Category: Digital – AI & Apps

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StatCounter: Bing ended 2023 with 3.4% global search market share, up less than one percentage point after ChatGPT

— Search engine has steadily increased usage but remains tiny

— Google meanwhile is racing to add its own AI enhancements

 

Jackie Davalos / Bloomberg:

 

 

When Microsoft Corp. announced it was baking ChatGPT into its Bing search engine last February, bullish analysts declared the move an “iPhone moment” that could upend the search market and chip away at Google’s dominance.

“The entire search category is now going through a sea change,” Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said at the time. “That opportunity comes very few times.”

Almost a year later, the sea has yet to change.

The new Bing — powered by OpenAI’s generative AI technology — dazzled internet users with conversational replies to queries asked in a natural way. But Microsoft’s search engine ended 2023 with just 3.4% of the global search market, according to data analytics firm StatCounter, up less than 1 percentage point since the ChatGPT announcement. (Google had 91.6%, Yandex 1.6%, and Yahoo 1%).

Google still dominates

Bing’s AI features have not shaken Google’s hold on the global search market

Source: StatCounter
Note: Data as of 12/31/2023. Other encompasses smaller search engines including Baidu and DuckDuckGo.

Bing has long struggled for relevance and attracted more mockery than recognition over the years as a serious alternative to Google. Multiple rebrandings and redesigns since its 2009 debut did little to boost Bing’s popularity. A month before Microsoft infused the search engine with generative AI, people were spending 33% less time using it than they had 12 months earlier, according to SensorTower.

The ChatGPT reboot at least helped reverse those declines. In the second quarter of 2023, US monthly active users more than doubled year over year to 3.1 million, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence analysis of SensorTower mobile app data. Overall, users were spending 84% more time on the search engine, the data show. By year-end, Bing’s monthly active users had increased steadily to 4.4 million, according to SensorTower.

To build on the momentum, Microsoft has been adding more AI tools to Bing. In October, the company integrated the latest version of OpenAI’s image-generating model, DALL-E 3. Visitors can use it to create realistic-looking images with simple text prompts.

The offering does nothing to enhance Bing’s search abilities. But its addition generated a spike in usage, according to Jordi Ribas, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of search and AI.

“We noticed an increase in usage by 10 times and that took us by surprise because if you think about it, DALL-E 2 was already quite good,” he said in an interview. “It really made a difference in the engagement and the users that came to our product.”

Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s consumer chief marketing officer, declined to specify how many active users Bing has.

“Look, it’s still early days and new behaviors are being built,” he said. “We’re still learning new things, but have millions and millions of people using the new tools.”

Even as the Bing team adds crowd-pleasers, Google has been racing to develop its own AI tools. In May, it launched an experimental version of its search engine called the “search generative experience,” which delivers conversational responses atop the familiar list of links. Dubbed SGE for short, it’s still not widely available. However, Google plans to embed its most powerful large language model, Gemini, into SGE sometime this year.

The Alphabet Inc. division also retains considerable advantages. It has more than 90% of the market and is the default search engine on Apple Inc. hardware, including iPhones, giving Google crucial critical mass. The more people who use it, the more the search engine knows and the more Google can use that data to deliver and rank results in a way people find useful.

Bing’s ChatGPT boost

More people are using the search engine since it added generative AI features

Source: SensorTower

The retooling of search by both technology giants reflects a shared conviction that generative AI will fundamentally change the way people seek and receive answers online. For Microsoft, the shift is an opportunity to propel Bing forward. But the incremental gains so far make clear that buzzy AI features alone probably won’t transform it into a formidable search player.

“We are at the gold rush moment when it comes to AI and search,” said Shane Greenstein, an economist and professor at Harvard Business School, who has studied the commercialization of the internet. “At the moment, I doubt AI will move the needle because, in search, you need a flywheel: the more searches you have, the better answers are. Google is the only firm who has this dynamic well-established.”

 

 

 

— Techmeme

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Apple’s commissions from third-party iOS apps seemingly confrontational stance at odds with regulatory pressure

As of Thursday, developers can begin exercising their court-established right to tell US customers about better prices on the web. These awful Apple-mandated confusion screens are over and done forever.

 

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

 

 

—  That take didn’t last long.

