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Brian McCullough
Foreign welcome to the TechMe Bright Home for Friday, April 25, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Alphabet Earnings intel earnings Apple is making moves to make sure all iPhones heading to the US Are no longer manufactured in China. Zuck seems bound and determined to revive his original baby Sexy looking new Motorola RAZR phones and of course the weekend Longreach Suggestions. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Foreign Tech earnings are back Alphabet reported Q1 revenue up 12% year on year, net income up 46%, services revenue up 10% to $77.3 billion and other bets revenue down 9% to just 450 million. Google Cloud Q1 revenue was up 28% year on year to 12.26 billion, and they said AI overviews now has one and a half billion users per month, up from 1 billion back in October. Quoting CNBC, Alphabet made its largest acquisition ever in March when it agreed to buy Wiz for $32 billion in cash, almost $10 billion more than it offered for the startup in 2024, and said it expects the deal to close next year, subject to regulatory approvals. With the acquisition, Google will seek to bolster its cloud division's security offerings. We think this will help spur more multi cloud computing, something our customers want, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said about the acquisition on a call with analysts Thursday. The company said its Other Bets segment, which includes its Self unit, Waymo and life Sciences unit, verily brought in 450 million, down 9% from 495 million a year earlier. The unit lost $1.23 billion, up from 1.02 billion the year prior. End quote. Alphabet says it surpassed 270 million paid subscribers, driven largely by YouTube and Google One, and reported YouTube Q1 ad revenue was up 10.3% year on year to 8.93 billion. Quoting Variety. YouTube, which turned 20 this year, released new stats as part of marking its launch in 2005, including touting more than 20 billion videos uploaded to date for full year 2024, YouTube had an estimated $54.2 billion in revenue, making it the second largest media company after Disney. And in 2025, it's poised to take the number one spot, according to analyst firm Moffatt Nathanson. Also on that YouTube turning 20 thing, they're apparently getting 20 million video uploads every. And one more interesting note, Alphabet's Q1 profit was boosted by $8 billion in unrealized gains from an investment in SpaceX. Alphabet has been a major SpaceX investor since at least 2015. Intel reported Q1 revenue was flat year on year at $12.67 billion, but is forecasting Q2 revenue will come in below. Estimates are reducing their 2025 capex target. Intel's stock dropped more than 5% after hours, quoting Reuters in a conference call with investors, new CEO Lip Bhutan also gave the first hints of sweeping plans to revitalize Intel's culture of innovation, including a mandate for employees to return to the office four days a week, fewer meetings and stripping out unnecessary internal administrative work in favor of core engineering work. His remarks appeared to help intel shares stem losses in extended trading, but they were still down 5. The chip maker's dour outlook could be another source of pessimism for investors who are counting on Tan to turn things around after years of missteps have left it struggling to gain a foothold in the booming AI market. Fears around tariffs pushed customers to stockpile intel chips, which boosted sales in the first quarter. CFO David Zinsner said the company was not able to determine the amount of the benefit and it expects the second quarter to suffer as a result. The very fluid trade policies in the US and beyond, as well as regulatory risks, have increased the chance of an economic slowdown with the probability of a recession growing, zinsner said during a conference call with analysts. This makes it more difficult to forecast how we will perform for the quarter and for the year despite the mounting tariff concerns. Tan said on the conference call that he met recently with intel rival Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing CEO CC Wei and former CEO Morris Chang. The purpose, he said, was to find areas of possible collaboration and to, quote, create a win win situation. Amid Tan's attempts to streamline the company and cut costs, intel also said it is reducing its adjusted operating expense target to approximately $17 billion in 2025, down from its previously stated goal of $17.5 billion, and is now targeting $16 billion in 2026. Tan said intel is examining its factory footprint. In February, the company said it was pushing back a $28 billion factory project in Ohio until 2030. We will continue to take a closer look at our existing factory footprint to ensure that we are making the most efficient use of our in store capacity before committing to any additional spending, Tan said. On Sources are telling the Financial Times that Apple plans to move assembly of all US sold iPhones around 60 million units a year to India by the end of 2026 as President Trump's trade war pushes a pivot from China. The target would mean doubling the iPhone output in India after almost two decades in which Apple spent heavily in China to create a world beating production line that powered its rise to a $3 trillion tech giant. China, where Apple manuf the majority of its iPhones via third parties such as Foxconn, has been subject to the US President's most aggressive levies, though he has since signaled a willingness to negotiate with Beijing. Apple has in recent years been steadily building capacity in India with contract manufacturers Tata Electronics and Foxconn, though it still assembles most of its smartphones in China. IPhone assembly is the last step in the production process, bringing together hundreds of components for which Apple is still heavily reliant on Chinese suppliers. India was hit with a so called reciprocal tariff of 26%, though this is paused while New Delhi pushes for a bilateral trade agreement with the U.S. on a visit to India this week, U.S. vice President J.D. vance said the two countries were making very good progress. The US accounted for about 28% of Apple's 232.1 million global iPhone shipments in 2024, according to the International Data Corporation. Apple would need to further increase capacity