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Charlotte Henry

Charlotte is a media junkie, covering how Apple is not just a revolutionary tech firm, but a revolutionary media firm for TMO. She is based in London, and writes and broadcasts for various outlets.

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Articles by Charlotte Henry

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Tesla Granted Permission to Sell Model 3 in Europe

Charlotte Henry ·

LONDON – Tesla received permission to start selling the Model 3 in Europe. Bloomberg News reported Monday that the Dutch vehicle authority, RDW, gave the firm the go-ahead. It could start delivering the Long Range Battery version of the vehicle in February. The news came just days after CEO Elon Musk announced that the company was going to lay off 7% of its full-time staff to reduce the price of the Model 3.

The European launch is crucial for Tesla as it navigates what Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk called a “very difficult” road ahead. The company is cutting jobs so it can profitably deliver lower-priced versions of the Model 3, Tesla’s first car targeted for the mass market. Musk has pointed to sales of the sedan in Europe and China as a main reason he isn’t concerned about any potential setback caused by a halving of the U.S. federal tax credit, to $3,750, on Tesla purchases as of Jan. 1.

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Samsung Galaxy S10 Images Leaked

Charlotte Henry ·

On Friday, VentureBeat’s famed phone-leaker Evan Blass tweeted a picture of the new Samsung Galaxy S10 range.  It featured the Galaxy S10E, Galaxy S10, and Galaxy S10+. The Verge reported on the leaks, saying that the Galaxy S10E is likely to be the cheaper model in the range. It has just 2 cameras at the back, while both the other two models three. The report also noted that Samsung and Verizon are thought to have held discussions about bringing 5G to the U.S.

Blass points out that this image features the Galaxy S10 lineup in clear cases, with the S10E on the left, the S10 in the middle, and the S10+ on the right. The S10E features two cameras on the back, while the other two have three. The S10+ also appears to have a pair of front-facing cameras with a larger hole-punch.

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New 'Shot on iPhone XS' Film Set for Chinese New Year Release

Charlotte Henry ·

Apple looks set to release a new “Shot on iPhone XS” film in the near future. 9to5Mac picked up on Chinese reports which indicated that the new clip will be will be released to coincide with Chinese New Year. Those reports suggested that the latest iPhone XS short will be officially announced on January 25th. Apple released a “Shot on iPhone XS” film back in September 2018. It showed off the camera’s slow motion, time-lapse, and 4K capabilities.

A post on Chinese social network QQ.com shares what appears to be teaser materials for the film. Text invites you to click on text to reveal the protagonist of the film, and doing so reveals a man with a taped-up bucket … Other text asks whose story will be told, and how the secret will be kept, revealing further images of the man on the back of a motorcycle and a closer shot of the bucket.

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Cortana no Longer an Alexa or Google Home Competitor

Charlotte Henry ·

Microsoft no longer sees its Cortana digital assistant as a competitor to the more popular Alexa and Google Home. The company’s CEO, Satya Nadella, said that it should be further integrated with its rivals’ platforms instead, The Verge reported. Microsoft and Amazon already partnered for some Cortana/Alexa integration, and this is clearly where Microsoft intends to take the product next – more of an app or service across multiple platforms, not hardware to be sold.

CEO Satya Nadella revealed that Microsoft no longer sees Cortana as a competitor to Alexa or Google Assistant. “Cortana needs to be that skill for anybody who’s a Microsoft 365 subscriber,” explains Nadella, referencing Microsoft’s new consumer subscription push. “You should be able to use it on Google Assistant, you should be able to use it on Alexa, just like how you use our apps on Android and iOS so that’s at least how we want to think about where it’ll go.”

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Federal HTTPS Certificates Not Renewed Because of the Government Shutdown

Charlotte Henry ·

The U.S. Government shutdown has affected a whole host of areas in the public sector. One that might not immediately spring to mind, but is rather important nevertheless, is federal HTTPS certificates. Techcrunch had a look into the issue and compiled a list of all the federal HTTPS certificates that expired, or are about to expire. It included domains that redirect to the Congressional record and websites for agencies such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. If you go to one of the sites with an already expired HTTPS certificate, such as disasterhousing.gov, you get a warning that the site might not be secure.

During the government shutdown, security experts noticed several federal websites were throwing back browser errors because the TLS certificate, which lights up your browser with “HTTPS” or flashes a padlock, had expired on many domains. And because so many federal workers have been sent home on unpaid leave — or worse, working without pay but trying to fill in for most of their furloughed department — expired certificates aren’t getting renewed. Renewing certificates doesn’t take much time or effort — sometimes just a click of a mouse. But some do cost money, and during a government shutdown, there isn’t any.

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The Facebook 10 Year Challenge Might not Just be a Harmless Meme

Charlotte Henry ·

If you have been on Facebook or Instagram recently, you will have noticed the “10 Year Challenge”. Users post a profile picture of themselves from 10 years ago and another from now. It is meant to be a harmless meme that laughs at ourselves and late 2000s fashion. But could there be something more sinister to it? Katie O’Neil wondered in Wired if the “10 Year Challenge” is actually helping Facebook develop a facial recognition algorithm.

Imagine that you wanted to train a facial recognition algorithm on age-related characteristics and, more specifically, on age progression (e.g., how people are likely to look as they get older). Ideally, you’d want a broad and rigorous dataset with lots of people’s pictures. It would help if you knew they were taken a fixed number of years apart—say, 10 years. Sure, you could mine Facebook for profile pictures and look at posting dates or EXIF data. But that whole set of profile pictures could end up generating a lot of useless noise…In other words, it would help if you had a clean, simple, helpfully labeled set of then-and-now photos.

