Apple is bringing Jared Harris (Chernobyl) and Lee Pace (Halt and Catch Fire) to star in its Foundation series.
Based on Isaac Asimov’s novel series of the same name, Foundationchronicles the epic saga of The Foundation, a band of exiles who discover that the only way to save the Galactic Empire from destruction is to defy it. Harris will star as Hari Seldon, a mathematical genius who predicts the demise of the empire. Pace is set as Brother Day, the current Emperor of the Galaxy.
totallee makes thin iPhone cases so your smartphone doesn’t become bulky. It recently released a line of green cases for the midnight green iPhone 11 Pro.
This case covers every corner of your phone and features a camera lens “lip” for added protection. Like a brushed finish? Go matte. Looking for invisible protection? Transparent all the way. Want a sophisticated backing? Leather is for you. This case maintains the original look of your iPhone 11 Pro. No branding. No bulk. No nonsense.
You can pick up one of these cases for US$29.
Forty-seven states are taking part in a New York led antitrust investigation into Facebook. New York State Attorney General Letitia James made the announcement Tuesday, CNBC reported.
The multistate investigation was first announced in September with participation from Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and the District of Columbia, but has since expanded considerably. The probe will zero in on Facebook’s dominance in the social media industry and whether it broke any state or federal laws as a result of any anticompetitive conduct related to that dominance. “After continued bipartisan conversations with attorneys general from around the country, today I am announcing that we have vastly expanded the list of states, districts, and territories investigating Facebook for potential antitrust violations,” James said in a statement. “Our investigation now has the support of 47 attorneys general from around the nation, who are all concerned that Facebook may have put consumer data at risk, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices, and increased the price of advertising. As we continue our investigation, we will use every investigative tool at our disposal to determine whether Facebook’s actions stifled competition and put users at risk.”
Do you tip your Uber driving? No? Turns out 60 percent of us never do. That’s according to a new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, reported on by The Verge.
The paper was authored by Stanford University’s Bharat Chandar and University of California-San Diego’s Uri Gneezy, as well as John List, former chief economist at Uber who is now at Lyft, and Ian Muir, current head of economics at Lyft. The researchers were uniquely positioned: in addition to combining big data analyzation with field experimentation, the team actually helped Uber implement its in-app tipping option, which rolled out in June 2017. As such, they were able to develop data from more than 40 million trips. What they found was not a whole lot of tipping. Roughly 16 percent of Uber rides are tipped. Yet, most riders (60 percent) never tipped over the research team’s four weeks of data collection. Of those who do tip, very few (1 percent) tip on every trip. The remainder of people only tip on about 25 percent of trips.
In the future, the Apple Watch might have electrical and data contacts. This would allow it to do things like have a replaceable power source or additional sensors not in the watch itself. That’s according to a new patent, discovered by AppleInsider.
In a patent granted to Apple by the US Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday for “Accessory Contacts,” the company suggests a solution could be found in the form of contacts embedded within the connector used to affix bands to the Apple Watch. According to the filing, the system would be somewhat reminiscent of the existing method of connectivity for Apple Watch bands, with a section that slides in from a side and is held in place using spring-loaded pins that pop into recesses within the Apple Watch body. A button can be pressed to pull the pin sections back, allowing the band connector to slide out.
Despite arguments from governments that encryption would hinder their ability to fight criminals, this clearly isn’t the case. In a recent example one of the biggest child porn sites on the dark web was recently taken down.
No backdoors were needed to track down the owner of the server or hundreds of the site’s visitors. For that matter, the FBI didn’t even need a warrant. The FBI did not deploy its infamous NIT (Network Investigative Technique) to track down site users. The flaw was the payment system linked to the site. Users may have thought their Bitcoin transactions couldn’t be traced back to them, but they were wrong.
The Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: Terrorists, pedophiles, drug dealers, organized crime.
We have a deal on Disk Drill PRO for Mac or Windows. This software is designed to make it easy to recover documents, music, photos, videos, or even whole partitions that have gone missing from your computer. You can get Disk Drill Pro through our deal for $39.
Facebook announced new features today that it claims can stop 2020 election interference. However, its advertising policy lets politicians lie and gladly pockets the money it gets from allowing it.
One new feature is called Facebook Protect. By hijacking accounts of political candidates or their campaign staff, bad actors can steal sensitive information, expose secrets, and spread disinformation. So to safeguard these vulnerable users, Facebook is launching a new program with extra security they can opt into.
Mark Zuckerberg on letting politicians lie in Facebook ads: “I don’t think people want to live in a world where you can only say things that tech companies decide are 100 percent true. And I think that those tensions are something we have to live with.”
