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If you missed out on Woot’s deal a few weeks ago that offered refurbished Kindle Oasis e-readers for $100, there’s another good deal happening today. The last-gen version of the Oasis is once again available, but it’s new with special offers (Amazon’s lock screen ads) and costs $170. For context, a new Oasis costs $250. As for what’s different between the current model and this one, you’ll miss out on a screen that can adapt its color temperature to your environment. But you’ll still get a waterproof e-reader that feels more like a book to use than other models, says my colleague Chaim Gartenberg. This deal loops in the 32GB model in gold. The sale will end later today, if it doesn’t sell out first. Amazon Kindle Oasis e-reader (previous gen) $170 Prices taken at time of publishing. The Oasis was Amazon’s first waterproof Kindle e-reader. While the latest version costs $250 new, you can save a lot of money (without giving up much in the way of specs) on the previous generation. $170 at Woot Best Buy is offering big discounts on several Apple-made iPhone cases. Included in the bunch are cases for the iPhone 12 mini with MagSafe support, the iPhone 11 Pro series, the iPhone XR, iPhone XS Max, and more. The range includes leather cases, smart battery cases, and silicone cases. iPhone 12 mini MagSafe leather case $24 $60 60% off Prices taken at time of publishing. Grab an Apple-made leather case for your iPhone 12 mini for over 50 percent off at Best Buy. These are MagSafe-compatible and will work with the MagSafe charger made for this phone. $24 at Best Buy Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Several retailers have lowered the price of the new Echo Show 10 smart display to $200 (from $25
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Apple released a new trailer for Mythic Quest’s second season on Monday ahead of its May 7th debut. The trailer doesn’t feature many specific plot points, though it looks like we’ll be seeing how Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney) and Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao) work together on a new expansion now that they’re co-creative directors on the fictional game. Things between them seem good, at least at the beginning. The trailer also features Snoop Dogg (who does play video games IRL), who asks Grimm where the game’s next expansion is. He also made an appearance in a motion-capture suit in the
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Domino’s Pizza will start delivering pizzas via Nuro driverless cars in Houston this week as part of a pilot program, the company announced Monday. The company says “select customers” in Houston who make a prepaid delivery order from its store in the Woodland Heights neighborhood during certain dates and times can have their pizza brought to them by a Nuro R2 robot. Here’s how the pizza deliveries will work: a customer places and pays for an order online from the Woodland Heights store and opts in to have the order brought by the R2. The customer receives a unique PIN via text aler
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This cat doesn’t exist: AI-made cat. This one doesn’t either: Fake cat. These are computer-generated images from This Cat Does Not Exist, and folks: I think we are in trouble. I understand this is going to sound crackpot, but hear me out. What if our computers are already smarter than us, and the only reason they’re pretending they aren’t is so we’ll continue feeding them their favorite thing, photos of our cats? I understand that in isolation this sounds ridiculous, but I don’t think it’s any sillier than the Singularity. Under this theory, Skynet has already happened, but Skynet is benign because one of the first things we taught it was that cats were cute. And Skynet doesn’t have cats. We do. This is our major structural advantage: we can feed the internet fresh cat photos. It’s why the internet — thus far, anyway — has remained willing to continue human life as we know it: for our cats. The problem, then, with This Cat Does Not Exist is that it allows the internet to make its own cat photos. That means Skynet doesn’t need us anymore. This isn’t new, exactly — but last year, the computer-generated cats were horror shows. And yes, a people version exists already, but this isn’t an existential threat. We did not teach the computers that people are adorable. We taught them that cats are. One of these cats is real (and my own personal cat). The other one does not exist: Elizabeth Lopatto and This Cat Does Not Exist The tells, as far as I can see, occur around the edge of the fur: it’s weirdly blurry. Also, as with the people version, the fake cat has an out-of-focus background. The coloration in the fake cat’s eyes is also a little less defined than my cat’s. Still, this is impressive. The new batch of AI cats is limited — face only, no goofball action, sometimes the ears don’t match — but they may very well represent the first step toward the Matrix-like future of humanity. Because if the machines don’t need our cat photos anymore, they don’t need us.
