Innholdsfortegnelse for #466 i AppleMagazine

If you’re looking for a self-improvement task in this pandemic era, try teaching yourself to use contactless payments with your phone or “tap-to-pay” credit and debit cards. Any germaphobe will tell you that the surfaces of bills and coins have always been gross. And handing your credit card to a cashier who has the sniffles and a hacking cough? Even in pre-pandemic times, also gross. Now, COVID-19 has prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to advise using touchless payments whenever possible in the brick-and-mortar world. Americans have been relatively slow to adopt touch-free payments even though they’re more convenient and secure than swiping credit and debit cards. But maybe hygiene will be the tipping point as people seek a solution for, well, yucky money. “I think the pandemic…

Amazon is aiming to kickstart the holiday shopping season early this year. The company is holding its annual Prime Day over two days in October this year, after the pandemic forced it to postpone the sales event from July. It’s the first time Prime Day is being held in the fall, and Amazon is positioning it as a way to get people to start their holiday shopping. Even before Amazon’s announcement, major retailers have said they plan to push shoppers to start their holiday shopping in October and offer deals earlier, hoping to avoid crowds in their stores in November and December. Prime Day, which will run from Oct. 13 to Oct. 14 this year, is sure to put pressure on rivals to offer deals around the same time. In…

Seventeen years after it was born with the help of CIA seed money, the data-mining outfit Palantir Technologies is finally going public in the biggest Wall Street tech offering since last year’s debut of Slack and Uber. Never profitable and dogged by ethical objections for assisting in the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown, Palantir has forged ahead with a direct listing of its stock. In its stock offering, the company isn’t selling newly minted shares to raise money; it’s simply listing existing shares for public trading. The shares began trading Wednesday afternoon after an initial delay, jumping 55%. The low-key strategy may not generate the enthusiasm many technology offerings do. But it’s in character for a secretive company long reliant on spies, cops and the military as customers — and whose…

Ava Trained assassin Ava Faulkner (Jessica Chastain) specializes in high-profile hits in her globe-spanning work for a black ops organization. However, her employer marks her for death after she questions orders, while one job to which she was assigned goes dangerously wrong. FIVE FACTS: 1. The lead character’s name was Eve during shooting, but the studio later changed that name as well as, naturally, the film title. 2. During filming breaks, Chastain hosted dance parties and exercise classes for the onset crew. 3. Matthew Newton wrote the screenplay and was set to direct the film, too, but scandalous allegations about his private life ultimately saw him replaced as director. 4. The film was therefore directed instead by Tate Taylor , who had previously directed Chastain for his 2011 movie The…

Borat is back. Sacha Baron Cohen has filmed a sequel to his 2006 film “Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” that Amazon plans to release before the election. The streaming giant confirmed this week that it has acquired worldwide rights to the film. It’s reportedly titled: “Borat: Gift of Pornographic Monkey to Vice Premiere Mikhael Pence to Make Benefit Recently Diminished Nation of Kazakhstan.” Reports have steadily accumulated about the project throughout the summer as it was filmed in secret during the pandemic. In early July, Rudy Giuliani called the police on Cohen after an interview in which Cohen emerged in character. Giuliani told Page Six: “This guy comes running in wearing a crazy, what I would say was a pink transgender outfit. It…

Future moon explorers will be bombarded with two to three times more radiation than astronauts aboard the International Space Station, a health hazard that will require thick-walled shelters for protection, scientists reported. China’s lander on the far side of the moon is providing the first full measurements of radiation exposure from the lunar surface, vital information for NASA and others aiming to send astronauts to the moon, the study noted. A Chinese-German team reported on the radiation data collected by the lander — named Chang’e 4 for the Chinese moon goddess — in the U.S. journal Science Advances. “This is an immense achievement in the sense that now we have a data set which we can use to benchmark our radiation” and better understand the potential risk to people on…

The European Commission said it is appealing a court decision that Apple doesn’t have to repay 13 billion euros ($15 billion) in back taxes to Ireland. The appeal comes after the U.S. tech giant scored a big recent legal victory in its long battle with the European Union’s executive Commission, which has been trying to rein in multinationals’ ability to strike special tax deals with individual EU countries. The EU’s General Court ruled that the commission wrongly declared in 2016 that Apple was given illegal state aid when it struck a low tax rate agreement with Irish authorities. The EU Commission “respectfully considers that in its judgment the General Court has made a number of errors of law. For this reason, the Commission is bringing this matter before the European…

