Indholdsfortegnelse for #366 i AppleMagazine

THE ‘ENTRY-LEVEL’ DEVICE IS ALREADY PROVING A HIT On Friday, October 26, the iPhone XR wasreleased to a largely rapturous response. Indeed, in the run-up to the handset’s retail release, Apple went as far as sharing aroundup of positive reactions from critics . Digital Trends, for instance, has hailed the “stunning” colors, “great” battery life and “industry-leading” Face ID technology – and with all of this being available from just $749, the iPhone XR has also been deemed great value for money. Daring Fireball called the XR, in this respect, “almost certainly the best iPhone Apple has ever made.” A ‘CHEAPER’ iPHONE WITH A DIFFERENCE Nonetheless, what such effusive comments as the above perhaps fail to highlight is that the iPhone XR is, at its heart, a curious beast compared…

People can livestream their every move on Facebook and chatter endlessly in group chats. But in most parts of the U.S., they still can’t reach 911 by texting — an especially important service during mass shootings and other catastrophes when a phone call could place someone in danger. Although text-to-911 service is slowly expanding, the emphasis there is on “slow.” Limited funds, piecemeal adoption and outdated call-center technology have all helped stymie growth. Emergency 911 centers stress that a phone call is still the best way to reach them, since calls provide them with location data and other needed details. But in some cases — for instance, if a person has a hearing disability, or when a call might attract the attention of assailants — texting is a far better…

Most leading phones offer the same basics: Big screens, decent battery life and good cameras. So when a newcomer brings something innovative to the party, why is it difficult to break through a phone market dominated by Apple and Samsung? One such smartphone comes out this week from Red, a company with roots in digital cameras for movie productions. The new Hydrogen One has a holographic screen that produces 3-D visuals without needing special glasses. It is launching with two major movies converted to this format and allows users to create and share their own videos shot with the phone. Red’s goals are modest — about 16 million units a year, based on Red’s stated target of 0.5 percent of Samsung’s sales. But Red will need customers beyond the tech…

It was the kind of security lapse that gives election officials nightmares. In 2017, a private contractor left data on Chicago’s 1.8 million registered voters — including addresses, birth dates and partial Social Security numbers — publicly exposed for months on an Amazon cloud server. Later, at a tense hearing , Chicago’s Board of Elections dressed down the top three executives of Election Systems & Software, the nation’s dominant supplier of election equipment and services. The three shifted uneasily on folding chairs as board members grilled them about what went wrong. ES&S CEO Tom Burt apologized and repeatedly stressed that there was no evidence hackers downloaded the data. The Chicago lapse provided a rare moment of public accountability for the closely held businesses that have come to serve as front-line…

Shooter Shooter Jennings Shooter is the eighth album from Shooter Jennings. Jennings is the son of leather-and-lace country couple, Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, but he hasn’t always followed in his parents’ country footsteps, dabbling in dystopian rock opera in 2010 with Black Ribbons. However, this new album sees Jennings reverting to his country and Southern rock and roll roots. FIVE FACTS: 1. In the first few years of his life, Shooter Jennings lived on his parents’ tour bus, surrounded by the likes of Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash. 2. Jennings signed his first recording contract in 2005 with Universal South Records and released his first album, Put “O” Back in Country, that same year. 3. In the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line, Jennings portrays the role of his…

Facebook didn’t hit it out of the ballpark with its latest quarterly report, but the bar isn’t so high these days for the image-battered social networking giant. The company reported a slight revenue miss but stronger than expected profit for the July-September period. Coming three months after its stock suffered its worst one-day drop in history, wiping out $119 billion of its market value, the mixed results were perhaps not the redemption Facebook hoped for. Shares were volatile in after-hours trading — dropping the most, briefly, when executives discussed a decline in expected revenue growth and increasing expenses during the conference call. Still, the stock generally vacillated in the low single-digit percentages, suggesting, at least, that the social media giant didn’t spook investors too badly. With the myriad problems Facebook…

The Hubble Space Telescope is studying the cosmos once again after a three-week shutdown. NASA says the orbiting observatory resumed scientific observations over the weekend. Hubble’s pointing system was compromised earlier this month when an old gyroscope finally failed. The backup did not kick in properly, forcing flight controllers to come up with a fix. Controllers managed to coax the backup gyroscope into operation through a variety of maneuvers and switches. Three gyroscopes need to be working for optimal performance. Launched in 1990, Hubble has made more than 1.3 million observations of stars, galaxies, black holes and other celestial targets. Some are more than 13 billion light-years away. The telescope resumed operations Saturday by staring down a distant star-forming galaxy in the infrared.…

