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Brian McCullough
Welcome to the Tech Meme Ride home for Monday, June 23rd, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Tesla launches its Robotaxi service in Austin. Apple is negotiating desperately to avoid an EU fine coming as soon as this week. Also, why doesn't Apple do some aqua hires to get back in the AI game? Maybe perplexity would be attractive. The music industry gathers tools to detect AI and is there a global divide growing when it comes to AI access? Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. It's official Tesla's Austin Robotaxi service has gotten a limited launch with around 10 Model Y vehicles and safety drivers now roaming the streets of a limited section of Austin. Elon Musk says initial users will pay a $4.20 flat fee because of course, quoting the FT despite the hype surrounding Tesla's Robotaxi, the launch with a company employee seated in the passenger side for safety while leaving the driver's SE seat empty was low key and the initial service was open only to a select group of social media influencers. According to Musk, who has stepped back from his US Government role to focus on the electric carmaker and the Robotaxi. The self driving Tesla Model Y vehicles will only operate in limited areas, avoiding challenging intersections and have tele operators who can intervene if problems arise. Musk said in a social media post this month that the company was being super paranoid about safety, but he has also claimed there would be 1,000 robotaxis in a few months and that the service would expect to cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles. On Sunday, Tesla opened a new website for the public to sign up to get updates on the Robotaxis, which can be hailed via an app. It is unclear how fast Tesla will be able to expand its service and catch up with Waymo, the only company with a fully public, self driving ride hailing service in the U.S. waymo rolled out its fleet in San Francisco three years ago. Tesla's technology relies only on a set of cameras mounted on its vehicles, compared with the more expensive radar and LIDAR sensors used by Waymo and other rivals. Musk claims Tesla's approach will allow it to expand the service more quickly and at cheaper prices. Tesla has said its cybercab Robotaxi, which has no steering wheel or pedals and was unveiled last year, will sell for less than $30,000. Rivals including Waymo and Amazon owned Zoox, use remote monitoring systems with support staff able to intervene and guide a vehicle that has ground to a halt because of an obstacle or accident. Unlike Tesla, they do not have a safety driver in the vehicle. End quote this was weird. Over the weekend People noticed that OpenAI had removed all marketing materials announcing its 6 and a half billion dollar acquisition of Jony Ives IO removed all mentions of it from the web. Eagle eyed people were like is the deal off? Well it turns out the blackout is apparently due to what OpenAI calls a baseless trademark dispute lawsuit. Quoting Bloomberg. Bloomberg reported last week that a judge was considering barring OpenAI from using the IO name due to a lawsuit recently filed by the similar named IYO Inc. Which is also building AI devices. This is an utterly baseless complaint and we'll fight it vigorously, a spokesperson for I've said on Sunday, end quote. As we speak, Apple is apparently locked in last minute negotiations with the EU over App Store changes. Apple is looking to avoid fines set to go into effect later this week. Quoting the FTC People involved in the negotiations said Apple was expected to offer concessions on its steering provisions that stop users accessing offers outside the App Store. Regulators ordered the Silicon Valley company to revise its rules within two months of its initial 500 million euro fine, with the deadline for the company to comply with the block's rules in order to avoid new levies expiring on Thursday. Those financial penalties can escalate over time and reach up to 5% of average daily worldwide revenue, according to those with knowledge of the talks. Apple is expected to announce some concessions that buy the company more time, as the commission would first assess these changes before making a final decision. Those involved in the negotiations said discussions had also touched on Apple's core technology fee. That fee requires developers to pay for each annual install after 1 million downloads. The EU has been scrutinizing these business terms since June last year and could either choose to pursue the matter further or drop the investigation. The commission confirmed it was engaging closely with Apple to discuss effective compliance, but that it could not speculate on any potential outcome before the deadline of June 26. It added that the commission has ample regulatory power at its disposal if Apple continues to be in breach of its obligations under the dma. End quote. More Apple Stuff Mark Gurman this weekend took a look at Apple's conservative M and a strategy which he says may need to change in order for Apple to catch up in AI by I don't know, just spitballing here. Acquiring maybe Perplexity Cohere, Sierra Databricks, Mistral AI. In short, what if they did what others are currently doing and just hoover up talent and resources from folks that are maybe further along in the AI road than Cupertino is. The most likely acquisition target in the multibillion dollar range is Perplexity AI. While the company lacks its own cutting edge foundation models like those of OpenAI or Anthropic, it has several advantages that make it a logical fit for Apple. Number one, a proven consumer ready product. Perplexity search tool, with its text interface, voice controls and sleek design, already feels at home on Apple's iOS. It could easily become the default AI powered search engine for the Safari browser Spotlight feature and even Siri. Number two, it fills a clear need. Apple is focused on improving the AI foundation models that power its platform. What it really lacks is a strong search layer and a conversational interface for everyday tasks, exactly where Perplexity Excelsior A decently sized team, perplexity has roughly 250 employees, meaning it's not too big for Apple to integrate. The AI talent is up there with other industry players and could be useful across the company's Siri and AI engineering teams. 