Tag Archives: Apple

October 9, 2024 · 23:48

Personal perception

It is always funny to see greed and stupidity in one compact package. In this instance I am introducing you to the American department of Justice. The one that will not prosecute Microsoft, the one that hands their economy to China and the one that throws away whatever economic options they have. Hobbled by ego trippers without a clue, chastised by a failing religion, one nation under the league of flaccid atheists. 

Is that clarity enough? In comes the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62504lv00do) giving us ‘Google threatened with being broken up by US’ where we see “The US government is considering seeking the break-up of the world’s biggest search engine, Google, which it accuses of causing “pernicious harms” to Americans.” Really? The US government is accusing Google of “irreparable harm done through evil or insidious corrupting or undermining”? Who is the idiot making that accusation? Lets have a rundown

It was founded in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. They released Google search and they were clever they had the IP properly patented. Two clever dudes designed something that Microsoft never considered. Microsoft who was licking the rear end of the CFO’s of the fortune 500 were outsmarted by two students who gave people a system they needed, they handed system the people needed. So in this daytime and age, who would you rather appeal to? 500 persons who think they know it all, or a few million who are happy to be grateful? One implies money, the other gives you clusters of happy workers. In 2010 they improved the search engine making it twice as fast. At that point they had the cornerstone of modern telecom electronics. And  that is when 4G came out. And Google became the power player it is today. The story is a little more complex but this is the gist of it. The power player who proclaimed to be innovating were surpassed by two students who actually were innovative. Apple took the option of letting the innovators be and offered their technology for a large payout. 

There is more to all this, but the lowdown is that innovators recognise other innovators (YouTube) and they came up with Google Ads and in all that time the so called innovators (Microsoft) couldn’t even get close to what Google designed. They failed to offer a decent search engine (Bing) and they had nothing to offer against Google Ads (Microsoft Advertising) they failed 4 times over. And now we get stakeholders to push for breaking up Google. So let’s see how stupid that is.

In 2019 Huawei created HarmonyOS. In 5 years it created a decently worthy opponent to Android. It is now available in 77 languages. Last year it created HarmonyOS NEXT. It allows several smart devices to talk to one another. We can speculate that Harmony OS NEXT is more than a worthy opponent to Google. It will allow Huawei to hand the people in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East with mobile solutions that will be happily accepted in the houses there. That is what the DoJ is achieving. And this is not the first time they are interfering where they seemingly have little knowledge. And for me it could open another door (yay me). 

All this matters because Huawei Harmony OS NEXT will enable seamless interactions among a wide array of device forms, from earphones and automobile head units to smart TVs and mobile phones. Google does this with the devices they have, but until now they had no real competitor, Microsoft was too soft and not enough micro and beside that they are spread too thin. Now that the DoJ is seemingly planning to break up Google Huawei gets a nice clean playing field to promote their brand outside the USA and with that America loses more and more market share. So whatever deceitful claim America makes They are about to be sliced and diced in the mobile industry by Huawei, TikTok (ByteDance) for video and on the electronic field by Tencent. Three companies that have real innovators and the one innovator that needs the space to continue their work is hobbled by “If the DOJ pushes ahead with the proposed remedies – and they are accepted by the judge in the case – it would represent arguably the biggest regulatory intervention in the history of big tech” which hands a clear victory to Chinese entrepreneurs. How silly they are.

As I see it, they are about to lose seven times over with the losses they have and looking at timeline of the innovators, the stakeholders as I personally see it are handing Chinese companies massive victories and I reckon that those ‘siding’ with America will change sides to the Chinese corporations before the ink dries of whatever bankrupt statement America gives the world and with the 35 trillion dollars they have less then 4 years to avoid that and I have no idea what happens to whatever Wall Street will side with. This is my personal perception of what is about to happen. Many will say that I will be wrong and I could be, but there is too much data siding with me and whilst these stakeholders get politicians to side with the need to line their pockets America keeps on losing more and more. 

In 2022, Saudi Arabia signed $4 billion worth of arms agreements with China, including deals for armed drones, ballistic missiles. In 2024 it has grown to $50 billion. This is partially important as I wrote on the 21st of February 2021 ‘How to miss out on $20,000,000,000’ And I was wrong, I stand corrected. Their revenue grew to $50 billion a mere three years later. I saw it coming a mile away and now it is happening. And the DoJ is making it worse. As I see it Google, Adobe, IBM and Oracle are the last of the real innovators and the DoJ is about to hobble one of these four, it will soon be that bad. 

As such, is my perception wrong? It might be, but my presumption has been a lot more correct than it has been wrong. No matter how you view it the entire Google mess is being mishandled (as I personally see it) pretty much from the beginning. 

And now America gives the option for a much larger win to Huawei Technologies. It will not impact  America, but Google is very likely to lose market share on several fronts. There is a much larger loss if Huawei would include TikTok on every Huawei mobile. Should these mobiles come with HarmonyOS NEXT the damage would increase and with their multi sharable sides Apple revenue would also be impacted as well as a loss of revenue to all kinds of accessories. These losses of revenue will hit Apple as well as Google. As I see it a simple creation of imbalance by people who (by my reckoning) have no clue on the internet of things. What a lovely present ego makes for others.

Enjoy the coming day.

