Innehållsförteckning för #170 från AppleMagazine

Satellite TV provider Dish Network made a splash this month when it unveiled an online alternative with fewer channels and a lower price tag than its regular service. The Sling TV option is aimed at people who have dropped their cable or satellite packages or never had either. Based on a few days of viewing, Sling TV comes across as a good stopgap for those who don’t already pay for cable or satellite - but it’s not compelling enough for most people to cut the cord. And that’s the point: Dish wants to win over the pay-TV holdouts without cutting into its existing customer base. On Tuesday Sling TV will start opening the service to those who had requested invites. A full launch is expected in about two weeks. THE…

Motorola unveiled three smartphone models on Monday for its return to China following a two-year absence from the most populous mobile phone market. Motorola was a mobile phone pioneer in China but pulled out in 2013 after its acquisition by Google Inc. Computer maker Lenovo Group bought Motorola last year as part of its effort to become a global competitor in wireless devices. “This is a day of rebirth,” said Liu Jun, Lenovo’s executive vice president, onstage at a Beijing conference center to unveil models for China. In a crowded market, Motorola is trying to set itself apart by allowing buyers of its flagship Moto X to customize their phones. Buyers can pick colors, features and exterior materials that include leather and wood, said Rick Osterloh, president of Motorola. The…

Apple CEO Tim Cook says consumer demand for new iPhones has been “staggering” and “hard to comprehend.” That helped the company report record-smashing earnings for its latest quarter and primed its stock for a rally Wednesday. But after selling a record 74.5 million iPhones in three months that ended in December, what can Apple do next? Some analysts worry that Apple depends too much on the iPhone, which contributes two-thirds of its sizable revenue - leaving the company vulnerable if some other gadget comes along to replace the iPhone in popularity. Cook and Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri, however, say they’re optimistic about other products in Apple’s portfolio. Here’s some of what they talked about on Tuesday. APPLE WATCH Apple plans to start selling its highly anticipated smartwatch in April,…

Fury There has been no shortage of films about World War II down the years, but this one focuses on what happened to a few members of a U.S. tank crew - led by commander “Wardaddy” (Brad Pitt) - towards the end of hostilities in Germany. As if their latest mission wasn’t deadly enough, they are also forced to take on a rookie, Norman (Logan Lerman) in their platoon. FIVE FACTS: 1. The movie was directed by David Ayer, whose past works include 2012’s End of Watch. 2. Ayer was influenced by the service of veterans in his family and by reading books like Death Traps by Belton Y. Cooper. 3. Other members of the cast included Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña and Jon Bernthal. 4. According to Bernthal, Ayer pushed…

The Obama administration appears to be making broader changes to protect consumer information on the government’s health insurance website, after objections from lawmakers and privacy advocates. The Associated Press reported last week that details such as consumers’ income and tobacco use were going to private companies with a commercial interest in such data. AP also reported that a number of companies had embedded connections on Healthcare. gov, raising privacy and security issues for some tech experts. An independent analysis of the health care website, released Saturday showed that the number of embedded connections to private companies had dropped from 50 to 30. Those changes accompanied another shift by the administration to curtail the release of specific personal information from the website. The AP reported that change Friday. After failing to…

Herding cattle. Counting fish. Taking an animal’s temperature. Applying pesticides. When it comes to drones, “your imagination can go pretty wild in terms of what would be possible,” says Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union. This month, the Federal Aviation Administration issued the first permit for agricultural use of unmanned aerial vehicles. Steven Edgar, president and CEO of ADAVSO, says his Idaho-based business will use a lightweight, fixed-wing drone to survey fields of crops. Drone technology, already used in other countries, can make farmers more efficient by helping them locate problem spots in vast fields or ranchlands. Increased efficiency could mean lower costs for consumers and less impact on the environment if farmers used fewer chemicals because drones showed them exactly where to spray. The Association for Unmanned…

Apple had another blowout quarter thanks to its new plus-sized iPhones, which helped the company smash sales records for the holiday season. Apple said Tuesday that it sold 74.5 million iPhones during the three months that ended Dec. 31, beating analysts’ expectations for the latest models of Apple’s most popular gadget, introduced in September. The surge in iPhone sales drove the company’s total revenue to $74.6 billion, up 30 percent from a year earlier. CEO Tim Cook said on a call with analysts that demand for the phones was “staggering,” and noted that results would have been even higher if not for the impact of the strong dollar on overseas sales. Net income rose 38 percent to $18 billion, as Apple reported earnings of $3.06 a share. Analysts surveyed by…

