This Week's Hot Tech News
Apple introduces RCS, OpenAI almost collapses, Youtube intentionally blocks Firefox browsers and many more shenanigans...
This week had a bunch of crazy tech news and headlines, leaving us all in awe, glued to our screens as we watched developments unfold almost hourly.
This post hopes to bring you a bite-sized curation of most major tech events that took place, to make sure you’re always up-do-date and ready to spill the latest beans about tech :)
1) Apple Introduces RCS Support for iMessage
Apple has announced that in 2024, iPhones will support RCS messaging, which will offer better interoperability and encryption when texting with Android devices. This change is due to regulatory pressure from the European Union's Digital Markets Act1.
Apple's adoption of RCS messaging is expected to bring a more secure and modern texting experience for users, as RCS supports encryption, read receipts, typing indicators, as well as high-res images and videos.
2) OpenAI Almost Collapses
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, was abruptly fired by the company's board of directors on November 17, 2023, leading to a series of crazy events including the resignation of Greg Brockman, the co-founder and president. This decision prompted discontent among OpenAI's employees, with nearly 500 out of 770 total employees expressing their intention to resign unless Altman was reinstated. This number grew to around 738 merely days later.
Altman, along with Brockman, had initially considered joining Microsoft, which has invested over $11 billion in OpenAI and owns about 49% of the startup, however upon further intense negotiations, Sam and Brockman decided to rejoin OpenAI, provided there is a big change in the board of directors.
Upon fulfillment of Altman’s request, and him rejoining the startup on November 21 2023, the current new OpenAI board includes:
Bret Taylor
Lawrence Summers
Adam D’Angelo
Read the full story in the footnotes here2
3) Youtube May Be Intentionally blocking Firefox Users
YouTube has been on a monetization push recently, as it began blocking ad-blockers and pushing users to buy YouTube Premium.
Users are reportedly seeing a five-second delay when loading YouTube videos in non-Chrome browsers, namely Mozilla Firefox, despite not using any extensions or ad-blockers.
Additionally, one user pointed out that YouTube's JavaScript code
mightcontain code that intentionally adds a 5-second delay to non-Chrome browsers.
4) Sunbird Shuts Down
Sunbird, an app that aimed to bring iMessage to Android users, has halted development due to security concerns. The company has temporarily shut down the app while they investigate the issues.
The app requires users to send their Apple ID credentials to Sunbird's servers, which raises concerns about the security of the app and servers.
The app also hold several security vulnerabilities, including the transmission of sensitive information over an unencrypted channel and the storage of unencrypted plain text data in Sunbird's database.
Sunbird's response to these concerns was unsatisfactory and that the app has been pulled from the Play Store.
5) Binance’s CEO Pleads Guilty to Multiple Charges
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has pleaded guilty to criminal charges and will pay $4.3 billion in fines. The company's CEO, Changpeng Zhao, has also pleaded guilty and will be stepping down.
The charges were brought by the US Department of Justice for violating anti-money laundering, sanctions laws and unlicensed money transmitting. The company has agreed to improve its compliance programs and appoint an independent monitor.
6) Proton Drive arrives on Mac
Proton Drive, a privacy-focused end-to-end encrypted cloud storage service, is now finally available on Mac, following its release on Windows and other platforms.
Proton Drive promises full encryption for files and metadata, and it's part of Proton's plan to bring secure, privacy-focused alternatives to the market.
This addition means that Proton Drive is now fully cross-platform, with users able to synchronize everything across all devices they use.
Proton also stated that will be working on a Linux release in the future.
7) Instagram now allows anyone to download public Reels
Instagram now allows users to download public Reels to their devices.
Previously, this feature was only available for U.S.-based users. This feature is now available for all users across the world.
The downloaded Reels will have an Instagram watermark and will not include audio if the original audio track is licensed.
