Innholdsfortegnelse for #359 i Techlife News

Twenty years after Larry Page and Sergey Brin set out to organize all of the internet’s information, the search engine they named Google has morphed into a dominating force in smartphones, online video, email, maps and much more. That resounding success now has regulators and lawmakers around the world questioning whether the company has become too powerful as its ubiquitous services vacuum up sensitive information about billions of people hooked on its products. Google’s search engine remains entrenched as the internet’s main gateway, and its digital advertising business is on pace to generate about $110 billion in revenue this year. Much of that revenue now flows through Google’s Android operating system, which powers 80 percent of the world’s smartphones. Google also runs the biggest video site in YouTube, the most…

The idea of a low-cost iPhone has been rumored for a number of years. Indeed, Apple has experimented with more affordable models in the past, with the firm launching the iPhone5C back in 2013 and then iPhone SE in March2016 to appease ‘customers who enjoy smaller screen sizes’. As well as adopting a smaller screen, the devices were praised for bringing the iPhone - and iOS ecosystem - to a whole new audience of consumers who couldn’t afford a flagship iPhone, and to children as a ‘My First iPhone’ device. But after several years without a refresh, rumors were rife that Apple was to launch aChina-only model with dual SIM-card but laterleaks confirmed that the iPhone XR would be unveiled at the September 2018 iPhone event. As expected, Apple used…

A new report by congressional investigators details how hackers broke into Equifax last year in a breach that exposed the financial information of more than 145 million Americans. The lawmakers who requested the report say they will press the Trump administration on the lack of enforcement actions against the giant credit-reporting agency. Shares of Equifax plunged by about one-third last year after news broke about the massive breach. Since then, the stock has recovered to about $10 below its peak before all the bad news and closed last week at $135.91 a share. The company has reported a profit of $236 million this year, and second-quarter profit was down just 12 percent from the same period last year despite the breach. Here is what you need to know about the…

iTunes Review Tag Five competitive friends continue their childhood game of tag to adulthood, raising the stakes as they risk their jobs, relationships and lives to defeat one another. This year the game takes place at the same time as one of the friends’ weddings – the friend who has never been caught and declared ‘it’. The other four friends decide to work together to finally take him down, going to extreme lengths to do so. FIVE FACTS: 1. Jeff Tomsic makes his directorial debut with this film. 2. The film is based on a true story of a group of friends from Spokane, Washington. 3. In January 2013, the real-life group of friends were profiled in The Wall Street Journal. Following this, they received many offers to have their…

Scaling Emmy heights is tough in the era of so-called peak TV, with the volume of shows matched by lofty expectations from academy voters. Good isn’t enough for comedies and dramas, which need to resonate with the current political and social zeitgeist. Actors who also pull off the high-wire act of writing and directing collect more respect and trophies. Talent aside, a lavish marketing campaign helps in a crowded field: With as many as seven or eight nominees in some key categories, about 14 percent of the TV academy vote can determine who gets a trophy, according to awards website Gold Derby. So is it “Game of Thrones” (with a leading 22 nods, but the majority technical ones) or “The Handmaid’s Tale” for best drama? Will Donald Glover repeat as…

A federal safety agency is recommending that all new motorcycles built for road use in the U.S. have anti-lock brakes and electronic stability control as standard equipment. The National Transportation Safety Board voted 5-0 to make the recommendations to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has authority to impose regulations. NHTSA wouldn’t answer specific questions about the recommendations but said in a statement that it takes a “data-driven, fact-based approach” to vehicle safety and will take action as warranted. During a public hearing Tuesday, the NTSB said that while the technology is required on passenger cars, it has lagged for motorcycles and requiring it would save lives. The agency said 5,286 motorcyclists were killed on U.S. roads in 2016, the last year for which statistics are available. “Riders need…

A group of scientists unveiled the first results this week of an ambitious effort to map the genes of tens of thousands of animal species, a project they said could help save animals from extinction down the line. The scientists are working with the Genome 10,000 consortium on the Vertebrate Genomes Project, which is seeking to map the genomes of all 66,000 species of mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian and fish on Earth. Genome 10,000 has members at more than 50 institutions around the globe, and the Vertebrate Genomes Project last year. The consortium released the first 15 such maps, ranging from the Canada lynx to the kakapo, a flightless parrot native to New Zealand. The genome is the entire set of genetic material that is present in an organism. The…

Three lawmakers want to see a U.S. intelligence assessment of the threat posed by technology that lets anyone make fake but realistic videos of real people saying things they never said. The rising capabilities of the technology are fueling concerns it could be used to make a bogus video, for example, of an American politician accepting a bribe or of a U.S. or foreign leader warning of an impending disaster. The lawmakers wrote National Intelligence Director Dan Coats on Thursday asking for a report by mid-December that assesses how the bogus high-tech videos, known as deepfakes, could threaten U.S. national security. Democratic Reps. Adam Smith of California and Stephanie Murphy of Florida and Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida say they worry adversaries will use the fake videos to undermine…

