Innehållsförteckning för #469 från AppleMagazine

What has more letters than the alphabet? That’s easy: The post office. That joke — sponsored by the letter A — is a highlight of the first original podcast from “Sesame Street,” featuring music, interactive games and Muppets galore. “The Sesame Street Podcast with Foley & Friends” is an offering on Audible that gives some screen-free educational entertainment to kids who may be having spotty school lessons during the coronavirus pandemic. “We think it’s so important to have this other medium besides screens for playful, fun, engaging episodes that are also curriculum driven and really address the important educational needs for young children,” said Jennifer Schiffman Sanders, the director of content, education and research for Sesame Workshop. The podcast is led by 6-year-old, exuberant Foley, “the sound-maker monster.” She’s joined…

General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle unit says it will pull the human backup drivers from its vehicles in San Francisco by the end of the year. Cruise CEO Dan Ammann said in a statement that the company got a permit from California’s Department of Motor Vehicles to let the cars travel on their own. The move follows last week’s announcement from Waymo that it would open its autonomous ride-hailing service to the public in the Phoenix area in vehicles without human drivers. Waymo, a unit of Google parent Alphabet Inc., is hoping to eventually expand the service into California, where it already has a permit to run without human backups. Cruise has reached the point where it’s confident that it can safely operate without humans in the cars, spokesman Ray…

A NASA spacecraft descended to an asteroid Tuesday and, dodging boulders the size of buildings, momentarily touched the surface to collect a handful of cosmic rubble for return to Earth. It was a first for the United States — only Japan has scored asteroid samples. “Touchdown declared,” a flight controller announced to cheers and applause. “Sampling is in progress.” Confirmation came from the Osiris-Rex spacecraft as it made contact with the surface of the asteroid Bennu more than 200 million miles away. But it could be a week before scientists know how much, if much of anything, was grabbed and whether another try will be needed. If successful, Osiris-Rex will return the samples in 2023. “I can’t believe we actually pulled this off,” said lead scientist Dante Lauretta of the…

The nation’s capital has become one of the first jurisdictions in the country to employ a new COVID-19 notification system, a joint Google-Apple venture that delivers alerts to people’s phones, notifying them that they may have been exposed to the coronavirus. Mayor Muriel Bowser urged all residents with Apple or Android smartphones to opt in to the new DC COVID Alert Notice system, or DC CAN. Bowser called it“a quick and easy way to know if you might have been exposed to COVID-19. Opting in is one more way you can protect yourself, your friends and family, and our entire community.” The new Exposure Notification Express model is a major tweak to existing Google-Apple contact tracing software that became available earlier this year. But that tool was not readily embraced…

The acclaimed animator behind such powerful figures as Ariel, Aladdin, Tarzan and Rapunzel has a new heroine and she’s going further than any of his creations — the moon. Twelve-year-old Fei Fei builds a handmade rocket to blast into outer space in the new Netflix movie musical “Over the Moon,” the first animated film backed by a major Hollywood studio to feature an entirely Asian cast. The film stars newcomer Cathy Ang as our plucky heroine, backed by such voice actors as “Hamilton” star Phillipa Soo, comedians Ken Jeong and Margaret Cho, “Star Trek” star John Cho, Broadway veterans Ruthie Ann Miles and Kimiko Glenn, and “Killing Eve” star Sandra Oh. It opens and closes in modern day China, but the bulk of the film is set in Lunaria, an…

The pandemic has proven there’s no shortage of games to keep families, couples and kids amused. The classics are ever-present, but a range of new or off-the-beaten-track gift entries are available. A sampling: TRAGOS: It’s a party card game focused on Latino pop culture that comes in a variety of sets, including one out in November that’s digital only and costs $3.99. It’s the Tragos Stay Home Pack and includes such activities as showing off your best moves to Bad Bunny’s “Yo Perreo Sola” dance, and taking your best shot at duplicating Cardi B’s coronavirus howl. Half the proceeds go to The Immigrant Worker Safety Net Fund. Available on TragosGame.com. Options in Spanish and English, both digital and in a box, are now widely available. Tragos is primarily a drinking…

Nokia says it has been tapped by NASA to build the first cellular communications network on the moon. The Finnish telecommunications equipment maker said its Nokia Bell Labs division will build a 4G communications system to be deployed on a lunar lander to the moon’s surface in late 2022. NASA is awarding $370 million to 14 companies to provide technology for the Artemis moon-landing program. The program’s aim is to establish a long-term human presence on the moon as a warm-up for missions to Mars. Nokia released more details of its involvement after an announcement last week by NASA, which said it was giving the company’s U.S. unit $14.1 million for the network. The U.S. space agency is also funding other innovations in cryogenic fluid management, lunar surface innovation, and…

