Data sheet: Epic outperforms Google, AI boom in Malaysia, TV hack in Russia, Samsung chips

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An epic victory over Google

Google must make it easier for Android users in the US to download mobile apps from stores other than its own, a judge ruled Monday.

Epic Games (Fortnite, Gears of War, Unreal) filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google back in 2020, arguing that Google Play had used a series of anti-competitive practices to make itself the preferred app store on Android devices at the expense of competing app stores.

Epic's efforts have now culminated in a permanent injunction declared by Google – which often takes 15% to 30% cuts in revenue from its app store it will resonate.

The decree covers many areas. For three years starting next month, Google will not be able to pay app makers for exclusive app launches, pay companies to avoid launching their own app stores, pay partners to list Google Play pre-install on new devices, or require app manufacturers to use Google Play billing. (Phew.)

The order also forces Google and Epic to form a three-person committee to review technical issues related to Google's compliance. (Not The sounds fun.)

If you're thinking, “This seems bad for Apple too,” you're on the right track. Epic has a similar lawsuit with the iPhone maker I almost did it to the Supreme Court; it remains an active fight in the district court. The battle for your mobile ducats continues. -A

Malaysia's unlikely AI boom

A quiet, swampy corner of Malaysia has become an unlikely hotspot due to growing demand for AI.

Johor, a Malaysian state once known for palm oil plantations, is experiencing a boom in data center construction, according to a new report in the magazine Wall Street Journal. A series of server farms – one the size of 19 football fields – are planned or under construction in the region to fuel the huge global need for artificial intelligence training.

Tech giants such as TikTok and Microsoft are among the newcomers to Johor, as are companies that rent data centers to corporate clients. The goal is to make the region the second largest data center hub in the world, just behind Northern Virginia, the current global leader.

This corner of Malaysia has some advantages. It lies just across the border from Singapore, where many transoceanic internet cables converge. There is also enough water and electricity (much of it from not-so-clean coal) to supply the resource-hungry facilities. And Malaysia has friendly relations with the US and China.

Malaysia is, of course, more than happy to be the beneficiary of billions of dollars of data center investment. —Verne Kopytoff

Who will oversee facial recognition technology?

Many police officers use facial recognition technology to identify suspects, but the results are decidedly mixed.

Officials in at least 15 states have used the software in more than 1,000 criminal investigations, helping to arrest hundreds of people. accordingly The Washington Post. However, it turned out that at least seven of those people were wrongfully arrested, and six of them were black.

The mysterious facial recognition company Clearview AI, which sells a database of billions of images from the Internet, is among the vendors used by police in their searches. However, studies show that Clearview and other leading algorithms are more likely to misidentify people of color, women and the elderly than white men.

Police rarely informed defendants that they were using the controversial software and even actively concealed the fact when documenting investigations, the Post reported. Critics say police should be required to disclose the fact out of fairness to suspects, but only seven states have passed laws requiring this.

Well, um, smile for the camera. –Jenn Brice

Hackers from Ukraine eliminate Russian news channel

Nearly three years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the war between the nations with bullets and bombs has not escaped anyone with access to the news. But the ongoing cyberwar? It's easy to forget that sometimes.

A massive cyberattack – reportedly linked to the Ukrainian government – on Monday brought down the website and news channel Rossiya-24 of VGTRK, the state media company that runs Russia's national television channels.

A Kremlin spokesman called it an “unprecedented hacker attack” (which, please note, is a fantastic name for a punk band) and said the government would raise it in various international forums. In reality, retaliation is more likely to occur – but not in the way you might think.

As Microsoft noted in a 2022 report In a detailed description of early cyber lessons about the war, Russian hackers are looking for targets far beyond the Ukrainian government's servers. They are trying to penetrate the networks of allied governments such as the United States and Poland, as well as think tanks, humanitarian organizations, IT companies, energy suppliers and other infrastructure providers.

Furthermore, Russian cyber influence operations target not only the working civilian populations of all named nations, but also “populations in non-aligned countries, perhaps in part to maintain their support at the United Nations and elsewhere.” So keep your digital mind sharp, webmasters. -A

Samsung is sticking with its chips

It's not easy to beat Taiwan Semiconductor Co, the world's leading contract chipmaker. Just ask Samsung, which has announced it will take over TSMC's lunch by 2030.

Analysts expect Samsung to lose billions every year as a result of these efforts, weighing on its overall business. But it's not about giving up or spinning off the company's foundry business the chairman recently told Reuters. “We are committed to growing the business. We have no interest in secession,” said Jay Y. Lee.

The South Korean group is the world's largest memory chip maker, but dreams of becoming the preferred manufacturing partner for companies like Apple and Nvidia, which outsource production of their advanced “logic” chips to TSMC.

If Samsung's dream sounds familiar, that's because it's also Intel's comeback plan. Given the enormous costs of building chip factories, Samsung and Intel are among the few companies that have a real chance of challenging TSMC – and risk losing billions if they fail. Here's to the dreamers! —Alexei Oreskovic

More data

—Meta and Uber, former “Scale Insurgent” unicorns. According to Bain & Co., they were the only two tech startups in the last 20 years to generate revenue that justified their funding.

—Cybercrime in Southeast Asia is damn lucrative. According to the UN, $37 billion was stolen last year.

—Pinduoduo and other Chinese retailers are in a race to the bottom. And price wars are driving China's deflation in the wrong direction.

—Who invests in European defense startups? American. A sign of maturity, observers say – or perhaps inhibition.

—Elon Musk shows up at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania. “I’m Dark MAGA,” he said. (No word on whether he added, “Avada Kedavra!”)

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