1 Comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Law, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 2, 2024 · 07:57

Greed and stupidity, aligned and enhanced

That is the trouble at times. When captains of ‘industry’ push for legal ‘solutions’ as they seemingly fall short of investor expectations. Well that is how I see it and the Herald Sun (at https://www.heraldsun.com/news/business/article293290914.html) hands you this with ‘Cary’s Epic Games sues Google again. Here’s what the new lawsuit claims.’ In this alignment we are given “As a federal judge weighs what corrective steps Google must take to remove barriers surrounding its Play Store, Cary’s Epic Games has accused the internet search giant of finding a new unlawful way to protect its Android app store monopoly.” I wonder how non-intelligent the connected judge is. You see the Play-store needs more protection, not less. When we are given “create an obstacle for Android owners to use third-party app stores like the Epic Games Store. Epic Games’ latest lawsuit focuses on a Samsung program called Auto Blocker, which stops users from downloading apps from sources other than the Google Play Store or Samsung Galaxy Store.” The danger is that ANY third party app store raises the danger of hackers and/or organised crime to get access to our mobile devices. And I will not allow ANY non-Google player to access my device. In addition, the judge is seen as the culprit if there isn’t a clear message that any play store can be prosecuted for transgressions on our mobile devices and sued for damages to our digital person as well as prosecuted of for data transgressions. This is what I saw coming when I wrote Epic downfall on November 12th 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/11/12/epic-downfall/), when I wrote “I reckon that first issues will emerge within 3 months of the alternative to ApplePay path and it will not take long until lawyers will suit up for class actions all worth billions. Epic will need a lot more lawyers soon enough and it will cost them. It could constitute the dangers (for Epic) that 2021 started the downfall that could have been avoided, a setting they caused themselves and the greedy hackers saw a clear new target, Epic Games with a bullseye. A bullseye that will be painted on their CEO and CFO, what a wild web we tend to weave.” And now Epic goes on suing more (or better stated in other directions). There is a massive call of holding Epic Games accountable for what comes next, will the judge take that into account. All the people that Epic Games endangered for allowing this danger to reach over 800,000,000 devices? I guess not, but then we now have a picture as given in the Durham Herald Sun, so when your device is hacked due to these proceedings, I suggest to look him up and demand an explanation in person. 

Have a great day.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Law, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 18, 2024 · 23:35

It’s fun to get it right

On the 11th of September I wrote ‘A brief recollection’, a story where I had issues with the setting of ‘monopolisation’ by Google and with that I also stated “Google innovated this market more than anyone ever considered. The fact that Microsoft has no chance and lacks expertise in software to make any dent in Google application is one part of the evidence. It also didn’t stifle competition, the fact that Microsoft had no option to push anything in Google’s path seems to me that this is the second part of the evidence is also nullified. After decades of ‘exploitation’ of customers, Google gave them all a fair chance. So why doesn’t anyone see that?” And now, less then four hours ago, the BBC gives us ‘Google scores rare legal win as 1.49bn euro fine scrapped’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62rjd363j1o) with the text “It said the Commission had not considered “all the relevant circumstances” concerning the contract clauses and how it defined the market. Because of this, it ruled the Commission did not establish “an abuse of dominant position.”” That was what I basically said. The lack of creativity by others (read Microsoft) is no evidence of abuse. Their failure to see an equal footing five times over (once by Apple, once by Amazon, once by Sony and twice by Google) is not a setting of dominant abuse, it is merely dominant captaincy due to a failing to set the stage on creativity and I myself am about to give that lesson to Microsoft twice more. So how stupid do they need to get? 

As such it seems that the legal profession had to admit defeat on the mere stage to scrap the fine with the quote “The Commission concluded Google had abused its dominance to prevent websites from using brokers other than AdSense when they were seeking adverts for their web pages”, which is not correct either. You see Microsoft has edge and its advertisement solution. It is however failing on several fronts It falls behind Chrome having 65% and behind Safari with its 18.5%, Edge has a mere 5.3%. And behold, Safari is only on Mac systems. In February 2024 MacOS systems had a mere 15.42% and PC’s had over 72% and even in that environment Edge has a mere 5.3%, failing to come close to Safari. Does that not tell you something. It isn’t that Google is abusing dominance, there simply isn’t anything close to compatible. It isn’t abuse, there is simply no equivalent in that game and the advertisement game is cut throat to say the least. And as I see that, I see two additional blows I can give Microsoft and that pretty much ends Microsoft to be the competitor. It is a mere agent of mediocrity and as such it loses more and more market share. I can give (for a fee) one to Google and the other one to Amazon and they can show Microsoft what it is to be dead last in a game that only has space for the victor. Soon America will try its luck on shaking down Google for cash as we are told “The US government is also taking the tech giant to court over the same issue, with prosecutors alleging its parent company, Alphabet, illegally operates a monopoly in the market.” I wonder how they tend to prove that when the competitors (mainly Microsoft) are showing to be ridiculously short changed on competition. As I see it, it is a court session waiting to fail. The nice side is that I could optionally still rely on Kingdom Holding and Tencent Technology to enter a deal with me to broker technology and is definitely worth it when it comes to Kingdom Holding, and optionally Tencent Technology would be a worth the talk to. Amazon waked away from this and once these two setting pan out, all can see how much of a shortage Microsoft had. And that is a shortage that has been visible to those who think critically for at least a decade. The media spin has no hold over them and as we are told ‘Microsoft Wants To Stop The Next CrowdStrike Error Before It Causes PC Shutdown’ a mere 10 hours ago is set against “Microsoft even got everyone together at a security summit earlier this month where the company had talks about changing the dynamics of who can access the Windows kernel and control the changes” with the added “Microsoft realises that unrestricted access to Windows kernel is the big reason why the Crowdstrike outage occurred in the first place. It was even pointed out that Apple will never give that kind of access to its partners and vendors, which explains why no Mac machine was down on that day.” As such we get that MAC systems never had the issue and the collaborated events give rise to the stage that the CrowdStrike issues could optionally still happen. Did anyone guess what happens to cloud systems when this is not addressed in the next 48 hours? How many vendors will switch to AWS as such? When we consider that “changing the dynamics of who can access the Windows kernel and control the changes” could not normally be resolved in 48 hours at all. This is the setting that Microsoft is up against and that is all before we realise that it is a fundamental shift required in search and advertisement systems that makes Edge even less of a competitor soon enough and that gives Google more leeway. That realisation is what these courts are fighting against. There is no monopoly when there is not competition. And Microsoft is no longer any kind of interfering factor. That merely leaves Google, Amazon and Apple. Amazon holds 7.3% of the online ad market, Apple gets 30% from Google, which only leaves the optional others. And when we consider that Amazon has a bigger share than Microsoft/Edge. How much of a competitor was Microsoft to begin with? So who is setting the fictive breach towards ‘abusive monopoly’? Isn’t that the critical question? What voices speak to the EU and US lawmakers? That is the question that matters and I personally think that it is those who have a personal gain through Microsoft stages that are screaming murder. They bet on the wrong horse and as I see it Microsoft is a horse no show. The EU had to cancel that €1.49B euro fine as this could optionally backfire as well. The stage as I saw it was always different. As Microsoft went its way into the boardrooms, they forgot that those dozen people (times Fortune 500) depend on millions of workers doing stuff and that was where Google grew. And the Microsoft strategy fell flat. I myself found another nice worth billions in pretty much the same way. As such one of my solutions was primarily for Amazon as Google dropped their Stadia, which made the Amazon Luna the only contender and Microsoft with its solution fell flat behind Sony (PlayStation) and Nintendo (Switch), yet Tencent came roaring with its solution and became a contender. This shows how certain people in the US are using the Department of Justice and as (September 9th) we were given “According to the lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice (DoJ) and a coalition of states in 2023, Google dominates the digital ad marketplace and has leveraged its market power to stifle innovation and competition.” I see the same failing happen under Google “leveraged its market power to stifle innovation and competition” and equal shortage as there are no innovators (they heed to solve their CrowdStrike issues before they also lose the cloud market and there is no competition as there is a competition of one, that is no monopoly, it is the lack of equally sharp minded people gaining serious forward momentum. That is the actual stage and that was the setting all along. And the setting is easy to fathom. Consider the mere first strike “On the 9th of October 2006, YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion” In 2006 Microsoft had the cash and the option to buy this, but they did not. 