in India to fulfill all US Orders from the country last year as the iPhone maker sought to increase output from India. Foxconn and Tata importing preassembled component sets from China End quote Zif Davis is suing OpenAI, alleging it used Zif Davis's content to train AI models. Sources say Ziff Davis is seeking at least hundreds of millions of dollars. In the suit, quoting the Times, Zif Davis, the digital publisher behind tech sites like Mashable, PCMag and Lifehacker, sued OpenAI on Thursday, joining a wave of media companies accusing the artific intelligence giant of stealing its content. Ziff Davis is one of the largest publishers in the United States, with more than 45 sites globally that together attract an average of 292 million visitors per month and is among the biggest media companies pressing a claim against OpenAI. In a 62 page complaint filed in federal court in Delaware, where OpenAI is incorporated, Ziff Davis says the tech company has intentionally and relentlessly reproduced exact copies and created derivatives of Ziff Davis works, infringing on the publisher's copyrights and diluting its trademarks. It claims that OpenAI used Ziff Davis content to train its artificial intelligence models and generate responses through its popular ChatGPT chatbot. OpenAI has taken each of these steps knowing that they violate Ziff Davis intellectual property rights and the law, the complaint says. Executives at Ziff Davis have been considering for months which path to take One of the people said the company decided to sue in part in the hope that other publishers would follow End quote Facebook is apparently going to reduce the reach of accounts sharing spammy content and make them ineligible for monetization after Mark Zuckerberg has promised a return to what he called the OG Facebook. Quoting TechCrunch, Meta admits that some accounts on its platform try to game the algorithm to increase views or gain unfair monetization advantages, which results in spammy content flooding users feeds. To remedy this, it's cracking down on accounts that exhibit certain types of spamming behavior. This type of behavior includes accounts that share content content with long captions alongside an excessive number of hashtags. It also includes accounts that post content with captions that are unrelated to the content, such as an image of a dog with a caption about airplane Facts Meta says that while the intention behind these sorts of posts isn't always malicious, it does lead to spammy content that ends up overshadowing original content from creators. Facebook will also target spam networks that create hundreds of networks to share the same spammy content, making them ineligible for monetization. The crackdown on spammy content comes as AI slots AI slop is becoming a serious problem across social media platforms, including Facebook. The company told TechCrunch that its crackdown is not targeting AI slop directly, but notes that accounts engaging in spammy behavior while also sharing that type of content will be impacted. Facebook says it's aware of the concerns around AI slop cluttering users feeds and says it will address the issue as part of its broader focus on improving users feeds. As part of today's announcement, Facebook also said that it will reduce the reach and visibility of comments that it detects as fake engagement. Plus, Facebook will start testing a comment feature that will allow users to signal which comments are irrelevant or don't fit in the context of the conversation. End quote. It's weird how many stories have surfaced recently about Zuck's desire to make Fetch happen, if you will, to revive Facebook to make it relevant again, even at the cost of some of Meta's other properties. A second TechCrunch piece revealed this Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg once considered deleting everyone's Facebook friends in an effort to boost the social network's cultural relevance. This potentially crazy idea, as the exec called it at the time, was revealed on Monday as part of the evidence introduced during the first day of the US government's antitrust trial against Meta. In one message to Meta employees in 2022 Zuckerberg proposed the strategy of wiping everyone's graphs and having them start again as a possible solution to Facebook's declining significance in the social networking space. The idea was that forcing everyone to recreate their friends graphs could encourage users to reconnect with the social network as they rebuild their social connections. Others at Meta, including the head Facebook Tom Allison, pushed back on the plan and ultimately the strategy was never implemented. However, the evidence presented in the trial revealed that Zuckerberg had considered other strategies to maintain his company's relevance, including shifting Facebook from a friends based model to a follower based model that also never came to be end quote it might seem like most of the news we're subjected to 24. Seven is bad or downright depressing about the future. With so much out of our control, the future can feel overwhelming. Regain control with a life insurance policy found just for you by the licensed insurance agents at Selectquote that can protect your financial legacy. Whether you need $500,000 or $50 million in coverage, selectquote can find you the perfect policy. Other life insurance brokers offer impersonal one size fits all policies that may cost you more and cover you less, while SelectQuote's licensed insurance agents work for you to tailor a life insurance policy for your individual needs in as little as and have you ever worried about getting coverage with a pre existing health condition? Selectquote partners with carriers that provide policies for a variety of health conditions. Head to selectquote.com and get a licensed insurance agent to call you right away with the right policy for your life and your budget. Selectquote they shop, you save get the right life insurance for you for less@SelectQuote.com Ride Go to SelectQuote.com Ride today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com Ride when you're starting off with something new, it seems like your to do list keeps growing every day with new tasks and that list can easily begin to overrun your life. Finding the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything can be such a game changer. And for millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands like my own resume writers.com get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store to match your brand style, accelerate your content creation. Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. Get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. If you're ready to sell, then you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into With Shopify on your side, sign up for your your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com ride go to shopify.com ride shopify.com ride Motorola released new updated Razer phones, which will include Perplexity's AI search engine as part of a distribution partnership that lets Perplexity gain users rather than revenue. But I'm also interested in the phones themselves. There are three new Razr models actually, including the $1,300 Razer UL flip phone with a 7 inch inner and 4 inch outer screen and a wood option. This is shipping May 15th. Quoting the Verge here's the thing, though. Wood Grain Back Panel the Ultra gets some fun new finishes, including a real wood back panel that's giving Moto X vibes more wood gadgets, please. There's also something called Alcantara that you may have seen once upon a time on a Microsoft Surface. It's a synthetic fabric with a kind of suede feel and comes in a dark green that I really dig too. The Ultra also comes in a textured deep red finish and a magenta ish pink that looks at home on the Razer line. All three phones come with an updated hinge that uses titanium rather than stainless steel, and Motorola says it's four times stronger than the previous design. It also reduces the inner screen crease when the phone is flipped open. I never found the crease too bothersome to start with, but it practically disappears on these new phones and you can barely feel it under your finger. It's kind of spooky. Netflix is rolling out subtitles with just spoken dialogue without audio cues or speaker names, and it is doing this, it Sundays, because around 50% of US viewing hours happen with subtitles or captions. On Quoting the Verge before this change, Netflix offered subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing, which show spoken dialogue along with speaker names and descriptions of sounds such as phone buzzing or dramatic music swells. The new option drops these audio cues. It is currently available in English, and you'll only see it with new Netflix original titles for now, starting with Season five of youf. However, Netflix spokesperson Dorian Rosenberg tells the Verge that the streamer is actively exploring ways to expand this option to existing titles over time. You can find the new Dialogue only subtitle option by heading to Netflix's Language picker while watching a supported title, choosing the English tab, and then selecting the English option. You'll also see Netflix's existing option English cc, which shows dialogue and audio cues. Time for the weekend Long Read Suggestions first up, we said that YouTube just turned 20 and actually the Apple Watch is turning 10. So in honor of that from Wired, a look at how Apple reshaped the watch industry and ushered in a new era of fitness tracking. Quote Prior to the Apple Watch, smartwatches were conceived as a kind of wrist based mini smartphone to ping you with notifications or take calls off your wrist. David Nargano, associate director of Counterpoint Research, noted in a phone call with Wired that Apple's success in this category was largely due to completely changing the watch's use case from being a smartwatch to being a smartwatch with a dedicated health and fitness aspect. Fitbit and others had an ecosystem of apps, but there were other things they were not able to do, narjano said. Apple built out the ecosystem and made the healthcare story very strong. Not only did the company focus on fitness and heart rate, it went beyond fitness and looked at a much deeper level of healthcare. That's where Apple excelled. In 2022, nearly 80% of Apple iPhone owners also owned an Apple Watch, and IT accounted for 56% of smartwatch sales in the North American market. Most importantly, research suggests most people who own an Apple Watch are pretty satisfied with their device. And from Bloomberg, the race to fix aging computer systems heats up with AI's help. QUOTE mudrovic specializes in mainframe technology involving computers, tracing their roots to the dawn of the digital age and the ancient software that sometimes runs on them. Upgrading such systems is painstaking work, often entailing sifting through millions of lines of code to understand how specific functions operate. Mudrovich, an IT consultant, compares it to archaeology. But the work is getting easier, thanks to the widening use of generative artificial intelligence to do some of the heavy lifting. AI systems work like that. Smart, very experienced, very wise old colleague who knows everything. Mudrovic, whose team recently deployed such tools to help speed up modernizing the pension system of a European government agency. As much as 70% of software used by Fortune 500 companies was developed at least two decades ago, according to a December report from McKinsey Global financial institutions alone are expected to spend some $57 billion maintaining legacy payments systems in 2028, research fir IDC estimates that's almost equivalent to last year's net Income at JPMorgan Chase & Co. The biggest U.S. bank. You'd be surprised how many firms are still on Cobol, even banks globally, said Gorkansari, a senior partner at McKinsey. The consultancy has developed a dedicated AI tool called LegacyX to help clients, including banks, remove obsolete code and revamp their systems. Engineers have started using AI tools like ChatGPT, Microsoft's GitHub, Copilot, and IBM's Watson X to make the process of maintaining and upgrading old systems easier and quicker. Instead of going through it line by line, a programmer can upload or copy and paste large blocks of code into an AI tool along with natural language prompts like what does this COBOL program do? The AI can then explain how the code works and how different parts fit together, and even translate old computer languages into more modern ones like Java. End quote no bonus episodes for you this weekend. Talk to you on Monday.
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