Innehållsförteckning för #518 från AppleMagazine

Facebook is putting a hold on the development of a kids’ version of Instagram, geared toward children under 13, to address concerns that have been raised about the vulnerability of younger users. “I still firmly believe that it’s a good thing to build a version of Instagram that’s designed to be safe for tweens, but we want to take the time to talk to parents and researchers and safety experts and get to more consensus about how to move forward,” said Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show. The announcement follows a investigative series by The Wall Street Journal which reported that Facebook was aware that the use of Instagram by some teenage girls led to mental health issues and anxiety. Yet the development…

Amazon’s new robot can hear, see and follow you around the the home, but its no Rosey the Robot. Amazon’s version, called Astro, doesn’t cook or clean like the animated character from “The Jetsons,” but it can check if you left the stove on while you’re out or send an alert if someone enters the house it doesn’t recognize. It uses cameras, sensors and artificial technology to avoid walls or dogs, and Amazon said Astro — which also happens to be the name of the Jetson’s dog — will only get smarter as time goes on. It does do some housework: Snacks or a can of soda can be placed on its back to be carted to someone across the house. The $1,000 robot, which will be sent out to…

Applying to be one of the first workers at Walt Disney World, high school graduate George Kalogridis made a split-second decision that set the course for his life: he picked a room where prospective hotel workers were being hired. Chuck Milam got a tip about a job opening from a transplanted Disney executive whose new house he was landscaping. Earliene Anderson jumped at the chance to take a job at the new Disney theme park in Florida, having fallen in love with the beauty of Disneyland in California during a trip two years earlier. At the time, the three were among the 6,000 employees who opened the Magic Kingdom at Disney World to the public for the first time on Oct. 1, 1971. Now, they are among two dozen from…

Luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz is teaming up with Stellantis and TotalEnergies in a European electric vehicle battery joint venture, Automotive Cells Co. Each will hold a one-third stake in the venture, which will have an investment of more than 7 billion euros ($8.2 billion). The partners in Automotive Cells plan to increase the company’s industrial capacity to at least 120 gigawatt-hours by 2030. The company was founded in August 2020 and is looking to develop and make battery cells and modules for electric vehicles with a focus on safety, performance, competitiveness and a low carbon footprint. In July, Mercedes-Benz said it is stepping up its transition to electric cars, doubling the share of sales planned by 2025 and sketching out a market scenario in which new car sales would “in essence”…

Remember Her Name Mickey Guyton Country star Mickey Guyton’s profile has been rising for some time now, culminating in the release of her debut studio album, Remember Her Name. “This whole album really is my life, and my learning self-acceptance, over the last 10 years,” Guyton revealed to Apple Music. FIVE FACTS: 1. This album is arriving 10 years after the Nashville-based Guyton first signed a record deal. 2. The title track was written during the pandemic and inspired by the murder of Breonna Taylor. 3. Guyton explained: “Whenever someone is wrongly murdered, a lot of people say, ‘Say their name. Remember their name.’ So, I was inspired by that.” 4. She noted that another track penned during the pandemic, “All American”, is about “showing that our differences make America…

Days before Germany’s federal elections, Facebook took what it called an unprecedented step: the removal of a series of accounts that worked together to spread COVID-19 misinformation and encourage violent responses to COVID restrictions. The crackdown, announced Sept. 16, was the first use of Facebook’s new“coordinated social harm” policy aimed at stopping not state-sponsored disinformation campaigns but otherwise typical users who have mounted an increasingly sophisticated effort to sidestep rules on hate speech or misinformation. In the case of the German network, the nearly 150 accounts, pages and groups were linked to the so-called Querdenken movement, a loose coalition that has protested lockdown measures in Germany and includes vaccine and mask opponents, conspiracy theorists and some far-right extremists. Facebook touted the move as an innovative response to potentially harmful content;…

Bowing — perhaps only for a moment — to pressure from lawmakers, critics, the media and child development experts, Facebook said it will “pause” its work on a kids’ version of its photo and video-oriented Instagram app. But what’s not yet clear is just how seriously Facebook is taking the concerns of experts and parents. Its decision to merely pause the project suggests it still plans to expose a much younger audience to Instagram, its well-documented harms and possibly the user profiling that feeds Facebook’s targeted ad machine. That ad machine, of course, has made the company one of the most profitable on the planet. WHY IS FACEBOOK DOING THIS NOW? The company’s move follows an explosive mid-September report by The Wall Street Journal that found Facebook knew from its…

Although all eyes were on the Apple Watch Series 7 and iPhone 13 range at this year’s California Streaming event, the unexpected announcement of a refreshed iPad mini also got people talking. Bringing Apple’s smallest tablet in line with the iPad Pro and Air has helped to give consumers more choice, whilst a refreshed entry-level iPad remains a sensible buy. INTRODUCING THE NEW iPAD MINI Apple first introduced the iPad mini nine years ago, designed to appeal to consumers looking for a smaller tablet that they could take with them on the go, carry in their handbags, and give to the kids. After five generations, Apple has refined the iPad mini into a powerhouse, but it’s the all-new sixth-generation that’s getting people talking. The new iPad mini features a larger…

Japanese automaker Toyota is revving up acquisitions in mobility technology, adding Renovo Motors Inc., a Silicon Valley software developer, to its Woven Planet team, which is working on automated driving. The addition, announced this week, follows the purchase earlier this year of CARMERA Inc., a U.S. venture that specializes in sophisticated road mapping updates made cheaper and faster by using crowdsourced information obtained from millions of net-connected Toyota vehicles. The company has not disclosed the value of either deal. Renovo develops automotive operating systems, which Toyota Motor Corp. sees as essential for developing programmed vehicles so it can transition to what it calls “a mobility company” that includes more than just cars. Renovo means “new life” or “renew” in Latin. Renovo’s data-management platform enables automakers to continuously learn from their…