Washington has invited Beijing to hold new talks on their escalating tariff dispute, the Chinese foreign ministry said Thursday, ahead of a decision by President Donald Trump on whether to raise duties on $200 billion of Chinese imports. The announcement followed reports by American and European chambers of commerce that foreign companies in China have been hurt by earlier tariff hikes by both sides in the fight over Beijing’s technology policy. “We have indeed received an invitation from the U.S. side. We welcome it,” said a ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang. “Now the two sides are in communication on relevant details.” Envoys from the two countries last met Aug. 22 in Washington but reported no progress. Beijing has rejected pressure from the United States to roll back plans for state-led development…

Swedish regulators have closed their investigation of a birth control app after finding that the rate of unwanted pregnancies, which had gained media attention, was actually in line with clinical data. The Swedish Medical Products Agency said Thursday a review found about 7 percent of women using the Natural Cycles app got pregnant in the first half of the year, equal to the “typical use” failure rate in the clinical study submitted for its European certification. Authorities launched the probe after reports of unwanted pregnancies drew attention to the Swedish startup. Natural Cycles last month became the first ever digital contraceptive device to win U.S. Food and Drug Administration marketing approval, underscoring the rapid rise of mobile health applications. Britain’s advertising regulator ruled in August that the company’s Facebook ad…

The event started with a short movie showing an Apple employee running around the Cupertino complex, performing various feats of parkour, with an urgent package to deliver to Tim Cook. Is this the new iPhone or Apple Watch to be unveiled in the presentation? It turned out to be the slide clicker to go through the presentation! Tim Cook, part-time movie star, full-time Apple CEO, came out in the same clothes he was wearing in the movie to warm applause and cheers. He announced that Apple had just celebrated another milestone – this time that the company was about to ship its two-billionth iOS device. The first announcement was the much anticipated Apple Watch Series 4 with notable design and engineering improvements which Cook described as “the definitive intelligent guardian…

President Donald Trump concedes that some Apple Inc. products may become more expensive if his administration imposes “massive” additional tariffs on Chinese-made goods, but he says the tech company can fix the problem by moving production to the U.S. “Start building new plants now. Exciting!” Trump said in a tweet aimed at the Cupertino, California-based company. This week, Apple said that a proposed new round of $200 billion in additional tariffs on Chinese imports would raise prices on some of its products, including the Apple Watch and the Mac mini. The company is highly exposed to a trade war between the U.S. and China. It makes many of its products for the U.S. market in China, and it also sells gadgets including the iPhone in China, making them a potential…

Verizon is replacing its media and advertising chief Tim Armstrong. Oath President and COO K. Guru Gowrappan will assume the Oath CEO role Oct. 1. Armstrong will stay through year-end as a strategic adviser. Gowrappan joined Verizon in April and before that was global managing director of Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba. Amstrong was tasked with growing Verizon’s ad business in a challenge to Facebook and Google, but that business remains one of Verizon’s less profitable divisions. Armstrong came to Verizon when it bought AOL in 2015 and began overseeing Yahoo when Verizon bought it in 2017. Armstrong was one of Google’s early employees and was key to developing its digital ad business before joining AOL in 2009. Telecoms have been buying content makers to diversify as the wireless industry slows.…

The horror pic “The Nun” scared off the competition and dominated the North American box office in its first weekend in theaters, grossing $53.8 million. A spinoff of a character seen in “The Conjuring 2,” “The Nun” banked the most successful launch of the “Conjuring” universe, which also includes the “Annabelle” films. Another newcomer, STX’s “Peppermint,” starring Jennifer Garner as a mother out for vengeance, moved up to second place with $13.4 million, and ahead of “Crazy Rich Asians,” which fell to third place with $13.1 million. Fourth place went to the shark thriller“The Meg,” with $6.1 million, while the John Cho screen mystery“Searching”placed fifth with $4.6 million. The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average…

At the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of “A Star is Born,” Lady Gaga discusses how she’s similar to her character, while first-time director Bradley Cooper reveals where he found the confidence to pull the movie off. The response to Bradley Cooper’s romantic saga “A Star Is Born” has been intense. Critics have boasted of crying uncontrollably. Fans outside theaters have swooned for its star, Lady Gaga. Words like “glorious,”“rapturous” and, of course, “gaga” are running rampant. “Having been on the other side of it, when you do something that doesn’t do well, people tend to avoid you,” Cooper said in an interview alongside his co-star. “I don’t see people, like, going the other way as I’m walking down the street.” Quite the contrary. Since making landfall at the Toronto…