4. Reasonable valuation at around $14 billion, perplexity wouldn't break the bank. That's a fraction of what Apple would have to spend for other major AI players, making it a relatively low risk, high upside move timing Apple's long running search deal with Google is under threat from a U.S. antitrust suit. The iPhone maker prepare for a post. Google Search World and acquiring Perplexity would allow it to finally launch its own Apple branded search engine. And there's also the fact that Eddie Cue, known as Apple's key recruiter and dealmaker, has already publicly declared his interest in the startup. End quote and from a different Gurman piece this weekend quote, Apple executives have held internal discussions about potentially bidding for artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI seeking to address the need for more AI talent and technology. Adrian Parika, the company's head of mergers and acquisitions, has weighed the idea with services chief Eddie Q and top AI decision makers. According to people with knowledge of the matter, the discussions are at an early stage and may not lead to an offer, said the people who ask not to be identified because the matter is private. Such a deal would help Apple develop an AI based search engine, part of efforts to cope with the potential loss of long standing arrangements with Google. That partnership, which involves making Google the default browser on devices, generates roughly $20 billion a year for Apple and is now under threat from U.S. antitrust enforcers. Apple and Meta have been waging a broader fight for talent. Meta recently recently engaged in discussions to hire Daniel Gross the co founder of AI company Safe Superintelligence. While the discussions between Meta and Gross are advanced, Apple has attempted to persuade Gross to join it instead. In 2013, Gross sold a startup named Q to Apple. That purchase helped form the basis of some early AI features in iOS, the operating system for the iPhone, and one of Gross Q co founders, Robby Walker, oversaw the Siri voice assistant until this year. Walker is now leading an Apple project dubbed Knowledge, with the goal of creating a rival to OpenAI's ChatGPT that can use data from the open Web. Parika and Eddie Q, who both report to Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, are leading the AI acquisition and recruiting efforts. The hunt for Talent is part of a bid to catch up in generative AI. The company was slow to deliver its Apple intelligence platform and still lags rivals in key features. A revamped Siri was delayed indefinitely this year, with the company now aiming to have it ready by next spring. Buying Perplexity would give Apple an infusion of AI talent, a known brand new in the AI space and a consumer product. A deal could also potentially assist with future recruiting efforts. Apple has also discussed an alternative plan, teaming up with Perplexity instead of buying it. A partnership would involve adding Perplexity as an AI search engine option in Apple's Safari web browser and integrating it into Siri. Apple has met multiple times in recent months with Perplexity, and its AI team has been actively evaluating the technology, a sign that it's at least considering a close relationship with the company. End quote if you bypass security to save yourself some time, you're not alone. But fortunately, with 1Password Extended Access Management, security and productivity no longer have to be at odds. Work happens everywhere. We send emails from our phones, edit documents on our personal tablets and laptops. 1Password Extended Access Management ensures that whatever device your employees use for work, it's healthy and uncompromised. 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Paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns tier one compensation provided investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor view important discuss disclosures@acorns.com ride the music industry is reportedly developing tools to detect AI generated music across the music pipeline, focusing on proactive licensing and control rather than takedowns. Quoting the verge the music industry's nightmare came true in 2023 and it sounded a lot like Drake. Heart on My Sleeve, a convincingly fake duet between Drake and the Weeknd, racked up millions of streams before anyone could explain who made it or where it came from. The track didn't just go viral, it broke the illus that anyone was in control. In the scramble to respond, a new category of infrastructure is quietly taking shape that's built not to stop generative music outright, but to make it traceable. Detection systems are being embedded across the entire music pipeline in the tools used to train models, the platforms where songs are uploaded, the databases that license the rights, and the algorithms that shape discovery. The goal isn't just to catch synthetic content after the fact, it's to identify it early, tag it with metadata, and govern how it moves through the system. If you don't build this stuff into the infrastructure, you're just going to be chasing your tail, says Matt Adele, co founder of Musical AI. You can't keep reacting to every new track or model that doesn't scale. You need infrastructure