Innehållsförteckning för #490 från AppleMagazine

When the coronavirus pandemic shut down schools, educators had to figure out how to get kids online. Fast. In a patchwork approach born of desperation, they scrounged wireless hot spots, struck deals with cable companies and even created networks of their own. With federal relief money and assistance from state governments and philanthropists, they have helped millions of students get online for distance learning. Still, a year into the pandemic, millions of others remain without internet because of financial hurdles and logistical difficulties in getting students what they need. There will soon be more money for schools to provide internet, as well as programs that aim to make internet more affordable. The $1.9 trillion stimulus package that President Joe Biden signed last week contains $7 billion for distance learning. Advocates…

LG Energy Solution says it will invest more than $4.5 billion in its U.S. battery production business by 2025 as automakers ramp up production of electric vehicles. The Korean company, which has a joint venture with U.S. automaker General Motors, said the investment will help create 10,000 jobs, including subcontractors. GM and LG are currently building a $2.3 billion battery factory in Lordstown, Ohio, near Cleveland, that will employ about 1,000 people when it is completed in 2022. The site is fairly close to GM’s two other designated electric vehicle plants, one in Detroit and the other north of the city in Orion Township, Michigan. The companies hope to have a decision on a second site in the first half of the year. General Motors has changed its corporate logo…

Normally, Academy Award nominations mean an Oscar bump in box office. This year, streaming services and digital rental platforms may get a bounce. Many of this year’s best-picture nominees have already been released on various home-viewing platforms. But, with theaters gradually reopening nationwide, some contenders are still only playing in brick-and-mortar theaters. One nominee is even departing streaming to play only in cinemas. This year, it’s easier to play Academy Awards catchup at home. But it takes a little more homework to track down the films than just checking the local movie theater marquee. Here’s where to find them: — “The Father”: Florian Zeller’s dementia drama, which was also nominated for best actor (Anthony Hopkins) and supporting actress (Olivia Colman), is one of the most recently released Oscar nominees. Sony…

Cosmic Sin It is the year 2524, and hundreds of years after humans started colonizing other planets, retired military general James Ford (Bruce Willis) accompanies another general, Eron Ryle (Frank Grillo), in a bid to prevent an alien civilization from escalating an intergalactic war. FIVE FACTS: 1. Grillo, Luke Wilson and Adelaide Kane were announced as joining the Cosmic Sin cast in March 2020 . 2. It was also in that month that production of the film wrapped. 3. In one notable filming goof, an early scene sees the camera pan from a female sniper to Bruce Willis, revealing much of the production crew in the process. 4. The film has been lambasted by critics, with the Los Angeles Times’ Noel Murray ridiculing the “clumsily expositive dialogue” between “unimaginative fight”…

The U.S. government’s highway safety agency is sending a team to Detroit to investigate a crash involving a Tesla that drove beneath a semitrailer. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that a special crash investigation team will go to the city to investigate the “violent crash.”Two people were critically injured in the crash that happened last week on the city’s southwest side. The crash circumstances are similar to two others in Florida in which Teslas drove beneath tractor-trailers, causing two deaths. In both crashes, in 2016 and 2019, the cars were being driven while using Tesla’s Autopilot partially automated driving software. Detroit Police Sgt. Nicole Kirkwood could not say if the Tesla driver was using the company’s Autopilot or “full self-driving” software. “It’s still under investigation,” she said. A…

Digit marches on two legs across the floor of the University of Michigan’s Ford Motor Co. Robotics Building, while Mini-Cheetah — staccato-like — does the same on four and the yellow-legged Cassie steps deliberately side-to-side. A grand opening was held Tuesday for the four-story, $75 million, 134,000-square-foot (11,429-square-meter) complex. Three floors house classrooms and research labs for robots that fly, walk, roll and augment the human body. On the top floor are Ford researchers and engineers and the automaker’s first robotics and mobility research lab on a university campus. Together, they will work to develop robots and roboticists that help make lives better, keep people safer and build a more equitable society, the school and automaker announced Tuesday. “As we all drive and use our vehicles and go about our…

Encrypted messaging app Signal appears to have been blocked in mainland China, the latest foreign social media service to cease working in a country where the government tightly controls the flow of information. Users of the app within China had to connect to a virtual private network (VPN) that allows them to circumvent China’s so-called Great Firewall, a censorship system which blocks websites, services and apps deemed inappropriate by the Chinese government. The move to silence Signal, one of the few remaining messaging apps in China that allowed users to engage in encrypted messaging, comes as China expands controls to shape public opinion and at times limit private discourse. Users in China said that they could not get the app to connect without a VPN service. Messages failed to send…

