SoylentNews

fliptop writes:

Battery maker LG Energy Solution's second-quarter profit dropped 58% year-on-year to 195.3 billion won ($141m), the company said on Monday (8 July), as demand for electric vehicles (EVs) slows:

The South Korean-based battery company also saw its revenue drop 30% to 6.2 trillion won ($4.4bn).

The company also faces increased competition from its Chinese rivals, which has weakened its share of the market.

Car manufacturers have been calling for battery companies to create cheaper cells to lower EV prices, which has applied pressure to companies like LG Energy.

This led to LG Energy's chief technology officer, Kim Je-Young, stating that the company would commercialise dry-coating technology by 2028, a technology which makes battery manufacturing cheaper and more efficient.

Battery maker SK On declares 'emergency' as EV sales disappoint. Supplier to Ford and Volkswagen may have to be rescued by its South Korean parent as losses mount:

A leading South Korean producer of electric vehicle batteries has declared itself in crisis as its customers struggle with disappointing EV sales in Europe and the US.

SK On, the world's fourth-largest EV battery maker behind Chinese giants CATL and BYD and South Korean rival LG Energy Solution, has recorded losses for 10 consecutive quarters since being spun off by its parent company in 2021. Its net debt has increased more than fivefold, from Won2.9tn ($2.1bn) to Won15.6tn over the same period, as western EV sales have fallen far short of its expectations.

With losses snowballing, chief executive Lee Seok-hee announced a series of cost-cutting and working practice measures last Monday, describing them as a state of "emergency management".

[...] SK On has made a series of aggressive investments in the US and Europe in recent years, betting on a widely predicted boom in demand for EVs. However, it has since announced extended lay-offs for workers at its plant in the US state of Georgia and delayed launching a second plant in Kentucky, a joint venture with its principal US customer Ford.

Previously:

• LG Energy Solution to Spend $3 Billion to Expand EV Battery Production in South Korea
• Honda and LG are Investing $3.5 Billion in New Ohio Battery Factory
• Ford Motor Company is Planning a Big EV Future

Original Submission

ElizabethGreene writes:

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a new type of 3D printer that knits 3-dimensional solid objects, according to a new paper published in ACM Transactions on Graphics. From the introduction:

Unlike standard knitting, which makes hollow surfaces, solid knitting makes dense volumes by layering knit sheets—much as 3D printers layer plastic sheets. We envision a future where everyday objects like furniture or shoes—including soles—can be knit as one piece. Since the layers are topologically intertwined during fabrication, solid dense volume knitting requires no adhesives, allowing fabricated objects to be unraveled easily to recover the constituent yarn

Summary Article: https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/solid-knitting-a-different-spin-on-3d-printing-that-can-make-furniture-out-of-yarn/
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVRXWlpiyAc
Research:
  Yuichi Hirose, Mark Gillespie, Angelica M. Bonilla Fominaya, and James McCann. 2024. Solid Knitting. ACM Trans. Graph. 43, 4 (July 2024)
  https://doi.org/10.1145/3658123
Alternate source (PDF): https://markjgillespie.com/Research/solid-knitting/SolidKnitting.pdf

This begs the question[sic], "Would you download a couch?"

Original Submission

Elon sues advertisers for boycotting X

c0lo writes:

The Verge has a better perspective:

X files antitrust lawsuit against advertisers over 'illegal boycott'

X is suing a group of major advertisers over accusations that they held an "illegal boycott" against the platform formerly known as Twitter. In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, X claims Unilever, Mars, CVS, Ørsted, and dozens of other brands conspired to "collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue" through a World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) industry initiative.

To join the WFA's initiative, called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), companies must agree to withhold advertising from social platforms that aren't compliant with the organization's safety standards. X alleges GARM "organized an advertiser boycott of Twitter" to coerce the company into following the initiative's safety standards. The lawsuit is being filed despite X announcing that it was "excited" to rejoin GARM last month.

"The evidence and facts are on our side," X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a video posted to X. "They conspired to boycott X, which threatens our ability to thrive in the future. That puts your global Town Square — the one place that you can express yourself freely and openly — at long-term risk."

