Apple iPhone 15 Plus model could receive a price cut, here's why

Apple iPhone 14 series was announced at the Far Out event earlier this year. The lineup has four new models. Much to the company's chagrin, the iPhone 14 Plus failed to garner popularity among iPhone fans. As a result, it has pretty disappointing sales.
Read more: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/apple-iphone-15-plus-model-could-receive-price-cut-heres-why-1710752?source=Snapzu

'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli advises Sam Bankman-Fried on potential prison time, saying he should prepare by listening to rap music and shaving his head

Disgraced FTX cofounder Sam Bankman-Fried was extradited to the US this month after being hit with eight criminal charges.
Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/martin-shkreli-offers-tips-sam-bankman-fried-prison-2022-12?source=Snapzu

Big Tech’s Big Flops of 2022

This was not a great year for Big Tech. In 2022, the economy slumped, stocks fell, inflation skyrocketed, and belts tightened. Silicon Valley was one of the hardest-hit places, partly because some of its companies had experienced such explosive and sustained growth for so long that it almost didn’t seem possible for that growth to stop or even slow down. And yet, here we are.
Read more: https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/12/27/23520906/amazon-apple-google-meta-streaming-big-tech-moonshots-goodbye?source=Snapzu

Apache Flink for Unbounded Data Streams

It's all about real-time processing speed, and on that score, Flink is hard to beat.
Read more: https://thenewstack.io/apache-flink-for-unbounded-data-streams/?source=Snapzu

Crypto craziness craps out – and about time too

Fintech, you're better than this. Time to concentrate on more helpful stuff
Read more: https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/23/crypto_craziness_craps_out/?source=Snapzu

The end of Netflix password sharing is nigh

The end of password sharing is coming to Netflix soon—and it will be a challenge for both viewers and the streaming giant. The company has put off this moment for years. Researchers inside Netflix Inc. identified password sharing as a major problem eating into subscriptions in 2019, people familiar with the situation say, but the company was worried about how to address it without alienating consumers. Then Covid lockdowns hit, bringing a wave of new subscribers, and the effort to scrutinize sharing petered out.
Read more: https://www.foxbusiness.com/entertainment/end-netflix-password-sharing-nigh?source=Snapzu

Amazon Has Conquered Christmas—but Its Reign May Be Ending

The retail giant mastered the mince pie and shoved its way into the holidays. But, it’s also had to cut back on its private-label products after poor sales.
Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-mince-pies/?source=Snapzu

Welcome to the first ever McDonald's where you're served by robots—in Texas

McDonald's has begun testing its first-ever robot restaurant in Texas, sparking debate and intrigue in equal measure. In Fort Worth, Texas, the branch is fully automated and requires no human contact to order and pick up your favorite meal.
Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/first-ever-mcdonalds-served-robots-texas-1769116?source=Snapzu

The Copyright Industry Is About To Discover That There Are Hundreds Of Thousands Of Songs Generated By AI Already Available, Already Popular

You may have noticed the world getting excited about the capabilities of ChatGPT, a text-based AI chat bot. Similarly, some are getting quite worked up over generative AI systems that can turn text…
Read more: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/22/the-copyright-industry-is-about-to-discover-that-there-are-hundreds-of-thousands-of-songs-generated-by-ai-already-available-already-popular/?source=Snapzu

Ticketmaster’s Dark History

Just over 28 years ago, Taylor Swift was a precocious Montessori preschooler growing up on a Pennsylvania Christmas tree farm, and Eddie Vedder was the Most Important Musician in America, Kurt Cobain having bequeathed to him the (unwanted) title with his suicide that spring. Bill Clinton himself called Vedder to the White House to ask him for help with “messaging” around Cobain’s death, and the rock star in turn confided in the president that he was having trouble with a rapacious corporation named Ticketmaster...
Read more: https://prospect.org/power/ticketmasters-dark-history/?source=Snapzu

Porn, Piracy, Fraud: What Lurks Inside Google’s Black Box Ad Empire

Google’s ad business hides nearly all publishers it works with and where billions of ad dollars flow. We uncovered a network containing manga piracy, porn, fraud and disinformation.
Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/google-display-ads-piracy-porn-fraud?source=Snapzu

Public Domain Day 2023

Works from 1927 are open to all! On January 1, 2023, copyrighted works from 1927 will enter the US public domain.
Read more: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2023/?source=Snapzu

New Skyscraper-Size Pig Farm Is a Mind-Blowing 26 Stories High

The biggest single-building pig farm in the world speaks to the dystopian nightmare that is animal agriculture.
Read more: https://mercyforanimals.org/blog/skyscraper-size-pig-farm/?source=Snapzu

