Innehållsförteckning för #638 från AppleMagazine

The barista tipped the jug of smooth, foamy milk over the latte, pouring slowly at first, then lifting and tilting the jug like a choreographed dance to paint the petals of a tulip. Latte art is a skill that can take months if not years of practice to master — but not for this barista powered by artificial intelligence. Robots of all kinds caused a stir on the show floor last week at the annual CES technology trade show in Las Vegas. It’s innovations like this that worry Roman Alejo, a 34-year-old barista at the Sahara hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip, who can’t help but wonder if the clock is ticking on hospitality jobs in the age of AI. “It is very scary because tomorrow is never promised,” he…

The world could have its first trillionaire within a decade, anti-poverty organization Oxfam International said this week in its annual assessment of global inequalities timed to the gathering of political and business elites at the Swiss ski resort of Davos. Oxfam, which for years has been trying to highlight the growing disparities between the super-rich and the bulk of the global population during the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, reckons the gap has been “supercharged” since the coronavirus pandemic. The group said the fortunes of the five richest men — Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault and his family of luxury company LVMH, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Oracle founder Larry Ellison and investment guru Warren Buffett — have spiked by 114% in real terms since 2020, when the world was…

Generations of Americans have held firm to a version of free speech that makes room for even the vilest of views. It’s girded by a belief that the good ideas rise above the bad, that no one should be punished for voicing an idea — except in rare cases where the idea could lead directly to illegal action. Today, that idea faces competition more forceful and vehement than it has seen for a century. On college campuses, a newer version of free speech is emerging as young generations redraw the line where expression crosses into harm. There’s a wave of students who have no tolerance for speech that marginalizes. They draw lines around language that leads to damage, either psychological or physical. Their judgments weigh the Constitution but also incorporate…

Uber is shutting down alcohol delivery app Drizly, the company confirmed, three years after acquiring the platform for $1.1 billion. Drizly will officially shut down at the end of March, Uber told. That means orders are open until then, Drizly said in details posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “We’ll be sure to let you know when it’s last call,” Drizly wrote in a post this week. In a prepared statement, Uber’s senior vice president of delivery Pierre Dimitri Gore-Coty said that the company decided to close Drizly’s business and “focus on our core Uber Eats strategy of helping consumers get almost anything — from food to groceries to alcohol — all on a single app.” Uber purchased Drizly in a cash-and-stock deal back in 2021. The…

QUEEN CHOICE AWARD RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE THE PRISON CONFESSIONS OF... BORN A PRISONER RATE-A-QUEEN RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE A CELEBRATION OF LIFE THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF BEVERLY HILLS HARD CONVERSATIONS THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF POTOMAC REUNION, PT. 1 SOUTHERN CHARM I PULLED THE TRIGGER THE PRISON CONFESSIONS OF GYPSY ROSE BLANCHARD DRUNK IN LOVE TYLER PERRY’S SISTAS SECRET ENGAGEMENT THE PRISON CONFESSIONS OF GYPSY ROSE BLANCHARD ONLY WAY OUT THE PRISON CONFESSIONS OF GYPSY ROSE BLANCHARD…

Technology company Baidu refuted a newspaper report that said its artificial intelligence chatbot Ernie was linked to Chinese military research. Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post cited an academic paper from a university affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army cyberwarfare division. The paper stated that the division had tested its artificial intelligence system on Baidu’s Ernie and on artificial intelligence firm iFlyTek’s Spark, both of which are language-based AI chatbots similar to ChatGPT. After its Hong Kong-listed stock plunged more than 11.5% Monday, Baidu denied the allegations, saying in a statement that it had not engaged in a business collaboration with the paper’s authors or their affiliated institutions. “Ernie Bot is available to and used by the general public,” the Chinese company said in its statement. The academic paper…

From electric cars to transparent TVs to the latest accessibility tech and virtual assistants backed by artificial intelligence, there was a wide range of innovations presented at the CES tech show in Las Vegas last week. The best of it aimed to solve big real-world problems. Some of it aimed to make your life more fun. And some of it was just a little out there. Experts spent last week combing cavernous exhibit halls for the most exciting, interesting and unusual tech innovations. Here’s what caught our eye at CES 2024. ACCESSIBILITY PRODUCTS WERE BIG ON HOPE At a conference where excess and opulence manifested itself in nearly everything, it was encouraging to see how much progress has been made toward developing assistive technologies for the disabled. Boston-based GyroGear, a…

The imminent launch of Apple’s Vision Pro headset marks a pivotal moment in the company’s history and, for the first time, requires a comprehensive presentation and hands-on experience for the average consumer to truly appreciate its capabilities. As we approach the launch day, the anticipation surrounding in-store demos is palpable. A NEW IN-STORE EXPERIENCE Traditionally, Apple Stores have been the epitome of sleek design and straightforward customer experiences. However, the Vision Pro headset is set to change this dynamic drastically. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, those interested in a demo will undergo a multi-step process, including face scans, custom assembly of the Vision Pro, a detailed walkthrough of the interface and controls, and device calibration, all before a comprehensive 25-minute demonstration. The new experience will form part of the onboarding…

