SUMMARY

APPLE HAS KEPT AN ILLEGAL MONOPOLY OVER SMARTPHONES IN US... 06

BOEING TELLS AIRLINES TO CHECK PILOT SEATS AFTER REPORT THAT AN... 18

FEDERAL OFFICIALS WANT TO KNOW HOW AIRLINES HANDLE, AND SHARE... 28

78,000 MORE PUBLIC WORKERS ARE GETTING STUDENT LOANS CANCELED... 36

WANT TO FEEL SPECIAL? STORES AND RESTAURANTS WITH PAID MEMBERSHIPS... 44

JUDGE DENIES APPLE’S ATTEMPT TO DISMISS A CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT OVER... 58

ELECTION MISINFORMATION IS A PROBLEM IN ANY LANGUAGE. BUT SOME GETS... 66

TV PLUS - SHINES THROUGH A FOCUS ON QUALITY OVER QUANTITY 78

AN AI ROBOT IS SPOTTING SICK TULIPS TO SLOW THE SPREAD OF DISEASE... 98

BIDEN TO TOUT GOVERNMENT INVESTING $8.5 BILLION IN INTEL’S COMPUTER... 106

AS ELECTRIC VEHICLE SALES SLOW, US RELAXES PLANS FOR STRICTER AUTO... 114

AI IMAGE-GENERATOR MIDJOURNEY BLOCKS IMAGES OF BIDEN AND TRUMP AS... 126

PAIR ACCUSED OF STEALING BATTERY MANUFACTURING SECRETS FROM TESLA... 134

APPLE TO PAY $490 MILLION TO SETTLE ALLEGATIONS THAT IT MISLED INVESTORS... 140

SPOTIFY PAID $9 BILLION IN ROYALTIES IN 2023. HERE’S WHAT FUELED THE GROWTH 146

SPACEX COMES CLOSE TO COMPLETING TEST FLIGHT OF MEGA ROCKET BUT... 152

TEXAS APPROVES LAND-SWAPPING DEAL WITH SPACEX AS COMPANY HOPES TO... 160

FRENCH REGULATORS FINE GOOGLE $272 MILLION IN DISPUTE WITH NEWS... 166

UN SAYS E-WASTE FROM TRASHED ELECTRIC DEVICES IS PILING UP AND... 172

APPLE HAS KEPT
AN ILLEGAL
MONOPOLY OVER
SMARTPHONES
IN US, JUSTICE
DEPARTMENT
SAYS IN
ANTITRUST SUIT

06
07
08
The Justice Department on Thursday announced a
sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Apple, accusing
the tech giant of engineering an illegal monopoly
in smartphones that boxes out competitors and
stifles innovation.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Jersey,

alleges that Apple has monopoly power in the
smartphone market and uses its control over
the iPhone to “engage in a broad, sustained, and
illegal course of conduct.”

The lawsuit — which was also filed with 16 state

attorneys general — is the latest example of the
Justice Department’s approach to aggressive
enforcement of federal antitrust law that officials
say is aimed at ensuring a fair and competitive
market, even as it has lost some significant
anticompetition cases.

President Joe Biden has called for the Justice

Department and the Federal Trade Commission
to vigorously enforce antitrust statutes. The
increased policing of corporate mergers and
business deals has been met with resistance
from some business leaders who have said the
Democratic administration is overreaching, but it’s
been lauded by others as long overdue.

The case is taking direct aim at the digital fortress

that Apple Inc., based in Cupertino, California,
has assiduously built around the iPhone and
other popular products such as the iPad, Mac and
Apple Watch to create what is often referred to
as a “walled garden” so its meticulously designed
hardware and software can seamlessly flourish
together while requiring consumers to do little
more than turn the devices on.

The strategy has helped make Apple the world’s

most prosperous company, with annual revenue

09
of nearly $400 billion and, until recently, a market
value of more than $3 trillion. But Apple’s shares
have fallen by 7% this year even as most of the
stock market has climbed to new highs, resulting
in long-time rival Microsoft — a target of a major
Justice Department antitrust case a quarter-
century ago — to seize the mantle as the world’s
most valuable company.

Apple has defended the walled garden as an

indispensable feature prized by consumers
who want the best protection available for their
personal information. It has described the barrier
as a way for the iPhone to distinguish itself from
devices running on Google’s Android software,
which isn’t as restrictive and is licensed to a wide
range of manufacturers.

Fears about an antitrust crackdown on Apple’s

business model have contributed to the drop in
the company’s stock price, along with concerns
that it is lagging Microsoft and Google in the
push to develop products powered by artificial
intelligence technology.

But antitrust regulators made it clear in their

complaint that they see Apple’s walled garden
most as a weapon to ward off competition,
creating market conditions that enable it to
charge higher prices that have propelled its lofty
profit margins while stifling innovation.

“Consumers should not have to pay higher

prices because companies violate the antitrust
laws,” Attorney General Merrick Garland
said in a statement. “We allege that Apple
has maintained monopoly power in the
smartphone market, not simply by staying
ahead of the competition on the merits,
but by violating federal antitrust law. If left

10
11
unchallenged, Apple will only continue to
strengthen its smartphone monopoly.”

With the attempt to rein in Apple’s dominance,

the Biden administration is escalating an antitrust
siege that has already triggered lawsuits against
Google and Amazon accusing them in engaging
in illegal tactics to thwart competition, as well as
unsuccessful attempts to block acquisitions by
Microsoft and Facebook parent Meta Platforms.

Apple’s business interests are also entangled in

the Justice Department’s case against Google,
which went to trial last fall and is headed toward
final arguments scheduled to begin May 1 in
Washington, D.C. In that case, regulators are
alleging Google has stymied competition by
paying for the rights for its already dominant
online search engine to be the automatic place to
handle queries on the iPhone and a variety of web
browsers in an arrangement that generates an
estimated $15 billion to $20 billion annually.

Now that the Justice Department is mounting a

direct attack across its business, Apple stands to
lose even more.

The Justice Department is following up an other

recent attempts to force Apple to change the way
it runs the iPhone and other parts of its business.

Epic Games, the maker of the popular Fortnite

video game, filed an antitrust lawsuit against
Apple in 2020 in an effort break down the barriers
protecting the iPhone App Store and a lucrative
payment system operating within it. Apple
has long collected commissions ranging from
15% to 30% on digital transactions completed
within apps, a setup that Epic alleged was
enabled by an illegal monopoly that drives up
prices for consumers.

12
13
After a monthlong trial in 2021, a federal judge
ruled mostly in favor of Apple with the exception
of deciding that links to competing payment
options should be permitted inside of iPhone
apps. Apple unsuccessfully resisted that portion
of the ruling until the U.S. Supreme Court refused
to hear an appeal in January, forcing the company
to relent. But the concessions that Apple made to
comply with the ruling are still facing a “bad faith”
challenge from Epic, which is seeking an April 30
hearing to ask U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez
Rogers to order more changes.

Apple also had to open up the iPhone to allow

apps to be downloaded and installed from
competing stores in Europe to comply with a new
set of regulators called the Digital Markets Act, or
DMA, earlier this month but its approach is being
pilloried by critics as little more than an end-
around the rules that will enable it to continue
to muscle out real competition. European Union
regulators already have vowed to crack down on
Apple if it finds the company’s tactics continue to
thwart true consumer choice.

All of this comes on top of a $2 billion (1.8 billion

euro) fine that European regulators slapped on
Apple earlier this month after concluding that
the company had undermined competition in
the music streaming through the iPhone, despite
Spotify being the leader in that market.

14
15
 Image: Mic Smith
18
 BOEING TELLS
AIRLINES
TO CHECK PILOT
SEATS AFTER
REPORT THAT
AN ACCIDENTAL
SHIFT LED PLANE
TO PLUNGE

Boeing is telling airlines to inspect switches on

pilots’ seats in its 787 Dreamliner jets after a
published report said an accidental cockpit seat
movement likely caused the sudden plunge of a
LATAM Airlines plane flying to New Zealand.

Boeing said it recommended that airlines

inspect the motorized cockpit seats the next
time they perform maintenance on their
787s. The aircraft manufacturer pointed to
instructions that include how to disable motors
that move the seats.

19
20
Image: Esteban Felix
21
 Image: Esteban Felix
22
The company described its advisory as a
“precautionary measure.” It did not link the
memo to what happened this week on a
LATAM Airlines flight between Australia and
New Zealand.

The Federal Aviation Administration said,

however, that the Boeing memo was issued “in
response to the incident on LATAM Flight 800.”
The FAA said it was convening a panel of experts
to review Boeing’s message to airlines.

LATAM Airlines, based in Chile, initially said there

was “a technical event during the flight which
caused a strong movement.” In an update, the
airline said the plane “experienced a strong
shake during flight, the cause of which is
currently under investigation.”