[...] It's not clear how well X's lawsuit will fare in court because, as pointed out by Techdirt, the ability to choose where to advertise is protected under the First Amendment. The ad tech watchdog group Check My Ads similarly states that advertisers have the right "to not send money to a platform that promotes hate and conspiracies."

Elon sues advertisers for boycotting X

Elon Musk sues Unilever and Mars over X 'boycott'

X claims they have deprived it of "billions of dollars" in revenue.

Legal experts say the case is unlikely to succeed as any collusion or agreement between companies will be hard to prove.

Elon Musk can't force advertisers to spend

[...] Musk's lawsuit is based on a recent investigation of Garm led by the judiciary committee of the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives. It was filed in an obscure federal court branch in Texas known for a particular conservative judge. X's lawyer is a well-known rightwing legal figure, not a big national law firm.

[...] X's business issues are real enough. According to the New York Times, X ad revenue in the US has collapsed to $114mn in a recent quarter. Total group global revenue for Twitter in 2021 was $5bn. The company has a $13bn debt pile where annual interest expense is well above $1bn.

[...] Advertisers decided that, since there were only a handful of dominant social networks, they needed to band together in order to enforce standards. Garm and the companies will have to show that while they perhaps co-ordinated on some matters, there was nothing binding about their alliance when it came to economic decisions. It would be decidedly odd for any company to surrender their autonomy to a trade association. Musk's burden is higher, explaining exactly why profit-seeking companies would irrationally avoid his product.

Other links:

Al-Jazeera: Musk declares 'war' on advertisers as X sues ad alliance, companies

The Guardian: Musk's X sues Unilever, Mars and CVS over 'massive advertiser boycott'

The Slate

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

canopic jug writes:

As you all know, I [Robert J. Sawyer] continue to use WordStar for DOS 7.0 as my word-processing program. It was last updated in December 1992, and the company that made it has been defunct for decades; the program is abandonware.

There was no proper archive of WordStar for DOS 7.0 available online, so I decided to create one. I've put weeks of work into this. Included are not only full installs of the program (as well as images of the installation disks), but also plug-and-play solutions for running WordStar for DOS 7.0 under Windows, and also complete full-text-searchable PDF versions of all seven manuals that came with WordStar — over a thousand pages of documentation.

I've also included lots of my own explanations on how to use and customize WordStar, many WordStar-related utility programs, and numerous other goodies.

Carolyn Clink kindly did the scanning of the manuals. When she was done, I said to her, "Countless WordStar users will thank you." She replied, "Oh, I think I can count them." ;)

And it's true that the WordStar die-hard community is pretty small these days (George R.R. Martin still uses the even-older WordStar 4.0). But the program has been a big part of my career — not only did I write all 25 of my novels and almost all of my short stories with it (a few date back to the typewriter era), I also in my earlier freelance days wrote hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles with WordStar.

I wanted there to be a monument to this, the finest word-processing program ever created. As Anne Rice said, "WordStar was magnificent. I loved it. It was logical, beautiful, perfect. Compared to it, Microsoft Word is pure madness."

And, I suppose I'm thinking a bit about my legacy, too. Once I'm gone, my literary estate will need to deal with my electronic manuscripts, and my executor should be able to work with them on her own computer rather than just mine. Also, there are countless other writers who are no longer with us who wrote with WordStar, including Arthur C. Clarke; I hope this archive I've created will be of use to scholars.

Anyone can have WordStar for DOS 7.0 up and running on a Windows computer in a matter of minutes using this archive; with just a little bit more work, WordStar for DOS 7.0 also runs just fine under Linux and Mac OS.

Here's the link to the full 680-megabyte archive:

https://sfwriter.com/ws7.htm

Rich writes:

Raspberry Pi have released the small Pico 2 as an improvement to the original Pico: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-pico-2-our-new-5-microcontroller-board-on-sale-now/.

The small single board computer looks virtually unchanged from its predecessor. All improvement is in a new microcontroller unit, the RP2350, which replaces the old RP2040. Most notable features are twice the memory, low power sleep options, and two added Risc-V cores. The two ARM cores are still there, but upgraded to Cortex-M33 from M0+.

Unlike the RP2040, the new MCU is available in different packages, with more pins and flash memory in-package. Top of the line will be the RP2354B with 80 pins and 2MB integrated flash.

