Innehållsförteckning för #547 från AppleMagazine

I thought I knew all about the information that consumer reporting agencies were collecting on me. Then I discovered The Work Number — a database that reports every paycheck I’ve received from my company, with net and gross amounts, going back to my hire date six years ago. Another consumer reporting agency shows the results of a 2016 echocardiogram. (It was normal.) Yet another tracks insurance claims on my home and car. If I’d made too many returns at retail stores or bounced a check at a casino, that could show up in a database as well. “Any data point that someone can track, there’s going to be a bureau or someone gathering information and selling that information,” says Matthew Loker, a consumer protection attorney in Arroyo Grande, California. Unfortunately,…

Elon Musk’s lawyer says a federal judge would trample on the Tesla CEO’s free speech rights if he ordered Musk to stop talking about 2018 tweets saying he had the funding to make Tesla a private company. In a court document filed Wednesday, lawyer Alex Spiro says a motion from a group of Tesla shareholders seeking a gag order doesn’t establish that Musk’s comments will prejudice the pool of jurors who may hear the case. Lawyers for the shareholders have argued that Musk is trying to influence potential jurors before the lawsuit comes to trial on Jan. 17 of next year. They contend that the CEO’s August, 2018 tweets were written to manipulate the stock price, costing shareholders money. In court documents, the shareholders say U.S. District Judge Edward Chen…

Netflix suffered its first subscriber loss in more than a decade, causing its shares to plunge 25% in extended trading amid concerns that the pioneering streaming service may have already seen its best days. The company’s customer base fell by 200,000 subscribers during the January-March period, according to its quarterly earnings report released this week It’s the first time that Netflix’s subscribers have fallen since the streaming service became available throughout most of the world outside of China six years ago. The drop this year stemmed in part from Netflix’s decision to withdraw from Russia to protest the war against Ukraine, resulting in a loss of 700,00 subscribers. Even so, Netflix acknowledged its problems are deep rooted by projecting a loss of another 2 million subscribers during the April-June period.…

Electrified vehicles are indiscriminate in their automotive expansion. First, it was hatchbacks and sedans, then SUVs. Next up: the pickup. Electric variants of light-duty pickups are being developed by a number of automakers, but there’s one electric truck that’s already on sale: the all-new Rivian R1T. Hailing from this nascent American company, the R1T boasts an impressive range, scintillating performance and innovative features. But how does it compare against a conventional truck? Let’s compares the new R1T against one of its top-rated trucks, the Ram 1500, to find out. POWERTRAINS AND COST TO FUEL The Rivian R1T produces a staggering 835 horsepower thanks to four electric motors, one at each wheel. That power comes on instantly and helps the R1T cover 0-60 mph in just 3.5 seconds in testing. For…

A British judge this week formally approved the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States to face spying charges. The case will now go to Britain’s interior minister for a decision, though the WikiLeaks founder still has legal avenues of appeal. The order, which brings and end to the years’- long extradition battle closer, comes after the U.K. Supreme Court last month refused Assange permission to appeal against a lower court’s ruling that he could be extradited. District Judge Paul Goldspring issued the order in a brief hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, as Assange watched by video link from Belmarsh Prison and his supporters rallied outside the courthouse, demanding he be freed. Home Secretary Priti Patel will now decide whether to grant the extradition. The move doesn’t exhaust the…

Time always flew in J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World but it has lately seemed to catch up to the Potter pop cultural sensation. Those long lines outside bookstores are a long time ago now. The books stopped but the movies never did. The “Fantastic Beasts” prequels, now up to three with “The Secrets of Dumbledore,” have soldiered on, even if the fever surrounding Pottermania — at least among less diehard Muggles — has dissipated. There’s always been a sense of dislocation about the “Fantastic Beasts” movies. The Potter films — boarding school movies with magic thrown in — swirled around life at Hogwarts. But where is the heart of “Fantastic Beasts”? The prequels have a foot in 1920s and ’30s New York, with world war storm clouds all around, but they…

The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for what it said is the first device that can detect COVID-19 in breath samples. The InspectIR COVID-19 Breathalyzer is about the size of a piece of carry-on luggage, the FDA said, and can be used in doctor’s offices, hospitals and mobile testing sites. The test, which can provide results in less than three minutes, must be carried out under the supervision of a licensed health care provider. Dr. Jeff Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, called the device “yet another example of the rapid innovation occurring with diagnostic tests for COVID-19.” The FDA said the device was 91.2% accurate at identifying positive test samples and 99.3% accurate at identifying negative test samples. “InspectIR expects…

