Wed. 05/14 – Airbnb’s Midlife Transformation

Welcome to the Tech Meme Right Home for Wednesday, May 14, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, the U.S. still has it out for Huawei. Sony takes a hit from tariffs. TikTok is turning to AI and also messaging. how Airbnb is either going through a midlife crisis or else it's trying to become the thing that Brian Chesky always hoped it could be. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech.

The U.S. Commerce Department has issued guidance stating that quote using Huawei Ascend chips anywhere in the world violates U.S. export controls as those chips likely use U.S. tech. Quoting the FT, President Donald Trump's administration has taken a tougher stance on Chinese technology advances, warning companies around the world that using artificial intelligence chips made by Huawei could trigger criminal penalties for violating U.S. export control.

The Commerce Department issued guidance to clarify that Huawei's Ascend processors were subject to export controls because they almost certainly contained or were made with U.S. technology. Its Bureau of Industry and Security, which oversees export controls, said on Tuesday it was taking a more stringent approach to foreign AI chips, including issuing guidance that using Huawei Ascend chips anywhere in the world violates U.S. export control.

But people familiar with the matter stressed that the Bureau had not issued a new rule, but was making it clear to companies that Huawei chips are likely to have violated a measure that requires hard-to-get licenses. to export US technology to the Chinese company. The guidance is not a new control but rather a public confirmation of an interpretation, even the mere use anywhere by anyone of a Huawei-designed advanced computing integrated circuit.

would violate export control rules, said Kevin Wolfe, a veteran export control lawyer at Akin Gump. The bureau said three Huawei Ascend chips, the 910B, 910C, and 910D, We're subject to the regulations noting that such chips are likely to have been, quote, designed with certain U.S. software or technology or produced with semiconductor manufacturing equipment that is the direct produce of certain U.S. origin software or technology or both, end quote.

We don't usually do Sony earnings, but I'm making an exception now because this is a tariff story. It wasn't a good earnings report anyway. Q4 revenue was down 24% year on year. PlayStation 5 units sold in fiscal year 24 were down 11% year-on-year. They only sold 18.5 million PlayStation units in their fiscal year 2024. And they said... They expected a $700 million impact on earnings from U.S. tariffs in fiscal year 2025.

Oh, and also the ripple effect of the delay of Grand Theft Auto is a concern as well, quoting Bloomberg. Sony expects to sell 15 million PlayStation 5 consoles in the year to March 2026, following 18.5 million units in the preceding period. The company reported better than expected operating income of

203.7 billion yen for the first three months of this year. Our internal outlook, or rather the image we have in mind, is around 15 million units shipped, Chief Financial Officer Lin Tao said in a call after the earnings release. There are currently many uncertainties such as tariffs and other external factors, so instead of just chasing numbers, we want to flexibly adjust our shipments while keeping an eye on profitability and the overall market."

Sony's new chief executive officer Hiroki Tatoki's first task is to navigate the entertainment group through this new era of a tariffs-wielding U.S. North America comprises the bulk of PlayStation 5 sales, which is mostly produced in China. Tao said Sony will diversify the production locations of the PS5 and may consider raising prices as an option to deal with the impact from tariffs. The company raised its flagship consoles price in Europe, Australia and New Zealand last month.

Higher prices would slow momentum of the five-year-old hardware, especially as it vies with rival Nintendo's Switch 2, which launches in June. The postponement of Rockstar Games' much-awaited Grand Theft Auto 6 is also weighing on PlayStation sales in the current fiscal year. The delay in GTA 6 is a real blow to the PS5, said David Cole.

chief executive officer of U.S.-based digital entertainment research firm DFC Intelligence. This was supposed to be the product that got many consumers to get off the PS4 and onto a PS5, end quote.

Microsoft is extending security updates for Microsoft 365 apps on Windows 10 until October 10th, 2028, after previously planning to end support this October 14th. quoting the verge to help maintain security while you transition to windows 11 microsoft will continue providing security updates for microsoft 365 apps on windows 10 for three years after windows 10 reaches end of support

says Microsoft in an updated support article published last week. These updates will be delivered through the standard update channels ending on October 10, 2028, end quote. Microsoft quietly announced this. three-year extension in late April in a separate support article for IT admins and it reiterates that the Microsoft 365 apps will continue to function as before but that businesses should upgrade to Windows 11 to avoid performance and reliability issues over time.

This latest language is a lot different to the blog post Microsoft issued in January that warned businesses that Office apps would no longer be supported on Windows 10 later this year. To use Microsoft 365 applications on your device, you will need to upgrade to Windows 11, Microsoft said at the time.

Microsoft has been pushing consumers and businesses to upgrade to Windows 11 ahead of the end of support for Windows 10 on October 14th. The company declared at CES earlier this year that 2025 would be the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh. despite Windows 11 adoption lagging behind Windows 10. Microsoft has also been trying to convince Windows 10 users to buy a new PC with full screen prompts over the past year.

