Innehållsförteckning för #672 från AppleMagazine

The artificial intelligence industry has gone on a lobbying binge in the past few years, deploying scores of hired influencers to help shape potential government action. The growth is not surprising. The technology is being rapidly adopted by powerful sectors — health care, defense, financial services — all with the hopes of having a say on possible regulations. As AI evolves at such a rapid clip, lawmakers are leaning on the lobbyists’ expertise because think tanks, nonprofit groups and academia are struggling to keep up with the minute-by-minute technological changes. Relying on PowerPoint slides and briefing papers, AI industry lobbyists are getting lots of face time with lawmakers and staffers, advising them on the ins and outs of the technology. The campaign has been successful, according to lawmakers and lobbyists…

One month after a judge declared Google’s search engine an illegal monopoly, the tech giant faces another antitrust lawsuit that threatens to break up the company, this time over its advertising technology. The Justice Department, joined by a coalition of states, and Google each made opening statements this week to a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, who will decide whether Google holds a monopoly over online advertising technology. The regulators contend that Google built, acquired and maintains a monopoly over the technology that matches online publishers to advertisers. Dominance over the software on both the buy side and the sell side of the transaction enables Google to keep as much as 36 cents on the dollar when it brokers sales between publishers and advertisers, the government contends. They allege that…

Parents of Texas children under 18 can now monitor and restrict their child’s activity on digital platforms including Facebook and Instagram — but only if they know their child uses the service. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, rolled out parental control features in Texas to comply with House Bill 18, the Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment Act, which went into effect Sept. 1. The Legislature passed it last year to restrict kids from seeing harmful material on the internet, such as content promoting self-harm or substance abuse, while also giving parents more power to regulate what their child does online. Meta’s tools allow parents who can prove their identity with a valid ID to see and update their teen’s account settings, set time limits on the…

The U.S. Postal Service said this week that it is ending discounts that shipping consolidators such as UPS and DHL use to get packages to the nation’s doorsteps, in a move meant to help the Postal Service slow losses but that could see the higher costs passed on to consumers. Consolidators move about 2 billion packages through the Postal Service each year — accounting for roughly a quarter of its total parcel volume — and the change will boost postal revenues and efficiencies while encouraging shippers to simply use Postal Service services such as Ground Advantage, U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told. He insisted the move is aimed at financial sustainability even though it could boost Postal Service market share and make it more costly for consolidators, who could pass…

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov promised to step up efforts to fight criminality on the messaging app, his first public comments since French authorities handed him preliminary charges for allegedly allowing the platform’s use for criminal activity. In a Telegram post, Durov defended himself against the French judicial investigation, suggesting that he shouldn’t have been targeted personally. “Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach,” the post said. “Building technology is hard enough as it is. No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools.” While insisting that Telegram is not “some sort of anarchic paradise,” Durov said surging…

Over the course of an acting career that spanned more than six decades, James Earl Jones’ voice became an indelible piece of his work as a performer. On screen, Jones, who died Monday at 93, brought to life a reclusive writer coaxed back into the spotlight in “Field of Dreams” and a haughty king of a fictional land in “Coming To America.” On stage, he won two Tony Awards for “The Great White Hope” and “Fences.” His work as a voice actor — the regal dignity of his portrayal of Mufasa in “The Lion King” and the menacing and deep timbre he lent to Darth Vader in “Star Wars” — helped cement his place as a legendary actor among generations of fans. But in the wake of his death, an…

At this year’s September Event, Glowtime, Apple unveiled new Apple Watches, AirPods, and iPhones. The introduction of the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max represents a new benchmark in smartphone technology, pushing the boundaries of performance, design, and user experience with cutting-edge features that cater to tech enthusiasts and creative pros. BREAKTHROUGH A18 PRO CHIP At the core of the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max is the all-new A18 Pro chip, designed to deliver lightning-fast performance and unprecedented efficiency. Built using second-generation 3-nanometer technology, the A18 Pro chip features smaller, faster transistors, allowing the iPhone 16 to run up to 25% faster than its predecessor. This chip powers Apple’s Apple Intelligence, a personal AI system that leverages machine learning to improve user experiences and protect…

Huddling for safety in classrooms as gunfire rang out, students at Apalachee High School texted or called their parents to let them know what was happening and send what they thought could be their final messages. One student texted her mother to say she loved her, adding, “I’m sorry I’m not the best daughter.” The Georgia school shooting that left four dead and nine injured last week was every parent’s worst nightmare, and one that highlights potential downsides to efforts among states, school districts and federal lawmakers to ban or restrict access to cellphones in classrooms. The moves to restrict phone use in schools have been driven by concerns about the impact screentime has on children’s mental health and complaints from teachers that cellphones have become a constant distraction in…

