We have a deal on the NX-100 Smart Garage Controller and Smart Plug Bundle. This device turns your garage door opener into a smart garage door opener and is compatible with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.It’s $79 through our deal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot-1ltcGQvI
Apple’s “By Innovation Only” media event for new iPhones and other new product launches is set to start at 10:00 AM PDT. Join The Mac Observer for our live coverage of Apple’s announcements. And be sure to stick around after the event for our extra news and analysis, plus our Daily Observations wrap up.
Firefox Private Network is a Mozilla VPN launching under its old Test Pilot program. It’s available as a beta today for U.S. users with a Firefox account.
In a nutshell, the Firefox Private Network extension will provide a “secure, encrypted path to the web” to protect the user’s Wi-Fi connection and data contained within the Firefox browser. One of the scenarios Mozilla thinks Firefox Private Network will be useful for is when connecting to the internet through public Wi-Fi hotspots, as it will shield personal information and conceal what websites a user is visiting.
McDonalds purchased Apprente Tuesday, as it doubled down on AI investment . The move followed its purchase of another AI firm, Dynamic Yield, earlier in 2019. The idea, reported Wired, is to help speed up drive-thru and get you your Big Mac quicker.
Apprente’s speech-based artificial intelligence deals within the relatively narrow confines of quick-service restaurants. As with Dynamic Yield’s decision engine, which switches up menu items based on what it thinks consumers want at any given time and location, Apprente’s ultimate goal is to increase the speed of any given transaction. Anyone who’s had to repeat their order into a squawking speaker knows that pain. Apprente calls its technology “sound-to-meaning,” in contrast to “speech-to-text.” The distinction, other than having a nice ring to it, is that unlike many voice AI models, Apprente says it does not transcribe what the customer says, and then infer meaning from that transcript. It goes directly from speech signals to result.
When the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) ruled that songwriters should get paid more per stream, Apple agreed. All the other major music platforms did not. Instead, they chose to appeal the ruling. Music Business Worldwide explained the ongoing legal wranglings.
Spotify, Amazon, Google, and SiriusXM/Pandora are now appealing this ruling because, to cut a long story short, they argue it could unfairly advantage Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, and Warner Music Group — who all own both major record companies and major music publishers. Apple stands alone in refusing to appeal the CRB’s judgement. Spotify et al’s appeal, filed last month, argues that, to avoid giving the major music companies too much power, a ‘cap’ should have been introduced by the CRB Judges, which would ensure that no method of payout to publishers could ever exceed the equivalent of $0.80 per paying subscriber, each month, of each service.
Attorneys general from 48 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico launched an antitrust probe into Google Monday. The drive was led by Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, CNBC reported. It followed the launched of similar action against Facebook on Friday.
The probe includes attorneys general from 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. California and Alabama are not nvolved in the probe, Paxton said at a press conference. Other attorneys general at the media conference emphasized Google’s dominance in the ad market and use of consumer data. “When there is no longer a free market or competition, this increases prices, even when something is marketed as free, and harms consumers,” said Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican. “Is something really free if we are increasingly giving over our privacy information? Is something really free if online ad prices go up based on one company’s control?”
The photos show how colorful the new version of the Cube is, and it’s reflective, too, though this effect is temporary.
According to an investigation of President Trump’s Twitter security, his account might be vulnerable to being hacked, although some disagree.
The source who shared information about Trump’s Twitter security said they don’t believe the account will be hacked, but that the risk should be kept in perspective. “Remember we are talking about access to a Twitter account, not access to the nuclear launch codes,” they said. “While the optics would be bad if the account were ever hacked, it would not be a national crisis.”
Josh Centers is the Managing Editor of Tidbits.com and has published many Take Control (TC) books. He’s the author of Take Control of Apple TV and Take Control of Home Automation. He’s been writing the Take Control books for iOS since version 8, and his latest book is Take Control of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13.
In his fifth appearance on the show, Josh and I explored his latest article (Aug. 30) at Tidbits that explores a controversial user interface issue in iOS 13. Josh is blunt about Apple’s questionable use of the ellipsis. We then took a 30,000 ft. view of the current disarray in the area of IoT, home automation and security. As an aside, Josh and I hypothesize about a new Apple product. We finished with a discussion of what sets iPadOS 13 apart from iOS 13.
Andy Greenberg writes about security problems in iMessage and Safari, saying that these products make iPhone less secure.
“If you want to compromise an iPhone, these are the best ways to do it,” says independent security researcher Linus Henze of the two apps…He and other iOS researchers argue that when it comes to the security of both iMessage and WebKit—the browser engine that serves as the foundation not just of Safari but all iOS browsers—iOS suffers from Apple’s preference for its own code above that of other companies.
