Innehållsförteckning för #235 från AppleMagazine

Twitter gets lots of grief from investors because it hasn’t taken over the world the way Facebook did, at least in terms of amassing users. But maybe it’s destined to stay small, serving a vital, if limited, role for the public. Maybe Twitter just isn’t meant to be an all-encompassing social utility. Maybe stock price is not the only lens through which a company can be valued. Twitter, perhaps even in spite of its difficult interface and site-specific lingo, has become a cultural force since its 2006 founding. “I don’t think at this point Twitter is ever going to reach the size of Facebook and I don’t know if that necessarily matters,” says Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at research firm eMarketer. Assuming, that is, that Twitter can figure out…

A LOOK AHEAD TO NEXT YEAR’S PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY One only needs to look at the long-term rumor mills to get a sense that Apple remains a very busy company, furiously searching for new opportunities to innovate. There’s talk of further updates to the MacBook family, iPhone 7 speculation remains abundant and those ‘Apple Car’ rumors don’t look like they’ll go away anytime soon. All of the above, however, are slightly longer-term plans - for now, a little event known as the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) awaits. WHY WWDC STILL MATTERS The fact that so little of the ongoing conjecture about future Apple products is thought likely to turn into confirmed reality at this year’s WWDC - which will take place from June 13 to 17 - shouldn’t indicate to you…

FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday that the agency was still studying how a third party was able to access a locked iPhone used by one of the attackers in San Bernardino, California. The comment at a Georgetown University cyber conference suggested that the FBI may not yet know enough information to share with Apple Inc. the particular vulnerability that was exploited and the method that was used to access the device. “We’re really close to sorting that out,” Comey said. The FBI director had said in another public appearance earlier this month that the FBI had not decided whether to share those details with Apple, which presumably could use such information to fix the flaws. “If we tell Apple, they’re going to fix it and we’re back where we…

Billy Paul, a jazz and soul singer best known for the No. 1 hit ballad and “Philadelphia Soul” classic “Me and Mrs. Jones,” died last Sunday. Paul, whose career spanned for more than 60 years, died at his home in Blackwood, New Jersey, his co-manager, Beverly Gay, told The Associated Press. Paul, 80, had been diagnosed recently with pancreatic cancer, Gay said. Known by his beard and large glasses, Paul was one of many singers who found success with the writing and producing team of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, whose Philadelphia International Records also released music by the O’Jays, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, and Lou Rawls. “Me and Mrs. Jones” was an extramarital confession and a characteristic Gamble and Huff production, setting Paul’s thick tenor against a…

Work is proceeding quickly on China’s planned mission to land a rover on Mars by 2020, the chief administrator of the country’s ambitious space program said Friday. Formally announced in January, China’s Mars voyage will attempt to recreate the success of the U.S. Viking 1 mission that landed a rover on the planet four decades ago. “What we would like to do is to orbit Mars, make a landing, and rove around for reconnaissance in one mission, which is quite a challenge,” China National Space Administration head Xu Dazhe said at a rare news conference. “This is a project that has attracted much attention from both the science and space fields.” Xu said China will further explore civilian uses of space technology in areas such as navigation, remote sensing and…

Federal regulators will impose several conditions meant to protect online video services as they back Charter’s bid to buy Time Warner Cable and create the country’s second-largest home Internet provider. The Justice Department approved the deal Monday, subject to court approval on the conditions, while Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated a draft order to OK the combination. That leaves California’s utility regulator, whose approval is expected in May. Buying Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks will turn Charter Communications, a mid-size cable company, into the country’s No. 2 home Internet provider, after Comcast. The new Charter will be No. 3 in video, trailing Comcast and AT&T, which bought DirecTV last year. To preserve competition from online video services, the Justice Department is forbidding Charter from restricting what…

A solar-powered airplane on a mission to fly around the world landed in California, completing a risky, three-day flight across a great expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Pilot Bertrand Piccard landed the Solar Impulse 2 in Mountain View, in the Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, at 11:45 p.m. Saturday following a 62-hour, nonstop solo flight from Hawaii without fuel. The plane taxied into a huge tent at Moffett Airfield where Piccard was greeted by the project’s team. “You know there was a moment in the night, I was watching the reflection of the moon on the ocean and I was thinking ‘I’m completely alone in this tiny cockpit and I feel completely confident.’ And I was really thankful to life for bringing me this experience,” Piccard said at a…