Intel Corp. is moving development of a new generation of storage and memory technology to its manufacturing plant in New Mexico. Gov. Susana Martinez made the announcement Monday, saying the work will result in more than 100 jobs at the Intel plant in Rio Rancho. Intel and Micron Technology in 2015 announced the development of 3D XPoint, a new class of storage and memory technology billed as faster and non-volatile. The two companies decided to dissolve their partnership this year, meaning Intel will be working independently on its plans for the technology. Plant manager Katie Prouty says Intel has a broad portfolio of products that are based on the technology. Since establishing operations in New Mexico in 1980, Intel says it has invested more than $15 billion to develop its…

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has snapped a dusty but cool selfie. NASA released the panorama this week. A thin layer of dust is visible on Curiosity , the result of a storm that enveloped Mars this summer. The darkish sky indicates dust still clogging the atmosphere in August, when the panorama was shot by Curiosity’s mast camera. The rover had just drilled for a new rock sample. Curiosity is nuclear-powered and therefore unaffected by the lack of sunlight. NASA’s older rover Opportunity, however, relies on solar power and has been silent since June. Flight controllers hope as the Martian sky continues to clear, Opportunity will get back in contact. But after almost 15 years exploring the red planet, Opportunity may not have the strength or ability for a comeback.…

The University of Wisconsin-Madison and Foxconn Technology Group will manage their new research partnership largely behind closed doors, documents detailing the agreement show. Foxconn and UW-Madison announced plans in August to create a technology institute on campus as well as a research facility in Mount Pleasant, where the Taiwanese electronics giant is constructing a massive flat-screen manufacturing facility with the help of up to $3.2 billion in state incentives. The deal also calls for Foxconn to provide up to $100 million in matching grants to fund engineering research at UW-Madison The Wisconsin State Journal reported Thursday that it has obtained documents outlining the agreement between UW-Madison and Foxconn. The documents indicate the school and the company will establish a joint steering committee to oversee the partnership. UW-Madison officials told the…

The Trump administration blacklisted two North Korean-controlled information technology companies based in China and Russia on Thursday as it pushed for progress by Kim Jong Un’s government on denuclearization. The Treasury Department announced it was designating China Silver Star, its North Korean CEO Jong Song Hwa, and its Russia-based sister company, Volasys Silver Star. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said that the sanctions were intended to stop the flow of illicit revenue to North Korea from overseas IT workers hiding behind front companies and aliases. The designation blocks any property those targeted may have in the U.S. and prohibits Americans from doing business with them. “Treasury is once again warning the IT industry, businesses, and individuals across the globe to take precautions to ensure that they are not unwittingly employing North…

Engineers are deploying a trash collection device to corral plastic litter floating between California and Hawaii in an attempt to clean up the world’s largest garbage patch in the heart of the Pacific Ocean. The 2,000-foot (600-meter) long floating boom is being towed from San Francisco to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — an island of trash twice the size of Texas. The system was created by The Ocean Cleanup, an organization founded by Boyan Slat, a 24-year-old innovator from the Netherlands who first became passionate about cleaning the oceans when he went scuba diving at age 16 in the Mediterranean Sea and saw more plastic bags than fish. “The plastic is really persistent and it doesn’t go away by itself and the time to act is now,” Slat said,…

THE NEXT-GENERATION iPHONE IS HERE It would be hard to imagine a September without an iPhone event, and this month did not disappoint. On September 12, Tim Cook and friends took to the stage at the Steve Jobs Theater on the Apple Park Campus in Cupertino, California for its much-publicized ‘Gather Round’ event, where the firm showed off its next-generation iPhones. Although many of the features were rumored - indeed, the iPhone XSwas leaked several weeks before its official unveiling - the keynote did include some surprises, including the announcement of a lower-cost iPhone. In this week’s edition, we delve deeper into one of the most exciting keynote presentations in Apple history and explore some of the features of the brand new iPhone XS, XS Max, and more. iPHONE XS…

Today’s teens are always on their smartphones, many check social media “constantly” and prefer texting over face-to-face communication. But a new poll finds that these same teens also say that social media has a positive effect on their lives, helping them feel more confident, less lonely and less depressed. The poll was released Monday by Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group focused on kids’ use of media and technology. It found that 89 percent of teenagers have their own smartphone. That’s up from 41 percent in 2012, the last time the survey was conducted. But while 2012’s teens were all over Facebook, the age group’s presence on the social network has plummeted in the past six years. Only 15 percent of teens now say Facebook is their main…

Hadeel Ayoub slips a black glove onto her hand before beginning the swish of sign language that is meaningless to the untrained observer. Then she pushes a button on her wrist, and a small speaker relays the message drawn in the air: “Let’s Dance!” “My dream is to give a voice to those who can’t speak,” says the 36-year-old inventor who is developing her BrightSign glove while working toward a Ph.D. in assistive technology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Ayoub’s glove is just one example of a bigger trend as entrepreneurs, startups and companies like Microsoft and Google try to harness the power of artificial intelligence to make life easier for people with disabilities. The initiatives come as the World Health Organization estimates that the number of people needing assistive…