Several Trend Micro apps were removed from the Mac App Store after they were found collecting user browser history.
Dr Cleaner, Dr Antivirus, and App Uninstall – utilities owned by the Japan-headquartered security house and distributed on the Mac App Store – are no longer available for download…Mac security guru Patrick Wardle noted last week that in addition to the advertised functions of removing adware and malware from Macs, the software also collected people’s personal data including their browsing history, then transmitted that data as a password-protected archive to a server on the internet.
As of this writing Dr. Antivirus is still in the MAS.
It is fairly common that Apple is not the first mover with a technology, but it then subsequently takes that technology into the mainstream. Mark Gurman at Bloomberg Businessweek thinks that with Apple set to release its smart glasses, that could be the cases with AR. It is looking like 2020 could prove to be a very big year for the company indeed.
The coming year will be critical for Apple Inc. Consumers should expect its most impressive hardware rollout in some time: The iPhone is due for its first major update since 2017, including 5G support, a much beefier processor, and a rear-facing 3D camera. The latter will give the phone a better sense of where it is in physical space, improving the accuracy of object placement in augmented-reality apps, which overlay virtual images on the real world. That could make it easier for users to model, say, the placement of pictures on their walls.
David Murphy asks if people are morally obligated to inform their guests that their home contains smart devices like HomePod, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home. Given the fact that these devices can listen to you, should you post a sign in your house that says, “Warning: This Area Under Surveillance?”
If you’re simply sporting a smart speaker, I think announcing its presence is less of a deal—overkill, really. But if a camera is recording me at any point, and that’s something you can view later, I think it’s the friendly thing to do to let me know before I start gossiping…or worse.
What do you mean by worse??
Redditor u/stephenvsawyer found that HEIC photos were given unlimited backups to Google Photos because they are smaller than JPGs. If Google tried to compress them the files would actually get bigger, which would be a waste of storage space. But Google calls it a bug and says it will fix it.
However, what that means remains unclear. Would Google start charging for HEIC images stored in Photos, even if they’re small and don’t take up much space? Would it forcibly re-convert those pics to compressed JPEG, or compress them further under the HEIC format? And will the fix apply to all HEIC images or just iPhones?
I’m not sure how Google will fix it unless they just check if the file extension is .HEIC and arbitrarily limit these files (arbitrary since converting them would increase their size).
French website MacGeneration (via MacRumors) has found references to and an image of a 16-inch MacBook Pro in the beta of macOS 10.15.1. Looking similar to the current 15-inch MacBook Pro, the not-yet-announced device has a thinner bezel. Cool, yeah? Here’s a snippet from the Google Translate version of the article, but read the full thing for more images and info.
macOS 10.15.1 contains references to a MacBook Pro 16″, which accredit the many rumors about this new model.In the code of the first two beta of this version of Catalina, we found with the help of a reader, Maxime, the mention “MacBookPro16,1” which designates a new laptop of 16 “. Better than that, there are even the icons of the machine!
We have a deal on Tap Forms 5, a database creation tool for macOS. It features built-in design tools to help you create forms to efficiently track, manage and maintain your data. It also includes a Bento library importer, relational capabilities, 5 different views of your data including list, multi-column, map, calendar, and photo grid. This database tool for the Mac is $24.99 through our deal.
Ever had some weird readings from your Apple Watch, or even wondered if you’re wearing right? Well, don’t worry, AppleInsider found information from Apple on exactly how it wants you to wear the device.
While much of the Apple Watch’s fitness capabilities comes through having internals such as an accelerometer to measure movement or provide fall detection, it also has an array of sensors on the back. If you’ve ever seen someone wearing an Apple Watch too loosely, you’ve seen a bright green light coming from the back. This is the optical heart sensor, which uses photoplethysmography to calculate your heart rate. That back of the Watch, though, must be kept in contact with your skin for that optical and an electrical heart rate sensor to work. The Taptic Engine expects you to be wearing it snugly, and the Wrist Detect feature has to have that skin contact. Apple even provides a diagram recommending the right fit.
Apple’s approach to China has stoked a lot of controversy in recent days. Wired looked at the numbers that may be driving the company’s policy. You may agree with the conclusions. You may disagree. But the article provides some important context to what is going on.