8) Google admits Spotify pays no Play Store fees because of a secret deal
Google has admitted that Spotify pays no fees when using the Google Play Store, thanks to a secret deal between the two companies. This deal allows Spotify to bypass the usual 15% fee that Google charges for subscription apps. Instead, Spotify pays just 4% when using Google's payment system, and 11% if it uses its own payment system.
Google has also offered similar deals to other companies like Netflix and Match Group, but they have refused. The revelation has come to light during the Epic versus Google trial, where Google has been trying to defend its Play Store practices.
These kinds of deals may create an uneven playing field, where some companies are given preferential treatment and others are not, leading to anticompetitive practices and potential harm to smaller developers who cannot negotiate similar deals. Additionally, these deals may limit consumer choice and stifle innovation, as developers may be less likely to invest in new features or technologies if they are not fairly compensated.
⚙️ Post Updates:
11/29/2023: Added the word “
might” in section 3 due to the potential inaccuracy of the information
European Union's Digital Markets Act: The European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a landmark piece of legislation aimed at regulating large online platforms. The DMA aims to prevent big technology companies, also known as "gatekeepers," from abusing their market power, leading to more competition and choice, greater innovation, better quality, and lower prices. Failure to comply with the DMA can result in hefty fines and even the possibility of being forced to offload assets or being banned from operating within European borders.
On November 17, 2023, Sam Altman was removed as CEO based on the board (composed of Helen Toner, Ilya Sutskever, Adam D'Angelo and Tasha McCauley) citing a lack of confidence in him, with Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati taking over as interim CEO. Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, was removed as chairman of the board.
Brockman resigned from the company's presidency shortly after the announcement, and reported some details of the events that occurred before he left.
This was followed by the resignation of three senior OpenAI researchers: director of research and GPT-4 lead Jakub Pachocki, head of AI risk Aleksander Madry, and researcher Szymon Sidor.
On November 18, 2023, there reportedly were talks of Altman returning to his role as CEO amid pressure placed upon the board by investors such as Microsoft and Thrive Capital, who condemned Altman’s departure.
Although Altman himself spoke in favor of returning to OpenAI, he has stated that he was considering starting a new company and bringing former employees of OpenAI with him if talks do not work out. If Altman were to return, the members of the board agreed they would "in principle" resign from the company.
On November 19, 2023, negotiations with Altman to return to the company failed and Murati was replaced by Emmett Shear to take over as interim CEO. The board initially contacted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei who was a former executive at OpenAI to replace Altman and proposed a merger, both offers were declined.
On November 20, 2023, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced Altman and Brockman will be joining the company to lead a new research team regarding advanced AI, and state they are still committed to OpenAI despite the turn of events. The partnership had not been finalized as Altman gave the board another opportunity to negotiate with him.
About 738 of OpenAI's 770 employees, including Murati and Sutskever, signed an open letter stating they would quit their jobs and join Microsoft if the board does not re-hire Altman as CEO and then resign.
In response, OpenAI management sent an internal memo to employees stating that negotiations with Altman and the board are back in progress and will take some time.
On November 21, 2023, after continued negotiations, Altman and Brockman returned to the company in their prior roles along with a reconstructed board made up of new members Bret Taylor (as chairman) and Lawrence Summers, with D'Angelo remaining.
On November 22, 2023, reports emerged suggesting that Sam Altman's dismissal from OpenAI may be linked to his alleged mishandling of a significant breakthrough in the organization's secretive project Q*. According to sources within OpenAI, project Q* is aimed at developing AI capabilities in logical reasoning and theorem proving. Concerns about Altman's response to this development, specifically regarding the potential safety implications of the discovery, were reportedly raised to the company's board shortly before his firing.
> Additionally, one user pointed out that YouTube's JavaScript code contains code that intentionally adds a 5-second delay to non-Chrome browsers.
Later comments suggest it's not browsers specific. My code-fu isn't good enough to be confident in my ability to check that assertion, though