A global computer chip shortage has made it harder for consumers to get their hands on cars, computers and other modern-day necessities, so Congress is looking to boost chip manufacturing and research in the United States with billions of dollars from the federal government. Both the House and the Senate have passed major legislation on the matter, and the effort is one of lawmakers’ final opportunities before the November elections to show voters they are addressing the nation’s strained supply chains. Now they have to work out considerable differences in the two bills. And Senate Republicans are already digging in before the negotiations formally begin. President Joe Biden has made the semiconductor legislation a top priority, but he’ll need the support of 10 Senate Republicans, and perhaps more, to get…

With WWDC 2022 just around the corner, the rumor mill has gone into overdrive in regards to what’s next for iOS and iPadOS, with journalists sharing their wishes and predictions for the next-generation software. In the months ahead, Apple will further refine the world’s best smartphone and tablet operating systems and offer users even more valuable features. ENHANCEMENTS AND IMPROVEMENTS Although many technology experts and YouTubers use pre-WWDC to talk about their hopes for new features and software, Mark Gurman from Bloomberg has a proven track record when it comes to Apple leaks and rumors. He’s already shared a number of predictions for the new operating systems, suggesting that iOS 16 could offer“significant enhancements across the board, including an update to notifications.” Gurman has suggested that the new operating system…

Opponents trying to derail a $5 billion, 7,500-job electric truck plant in Georgia dominated a state meeting this week that was meant to gather suggestions on how to design the plant to mitigate any impact on the environment. The state assumed oversight over the Rivian Automotive project after opponents overwhelmed Morgan County planning and zoning officials. The plant was announced by the company and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in December, and is the biggest single industrial project in state history. The first meeting of one of the oversight committees was Monday in the city of Monroe. The Irvine, California-based electric vehicle manufacturer announced last year that it would build the facility on a 2,000-acre (809-hectare) site in Morgan and Walton counties about 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of Atlanta along…

The idea was presented to Florida lawmakers in a movie house outside Orlando 55 years ago, with Walt Disney, who had died less than two months earlier, helping make the pitch from the screen: Let Disney form its own government and in exchange it would create a futuristic city of tomorrow. That city never materialized, but Walt Disney World became an economic juggernaut with four theme parks and two dozen hotels, while its government retained unprecedented powers in deciding what and how to build, issuing bonds and holding the ability to build its own nuclear plant if it wanted. Now, five decades later, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking lawmakers to end Disney’s government in a move that jeopardizes the symbiotic relationship between the state and company. The high-profile attack…

Paradise Again Swedish House Mafia Few music acts become iconic before even releasing their debut studio album – but the house music supergroup Swedish House Mafia has indeed achieved this enviable distinction. Band members Axwell, Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso are now looking to build on it, too. FIVE FACTS: 1. Swedish House Mafia has been described as a ‘supergroup’, as all three members were originally successful underground DJs in their own right before forming the group. 2. “More than any other act in modern dance music, Swedish House Mafia set the tone for the EDM boom of the early 2010s,” Billboard declared in an article about the band last year. 3. However, Swedish House Mafia broke up in 2013. 4. “When we came back together again, it was like…

NASA’s latest attempt to fuel its huge moon rocket for a countdown test was thwarted last week by a hazardous hydrogen leak, the latest in a series of vexing equipment trouble. The launch team had just begun loading fuel into the core stage of the rocket when the leak cropped up. This was NASA’s third shot at a dress rehearsal, a required step ahead of a test flight to the moon. This time, the launch team managed to load some super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen into the core stage of the 30-story Space Launch System rocket, but fell far short of the full amount. Liquid hydrogen is extremely hazardous, with officials noting that the systems had been checked for leaks prior to the test. Technicians deliberately left the smaller upper…

A ruling by a federal judge has ended — at least for now — the requirement that people wear masks on planes and public transportation, and there is plenty of confusion about the new, post-mask world of travel. The decision by a lone judge in Florida toppled 14 months of government insistence that travelers wear masks to reduce transmission of COVID-19. Within hours, all major U.S. airlines and many airports announced — sometimes to passengers in the middle of flights — that travelers could take off their masks. WHAT EXACTLY WAS THE RULING? In a 59-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa, Florida, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overstepped its authority in issuing the original health order that the Transportation Security Administration used…