Last week, China temporarily suspended ties with the NBA after Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, tweeted – and quickly deleted – his support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters, forcing the NBA to publicly apologise for the move. That same week, Blizzard controversially banned a Hearthstone tournament player after he made a political statement in support of Hong Kong protesters during a post-tournament interview. But more significant are the actions of Apple. The company has removed two apps from its App Store after receiving widespread criticism from Chinese state media. One of these was the app for news website Quartz, which has extensively covered the Hong Kong protests; the other was the HKmap.live app after authorities claimed that protesters were using the app to target and attack the police. These moves by Apple are part of a wider pattern of behaviour by the company to appease China, which has become one of its most important markets. And a closer look at the numbers reveals just how important China has become to the Cupertino-based firm – and how far it’s willing to go to keep the world’s most-populous onside.
So it turns out the fingerprint sensor on the Samsung Galaxy S10 can be circumvented by a $3.47 screen protector. The BBC had that report, but it was John Gruber’s commentary I thought was spot on:
When the iPhone 5S debuted with Touch ID, we were inundated with news stories about “easy” ways to spoof it that were, in fact, not easy at all. Now we learn that Samsung’s flagship phone’s fingerprint sensor can in fact be spoofed trivially — and… crickets.
In a word, yup.
We have a deal on the Rabbit charger, an interesting wall-mounted charging station for your mobile devices. It features a built-in, retractable cable, and that cable has two charging plugs you can use at the same time. Plus, the charging tips are swappable, and it comes with two USB-C tips and two Lightning tips, all of which fit over micro USB tips built-in to the cable. Lastly, it also has a built-in AC outlet so that it still leaves you with a standard plug. This device is $45.95 through our deal.
Google launched its latest smartphones, the Pixel 4, the other day. Its event did not quite capture the imagination in the way Apple’s iPhone events do. However, argues Rene Ritchie at iMore, Apple could still learn a thing or two from Google.
It was like watching Game of Thrones Season 8, offering them more episodes, begging them for more episodes, and just watching them mic drop and end it.. like that. Anyway. The products and technology that did manage to somehow sneak out on stage was so good, that it almost makes up for the obvious lack of planning and organization that went into the event, and the extreme disrespect shown the audience, both live and streaming. Almost.
It seems that being in “a billion pockets,” as Oprah put it, is not the only perk of media stars working with Apple. The stars of For All Mankind were all given iPhone 11s ahead of the premiere, Variety reported.
Apple’s clean-cut aesthetics for the big premiere weren’t surprising for the multinational company and perhaps even less surprising was how generous the company has been with granting the cast and crew access to their latest technology. The entire cast even received new iPhone 11s from Apple ahead of the premiere. “[Apple has] been so supportive. They come and do set visits and they’re excited to see us. They gave us all free iPhones. That is a perk,” star Krys Marshall told Variety on the carpet. “We all got the 11 yesterday. It’s nice. But aside from the free phones, they have just been fabulous, really encouraging. They believe in us.”
The UK Government has dropped controversial plans for a ‘porn blocker’ law, BBC News reported. It was going to introduce stringent age verification checks intended to stop under-18s viewing porn online.
It said the policy, which was initially set to launch in April 2018, would “not be commencing” after repeated delays, and fears it would not work. The so-called porn blocker would have forced commercial porn providers to verify users’ ages, or face a UK ban. Digital Secretary Nicky Morgan said other measures would be deployed to achieve the same objectives. The government first mooted the idea of a porn blocker in 2015, with the aim of stopping youngsters “stumbling across” inappropriate content.
Another day, another lawsuit against Apple. The latest class action lawsuit, brought in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accused Apple of a variety of offenses, including iPhone throttling, AppleInsider reported.
Among the causes of action laid out by plaintiffs are counts of trespass to chattels, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), violation of California’s Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, unfair business practices and false advertisement. Plaintiffs allege Apple harmed owners of iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, SE, 7 and 7 Plus units by implementing an iOS feature that, under certain conditions, temporarily throttles an iPhone’s processor during instances of heavy load.
Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck called on Congress to regulate the use of consumer location data in an op-ed published by The New York Times. He further said such regulation should include three principles: 1.) Location data requests in apps be tied to an actual service; 2.) Transparency for users, 3.) That companies getting location data agree to “do no harm.” It’s an interesting read, especially from one of the big players in location data use. Here’s a snippet:
There are no formal rules for what is ethical — or even legal — in the location data business. We could all take a Hippocratic oath for data science (as in medicine: “First do no harm”), and hope that living by such an oath would curb abuses. But even in the best of circumstances, that oath is voluntary. It’s time for Congress to regulate the industry.
We have a deal on a pair of TREBLAB Z2 Bluetooth 5.0 Noise-Cancelling Headphones. This is an updated version of the TREBLAB Z2 headphones, with an all-black design and support for Bluetooth 5, as well as the active noise cancellation.