Google’s next internet-connected home device will test whether consumers trust the company enough to let it snoop on their sleep. New sleep-sensing technology will be a key feature on Google’s latest version of its Nest Hub, a 7-inch smart screen unveiled this week. Like the previous generation, the $100 Nest Hub can display pictures and video in addition to fielding questions and handling household tasks through Google’s voice-activated assistant. It also doesn’t feature a camera. But the latest Nest Hub’s new trick may help differentiate it from similar devices, such as Amazon’s Echo Show, while also providing a springboard for Google to get more involved in helping people manage their health. If you allow it, the device will also monitor your sleeping patterns from your bedside, negating the need to…

Though today the company might be one of the world’s most exclusive and innovative, it hasn’t always been an easy road for Tesla and CEO Elon Musk. In seventeen short years, the company has racked up an impressive number of milestones and is reshaping the way we travel and think about the future. As Tesla readies the release of the new Model S, as well as its Semi, Cybertruck, and Roadster, the organization is headed for the fast lane. THE JOURNEY SO FAR In less than two decades, the Silicon Valley electric-car company has transformed the auto industry in ways we never thought possible - creating an American car brand and forcing its rivals to switch to electric and take significant ranks. Not only has it benefited the US economy…

After a pandemic year that shuttered movie theaters and upended the movie business, Academy Awards nominations went to two female filmmakers for the first time, to a historically diverse slate of actors and to David Fincher’s lead-nominee “Mank,” a traditional kind of Oscar contender — an old Hollywood homage — in very untraditional year. Fincher’s “Mank,” a black-and-white, period drama about “Citizen Kane” screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, easily topped nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards — delayed two months by the coronavirus pandemic — with 10 nominations, including best picture, best director, acting nods for Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried, and a host of others for its lavish craft. Nominations were spread among a wide variety of contenders. Six films, all of them also up for best picture, score six nods:…

Revelación - EP Selena Gomez Selena Gomez has paid tribute to her Latin heritage in several of her musical works over the years – and now, she has released her first Spanish-language extended play. Gomez enthuses that “there’s something about Latin music that globally makes people feel things.” FIVE FACTS: 1. In a recent interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe , Gomez said she had sought to work on “a Spanish project” for 10 years. 2. In an interview published by Dazed in February 2020 , Gomez said: “I’m always very vocal about my background, as far as me talking about immigration”. 3. She added at that time that she planned to release more Spanish-language music. 4. The new EP has been described as “tasteful R&B and reggaeton”. 5. Gomez’s connections…

A Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputy was heading east on Interstate 4 in his red Dodge Charger on a brilliantly sunny afternoon in Florida when he saw him: A young driver behind the wheel of a Jeep texting on his phone. The deputy, Donald Hess, didn’t hit his lights and siren right away. He watched over more than a mile while he pulled around both sides of the Jeep, he said, as the driver kept texting before he pulled him over on the I-4 shoulder. When the driver rolled down his window, the deputy waved away a cloud of smoke. “How much weed have you all been smoking?” the deputy said in dialogue captured on police body camera video. “The reason I stopped you is for you using your texting while…

The online payment company Stripe continues to attract investors, raising $600 million in funding to reach a whopping company valuation of $95 billion. Stripe is by far the most valuable private fintech company in the world. Robinhood, the trading platform recently making headlines, just raised $3 billion to reach a valuation of around $11.2 billion. The company which makes software that allows companies to accept online or in person card payments said it will use the capital in the latest round of funding to invest in its European operations, particularly its Dublin headquarters. Stripe has two headquarters, the other location is in San Francisco. Stripe will also expand its global payments and treasury network. Some of its clients include Jaguar Land Rover, Maersk, Deliveroo and Klarna. Companies that enable online…

German automaker BMW said this week it intends to speed the rollout of new electric cars, vowing to bring battery-powered models to 50% of global sales by 2030. The company underlined the point by unveiling a new all-electric model three months ahead of plan. BMW declined, however, to follow General Motors and other automakers who have said their goal is to phase out internal combustion passenger vehicles by a specific date. Instead, the Munich-based carmaker said it would adjust production among battery, hybrid and efficient internal combustion engines as different parts of the world adopt electric driving at different rates. CEO Oliver Zipse said during the company’s annual news conference that electrification was proceeding at a “higher speed.” He said BMW would sell its millionth electrified vehicle this year and…

