Innehållsförteckning för #457 från AppleMagazine

CES, one of the world’s biggest technology conferences, will be a virtual event in January due to the coronavirus pandemic, a reversal from May when organizers said it would go on as a smaller gathering in Las Vegas. The announcement is another blow for Las Vegas which, like all other U.S. tourist destinations, is suffering as people stay home or vacation locally. More than 170,00 people attended the four-day show this year in January, before COVID-19 began to spread across the U.S. States in the South and West are being hit particularly hard. In Nevada over the past two weeks, the rolling average number of daily new cases has increased 27%. The state now ranks sixth in the country for new cases of COVID-19 per capita. The pandemic has disrupted…

Having a tough time recognizing your neighbors behind their pandemic masks? Computers are finding it more difficult, too. A preliminary study published by a U.S. agency found that even the best commercial facial recognition systems have error rates as high as 50% when trying to identify masked faces. The mask problem is why Apple earlier this year made it easier for iPhone owners to unlock their phones without Face ID. It could also be thwarting attempts by authorities to identify individual people at Black Lives Matter protests and other gatherings. The National Institute of Standards and Technology says it is launching an investigation to better understand how facial recognition performs on covered faces. Its preliminary study examined only those algorithms created before the pandemic, but its next step is to…

A Nice Girl Like You Violinist Lucy Neal (Lucy Hale) is dumped by her boyfriend Jeff (Stephen Friedrich), who accuses her of being “pornophobic”. This leads her to embark on a mission to prove him wrong, making a “Sex To-Do List” that eventually results in a new romance with Grant (Leonidas Gulaptis). FIVE FACTS: 1. Andrea Marcellus wrote the screenplay, adapting it from writer Ayn Carrillo Gailey’s 2007 memoir Pornology. 2. Principal photography on this movie ran from October 23, 2018 to November 15, 2018. 3. Activities the character of Lucy adds to her to-do list include watching 25 porn films, visiting a sex store, strip club and brothel and meeting a porn star. 4. Vertical Entertainment obtained distribution rights to this movie in June 2020 before setting a July…

Every week, it seems, Kaila Barker, her husband and their five children change their minds about whether to travel from their home in Connecticut to Florida’s Walt Disney World as planned in September. On the one hand, the lack of crowds means more opportunities to go on rides without long waits. On the other hand, Connecticut and Florida have implemented pandemic-related quarantines for each other’s residents and visitors, and the Barkers worry whether the Disney “magic” will get lost with mandatory mask-wearing for visitors and workers, temperature checks and no parades, fireworks shows or up-close “meet-and-greets” with costumed characters. “We keep going back and forth. It’s such a hard decision to make,” Barker said. Two weeks after Disney World started opening its theme parks for the first time since closing…

Four Big Tech CEOs — Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai of Google and Tim Cook of Apple — answered for their companies’ practices before Congress as a House panel caps its yearlong investigation of market dominance in the industry. The powerful executives defended their companies as buttressing competition and offering essential services to consumers. The four CEOs testified remotely for a hearing Wednesday by the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, continued to denounce the big tech companies, which he has accused, without evidence, of bias against him and conservatives in general. In a tweet, he challenged Congress to crack down on the companies. “If Congress doesn’t bring fairness to Big Tech, which they should have done years ago, I will do it myself…

As Microsoft took to the stage to host the Xbox Games Showcase, we edged even closer to the release of one of the world’s most advanced gaming machines. Conveniently set for a Winter 2020 release alongside the new PlayStation 5, the device will revolutionize console gaming and take players on immersive, awe-inspiring journeys through time and space. INTRODUCING THE XBOX SERIES X Previously codenamed Xbox Project Scarlett, the Xbox Series X was announced during the Game Awards in 2019, and according to Microsoft, was designed to transport players into the “future of gaming”. Built around impressive new hardware from AMD, including Navi graphics architecture and a Zen 2 CPU, the Series X console will minimize or even eliminate load times on blockbuster gaming titles, helping you get into the action…

Money transfer apps including Venmo, Cash App and PayPal have surged in popularity during the pandemic as people seek safe, contactless ways to send and receive money. Unfortunately, many people don’t understand the limitations of these payment platforms or how they can put someone’s finances at risk. Like over-the-counter medicines, payment apps can be safe when used as directed — but people often don’t read the directions, says James E. Lee, chief operating officer for the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit that provides victim assistance and public education about identity theft. “You’ve got to make sure that you’re doing the right things,” Lee says. “Because if there is a weak point in these kinds of services, it is that your behavior may make it less secure.” QUICK AND CONVENIENT…

folklore Taylor Swift Taylor Swift’s eighth studio album is a surprise for various reasons – from its arrival just hours after its announcement on Twitter to the album’s thoughtful and reflective sound. However, the romance and heartbreak entwined throughout much of her back catalog remain present. FIVE FACTS: 1. This album was written and recorded remotely during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. 2. The album arrives less than a year after Swift’s previous studio album, Lover. 3. The lead single from folklore, “cardigan”, has been likened to the material of Lana Del Rey. 4. The single’s video was directed by Swift herself. 5. Meanwhile, “exile”, a duet with indie folk band Bon Iver’s founder Justin Vernon, focuses on doomed relationships. No Pressure Logic Rapper Logic might have announced…