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Late summer 2014 saw the Bethel Music artist collective of the Bethel Church came together on a mountaintop north of Redding, California for an unforgettable evening of worship. This live album and accompanying film was another result of that gathering, showcasing a series of inspirational new songs, including by several debut artists. FIVE FACTS: 1. Bethel Music is the record label of the division of Bethel Church devoted to professional music production. 2. Bethel Church is a non-denominational megachurch that was established as an Assemblies of God congregation in 1954. 3. It has since grown to an estimated weekly attendance of more than 3,500 people. 4. Bethel Music has said that the new album’s title track “hails a message of promise in adversity and proclaims the victory we have in…

Sheriffs are campaigning to pressure Google Inc. to turn off a feature on its Waze traffic software that warns drivers when police are nearby. They say one of the technology industry’s most popular mobile apps could put officers’ lives in danger from would-be police killers who can find where their targets are parked. Waze, which Google purchased for $966 million in 2013, is a combination of GPS navigation and social networking. Fifty million users in 200 countries turn to the free service for real-time traffic guidance and warnings about nearby congestion, car accidents, speed traps or traffic cameras, construction zones, potholes, stalled vehicles or unsafe weather conditions. To Sergio Kopelev, a reserve deputy sheriff in Southern California, Waze is also a stalking app for law enforcement. There are no known…

WAR DRAMA SPARKS POLITICAL SKIRMISHES To say that Clint Eastwood’s latest biographical war drama film has been a commercial success would certainly be quite the understatement - in fact, it’s already booked its place as a cultural phenomenon, and by some distance. The story of the late Chris Kyle, the deadliest marksman in U.S. military history, has certainly captured audience imaginations - not to mention causing more than a little political controversy. Based on the 2012 book American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, the film sees Bradley Cooper cast as Kyle, a man who racked up 255 kills, 160 of those being officially confirmed by the Department of Defense. Sienna Miller also stars, as Kyle’s wife Taya, to say nothing of such other…

A PROMISING NEW COMPONENT OF WINDOWS 10 We may have already known that Windows 10 was coming, but further details on the latest installment of Microsoft’s so-long iconic operating system were always going to be welcome, and sure enough, we got some at an event in Redmond on Tuesday, January 20 that also brought rather less expected news... that of a new addition to the headset market, HoloLens. Before we go any further, though, we should stress that HoloLens isn’t strictly a virtual reality headset; it is instead an augmented reality one, with a version of Windows 10, Windows Holographic, having even been created around it. HoloLens doesn’t immerse you entirely in a virtual environment, instead using transparent lenses to project images into your existing world. It creates holograms, in…

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It’s showtime for Pluto. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has traveled 3 billion miles and is nearing the end of its nine-year journey to Pluto. Sunday it begins photographing the mysterious, unexplored, icy world once deemed a planet. The first pictures will reveal little more than bright dots - New Horizons is still more than 100 million miles from Pluto. But the images, taken against star fields, will help scientists gauge the remaining distance and keep the baby grand piano-sized robot on track for a July flyby It is humanity’s first trip to Pluto, and scientists are eager to start exploring. “New Horizons has been a mission of delayed gratification in many respects, and it’s finally happening now,” said project scientist Hal Weaver of Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory. “It’s…

AT&T is buying Nextel Mexico from NII Holdings for about $1.88 billion, minus the company’s debt. The deal will give AT&T Inc. companies that operate under the name Nextel Mexico and hold all of the wireless properties in Mexico held by NII Holdings Inc. That includes spectrum licenses, network assets, retail stores and about 3 million subscribers. Nextel Mexico’s network covers approximately 76 million people. AT&T said Monday that it plans to create the first-ever North American Mobile Service area covering more than 400 million consumers and businesses in Mexico and the U.S. This will include Nextel Mexico’s subscribers. AT&T plans to combine Nextel Mexico with lusacell, a Mexican wireless provider it agreed to acquire in November. The company said that this will help it to more quickly improve and…