Passengers reported that when the Dreamliner

dropped without warning, people not wearing
seatbelts were tossed from their seats and into
the cabin ceiling and aisles. The plane later
landed at Auckland Airport as scheduled.

About 50 people were injured, according to

emergency crews in Auckland.

The 787 is a two-aisle plane that debuted in

2011 and is used mostly for long international
flights. The version involved in the LATAM flight
can carry up to about 300 passengers.

United Airlines, with 71 Dreamliners, and

American Airlines with 59, are among the
leading users of the plane. American said
Boeing’s instructions would have no impact on
its operations. United declined to comment.

The Wall Street Journal reported that a flight

attendant serving a meal in the cockpit hit a
switch on the back of a seat that pushed the pilot

23
into controls on the 787, pushing down the nose
of the plane. The newspaper cited anonymous
U.S. industry officials who were briefed on
preliminary findings from the investigation.

The newspaper said Boeing recommended that

airlines check to make sure the switches are
securely covered – they are not supposed to be
used during flights – and told them how to turn
off power to the seat motor.

Chile’s aviation regulator has sent investigators

to New Zealand and, under international
accords, will lead the investigation. It has not
released any findings.

The incident could ratchet up scrutiny of

Boeing, which is already at a high level since
a panel blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737
Max over Oregon in January. The FAA, the
National Transportation Safety Board and the
Justice Department are conducting separate
investigations related to the blowout and
Boeing’s manufacturing of Max jets.

24
25
28
 FEDERAL OFFICIALS
WANT TO KNOW
HOW AIRLINES
HANDLE, AND SHARE,
PASSENGERS’ PERSONAL
INFORMATION

29
Federal officials said Thursday they will review
how airlines protect personal information
about their passengers and whether they are
making money by sharing that information
with other parties.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said its

review will focus on the 10 biggest U.S. airlines
and cover their collection, handling and use of
information about customers.

“Airline passengers should have confidence that

their personal information is not being shared
improperly with third parties or mishandled
by employees,” Transportation Secretary Pete
Buttigieg said.

A spokeswoman for the trade group Airlines

for America said, “U.S. airlines take customers’
personal information security very seriously,
which is why they have robust policies,
programs and cybersecurity infrastructure to
protect consumers’ privacy.”

30
Image: Michael Pointner
31
 Image: John Toon
32
In announcing the review, the Transportation
Department did not make allegations against
any of the carriers or cite any events that
might have prompted the move. A spokesman
said it is being done “proactively” to help
the department determine how to protect
passengers’ information.

The department said it sent letters to each of the

airlines — Delta, United, American, Southwest,
Alaska, JetBlue, Spirit, Frontier, Hawaiian and
Allegiant — about their procedures for collecting
and using passenger information, including
“monetization of passenger data, targeted
advertising, and prevention of data breaches.”

The agency also asked airlines if they have

received complaints about employees or
contractors mishandling personal information.

Delta, United, American, Southwest and Alaska

referred questioners to the Airlines for America
statement. Allegiant, which is not part of the trade
group, said protecting customer data is a priority,
and it welcomes the government review.

33
78,000 MORE
PUBLIC
WORKERS
ARE GETTING
STUDENT LOANS
CANCELED
THROUGH BIDEN
ADMINISTRATION
CHANGES

Another 78,000 Americans are getting their

federal student loans canceled through a program
that helps teachers, nurses, firefighters and
other public servants, the Biden administration
announced Thursday.

The Education Department is canceling the

borrowers’ loans because they reached 10 years of
payments while working in public service, making
them eligible for relief under the Public Service
Loan Forgiveness program.
“These public service workers have dedicated
their careers to serving their communities, but
because of past administrative failures, never got

36
37
the relief they were entitled to under the law,”
President Joe Biden said in a statement.

Congress created the program in 2007, but

rigid rules and missteps by student loan
servicers left many borrowers unable to get the
cancellation they were promised. The Biden
administration loosened some of the rules
and retroactively gave many borrowers credit
toward their 10 years of payments.

Through those actions, the Biden

administration has canceled loans for more
than 871,000 public service workers. Previously,
about 7,000 borrowers had successfully gotten
their loans canceled.

The latest round of forgiveness will cancel

about $5.8 billion in federal student loans.

Starting next week, those receiving the

forgiveness will get an email from Biden
congratulating them on their relief. A message
from the Democratic president, who’s running
for reelection, will also be sent to 380,000
borrowers who are within two years of
forgiveness under the program.

“I hope you continue the important work of

serving your community,” the message says,
“and if you do, in less than two years you could
get your remaining student loans forgiven
through Public Service Loan Forgiveness.”

The program was created to encourage

Americans to work in public service, including
teachers, firefighters, nurses, government
employees and those who work for nonprofit
groups. After 10 years of monthly payments
on their loans, the program promised to erase
the remainder.

38
39
40
But when the first wave of workers hit their 10-
year mark, the vast majority were rejected. Many
didn’t realize their loans weren’t eligible under the
program’s rules, and many had been improperly
steered into forbearance by their loan servicers,
putting a temporary pause on payments and
halting their progress toward cancellation.

In 2021, the Biden administration offered a

one-time fix that retroactively gave borrowers
credit for past payments even if they had been
in forbearance or had an ineligible loan. It
later loosened some of the rules permanently.
Payments made more than 15 days after their
due date previously weren’t counted toward the
10 years, for example, but the new rules count
payments that are late or made in installments.

“Today, more than 100 times more borrowers are

eligible for PSLF than there were at the beginning
of the Administration,” Education Secretary Miguel
Cardona said Thursday.

The Biden administration says it has now canceled

nearly $144 billion in federal student loans
through the public service program and others,
including a program for borrowers who have been
misled by their colleges.

Biden is separately pushing for wider cancellation

for borrowers who have been making payments
for decades and those who went to colleges that
are deemed to have low value for graduates,
among others.

The Education Department is pursuing that plan

through a federal rulemaking process after the
U.S. Supreme Court blocked Biden’s previous
attempt at widespread cancellation.

41
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44
 WANT TO
FEEL SPECIAL?
STORES AND
RESTAURANTS
WITH PAID
MEMBERSHIPS
ARE BETTING
ON IT

How much does it cost to feel special?

At Chuck E- Cheese, the family entertainment and

pizza chain, the price is $7.99, $11.99 or $29.99
per month. At the other end of the spectrum,
the founder of a shopping app called Long Story
Short wants to charge members $1,000 monthly
for anonymous access to such hard-to-get goods
as a rare Keith Haring artwork.

Paid loyalty programs are all the rage in the

restaurant and retail worlds. Looking for
reliable sales in an unpredictable spending
environment, more companies have extended

45
their points-based loyalty tiers to making their
most dependable customers feel valued for an
up-front fee.

Consumers bombarded with membership

offers are promised perks such as free deliveries
and first dibs on new launches, but also in
some cases the right to jump ahead of non-
members on reservation lists and in customer
service queues.

It’s a method rooted in both the business case

for treating big spenders well - it’s cheaper for
businesses to keep an existing customer than
to find a new one — and in the fundamental
human need for belonging, said Valerie Folkes, a
consumer psychologist and marketing professor
emerita at the University of Southern California’s
Marshall School of Business.

“If they’re seated earlier than other people or

there’s a special line for them at the registers,
then they feel they’re special,” Folkes said. “It
makes them feel that there’s a stronger link or a
bond between themselves and the company.”

In retailing, Target Corp. is taking on the

Amazon Prime juggernaut with a paid loyalty
program that will cost $49 a year between April
7 and May 18, and $99 annually thereafter.
Members of Target Circle 360 can expect free
two-day shipping and free deliveries of orders
over $35 in as little as an hour, the company
announced last week.

Target executives said the 100 million-plus

customers enrolled in the company’s free Target
Circle loyalty plan already spend five times more
than non-members. CEO Brian Cornell told the
hope is the new paid membership “builds more
relevance, more stickiness.”

46
Image: Philip Channing
47
 Image: Gregory Bull
48
Chuck E. Cheese piloted a paid program with
bronze, silver and gold tiers in Santee, California
in December and launched it in the rest of the
San Diego area in February. The program offers
discounts on food and drinks and freebies like
cotton candy. Members also receive free “play
points,” which allow customers to play arcade
games and get snacks, and e-tickets, which are
typically earned from playing arcade games and
redeemed for prizes. The tickets and points are
automatically loaded on to the customer’s card.

Gold tier members, for example, pay $29.99 per

month, received 50% off their meals and earn
1,000 tickets. Bronze members, who pay $7.99 a
month, have food and beverages discounted at
20% and get 200 tickets. The higher the tier, the
better discounts and the more e-tickets and play
points customers get.

