Charlotte Henry

Facebook cryptocurrency has lost a number of big-name backers in recent times. Reuters reported on the problems facing Libra, and looked at where the project might go next.

PayPal (PYPL.O) started the Libra Association exodus this month, leaving Facebook without the backing of any major payments firms for the project, due for launch by June 2020. Libra said this month it would give details after the meeting of the 1,500 “entities” that have indicated “enthusiastic interest” to take part in the project. Members will review a charter and appoint a board at the Libra meeting, which will be held in Geneva, the Wall Street Journal reported this month. A spokeswoman did not immediately respond to enquiries on the meeting of the Libra Association, whose remaining members include Vodafone (VOD.L) and ride-hailing firms Uber and Lyft.

I know. You’re only just getting used to your new iPhone 11. But Lisa Eadicicco at Business Insider is already looking at what comes next for Apple.

Among the biggest changes that’s expected to come with Apple’s 2020 iPhones is the introduction of a more sophisticated three-dimensional camera, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and Debby Wu. Such a camera system would include a laser scanner to create 3D replicas of the real world, boosting the iPhone’s augmented reality capabilities. With the new 3D camera, the iPhone would be better at placing virtual objects in augmented reality and would offer enhanced depth perception, according to Bloomberg. Apple’s iPhones have supported augmented reality applications for years, and the company made its first big push into AR when it launched ARKit in 2016 — a set of tools to help mobile developers build high-quality AR apps.

NASA is aiming for a manned SpaceX mission in the first quarter of 2020. NASA chief Jim Bridenstine made the announcement Thursday, Reuters reported.

The pronouncement of a revised time frame signaled NASA believes SpaceX is getting the Crew Dragon project back on track following an explosion during a ground test in April and technical challenges with its re-entry parachute system. Bridenstine said successful development of the capsule was key to achieving NASA’s top priority – the resumed “launching of American astronauts on American rockets from American soil” for the first time since the space shuttle program ended in 2011. The NASA administrator spoke to reporters at the end of a visit to the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, just outside Los Angeles, where chief executive Elon Musk led him on a tour of the sprawling manufacturing plant.

Apple’s classic Texas Hold’em game has be updated for iPad, 9to5Mac reported. The game can be play in fullscreen, Split View, or Slide Over mode.

With Texas Hold’em iPad support, you can play in full screen or while using other applications thanks to support for Split View and Slide Over multitasking… Apple’s Texas Hold’em game was originally created for the iPod and was one of the first games released for the iPhone in 2008. Apple has breathed new life into the game this year in honor of the App Store’s 10th anniversary (which was technically last year.)

Oprah announced last month that she is bringing her book club to Apple TV+ and Apple Books. In her self-titled magazine, naturally, the media queen explained why she had done so.  And yes, it is all about those pockets!

I’ve joined forces with Apple to create what I hope will be the world’s most vibrant book club, engaging readers everywhere in conversations with one another—and with the authors who conjure the magic. Apple is in a billion pockets, y’all. To me, that presents a magnificent opportunity to connect the world through reading. With each announcement of a new book club selection, you’ll have a chance to buy the book, read it, and then take part in a conversation with the author about the story and the writing process. Authors are my rock stars.

ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley Hughes does not like Apple’s charging cables. At all.

I’m not sure what it is about Apple cables, but the brilliant white rubber coating the company uses just doesn’t seem to be all that robust. After about six months of use — you know, the regular stuff like plugging and unplugging it — the outer starts to get soggy and discolored, and then over time becomes more and more fragile, until one day it starts peeling off, and then it is game over for the cable (unless you want to go through the pantomime of patching it, which buys you a little time). While I’ve long given up on using Apple cables for my iPhone and iPad — and even for my Apple Watch — I had hoped that the USB-C-to-USB-C charging cable for my MacBook Pro would be OK. I mean, how badly can you mess up a USB-C-to-USB-C cable? Pretty bad, if you’re Apple it seems.

The O.MG. Cable, a Lightning cable that allowed hackers to remotely take over a victims computer, was demonstrated last summer at Def Con. Now, Fast Company reported, it is being mass-produced.

The O.MG Cable was first reported by Motherboard’s Joseph Cox when the security researcher who created it, a person known as “MG,” first demoed his handmade prototype at the Def Con hacking conference last summer. The O.MG Cable looks like an ordinary Apple-made Lightning cable and works exactly the same—it will charge a device and transfer data to and from the device just like an authentic Lightning cable. However, the O.MG Cable also contains a built-in wireless hotspot. This allows attackers to remotely run commands on the Mac or Windows PC the cable is plugged into, which allows them to do, well, pretty much whatever they want—including reading or even deleting your data… The good news at the time was that the O.MG cable needed to be handmade and was relatively expensive—$200 a pop. But now MG says that he’s found a way to mass-produce the cable in a factory, which will allow thousands of them to roll off an assembly line.

It is eight years since Steve Jobs passed away.  A little over that since Tim Cook succeeded him as CEO of Apple. At Forbes, Chuck Jones argues that Mr. Cook is still not getting the credit his deserves.

Analysts say that there hasn’t been any innovation at Apple over the past eight years, that Cook needs to be replaced and that the company should acquire at least one or more large companies to “take it to the next level.” They seem to ignore some new products that are generating tens of billions of revenue every year… In fiscal 2011 Apple generated just under $3 billion in Services revenue vs. a projected $46 billion in fiscal 2019. Cook has also announced a goal of approximately $50 billion next year, which the iPhone reached in fiscal 2011 or four years after it became available.