Five Things Tech: China Chip Ban, Swiss Open Source, Google Browser Cookies, Pattern Breakers, Silicon Valley embraces Kamala Harris
Five Things Tech: China Chip Ban, Swiss Open Source, Google Browser Cookies, Pattern Breakers, Silicon Valley embraces Kamala Harris
Again, what a week in Tech. Here are my five top stories for you to read!
Well, hello again! 🤠
Tech just doesn’t get boring and I’m not even talking about Crowdstrike’s shares tumbling after last week’s global IT outage or Crowdstrike’s idea to make people happy again by sending out $10 Uber Eats gift certificates which ended up being labeled fraudulent and thus causing even more harm for Crowdstrike’s reputation. And while all this is happening, the cybersecurity company Wiz backed away from a $23 billion offer by Alphabet/Google and now wants to persue an IPO. I assume that Cybersecurity now really has arrived on everyone’s agenda and people finally understand the importance of securing IT systems in an interconnected world with plenty of bad actors and lots of money on the table.
So let’s jump right into this week’s Five Things Tech!
The Limits of the China Chip Ban
“There are strong indications that the controls are expediting China’s indigenous development of its own semiconductor supply chain. As a result, U.S. actions may impede Chinese innovation and growth only in the short term, and thereafter actually speed up its technological advance. Meanwhile, chip equipment companies in the United States and in allied countries are already seeing declines in revenue as they are forced to leave the Chinese market, denying them funds to fuel research and development. China’s semiconductor industry may soon be able to catch up, potentially leaving the United States and its partners with diminished leverage over China at the same time as export controls increase the risks of economic decoupling and geopolitical fracture.” - and still I think it is a wise decision to invest in chip factories in the USA and in Europe to be less dependent on China.
Switzerland now requires all government software to be open source
This is a smart move and a huge step into the right direction, especially after the global bluescreen of death experience of last week. Also, apart from Open Source, I’d propose using web-based environments to avoid updating desktop computers all the time, especially as government employees tend to work in specialized environments all the time…
Browser cookies, as unkillable as cockroaches, won’t be leaving Google Chrome after all
For years, the adtech industry has been discussing the day after and talked about how Google’s decision to kill the good old browser cookie would basically at least kill the adtech industry. After getting too much pressure from the industry, Google now backs off and I assume that EU regulators will now have to step in again to come up with a smarter way to regulate cookies than requiring users to hit okay thousand times a day.
🔮 Living in the future
This is an interesting essay penned by
about those startups that succeed in redefining the way the industry works - he calls them pattern breakers. And he goes all the way back to Mosaic to develop his argument: “Nobody imagined that a college kid earning minimum wage in a computer lab would completely change the conversation—by developing the world’s first user-friendly internet browser.” - I personally was hooked on the web the first time I got t use Mosaic.Silicon Valley Steps Up for Native Kamala Harris in Trump Showdown
Just a week ago we go the impression that the most influential people in Tech were supporting JD Vance and Donald Trump. Then a few days ago, after Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, Elon Musk had to explain that he never ever said that he’d donate $ 45 million a month to the Trump campaign. So let’s see how the left coast and the people in tech will support Kamala Harris.
That’s all for now! Thanks for reading! If you missed last week’s Five Things Tech, you can find it here:
— Nico