Innehållsförteckning för #464 från AppleMagazine

The short-video app TikTok has chosen Oracle as its corporate savior to avoid a U.S. ban ordered by President Donald Trump. The U.S. government will review the prospective deal. That much is known. Everything else is confusion, at least to outsiders. For instance: — What does it mean that, as Oracle declared, it will become a “trusted technology provider” for TikTok? Is this a joint venture, a vendor agreement or something else? Oracle is pointedly not referring to its deal as a sale or acquisition. — Will Trump approve such an arrangement after having threatened a ban if TikTok remains owned by its China-based parent ByteDance? Would it answer the national-security concerns around potential data siphoning, censorship and propaganda from Beijing that Trump raised? — Will the Chinese government go…

The global economy is not doing as bad as previously expected, especially in the United States and China, but has still suffered an unprecedented drop due to the coronavirus pandemic, an international watchdog said this week. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report that the world’s gross domestic product is projected to decline by 4.5% this year - less than the 6% plunge it had predicted in June. The global economy is expected to rebound and grow by 5% next year, the organization said. Yet the OECD notes that its outlook is “subject to considerable uncertainty” as the pandemic continues, and assumes that “sporadic local outbreaks will continue” and a vaccine will not be available until late in 2021. The OECD upgraded its forecast for the…

U.S. graphics chip maker Nvidia said it plans to buy U.K.-based Arm Holdings in a deal worth up to $40 billion, in a move that would create a global powerhouse in the industry. The deal, announced this week by Nvidia and Arm’s parent company, Japanese technology giant SoftBank, raises concerns about the independence of Arm, one of Europe’s most important tech companies. The vast majority of the world’s smartphones run on Arm’s chip designs and it’s a vital supplier for companies like Apple and Samsung. It’s also an innovator in chip technology that can power artificial intelligence for connected devices like medical sensors, known as the “Internet of Things.”The company’s business centers on designing chips and licensing the intellectual property to customers, rather than chip manufacturing, for which it relies…

ballerini Kelsea Ballerini Kelsea Ballerini has already established herself as a respected songwriter in country music – but with these stripped-down renditions of various songs from her acclaimed third studio album Kelsea released earlier this year, she is bringing the melodies and lyrics to the forefront. FIVE FACTS: 1. Ballerini was born in Mascot, Tennessee and grew up in Knoxville. 2. Her first single, “Love Me Like You Mean It”, reached the summit of the Billboard Country Airplay chart in the summer of 2015. 3. This feat made her the first solo female country musician to reach number one with their first single since Carrie Underwood achieved it with “Jesus, Take the Wheel” in 2006. 4. Since December 2017, Ballerini has been married to Australian country singer Morgan Evans, who…

Most directors insist on having final edit approval of their films. Not the creators of “Wireless.” The series on the mobile-platform Quibi employs an ingenious way to tell a story on a smartphone: You see different things on the screen depending on whether you hold your phone vertically or horizontally. Horizontally, a traditional cinematic film follows a college student navigating the snowy Colorado mountains. But flip your phone vertically and you see his smartphone as he scrolls through photos, checks the map or calls his mom. That means that the viewer becomes the editor. And each viewer sees a slightly different film, depending on at what points they rotate the phone. “You’re never going to have the same experience as somebody else watching the show,” said Zach Wechter, the director,…

Roving grown-ups tossing candy at kids waiting on lawns. Drive-thru Halloween haunts. Yard parties instead of block parties and parades. Wider paths through corn mazes. The family holiday so many look forward to each year is going to look different in the pandemic as parents and the people who provide Halloween fun navigate a myriad of restrictions and safety concerns. Some were looking extra-forward to Halloween this year because it falls on a Saturday, with a monthly blue moon to boot. Decisions are outstanding in many areas on whether to allow kids to go door to door or car trunk to car trunk in parking lots in search of candy, with Los Angeles first banning trick-or-treating, then downgrading its prohibition to a recommendation. Other events have been canceled or changed,…

Six European Union countries and the bloc’s executive Commission have begun testing a virtual “gateway” to ensure national coronavirus tracing apps can work across borders. The trial starting this week will allow national computer systems that run tracing apps in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Latvia to communicate with each other via a central hub. If the tests succeed, travelers from each of the six countries will be able to use their own apps while abroad in the other five to ensure they’re notified if they have been in close contact to another user who tests positive. Tracing apps were touted as a potentially game-changing tool to reduce the spread of COVID-19, but most have been beset with privacy concerns, technical problems or users’ apathy. Among the…