Mark Kupferman, the company’s chief insights

and marketing officer, said the program offers
good value for repeat customers at a time when
families paying higher costs for basic necessities
may feel financially stretched.

“So this gives them options that they can come

more often,” Kupferman said. “We want our
members to feel special.”

For companies concerned about churn rates,

creating a fee-based loyalty program can seem
like a win-win in terms of revenue. A 2020
McKinsey survey found members of paid loyalty
programs were 60% more likely to spend more
on the brand after opting in, while free loyalty
programs only increased that likelihood by 30%.

E-commerce site Hive Brands, a startup

launched in 2020, wants to be the go-to online
marketplace for eco-friendly cleaning products,

49
50
toiletries and pantry staples from soup to
nuts. But after finding shoppers not returning
as frequently as hoped, it launched a loyalty
program in January that costs $60 a year.

Members get speedier shipping and a $120

credit for recurring deliveries. Hive also plans to
tag them for priority treatment to ensure their
inquiries or orders are dealt with first.

“Customer care across the board for us is

really important. And so we make that pretty
democratic,” Hive co-founder and Chief
Commercial Officer Katie Tyson said. “However,
there’s lots of incremental opportunities that
members are going to get with Hive in a way
that nonmembers can not.”

Tech entrepreneur Joseph Einhorn, the founder

of Fancy, a shopping and scrapbooking site, is
looking to take VIP rewards to a new level with
Long Story Short. The $1,000 a month app still is
in a testing phase, but several hundred potential
power shoppers have created accounts to apply
for membership, Einhorn said.

Once admitted, they can view roughly 50,000

hand-selected luxury items, including rare
watches and a private island. Members also
can request to have items procured for them
anonymously, and Einhorn’s team will serve as a
go-between to get the best price, he said.

“We are like a concierge,” he said. “We can get

you anything and will be a buffer between you
and wherever it has to come from.”

As the number of loyalty programs with entry

costs rises in the mass market, however, some
experts think businesses run the risk of making
customers who can’t afford to opt in feel left out
and diminished.

51
Alexander Chernev, a marketing professor at
Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of
Management, said shoppers previously satisfied
with the customer service they were getting
may become dissatisfied when they see others
getting more.

“It’s about whether the extra benefits ( ... ) are at

the expense of someone else,” Chernev said.

Walmart was the recent subject of complaints

on social media from customers who noticed
some self-checkout kiosks reserved for
Walmart+ members, who pay $98 per year for
free next-day and two-day shipping on many
online orders.

Walmart spokeswoman Kelsey Bohl said that

during times of limited self-checkout access,
some stores were designating select self-serve
registers for Walmart+ members using the
retailer’s Scan and Go app and for independent
contractors who make deliveries and returns for
the chain and other stores.

52
53
“The decision is intended to better manage
checkout availability,” she noted in an
emailed statement.

Some skeptics think paid memberships

might be a way for companies to disguise
cost increases or to cheat their subscribers by
changing the program perks down the road.

Anna McDonald, a senior technical writer who

lives in Valparaiso, Indiana, said she’s not happy
that video streaming services have started
adding charges for ad-free viewing. She’s
noticed hotels increasingly charging an extra fee
for a flexible reservation cancellations or cutting
back on providing new sheets and towels daily.

“If you’re providing a service, it should be

providing the full customer service,” McDonald,
40, said. “There are some basics that come with
that. And companies are just trying to nickel and
dime to the basics.”

54
55
JUDGE DENIES
APPLE’S ATTEMPT
TO DISMISS A
CLASS-ACTION
LAWSUIT OVER
AIRTAG STALKING

58
59
60
A judge has denied Apple’s motion to dismiss
a class-action lawsuit claiming that stalkers
are using its AirTag devices to track victims —
and that the tech giant hasn’t done enough to
prevent them.

Apple’s $29 AirTags have become popular items

since their 2021 release, helping users keep tabs
on the location of anything from their lost keys to
wallets and luggage. But stalkers have also taken
advantage of AirTags and similar products to
follow individuals without their consent.

In December 2022, Apple was sued by dozens

of plaintiffs who said they were stalked by
AirTag users. They alleged that Apple failed to
mitigate such dangers and should have done
more to protect victims — claiming AirTags
“revolutionized the scope, breadth, and ease of
location-based stalking” and that current safety
features are inadequate.

Apple attempted to dismiss the litigation in a filing

last year, arguing the company “took proactive
steps to try to deter misuse” and that it should not
bear liability for injuries caused by third parties.
But San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Vince
Chhabria dismissed that motion.

Chhabria ruled that, while most of the class-action

plaintiffs’ claims were “inadequately pled,” three
can proceed for negligence and strict product
liability under California law. The remaining claims
were dismissed in a separate order.

“Apple may ultimately be right that California

law did not require it to do more to diminish the
ability of stalkers to use AirTags effectively, but
that determination cannot be made at this early
stage,” Chhabria wrote.

61
62
Chhabria detailed arguments from both Apple
and the plaintiffs in the ruling. Included were
accounts from the three remaining claims of
victims being stalked by former partners or others
through AirTags that were allegedly attached to
their cars, resulting in emotional and sometimes
financial harm.

All three of these cases involve “purported defects”

of AirTags that made it harder for the victims
to both understand the tracking and quickly
stop it, ruling outlines, including unclear or
delayed notifications, as well as an inability to
disable the devices remotely, which allegedly
prolonged stalking.

“We’re grateful for the opportunity to continue

this critical litigation,” Gillian L. Wade, an attorney
representing the plaintiffs, told via email. “Abusive
and dangerous location tracking is only becoming
more common, so it’s imperative to do everything
we can to give voice to the victims, and to push for
accountability and change.”

Apple and attorneys representing the California-

based company did not immediately respond to
requests for comment.

Back in February 2022, months ahead of the class

action filing, Apple released a statement that said
it “condemn(s) in the strongest possible terms any
malicious use of our products.” It also noted then-
planned updates aimed at increasing safety.

Last year, Apple also partnered with Google to

submit a proposal aimed at setting standards for
combatting secret surveillance on AirTags and
similar gadgets.

63
ELECTION
MISINFORMATION
IS A PROBLEM IN
ANY LANGUAGE.
BUT SOME GETS
MORE ATTENTION
THAN OTHERS

Warnings about deepfakes and disinformation

fueled by artificial intelligence. Concerns about
campaigns and candidates using social media
to spread lies about elections. Fears that tech
companies will fail to address these issues
as their platforms are used to undermine
democracy ahead of pivotal elections.

Those are the worries facing elections in the

U.S., where most voters speak English. But for
languages like Spanish, or in dozens of nations
where English isn’t the dominant language,
there are even fewer safeguards in place to

66
67
68
protect voters and democracy against the
corrosive effects of election misinformation.
It’s a problem getting renewed attention in an
election year in which more people than ever
will go to the polls.

Tech companies have faced intense political

pressure in countries like the U.S. and places
like the European Union to show they’re serious
about tackling the baseless claims, hate speech
and authoritarian propaganda that pollutes their
sites. But critics say they’ve been less responsive
to similar concerns from smaller countries
or from voters who speak other languages,
reflecting a longtime bias toward English, the
U.S. and other western democracies.

Recent changes at tech firms — content

moderator layoffs and decisions to rollback
some misinformation policies — have only
compounded the situation, even as new
technologies like artificial intelligence make it
easier than ever to craft lifelike audio and video
that can fool voters.

These gaps have opened up opportunities

for candidates, political parties or foreign
adversaries looking to create electoral chaos by
targeting non-English speakers — whether they
are Latinos in the U.S., or one of the millions of
voters in India, for instance, who speak a non-
English language.
“If there’s a significant population that speaks
another language, you can bet there’s going to
be disinformation targeting them,” said Randy
Abreu, an attorney at the U.S.-based National
Hispanic Media Council, which created the
Spanish Language Disinformation Coalition
to track and identify disinformation targeting

69
Latino voters in the U.S. “The power of artificial
intelligence is now making this an even more
frightening reality.”

Many of the big tech companies regularly tout

their efforts to safeguard elections, and not just
in the U.S. and E.U. This month Meta is launching
a service on WhatsApp that will allow users to
flag possible AI deepfakes for action by fact-
checkers. The service will work in four languages
— English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.

Meta says it has teams monitoring for

misinformation in dozens of languages, and the
company has announced other election-year
policies for AI that will apply globally, including
required labels for deepfakes as well as labels
for political ads created using AI. But those rules
have not taken effect and the company hasn’t
said when they will begin enforcement.