Apple this week lost its last bid to avoid paying 13 billion euros ($14.34 billion) in back taxes to Ireland, in a finale to a dispute with the European Union that centered on sweetheart deals that Dublin was offering to attract multinational businesses with minimal taxes across the 27-nation bloc. The final decision by the EU’s top court was quickly hailed as a landmark victory over corporate greed. “Today is a big win for European citizens and for tax justice,” said European antitrust Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, whose 8-year fight to impose the measure on the global tech behemoth brought her to tears when she finally heard she had won. The ruling “confirms the European Commission’s 2016 decision: Ireland granted Apple unlawful aid which Ireland is required to recover,” the European…

Sweden says children under the age of 2 should not be exposed to any digital screens. The recommendations, issued by the Scandinavian country’s public health agency earlier this month as a new school year begins, are the latest in a worldwide effort to limit screen time for young children. The coronavirus lockdowns exacerbated the problem as schools turned to Zoom for distance-learning and parents relied on TV shows and movies to keep their children occupied while they worked from home. WHAT DOES SWEDEN SAY? Sweden suggests that toddlers should not have any exposure to digital screens, including television. The recommendations ease slightly as the children age: From 2 to 5 years old, they should have a maximum of one hour a day in front of a screen, while for youngsters…

Hyperloop, a new form of mass transit involving capsules whizzing on magnetic fields through depressurized tubes, has achieved significant liftoff in the northern Netherlands, a company developing the technology said Monday. A test vehicle was levitated and zipped through a tube at a testing facility for the high-speed transit system once promoted by Elon Musk. “So today, with the first successful test, we were able to levitate the vehicle, also turn on the guidance system and the propulsion system,” Marinus van der Meijs, the technology and engineering director at hyperloop company Hardt, told late last week before Monday’s formal announcement. The European Hyperloop Center’s 420-meter (460-yard) tube is made up of 34 separate sections mostly 2½ meters (more than eight feet) in diameter. A vacuum pump sucks out the air…

Apple on Monday charged into the artificial intelligence craze with a new iPhone lineup that marks the company’s latest attempt to latch onto a technology trend and transform it into a cultural phenomenon. The four different iPhone 16 models will all come equipped with special chips needed to power a suite if AI tools that Apple hopes will make its marquee product even more indispensable and reverse a recent sales slump. Apple’s AI features are designed to turn its often-blundering virtual assistant Siri into a smarter and more versatile sidekick, automate a wide range of tedious tasks and pull off other crowd-pleasing tricks such as creating customized emojis within seconds. After receiving a standing ovation for Monday’s event, Apple CEO Tim Cook promised the AI package will unleash “innovations that…

Devices powered by lithium-ion batteries are overheating more often during airline flights and passengers often put them in checked bags that go into the cargo hold, where a fire might not be detected as quickly. Overheating incidents rose 28% from 2019 to 2023, although such events remain relatively rare, UL Standards & Engagement said in a report released this week. E-cigarettes overheated more often than any other device, according to the report. In 60% of the cases, the overheating — called thermal runaway — happened near the seat of the passenger who brought the device on board. In July, a smoking laptop in a passenger’s bag led to the evacuation of a plane awaiting takeoff at San Francisco International Airport. Last year, a flight from Dallas to Orlando, Florida, made…

Google lost its last bid to overturn a European Union antitrust penalty, after the bloc’s top court ruled against it Tuesday in a case that came with a whopping fine and helped jumpstart an era of intensifying scrutiny for Big Tech companies. The European Union’s top court rejected Google’s appeal against the 2.4 billion euro ($2.7 billion) penalty from the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, for violating antitrust rules with its comparison shopping service. Also Tuesday, Apple lost its challenge against an order to repay 13 billion euros ($14.34 billion) in back taxes to Ireland, after the European Court of Justice issued a separate decision siding with the commission in a case targeting unlawful state aid for global corporations. Both companies have now exhausted their appeals in…

The Australian government this week promised to legislate this year to enforce a minimum age for children to access social media, but it has yet to announce how ages will be verified. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government would soon trial age verification technology with a view to banning children from opening social media accounts. The line would be drawn between the ages of 14 and 16. Several countries and U.S. states are attempting to legislate to spare children harm from social media, including bullying. The Australian move comes as parents increasing call for their children to be protected online and with the opposition party promising a social media ban for children under 16 if it wins elections due by May next year. “We’ve committed to introducing legislation before…