Meta Platforms Inc., the social media giant formerly known as Facebook, plans to celebrate Earth Day by expanding its offering of fundraising tools and making them more easily available to 1.5 million nonprofits on its Facebook and Instagram platforms, including those involved in fighting climate change. Instagram users can now attach donation buttons to their Reels, turning the short videos into fundraisers. As it does for donations on Facebook and other Instagram content, Meta will collect and pass along the donations to the nonprofits at no charge, paying the processing fees itself. More than $6 billion has been donated on Facebook and Instagram since fundraising began on the platforms in 2015, according to Emily Dalton Smith, Meta’s vice president of product management and social impact. Donations jumped $1 billion in…

When Mahlet Berhanemeskel gets back to her New York City home from her 90-minute commute, she doesn’t feel like cooking. So instead she orders food like BLTs, Cheez-Its and cookies from an app called Gorillas. It’s affordable and takes 10 minutes. “It’s instant gratification,” she said. Gorillas is one of several companies that venture capitalists have poured billions into in the latest pandemic delivery craze: companies that promise to get you a bottle of Tylenol, an iced coffee, hummus, a cucumber or a roll of paper towels in 30 minutes — or even 15 minutes — or less. They typically deliver from mini-warehouses in residential and commercial neighborhoods. Experts say they are unprofitable. Bigger companies are nonetheless muscling in. And officials in European cities and in New York, which has…

Two years after the pandemic tore through the economy, America’s auto market looks something like this: Prices are drastically up. Supply is drastically down. And gasoline costs drastically more. The result? A widening disparity between the richest buyers and everyone else. The most affluent buyers keep plunking down big money for new vehicles, including the least fuel-efficient among them — trucks, SUVS, large sedans. As for the rest of America, millions are feeling increasingly priced out of the new-vehicle market. They are competing instead for a shrunken supply of used autos, especially smaller, less expensive ones that consume less fuel. The jump in pump prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only intensified their urge to keep costs down. They are people like Natalia Ponce De Leon of North Palm…

A lawyer for California’s civil rights agency has resigned over what she alleged were undue attempts by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his office to interfere in a state lawsuit against video game giant Activision Blizzard. Bloomberg reported that Melanie Proctor, assistant chief counsel with California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, told staff in a email she was resigning in protest over the firing of Janette Wipper, the department’s chief counsel who worked on the Activision lawsuit. Proctor also said Newsom’s office asked for “advance notice” on elements of the litigation. “As we continued to win in state court, this interference increased, mimicking the interests of Activision’s counsel,” said the email, a copy of which was shown to Bloomberg. Newsom’s spokeswoman Erin Mellon said claims of interference by the governor’s…

The Outfit (2022) In 1956, Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance), an English tailor with a history of crafting suits on London’s Savile Row, operates a small tailor shop in a Chicago neighborhood controlled by mobster Roy Boyle (Simon Russell Beale), who also happens to be one of Burling’s best customers. FIVE FACTS: 1. The film’s title has a dual meaning, as the Chicago mafia is otherwise known as ‘The Outfit’. 2. Johnny Flynn plays Boyle’s chief enforcer Francis, while Dylan O’Brien portrays Boyle’s son and second-in-command, Richie. 3. Unlike Martin Scorsese’s similar gangster film The Irishman, The Outfit is entirely fictional. 4. Nonetheless, the story is inspired by the FBI planting an electronic bug inside a Chicago tailor shop in 1956. 5. The Outfit director Graham Moore explained in an interview…

Scientists at the Idaho National Laboratory have completed a rare overhaul of one of the world’s most powerful nuclear test reactors and normal operations are expected to resume later this spring, officials said this week. The 11-month outage at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Test Reactor, or ATR, in eastern Idaho allowed a core overhaul that’s done, on average, about every 10 years. The changeout was the sixth since the reactor started operating in 1967 and the first in 17 years. “Overall, I’m very pleased with the ATR workforce and teamwork they demonstrated during the longest and most complex outage in our history,” said Sean O’Kelly, associate lab director for the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Test Reactor Complex. He said the coronavirus pandemic and supply chain issues caused some…

Sprawled like a gigantic swimming pool atop a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is an asphalt-and-clay pond holding enough water to produce electricity for 1.6 million households. It’s part of the Ludington Pumped Storage Plant, which uses simple technology: Water is piped from a lower reservoir — the lake, in this case — to an upper one, then released downhill through supersized turbines. Supporters call these systems “the world’s largest batteries” because they hold vast amounts of potential energy for use when needed for the power grid. The hydropower industry considers pumped storage the best answer to a question hovering over the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy to address climate change: where to get power when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. “I wish we could…