Transcript
Brian McCullough (0:04)
Welcome to the Techmeme write home for Friday, May 2, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today the big cultural event of maybe the decade is gonna take a little while longer to get here. Earnings from Apple and Amazon, more signs of the impending death of the password, more signs of self driving rapidly becoming reality. And in the long reads, what happens when AI completely changes your field? AI researchers were the first to experience that. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech Rockstar Games has delayed the release of Grand Theft Auto 6 from what was expected to be this fall to May 26, 2026, saying it needs extra time to deliver the expected quality. I said all year that this launch would be the cultural event of the year by far. And now, quoting the Verge in a message posted on the Rockstar Games website, the development team apologized for the delay. We are very sorry that this is later than you expected. The interest and excitement surrounding a new Grand Theft Aut has been truly humbling for our entire team. We want to thank you for your support and your patience as we work to finish the game. With every game we have released, the goal has always been to try and exceed your expectations and Grand Theft Auto 6 is no exception. We hope you understand that we need this extra time to deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve. We look forward to sharing more information with you soon. End quote and quoting Bloomberg Rockstar Games, the studio behind the hit, has revealed little about GTA 6 aside from a teaser trailer for the game in late 2023. The trailer has topped 200 million views on YouTube shows. The game is set in a fictional version of Miami. The game, which has already missed multiple deadlines, was expected to be the biggest release of 2025 and one of the most lucrative games ever. End quoting Reuters the previous entry, Grand Theft Auto 5, released in 2013, has sold more than 200 million copies, making it one of the best selling video games of all time. The delay now pushes the game out of Take Two's fiscal 2026 release window and into 2027, which will likely bring down booking expectations for the next fiscal year. GTA 6 was also expected to be a major driver of overall video game industry growth this year after the market underwent a downturn following pandemic highs. End quote Revenue roundup To the tune of Mystery Science Theater's Robot Roll Call Apple reported Q2 revenue up 5% year on year, but China sales were down. On its conference call, Apple said that a majority of iPhones sold in the US in Q3 will come from India, while nearly all of its other devices will come from Vietnam. They also plan to source more than 19 billion chips from the US this year, including from TSMC's expanding Arizona facilities as it seeks to lessen its reliance on China. They also reported Q2 revenue from services, which includes the App Store, Apple TV plus and Apple Music, up 12% year on year to 26.65 billion, a new record but below the 26.7 billion estimated. And Tim Cook said that the company estimates tariffs will add $900 million in costs in its Q3, assuming current tariff rates and policies do not change. Amazon reported Q1 revenue up 9% year on year, operating income up 20% year on year to 18.4 billion, but crucially forecast Q2 operating income below estimates. Quoting the Times, Amazon told investors to expect sales of $159 billion to $164 billion and for operating profits to shrink to as low as $13 billion. Amazon added tariff and trade policies to the list of factors it says can make its forecasts uncertain. The results were mixed compared with Wall Street's expectations. Amazon's stock price was down more than 3% in aftermarket trading following the earnings release. Obviously none of us know exactly where tariffs will settle or when, andy Jassy, the chief executive of Amazon, said on a call with investors. He said the company is pretty maniacally focused on keeping prices down by purchasing extra inventory in advance of tariffs and will be helping sellers on Amazon's marketplace do the same. End quote Microsoft says all new accounts will be passwordless by default, asking people to use more secure methods like pass keys, push notifications and security keys. Quoting the Verge the new no Password initiative by Microsoft is accompanied by its recently launched optimized sign in window design, with reordered steps that flow better for a passwordless and passkey first experience. Although current accounts won't have to shed their passwords, new ones will try and leave them behind by not prompting you to create a password at all. As part of this simplified ux, we're changing the default behavior for new accounts. Brand new Microsoft accounts will now be passwordless by default. New users will have several passwordless options for signing into their account, and they'll never need to enroll a password. Existing users can visit their account settings to delete their password. With today's changes, Microsoft is renaming World Password Day to World Passkey Day instead, and pledging to continue to work implementing passkeys over the coming year. This time last year, the company implemented passkeys into consumer accounts. Microsoft says it's seeing nearly a million passkeys registered every day and that passkey users have a 98% success rate of signing in versus 32% for password based accounts. Temu appears to have removed all products in the US Version of its online store that ship directly from China to US consumers, confusing suppliers and customers alike, quoting Wired. The change seemingly happened earlier this week, just days before a trade loophole that allows American consumers to buy products from China without paying tariffs is set to disappear as part of sweeping new import duties imposed by US President Darwin Donald Trump. Over the past week, Temu has rolled out a number of whirlwind changes to its platform as it grappled with the impacts of Trump's trade war on its US business, which is built over the past three years by offering products at astonishingly low prices and promoting itself as a haven for bargain lovers. First, Temu announced that it would begin raising prices on products shipped from China starting on April 25. But then things got a lot more confusing. Soon afterward, Temu began displaying a separate import charge on orders from US Customers, seemingly as part of an effort to emphasize the financial impacts of the tariffs. Other retailers have also adopted the tactic, but it has drawn harsh criticism from Trump. By Tuesday, U.S. shoppers realized that Temu had apparently decided to simply block US Users from seeing any product listings for items currently located in China or anywhere else outside the US the version of Temu's website and app for the United States now appears entirely filled with products marked with a local label, meaning they are exempt from tariffs because they were shipped into the country before the new import duties went into effect. Prior to this week, consumers had the ability to choose between products with the local label and those without it, the latter of which are typically shipped from China via air cargo after a purchase is made. Things are in chaos right now. Ever since the tariffs kept changing, our business has been heavily affected, says a Temu seller in China who specializes in furniture and home decor and asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons. Temu has recently transitioned its US Operations to a local fulfillment model. This means that all sales in the US Are now handled by locally based sellers, with orders fulfilled from within the country, an emailed statement from Temu said, confirming that the platform is cutting its ship from China strategy. Despite the operational shift, temu's pricing for US Consumers remains unchanged. The statement also said the shift has brought Temu closer in line with what consumers can expect from competitors like Amazon, says Joses Kaziquinas, an independent e commerce industry analyst Today, TEMU looks a lot like Amazon because everything you buy on TEMU today will come to you from their warehouse in the US and probably in just a few days, he says. It also means that many US shoppers are suddenly faced with a much narrower selection of goods on Temu and they are not happy about it. On social media sites like Reddit, users have reported seeing hundreds of products they saved on wishlists and in their shopping carts suddenly become sold out overnight. 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