The former employees of PayPal were out there and Microsoft didn’t see the option. That is how much they failed for 18 years. After that Microsoft had at least three options to compete, but they did not. 2005, 2006, and 2014. Microsoft did nothing (as far as I know). More over in September 2016 ByteDance created TikTok. In 4 years it surpassed 2 billion downloads and still Microsoft was in the dark on what they had missed. You think this is not related, but it is. The competitors a near complete lack of comprehending its audience for close to 18 years and that is where the Department of Justice comes in? Competition is created by the players who understand their audience. It is something that is known for half a century. A monopoly is created when there are like minded players stifle matters like innovations (which requires innovators) and competition (which requires market share) most (especially Microsoft) failed on both matters. Amazon had its own niche market and had its own 7.3%. The only one with any right to cry foul (or is that fowl) is ByteDance, but the Department of Justice are silencing that voice. 

So as I am having fun because I saw the field correctly all along will (hopefully) soon have two more reasons to roll on the floor laughing and the fun part is that a player like Microsoft is too stupid to see the audience that they are disregarding. 

I wonder what the American DoJ will make of that.

Have a great day.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Law, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 5, 2024 · 10:24

Your (starting) fame on timing

There we have it, another freebee for the eager developer who wants to increase his (or her) visibility. Last month I was (happily) forced to get the Pixel Watch 2, there would be too much time for the new Pixel Watch 3 and I didn’t have the required dineros to get it. Not to fret, the Pixel Watch 2 does everything it needs to do as such I am happy. It was not until this week that I was missing out on one thing. I still have my mobile, so there was no pressing need, but I thought, why is it not there? 

So I went looking and behold, Google had missed out on it. So here it is your chance to shine. Im not sure if there is money in it, but the eager developer will see a way to turn this visibility into cash making opportunity.

As such I present a (extremely) rough view on the tile that a lot of people are waiting for.

The stage is founded on the clock widget, as such it is possible that you can capture that data (which uses the clock program in Google). The widget supports 4 times, but in this case the fifth is wherever you are (home). I also set the home in a different colour, but that is up to you. In my case I need to keep these times in mind, but whatever your reason is, it works. In Europe you have three times all over the place and there are more reasons. Some nations do not embrace summer/winter time. As such  the clock program has this all figured it out. So you just need to capture that data when it is needed. I think it is a simple and basic requirement, but Google seemingly never caught on. And with Google shipping the pixel watch 880,000 times (as per Oct 2022) you will gain a lot of visibility. As per 2023 Apple sold over 93 million smartwatches and it is likely that the solution is almost exactly the same, as such you could get multi million views with a simple tile addition. So use the idea and gain visibility I say. And here I suggest that you look what Apple has.  I dare say that the eager programmer could create that tile in mere hours, and a day of testing. 

So hop to it and gain your fame I say.

1 Comment

Filed under IT, Science

Tagged as , , , ,

August 23, 2024 · 22:27

Is that so?

I was taken aback a little when I read the Khaleej Times yesterday. The article (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/old-smartphones-lying-in-cupboards-why-uae-residents-fear-recycling-their-devices) gave me pause to consider this. You see, when we see ‘Old smartphones lying in cupboards? Why UAE residents fear recycling their devices’ we can make all kinds of assumptions, but the clarity should be clear. There are a whole range of people who do not like their data up for grabs. The funny part is that Norton solved the issue over 40 years ago. Now we get a whole range of other options. But the simple sentiment is clear, and this is on Google and Apple to follow suit. 

I reckon that the solution will be similar for pretty much the same for both systems. The idea is that once you have transferred your mobile and data to the new phone, the old phone is pretty much redundant. So here comes Google/Apple and with their cable (in case of Google a USB-C) we can go to town, well, basically, the new phone can. 

So as I see it, the steps are as follows:

  1. Recharge old phone completely.
  2. Connect the recharged new phone to old phone.
  3. Instruct the new phone to wipe the old phone.
  4. Old phone gets wiped.

As the new phone gets the instruction to wipe the old phone, it will wipe, not delete to old phone.

