Daily Tech News 27 January 2024

• Apple has outlined its new fee structure under the new rules the company has been forced into by EU regulations. (The Verge)
  
  Taking as an example an app that has 10 million installs and makes $10 million in revenue per year - pretty normal stuff - the new fee structure would entail:
  
  - A 3% transaction fee on purchases.
  - A 10% commission on sales.
  - A 49% "Core Technology Fee" on because fuck you, that's why.
  
  So the new relaxed rules would double Apple's cut of your revenue.
  
  And if your app makes less than 57 cents per user on average - again, pretty normal with a free app - you would end up paying Apple for the privilege of them doing nothing for you.
  
  
  
• The EU's Bookburner General, Thierry Breton - yes, that guy again - is warning Apple of "strong action" if the company's new terms are utter bullshit which they are. (Reuters)
  
  Unlike Twitter which can operate from the US and safely ignore EU posturing, Apple could face an outright ban of its devices from one of its largest markets if the EU got serious.
  
  Apple claims that 99% of apps would save money under the new terms listed above... Which means that 99% of apps have no users.
  
  It's also entirely self-serving, because what it hides is that the 1% of apps that are actually successful would be worse off.
  
  
  
• That poison pill also applies to third-party app stores. (The Verge)
  
  Developers are not impressed.

• So why would anyone use Apple in the first place?
  
  Microsoft accidentally granted global admin privileges to a random legacy test account. (Ars Technica)
  
  Which then got hacked by Russia.
  
  Granting the hackers read access to every Office 365 account in the world.
  
  From the comments at Ars Technica:

  To summarize the fuckups:
  
  

  • Created test tenant with access to prod data
  • Created test account with weak password
  • Made test account accessible from internet
  • Never enabled 2FA on test account
  • Gave test account admin role
  • Did not monitor for slow password sprays (a known technique)
  • Failed to disable test account at end of testing
  • Failed to monitor for unused/test accounts in production environment
  • Did not monitor executives' accounts for surreptitious access
  • Did not monitor internal test account (that apparently hadn't been accessed in years) for "unusual login activity"

  Did I miss anything? By my count, that's ten fuckups. It's kind of impressive!

  Genuinely useful comments at Ars Technica? What is the world coming to?
  
  

• California lawmakers are pushing for a blatantly unconstitutional watermark requirement for AI-generated images. (Bloomberg)
  
  The obvious illegality of such a requirement is of course no hindrance to the California state legislature.
  
  
  
• AMD's Zen 5 desktop CPUs could be arriving as early as Q2 this year, rather than the more usual Q4. (Hot Hardware)
  
  We've seen leaks that the chips are already on the production line at TSMC, so given lead times of five to six months for current-generation chips, this makes sense.
  
  The real action though is with the new laptop chips, and those aren't expected until the end of the year, with the Strix Point Halo - 16 CPU cores and PlayStation 5 level graphics - pushed back to next year.
  
  
  
• Tech layoffs are back, baby! (Tech Crunch)
  
  Much as I enjoy shitting on the idiocy of the tech press, this is at least the second time that Tech Crunch has mocked itself for its September article proclaiming that tech layoffs were "almost a thing of the past".
  
  Good for them.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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