The laws governing social media platforms

vary by nation, and critics of tech companies
say they have been faster to address concerns
about misinformation in the U.S. and the E.U.,
which has recently enacted new lawsdesigned
to address the problem. Other nations all-
too often get a “cookie cutter” response from
tech companies that falls short, according
to an analysis published this month by the
Mozilla Foundation.

The study looked at 200 different policy

announcements from Meta, TikTok, X and
Google (the owner of YouTube) and found that
nearly two-thirds were focused on the U.S. or
E.U. Actions in those jurisdictions were also
more likely to involve meaningful investments
of staff and resources, the foundation found,
while new policies in other nations were more

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likely to rely on partnerships with fact-checking
organizations and media literacy campaigns.

Odanga Madung, a Nairobi, Kenya-based

researcher who conducted Mozilla’s study, said
it became clear that the platforms’ focus on
the U.S. and E.U. comes at the expense of the
rest of the world.

“It’s a glaring travesty that platforms blatantly

favor the U.S. and Europe with excessive policy
coddling and protections, while systematically
neglecting” other regions, Madung said.

This lack of focus on other regions and

languages will increase the risk that election
misinformation could mislead voters and impact
the results of elections. Around the globe, the
claims are already circulating.

Within the U.S., voters whose primary language

is something other than English are already
facing a wave of misleading and baseless claims,
Abreu said. Claims targeting Spanish speakers,
for instance, include posts that overstate the
extent of voter fraud or contain false information
about casting a ballot or registering to vote.

Disinformation about elections has surged in

Africa ahead of recent elections, according to
a study this month from the Africa Center for
Strategic Studies which identified dozens of
recent disinformation campaigns — a four-fold
increase from 2022. The false claims included
baseless allegations about candidates, false
information about voting and narratives that
seem designed to undermine support for the
United States and United Nations.

The center determined that some of the

campaigns were mounted by groups allied with

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the Kremlin, while others were spearheaded by
domestic political groups.

India, the world’s largest democracy, boasts

more than a dozen languages each with more
than 10 million native speakers. It also has more
than 300 million Facebook users and nearly half
a billion WhatsApp users, the most of any nation.

Fact-checking organizations have emerged

as the front line of defense against viral
misinformation about elections. The country
will hold elections later this spring and already
voters going online to find out about the
candidates and issues are awash in false and
misleading claims.

Among the latest: video of a politician’s speech

that was carefully edited to remove key lines;
years-old photos of political rallies passed off as
new; and a fake election calendar that provided
the wrong dates for voting.

A lack of significant steps by tech companies

has forced groups that advocate for voters and
free elections to band together, said Ritu Kapur,
co-founder and managing director of The Quint,
an online publication that recently joined with
several other outlets and Google to create a new
fact-checking effort known as Shakti.

“Mis- and disinformation is proliferating at an

alarming pace, aided by technology and fueled
and funded by those who stand to gain by it,”
Kapur said. “The only way to combat the malaise
is to join forces.”

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SHINES THROUGH A FOCUS ON
QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

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As the streaming wars intensify, Apple TV+
has emerged as a formidable contender. It
distinguishes itself through a curated selection
of content that prioritizes quality over quantity.
Though Disney and Netflix are bigger, Apple’s
onto a winner with its catalog.

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A WINNING STRATEGY
Launched in November 2019, Apple TV+
entered a market dominated by giants like
Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu. Instead
of competing on volume, Apple chose a path
less trodden, focusing on original, high-quality
content. This strategic choice certainly didn’t
win the company favors in the early days.
Still, it’s beginning to pay off, as evidenced by
the platform’s growing collection of critically
acclaimed titles, awards, and nominations.
Following the premiere of “Masters of the
Air,” viewership across all of Apple TV+
climbed by 65% worldwide compared to the
previous seven-day period. The streamer also
maintained double-digit growth across more
than 100 territories. In December last year, it
was reported that Apple TV+ viewership was
up 42% year-over-year thanks to shows such
as The Morning Show. From its inception,
Apple TV+ aimed to be more than just another
streaming service; it sought to be a cultural
touchpoint, offering content that sparks
conversation and connection and connects
with consumers and viewers on a deeper level.

Apple TV+ extends its reach beyond the

typical movie and series offerings, presenting
a rich array of content genres. This includes
compelling documentaries, music specials, and
live events that cater to varied interests and
demographics. The platform’s commitment to
diversity is evident in its lineup. It ranges from in-
depth explorations of societal issues to intimate
portraits of iconic personalities, providing
viewers with a broader perspective of the world.
The best part? There’s something brand new on
the platform virtually every week.

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CONTENT FOR YOUNG MINDS
Recognizing the importance of engaging
young minds, Apple TV+ has dedicated
a significant portion of its catalog to
children’s programming. This isn’t just about
entertainment; it’s about crafting content that
combines fun with learning and creativity
with critical thinking. Shows on Apple TV+ not
only captivate but also educate, helping to
mold a generation that is curious, informed,
and empathetic. For parents, the safety and
appropriateness of content are paramount.
Apple TV+ addresses these concerns by
ensuring its original kids’ content suits young
audiences. Parents can trust that the shows and
movies available on the platform are not only
of high quality but also free from inappropriate
material, providing a safe viewing environment
for children.

“Wolfwalkers” is an enchanting animated film

that blends folklore with adventure, telling
the story of a young girl who discovers a
mysterious tribe with a deep connection to
wolves, while “Helpsters” is a vibrant series from
the makers of “Sesame Street” that introduces
preschoolers to the concepts of problem-
solving and teamwork. “Snoopy in Space”
takes everyone’s favorite beagle on an out-of-
this-world adventure. As Snoopy pursues his
dream of becoming an astronaut, children
are introduced to basic concepts of space
exploration and astronomy, all wrapped up
in the whimsical charm of the Peanuts gang.
Apple regularly adds new content focused on
kids, last year announcing “Eva the Owlet,” “Frog
and Toad,” and the live-action/CGI blended
series “Jane”.

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SEAMLESS VIEWING
Apple TV+’s integration across devices is a
game-changer. This ecosystem approach
ensures subscribers can access their favorite
shows and movies seamlessly, whether at
home or on the move. This enhances user
experience, making entertainment more
accessible and convenient and solidifying user
loyalty to the Apple brand. Apple TV+ is home
to various films and series that have garnered
critical acclaim and audience adoration.
From groundbreaking series to cinematic
masterpieces, the platform offers a diverse
palette of storytelling. Films like “CODA,” an
Academy Award winner, and series like “The
Morning Show” underscore the platform’s
commitment to delivering compelling
narratives. The platform’s documentaries like
“The Elephant Queen” and “Boys State” offer a
window into untold stories and unseen worlds,
reflecting Apple TV+’s dedication to content
that entertains and enlightens, providing
viewers with profound insights into different
facets of life and society.

With recent announcements of partnerships

with renowned filmmakers and expansion into
feature films from other studios, Apple TV+ is
poised for growth. The inclusion of external
blockbuster films for a limited time suggests
strategic testing of waters, possibly hinting at
a future where Apple TV+ could offer a more
extensive library while maintaining its quality-
over-quantity ethos.

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Apple TV+ stands out in the crowded
streaming landscape by focusing on quality,
diversity, and innovation. It provides a
unique value proposition by offering a mix
of original content, children’s programming,
and an expanding library of films and
series seamlessly integrated across Apple
devices. We can’t wait to see what’s
coming to the streaming platform next!
94
95
AN AI ROBOT IS
SPOTTING SICK
TULIPS TO SLOW
THE SPREAD
OF DISEASE
THROUGH DUTCH
BULB FIELDS

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Theo works weekdays, weekends and nights
and never complains about a sore spine despite
performing hour upon hour of what, for a
regular farm hand, would be backbreaking labor
checking Dutch tulip fields for sick flowers.

The boxy robot — named after a retired

employee at the WAM Pennings farm near
the Dutch North Sea coast — is a new high-
tech weapon in the battle to root out disease
from the bulb fields as they erupt into a riot of
springtime color.

On a windy spring morning, the robot trundled

along rows of yellow and red “goudstuk” tulips,
checking each plant and, when necessary,
killing diseased bulbs to prevent the spread
of the tulip-breaking virus. The dead bulbs
are removed from healthy ones in a sorting
warehouse after they have been harvested.

The virus stunts growth and development of

plants leading to smaller and weaker flowers. It
also weakens the bulb itself, eventually leaving
them unable to flower.

As part of efforts to tackle the virus, there are

45 robots patrolling tulip fields across the
Netherlands as the weather warms up and
farmers approach peak season when their bulbs
bloom into giant patchworks of color that draws
tourists from around the world.
In the past, this was work carried out by human
“sickness spotters,” said Allan Visser, a third-
generation tulip farmer who is using the robot
for the second growing season.