Northern California’s wine country was on fire again this week as strong winds fanned flames in the already scorched region, destroying homes and prompting overnight evacuation orders for more than 50,000 people. Residents of the Oakmont Gardens senior living facility in Santa Rosa boarded brightly lit city buses in the darkness overnight, some wearing bathrobes and using walkers. They wore masks to protect against the coronavirus as orange flames marked the dark sky. The fire threat forced Adventist Health St. Helena hospital to suspend care and transfer all patients elsewhere. The fires that began Sunday in the famed Napa-Sonoma wine country about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of San Francisco came as the region nears the third anniversary of deadly wildfires that erupted in 2017, including one that killed 22…

A U.S. district judge has dismissed New Mexico’s privacy claims against Google over privacy concerns, but New Mexico’s top prosecutor vowed to continue the legal fight to protect child privacy rights. The judge concluded in a ruling that federal laws and regulations do not require direct consent from parents when schools participate in Google’s education platforms. Google had asked that the case be dismissed, saying it hasn’t violated any laws as it is required only to make reasonable efforts to provide notice and obtain consent. Under the ruling, New Mexico can amend its complaint. “The law is clear that Google must protect our children’s privacy, and we strongly disagree with the court’s ruling,” New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas said in a statement to The Associated Press. “For years massive…

Amazon has introduced new palm recognition technology in a pair of Seattle stores and sees a broader potential audience in stadiums, offices and other gated or secured locations. Customers at the stores near Amazon’s campus in Washington can flash a palm for entry into secured areas and buy goods. The company chose palm recognition, according to Dilip Kumar, vice president of Physical Retail & Technology, because it’s more private than other biometric technology, and a person would be required to purposefully flash a palm at the Amazon One device to engage. “And it’s contactless, which we think customers will appreciate, especially in current times,” Kumar wrote in a blog post. Like the human fingerprint, every palm is unique. Unlike fingerprints, the palm is not used for broader identification purposes because…

A federal judge postponed a Trump administration order that would have banned the popular video sharing app TikTok from U.S. smartphone app stores around midnight. A more comprehensive ban remains scheduled for November, about a week after the presidential election. The judge, Carl Nichols of the U.S District Court for the District of Columbia, did not agree to postpone the later ban. The ruling followed an emergency hearing in which lawyers for TikTok argued that the administration’s app-store ban would infringe on First Amendment rights and do irreparable harm to the business. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump declared that TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, was a threat to national security and that it must either sell its U.S. operations to American companies or be barred from the country.…

Floor Seats II A$AP Ferg For this album-length follow-up to his 2019 EP Floor Seats, the Harlem-raised rapper A$AP Ferg has collaborated with such big names as Lil Wayne, Marilyn Manson and Nicki Minaj. The result is a confident-sounding release that wouldn’t seem unusual soundtracking high-profile basketball. FIVE FACTS: 1. A$AP Ferg’s real, full name is Darold Durard Brown Ferguson Jr. 2. He is also part of the hip hop collective A$AP Mob. 3. A$AP Mob co-founder ASAP Illz recently insisted that Ferg was “no longer part” of the collective and added that he deemed Ferg’s recent music “dumb trash” . 4. However, other members of the group have since come forward and said that Ferg remains a member. 5. In 2018, Ferg contributed lyrics to a video advert for…

Archaeological authorities in Mexico said they kicked cast members of a popular local “Jersey Shore”-style reality show out of the Mayan ruins of Uxmal after they behaved “immaturely” and refused to wear masks or follow social distancing rules. It was the latest round of bad promotional work in Mexico’s desperate attempt to revive its tourism industry, which has been decimated by the coronavirus pandemic. It seems the young, ripped cast members of Mexico’s popular “Acapulco Shore” reality show — whom the state government of Yucatan described as “influencers” — were invited to tour the ruins soon after they were reopened in a bid to encourage tourists to return. But the National Institute of Anthropology and History said the half-dozen cast members “were asked to leave, in compliance with health rules.”…

Californians are being asked decide if Uber, Lyft and other app-based drivers should remain independent contractors or be eligible for the benefits that come with being company employees. The battle between the powerhouses of the so-called gig economy and labor unions including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters could become the most expensive ballot measure in state history. Voters are weighing whether to create an exemption to a new state law aimed at providing wage and benefit protections to drivers. Uber and Lyft have fought a losing battle in the Legislature and courts, so now — with help from app-based food delivery companies DoorDash, Postmates and Instacart — they are spending more than $180 million to take their fight directly to voters in the Nov. 3 election. Early voting in California…

