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What the tech antitrust hearing did and did not prove
What happened at the antitrust hearings this week?
Well, CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook testified in front of the Subcommittee in Antitrust of the House Judiciary Committee for five hours. There's a fair amount of nonsense and conspiracy talk, but mostly it was a pretty good hearing where the House members dug into questions about whether four companies abused their market positions to their advantage? Whether they used predatory pricing to drive competitors out of the market? Whether they used inside information from their services to identify and then copy and kill competitors? And the evidence that was presented, if I were to sum it up quickly, is, yes, they did do that. They did abuse their market power. But what wasn't presented was clear evidence of consumer harm. We know they acted in ways that distorted capitalism, but were people really hurt? That's a big question. I look forward to their report.
Twitter bans QAnon; CRISPR gene tech
Nicholas Thompson, Editor-in-chief of WIRED, provides his perspective on technology news:
Twitter has said it will knockout QAnon. How will that work out?
QAnon is a strange, mysterious, far-right conspiracy theory. Twitter removing it will actually make a difference. It's very easy to say, "oh, we'll just migrate to Facebook or elsewhere," and that is partly true, but Twitter is a central node in how the conspiracy theory is spread. Remove it, and it will spread more slowly.
How close are we to CRISPR agriculture?
Well, this is in response to a story we just ran in WIRED about the first CRISPR born cow, a cow whose genes had been adjusted using the technique of CRISPR to make it then male, which is better for beef cows. Dairy cows, you want female. Beef cows, you want male. It didn't work out perfectly. The cow is a boy but has all kinds of other problems suggesting for this particular use of CRISPR, it's going to be a long time.
AI & vaccines; TikTok vs YouTube; HBO Max
Nicholas Thompson, editor-in-chief of WIRED, provides his perspective on technology in the age of the coronavirus pandemic:
How is A.I. being used to fast track the creation of the COVID-19 vaccine?
Well, it's not really. There's great promise that one day A.I. can be the tool we use to read massive numbers of papers across disciplines, to project the way different molecules will interact, to decide which protein would make for a great vaccine candidate, but we're a ways off from that. A.I. has been useful to Moderna in part of their vaccine work, but most of the most important vaccine work is being done by smart humans.
What is going on with TikTok in India? Is this a sign that the app will go the way of Vine?
So, the TikTok users are mad at YouTube users, who are mad at TikTok users, who have really reduced the rating in the app store. It's kind of a funny squabble. I'm sure TikTok doesn't like it. TikTok is not going away, though. It's way too big.
HBO Max is launching. Do I need to sign up for yet another streaming platform?
If you love "Deadwood," yes. Otherwise, I'm not sure. There's some good stuff on it. There's also some good stuff on Apple. There's some good stuff on Disney. There's some good stuff on Quibi. There's good stuff all over the place. Sign up for one or two and keep watching my videos.