U.S. authorities charge 8 social media influencers in securities fraud scheme

U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday said they have charged eight individuals in a securities fraud scheme, alleging they reaped about $114 million from by using Twitter and Discord to manipulate stocks.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-sec-charges-8-influencers-100-mln-stock-fraud-scheme-2022-12-14/?source=Snapzu

Breaking: SEC Charges Sam Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors

The SEC has filed charges against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, the securities regulator said in a doc released Tuesday. The SEC accused SBF of orchestrating a years-long scheme to defraud investors who committed nearly $2 billion to the fallen crypto exchange.
Read more: https://tokenist.com/breaking-sec-charges-sam-bankman-fried-with-defrauding-investors/?source=Snapzu

Ticketmaster is in hot water — again — and facing a fine after an 'unprecedented' number of people were sold fake tickets to a Bad Bunny concert

The chaotic Bad Bunny concert comes as Ticketmaster has been under fire for its Taylor Swift ticketing debacle.
Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/ticketmaster-under-fire-faces-fine-selling-fake-bad-bunny-tickets-2022-12?source=Snapzu

Amazon Wants to Kill the Barcode

Exclusive: Amazon built a computer vision algorithm from scratch to identify products without barcodes to help robots ship products to you faster.
Read more: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/amazon-wants-to-kill-the-barcode/?source=Snapzu

Not Your Keys, Not Your Bitcoin – FTX Was Selling Fake BTC to Its Users.

In the series “Not your Keys, Not your Bitcoin,” I call to the stand Sam Bankman-Fried. The now-infamous SBF who just turned FTX and Alameda into the biggest fiasco in cryptocurrency history! When a case like this breaks out, you are (unfortunately) never at the end of the (bad) surprises. That's what's happening right now for FTX, with new revelations that have just come to light.
Read more: https://inbitcoinwetrust.substack.com/p/not-your-keys-not-your-bitcoin-ftx?source=Snapzu

Tesla, GM facing 'a nightmare' in China, analyst says

As mainland China backs away from its zero-COVID policy and loosens restrictions, business optimism and a slight return to normalcy are welcome changes for citizens and investors. One large area of the Chinese economy that will be impacted is the manufacturing sector, and the auto industry in particular. China has the largest auto market in the world and sells by far and away the most EVs of any country.
Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-gm-facing-a-nightmare-in-china-analyst-says-194750735.html?source=Snapzu

The quiet disappearance of the safe deposit box

Once revered as the safest way to store physical valuables, safe deposit boxes are now being phased out by major banks.
Read more: https://thehustle.co/the-quiet-disappearance-of-the-safe-deposit-box/?source=Snapzu

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried 'willing to testify' at panel hearing - tweet

FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried is willing to testify before the U.S. House Committee on Dec. 13, the cryptocurrency exchange's founder said in a tweet on Friday, as regulators investigate his role in the wake of its collapse.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/ftx-founder-sam-bankman-fried-willing-testify-tweet-2022-12-09/?source=Snapzu

Kanye West's Yeezy Apparel fashion company owes $600,000 in unpaid tax to California with notices dating back two years, report says

Yeezy Apparel is also recorded as being in "good" standing, but tax-law experts told NBC that the tax notices indicate big problems.
Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/kanye-west-owes-600000-unpaid-tax-yeezy-clothing-brand-2022-12?source=Snapzu

Apple and Ericsson put an end to patent lawsuits with new licensing deal

Apple and Ericsson have reached a licensing agreement that will put an end to a years-long, increasingly nasty legal battle between the two companies. As announced in a press release, the deal includes a “cross-license relating to patented cellular standard-essential technologies and grants certain other patent rights.”
Read more: https://9to5mac.com/2022/12/09/apple-ericsson-patent-lawsuit/?source=Snapzu

Huge win for privacy: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe!

EU privacy regulators say Facebook and Instagram must not force users to agree to tracking by putting this requirement into their terms. This business model is illegal according to the GDPR.
Read more: https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/facebook-tracking-business-model-illegal-europe/?source=Snapzu

Google is bringing together its Waze and Maps teams as it pushes to reduce overlap

Google is merging the team it has working on the navigation app Waze into the same group that oversees Google Maps, the company has announced. The Wall Street Journal reports that the move is not expected to mark the end of Waze as a separate service, and no layoffs are planned as part of the reorganization. However, Waze CEO Neha Parikh is expected to leave the role after the transition, and the move is expected to reduce overlapping work, the WSJ notes.
Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/8/23499734/google-maps-waze-development-teams-combined-productivity?source=Snapzu

Uber fined $14m for lying to make you ditch cabs

Australia's Federal Court has fined Uber AU$21 million ($14 million) for engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct. Uber did so in two ways – one of which involved the offer it made in some parts of Australia to arrange rides in ye olde licensed taxis from within its app.
Read more: https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/07/uber_australia_fined_misleading_deception/?source=Snapzu