 

Sweeney, on Wednesday at 7 p.m., after Apple released the details of its intended compliance with the anti-steering (anti-anti-steering?) mandate from the Epic v. Apple case:

 

A quick summary of glaring problems we’ve found so far:

  1. Apple has introduced an anticompetitive new 27% tax on web purchases. Apple has never done this before, and it kills price competition. Developers can’t offer digital items more cheaply on the web after paying a third-party payment processor 3-6% and paying this new 27% Apple Tax.

[Sweeney’s points 2–4, complaining about Apple’s stringent design, presentation, and privacy demands regarding external links, omitted.]

 

Epic will contest Apple’s bad-faith compliance plan in District Court.

 

Sweeney’s description makes it sound as though Apple is demanding its commission from all web sales for apps and services that have an iOS app. They’re not. They’re only demanding the commission from web sales that occur within 7 days of a user tapping through to the web from the new External Purchase Links entitlement in an app. Any app or service that already sells over the web, without paying a cent to Apple, can continue to do so in exactly the same way.

 

 

Also, Apple has done this before: what they announced yesterday is almost exactly in line with their compliance with Netherlands regulations pertaining to dating apps in 2022.

 

Before yesterday:

  • iOS app developers could sell digital content and subscriptions over the web, without paying Apple any commission.
  • iOS apps outside the “reader” category could not link to, nor even tell users about, those web purchases from within their apps.

After yesterday:

  • Apps that wish to link to — or, I think, even inform users about — web purchasing options from within their iOS apps must (a) still offer Apple’s IAP for those items; (b) pay Apple its adjusted 27/12 percent commissions on web sales that come from inside iOS apps; (c) send Apple sales data monthly and submit to audits of their sales; and (d) follow Apple’s stringent design edicts for these in-app links to the web.
  • Apps that do not link out to their web stores from within their iOS apps using Apple’s new External Purchase Links entitlement can continue whatever they were doing before yesterday. For apps that do nothing new, Apple is collecting nothing new.

 

I’m only surprised that Sweeney was seemingly surprised by any of this. He genuinely seemed to think that Apple not only would, but had to allow links from within apps to the web for purchases without collecting any commission on those sales, and that developers could present those links however they chose.

 

I’m glad that Sweeney and Epic plan to contest this, because I’m genuinely curious whether Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers sees Apple’s solution as complying with her injunction against their prior anti-steering rules. But I think it does comply.

 

To be clear, I think Apple should allow apps other than games to just tell users they can pay/buy/subscribe/whatever on the web, without any commission. That the rules which have applied only to “reader” apps since early 2022 should be extended to all apps other than games, perhaps alongside a requirement (which doesn’t apply to “reader” apps) that apps taking advantage of this also offer in-app purchasing.

 

I’d draw an exception for games — an exception that surely Sweeney would disagree with completely, given that he’s in the games business — because games are different, and hefty un-circumventable revenue commissions to platform owners are clearly standard for the video game industry. The iPhone and iPad are not PCs; they’re consoles for games and apps.

 

But I’m not sure at all that Apple is doing anything contrary to the law. Sweeney (and other critics of Apple’s stewardship of iOS as a tightly controlled console) believe Apple both shouldn’t and legally can’t comply with the anti-steering injunction this way. I only believe Apple shouldn’t, not that they legally can’t.

 

Most critics of Apple’s control over all iOS software are seemingly of the view that iPhones and iPads should, on principle, be largely like the Mac, where the App Store is an option, not the only game in town for software distribution. Personally, I am on the record wishing that Apple would allow some sort of “expert” or “developer” mode — chock full of warnings, perhaps even requiring a developer account to enable — that would basically offer the same options for installing third-party software on iOS as there are on the Mac. That’s me, personally, an expert user. But even setting aside every penny of revenue generated by the App Store,1 I see and understand many of the reasons why Apple wouldn’t want to do this. There are a lot of Mac users whose Macs are overrun by adware and other scammy software. I’m not talking about viruses or malware, even — but apps that just abuse the largely free-for-all nature of the Mac platform.

 

Basically, there’s an argument that iOS devices should be more like traditional PCs (including the Mac), on ethical or moral grounds. The “it’s my device, I should decide and control what software runs on it” argument. I get it. But I also get that most consumers’ Windows PCs, and many Macs,2 are riddled with bad software (privacy invasive, resource hogging, and all sorts of anti-user shenanigans you’d never think of) that App Store policies forbid. App Store review is far from perfect — I mean come on, that should go without saying — but it is undeniable that adversarial software is not a problem for any typical users on iOS. Nothing you install from the App Store can damage your iPhone or iPad experience. Nothing you install from the App Store is difficult to uninstall if you don’t like it. The same is true of dedicated game consoles like Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox — and to a lesser degree (because Google’s Play Store review seems comparatively lax) for Android.

