Tag Archives: google

The enemy of fun

We all hate advertisements, we do. We merely have been lulled to sleep to accept that these things happen. My initial setting for the new IP was to benefit in game-line advertisements and now I see that ‘Valve Doubles Down On Banning Forced In-Game Ads In Steam Games’. As such I say “Yes! Someone else figured it out too”. It feels like some level of vindication. You see, I thought I was alone in this, but Valve is not a simple gaming location. It is the original place of Half-Life and that is the game that set the tone in the two thousands and is now worth billions. 

They set the tone and are now doubling down on “Banning Forced In-Game Ads”, which fells me feel vindicated, and it is the fourth element that I heralded in my IP, four parts that set my console setting apart. Games, social media, no ads and collective cohesion. All parts that make any console great. So I am feeling mighty good (a little less as I never was able to see it), but the overwhelming feeling that I was right all along makes it up to some extent. The article phrases it as “a customer gets blocked after a certain amount of playtime and has to pay to continue and keep their progress. These types of monetization are considered predatory and are not allowed in Steam games.” Exactly how I felt about it. I’ll be honest there is space for some advertising, because it allows for unification of people, but not on time lines and not in games. I was adamant in this. And lets face it, to set the space to unifies one group of over 500 million gamers (among others) was the idea I tried to sell Kingdom Holdings. 

You see, to get access to over 50 million Muslims in past one and up to 200 million during phase two was overwhelmingly appealing. You see Kingdom Holding had in 2022 $13.6 billion and my solution allowed it to speculatively grow it by 50% in phase one would be appealing to any investor and whilst they are in whose main interests are financial services, real estate, tourism and hospitality, media, entertainment, petrochemicals, aviation and technology. To grow the setting of entertainment by that much in what I see 1 swoop and gather the view of millions would be seen as interesting to people like Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud would seem interesting (apparently I was wrong), and in that same setting neither was Andy Jessy seemingly interested to grow his business by an expected 50 million consoles during phase one. So I must see things wrong. Yet the vindication now shown by Valve gives me the idea that I was right in more then one way and such there is a doubt within me. What am I missing? 

So on one hand I saw what Microsoft missed all along (they miss a lot) and others (like Google) stepped out of that field, so I am wondering what I am missing. The numbers are speaking in my direction, the elements are in my favor and as Unreal Engine 5 gives rise to the option on one branch we see a near complete setting. In that same setting we would see that there are 32.5 million small businesses in the United States, and a growing number are Muslim-owned. I lack specific numbers as I do not even know whether they are collected. Yet in this one source gave me that around 2020, Muslims around the world spent a total of two trillion U.S. dollars across the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, fashion, travel, and media/recreation sectors. The largest market for Muslim consumers is the halal food and beverage sector. It expectedly grows from 2 billion to 2.8 billion in 2025 (Source: Statista). As such the growth of that nature is nearly unprecedented and I tired to handle a level of unification and here was my solution that enabled it. So I am in doubt, on one hand my predictions are coming through in several ways and on the other hand it seems to be missed by the two (optionally three) people who are on the forefront of it all (Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud and Andy Jessy/Jeff Bezos), so what am I doing wrong? Oh, and I went through one of the purest players in the world, the gamers. You see gamers can ‘infect’ their enthusiasm on the audience around them, I have seen that happen for over 30 years. 

So what was I doing wrong? Are there players who are walls around these people? If they cannot get a slice, no-one can? Well there is one player they never thought of. It is Ma Huateng, CEO of Tencent and Tencent is hungry for more markets and America with their anti China sentiment played (hopefully) right into my hands. The idea that I am that much right cannot be a simple ‘delusional’ setting as some say. To much went my way of thinking in this. 

So what does it take for some people to see that there was more than laying off around 14,000 managers to reduce costs and improve operations, I get that trimming is at times required, but what do you do when you are offered a simple upgrade of billions in the first phase? Tell me, and I see if I can around that. And now there is another path (hopefully granting me my coins) and I have been brooding over this for almost three years (one does what one can).

But in the end, my blog has had the goods that long, so there is no setting of “You are telling us that now?” There was a clear indication (mailed to them too) and the blog has the three years of stages online. My only defense so that some cannot make claim to “other sources” I feel that I did the right thing, but did I? The is the question I ask myself. You see, if only I see it, it can be called delusion, but more and more things out there (also in print) show that I was right all along. Now that we see the Valve story out there in Hot Hardware (at https://hothardware.com/news/valve-bans-ingame-ads-steam) and several others show that my train of thought was correct all along. 

That was the little nag that was keeping me awake this Thursday (at 03:00). Try to have a great day today. Me? I am walking into Mordor as a challenge, so how happy could I be?

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Time is on my side

That is always the question, that is until you set the records up for public viewing, then it tends to go your way nearly automatically. So even as I gave you all the setting that I was right, there was more. You see, more then two years ago I wrote ‘Girdle your loins’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/11/30/girdle-your-loins/) and that was AFTER I wrote part of the solution to a few people. I wanted to give it to Google three months before this, two days before they cancelled the Google Stadia. OK, they had that right and whilst leaving billions on the floor they walked away. Amazon (Andy Jessy) had the email less than a week after that and he never got back to me, which is also his right to do. Then whomever it got to (at Kingdom Holding) got the message and they never cared, or saw it as important enough. But now after more then 2 years (more like three years ago) when I saw the shift of sands changing a moment arrived (this morning) when I saw that I was right all along. So whilst people like Tim Cook (Apple) and Satya Nadella (CEO Microsoft who was never invited) are complaining about the harsh options are left with. I say, you left billions on the floor, so stop complaining. I gave that very same ‘warning’ to Sergey Brin, but he at least had a decent excuse when they dropped the Google Stadia.

