Digital Trends writes: “The Millennium Falcon has arrived. After two years of construction, Han Solo’s ride is all set for takeoff at Disneyland’s upcoming Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge attraction, revealed in a behind-the-scenes image posted on the official Disneyland Instagram account.” I have a good feeling about this.

LONDON – There are over 6,000 traffic lights in London, which both pedestrians and drivers need to navigate as they make their way around the city. Wired has a fascinating feature on how the city’s transport authority, Transport for London, is hacking this network of traffic lights to make London more pleasant for pedestrians. What is more, AI and autonomous vehicles is likely to have a huge effect on how this all works in the future.

Such ideas don’t necessarily require technology, new innovations could further change our roads and the signals managing them. For example, researchers are working on ways to get rid of traffic lights entirely, with autonomous intersection management. Rather than wait at a red light, connected, self-driving cars schedule a route through a junction; because speeds and therefore positioning can be perfectly managed, all the cars can go at once, choreographed like a horrifying traffic ballet.

Lots of recent Apple coverage focussed on iPhone sales figures, Apple’s decision not to reveal iPhone sales figures, and the knock-on effect this has all had on the firm’s share price. However, Bloomberg reported that investors may have something to cheer about. It revealed positive sales numbers from Taiwanese firms that make components for the iPhone. Notably, it included data from Hon Hai Precision Industry, owned by major iPhone manufacturer Foxconn.

Revenue at the two main assemblers of iPhones showed growth that may surprise bears. Across a collection of Taiwanese suppliers, including component makers, November sales climbed 9.3 % from a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. Taiwan requires companies to report revenue monthly, giving the market unique mid-quarter insight into the hardware supply chain. At Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the flagship of Foxconn Technology Group, combined October and November sales grew 12.9% while Pegatron Corp. posted a 25% uptick.

Having mocked Apple for years for scrapping the iPhone’s headphone jack, Samsung has followed suit. Its new Galaxy A8s phone does not have the component. Instead, users need a USB-C to 3.5mm jack adapter to plug in headphones. Given the taunting adverts and on-stage jibes from Samsung executives about the lack of a headphone jack in the iPhone, I’m sure nobody at Apple will mention this…from MacRumors:

Samsung today introduced its latest smartphone, the Galaxy A8s. It is Samsung’s first smartphone with an Infinity-O display, which has a nearly edge-to-edge, uninterrupted design beyond a small hole for the front-facing camera. It is also Samsung’s first smartphone without a headphone jack, much to the amusement of iPhone users, as Samsung has mocked Apple for over two years over its decision to remove the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 in 2016, a trend that has continued through to the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR.

Redditor u/alanpegoli created a Shortcut that creates a playlist of your Top 100 songs in Apple Music. It’s a neat shortcut and a feature that Apple should build into Apple Music. Get the shortcut here: My Top Songs of the Year Playlist. My playlist has some great songs from artists like Kreator, Death Angel, Parkway Drive, Marilyn Manson, and a bunch more.

On stage at the Toronto Global Forum, Blackberry CEO John Chen says he values customer privacy.

Chen spoke about BlackBerry’s emphasis on privacy and security-focused software services, as it has moved away from competing with the likes of Google and Apple in the smartphone realm. The event took place the same morning that BlackBerry announced a new Security Credential Management System (SCMS) for cities and car companies, aimed at securing smart cities systems and autonomous vehicles.

You can’t steal customer data if you don’t have any customers. Also, there’s no such thing as privacy in a smart city, and it sounds like Blackberry is moving into that area.

At ars tecnnica: “Manufacturing is in the early stages of a state of disruption brought on by technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and 3D printing.” This fascinating discussion lays out a future in which humans and AIs partner to design machines which, in turn, redesign themselves on the job.  Amongst all the other possibilities, this would come in very handy for remote space probes and landers.

For example, a robot on Mars might detect very loose sand and determine it cannot move about efficiently to complete its mission,” explains Ben Schrauwen, co-founder and CTO of Oqton, an autonomous manufacturing platform.”The robot could learn to suggest different modalities on how to move in that environment, and, with 3D printing technology and some local robotics, it’s very conceivable that the robot could reconfigure itself at a distance to continue its mission unimpeded.”

Could Siri, someday, rewrite parts of iOS on the fly?