Number 13. Sorry for the delay! We’ve been very busy here at Can Factory… Let’s have a look at some of the biggest stories to come out over the past couple of weeks, including the US Department of Justice suing Google, the Raspberry Pi 400 and the Apple ‘One More Thing’ event.
Google Monopoly
A little bit late on this one… We were at the vanguard when we started writing this article! Anyway, the US Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against Google for antitrust violations, alleging that “Google uses anticompetitive tactics to preserve a monopoly for its flagship search engine and related advertising business.” The anticompetitive practices that the DoJ is referring to include using billions of dollars gained from Google’s advertising business paying mobile phone manufacturers, browsers and carriers to maintain Google as their default search engine, stifling competition and other search engines.
Two similar lawsuits have been filed historically by the DoJ against tech companies with antitrust actions against AT&T in 1974 and Microsoft in 1998. The EU fined Google $5.1 billion over similar allegations 2 years ago. Tech blog Protocol posits “The antitrust case against IBM in 1975 gave Microsoft room to flourish; the 1984 AT&T antitrust case opened new opportunities in the cellular market; and the 1990s case against Microsoft has been credited with enabling the rise of Google and Facebook.”
You can read the official statement by the Department of Justice here.
Raspberry Pi 400
We. LOVE. This. Raspberry Pi have created a personal computer, that fits inside of a keyboard. The original Raspberry Pi may have come across as a bit daunting to those not in the know. The new packaging should hopefully make it much more approachable to those that were interested before, but may have been put off by the look of the device.
Featuring a quad-core 64-bit processor, 4GB of RAM, wireless networking, dual-display output, and 4K video playback, as well as a 40-pin GPIO header. Currently available in 5 languages, this looks like the perfect stocking filler for any budding techies in your family!
In an interview with The Verge, Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton said “The dream always with Raspberry Pi is to lure people into buying a PC and then trick them into becoming computer programmers, that’s what happened to me, I was lured into buying a BBC Micro and then suddenly I became a software engineer.” A noble cause we say!
Apple ‘One More Thing’ Event
On the 10th of November Apple held their ‘One More Thing’ event, a follow up to the iPhone announcement event earlier in the year. It did not disappoint! The rumours of Apple launching the first MacBook’s with Apple silicon inside turned out to be true, as they launched both a new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air with Apple M1 chips inside.
The specs are pretty impressive: 8-core CPU (4 high-performance, 4 high-efficiency), up to 8-core GPU, 16 billion transistors, Apple’s Secure Enclave system built in and Thunderbolt/USB 4 support.
What does that actually mean to the you? It means the new devices are not only faster, but they are cheaper too! The secure enclave system is a valued addition too, making it even harder for hackers to decrypt sensitive information without physical access to the device. Other announcements included the release of Apple’s latest OS update Big Sur, version 11, on the 12th of November as well as a new Mac Mini. Time for an upgrade?
Check out other articles in the Can Factory blog.