 

But the cynical take is that it’s all about the money for Apple. Maybe the cynics are right! Let’s just concede that they are, and that Apple will only make decisions here that benefit its bottom line. My argument remains that Apple should not be pursuing this plan for complying with the anti-steering injunction by collecting commissions from web sales that initiate in-app. Whatever revenue Apple would lose to non-commissioned web sales (for non-games) is not worth the hit they are taking to the company’s brand and reputation — this move reeks of greed and avarice — nor the increased ire and scrutiny of regulators and legislators on the “anti-Big-Tech” hunt.

 

Apple should have been looking for ways to lessen regulatory and legislative pressure over the past few years, and in today’s climate that’s more true than ever. But instead, their stance has seemingly been “Bring it on.” Confrontational, not conciliatory, conceding not an inch. Rather than take a sure win with most of what they could want, Apple is seemingly hell-bent on trying to keep everything. To win in chess all you need is to capture your opponent’s king. Apple seemingly wants to capture every last piece on the board — even while playing in a tournament where the referees (regulators) are known to look askance at blatant poor sportsmanship (greed).

 

Apple’s calculus should be to balance its natural desire to book large amounts of revenue from the App Store with policies that to some degree placate, rather than antagonize, regulators and legislators. No matter what the sport, no matter what the letter of the rulebook says, it’s never a good idea to piss off the refs.

 

 

    1. That’s a metric buttload of pennies to set aside, to be sure. ↩︎
  2. iOS App Store policy critics often point to the Mac as all the evidence they need that Apple could open up software distribution on iOS with no ill effects to users. I wrote about this back in 2021, in a piece titled “Annotating Apple’s Anti-Sideloading White Paper”. Quoting from that column, which begins with a quote from Apple’s white paper:

    Page 9:

    iPhone is used every day by over a billion people — for banking, to manage health data, and to take pictures of their families. This large user base would make an appealing and lucrative target for cybercriminals and scammers, and allowing sideloading would spur a flood of new investment into attacks on iPhone, well beyond the scale of attacks on other platforms like Mac.

     

    Here Apple dances around the elephant in the room — the question of why iOS shouldn’t just work like the Mac with regard to non-App Store software. Apple’s deft argument is that there are far fewer Macs than iOS devices, making the Mac a less enticing target for scammers and crooks (including privacy crooks). That’s more or less the argument Windows proponents used to explain the profound prevalence of malware on Windows compared to the Mac back in the day, whilst Apple (and Mac proponents) argued otherwise, that the Mac actually was far more secure at a technical level.

     

    But the truth Apple won’t come out and say is that it’s both. The Mac was more secure by design, but also a far less enticing target because of how many more users were (and still are) on Windows. And, today, iOS is more secure and private than the Mac. That’s the nature of the Mac as a full PC platform.

     

    I’ll admit it: if Mac-style sideloading were added to iOS, I’d enable it, for the same reason I enable installing apps from outside the App Store on my Mac: I trust myself to only install trustworthy software. But it doesn’t make me a hypocrite to say that I think it would be worse for the platform as a whole.

     

    The Mac is fundamentally designed for users who are at least somewhat technically savvy, but tries its best to keep non-savvy users from doing things they shouldn’t. But you can always hurt yourself, sometimes badly, with any true power tool. The iPhone is the converse: designed first and foremost for the non-savvy user, and tries to accommodate power users as best it can within the limits of that primary directive.

     

 

— Techmeme

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Vicarius remediation service for supply-chain attacks, raised a $30M Series B led by Bright Pixel, for total funding of $57M

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

 

 

—  If the pitches reaching my inbox are any indication, one of the hot new things in generative AI is “copilots” for cybersecurity.

Microsoft has one. Google, too. So does Vicarius, the vulnerability remediation platform — recently, it launched a text-generating AI tool, vuln_GPT, that helps write system breach detection and remediation scripts.

Perhaps it’s Vicarius’ trend following that caught investors’ attention — as well as (I’d wager to guess) the startup’s 5x year-over-year growth. Vicarius co-founder and CEO Michael Assraf tells me that the company’s customer base recently eclipsed 400 brands, including PepsiCo, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Equinix.