U.S. consumer confidence tumbled in July to a reading of 92.6 as coronavirus infections spread in many parts of the country. The Conference Board, a New York research organization, reported that its Consumer Confidence Index fell from a June reading of 98.3. The weakness came from a drop in the expectations index, which measures consumer views about the short-term outlook for income, business and labor market conditions. The consumer confidence index is closely watched for signals it can send about future consumer spending, which accounts for 70% of economic activity. The Conference Board said that the large decline in the expectations index reflected big drops in sentiment in Michigan, Forida, Texas and California, all states that have seen a resurgence in coronavirus cases. About 4.2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases have…

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A Native American tribe has reclaimed a small part of ancestral lands on California’s scenic Big Sur coast that were lost to Spanish colonial settlement nearly 250 years ago. The Esselen Tribe of Monterey County closed escrow on 1,199 acres (485 hectares) about 5 miles (8 kilometers) inland from the ocean that was part of a $4.5 million deal involving the state and the Western Rivers Conservancy, The Mercury News reported Monday. It marks the first restoration of any lands to the tribe, which lost 90% of its approximately 1,000 members to disease and other causes by the early 1800s. “It is beyond words for us, the highest honor,” said Tom Little Bear Nason, chairman of the tribe. “The land is the most important thing to us. It is our…

Google has decided that most of its 200,000 employees and contractors should work from home through next June, a sobering assessment of the pandemic’s potential staying power from the company providing the answers for the world’s most trusted internet search engine. The remote-work order issued this week by Google CEO Sundar Pichai also affects other companies owned by Google’s corporate parent, Alphabet Inc. It marks a six-month extension of Google’s previous plan to keep most of its offices closed through the rest of this year. “I know this extended timeline may come with mixed emotions and I want to make sure you’re taking care of yourselves,” wrote Pichai, who is also Alphabet’s CEO, in an email to employees. Pichai’s decision was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The prolonged…

The GPS device maker Garmin Ltd. acknowledged this week being victimized by a cyberattack last week that encrypted some of its systems, knocking its fitness tracking and pilot navigation services offline. It said systems would be fully restored in the next days. In an online statement, the company did not specify that it was the target of a ransomware attack, in which hackers infiltrate a company’s network and use encryption to scramble data until payment is received. But a person familiar with the incident response told The Associated Press the attackers had turned over decryption keys that would allow Garmin to unlock the data scrambled in the attack. The person spoke on condition they not be further identified. The attack crippled company services including Garmin Connect, which is popular with…

Starbucks’ revenue shrank 38% in its most recent quarter but the coffee giant says it’s recovering faster than expected as its stores reopen from coronavirus lockdowns. The Seattle-based company said that it expects coronavirus-related losses to ease through the rest of this year. “We believe the worst is behind us,” Chief Financial Officer Patrick Grismer said. Starbucks said 97% of its company-operated stores around the world are now open, including 99% of stores in China and 96% in the U.S. However, some franchised locations remain closed, especially at airports and on college campuses. The company ended its fiscal third quarter on June 28 with 32,180 stores; a little less than half of those are in the U.S. Starbucks President and CEO Kevin Johnson said quick pivots have helped increase sales.…

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On a recent car ride, my sons, Billy and Jimmy, were discussing an interactive “Minecraft” show on Netflix that allowed them to choose the direction of the story. I said it sounded like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, an artifact of my 1980s childhood. Then Billy, who’s 10 years old, surprised me. He had heard of “Choose Your Own Adventure.” “My friend had one. He said I could read it when he was done,” Billy said. He paused, long enough for me to know what he would say next. “That was right before the virus,” he said. For my kids, 2020 has been the opposite of a choose-your-own-adventure story. Their options have dwindled. Windows of opportunity have appeared to crack open, only to slam in their faces. As the…

Australia’s consumer watchdog launched court action against Google this week alleging the technology giant misled account holders about its use of their personal data. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s action in the Federal Court is the latest litigation Google has faced around the world over allegations of privacy breaches. The commission alleges the California-based company misled millions of Australians to obtain their consent and expand the scope of personal information that Google collects about users’ internet activity to target advertising. The allegations arise from Google’s move in 2016 to start combining users’ personal information in their Google accounts with information from the same users’ activity on non-Google sites that used Google technology, formerly DoubleClick technology, to display ads. “We allege that Google did not obtain explicit consent from customers…