The Biden administration is not planning to step up government surveillance of the U.S. internet even as state-backed foreign hackers and cybercriminals increasingly use it to evade detection, a senior administration official said. The official said the administration, mindful of the privacy and civil liberties implications that could arise, is not currently seeking additional authority to monitor U.S.-based networks. Instead, the administration will focus on tighter partnerships and improved information-sharing with the private-sector companies that already have broad visibility into the domestic internet, said the official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity. The comment was an acknowledgement of the fraught political debate surrounding domestic government surveillance — nearly eight years after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden triggered a scandal with leaked agency documents — and a…

Foxconn Technology Group, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, is considering making electric vehicles at its highly anticipated Wisconsin plant that has been scaled back since its announcement in 2017, the company’s chairman said this week. The decision will be between whether to go to Mexico or the U.S. for manufacturing electric vehicles, Foxconn Chairman Young Liu said at a news conference in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital. He said the decision, which will be finalized before July 1, will hinge on business, not politics. The Wisconsin project was scaled back after Foxconn initially signed a contract with the state of Wisconsin under then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2017 to earn nearly $4 billion in state and local tax incentives for a $10 billion display screen manufacturing campus and plant that would employ up…

On February 26, 2021, Cherry finally premiered in select theaters, with an Apple TV+ debut scheduled for March 12, 2021. This crime drama is based on the book of the same name, written by veteran and former convict Nico Walker, and tells the story of an army medic struggling with PTSD and drugs who, so he could afford the drugs, starts robbing banks. The movie is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, and stars Tom Holland in the titular role. In today’s article, we are going to tell you a bit about the movie, as well as the most recent information available. Apple’s official synopsis for the movie is as follows: “’Cherry’ follows the wild journey of a disenfranchised young man from Ohio who meets the love of his life,…

Like an innocuous kid version of “The Purge,” Miguel Arteta’s “Yes Day” imagines an annual 24-hour holiday of lawlessness. The concept comes from Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s 2009 picture book, which suggested a day when parents — regularly such fonts of “No!” — have to answer in the positive to their children’s demands. For some, the idea had real appeal not just for giving kids a shot at decision-making freedom but for momentarily relieving parents of the burden of constant disapproval. One parent, in particular, took to “Yes Day”: Jennifer Garner. The actress has previously spoken on social media about holding the holiday with her three children. And she’s a producer of the film, which debuts Friday on Netflix. “No is part of the job,” narrates Allison Torres (Garner) in the…

NASA may soon chalk up another one-year space mission thanks to an out-of-this-world Russian movie-making deal. Astronaut Mark Vande Hei learned just last week that he’ll launch April 9 on a Russian rocket to the International Space Station. The former station resident suspected that might happen and had been training just in case. In a news conference this week from cosmonaut headquarters in Star City, Vande Hei said he may have to give up his return Soyuz seat in the fall to a Russian space tourist who’s interested in filming up there. If that happens, he and possibly one of his two Russian crewmates would have to wait for the next Soyuz ride home — most likely in spring 2022. “Honestly, for me, it’s just an opportunity for a new…

Swiss authorities confirmed a police raid at the home of a Swiss software engineer who took credit for helping to break into a U.S. security-camera company’s online networks, part of what the activist hacker cited as an effort to raise awareness about the dangers of mass surveillance. The Federal Office of Justice said regional police in central Lucerne, acting on a legal assistance request from U.S. authorities, carried out a house search involving hacker Tillie Kottmann. The hacker said online that electronics devices were seized during the raid. The Swiss office declined to specify the location or comment further, deferring all questions to “the relevant U.S. authority.” The FBI said in a statement it was “aware of the law enforcement activity conducted in Switzerland” but had no further comment. Kottmann…

Uber is giving its U.K. drivers the minimum wage, pensions and holiday pay, following a recent court ruling that said they should be classified as workers and entitled to such benefits. The ride hailing giant’s announcement this week comes after it lost an appeal last month at the U.K. Supreme Court following a yearslong court battle. The court’s decision holds wider implications for the country’s gig economy. Uber said it’s extending the benefits immediately to its more than 70,000 drivers in the U.K. Drivers will earn at least the minimum wage, which currently stands at 8.72 pounds ($12.12), after accepting a trip request and expenses, and will still be able to earn more. Drivers will also get holiday pay equal to about 12% of their earnings, paid every two weeks.…