Apple targeted in App Store antitrust damages suit that’s seeking $1BN+ for UK developers | TechCrunch

July 25, 2023July 24, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A class-action damages claim is being brought against Apple on behalf of UK-based developers. The suit, which is seeking a compensation payout that could be as high as £800 million (over $1BN), accuses the tech giant of abusing a dominant position by charging an “anticompetitive” 30% fee on in-app sales made by app makers on its iOS App Store. It also argues UK consumers are missing out as developers are being deprived of money that could be spent on R&D to drive forward app innovation.

Sean Ennis, a professor of competition policy at the University of East Anglia who has held positions at the OECD, US Department of Justice and European Commission, is bringing the class action on behalf of over 1,500 UK-based developers.

Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’ | TechCrunch

July 25, 2023July 24, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Twitter has removed the iconic bird logo and adopted ‘X’ as its official logo. This move comes after Elon Musk announced the change over the weekend. The change is already live on the website.

Notably, Musk tweeted that x.com now also redirects to twitter.com. In the post, Musk also called this an “interim” logo, so we might see another logo change in the future.

The social network might not stop at just replacing the logo. Musk said the company will eventually “bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”

Late Sunday, Musk changed his profile picture to the new Twitter logo. Twitter’s official account @Twitter has also changed its name and display picture to the new X logo.

Google Salary Data Leak Shows Employee Compensation in 2022 | Entrepreneur

July 24, 2023July 23, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Tech jobs have long been in the top ranks among the highest-paying industries, but some companies really shell out the dough for their engineers.

In 2022, the median total compensation for Google employees was $279,802, according to leaked internal data from the company reviewed by Business Insider. Among the highest-paying positions at Google, software engineers led the pack with a maximum base salary of $718,000 last year.

Servant Leadership: 9 Ways to Be a Better Servant Leader | Getentrepreneurial.com

July 24, 2023July 23, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

After a long week at work and a late night serving curry and clearing tables at a BBQ we had hosted for our students, it was 9:30am on a Saturday morning. I was at the airport collecting some colleagues (that I’d never met before) who had flown into town from another campus for an event that they needed a lift to, 214 km away, off-road.

“Your taxi is here!” I happily chirped as I loaded their suitcases into the back of the car. They thanked me graciously and we talked for the next 3+ hours as we bumped and jiggled along one of the most beautiful typically-deep-red Australian outback tracks to a remote Aboriginal community.

As we rocked up to their destination, one asked “so what did you do to deserve having to be the driver for trip like this? What’s your role?”.

No, Threads didn’t rate limit like Twitter. Here’s what Meta did. | Mashable

July 21, 2023July 19, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

It seemed like exactly the type of juicy hypocrisy that the internet lives for.

On Monday, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced that in order to tackle the spam problem on its new Twitter competitor, Threads, the company was going to introduce tighter rate limits on the platform.

Sounds familiar? That’s because rate limits were one of the controversial decisions implemented by Elon Musk on Twitter in early July that resulted in massive backlash against the platform. Users were finding themselves blocked from seeing content on Twitter due to daily rate limiting, after viewing a certain number of tweets.

But, as it turns out, no, Threads did not deploy the same controversial rate limits on its platform that Twitter did. Threads instead strengthened the same type of rate limits present on most all social media platforms, limits that even Twitter used long before Musk even acquired the company.

How hot your iPhone or iPad can get before the battery is permanently damaged | Mashable

July 20, 2023July 19, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s very hot. Major heat waves have hit regions all over the world, including the U.S., Europe, and parts of Asia.

With dangerously high temperatures in some areas, authorities have advised staying indoors and taking it easy. The same can be said for your iPhone. According to Apple, “using an iOS or iPadOS device in very hot conditions can permanently shorten battery life.” Here’s how to protect your device and what to do if it gets too hot.

Tesla profits climb despite price cuts | CNN Business

July 20, 2023July 19, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Tesla reported a much bigger-than-expected increase in profits, despite a series of price cuts that trimmed the amount of revenue per vehicle sold.

Tesla (TSLA) reported adjusted earnings of $3.1 billion, or 91 cents a share, up 20% from the second quarter last year. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had forecast earnings of 82 cents a share.

Its profit margin of 18.2% was also better than expected, although profit margins were still smaller than they were last year due to the series of price cuts the company announced since earlier this year. A year ago, Tesla’s margin was 25%, and even reported a 19.3% profit margin in the first quarter, when it first started to put the price cuts in place. But the forecast was that the continued price cuts would drop the profit margin under 17% in the most recent quarter.

Scientists discover ancient, underwater volcano is still active — and covered in up to a million giant eggs | Live Science

July 19, 2023July 18, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Researchers exploring an ancient, underwater volcano off the Pacific coast of Canada have discovered it is still active — and “covered” in thousands of giant eggs.

Before the expedition, the team thought the volcano was extinct and the waters around it frigid. However, they found the underwater mountain — which towers 3,600 feet (1,100 meters) above the seafloor — spouting warm water and encrusted with deep-sea corals. The hot, mineral-rich fluid keeps the surrounding waters toasty, providing ideal conditions for some marine creatures to survive in the deep sea. The researchers were even more surprised to see a Pacific white skate (Bathyraja spinosissima) weaving in and out of the fronds and laying eggs on the summit, nearly a mile (1.5 kilometers) beneath the surface.

‘MIND diet,’ intended to prevent dementia, doesn’t offer significant brain benefit, trial suggests | Live Science

July 19, 2023July 18, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The MIND diet — which is intended to guard against dementia, and is rich in fruits and veggies and low in saturated fats — has no short-term brain benefits beyond those seen in people who follow a standard, “suboptimal” diet, a three-year trial suggests.

The trial’s results, published Tuesday (July 18) in The New England Journal of Medicine, showed that participants who followed the MIND diet for three years showed slight improvements in their overall cognition, as measured with a dozen tests. However, those mental improvements were not statistically different from those seen in people who followed their usual diets.

A subset of people from both the MIND and standard diet groups also underwent brain scans, which revealed that their brains changed in the same ways over the three-year period, regardless of the diet they followed.