Innehållsförteckning för #686 från AppleMagazine

That buzzing coming out of New Jersey? It’s unclear if it’s drones or something else, but for sure the nighttime sightings are producing tons of talk, a raft of conspiracy theories and craned necks looking skyward. Cropping up on local news and social media sites around Thanksgiving, the saga of the drones reported over New Jersey has reached incredible heights. This week seems to have begun a new, higher-profile chapter: Lawmakers are demanding (but so far not getting) explanations from federal and state authorities about what’s behind them. Gov. Phil Murphy wrote to President Joe Biden asking for answers. New Jersey’s new senator, Andy Kim, spent Thursday night (12) on a drone hunt in rural northern New Jersey, and posted about it on X. More drone sightings have been reported…

OpenAI has publicly released its new artificial intelligence video generator Sora but the company won’t let most users depict people as it monitors for patterns of misuse. Users of a premium version of OpenAI’s flagship product ChatGPT can now use Sora to instantly create AI-generated videos based on written commands. Among the highlighted examples are high-quality video clips of sumo-wrestling bears and a cat sipping coffee. But only a small set of invited testers can use Sora to make videos of humans as OpenAI works to “address concerns around misappropriation of likeness and deepfakes,” the company said in a blog post. Text-to-video AI tools like Sora have been pitched as a way to save costs in making new entertainment and marketing videos but have also raised concerns about the ease…

The Biden administration plans to raise tariffs on solar wafers, polysilicon and some tungsten products from China to protect U.S. clean energy businesses. The notice from the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said tariffs on Chinese-made solar wafers and polysilicon will rise to 50% from 25% and duties on certain tungsten products will increase from zero to 25%, effective on Jan. 1, following a review of Chinese trade practices under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. The decision followed a public comment period after the USTR said in September that it was considering such actions. “The tariff increases announced last week will further blunt the harmful policies and practices by the People’s Republic of China,” USTR Katharine Tai said in a statement. “These actions will complement the domestic investments made…

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Embattled Japanese automaker Nissan has tapped Jeremie Papin, who was overseeing its U.S. operations, as its chief financial officer in a major management reshuffle billed as key to a turnaround. The move as announced in the United States last week. It means Papin, chairman of Nissan’s Americas Management Committee, replaces Stephen Ma, who will oversee Nissan Motor Corp.’s China operations. Ma’s replacement had been speculated about for some time, given Nissan’s problems in the key U.S. market, lately dominated by Tesla, Toyota and Ford. Last month, Nissan said it was slashing 9,000 jobs, or about 6% of its global work force, and reducing global production capacity by 20% after reporting a quarterly loss of 9.3 billion yen ($61 million). That was a reversal from the 190.7 billion yen profit recorded…

Donald Trump hosted Apple CEO Tim Cook for a Friday evening dinner at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly. Cook is the latest in a string of big tech leaders — including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — who have sought to improve their standing with the incoming president after choppy relations with Trump during his first term. Trump has said he has spoken with Cook about the company’s long-running tax battles with the European Union. The meeting comes less than two months after Trump said he spoke to Cook by phone, and soon after Apple lost its last appeal in a dispute with the EU over 13 billion euros ($14.34 billion)…

Apple has consistently pushed the boundaries of innovation in design and functionality, and introducing a Hearing Test, Hearing Aid, and active Hearing Protection system into the AirPods Pro 2 has helped the Cupertino firm create the first all-in-one hearing health experience. HEARING HEALTH The AirPods Pro 2 has become synonymous with high-quality audio, premium build, and seamless integration with Apple’s ecosystem. However, with the introduction of the Hearing Test, Hearing Aid functionality, and active Hearing Protection, Apple is taking it a step further, allowing users to take control of their hearing health in a previously unimaginable way. These features, available through a simple software update, are built on Apple’s expertise in computational audio and machine learning, offering a personalized experience that meets the needs of those with mild to moderate…

A 7-year-old rivalry between tech leaders Elon Musk and Sam Altman over who should run OpenAI and prevent an artificial intelligence “dictatorship” is now heading to a federal judge as Musk seeks to halt the ChatGPT maker’s ongoing shift into a for-profit company. Musk, an early OpenAI investor and board member, sued the artificial intelligence company earlier this year alleging it had betrayed its founding aims as a nonprofit research lab benefiting the public good rather than pursuing profits. Musk has since escalated the dispute, adding new claims and asking for a court order that would stop OpenAI’s plans to convert itself into a for-profit business more fully. The world’s richest man, whose companies include Tesla, SpaceX and social media platform X, last year started his own rival AI company,…