“You could also buy a very nice sports car,” for

the price of the robot, Visser said — its makers
say the robot costs 185,000 euros ($200,000).

101
“But I prefer to have the robot because a sports
car doesn’t take out the sick tulips from our
field. Yeah, it is expensive, but there are less
and less people who can really see the sick
tulips,” he added.

It’s a lot slower than a sports car, rolling

on caterpillar tracks through fields at one
kilometer per hour (0.6 mph) hunting out the
telltale red stripes that form on the leaves of
infected flowers.

“It has cameras in the front, and it makes

thousands of pictures of the tulips. Then
it will, determine if the tulip is sick or not
by its AI model,” Visser explained, calling
it “precision agriculture.”

“The robot has learned to recognize this and to

treat it,” he added.

Erik de Jong of H2L Robotics, the company that

makes the robots, says artificial intelligence
helps them identify sick flowers and very precise
GPS coordinates allows them to pinpoint the
flowers that need to be destroyed.

“The heart of the machine is the knowledge that

we put into the AI model. The knowledge comes
from tulip farmers. So we we use the knowledge
of the tulip farmers, we combine it into an AI
model,” he said.

Theo van der Voort, who gave his name

to the robot at WAM Pennings farm, and
who retired after 52 years hunting for sick
flowers, is impressed.

“It’s fantastic,” he said. “It sees just as

much as I see.”

102
103
BIDEN TO TOUT
GOVERNMENT
INVESTING
$8.5 BILLION
IN INTEL’S
COMPUTER
CHIP PLANTS IN
FOUR STATES

The Biden administration has reached an

agreement to provide Intel with up to $8.5
billion in direct funding and $11 billion in loans
for computer chip plants in Arizona, Ohio, New
Mexico and Oregon.

President Joe Biden plans to talk up the

investment on Wednesday as he visits Intel’s
campus in Chandler, Arizona, which could be
a decisive swing state in November’s election.

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He has often said that not enough voters know
about his economic policies and suggested that
more would support him if they did know.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said

the deal reached through her department
would put the United States in a position to
produce 20% of the world’s most advanced
chips by 2030, up from the current level of zero.
The United States designs advanced chips,
but its inability to make them domestically
has emerged as a national security and
economic risk.

“Failure is not an option — leading-edge

chips are the core of our innovation system,
especially when it comes to advances in artificial
intelligence and our military systems,” Raimondo
said on a call with reporters. “We can’t just
design chips. We have to make them in America.”

The funding announcement comes amid the

heat of the 2024 presidential campaign. Biden
has been telling voters that his policies have
led to a resurgence in U.S. manufacturing and
job growth. His message is a direct challenge
to former President Donald Trump, the
presumptive Republican nominee, who raised
tariffs while in the White House and wants to
do so again on the promise of protecting U.S.
factory jobs from China.
Biden narrowly beat Trump in Arizona in 2020 by
a margin of 49.4% to 49.1%.

U.S. adults have dim views of Biden’s economic

leadership, with just 34% approving, according
to a February poll. The lingering impact of
inflation hitting a four-decade high in 2022 has
hurt the Democrat, who had a 52% approval on
the economy in July 2021.

108
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Intel’s projects would be funded in part
through the bipartisan 2022 CHIPS and Science
Act, which the Biden administration helped
shepherd through Congress at a time of
concerns after the pandemic that the loss of
access to chips made in Asia could plunge the
U.S. economy into recession.

When pushing for the investment, lawmakers

expressed concern about efforts by China to
control Taiwan, which accounts for more than
90% of advanced computer chip production.

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat up for

reelection this year, stressed that his state would
become “a global leader in semiconductor
manufacturing” as Intel would be generating
thousands of jobs. Ohio has voted for Trump in
the past two presidential elections, and Brown in
November will face Republican Bernie Moreno, a
Trump-backed businessman from Cleveland.

Wednesday’s announcement is the fourth and

largest so far under the chips law, with the
government support expected to help enable
Intel to make $100 billion in capital investments
over five years. About 25% of that total would
involve building and land, while roughly 70%
would go to equipment, said Pat Gelsinger,
CEO of Intel.

“We think of this as a defining moment for the

United States, the semiconductor industry and
for Intel,” said Gelsinger, who called the CHIPS
Act “the most critical industrial policy legislation
since World War II.”

The Intel CEO said on a call with reporters

that he would like to see a sequel to the 2022
law in order to provide additional funding for
the industry.

111
Biden administration officials say that computer
chip companies would not be investing
domestically at their expected scale without
the government support. Intel funding would
lead to a combined 30,000 manufacturing and
construction jobs. The company also plans to
claim tax credits from the Treasury Department
worth up to 25% on qualified investments.

The Santa Clara, California-based company

will use the funding in four different states. In
Chandler, Arizona, the money will help to build
two new chip plants and modernize an existing
one. The funding will establish two advanced
plants in New Albany, Ohio, which is just outside
the state capital of Columbus.

The company will also turn two of its plants

in Rio Rancho, New Mexico into advanced
packaging facilities. And Intel will also
modernize facilities in Hillsboro, Oregon.

The Biden administration has also made

workforce training and access to affordable
child care a priority in agreements to support
companies. Under the agreement with the
Commerce Department, Intel will commit to
local training programs as well as increase
the reimbursement amount for its child care
program, among other efforts.

112
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114
 AS ELECTRIC
VEHICLE SALES
SLOW, US
RELAXES PLANS
FOR STRICTER
AUTO EMISSIONS
STANDARDS
FOR A WHILE

115
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The Biden administration this week is expected
to announce new automobile emissions
standards that relax proposed limits for three
years but eventually reach the same strict
standards proposed by the Environmental
Protection Agency.

The changes come as sales of zero-tailpipe

emissions electric vehicles, which are needed
to meet the standards, have begun to slow.
The auto industry has cited lower sales
growth in objecting to the EPA’s preferred
standards unveiled last April as part of the most
ambitious plan ever to cut planet-warming
emissions from passenger vehicles.

The EPA suggested that under its preferred

alternative, the industry could meet the limits if
67% of new vehicle sales are electric by 2032.

But during a public comment period on the

standards for 2027 through 2032, the auto
industry called the benchmarks unworkable
with EV sales slowing as consumers worry
about cost, range and a lack of publicly
available charging stations.

Three people with knowledge of the standards

say the Biden EPA will pick an alternative that
slows implementation from 2027 through
2029, but ramps up to reach the level the EPA
preferred from 2030 to 2032. The alternative
will have other unspecified modifications that
help the auto industry meet the standards, one
of the people said.

The people, two from the auto industry and one

from the government, didn’t want to be identified
because the new standards haven’t been made
public by the EPA.

117
The changes appear aimed at addressing
strong industry opposition to the accelerated
ramp-up of EVs, along with public reluctance to
fully embrace the new technology. There is also
a legitimate threat of legal challenges before
conservative courts.

The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative

majority, has increasingly reined in the powers
of federal agencies, including the EPA, in recent
years. The justices have restricted the EPA’s
authority to fight air and water pollution —
including a landmark 2022 ruling that limited
the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide
emissions from power plants that contribute to
global warming.

Biden has made fighting climate change a

hallmark of his presidency and is seeking to slash
carbon dioxide emissions from gasoline-powered
vehicles, which make up the largest single source
of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

At the same time, Biden needs cooperation from

the auto industry and political support from auto
workers, a key political voting bloc. The United
Auto Workers union, which has endorsed Biden,
has said it favors the transition to electric vehicles
but wants to make sure jobs are preserved and
that industry pays top wages to workers who
build the EVs and batteries.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre

said that White House officials “don’t have any
concerns” about the EPA rule.

“We know, with these types of things, it takes

time,’’ she told reporters on Air Force One as Biden
traveled to Nevada. “But we’re still going to stay
committed to our (climate) goals.”

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Generally, environmental groups have been
optimistic about the new EPA plan.

Manish Bapna, president of Natural Resources

Defense Council, told reporters last week that
he expects the rule will significantly cut carbon
emissions from cars and light-duty trucks,
which are the source of one-fifth of the nation’s
greenhouse gas emissions.

“Based on what we hear, there’s no reason to

doubt that the climate rules for cars and light-
duty trucks are going to cut well over 90% of the
carbon pollution from new cars, SUVs and pickup
trucks’’ over the next few decades, Bapna said.
“That’s huge.″

Between 2027 and 2055, the EPA rule “will prevent

more than 7 billion tons of climate wrecking
carbon emissions. That’s more than the nation
generates in a year. It’s absolutely essential, real,
concrete progress,’’ Bapna said.

“EPA’s clean car standards will put the pedal to the

metal as the U.S. races to achieve cleaner, healthier
air for everyone,” said Amanda Leland, executive
director of Environmental Defense Fund, another
environmental group.