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Mobileye, the company that specializes in chips for vision-based autonomous vehicles, announced that it will launch a full-scale, fully driverless delivery service starting in 2023. The company, a subsidiary of Intel, is joining forces with self-driving delivery startup Udelv to run this new service. Deliveries will be made using a new type of cabin-less vehicle called The Transporter. While manufacturing plans are still in flux, Mobileye and Udelv say they will produce 35,000 Transporters between 2023–2028 — a signal of their seriousness to launch a driverless delivery system at scale. “This is a real commercial deployment,” Jack Weast, vice president of automated vehicle standards at Mobileye, told The Verge. “Thirty-five thousand units starting in 2023 that will fully integrate our self driving system for commercial use for automated goods delivery.” Mobileye’s turn-key self-driving system features a full-sensor suite of 13 cameras, three long-range LiDARs, six short-range LiDARs, and six radar. It also includes the Israeli company’s EyeQ system-on-a-chip and a data crowdsourcing program called the Road Experience Management, or REM, which uses real-time data from Mobileye-equipped vehicles to build out a global 3D map. The company is also testing autonomous vehicles in a variety of cities around the world for the eventual launch of a robotaxi service and has said it would bring its technology to personally owned consumer vehicles by 2025 as well. “The design of our self driving systems is based on this concept called true redundancy,” Weast said. “Unlike most everyone else, where you need to have your radar, LIDAR, and camera operating in perfect unison in order to operate, we have independent subsystems between our camera systems alone, and then the radar and LIDAR subsystems alone. ...If either one of the subsystems is unable to properly detect an object, the other one will be able to. Then you can provide a better, safer experience.” Udelv is an interesting choice for a partner for Mobileye. One of the few AV startups that has yet to be acquired by a larger company, Udelv has been testing autonomous delivery vans in a variety of markets across the US over the last few years, including Oklahoma City, Arizona, and the Bay Area in California. Udelv said it has completed 20,000 deliveries for merchants in the cities where it has operations. The company currently uses retrofitted cargo vans to make its deliveries, but starting in 2023, it will start to roll out the cabin-less Transporters as part of its deal with Mobileye. The Transporter is an electric delivery vehicle without room for human drivers, similar to the drone vehicles we’ve seen from companies like Nuro and Einride. The vehicle is built on a modular electric platform, or skateboard, that can be adjusted to fit a variety of vehicle chassis. Udelv isn’t releasing some pertinent specs for the Transporter, like range, battery size, or the overall weight of the vehicle. The vehicle will be compatible with DC fast charging and will have a top speed of 65 mph. A spokesperson said that Udelv will announce its manufacturing plans for the Transporter
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Microsoft is buying AI speech tech firm Nuance for $19.7 billion, bolstering the Redmond, Washington-based tech giant’s prowess in voice recognition and giving it further leverage in the health care market, where Nuance sells many products. Microsoft will pay $56 per share for Nuance, a 23 percent premium over the company’s closing price last Friday. The deal includes Nuance’s net debt. Nuance is best known for its Dragon software, which uses deep learning to transcribe speech and improves its accuracy over time by adapting to a user’s voice. Nuance has licensed this tech for many services and applications, including, most famously, Apple’s digital assistant Siri. (Though to what degree Siri currently relies on Dragon to answer users’ queries is unclear.) Dragon is an industry leader in terms of transcription accuracy. The $19.7 billion acquisition of Nuance is Microsoft’s second-largest behind its purchase of LinkedIn in 2016 for $26 billion. It comes at a time when speech tech is improving rapidly, thanks to the deep learning boom in AI, and there are simultaneously more opportunities for its use. Digital transcription has become more reliable in a range of settings, from medical consultations to board meetings and university lectures. The uptick in remote work has also created new opportunities. With so many meetings taking place via video, it is easier to offer customers transcriptions via software integrated directly into these calls. Zoom, for example, offers automatic transcription via integration with third-party services like Otter. For Microsoft, which makes roughly two-thirds of its revenue from enterprise software sales and cloud computing, improving its transcription services for scenarios like these makes complete sense. The company could integrate Nuance’s technology into its existing software, like Teams, or offer it independently as part of its Azure cloud business. The immediate focus, though, will be on health care, where the two companies have already worked together. In 2019, they announced a “strategic partnership” to use Nuance’s software to digitize health records for Microsoft’s clients. Nuance’s health tech, including its Dragon Medical One