Innehållsförteckning för #625 från AppleMagazine

Today, Apple is bringing more choice to iPad users with a new, more affordable Apple Pencil. With pixel-perfect accuracy, low latency, and tilt sensitivity, the new Apple Pencil is ideal for note taking, sketching, annotating, journaling, and more. Designed with a matte finish and a flat side that magnetically attaches to the side of iPad for storage, the new Apple Pencil pairs and charges with a USB-C cable. The new Apple Pencil will be available beginning in early November. “Apple Pencil has revolutionized note taking, sketching, and illustrating, unleashing endless possibilities for productivity and creativity,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Combined with the versatility of iPad, the new Apple Pencil unlocks another great option to experience the magic of digital handwriting, annotation, marking up documents,…

A South Korean company has begun production at a huge new solar panel factory in Georgia even as industry leaders say surging Asian imports could dampen efforts to make more solar components in the United States. Qcells, a unit of South Korea’s Hanwha Group, said that it can now turn out enough solar panels to generate 5.1 gigawatts of power yearly at a two-factory complex in the northwest Georgia city of Dalton. That’s almost 40% of U.S. solar panel capacity, according to figures from the Solar Energy Industries Association. Qcells’ opened its first factory in 2019 and an even larger plant in phases since, what the company describes as the largest solar investment in American history. “It’s another milestone as we as a company really strive to become a global…

When Laima Springe-Janssen was looking to replace her French-made gasoline-powered SUV with an electric car, she considered models from Volvo and Nissan. The Volvo extras she wanted would have busted her budget, while the Nissan lacked the “wow factor.” The Copenhagen, Denmark, resident ended up buying a compact SUV from China’s BYD. “I really, really love the car,” Springe-Janssen said. For the equivalent of about $50,000, the Atto 3 SUV came with “all these goodies” like a 360-degree dash cam, two years of free charging and an extra set of winter tires. Her husband likes it so much he’s considering buying another BYD to replace their other car, from Volkswagen’s Skoda brand. “I’m sorry, Europe. Go home,” she said. “China has a better offer.” Her enthusiasm underscores how Chinese automakers…

Some of the most used platforms for travel and online shopping said they’re going to team up to battle fake reviews. Amazon, reviews site Glassdoor and Trustpilot as well as travel companies Expedia Group, Booking.com and Tripadvisor said in an announcement they’re launching a coalition that aims to protect access to “trustworthy consumer reviews” worldwide. The companies said the members of the group, which will be called Coalition for Trusted Reviews, will look for best practices for hosting online reviews and share methods on how to detect fake ones. That will include developing standards for what constitutes a fake review and sharing information about how bad actors operate. Phony reviews have long plagued online marketplaces despite their efforts to eradicate it. Much of the problem is fueled by brokers who…

Fran Drescher has steered the actors guild through its monthslong strike. On the heels of Hollywood studios abruptly breaking off talks with the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists this week, the actor and union president says she’s baffled and disappointed. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers announced last week that they had suspended contract negotiations, saying the gap between the two sides was too great to make continuing worth it and characterizing their offer as good as the one that recently ended the writers strike. Drescher told in an interview that she did not understand why negotiations collapsed but that her union’s resolve has not weakened. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Q: CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED IN YOUR…

Paul Lane uses his mouth, cheek and chin to push buttons and guide his virtual car around the “Gran Turismo” racetrack on the PlayStation 5. It’s how he’s been playing for the past 23 years, after a car accident left him unable to use his fingers. Playing video games has long been a challenge for people with disabilities, chiefly because the standard controllers for the PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo can be difficult, or even impossible, to maneuver for people with limited mobility. And losing the ability to play the games doesn’t just mean the loss of a favorite pastime, it can also exacerbate social isolation in a community already experiencing it at a far higher rate than the general population. As part of the gaming industry’s efforts to address the…

Microsoft has completed its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the makers of iconic gaming franchises such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush. This historic deal, initially blocked by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), represents a new era for the gaming industry and a further consolidation of tech giants. THE MICROSOFT ACTIVISION BLIZZARD DEAL The merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard has been along-awaited, with the technology behemoth eventually taking control over Activision Blizzard for a record-breaking $68.7 billion, marking it the most significant acquisition in video game history. With this takeover, Microsoft will now control illustrious game franchises like Call of Duty, Diablo, and World of Warcraft. This merger is an enormous boon for Xbox, particularly its Game Pass subscription service, and stands…

