?? Wiser! #108: What's happened in tech this week

w/Wiser! #108 - 14th Jan 2023

What Happened In Tech This Week

Preamble

Welcome to the 108th issue of the Wiser! newsletter. This is the LinkedIn edition.

I'm currently travelling, enjoying the UK's grey and wet weather, and hoping I don't catch a cold because you can't buy Lemsip for love nor money. Meanwhile, regular readers of the newsletter will see that I've moved the larger articles to a separate page, in a "continue reading" format. This way I can keep the newsletter reading time down, and you still get the headline and takeaway. But if you do want to read more, it's there for you too. I hope you like the change. ??

Subscribers to the Wiser! mailing list received the full version of this week's newsletter yesterday (Friday, 13th). They never miss an issue and always get it first.?You can read the full colour version of Wiser! here .

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What’s happening in BigTech

Microsoft are to invest $10 billion in OpenAI on a $29 billion valuation.

This comes days after it was announced that Microsoft was to build ChatGPT into its Office product range, changing the way more than a billion Microsoft users write Word docs and create PowerPoint presentations. ChatGPT will also be integrated in the Microsoft search engine, Bing, creating a major threat to Google’s dominance of Search.

?? Notion have already implemented a great example of what this looks like, which I'm using to write this newsletter.

Here’s The Thing: Google are worried by the threat posed by ChatGPT. The tech giant has spent years working on its own chat bot and has actually built one to rival ChatGPT called LaMDA. But it has been reluctant to share LaMDA widely because of its potential to generate false or toxic information. According to the New York Times, Google has a second dilemma: if a chat bot responds to search queries with tight sentences and perfect answers, there’s less reason for people to click on advertising clinks. Continue Reading on Wiser! Things.

In other news...

• Consumers in China last year spent 1.41 trillion yuan, or $208 billion, buying things on ByteDance’s Douyin video app , the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, an increase of 76% from 2021.
• However, TikTok faces growing challenges ****in Europe and the US. I reported last week on the calls for TikTok to be banned in the USA , which I don’t think will happen (the US never banned Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal exposed the harm it posed to US democracy.) This week in Europe, the app’s chief executive met with the European Union’s top digital policymaker in Brussels to discuss regulatory hurdles , investigations, and political criticism across the continent.
• Meanwhile, WeChat, the Tencent owned messaging app, has reported fast growth on its own TikTok copycat short-video feed. Total number of views on WeChat Channels tripled in 2022, the company said. Channels has become increasingly important for Tencent as it fights to keep WeChat users’ attention in the face of TikTok’s domination of the attention economy.
• Apparently, Meta is rolling out a new machine-learning solution for reducing algorithmic bias in its advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Good luck with that!
• A review of Twitter by NBC News found dozens of accounts and hundreds of tweets claiming to sell child sexual abuse material . Remember, just last November, Elon Musk tweeted that stopping this kind of material on Twitter was “priority #1.” The reality is that little has changed, and how could it when the content moderation teams have all be disbanded? Here’s The Thing: Advertisers and users don’t like it. Clients of WPP-owned GroupM, the world’s largest ad-buying firm, have cut their spending on Twitter by between 40% and 50% since Elon Musk took control of the company in late October.
• Jack Ma has lost control of Ant Group. Remember: Jack Ma, once described as the Jeff Bezos of ChinaTech, disappeared from public view after he publicly criticised the CCP and China’s approach to financial services regulation. Continue reading on Wiser! Things.
• Only thirteen days into 2023 and already more than?21,700 tech employees have lost their jobs.
• Apple said it paid developers making apps for its App Store $60 billion in 2022, which was flat compared to what it paid out the year prior.
• Elon Musk?sets Guinness World Record for losing most money ever.

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What’s happening in Web3

• Hong Kong is?pushing ahead with the development of its Web3 industry ?as part of a plan to re-establish itself as a global cryptocurrency hub, pursuing a very different path from that taken by mainland China when it comes to the digital asset industry. Unlike China, which banned crypto transactions in 2021, Hong Kong is positioning itself to welcome a new licensing regime that will potentially open a market for retail cryptocurrency trading.
• El Salvador is to raise funds through the world’s first sovereign blockchain bond. The congress in El Salvador has passed a digital-securities law that would allow the nation to raise funds as it continues to push the country’s adoption of Bitcoin .
• In Dubai, a dedicated crypto hub for local entrepreneurs has attracted twice as many digital asset startups last year than in 2021 .
• NFT December sales surged to their highest levels since June last year. This was fuelled by ‘tax-loss harvesting’ caused by the slump in prices of some non-fungible tokens. This and allowed US holders to take advantage of a loophole to reduce capital gains taxes.
• The "Game of Thrones" official NFT collection, dubbed "Build Your Realm," completely sold out just seven hours after its release this week on Nifty's NFT marketplace.
• Twitter is developing a ‘Coins’ feature with Stripe payments. It’s not clear if these will be digital tokens on blockchain or via a more traditional web2 solution. But as I’ve said before, my guess is that Musk will integrate payments into Twitter. It’s a domain he understands very well (assuming Twitter survives, of course.)
• Federal prosecutors in the US are to investigate Binance , the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange following the collapse of FTX.
• Meanwhile, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) popped up on?Substack on Thursday with his own newsletter. In his first post, he repeated that he did not “steal funds” in what seemed to be his “I didn’t do anything” line of defence. FYI, the Substack newsletter will set you back $80, which is considerably more expensive than a subscription to Wiser! and, IMHO, substantially less interesting or of value!