As frightening as the “The Nun” is, it doesn’t hold a candle to today’s real-life horrors in the Catholic Church. But while a new generation of filmmakers has breathed new life into horror by embedding it with frightful and salient social commentary, the “The Conjuring” franchise — of which “The Nun” is a spinoff and the fifth installment — isn’t about anything so real. It’s about exhuming classic horror archetypes — creaky old houses and creepy old dolls — with (mostly) old-school effects. And what’s more old school than a mean ol’ nun? Set in 1952, “The Nun” is the origin story of Valak (Bonnie Aarons), a demonic nun who first turned up in “Conjuring 2,” as the pursuit of Vera Farmiga’s paranormal expert. This time, our protagonist is Sister…

South Dakota would start collecting sales taxes from many out-of-state internet retailers this fall under a bill the Legislature’s budget-writing committee endorsed Tuesday ahead of this week’s special legislative session to implement a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for the changes. Lawmakers gather Wednesday at the Capitol for the special session to consider Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s legislation, which would allow the collections to start Nov. 1. A second bill the panel recommended would require marketplaces that handle payments such as eBay to collect sales taxes for sellers on their platforms. “After working with the Department of Revenue and consulting with legislative leaders, I am proposing two bills that will allow the state of South Dakota to benefit from the national tax fairness victory that we led,” Daugaard…

Watch out for the 7-foot box on the doorstep. Amazon plans to sell and ship fresh, full-size Christmas trees this year. But a live tree is no paperback book. Amazon says the Christmas trees, including Douglas firs and Norfolk Island pines, will be bound and shipped without water in the usual sort of box. Amazon said they’ll be sent within 10 days of being cut down, possibly even sooner, and should survive the shipping just fine. Amazon.com said the trees, wreaths and garlands will go on sale in November. Some will qualify for Prime free shipping, and Amazon will offer pre-orders so shoppers can choose a delivery date. The company sold trees shorter than 3 feet last year, and some other merchants sold bigger ones using its platform as…

The Russian space agency’s chief has talked to his NASA counterpart about a mysterious leak at the International Space Station, Roscosmos said Thursday. The agency said that its director Dmitry Rogozin informed NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine about the Russian probe into the leak that was spotted last month in the Russian Soyuz spacecraft docked at the station. The crew of three Americans, two Russians and a German quickly located and sealed the tiny hole that created a slight loss of pressure. Roscosmos added that Rogozin and Bridenstine agreed Wednesday to refrain from any preliminary statements on the matter until the end of the official investigation. Rogozin has previously said that the hole could have been drilled during manufacturing or while in orbit, a statement that has raised some consternation. Without…

Google is going to Europe’s top court in its legal fight against an order requiring it to extend “right to be forgotten” rules to its search engines globally. The technology giant is set for a showdown at the European Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg with France’s data privacy regulator over an order to remove search results worldwide upon request. The dispute pits data privacy concerns against the public’s right to know, while also raising thorny questions about how to enforce differing legal jurisdictions when it comes to the borderless internet. The two sides will be seeking clarification on a 2015 decision by the French regulator requiring Google to remove results for all its search engines on request, and not just on European country sites like google.fr. Google declined to…

A Russian man considered to be one of the world’s most notorious hackers has pleaded guilty to U.S. charges alleging he operated a network of devices used to steal computer credentials, distribute spam emails and install malicious software. The Justice Department says Peter Levashov pleaded guilty this week in federal court in Hartford, Connecticut. Levashov was arrested in April 2017 while vacationing in Spain. His arrest was one of a series in the last few years targeting Russian cybercriminals outside their homeland, which has no extradition agreement with the United States. Federal officials have said Levashov was linked to a series of powerful botnets — networks of hijacked computers — to harvest email addresses, usernames and passwords. Prosecutors say he also distributed bulk spam emails, malware and other malicious software.…

Japan’s ultramodern conveniences, its zippy bullet trains, automated ticketing systems and smart homes work just fine, until the power goes out. The blackout across entire northern island of Hokkaido after a powerful earthquake struck showed the weak link in all that technology. It’s a problem shared by most affluent, and increasingly many other countries, but seems more apparent in this seismically overactive nation, where earthquakes and tsunamis are a constant threat and even the high-tech toilets have electronic flushes. The magnitude 6.7 quake on Hokkaido’s southern coast knocked out power to nearly all 3 million households on the island, forcing essential services such as hospitals and traffic lights to use generators or other backups. Damage to some generators was likely to delay the full restoration of power for more than…