Innholdsfortegnelse for #366 i Techlife News

Carrying signs with messages such as “Don’t be evil,” Google employees around the world walked off the job Thursday in a protest against what they said is the tech company’s mishandling of sexual misconduct allegations against executives. Employees staged walkouts at offices from Tokyo to Singapore to London. Hundreds protested outside Google’s office in New York, and others were expected to do so in California later in the day. In Dublin, organizers used megaphones to address the crowd of men and women to express their support for victims of sexual harassment. Other workers shied away from the media spotlight, with people gathering instead indoors, in packed conference rooms or lobbies, to show their solidarity with abuse victims. Protesters in New York carried signs with such messages as “Not OK Google”…

After years of delay, including lengthy court battles and passionate protests from those willing to be arrested for blocking construction crews, builders of a giant telescope plan to move forward with constructing the $1.4 billion instrument on a Hawaii mountain that is considered sacred. The state Supreme Court’s 4-1 ruling upholding the project’s construction permit Tuesday is a victory for the contentious Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Hawaii’s tallest mountain, Mauna Kea. Opponents say the telescope will desecrate sacred land on the Big Island. Supporters say it will bring educational and economic opportunities to the state. Astronomy and Native Hawaiian “uses on Mauna Kea have co-existed for many years and the TMT Project will not curtail or restrict Native Hawaiian uses,” the ruling said. The advanced telescope will answer some…

Netflix will give three films an exclusive run in theaters before making them available on its streaming service. Up until now, Netflix has steadfastly insisted on releasing films in theaters only simultaneously with their streaming premiere. Netflix’s major pivot will give a handful of its most anticipated movies a stand-alone run in a relatively small number of theaters. Major chains still refuse to screen films that don’t adhere to an exclusive 90-day window. Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” the Coen brothers’ “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” and the Sandra Bullock-starring thriller “Bird Box” will play in theaters for one to three weeks before premiering on Netflix. The move could aid the Oscar aspirations of “Buster Scruggs” and, in particular, “Roma,” which critics have hailed as one of the year’s best.…

Southern California-based Virgin Orbit has reached a milestone in developing its airborne orbital launch system. The company says this week it mated a LauncherOne rocket to a special Boeing 747 at Long Beach Airport and will soon begin a series of flights that will culminate with a drop test in which the booster will be released from beneath the jet’s left wing. The system is intended to carry small satellites into orbit. Virgin Orbit is a sister company of Virgin Galactic, which is developing an air-launched rocket plane for carrying tourists on suborbital flights into space. Virgin Orbit said it already has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of launches on contract for a wide range of customers including NASA and the U.S. Defense Department.…

MORE IN THE MAKING Spirits were high at Apple’s ‘There’s more in the making’ event, which was held at the Howard Gilman Opera House in Brooklyn, New York on October 30. Hot off the heels of the launch of the new iPhone XS, XS Max and XR, Tim Cook and Co were ready to show off next-generation models of two of the company’s most beloved products: the Mac, and the iPad. Introducing a whole host of new editions, this was an Apple event to remember, and professionals’ hunger for new high-end tablets and notebooks was finally fed. In this week’s issue, we uncover the all-new iPad Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini, and see what technology critics and the public had to say. A BRAND NEW MACBOOK AIR After the…

The Beatles have released a new music video on Apple Music for their 1968 song, “Glass Onion.” The video was released Tuesday and features rare photos and performance footage. The song appeared on their self-titled ninth album, often referred to as the “White Album,” which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The Beatles will re-release the “White Album” on Nov. 9, featuring 30 tracks newly mixed by Giles Martin, the son of longtime Beatles producer George Martin. The repackaging also includes 27 acoustic demos of material the Beatles made at George Harrison’s house before recording sessions began, as well as 50 studio outtakes.…

IBM’s plan to buy Red Hat is both the biggest acquisition in IBM’s century-long history and a risky effort to position itself as a major player in cloud computing. The $34 billion stock deal translates to $190 per Red Hat share — a 63 percent premium to the closing price Friday for the Raleigh, North Carolina, company. Red Hat Inc.’s stock soared about 45 percent in trading Monday. The path for revitalization for IBM may be found in cloud technology, a driving force behind the blockbuster deal for Red Hat over the weekend. “It’s a big bet but ultimately they’re in a situation where they needed to make a significant acquisition to move them potentially forward,” Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said. Cloud computing, in which services are delivered over the…

