Indholdsfortegnelse for #365 i AppleMagazine

THE CUPERTINO FIRM IS STILL A MAJOR FORCE As unthinkable as it may have been at one point, 2018 has seen chatter among observers both inside and outside the tech industry on the subject of whether Apple remains as exciting or as innovating a force as it once was. Is there, then, genuine room for concern, or could the Californian giant’s finest days still be ahead of it? Apple has, of course, released all manner of dynamic and often genre-defining products over the past decade or so, including the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro. But are the noises that have long been made in the era of current CEO Tim Cook about Apple’s supposedly waning pioneering verve become too loud to ignore? Yes, Apple’s track record of success in recent…

AN AFFORDABLE iPHONE FLAGSHIP When Apple unveiled a trio of new iPhones last month, it was the XR that generated the biggest response. A brand new model with a stunning new design, the XR is considered as a “low cost” version of last year’s iPhone X, but with all of the biggest features we have come to know and love, including facial recognition and Face ID, a stunning all-glass display, and the fastest and most powerful smartphone chip ever included in an iPhone. As the new device gets ready to launch to the public, we take a closer look at the new iPhone XR and explore how the model may, unexpectedly, become one of the biggest selling smartphones in the history of the iPhone. A STUNNING NEW DEVICE Alongside the…

When Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, it seemed like a big gamble for an unproven little app. Six years later, that little app — along with Messenger and WhatsApp — are serving as Facebook’s safety net for a future that could find its flagship service on the sidelines. Sure, Facebook reigns in social media today, and this is not likely to change soon. Still, amid the company’s seemingly endless troubles over elections meddling, misinformation, privacy lapses, hacking and hate speech, the idea that Facebook may not always be on top has begun to take hold. “Facebook could collapse,” said David Kirkpatrick, who wrote a 2010 book on Facebook’s early history. In an interview, he said the elections manipulations issue “could get so terrifying that advertisers could start…

A co-founder of Facebook’s virtual-reality division is joining the exodus of executives to leave the company after striking it rich in lucrative sales of their startups. Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe disclosed his decision to leave Facebook in a tweet posted this week. His departure comes 2 1/2 years after Facebook parted ways with Oculus’ other co-founder, Palmer Luckey. Both Iribe and Luckey joined Facebook in 2014 after selling Oculus to the company for $2 billion. Iribe had been Oculus’ CEO until 2016 when he shifted to a lower-ranking job in the virtual reality division. Facebook issued a statement hailing Iribe for pushing virtual reality “far beyond the boundaries of what people thought possible and it’s because of his vision that we’re all here working on VR today. We’re thankful for…

Cage to Rattle Daughtry Cage to Rattle is the Grammy-winning Daughtry’s fifth studio album. Featuring rock grooves, ballads, piano and electro-blues, this long-player sees Daughtry move into a new style of music personal to each band member. Their lyrics remain deeply moving and Chris Daughtry’s voice is as powerful as ever. FIVE FACTS: 1. Lead singer Chris Daughtry has three dogs called Chloe, Harlow and Miley. 2. Daughtry has been nominated for four Grammys, including for Best Rock Album. 3. Chris Daughtry is an active participant in the ONE campaign, which fights AIDS and poverty. 4. Cage to Rattle is produced by Jacquire King, who is known for producing Kings of Leon, Norah Jones and Tom Waits. 5. Chris Daughtry has described the new album as more rock-oriented, commenting: “It’s…

Netflix plans to borrow another $2 billion to help pay for the exclusive series and movies that its management credits for helping its video streaming service reel in millions of new subscribers during the past five years. The additional debt load announced Monday isn’t a surprise. Netflix needs more cash because it has been spending more money than its business generates since its expansion into original programming with the 2013 release of “House of Cards.” Netflix expects to burn through $3 billion this year. The $2 billion that Netflix plans to raise in a bond offering will be lopped onto it existing debt of $11.8 billion. That includes another $1.9 billion debt offering that Netflix completed earlier this year. The borrowing binge appears to be paying off.off.NetNetflix has gained nearly…

A government computer system that interacts with HealthCare.gov was hacked earlier this month, compromising the sensitive personal data of some 75,000 people, officials said. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made the announcement late in the afternoon ahead of a weekend, a time slot agencies often use to release unfavorable developments. Officials said the hacked system was shut down and technicians are working to restore it before sign-up season starts Nov. 1 for health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act. About 10 million people currently have private coverage under former President Barack Obama’s health care law. Consumers applying for subsidized coverage have to provide extensive personal information, including Social Security numbers, income, and citizenship or legal immigration status. The system that was hacked is used by insurance agents…