So what is bringing this about?
Well, this morning when I was reengineering (in my mind) certain CBM64 greats, my mind fell over a message that I never saw coming. You see in 1986 I bought a Commodore 64 game named ChipWits (by EPYX), it was a great program with the option to program a robot with instructions and whilst the programing through icons wasn’t terribly new, on a CBM-64 it was at the very least innovative, as such I loved it.

Now back to today I considered that it was a great way to introduce this and add Machine Learning icons (and optionally LLM icons) to this game and give it a fresh start. So as I was thinking about a few things, I looked up the cover (see above) but what I found was also a reference from the original programmer Doug Sharp, and together with Mark Roth he is making a reboot.

Now this part is important as he probably started this around the time I made mention of this option (in my blog) that some true innovative minds got there all on their own. So Tim Cook and Satya Nadella take notice. This is what ACTUAL innovation looks like they got their on their own and they created the next iteration of gaming. They didn’t have to buy it for $100,000,000,000. They got there on their own $0.02. 

So why is this?
Well, in the first it was about me (it often is) and I foresaw this coming three years ago. In three years what ACTUAL innovation have you seen coming from Microsoft? I created a picture that left the ‘buyer’ with a starting revenue of $5,000,000,000 a year. So that is what. I recognised the field, I set the markers and I seemingly came out on top. The second phase would have been at least a fourfold of the first phase of my solution and If you look at all the great old games, you see that a lot is now coming. My favorite was Elite that on the PS4 is almost a thousand times bigger than the vector images of the CBM64 with a fleet massively bigger with billions of star systems (against the 256 planets on the CBM64) that is true innovation and David Braben deserves all the credits he is due, which is a lot as this was the very first serious game I saw on the then great BBC Microcomputer System, and I didn’t have to sob for long as it come to the Commodore within 2 years after. 

So when my mind went spiraling into reengineering mode, I got the idea three years ago for a bigger stage and I reckon that 10% of over 10,000 games that were published on Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Atari 600/800 and Atari ST should make farming for games lucrative. I got to 10% of 10,000 games with 50% reduction for IP protected games left me with 500 stellar choices, the best of a great gaming era and those captains of industry (Brin, Jesse, and Cook) never saw it, as such they left optional billions on the floor. I negated telling Nadella as there is no use in breathing life into a near extinct Dodo. They made their grave of mediocrity on their singular motion, or perhaps multiple motions of failure.

As I mentioned there are still a few options for Kingdom Holding but that is up to them and perhaps they are already pursuing this with Tencent Holdings Ltd. The next new player in the gaming sector soon enough. I reckon that is the moment that Microsoft either abandon its gaming platform or sells it to Tencent (as I personally see it). So that $100,000,000,000 anchor around their neck will be a lot less comfortable than a silk (road) tie.

For me? I doubt there is anything in it at all for me, but as I said, the realization that I was correct all along might help me to feel my other idea’s for a few coins to afford a new retirement plan. And the feeling that I was correct all along is just too satisfying (especially when seen against the Captains of Industry who never seemingly saw it). Even if I never end up with anything. This is a clear win to me. Others will state that it is always like that on the hindsight. They would be wrong, as I documented this and other ideas going be to before 2018, there are records. So there 😛

Have a great day and enjoy the stormy weathers I see happening overhead now (actual rain).

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Who you gonna call?

Well, the answer is simple. It is +1 202-346-1100 (aka Google DC – Massachusetts Ave). As such the Pentagon has a few more techies in service. Yes, we all know that according to the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy081nqx2zjo) that they are there for the AI concerns and the setting ‘given’ is “Alphabet has rewritten its guidelines on how it will use AI, dropping a section which previously ruled out applications that were “likely to cause harm”.” And we also heard the ‘other’ side with “Human Rights Watch has criticised the decision, telling the BBC that AI can “complicate accountability” for battlefield decisions that “may have life or death consequences.”” So here comes my question “What will you do about that?” You have done extremely little to the Hamas setting, to the Syrian setting and to the Houthi setting, not to mention acts against Iran, its IRGC, Hamas, PLO, Houthi terrorists, Hezbollah and a few other parties. 

I think it is time for the Human Right Watch to set next to a set of tea grannies and debate ‘normalcies’ with these grannies over tea with a bicky. 

In the mean time people within or outside of Google will face the challenges of the world and as I see it the Pentagon is short on people. So until that gets resolved Google does what it needs to de and create a work sphere that can service its people. Let’s not forget that Amazon, IBM, Meta, Microsoft and a few others are ‘departing’ with thousands of people and placing them outside the workforce. Google adjusted its view to include a set of duties that are extremely unlikely to do harm (there is a 0.0001% chance a person gets executed by messing with the back of a server rack). As such I think that Google has the better mindset. Oh, and before you complain. With all these firms dumping staff on the ‘reduction’ line, they will most likely be out of a job for several years. So good luck with that setting, especially if you are in California. 

And as we are given “In a blog post Google defended the change, arguing that businesses and democratic governments needed to work together on AI that “supports national security”.” We could surmise that there is a small chance that Google will be the go-to guy for Palantir settings, upping the value of Google by a fair bit (and giving Palantir the people the desperately require). There is another side, but that is pure speculation on my side. Google will enable the US Administration to make bigger inroads into exporting this knowhow to Saudi Arabia, UAE, NATO (all over Europe) and a few other places. As such Google will enable American growth. So what have these naggers (HRG’s) achieved?

