News Industry Ad Study Knocked as 'Tripe'

A study that estimates Google last year raked in $4.7 billion from news content has drawn widespread criticism. That $4.7 billion is a conservative estimate, according to the News Media Alliance, the trade group that released the study. That's because the estimate doesn't take into account Google's advertising revenue from publishers and data collected from news content. The actual value of news content to Google is difficult to quantify because of the ways it uses news to drive traffic, develop its products, and entrench its dominant position.

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Software Bug Gives Spyware Free Rein With a Single WhatsApp Call

Many users of Facebook's WhatsApp messaging software are scrambling to patch the program in response to news of a flaw that allowed spyware to be installed on mobile phones running Android and iOS. "This new type of attack is deeply worrying and shows how even the most trusted mobile apps and platforms can be vulnerable," said Mike Campin, vice president of engineering at Wandera, a mobile security provider based in San Francisco. WhatsApp is used by 1.5 billion people worldwide, both on personal devices and corporate-issued devices.

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Consumers Balk at Premium Smartphone Prices

Only a fraction of consumers are willing to pay $1,500 or more for a flagship Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy smartphone, suggests an informal ECT News Network survey conducted from April 15 to 22. Fewer than 2 percent of those who took part said they'd be willing to paying such a premium for a handset. New smartphones arrive with almost disturbing regularity. Their prices typically have increased with each new product -- unlike other consumer electronics categories, notably TVs, where prices have fallen steadily.

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Apple's Looming Nightmare

The big news last week was that Apple finally agreed to settle its fight with Qualcomm. Kudos to Tim Cook, because I've known a lot of CEOs rather who would have fought to the death than admitted they were wrong -- and not only wrong but acting disingenuously the entire time. Fighting this to the death would have been far worse. What spurred the settlement, given the timing, likely was he defense Qualcomm mounted in the latest San Diego court action. It showcased that Apple had made serious misrepresentations.

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Everyone's a Winner in Apple-Qualcomm Settlement

Apple and Qualcomm unexpectedly announced a settlement as their case entered the second day of a hearing in the U.S. District Court in San Diego. In related news, Intel announced it was getting out of the 5G smartphone chip business. The Apple-Qualcomm settlement provides an unspecified one-time payment from Apple to Qualcomm, a six-year licensing arrangement, and Apple's agreement to pay royalties to Qualcomm. The settlement will free Apple to enter the 5G smartphone competition, where it has been outstripped by Android device manufacturers.

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Apple Presents Its Spin on Entertainment and News

Apple announced a raft of new services, including original TV programming and news and magazine offerings, at an event held at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California. The Apple TV+ service, which will launch in the fall, already has a number of high-profile shows in its lineup, including Amazing Stories, a science fiction anthology produced by Steven Spielberg, and Morning Show, a series about a fictional TV morning show, with Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell.

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Google Reveals Its Game Plan for Fighting Disinformation

Google has unveiled its game plan for fighting disinformation on its search, news, YouTube and advertising platforms in a 30-page document. "Providing useful and trusted information at the scale that the Internet has reached is enormously complex and an important responsibility," noted Google Vice President for Trust and Safety Kristie Canegallo. "Adding to that complexity, over the last several years we've seen organized campaigns use online platforms to deliberately spread false or misleading information."

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Apple's Plans for Subscription News Service Irk Publishers

Apple is expected to launch a subscription news service at an event next month. The service has been described as "Netflix for news," because it would let customers access an unlimited amount of content from publishers for a single monthly fee. It will be based on a reworked version of Texture, the media subscription service Apple purchased last year. "Apple is targeting consumers who are serious about the news and willing to pay for it," said Michael Goodman, a research director at Strategy Analytics.

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Wireless Carriers Caught Playing Fast and Loose With Location Data

AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint have sold access to subscribers' real-time location data to aggregators, which in turn have sold it to about 250 bounty hunters and related businesses, according to a report. In some cases, the data allowed users to track individuals to their specific locations inside a building. Some companies made thousands of location requests to data brokers; one made more than 18,000 such requests in just over a year. The news, which sparked widespread outrage, prompted a range of responses, including demands for federal action.

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The Internet's Precarious Health

Mozilla has launched the first full edition of its Internet Health Report. The report is "an open source effort to explore the state of human life on the Internet," said Mozilla Executive Director Mark Surman. It consists of research and analysis compiled by researchers, engineers, data scientists, policy analysts and artists in Mozilla's extended community. The digital rights, open source, and Internet freedom movements hold that it is possible to build a digital world that is open, accessible and welcoming to all, according to Mozilla.