Instead of destroying jobs and leaving legions of people without work, the digital revolution can open doors to unseen opportunities and industries, but only if everyone has access to the internet and the ability to use it, Melinda Gates said in a recent interview. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has joined a global initiative working to ensure frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality will help, not hurt the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. The effort to build so-called “digital ecosystems” by the Gates Foundation-supported Pathways for Prosperity Commission on Technology and Inclusive Development was showcased at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank last week in Bali, Indonesia. Among the leaders in the Pathways initiative is Sri Mulyani Indrawati, finance minister…

Apple’s new iPhone XR has most of the features found in the top-of-the-line iPhone XS Max, but not its $1,100 price tag. The XR offers the right trade-offs for just $750. For something cheaper, you’ll need to look in the iPhone history bin. Older models are still quite good. If you’re shopping for a new phone, it pays to think hard about what you really want and what you’re willing to pay for it. Improvements over the previous generation tend to be incremental, but can add up over time — and so do the sums you’ll pay for them. iPHONE 7 ($449) The big jump in iPhone cameras came a generation earlier with the iPhone 6S, when Apple went from 8 megapixels to 12 megapixels in resolution. With the iPhone…

From the time he joined 20Fathoms, Paul Van Dyke was going through a job interview. He just didn’t know it. Van Dyke turned an individual membership at the Traverse City tech incubator into a position as a software developer at HealthBridge. The Grand Rapids-based start-up offers an employer-sponsored benefit that helps the employee manage the balance due after insurance with a consolidated statement and easy repayment terms. “It was fun to watch him interact,” said Tim Heger, chief technology officer at HealthBridge. “He didn’t realize I was watching him and kind of interviewing him from afar: How he interacted with people, how he handled problems, how he tackled them, what was his work ethic, was he here early, was he staying late. “We’re a start-up; you have to have people…

There are so many good movies in theaters right now — thoughtful, artistic, well-acted and well-told movies that studios preciously save for this time of year with the distant hope of Oscar gold in their future. The Gerard Butler submarine movie ”Hunter Killer ” is not one of those movies — it is bombastic and garish, ridden with clichés, preposterous politics and diplomacy, and frenetic, video game energy. And it so often so unintentionally silly that it’s actually kind of a fun watch. “Das Boot” this is not, nor is it “The Hunt for Red October,” but you probably already knew that from name at the top of the marquee. In Gerard Butler parlance, “Hunter Killer” is the “London Has Fallen” of submarine movies, genetically engineered in a lab to…

Elon Musk says he’s planning to offer the public free rides through a tunnel he bored under a Los Angeles suburb to test a new type of transportation system. In a series of tweets, Musk said the tunnel is almost complete and there will be an opening event on the night of Dec. 10 and free rides for the public the next day. The tunnel runs about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) under the streets of Hawthorne, where Musk’s SpaceX headquarters is located. Musk has described a system in which vehicles or people pods are moved on electrically powered platforms called skates at speeds up to 155 mph (250 kph). Musk wants to build a tunnel across western Los Angeles and another between a Metro subway line and Dodger Stadium.…

People seeking dubious, potentially harmful treatment for cancer and other ailments raised nearly $7 million over two years from crowdfunding sites, a study found. Echoing recent research on campaigns for stem cell therapies, the findings raise more questions about an increasingly popular way to help pay for costly, and sometimes unproven, medical care. Soliciting money on GoFundMe and other sites eliminates doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and other “gatekeepers” that can be a barrier to expensive treatment, said lead author Dr. Ford Vox, an ethicist and brain injury expert at Shepherd Center rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta. He calls it “the democratization of economic power through social media” but says it can pose an ethical dilemma. Online fundraising “has a big bright side” when it helps patients pay for legitimate care, he…

With his demand that the Pentagon create a new military service — a Space Force to assure “American dominance in space” — President Donald Trump has injected urgency into a long-meandering debate over the best way to protect U.S. interests in space, both military and commercial. At the same time, his approach has left many struggling to understand the basics, such as what a Space Force would do and how much it might cost. The Pentagon is expected to have enough details filled out by early next year to include a Space Force plan in its 2020 budget request to Congress. Until then, the idea has taken on a life of its own at Trump’s political rallies, powered at least in part by his conflating of the nation’s civilian space…

In 1964, the first public memorial to the Holocaust in the United States was unveiled in a solemn ceremony in Philadelphia. The bronze-on-black granite sculpture called “Six Million Jewish Martyrs” was the work of artist Nathan Rapoport, who fled his native Poland when the Nazis invaded Warsaw. It was commissioned by a group of Philadelphia-area Holocaust survivors and Jewish civic leaders. The sculpture, which depicts images of resistance, innocence and faith, has sat unchanged on its perch along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway ever since. Now, after more than half a century, the Holocaust Memorial Plaza has been expanded and enhanced to focus on both remembrance and education. With new displays and an interactive app, visitors can hear testimonies from survivors, liberators and witnesses associated with the Philadelphia community. The new…

