• A panel of three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the 2021 decision that mostly favored Apple Inc. in an antitrust challenge from Fortnite maker Epic Games Inc. that accused Apple of engaging in monopolistic behavior by controlling the distribution of third-party apps through its App Store. The court also upheld the one claim that Apple lost, finding that the company is in violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law by not allowing app makers to direct customers to payment services outside of the App Store. (The Wall Street Journal)
• The Supreme Court agreed to take up two appeals cases that could determine whether the First Amendment bars government officials from blocking critics on social media. One appeal comes from school board members in California who were sued for blocking parents from Facebook pages and a Twitter account maintained by the officials, while the second appeal comes from a Michigan man who was blocked by a city official for making Facebook posts critical of the local government’s response to COVID-19. (Reuters)
• Microsoft Corp. agreed to stop automatically installing its Teams app for video conferencing and messaging on devices that use the company’s popular Office software, in a move meant to appease E.U. regulators and avoid an antitrust probe, according to two people with direct knowledge of the decision. The concession follows a 2020 complaint from rival Slack Technologies LLC, which accused Microsoft’s bundling practice of being anticompetitive, the people said. (Financial Times)
• The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s decision to not issue patents for inventions created by artificial intelligence systems. The appeal, brought by computer scientist Stephen Thaler, sought to overturn a lower court ruling that determined patents can only be issued to human inventors and AI systems cannot be considered the legal creator of an invention. (Reuters)

Happening today: 

• Running Remote, the world’s largest remote work conference, will kick off today in Lisbon, Portugal. Speakers include Slack Senior Vice President Brian Elliott; Annie Dean, vice president of Team Anywhere at Atlassian Corp.; and Niamh McGarty, senior director of human resources at Zendesk Inc.
• Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft, locked in a battle for dominance in the artificial intelligence space, will report earnings today.

What the Public Thinks of AI’s Potential Future in Hollywood

Morning Consult

SpaceX wins approval to add fifth U.S. rocket launch site

Joey Roulette, Reuters

The U.S. Space Force said on Monday that Elon Musk’s SpaceX was granted approval to lease a second rocket launch complex at a military base in California, setting the space company up for its fifth launch site in the United States.

Philips expects $600mn in litigation costs over faulty medical devices

Oliver Telling and John Aglionby, Financial Times

Dutch health technology group makes provision for resolution of a class-action lawsuit.

Democrats warn large tech firms could evade competition policies under new trade rules

Lauren Feiner, CNBC

If the tech industry gets its way in trade negotiations over an Indo-Pacific framework, U.S. regulators may be limited in how they can regulate some of the country’s largest companies, a group of Democratic lawmakers warned in a letter to Biden administration officials on Monday.

China Major Chipmaker-Backed Firm Set for Top Asia IPO This Year

John Liu et al., Bloomberg

A chip foundry backed by China’s top semiconductor firm is set to raise $1.4 billion in Asia’s biggest initial public offering so far this year, as Beijing ramps up efforts to finance its tech race against Washington.

Inside Meta’s scramble to catch up on AI

Katie Paul et al., Reuters

For more than a year, Meta has been engaged in a massive project to whip its AI infrastructure into shape. While the company has publicly acknowledged “playing a little bit of catch-up” on AI hardware trends, details of the overhaul – including capacity crunches, leadership changes and a scrapped AI chip project – have not been reported previously.

Google’s Cloud Unit Gains Key AI Chip Team to Compete With Microsoft

Anissa Gardizy and Amir Efrati, The Information

Google has moved the engineering team responsible for making artificial intelligence chips into Google Cloud, a spokesperson confirmed, in a step that could make the cloud unit more competitive with its bigger rivals, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, in selling AI-powered software to businesses.

How ChatGPT is Roiling 13 Software Companies

Kevin McLaughlin et al., The Information

Big software companies including Microsoft and Salesforce are racing to incorporate the technology behind ChatGPT, known as generative artificial intelligence, into their products to attract new users and boost profits.

Microsoft-backed tech group pushes for AI regulation: Here’s what it’s suggesting

Lauren Feiner, CNBC

BSA, a tech advocacy group backed in part by Microsoft, is advocating for rules governing the use of artificial intelligence in national privacy legislation, according to a document released on Monday.

AI Spam Is Already Flooding the Internet and It Has an Obvious Tell

Matthew Gault, Motherboard

ChatGPT and GPT-4 are already flooding the internet with AI-generated content in places famous for hastily written inauthentic content: Amazon user reviews and Twitter. 

Google releases security LLM at RSAC to rival Microsoft’s GPT-4-based copilot

Tim Keary, VentureBeat

Today in the Moscone Center, San Francisco, at RSA Conference 2023 (RSAC), Google Cloud announced Google Cloud Security AI Workbench, a security platform powered by Sec-PaLM, a large language model (LLM) designed specifically for cybersecurity use cases. 

Grimes says anyone can use her voice for AI-generated songs

Mia Sato, The Verge

The artist said she would share 50 percent of profits on ‘any successful AI generated song’ using her voice.

Inside the Discord Where Thousands of Rogue Producers Are Making AI Music

Chloe Xiang, Motherboard

On Saturday, they released an entire album using an AI-generated copy of Travis Scott’s voice, and labels are trying to kill it.

A Satellite Phone That Works Anywhere? The U.S.-China Rivalry Makes That Harder.

Yang Jie, The Wall Street Journal

Both countries want to dominate the technology, and that makes having one system that works in both countries tricky.