Whatever put Vicarius on backers’ radars, the company recently closed a $30 million Series B round led by Bright Pixel Capital, with participation from AllegisCyber Capital, AlleyCorp and Strait Capital, Vicarius announced today. The round, at double Vicarius’ previous valuation — a valuation Assraf declined to disclose, unfortunately — brings Vicarius’ total raised to ~$56.7 million, the bulk of which Assraf says is being put toward advancing Vicarius’ product roadmap and doubling the size of its 43-person team.

 

“Vicarius automates much of the discovery, prioritization and remediation workload plaguing security and IT teams,” Assraf said. “An early adopter of product-led growth, Vicarius’s self-service model changes the cybersecurity solution buyer’s paradigm by letting customers transparently test and find value … before purchasing.”

 

Vicarius was founded several years ago by Assraf, Yossi Ze’evi and Roi Cohen, who noticed — at least the way Assraf tells it — that attackers were reusing the same “building” blocks to carry out cyberattacks.

 

“Those building blocks are third-party and operating system APIs provided by software and operating system-compiled libraries,” Assraf said. “The main idea [with Vicarius] was to build an intelligent permission manager for system-level APIs.”

 

Today, Vicarius analyzes apps for vulnerabilities and alerts customers to these vulnerabilities. When a patch isn’t available, Vicarius applies what Assraf calls “in-memory protection,” which ostensibly secures the app without the need for a software upgrade (color me a bit skeptical, though).

Vicarius also offers access to a community of security vulnerability researchers where researchers can share remediation and detection scripts and get rewarded for it with a virtual currency, as well as a community dataset that Vicarius uses to train the aforementioned vuln_GPT. Vuln_GPT, speaking of, doesn’t run completely unsupervised — Assraf says that all AI-generated scripts are “validated” before being pushed to Vicarius’ customers. (Customers can give feedback on the scripts from a module).

 

“We wish to emphasize that Vicarius is looking to lead AI-based vulnerability remediation at any stage,” Assraf said, “from detection to prioritization to proactive remediation.”

 

Vicarius is ambitious, to be sure, with plans to allow security researchers in its community to spend their currency on products, launch educational courses and integrate the Vicarius platform with existing ticketing platforms like ServiceNow and Jira. The startup also aims to grow into new markets, in particular Asia Pacific, while expanding into markets in which it currently does business, including North America and Europe.

 

“For years, enterprises have been struggling with deploying vulnerability management processes that require too many tools and create too many alerts and too much work for overburdened security teams,” Assraf said. “While most security processes advanced one or two generations, the vulnerability remediation cycle management lagged, exposing businesses to cyber risk. As a result, customers are looking for a single platform that consolidates, personalizes and scales the vulnerability remediation process.”

 

 

 

— Techmeme

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The EU Council, Parliament reach a provisional deal on Anti-Money Laundering for crypto companies

—  Crypto firms have to do checks on transactions of 1,000 euro or more, and the framework adds measures to mitigate risks in transfers with self-hosted wallets

 

 

Sandali Handagama / CoinDesk:

 

 

Policymakers in the European Union on Wednesday reached a provisional deal on parts of a comprehensive regulatory package to combat money laundering that will force all crypto firms to run due diligence on their customers.

 

The Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR) is a broad-stroke effort to combat sanctions evasion and money laundering. It includes the creation of a single rulebook and sets up a supervisory authority that will also have purview over the crypto sector.

 

The European Parliament and Council (which gathers finance ministers from the bloc’s 27 member states) have agreed to measures, including for crypto firms to apply “customer due diligence measures when carrying out transactions amounting to €1,000 ($1,090) or more.”

 

The deal also adds measures to mitigate risks in relation to transactions with self-hosted wallets, Wednesday’s announcement said.

 

The EU last year finalized specific AML checks on crypto fund-transfers alongside its landmark Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation. In December, the European Parliament and Council agreed on setting up the AML supervisory authority. Wednesday’s agreement specifically concerned the EU’s sixth money-laundering directive and the rulebook as part of the AMLR.

 

The package may have got tougher as it went through the EU’s complex legislative process in light of U.S. sanctions against crypto anonymizing tool Tornado Cash, as well as fears that crypto was being used to evade sanctions by Russia and even Hamas. A lawmaker leading the discussions on the package in Parliament last year assured the measures won’t seek to outlaw privacy-enhancing crypto.

