Apple's actions in China regarding the removal of unlicensed VPN apps are not at odds with its refusal in the US to unlock an iPhone that belonged to a San Bernardino shooter, Apple's chief executive said during Tuesday's post-earnings conference call with investors and analysts.
A limited run of “Assembled in India” iPhone SE models is now rolling from the assembly lines in India, run by Apple's contract manufacturer Wistron, but the Cupertino technology giant is now seeking extend tax breaks for its suppliers to build iPhones in the country from scratch.
Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii and gateway to the US island chain, has become the first US city to pass a legislation aimed at reducing injuries and deaths from “distracted walking”.
On Saturday, Apple removed all major VPN apps that could be used to evade government censorship from its App Store in China. Unsurprisingly, the firm said in a statement today that it's simply complying with government regulations put in place earlier in the year.
Having concluded its seven-year antitrust investigation against Google, dating back to 2010, the European Commission today announced it has imposed a record €2.4 billion fine on the company (about $2.7 billion) over search engine results.
The Commission took issue with the fact that Google has been promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results while demoting those of its competitors. The Commission said in July of last year that Google had “abused its dominant position by systematically favouring its comparison shopping service in its search result pages.”
The company now has 60 days to tell the Commission how it will accomplish the order.
If it doesn't comply with the ruling within 90 days and stop its illegal search practices in the European Union markets, the Commission can slap the company with additional fines.
According to The Guardian newspaper, European regulators have the power to fine Google up to five percent of the average daily worldwide turnover of its parent company, Alphabet.
European Commission Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement:
Google has come up with many innovative products and services that have made a difference to our lives. That's a good thing. But Google's strategy for its comparison shopping service wasn't just about attracting customers by making its product better than those of its rivals.
Google is going to appeal the decision.
The company said in a statement on its official blog that it believes the decision is in error:
We believe the European Commission's online shopping decision underestimates the value of those kinds of fast and easy connections. While some comparison shopping sites naturally want Google to show them more prominently, our data show that people usually prefer links that take them directly to the products they want, not to websites where they have to repeat their searches.
We think our current shopping results are useful and are a much-improved version of the text-only ads we showed a decade ago. Showing ads that include pictures, ratings, and prices benefits us, our advertisers, and most of all, our users. And we show them only when your feedback tells us they are relevant. Thousands of European merchants use these ads to compete with larger companies like Amazon and eBay.
Google is basically saying that it's not demoting competing comparison shopping products in search results, claiming it's simply packaging search results in a way that makes it easier for consumers to find what they want.
The European Commission has been conducting antitrust investigations into Google's Android software and its AdSense advertising products and services, too.
Apple CEO Tim Cook and other technology leaders met with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House today to share their views on how the federal government could improve its public services and use technology to reduce government spending.
According to Recode, Cook told Trump that coding should be a requirement in schools.
Cook said the same thing when Apple debuted the Swift Playgrounds app, saying that “We believe coding should be a required language in all schools.”
Cook also suggested that the White House modernize the US government's IT systems.
“The US should have the most modern government in the world. Today it doesn’t,” Cook said. The White House released a video of the meeting. Here's what Cook said in full (edited for clarity):
The United States should have the most modern government in the world, but today it doesn’t. It’s great to see the effort that Jared is putting in working on things that will pay back in five and ten and twenty years.
The government should be focused on its citizens and the services of the government should be measured on how pleased the citizens are with receiving those services.
That basic premise is not how it’s done today.
I would really encourage you to ask the cabinet how they’re measuring their parts of government and what they’re doing to serve the citizens that they’re meant to serve.
Unrelated, I think coding should be a requirement in every public school. We have a huge deficit in the skills that we need today versus the skills that are there. We are trying to do our part or, hopefully, more than our part in doing that.
But I think leadership from government is also key.
And here's the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKUU9VavTjE
Trump said the government could save up to $1 trillion over 10 years by updating its information technology systems, which should help cut costs and improve public services.
“Our goal is to lead a sweeping transformation of the federal government’s technology that will deliver dramatically better services for citizens,” Trump said. “Government needs to catch up with the technology revolution. We’re going to change that with the help of great American businesses like the people assembled.”
He called for a “sweeping transformation” of the government's outdated computer systems.
Amazon's Bezos added that the government should make more use of commercially available technologies and Palantir CEO Alex Karp suggested tapping into big data in order to catch and prevent fraudulent federal spending.
Trump's remarks are available on the White House website.
https://twitter.com/BouchardAnthony/status/877196743070429184
By the way, we're running a caption contest for that photo top of post.
Image: Carlos Barria/Reuters
A new batch of confidential “Vault 7” documents, leaked by the non-profit whistleblower organization WikiLeaks, has revealed that the United States Central Intelligence Agency has been hacking routers from major brands for years, turning them into surveillance devices.