What’s happening in Metaverse

• Apple’s mixed-reality headset is set to launch this year after seven years of development and delays, according to Bloomberg.
• H&M is upping its bets in emerging tech with the launch of Loooptopia, joining numerous others, including?Gen Z retailer American Eagle, who have made Roblox a key marketing asset in an attempt to connect with younger shoppers.
• Mastercard is launching a web3-focused incubator to help artists connect with fans through a new medium.
• McDonald’s new media campaign to celebrate the Lunar New Year uses AI, augmented reality, 3D filters and has a metaverse theme. In their press release, a McDonald’s spokesperson said:

"We know our fans live at the intersection of innovation and culture and that's where McDonald's needs to meet them.”

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What’s happening in Technology & Innovation

ChatGPT and all things generative continue to dominate the news feeds.

• OpenAI has opened a waitlist for a professional version of ChatGPT , the popular artificial intelligence chatbot, according to?TechCrunch. OpenAI may start to experiment with a paid version of the platform (which is currently creaking at the seams because of the massive demand for the free version.)
• Meanwhile, browser Neeva has integrated ChatGPT into it’s ad-free subscription service. Read my conversation with one of the founders of Neeva here.
• Notion has implemented a great example of how GPT-like AI tools will become as ubiquitous as calculators and spell checkers in consumer software (which I'm using to write this newsletter. )
• New York City Governors has banned the use of ChatGPT in schools. I think that’s short-sighted and explain why in Wiser! Things.
• Security research group Check Point Research (CPR) published a terrifying article entitled “OpwnAI: Cybercriminals Starting to Use ChatGPT .” Although not surprising, I wasn’t expecting it so soon.
• Meanwhile, according to Forbes, people are using ChatGPT to?write fake scientific abstracts which are good enough to fool scientists.
• ChatGPT is free to use. But that hasn’t stopped a ton of new mobile apps charging fees to use the free technology.
• Ryan Reynolds read from an AI-generated script in the new Mint Mobile ad .
• Microsoft has shown off its latest research in text-to-speech AI with a model called?VALL-E ?that can simulate someone's voice from just a three-second audio sample. The speech can not only match the timbre but also the emotional tone of the speaker, and even the acoustics of a room.

In other Tech & Innovation news

• Healthtech biometrics goes down the pan! At CES2023 last week, sensors inside the toilet are measuring human waste to detect health markers.
• Panasonic and Biel Glasses have announced a new pair of smart glasses to aid mobility for the visually impaired that describe as “life-changing.”
• Bloomberg?reported that Apple is actively working on making a touchscreen MacBook , which it plans to begin selling in 2025. Steve Jobs was always against such an innovation.
• Hyundai have demo’ed its 'crab-walking' e-Corner technology in an Ioniq EV . The tech allows the wheels of a car to turn in ways they can’t on a traditional suspension system . Expect to find the tech in production vehicles as early as 2025.
• An experimental, potentially revolutionary all-electric airplane designed by NASA will soon be taking its first test flight, which will mark a major milestone for battery-powered aviation.
• Shopify’s New Year’s Resolution is?"No More Meetings" after the CEO,?Tobias Lütke announced that all recurring meetings with three or more attendees will be removed “in perpetuity”. When I asked LinkedIn followers if they thought Shopify “**employees be better off because of the ban ”,** 58% responded “yes.”
• John Deere says it makes AI robotics , not farm equipment, which is more real than it sounds - its products are full of cameras and GPS now

??? Big Tech Little Tech #16

Episode #16 is all about what's coming next as Shaun and I gaze into our crystal balls and make a few predictions for the year ahead. Find all the links and show notes in the latest issue of the Big Tech Little Tech newsletter . Or listen on Spotify ??

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About the Wiser! Newsletter

Wiser! is a weekly newsletter that makes sense of what's happening and what's coming next in the tech economy. From disruptive technologies, like blockchain, crypto and artificial intelligence, to emerging trends, like Web3 and the Metaverse. Plus there's a big focus on BigTech and the impact of social media.

The purpose of Wiser! is simple, to help you stay interesting, informed, and one step ahead of your competition. Using easy and engaging language, I make sense of it all so that you don't have to.

?? My top 10 predictions for the tech economy predictions .

??? Big Tech Little Tech podcast #16 was posted this week.

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