Elon Musk says Tesla will produce humanoid robots for sale by next year. Google will not phase out third party cookies after all. Switzerland mandates open-source software for its government operations and the Homeland Security committee would like to have a chat with the CEO of CrowdStrike.
All this and more on the “never say there are no stupid questions” edition of Hashtag Trending. I’m your host, Jim Love. Let’s get into it.
Elon Musk has announced that Tesla will begin producing and using humanoid robots as soon as next year. In a post on his social media platform X, Musk stated: “Tesla will have genuinely useful humanoid robots in low production for Tesla internal use next year and, hopefully, high production for other companies in 2026.”
This timeline represents a slight delay from Musk’s previous prediction that the robot, named Optimus, would be ready for use in Tesla factories by the end of this year. The company aims to create an “autonomous humanoid robot” to perform “unsafe, repetitive or boring tasks,” with a targeted price point of less than $20,000 per unit.
However, industry analysts remain cautious. Tech analyst John Smith notes: “While Musk’s vision is ambitious, his track record with timelines is mixed. We’ve seen delays with self-driving taxis and the robotaxi unveiling, so it’s wise to approach these predictions with measured expectations.”
Tesla isn’t alone in this pursuit. Other tech giants like Honda and Boston Dynamics are also developing humanoid robots, signaling a potential shift in the industry towards more advanced automation.
This announcement comes at a time when Tesla is facing slowing demand for electric vehicles, suggesting a strategic pivot towards AI, autonomous driving, and robotics. As the tech world watches closely, the success of Optimus could have far-reaching implications for the future of work and automation.
Sources include: BBC
In a surprising reversal, Google has announced it will no longer phase out support for third-party cookies in its Chrome browser. This decision marks a significant shift in the company’s five-year effort to build a privacy-preserving ad-tech stack, known as the Privacy Sandbox.
Third party cookies, for those who may not know, are text snippets which are placed in your browser. Initially, they were used for convenience – they allowed the web-sites you were visiting to remember who you were and what you had visited. But someone got the idea that these could be used to target you with advertising based on where you had visited. And Google made a fortune from the industry that developed around that. And although cookies are all cookies, the use of cookies in this manner is referred to as “third party cookies.”
Which explains why Apple’s Safari and Firefox have already blocked third party cookies by default. They don’t make money from them the way Google has.
Whether it was in response to this competition, or consumer pressure, or the growing number of ad blockers that were emerging, for whatever reason, Google had promised to eliminate third party cookies several years ago.
But every time Google came up with a replacement for these cookies it was regarded as worse than the original and often the criticism was that it gave Google an even bigger control of the advertising market.
In response to that criticism, Google appears not to have exactly “given up” but this time it’s solution will allow users to choose to use it. They call it the “Privacy Sandbox.” A lot of others are calling it a way that Google can maintain its control of the market.
Anthony Chavez, VP of Google’s Privacy Sandbox, stated: “We are proposing an updated approach that elevates user choice. Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing.”
This move has drawn mixed reactions from industry players and privacy advocates. James Rosewell, co-founder of Movement for an Open Web, sees it as “a clear admission by Google that their plan to enclose the Open Web has failed.”
On the other hand, Lena Cohen from the Electronic Frontier Foundation expressed disappointment: “This is an extremely disappointing decision that really just highlights Google’s commitment to their own profits over users’ privacy.”
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, which had been investigating Google’s Privacy Sandbox, has invited comments on this new approach by August 12.
As the debate continues, Chrome users are left to navigate between Google’s Privacy Sandbox and the traditional world of third-party cookies – neither of them, apparently, what users really want.
But – and I’m sorry but I have to say – that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Source: The Register
Switzerland has taken a bold step in government transparency with its new “Federal Law on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfilment of Governmental Tasks,” or EMBAG. This law mandates that public sector bodies must disclose the source code of software developed by or for them, unless prevented by third-party rights or security concerns.
Professor Dr. Matthias Stürmer, a key advocate for this change, explains: “Switzerland’s new ‘public money public code’ law is a great opportunity for government, the IT industry and society. All stakeholders benefit from this new regulation.”
The law aims to reduce dependency on proprietary software, enhance digital transparency, and promote innovation. It allows public bodies to offer additional services related to the software, as long as they align with public tasks and are priced to cover costs.
Switzerland is not the first European government to mandate open-source software. We covered a story a while ago about a German state that was moving 30,000 government PC’s from Windows to Linux and switching from Microsoft Office to the open source LibreOffice and adopting a host of other open source alternatives. They even announced that they were looking towards an open-source alternative to Microsoft Active Directory.
We have not checked back on this story to see if they’ve been successful.
But now Switzerland is getting on board and while the journey to this legislation faced initial resistance, persistent advocacy led to its passage.
As Switzerland implements this groundbreaking approach, it may serve as a model for other countries considering similar measures to boost digital sovereignty and public sector collaboration.
Don’t short your Microsoft stock just yet, even though these open source and Linux operations were not part of the recent world-wide disaster that shut down Windows computers.
Sources include: Open Source Observatory
And I’m sure they were expecting the call.
CEO George Kurtz has been summoned to testify before the US House Committee on Homeland Security.
Committee Chairman Mark E Green stated: “We cannot ignore the magnitude of this incident, which some have claimed is the largest IT outage in history.”
The full impact of the outages is still being assessed, with disruptions reported in airports, financial services and even things like emergency call centers and surgical procedures.
While relieved it wasn’t a cyberattack, the committee warned about the national security risks of network dependency. They emphasized that hostile nations are closely watching the US response.
CrowdStrike CEO Kurtz has committed to full transparency, stating on social media: “You have my commitment to provide full transparency on how this occurred and the steps we’re taking to prevent anything like this from happening again.”
As CrowdStrike held a 14.7% market share in endpoint protection last year, it’s taken a big hit on its stock and while there have not yet been stories of customer defections – it may be too early – their future sales will certainly take a hit of some sort, but the full impact of that will take some time to assess.
Let’s put it this way, the old adage that any publicity is good publicity doesn’t work if you are a security vendor.
Sources include: The Register
And that’s our show for today. You can find show notes at our news site technewsday.com or .ca take you pick.
Hashtag Trending is on summer hours but we will have a Thursday show and our weekend edition will be released early on Friday.
Thanks for listening. I’m your host Jim Love, have a Wonderful Wednesday.