It was the kind of security lapse that gives election officials nightmares. In 2017, a private contractor left data on Chicago’s 1.8 million registered voters — including addresses, birth dates and partial Social Security numbers — publicly exposed for months on an Amazon cloud server. Later, at a tense hearing , Chicago’s Board of Elections dressed down the top three executives of Election Systems & Software, the nation’s dominant supplier of election equipment and services. The three shifted uneasily on folding chairs as board members grilled them about what went wrong. ES&S CEO Tom Burt apologized and repeatedly stressed that there was no evidence hackers downloaded the data. The Chicago lapse provided a rare moment of public accountability for the closely held businesses that have come to serve as front-line…

The Trump administration has imposed restrictions on technology exports to a state-supported Chinese semiconductor maker, citing national security grounds amid a mounting tariff battle. The controls imposed Monday on Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. reflect concern Chinese competition could drive American technology suppliers out of business, leaving the military without secure sources of components. Beijing has spent heavily to build up Jinhua and other chip makers as part of efforts to transform China into a global leader in robotics, artificial intelligence and other technology industries. The United States, Europe and other trading partners say Beijing’s tactics violate its market-opening obligations. American officials worry they might erode U.S. industrial leadership. President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs of up to 25 percent on $250 billion of Chinese goods in an effort to…

Turkey’s president inaugurated a gleaming new aviation hub in Istanbul this week, a megaproject that he has pushed to fulfill his dream of making Turkey a global player. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Istanbul Airport was open for operations on a special day — the 95th anniversary of Turkey’s establishment as a republic following its war of independence. With the sprawling new airport on shores of the Black Sea, Erdogan declared that Turkey has become the “most important transit location on the north-south, east-west axes, connecting 60 countries and $20 trillion economies.” “With this airport, we are furthering our country’s key role in the integration of global economies,” he said. It was a symbolic opening, with only a few flights scheduled this week. But by the end of the…

A group of Republican senators urged President Donald Trump on Wednesday to suspend negotiations with Saudi Arabia on a potentially lucrative atomic energy agreement following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Lawmakers led by Marco Rubio of Florida said in a letter to the president that they had reservations about the transfer of nuclear power technology even before the Oct. 2 slaying of Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. They warned they would work to block an agreement from securing congressional approval if the administration pushes ahead. They noted their concern over Saudi Arabia’s refusal to consider a nuclear energy agreement that would prohibit the kingdom from pursuing uranium enrichment and plutonium processing “that can bring a nation within weeks of producing a nuclear weapon.”The United Arab Emirates accepted…

So Disney has gone ahead and made a Christmas movie from “The Nutcracker.” Is this what we’re doing now? We’re making big Hollywood movies from 19th century ballets? Anyone have any fresh ideas at all? Talk about low-hanging fruit: It’s a sugar plum. “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms ” is visually marvelous, inconsistently acted and rather incoherent in that fantasy genre way. There’s not even that much dancing, to tell the truth. Little kids might end up too scared and adults may need several shots of insulin. There’s a lot of stuff going on here so hold onto your popcorn. The story is based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original 1816 tale, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” which went on to become a celebrated ballet with stirring music by Tchaikovsky.…

Mission director and chief engineer Marc Rayman insisted he wasn’t sad. Rather, he said in an email, “I’m thrilled it was so fantastically exciting and productive. Dawn was a spectacular success by any measure. It carried humankind on a truly amazing deep space adventure with stunning discoveries.” Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt, followed by Vesta. The “astounding” images collected by Dawn are shedding light on the history and evolution of our solar system, said NASA’s science mission chief, Thomas Zurbuchen. Dawn should remain in orbit around Ceres for decades, according to NASA. “To me, that is a fitting end to an extraordinary extraterrestrial expedition,” Rayman said.…

Red’s goals are modest — about 16 million units a year, based on Red’s stated target of 0.5 percent of Samsung’s sales. But Red will need customers beyond the tech elite and camera buffs; it’ll need their friends and friends of their friends. It doesn’t help that the Hydrogen One carries a hefty $1,295 price tag. “The Red Hydrogen One stands little chance of upsetting the smartphone status quo,” said Geoff Blaber, a research analyst at CCS Insight. Chipping away at Apple’s and Samsung’s dominance is much harder than it used to be because phone innovation isn’t so much about hardware any more, Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi said. What matters more, she said, is the software and artificial intelligence behind it. Consider Apple’s new iPhones. Sure, the new XR…

