Apple and Musk Clash Over Satellite Expansion Plans

Apple is clashing with Elon Musk in its push to eliminate cell phone dead spots with satellite technology.

The iPhone maker is investing heavily in satellite-based communications that keep users connected in places where traditional wireless signals aren’t available. Musk’s SpaceX, meanwhile, has launched more than 550 satellites that provide cell phone connectivity via its Starlink service.

To build capacity, the companies are competing for valuable spectrum rights—airwaves to carry their signals—which are in limited supply. Apple’s outer-space investments have drawn Musk’s ire, people familiar with the matter said. SpaceX has pushed federal regulators to stall an Apple-funded satellite expansion effort.

The conflict intensified in recent months after SpaceX and its partner, T-Mobile, sought Apple’s cooperation to offer Starlink on iPhones, some of the people said. The companies engaged in tense discussions and eventually reached an agreement that allows the SpaceX and T-Mobile satellite cell phone service, which will debut this summer, to appear seamlessly on newer iPhones. Apple retains tight control over the iPhone’s largely closed software ecosystem.

The feud between Musk and Apple over satellite service pits the world’s richest man against one of the world’s most-valuable companies.

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Chris Campbell:

Google Made an AI Model To Talk to Dolphins

A new large language model AI system may soon allow humans to converse with dolphins. Scheduled to debut in the coming months, researchers will test to see if DolphinGemma and its companion Cetacean Hearing Augmentation Telemetry (CHAT) system can translate and mimic some of the mammal’s own complex vocalizations.

Dolphins are some of the Earth’s smartest and most communicative animals. Their social interactions are so complex that researchers at the Wild Dolphin Project (WDP) have spent the last 40 years attempting to decipher them.

In the process, WDP has amassed decades’ worth of underwater audio and video documenting a single community of Atlantic spotted dolphins in the Bahamas. They have been able to correlate sounds with behavioral aspects like courtships, unique names, and dolphin squabbles.

The result is DolphinGemma, an AI model built using the same technology that runs Google’s Gemini systems. DolphinGemma is designed on roughly 400 million parameters to function in essentially the same way as predictive LLMs like ChatGPT—but for dolphins. Over time, experts hope that the dolphins will even learn to request desired items when they want to play.

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Davis Wilson:

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Takes the Stand in Historic Antitrust Trial

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the witness stand yesterday on the first day of a historic antitrust trial to defend his company against allegations it illegally monopolized the social media market. Zuckerberg fielded questions on Facebook's 2012 acquisition of Instagram.

The trial will be the first big test of President Trump’s Federal Trade Commission’s ability to challenge Big Tech. The lawsuit was filed against Meta — then called Facebook — in 2020, during Trump’s first term. It claims the company bought Instagram and WhatsApp to squash competition and establish an illegal monopoly in the social media market.

While the FTC may face an uphill battle in proving its case, the stakes are high for Meta, whose advertising business could be cut in half if it’s forced to spin off Instagram.

Meanwhile, Meta isn’t the only technology company in the sights of federal antitrust regulators; Google and Amazon face their own cases. The remedy phase of Google’s case is scheduled to begin on April 21. A federal judge declared the search giant an illegal monopoly last August.

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