The reported "Cherry Blossom" tool can modify a router's firmware without a victim's knowledge, giving the attacker a wide range of capabilities like eavesdropping on network traffic, gathering passwords, scanning for email addresses and phone numbers and more.
The attacker even has the power to redirect an unsuspecting user to a particular website, including government-created webpages used for phishing purposes.
Once infected, the backdoor remains functional even after a router is updated to a newer firmware version, so long as it has not changed its underlying hardware or operating system.
The hack cannot be deployed remotely. Instead, the CIA can install it on a target router using its Claymore tool or by side-loading a compromised firmware using supply chain tactics (intercepting the target device between the factory and the end user).
ZDNet reports that the documents reveal that the “Cherry Blossom” hack supports more than two-dozen router models from major manufacturers.
Among the compromised router brands are the devices from Asus, Belkin, Buffalo, Dell, Dlink, Linksys, Motorola, Netgear, Senao and US Robotics. However, Apple's AirPort devices don't seem to be among them, but the fact they're not listed doesn't mean that the CIA hasn't hacked Time Capsule and AirPort devices.
Apple could open an app development center in Jakarta, the capital and the most populous city of Indonesia and home to an upcoming Apple research and development center.
According to a source who spoke with Japanese outlet Nikkei, Apple's app development center will open in suburban Jakarta as early as October, allowing the company to start selling its newest phones in Indonesia.
The Cupertino technology giant currently relies on a network of resellers to push iPhones in the country as the devices are unavailable through its online store in Indonesia.
But what do apps have to do with hardware sales?
Nikkei explains that Indonesia in 2015 imposed regulatory rules requiring phones sold in the country to use at least 30 percent locally procured components by 2017. Apple did not set up local production in the country, but last year the government had a change of heart and now counts locally developed mobile apps as “locally produced” content for smartphones.
Sensing an opportunity, Apple is now set to open an app development facility in Jakarta.
However, the policy change has drawn the ire of Samsung, which in 2015 established a smartphone production line inside its existing manufacturing plant in suburban Jakarta.
“Had the rule on app development come earlier, the South Korean company could have saved a lot of money by using Apple's approach,” added Nikkei. “Policy shift means Apple can meet the quota with a smaller investment,” reads the article.
Similar sourcing requirements for foreign goods have prevented Apple from selling iPhones directly to customers in India. Recently, however, Apple and the Indian government have come to terms of doing business locally, paving the way for iPhone SE production in the country.
Just how much did the tool to break into the San Bernardino gunman's locked iPhone 5c cost US taxpayers? According to senator Dianne Feinstein, the Federal Bureau of Investigation coughed up a cool $900,000 to purchase the tool from a third-party.
The Associated Press said Monday that the classified information was revealed during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, where senator Feinstein was questioning FBI director James Comey.
“I was so struck when San Bernardino happened and you made overtures to allow that device to be opened, and then the FBI had to spend $900,000 to hack it open,” said Feinstein, D-Calif. “And as I subsequently learned of some of the reason for it, there were good reasons to get into that device.”
While the tool's vendor wasn't named, it's been speculated that the FBI bought the software from Israeli digital forensics firm Cellebrite.
Comey called the sum “worth it” even though the FBI itself said it found “nothing of real significance” after gaining access to the device.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM7X-EUTowY
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The FBI sought to protect the identity of the vendor it paid to do the work.
The organization considers the exact sum paid for the tool to be classified information, prompting The Associated Press and a few other news organizations to file a public records lawsuit seeking to force the government to publicly reveal both pieces of information.
Chinese regulators have taken issue with live-streaming apps that can be downloaded from App Store. As Reuters said Wednesday citing the official Xinhua News Agency, a government body in China’s capital charged with regulating Internet services is planning to “summon” Apple and urge the company to “tighten its checks” regarding live-streaming apps on App Store.
While the FCC fought hard to keep your internet browsing data safe from third parties, it appears the United States government has other interests in mind. That said, your internet service provider (ISP) may soon begin selling your personal internet browsing data to third parties, putting your privacy at risk of exploitation.
On the other hand, there's still a way you can protect yourself and your data. Using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) will keep your internet browsing data hidden from your ISP, which in turn keeps it from being sold to third parties.
Business Insider reports that Apple has joined Amazon, Microsoft and Cisco in filing a joint amicus brief in support of Google's opposition to a warrant by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seeking to extract emails stored on non-US servers.
In response to the FBI warrant, a court in Pennsylvania recently ruled that Google must hand over emails stored on non-US servers. The joint filing claims the warrant could set a troubling precedent and force Google to violate foreign data privacy laws.