Peacock Paid Users Have Doubled in 2022 to 18 Million, Jeff Shell Says

Peacock has added another 3 million paid users since early October and now touts 18 million subscribers, double the 9 million with which it finished 2021, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell told investors Monday morning. “That’s real subscribers paying us real American dollars,” Shell told the UBS TMT Conference.
Read more: https://www.nexttv.com/news/peacock-paid-users-have-doubled-in-2022-to-18-million-jeff-shell-says?source=Snapzu

Investing in Startups: What You Need to Know and Why You Should Consider It

If you’ve watched The Social Network, you may remember that billionaire Peter Thiel, a serial entrepreneur and successful venture capitalist, was one of the first outside investors in Facebook. Thiel invested $500,000 in 2004 for a 10.2% stake in Facebook.
Read more: https://altoalternativeinvestments.com/startups?source=Snapzu

The economy just doesn’t make sense anymore

How’s the economy doing? Depends where you look. Seriously.
Read more: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2022/12/2/23486024/economy-inflation-jobs-report-gdp-stock-market-recession?source=Snapzu

Your Next House Could Be Made on an Assembly Line

Building homes—or at least pieces of them—in a factory could help address America's housing shortage.
Read more: https://time.com/6237782/modular-homes-affordability/?source=Snapzu

FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Says He Can’t Account for Billions Sent to Alameda

FTX’s founder said he couldn’t explain what happened to billions of dollars that customers of his failed cryptocurrency exchange sent to the bank accounts of his trading firm.
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/ftx-founder-sam-bankman-fried-says-he-cant-account-for-billions-sent-to-alameda-11670107659?source=Snapzu

The failure of Amazon's Alexa shows Microsoft was right to kill Cortana

Microsoft Cortana, we barely knew ye. 2023 is looking to be a rough year in tech, with layoffs already hitting various major companies as forecasts predict recession almost across the entire world. A combination of inflationary effects of money printing through the pandemic, Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine, and even China's COVID-Zero lockdown policies — are all contributing to a perfect economic storm hitting practically everyone.
Read more: https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/the-failure-of-amazons-alexa-shows-microsoft-was-right-to-kill-cortana?source=Snapzu

Startup backed by Tesla investor promises $300,000 flying car by 2025: 'This is not more complicated than a Toyota Corolla'

The promise of a future filled with flying cars is nothing new. For decades, futurists have touted the dream of your car lifting off and soaring above a traffic jam. So the most interesting part of a recent prototype announcement from Santa Clara, California-based Alef Aeronautics may not be the car itself, which Alef says will be able to take off into the air vertically and fly like a helicopter up to 110 miles on a single charge.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/04/alef-aeronautics-startup-backed-by-tesla-investor-flying-car-by-2025.html?source=Snapzu

Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims

For years, Apple watched Google and Meta make billions by collecting every scrap of people’s data to target them with ads. Now it appears it was just taking notes. Apple’s advertising operation follows the surveillance capitalism model of its rivals, using data it collects from various Apple services and your Apple account to show you ads in the App Store as well as its News and Stocks apps.
Read more: https://proton.me/blog/apple-ad-company?source=Snapzu

Amazon workers strike in the US and 30 other countries on Black Friday in global 'Make Amazon Pay' campaign

Black Friday kicks off the holiday shopping season. For Amazon, it's already off to a rocky start. Today, Amazon workers and activists are protesting to secure better working conditions across the globe. The campaign is led by Make Amazon Pay, a coalition of 70 trade unions and organizations including Greenpeace, Oxfam, and Amazon Workers International.
Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/make-amazon-pay-warehouse-strike-protest-black-friday-2022-11?source=Snapzu

Balenciaga files $25M suit against producers of controversial ‘BDSM teddy bear’ ad campaign

Balenciaga has filed a $25 million lawsuit against the producers of a controversial ad campaign that included a child pornography court ruling and BDSM teddy bears, new court papers show. The fashion house brought the suit Friday against production company North Six, Inc. and set designer Nicholas Des Jardins and his eponymous company for the inclusion in one of the ads of legal documents from a US Supreme Court decision on child porn laws.
Read more: https://nypost.com/2022/11/25/balenciaga-files-25m-suit-against-bdsm-teddy-bear-ad-producers/?source=Snapzu

Half of Twitter's top advertisers appear to leave platform within a month of Musk's takeover, report says

Just 50 Twitter advertisers have spent nearly $2 billion since 2020, and all seem to have stopped, according to new report.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-elon-musk-advertisers/?source=Snapzu

Google: 60% Of The Internet Is Duplicate

And you think you have a duplicate content problem on your site?
Read more: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-60-percent-of-the-internet-is-duplicate-34469.html?source=Snapzu

Ford recalls 634,000 vehicles worldwide over fire risks

Ford Motor Co is recalling 634,000 sport utility vehicles (SUVs) worldwide over fire risks from possible cracked fuel injectors and will urge owners to have their cars inspected, it said on Thursday.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-recalls-nearly-519000-us-vehicles-over-fire-risks-2022-11-24/?source=Snapzu

Perspective | It’s not your imagination: Shopping on Amazon has gotten worse

Most of what you see at first on Amazon is now an ad.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2022/amazon-shopping-ads/?source=Snapzu

Western Farmers Are Strapped for Water. These Technologies May Help.

