Apple hits Facebook, once again

Apple is taking active steps to dam Facebook’s data collection practices.


The Safari-maker said Monday that it’ll provide users the flexibility to prevent Facebook, Google and other platforms from trailing them across the web through “like” and “share” buttons.

The announcement is Apple’s most important counter yet to Facebook’s data collection practices, and comes after years in which Apple executives have criticized Facebook as reckless with user privacy.

“We’ve all seen these like buttons and share buttons,” Apple software VP Craig Federighi said at the company’s annual developer conference. “Well it seems, these will be used to track you, whether or not you click on them or not. so this year, we’re closing that down.”

When safari users arrive at a page with a Facebook like, a pop-up window will appear that asks: “Do you want to permit ‘facebook.com’ to use cookies and website data while browsing [this site]? this will enable ‘facebook.com’ to track your activity.”

Facebook’s chief security officer Alex Stamos instantly took issue with the move, questioning on Twitter whether or not it had been a serious effort to guard privacy or “just cute virtue signaling.”

Apple has place a premium on user privacy for years. In 2010, then-CEO Steve Jobs said Apple had “always had a very totally different read of privacy than some of our colleagues in the valley.”

“Privacy suggests that individuals know what they are signing up for, in plain English and repeatedly,” Jobs said. “I believe individuals are sensible and some individuals wish to share more information than other people do. Ask them. ask them every time. … let them understand exactly what you are going to do with their data.”

Current Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook has came to this theme in recent months as Facebook has return under fire for its collection of a huge amount of user data and its failure to protect that data from abuse by third parties — most notably Cambridge Analytica.

In an interview with CNN’s Laurie Segall on Monday, Cook said, “I assume that the privacy issue has gotten completely out of control and that i think most of the people aren’t alert to who is tracking them, what proportion {they’re|they are} being tracked and therefore the massive amounts of elaborated data that are out there about them … we think privacy is a fundamental right.”

Facebook has made itself susceptible to Apple’s criticism. less than 24 hours before Apple’s conference, the new york Times reported that Facebook’s data-sharing partnerships with device makers, including Apple, were still in effect despite Facebook’s claim that they’d cut off such data sharing in 2015.

Meanwhile, Apple has confiscated the opportunity to forged itself as the best behaved player in tech. in addition to the new privacy measures, Apple also introduced new features which will encourage users to limit the amount of time they spend on their phones.

“[Apps] try to draw us in for fear of missing out,” Federighi said. “We might not even recognize how distracted we’ve become.”

-credit – cnnmoney

Apple is investing $390 million into an organization that produces chips for the iPhone X and AirPods

Apple declared that it’s investing $390 million (£292 million) into Finisar, an organization that builds special chips for a few of its product.

This is the second round in a very larger $1 billion (£750 million) investment set up which first saw Apple finance in Corning, a firm that manufactures the glass used in most of its devices.

Finisar is reopening a facility in Texas which will help produce five hundred new jobs.

Apple declared that it’s investing $390 million (£292 million) into Finisar, an organization that helps build chips that modify proximity and depth sensing on product like the iPhone X and AirPods.

With Apple’s money, Finisar is going to open up a 700,000 sq. feet (65,000 sq. meters) manufacturing facility in Sherman, Texas, wherever some five hundred jobs are going to be created between engineers, technicians, and a maintenance team.

The plant will be remodeled and refurbished with new machines capable of manufacturing VCSEL (vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser) chips.

This special kind of element features in a number of Apple’s product, and allows features like Face ID, ARKit, and even Animoji, but additionally proximity sensing that, for instance, permits AirPods to stop playing audio when one of the 2 buds is removed from the user’s ear.

“VCSELs power a number of the most sophisticated technology we’ve ever developed,” said Apple’s chief operating officer Jeff Williams during a statement.

“We’re excited to partner with Finisar over the next several years to push the boundaries of VCSEL technology and the applications they permit.”

Finisar’s chief executive officer chimed in as well. He said: “When you mix our tested ability to consistently manufacture exceptional product with our new progressive Sherman facility, we’re assured we are able to accomplish our shared goal of providing customers with quality exciting features.”