So whilst they (via BBC) give us “Experts say AI could be widely deployed on the battlefield – though there are fears about its use too, particularly with regard to autonomous weapons systems. “For a global industry leader to abandon red lines it set for itself signals a concerning shift, at a time when we need responsible leadership in AI more than ever,” said Anna Bacciarelli, senior AI researcher at Human Rights Watch.” Consider what ‘red lines’ are. You didn’t hold Apple account for pushing advertisements of gambling to children, You never held parties that are a clear and present danger to any level of account. So it is time to consider the Human Rights Groups for the windbags they actually are. Spreading unease and flaming what they can (which never did them any good) as such Anna Bacciarelli, got here name mentioned one more time and people (specifically Googlers) need to get back to the business at hand before China gets too much of the world in its grasp. I personally don’t care about AI (as it doesn’t exist) but the world is now revolving around Deeper Machine Learning, Advanced Deeper Machine Learning and LLM’s and here Google can impact all kind of business and it is clear that The Pentagon needs that knowledge if it is to keep on standing. And before these grannies start crying foul bicky, consider the line ‘California Wildfires: How exci’s AI Technology is Revolutionising the Fight’ Do you think that this was possible with just public spendings? Do you think that “An estimated 12,000 houses, businesses, schools and other structures have been damaged or destroyed, at least 24 people have died and about 150,000 people were ordered or warned to evacuate.” This will continue? The next setting, which is optionally a year away will remain, he next time the casualties will run into the hundreds. And ‘AI’ will diminish these casualties to approaching zero. That is the other side and only larger settings (like the military) have the processing power to do something about it. So, the social news setting was ‘Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple and Uber haven’t donated anything toward LA fire relief, but Taylor Swift donated $10 million.’ (Source:  Politifact) Which could be true (it was not, as stated by themselves as “Swift’s donations to 10 organizations for wildfire relief efforts.”), but Meta set up systems so that people could stay in touch, set up the markers for people to warn families and friends. I am not sure what they others did, but they did something. Even Microsoft (as I saw a notice) gave ‘Wildfire Risk Predictive Modeling via Historical Climate Data’ You don’t think this was an intern with HWG sympathy did this. This was at least a team busy crunching data and verifying number for days effort. California was the first hit and this will not be enough. Google might become a power for good on several fields. We can’t steal the thunder from Exci who have their abilities, but one player is not enough and this military needs to become multitasking. The Dutch clearly saw this need in the 80’s and 90’s and they reacted. Now Google is setting a new frame pushing new boundaries. Two little fields that Anna Bacciarelli overlooked. How Human Rights was that. Oh, I forgot fires are natural and people have a right to be baked to a crisps BBQ style. 

And in other news, consider the stage that they gave with “battlefield decisions that “may have life or death consequences.”” The Pentagon doesn’t need Google for that, they can do that all by themselves. I reckon that a few more ethical hurdles are added when Google gets entered into that frame. I might be wrong but that is how I see it.

Have a great day and enjoy tea with a bicky as tea grannies and HRG members tend to do.

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Overdrive, or drive over

That is the setting. We can try to set the premise of DeepSeek (a waste of my time), we can set the premise of Microsoft AI (a waste of everyones time) and yes the 14 billion will have an effect and we can speculate on the 500 billion that StarGate is going to cost and what exactly will be the enabling part. Did anyone consider the ROI of that idea? That prospect will need to make at least 15 billion annual to make it worth. Throwing big printed cash at it will be as useless as the quantitive easing that Mario Draghi promised about a decade ago. Yup, it won’t go anywhere. 

But that led me to a setting many seem to ignore, so lets have the list:

Microsoft 365 Copilot: A monthly subscription that costs $30 per person. Copilot Free is available with the Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan. Copilot Pro is a monthly subscription that offers more advanced features. 
So at present, how many people are on this plan? It seems that Microsoft isn’t to talkative on ‘how successful’ it actually is. We get spread numbers and these numbers doesn’t seem to validate the billions invested.

Azure Machine Learning: A pay-as-you-go service with pricing based on the number of vCPUs. 
Azure AI Search: A service with pricing based on the number of text records or images processed. 

Here I have more issues. You see, we are given “Azure AI. Azure AI provides users with powerful tools that can be used to create innovative solutions using machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), computer vision, and more” How can any machine learning create innovative solutions? If it is machine learning someone else has it already, making it reengineering at best, optionally an innovative patent. I always (perhaps incorrectly) see pay-as-you-go as a dodgy solution. You either commit, or you don’t. 

Computer Vision API: A service with pricing based on the number of transactions processed. 
So, a service based on transaction processing, on that case if the IT department doesn’t throttle its usage there is every chance that an intern could blow up cost as it is happening.

Azure AI Content Safety: A service with pricing based on the number of text records or images processed. 
Azure AI Content Understanding: A service with pricing based on the number of hours of content processed. 

All this is set to a counter (like ConfirmIT) and that is the only company that had a good handle on it, a setting with decades. Now, there is a chance that I forgot a few solutions and that is OK. I am not heading an aspirational setting of academic instance.

You see everyone is on the bandwagon and I am too tired (or too old) to care. The media can’t be bothered unless digital currency is flowing their way. Yet in all this when did you see a clear description of AI solutions in use by Amazon, IBM or Oracle? You see, the DeepSeek issues of the last few days stirred a few minds. They are now also seeking Return on Investment (ROI) and that image is not clear, at least the media seemingly can’t be bothered and the influencers now shouting their wisdom on LinkedIn are also at times tedious and for the most a waste of everyones time. So why Microsoft? I don’t really care about it, but they (and their sickofans) are shouting how good their solutions are, but we see no clear numbers. And at present clear numbers is what the most of the population want. 

Am I wrong?
I doubt it, the signs are there and when we see a small message on the left, the right clearly muffle that sound out. You see Shelly Palmer in IEEE Spectrum writes “As for the 100,000 jobs the project is supposed to create? Some construction jobs will be created as the data centers are built, but many more (millions more) will be created as the data centers come online. We’ve never had a compute cloud like this—there’s literally no way to calculate the economic impact of this amount of AI compute. It will be massive.” I actually don’t know about that. The idea that “there’s literally no way to calculate the economic impact of this amount of AI compute” is as I see it bogus. For 500 billion ($500,000,000,000) I expect more. But at present it comes across like a huge NSA data collection hub. Come to think of it, We could (optionally) get some data from the NSA, Google or IBM. They have experience with really big data centers. So what are those costs? What is the return on investment? And there is the setting of the value of collected data and that will not even have value until lots of data is collected, so lets say by 2030 and all those billions need to show investment value and at present the big-tech market lost over 1 trillion dollars a few days ago. So where is the ROI of all this?

