Innehållsförteckning för #498 från AppleMagazine

Amazon, which has been under pressure from shoppers, brands and lawmakers to crack down on counterfeits on its site, said Monday that it blocked more than 10 billion suspected phony listings last year before any of their offerings could be sold. The numbers were released in Amazon’s first report on its anti-counterfeiting efforts since it announced new tools and technologies in 2019. The number of suspected bad listings that it blocked last year was up about 67% from the year before. The Seattle-based e-commerce behemoth said the number of counterfeiters attempting to sell on the site rose as scammers tried to take advantage of shoppers who were buying more online during the pandemic. Amazon has been wrestling with counterfeits for years. But since 2019, it has warned investors in government…

Apple deepened its ties to a Kentucky plant on Monday by awarding another $45 million to support Corning Inc.’s work to supply glass for the tech giant’s iPhones and other devices. The latest investment will expand Corning’s manufacturing capacity and “drive research and development into innovative new technologies that support durability and long-lasting product life,” Apple said in a news release. Glass for every generation of iPhone has been made at Corning’s plant in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. Corning also supplies glass for iPads and Apple Watches. Corning previously received $450 million from Apple’s $5 billion Advanced Manufacturing Fund in the past four years, the tech giant said. Apple said Monday its investment helps support more than 1,000 jobs across Corning’s U.S. operations. Corning employs about 400 people at its technology development…

The card that millions of people use to prove their identity to everyone from police officers to liquor store owners may soon be a thing of the past as a growing number of states develop digital driver’s licenses. With the advent of digital wallets and boarding passes, people are relying more on their phones to prove their identity. At least five states have implemented a mobile driver’s license program. Three others — Utah, Iowa and Florida — intend to launch programs by next year, with more expected to follow suit. Mobile licenses will give people more privacy by allowing them to decide what personal information they share, state officials say. The licenses offer privacy control options that allow people to verify their age when purchasing alcohol or renting a car,…

The Paper Tigers Three martial artists – Danny (Alain Uy), Hing (Ron Yuan) and Jim (Mykel Shannon Jenkins) – once feared as “the three tigers” are now middle-aged men well past their prime. However, they jump back into action after their teacher “Sifu” Cheung (Roger Yuan) is killed. FIVE FACTS: 1. The Paper Tigers is directed and written by Quoc Bao Tran, who started writing the film treatment back in 2011 . 2. A Kickstarter fundraising campaign generated over $124,000 to make the film happen . 3. The film was shot during summer 2019. 4. “It’s a perfect fit for us,”Tran said in a telephone interview in response to distributor Well Go USA obtaining the North American rights to the film. 5. He noted that Well Go USA has a…

Elon Musk showed a combination of humility and hubris as he opened his highly anticipated hosting gig on “Saturday Night Live.” The 49-year-old Tesla CEO, SpaceX founder and one of the world’s richest men opened his monologue by mocking his monotonal speaking style, saying no one can tell when he’s joking. “It’s great to be hosting ‘Saturday Night Live,’ and I really mean it,” said Musk standing on the stage in a black suit with a black T-shirt. “Sometimes after I say something, I have to say that I mean it.” He added, in explanation, that he is the first person with Asperger’s syndrome to host the show. “Or at least the first person to admit it,” he said. It may have been the first time Musk has publicly said…

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NASA’s new administrator is big on tackling climate and diversifying the agency’s workforce, but hedging on whether the U.S. can put astronauts on the moon by 2024. In his first interview since becoming NASA’s top official this week, former Sen. Bill Nelson told The Associated Press on Friday that tracking climate change is a top issue. He also wants to diversify the space agency’s workforce so it reflects America. His underlying vision for NASA: “to explore the heavens with humans and machines.” For landing astronauts on the moon, Nelson said the goal remains 2024, a deadline set by the Trump administration. But he said he needs more time to review the matter, especially with challenges to the contract for the astronauts’ lunar lander. “That is the intended schedule, but I…

An offshore wind project off Massachusetts that would create enough electricity to power 400,000 homes and is touted by backers as a key piece of America’s transition to renewable energy was approved Tuesday by the federal government. The 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project, south of Martha’s Vineyard near Cape Cod, would be the first utility-scale wind power development in federal waters. The nearly $3 billion project is a critical part of the Biden administration’s plan to grow renewable energy in the U.S. The approval of the project, which could be completed in about two years, came after decades of debate about the sustainability of U.S. offshore wind. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said the approval will create thousands of jobs and is a step toward President Joe Biden’s plan for…