U.S. regulators are investigating General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle division after receiving reports of incidents where vehicles may not have used proper caution around pedestrians in roadways. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that the reports involve automated driving system equipped vehicles encroaching on pedestrians present in or entering roadways, including crosswalks. This could raise the risk of a vehicle striking a pedestrian, which could result in severe injury or death, according to the NHTSA. The NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation said that it’s received two reports involving pedestrian injuries from Cruise vehicles. It’s also identified two additional incidents from videos posted to public websites. The office said the total number of relevant pedestrian incidents is unknown. It opened an investigation this week. “Cruise’s safety record over 5 million…

LinkedIn said this week it is laying off hundreds of employees amounting to about 3% of the social media company’s workforce. The Microsoft-owned career network is cutting about 668 roles across its engineering, product, talent and finance teams. “Talent changes are a difficult, but necessary and regular part of managing our business,” the company said in a statement. The job cuts follow another more than 700 layoffs LinkedIn announced in May, as well as thousands more this year from parent company Microsoft, which has owned the professional-networking service since buying it for $26 billion in 2016. LinkedIn keeps growing and said its annual revenue surpassed $15 billion for the first time in the fiscal year that ended in June. The service, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, makes money from advertisements on…

Elon Musk’s social media platform X has begun charging a $1 fee to new users in the Philippines and New Zealand, in a test designed to cut down on the spam and fake accounts flourishing on the site formerly known as Twitter. The company said that it has started trying out the annual subscription method for new and unverified accounts. The program, dubbed Not a Bot, won’t apply to existing users. It’s not clear why it only applies to New Zealand and the Philippines or why those countries were chosen. “This new test was developed to bolster our already successful efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount,” the X support account tweeted. “It is not a profit…

Amazon will soon make prescription drugs fall from the sky when the e-commerce giant becomes the latest company to test drone deliveries for medications. The company said this week that customers in College Station, Texas, can now get prescriptions delivered by a drone within an hour of placing their order. The drone, programed to fly from a delivery center with a secure pharmacy, will travel to the customer’s address, descend to a height of about four meters — or 13 feet — and drop a padded package. Amazon says customers will be able to choose from more than 500 medications, a list that includes common treatments for conditions like the flu or pneumonia, but not controlled substances. The company’s Prime Air division began testing drone deliveries of common household items…

After two years co-piloting the biggest acquisition in video game history past an onslaught of challenges, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer now moves on to his next quest: making Microsoft’s takeover of Activision Blizzard worth the hassle. Microsoft, which owns the Xbox gaming system, closed its $69 billion deal to buy game-maker Activision Blizzard after fending off global opposition from antitrust regulators and rivals. It marks a career-defining moment for Spencer, who first joined Microsoft as an intern in 1988 and has helmed Xbox since 2014. After years of lagging behind rival Sony’s PlayStation, acquiring Activision’s collection of popular game titles gives Microsoft a rare chance to catch up. “His job really just starts today,” said analyst Gil Luria, technology strategist at D.A. Davidson, after the deal’s closure. “All he’s been…

If government regulators prevail against Google in the biggest U.S. antitrust trial in a quarter century, it’s likely to unleash drastic changes that will undermine the dominance of a search engine that defines the internet for billions of people. As the 10-week trial probing Google’s business practices nears its midway point, it’s still too early to tell if U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta will side with the Justice Department and try to handcuff one of the world’s most dominant tech companies. If Mehta rules that Google has been running an illegal monopoly in search, the punishment could open up new online avenues for consumers and businesses to explore in pursuit of information, entertainment and commerce. “The judge can compel Google to open the floodgates so more startups and third-party competitors…

Of all the ways that a relationship can end, a fundamental disagreement about a work of art is in some ways extremely silly. And yet, a film or a book exposing an irreparable rift in a love that perhaps wasn’t as compatible, as symbiotic or as caring as one might have thought is also, somehow, as good a reason as any. Maybe it will even, eventually, provide a funny story. Another, more excruciating, way for a relationship to end is with one party falling off the roof of a house to their death, followed by a humiliating public trial to determine the fault or innocence of the other, as happens in Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning “Anatomy of a Fall.” And just like “The Corrections” before it, it seems that “Anatomy…

Chinese search engine and artificial intelligence firm Baidu this week unveiled a new version of its artificial intelligence model, Ernie 4.0, claiming that it rivals models such as GPT-4 in the U.S. Baidu’s CEO Robin Li demonstrated Ernie 4.0 at the company’s annual Baidu World conference in Beijing. He said the model has achieved comprehension, reasoning, memory and generation, which uses algorithms to produce and create new content. Li said that Ernie 4.0 was able to understand complex questions and instructions and apply reasoning and logic to generate answers to questions. “It is not inferior in any aspect to GPT-4,” Li said, stating that the latest model was “significantly improved” compared to its original Ernie Bot model. In a live demonstration, Li prompted Ernie 4.0 to generate advertising materials including…