Then we get “There are many tech skeptics, and it has become fashionable to denigrate and vilify big tech. To me, the Stargate Project is the first step in securing the future of the U.S. economy as well as our digital and cyber security. Every business will benefit from the power and promise of AI, and—like it or not, believe it or not—warfare will be dominated by AI. Today, the U.S. has a clear lead. The Stargate Project will help ensure it stays that way.” My issue is that there are always skeptics, I am one to some extent and the words “the power and promise of AI” fills me with dread. It is the included word “promise” and warfare isn’t dominated by AI, the setting pf properly programmed deer machine learning is. It is not AI and it is unlikely to show until somewhere in early 2040 at best (as I personally see it) but the 500 billion is coming out of ‘our’ pockets now. Yes, I know what they say that corporations will push the bill. Yet when this goes pear shaped. They will al put in in a bad bank account and relinquish the debt as a write off, so you, in the end still pay the bill in some way.

Then there is the sentence “Today, the U.S. has a clear lead” do they? DeepSeek is Chinese and their setting blew the rest away, you want to find out what a two-nil for China looks like? You are about to see that in very unrespectful terms. And as everyone is on that so called AI horse no one is investigating it, the media least of all.

In the meantime I will reengineer games. There is at least some revenue in that. And as I saw the reengineering options for ‘Infamous: Second Son’ The Sony firms could get some more coins from an 11 year old game on the PS4. And now there is an option to get it upgraded to PS5. Consider the gaming population. Whomever played in to PS4 (early days PS4) would like the setting on PS5, I tried that original game on PS5 and it plays well. A few minor glitches but that is what happens. The storyline could be upgraded and with linearity removed the game would get a much tougher stance. Then add the ‘cleaning’ of Seattle and we get a more complete game. With the setting to an optional change to Smoke-TV-Neon sequence the game alters a fair bit, and in this the game could also encase the stealth option in the game. Take with that the option to go back to the beginning to free the people from concrete affliction the good and the bad will also alter to some degree and it isn’t merely the good and the bad setting, the larger stage of animosity could reverberate through the game. And I am now looking to a few more games. A setting that I believe is great for Sony in the immediate future. 

Can’t stop a creative mind puzzling on how to make something better, a trick that isn’t possible with Deeper Machine Learning and LLM’s. Have a great Thursday.

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And the bubble said ‘Bang’

This is what we usually see, or at times hear as well. Now I am not an AI expert, not even a journeyman in the ways of AI, But the father of AI namely Alan Turing stated the setting of AI. He was that good as he set the foundation of AI in the 50’s, half a century before we were able to get a handle on this. Oh, and in case you forget what he looks like, he has been immortalised on the £50 note.

And as such I feel certain that there is no AI (at present) and now this bubble comes banging on the doors of big-tech as they just lost a trillion dollars in market value. Are you interested in seeing what that looks like? Well see below and scratch the back of your heads.

We start with Business Insider (at https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tech-stock-sell-off-deepseek-ai-chatgpt-china-nvidia-chips-2025-1) where we are given ‘DeepSeek tech wipeout erases more than $1 trillion in market cap as AI panic grips Wall Street’ and I find it slightly hilarious as we see “AI panic”, you see, bubbles have that effect on markets. This takes me back to 2012 when the Australian Telstra had no recourse at that point to let the waves of 4G work for them (they had 3.5G at best) so what did they do? They called the product 4G, problem solved. I think they took some damage over time, but they prevented others taking the lead as they were lagging to some extent. Here in this case we are given “US stocks plummeted on Monday as traders fled the tech sector and erased more than $1 trillion in market cap amid panic over a new artificial intelligence app from a Chinese startup.” Now let me be clear, there is no AI. Not in America and not in China. What both do have is Deeper Machine Learning and LLM’s and these parts would in the end be part of a real AI. Just not the primary part (see my earlier works). Why has happened (me being speculative) is that China had an innovative idea of Deeper Machine Learning and package this innovatively with LLM modules so that the end result would be a much more efficient system. The Economic Times (at https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/worlds-richest-people-lose-108-billion-after-deepseek-selloff/articleshow/117615451.cms) gives us ‘World’s richest people lose $108 billion after DeepSeek selloff’ what is more prudent is “DeepSeek’s dark-horse entry into the AI race, which it says cost just $5.6 million to develop, is a challenge to Silicon Valley’s narrative that massive capital spending is essential to developing the strongest models.” So all these ‘vendors’ and especially President Trump who stated “Emergence of cheaper Chinese rival has wiped $1tn off the value of leading US tech companies” (source: the Guardian). And with the Stargate investment on the mark for about 500 billion dollars it comes as a lightning strike. I wonder what the world makes of this. In all honesty I do not know what to believe and the setting of DeepSeek the game will change. In the first there are dozens of programers who need to figure out how the cost cutting was possible. Then there is the setting of what DeepSeek can actually do and here is the kicker. DeepSeek is free as such there will be a lot of people digging into that. What I wonder is what data is being collected by Chinese artificial intelligence company Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd. It would be my take on the matter. When something is too cheap to be true, you better believe that there is a snag on the road making you look precisely in the wrong direction. I admit it is the cynic in me speaking, but the stage that they made a solution for 6 million (not Lee Majors) against ChatGPT coming at 100 million, the difference is just too big and I don’t like the difference. I know I might be all wrong here, but that is the initial intake I take in the matter. 

