An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A little over three years have passed since McDonald's sent out an email to thousands of its restaurant owners around the world that abruptly cut short the future ofa three-person startup called Kytch -- and with it, perhaps one of McDonald's best chances for fixing its famously out-of-order ice cream machines. Until then, Kytch had been selling McDonald's restaurant owners a popular internet-connected gadget designed to attach to their notoriously fragile and often broken soft-serve McFlurry dispensers, manufactured by McDonalds equipment partner Taylor. The Kytch device would essentially hack into the ice cream machine's internals, monitor its operations, and send diagnostic data over the internet to an owner or manager to help keep it running. But despite Kytch's efforts to solve the Golden Arches' intractable ice cream problems, a McDonald's email in November 2020 warned its franchisees not to use Kytch, stating that it represented a safety hazard for staff. Kytch says its sales dried up practically overnight.

Now, after years of litigation, the ice-cream-hacking entrepreneurs have unearthed evidence that they say shows that Taylor, the soft-serve machine maker, helped engineer McDonald's Kytch-killing email -- kneecapping the startup not because of any safety concern, but in a coordinated effort to undermine a potential competitor. And Taylor's alleged order, as Kytch now describes it, came all the way from the top. On Wednesday, Kytch filed a newly unredacted motion for summary adjudication in its lawsuit against Taylor for alleged trade libel, tortious interference, and other claims. The new motion, which replaces a redacted version from August, refers to internal emails Taylor released in the discovery phase of the lawsuit, which were quietly unsealed over the summer. The motion focuses in particular on one email from Timothy FitzGerald, the CEO of Taylor parent company Middleby, that appears to suggest that either Middleby or McDonald's send a communication to McDonald's franchise owners to dissuade them from using Kytch's device.

"Not sure if there is anything we can do to slow up the franchise community on the other solution," FitzGerald wrote on October 17, 2020. "Not sure what communication from either McD or Midd can or will go out." In their legal filing, the Kytch cofounders, of course, interpret "the other solution" to mean their product. In fact, FitzGerald's message was sent in an email thread that included Middleby's then COO, David Brewer, who had wondered earlier whether Middleby could instead acquire Kytch. Another Middleby executive responded to FitzGerald on October 17 to write that Taylor and McDonald's had already met the previous day to discuss sending out a message to franchisees about McDonald's lack of support for Kytch. But Jeremy O'Sullivan, a Kytch cofounder, claims -- and Kytch argues in its legal motion -- that FitzGerald's email nonetheless proves Taylor's intent to hamstring a potential rival. "It's the smoking gun," O'Sullivan says of the email. "He's plotting our demise."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Some TikTok users may have skipped reviewing an update to TikTok's terms of service this summer that shakes up the process for filing a legal dispute against the app. According to The New York Times, changes that TikTok "quietly" made to its terms suggest that the popular app has spent the back half of 2023 preparing for a wave of legal battles. In July, TikTok overhauled its rules for dispute resolution, pivoting from requiring private arbitration to insisting that legal complaints be filed in either the US District Court for the Central District of California or the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles. Legal experts told the Times this could be a way for TikTok to dodge arbitration claims filed en masse that can cost companies millions more in fees than they expected to pay through individual arbitration.

Perhaps most significantly, TikTok also added a section to its terms that mandates that all legal complaints be filed within one year of any alleged harm caused by using the app. The terms now say that TikTok users "forever waive" rights to pursue any older claims. And unlike a prior version of TikTok's terms of service archived in May 2023, users do not seem to have any options to opt out of waiving their rights. Lawyers told the Times that these changes could make it more challenging for TikTok users to pursue legal action at a time when federal agencies are heavily scrutinizing the app and complaints about certain TikTok features allegedly harming kids are mounting.

A marketing team within media giant Cox Media Group (CMG) claims it has the capability to listen to ambient conversations of consumers through embedded microphones in smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices to gather data and use it to target ads, according to a review of CMG marketing materials by 404 Media and details from a pitch given to an outside marketing professional. From a report: Called "Active Listening," CMG claims the capability can identify potential customers "based on casual conversations in real time." The news signals that what a huge swath of the public has believed for years -- that smartphones are listening to people in order to deliver ads -- may finally be a reality in certain situations. Until now, there was no evidence that such a capability actually existed, but its myth permeated due to how sophisticated other ad tracking methods have become.