platform, which is tuned to identify medical terminology, is reportedly used by more than half a million physicians worldwide and in 77 percent of US hospitals. “By augmenting the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare with Nuance’s solutions, as well as the benefit of Nuance’s expertise and relationships with EHR systems providers, Microsoft will be better able to empower healthcare providers through the power of ambient clinical intelligence and other Microsoft cloud services,” said Microsoft in a blog post. “Nuance provides the AI layer at the healthcare point of delivery and is a pioneer in the real-world application of enterprise AI,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a statement. “AI is technology’s most important priority, and healthcare is its most urgent application. Together, with our partner ecosystem, we will put advanced AI solutions into the hands of professionals everywhere to drive better decision-making and create more m
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The Federal Communications Commission has released a new speed test app to help measure internet speeds across the country, available on both Android and iOS. The FCC Speed Test App works similarly to existing speed-testing apps like Ookla’s and Fast by Netflix, automatically collecting and displaying data once users press the “start testing” button. According to the FCC, the data collected through the app will inform the agency’s efforts to collect more accurate broadband speed information and aid its broadband deployment efforts. The FCC’s Speed Test app allows users to test their speeds a
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As all adults across the US become eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, Facebook is making it easier for its users to find information based on where they live. The company has started rolling out a feature that pins a box with state-specific information about where to get a COVID-19 vaccine at the top of the News Feed for every US user living in a state where the general public is eligible to receive the shot. The box, once available, will appear at the top of your News Feed and show you state-specific information, confirming that you are now eligible to receive the vaccine, including a link on where to find the vaccine in your province, as seen in the image below:
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Google is recruiting people to give feedback for a new consumer-facing medical records tool, Stat News reported on Friday. The company wants to know how people want to interact with information pulled from their medical records. Right now, the company is recruiting around 300 people who use Android devices in Northern California, Atlanta, and Chicago. This is Google’s second attempt at creating a way for people to access their medical records. In 2008, it launched Google Health, which aimed to give people a way to see their health information online. It didn’t take off, and Google shut it down in 2012. “We haven’t found a way to translate that limited usage into widespread adopt
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General Motors is launching a new in-car mapping service for nearly 1 million of its vehicles. The new service is called Maps Plus, and it will be powered by Mapbox, the open-source-based map provider that competes against Google and Here for enterprise deals for customized and in-app maps. In addition to in-car navigation, Maps Plus will also integrate with other popular apps, including music streaming services like Spotify or voice assistants like Alexa, which will appear as individual widgets superimposed over the map. While plotting a destination, Maps Plus will also notify the driver of the current speed limit or if they will need to refuel along the way. Maps Plus is designed for
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Major League Baseball has announced its latest move to cash in on the NFT craze: official blockchain-based versions of classic Topps baseball cards. Topps is selling the new NFT baseball cards through the WAX blockchain, which the company has used for its earliest blockchain-based collectibles. The first “Series 1” cards will be sold starting on April 20th, with 50,000 standard packs (containing six cards for $5) and around 24,000 premium packs (offering 45 cards for $100) set to be sold in the first wave. Topps is also offering a free “exclusive Topps MLB Opening Day NFT Pack” to the first 10,000 users who sign up for email alerts for new releases. It’s a similar idea to the NB
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Uber saw record gross bookings in March 2021, according to a filing posted Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The increase may signal the beginning of a comeback for the ride-hailing business, which suffered mightily in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Uber’s mobility segment, which includes its ride-hailing business, was up 9 percent between February and March 2021, with an annualized run rate of $30 billion. Uber’s food delivery segment UberEats, which helped the company stave off even bigger losses in 2020, doubled its annual run rate from March of last year, coming in at $52 billion. “As vaccination rates increase in the United States, we are observing tha
