Starbucks is officially in the EV business
Starbucks has opened electric vehicle charging stations 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 rushing to launch and scale their artificial intelligence units, a global chip crunch persists. On a call with investors Monday (Dec. 11) to go over quarterly earnings, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison reiterated how hot things remain in the race to supply AI models with the massive amounts of computing power necessary to train and operate them.—Melvin Backman | Read More
Why Apple is PETA’s company of the year
Apple is PETA’s 2023 darling. The animal rights group, known for controversial ads, named the iPhone maker its company of the year because it stopped using leather in accessories.—Laura Bratton | Read More
Netflix has released a trove of viewing data, but to what end?
Since 2021, Netflix has been sharing weekly top 10 and most popular lists, giving a window into the content being consumed on the streaming platform. Its new bi-annual “What We Watched” report goes a step further, with comprehensive viewership data showing how new fare like The Night Manager, as well as older, licensed titles like Breaking Bad and Suits, thrive on the platform.—Ananya Bhattacharya | Read More
The Epic Games antitrust win against Google paves the way for a bigger app store upset
Fortnite maker Epic Games’ antitrust trial win against Google has leveled up the fight to democratize app stores. A nine-person jury concluded Dec. 11 that Google’s Play Store operates as an illegal monopoly, unanimously answering “yes” to all 11 questions on the verdict 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’s banned. They also agreed that Epic suffered as a result.—Ananya Bhattacharya | Read More
The UK is investigating the Microsoft and OpenAI partnership
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is gathering information on 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 nowall being clubbed under a single Sexual Content Policy.—Ananya Bhattacharya | Read More
Why Temu ended its legal ceasefire with Shein
Shein and Temu are in a battle to conquer the US fast-fashion world, and the war has—once again—reached the courts. Over the last year, the Asian e-commerce giants sued and countersued each other, until they decided to drop the lawsuits in October. But on Dec. 13, Temu filed a new lawsuit, saying Shein has “intensified” anticompetitive practices.—Ananya Bhattacharya | Read More