The robotic car company created by Google is poised to attempt a major technological leap in California, where its vehicles will hit the roads without a human on hand to take control in emergencies. The regulatory approval announced this week allows Waymo’s driverless cars to cruise through California at speeds up to 65 miles per hour. The self-driving cars have traveled millions of miles on the state’s roads since Waymo began as a secretive project within Google nearly a decade ago. But a backup driver had been required to be behind the wheel until new regulations in April set the stage for the transition to true autonomy. Waymo is the first among dozens of companies testing self-driving cars in California to persuade state regulators its technology is safe enough to…

Where does a preening, pansexual rock god get his powers? The Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” traces his sonorous majesty to an unlikely place: his back teeth. Mercury, nee Farrokh Bulsara, was born with four extra incisors, giving him a bigger mouth. Introducing himself to his future Queen bandmates Mercury, as played by Rami Malek, explains that the added chompers have benefits beyond a provocative, pronounced overbite. It endows him with enhanced vocal range. Teeth-assisted or not, Mercury’s voice was so expansive that it prompted genuine scientific inquiry. But range is one thing sorely lacking in Bryan Singer’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” a slavishly conventional rock biopic that at every turn opts for the stereotypical despite a subject who devoted himself to the unconventional. It’s a remarkably bland movie about a deliciously…

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is now closer to the sun than any spacecraft has ever gotten. Parker surpassed the record of 26.6 million miles (43 million kilometers) set by Helios-2 back in 1976. And it will keep getting closer to the sun until it flies through the corona, or outer atmosphere, for the first time next week, passing within 15 million miles (24 million kilometers) of the solar surface. Parker will make 24 close approaches to the sun over the next seven years, ultimately coming within just 3.8 million miles (6 million kilometers). Launched in August, Parker is on track to set another record late Monday night. It will surpass Helios-2’s speed record of 153,454 miles per hour (247,000 kilometers per hour), relative to the sun.…

Facebook didn’t hit it out of the ballpark with its latest quarterly report, but the bar isn’t so high these days for the image-battered social networking giant. The company reported a slight revenue miss but stronger than expected profit for the July-September period. Coming three months after its stock suffered its worst one-day drop in history, wiping out $119 billion of its market value, the mixed results were perhaps not the redemption Facebook hoped for. Shares were volatile in after-hours trading — dropping the most, briefly, when executives discussed a decline in expected revenue growth and increasing expenses during the conference call. Still, the stock generally vacillated in the low single-digit percentages, suggesting, at least, that the social media giant didn’t spook investors too badly. With the myriad problems Facebook…

Johannes Bahrke, spokesman at the EU’s executive Commission, defended the proposal Tuesday, saying it aims to create a “level playing field” for companies whether they are based in or outside the EU. “Our proposal remains fully grounded on the most basic principle of corporate taxation which is that profits should be taxed where the value is created,” he said. However, Bahrke added that the commission would prefer an international agreement to a new EU law. The European Commission unveiled its plan in March, insisting that EU member countries should be able to tax firms that make profits on their territory even if they aren’t physically present. The proposal was seen as a way of making tech giants like Google and Facebook pay more taxes. Brussels argues that corporate tax rules…

A Florida man says the autopilot feature of his Tesla vehicle failed to detect a disabled car on a highway, leading to a collision that left him with permanent injuries, according to a negligence lawsuit filed this week. Shawn Hudson said in the lawsuit filed in state court in Orlando, Florida, that Tesla made false statements about the autopilot safety on his Tesla Model S. It’s the second such lawsuit in as many months. A Utah driver filed a similar complaint last month. Hudson and his attorney said at a news conference that Tesla lulls drivers into a false-sense of security that the cars can drive themselves when the autopilot function is used. But when there is a danger on the road, drivers have no time to react, they said.…

For many Jewish journalists in the U.S., persistent online anti-Semitic harassment has become part of the job. The phenomenon became pervasive during the 2016 presidential campaign, and there’s been a resurgence in recent months ahead of next week’s midterm election, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Targeted journalists have found different ways of responding. CNN commentator Sally Kohn reaches out kindly to some of her online harassers. Michael Duke, an editor at the Houston-based Jewish Herald-Voice, has reduced his use of social media. Yair Rosenberg, a writer with Tablet Magazine, developed a method of tracking down and disrupting anti-Semitic accounts on Twitter. Rosenberg has written in detail about the vitriol directed at him, including a doctored photo showing him a gas chamber. When the ADL reported that he received the second-most…

