Intel is knee deep in geopolitical shit that kicked off late last year when they asked suppliers "not use any labour or source goods or services from the Xinjiang region". Xinjiang is the epicentre of the ongoing Uyghur genocide and US sanctions require US companies ensure none of their produts contain stuff from Xinjiang. This upset the Chinese government, which forced Intel to apologise to China for the "trouble" it caused and remove all mentions of Xinjiang from its supplier terms. Intel's groveling to China then upset US politicians who accused Intel of "cowardice". All Intel is trying to do here is have its cake and eat it too. Poor multi-billion dollar corporation now has to take a position on human rights. It's not fair, they're just trying to make money!
A Wall Street Journal story about "the lock-in and social pressure Apple's walled garden is creating among US teens" (apparently American kids are bullied/teased/ostracised if their messages in an iMessage group chat aren't blue), had a comment from Google SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer saying that "Apple's iMessage lock-in is a documented strategy. Using peer pressure and bullying as a way to sell products is disingenuous for a company that has humanity and equity as a core part of its marketing. The standards exist today to fix this" - RCS, which is really just glorified SMS, not a modern multi-platform messaging platform. Have a sook Google. Perhaps if you didn't drown all your messaging platforms at birth, you'd be a contender.
The US FTC has permission from a judge to have another crack at breaking up Meta/Facebook. The FTC alleges that "Meta holds an unlawful monopoly in personal social networking services and maintained it by acquiring the competitors Instagram and WhatsApp". When it tried to file the suit about 18 months ago the case was dismissed, but an updated complaint is getting allowed because according to the judge, "In stark contrast with its predecessor, this complaint provides reinforcing, specific allegations that all point toward the same conclusion: Facebook has maintained a dominant market share during the relevant time period" and that "Facebook's market share comfortably exceeds the levels that courts ordinarily find sufficient to establish monopoly power". Get the popcorn out mates, this is gonna be a juicy one for 2022.
📻 Black Hot Soup (DJ Shadow “My Own Reality” Re-Write) - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard & DJ Shadow
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