Elon Musk says the Securities and Exchange Commission wants him to pay a penalty or face charges involving what he disclosed — or failed to disclose — about his purchases of Twitter stock before he bought the social media platform in 2022. In a letter posted by Musk on the platform now called X, his lawyer Alex Spiro tells the outgoing SEC chairman, Gary Gensler, that the commission’s demand for a monetary payment is a “misguided scheme” that won’t intimidate Musk. The letter also alleges that the commission reopened an investigation this week into Neuralink, Musk’s computer-to-human brain interface company. The SEC has not released the letter. Nor would it comment on it or confirm whether it has issued such a demand to Musk. “It is the policy of the…

Nearly half of American teenagers say they are online “constantly” despite concerns about the effects of social media and smartphones on their mental health, according to a new report published by the Pew Research Center. As in past years, YouTube was the single most popular platform teenagers used — 90% said they watched videos on the site, down slightly from 95% in 2022. Nearly three-quarters said they visit YouTube every day. There was a slight downward trend in several popular apps teens used. For instance, 63% of teens said they used TikTok, down from 67% and Snapchat slipped to 55% from 59%. This small decline could be due to pandemic-era restrictions easing up and kids having more time to see friends in person, but it’s not enough to be truly…

Amazon is planning to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration fund, a move that comes as major tech companies seek to improve their relationship with the incoming president. A company spokesperson confirmed that the e-commerce giant will also stream Trump’s inauguration on its Prime Video service, a separate in-kind donation worth another $1 million. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said it donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. Amazon’s plans were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The report came after Trump said that the company’s founder, Jeff Bezos, was planning to visit him in person. The two men had feuded in the past. During his first term, Trump criticized Amazon and railed against the political coverage at The Washington Post, which Bezos owns.…

SpaceX is launching a new mission: making its Starbase site a new Texas city. Billionaire Elon Musk ‘s company sent a letter to local officials requesting an election to turn what it calls Starbase — the South Texas site where SpaceX builds and launches its massive Starship rockets — into an incorporated city. Residents of the area known as Starbase submitted the petition, according to the company. The area is on the southern tip of Texas at Boca Chica Beach, near the Mexican border. Earlier this year, Musk announced he was moving the headquarters of SpaceX and his social media company X from California to Texas. “To continue growing the workforce necessary to rapidly develop and manufacture Starship, we need the ability to grow Starbase as a community. That is…

After a sprawling hacking campaign exposed the communications of an unknown number of Americans, U.S. cybersecurity officials are advising people to use encryption in their communications. To safeguard against the risks highlighted by the campaign, which originated in China, federal cybersecurity authorities released an extensive list of security recommendations for U.S. telecom companies — such as Verizon and AT&T — that were targeted. The advice includes one tip we can all put into practice with our phones: “Ensure that traffic is end-to-end encrypted to the maximum extent possible.” End-to-end encryption, also known as E2EE, means that messages are scrambled so that only the sender and recipient can see them. If anyone else intercepts the message, all they will see is a garble that can’t be unscrambled without the key. Law…

The Environmental Protection Agency is awarding $135 million in grants to fund 13 projects in California to help the state wean off fossil fuels and phase out big rigs that run on diesel. The money will go to the state transportation department, cities and school districts, among others, to purchase 455 zero-emission vehicles to replace diesel-powered trucks, school buses and other large vehicles. It is part an EPA program that provides a total of $735 million to 70 projects across the country, officials announced. The grants are paid for by the 2022 climate law approved by congressional Democrats. The law, officially known as the Inflation Reduction Act, includes nearly $400 billion in spending and tax credits to accelerate the expansion of clean energy such as wind and solar power, speeding…

The Australian government said it will tax large digital platforms and search engines unless they agree to share revenue with Australian news media organizations. The tax would apply from Jan. 1 to tech companies that earn more than 250 million Australian dollars ($160 million) a year in revenue from Australia, Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said. They include Meta, Google-owner Alphabet and ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok. The tax would be offset through money paid to Australian media organizations. The size of the tax is not clear. But the government aims to make sharing revenue with media organizations the cheaper option. “The real objective ... is not to raise revenue-- we hope not to raise any revenue. The real objective is to incentivize agreement-making between…