Good morning. Lean and mean today, like Dade “Zero Cool” Murphy’s alibi in Hackers.
Today’s tech news below. Have a great weekend. —Andrew Nusca
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Google takes one on the chin in its $4.7 billion EU antitrust fight
Google has been working to overturn a multibillion-dollar European Union antitrust penalty involving its Android operating system.
On Thursday, the company took a big step back.
The European Court of Justice’s advocate general recommended—in a non-binding opinion, mind you—that Google’s appeal to its €4 billion fine should be dismissed.
Wait, wait—Android, you say? Indeed. Way back in 2018, the EU fined Google for using its Android operating system market share to stymie rivals by giving its own apps unfair advantage through pre-installation deals with mobile handset makers.
(This fine is not to be confused with the other two antitrust penalties the EU imposed on Google in recent years for tipping the competitive scales via its AdSense and Shopping businesses.)
Google immediately filed an appeal that resulted in the fine’s slight reduction in 2022, but the result largely lived on.
If the court follows the advocate general’s latest opinion—and judges often, but not always, do—it would “discourage investment in open platforms” and harm those in Android’s ecosystem, Google said in a statement. —AN
OpenAI winds down Scale AI work post Meta deal
OpenAI is reportedly sunsetting its work with the startup Scale AI after the smaller company announced a multibillion-dollar deal with Meta and hired its CEO, Alexandr Wang.
OpenAI told Bloomberg that it had already been reducing its reliance on Scale prior to the Meta deal, and that the smaller company only represented a “small fraction” of its data needs alongside other partners like Mercor.
(Call it a conscious uncoupling.)
But Meta’s deal with Scale—in an acqui-hire arrangement that has been popular at the intersection of Big Tech and AI startups—stands to upend the smaller company’s business.
Reuters reported last week that Google, Scale’s largest customer, planned to cut ties with the startup, fearful that sharing any strategy or product plans would end up giving Meta an edge.
Scale also counts Adept, Amazon, Cohere, Microsoft, SAP, and xAI as customers alongside many more who aren’t in the business of directly competing with Meta’s AI offerings.
The effects on the broader AI industry remain to be seen. As OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said in Paris last week: “We don’t want to ice the ecosystem.” —AN
SpaceX Starship blows up during routine launchpad test
Elon Musk’s efforts to settle humanity on Mars took a hit late Wednesday when one of SpaceX’s Starships exploded during a routine test in Texas.
The dramatic explosion of Starship 36 in advance of what would have been its tenth flight test was caused by “a major anomaly while on a test stand” on the south Texas coast, CEO Elon Musk wrote on social media.
No one was harmed by the colossal fireball.
Starship is the name of SpaceX’s most powerful launch vehicle, a.k.a. rocket built to carry a payload. It stands 403 feet (123m) tall, can carry up to 150 metric tons, and is reusable.
(Treating Starship as disposable allows it to carry even more weight—250 metric tons—but do you really want to think that way about something that costs an estimated $90 million to build?)
It’s not the first Starship to meet a gnarly fate. A prototype rocket exploded over the Indian Ocean late last month after successfully lifting off from its Texas launchpad.
Still, getting the kinks out of Starship’s system is crucial for the future of private spaceflight. The launch vehicle is designed to carry both crew and cargo to the Moon, Mars, or low Earth orbit—particularly important for all those Starlink satellites. —AN
More tech
—Trump extends TikTok ban deadline for a third time. Legal basis? Well…
—Eutelsat raises €1.35 billion to take on Starlink.
—Apple, Meta avoid sanctions…for now. The EU says it won’t impose sanctions if the companies fail to comply with legislation by June 26.
—Samsung’s Google chip shock. Replacing Samsung's foundry with TSMC for the Tensor G5 chip was a reported “shock” to the Korean giant’s system.
—Meta tried to buy Ilya Sutskever’s startup. No deal for Safe Superintelligence (SSI), but the threat of poaching persists.
—Tesla’s robotaxi launch: Reportedly just 10 geofenced cars monitored by backup teleoperators.
—Can Australia actually ban under-16s from social media? Technologically possible? Yes, it turns out.
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