This means that the new phone knows what the old phone is and will overwrite it with the value ‘EA’ (that was the old value). As such every bit off the old phone is overwritten with the value ‘EA’. It can be nearly any value, but this was the old setting I had in the 80’s. Because it is overwritten, there is nothing to undelete (read: restore). All data is wiped and no longer retrievable. In my case it was done 5 times (in case something is missed). As such the reference that the Khaleej Times gives us with “According to industry experts, fear of inappropriate use of data is one of the biggest deterrents to recycling devices among UAE residents” is no longer in effect. That being said, these ‘industry experts’ should know about this solution. And it is time for Google and Apple to be clear to the customers that their data is safe in this way. There are still a few other risks that people have, as they will readily put their data on social media, but their phones will be ‘saved’. 

What I don’t get is that both Google and Apple never touched on this subject before (as far as I know). Because iPads and other tablets face similar issues. I basically did this in my own way, in the more recent fields I did the same on my own way, but Google and Apple should have had these solutions in play already, so why was this skipped?

I cannot tell, but this article made me wonder why it was not taken care of. You see Peter Norton Computing has been around for 40 years, in 1990 it was taken over by Symantec and they had the goods, so why didn’t Apple and Google wake up to this setting? I never saw it (as far as I can remember) and it is not a weird setting. Consider all these corporate mobiles. At some point their IT departments will take a safe road by wiping their mobiles. So, why was this seemingly not done? I use the word ‘seemingly’ because it seems weird that it is only me who gets the idea. You see, doing a factory reset (as stated) gives us: “Doing a factory reset will delete nearly everything on the device”, it is the adaptation of the word ‘nearly’, I have an issue with that. Nearly isn’t everything, but what is not wiped? I reckon only the layer 1 people at Apple/Google can clearly identify them. There is still the setting that is set in motion. You could a ‘layered’ wiping of all memory through the new phone, optionally moving data from the old phone to the new phone (which Google/Android has). And doing it from phone to phone could optionally move ‘forgotten’ stuff to the new phone as well.

Oh, and that was the second part, the Khaleej Times never even mentions the factory reset part and the added GenAI settings that we see now more and more makes the wiping of old devices a lot more essential. In my story on August 11th 2024 which was ‘Setting of the day’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/08/11/setting-of-the-day/) gave us via Wired “Microsoft’s AI Can Be Turned Into an Automated Phishing Machine” we see the additional need for a complete wiping of all data. And as far as I can tell, there is no guarantee that some eager beaver will leave ‘discarded’ data alone. As such I feel that Apple and Google need to strap on their goods and get cracking to take the chance of certain solutions not to get a handle on your data.

I might not need it (I have other systems running) but the bulk of the users could use that little more protection. #Justsaying.

So let this be an idea that these two players get to seemingly rectify in the very near future. Darn, my Saturday starts in 92.4 minutes.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

August 16, 2024 · 19:36

G-monopoly to the rescue?

Yup, that as the setting that imploded in my mind. It came at the doorstep of my sneaky sneaky creativity. You see when we consider the article at Reuters (with https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-says-monopolist-google-cant-avoid-app-store-reforms-2024-08-14/) we might handle the stage of ‘US judge says ‘monopolist’ Google can’t avoid app store reforms’, we can agree, we can disagree (I disagree) but the setting is a stage that is not merely a mere ‘monopoliser’ it is quite a blanket cover of social inheritance. It comes at the dawn of a legion of Microsoft sycophants (agents of mediocrity) and that is a more dangerous stage then you realise. And always there is Microsoft trying to cut a nice corner for themselves. They failed five times over and they just can’t quit falling short of the rest of the pack where they want to ‘capture’ market share. For the non-regular readers of my blog the list is Adobe, Apple, Amazon, Google and Sony. And the loudest failures are Solarwinds and CrowdStrike. Even within the last week we saw several sources stage the boxing square using the Microsoft version of AI setting the dangerous premise of MAI (Microsoft AI) collecting the optional access of cloud systems. Now this is a premise that it is possible, not the setting that it has or currently is happening. But for reference when L’Oreal sees their revenue dwindle as one of the possible culprits namely Yatsen Holding, Estee Lauder, Avon Worldwide, Revlon, Coty, or CHANEL decides to take that short cut, L’Oreal will have a clear path what to do next. For their reference AWS can be found at Tour Carpe Diem, 31 Pl. des Corolles, 92400 Courbevoie, France. With the optional phone number is 3 315 660 2600.

Am I overreaching? 
It is a fair question, you see, I never much trusted cloud computing under Microsoft, not whilst there are valid options like Amazon (AWS), Apple, Google, and IBM available. I personally feel that Amazon is the superior provider, but I am NOT the best source of this information. I know too little about the G-Cloud, or the IBM version of that. Still the articles I read a few days ago scare my literally out of my skin. So there you have it.

So back to that, mainly judge James Donato in San Francisco. He heard Google and that greed driven Epic. You see Epic is in denial of an important factor. They accused Google of monopolising how consumers access apps on Android devices and how they pay for in-app transactions. The part that everyone seems to overlook is that Apple and Google had a similar plan in motion. This setting allowed Google and Apple to let everyone on-board. The small designers did not have to pay for massive amounts of money to get secure systems on-line. It is all done by these two providers. So they pay a little contribution and Epic immensely enjoyed that part of the equation and as they became more successful there need for more money (for stake holders and share holders) they decided to bite the had that fed them from poverty into wealth. Now that this part is over the hundreds of thousands developers can release an unbridled hatred towards Epic. But that is not merely the end of it. In this day and age of scammers and organised crime Epic is opening the floodgates towards these two players and I reckon that the first case (with evidence) that this is happening, both companies will both set a class action against Epic. So at that point where will the profits of Epic go? I reckon not too much towards their share holders, on the upside for them, litigation and trials are tax deductible. 

