“Insider” Jimmy Apples says OpenAI is going to launch a search engine to compete with Google, Intel is losing billions of dollars a year. Hackers Stole Data on Up To A Third of Americans,Things are wrapping up in what might be the trial of the century. No not that one. We’re talking about the Google Antitrust Trial
All this and more on the “how do you like them Apples” edition of Hashtag Trending. I’m your host, Jim Love. Let’s get into it.
Noted insider Jimmy Apples claims that OpenAI is planning a major event possibly as soon as May 9th to unveil a new search engine intended to rival Google’s dominance.
Jimmy Apples, the pseudonym for a source of very credible leaks about OpenAI in the past, says the company has been hiring and notes increased activity at OpenAI over the past week, with at least 50 new subdomains created since April 24th, hinting at preparations for a big announcement.
If the rumors are true, an OpenAI search product could debut ahead of Google’s annual I/O developer conference on May 14th.
But Google isn’t the only one threatened by this new development. It could also threaten the growing popularity of Perplexity AI, an AI search offering. Microsoft recently banned employee use of that service, supposedly over security concerns.
In a recent podcast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the company’s interest in reinventing web search, powered by large language models. He stated a desire to, quote: “crack the code on the intersection of LLMs plus search.” However, Altman said OpenAI doesn’t simply want to build “a better copy of Google Search” but rather, quote: “a much better way to help people find, act on, and synthesize information.”
OpenAI’s move into web search would intensify its rivalry with Google and align with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s aim, stated a year ago, to “make Google dance” by integrating OpenAI’s technologies into Microsoft’s Bing search.
The AI search wars are heating up, with profound implications for how businesses and individuals find and make sense of information online. We’ll be watching closely for OpenAI’s expected announcement in the coming weeks.
Sources include: Analytics India
There’s no porn star or other salacious details, and democracy is not at risk, but there is another lawsuit going on the US that may have incredible impacts on the tech industry.
Closing arguments are underway this week in the United States’ historic antitrust case against Google over alleged monopolistic business practices in the online search market.
The trial reached its finale stage on Thursday as lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department and Google presented their concluding statements to the federal judge overseeing the case. At stake are billions in potential fines and restructuring for the tech giant if found guilty of illegally abusing monopoly power.
The government’s central allegation is that Google engaged in a systematic campaign of exclusive business deals to make its search engine inescapable for users, shutting out competition. It highlighted lucrative payments Google made annually, including $18 billion to Apple in 2021 alone, to be the preset default on devices and browsers.
In his opening statement last fall, the Justice Department’s lead lawyer Kenneth Dintzer argued, quote: “Google illegally maintained a monopoly for more than a decade. If Google sets the rules, it will always be to their advantage.”
But Google contends its dominance comes from offering a superior product people deliberately choose, not forced exclusivity. Its lawyer John Schmidtlein said during the trial that, quote: “Users today have more search options and more ways to access information online than ever before.”
The trial featured testimony from several tech industry titans including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who defended the company’s payment of billions for default search status as, quote, “mak[ing] it very, very seamless and easy for users to use our service.”
However, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified his company could not compete with Google’s system of pre-installed dominance on devices and browsers.
It’s now up to U.S. District Judge with the unfortunate name of Amit Mehta to determine if Google’s business practices violate century-old antitrust laws in today’s digital age. His ruling could have profound impacts restructuring the company or allowing its current model. A decision is expected in the coming months.
The case represents a major test for how U.S. antitrust enforcement will approach the unprecedented market dominance of tech’s biggest players. How the judge rules on Google could have big impacts on the government’s other big tech antitrust battles against Amazon, Apple and Facebook.
Sources include: NPR
The chief executive of UnitedHealth Group revealed to Congress that a massive cyberattack on its technology unit may have compromised the personal data of up to a third of all Americans.
In testimony before Senate committees on Monday, CEO Andrew Witty faced a grilling over the February hack of UnitedHealth’s Change Healthcare subsidiary, which processes around 50% of all medical claims in the United States.
Witty told lawmakers the breach has caused widespread disruptions in claims processing across the healthcare system, impacting patients, providers like hospitals and doctors’ offices, and even exposing data on U.S. military members.
When pressed for details by Senators, Witty acknowledged, quote: “Maybe a third of Americans’ protected health information and personally identifiable information was stolen. We continue to investigate the amount of data involved here. We do think it’s going to be substantial.”
The cybercriminal gang known as AlphV or BlackCat infiltrated Change Healthcare’s systems by stealing login credentials for an outdated server without multi-factor authentication in place.
UnitedHealth ended up paying the hackers around $22 million in bitcoin as ransom, but Witty said there are no guarantees the stolen data is now secured.
Several Senators raised concerns about the outsized role and cybersecurity vulnerabilities of UnitedHealth, with a market value over $400 billion and control over vast amounts of Americans’ health data through its claims processing.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden called the UnitedHealth hack a national security threat, saying quote: “I believe the bigger the company, the bigger the responsibility to protect its systems from hackers.”
Healthcare industry groups testified that the UnitedHealth breach has severely disrupted operations and cash flow for thousands of hospitals, doctors and pharmacies still unable to get claims paid weeks later.
The incident has raised alarms over the concentration of market power and consequences when a company processing most U.S. medical data suffers a crippling cyberattack with potentially disastrous implications.
But there’s another aspect to this. No matter whether it’s this huge company in the US or a smaller chain of drugstors like London Drugs in Canada, our regulator commentator, David Shipley of Beauceron Security pointed out that health data has the most sensitive and intimate details of our lives and when compromised, puts real lives at risk, which is why cyber criminals have gone after it so actively and why we all must push governments and law enforcement to step up their efforts to make it clear to hackers that they won’t get away with attacking health care.
Sources include: Reuters
We did a story a few weeks back about Intel’s ambitious plan to offer its manufacturing services to other chipmakers. What we didn’t know at the time, was revealed in a webinar with investors this week. Intel revealed its foundry operations lost $5.2 billion in 2022, with losses ballooning to $7 billion last year.
And the bleeding isn’t expected to stop anytime soon. Intel expects the losses will peak even higher in 2024 and the company won’t break even until around 2027.
This underscores the challenges Intel faces as it tries to compete with established foundry leaders TSMC and Samsung in the hypoer competitive global market for contract chip manufacturing.
But CEO Pat Gelsinger noted that Intel’s failure to move boldly was responsible for the current losses. He cited Intel’s delayed adoption of cutting-edge extreme ultraviolet lithography, or EUV, as a major reason the company was years behind rivals in transitioning to EUV for its most advanced chip manufacturing processes.
In an effort to regain ground, Intel recently announced it was assembling the world’s first high-NA EUV machine at its Oregon facility.
But Gelsinger acknowledged the company is still playing catch-up. It outsources up to 30% of its wafer production to other fabs, including its top rival TSMC.
The foundry business is one of the three pillars of Intel’s IDM 2.0 strategy aimed at reviving the company’s fortunes after years of manufacturing setbacks. But investing in new chipmaking technologies to attract outside customers will come at a massive upfront.
Gelsinger expressed confidence that Intel’s $7 billion foundry loss last year will represent the peak before finances improve as its latest manufacturing upgrades start paying off. But catching TSMC and Samsung won’t be easy or cheap for the Silicon Valley pioneer.
Sources include: ExtremeTech
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