Southern California-based Virgin Orbit has reached a milestone in developing its airborne orbital launch system. The company says this week it mated a LauncherOne rocket to a special Boeing 747 at Long Beach Airport and will soon begin a series of flights that will culminate with a drop test in which the booster will be released from beneath the jet’s left wing. The system is intended to carry small satellites into orbit. Virgin Orbit is a sister company of Virgin Galactic, which is developing an air-launched rocket plane for carrying tourists on suborbital flights into space. Virgin Orbit said it already has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of launches on contract for a wide range of customers including NASA and the U.S. Defense Department.…

MORE IN THE MAKING Spirits were high at Apple’s ‘There’s more in the making’ event, which was held at the Howard Gilman Opera House in Brooklyn, New York on October 30. Hot off the heels of the launch of the new iPhone XS, XS Max and XR, Tim Cook and Co were ready to show off next-generation models of two of the company’s most beloved products: the Mac, and the iPad. Introducing a whole host of new editions, this was an Apple event to remember, and professionals’ hunger for new high-end tablets and notebooks was finally fed. In this week’s issue, we uncover the all-new iPad Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini, and see what technology critics and the public had to say. A BRAND NEW MACBOOK AIR After the…

Investors for years have seemingly adored technology stocks as much as most people love their smartphones. But Wall Street has suddenly soured on Silicon Valley and the rest of tech, triggering a stomach-churning downturn in a turbulent October. Some of the hardest hit stocks belong to five companies — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google. They have collectively attracted billions to their products, carving out lucrative markets they each dominate in an increasingly digital world. Investors latched on to their success and gave them their own acronym, “FAANG.” (It’s still in use even though Google now trades under the stock of its parent Alphabet Inc.) What a difference a month makes. Since the end of September, individual FAANG stocks have plunged between 4 percent and 20 percent, collectively wiping out…

The Beatles have released a new music video on Apple Music for their 1968 song, “Glass Onion.” The video was released Tuesday and features rare photos and performance footage. The song appeared on their self-titled ninth album, often referred to as the “White Album,” which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The Beatles will re-release the “White Album” on Nov. 9, featuring 30 tracks newly mixed by Giles Martin, the son of longtime Beatles producer George Martin. The repackaging also includes 27 acoustic demos of material the Beatles made at George Harrison’s house before recording sessions began, as well as 50 studio outtakes.…

The Supreme Court struggled this week over what to do about an $8.5 million class-action settlement involving Google and privacy concerns in which all the money went to lawyers and nonprofit groups but nothing was paid to 129 million people who used Google to perform internet searches. The justices considered objections to the settlement in a case involving Google searches people do about themselves. The lawsuit argues that Google sends website operators potentially identifying information when someone clicks on a link produced by a search. The suit says the practice violates users’ privacy under federal law. The issue at the court concerns the rare instances in which courts approve a “cy pres” settlement, roughly translated as near as possible, and find it’s impractical to send money to the very large…

The Trump administration has imposed restrictions on technology exports to a state-supported Chinese semiconductor maker, citing national security grounds amid a mounting tariff battle. The controls imposed Monday on Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. reflect concern Chinese competition could drive American technology suppliers out of business, leaving the military without secure sources of components. Beijing has spent heavily to build up Jinhua and other chip makers as part of efforts to transform China into a global leader in robotics, artificial intelligence and other technology industries. The United States, Europe and other trading partners say Beijing’s tactics violate its market-opening obligations. American officials worry they might erode U.S. industrial leadership. President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs of up to 25 percent on $250 billion of Chinese goods in an effort to…

Parliamentary committees in Britain and Canada on Wednesday urged Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before a joint hearing of international lawmakers examining fake news and the internet. Damian Collins, the head of the U.K. parliament’s media committee, is joining forces with his Canadian counter part, Bob Zimmer, to pressure Zuckerberg to personally take part in hearings, as he did before the U.S Congress and the European Parliament. The so-called “international grand committee” session would be held Nov. 27 and could include lawmakers from other countries. “We understand that it is not possible to make yourself available to all parliaments. However, we believe that your users in other countries need a line of accountability to your organization_directly, via yourself,” the pair said in a letter to Zuckerberg. “We would have…

Google will give away $25 million to projects that propose ways to use the artificial intelligence of computers to help create a more humane society. The grant program announced Monday is part of a broader Google initiative called “AI for Social Good” that aims to ease concerns that advances in artificial intelligence will eliminate jobs and perhaps even be autonomously deployed by militaries to kill people. Other technology companies have taken similar steps to address ethical issues in AI. For instance, Microsoft has committed $115 million to an “AI for Good” initiative that provides grants to organizations harnessing AI for humanitarian, accessibility and environmental projects. During a presentation in Sunnyvale, California, Google demonstrated how its AI technology is already being used to diagnose diseases, help people with disabilities, predict areas…

