The hottest Tech Giants Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Technology Topics

How Virtual Reality Died

The Honest Broker • 29755 implied HN points • 27 Oct 24
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. Major tech companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Apple invested heavily in virtual reality, but it didn't catch on with consumers. People found the headsets uncomfortable and silly.
  2. Despite losing billions, these companies still tried to push virtual reality products, but they had to eventually scale back as demand dropped significantly.
  3. Now they're shifting their focus to artificial intelligence, but there's skepticism about whether this new technology will succeed, given their past failures with VR.

Is the AI Boom Real?

The Asianometry Newsletter • 3553 implied HN points • 07 Mar 24
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. The trillion-dollar investment in AI chips does raise skepticism, with questions about its sustainability and impact on the semiconductor industry.
  2. The concept of scaling laws, driving investments, presents interesting parallels to Moore's Law in the semiconductor industry, suggesting potential future impact on AI.
  3. Competition in AI chips, particularly against Nvidia, is heating up as tech giants aim for vertical integration, potentially shifting the landscape of AI chip design and market dynamics.

NOTE TO SELF: On Katie Martin's "Magnificent Seven" Today

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 353 implied HN points • 24 Jul 25
💼 Business Tech Giants
  1. The 'Magnificent Seven' tech companies are dominating the market, making up 31% of the S&P 500. Their growth is impressive but it raises concerns about economic fairness.
  2. These companies are not just innovating; they're also extracting a lot of money from their positions in the market. They often make profits through platform fees and controlling access to resources.
  3. Investors need to look deeper into each company's story. Some are thriving due to strong tech advancements, while others are more about squeezing profits out of their current advantages.
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Last Week in AI #255: AI voice scams, flood of bad AI translations, self-rewarding LLMs, FTC probes AI partnerships of tech giants, and more!

Last Week in AI • 139 implied HN points • 29 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. Scammers are using AI to mimic voices and deceive people into giving money, posing serious risks for communication security.
  2. Many sentences on the internet have poor quality translations due to machine translation, especially affecting low-resource languages.
  3. Researchers introduce Self-Rewarding Language Models (SRLMs) as a novel method to improve Large Language Models (LLMs) without human feedback.

Notebook: (2) The AI We Live Now

Book Post • 176 implied HN points • 30 Sep 23
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. AI companies need to figure out a business model to support writers and publishers
  2. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are affecting the visibility of original writing
  3. Regulations and disclosures are being developed to address AI-generated content and protect consumers

Alexa, what happened?

Margins by Ranjan Roy and Can Duruk • 1043 implied HN points • 24 Feb 23
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. Voice technology like Amazon's Alexa faced challenges in living up to the initial promise of being a transformative platform due to issues like annoying follow-up questions and closed-off ecosystems.
  2. Big tech companies often focused on 10x innovations rather than incremental improvements, leading to challenges in realizing the full potential of technological advancements.
  3. The economic incentives, user behaviors, and prevailing attitudes towards technology play crucial roles in determining the success and impact of innovations.

The UK’s decision to block the Microsoft / Activision merger is courageous and right

The Counterbalance • 137 implied HN points • 28 Apr 23
💼 Business Tech Giants
  1. The UK's decision to block the Microsoft / Activision merger shows courage and defends against concentrated economic power.
  2. The UK's action signifies a global shift against the dominance of digital tech giants post-Brexit.
  3. Blocking the merger protects UK citizens, businesses, and consumers while promoting a more resilient economy.

Techbros party on

imperfect offerings • 119 implied HN points • 01 Nov 23
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. The 'Safer AI Summit' had predictable guest choices, with figures like Elon Musk and senior representatives of tech giants invited, focusing more on future AI developments than present issues.
  2. The summit had strict restrictions on discussion topics, limiting conversations solely to the risks and opportunities of frontier AI, ignoring broader societal impacts.
  3. Criticism was raised against the summit for being exclusive, favoring big tech corporations, and shutting out voices from trade unions, civil society groups, and organizations concerned about AI ethics.

What is Microsoft's "cheap generative AI" team doing?

TechTalks • 58 implied HN points • 31 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. Microsoft is forming a team to work on cheaper generative AI systems to reduce dependence on expensive models like LLMs.
  2. They are focusing on developing more efficient open-source models and small language models for edge devices.
  3. Efforts are being made to run generative models more efficiently by reducing parameter sizes, which can lead to cost savings in running LLMs.