(Ed note: My first computer ran at 1 MHz and had only 4K bytes of memory. We've come a long way since then! --MartyB)! )

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/08/google-and-meta-ignored-their-own-rules-in-secret-teen-targeting-ad-deals/

Google and Meta made a secret deal to target advertisements for Instagram to teenagers on YouTube, skirting the search company's own rules for how minors are treated online.

According to documents seen by the Financial Times and people familiar with the matter, Google worked on a marketing project for Meta that was designed to target 13- to 17-year-old YouTube users with adverts that promoted its rival's photo and video app.

[...] The companies worked with Spark Foundry, a US subsidiary of French advertising giant Publicis, to launch the pilot marketing program in Canada between February and April this year, according to the people and documents seen by the Financial Times.

Due to its perceived success, it was then trialed in the US in May. The companies had planned to expand it further, to international markets and to promote other Meta apps such as Facebook, people familiar with the matter said.

[...] When contacted by the FT, Google initiated an investigation into the allegations. The project has now been canceled, a person familiar with the decision said.

Google said: "We prohibit ads being personalized to people under-18, period. These policies go well beyond what is required and are supported by technical safeguards. We've confirmed that these safeguards worked properly here" because no registered YouTube users known to be under 18 were directly targeted by the company.

However, Google did not deny using the "unknown" loophole, adding: "We'll also be taking additional action to reinforce with sales representatives that they must not help advertisers or agencies run campaigns attempting to work around our policies."

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Each August, the Perseid meteor shower provides a breathtaking sight of bright meteors and fireballs, best viewed in the early hours of August 12. These meteors, hitting atmospheric speeds up to 132,000 mph, are part of a display originating from Comet Swift-Tuttle.

They may not attract as much attention as last month’s daylight fireball over New York City, but stargazers can still anticipate seeing some shooting stars with the upcoming Perseid meteor shower. Caused by Earth passing through trails of debris left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle, the shower has become famous over the centuries because of its consistent display of celestial fireworks.

“The Perseids is the best annual meteor shower for the casual stargazer,” said Bill Cooke, who leads NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “Not only is the shower rich in bright meteors and fireballs – No. 1 in fact – it also peaks in mid-August when the weather is still warm and comfortable. This year, the Perseid maximum will occur on the night of August 11 and pre-dawn hours of August 12. You’ll start seeing meteors from the shower around 11 p.m. local time and the rates will increase until dawn. If you miss the night of the 11th, you will also be able to see quite a few on the night of the 12th between those times.”

The best way to see the Perseids is to find the darkest possible sky and visit between midnight and dawn on the morning of August 12. Allow about 45 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark. Lie on your back and look straight up. Avoid looking at cell phones or tablets because their bright screens ruin night vision and take your eyes off the sky.

Perseid meteors travel at the blistering speed of 132,000 mph – or 500 times faster than the fastest car in the world. At that speed, even a smidgen of dust makes a vivid streak of light when it collides with Earth’s atmosphere. Peak temperatures can exceed 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit as they speed across the sky. The Perseids pose no danger to people on the ground as practically all burn up 60 miles above our planet.

The first Perseid captured by NASA’s All Sky Meteor Camera Network was recorded at 9:48 p.m. EDT on July 23. The meteor – about as bright as the planet Jupiter, so not quite bright enough to be considered a fireball – was caused by a piece of Comet Swift-Tuttle about 5 millimeters in diameter entering the atmosphere over the Atlantic and burning up 66 miles above St. Cloud, Florida, just south of Orlando.

It wasn’t part of the Perseids, but a rare daylight fireball streaked across the sky over New York City at 11:15 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 16. The event gained national attention and was reported in media outlets across the U.S.

The fireball, defined as a meteor brighter than the planet Venus, is estimated to have soared over New York City before traversing a short path southwest and disintegrating about 31 miles above Mountainside, New Jersey. Cooke said the meteor was likely about 1 foot in diameter, which would have made the rock bright enough to see during the day. Seeing a meteor of this size is rarer than catching sight of the smaller particles a few millimeters in size typically seen in the night sky.

“To see one in the daytime over a populated area like New York is fairly rare,” Cooke said during an interview with ABC 7 in New York.