Wearing black headsets with tentacle-like sensors stretched over their foreheads, the competitors stare at cubes floating on computer screens as their small white drones prepare for takeoff. “Three, two, one ... GO!” the announcer hollers, and as the racers fix their thoughts on pushing the cubes, the drones suddenly whir, rise and buzz through the air. Some struggle to move even a few feet, while others zip confidently across the finish line. The competition - billed as the world’s first drone race involving a brain-controlled interface - involved 16 pilots using willpower to drive drones through a 10-yard dash over an indoor basketball court at the University of Florida this past weekend. The Associated Press was there to record the event, which organizers hope to make an annual inter-collegiate spectacle,…

At long last, it seems Hollywood has pushed the reset button on its approach to video game adaptations. From the reviled 1993 live-action rendition of “Super Mario Bros.” to last year’s loathed arcade-inspired “Pixels,” big-screen interpretations of games have almost always failed to score with critics and audiences. With four films based on popular interactive series set for release in 2016, could this finally be the year video game movies win over filmgoers? After decades of commercial and critical pitfalls when attempting to turn games into movies, Hollywood is trying out a few bold new strategies in an effort to tap the interactive medium for the latest hit movie franchise, including hiring A-list talent and collaborating more closely with game makers to rework their immersive creations for movie theaters. The…

Apple Inc. said last week it hopes to resume its online iTunes and iBooks services in China, where they were recently shut down less than seven months after being launched. The New York Times reported Thursday that Apple’s online movie and book stores initially received government approval but were blocked last week on orders from the broadcasting regulator, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. Apple said in an emailed statement that it hoped the services could resume “as soon as possible,” but offered no details about the shutdown. The broadcasting regulator has been stretching its authority to online content, which is also regulated by other government agencies and ministries. Calls to the administration’s media office rang unanswered Friday. China is Apple’s second largest market after the…

Even with its star-studded cast of Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain, “The Huntsman: Winter’s War” proved to be no competition for the CGI majesty of “The Jungle Book,” which easily topped the box office again with $61.5 million. The Disney adaptation has earned $192.2 million domestically in just two weeks in theaters. Left in its wake was the fantasy epic “Hunstman.” The sequel to “Snow White and the Huntsman” came in a distant second with $19.4 million in its debut - slightly less than Universal’s Sunday estimates anticipated. The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by comScore:…

As Ukraine and Belarus on Tuesday marked the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident with solemn words and an angry protest, some of the men who were sent to the site in the first chaotic and frightening days were gripped by painful memories. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko led a ceremony in Chernobyl, where work is underway to complete a 2 billion euro ($2.25 billion) long-term shelter over the building containing Chernobyl’s exploded reactor. Once the structure is in place, work will begin to remove the reactor and its lava-like radioactive waste. The disaster shone a spotlight on lax safety standards and government secrecy in the former Soviet Union. The explosion on April 26, 1986, was not reported by Soviet authorities for two days, and then only after winds had…

Already home to the world’s biggest skyscraper, Dubai has another tall order to fill: By 2030, its leader wants 25 percent of all trips on its roads to be done by driverless vehicles. Monday’s announcement by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum came without warning and with few details, as is sometimes the case with the many aspirations of the leadership of the United Arab Emirates. In this car-crazed city-state of over 1.5 million registered vehicles, it’s not unusual to see Ferraris idling alongside Lamborghinis at traffic lights. And Dubai already is home to a driverless Metro rail system, which carried 178 million riders in 2015. Smart-car technology is being used in some of the world’s luxury vehicles, and it is advancing rapidly enough for the plan to become a…

It’s a little easier to watch baseball online this year, though no one would call it safe at home quite yet. Major League Baseball has broadcast games over the Internet since 2002, but always with one huge catch: A blackout on all local team games - both home and away. That protects the league’s lucrative television contracts, but can be a major bummer for fans, particularly since MLB’s definition of “local” is awfully broad. To watch Chicago Cubs games live on the league’s online service, for instance, you need to be well outside the Chicago metropolitan region. Even Iowa is too close, because the state doesn’t have its own team. In Las Vegas, all five California teams and the Arizona Diamondbacks are blacked out. The league is lifting some of…