AT&T’s Gigapower JV targets 3 more cities in AZ, NV

Diana Goovaerts, Fierce Telecom

AT&T hasn’t been too forthcoming about where exactly it is planning to build fiber as part of its quest to hit 1.5 million passings through its Gigapower joint venture with private equity firm BlackRock. To date, it has named only Mesa, Arizona as one of its build markets, but Fierce uncovered recently signed agreements with three more cities.

Amazon’s Satellite-Internet Ambitions Move Closer to Reality

Micah Maidenberg, The Wall Street Journal

The tech giant still needs to mass-produce satellites and get them into orbit, but it expects to begin offering service next year.

AT&T urges DSL customers to switch to its new Internet Air FWA offer

Monica Alleven, Fierce Wireless

AT&T is currently offering Internet Air to a limited set of copper-based customers in places where AT&T has wireless coverage and capacity to deliver a “high-quality” customer experience, a spokesperson told Fierce.

Apple’s VR headset will reportedly run hundreds of thousands of iPad apps

Rohan Goswami, CNBC

Apple’s widely anticipated virtual reality headset, reportedly dubbed the Reality Pro, will also be compatible with Apple’s own iPad apps and the hundreds of thousands of third-party iPad apps, according to Bloomberg.

Apple Says CarPlay Now Available in Over 800 Vehicle Models as GM Plans to Phase Out Support in EVs

Joel Rossignol, MacRumors

CarPlay is now available in more than 800 vehicle models sold in the U.S., according to a recently updated page on Apple’s website. Until last week, the page said the in-car software platform was available in more than 600 vehicle models. Apple added many 2023 and 2024 vehicle models to the list as part of the update.

Apple captures nearly half of global refurbished smartphone market

Jagmeet Singh, TechCrunch

About half of refurbished smartphones sold globally were iPhones, as Apple’s sales in the category grew 16% year-on-year in 2022. The new figures arrives by way of Counterpoint Research, marking a stark contrast to ongoing declines in smartphone shipments.

Google Authenticator now syncs 2FA with your Google Account, gets new icon 

Abner Li, 9to5Google

Google is finally addressing a big gap of its 2FA (two-factor authentication) code app by adding sync capabilities, with Google Authenticator also getting a new icon on Android and iOS today. This will make “one time codes more durable by storing them safely in users’ Google Account.”

Google opens its security tools to competitors’ platforms

Sam Sabin, Axios

Google is leaning into flexibility as part of a new strategy to stymie the impact of belt-tightening among cyber chiefs. Google Cloud and Mandiant, the threat intelligence unit it acquired last year, unveiled at the RSA Conference in San Francisco today that they’re opening their security products to integrations from competitors, as well as offering new Google plug-ins for other vendors’ tools.

U.S. deploys more cyber forces abroad to help fight hackers

Zeba Siddiqui, Reuters

The United States is sending more of its cyber forces abroad to help foreign governments fight hackers, a top U.S. military official said at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco.

Is This Elon Musk’s Burner Twitter Account?

Jordan Pearson and Joseph Cox, Motherboard

Elon Musk appears to have accidentally revealed his burner Twitter account in a screenshot the billionaire shared on Monday night. The Twitter account, which Motherboard has not confirmed is Musk’s but several points of evidence strongly suggest it is, is full of bizarre tweets like, “Do you like Japanese girls?” in response to a tweet from a Bitcoin influencer, praise for Tesla, and replies to Elon Musk tweets. 

Twitter Backed A Bunch Of Underrepresented VCs. Under Elon Musk, It’s Trying To Dump Them.

Alex Konrad, Forbes

With Twitter expected to default on millions still due, investors at VC firms it committed to fund now face the challenge of helping to find a buyer or risking the volatile billionaire’s online wrath.

ByteDance is pushing a new app in the U.S. as TikTok faces a ban

Sheila Chiang, CNBC

Chinese tech giant ByteDance is pushing another social media app in the U.S. — even as its flagship short video app TikTok faces a possible ban stateside.

Nearly 25,000 Twitter users pay to subscribe to Elon Musk’s exclusive tweets

Matt Binder, Mashable

After this weekend’s Twitter Blue drama, debacle, guerilla marketing campaign – whatever you want to call it – Elon Musk shifted gears on Monday to promote Twitter’s other paid subscriptions feature called, well, Subscriptions.

Jack Dorsey-Backed Bluesky Attracts More Users as Twitter Falters

Vlad Savov, Bloomberg

Twitter users, weary from another tumultuous weekend, are exploring Jack Dorsey-backed app Bluesky as a possible alternative to the social media network.

Snapchat sees spike in 1-star reviews as users pan the ‘My AI’ feature, calling for its removal

Sarah Perez, TechCrunch

The user reviews for Snapchat’s “My AI” feature are in — and they’re not good. Launched last week to global users after initially being a subscriber-only addition, Snapchat’s new AI chatbot powered by OpenAI’s GPT technology is now pinned to the top of the app’s Chat tab where users can ask it questions and get instant responses.

BeReal says it has more than 20 million daily active users

Kris Holt, Engadget

BeReal, Apple’s iPhone app of the year for 2022, wants you to know that it’s still going strong. The app sends users a notification at a different time each day, prompting them to drop everything and share photos taken with their phone’s front and rear cameras simultaneously.

Twitter gave a gold checkmark to a fake Disney account

Ivan Mehta, TechCrunch

In a drive to offer free verification to top organizations, Twitter briefly gave a gold checkmark to a fake Disney account. The gold checkmark indicates that the account belongs to a company. It is related to the Blue for Business offering.

Sega of America is the latest video game studio to organize

Ash Parrish, The Verge

Today, workers at Sega of America’s Irvine, California, office have filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).