that works from training through distribution Startups are now popping up to build detection into licensing workflows. Platforms like YouTube and Deezer have developed internal systems to flag synthetic audio as it's uploaded and shape how it surfaces in search and recommendations. Other music companies including Audible, Magic, PEX, Rightsify and SoundCloud are expanding detection, moderation and attribution features across everything from training data sets to distribution. The result is a fragmented but fast growing ecosystem of companies treating the detection of AI generated content not as an enforcement tool but as table stakes infrastructure for tracking synthetic media Rather than detecting AI music after it spreads, some companies are building tools to tag it from the moment it's made. Vermelio and Musical AI are developing systems to scan finished tracks for synthetic elements and automatically tag them in the metadata. Vermilio's Trace ID framework goes deeper by breaking songs into stems like vocal tone, melodic phrasing and lyrical patterns and flagging the specific AI generated segments, allowing rights holders to detect mimicry at the stem level even if a new track only borrows parts of an original. The company says its focus isn't takedowns, but proactive licensing and authenticated release. Trace ID is positioned as a replacement for systems like YouTube's Content ID, which often miss subtle or partial imitations. Vermilio estimates that authenticated licensing powered by tools like trace ID could grow from $75 million in 2023 to $10 billion in 2025. In practice, that means a rights holder or platform can run a finished track through Trace ID to see if it contains protected elements and if it does, have the system flag it for licensing before release. Other companies are going even further upstream to the training data itself by analyzing what goes into a model. Their aim is to estimate how much a generated track borrows from specific artists or songs. That kind of attribution could enable more precise licensing with royalties based on creative influence instead of post release disputes. The idea echoes old debates about musical influence like the blurred lines lawsuit, but applies them to algorithmic generation. The difference now is that licensing can happen before release, not through litigation after the fact. Musical AI is working on a detection system too. The company describes its system as layered across ingestion, generation and distribution. Rather than filtering outputs, it tracks provenance from end to end attribution shouldn't start when the song is done, it should start when the model starts learning, says Sean Power, the company's co founder. We're trying to quantify creative influence, not just catch copies. End quote. Finally today, something I hadn't considered before Is there a global lack of equality in terms of access to AI? According to a study, only 32 countries, mostly in the northern hemisphere, host AI data centers, with the US, China and the EU controlling more than 50% of the world's top facilities. Quoting the Times Artificial intelligence has created a new digital divide, fracturing the world between nations with the computing power for building cutting edge AI systems and those without. The split is influencing geopolitics and global economics, creating new dependencies and prompting a desperate rush to not be excluded from a technology race that could reorder economics, drive scientific discovery and change the way that people live and work. The biggest beneficiaries by far are the United States, China and the European Union. Those regions host more than half of the world's most powerful data centers, which are used for developing the most complex AI systems, according to data compiled by Oxford university researchers. Only 32 countries, or about 16% of nations, have these large facilities filled with microchips and computers, giving them what is known in industry parlance as compute power. The United States and China, which dominate the tech world, have particular influence. American and Chinese companies operate more than 90% of the data centers that other companies and institutions used for AI work, according to the Oxford Data and Other Research. In contrast, Africa and South America have almost no AI computing hubs, while India has at least five and Japan at least four, according to the Oxford data. More than 150 countries have nothing. Today's AI data centers dwarf their predecessors, which powered simpler tasks like email and video streaming. Vast, power hungry and packed with powerful chips, these hubs cost billions to build and require infrastructure that not every country can provide. With ownership concentrated among a few to tech giants. The effects of the gap between those with such computing power and those without are already playing out. Nations with little or no AI compute power are running into limits in scientific work, in the growth of young companies and in talent retention. Some officials have become alarmed by how the need for computing resources has made them beholden to foreign corporations and governments. Oil producing countries have had an oversized influence on international affairs. In an AI powered near future, compute producers could have something similar, since they control access to a critical resource, said Vili Linda Verta, an Oxford professor who conducted the research on AI data centers with his colleagues Zoe J. Hawkins and Boxy Wu. We have a computing divide at the heart of the AI revolution, said Lakina Kone, the director general of Smart Africa, which coordinates digital policy across the continent. He added, it's not merely a hardware problem, it's the sovereignty of our digital future. End quote. Nothing more for you today. Talk to you tomorrow.