In an economy upended by the coronavirus, shortages and price spikes have hit everything from lumber to computer chips. Not even toilet paper escaped. Now, they’re cutting into one of the humblest yet most vital links in the global manufacturing supply chain: The plastic pellets that go into a vast universe of products ranging from cereal bags to medical devices, automotive interiors to bicycle helmets. Like other manufacturers, petrochemical companies have been shaken by the pandemic and by how consumers and businesses responded to it. Yet petrochemicals, which are made from oil, have also run into problems all their own, one after another: A freak winter freeze in Texas. A lightning strike in Louisiana. Hurricanes along the Gulf Coast. All have conspired to disrupt production and raise prices. “There isn’t…

An emergency dispatch center doesn’t exactly sound like the most visually exciting place to set an entire film. But the technical limitation of being imprisoned in a soulless office while high stakes action takes place off screen can be an inspired storytelling gimmick in the right hands, as it is in “ The Guilty,” directed by Antoine Fuqua, written by Nic Pizzolatto and starring Jake Gyllenhaal. A remake of a 2018 Danish film by the same name, Fuqua’s “The Guilty” puts the audience in a Los Angeles 911 call center in the middle of the night as Gyllenhaal’s disgraced police officer Joe Baylor fields emergency calls from around the city. Joe probably isn’t the calmest man in the world under normal circumstances but take into the fact that he’s doing…

China’s central bank declared all transactions involving Bitcoin and other virtual currencies illegal, stepping up a campaign to block use of unofficial digital money. The notice complained Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital currencies disrupt the financial system and are used in money-laundering and other crimes. “Virtual currency derivative transactions are all illegal financial activities and are strictly prohibited,” the People’s Bank of China said on its website. The price of Bitcoin fell more than 9%, to $41,085, in the hours after the announcement, as did most other crypto tokens. Ethereum skidded almost 10%, falling from $3,100 to around $2,800. Chinese banks were banned from handling cryptocurrencies in 2013, but the government issued a reminder this year. That reflected official concern cryptocurrency mining and trading might still be going on or…

The U.S. Department of Defense is taking input on its plan to build an advanced mobile nuclear microreactor prototype at the Idaho National Laboratory in eastern Idaho. The department began a 45-day comment period last week with the release of a draft environmental impact study evaluating alternatives for building and operating the microreactor that could produce 1 to 5 megawatts of power. The department’s energy needs are expected to increase, it said. “A safe, small, transportable nuclear reactor would address this growing demand with a resilient, carbon-free energy source that would not add to the DoD’s fuel needs, while supporting mission-critical operations in remote and austere environments,” the Defense Department said. The draft environmental impact statement cites President Joe Biden’s Jan. 27 executive order prioritizing climate change considerations in national…

Austin Moody wanted to apply his cybersecurity skills in his home state of Michigan, teaming up with investigators for the State Police to analyze evidence and track down criminals. But the recent graduate set the idea aside after learning an unpaid internship was his only way into the Michigan agency. “I don’t know many people that can afford to take an unpaid internship, especially when it’s in such high demand in the private sector,” Moody said of fellow cybersecurity job seekers. “Unpaid internships in cyber aren’t really a thing beyond the public sector.” Hiring and keeping staff capable of helping fend off a constant stream of cyberattacks and less severe online threats tops the list of concerns for state technology leaders. There’s a severe shortage of those professionals and not…

Ford and a partner company say they plan to build three major electric-vehicle battery factories and an auto assembly plant by 2025 — a dramatic investment in the future of EV technology that will create an estimated 10,800 jobs and shift the automaker’s future manufacturing footprint toward the South. The factories, to be built on sites in Kentucky and Tennessee, will make batteries for the next generation of Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles that will be produced in North America. Combined, they mark the single largest manufacturing investment the 118-year-old company has ever made and are among the largest factory outlays in the world. Notably, the new factories will provide a vast new supply of jobs that will likely pay solid wages. Most of the new jobs will be full…

The Protégé Anna (Maggie Q) is raised and trained as an assassin by Moody (Samuel L. Jackson), who becomes a father figure to her. After Moody is brutally murdered, Anna finds herself in a cat-and-mouse conflict with enigmatic killer Michael Rembrandt (Michael Keaton). FIVE FACTS: 1. The filming locations for this movie included Vietnam and Romania. 2. Chinese actress Gong Li was set to take the lead role in October 2017, when the film was titled Ana . 3. By November 2019, the film had a new title: The Asset . 4. Director Martin Campbell also directed 1995’s GoldenEye and 2006’s Casino Royale – the first James Bond films in which, respectively, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig starred. 5. In April 2021, distributor Lionsgate gave the film a theatrical release…

Google headed to a top European Union court this week to appeal a record EU antitrust penalty imposed for stifling competition through the dominance of its Android operating system. The company is fighting a 2018 decision from the EU’s executive Commission, the bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, that resulted in the 4.34 billion-euro ($5 billion) fine — still the biggest ever fine Brussels has imposed for anticompetitive behavior. It’s one of three antitrust penalties totaling more than $8 billion that the commission hit Google with between 2017 and 2019. The others focused on shopping and search, and the California company is appealing all three. While the penalties involved huge sums, critics point out that Google can easily afford them and that the fines haven’t done much to widen competition. In its…