Innehållsförteckning för #472 från AppleMagazine

Uber’s food delivery business brought in more money during the third quarter than its signature rides business, showing just how much consumer behavior has changed — and how far the company has adapted — since the pandemic struck. The San Francisco-based ride-hailing company lost $1.09 billion in the three months that ended Sept. 30 as many customers were still staying out of shared vehicles. “Without question, the (pandemic’s) impact on the world has been one of the most significant impacts of our lifetimes, and we moved quickly as a company to respond,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, in a conference call with investors last week. Uber brought in $3.13 billion in revenue, down 18% from the same time last year. Its mobility business, which includes ride-hailing, scooters and bikes,…

Brian Contreras represents the worst fears of the lucrative business travel industry. A partner account executive at a U.S. tech firm, Contreras was used to traveling frequently for his company. But nine months into the pandemic, he and thousands of others are working from home and dialing into video conferences instead of boarding planes. Contreras manages his North American accounts from Sacramento, California and doesn’t expect to travel for work until the middle of next year. Even then, he’s not sure how much he will need to. “Maybe it’s just the acceptance of the new normal. I have all of the resources necessary to be on the calls, all of the communicative devices to make sure I can do my job,” he said. “There’s an element of of face-to-face that’s…

The coronavirus has led more people to spend time outdoors, and many find themselves walking the same paths and gazing at the same trees or shrubs day after day. Author and self-taught landscape photographer Larry Lederman suggests looking at your surroundings anew by turning a camera on them. Fall and winter, he says, are the perfect time to take up landscape photography. There’s the gorgeous fall foliage but also the beauty of the bare trees and their shapes. Lederman says to start photographing now and then watch the year-round transformation of the landscape. His new book, “Garden Portraits: Experiences of Natural Beauty” (The Monacelli Press), examines 16 East Coast gardens throughout the seasons, offering inspiration for novice landscape photographers. “There’s something to be said for shifting one’s focus toward landscapes,…

The Informer Pete Koslow (Joel Kinnaman), a reformed criminal now working undercover for the FBI, deliberately breaks the law to land himself into a maximum security prison, Bale Hill Prison, where he intends to infiltrate the Polish Mob’s drug trade in New York. FIVE FACTS: 1. The film’s other leading cast members include Rosamund Pike, Clive Owen, Ana de Armas, Eugene Lipinski, and the rapper Common. 2. However, when this film was first announced, the stars lined up for the lead roles included Josh Brolin, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Olivia Munn and Luke Evans. 3. Kinnamon and Common were previously in the cast of the 2016 film Suicide Squad. 4. Some filming took place at an abandoned prison in the UK city of Gloucester. 5. Filming also occurred in New York and…

REVIEW When a small indie film uses the title “Jungleland,” it’s natural to expect that Bruce Springsteen’s famous tune will be heard. But, as with much of Max Winkler’s moody, tender movie, the answer is yes and no. There’s Bruce, but not the song you expected. “Jungleland” is about two brothers trying to rise out of unrelenting misery. It’s also a road trip movie and a love story. It has nods to “Rocky,”“The Transporter,”“Midnight Run,”“Pulp Fiction” and even the novel “Of Mice and Men.” And yet it’s moving and allegorical, lifted by wonderful acting. Jack O’Connell of “Unbroken” plays Lion Kaminski, a boxer forced by circumstances to fight underground in bare-knuckle bouts. His big brother Stan (“Sons of Anarchy” star Charlie Hunnam) is his cornerman, coach, masseuse, sparring partner and…

NASA is underestimating the amount of time and money it will take to bring Mars rocks back to Earth in the coming decade, an independent panel said Tuesday. The review board suggested that NASA and the European Space Agency consider bumping the next launches in the sample-return effort from 2026 to 2028, given all the technological challenges. These delays will increase costs, pushing the planning budget to $4 billion or more — $1 billion more than currently envisioned by NASA, the panel noted. Already more than halfway to Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover will hunt for the best geologic samples, after landing in February. It’s aiming for Jezero Crater, believed to be an ancient river delta that may have once harbored microscopic life. Scientists want to analyze these samples in the…

In ordinary times, the airy convention center on a 61-acre site in Hesston, Kansas, hosts weddings, corporate retreats and church events. During the pandemic, it has become a schoolhouse for the district’s seventh- and eighth-graders. Megan Kohlman teaches literature and writing inside one of the rooms, separated from a math teacher’s space by only a plastic sheet. It’s hardly ideal, but for her it’s an upgrade from distance learning in the spring, when she juggled instruction with care of her own young children. “Everyone just really believes in the power of having kids with us as much as we can,” Kohlman said. Some schools are getting creative about finding extra square footage to facilitate social distancing and reduce the health risks associated with in-person learning. Districts are setting up makeshift…