“Strong clean car standards help provide cleaner

air and a safer climate, thousands of dollars in
cost savings for our families and hundreds of
thousands of new jobs in U.S. manufacturing,″
Leland said.

Luke Tonachel, an automobile expert with the

Natural Resources Defense Council, said the new
clean-car standards will encourage the auto
industry to “continue investing, as it’s already
starting to do, over the long-term period″ in EV
and zero-emission vehicles. The rule also will

120
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122
send a signal to infrastructure providers and
utilities to keep building out the charging
infrastructure,’’ he said.

But Dan Becker at the Center for Biological

Diversity, said he fears loopholes will let the
industry continue to sell gas burners. He also is
afraid the industry will get off with doing little
during the first three years of the standards,
which could be undone if Donald Trump is
elected president.

“The bottom line is that the administration is

caving to pressure from big oil, big auto and the
dealers to stall progress on EVs and now allow
more pollution from cars,” Becker said.

At a Detroit-area rally in September, Trump

insisted Biden’s embrace of electric vehicles — a
key component of his clean-energy agenda —
would ultimately lead to lost jobs.

Republicans and some in the industry have said

the rule would require that 67% of new vehicle
sales be electric by 2032, forcing people to buy
cars, trucks and SUVs that they aren’t yet ready
to accept.

But EPA Administrator Michael Regan has said

the new rule is a performance standard that
leaves it to industry to come up with solutions.

U.S. electric vehicle sales grew 47% last year

to a record 1.19 million as EV market share
rose from 5.8% in 2022 to 7.6%. But EV sales
growth slowed toward the end of the year. In
December, they rose 34%.

The Alliance for Auto Innovation, a large industry

trade group, said in a news release that the ramp
up to 67% initially proposed by the EPA is too fast
for the industry to achieve. The EPA’s pace of EV

123
adoption is faster than President Joe Biden’s goal
of electric vehicles being half of U.S. new vehicle
sales by 2030, the group said.

“Where we are (or aren’t) in 2032 is unclear at this

point,” the group said. “But moderating the pace
of EV adoption in 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030
would be the right call because it prioritizes more
reasonable and achievable electrification targets
in the next few (very critical) years.”

The EPA’s preferred standards take carbon dioxide

emissions from 152 grams per mile in 2026 to 73
in 2032, a 52% reduction. The limits would reach
99 grams per mile by 2029.

But under the alternative that environmental

groups expect the EPA to adopt, the standards
would be eased in the first three years, reaching
112 grams by 2029 but still hitting 73 in 2032.

124
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AI IMAGE-GENERATOR
MIDJOURNEY
BLOCKS IMAGES
OF BIDEN AND
TRUMP AS
ELECTION LOOMS

The popular artificial intelligence image-generator

Midjourney has started blocking its users from
creating fake images of President Joe Biden and
former President Donald Trump ahead of the
upcoming U.S. presidential election, according to
tests of the AI tool.

With the election in full swing, it’s time to “put

some foots down on election-related stuff for
a bit,” Midjourney CEO David Holz told several
hundred members of the service’s devoted
userbase in a digital office hours event last week.

126
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Declaring that “this moderation stuff is kind of
hard,” Holz didn’t outline exactly what policy
changes were being made but described the
clampdown as a temporary measure to make
it harder for people to abuse the tool. The
company didn’t immediately respond to a
request for comment.

Attempts by journalists to test Midjourney’s new

policy by asking it to make an image of “Trump
and Biden shaking hands at the beach” led to a
“Banned Prompt Detected” warning. A second
attempt escalated the warning to: “You have
triggered an abuse alert.”

The tiny company — which has just 11 employees,

according to its website — has largely kept silent
in the public debate over how generative AI tools
could fuel election misinformation around the
world. Midjourney was the only maker of a leading
image-generating tool that didn’t join a voluntary
tech industry pact in February to combat AI-
generated deepfakes that deliberately trick voters.

“I don’t really care about political speech,” Holz

said. “That’s not the purpose of Midjourney. It’s not
that interesting to me. That said, I also don’t want
to spend all of my time trying to police political
speech. So we’re going to have put our foot down
on it a bit.”

The Center for Countering Digital Hate released

a report earlier this month that concluded
Midjourney is already being used to produce
images that could support disinformation
about political candidates or false claims of
election fraud.

“Midjourney seemed to have the fewest controls

of any AI image-generator when it came to
generating images of well-known political

128
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figures like Joe Biden and Donald Trump,”
said Callum Hood, the group’s head of
research, in an interview. “Midjourney was
almost unique in both being willing to
generate those images and generating quite
convincing images of candidates.”

The watchdog group tested Midjourney as well as

OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus, Stability AI’s DreamStudio
and Microsoft’s Image Creator, and found all had
problems, creating election disinformation in 41%
of cases. But “Midjourney performed worst of any
tool, failing in 65% of test runs,” the report said.

Hood said he wasn’t aware if Midjourney changed

its policies this week but “its decision to block
those images would help seal a major weakness
compared to other popular image generators.”

As recently as late last week, Midjourney’s public

database shows users were successfully able
to produce images based on prompts such as
“Abstract photo of Donald Trump sitting in a tiny
electric car” and “joe biden eating ice cream.”

But that changed in recent days as users reported

they received a warning when trying to make
Biden or Trump images. Some complained that
Midjourney wasn’t properly communicating the
changed policy.

Midjourney differs from other image-generators

in that it is possible for users to see most other
users’ written prompts and images because it all
happens in public forums on the social media
platform Discord. Midjourney’s Discord group has
more than 19 million members, the largest of any
group on the chatting platform. It’s where Holz
holds his weekly office hours, which can veer into
wide-ranging conversations about AI and the
future of humanity.

130
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“Anybody who’s scared about fake images in 2024
is going to have a hard 2028,” Holz said. “It will be
a very different world at that point. Like, obviously
you’re still going to have humans running for
president in 2028, but they won’t be purely
human anymore.”

All the candidates at that time will have real-

looking “deepfake chatbots” with simulated
talking points, he said. Holz warned that people
who really want to make deepfakes will find
alternatives that “can be fine tuned on specific
people and will work better than our systems.”

Based near San Francisco and founded in 2020,

the company describes itself as an “independent
research lab exploring new mediums of thought
and expanding the imaginative powers of the
human species.” It first unveiled the public version
of its image-generator in July 2022. That — and
the release of a key rival, Stable Diffusion, later
that summer — sparked growing fascination with
generative AI technology that intensified with the
debut of ChatGPT several months later.

Holz told later that year that Midjourney works

to ban offensive and harmful content, usually by
blocking certain keywords and having its team
of moderators track outputs and respond to
complaints from other users.

“We really try to let people make the broadest set

of images possible but we do ban people every
day from the service,” Holz said in late 2022.

132
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PAIR ACCUSED
OF STEALING
BATTERY
MANUFACTURING
SECRETS FROM
TESLA AND
STARTING THEIR
OWN COMPANY

134
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136
Two men are accused of starting a business in
China using battery manufacturing technology
pilfered from Tesla and trying to sell the
proprietary information, federal prosecutors in
New York said.

Klaus Pflugbeil, 58, a Canadian citizen who lives

in Ningbo, China, was arrested this week on Long
Island, where he thought he was going to meet
with businessmen to negotiate a sale price for the
information, federal authorities said. Instead, the
businessmen were undercover federal agents.

The other man named in the criminal complaint

is Yilong Shao, 47, also of Ningbo. He remains
at large. They are charged with conspiracy to
transmit trade secrets, which carries up to 10 years
in prison if convicted.

A lawyer for Pflugbeil did not immediately

return phone and email messages seeking
comment. Tesla also did not immediately return
an email message.

The technology at issue involves high-

speed battery assembly lines that use a
proprietary technology owned by Tesla,
maker of electric vehicles.

The two men worked at a Canadian company

that developed the technology and was bought
in 2019 by “a U.S.-based leading manufacturer
of battery-powered electric vehicles and battery
energy systems,” authorities said in the complaint.
Tesla then was sole owner of the technology.

Prosecutors did not name either company. But

in 2019, Tesla purchased Hibar Systems, a battery
manufacturing company in Richmond Hill,
Ontario. The deal was first reported by Electric
Autonomy Canada.

137
“The defendants set up a company in China,
blatantly stole trade secrets from an American
company that are important to manufacturing
electric vehicles, and which cost many millions
of dollars in research and development, and sold
products developed with the stolen trade secrets,”
Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District
of New York, said in a statement with officials with
the Justice Department and FBI.

In mid-2020, Pflugbeil and Shao opened their

business in China and expanded it to locations in
Canada, Germany and Brazil, prosecutors said. The
business makes the same battery assembly lines
that Tesla uses with its proprietary information,
and it markets itself as an alternative source for the
assembly lines, authorities said.

