Innehållsförteckning för #622 från AppleMagazine

A top Apple executive defended the tech giant’s decision to make Google the default search engine on Apple iPhones and Macs, saying there was no “valid alternative.’’ Testifying in the biggest antitrust trial in a quarter century, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, said Tuesday that there wasn’t “anybody as good’’ as Google at helping phone and computer users search the internet. The U.S. Department of Justice has accused Google – a company whose very name is synonymous with scouring the web — of smothering competition by paying Apple, Verizon and other tech companies to make its search engine the first users see when they open their devices. Google counters that it dominates the market because its search engine is better than the competition, a position Cue supported…

A recycling facility will be built in Kentucky to shred electric vehicle batteries in a $65 million venture between American and South Korean companies that will supply material for a separate battery-related operation in the same town, the companies announced this week. The 100,000-square-foot (9,000-square meter) EV battery recycling facility to be built in Hopkinsville will create about 60 jobs, according to U.S.-based Ascend Elements, which is partnering with South Korea-based SK ecoplant and its electronicwaste recycling subsidiary, TES, on the project. Construction is set to begin in November and be completed in January 2025. Hopkinsville is 170 miles (274 kilometers) southwest of Louisville, Kentucky. “This is just the beginning of an entirely new industry in the United States,” Mike O’Kronley, CEO of Ascend Elements, said in a news release.…

Wildfires fueled by climate change have ravaged communities from Maui to the Mediterranean this summer, killing many people, exhausting firefighters and fueling demand for new solutions. Enter artificial intelligence. Firefighters and startups are using AI-enabled cameras to scan the horizon for signs of smoke. A German company is building a constellation of satellites to detect fires from space. And Microsoft is using AI models to predict where the next blaze could be sparked. With wildfires becoming larger and more intense as the world warms, firefighters, utilities and governments are scrambling to get ahead of the flames by tapping into the latest AI technology — which has stirred both fear and excitement for its potential to transform life. While increasingly stretched first responders hope AI offers them a leg up, humans…

Ford Motor Co. said that it’s pausing construction of a $3.5 billion electric vehicle battery plant in Michigan until it is confident it can run the factory competitively. The move comes as the company is in the midst of national contract talks with the United Auto Workers union, which wants to represent workers at battery factories and win them top wages. The UAW went on strike against Ford and the other two Detroit automakers, General Motors and Stellantis, on Sept. 15. The union at first targeted one vehicle assembly plant from each automaker, and last week expanded it to parts warehouses. But Ford was spared from the expansion because the union said progress was being made in negotiations. In February, Ford announced plans to build the plant in Marshall, Michigan,…

John Carney, the Irish filmmaker of “Once,”“Sing Street” and “Begin Again,” makes the movie version of “three chords and the truth.” His films, unabashedly earnest, feel-good movies for cynical times, are lo-fi musicals that tell simple stories, charmingly. There are love interests, usually. But the abiding romance is for music. His films are the sort that would be easier to dismiss as “sentimental” if his central belief — in the redemptive power of music — didn’t happen to be kinda true. The song remains much the same in Carney’s latest charmer, “Flora and Son,” starring Eve Hewson as a working-class single mother in Dublin who takes up guitar lessons. Flora’s initial instinct when she snags a beat-up acoustic guitar out of a dumpster, is to give it to her troubled…

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the tech giant’s Connect developer conference on Wednesday with a focus on virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence The company, which renamed itself Meta two years ago, unveiled the next version of its virtual reality headset, the Quest 3. It will cost $499 and begin shipping Oct. 10. Standing in a courtyard at his company’s Menlo Park, California headquarters, Zuckerberg told the audience of developers, employees and journalists that Meta is “focused on building the future of human connection” — and painted a near-future where people interact with hologram versions of their friends or coworkers and with AI bots built to assist them. “Soon the physical and digital will come together in what we call the metaverse,” he said. Zuckerberg introduced an AI…

Apple has once again raised the bar with its latest smartwatches: the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and the Apple Watch Series 9. The smartwatches may be incremental upgrades, but they’re shipped with the powerful new S9 SiP and feature the magical double-tap gesture, meaning your next watch will be an indispensable companion for health, fitness, and everyday life. APPLE WATCH ULTRA 2: RUGGED SOPHISTICATION The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is a marvel of engineering, designed for those who demand the best performance and durability. It’s powered by Apple’s all-new S9 SiP, which brings systemwide improvements and new features like on-device Siri and a 4-core Neural Engine that can process machine learning tasks up to twice as fast as its predecessor. It might look identical to the first generation, and rumors…