The Meteoroid Environments Office studies meteoroids in space so that NASA can protect our nation’s satellites, spacecraft and even astronauts aboard the International Space Station from these bits of tiny space debris.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Common blood thinner heparin shows promise as cobra bite antidote:

Scientists at the University of Sydney and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine have made a remarkable discovery: a commonly-used blood thinner, heparin, can be repurposed as an inexpensive antidote for cobra venom.

Cobras kill thousands of people a year worldwide and perhaps a hundred thousand more are seriously maimed by necrosis—the death of body tissue and cells—caused by the venom, which can lead to amputation.

Current antivenom treatment is expensive and does not effectively treat the necrosis of the flesh where the bite occurs.

"Our discovery could drastically reduce the terrible injuries from necrosis caused by cobra bites—and it might also slow the venom, which could improve survival rates," said Professor Greg Neely, a corresponding author of the study from the Charles Perkins Center and Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney.

Using CRISPR gene-editing technology to identify ways to block cobra venom, the team, which consisted of scientists based in Australia, Canada, Costa Rica and the UK, successfully repurposed heparin (a common blood thinner) and related drugs and showed they can stop the necrosis caused by cobra bites.

The research is published on the front cover of Science Translational Medicine.

c0lo writes:

Study Finds Faces Evolve to Match Names Over Time

The researchers sought to determine whether parents choose a baby name based on what seems fitting for the baby's appearance, or if the process is the other way around — that, over the years, the individual's facial appearance changes to match the name given to them by their parents.

A new study reveals that a person's face tends to evolve to suit their name, demonstrating the profound impact of social expectations. The research showed that adults' faces could be matched to their names with high accuracy, while children's faces could not.

Machine learning also found significant similarities among adults with the same name. This effect, known as a self-fulfilling prophecy, suggests that social constructs can influence physical appearance over time.

Key Facts:

• Adults' faces evolve to match their names due to social expectations.
• Children's faces do not show the same name-based similarities as adults.
• The study used both human participants and machine learning to confirm findings.

Reference:
Yonat Zwebner, et. al., "Can names shape facial appearance?", PNAS, July 15, 2024, 121 (30) e24053341 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2405334121

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/a-completely-different-kind-of-disc-brake-1949-chrysler/

In 1949, the Chrysler Corporation introduced a new disc brake system, but it was nothing like the disc brakes we know today. Here's how it worked.

...

As we can see, the Ausco Lambert bears no similarity to the caliper-type disc brakes developed for aircraft in the 1940s, or those later adopted by Crosley, Dunlop, and ultimately the entire auto industry. In its basic configuration, the Lambert design sort of resembles the familiar clutch-disc and pressure-plate arrangment for a conventional manual transmission (as do the Milan and Kinmont brakes) but there are some important differences there, too.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Users of Cryptonator – an online digital wallet and cryptocurrency exchange – received an unpleasant surprise last weekend after the service was shuttered in a combined operation run by the FBI, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and German police.

Cryptonator allows people to store crypto-coins remotely, transfer funds, and exchange cryptocurrencies for other types. It could be used for innocent purposes, though given it was happy to turn a blind eye to whoever was using it, it is no surprise it was allegedly utilized by questionable netizens, hence its seizure by the Feds.

According to testimony [PDF] from IRS special agent Justin Allen, Bitcoin wallet addresses controlled by Cryptonator have been used to send and receive $71 million to and from entities sanctioned by US authorities. Another $54 million passing through the service involved "hacked or stolen funds," $25 million was transacted with dark-web marketplaces or fraud outfits, and over $8 million linked to ransomware campaigns.

The court documents state that the exchange took a 0.9 percent cut of merchant transactions.

"The operation of Cryptonator involved an international money laundering scheme that, by virtue of its business model, catered to criminals," states a criminal indictment [PDF] filed by the Feds in a Tampa, Florida court.

"Cryptonator facilitated crimes, including but not limited to, computer hacking, ransomware, fraud, and identity theft. Since its founding Cryptonator received criminal proceeds of, among other crimes, numerous computer intrusions and hacking incidents, ransomware scams, various fraud markets, and identity theft schemes," prosecutors allege.

