Apple restricts rival watch functions.
Also 32 Billion dollars buys an expensive lock.

The Custodian's Keycard Doesn't Work in the CEO's Elevator

Apple has reportedly begun enforcing new, strict limitations that prevent the Pebble operating system from being genuinely useful on its phones. This is a classic case of a much larger corporation ensuring a competitor is only allowed to play with the sanctioned office toys. The independent watchmaker is not evil or malicious; it is merely trying to operate a full, actual operating system inside a sandbox that Apple designed specifically for cute little notification widgets.

The core disagreement, according to people who have read the fine print, is centered around the idea that Pebble wants to do things like control iPhone functions or offer complex custom features that Apple believes should only be handled by Apple's own first-party applications. It is less a technical disagreement and more an architectural one, specifically concerning who gets to put the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door. It seems Apple is simply reminding the smaller firm, who has just released two new PebbleOS devices, that its product is considered a third-party accessory, not a co-pilot, and should probably just stick to telling time and maybe counting steps.

Generative Art Fails the 'Soul' Requirement for Patent Trophies

The United States appeals court has effectively slapped the wrist of the entire generative AI community by ruling that art lacking a human creator cannot be copyrighted. This is a profound moment of bureaucratic clarity, stating officially that an output generated by a machine, no matter how pretty the pixels are, does not possess the requisite human spark to earn the government's stamp of ownership. The underlying legal principle seems to be that if the only thing you contributed to the work was typing a very long, esoteric description into a text box, you might be more of a sophisticated art director than a true author.

The tech industry, which has been trying very hard to convince everyone that the AI model is a co-creator rather than an expensive copy machine, is quietly filing this under the "Oopsie" column. People in the Hacker News comments are debating the metaphysics of 'human input' and whether running the electricity meter counts. For now, the court is sticking to the idea that just because a fancy algorithm rendered a photorealistic image of a cat wearing a space helmet, the actual human must have done more than just pay the subscription fee. The AI gets credit only for making the mess; the artist still needs to clean it up.

Google Purchases Solution to Problem It Knew About

In a move that feels like buying a new, very expensive door lock right after someone broke into the house, Google has reportedly agreed to acquire the cybersecurity firm Wiz for a staggering 32 billion dollars. This is not just a technology acquisition; it is a declaration of capital that says, "We have a security problem, and we are willing to spend the equivalent of a small nation's GDP to make it someone else's responsibility." Wiz specializes in cloud security posture management, which is the fancy way of saying they help clients figure out which part of their cloud setup is leaking data.

The sheer price tag has raised eyebrows and prompted comments about Google Cloud Platform's attempts to catch up with its competitors. Having already acquired Mandiant to deal with the inevitable breaches, buying Wiz is the equivalent of adding another gold-plated audit layer. It suggests that despite having thousands of the world's best engineers, Google still needs to buy an outside opinion, at the price of 32 billion dollars, to confirm that yes, the server really should be locked down. One can only hope Wiz's first report simply recommends they turn on two-factor authentication for everything.

Briefs

• YouTube Ad Fatigue: A resourceful engineer documented how to block YouTube ads on Apple TV by figuring out how to decrypt and strip them out of the protocol buffer traffic. This is a beautiful example of open-source defiance against mandatory corporate messaging.
• Alexa's Listening Audit: Amazon is killing off local processing for Alexa, meaning all voice requests must now be shipped to the cloud. The local smart speaker is now just a glorified wireless microphone for the central Amazon data-retention team; your light bulb command is now a mandatory intercontinental journey.
• FTC's Editorial Cleanup: The Federal Trade Commission had to awkwardly remove several blog posts that were critical of AI companies, Amazon, and Microsoft. It is always reassuring when the government's internal memo system is as subject to sudden, unexplained retraction as a startup's roadmap.