The head of Apple on Wednesday endorsed tough privacy laws for both Europe and the U.S. and renewed the technology giant’s commitment to protecting personal data, which he warned was being “weaponized” against users. Speaking at an international conference on data privacy, Apple CEO Tim Cook applauded European Union authorities for bringing in a strict new data privacy law in May and said the iPhone maker supports a U.S. federal privacy law. Cook’s speech, along with video comments from Google and Facebook top bosses, in the European Union’s home base in Brussels, underscores how the U.S. tech giants are jostling to curry favor in the region as regulators tighten their scrutiny. Data protection has become a major political issue worldwide, and European regulators have led the charge in setting new…

Walmart says it will work with third-party sellers to make millions of items available for free two-day shipping on orders over $35. The company is also simplifying the returns process for eligible products bought from marketplace sellers. That includes allowing shoppers to return the items at any one of its 4,700 stores. Previously, only select items were eligible for free two-day shipping. Walmart will begin to roll out the improvements in mid-November as it seeks to better compete with online leader Amazon ahead of the holidays. Amazon already allows its sellers to offer free two-day shipping. Last year, more than half the items sold on Amazon were from third-party sellers. Walmart doesn’t break out how many third-party sellers it has, but its website sells 75 million items from them.…

Along Came the Devil Ashley (Sydney Sweeney) moves in with her estranged aunt (Jessica Barth) and after seeing her dead mother’s ghost, invites a demonic force into her life unknowingly, leaving her loved ones fighting for her soul. FIVE FACTS: 1. This is director Jason DeVan’s first feature film. 2. Sydney Sweeney plays Eden Spencer in the TV show The Handmaid’s Tale. 3. Pastor John in the movie is played by Matt Dallas, who became famous from his TV show Kyle XY. 4. The original title of Along Came the Devil was Tell Me Your Name. 5. The movie’s running time is one hour and 29 minutes. The Spy Who Dumped Me After discovering the boyfriend who dumped her was a spy, Audrey (Mila Kunis) and best friend Morgan (Kate…

There’s nothing really new or fresh or bold in “Johnny English Strikes Again,” the third installment of Rowan Atkinson’s bumbling-spy saga/James Bond spoof. And for some of us, maybe that’s not such a terrible thing. Sometimes you don’t want the hip new cocktail. Sometimes you just want the same beer at the same temperature at the same time in the same comfy chair. (Especially these days, perhaps, but we digress.) So when Atkinson’s Johnny, on the run in a Scottish castle, winds up in a room of decorative suits of armor, you start chuckling preemptively. Because of course you know he’s going to hide in one of those suits, and of course you know he’s going to have a massively difficult time staying upright, and, well ... it’ll be funny.…

Yahoo has agreed to pay $50 million in damages and provide two years of free credit-monitoring services to 200 million people whose email addresses and other personal information were stolen as part of the biggest security breach in history. The restitution hinges on federal court approval of a settlement filed in a 2-year-old lawsuit seeking to hold Yahoo accountable for digital burglaries that occurred in 2013 and 2014, but weren’t disclosed until 2016. It adds to the financial fallout from a security lapse that provided a mortifying end to Yahoo’s existence as an independent company and former CEO Marissa Mayer’s six-year reign. Yahoo revealed the problem after it had already negotiated a $4.83 billion deal to sell its digital services to Verizon Communications. It then had to discount that price…

U.S. auto companies such as General Motors, Tesla and Ford faltered this year in Consumer Reports’ reliability rankings as readers reported more mechanical trouble with their vehicles. The magazine and website said all U.S.-based brands fell to the bottom half of 29 brands in the rankings. Lexus and Toyota were once again at the top. Consumer Reports got more than 500,000 responses to the annual survey of its subscribers, and it uses the data from the 2000-2017 model years to predict reliability of 2019 vehicles. The survey released Wednesday found that readers are having more trouble with technology designed to increase fuel economy than they are with electronic infotainment systems, which long had been a bugaboo for automakers and vehicle owners. The mechanical problems with smaller turbocharged engines and transmissions…

It probably felt like a cutting-edge caper at the time: The New York Giants, using an elaborate spyglass-and-buzzer system, would have the opposing team’s signs relayed from their center-field clubhouse at the Polo Grounds to the bullpen and then to the batter, passing along valuable information during the team’s pursuit of the 1951 pennant. The question nowadays is whether there’s an app for that. Stealing signs is as much a part of baseball tradition as stealing bases, but the technology available now could open a whole new frontier of competitive sleuthing. The latest flare-up came when a man associated with the Houston Astros was pointing his cellphone into opposing dugouts during playoff games against Cleveland and Boston. The Astros said they were just trying to defend themselves against any suspicious…