Anyone looking for a beautiful photograph of a desert landscape can find many choices from Getty Images, the stock photography collection. But say you’re instead looking for a wide angle shot of a “hot pink plastic saguaro cactus with large arms that stick out, surrounded by sand, in landscape at dawn.” Getty Images says you can now ask its artificial intelligence image-generator to make one on the spot. The Seattle-based company is taking a two-pronged approach to the threat and opportunity that AI poses to its business. First, it sued a leading purveyor of AI-generated images earlier this year for what it alleged was “brazen infringement” of Getty’s image collection “on a staggering scale.” But this week, it also joined the small but growing market of AI image makers with…

U.S. regulators and 17 states are suing Amazon over allegations the e-commerce behemoth abuses its position in the marketplace to inflate prices on and off its platform, overcharge sellers and stifle competition. The lawsuit, filed this week in federal court in Amazon’s home state of Washington, is the result of a yearslong investigation into the company’s businesses and one of the most significant legal challenges brought against it in its nearly 30-year history. The Federal Trade Commission and states that joined the lawsuit allege Amazon is violating federal and state antitrust laws. They are asking the court to issue a permanent injunction that they say would prohibit Amazon from engaging in its unlawful conduct and loosen its “monopolistic control to restore competition.” The complaint accuses the company of engaging in…

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Amazon is investing up to $4 billion in Anthropic and taking a minority stake in the artificial intelligence startup, the two companies said this week. The investment underscores how Big Tech companies are pouring money into AI as they race to capitalize on the opportunities that the latest generation of the technology is set to fuel. Amazon and Anthropic said the deal is part of a broader collaboration to develop so-called foundation models, which underpin the generative AI systems that have captured global attention. Foundation models, also known as large language models, are trained on vast pools of online information, like blog posts, digital books, scientific articles and pop songs to generate text, images and video that resemble human work. Under the agreement, Anthropic is making Amazon its primary cloud…

Landmark net neutrality rules rescinded under former President Donald Trump could return under a new push by U.S. Federal Communications Commission chair Jessica Rosenworcel. The rules would reclassify broadband access as an essential service on par with other utilities like water or power. “For everyone, everywhere, to enjoy the full benefits of the internet age, internet access should be more than just accessible and affordable,” Rosenworcel said at an event at the National Press Club. “The internet needs to be open.” The proposed rules would return fixed and mobile broadband service to its status as an essential telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act. It would also prohibit internet service providers from blocking or throttling lawful Internet traffic and from selling “fast lanes” that prioritize some traffic over…

Are high gas prices burning a hole in your wallet? Then maybe it’s a good time to consider a hybrid vehicle. Hybrids gain improved fuel efficiency thanks to specialized powertrains that combine a gas engine with at least one electric motor that’s powered by a battery pack that does not need to be plugged in. In many cases, the price difference between hybrid and non-hybrid models is small enough that the hybrid will pay for itself or save you money after just a few years of ownership. But which hybrid models are the best? To help you in your search for the top fuel sipper, car experts highlighted five of their highest-ranking hybrids in a variety of prices and body styles. TOYOTA PRIUS This isn’t your parents’ Prius anymore. Unlike…

Hollywood’s writers strike was declared over after nearly five months Tuesday night when board members from their union approved a contract agreement with studios, bringing the industry at least partly back from a historic halt in production. The governing boards of the eastern and western branches of the Writers Guild of America and their joint negotiating committee all voted to accept the deal, two days after the tentative agreement was reached with a coalition of Hollywood’s biggest studios, streaming services and production companies. After the vote they declared that the strike is over and writers would be free to start on scripts. Late-night talk shows — the first to go dark when writers walked out on May 2 — are likely the first shows that will resume. Scripted shows will…

British competition regulators gave preliminary approval to Microsoft’s restructured $69 billion deal to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard, easing a final global hurdle that paves the way for one of the largest tech transactions in history to go through. The Competition and Markets Authority said the revamped proposal “substantially addresses previous concerns” about stifling competition in the fast-growing cloud gaming market, which frees players from buying expensive consoles and gaming computers by streaming to tablets, phones and other devices. The updated offer “opens the door to the deal being cleared,” the watchdog said, though there are lingering concerns. Microsoft has offered remedies that the watchdog provisionally decided will resolve those issues, and regulators are now getting feedback from “interested parties” before making a final decision. The announcement shows the…