Apple is in a tough position. If a company isn’t great at security, they could get a third-party to audit its software. But that would create a huge target.
Wall Street analysts believe that as many as 200 million users could upgrade to iPhone 11, some of them in China despite the trade war.
Although Facebook has pledged to fight fake news and other misinformation on its platform, there’s a loophole.
We have a deal on MacX DVD Ripper Pro, software that can convert your DVDs into digital video files for your media library. It supports batch converting for multiple videos at once, can extract audio, and more. The deal listing has more information, and a lifetime license for MacX DVD Ripper Pro is $19.99 through our deal.
Charlotte Henry and Bryan Chaffin join host Kelly Guimont to discuss iOS vulnerabilities as weapons, and the slow success of Watch.
When Tim Cook first showed-off the Apple Watch it was not necessarily clear what it was for. But, said James Titcomb at the Telegraph, it has proved to be a success.
New gadgets rarely come out of the gates fully formed; technology is an iterative process. The problem for Cook was that the company’s previous products had delighted instantly. The appeal of the iPod and iPhone were obvious as soon as they were touched. The Watch, by contrast, has been that rare thing for Apple: a slow burner. Unlike its predecessors, which were close to the finished item when launched, the original Apple Watch felt like a prototype, one that has since developed it out in the open. More recent versions have dramatically improved. Apple has dispensed with any pretence of the Watch being a luxury good, and stopped attempting to squeeze aspects of the iPhone onto its small screen.
Apple is reportedly adding a new coprocessor to the iPhone 11 line referred to as an “R1” chip or “Rose” used to process sensor data.
Apple and Foxconn conceded that they employed too many temporary workers following a critical report by China Labor Watch.
Having your iPhone fall out your pocket and break is pretty annoying, so it is particularly great if you or someone else catches it before it gets smashed on the ground. Well, that is exactly what Samuel Kempf did. Except he was on a rollercoaster travelling at 130 km/h (via iClarified). He posted the video to YouTube. It had been viewed nearly 5.2 million times at the time of this writing. In the description, Mr. Kempf explained: “I was in Spain at Port Aventura on shambhala ride and saw the person a few rows ahead drop their IPhone X. long story short I caught it. this roller coaster is moving at over 130kms…was once Europe’s tallest and fastest coaster.. only recently beaten.”
Apple’s latest Tokyo Store, Apple Marunouchi, opened Saturday to large crowds, becoming the company’s biggest retail outlet in Japan.
Apple is tweaking the App Store algorithm to make Apple apps less likely to appear in search results. This seeks to address complaints that the company unfairly uses the App Store to promote its own apps in favor of competition.
Mr. Schiller and Mr. Cue said the algorithm had been working properly. They simply decided to handicap themselves to help other developers.
“We make mistakes all the time,” Mr. Cue said.
“We’re happy to admit when we do,” Mr. Schiller said. “This wasn’t a mistake.”
I think the antitrust concerns about Apple have valid arguments, and I think this is a good move by Apple. Notice Phil Schiller gently correct Eddy.
This isn’t the one after 9/9, it’s the one on 9/9! And that means it’s time to answer your questions and share your tips about optimizing your iPhone storage, managing your snapshots, ejecting pesky drives, finding a service better than Gazelle, and much more. Press play and enjoy learning at least five new things right alongside John and Dave!
The profitability of cars is low. And Apple is a mass-market consumer electronics company that maintains high margins. Seeking Alpha argues that Apple should use its AI tech for home robots instead.
Apple’s glass cube retail store on Fifth Avenue is reopening, and it’s bedecked with rainbows to celebrate.
A filming crew was posted outside the cube, grabbing shots of passers-by photographing themselves with the new design. One of the crew members told Quartz they were filming “a new commercial” for Apple about the relaunched store, but wouldn’t go into any further detail.
I think it looks great.
Featured image credit: Quartz/Mike Murphy
iCloud features in the iOS 13 betas have been removed because of buggy issues (And is probably a big driver behind iOS 13.1 betas). Developer Craig Hockenberry says this resulted in some unhappy customers.
Entire folders were either gone or corrupted. Apple’s mechanism to recover deleted files was of no help. The customers with weird folder duplicates were the “lucky” ones…Anyone who’s not a developer, and hasn’t been burned by a bad OS, does not know the kind of trouble that lies ahead. It’s irresponsible for Apple to release a public beta with known issues in iCloud…As an Apple shareholder, I also worry about how these failures will damage the iCloud brand.
This is exactly why you don’t run beta software on mission-critical devices. It’s not irresponsible of Apple, it’s irresponsible of people who ignore the warning on beta.apple.com to make backups. These people are why there are “Caution: Product May Be Hot” labels on microwaveable food.