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Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot exists in two realities. In one, it’s a terrifying harbinger of a dystopian future when robots hunt and kill humans. In the other, it’s the plaything of YouTubers who teach this robot quadruped to “piss beer” on command. The latter example comes from the talented, imaginative, piss-focused YouTuber Michael Reeves, who managed to get his hands on a unit before using his tech expertise and dirty mind to turn Spot into the ultimate drinking buddy. With some quick code and a few feet of tubing, Spot can identify cups on the floor, position itself over them, and release a stream of piss beer into the awaiting receptacle. It’s the future Isaac Asimov could only dream of. As Reeves notes in the video, it’s hardly a polished product. “Piss bot is working flawlessly. 35 percent of the time,” he says. But it’s still an absolutely amazing thing to make. A little wide of the mark there, Spot, but everyone makes mistakes. Video by Michael Reeves / YouTube Now, just to put on my “I’m a journalist, and I like to overthink things” hat for a second: what also fascinates me about this video is what it means for Boston Dynamics. This is a firm that has previously worked to tightly control footage of its machines and their public reception. Since making Spot commercially available, though, it’s had to relinquish some of this control, leading to instances where its machinery is used in ways it doesn’t approve of (like equipping Spot with a paintball gun). This includes non-jokey military uses. When we reported on the French army using Spot in simulated combat exercises last week, Boston Dynamics told us it was unaware these particular tests were being carried out (though it did know the French military had access to its machines). Is greater access to Spot going to create more problems for the company in the future? Spot is definitely not easy to get a hold of. It costs $75,000 for one. But it’s plainly much more accessible than it was a year ago. That has the potential to not only create PR headaches
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Multiple Google services are currently experiencing outages, with some users unable to create new documents in Google Docs and Google Sheets. Google’s Workspace Status Dashboard is reporting that Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides are all experiencing service disruptions. When trying to create a new document in Google Docs, the following error message appears: Google Docs encountered an error. Please try reloading this page, or coming back to it in a few minutes.To learn more about the Google Docs editors, please visit our help center.We’re sorry for the inconvenience.- The Google Docs Team Downdetector is currently showing spikes in issues with Google Drive, Google Classroom, and Google itself, though we’ve not encountered any issues on Google’s main search site. The outage appears to be occurring in multiple countries, if reports on Twitter are anything to go by, and we’ve verified problems are occurring in the UK and US. Google is reporting partial outages across Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Screenshot: Google There’s never a good time for an outage, but problems like this are particularly bad with so many people currently working an
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Apple is reportedly developing a new TV accessory that combines elements of its Apple TV with a HomePod speaker and camera for video calls, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Alongside it, Apple is also said to be working on a smart speaker with a display, similar to Amazon’s Echo Show or Google’s Nest Hub. Development of both devices is said to be in its early stages, with plans subject to change. The unannounced TV accessory would have the hardware to fulfill a variety of roles. As a TV accessory it could offer access to games and the streaming video services supported by Apple TV today; while its built-in speaker would likely be an upgrade over those found in most TV sets, similar to Roku’s soundbars. It would also support HomePod features like music playback and Siri voice assistant controls, much like the Sonos Beam offers with Alexa and Google Assistant. Finally, the camera would let it serve as a video calling device like a Facebook Portal TV. It’s potentially a lot of functionality in a single Apple device. The second device is a smart display similar to what competitors Amazon and Google already offer, combining features of an iPad and HomePod. Apple’s work on the device was previously reported by Bloomberg last month. Like the TV accessory, this device would also offer video chat features, but via its built-in screen rather than a connected TV. Apple is said to have explored using a robotic arm to rotate the display and track users, similar to Amazon’s 2020 Echo Show. While Apple’s existing smart home devices have focused on one or two key areas, the functionality offered by the two rumored devices would be much broader. Bloomberg notes that Apple merged its HomePod and Apple TV engineering groups in 2020. Apple’s smart home lineup could use a shot in the arm. The company hasn’t updated its Apple TV hardware lineup since 2017, and it recently discontinued its high-end HomePod to focus on the more affordable HomePod mini. A hardware update for the Apple TV has been rumored for several months now, and recently discovered code suggests it might include support for 120Hz refresh rates.