And whilst the media is all about the small player (multi billion Epic) against the titans of Industry (Apple and Google) I saw a new light. What if there was a new kind of monopoly game, with 4 players Amazon, Apple, Google and IBM and the board doesn’t represent streets, they represent cloud domains. There are still the utilities Electricity and Water (optionally called cooling) and the parks when all are obtained will give you a server-park item (hotel in the original game) and under that we get servers (up to 4) and the locations united will give you the upper hand in a server domain. The stations become continental backbones and they will have a secondary part. Should you get a station in a location, the servers get a +10% if you have all 4 you get a +20%. Now this is plenty of ‘over shadowing’ this game should have an educational side. So we have locations that invoke cyber security, social networking, AI and Data Warehousing. All have a -1% cost to your locations, if you have all 4 in one side of the board you get -10% costings (or 10% more efficiency). You see this might be a game, but the bulk or current users do not seem to comprehend the dangers that this case invoked. When the masses get to comprehend what is at stake and the fact that this is not completely set to a monopoly driven Google (or Apple for that matter), people might wake up to the danger they are exposing themselves to. And that part has been missing the to flame hungry (for the sake of money) media outlets. 

I always believed that games are a great way to teach people (when it is not Elden ring or Assassins creed) how to look at the image a little more clearly. So in that trend after the new movie yesterday, I decided to create a game for the occasion. It is the best move? OK, I am willing to concede that it might not be, but a free game that millions embrace tends to have a decent impact, more than we get now. And I am alway happy to engage with my sneaky sneaky creativity.

Well, the day is almost over, as such I will snore a forest into firewood and relax for my tomorrow hustle towards a morning with chicken and optionally some chili con carne. Enjoy your day.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, IT, Law, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 12, 2024 · 15:21

What’s in an advertisement?

I have been called many things (not all of them nice) but I do not care, I call it as I see it. This time it is Google that hits the spotlight, you see it is not all Microsoft that I cater against (often I do though). This time it is Cyber News (at https://cybernews.com/news/meta-google-youtube-instagram-advertising/) that gives us the news. This came from the Financial Times and the headline gives us ‘Meta and Google had secret ad deal to target teens on YouTube’, I am not judging this, but Google has stated on a few instances that they would not target kids. Still we get here “Google Ads help page itself says that the “unknown” category refers to people whose age, gender, parental status, or household income are supposedly unidentified. In theory, this could allow ad buyers to reach a wider audience” but we are also given “according to FT, Google could use app downloads and online activity to determine “with a high degree of confidence” that the “unknown” group actually mostly consisted of younger users” Now, lets take a different look and for this I use the Apple population (not people eating Granny Smiths) So lets go by the simple set of an iPad and around 128.5 million units of tablets were shipped worldwide in 2023. A little over 40% in the USA. The younger population uses their iPad for over 4 hours a day to do gaming. I took a small measurement in two hours I was fed around 2 dozen advertisements. Now consider that we have 80 million gamers on the iPad, as such 4 hours represent 40 advertisements per user and that represents 3.2 billion advertisements EVERY DAY, you think that Google, Apple or Meta walk away from that? And when we add the mobile gamers on Android and iPhone it becomes a much larger and more interesting number. 

On one side it works out well for one of my IP issues if we consider the larger premise. You see some are all about hijacking revenues from others, I took it into a different direction. When these three players lose a little over 20% of that advertisement industry. How strapped for cash will they end up being? Don’t trivialise this (many so called captains of industry will), when you need your revenue and you get to face a decline of 20% panic is ensured to come to the table. Like the advertisement bitches who cried fowl when Google wanted to do away with cookies. The setting I had was enable Amazon to a much larger degree, optionally enabling Kingdom Holding (Riyadh). A simple setting that many forgot about, because they all wants us to look to the horizon to the land of honey and AI, but that is at least a decade away, as such I saw another shore. 

But back to the story. So the response from Google was ““We prohibit ads being personalised to people under 18, period,” Google said in a statement to the publication. “We’ll also be taking additional action to reinforce with sales representatives that they must not help advertisers or agencies run campaigns attempting to work around our policies.”” And it could have worked if Google set through the cookie stage, but they did not. Now the setting is different, advertisement gaming is developing and we get a dozen versions of the same game and they all run on advertisements. And the game becomes worse for some ad streamers now also include advertisements. As such they are one step removed from the old setting that Electronic Arts tried to include in their sport games, the billboards in a game all showing the advertisements that EA could sell. In the long run it could have given them a revenue boost. Now the game sets a different premise. You see you can fight of getting more revenue, or you can make sure the others cannot get any, that was the premise that I went for and Saudi Arabia does not have to cater to Americans, more importantly they could deny America well over 20% of that revenue. Consider that the big three techs have to report a drop of 20%, how does that work out? In addition to that loss you could capture a part of that revenue. You see the USA is all about monopolising issues, all whilst no one looked to the shores behind them to see what they lost and that was the place where revenue was all over the floor.

The setting is given, but when we consider that they either confess on targeting minors, or take the losses. And my solution doesn’t target at all, putting this solution largely in the clear.

Still, the EA premise had me thinking, not a similar approach, but a very different approach. One that give a much higher premise of engagement. Like the cheaper Netflix, set the console with a gaming portal and that portal has a niche for advertisers one that pays the viewer in credits, which could go towards a lower fee, or game coins to get free updates (enhancements) for in game shopping, any game on the platform. That was a side no one (seriously) looked at. Games are set to a developer, not to a portal and when they want to be there they will have to agree. Consider any console with 50,000,000-200,000,000 gamers, do you really think a game designer wants to be cut off? Consider that the Xbox Game Pass has only 18 million users. And the numbers I stated were conservative, this solution would be next to the PSX2 (over 155,000,000) and the Nintendo Switch (144,00,000) that is what was at stake and Google shot themselves in the foot (my speculation) as they dropped the Google Stadia, as such the Amazon Luna and the Tencent console are all that remains. And when we see those numbers, a larger base exists for advertisers, but in my view a more limited one. Still, there is (to some degree) an option whilst removing a massive chunk (I think around 20%) away from Apple, Google and Meta. It was an evolution to the system as I set it up and the advertisement funds are merely the icing on the cake. 

