be a video streaming box similar to a Roku, Amazon Fire TV, or Apple TV. Such a device has been rumored for ages now, with Bloomberg previously reporting that its price is expected to fall between $150 and $200. And today we got confirmation (or at least something close to it) that the Sonos streamer will run an operating system built by The Trade Desk, a digital advertising business.
Janko Roettgers first reported on a partnership between the two back in September, noting that The Trade Desk is “supplying Sonos with the core smart TV OS, and facilitating deals with app publishers, while Sonos is designing its own hardware, and customizing the user interface.” Considering the rocky last several months that Sonos has endured — through a mess of its own making — this Trade Desk arrangement sounds like yet another reason for customers to be wary about the company’s current trajectory.
The Trade Desk declined to share any images of its newly-announced Ventura operating system with The Verge. If hardware partners have free reign to customize it, maybe that’s why there’s nothing to showcase right now. But the company’s press release covers some of Ventura’s goals, and here’s the most relevant portion:
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Ventura represents a major advance in streaming TV operating systems as it solves key issues with prevailing market systems today, including frustrating user experiences, inefficient advertising supply chains, and content conflicts-of-interest.
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From the very first day I saw Sonos demonstrating its “music in multiple rooms” product (that’s 2005) I’ve been asking periodically when it was going to get into video. The answer was always “we don’t think that’s a key focus now” (or words to that effect.
Getting into bed with an advertising business seems.. like a move that will undermine its brand as a high-end ad-free product. Welch pretty much nails it:
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I’ve scratched my head for months, wondering what the potential killer app of a Sonos set-top box might be, and I still can’t come up with one.
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Nor me. The time when it could is long past.
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Kenyan workers with AI jobs thought they had tickets to the future until the grim reality set in • CBS News
Lesley Stahl, Aliza Chasan, Shachar Bar-On and Jinsol Jung:
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The familiar narrative is that artificial intelligence will take away human jobs, but right now it’s also creating jobs. There’s a growing global workforce of millions toiling to make AI run smoothly. It’s gruntwork that needs to be done accurately and fast. To do it cheaply, the work is often farmed out to developing countries like Kenya.
Nairobi, Kenya, is one of the main hubs for this kind of work. It’s a country desperate for work. The unemployment rate is as high as 67% among young people.
“The workforce is so large and desperate that they could pay whatever and have whatever working conditions, and they will have someone who will pick up that job,” [Kenyan civil rights activist Nerima] Wako-Ojiwa said.
Every year, a million young people enter the job market, so the government has been courting tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Apple and Intel. Officials have promoted Kenya as a “Silicon Savannah” — tech savvy and digitally connected.
Kenyan President William Ruto has offered financial incentives on top of already lax labor laws to attract the tech companies.
Naftali Wambalo, a father of two with a college degree in mathematics, was elated to find work in Nairobi in the emerging field of artificial intelligence. He is what’s known as a “human in the loop”: someone sorting, labeling and sifting through reams of data to train and improve AI for companies like Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft and Google.
Wambalo and other digital workers spent eight hours a day in front of a screen studying photos and videos, drawing boxes around objects and labeling them, teaching AI algorithms to recognize them.
Human labelers tag cars and pedestrians to teach autonomous vehicles not to hit them. Humans circle abnormalities in CTs, MRIs and X-rays to teach AI to recognize diseases. Even as AI gets smarter, humans in the loop will always be needed because there will always be new devices and inventions that’ll need labeling.
Humans in the loop are found not only in Kenya, but also in India, the Philippines and Venezuela. They’re often countries with low wages but large populations — well educated, but unemployed.
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The product changes, but the exploitation stays the same.
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| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
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