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Overcoming Your Terror of Arch Linux

A recent episode of a Linux news podcast I keep up with featured an interview with a journalist who had written a piece for a non-Linux audience about giving it a try. It was surprisingly widely read. The writer's experience with some of the more popular desktop distributions had been overwhelmingly positive, and he said as much in his piece and during the interview. However, when the show's host asked whether he had tried Arch Linux, the journalist immediately and unequivocally dismissed the idea, as if it were obviously preposterous.

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The Blurry Line Between Journalism and PR

The line between journalism and public relations can be fuzzy, and news organizations have wrestled with that problem for some time. However, that line recently has become more blurred than ever, with some publications enlisting armies of nonprofessional scribes to satisfy an insatiable appetite for content. It's easy to understand why the problem has mushroomed. Demand for copy has gone up. The number of people to produce it and the revenue it generates have gone down. The result has been the rise of dubious business models.

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Building a Speed Bump for Tech Companies' Maniacal Data Race

Facebook has been in seriously hot water for its data monetization model almost from the firm's beginning. The Cambridge Analytica, election meddling and fake news scandals have turned up the heat. Facebook's problems aren't limited to the public and government backlash that spans several countries; the firm faces potentially devastating legal threats too. On the surface, it appears to be a clear-cut issue: Social media and other tech companies must be reined in. Certainly, the EU thinks so, as is evidenced by its new GDPR.

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Behind Apple's Trillion-Dollar Company Numbers

Apple is one of the most popular and powerful companies in the United States, and last week it became the most valuable as well. That news brought back some personal memories of my time at IBM, when it was the most powerful and valuable technology company in the world. For a long time, it seemed virtually untouchable. However, IBM went off the rails in the late 1980s, and by the early 1990s the stock had collapsed, the CEO had been fired, and the company had announced massive, historic layoffs.

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Could a Tech Collaboration Tool Fix Dysfunctional Governments?

Microsoft Inspire is taking place this week in Las Vegas, and a huge number of my personal friends and I were prebriefed on what the big announcements would be. Strangely, the embargo on the news lifted last week, so I'm not going to get in trouble for sharing some of the revelations. There are a number of interesting elements, including Microsoft's suddenly aggressive move to use Azure as an Internet of Things host, which suggests that in the future, many of our homes and businesses will be managed remotely in the Microsoft Cloud.

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The Best Defense Against Fake News in Social Media

IBM just showcased Project Debater, and it just won against a top human debater using actual facts. We need the production version of this tool yesterday. Fake news is getting worse. We have always had issues with politicians and con artists trying to convince us down is up and to get us to do things that, were we informed, we'd never do. It won't be long before criminals will be using artificial intelligence tied to information they have bought from a social network to better take our hard-earned cash from us or change our government.

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Facebook Shores Up Its Position on Fake News Front

Facebook has announced new tactics to reduce the spread of fake news. Its efforts will include combining technology with human reviewers to identify and remove fake accounts; partnering with fact-checkers; and promoting news literacy. Facebook will expand its fact-checking programs to new countries, scrutinize photos and videos more closely, and increase the impact of fact-checking through new techniques that could include identifying duplicates and using Claim Review. It will monitor repeat offenders more closely and take actions as necessary.

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Hits, Misses and Drama at E3 2018

E3 had the usual hits and misses this year, and more drama than most of the games on the screens. With a strong lineup of first-party titles plus better third-party support, Nintendo is the comeback king. However, the battle for hardcore gamer dollars continues to be fought between Microsoft and Sony. With no new hardware news from the companies, this was another year about the games, but for every hit there were apparently a few misses -- and no doubt many of the games shown this year won't be released by the time next year's show kicks off.

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Fighting Fake News and Forging Real Diplomacy

What we do about fake news today could have a major impact on our future. Two new initiatives -- a concerted effort by Apple and a massive educational effort called the "Pro-Truth Pledge" -- could help eliminate much of the fake news BS that is really messing up the United States at the moment. On another front, President Donald Trump's plan to meet with Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of North Korea, reminds me a bit too much of a pivotal meeting between Carly Fiorina, who was CEO of HP at the time, and Steve Jobs, who was then CEO of Apple.

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Disney Debuts ESPN+ Streaming Sports Service

Disney has introduced EPSN+, an all-in-one, direct-to-consumer premium streaming service that offers thousands of live sporting events as well as original series and films. ESPN+ is the first such premium service from The Walt Disney Company's Direct-To-Consumer and International Group through a partnership with ESPN. The release of ESPN+ coincides with the release of the free ESPN App, which features five primary navigation menus. Viewers can catch live events; check scores; watch news and analysis; view video clips; or listen to ESPN Radio content.

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