The added ‘protection’ that is given could sway plenty of parents to go this way, not my initial interest, especially when phase one 50 million is reached. The system will fuel itself towards users like the CBM64 did in the mid 80’s. Still the others need to rethink their system, because for now they think it is all OK, but when the setting changes it will already be too late. Look at the Cookie stage, only when they finally switched it off in part, the advertisers starting to cry like little bitches. Three days ago we were given “This latest twist in the Privacy Sandbox saga is a wake-up call for the entire digital advertising ecosystem, according to Upwave’s George London.” Wake up call? This setting was known for a couple of years, as such these people had plenty of time to revisit the sands of opportunity, but they thought that it wouldn’t get to that, and the money would keep going in. Now the premise will likely become that they lose out on a population that gets into the millions, no free ride for cookies (cookie monster ate them all) as such they will have to put the prices down by a lot, because targeting is soon to be a real issue, for this the Google and Meta setting comes into play. Either regulators demand a larger scrutiny (expected turn) or the advertisement world will lose 4.3 billion advertisements on iPad alone, now consider how many game on their mobiles? That is a reported 79% of an expected 18,250,000,000 billion in 2025. Set that to revenue numbers. Yes what one party tells is not what some do, or they tell them where not to look for certain restrictive papers. Oh, and my simplistic number stage gives me around 2.8 billion advertisement options are optionally soon lost or diminished. Yes, my 50 million consoles were hilariously conservative. 

What’s in an ad? Nothing a gamer wanted to see anyway, as well as a few other clusters of pushed to watch advertisement people. So how will Meta continue at minus 20%? Apple will do fine and Google will have its android, but when that newly reinvented shore comes, Google will also have to make due. As such,  they can bite the bullet or set up a fee for Youtube, which will make TikTok happy to no extent 

They say all is fair in love and war, did you ever consider that the people have a voice too, that they are pushed towards apps with no avoidance? What happens if you cater to those people? Google should know, they grew their search in a very similar way.

Have a lovely time and see you perhaps in a place without advertisements every couple of minutes.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 7, 2024 · 12:36

When does it become a lie?

That is the question. It is not as simple as it sounds and I understand that. But here we are, the BBC gives us an article. I almost passed it, but then I saw something that didn’t read right, so I dug a little deeper. Their disadvantage was that I had just read up on several cases for material, so I reopened it and it is time to give you the fruits of my labour.

The BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9eegg0rdvo) gives us ‘What could Google monopoly ruling mean for you?’. Well that is an open question but let me run you through the elements. 

“The US said Google was currently paying firms like Apple huge amounts of money each year to be pre-installed as the default search engine on their devices or platforms”. OK, so this is a business proposition. Apple decided that the benefits of Google in their systems would help them in numerous ways and Google was willing to pay this. It was a price for services.

It comes with the repetitive quote “Apple’s Safari browser for example uses Google by default” what the BBC is not giving us is the offset that Apple would have to endure and they were getting $20,000,000,000 as a bandaid, if I got that kind of money I would say “Google slap me silly”. Now we get the parts that matter, it start with “Something that’s easier to imagine is some kind of choice screen, where people opening a browser for the first time are asked whether they’d like to use Google or an alternative like Microsoft’s Bing” This is hilarious. I have had first experience with Bing. Bing influencers were HIJACKING my search and pushing it through Bing. It took me days to undo that damage. Choosing between a bully and Google is not much of a choice. To put it mildly “Google has a 91% marketshare, Bing has 3.86%, where do you get the most bang for YOUR buck?” In this simple setting Google comes out on top EVERY time. And a secondary setting is that Bing has been around for 15 years. It isn’t just that Google is better, Bing has yet to show any level of pure innovation in searches. Microsoft lacks data, innovation and proper etiquette on search engines. 

Now we get to the issue I had, which starts with “Back in 1999, Microsoft found itself in a very similar situation to where Google is now.” You see, Netscape faced new competition from OmniWeb and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 1.0, it continued to dominate the market in 1995 and beyond. In 1997 Netscape had 72% marketshare. That is, until Microsoft switch off the proverbial oxygen to Netscape and whilst the IE was free for all (it was installed with Windows 95), thing went south in several ways for Netscape and the one ‘ruler’ in those days became Microsoft with its Internet Explorer. Google released its browser in 2008. As such (as I see it) Microsoft wasted 10 years and within 2 years nearly everyone was using Google Chrome. They overwhelmed everyone with innovations. They released Chrome v9 in 2011 and Chrome v17 in 2012. What did Microsoft do? Nada, nothing, zip, zilch. In 2012, responding to Chrome’s popularity, Apple discontinued Safari for Windows, making it exclusively available on OS X (source: ubuntu life) . So here is the first setting. Apple made an educated choice. Create your own and reinvent the wheel or select the wheel maker of choice. Even at this point we need to recognise that Microsoft’s star was faltering and falling. That was then. Now there is a different setting. Then it was which American company gets the cake. Now it is different, China is now a much larger participant. They caught up with the US and even now the UAE and Saudi Arabia are massively catching up with America. They decide to waste the time of Google on trivial matters whilst calling it “monopolising” stating that the others should be given a ‘fair’ share. In this day and age it is handing the handling of the commerce horse to China and all the good it will do the American commerce. Small hint, it will not. 

There really more issues with Microsoft and particular with Edge and particularly Daniel Aleksandersen, who called this “clearly a user-hostile move that sees Windows compromise its own product usability in order to make it more difficult to use competing products.” There are issues with edge as Douglas J. Leith, a computer science professor from Trinity College, Dublin, Microsoft Edge is among the least private browsers. He explained, “from a privacy perspective Microsoft Edge is much more worrisome than the other browsers studied. These two quotes are on different sides of edge. But in aggregating these quotes it is my distinct believe that if Google Search is broken up, the American Department of Justice will receive roses from nearly every big organised crime syndicate. It is a mere believe I have, but after having suffered the edge bullies hijacking my browser and inserting edge ad a search engine against my wishes is the beginning of much more. The Verge accused edge of “spyware tactics”, a setting we have never seen Google use (speculation by me). In this day and age of commerce, the economy and data security you want to play with Google? I think that is a really bad idea.