If it all works out there is a massive change in the so called AI field. A Chinese party basically sunk the American opposition. In other news, there is possibly reason to giggle here. You see, Microsoft Invested Nearly $14 Billion In OpenAI and that was merely months ago and now we see that  someone else did it at 43% of the investment and after all the hassles they had (Xbox) they shouldn’t be spending recklessly I get it, they merely all had that price picture and now we see another Chinese firm playing the super innovator. It is making me giggle. In opposition to this, we see all kind of player (Google, IBM, Meta, Oracle, Palantir) playing a similar game of what some call AI and they have set the bar really high, as such I wonder how they will continue the game if it turns out that DeepSeek really is the ‘bomb’ of Deeper Machine Learning. I reckon there will be a few interesting weeks coming up. 

Have fun, I need to lie still for 6 hours until breakfast (my life sucks).

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What’s this about?

We all have that at times. We do not know the impact one wants to make and it also happens to me. At times I miss the point that a writer wanted to make. That is not his/her fault but it comes down to the reader what they take away from the event. One particular case (for me) is the writer Harry Mulisch. I tried to get through his book ‘the discovery of heaven’ at least twice but to no avail. Yet when the movie came out in 2001, I decided to see it immediately and it was amazing. So Jeroen Krabbe gave me what I needed to get and even as it was a bit strange to see Stephen Fry in a Dutch movie, he pulled it off nicely. 

So don’t dismay if someone does not get you, it comes with the territory. This intro is essential for what comes next. You see the Sydney Morning Herald (at https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/travel-news/this-city-is-about-to-give-dubai-a-real-run-for-its-dirhams-20250110-p5l3fo.html) gives us ‘This city is about to give Dubai a real run for its dirhams’ at that moment I was pretty sure it is Abu Dhabi. But lets look on. The end of the article gives us “Little surprise, then, that Abu Dhabi made it onto the latest The New York Times’ prestigious “52 Places to Go” list. One can only wonder what Dubai will do in response.” Also the beginning gives us “Now in 2025, an always somewhat more restrained and refined Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, is set to finally give its glitzier, more visited, neighbour, Dubai, a real run for its dirhams.” And in the middle?

We get a collection of fast rattled near facts. We see “Saadiyat Cultural District finally near completion with Guggenheim Abu Dhabi the next high-profile component of the almost 2.5-square-kilometre precinct following the Louvre’s 2017 opening” yet for a travel editor Anthony Dennis leaves a lot in the middle and does hit off with three images. So what is this about?

I haven’t seen Abu Dhabi in any other way than YouTube videos and several of them are awesome. As such I would have written:

This is what I would have written, but then, I am no travel editor. So I cannot help but think what was that article actually about? That is the question I am facing. You see, it might be me (it usually is) and I don’t get it, why raise the fight between the two? We see “One can only wonder what Dubai will do in response.” I reckon that Dubai will remain Dubai and one could wonder how many more theme parks it needs, don’t get me wrong, as a tourist I would think that more is better, but what about the Emiratis? What about Sharjah? Just two thoughts that occupied my brains. 

It might be a mere personal thought, yet have the deciders of the UAE considered a hyper loop between Dubai and Abu Dhabi? That might be a real people pleaser and a media coverage maker. The idea that you can travel between the two in less than 15 minutes might also call for more business, but that is me with a slightly limited view on the matter. 

Try to have fun. I in the meantime need to find a hacker and take from him in the most gruesome way possible.

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And there was more

You see three days ago (merely two days and change) I wrote ‘A story in two parts’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/01/17/a-story-in-two-parts/) where I laird bare a few of the ‘shortcomings’ of Microsoft. However there was more. I had initially chosen the title ‘The color is blue’ yet I decided that the premise is not about Azure, there is more to it all. You see Fierce Network gives us ‘Google Cloud could overtake Microsoft’s No. 2 cloud position this year’, which sounds nice. However there are a few issues with that. We will all love ““Google Cloud is already nearly equal to Microsoft Azure in revenues, and has a higher revenue growth rate than Microsoft Azure,” Gold wrote in a research note. “By the end of the next four years of revenue growth, we project Google Cloud’s revenues will be 55% greater than Azure at current growth rates.”” The research note gives the proper “Based on the Average of Past Two Years Revenue Growth Rate

Assuming Same Growth Rate Going Forward” so that is good, but it does not despair from “By the end of the next 4 years of revenue growth, we project Google Cloud’s revenues will be 55% greater than Azure at current growth rates.” Yet this setting does not account that someone at Microsoft ‘suddenly’ takes an innovative step towards (who knows), the second setting is that the technology premise stays where it is. Huawei with their HarmonyOS is another factor, the Chinese factor. In this I predict that they might use Microsoft down the line and might step away from Google (speculative). We have little insight in what places like the UAE does and they have a large investment in their approach to AI and in this Microsoft has the inner track there. So I love the premise, but I have thoughts of consideration on how the future unfolds. There is a chance that AWS will clear house, but there are reservations on that front too. 

Still, Azure has issues. You see the Register (at https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/13/azure_m365_outage/) gives us ‘Azure, Microsoft 365 MFA outage locks out users across regions’ with the added “Microsoft’s multi-factor authentication (MFA) for Azure and Microsoft 365 (M365) was offline for four hours during Monday’s busy start for European subscribers.” I understand that it comes with “It’s fixed, mostly, after Europeans had a manic Monday” now I wonder why we see the use of ‘mostly’ there are perhaps a few gaps in the solution and that happens, but how many of these events will Microsoft cater to until a user like Coca Cola gets a tap on the shoulder to start looking for alternatives? Do you think that a man like James Quincey keeps his sense of humor when his bottom line is under fire? And that is only the beginning.