 

Industry body, the EU Crypto Initiative, urged lawmakers in May 2023 to remove planned restrictions on privacy-preservation tools or, failing that, to include a “clear delineation between prohibited anonymous high-risk accounts and high-risk anonymizing instruments.”

 

“This agreement is part and parcel of the EU’s new anti-money laundering system. It will improve the way national systems against money laundering and terrorist financing are organized and work together. This will ensure that fraudsters, organized crime and terrorists will have no space left for legitimizing their proceeds through the financial system,” Belgian Minister of Finance, Vincent Van Peteghem, said in a press statement.

 

 

 

— Techmeme

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Phibro Animal Health Corporation to host webcast and conference call on second quarter results

TEANECK, N.J. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — Phibro Animal Health Corporation (Nasdaq: PAHC) expects to announce its second quarter financial results on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024, after the market closes. Phibro management will host a conference call and webcast on Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024, at 9 a.m. ET.

 

Interested parties are invited to listen to the conference call and view the presentation slides by visiting https://investors.pahc.com. The discussion will also be available by dialing +1 (888) 330-2022 in the U.S. and Canada, or +1 (365) 977-0051 for international callers. Provide the conference ID 3927884.

 

A replay of the webcast will be available approximately two hours after the conclusion of the live event. To access the webcast recording, visit https://investors.pahc.com.

 

About Phibro Animal Health Corporation

Phibro Animal Health Corporation is a leading global diversified animal health and mineral nutrition company. We strive to be a trusted partner with livestock producers, farmers, veterinarians, and consumers who raise or care for farm and companion animals by providing solutions to help them maintain and enhance the health of their animals. For further information, please visit www.pahc.com.

 

Our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission are available online at www.sec.gov, www.pahc.com or on request from the company.

Contacts

Richard Johnson

Chief Financial Officer, Phibro Animal Health Corporation

+1-201-329-7300

investor.relations@pahc.com

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Church & Dwight to webcast the 2024 Analyst Day and full year 2023 earnings results on Feb. 2

EWING, N.J. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (NYSE: CHD) will host a webcast from the Church & Dwight 2024 Analyst Day to discuss fourth quarter and year end 2023 earnings results on Feb. 2, 2024, at 12:00 p.m. ET.

 

Media and investors may access the live webcast at https://investor.churchdwight.com/ beginning at 12:00 p.m. ET. The webcast will also be available for replay.

 

Church & Dwight Co., Inc., founded in 1846, is the leading U.S. producer of sodium bicarbonate, popularly known as baking soda. The Company manufactures and markets a wide range of personal care, household, and specialty products under recognized brand names such as ARM & HAMMER®, TROJAN®, OXICLEAN®, SPINBRUSH®, FIRST RESPONSE®, NAIR®, ORAJEL®, XTRA®, L’IL CRITTERS® and VITAFUSION®, BATISTE®, WATERPIK®, ZICAM®, THERABREATH®, and HERO MIGHTY PATCH®. These 14 key brands represent approximately 85% of the Company’s product sales. For more information, visit the Company’s website.

Contacts

Rick Dierker

609-806-1900

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CitiusTech named a Leader and a Star Performer in Everest Group’s Payer Digital Services PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2023

PRINCETON, N.J. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — #AI—CitiusTech, a leading provider of healthcare technology services, solutions, and platforms, announced that it has been positioned as a Leader and a Star Performer in the Everest Group’s Payer Digital Services PEAK Matrix® Assessment for 2023.

 

 

The report analyzed 32 leading healthcare IT service providers on capabilities in healthcare payer digital services and market impact. It focused on payer digital services market size and growth, digital services themes for healthcare payers, assessment of the service providers on several capabilities and market success-related dimensions, and Everest Group’s independent remarks on service providers.

 

“It is with great pride that we announce our designation as both a Leader and a Star Performer within the Everest Group’s Healthcare Payer Digital Services PEAK Matrix. Healthcare Payers currently navigate a myriad of substantial challenges, ranging from traditional issues such as labor intensity, isolated solutions, accrued technological deficits, to modern challenges such as Medicare Advantage business models, vertical integration, interoperability, value-based care, and AI, among others. This accolade underscores our continued disruption in the Payer Digital Services sector over the last six years since forming the unit and affirms our commitment to enhancing value to our clients in these multi-faceted domains,” said Shyam Karunakaran, EVP – Health Plans, CitiusTech.