The accused CEO of the site, Roman Boss – who also uses the surname Pikulev – is a Russian national living in Germany. He is said to have set up the exchange in December 2013, using the email address trucksale@gmail.com.

When presented with a warrant to access that Gmail account, Google found it had a message in it from the address contact@cryptonator.com to a financial institution with the note: "I'm Roman, CEO of Cryptonator."

In a sting operation in July, 2021, a FBI operative in Florida registered an account with Cryptonator. The agent spent around $4,195 in digicash at a known dark web site that, it's claimed, trades in stolen identification records. Court documents allege that Boss facilitated that purchase via Cryptonator, telling the agent all transactions were anonymous and currency would be "mixed" at his end to disguise its source.

In September another FBI agent, who had been operating undercover as an affiliate of a known ransomware group, is said to have used a Cryptonator account to offer the criminals fictitious stolen data in exchange for a cut of the proceeds. That agent received Bitcoin worth $14,500 in two transactions through Cryptonator, it's said.

Boss is charged with two offenses: Operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The DoJ and IRS are seeking his arrest and the forfeiture of any and all illegal funds. Neither agency has responded to The Register's request for comment at the time of writing.

Original Submission

NASA Weighs SpaceX Rescue for Stranded Boeing Starliner Crew

upstart writes:

NASA weighs SpaceX rescue for stranded Boeing Starliner crew:

A final decision on whether to persist with Boeing's troubled Starliner -- which experienced worrying propulsion issues as it flew up to the orbital platform in June -- is expected later this month, officials said Wednesday in a call with reporters.

Detailed planning is already underway with Boeing's rival SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, to potentially launch their scheduled Crew-9 mission on September 24 with just two astronauts rather than the usual four.

Boeing's Starliner Astronauts Could Return on SpaceX Capsule in Feb 2025, NASA Says

upstart writes:

Boeing's Starliner astronauts could return on SpaceX capsule in Feb 2025, NASA says - West Hawaii Today:

NASA officials said on Wednesday the two astronauts delivered to the International Space Station in June by Boeing's Starliner could return on SpaceX's Crew Dragon in February 2025 if Starliner is still deemed unsafe to return to Earth.

The U.S. space agency has been discussing potential plans with SpaceX to leave two seats empty on an upcoming Crew Dragon launch for NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who became the first crew to fly Boeing's Starliner capsule.

The astronauts' test mission, initially expected to last about eight days on the station, has been drawn out by issues on Starliner's propulsion system that have increasingly called into question the spacecraft's ability to safely return them to Earth as planned.

A Boeing spokesperson said if NASA decides to change Starliner's mission, the company "will take the actions necessary to configure Starliner for an uncrewed return."

Thruster failures during Starliner's initial approach to the ISS in June and several leaks of helium – used to pressurize those thrusters – have set Boeing off on a testing campaign to understand the cause and propose fixes to NASA, which has the final say. Recent results have unearthed new information, causing greater alarm about a safe return.

The latest test data have stirred disagreements and debate within NASA about whether to accept the risk of a Starliner return to Earth, or make the call to use Crew Dragon instead.

Using a SpaceX craft to return astronauts that Boeing had planned to bring back on Starliner would be a major blow to an aerospace giant that has struggled for years to compete with SpaceX and its more experienced Crew Dragon.

Starliner has been docked to the ISS for 63 of the maximum 90 days it can stay, and it is parked at the same port that Crew Dragon will have to use to deliver the upcoming astronaut crew.

Early Tuesday morning, NASA, using a SpaceX rocket and a Northrop Grumman capsule, delivered a routine shipment of food and supplies to the station, including extra clothes for Wilmore and Williams.

Starliner's high-stakes mission is a final test required before NASA can certify the spacecraft for routine astronaut flights to and from the ISS. Crew Dragon received NASA approval for astronaut flights in 2020.

Starliner development has been set back by management issues and numerous engineering problems. It has cost Boeing $1.6 billion since 2016, including $125 million from Starliner's current test mission, securities filings show.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Intel will be releasing a microcode update to prevent further damage to crashing 13th- and 14th-generation desktop processors sometime this month if it can stick to its previously announced schedule. This fix should be available via BIOS updates from PC and motherboard makers and from Microsoft as a Windows update. But it will take time for those updates to roll out to users, and Intel has said that processors that are already exhibiting crashes have been permanently damaged and won't be fixed by the microcode update.