Amazon is planning a $100 million distribution and fulfillment center, Johnston County officials announced Monday. According to the officials, Amazon will build a 620,000-square-foot warehouse in Smithfield by 2022 that will create 500 jobs paying at least $15 an hour, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported. “By welcoming Amazon here, we have embarked on a new era of growth with an immediate impact on job creation and a ripple effect on every aspect of our local economy,” Smithfield Mayor Andy Moore said when the project was announced at a public hearing in Johnston County. Direct and ancillary job growth will bring an estimated $97 million in annual revenue to the town and county, according to an economic analysis by N.C. State University economist Michael Walden that was presented by…

Whilst it was the overhauls to the iMac and iPad that got people talking at this year’s Spring Loaded event held in Cupertino, California, Apple also used the virtual keynote to announce a refresh to its popular Apple TV set-top box. The latest iteration drives huge leaps forward in graphics performance, introduces the A12 Bionic chip to Apple TV, as well as an all-new Siri Remote, designed to take Apple’s cinema-at-home experience to even greater heights. TURNING ON THE ALL-NEW APPLE TV 4K Apple’s television box has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, and though the company is yet to release its long-rumored smart stick, allowing consumers to access the tvOS experience without the $99-plus price tag, Apple TV’s latest iteration goes a long way in transforming the…

Americans can begin applying for $50 off their monthly internet bill on Wednesday as part of an emergency government program to keep people connected during the pandemic. The $3.2 billion program is part of the $900 billion December pandemic-relief package. The government is increasing spending on broadband as the pandemic made stark that millions of Americans did not have access to, and could not afford, broadband at a time when jobs, school and health care was moving online. It’s unclear how long the money will last but it’s expected to be several months. Tens of millions of people are eligible, although the Federal Communications Commission, which is administering the program, did not specify a number. For example, your household is eligible if you receive food stamps, have a child in…

Better Mistakes Bebe Rexha “The connecting thread is definitely the honesty and the vulnerability,” Bebe Rexha revealed to Apple Music about her second studio album after 2018’s Expectations, adding: “I just wanted to be completely honest. I just said what I wanted to say.” FIVE FACTS: 1. Rexha is credited as a co-writer of Eminem’s 2013 hit “The Monster”. 2. Rexha has described her sexuality as “fluid” . 3. She has also said she is bipolar – a subject to which she returns with one of the new album’s tracks, “Break My Heart Myself”, featuring Travis Barker. 4. The title track, she has told Apple Music, is about how “no matter what age you are or what background you come from, who you are, you’re going to make a mistake…

Nebraska banks that want to cash in on the cryptocurrency tech craze could start offering services to customers who own Bitcoin and other digital assets under a bill backed by Monday state lawmakers. Senators advanced the measure, 39-1, through the first of three required votes in the Legislature. The measure would make Nebraska the second state to create a formal charter for “cryptobanks,” allowing them to help facilitate transactions. The first state was Wyoming, which chartered its first institution in September. Cryptocurrencies are an online form of money that are stored and tracked using a decentralized network of independent computers, which make transactions extremely secure and easy to verify. Unlike paper cash, they aren’t issued by any central government, which appeals to some users who are worried about inflation. The…

The Pentagon is reconsidering how to make a massive shift to cloud computing, officials said Monday, suggesting it could scrap the so-called JEDI contract potentially worth $10 billion that was awarded to Microsoft Corp. but is mired in legal challenges. “We are going to have to assess where we are in regards to the ongoing litigation and determine what the best path forward is for the department,” deputy Pentagon press secretary Jamal Brown said, citing remarks by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks at a public forum late last month. Hicks said then that she could not comment on the legal case or say what course of action the Pentagon will take. But she said a move to cloud computing is essential for a number of reasons, including cybersecurity. “So for…

With rubble from an asteroid tucked inside, a NASA spacecraft fired its engines and began the long journey back to Earth on Monday, leaving the ancient space rock in its rearview mirror. The trip home for the robotic prospector, Osiris-Rex, will take two years. Osiris-Rex reached asteroid Bennu in 2018 and spent two years flying near and around it, before collecting rubble from the surface last fall. The University of Arizona’s Dante Lauretta, the principal scientist, estimates the spacecraft holds between a half pound and 1 pound (200 grams and 400 grams) of mostly bite-size chunks. Either way, it easily exceeds the target of at least 2 ounces (60 grams). It will be the biggest cosmic haul for the U.S. since the Apollo moon rocks. While NASA has returned comet…