His Royal Badness didn’t think much of the Internet - or iPhones, for that matter. And his once iconoclastic attitude toward the modern music industry helped inspire other artists to resist technological innovators such as Spotify. Prince was adamant about protecting his copyrights. He owned the song publishing rights to his music and vigorously pursued online outlets that used it without permission. That’s why it’s been tough to find many of his songs on outlets like YouTube following his death on Thursday. Today, many artists are pursuing a similar path, determined to control where their music goes and insisting on getting paid when it’s online. That’s why artists like Taylor Swift and Adele put some songs on Spotify, but not their recent albums or back catalogs, which they reserve for…

Apple says quarterly revenue fell for the first time in more than a decade, as iPhone sales fell compared with a year ago. That’s putting more pressure on the world’s most valuable public company to come up with its next big product. Apple sold more than 51.2 million iPhones in the first three months of 2016 - while racking up $10.5 billion in quarterly profit. That was more than many analysts expected, but still fewer than the 61 million iPhones sold a year earlier. The company is battling perceptions that its latest iPhones aren’t dramatically different from previous models, as overall smartphone sales are slowing around the world. While iPhones contributed nearly two-thirds of its $50.6 billion revenue, Apple pulled in $6 billion from online services, apps and other software.…

Purple Rain The late Prince’s film debut follows the story of his quasi-biographical character called ‘The Kid, who is attempting to escape his difficult home life via performing live music. This movie inspired the infamous soundtrack and studio album of the same name, and is a must-see for any fans of the star. FIVE FACTS: 1. Prince sadly died on the 21st of April 2016 after suffering from flu-like symptoms for two weeks. 2. Most of the songs were recorded live. 3.The story is based loosely on Prince’s own life. 4. Prince won an Academy Award for the song, “Purple Rain”. 5. In 2014, the world’s first feature film in the Tuareg language, Akounak Teggdalit Taha Tazoughai (Rain the Color of Red with a Little Blue In It), was created…

Walking through most doors at the Tribeca Film Festival means taking a seat in a theater full of chattering moviegoers. But there are also darkened, cloth-wrapped chambers - like old carnival booths promising never-before-seen wonders - that offer nothing but a headset, headphones and perhaps some advice, like: “Watch for the dragon.” Virtual reality has steadily become more of a presence at film festivals, particularly at Tribeca. And the buzz at this year’s Tribeca’s “virtual arcade” was one of the festival’s most vibrant hubs of frenzy, albeit one filled largely with neck-craning people in goggles going “Whoa.” Tribeca’s VR arcade - an indoor bazaar of film-like tales, journalistic explorations and splendorous dream worlds ripe for immersion - captures a burgeoning medium learning to walk. Most of the creators acknowledge these…

Another computer-security firm raised concerns Monday about the potential for hackers to glean users’ personal data from phone apps released by the campaigns of Republican presidential contenders Ted Cruz and John Kasich. An independent analysis by Symantec determined that the “Cruz Crew” phone app could allow third parties to capture a phone’s unique identifying number and other personal information. The company said the Kasich 2016 app could expose users’ location data and information about other apps installed on the phones. Symantec’s analysis used a test that collects unencrypted data being transmitted from phones running the campaigns’ apps. The Associated Press first reported on potential vulnerabilities in March after the computer-security firm Veracode performed detailed reviews of phone apps released by presidential campaigns from both parties. The Cruz campaign updated its…

A massive Intel plant has been a cornerstone in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, for nearly a generation. During its time in the bedroom community north of Albuquerque, Intel has pumped billions of dollars into the state economy and helped fund a number of public schools. Now Intel’s plan for massive companywide job cuts is creating uncertainty in Rio Rancho, one of largest cities in New Mexico that grew from a sleepy town to a sprawling area of 94,000 residents in the shadow of the chipmaker. Intel Corp. is expected to unveil details this week that could determine the future of the Rio Rancho plant and others in Oregon, Arizona and California. Santa Clara, California-based Intel announced last week it is cutting 12,000 jobs - about 11 percent of its workforce.…