Linked List: March 19, 2024

Tuesday, 19 March 2024

Nvidia Keynote Fills 11,000-Seat SAP Center ★

Asa Fitch, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (News+):

The Nvidia frenzy over artificial intelligence has come to this: Chief Executive Jensen Huang unveiled his company’s latest chips on Monday in a sports arena at an event one analyst dubbed the “AI Woodstock.”

Customers, partners and fans of the chip company descended on the SAP Center, the home of the National Hockey League’s San Jose Sharks, for Huang’s keynote speech at an annual Nvidia conference that, this year, has a seating capacity of about 11,000.

Professional wrestling’s WWE Monday Night RAW event took place there in February. Justin Timberlake is scheduled to play the arena in May. Even Apple’s much-watched launch events for the iPhone and iPad didn’t fill a venue this large.

Apple never tried to fill a venue that large for a keynote (the big keynotes at Macworld Expo and WWDC, in Moscone West and the San Jose Convention Center, were capped at about 4,000 to 5,000), but surely could have. But the point stands: Nvidia has the world’s attention, and deservedly so.

On the Ever-Increasing Accuracy of Weather Forecasts ★

Hannah Ritchie, writing for Our World in Data:

It wasn’t until 1859 that the UK’s Meteorological Service (the Met Office) issued its first weather forecast for shipping. Two years later, it broadcasted its first public weather forecast. While meteorological measurements improved over time, the massive step-change in predictions came with the use of computerized numerical modeling. This didn’t start until a century later, in the 1960s.

Forecasts have improved a lot since then. We can see this across a range of measurements, and different national meteorological organizations. The Met Office says its four-day forecasts are now as accurate as its one-day forecasts were 30 years ago.

When I was a kid it was a running gag that weathermen were always wrong. I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone joke about weather forecasts being useless. Over the last 40 years, 7-day forecasts have gone from a coin toss to “highly accurate”. (Via Kottke.)

Reuters: ‘EU’s Vestager Warns About Apple, Meta Fees, Disparaging Rival Products’ ★

Foo Yun Chee, again reporting for Reuters, after an exclusive interview with Margarethe Vestager, EU commissioner and renowned user-experience designer:

A new fee structure includes a core technology fee of 50 euro cents per user account per year that major app developers will have to pay even if they do not use any of Apple’s payment services, which has triggered criticism from rivals such as Fortnite creator Epic Games.

Vestager said the new fees have attracted her attention.

“There are things that we take a keen interest in, for instance, if the new Apple fee structure will de facto not make it in any way attractive to use the benefits of the DMA. That kind of thing is what we will be investigating,” she told Reuters in an interview.

There are already several marketplaces that have announced plans to open: AltStore, Setapp, Mobivention, and of course Epic’s game store, to name four. So the CTF obviously isn’t making it “not in any way attractive to use the benefits of the DMA”. But whether this is Vestager’s code-speak for “We’re going to declare the CTF non-compliant not because it violates the terms of the DMA but simply because we don’t like it”, I don’t know.

From a transcript of yesterday’s workshop on Apple’s DMA compliance plans, the opening remarks from the EC included this gem: “The reason is that we want to achieve compliance with the spirit of the DMA not just with the letter.”

That’s not how the rule of law works in the U.S.

Vestager expressed her reservations on Meta’s new fees. The company earlier on Tuesday said it has offered to almost halve its monthly subscription fee for Facebook and Instagram to 5.99 euros from 9.99 euros but Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems said the issue is not about the level of the fee.

“I think there are many different ways to monetize the services that you provide. Because one thing are the very targeted advertising that builds on data being consumed. Another way of showing your advertising is to make that contextual,” she said. “So I think it’s important to continue the conversation with Meta and we will assess also finally, what is the next push in order for them to be compliant with the DMA.”

If the EC wants to ban targeted advertising, they should pass a law banning targeted advertising. But they haven’t. Targeted advertising is legal in the EU; Meta simply has to offer users a reasonable opt-out. It seems like Vestager is hinting that the only acceptable opt-out — “spirit”-wise — is non-targeted advertising that generates only pennies on the dollar compared to Meta’s incredibly lucrative targeted ads. This is quite a message the EC is sending to businesses around the world.

Vestager also warned companies against discouraging users from switching to rivals by disparaging them, saying this kind of behaviour could trigger an investigation. Apple has said some of its changes could expose users to security risks.

“I would think of it as unwise to say that the services are not safe to use, because that has nothing to do with the DMA. The DMA is there to open the market for other service providers to get to you and how your service provider of your operating system, how they will make sure that it is safe is for them to decide,” she said.