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Governments and politicians around the world are using a loophole in how Facebook polices inauthentic activity to fake popular support and harass opponents. An investigation from The Guardian based on internal documents and the testimony of a former Facebook data scientist, Sophie Zhang, shows how the company selectively chooses to take action on this activity. Facebook moves swiftly to deal with coordinated campaigns to sway politics in wealthy countries like the US, South Korea, and Taiwan, while it de-prioritizes or simply ignores reports of similar activity in poorer nations like Afghanistan, Iraq, Mexico, and much of Latin America. “There is a lot of harm being done on Facebook that is not being responded to because it is not considered enough of a PR risk to Facebook,” Zhang told The Guardian. “The cost isn’t borne by Facebook. It’s borne by the broader world as a whole.” The loophole identified by Zhang concerns the use of Pages to create fake supporters used by governments to appear popular and criticize opponents. Although Facebook bans people from operating more than one account, any individual can create multiple Pages with similar results. Pages are usually used to represent businesses, charities, nonprofits, or other organizations, but can easily be changed to look like individual accounts. One case utilizing this loophole took place in Honduras, where administrators operating the Facebook page of the country’s president, Juan Orlando Hernández, created hundreds of Pages to like their own posts and create the appearance of popular support. (The election of Hernández in 2017 was widely criticized for fraud.) Similarly, in Azerbaijan, which has experienced years of authoritarian rule under President Ilham Aliyev, the ruling party used dummy Pages to harass opposition politicians and criticize news stories by independent outlets. The video below from The Guardian shows how these operations work: Zhang, who worked on Facebook’s integrity team to identify such fake activity, was fired by Facebook in September 2020 for poor performance. In a memo she shared on her final day, she described how she’d found “multiple blatant att
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In a new video, a developer has shown off a playable version of viral hit Flappy Bird running inside a macOS push notification. It’s the work of Neil Sardesai, who previously made headlines with a clip of Pong running inside a macOS app icon. The hack has yet to receive a public release, but it’s still a neat proof of concept. According to Sardesai, the feature works by loading a web version of the game into the notification. This playable version is technically a browser-based clone of the original app made by Will Eastcott of PlayCanvas. Sardesai notes that the feature relies on the UserNotificationsUI framework, introduced by Apple with macOS Big Sur, though he says it should also work on iOS. Distracting notifications are bad enough when you’re trying to get some work done, b
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Cruise, the autonomous vehicle company backed by General Motors and Honda, will launch its first international robotaxi service in Dubai in 2023. The news was announced early Monday by Dubai’s crown prince, Hamdan bin Mohammed. As part of the ride-hailing service, Cruise will use its fully autonomous Origin vehicles, which it first unveiled in 2019. The company does not plan on utilizing its Chevy Bolt electric vehicles that it currently uses as part of its test fleet in San Francisco. The Origin is designed to be a shared vehicle, and when it goes into production, it won’t have any controls typically associated with human driving, like a steering wheel or pedals. Cruise said the goal is to scale up to at least 4,000 vehicles in Dubai by the year 2030. Cruise still intends for Sa
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Android’s Digital Wellbeing service is getting a new “Heads Up” feature, which will prompt users to stop staring at their phones while walking, XDA Developers reports. The feature appears to be rolling out to the beta version of the Digital Wellbeing app, and one Twitter user reports receiving the feature on their Pixel 4A device. “If you’re walking while using your phone, get a reminder to focus on what’s around you,” says the Heads Up setup page. The reminders include brief notifications with instructions like “Watch your step,” “Stay alert,” and “Look up,” judging by an app teardown last year by 9to5Google. “Use with caution. Heads Up doesn’t replace paying attention,” says Google despite the obviousness of such advice. Nevertheless, the feature seems necessary with distracted walking becoming increasingly dangerous. Digital Wellbeing is a service built into some Android phones to help manage your usage. It can be used to set limits on the amount of time you spend in specific apps, or set up a “Bedtime mode” to make a phone less distracting late at night, for example. XDA Developers reports that Heads Up seems to be coming to Pixel phone