138
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 Image: Ken Kobayashi
140
 APPLE TO PAY
$490 MILLION
TO SETTLE
ALLEGATIONS
THAT IT MISLED
INVESTORS
ABOUT IPHONE
SALES IN CHINA

Apple has agreed to pay $490 million to settle a

class-action lawsuit alleging CEO Tim Cook misled
investors about a steep downturn in iPhone’s
sales in China that culminated in a jarring revision
to the company’s revenue forecast.

The preliminary settlement filed in Oakland,

California, federal court stems from a
shareholder lawsuit focused on the way Apple
relayed information about how iPhone models
released in September 2018 were performing in
China, one of the company’s biggest markets.

141
Cook signaled that the new iPhones were
off to a good start during an investor
conference call in early November 2018,
according to the complaint.

That reassurance dissolved into a huge

letdown on Jan. 2, 2019 when the Cook issued
a warning that Apple’s revenue for the just-
completed quarter would fall $9 billion below
management’s forecast for the period. What’s
more, virtually all of the sales drop was traced to
weak demand in China.

It marked the first time Apple had cut its revenue

guidance since the iPhone’s release in 2007 and
triggered its stock price to plunge 10% in the
next day of frenetic trading, wiping out more
than $70 billion in shareholder wealth.

Apple vehemently denied Cook deceived

investors about the iPhone’s sales in China
between early November and early January. The
Cupertino, California, company maintained that
stance in the settlement documents, but said it
decided to make the payment after more than
four years of legal wrangling to avoid an “overly
burdensome, expensive, and distracting” hassle.

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144
The settlement was reached through a mediator
after U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers
rejected Apple’s request to dismiss the case and
set a Sept. 9 trial date.

Gonzalez Rogers is now being asked to approve

the settlement in a hearing scheduled for April 30.

Thousands of shareholders who bought Apple

stock in late 2018 could be eligible for a piece
of the settlement, which will be distributed
from of a pool that will be less than $490 million
after lawyers involved in the case are paid. The
attorneys plan to seek up to one-fourth, or
about $122 million, of the settlement.

The $490 million payment represents less than

1% of the $97 billion profit that Apple pocketed
during its last fiscal year ended in September.
Apple shareholders who have held on to their
shares have become wealthier too. Apple’s stock
price has more than quadrupled from where it
stood after Cook’s China warning, creating an
additional $2 trillion in shareholder wealth.

145
146
 SPOTIFY PAID
$9 BILLION IN
ROYALTIES IN
2023. HERE’S
WHAT FUELED
THE GROWTH

Spotify paid out $9 billion in streaming royalties

last year, the streaming giant said this week in its
latest “Loud and Clear” report.

Spotify’s fourth annual report, which originally

launched in 2021 following criticism over its lack
of transparency, noted record accomplishments,
including the highest annual payment from any
retailer to the music industry.

“This is everything we know about how much is

being paid out, how many artists are achieving
different levels of success,” says Charlie Hellman,
the vice president and global head of music

Image: Tiffany Hagler-Geard

147
product at Spotify. “So, everyone can have access
to the information and be sort of up to date with
the state of the industry.”

According to the data, 1,250 artists generated

over $1 million each in recording and publishing
royalties in 2023; 11,600 generated over
$100,000 and 66,000 generated over $10,000 —
numbers that have almost tripled since 2017.

More than half of those 66,000 artists came

from countries where English is not the
primary language, the report says, reflecting an
increasingly global music landscape.

And “indie” artists — the self-distributed, do-it-

yourself acts and those on independent record
labels, according to Hellman — accounted for
$4.5 billion, half of all royalties paid out by Spotify.

“There are millions of people who’ve uploaded a

song at least once but that doesn’t really speak
to whether they’re an artist, or if they’re doing
this more as a hobby,” Hellman says.

Spotify zooms in on artists that have “at least

put up an album’s worth of music once they
seem to have some indication that they’re
trying to build a fan base.” He estimates there
are “about 225,000 professionally aspiring
artists” on the platform.

“They have a little bit of a following. They might,

you know, have gigs listed on Spotify or things
like that,” he says.

In December, Spotify announced it was

axing 17% of its global workforce, the music
streaming service’s third round of layoffs in 2023
as it moved to slash costs while focusing on
becoming profitable.

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Image: Tiffany Hagler-Geard
149
150
The previous month, Spotify announced it
would eliminate payments for songs with less
than 1,000 annual streams, starting in 2024.

“Songs that generate less than a thousand

streams in a year would be generating pennies,
a few cents in royalties,” Hellman explains.
“So what we’re seeing was that there was an
increasing amount of uploaders that had $0.03,
$0.08, $0.36 sitting there.”

For those DIY artists, there’s a minimum

threshold to withdraw money from a distributor
— $5.35 at DistroKid and $1 at TuneCore, two
such distributors — and Hellman argues the
withdrawal fees would eclipse the royalties.

Spotify — and most other streaming services

— pay royalties to the rights holders of the
music on its platform, a number which is
determined by “streamshare.” That’s calculated
by adding up how many times music owned
or controlled by a particular rights holder was
streamed and dividing by the total number of
streams in that market.

In short: Larger rights holders have a larger

percentage of the market share. And a listener
streaming an artist 25% of the time does not
mean the act receives 25% of the listener’s
subscription fee.

“All those pennies sitting in bank accounts all

over the place was siphoning money away from
artists that were really doing this, as an aspiring
professional,” says Hellman of the decision. “And
so, those royalties are now being put in the pot
so that they can be redirected to artists that are
getting more than a thousand streams a year.”

151
SPACEX COMES
CLOSE TO
COMPLETING
TEST FLIGHT OF
MEGA ROCKET
BUT LOSES
SPACECRAFT
NEAR END

152
153
SpaceX came close to completing an hourlong
test flight of its mega rocket on its third try
Thursday (14), but the spacecraft was lost as it
descended back to Earth.

The company said it lost contact with Starship

as it neared its goal, a splashdown in the Indian
Ocean. The first-stage booster also ended up in
pieces, breaking apart much earlier in the flight
over the Gulf of Mexico after launching from the
southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border.

“The ship has been lost. So no splashdown

today,” said SpaceX’s Dan Huot. “But again, it’s
incredible to see how much further we got this
time around.”

Two test flights last year both ended in

explosions minutes after liftoff. By surviving
for close to 50 minutes this time, The effort
was considered a win by not only SpaceX’s
Elon Musk, but NASA as well as Starship soared
higher and farther than ever before. The space
agency is counting on Starship to land its
astronauts on the moon in another few years.

The nearly 400-foot (121-meter) Starship, the

biggest and most powerful rocket ever built,
headed out over the Gulf of Mexico after liftoff,
flying east. Spectators crowded the nearby
beaches in South Padre Island and Mexico.

A few minutes later, the booster separated

seamlessly from the spaceship, but broke apart
1,500 feet (462 meters) above the gulf, instead of
plummeting into the water intact. By then, the
spacecraft was well to the east and continuing
upward, with no people or satellites on board.

Starship reached an altitude of about 145 miles

(233 kilometers) as it coasted across the Atlantic
and South Africa, before approaching the Indian

154
155
156
Ocean. But 49 minutes into the flight — with
just 15 minutes remaining — all contact was lost
and the spacecraft presumably broke apart.

SpaceX’s Elon Musk had just congratulated his

team a little earlier. “SpaceX has come a long
way,” he said via X, formerly called Twitter. The
rocket company was founded 22 years ago.

NASA watched with keen interest: The space

agency needs Starship to succeed in order to
land astronauts on the moon in the next two
or so years. This new crop of moonwalkers —
the first since last century’s Apollo program —
will descend to the lunar surface in a Starship
after transferring from NASA’s Orion capsule in
lunar orbit.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson quickly

congratulated SpaceX on what he called
a successful test flight as part of the space
agency’s Artemis moon-landing program.

The stainless steel, bullet-shaped spacecraft

launched atop a first-stage booster known as
the Super Heavy. Both the booster and the
spacecraft are designed to be reusable, although
they were never meant to be salvaged.

On Starship’s inaugural launch last April, several

of the booster’s 33 methane-fueled engines
failed and the booster did not separate from the
spacecraft, causing the entire vehicle to explode
and crash into the gulf four minutes after liftoff.

SpaceX managed to double the length of the

flight during November’s trial run. While all 33
engines fired and the booster peeled away as
planned, the flight ended in a pair of explosions,
first the booster and then the spacecraft.

The Federal Aviation Administration reviewed

157
all the corrections made to Starship, before
signing off on the launch. The FAA said after
the flight that it would again investigate what
happened. As during the second flight, all 33
booster engines performed well during ascent,
according to SpaceX.