Amid a historic drought and a rising population, new devices and approaches can help ease the strain on water resources for agriculture.
Read more: https://pgsignal.com/2022/11/08/western-farmers-are-strapped-for-water-these-technologies-may-help?source=Snapzu

Amazon’s already greenlit an FTX miniseries

Though the real world impacts of FTX’s spectacular crash have yet to fully settle, Amazon’s reportedly moving forward with a miniseries about the bankrupt crypto exchange and its infamous former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried
Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23475998/amazon-ftx-show-sam-bankman-fried?source=Snapzu

Jeff Bezos announces 40 grants totaling $123 million to combat homelessness

Jeff Bezos is continuing to make good on his pledge to give away the majority his wealth, to the tune of $123 million today. The Amazon founder announced on Instagram Tuesday that he has recently awarded 40 grants as part of his Bezos Day 1 Families Fund initiative, which he launched in 2018. The donations are part of a $2 billion total commitment to combat homelessness.
Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/22/business/jeff-bezos-day-1-fund-grants?source=Snapzu

The Most Profitable Company in China isn't Alibaba or Tencent, it's Apple due to corporate diplomacy led by CEO Tim Cook

It's being reported today that the most profitable tech company operating in China is not a homegrown internet giant such as Alibaba or Tencent, but California-based Apple.
Read more: https://www.patentlyapple.com/2022/11/the-most-profitable-company-in-china-isnt-alibaba-or-tencent-its-apple-due-to-corporate-diplomacy-led-by-ceo-tim-cook.html?source=Snapzu

McDonald’s and Walmart beef suppliers criticised for ‘reckless’ antibiotics use

Suppliers of beef to McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Walmart are sourcing meat from US farms that use antibiotics linked to the spread of dangerous superbugs, an investigation has found. Unpublished US government records obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Guardian show farms producing beef for meat packing firms Cargill, JBS, and Green Bay are risking public health by still using antibiotics classed as the “highest priority critically important” to human health (HP-CIAs).
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/global/2022/nov/21/mcdonalds-and-walmart-beef-suppliers-put-public-health-at-risk-with-reckless-antibiotics-use?source=Snapzu

Sam Bankman-Fried Possibly Gambled Away FTX Investors Money

There are some huge tremors on the ground in the wake of FTX’s bankruptcy filing. The crypto exchange’s collapse has uncovered a massive scandal involving the CEO, his gambling penchant, and prominent names in the celebrity space.
Read more: https://www.pokcas.com/sam-bankman-fried-and-ftx-bankruptcy/?source=Snapzu

A homeowner is selling a $1.8 million property with a free Tesla car to make it stand out from the crowd

A homeowner is hoping to expedite the sale of their house by offering a free Tesla electric car worth $60,000 with the purchase. The seller of the house in Auckland, New Zealand, who is remaining anonymous, is hoping to combat market challenges to the sale of their seven-bed property, priced at $1.8 million, by adding in the unusual deal of a free car.
Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/new-zealand-11m-home-comes-with-a-free-tesla-model-y-car-2022-11?source=Snapzu

Banksy Encourages Fans to Shoplift From Guess Since Company ‘Helped Themselves to My Artwork Without Asking’

Banksy told his followers to shoplift from the Regent Street Guess store in London after it displayed a collection that used his artwork without permission.
Read more: https://www.complex.com/style/banksy-encourages-fans-shoplift-guess-artwork?source=Snapzu

ID.me made “baseless” pandemic fraud claims to win contracts, Congress says

Online verification through ID.me was supposed to help the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) prevent widespread fraud while rushing unemployment benefits to those who needed it most during the pandemic. Instead, wait times to get verified for some stretched up to 10 hours, and in one case in California, actually took three days.
Read more: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/id-me-made-baseless-pandemic-fraud-claims-to-win-contracts-congress-says/?source=Snapzu

220,000+ BTC Withdrawn from Exchanges in Week After FTX's Collapse

Investors have withdrawn 220K bitcoins from crypto exchanges in the week after the fall of FTX, according to data by Coinglass. The demise of Sam Bankman-Fried’s $32 billion crypto empire has affected not only crypto prices but seemingly investors’ confidence in centralized exchanges (CEX).
Read more: https://tokenist.com/220000-btc-withdrawn-from-exchanges-in-week-after-ftxs-collapse/?source=Snapzu