Consumers who don't want to buy a new PC or upgrade to Windows 11 will also be able to purchase extended security updates for the first time. You'll have to pay $30 for an extra year of updates, while businesses will be able to purchase up to three years of extended updates. One more bit of news. Microsoft users. OpenAI says OneDrive and SharePoint users will be able to connect their files to ChatGPT's deep research for analysis in beta. for ChatGPT+, Pro, or Team. Sounds pretty useful.

TikTok has launched TikTok AI Alive, which lets users turn static photos into videos in TikTok Stories using Story Camera. Quoting TechCrunch, TikTok is launching its first image-to-video AI feature. The company announced on Tuesday the new feature is called TikTok AI Alive and allows users to turn static photos into videos within TikTok Stories.

The feature is only accessible via TikTok's story camera and uses AI to create short form videos with movement, atmospheric and creative effects, TikTok says. For instance, if your static photo features a sky, clouds, and the ocean, TikTok could turn the photo into a video where the sky gradually shifts hues, the clouds start to drift, and you hear the sound of waves crashing.

or you could animate a group selfie that highlights gestures and expressions. The launch of the new image-to-video feature comes a few years after TikTok introduced an in-app. text-to-image AI generator, while both Instagram and Snapchat also offer text-to-image AI features for creators TikTok is now taking a step further by offering its users the ability to create videos from images. It's worth noting that Snapchat has said it will soon allow creators to generate AI videos from images as well.

AI Alive Stories will have an AI generated label to notify users that the content was created with AI. Plus, this content will have C2PA metadata embedded, which is a technical standard that helps others identify that the video is AI generated, even if it's downloaded and shared beyond TikTok, end quote. But there are also rumors that TikTok is working on a new feature to let US users share photos over DMs inside the app and also might have plans to introduce voice messaging.

quoting the information. The move could be a way to encourage more people to use direct messaging on TikTok, a feature that hasn't taken off as it has on Instagram and Snapchat. but the plans have sparked debate inside TikTok. Some employees are concerned that introducing photos to messaging could lead to a proliferation of sextortion scams and other abuses. A rise of such problems could worsen TikTok's already politically precarious situation in the U.S.

Under TikTok's current policy, users can share TikTok videos and virtual stickers as well as send and receive text messages with friends over direct message, but they can't send photos or videos that weren't created on TikTok. At the moment, only people age 16 and older can use DMs on TikTok. TikTok is also planning to introduce voice messaging as an option, something that is currently available on Instagram, one of the people said. It's unclear when the features could launch.

TikTok users spend twice as much time on the app as on Instagram, according to Guggenheim Partners and Apptopia. But despite its massive popularity, it's still in a tight war with Instagram and Snapchat for user attention. To keep people engaged with the app, it's been pushing more social features over the past few years. But TikTok has so far struggled to make its social features popular with users who continue to spend most of their time on the app's algorithm-fueled-for-you page.

For instance, TikTok executive Adam Presser in court testimony last month said that users spend only a quote, very minuscule percentage of time on TikTok's friends tab, which shows videos from a user's friend. TikTok employees focused on product and growth have supported the photo sharing plan, which the company has been working on for months.

but employees in the company's legal policy and trust and safety departments have raised concerns that photo messaging could increase risk to young users, two of the people with knowledge of the situation said. The debate highlights a long-standing tension at social media companies between teams charged with boosting growth and those focused on protecting users from harm.

The biggest concern is sextortion, in which scammers solicit nude images from minors online by pretending to be romantic interests and then use those images to demand money, sometimes with deadly consequences, end quote.

AI agents are all the rage right now, but while single agents can handle specific tasks, the real power comes when specialized agents collaborate to solve complex problems. Except there's still a fundamental gap. We have no standardized infrastructure for these agents to discover communicate with, and work alongside each other. That's where agency comes in. A-G-N-T-C-Y.

The agency is an open source collective building the Internet of Agents, a global collaboration layer where AI agents can work together. It will connect systems across vendors and frameworks, solving the biggest problems of discovery, interoperability, and scalability for enterprises. With contributors like Cisco, Crew AI, Langchain, and MongoDB, Agency is breaking down silos and building the future of interoperable AI.

Agency is where folks are building the Internet of Agents to be a diverse, collaborative space to innovate, develop, and maintain software components and services for agentic workflows and multi-agent software. shape the future of enterprise innovation. Visit agency.org to explore use cases now. That's A-G-N-T-C-Y dot O-R-G agency.org

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Finally today, there are also big changes over at Airbnb. where they have revamped the app to add a services section featuring personal chefs, trainers, hairstylists, and more. Bookings can be made even without a vacation reservation going on. Quoting CNN, nearly a decade ago, Airbnb envisioned being more than just an app to book a home for a vacation. Its latest redesign could be a major push toward becoming the kind of end-to-end travel app that CEO Brian Chesky has said he wants to create.

The online vacation home rental marketplace has made efforts towards this goal in the past. It launched Airbnb experiences, tours, classes, and other activities that can be booked on its app, a travel magazine, hotel-like offerings, and adventure tour packages that included lodging, transportation, and food.