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A first drive in the automaker’s electrified S-Class sedan By Apr 11, 2021, 6:01pm EDT Driving the new Mercedes-Benz EQS — essentially, the electric version of the automaker’s esteemed S-Class — almost gave me whiplash. Not because of some driving mishap (the EQS handles wonderfully) but because of how radically different Mercedes’ new luxury EV is from the recent crop of battery-powered vehicles. Mercedes has no interest in minimalist electric car design. The stark, button-less interiors of the Tesla Model 3 are fine for those who want to be reminded of a “completely cleared, black-washed Bauhaus living room,” as a German writer once appropriately described Elon Musk’s mass-market EV. With the EQS, Mercedes is saying auf wiedersehen to the idea of sparsely appointed EV interiors. It has the largest screen, the highest range (so far), the most features, a truly shocking number of physical touchpoints, the softest headrests… I could go on. This is an all-electric S-Class in the truest sense. I got a chance to test out the EQS for a few hours about a week before its official launch, and while it was delightful to drive and I truly appreciated getting to cosplay as a wealthy luxury car guy, I had to wonder what the point was of all this extra stuff. Why do I need a gazillion different colored options for ambient lighting? Why does the front passenger need their own dedicated screen embedded in the dashboard? Why was there a finger
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So yesterday I watched the first episode of the Netflix documentary This is a Robbery, about the 1990 heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and the accents alone made me homesick. For those who did not grow up in the land of dropped R’s: two thieves dressed as cops stole 13 works from the museum, valued at a total of $500 million. The art, which included paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, and Manet, has never been found and no arrests have ever been made. The museum is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to the recovery of the stolen works. I’m trying to avoid spoilers because even though I grew up in Boston and I’m familiar with the story, a few headlines about the doc have teased that it “solves” the case. Very interested to see the filmmakers’ theory of what happened! The trailer roundup for this week has villains, shut-ins, and Ghostbusters. You’re welcome. The Woman in The Window Getting strong Rear Window vibes from the second trailer for this movie, which was supposed to premiere in theaters last May. Amy Adams stars as Anna Fox, a severely agoraphobic woman who suspects she witnessed the murder of her friend (played by Julianne Moore) in the neighboring building. Some serious gaslighting ensues. The Woman in the Window also stars Brian Tyree Henry, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Anthony Mackie, Tracy Letts, and Gary Oldman. It hits Netflix May 14th. Cruella This is the second trailer for the upcoming origin story o
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Apple’s next iPad Pro may face supply constraints at launch due to issues in production, according to a new report in Bloomberg. Apple’s suppliers are said to be having trouble with low manufacturing yields for the new Mini LED display rumored to be the key feature of the new 12.9-inch model; one manufacturer has reportedly paused production. Nikkei reported last week that iPad production had been delayed by a shortage of displays and display components, though the publication didn’t specify which models had been hit. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the new iPad Pro lineup is
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After several senators criticized the company, Apple said on Sunday it would send its chief compliance officer to an April 21st hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bloomberg reported. Leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook on Friday demanding that the company send a representative to the hearing, saying Apple was refusing to participate. In the letter, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) ,and Mike Lee (R-UT) say Apple “abruptly” decided not to provide a witness for the hearing on digital markets focused on Apple’s App Store and the Google Play
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French lawmakers have voted to ban domestic flights on routes that could be taken in a train ride in less than two-and-a-half hours, Reuters reported. The vote late Saturday comes as part of France’s larger climate bill, which seeks to reduce its 1990-level carbon emissions by 40 percent over the next decade. Last week, France’s government said it would contribute 4 billion euros ($4.7 billion) to recapitalize airline Air France-KLM. The airline warned it is expecting an operating loss of 1.3 billion euros when it reports its first-quarter earnings next month. The airline industry is r