Still Microsoft has its own ‘defense’ knee jerk operation, we are informed of that by Techi where we see (at https://www.techi.com/microsoft-files-suit-against-hundreds-abuse-azure-openai-services/) with the headline ‘Microsoft Files Suit Against Hundreds for Abuse of Azure OpenAI Services’, so not only is their OpenAI ‘flawed’, it is open to abuse (apparently). We are given “API Key Theft and Hacking-as-a-Service”where we see “As per Microsoft, the defendants systematically and through their deceitful acts stole API keys, the fundamental means of authentication to its AI services. The hacked accounts were allegedly pivotal in creating an act of “hacking-as-a-service” One main ingredient for that operation would be De3u, a software that enabled one to convert images synthesized by OpenAI’s DALL-E without the necessity of writing an actual code.” I kinda covered that on September 8th 2024 in ‘Poised to give critique’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/09/08/poised-to-deliver-critique/). Michael Bargury gave us a small example of how bad things can get.  Here the operational setting is given through “A former security architect demonstrates 15 different ways to break Copilot: “Microsoft is trying, but if we are honest here, we don’t know how to build secure AI applications”” and here is the premise now consider what (under Torts) customers will do, for example Coca Cola. Do you think they go after the so called hacker with not enough money to afford his/her own place or Microsoft with access to several bank vaults? Take the fortune 500 clients with claims of transgressions, do you really think there will be even a penny left in those Microsoft vaults when their legal teams are done with them? It might not be fair on Microsoft, but the setting of the use of the term AI opens up a whole new can of worms.

Then the Business Times (at https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/microsoft-openai-partnership-raises-antitrust-concerns-ftc-says) gives us ‘Microsoft-OpenAI partnership raises antitrust concerns, FTC says’ in this I might actually be a bit on the side of Microsoft. They give us “MICROSOFT’S US$13 billion investment in OpenAI raises concerns that the tech giant could extend its dominance in cloud computing into the nascent artificial intelligence (AI) market, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said in a report released on Friday (Jan 17).” My issue here is that there is a setting we had in the past and in countries they created their version of the FTC. It was a power for good then, but there is now the setting that LLM’s and Deeper Machine Learning has grown to a scope that the FTC cannot really fathom. This IT solution goes beyond what they know or understand and all the tech companies face this. So either they grow their ‘programming with barricades’ side of it all, giving tech companies the flaws that the law imbued in whatever country it is based. And that for global companies will set a larger flawed premise. It is like parties are limited to what others have. As such all criminals will come to us with BB-guns, because that is what the police have. Does that sound realistic? I don’t think so. But this also falls straight into the premise that Fierce Networks gave us. It works out fine for Google, until Google gets barricaded I reckon. So this is a setting that the tech firms are set to whatever the wannabe’s can do, that is a direct strangling of commerce and innovation and it sets whomever develop the trigital computer system and if you think that these systems are fast now? The next level system develops with a trinary operating system running on that hardware will astound the world. As I see it should diminish the IBM Deep Blue to a simple calculator. The difference will be THAT much, so who will innovate that when the FTC strangles innovation?

And finally we get the CIO (at https://www.cio.com/article/3802745/microsoft-commits-to-ai-integration-but-delivers-no-particulars-to-differentiate-from-rivals.html) who gives us ‘Microsoft commits to AI integration, but delivers no particulars to differentiate from rivals’ and as I see it, it was already lagging too much against AWS, and now apparently Google is coming up fast and under these settings we get this headline? And the part that matters is given with “Analysts, however, agreed that the statement reflected no meaningful changes to Microsoft’s AI strategy. The bluntest assessment came from Ryan Brunet, a principal research director at the Info-Tech Research Group: “This is classic Microsoft. It’s very much the same old garbage.”” It reminded my towards an old premise from the late 80’s when the PC was exciting and new ‘Garbage in, Garbage out’ in the age when everyone considered themselves a Market Research executive and these wannabe’s had not even mastered the basic needs of data quality. It was a Gender versus Shoe size and they thought that the solution was add the Lambda test (I think it was Lambda). And I get it, Satya Nadella talks his own street side, the problem is that there are too many unknowns at present and he hopes to get all the others onboard before they have thoroughly selected their options and in light of the selected abuses, that setting is not a given, especially as Google seemingly doesn’t have these flaws (as far as I know neither does IBM or whatever AWS wields). 

A setting that was more and could set a lot of people in the liable column of choices. And some of this has been known for at least a quarter. When you add this with part one, you see why I predicted the downfall of Microsoft three years ago. And as I see it Microsoft walked to dotted line in a near perfect manner, too bad they never read the byline ‘this way to the crevice you will not avoid when getting too close’.

It is as some say ‘the way the cookie crumbles’. Darn still 4 hours until breakfast. Time to find a new story. Have a great Monday and if you cannot get into Azure today, feel free to investigate alternatives.

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The new optional premise

We have all heard the Anti-Chimetic (might not be a real word) from America. This is the setting we all face, once a Chinese innovative company becomes too big, it gets b banned from America. Yet, now there might be a new premise set. You see the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3e18qylq5do) gives us ‘US Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban law’ with the added “The US Supreme Court has upheld a law that bans TikTok in the US unless its China-based parent company ByteDance sells the platform by this Sunday” They might hand it to Kevin O’Leary (with a co conspirator), and as Kevin O’Leary is all about making Canada the 51st state he is becoming the enemy of every Commonwealthian. We don’t like that option, yet as I see it there is a second options. 

You see, the idea is that ByteDance creates a new hub in the UAE (optionally in Saudi Arabia) and now America has a problem. What will they do? Stop either of these two players? Good luck with the fallout that this brings. 