 

“With the healthcare industry undergoing significant changes, payers are adopting digital technologies such as AI, cloud, and analytics to enhance their business outcomes,” stated Priya Sahni, Practice Director, Everest Group. “With its comprehensive range of offerings throughout the value chain, CitiusTech has empowered its clients to achieve operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The company’s profound domain expertise, high-quality talent pool, and strategic acquisitions and partnerships (e.g., OutSystems, Databricks) aimed at enhancing its capabilities have led to its positioning as a Leader and a Star Performer in Everest Group’s Healthcare Payer Digital Services PEAK Matrix® Assessment for 2023.”

 

As per the report, CitiusTech has demonstrated considerable year-on-year (YoY) growth in payer digital services revenue, driven by engagements with mid-sized and large payer accounts. Its domain and technical expertise, and innovative price constructs have led to high client satisfaction. The report also notes that CitiusTech has made significant investments to augment its digital capabilities in the areas of big data and cloud; and launched a cloud platform, Perform+ Datascale, to increase interoperability and streaming of data exchanges. The company’s other proprietary solutions include PERFORM+ Contracts, PERFORM+ Stars, PERFORM+ Regulatory, MRFEngine, and RealSight.

 

Everest Group’s Payer Digital Services PEAK Matrix® assessment report notes that providers are forging industry-specific partnerships and acquiring relevant companies to support enterprises on their digital transformation journeys. This has driven the need for research and market intelligence on demand and supply trends in healthcare payer digital services. Everest Group’s healthcare ITS research program addresses this market need by analyzing demand themes and service provider capabilities in healthcare payer digital services.

 

More recently, CitiusTech has a generative AI Centre of Excellence that helps healthcare clients adopt and scale gen AI and solve complex problems of service delivery, operations, and customer business transformation for health plans. The company’s internal crowd-sourced initiative, Innovation for Accelerated Growth (IAG 2.0) aims at nurturing innovation across themes such as predictive analytics, population health, generative AI, interoperability, quality management and IoT. The strategic acquisition of industry-leading, healthcare-focused Salesforce services and solutions company, Wilco Source, expands CitiusTech’s Salesforce offerings in the areas of member experience, care management, digital front door, and patient services.

 

To know more about CitiusTech’s Payer Digital Services offerings, please visit Health Plans.

 

A complimentary custom copy of the report can be found here.

 

About CitiusTech

CitiusTech is a leading provider of digital technology and consulting services to payer, provider, medical technology, and life sciences companies. With over 8,500 healthcare technology professionals worldwide, CitiusTech powers healthcare digital innovation, business transformation and industry-wide convergence for over 140 organizations, through next-generation technologies, solutions, and products. Key focus areas include healthcare interoperability, secure data management, quality and performance analytics, real world data, clinical research optimization, virtual trials, value-based care, patient experience, medical imaging, connected health, payer-provider convergence, care coordination and population health management. CitiusTech’s cutting-edge technology expertise, deep healthcare domain expertise and a strong focus on digital transformation enables healthcare and life sciences companies to reinvent themselves to deliver better outcomes, accelerate growth, drive efficiencies, and ultimately make a meaningful impact to patients. Follow CitiusTech on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Contacts

Saviera Barretto Saviera.Barretto@citiustech.com

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Popular Israeli series ‘Shtisel’ changes US home to Amazon Prime Video

“Shtisel,” the popular series following the lives of a tight-knit ultra-Orthodox family in Jerusalem, is changing its U.S. home.

 

Previously available on Netflix, all three seasons of “Shtisel” have been acquired by Amazon Prime Video from Yes Studios.

 

 

The award-winning drama, which helped launch the international careers of Shira Haas “(Unorthodox)” and Michael Aloni “(Beauty Queen of Jerusalem),” will begin its rollout on Prime Video this month with Season 1 debuting on Jan. 16.

 

The deal comes on the heels of “Shtisel” launching last month on global Israeli content platform Izzy, as well as the Jewish storytelling platform ChaiFlicks for the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.

 

Created and written by Ori Elon and Yehonatan Indursky, the series became a global phenomenon when it first aired on Netflix, offering unique insights into Haredi society. “Shtisel” is produced by Abot Hameiri Barkai for Yes TV. The series won 17 Israeli Academy Awards, including best drama series, script, actor (twice) and actress.

 

“With its endearing characters and compelling look into everyday life in an ultra-orthodox community, ‘Shtisel’ has quickly become an addictive and binge-worthy series wherever it has been made available,” said Sharon Levi, Yes Studios’ managing director.

