It’s always nice to start the day with a bit of unambiguously good news, so it brings me great pleasure to report that Apple’s DIY repair service for iPhones and Macs has launched in select (read: eight) European countries. The service is still not perfect (Apple’s devices arguably need to be made easier to repair in the first place), but it’s a great step in the right direction.
Elsewhere, Meta is gearing up to fight a new bill in the US which would force it to negotiate with and pay publishers whose content gets posted on Facebook. “If Congress passes an ill-considered journalism bill as part of national security legislation, we will be forced to consider removing news from our platform altogether,” writes Meta’s policy communications director Andy Stone. And in case you think the company’s bluffing, it did exactly that in Australia.
And now, here’s a silly tweet:
Stay tuned, as we continue to update this list with the most important news of today: Friday, December 6th, 2022.
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Tim Cook: Soon, many Apple silicon chips can be stamped ‘Made in America’
Today Apple’s CEO confirmed TSMC will make chips for Apple at its new Arizona plant.
The first plant is scheduled to begin production by 2024, with a second one lined up for 2026. We’ll have a report from the event itself shortly, so stay tuned.
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Jury convicts The Trump Organization on 17 tax fraud charges.
From Reuters:
Donald Trump’s real estate company was convicted on Tuesday of carrying out a more-than 15-year-long criminal scheme to defraud tax authorities… The Trump Organization – which operates hotels, golf courses, and other real estate around the world – faces fines over the conviction. The exact amount will be determined by the judge overseeing the trial in New York State court at a later date.
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What it’s like to be a person whose job it is to imitate a chatbot.
Writing in literary magazine n+1, Laura Preston tells us what it was like to impersonate Brenda, a chatbot whose fallbacks were “poets and writers with MFAs, but there were also PhDs in performance studies and comparative literature, as well as a number of opera singers.”
Getting this talent was possible because, at $25/hr, they got paid better than they would as adjuncts in academia.
The only way to keep pace with the inbox was to go into a state of focus so intense that at times I felt on the verge of astral projection. I heard nothing and felt nothing, not even the cues of my body. I sometimes became light-headed, and it would occur to me that I hadn’t been breathing. A senior operator watched our inbox stats at all times, and if a message went unanswered for more than a few minutes, we were in for a public shaming on Slack.
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Microsoft could be eyeing its own ‘super app.’
Microsoft has been considering building a “super app” to challenge Google and Apple’s hold on mobile. The Information reports that the app would be a one-stop for shopping, messaging, search, news, and more.
Microsoft did hire a former Uber exec to lead a consumer apps effort last year after unsuccessfully chasing Discord and TikTok acquisitions. It’s not clear if this “super app” will ever materialize, though.
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Ledger’s latest hardware crypto wallet tries on some iPod cachet.
Despite recent bad news around crypto, some people still think it’s the next big thing.
Enter this $279 credit card-sized Ledger Stax crypto wallet, “a usable way for you to take control of cryptocurrency and digital collectibles.”
It has an E Ink screen that wraps around its spine and wireless Qi charging, but its most important attribute is name recognition — it’s designed by Tony Fadell, who led the team creating the iPod. That’s supposed to suggest that, like the iPod, this will also become popular. We’ll see!
Ledger Stax crypto wallet Ledger
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