The robotic car company created by Google is poised to attempt a major technological leap in California, where its vehicles will hit the roads without a human on hand to take control in emergencies. The regulatory approval announced this week allows Waymo’s driverless cars to cruise through California at speeds up to 65 miles per hour. The self-driving cars have traveled millions of miles on the state’s roads since Waymo began as a secretive project within Google nearly a decade ago. But a backup driver had been required to be behind the wheel until new regulations in April set the stage for the transition to true autonomy. Waymo is the first among dozens of companies testing self-driving cars in California to persuade state regulators its technology is safe enough to…

IBM’s plan to buy Red Hat is both the biggest acquisition in IBM’s century-long history and a risky effort to position itself as a major player in cloud computing. The $34 billion stock deal translates to $190 per Red Hat share — a 63 percent premium to the closing price Friday for the Raleigh, North Carolina, company. Red Hat Inc.’s stock soared about 45 percent in trading Monday. The path for revitalization for IBM may be found in cloud technology, a driving force behind the blockbuster deal for Red Hat over the weekend. “It’s a big bet but ultimately they’re in a situation where they needed to make a significant acquisition to move them potentially forward,” Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said. Cloud computing, in which services are delivered over the…

Juliet, Naked Annie Platt’s (Rose Byrne) long-term relationship with Duncan Thomson (Chris O’Dowd) – a superfan of obscure rocker Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke) – is tested when she enters into a romantic encounter with the rock star himself. FIVE FACTS: 1. Juliet, Naked holds a ‘Tomatometer’ rating of 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 125 reviews and an average rating of 6.9/10. 2. The movie is based on Nick Hornby’s 2009 novel of the same name. 3. Megan Dodds also stars, as Carrie. 4. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2018. 5. It is directed by Jesse Peretz, who previously directed Our Idiot Brother (2011) and The Ex (2007). BlacKkKlansman BlacKkKlansman is an American biographical comedy-drama film, directed by Spike Lee. Based on Ron Stallworth’s…

Where does a preening, pansexual rock god get his powers? The Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” traces his sonorous majesty to an unlikely place: his back teeth. Mercury, nee Farrokh Bulsara, was born with four extra incisors, giving him a bigger mouth. Introducing himself to his future Queen bandmates Mercury, as played by Rami Malek, explains that the added chompers have benefits beyond a provocative, pronounced overbite. It endows him with enhanced vocal range. Teeth-assisted or not, Mercury’s voice was so expansive that it prompted genuine scientific inquiry. But range is one thing sorely lacking in Bryan Singer’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” a slavishly conventional rock biopic that at every turn opts for the stereotypical despite a subject who devoted himself to the unconventional. It’s a remarkably bland movie about a deliciously…

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is now closer to the sun than any spacecraft has ever gotten. Parker surpassed the record of 26.6 million miles (43 million kilometers) set by Helios-2 back in 1976. And it will keep getting closer to the sun until it flies through the corona, or outer atmosphere, for the first time next week, passing within 15 million miles (24 million kilometers) of the solar surface. Parker will make 24 close approaches to the sun over the next seven years, ultimately coming within just 3.8 million miles (6 million kilometers). Launched in August, Parker is on track to set another record late Monday night. It will surpass Helios-2’s speed record of 153,454 miles per hour (247,000 kilometers per hour), relative to the sun.…

Technology company chiefs have warned that a digital services tax proposed by the European Union would hinder innovation and hurt economic growth. In a letter to finance ministers of the 28-nation European Union, leaders of 16 tech companies including Spotify, Booking.com and Zalando say the proposed tax would undermine the EU’s goal of a digital single market and “harm the very businesses that are the catalysts for economic growth and employment in the European economy.” Johannes Bahrke, spokesman at the EU’s executive Commission, defended the proposal Tuesday, saying it aims to create a “level playing field” for companies whether they are based in or outside the EU. “Our proposal remains fully grounded on the most basic principle of corporate taxation which is that profits should be taxed where the value…

Turkey’s president inaugurated a gleaming new aviation hub in Istanbul this week, a megaproject that he has pushed to fulfill his dream of making Turkey a global player. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Istanbul Airport was open for operations on a special day — the 95th anniversary of Turkey’s establishment as a republic following its war of independence. With the sprawling new airport on shores of the Black Sea, Erdogan declared that Turkey has become the “most important transit location on the north-south, east-west axes, connecting 60 countries and $20 trillion economies.” “With this airport, we are furthering our country’s key role in the integration of global economies,” he said. It was a symbolic opening, with only a few flights scheduled this week. But by the end of the…