Enjoy today, it is now midweek, the run to the weekend starts…….now.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Law, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 6, 2024 · 12:12

The loser iteration

Two days ago I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/08/04/the-judge-shouldnt/) with the headline ‘The judge shouldn’t’, it was part speculative and part what I see (again through my eyes it could be regarded as speculative). Today a mere 4 hours ago we get through the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0k44x6mge3o) ‘Google’s online search monopoly is illegal, US judge rules’. We are also given “Google was sued by the US Department of Justice in 2020 over its control of about 90% of the online search market.”, so lets take a look back. It started in 1995 and the ‘idea’ was completed in 1997. To turn about the setting in those days Microsoft was merely badgering their lack of knowledge and lam Netscape to get a browser dominance. Two youthful young sprouts namely Larry Page and Sergei Brin were ahead of the pack by a lot. They looked to a solution to search for text in publicly accessible documents offered by web servers, as opposed to other data. Microsoft was still trying to type words like HTTP and the clever people at Microsoft were able to type FTP. In the age of information the Google founders figured a few things out like ‘What are people trying to find’ this was against the grain for Microsoft who thought that corporations were the key and they went to ‘What are corporations willing to pay for’. The subtle difference is that Microsoft was working towards a slice of the $18,843,980,000,000 revenue that the fortune 500 represent. Google on the other hand decided to cater to its 31,000,000 employees. As such one could (oversimplified) cater to the simple fact that it would take Microsoft 9 million years to get as much data as Google. I do emphasis the oversimplification of this. I was not on the mindset of Google at first. You see I was a dedicated Yahoo user. It took 3 years until I saw that Google offered more and better result. As such in 3 years they gained a dominance. They surpassed Yahoo, Excite, Alta Vista and several other players. We can argue that it helped that Microsoft demolished Netscape. And in the decade that followed Google grew in strength and ability to cater to actual users not the CFO’s of 500 corporations. 

So when we see “It is one of several lawsuits that have been filed against the big tech companies as US antitrust authorities attempt to strengthen competition in the industry.” I believe that there is another ploy in play. The mediocrity losers (like Microsoft) want a slice of the cake they have no business being in. It isn’t just the ‘competition’ it is a reversal of technology that is in play. And in that setting the US is damaging the little benefit they have and leaving it all to China and true Chinese innovators like Huawei and Tencent. I reckon that by 2026 the mobile market will be overrun with Huawei in almost every non-americano place. They threw away the benefits when they forced Huawei to release HarmonyOS 5 years ago. 

Now we see that it is available in 77 languages and the turnover (as is) is getting stronger. Even now as EU nations are discarding the fear mongering of anti-China sentiment by American administration, and the strongest response that the EU nations give is ‘Show us evidence’, America has no answer to that other than debatable setting of ‘could’ and ‘expected’ whilst the evidence just isn’t there. And as we see an optional release this year of HarmonyOS NEXT, Android’s bough get broken on their sibling turning adult. So good luck with that.

Now we see a Judge giving us that there is a monopoly setting. I am not debating that (a lack of evidence I have), but the setting that we get from ““Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Mehta wrote in his 277-page opinion” as I see it, the maintenance of a unique field dominance is begotten by the lack of innovation by people like Microsoft who is spreading itself way too thin.  As evidence I ‘present’ Xbox, Solarwinds, CrowdStrike and the list goes on. You see ‘breaking up’ is merely a first step. They will then open the door and the abusive bully (Microsoft) will gleefully shout “Can I play here too?” With a debilitating browser called ‘Edge’. How is that progress? Don’t get me wrong if there is a decent player that can keep up with Google, even Google will applaud that. My worry is that the ideological setting of letting everyone in the sandbox play is all fine, but there is a reason that mothers do not allow toddlers in a sandbox until they reach a certain age. And bar them from playing when they get too old. The worry that I have is that this setting stops Google from evolving beyond the cookie (which is fine by the exploitative advertisers). The setting of other people’s greed who cannot evolve into newer territories. This could now allow Huawei and Tencent to gain even more innovative sides to push into markets where American stage are auto rejected. Tencent is on the cliffhanger to introduce their solution to 150,000,000 homes and they can get there by 2027. 

This will leave Microsoft in a stage where it has no options and no future. As these Fortune 500 will find ways to rise to new frontiers we will see them seeking IBM and Amazon solutions catering a larger downfall of Microsoft. In that stage there is certain a decent amount of space for Google. As they will hand a corporate solution to their ‘office’ suite Microsoft will lose more grounds. The only thing that keeps them up for some time is Excel. But the world is changing what was once a spreadsheet world now becomes an AWS environment and Google can cater there too. I do think that Googles forced push to breaking up is not a great solution, but Google has overcome harder challenges. 

This and my previous article ‘The judge shouldn’t’ gives us the premise that the Antitrust laws are possibly a little obsolete. Microsoft sees this as their ticket in and it is willing to cater to this as it hurts Apple and Google. Two parts the US desperately needs to work at optimum to stop themselves of being overrun by Chinese innovators. You see 7 years ago ByteDance introduced TikTok (not a Peter Pan crocodile). In 7 years it became a near equal of YouTube that was in play 12 years longer. Now I get that YouTube paved the was, but that is the usual tracks for New innovators, they go over the backs from those who went before. Now consider that and the fact that HarmonyOS is about to go toe to toe with Android in only 4 years. That is what I wrong. Not that we think about antitrust. I partially agree with antitrust sentiments. But we need to see that the greed driven use it to keep up, or not to lose their revenue. But that was never the concern of Google (or Apple for that matter). As I see it in the last decade the face of technology was set by Amazon (AWS), Apple (MacWares), Google (Android, G-wares) and IBM (large solutions and Quantum) they create the innovations, players like Microsoft should go under and seek revenue from the Fortune 500. They were the bees knees weren’t they? 