Japanese technology company SoftBank Group Corp. said it bounced back to profitability in the last quarter as its investments improved in value. The Tokyo-based company reported a 627 billion yen, or about $6.1 billion, profit in July-September, compared with a loss of 700 billion yen in the same quarter of 2019. SoftBank said its quarterly sales rose nearly 5% to 1.35 trillion yen, or $13 billion, from 1.29 trillion yen. SoftBank’s Vision Fund also has become profitable recently. SoftBank, which invests in an array of companies, has sold U.S. carrier Sprint, as well as British IoT company Arm. It has also sold some its stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba to raise cash for more investments. Sprint merged with T-Mobile in April, which means Sprint is no longer part of…

Walmart is teaming up with the General Motors’ autonomous vehicle unit to test driverless delivery in Arizona. The companies say battery powered Chevrolet Volt vehicles will begin deliveries in Scottsdale early next year. At first they’ll have human backup drivers who will monitor the cars and help to deliver packages to doors. But Ray Wert, spokesman at GM’s Cruise autonomous vehicle unit, says they’ll eventually move to fully autonomous deliveries. Walmart says customers will be able to place an order and it will be delivered contact-free by a Cruise vehicle. The retail giant says it’s one of several autonomous vehicle pilot projects designed to chart a new roadmap for retail sales. The company says it started an express delivery service in April and now has it in over 2,800 stores…

This year, our computers have been more important than ever before. Whether we’re working from home or catching up with friends over FaceTime, our Macs have become a part of who we are. This year, Apple is taking the Mac to new heights with the introduction of the industry-leading M1 chip, ushering in a new era for macOS and the future of computing. POWERED BY THE M1 CHIP At Apple’s virtual Worldwide Developers Conference in June, the company confirmed that it was to transition away from Intel processors to its own custom chips, known as Apple Silicon. At the time, the organization said that the move towards its own chips would take around two years and that new Macs would be rolled out through to 2022 to complete the move.…

We all know Thanksgiving is going to look different this year. If you’re lucky, you might live where the weather will still be nice and you have space to create an outdoor Thanksgiving with appropriate social distancing. The rest of us are preparing for the fact that an in-person Thanksgiving with all of our loved ones is unlikely because of pandemic safety concerns. For us, 2020 will be the year of the Zoom Thanksgiving. SO HOW DO WE MAKE THAT FEEL OK? From shared menus to organized games and discussions, some planning and coordination can go a long way. “The idea is to still feel unified in some way,” says Etsy trend expert Dayna Isom Johnson. CAPTURING THE VIEW For once, electronic devices at the table are something to celebrate.…

DISCO (Deluxe) Kylie Minogue Australian superstar Kyle Minogue’s 15th studio album is something of a throwback, as nostalgic tinges of 1970s and ‘80s disco music are fused with influences of modern-day club music. It’s a significant departure from the album’s predecessor, 2018’s country-themed Golden. FIVE FACTS: 1. The album’s well-received lead single, “Say Something”, was released on 23rd July 2020. 2. The releases of the album’s second single, “Magic”, and a promotional single from the album, “I Love It”, followed on 24th September and 23rd October respectively. 3. As with Golden, Minogue has co-written all of the songs on the new album herself. 4. She largely recorded the album in a home studio during lockdown earlier this year. 5. This album involved Minogue recording and engineering her own vocals, using…

For viewers, “The Crown” offers a peek into a modern royal family’s life and times, or at least an engaging dramatization. For the cast, it’s meant the lofty equivalent of gig work as the Netflix series ticks through the decades. Claire Foy played Britain’s young Queen Elizabeth II for the first two seasons, with Olivia Colman stepping in to chart her middle years last season and in the 10 new episodes out Sunday. Imelda Staunton ascends to the throne for the final two chapters. When Diana Spencer makes her pivotal entrance this season, largely set in the 1980s, it’s Emma Corrin in the part opposite Josh O’Connor’s Prince Charles. Corrin’s job is one and done: Elizabeth Debicki takes over in seasons five and six as the bound-for-tragedy Princess Diana, opposite…

Four astronauts arrived at Kennedy Space Center for SpaceX’s second crew launch, coming up next weekend. For NASA, it marks the long-awaited start of regular crew rotations at the International Space Station, with private companies providing the lifts. There will be double the number of astronauts as the test flight earlier this year, and their mission will last a full six months. “Make no mistake: Every flight is a test flight when it comes to space travel. But it’s also true that we need to routinely be able to go to the International Space Station,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in welcoming the astronauts to Kennedy. The crew of three Americans and one Japanese are scheduled to rocket away Saturday night, provided approaching Tropical Storm Eta doesn’t interfere. It will…