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Federal Prosecutors Push Huawei Criminal Investigation

Charlotte Henry ·

Federal prosecutors in the U.S. are pushing a criminal investigation against Huawei. The Chinese firm is alleged to have stolen trade secrets from U.S. business partners, including T-Mobile U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. This latest development puts even further pressure on the company. It has already been caught up in an investigation by the U.S. Government into intellectual property theft by Chinese companies. It’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada in December 2018 at the request of the U.S.

The investigation grew in part out of civil lawsuits against Huawei, including one in which a Seattle jury found Huawei liable for misappropriating robotic technology from T-Mobile’s Bellevue, Wash., lab, the people familiar with the matter said. The probe is at an advanced stage and could lead to an indictment soon, they said.

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Chinese Think-Tank Blasts Apple's Taiwan and Hong Kong References

Charlotte Henry ·

A Chinese think-tank criticized Apple, Amazon and a number of other firms for the way they reference Taiwan and Hong Kong, Reuters reported. Tawain is considered a wayward-province by China. Hong Kong was returned to China by the British in 1997 and is a semi-autonomous region. Apple is amongst a number of firms that refers to both Hong Kong and Tawain as separate from mainland China, something the Chinese government has been trying to crack down on recently.

China last year ramped up pressure on foreign companies including Marriott International and Qantas for referring to Taiwan and Hong Kong as separate from China in drop down menus or other material. The report was co-written by [Chinese Academy of Social Sciences] CASS and the Internet Development Research Institution of Peking University. An official at the Internet Development Research Institution told Reuters that it had not yet been published to the public and declined to provide a copy.

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Facebook to Introduce Stricter Rules in Countries Holding Elections This Year

Charlotte Henry ·

Facebook will introduce stricter rules on political advertising to a number of countries holding elections this year. The rules and tools aimed at curbing election interference will go live in India, Nigeria, Ukraine, and the European Union. The rollout will begin on Wednesday in Nigeria. Katie Harbath, Facebook’s Director of Global Politics and Outreach, told Reuters that only advertisers located in the country will be able to run electoral adverts there. Rob Leathern, a Director of Product Management at Facebook, also discussed the importance of storing electoral adverts in a searchable library.

We’re learning from every country,” Leathern said. “We know we’re not going to be perfect, but our goal is continuing, ongoing improvement.” Facebook believes that holding the ads in a library for seven years is a key part of fighting intereference, he added.. The library will resemble archives brought to the United States, Brazil and Britain last year.

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Apple's Services Future. It's Going to Be Different.

Charlotte Henry ·

Apple’s growing services business, and its increasing openness to having its software on other people’s hardware, is one of the most fascinating stories in tech at the moment. Tech blogger turned venture capitalist M.G. Siegler has written an excellent summary of the situation on Medium. As he says, the future for the company “is going to be… different.”

Incidentally, it was a pod that really started to change the equation. The iPod. In order to reach a wider audience with that device, Apple had to do something that was seemingly against Steve Jobs’ DNA: make software for Windows. (Ice water! In Hell!) And the slope ultimately proved slippery, albeit in a slow way. Eventually, we got (and then lost) Safari for Windows. And in the more recent era, Apple Music for Android. And Alexa.

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Huawei CEO Said Firm Not a Spy for China

Charlotte Henry ·

Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei insisted his company does not spy on behalf of China. In a rare public appearance, reported by the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Ren said: “I personally would never harm the interest of my customers and me and my company would not answer to such requests.” It comes as his daughter, the company’s CFO Meng Wanzhou, is fighting extradition to the U.S. after being arrested in Canada.

“No law requires any company in China to install mandatory back doors,” Ren Zhengfei said Tuesday. “I personally would never harm the interest of my customers and me and my company would not answer to such requests.” Mr. Ren’s public comments at Huawei’s campus are his first in years and come as the telecom giant faces challenges on multiple fronts.

 

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Facebook to Invest $300 Million in Local News Initiatives

Charlotte Henry ·

Facebook announced that it will invest $300 million in local news organizations and initiatives over the next three years. It will put $20 of million of this towards its Facebook Accelerator program that helps publishers develop membership and subscription models. It will also invest $6 million for the UK based Community News Project, $5 million to the Pulitzer Center for its “Bringing Stories Home”  initiative, and $2 million for the Report in America initiative that aims to place journalists in local newsrooms. Techcrunch looked at what the money means both for Facebook and the media industry.

As for why Facebook is focusing on local news specifically, Vice President of Global News Partnerships Campbell Brown said in a blog post that after examining “what kind of news people want to see on Facebook” and talking to industry partners, “We heard one consistent answer: people want more local news, and local newsrooms are looking for more support.”

 

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Weed Influencers Online are Helping Firms Get Around Advertising Regulations

Charlotte Henry ·

Weed firms are using online influencers to get around rules that prohibit the marketing of cannabis, even in U.S. states where the drug is legal. These influencers tend to be young women, who post on Instagram and YouTube, according to a report in Wired. Content can range from confessional videos to product reviews. Even though YouTube said it prohibits content around regulated substances like marijuana and removes the videos when it discovers them, firms marketing the products are benefiting from the influencers’ work.

For marketing agencies and companies selling cannabis products, influencers have been a boon – a creative way to get around regulations, with the added impression of authenticity. Typically, the more people that are looking at your product, or your posts, the better. But as public and legal attitudes to cannabis have shifted, the subcultures immersed in it are being subject to more scrutiny than before.