That’s according to Apple’s Eddy Cue in court documents filed ahead of closing arguments in the DoJ’s antitrust case against Google. It’s the first time the number has been confirmed, and marks an increase from the $18 billion reportedly paid in 2021. The filing also shows that Google’s 2020 payments were 17.5 percent of the Apple’s operating income.
While pleading with US lawmakers to protect artists like herself from the threat of generative AI, Twigs revealed that she created an AI version of her likeness.
“In the past year I have developed my own deepfake version of myself, that is not only trained in my personality but also can use my exact tone of voice to speak many languages.”
She plans to use the AI FKA Twigs to help promote her work globally.
“Even with my upcoming album I can explain in depth what it is about creatively. It also allows me to spend more time making art.”
The hearing was related to the bipartisan No Fakes Act bill currently being considered.
An unknown number of “targeted cuts” are coming to staffers who support the 22-member board that polices the world’s largest social media network. Launched in 2019, Meta has contributed $280 million to keep the board operational through 2025... which is a lot for a company that just emerged from its “year of efficiency.”
[The Washington Post]
The announcement follows the EU’s ruling to treat iPadOS the same as iOS, allowing residents to download apps from outside the Apple App Store, uninstall preloaded apps, and select default services like browsers from choice screens. iPad and iPhone users outside of Europe will have to continue streaming Fortnite through a browser.
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Verge Score
‘The world’s lightest city e-bike’ is worth a test, if not your $1,799.
When the resurgent Chinese giant unveiled its new Pura 70 flagship phones last week, all eyes were on the chipset. Would it close the gap with the state-of-the-art 3nm fabrication process Taiwan’s TSMC uses to make chips in the latest iPhones, for example?
Not even close, says Verge alum Vlad Savov:
TechInsights, which was the first to identify the original 9000s in conjunction with Bloomberg News, said it found “with high confidence” that the Pura contained a Huawei Kirin 9010 fabricated using SMIC’s so-called 7nm N+2 process, an enhanced version of typical 7nm manufacturing.
So... sanctions are working?
TSMC says it’ll start production of 1.6-nm chips by 2026 in a move that should “greatly improve logic [chip] density and performance,” according to Nikkei. Meanwhile Intel is targeting 2-nm and 1.8-nm technologies by 2025, with Samsung targeting 1.4-nm in 2027.
If Epic’s Tim Sweeney is excited it can only mean bad news for Google or Apple. In this instance, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has ordered an evidentiary hearing for May 8th to explore whether Apple is “failing to abide by this Court’s injunction, which requires it to implement certain practice changes relative to in- and out-of-app purchases.”
The search giant says it will phase out third-party cookies in its dominant Chrome browser in 2023, no 2024, erm... actually 2025, reports the Wall Street Journal, citing “ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers.” That assumes the effort to better protect user privacy gets approval from the UK’s CMA and ICO which are monitoring implementation.