So it doesn’t matter whether sideloaded apps are dangerous, or, say, that third-party browser engines may adversely affect battery life — Apple can’t make honest recommendations to its customers if those recommendations would discourage switching. Even though the entire reason many, if not most, people choose Apple products is that they trust Apple. The EU is not, obviously, America, but holy hell does it sound wrong to my American ears to claim it’s illegal for a company to offer customers the truth. (And this is exactly why I’ve been so adamantly opposed to Apple’s own anti-steering rules in the App Store all along.)

Meta Offers to Reduce No-Ads Subscription Fee for Facebook and Instagram in EU, but Critics Want No Fee at All ★

Foo Yun Chee, reporting for Reuters from day 2 of the EC’s DMA compliance workshops:

Meta Platforms has offered to almost halve its monthly subscription fee for Facebook and Instagram to 5.99 euros from 9.99 euros, a senior Meta executive said on Tuesday, a move that aims to address concerns from privacy and antitrust regulators. The price cut follows mounting criticism from privacy activists and consumer groups about Meta’s no-ads subscription service in Europe, which critics say requires users to pay a fee to ensure their privacy. Meta launched the service in November to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which curbs its ability to personalise advertisements for users without their consent, hurting its major revenue source. [...]

Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems said the issue is not about the fee.

“We know from all research that even a fee of just 1.99 euros or less leads to a shift in consent from 3-10% that genuinely want advertisments to 99.9% that still click yes. The GDPR requires that consent must be ‘freely’ given,” he said, referring to the EU privacy legislation.

“In reality it is not about the amount of money — it is about the ‘pay or okay’ approach as a whole. The entire purpose of ‘pay or okay’ is to get users to click on okay, even if this is not their free and genuine choice. We do not think the mere change of the amount makes this approach legal.”

Consider Meta’s average revenue per user (ARPU) per quarter by region. For the US and Canada, it’s about $50–60 per quarter, or over $200 per year per user. In Europe, with its stagnant economy, it’s about $20 per quarter and rising. (This number is probably inflated by wealthier non-EU countries in Europe, particularly the UK, but Meta doesn’t break out ARPU by country.) So €10/month was a reasonable deal, especially when extrapolating Meta’s ARPU trendline. €6/month is a veritable bargain — users who opt to pay would be generating slightly less than average revenue, but gaining a no-ads experience. (Sorry for mixing euros and dollars here, but they’re close enough at the moment — $1 ≈ €0.92 — to treat them interchangeably for ballpark comparisons.)

But Schrems’s argument, seemingly, is that Meta should be required to offer a no-tracking version of Instagram and Facebook completely free of charge. Meta could show ads to those users, but not the sort of ads that actually generate money. “Why can’t you just sustain your business with non-personalised ads without charging a subscription?” was, according to Kay Jebelli’s live coverage of the workshop, an actual question asked today. Next up: free ice water in hell?

Privacy fundamentalists seem upset that when given the choice between a free service with personalized ads (and tracking to do the personalization), and paying a fair fee for a service, the overwhelming majority choose the personalized ads.

The Sun: Aaron Taylor-Johnson to Take the Role of James Bond ★

Howell Davies and Ellie Henman, reporting for The Sun:

Brit actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson is taking his martinis shaken, not stirred, after being formally offered the job as the new James Bond. Insiders said the Kick-Ass movie star is expected to accept the role as 007, taking over from Daniel Craig, who has played MI6’s most famous spy for 15 years.

Eon Productions, which makes the spy thriller films, is on course to start shooting this year.

A source said: “Bond is Aaron’s job, should he wish to accept it. The formal offer is on the table and they are waiting to hear back. As far as Eon is concerned, Aaron is going to sign his contract in the coming days and they can start preparing for the big announcement.”

Take it with a grain of salt, as The Sun is a News Corp tabloid and there are conflicting reports from more reputable publications, but I loved Taylor-Johnson in Bullet Train (and loved Bullet Train itself). I could endorse this casting.

VisionDevCamp: March 29–31 in Santa Clara ★

VisionDevCamp:

VisionDevCamp is a not-for-profit developer event focused on creating applications for Apple Vision Pro and visionOS. Attendees are encouraged to develop native visionOS, Unity PolySpatial, and web applications during the event.

Registration is open, and costs just $100 — and that includes six meals over the weekend. From the team behind the long-running iOSDevCamp (which is so long-running it began as iPhoneDevCamp — before iOS had its name).