European Union regulators filed antitrust charges this week against Amazon, accusing the e-commerce giant of using its access to data from companies that sell products on its platform to gain an unfair advantage over them. The charges, filed two years after the bloc’s antitrust enforcer began looking into the company, are the latest effort by European regulators to curb the power of big technology companies. Margrethe Vestager, the EU commissioner in charge of competition issues, has slapped Google with antitrust fines totaling nearly $10 billion and opened twin antitrust investigations this summer into Apple. The EU’s executive Commission also opened a second investigation Tuesday into whether Amazon favors product offers and merchants that use its own logistics and delivery system. While the U.S. initially criticized the EU for targeting American…

A Taiwanese maker of processor chips for Apple Inc. and other customers plans to invest $3.5 billion to set up its second U.S. manufacturing site amid American concern about relying too heavily on sources in Asia for high-tech components. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s biggest contract producer of semiconductors, said its board approved the plan for the facility in Arizona. It gave no details of what functions it will perform. U.S. officials worry their country relies too too heavily on factories in Taiwan, South Korea and China for chips used in smartphones, medical equipment and other products. Anxiety increased after the coronavirus pandemic disrupted global shipping. The Wall Street Journal reported in May that TSMC was talking with Apple, one of its biggest customers, about a possible U.S. factory.…

Lyft is still feeling the pandemic’s severe impact on the ride-hailing industry but its third-quarter results show signs of a recovery from the previous three months when passengers stayed locked down. The San Francisco-based company brought in $499.7 million in revenue in the three months that ended Sept. 30. That was down 48% from the same time last year. But it was up 47% from revenue in the April-June quarter. And while the number of active riders plunged to 12.5 million in the latest quarter, down 44% from the same time last year, that figure was up 44% from the second quarter. Lyft’s stock rose about 5.5% in after-hours trading following the release of the earnings report. “I want to acknowledge that 2020 has been challenging on many fronts,” said…

Mississippi’s capital city could begin using residents’ door security cameras in its effort to fight rising crime. Recently, Jackson began a pilot program with two technology corporations to provide a platform for the police department to access private surveillance cameras such as Ring. Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said if home and business owners allow, they could give the city permission to access those cameras through the platform, and the city could use the data collected to track criminal activity, WLBT-TV reported. Lumumba said the city would only be able to access the devices when crimes occur in those areas. “Ultimately, what will happen is residents and businesses will be able to sign a waiver, if they want their camera to be accessed from the Real Time Crime Center,” he said.…

Federal regulators are requiring Zoom to strengthen its security in a proposed settlement of allegations that the video conferencing service misled users about its level of security for meetings. The settlement, approved by the Federal Trade Commission in a 3-2 vote, was announced this week. A complaint filed by the agency accused Zoom of deceiving users over security since at least 2016. It said the company held on to cryptographic keys that allowed it to access content from its customers’ meetings, and secured meetings with a lower level of privacy encryption than it promised customers. Zoom has become a staple during the coronavirus pandemic because it allows people to meet online rather than in person. The company claims some 300 million users, boosted by the tens of millions of workers…

In one history of the movies, “Citizen Kane” screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz might look like a footnote. The former playwright had a hand in many famous pictures, including “The Wizard of Oz,” but most went uncredited. He was the smartest guy in the room, a drunk and a gambler who was dead at 55. And his kid brother, Joe, who directed and wrote “All About Eve,” would go on to be the better-known Mankiewicz. But in another version of Hollywood history, the one David Fincher tells in the glorious new film “ Mank,” Herman Mankiewicz as portrayed by Gary Oldman was early Hollywood in all its greatness and tragedy. Working off a crackling screenplay by his late father Jack Fincher, David Fincher has made “Mank” into an incisive look at a…

A flash of luck helped astronomers solve a cosmic mystery: What causes powerful but fleeting radio bursts that zip and zigzag through the universe? Scientists have known about these energetic pulses — called fast radio bursts — for about 13 years and have seen them coming from outside our galaxy, which makes it harder to trace them back to what’s causing them. Making it even harder is that they happen so fast, in a couple of milliseconds. Then this April, a rare but considerably weaker burst coming from inside our own Milky Way galaxy was spotted by two dissimilar telescopes: one a California doctoral student’s set of handmade antenna s, which included actual cake pans, the other a $20 million Canadian observatory. They tracked that fast radio burst to a…

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Digital rights campaigners this week criticized a proposal by European Union governments that calls for communications companies to provide authorities with access to encrypted messages. The plan, first reported by Austrian public broadcaster FM4, reflects concern among European countries that police and intelligence services can’t easily monitor online chats that use end-to-end encryption, such as Signal or WhatsApp. A draft proposal dated Nov. 6 and circulated by the German government, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, proposes creating a “better balance” between privacy and crime fighting online. The confidential draft, obtained independently, states that “competent authorities must be able to access data in a lawful and targeted manner, in full respect of fundamental rights and the data protection regime, while upholding cybersecurity.” It adds that “technical solutions for gaining access…