A computer outage at a major hospital chain thrust healthcare facilities across the U.S. into chaos Monday, with treatment impeded as doctors and nurses already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic were forced to rely on paper backup systems. Universal Health Services Inc., which operates more than 250 hospitals and other clinical facilities in the U.S., blamed the outage on an unspecified IT “security issue” in a statement posted to its website but provided no details about the incident, such as how many facilities were affected and whether patients had to be diverted to other hospitals. UHS workers reached by media at company facilities in Texas and Washington, D.C. described mad scrambles after the outage began overnight Sunday to render care, including longer emergency room waits and anxiety over determining which…

The Justice Department is expected to bring an antitrust action against Google in coming weeks, focusing on its dominance in online search and whether it was used to stifle competition and hurt consumers, a person familiar with the matter told. The department also is examining Google’s online advertising practices, said the person, who could not discuss an ongoing investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Antitrust officials at the department briefed state attorneys general on the planned action against Google, seeking support from states across the country that share concerns about Google’s conduct. The anticipated lawsuit against Google could be the government’s biggest legal offensive to protect competition since the groundbreaking case against Microsoft almost 20 years ago. Lawmakers and consumer advocates accuse Google of abusing its dominance in…

Apple has made no secret of the fact it wants to expand its services division. Following the launch of Apple Music in 2015, Apple has introduced TV+, News+, and Apple Arcade, revolutionizing the way we consume content. This year, the Cupertino company is taking it up a notch, adding to its $100 billion services arm with Apple Fitness+ and Apple One. TRANSFORMING THE WAY WE WORK OUT The coronavirus has transformed the way we work out and take care of our bodies, but the online fitness revolution began far before 2020. According to a recent report, digital fitness as an industry subsector is now thought to be worth an eye-watering $100 billion globally, fueled by the rise of fitness applications and hardware designed to push us to the next level.…

Across the U.S., the pandemic has forced students to attend virtual school to prevent spread of the coronavirus. But the more we rely on technology, the bigger the consequences when gadgets or internet service let us down. Technology being technology, all sorts of things can go wrong. Your internet service may be inadequate for all-day videoconferencing or simply overstressed. Hardware and software can be confusing, can break, and sometimes just fails to work. There can be unanticipated consequences from turning on a new video camera in your home for school lessons. Here are answers to some common questions from parents now forced to manage their kids’ virtual educations. Q:We don’t have a computer/enoughcomputers/fast enough internet service for online school. What do we do? A:This affects millions of people, and there…

Gloria Steinem is always in conversation with herself in “ The Glorias,” a sprawling and thoughtful biopic of the writer and activist. Director Julie Taymor knows better than to try to capture her entire life in a film, even one as long as this, and her reflective odyssey of a woman and icon who never stops growing is a beautifully messy attempt at something bigger. It doesn’t always work, but has a natural engine and spirit to it that keeps you focused. The film is based on Steinem’s memoir “My Life on the Road,” a concept which Taymor chooses to employ both literally and figuratively. Her Glorias, Julianne Moore as the middle aged version, Alicia Vikander as the young woman, Lulu Wilson as the teen and Ryan Kira Armstrong as…

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Uber can keep operating in London for another year and a half after winning its appeal of a decision by the British capital’s transit regulator not to renew its license. The San Francisco-based ride-hailing company had challenged Transport for London’s decision in late 2019 not to renew its operating license over safety concerns involving impostor drivers. Deputy Chief Magistrate Tan Ikram said he found Uber to be “fit and proper” and granted the company an 18-month license extension, which comes with 21 conditions including providing regular, independent reports to authorities. The company said the decision is a “recognition of Uber’s commitment to safety” and it will “continue to work constructively” with the regulator. It’s a crucial legal victory in a lucrative European market as the company struggles to turn a…

In the space of a few minutes, on a prerecorded video filmed thousands of miles from where it was shown, the tech-savvy president of El Salvador captured the two strikingly different sides of this year’s unprecedented — and virtual — “gathering” of world leaders “at” the U.N. General Assembly in 2020. On one hand, Nayib Bukele said, humanity holds in its smartphone-clutching hands a 21st-century miracle: “In a world which is almost completely connected, I can say a few words here and be heard in the farthest corners of the world.” And yet, in the same speech Tuesday, he raised this ever-present doubt: When the people who govern the world were delivering sequestered addresses to the United Nations this past week, was anybody actually listening? “If you don’t believe me,”…