Apple has acquired music recognition app Shazam

Apple confirmed today in statements to many media shops that it’ll purchase Shazam, pending approval. This news had antecedently been rumored by TechCrunch, which had one source claiming the sale worth was around $400 million—far but Shazam’s $1 billion valuation at its last round of funding.

Apple strikes deal with Warner Music, looks to pay labels lower rates
Shazam is arguably best known for its music recognition technology; tap the “Shazam” button in the app for smartphones and it’ll sometimes identify whatever song it hears after just a couple of seconds. Shazam has become thus popular that there’s even a network TV game show referred to as Beat Shazam hosted by Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx. In it, contestants must guess songs faster than Shazam will.

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But Shazam has also invested in second-screen TV viewing features, image recognition, and increased reality services and product. Shazam’s talent and technology may well be used in many of Apple’s products and initiatives, together with Apple Music, Siri, and augmented reality.

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Shazam already integrates with Siri. you’ll ask Siri “what song is this” while a song is playing outwardly, and, after a long pause, it’ll give you with the name and artist, along side a “buy” button for Apple Music/iTunes gussied with Shazam logo. Currently, the Shazam app permits you to add a song to your Spotify playlist when identifying it, no matter whether you are using an Apple or android phone. we do not know yet what, if something, can happen to it feature attributable to the Apple purchase.

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That said, the acquisition is perhaps concerning much more than the widely celebrated music recognition feature. Shazam has been developing augmented reality features that allow brands to serve up customized ads and transaction opportunities to users who use the app on visual or aural cues around them. Apple’s Tim Cook has created it copiously clear that he expects augmented reality to be one among Apple’s biggest areas of growth and investment. much of the iPhone 8 and iPhone X’s hardware and software is built with AR specifically in mind, and Apple is even rumored to be working on a pair of AR eyeglasses, though it’ll likely be a while before we see those in the market, if we do in the least.

Shazam may help Apple further legalize these AR features, among different things.

Is your iPhone suddenly crashing? Here’s why (and how to fix it)

Is your iOS device rebooting itself apparently at random this morning? You’re not alone.

Apple has a fairly rough week when it involves nasty software bugs. first there was that crazy admin login bypass in macOS – currently a flaw is causing iOS devices around the world to crash.

Here’s what’s happening: a glitch in the notifications system is crashing springboard, the part of iOS that handles your home screen.

Apps with daily notifications (workout apps, medication reminder apps, etc), above all, appear to be triggering the crash… however only when your device’s clock passes 12:15 AM on December 2nd, 2017. That it originates from apps with daily notifications means it’s not affecting everybody — but it also makes it pretty exhausting to slim down the list of impacted apps. There are simply too many.

The workaround: if you’ll be able to get your device to boot for some minutes without crashing and you’ll be able to keep in mind that apps send daily notifications, turn off notifications for those apps (Settings > Notifications > the app in question > toggle “Allow notifications”.)

(As a final resort, you’ll be able to go through and manually turn off notifications for each and every third-party app and work backwards in turning them back on… however that’s a pretty immense pain.)

Update: Once you’ve gotten your device to prevent resetting, update iOS. Apple has simply officially released iOS 11.2 to all, and it appears to repair this issue — but you’ll still ought to get your device stable enough to update, first. Once you’re on 11.2, you’ll be able to flip all those notifications back on.

What you almost certainly shouldn’t do, though some are recommending it, is set your system clock back to a time before December 2nd. a lot of things on modern devices tap the system clock as a part of their encryption/certification algorithms, therefore things (like, say, iMessage) begin to break once your system clock is way off. It won’t brick your device, but many apps and games will act funny. If you have to do it, make sure to line it back to automatic once you’re done.

If your iOS device isn’t crashing after December 2nd at 12:15 am local time, meanwhile, you seemingly don’t ought to do something. you probably don’t use any apps with local/scheduled notifications, or you’ve already got them turned off. Curiously, this bug doesn’t appear to be impacting users running the most recent iOS beta, iOS 11.2.

One might follow reports of the bug because it spreads round the world, starting in Australia. It’ll presumptively begin to hit West Coast United States phones shortly when this post is up.