A Senate panel put a top Google executive on the defensive over the company’s powerful position in online advertising as some lawmakers look hopefully toward an expected antitrust case against the tech giant by the Trump administration. Donald Harrison, Google’s president for global partnerships and corporate development, insisted at a hearing by the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee that Google’s ad business faces ample competition, has benefited consumers, and has kept prices low for advertisers and publishers such as local newspapers. The Justice Department has pursued a sweeping antitrust investigation of big tech companies, looking at whether the online platforms of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple have hurt competition, stifled innovation or otherwise harmed consumers. The department is reportedly readying a major case accusing Google of abusing its dominance in online…

Apple’s annual Fall Event felt a little different this year. For starters, it was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with no cheers or applause to be heard. But the biggie? No new iPhones. The company already confirmed that the iPhone 12 will launch in October, but in the meantime, Tim Cook and Co used the keynote to show off the all-new Apple Watch Series 6, a low-cost Apple Watch SE, and a bunch of family-focused Watch improvements. BREAKTHROUGH CAPABILITIES ON THE APPLE WATCH SERIES 6 The star of the show at this year’s September Special Event was, without doubt, the Apple Watch Series 6. Putting health at the forefront of this release, Apple confirmed the rumored blood oxygen levels monitoring feature, helping users better understand their overall health…

The end is coming for “The Walking Dead,” but not until 2022. The AMC series that became a franchise with current and planned spin-offs will wrap with an 11th season spanning 24 episodes and two years, the channel said. The series has yet to air six episodes that are part of an expanded 10th season. Those are set for early next year. When “The Walking Dead” is laid to rest in late 2022, a new spin-off centered on characters Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier (Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride) will follow in 2023, AMC said. An anthology series, “Tales of the Walking Dead,” focusing on new and existing characters, is in development along with other projects “grounded in ‘The Walking Dead’ universe,” the channel said. Closer at hand are “Fear the…

ViacomCBS will rebrand its CBS All Access streaming service as Paramount Plus, set to debut early next year with new, original shows. The expanded streaming service has been in the works since February, when CEO Bob Bakish said ViacomCBS planned to add “substantial content” to CBS All Access by drawing from a number of its media platforms. The new service will add shows from BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, other Paramount Pictures and ViacomCBS brands, in addition to what CBS All Access already offers. CBS and Viacom joined forces last August, saying they could better compete as one in the increasingly competitive streaming environment. CBS was one of the first media companies to launch its own streaming service. Its $6-a-month service CBS All Access includes original programming such as new…

COOL AS A CUCUMBERBELOW DECK MEDITERRANEAN, SEASON 5 FIREBALL AND FIREPITSTHE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF POTOMAC, SEASON 5 TO LOVE AND TO OBEY?90 DAY FIANCE: HAPPILY EVER AFTER?, SEASON 5 REUNION, PT. 1THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NEW YORK CITY, SEASON 12 REUNION, PT. 2THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF BEVERLY HILLS, SEASON 10 CLASHES AND CURVE BALLSDARCEY & STACEY, SEASON 1 LOVE IN AMSTERDAM, PART 1VAN DER VALK, SEASON 1 THE FIERY CROSSOUTLANDER, SEASON 5 MURDER MEANS NEVER HAVINGTO SAY YOU’RE SORRYWHY WOMEN KILL, SEASON 1 300 AMERICAN DAD, SEASON 15…

A burger shop in the South Korean capital is a bit different from typical fast food restaurants: Its key staff are robots. From order to pick-up, customers don’t need a single face-to-face interaction. All they need to do is to click the menu they want on a kiosk touchscreen, pay and wait for a serving robot to bring their takeout bag to the pick-up spot. While waiting for their food, customers take photos or stare with curiosity at the capsule-shaped robots, reminiscent of the popular minions characters from the animated film “Despicable Me.”The yellow and black accent colors of the No Brand Burger restaurant also give the place the look of a toy shop. “This is the first time I’ve actually seen such robots, so they are really amazing and…

China’s Mars probe Tianwen-1, which blasted into space in July, is now more than 15 million kilometers (9 million miles) from Earth en route to the red planet, the National Space Administration said. The administration said that Tianwen-1 was in stable condition, having completed its first mid-course orbital correction early last month. It will be about 195 million kilometers (118 million miles) from Earth when it arrives at Mars around February, having traveled 470 million kilometers (292 million miles) in all to get there. The administration, however, has yet to release information about a mysterious reusable experimental spacecraft that returned to Earth a week ago after a two-day flight. The spacecraft consists of an orbiter, a lander and a rover, and marks China’s most ambitious Mars mission yet as it…