If ByteDance creates (for example) a second hub in the UAE, for example Abu Dhabi, and set the pre mine that everyone can post there, the UAE becomes the TikTok hub. The second nice part is that all the advertisement revenue goes there too and now we get a new setting, the international viewers get an international audience and in that the UAE will see a nice windfall too. Optionally we will now see Emaar Properties, Nakheel, Meraas, DAMAC and a few others float to the advertisement top. Optionally it opens the doors for Google to ‘promote’ solutions, but that is how commerce goes. It wasn’t enough for America to fill their pockets, now it turns out they are left with an empty shell. And from there new opportunities will grow and the first nail of the America isolation coffin is set. So whilst American ‘Justice’ is now set against the 170 million users it has in the US. These users might find a new breeding ground for growth. And with the 175 million users it has in Europe, the premise will now be set that America can no longer advertise to over 350 million TikTok users and lose the view of millions of users. I reckon (a speculation) that this loss will be seen all over Google (YouTube) as well. An Anti-Chimetic setting that comes with several hooks and a non-American angle in addition. So how good was this? I set this premise to the content that America had never proven that Huawei was an actual danger and should TikTok seek this solution, it also opens the stage for Huawei to get more and more visibility. There is no fairness in this, America should have given evidence (there was none), merely the fear that is was going to be (and successfully proven at present) that America lost to China in innovation. The setting that was simply set as early as 2010 when SIPO granted 814,825 patents, a year-on-year increase of 40.0%. So this is not new, this has been going on for 15 years. All whist certain ‘captains of industry’ relied on the size of whatever viagra increases instead of revenue. Innovation was a mere spin and now that the die is cast and results are to be shown these people cry like little bitches that the market isn’t going their way. Well the market relies on innovation, something the UAE has proven several quarters over the last 5 years with (allegedly) tremendous growth every quarter. We have seen the numbers and we are shown this with Emirates (with a reported growth of 71%), Emaar Properties Dubai (with a 66% growth) and a few others, but the story should be clear. I actually came up with an idea that could have added even more to that revenue and I grant you that Dubai was a good place to test my IP, before it gets grown into London and Toronto. My IP is never actually localised. It is merely a stepping stone to a more global impact. So as I see it the TikTok ban might open a few more doors for me (pure wishful speculation on my side) and in this where is America? And in this the Guardian gives us ‘TikTok says it will ‘go dark’ in US on Sunday unless Biden acts’ a real nasty setting, because the ‘go dark’ setting isn’t the end, but it is the diminished revenue for America in a stage where they are losing a near dozen in revenue settings on the global stage and when this is the start the TikTok people will find a second stage in the EU where one country will become a secondary hug to Abu Dhabi. A second stage of revenue going from America to another place. So how is that for jolly?

And in all this America only needed to supply evidence, not evidence that players like (for example) Microsoft would like to see presented, but evidence that shows that China was an actual danger to innovation, because it is the innovation that counts. And now there is a stage that could open up sales for Huawei to the EU all that from Anti-Chimetic fears. What a lovely web they weave.

Have a lovely day and feel free to explore what innovation the Huawei Watch 5 brings. The first watch that becomes a threat to both Google and Apple all at the same time. One brand to smite both, so how secure are we with what comes? HamonyOS is now striking out to a much larger population and while Apple and Google are at odds with each other, Huawei is setting the stage to strike at both. And this news is a mere 2 hours old.

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Giggling is the better medicine

This morning (around 03:00) I felt the need to check my mobile (a compact version of the invention by James Alexander Bell) or something of the sort. Inaccurate? Perhaps, but everything comes from somewhere. And as we all look towards roots, I looked at the screen and suddenly stopped. You see, I saw a Microsoft header with layoffs pass by. This is nothing to worry about, or new. They are all laying off people, all the big ones, so that is not cause for concern. Microsoft employs 224000 people, so they might cast a few more away. But I had not actually seen the details of the news, as such my trusty Chrome looked at the news of Microsoft and there a few things came up. And the count is important (for later)

  1. We see all kinds of advertisements with the Surface Pro being reduced $300 in one direction, $400 in another. There are all kinds of ‘offers’ but why would you want to discount THAT much? 
  2. Layoffs. We see ‘Microsoft lays off employees in security, experiences and devices, sales, and gaming’ (source; Business insider), ‘Microsoft staff face second round of layoffs as firm continues cost-cutting measures’ (source: ITPro) several sources claim that the layoffs will be small, but no numbers are given. Now this makes sense in light of the ‘redundancies’ at Google, Amazon, Meta (say Facebook) and a few others. Another source gave us “Microsoft plans to pause hiring in part of its U.S. consulting business and said last week that it would lay off less than 1% of its workforce”, still that could be up to 2200 people, when you are one of them percentages really don’t make a difference. 
  3. The information gives us ‘Microsoft’s Gaming Business Falls Short, Despite Activision’, This is fun. You see in 2023 Activision Blizzard had a market cap of A$120.08 Billion. Microsoft only paid 75 billion for the company and in early days I stated that a gaming company is only as valuable as the last game, and in 2022 Activision Blizzard’s annual revenue amounted to 7.53 billion U.S. dollars, as such Microsoft needs this to go on for 10 years just to break even. I warned for that and now we got ‘Microsoft’s Gaming Business Falls Short’, the Information (at https://www.theinformation.com/articles/microsofts-gaming-business-falls-short-despite-activision) gives us also “In the year to June, Microsoft’s gaming business revenue grew 5.8%, well below the 11% target set for the purpose of calculating part of Nadella’s compensation, according to securities filings. (That growth excludes revenue of Activision since its acquisition but includes Game Pass)”, it amounts to the fact that ‘gaming’ revenue is 50% short. Not good news I say. And when others come with complex stories that it has a few more sides. I say revenue is revenue and it is 50% short, that is the part others look at. And Newsweek gives us ‘Activision Hasn’t Helped Microsoft Grow Xbox Game Pass, Says Report’ (at https://www.newsweek.com/entertainment/activision-hasnt-helped-microsoft-grow-xbox-game-pass-says-report-2015392) where we also see “Microsoft was hoping that acquiring Activision would lure other game developers to rent its Azure servers, which hasn’t happened” not surprising. Developers like numbers and with a 3:1 margin Sony is a much more appealing choice for the first stage of any development. And the bad news doesn’t end there, we see at TechRadar (at  https://www.techradar.com/computing/gaming-pcs/theres-one-handheld-gaming-pc-that-went-under-the-radar-at-ces-2025-and-its-got-a-secret-weapon-to-beat-the-competition#) that Tencent now released the Tencent Sunday Dragon 3D One at CES 2025, a setting that was (kinda) clear over a year ago and my IP was set to that device and if successful (here’s hoping) it will cost Microsoft a lot more, well at least they bought Activision at $10 per $1 (OK, not entirely accurate, but I’ll go with that feeling). 

