Image: Protocol
Big Tech’s big branding exercise

Good morning! This Tuesday, we're gearing up for Oracle v. Google, trying to figure out the difference between Bing and Microsoft Bing, and buying everything we own off of Instagram.
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Oracle and Google have been fighting over Java for more than a decade, which is approximately a thousand years in tech time. But as the two companies head to the Supreme Court tomorrow, the outcome will still matter to absolutely everyone in tech.
Tom Krazit has a great preview of the hearing. The history of the case dates all the way back to when Oracle bought Sun Microsystems in 2009 and promptly sued the bejeezus out of Google for cribbing some parts of Java's APIs as it developed Android.
The stakes are high, Tom writes: "Because so many APIs in use are functionally similar, whoever can claim to have originally developed those API methods would be able to assert copyright protection over those methods across a wide range of software, even software completely unrelated to the original interface."
Google won the original case, but after Oracle won in appeals court it now has a bit of an advantage. Here's Tom again: "Because of the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there are now just eight justices on the Supreme Court, which means Google must secure a 5-3 verdict in its favor to overturn the appeals courts rulings. In the case of a 4-4 tie, the company could seek to have the case reheard before nine judges at some point in the future."
The virtual hearing will happen over the phone tomorrow. And, as Slate noted, the histories of the telephone, Ma Bell, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 are a pretty relevant lesson this week.
Bing is dead. Now there is only … Microsoft Bing. Which is apparently a different thing.
Microsoft's quasi-rebranding of Bing is a statement from the company: that Bing is more than a search engine, it's a part of Windows and Flight Simulator and lots of other things Microsoft does. It's also a clear reflection of the fact that Microsoft thinks Microsoft is a great brand right now.
In a time filled with reckoning over antitrust issues, moderation problems and generally anti-Big Tech feelings, Microsoft isn't alone in putting its name everywhere.
Why is this happening? For all the turmoil and talk, nobody does a brand like Big Tech. According to Forbes' 2020 Brand Value rankings, the top five most valuable corporate brands are all Big Tech: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. (Facebook's the only brand in the top five that lost value in the last year, but it's still hanging in there at the top.)
For a while, it looked like tech companies might go the Disney route, owning lots of brands but letting them each hang their own shingle. The bigger they get, the more it seems like the name at the top of the org chart is the only one that matters. (Even Disney is on this train now: Just ask Disney+.) And the more they bring under their umbrella, the more they stand to gain from a Big Tech-friendly ruling in Oracle vs. Google.
It's a fairly simple idea, really: What if you could buy everything — every outfit, every gadget, every hotel room, every Bugatti Veyron — that you saw on Instagram? Instagram would certainly like the idea. It said yesterday that it's adding shopping capabilities to IGTV globally, and will add them to Reels later this year.
It sure seems like Facebook's happy turning Instagram into a virtual mini-mall, and like it's trying to get as many different cuts of as many different transactions as possible. There's also a really interesting generational shift here, too: As the pandemic has forced older users to get comfortable with online shopping, younger folks are increasingly doing their shopping by scrolling and streaming.
Social commerce is already booming in China, as we've mentioned here before, and the U.S. seems to be close behind. No wonder Walmart wants a piece of TikTok so badly.
Stronger care … from more efficient operations
In a defining moment for healthcare, it's even more crucial to deliver patient-centered care efficiently. At Philips, we are committed to providing intelligent, automated workflows that seek to improve patient care. More efficient healthcare means stronger, more resilient healthcare.
On Protocol: Managing in-person shoppers and online orders is crucial going forward, Chipotle's Curt Garner said:
On the nine-year anniversary of Steve Jobs' death, Tim Cook tweeted a remembrance:
In a draft memo published by POLITICO, Rep. Ken Buck gave his thoughts on some of the antitrust subcommittee's forthcoming recommendations for how to limit Big Tech's power:
That's how many petaflops of what Nvidia calls "AI performance" the company is building into its new Cambridge-1 supercomputer, which it says will be the U.K.'s fastest. The company's spending $52 million on the project, and intends for it to be used primarily for AI-based health research and drug discovery.
Ever wonder what the internal, driver-facing camera in your Tesla is actually looking at? It mostly wants to know what happened right before a crash, and it's able to see (and log) if your eyes are closed, if you're looking out the window … and if you're looking at your phone. Tesla told Electrek that it doesn't actively monitor this stuff, but it's not hard to imagine Elon approving a feature that says "hey moron, look at the road!" every time you check your texts. Step two: a robot arm that chucks your phone out the window if you try and grab it?
Stronger care … from more efficient operations
In a defining moment for healthcare, it's even more crucial to deliver patient-centered care efficiently. At Philips, we are committed to providing intelligent, automated workflows that seek to improve patient care. More efficient healthcare means stronger, more resilient healthcare.
Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce, with help from Shakeel Hashim. Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day, see you tomorrow.
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