Airbnb is returning to that vision of a full-service travel platform with new features, offerings, and a redesign of its app. That includes a new Airbnb services section where users can book chefs, masseuses, personal trainers, and other types of service professionals.

to come to their Airbnb. The new offerings could make Airbnb more competitive with travel platforms such as Expedia and Kayak as well as with hotels which can draw customers away from homestays with amenities such as restaurants and spas. One of the reasons why people don't always want to stay with Airbnb is because we didn't necessarily have all these other activities that you could do around the stay.

That may be some more traditional hospitality has. Airbnb Chief Business Officer Dave Stevenson told CNN in an interview ahead of the announcement on Tuesday. Starting on Tuesday, users can book service professionals directly from the Airbnb app through the new services tab. There are 10 categories of services including prepared meals, hair and makeup artists, and photographers.

who will come to users' Airbnb rentals. For example, users can book a photographer for a street-style photoshoot in Paris or a personal chef for a barbecue meal in Austin, Texas. The company says service providers must apply and provide proof of experience and professional licenses before they can be listed on the app.

Service professionals can also go to users' homes or other locations if they're not staying at an Airbnb rental, a way to keep people using the site even when they're not traveling. The feature will be available in 100 cities around the world to start. The company is also revamping its experiences section to add new exclusive offerings called Airbnb Originals.

Stevenson said Airbnb has teams around the world to work with locals to create experiences such as a tour of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris with an architect who worked on its restoration or a pastry making class at the French Bastards Bakery.

They are in cities, literally on the ground, reaching out to the most creative, most amazing people. We can do things like search social media, and then there's also just word of mouth, Stevenson said of the company's acquisition teams, adding that experiences will now be available in 1,000 cities around the world.

Unlike some existing Airbnb experiences, the new originals offering won't be bookable on other platforms like TripAdvisor or Viator. Users can also see the other people who have booked an experience and stay in touch and share photos on a message thread with the group afterward. through the app with privacy opt-outs available, of course, end quote. More on Brian Chesky's efforts to turn Airbnb into a storefront for services from Wired.

This month, Airbnb will launch the first stage of its more than $200 million reinvention, a panoply of more than 10,000 vendors peddling a swath of services in 260 cities and 30 countries. It is also revitalizing an unsuccessful experiment the company began in 2016. offering bespoke local activities or what it calls experiences. The next stage, launch date unspecified, involves making your profile on Airbnb so robust that it's almost like a passport, as Chesky puts it.

After that comes a deep immersion into AI. Inspired by his relationship with Sam Altman, Chesky hopes to build the ultimate agent, a super concierge who starts off handling customer service and eventually knows you well enough to plan your travel and maybe the rest of your life. Brian's been badly underrated as a tech CEO, Altman says of his friend. He's not usually mentioned in the same breath as Larry Page or Bill Gates, but I think he is on a path to build as big of a company, end quote.

That's a stretch. Airbnb is nowhere near the size of those oligarchic powers, but Chesky was feeling the need for big changes. While impressive, Airbnb's growth rate doesn't suggest that the company will soon reach the trillion-dollar heights of Google and Microsoft.

I'm 43 and at a crossroads where I can either be almost done or just getting started, he tells me. There's a scenario where I'm basically done. Airbnb is very profitable. We kind of mostly nailed vacation rentals. But we can do more, end quote. Chesky explains that historically people used Airbnb only once or twice a year. so its design had to be exceptionally simple.

Now the company is retooling for more frequent access. Open the app and you'll see a trio of icons that act as gateways to the expanded functions. Within minutes, Chesky and his lieutenants are applauding the cheery retro style of the icons, a house for traditional rentals, a hotel bell for services, and a Jules Verne-ish hot air balloon representing activities.

We really thought deeply about the metaphor. What was the right visual to express an experience, says Connor. Once they decided on the balloon, they drilled into how much fire should belch from the basket. The icons were drawn by a former Apple designer whose name Chesky would not divulge. He's a bit of a secret weapon, he says. A less secret weapon is Chesky's collaboration with the iconic, also ex-Apple industrial designer, Johnny Ive. Chesky's North Star, it should be said, is Apple.

Steve Jobs, to me, is like Michelangelo or Da Vinci, he says, despite never meeting Jobs. I feel like I know him deeply, professionally, in a way that few people ever did, in a way that you only possibly could by starting a tech company as a creative person and going on a rocket ship, Chesky says. By hiring Ive's love from company and working with Jobs' key collaborator, Chesky gets a taste of the famous Jobs-Ive dynamic. Ive himself.

Doesn't make that comparison, but he does praise Chesky's design chops. There are certain tactical things where I hope that sometimes I'm of use to Brian just as a fellow designer, Ive says, but the majority of our work has been around ideas and the way we frame problems and understand opportunities, end quote. Reminder that there won't be a regular 15 minute news show tomorrow.

I'll be at the Collective Future event tomorrow with some people that hopefully will be able to get on the show in the near future. Thanks to Founder Collective for the cool invite. What I'm going to do tomorrow is give you an episode that we did four years ago now with the acquired podcast guys. our World Cup of Entrepreneurs. Enjoy that, and I will be back with a regular show on Friday. Talk to you then. Get a fresh start feeling.

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