THE ‘ENTRY-LEVEL’ DEVICE IS ALREADY PROVING A HIT On Friday, October 26, the iPhone XR wasreleased to a largely rapturous response. Indeed, in the run-up to the handset’s retail release, Apple went as far as sharing aroundup of positive reactions from critics . Digital Trends, for instance, has hailed the “stunning” colors, “great” battery life and “industry-leading” Face ID technology – and with all of this being available from just $749, the iPhone XR has also been deemed great value for money. Daring Fireball called the XR, in this respect, “almost certainly the best iPhone Apple has ever made.” A ‘CHEAPER’ iPHONE WITH A DIFFERENCE Nonetheless, what such effusive comments as the above perhaps fail to highlight is that the iPhone XR is, at its heart, a curious beast compared…

Google will give away $25 million to projects that propose ways to use the artificial intelligence of computers to help create a more humane society. The grant program announced Monday is part of a broader Google initiative called “AI for Social Good” that aims to ease concerns that advances in artificial intelligence will eliminate jobs and perhaps even be autonomously deployed by militaries to kill people. Other technology companies have taken similar steps to address ethical issues in AI. For instance, Microsoft has committed $115 million to an “AI for Good” initiative that provides grants to organizations harnessing AI for humanitarian, accessibility and environmental projects. During a presentation in Sunnyvale, California, Google demonstrated how its AI technology is already being used to diagnose diseases, help people with disabilities, predict areas…

People can livestream their every move on Facebook and chatter endlessly in group chats. But in most parts of the U.S., they still can’t reach 911 by texting — an especially important service during mass shootings and other catastrophes when a phone call could place someone in danger. Although text-to-911 service is slowly expanding, the emphasis there is on “slow.” Limited funds, piecemeal adoption and outdated call-center technology have all helped stymie growth. Emergency 911 centers stress that a phone call is still the best way to reach them, since calls provide them with location data and other needed details. But in some cases — for instance, if a person has a hearing disability, or when a call might attract the attention of assailants — texting is a far better…

Investors for years have seemingly adored technology stocks as much as most people love their smartphones. But Wall Street has suddenly soured on Silicon Valley and the rest of tech, triggering a stomach-churning downturn in a turbulent October. Some of the hardest hit stocks belong to five companies — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google. They have collectively attracted billions to their products, carving out lucrative markets they each dominate in an increasingly digital world. Investors latched on to their success and gave them their own acronym, “FAANG.” (It’s still in use even though Google now trades under the stock of its parent Alphabet Inc.) What a difference a month makes. Since the end of September, individual FAANG stocks have plunged between 4 percent and 20 percent, collectively wiping out…

The Hubble Space Telescope is studying the cosmos once again after a three-week shutdown. NASA says the orbiting observatory resumed scientific observations over the weekend. Hubble’s pointing system was compromised earlier this month when an old gyroscope finally failed. The backup did not kick in properly, forcing flight controllers to come up with a fix. Controllers managed to coax the backup gyroscope into operation through a variety of maneuvers and switches. Three gyroscopes need to be working for optimal performance. Launched in 1990, Hubble has made more than 1.3 million observations of stars, galaxies, black holes and other celestial targets. Some are more than 13 billion light-years away. The telescope resumed operations Saturday by staring down a distant star-forming galaxy in the infrared.…

The Supreme Court struggled this week over what to do about an $8.5 million class-action settlement involving Google and privacy concerns in which all the money went to lawyers and nonprofit groups but nothing was paid to 129 million people who used Google to perform internet searches. The justices considered objections to the settlement in a case involving Google searches people do about themselves. The lawsuit argues that Google sends website operators potentially identifying information when someone clicks on a link produced by a search. The suit says the practice violates users’ privacy under federal law. The issue at the court concerns the rare instances in which courts approve a “cy pres” settlement, roughly translated as near as possible, and find it’s impractical to send money to the very large…

Parliamentary committees in Britain and Canada on Wednesday urged Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before a joint hearing of international lawmakers examining fake news and the internet. Damian Collins, the head of the U.K. parliament’s media committee, is joining forces with his Canadian counter part, Bob Zimmer, to pressure Zuckerberg to personally take part in hearings, as he did before the U.S Congress and the European Parliament. The so-called “international grand committee” session would be held Nov. 27 and could include lawmakers from other countries. “We understand that it is not possible to make yourself available to all parliaments. However, we believe that your users in other countries need a line of accountability to your organization_directly, via yourself,” the pair said in a letter to Zuckerberg. “We would have…