Starbucks is officially in the EV business
Starbucks did charging stations for electric vehicles opened at 15 locations along the thousand-mile stretch between Denver and Seattle as part of its partnership with Swedish automaker Volvo.—Laura Bratton | Read more
Oracle literally can’t build enough cloud computing for Elon Musk’s xAI
Amid an onslaught of demand from tech giants in a hurry to launch and scale their artificial intelligence units, a global chip crunch continues. On a call with investors Monday (December 11) to go over quarterly earningsOracle Chairman Larry Ellison reiterated how hot things remain in the race to provide AI models with the massive amounts of computing power needed to train and operate them.—Melvin Backman | Read more
Why Apple is PETA’s Company of the Year
appeal is PETA’s 2023 Darling. The animal rights group, known for controversial adsthe iPhone manufacturer said company of the year because it stopped using leather in accessories.—Laura Bratton | Read more
Netflix has released a wealth of viewing data, but to what end?
Since 2021, Netflix shares weekly top 10 and most popular lists, which provide a window into the content consumed on the streaming platform. His new biennial “What we watched” report goes a step further, with comprehensive viewership data showing what new fare looks like the night manager, as well as older, licensed titles such as Breaking Bad and suits, thrives on the platform.—Ananya Bhattacharya | Read more
The Epic Games antitrust victory against Google paves the way for a bigger app store upset
Fortnite maker Epic Games’ antitrust trial wins against Google leveled the battle to democratize app stores. A nine-person jury concluded on December 11 that Google’s Play Store operates as an illegal monopoly, which unanimously answers “yes”. all 11 questions on the sentence form. The jurors said Google has monopoly power over the Android app distribution and billing services markets, in violation of antitrust laws “worldwide excluding China,” where it is prohibited. They also agreed that Epic suffered as a result.—Ananya Bhattacharya | Read more
The UK is exploring the Microsoft and OpenAI partnership
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is gathering information about Microsoft and OpenAI to decide whether their partnership threatens competition in the UK, which is home to Google’s DeepMind.—Michelle Cheng | Read more
Twitch says its revamped sexual content guidelines are fairer to female streamers
Twitch has streamlined its sexual content policies to make them less confusing – especially for women on the platform. Instead of having two separate policies in the community guidelines for sexually suggestive and sexually explicit content, as well as an additional section in the Content Classification Guidelines to address sexual content, the rules are already placed under a single Sexual Content Policy.—Ananya Bhattacharya | Read more
Why Temu ended his legal truce with Shein
Shein and Temu are in a fight to conquer the American fast fashion world, and the war has – once again – reached the courts. For the past year, the Asian e-commerce giants have sued and fought each other until they settled dropped the lawsuits in October. But on December 13, Temu filed a new lawsuitand says Shein has “stepped up” anti-competitive practices.—Ananya Bhattacharya | Read more