How your team can use Open Source to improve productivity [Storytime Saturdays]

Technology Made Simple • 99 implied HN points • 07 May 23
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. Open source solutions can provide quick fixes to problems many consider major. They are readily available and already in use by people.
  2. Business leaders and managers often underestimate the significance of open source in technology. It's a powerful resource that can greatly benefit organizations.
  3. Utilizing open source software has become crucial in the tech industry. Knowing how to leverage it can be a game-changer for tech leaders and businesses.

✍️ New Jobs and the Twitter Files ✍️ — February 20

Inside The Newsroom • 98 implied HN points • 20 Feb 23
📰 News Tech Giants
  1. The Twitter Files contain important revelations about Twitter's past actions and decisions.
  2. The lack of media coverage around the Twitter Files may be due to the age of the revelations and selective distribution of documents.
  3. The Twitter Files have sparked discussions about freedom of speech, ethics, and the influence of tech giants like Twitter on society.

Will the New York Times ever quit Twitter?

Silver Bulletin • 325 implied HN points • 05 Oct 23
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. Nate Silver discusses mixed feelings about Twitter's impact on democracy and tribalism.
  2. Twitter's latest changes, like removing headlines from external link previews, raise questions about its future utility.
  3. The potential consequences if the New York Times, with its high editorial standards, decides to quit Twitter and influence other publishers to follow suit.

Golden: California Becomes Third State To Enact Broad Right To Repair

Fight to Repair • 39 implied HN points • 12 Oct 23
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. California became the 3rd state to enact a broad electronics right to repair law, following New York and Minnesota.
  2. The California Right to Repair Act expands repair protections for consumers, guaranteeing access to repair materials for a wide range of products and setting minimum support periods.
  3. State right to repair campaigns are gaining momentum, with more states considering similar legislation to improve repair access and combat planned obsolescence.

Microsoft to integrate Open AI products [Finance Fridays]

Technology Made Simple • 39 implied HN points • 21 Jan 23
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. Microsoft integrating Open AI products won't instantly level the playing field against Google and Meta; Microsoft has been a strong player in Machine Learning before this integration.
  2. Microsoft's business data from MS Office is a key advantage, but handling business data can be tricky; understanding business rules can make you valuable in AI development.
  3. Integration of Open AI products may increase the stickiness of MS Office for existing clients, but may not attract new customers; in the long run, consulting-based revenues might increase.

Meta will limit news access in Canada

The PhilaVerse • 123 implied HN points • 23 Jun 23
🌍 World Politics Tech Giants
  1. Meta will restrict news access in Canada due to the passage of the Canada's Online News Act.
  2. The Canada's Online News Act aims to ensure fairness in the digital news market by requiring platforms like Meta to negotiate commercial agreements and compensate news organizations.
  3. Meta and Google are opposed to the legislation and are planning to limit news access before the law takes effect.

What’s Behind the A.I. Hype Really?

The Digital Anthropologist • 19 implied HN points • 20 Apr 23
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. Artificial Intelligence is not a singular entity but a suite of tools used in various combinations. It's more of a marketing term rather than a single software thing.
  2. There are financial motivations driving the hype around AI, including the need for publicly traded companies to deliver shareholder value and tech giants positioning themselves in the market.
  3. Amidst the AI hype, there are scammers and misleading claims promising unrealistic outcomes using AI, resembling MLM schemes. It's important to be cautious and not fall for false promises.

How Culture & AI Cancelled the Metaverse

The Digital Anthropologist • 19 implied HN points • 05 Mar 23
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. Efforts to hype up the metaverse didn't match public interest or understanding. People were left skeptical due to unmet promises and overhyped expectations.
  2. Culture determines the acceptance and evolution of technology. Societal values and norms play a critical role in shaping how technologies are adopted.
  3. The lack of perceived value and widespread understanding led to the failure of the metaverse concept. Cultural relevance and practicality are key factors in determining the success of new tech ideas.

Pentagon quietly re-awarded its $9 billion Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contracts to U.S. tech giants

All-Source Intelligence Fusion • 40 implied HN points • 18 May 23
🕹 Technology Tech Giants
  1. Pentagon re-awarded $9 billion cloud contracts to U.S. tech giants like Google and Oracle.
  2. The replacement for canceled JEDI program is Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) with better risk mitigation.
  3. The contracting process has been a major obstacle with reversals in payouts and lack of transparency.