Amazon will hire another 100,000 people to keep up with a surge of online orders. The company said that the new hires will help pack, ship or sort orders, working in part-time and full-time roles. Amazon said the jobs are not related to its typical holiday hiring. The Seattle company reported record profit and revenue between April and June as more people turned to it during the pandemic to buy groceries and supplies. The company already had to hire 175,000 people earlier this year to keep up with the rush of orders, and last week said it had 33,000 corporate and tech jobs it needed to fill. This time around, Amazon said it needs the people at the 100 new warehouses, package sorting centers and other facilities it’s opening this…

Skateboarders, surfers and mountain bikers used to be the target customers for California startup Skydio, a maker of high-end drones that can home in on people and capture their movements on video all by themselves. Now police officers, firefighters and soldiers are interested in the self-flying machines. That’s partly because U.S. national security concerns about the world’s dominant consumer drone-maker, China-based DJI, have upended the market for small drones and opened the door to lesser-known companies pitching applications for government agencies and big businesses. Companies like Skydio are also tapping into a technological revolution that could do away with the need for human pilots to put drones through each one of their paces. Instead, advanced artificial intelligence is starting to power drones that can follow humans and other targets on…

Critical Thinking Guided by their eccentric but inspirational teacher Mario Martinez (John Leguizamo) of Miami Jackson High School, five Latinx and black teenagers from Miami’s toughest underserved ghetto reach the National Chess Championship, where they ultimately taste glory. FIVE FACTS: 1. The film’s plot is based on a true story which happened in 1998. 2. Leguizamo also directs the film, with this being his directorial debut. 3. On the talk show Live with Kelly and Ryan, Leguizamo said he decided to direct his own film after realizing what he had learnt from working with directorial greats like Spike Lee and Brian De Palma. 4. The movie’s world premiere had been set for South by Southwest in March until that festival was cancelled in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. 5. It…

Many Americans have vivid memories of Jan. 28, 1986. That was the day the space shuttle Challenger exploded over a chilly Florida, just seconds after liftoff. School children across the country had tuned in to see Christa McAuliffe become the first teacher in space. One person watching was Steven Leckart, a space-obsessed elementary school kid. Like everyone else, he was shocked by the blast and felt the slow, sickening realization that all seven aboard were gone. “I remember wanting to be an astronaut and I remember wanting to go to space. And then I remember Challenger completely shattering my dream for that,” he recalled. Leckart has returned to that dark day as co-director of the four-part Netflix documentary series “Challenger: The Final Flight,” executive produced by J.J. Abrams and Glen…

T-Mobile is pushing to offer internet service to schools that are doing online learning with a program aimed at low-income students who don’t have access. In the U.S., millions of students don’t have high-speed internet or computers at home — a difficult enough situation when it was just about trying to get homework done, but a much bigger problem when many school districts have moved part or all of the school day online during the coronavirus pandemic. School districts are spending big to address the crisis. The L.A. Unified School District is investing $100 million in online learning, including computers and internet service for kids who don’t have them. T-Mobile wants to expand its business that serves large organizations like big companies and schools. It had already planned to give…

The cathedrals lie empty. Wrigley. Fenway. Yankee Stadium. PNC Park. Progressive Field. Sure, their lights are on as Major League Baseball tries to squeeze in a truncated 60-game season in the middle of a pandemic. But no one is home save for a few dozen players running around in masks under the din of artificial crowd noise in front of a handful of well-positioned cardboard cutouts. Step outside the gates, and the artifice evaporates. Reality sets in. As MLB sprints through two months trying to provide a small semblance of normalcy to its fan base and much-needed fresh content to its broadcast partners, the businesses in the neighborhoods surrounding the stadiums that rely so heavily on thousands making their way through the turnstiles 81 times a year are struggling, their…

Finance ministers from five of Europe’s biggest economies called for the European Union to produce strict rules for new, private digital currencies such as Facebook-backed Libra and ban those that don’t comply. The ministers from Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands said in a joint statement that new regulations being drawn up by the EU’s executive Commission — and expected this fall — should seek to “preserve our monetary sovereignty and address the risks to monetary policy, and on the other hand protect EU consumers.” The five countries say that if it isn’t clear that a digital currency is firmly linked to an existing currency, and if there is a danger to the stability of financial markets, “what has got off the ground must be banned,” German Finance Minister…

The weather has gotten weirder and more unpredictable, but there is a small way that gardeners can take more control: finding and exploiting microclimates. I’ve been looking for them around my upstate New York yard as cooler weather slowly creeps in. Microclimates are pockets of air and soil that are colder or warmer, or more or less humid, than the general climate due to the influence of slopes, walls and pavement. Every parcel of land, from a 40-acre farm field to a quarter-acre lot, will have some microclimates. Siting plants with this in mind can be the difference between whether or not they thrive or even survive. MODERATING WINTER’S COLD I’m banking, for instance, on the slightly warmer temperatures near the wall of my house to get my stewartia tree,…