 

“Its reputation and huge word-of-mouth support means that it is in constant demand, so we are excited to now introduce the Shtisel family to a whole new audience through this latest partnership with Amazon, as well as the recent deals with Izzy and ChaiFlicks.”

 

In related news, Yes Studios recently struck a new deal with Izzy for three more titles. The drama “Just for Today,” which won the special jury prize at Series Mania in 2019, launched on Izzy Dec. 28; and the romantic comedy “Who Died?” and Season 1 of “The Chef” are slated to drop later this month. Another show on Yes Studios’ slate, “Fire Dance,” the TV series debut of Rama Burshtein-Shai, will debut on ChaiFlicks in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand in early 2024.

 

 

 

— Variety (EXCLUSIVE) 

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Beijing’s judicial bureau says state-backed institution cracks Apple’s AirDrop to identify message senders,  police finds multiple suspects

—  Beijing agency claims to have found way to identify senders 

— Declaration follows efforts to crack down on sensitive content

 

Bloomberg:

 

A Chinese state-backed institution has devised a way to identify users who send messages via Apple Inc.’s popular AirDrop feature, Beijing’s government claims, as part of broader efforts to root out undesirable content.

 

The Beijing institute developed the technique to crack an iPhone’s encrypted device log to identify the numbers and emails of senders who share AirDrop content, the city’s judicial bureau said in an online post. Police have identified multiple suspects via that method, the agency said, without disclosing if anyone was arrested.

 

“It improves the efficiency and accuracy of case-solving and prevents the spread of inappropriate remarks as well as potential bad influences,” the bureau said.

 

The declaration again drew attention to an iPhone feature that activists around the world have employed to spread their message. Requiring just a nearby bluetooth connection, it was widely used by protesters to share pro-democracy slogans during 2019 protests in Hong Kong. An Apple representative didn’t respond to requests for comment.

 

Hailed by the article as a “technological breakthrough,” the method could supplement measures intended to eradicate information China deems unhealthy. It also adds more uncertainty to Apple’s operations in a country where it already grapples with severe constraints on content, including on Apple TV and Books.

 

AirDrop allows the quick exchange of files like images, documents or videos between Apple devices. The company has limited the feature on Chinese iPhones since 2022, after the service was used by protesters to spread images to fellow device owners.

 

The American electronics leader also faces mounting sales pressure, after a growing number of state-backed agencies banned the use of foreign devices at work.

 

 

 

— With assistance from John Liu and Yuan Gao

 

— Techmeme

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Michael Jackson biopic set for 2025 release

The Antoine Fuqua-directed film stars the King of Pop’s nephew Jaafar Jackson

 

Michael Jackson will be back on the big screen in 2025 with “Michael,” a biopic directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring the late King of Pop’s nephew Jaafar Jackson.

 

 

Lionsgate, which is releasing the movie domestically, while Universal is handling overseas distribution, announced that the film will begin production on Jan. 22.

 

Produced by “Bohemian Rhapsody’s” Graham King and scripted by John Logan, the official synopsis for the film reads: “‘Michael’ will bring audiences a riveting and honest portrayal of the brilliant yet complicated man who became the King of Pop. The film presents his triumphs and tragedies on an epic, cinematic scale — from his human side and personal struggles to his undeniable creative genius, exemplified by his most iconic performances. As never before, audiences will experience an inside look into one of the most influential, trailblazing artists the world has ever known.”

 

John Branca and John McClain, the co-executors of Michael Jackson‘s estate, will also produce the film, which may influence the way that “Michael” depicts the multiple allegations of child sexual abuse that were brought against the singer during his career and following his death. Jackson has denied allegations of child sexual abuse and he was tried — and found not guilty — of child molestation in 2003. Jackson died in 2009 at the age of 50 and always maintained his innocence.

 

Fuqua is coming off helming his third “Equalizer” entry starring Denzel Washington for Sony Pictures. His prior feature, the Will Smith slavery drama “Emancipation,” was released by Apple in 2022.

 

“Michael” is slotting into the date previously held by “The Exorcist: Deceiver,” which was removed from Universal’s upcoming theatrical schedule along with news that director David Gordon Green had exited the project. The “Exorcist” sequel was originally slated for Apr. 18, 2025, but has been put on hold indefinitely as Universal and Blumhouse begin the search for a new director.

 

 

— Variety