Only two of these companies actually needs your location data to function, it's Uber and Lyft. There's a reasonable case telcos might also need the data for network purposes, but cell tower data isn't going to be as accurate as GPS. It's safe to say everyone else is basically collecting data for serving ads even if they say otherwise.
The opposite of dragnet surveillance, which is what flock and geofencing warrants are: data aggregated and shared without the consent of the user, is data collection minimization even when done for security or apps.
> Only two of these companies actually needs your location data to function, it's Uber and Lyft.
I disagree that they need my location data. I am perfectly capable of telling them the location where I want a pick-up, and they are perfectly capable of imposing penalties if I incorrectly report it. Just like happened with cabs in the old days, who were somehow able to pick me up without real-time location tracking.
(Not to say that you shouldn't be able to just turn on location tracking if that's what you want to do, but there's no reason that they can't function without it.)
> but cell tower data isn't going to be as accurate as GPS
Worth noting that 6G MIMO beamforming requires being able to calculate incredibly accurate location information in order to tune the signal towards your device. I don't know enough to be able to speak more in depth about this, but my guess would be that the adage of cell AP based aGPS is likely to be able to surface far more accurate device location than before.
> but cell tower data isn't going to be as accurate as GPS
My knowledge in this topic is not deep, but cell precision should be pretty accurate, because modern cell tower areas are much smaller, then to have well tuned beamformer it need to have relative precise angles between antennas and know signal travel time (distance). I think it should achieve something 30 or 15 meter precision (doing assumption that distance is accurate in 50/100ns order)
Not only this, but a person with this much wealth cannot possibly consume enough to pay their fair share in taxes. They've already used all the loopholes to avoid income taxes which aren't even progressive for billionaires as mentioned by Buffet.
I visited a pcb making factory once. Left with an appreciation for the amount of work needed for 80-layer pcbs, and knowing I would not want to deal with making them myself.
my goal was simple 2 sided pcbs, machined traces because i wanted to avoid chemical etching, but when it comes to via's chemicals are really the only way. The chemcials needed for plating via's are very toxic. my current thinking to avoid the really nasty ones is to try conductive ink (probably pretty bad too) but it maybe would work to coat the fr4 material and then allow a copper plating to take... really it's a fun process machining and laser the soldier mask.
The problem with Apple software is they stop competition where it makes them money through lock-in. Apple ARM CPUs are great, but the GPUs do leave things to be desired, and they stop competition there too on their platforms.
To show ads you need people to stay on your platform. This is especially true once ads become more intrusive or of lower quality, something the big players seem to gravitate towards to keep revenue up. Google and Meta have ways to lock in users (networking effects, the best search engine available, having your data stored there).
I am not sure if OpenAI has that. Their edge regarding models is small, their strategy currently seems to be "buy ALL the hardware so nobody else can". Users can quite easily switch to other models.
If only there were privacy laws and working antitrust laws. There could also be a law straight up banning chat uses of llms and only allow agentic uses with human review. Would solve a lot of problems for lawmakers worried about AI I think.
Client side challenges would be fine when a DDoS is actually happening, but they're basically targeting certain platforms more than others right now. Not actually helping in keeping a site secure in that case and hurting user experience.
For a while I thought what could there be to see in the petrified national forest. It's mineralized trees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrified_wood), and there were enough different minerals in the area to make different colors. Definitely worth a visit.
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