In an effort to provide peace of mind to buyers and cover anyone whose CPU is subtly damaged but not showing explicit signs of instability, Intel is extending the warranty on all affected 13th- and 14th-generation CPUs by an additional two years, Tom's Hardware reports. This raises the warranty on a new boxed Intel CPU from three years to five, and it applies to both previously purchased processors and new ones that are bought from today onward. For processors that came installed in pre-built PCs, Intel says users are covered, but that they should reach out to their PC's manufacturer for support. Those customers should only contact Intel directly if they have a problem getting a new CPU from the PC company.

[...] According to Intel, the root cause of the issue was "a microcode algorithm resulting in incorrect voltage requests to the processor," a bug that caused motherboards to supply too much power to a CPU. This resulted in damage to the silicon over time, leading to crashing and instability. The problem was also exacerbated by enthusiast motherboards that didn't stick to Intel's recommended default power and performance settings.

Intel says it is also "investigating options to easily identify affected processors" to help give users peace of mind.

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://matduggan.com/teaching-to-the-test/

A lot has been written in the last few weeks about the state of IT security in the aftermath of the CrowdStrike outage. A range of opinions have emerged, ranging from blaming Microsoft for signing the CrowdStrike software (who in turn blame the EU for making them do it) to blaming the companies themselves for allowing all of these machines access to the Internet to receive the automatic template update. Bike-shedding among the technical community continues to be focused on the underlying technical deployment, which misses the forest for the trees.

The better question is what was the forcing mechanism that convinced every corporation in the world that it was a good idea to install software like this on every single machine? Why is there such a cottage industry of companies that are effectively undermining Operating System security with the argument that they are doing more "advanced" security features and allowing (often unqualified) security and IT departments to make fundamental changes to things like TLS encryption and basic OS functionality? How did all these smart people let a random company push updates to everyone on Earth with zero control? The justification often give is "to pass the audit".

These audits and certifications, of which there are many, are a fundamentally broken practice. The intent of the frameworks was good, allowing for the standardization of good cybersecurity practices while not relying on the expertise of an actual cybersecurity expert to validate the results. We can all acknowledge there aren't enough of those people on Earth to actually audit all the places that need to be audited. The issue is the audits don't actually fix real problems, but instead create busywork for people so it looks like they are fixing problems. It lets people cosplay as security experts without needing to actually understand what the stuff is.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A federal judge declared what many have known for years: Google is a monopoly. Specifically, it has a monopoly over online search and the search text ad market.

If you’ve used Google in the past few years, you know that it sucks. It once felt like magic: a search engine that would quickly take you wherever you needed to go online. But in 2024 all that old magic is gone. Relevant search results are buried under ads and worthless AI answers scraped from Reddit.

This 286-page ruling issued by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta on Monday helps explain why. Google has no competition in search and doesn’t need to appeal to consumers the way it would in a competitive market. The judgment is the result of a year-long showdown between the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Google. It’s the biggest antitrust lawsuit since the DOJ went after Microsoft 20 years ago.

[...] If you’ve bought a device or searched the web in the past 15 years then you’ve experienced Google’s market dominance. Google comes pre-loaded onto countless devices and browsers. It’s so ubiquitous that its name has become the common verb for “searching on the internet.”

Google pays billions of dollars every year to make that happen. Around $26 billion in 2021 alone, according to the judgment. “Usually, the amount is calculated as a percentage of the advertisements revenue that Google generates from queries run through the default search access points,” the judgment said.

[...] Basically, Google pays huge sums of cash to every other tech company, including rivals like Apple, to keep itself the default search engine. Being the default engine gives it dominance when serving ads. It uses the ad money to pay to keep itself the default search engine. And on and on and on.

[...] And what would happen if Google stopped paying to be the default engine? A catastrophic loss of revenue.

“In 2020, Google’s internal modeling projected that it would lose between 60-80% of its iOS query volume should it be replaced as the default GSE on Apple devices…which would translate into net revenue losses between $28.2 and $32.7 billion,” the judgment said.