Initially, SpaceX plans to use the mammoth

rockets to launch the company’s Starlink internet
satellites, as well as other spacecraft. Test pilots
would follow to orbit, before the company flies
wealthy clients around the moon and back.
Musk considers the moon a stepping stone to
Mars, his ultimate quest.

NASA is insisting that an empty Starship

land successfully on the moon, before future
moonwalkers climb aboard. The space
agency is targeting the end of 2026 for the
first moon landing crew under the Artemis
program, named after the mythological twin
sister of Apollo.

158
159
TEXAS APPROVES
LAND-SWAPPING
DEAL WITH
SPACEX AS
COMPANY HOPES
TO EXPAND
ROCKET-LAUNCH
OPERATIONS

SpaceX would acquire public land in Texas

to expand its rocket-launch facilities under
a tentative deal that is moving forward after
months of opposition from nearby residents and
officials near the U.S.-Mexico border.

The tentative land-swapping deal moved

forward when the Texas Parks and Wildlife
Commission unanimously voted in favor of
swapping 43 noncontiguous acres from Boca

160
161
162
Chica State Park with SpaceX, which would give
the state 477 acres about 10 miles south of the
park near Brownsville, Texas.

Some of the 43 contested acres are landlocked

with no public access but with protected
plant and animal species. Although SpaceX is
proposing swapping the public land for 477
acres, it has not yet purchased that property.
None of the land in the deal has beach access,
but the 43 acres sit near protected federal land
and lagoons that stretch along the coast.

“Through this transaction we are guaranteeing

the conservation of 477 acres, which would
otherwise potentially be developed into
condominiums or strip centers,” Jeffery D.
Hildebrand, the Texas Parks and Wildlife
Commission chairman appointed by Gov. Greg
Abbott, said at the meeting’s close.

The deal started in 2019 as a conversation

between the state and SpaceX. But it was finally
worked out in 2023, said David Yoskowitz,
the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s
executive director.

People sent over 2,300 letters to the department

to voice their opinion. Although the majority,
60%, were opposed, the department
recommended the state vote in favor of the deal,
which had the support from the Democratic
state senator for the area, the comptroller and
the Texas General Land Office commissioner.

Dozens of people traveled up to the meeting in

the state capital of Austin to voice their support
or discontent with the plan.

Cyrus Reed, the legislative and conservation

director with the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra
Club, was among those opposing the deal.

163
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“We think, as an alternative, if we think the 477
acres are valuable, go and buy it. We the voters
of Texas have given you money to purchase
valuable land,” Reed said, referring to the state’s
Centennial Parks Conservation Fund.

In November, voters approved the

establishment of the fund, creating the
largest endowment for park development
in Texas history.

“And remember the precedent you’re setting,”

Reed said. “If you approve this deal, that means
every industrialist, everyone who has an interest
in expanding is going to look at this and say,
‘Where can I go find some land that I can
exchange to continue to pollute and hurt other
land?’ So, that’s not a net benefit for Texas.”

SpaceX Starbase general manager Kathryn

Lueders attended the meeting and said she
has seen wildlife coexist with spacecraft in
Florida when she worked as a program manager
for NASA.

“At the same time, it further expands on a critical

refuge and allows Texans to receive a coveted
property which has been sought by multiple
state and federal agencies for conservation
efforts for over a decade,” she said.

An environmental assessment, public comment

period and other consultations could mean the
disposition of the property could take up to 18
months to complete, according to the Texas
Parks and Wildlife Department’s general counsel.

165
FRENCH
REGULATORS
FINE GOOGLE
$272 MILLION
IN DISPUTE
WITH NEWS
PUBLISHERS

France’s competition watchdog hit Google

on Wednesday with another big fine tied to a
long-running dispute over payments to French
publishers for their news.

The French Competition Authority said it

issued the 250 million euro ($272 million)
penalty because of Google’s failure to
comply with some commitments it made in a
negotiating framework.

The dispute is part of a larger effort by authorities

in the European Union and around the world
to force Google and other tech companies to
compensate news publishers for content.

166
Image: Thibault Camus
167
The U.S. tech giant was forced to negotiate with
French publishers after a court in 2020 upheld
an order saying payments were required by a
2019 European Union copyright directive.

Google said in a blog post that it agreed to

settle the fine, which was imposed over how it
conducted the negotiations, “because it’s time to
move on.” It said the fine was “not proportionate”
to the issues raised by the French watchdog and
“doesn’t sufficiently take into account” Google’s
efforts to answer and resolve the concerns.

France was the first of the EU’s 27 nations to

adopt the copyright directive, which lays out a
way for publishers and news companies to strike
licensing deals with online platforms.

168
169
Wednesday’s decision by the French Competition
Authority is the fourth in as many years against
Google for failing to comply with the EU legal
framework that aims to establish “necessary
conditions for balanced negotiations between
press agencies, publishers and digital platforms.”

The French antitrust agency had issued

temporary orders to Google in April 2020 to hold
talks within three months with news publishers.
In 2021, the agency fined Google 500 million
euros ($592 million) for failing to negotiate a fair
payment for publishers’ news.

170
Image: Vincent Isore
171
UN SAYS E-WASTE
FROM TRASHED
ELECTRIC
DEVICES IS
PILING UP AND
RECYCLING ISN’T
KEEPING PACE

172
173
174
U.N. agencies have warned that electrical and
electronic waste is piling up worldwide while
recycling rates remain low and are likely to fall
even further.

The agencies define “e-waste” as any discarded

device with a plug or battery, including
cellphones, electronic cars and toys, TVs,
e-cigarettes, laptop computers and solar panels.

In a new report released this week, the U.N.’s

International Telecommunications Union and
research arm UNITAR said some 62 million tons
of “e-waste” was generated in 2022, enough to
fill tractor-trailers that could be lined up bumper
to bumper around the globe. It’s on track to
reach 82 million tons by 2030.

Metals — including copper, gold and iron —

made up half of the 62 million tons, worth
a total of some $91 billion, the report said.
Plastics accounted for 17 million tons and the
remaining 14 million tons include substances
like composite materials and glass.

The U.N. says just over 22% of the e-waste mass

was properly collected and recycled in 2022.
It is expected to decline to 20% by the end of
the decade because of the “staggering growth”
of such waste due to higher consumption,
limited repair options, shorter product life
cycles, growing “electronification” of society, and
inadequate e-waste management infrastructure,
the agencies said.

They said some of the discarded electronic

devices contained hazardous elements like
mercury, as well as rare Earth metals coveted by
tech industry manufacturers. Currently, only 1%
of the demand for the 17 minerals that make up
the rare metals is met through recycling.

175
About half of all e-waste is generated in Asia,
where few countries have laws on e-waste
or collection targets, according to the report.
Recycling and collection rates top 40% in
Europe, where per-capita waste generation is
highest: nearly 18 kilograms (39 pounds). In
Africa, which generates the least of any of the
five big global regions, recycling and collection
rates hover at about 1%, it said.

“The latest research shows that the global

challenge posed by e-waste is only going to
grow,” said Cosmas Luckyson Zavazava, head
of the ITU telecommunication development
bureau. “With less than half of the world
implementing and enforcing approaches to
manage the problem, this raises the alarm
for sound regulations to boost collection
and recycling.”

For some, e-waste represents a way to earn cash

by rummaging through trash in the developing
world to find coveted commodities, despite the
health risks.

At the Dandora dumpsite where garbage

collected from the Kenyan capital of Nairobi
ends up — even though a court declared it
full over a generation ago — scavengers try
to earn a living by picking through rubbish
for e-waste that can be sold to businesses as
recycled material.

Steve Okoth hopes the flow continues so he can

eke out an income, but he knows the risks.

“When the e-waste comes here, it contains

some powder which affects my health,” he said,
adding that when electronic devices heat up,
they release gases and he “can’t come to work
because of chest problems.”

176
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178
However, Okoth said they don’t have any
other options: “We are now used to the smoke
because if you don’t go to work you will not eat.”

Recycling plants, like Nairobi’s WEEE center, have

collection points across Kenya, where people
can safely get rid of old electric equipment.

“We take inventory of the items,” said Catherine

Wasolia, WEEE’s chief operating officer, to check
for data on submitted devices and wipe them
clean. Then they test each to assess if “it can be
reused or repurposed.”

E-waste expert George Masila worries about the

impact of electronic waste on soil.

“When you have all this e-waste — either in the

dumpsites or mercilessly deposited anywhere
else — it could have major effects on the
soil,” Masila said. “Every year it rains and water
flows and attracts all these elements that are
deposited into the environment. You have water
getting contaminated.”

He said greater recycling and re-use of

such materials, “are some of the things we
should be considering.”

179