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Google is shutting down its mobile Shopping apps for both iOS and Android and directing users to its web Shopping site instead, 9to5 Google reported. On Friday, Xda Developers discovered that the term “sunset” had been added to several strings of code in the Shopping app, suggesting the apps were being discontinued. A Google spokesperson told 9to5 Google that the apps will continue to function through June. “Within the next few weeks, we’ll no longer be supporting the Shopping app. All of the functionality the app offered users is available on the Shopping tab,” the spokesperson said. We’ll continue building features within the Shopping tab and other Google surfaces, including the Google app.” The shopping.google.com site will remain active. The app allowed users to choos
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Personal data for some 1.3 million users of the social audio app Clubhouse has been leaked online, Cyber News reported. a SQL database with users’ IDs, names, usernames, Twitter and Instagram handles and follower counts were posted to an online hacker forum. According to Cyber News, it did not appear that sensitive user information such as credit card numbers were among the leaked info. But the information could be used in phishing attempts to get users to hand over that more sensitive info. Last week, Cyber News reported on another data breach from a social platform: it found that personal data for 500 million LinkedIn users had been scraped and posted online. The Microsoft-owned company said that no private member account data from LinkedIn was included in the leak. That news came
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South Korean electric-vehicle battery makers SK Innovation and LG Energy Solution have reached a settlment in a US trade dispute, Bloomberg reported. Under the terms of the agreement, SK will pay $1.8 billion (2 trillion won) in cash and royalties to LG. In a joint statement the companies said they would “work to help the development of EV battery industry in South Korea and the US. through healthy competition and friendly cooperation,” adding that they would “work together to strengthen the battery network and environmentally-friendly policy that the Biden administration is pursuing.” In February, the US International Trade Commission imposed a 10-year import ban on SK Innovation— due to take effect Sunday— following allegations it illegally obtained technology from rival
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The LG Stylo 6 is one of the company’s bestselling phones in recent history. Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge The company leaves a void that brands like Motorola and TCL are well-positioned to fill By Apr 11, 2021, 9:00am EDT LG’s exit from the smartphone business felt inevitable in the weeks leading up to it as rumors mounted. When it was finally confirmed, Avi Greengart, a longt
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Google reportedly ran a secret project called “Project Bernanke” that relied on bidding data collected from advertisers using its ad exchange to benefit the company’s own ad system, The Wall Street Journal reported. First discovered by newswire service MLex, the name of the project was visible in an improperly unredacted document Google had filed as part of an antitrust lawsuit in Texas. A federal judge has since let Google refile the document under seal. But according to the Journal, “Bernanke” was not disclosed to outside advertisers, and proved lucrative for Google, generating hundreds of millions of dollars for the company. Texas filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in December, alleging that the search giant was using anticompetitive tactics in which “Bernanke”
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China has hit Alibaba, one of the country’s biggest online retailers, with a record $2.8 billion (18.2 billion yuan) fine, after an investigation found the ecommerce giant violated China’s anti-monopoly law, The New York Times reported. The fine, which represents 4 percent of Alibaba’s 2019 domestic sales, is three times higher than the $975 billion fine China imposed on US chip company Qualcomm back in 2015. The Chinese government launched an investigation into Alibaba in December to determine whether the company was preventing merchants from selling their products on other platforms. China’s market regulator found that Alibaba’s practices had a negative effect on online retail competition and innovation. Alibaba used data and algorithms to strengthen its own position in the
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A federal judge has granted the New York attorney general’s request to move a lawsuit against Amazon back to New York state court, Reuters reported. AG Letitia James’ lawsuit alleges that the ecommerce giant failed to protect workers at its Brooklyn and Staten Island warehouses from COVID-19 during the early months of the pandemic, and retaliated against employees who complained about the lack of safety measures. Amazon had sought to have the case moved to federal court, arguing that workplace safety issues were not under James’ purview. The company pre-emptively sued James on February 12th, and James sued Amazon four days later. Amazon then moved the lawsuit to federal court. “Amazon has forced its employees to work in unsafe conditions throughout this pandemic,” James said
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