So three points, all relate to revenue. Lack of two, lack of innovation in one (spin stories aren’t innovative) and whilst we are ‘given’ ‘Xbox Game Pass expected to make $5.5 billion in 2025’ expected isn’t something that is achieved and there might be more bad news on the horizon, which will set the spin engines to overdrive. To compare, Nintendo reported in September 2024 a Revenue of 276.66B, can you see why I giggle? Microsoft ‘sickofans’ are elated on the optionally coming revenue of Microsoft Game Pass that is merely 2% of Nintendo’s revenue. And that is next year whilst Nintendo is already slaying the revenue dragon. The revenues of Microsoft are likely to lack visibility for some time to come. Some of the reviews of the 2024 Surface Pro aren’t anywhere near stellar (and it needs to be) as such my predictions for the downfall of Microsoft are still achievable. I reckon that when the first AI milestones start failing the domino’s will take a tumble making Microsoft cut more and more meat of their bones. All this whist more and more people see through the presented spin (as I tend to call it) You see, with the promise of tomorrow you better deliver tomorrow and certain parties bought into that and as such when delivery stays short of achieving. The dice get cast in a very different direction. For me it’s easy. I merely have to wait for the predictions too fall short and Microsoft is lacking in more and more fields and as such as Tencent makes larger gains the stage doesn’t just change, it crumbles. I wonder where Amazon is, because with their Luna they had options. I initially designed for that track (merely because Google dropped their stadia) and should Amazon get on top of the Unreal Engine 5, the stage is seeded with Amazon opportunities. A setting Microsoft totally ignored (also they were not invited to my IP clambake). As such I reckon that there will be a hiatus until Microsoft announces more lay offs. And I have seen that before. They will ‘call’ it streamlining and what I see is an empty egg. The shell of the egg looks smooth, but you cannot eat it. In 2023 we got ‘Microsoft outage worsened by staff shortage’, so before you cut your less than 1%, was your staff shortage secured? And when that happens, where are the other shortages? Where one source gave us ‘Microsoft has published a preliminary report into an incident on 30 August that finds insufficient data centre staffing levels contributed to an outage’ and another gave us ‘Microsoft had three staff at Australian data centre campus’, a data centre with 3 staff members? I reckon Microsoft has a few more problems (I reckon planning being one of them). 

So have a great day and consider where you are now and where you optionally could be.

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In stages

That is where a lot of us are. We are looking at some thingamajig (not to be confused with a doohickey). And as such we evolve our way of thoughts. My initial thoughts in such a direction was a classic. It concerned the Citroen DS, I think it was about 3-5 years ago.

I always loved that car and I got to thinking. What if we switch the engine and add a battery. Suddenly the classics from our youth are blown in new life. It is not an outlandish thought. Todays more and more cars look so alike and are decently ugly, as such we might not like those cars. There is something appealing to drive an optional classical Jaguar, Volvo S80, Austin FX4 (the London taxi edition) and we might have numerous reasons for whatever car we want. I found out last year that someone is actually doing this, so that made me happy. Although they did it on some Mercedes worth millions. I was hoping for a setting cheaper than that. It would breath life into the automobile world. I think that it has a future. 

The second stage in this was that I (sort of) fell in love with a watch. The Versace watch, I am not an outspoken fan of Versace. I have nothing against them, but it was never my brand.

This watch was immaculate. Still I am happy with my Google Watch 2 (even as they are a bit of a dick at this moment). I need the Google Watch for a reason (the pedometer is supported in one case) that is why I need it. But I do use the weather part now as well. I also designed a face that has functionality I need, but I am not a programmer. And as such I am a little stuck. Still there is a point here. You see, plenty of people need their Apple or Google Watch, wouldn’t it be great if there was an option to ‘transplant’ that functionality to a Versace, Breitling or Tudor Watch? You see, we have the watch, but most of the settings are transferable to lets say the strap of the watch. Now consider that it needs to be transferable to the brand strap, with an optional new strap designed for that function. Now we could have the watch we always wanted with optional smart watch functionality. I don’t thing we could transfer everything, but plenty of things are a new option in such watches. Perhaps Google could look into that (in stead of harassing people 4 times a day to activate the backup setting). I think that the new hype will be unison of functions and I reckon that this is what 2026 will bring. I think that the smart watch was a stepping stone. I am not saying it is the end of the Smartwatch, that will continue. I reckon that plenty of people want a new setting and optional in different directions as well.

Consider the vloggers in this world. There are roughly 65 million of them (TikTok and YouTube). Wouldn’t it be great if we could transport the weather icon from the watch directly to your recording? 

It would be great for all these walkabout vloggers and there are millions of those. Optional the time as well (not at the same time). All options that have been out in the open for over two years. So where were Apple and Google with their ‘innovative’ minds? 

And when that door opens I reckon the boffins of these two places will have a larger collection of ideas. The players on the vlog play is also mostly limited. Apart from the Apple and Google devices, where instant adaptability is found, they for the most need to adhere to DJI and GoPro. After that the rest will follow suit (as they say). So what kept them?

That is the food for thought I leave you today. Have a great day.

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