But as I see it, US District Judge Amit Mehta is allowed by law to hand it all over to Chinese innovators. When the EU, Commonwealth nations, Africa and Asia allow these innovator into their governments America becomes a party of one (with 330 million consumers). So consider that the other regions has over 7,500 million people. As I see it it is a hard lesson that America learns twice. Wasn’t the Google premise of 1997 not enough?

Enjoy your day and ponder what benefit was to be had from optionally breaking up Google and who were the actual beneficiaries (not the consumers clearly).

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Law, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 5, 2024 · 13:28

How right I was

I knew I was right. It wasn’t merely my own conviction of self, it was the exposure of two sets of ‘evidence’ as given by some media. The first was my view of gaming, mobile gaming to be presenting the ‘evidence’ Even as it was an ‘advertising’ of the events. It still shows that I was right. You see gaming always pushing the view forward and they forgot what they left behind. I tried to warn Amazon of this, but did they listen? I fear not. Yet that setting now gives Tencent an approachable 5 billion annually as well as give their Tencent Cloud Streaming Services (CSS) an option to not just break into cloud streaming, they also could be handing their TGP (Tencent Gaming Platform) Box a play for the title role in gaming platforms within a year. As it goes forward the TGP will not be an unknown, it will grace third position nearly instantly with only Sony and Nintendo to pass afterwards. I reckon that within 2-3 years it will surpass Sony and Nintendo after that. The benefit for Tencent will not be replacing these two, it will mean that they will be placed next to either or in some cases both. That was the setting that Amazon faced. Yet whilst they heralded ‘Amazon Luna adds more than 40 new games, all from GOG’ last month, they failed to see the larger picture and now Tencent and their TGP are optionally set in a world where they surpass the streaming game providers nearly instantly. Amazon only had to look at the historic market and considered what was possible. Yet their executives didn’t look (apparently) further than the length of their nose and non of them had the nose of Cyrano de Bergerac (or C.D. Bales for that matter). The resulting setting is that Tencent (or as the US fears, China) now gets a new area with gaming Europe and the Middle East as new customers. Another field that the US (with assistance of a short sighted Microsoft) where they hand the keys to a Chinese company. And they did this to themselves. I opened the door by informing Amazon in November 2022 that this field was approachable and ready. So what do we see three days ago in the Financial Review? They title ‘Amazon shares drop as AI costs spook market’ is merely one part, the underlying “investors have signalled growing impatience with tech companies’ efforts to profit from their massive investments in AI”, as well as “Andy Jassy has been cutting costs and focusing on profitability in Amazon’s main online retail business while spending heavily on AI services, which the company has said represent a “multibillion-dollar revenue run rate business”” and all along (for at least 21 months of options towards an estimated $5,000,000,000 annual revenue ignored. How that for captaincy of a ‘Big Tech’ company? And as I saw the gaming precedency go in all directions except for the right one I see that my vision was correct all along.

In a place here they got to drill into new customer places they handed it all to the Chinese opponents. Yay to shortsightedness. 

The second part is a little harder to spot if you do not look in the right direction. That being said, there are a few debatable sights to that. In the first it is my interpretation of these layered facts and if proven right it is less of an issue. Yet I believe that Facebook set the larger premise by not properly investigating the ‘evidence’ they claimed. Their short sighted overseeing hat is going on (relying on ‘their’ AI) and not properly looking at the ‘rules’ or policies they have implemented now gives rise to an altering consumer base that could skip town (their platform), optionally handing a decent chunk of their customer base to Tencent as well. It will not drown them. But answer me this, if you have to report that 10% is skipping your platform. How many shareholders will be happy with the underlying speculated statistics that we get is “The company estimates that 4-5% of those accounts are fake, meaning there may be as many as 150 million fake accounts.” these are the numbers from Facebook. Yet the ‘reality’ from some is that it is 10%-15%. Now consider that these numbers remain and the percentage over the 100% base becomes a number over their ‘new’ 90% base. As such the new base is that it becomes 111% and I believe that 120% is more realistic. Now consider that every investor paying X mounts of dollars now hands their money to 8.3% non valid accounts. It sets the new premise to nearly one out of 10 advertisements misses the target completely. How long until they have to drop prices or actually resolve that issue whilst millions are going somewhere else. That was the second premise that Amazon missed and now we have a massive larger issue. Tencent seemingly has a larger target. In the first to gain their new consumer base all over the world and Facebook (and others) start losing market share. If you think this is nothing ask Microsoft (edge) how they faired against Chrome and whilst they will deny any losses consider that Edge only has a 5% market share against Chrome 65% and Safari 18%. Take that into the settings. Considering that Tencent has a larger reason to promote Harmony OS. A stage that would make China happy as a clam. It will not have a short term impact in view, but in this all Android users in several nations will now have an option to switch Android devices. And the Apple case that is before these courts (se yesterdays article) merely strengthens the premise. I reckon that the Eastern Europe, African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries have a first impact and in that setting  America is the first to lose global market share. This last bit I gave you is highly speculative, but as my settings are confirmed I feel that this is a direction is a valid one. And it is all founded on two players (Amazon and Facebook) let is happen on their watch. Don’t believe me, feel free to read the articles I put on my blog from November 30th 2022 onwards (and several before that). The captains of industry and their governmental tools believed their own spin (read: marketing BS) and took what they spun as ‘truth’. All whilst there were visible parties out there. 

Granted, I am talking in my own street and that is also debatable, but you could read up and conclude for yourself. As such two elements handing billions of revenue that certain players left lying on the floor and I have no non-existent AI, merely my own noggin and it is working fine, thank you very much.

Enjoy this Monday.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,