Police Chief Will Cunningham came to work four years ago to find that his six-officer department was the victim of a crime. Hackers had taken advantage of a weak password to break in and encrypt the files of the department in Roxana, a small town in Illinois near St. Louis, and were demanding $6,000 of bitcoin. “I was shocked, I was surprised, frustrated,” Cunningham said. Police departments big and small have been plagued for years by foreign hackers breaking into networks and causing varying level of mischief, from disabling email systems to more serious problems with 911 centers temporarily knocked offline. In some cases important case files have gone missing. But things have taken a dark turn recently. Criminal hackers are increasingly using brazen methods to increase pressure on law…

For the next few months, Charlie Gilchrist figures his 11 car dealerships in the Dallas-Fort Worth area will sell just about every new vehicle they can get from the factories — and at increased prices. In normal times, that would be cause for joy. Not so much now. A global shortage of computer chips has forced automakers to slash production. The result has been far fewer vehicles on dealer lots, just as the waning pandemic has fueled a pent-up consumer demand for cars, trucks and SUVs. Given the robust customer demand, dealers like Gilchrist could sell many more cars and trucks, if only they had more. Even at elevated prices — the average new-vehicle sales price tops $40,000, up nearly 10% in two years — customer demand exceeds supply. “It’s…

A bipartisan group of 44 attorneys general has written to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg urging him to drop company plans for a version of Instagram for children under the age of 13, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced Monday. The attorneys general in the letter said they are concerned about social media’s effects on the physical and emotional well-being of children, the potential for increased cyberbullying, possible vulnerability to online predators, and what they called Facebook’s “checkered record” in protecting children on its platforms. “It appears that Facebook is not responding to a need, but instead creating one, as this platform appeals primarily to children who otherwise do not or would not have an Instagram account,” said the letter, signed by the attorneys general of 40 states, the District of…

Hollywood thrillers in which sophisticated, attractive city folk move to creaky old country homes and experience scary things are a dime a dozen. Less common is when those Hollywood thrillers are based on the theology of 18th-century Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. But here we are — a Swedenborgian thriller — and thus it’s not a bad idea to read up a bit on the man, by which we mean to Google him, before diving into “Things Heard & Seen,” a well-cast and often entertaining but campy and sometimes obvious thriller starring Amanda Seyfried and James Norton. What you’ll learn is that Swedenborg believed (among other things) that death was just a continuation of life — and that people lived on, in the spiritual world, past the expiration of their physical…

Major League Baseball instructed the Athletics to explore relocation options as the team tries to secure a new waterfront ballpark it hopes will keep the club in Oakland long-term. MLB released a statement Tuesday expressing its longtime determination that the current Coliseum site is “not a viable option for the future vision of baseball.” “MLB is concerned with the rate of progress on the A’s new ballpark effort with local officials and other stakeholders in Oakland,” MLB said. “The A’s have worked very hard to advance a new ballpark in downtown Oakland for the last four years, investing significant resources while facing multiple roadblocks. We know they remain deeply committed to succeeding in Oakland, and with two other sports franchises recently leaving the community, their commitment to Oakland is now…

Eager to the turn the page on the Trump years, the Biden White House is launching an effort to unearth past problems with the politicization of science within government and to tighten scientific integrity rules for the future. A new 46-person federal scientific integrity task force with members from more than two dozen government agencies will meet for the first time on Friday. Its mission is to look back through 2009 for areas where partisanship interfered with what were supposed to be decisions based on evidence and research and to come up with ways to keep politics out of government science in the future. The effort was spurred by concerns that the Trump administration had politicized science in ways that put lives at risk, eroded public trust and worsened climate…

A German privacy watchdog banned Facebook on Tuesday from gathering data on users of its WhatsApp chat app, citing an update to its privacy policy that it said breaches stringent European data protection rules. Hamburg’s data protection commissioner, Johannes Caspar, said he issued an emergency three-month order prohibiting the social network from processing WhatsApp personal data for its own purposes. “The order is intended to safeguard the rights and freedoms of the many millions of users who approve to the terms of use throughout Germany,” Caspar said in a statement. “The aim is to prevent disadvantages and damage associated with such a black-box procedure.” Caspar’s office said the updated terms and privacy policy allowing Facebook access to a lot more information on WhatsApp users were too broad and not transparent.…