It is not immediately clear if the capability CMG is advertising and claims works is being used on devices in the market today, but the company notes it is "a marketing technique fit for the future. Available today." 404 Media also found a representative of the company on LinkedIn explicitly asking interested parties to contact them about the product. One marketing professional pitched by CMG on the tech said a CMG representative explained the prices of the service to them. "What would it mean for your business if you could target potential clients who are actively discussing their need for your services in their day-to-day conversations? No, it's not a Black Mirror episode -- it's Voice Data, and CMG has the capabilities to use it to your business advantage," CMG's website reads.

Ten years ago, a Dutch scientist unveiled a $330,000 lab-grown hamburger made from cow cells grown in petri dishes. It took six weeks to culture the patty. A chef cooked it onstage as journalists watched. Reactions ranged from "unpleasant" to "beeflike." The scientist expected supermarket sales in a decade. His company and others have since raised over $2 billion but have little to show, only recently making one pound of chicken monthly. Despite bold promises of mass production, low emissions, and better nutrition, commercial viability remains elusive. Bloomberg Business: The company [Upside Foods], in a letter from its attorney to Bloomberg Businessweek, says plans for scaling up have been an evolution saddled with "realities and complexities of doing something that has never been done before. Innovation rarely happens in a straight and continuous line."

The dream is moist, meaty flesh self-multiplying ad infinitum in high-tech, stainless steel cell-growing chambers. But according to internal company documentation and eight former employees, most of whom requested anonymity because they don't have permission to discuss confidential information, Upside at the moment is actually growing just minuscule numbers of chicken skin-type cells in small plastic bottles, then scraping them out gram by gram to compress and mold them into a single forkful of flesh. This labor-intensive chicken has higher levels of cholesterol and lead than the real thing, publicly available company documentation shows. Even if that sounds remotely desirable, some scientists say the whole energy-intensive endeavor may actually be worse for the environment, especially with chicken, which has the smallest carbon footprint of anything at the local butcher. All of which points to this question: Why exactly are we chasing lab-grown chicken?[...]

Apple will expand its use of advanced OLED screens to iPads and MacBooks and is considering eventually introducing foldable tablets, a move set to further shake up the $150 billion display industry as it shifts away from traditional LCD screens, Asian news outlet Nikkei reported Friday. From the report: OLED, or organic light-emitting diode, displays are already used in most premium smartphones, including iPhones. Apple plans to deploy the tech in its high-end iPads next year, multiple tech industry executives told Nikkei Asia. An OLED MacBook model is also under development for production in the second half of 2025 at the earliest, the people said. The growing penetration of OLED is a significant win for Samsung Display and LG Display of South Korea and China's BOE Technology Holding, which have all bet heavily on this expensive display technology.

On the flip side, it could be a blow to display makers that do not have much presence in this segment, including JDI and Sharp of Japan, and AUO and Innolux of Taiwan. Apple has also started evaluating the possibility of making foldable iPads after it deploys the flexible OLED screens on the tablet, but it does not have a concrete timeline for doing so, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The iPhone maker is not the first company to adopt OLED displays for tablets. Huawei, for instance, has been a significant driver of this trend, which in turn has helped strengthen the Chinese display supply chain.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Criminal suspects can refuse to provide phone passcodes to police under the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, according to a unanimous ruling issued (PDF) today by Utah's state Supreme Court. The questions addressed in the ruling could eventually be taken up by the US Supreme Court, whether through review of this case or a similar one. The case involves Alfonso Valdez, who was arrested for kidnapping and assaulting his ex-girlfriend. Police officers obtained a search warrant for the contents of Valdez's phone but couldn't crack his passcode.

Valdez refused to provide his passcode to a police detective. At his trial, the state "elicited testimony from the detective about Valdez's refusal to provide his passcode when asked," today's ruling said. "And during closing arguments, the State argued in rebuttal that Valdez's refusal and the resulting lack of evidence from his cell phone undermined the veracity of one of his defenses. The jury convicted Valdez." A court of appeals reversed the conviction, agreeing "with Valdez that he had a right under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution to refuse to provide his passcode, and that the State violated that right when it used his refusal against him at trial." The Utah Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals ruling.

The Valdez case does not involve an order to compel a suspect to unlock a device. Instead, "law enforcement asked Valdez to verbally provide his passcode," Utah justices wrote. "While these circumstances involve modern technology in a scenario that the Supreme Court has not yet addressed, we conclude that these facts present a more straightforward question that is answered by settled Fifth Amendment principles." Ruling against the state, the Utah Supreme Court said it "agree[s] with the court of appeals that verbally providing a cell phone passcode is a testimonial communication under the Fifth Amendment."