Australia’s competition watchdog will consider its own antitrust case against Google, the commission chairman said this week after the U.S. Justice Department sued the company for abusing its dominance in online search and advertising. Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims described the U.S. case filed as one of the world’s biggest antitrust cases in the past 20 years. “I’m delighted the D.o.J.’s taking it on and we’ll follow it really closely,” Sims told the National Press Club, referring to the U.S. Department of Justice. “We’re going to look at it and see whether there’s any value in what we might do,” Sims added. Separately, Sims is drafting legislation to address the imbalance in bargaining power between Google and the Australian media businesses that want the tech giant to pay…

As remote schooling surged during the pandemic, parents across the country realized that many kids didn’t have desks at home. So they got busy building, collecting and donating them, giving hundreds or thousands of students workspaces to call their own and helping them get through long days of virtual learning. For Mitch Couch in the Central California town of Lemoore, inspiration struck when his 16-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son kept taking over the kitchen table for their remote lessons. He made desks for them, and thought: Why not provide others’ children with individual learning areas they could decorate with stickers and paint? The desks he made were kid-size, simple and inexpensive, fashioned from plywood with a hutch for workbooks and papers. But they did the trick. “I was like, you…

HomePod was introduced to much fanfare in 2018, but it was a smaller, more affordable smart device that consumers were crying out for. Two years later, Apple has finally delivered, unveiling the all-new HomePod mini that unlocks exciting possibilities for Siri and the Apple ecosystem. Echo Dot and Nest Mini watch out: there’s a new smart speaker kid on the block! INTRODUCING HOMEPOD MINI At Apple’s Special Event this October, watched by millions of consumers and tech critics around the world, Tim Cook decided that the company should lead not with the introduction of the all-new 5G iPhone 12 range, but an altogether different device. The HomePod mini has been rumored for a number of years, designed to help Apple better compete with the likes of Google Nest Mini and…

Intel has agreed to a $9 billion deal to sell most of its memory business to South Korea’s SK Hynix as it moves toward more diverse technologies while shedding a major Chinese factory at a time of deepening trade friction between Washington and Beijing. Intel said it will keep its “Optane” business of more advanced memory products, which analysts say are mostly produced in the United States. According to the plan confirmed by the companies, SK Hynix will acquire Intel’s NAND memory chip and storage business, including a related manufacturing site in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian. SK Hynix said the companies expect to get required governmental approvals for the deal by late 2021. The transaction, if completed, could reportedly make SK Hynix the world’s second-largest provider of NAND…

The Devil Has a Name A widowed and financially stricken farmer, Fred Stern (David Strathairn), decides to take action after learning that his water is being polluted by Shore Oil and Gas, a multinational oil company run by arrogant regional director Gigi Cutler (Kate Bosworth). FIVE FACTS: 1. This movie premiered at last year’s Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. 2. Speaking of the film’s message, director Edward James Olmos has said: “We need to face the fact that no-one else is going to stop climate change”, adding: “It’s only ever been up to us.” 3. Although unsurprisingly released digitally, The Devil Has a Name also arrived in select theaters on the same day, October 16. 4. Filming for this movie took place in the California charter city of Bakersfield…

If anyone was born to make a film about the infamous federal trial surrounding the protests outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention, it’s Aaron Sorkin. The grandstanding of the celebrity revolutionaries Abbie Hoffman and Tom Hayden, the clash of disparate personalities and protest styles, the earnestness of the anti-war cause and the general chaos of the trial itself are all perfectly suited to his brand of storytelling. That he actually got to do it and release it in a year when police and protesters and riots are once again in the news, is almost too on the nose for even a Sorkin joint. But sometimes things just fall into place perfectly and “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” which Sorkin wrote and directed, is like a little gift in this…

OBSESSION (LIVE AT THE BELONGING CO, NASHVILLE, TN/2020) KARI JOBE & CODY CARNES EMBERS (SPONTANEOUS/LIVE AT THE BELONGING CO, NASHVILLE, TN/2020) KARI JOBE FIRST LOVE (LIVE AT THE BELONGING CO, NASHVILLE, TN/2020) KARI JOBE DYNAMITEBTS THE BLESSING (LIVE FROM ELEVATION CHURCH [...] NC, 3/1/2020) KARI JOBE, CODY CARNES & ELEVATION WORSHIP LIVING THE DREAMFIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH COMMANDER IN CHIEFDEMI LOVATO THRILLERMICHAEL JACKSON LONELYJUSTIN BIEBER & BENNY BLANCO ONE TOO MANY KEITH URBAN & P!NK…

Sunbathers understand the benefits of applying sunscreen, but in America’s hottest big city the same concept is being tested at street level in the hope of bringing some lasting relief from the relentless Arizona sun. A team from Arizona State University is working with the city of Phoenix on a pilot program studying the use of “cool pavement” to reduce heat island effect, a phenomenon that raises temperatures in urban areas covered by asphalt and concrete. Heather Murphy, a Street Transportation Department spokesperson, said Phoenix is applying cool pavement coating to nine sites representing different urban characteristics, from shaded streets to open lots. The applications are expected to be completed by the end of the month. “What sunscreen does is prevent the sun from damaging the surface,” Murphy said. “The…

Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, held onto his status as China’s richest tycoon this year as surging demand for online shopping and other services during the coronavirus pandemic swelled the fortunes of internet entrepreneurs, according to a survey released this week. Ma’s fortune rose 45% percent over 2019 to $58.8 billion, according to Hurun Research Institute, which follows the country’s wealthy. Ma Huateng, founder of Tencent, which operates the popular WeChat messaging service, was No. 2 at $57.4 billion, up 50%. Debuting at No. 3 was Zhong Shanshan, chairman of bottled water brand Nongfu Spring, with $53.7 billion following his company’s Hong Kong stock market debut in September. Rising share prices created an average of five new Chinese entrepreneurs worth at least $1 billion every week over the…

In Google’s infancy, co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin reviled Microsoft as a technological bully that ruthlessly abused its dominance of the personal computer software market to choke off competition that could spawn better products. Their disdain for Microsoft spurred Google to adopt “Don’t Be Evil” as a corporate motto that remained its moral compass during its transition from a free-wheeling startup to a publicly traded company suddenly accountable to shareholders. That pledge is now a distant memory as Google confronts an existential threat similar to what Microsoft once faced. Like Microsoft was 22 years ago, Google is in the crosshairs of a Justice Department lawsuit accusing it of wielding the immense power of its internet search engine as a weapon that has bludgeoned competition and thwarted innovation to the…

Seven auto companies have plans to roll out new battery-powered pickup trucks over the next two years, aiming to cash in on a popular and lucrative market for expensive vehicles. General Motors is among them, and this week its GMC brand introduced a new electric Hummer pickup, with a high-end version due in showrooms sometime in the fall of next year. The Hummer will be joined by crosstown rival Ford’s electric F-150, Tesla’s Cybertruck and pickups from four startup companies. All intend to start producing them between June of next year and the end of 2022. Prices announced thus far show they range from roughly $40,000 for a base Cybertruck to a loaded off-road Hummer “Edition 1” that will start at more than $112,000. GM, Ford, Tesla, Bollinger Motors, Nikola,…

Prior to March, shoppers would go to the mall or grocery store — without masks — and scout out the latest sales. Now, shopping looks much different. “The way consumers approach shopping has understandably changed as a result of COVID-19,”said Katherine Cullen, senior director for industry and consumer insights at the National Retail Federation, in an email. “With stay-at-home orders and mandatory store closures, many consumers have utilized digital channels and tools in ways they may not have before.” As how we shop changes (think mobile shopping and buying online, picking up in store), we have to adapt as shoppers, too. The best prices and first available inventory go to consumers who are more than just shoppers. They’re also deal-hunting detectives and strategists. Here’s how to shop smart in the…

Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane and Abel Black Thought Rapper Black Thought’s gift for politically aware lyrics remains very much intact with his third outing for the Streams of Thought series. The Roots’ lead MC has also brought along quite a few high-profile collaborators for the ride, including Killer Mike, Pusha T and ScHoolboy Q. FIVE FACTS: 1. Black Thought’s real name is Tariq Luqmaan Trotter. 2. He co-founded the Philadelphia-based hip-hop outfit the Roots back in 1987. 3. Black Thought has been hailed as “one of the most skilled, incisive and prolific rappers of his time”. 4. The Roots are the house band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. 5. All three Streams of Thought releases are EPs, for which Black Thought is credited as a solo artist.…

Netflix’s subscriber growth slowed dramatically during the summer months after surging in the spring fueled by pandemic lockdowns that corralled millions of people in their homes. The summer slump came as more people sought distraction from the pandemic outdoors and major U.S. professional sports resumed play, offering other entertainment alternatives to the world’s most popular video streaming service. The drop-off disclosed in Netflix’s latest earnings report was more dramatic than management had warned it might be. After picking up 2.2 million customers in the July-September period, Netflix finished the quarter with 195.2 million worldwide subscribers. Earlier, company had forecast an addition of 2.5 million subscribers during the quarter. Even so, Netflix is still ahead for the year. It has added 28 million subscribers through the first nine months of the…

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British regulators said that Instagram will clamp down on “hidden advertising” by social media influencers. The Competition and Markets Authority said Instagram’s owner Facebook has committed to tightening policies to restrict influencers who don’t disclose they’re being paid to promote businesses on its platform. It’s part of an investigation into the influencer industry the watchdog launched two years ago. Regulators are concerned that Instagram wasn’t doing enough under consumer protection laws to stop hidden advertising, which is illegal in the U.K. They want to make it harder to mislead people with posts that aren’t labeled as ads. Influencers are online personalities with thousands of followers who can earn hefty fees from brands for endorsing or reviewing their products or services. “These changes mean there will be no excuse for businesses…