Elon Musk takes on the Brazilian government, backup software provider Veeam provides an escape hatch for VMware and other virtualization platforms, and Anthropic presents a new way to generate apps that not only challenges OpenAI’s GPT store, but it might have Google and Apple watching closely as well.
All this and more on the “duke it out competition” edition of Hashtag Trending. I’m your host, Jim Love. Let’s get into it.
Elon Musk’s confrontation with Brazilian authorities has escalated as his satellite internet service, Starlink, refuses to comply with court orders to block access to Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter, in Brazil.
This conflict has been brewing for some time between Musk and a Brazilian judge, Justice Moraes, who is carrying on a campaign to clean up the Brazilian internet by ordering social networks to suspend accounts he says spared disinformation, hate speech or threats to democracy.
Musk has refused the judge’s orders claiming these actions are illegal censorship, particularly targeting conservative voices.
This defiance follows weeks of tension where Musk ignored fines, fired X employees in Brazil to so that they could not be held accountable for X’s actions, and suggested users bypass the ban with VPNs, despite potential hefty fines.
The Brazilian government responded by seizing or freezing assets of both X and Starlink.
And Brazil’s Supreme Court has become involved, and ordered that Musk’s social media platform X be blocked.
Internet providers have responded and many X users have moved to other platforms, notably Meta’s Threads and Bluesky, another X competitor started by Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter.
But there has been one hold out in terms of blocking X in Brazil.
Starlink, with 250,000 customers in Brazil, told the country’s telecom agency it won’t block X until its frozen assets are released pitting Musk’s business empire against the Brazilian government.
This standoff raises questions about the power a tech billionaire to leverage their part of global communications infrastructure to influence or defy governments. It also raises real issues between free speech and content moderation. And it raises some of the challenges governments face in regulating multinational tech companies operating critical communication infrastructure.
No matter what the outcome, or who blinks first, this is a story to watch.
Sources include: The Register
=Data protection software vendor Veeam has released support for Proxmox, an open-source virtualization platform. This development, part of Veeam Backup & Replication version 12.2, allows for the creation of immutable backups of virtual machines managed by Proxmox, with storage options both on-premises and in the cloud.
But the new software has an added twist. This new release also enables the restoration of virtual machines from other platforms – including VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, and major cloud providers – into Proxmox environments. This flexibility extends to physical server backups as well.
The timing of this release is particularly noteworthy given recent changes in the virtualization landscape. James Westendorf, director of technical services at Lake Land College in Illinois, provided insight in an article in the Register:
“With the recent changes at VMware, we were forced to re-evaluate which hypervisor to choose for our datacenter – a situation nobody wants to be in. [Veeam’s new release will help] as we look forward to being able to choose to move to Proxmox [and] provide us with the peace of mind we need during these tumultuous times.”
While VMware maintains that its new offerings provide better value, some customers disagree. Lake Land College joins companies like Geico, Computershare, and Boyd Gaming in moving away from VMware solutions.
Veeam’s update also improved support for Nutanix AHV and, as noted, other popular competitors. While virtualization provides immense flexibility on a hardware basis, some have compared the difficulty in moving between software virtualization platforms to the famous Hotel California, where you can “check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
Sources include: The Register
Anthropic, the AI research company known for its Claude models, is making headlines with plans to launch its own “Claude Artifacts” store, which some feel could provide a real threat to OpenAI’s GPT store and maybe even traditional app store like Apple’s App Store.
The move comes after OpenAI’s attempt to create a plugins store for its GPT models, which was initially hyped as an “iOS App Store moment” but ultimately, many felt fell short of expectations.
The OpenAI Plugins Store aimed to revolutionize the way users interact with AI by providing a centralized marketplace for plugins and extensions. However, it faced criticism for its poor user experience, lack of quality control, and security concerns, leading many to describe it as chaotic and unorganized.
In contrast, Anthropic’s Claude Artifacts seems to have learned from these shortcomings. The store promises a more curated and secure environment for distributing AI tools and applications. Anthropic claims that by focusing on quality and reliability, they will create a seamless experience for both developers and users, ensuring that only trustworthy and effective AI tools are made available.
But the idea of a store may be secondary. Even in the initial offering, the ease with which you can generate a relatively sophisticated application is nothing short of amazing. Two of our regular panelists have shared applications with us.
The first one that got our attention helps split bill on a meal, including tips. It’s a working application, with a useful function generated without any code at all. Evgeny Koloda, a guest panelist in our AI show shared that and said, “I already built a few apps. It’s charging the way we see apps now. After this we will be building apps on demand for a specific target. Crazy”
Marcel Gagne, a frequent panelist was able to create a basic recreation of a popular early video game with a online prompt. He suggests that this the “output might need a bit more before app developers start shaking in their boots. That said, the fact that I can do this, without coding, is pretty cool.”
But as Marcel is fond of repeating, “today you are using the worst version of AI that you’ll ever see.”
Claude Artifacts could signal a significant shift in how AI applications are distributed and used, potentially challenging the existing app store model dominated by tech giants like Apple and Google. As AI continues to evolve, our bet is that these tools ultimately will change the way we buy and consume apps.
And that’s our show for today. You can find show notes at our news site technewsday.com or .ca take you pick.
Hashtag Trending is on summer hours so there’s no morning news edition tomorrow, but our weekend show will be released early on Friday.
Thanks for listening. I’m your host Jim Love, have a Terrific Tuesday