John Walsh, advocate for missing children and longtime host of “America’s Most Wanted,” said he feels outmanned by criminals all the time – especially in the courtroom. “I say to myself, ‘My god, the lawyer for this dirtbag predator is smarter and more sophisticated than the cops are’,” the co-founder of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. “They don’t really know the technology.” Human traffickers and sexual predators often use high-end technology and increasingly take advantage of encryption to protect the details of their crimes, Walsh said. And even if they didn’t, law enforcement officials, especially in smaller cities and towns, lack the budget and the access to the technological tools that would speed up the investigation and aid in the prosecution of the offenders. Cellebrite DI, Ltd.,…

Boeing told employees this week that it plans to increase quality inspections of its 737 Max 9 aircraft, following the failure of an emergency exit door panel on an Alaska Airlines flight last week. It is the latest in a series of troubles for Boeing, whose reputation as the premier American aircraft manufacturer has been tarnished by a series of manufacturing flaws that have led some airlines to hold off aircraft purchases or go with its European rival, Airbus. The inspections come after Federal regulators grounded the 737 Max, and that Boeing has said that after the Alaska Airlines flight and customer complaints, it is “clear that we are not where we need to be” on quality assurance and controls. “Our team is also taking a hard look at our…

The squabble over billion of dollars in overdraft fees that Americans get charged every year is intensifying. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to propose rules this week that further rein in banks’ ability to charge customers a fee when they overdraw their bank account. Opponents of the fees often cite the example of a $3 cup of coffee costing someone $40. The banking industry is gearing up to fight back with a multimillion-dollar marketing and lobbying campaign. While banks have drastically cut back on overdraft fees in the past decade, the nation’s biggest banks still take in roughly $8 billion in overdraft fees every year, according to data from the CFPB and bank public records. The Biden Administration has placed overdraft fees at the center of a campaign…

ChatGPT maker OpenAI has outlined a plan to prevent its tools from being used to spread election misinformation as voters in more than 50 countries prepare to cast their ballots in national elections this year. The safeguards spelled out by the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup in a blog post this week include a mix of preexisting policies and newer initiatives to prevent the misuse of its wildly popular generative AI tools. They can create novel text and images in seconds but also be weaponized to concoct misleading messages or convincing fake photographs. The steps will apply specifically to OpenAI, only one player in an expanding universe of companies developing advanced generative AI tools. The company, which announced the moves this week, said it plans to “continue our platform safety…

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed a court order to take effect that could loosen Apple’s grip on its lucrative iPhone app store, and potentially affect billions of dollars in revenue a year. The justices rejected Apple’s appeal of lower-court rulings that found some of Apple’s app store rules for apps purchased on more than 1 billion iPhones constitute unfair competition under California law. The appeal stemmed from an antitrust lawsuit filed by Epic Games, maker of the popular Fortnite video game. Epic lost its broader claim that Cupertino, California-based Apple was violating federal antitrust law, and the justices also rejected Epic’s appeal Tuesday. But in turning away Apple’s plea, the court lifted a hold on an order to allow app developers throughout the U.S. to insert links to other…

More executives are feeling better about the global economy, but a growing number don’t think their companies will survive the coming decade without a major overhaul because of pressure from climate change and technology like artificial intelligence, according to a new survey of CEOs by one of the world’s largest consulting firms, PwC. The survey of more than 4,700 CEOs worldwide was released this week as business elites, political leaders and activists descended on the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, and it showed a mixed picture of the coming years. Of the executives, 38% were optimistic about the strength of the economy, up from 18% last year, when the world was mired in high inflation, weak growth, rising interest rates and more. The CEOs’ expectation of economic…

The first “Mean Girls,” that compulsively watchable high-school based social satire by Tina Fey, came out in 2004. The Broadway musical opened in 2018. Now it’s 2024, and we have a screen adaptation of the theater adaptation. How long will this reconfiguring go on? Is there a limit? Or ... does the limit not exist? Forgive us that utterly blatant setup for one of the original’s most famous lines. It’s just that some of them are so darned memorable. Like, “You can’t sit with us!” — screeched. Or when Regina, the haughtiest queen bee ever to carry a cafeteria tray, scathingly tells her minion Gretchen, who’s trying out her new word “fetch,” to “Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen. It’s NOT going to happen!!” But even in “Mean Girls 17,”…

Amazon-owned online audiobook and podcast service Audible is laying off about 5% of its workforce, marking the third round of job cuts at the e-commerce giant’s businesses last week as the technology industry continues to shed roles in the new year. In a memo sent to employees, Audible CEO Bob Carrigan said the company is in good shape, but faces an “increasingly challenging landscape.” “We did not take this route without considerable thought,” Carrigan said. “But getting leaner and more efficient is the way we will need to operate now — and in the foreseeable future — in order to continue delivering best-in-class audio storytelling to our customers around the world.” A spokesperson for Audible declined to provide the number of employees who will be affected by the cuts. The…