I have been having a ball in Asheville, North Carolina. I’ve eaten well, I’ve enjoyed the scenery, and Asheville is a very cool town. I’m in the hood with Mark Starling, Seth, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week, the Supreme Court literally saved the software development world with a monumental ruling (if you’re about that life), Facebook competes with the cool kids by setting up a Hotline, and Uber and Lyft struggle just as Outside 2.0 goes through beta test. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.
SOFTWARE COMPANIES DODGE A BULLET AFTER SUPREME COURT DECISION
The biggest story of the week! On Monday, the US Supreme Court decided in favor of Google in a decade-long court case in which Oracle Corporation accused Google of infringing on its intellectual property involving Oracle’s Java programming language software and Google’s coding of Java application programming interfaces. Java is the primary language and runtime that runs on all Android devices. Oracle believed that Google should have licensed Java technology from Oracle. Instead Google looked at the Java specification and coded internals in its own code that would be compatible with Java APIs. This case is a big one. Because APIs and other types of software interfaces are how software companies write compatible software. One of the first known instances of a company writing software for an interface is Compaq writing a BIOS for when computers boot up. The Supreme Court ruled that Google’s use of Java’s API is considered fair use. If the Supreme Court ruled against Google, the entirety of the software world would have been turned upside down flooding court systems with lawsuits and essentially ruining competitive markets. There, I said it.
FACEBOOK JUMPS IN ON THE TALK GAME WITH HOTLINE
Yesterday, talk about hot of the Internets, Facebook’s experimental app division announced a ClubHouse competitor app called Hotline. Hotline gives users the ability to host live audio chats, gives host the power to mute some of its members and control audience participation. Hotline also goes one step beyond ClubHouse in that it provides live streaming as well. Hotline has a more formal app usage than ClubHouse’s laid back style. It’s geared towards more formal presentations and Q&As than ClubHouse. You can’t setup a Hotline yet, but you can join a waitlist when you can.
UBER AND LYFT STRUGGLE WITH DRIVER SHORTAGE PROBLEM
This time last year, Uber and Lyft struggled as people stayed home and didn’t that many rides. Their sales took a nose dive of 80% as people quarantined had nowhere to go. Now, as outside is beginning to open up (in a disturbingly big way), Uber and Lyft are facing another problem. There are no more riders than drivers. Riders are reporting longer wait times and higher fares as there are fewer drivers to go around. The driver shortage is to be expected. Although outside is opening and people are getting vaccinated, the risk of catching COVID hasn’t gone away. Fewer drivers are willing to take on the risk of ferrying passenger. Uber and Lyft are spending heavily to recruit drivers with Uber offering up to $250 million of driver incentives. Fewer drivers means more cash for those driving, and Uber is putting its money behind it.