Charlotte Henry

Pixelmator Photo 1.3. for iPad has been released. AppleInsider has given it a test drive, and noted that, amongst other new features, batch editing shortcuts have been introduced.

Pixelmator Photo 1.3 now lets users press and hold on an image in the app’s photo gallery, to bring up a context menu with shortcuts. They’re chiefly basic options that tend to be used regularly, so they are a quicker way to share, duplicate, revert, or mark an image as a favorite. However, there is also always an option called Copy Adjustments. When an image has been edited, choosing this option from the context menu copies all of the effects that have been applied. It copies color changes, exposure adjustments, and, in our testing, all but cropping or resizing. Then tapping and holding on another image brings up the same menu, but now with Paste Adjustments.

It appears that free trials of Disney+ are no longer available. As The Verge noted, that has ended just before Hamilton arrives on the streaming service.

It’s not clear when Disney removed the ability to try out Disney Plus for free, but the timing does sense, given that Disney is just weeks away from releasing what might be the single most anticipated title on the service yet: the recording of the Broadway production of Hamilton, set to debut on the service on July 3rd. Without a free trial, anyone who wants to watch Hamilton when it’s out will have to pay for at least one month of Disney Plus (which costs $6.99, or $12.99 for the more prominently advertised bundle that also includes Hulu and ESPN Plus) — customers that Disney is presumably hoping will turn into long term subscriptions.

On June 18 1993 John Sculley’s 10-year run as Apple CEO came to an end. As Cult of Mac recalls, it followed AAPL stock collapsing from $4.33 a share in 1992 to 73 cents a share in 1993.

A few things led to Sculley’s departure. He wanted to move back to the East Coast, and considered taking the role of CEO at IBM. He was also heavily involved in politics, supporting Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. From the perspective of Apple’s board, he was too involved with the Newton, at a time when Apple was facing increased competition from rivals. After Sculley stepped down, the Apple CEO role was handed over to Michael Spindler, formerly the company’s COO. Sculley remained Apple chairman until October 1993, departing with a golden parachute of around $10 million.

Apple looks set to move the manufacture of the 2020 iPhone SE to India in order to avoid heavy import taxes. Such a move has been rumored for a while. AppleInsider has a good round-up of the situation.

Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL star who started ‘taking the knee’ protest against racisms, has joined the board of blogging platform Medium. Boss Evan Williams made the announcement Thursday, saying Mr. Kaepernick will contribute to its publications.

Kaepernick Publishing’s mission is to uplift and elevate voices for Black and Brown communities, something that has been desperately needed in the publishing space. Through this partnership, Colin will be publishing across Medium’s platform, including a collaboration with Medium’s editorial team leading Level and Momentum. He will be sharing his thoughts on anti-Black racism in our society, and Medium and Kaepernick Publishing will co-publish thought-provoking feature stories from diverse writers of color.

Twitter announced on its blog that it is testing out voice tweets on iOS. It is in a bid to give users of the service a “more human experience.”

Each voice Tweet captures up to 140 seconds of audio. Have more to say? Keep talking. Once you reach the time limit for a Tweet, a new voice Tweet starts automatically to create a thread. Once you’re done, tap the Done button to end your recording and go back to the composer screen to Tweet. People will see your voice Tweet appear on their timeline alongside other Tweets. To listen, tap the image. On iOS only, playback will start in a new window docked at the bottom of your timeline and you can listen as you scroll. You can also keep listening while doing other things on your phone or on the go.

The COVID-19 outbreak brought huge, in-person conferences to screeching halt. CNet has looked at how tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Google have reinvented the major set-piece events.

While many big tech conferences have been cancelled as a result, Apple, Microsoft and Sony are taking a different tack. Each company has chosen to hold its typically in-person events entirely online, giving live access to many more people than they could fit in convention centers as the companies stream their announcements on the internet. “Running a virtual event well requires stitching together several different technologies. It’s not just a webcast or several webcasts,” said Adam Preset, a senior research director at Gartner, whose clients are increasingly asking for help putting these types of events together. The challenge companies will face, in addition to technical glitches or family members suddenly interrupting at home, is keeping the audience engaged, he said.

Slack has become essential during this period of working from home. On Monday, the company unveiled a set of remote working emoji to help users communicate with their colleagues. It said in a blog post that the emoji will be rolling out over the coming days.

We’ve created a handy set of custom emoji for using in your status (or in messages or reactions) for those moments when you need to convey more information. This emoji pack for remote work is rolling out now and will be available to everyone in the coming days. You can add this set of emoji by clicking the “add emoji” button within the emoji picker. If you still need help, here’s a link to our help center article on adding custom emoji to Slack.

Some Gulf states are using COVID-19 contact tracing apps as mass surveillance tools. The issue was highlighted in research by Amnesty International, reported on by The Verge.

Amnesty International found that the Gulf states’ apps it analyzed were among the most invasive, collecting and storing GPS data and making it easy for the government to identify someone based on their account ID. Norway’s app was also flagged for putting its citizens’ privacy at risk for collecting and storing location data on a central server. But the country on Monday said it would pause the rollout of its the app, called Smittestopp, after Amnesty International shared its findings with the Norwegian government… Apple and Google are still in the process of developing a more privacy-focused system for the US and other countries that would work across both Android and iOS, while some governments have simply made their own apps along separate lines.Gul