Charlotte Henry

When podcast app Luminary announced its subscription model and tweeted an image of a bunny with a sign saying “Podcasts don’t need ads,” it faced something of a backlash. The platform will exclusively host some original shows, but it will not have some very popular shows available. Luminary CEO and co-founder Matt Sacks sat down with The Verge to explain what happened, and what’s next for his firm.

What the $100 million venture-backed podcasting company was trying to communicate, Sacks says, is that podcast listeners should have a choice: pay for subscription-based shows without ads or listen to podcasts for free but deal with ads as a price.  “We really do feel like what we’re introducing is choice and optionality and trying to help elevate premium and paid podcasting, which would be good for creators and listeners, as well,” he says.

This week, Facebook banned far-right groups in the UK. These included the likes of  Britain First and the English Defence League. At Wired, Matt Reynolds looked at the profound shift by the company this move signalled.

And Facebook says it will go further than just banning these organisations and individuals. It will also go after their followers…This is a dramatic switch for a company that, until a month ago, still talked about itself as a digital “town square” – a space where all voices, including the distasteful and dubious, jostled for attention, free from any interference. It is a seductive ideal that harks back to the early days of the internet and its promise of unfettered freedom of speech.

Apple has hired former Lionsgate Executive Vice President Danielle DePalma. She will be a Senior Film and TV Series Marketing executive, leading on promoting Apple’s forthcoming content. Deadline reported that she will report to Head of Video Marketing Chris Van Amburg.

DePalma was a Lionsgate veteran who spent about a decade at the company before leaving in January. At Lionsgate she previously served as SVP digital marketing and VP new media and marketing, overseeing the digital/social media campaigns for such movies as The Hunger Games franchise and Kick-Ass.

Facebook and Apple’s approach to privacy has long differentiated the two firms. While that remains the case, things are changing Writer, and recent Background Mode guest, Lance Ulanoff looked at the next phase of the battle between companies.

Facebook hasn’t traditionally cared much for [privacy], for example, while Apple has bent over backwards to market privacy features. But the tide may be shifting, depending on how you interpret some recent product announcements. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently committed himself to “building a privacy-focused” platform, while Apple announced a slate of new services that a different, less scrupulous company might use to harvest user data.

Apple’s Vice President of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives Lisa Jackson was recently named one of  Business Insider’s 100 people transforming the world of business. The publication has a fascinating interview with the Apple exec, in which she talks about Apple’s aim to make an iPhone from only recycled materials.

Since joining Apple in 2013, Jackson has driven initiatives like Apple’s decision to run on 100% clean energy and the Daisy recycling robot, which it announced in 2018 after debuting its first iPhone-dismantling machine called Liam in 2016. “We’re feeling really good about the fact that we’ve watched this idea go from a pilot stage with Liam to full production stage in Daisy,” Jackson said…Apple’s initiatives under Jackson come as advocacy groups have criticized the company and other large tech firms and accused them of kneecapping efforts to minimize manufacturing waste

AirPods are hugely popular. Everywhere you turn people have them hanging out of their ears. While they bring a lot of benefits, not least for Apple, Buzzfeed News looked at the awkward social situations the wireless headphones can create.

Unlike traditional headphones, AirPods are the kind of things you can keep in your ears at all times, and many people do. Their sleek design and lack of wires make it easy to forget they’re resting in your head. And their status symbol shine doesn’t exactly scream “take me out.” This may be great for Apple and its bottom line, but it’s making life weird for people interacting with those wearing them. Are they listening to me? Are they listening to music? A podcast? Just hanging? It’s tough to know.

Not everyone was rejoicing at the news that Qualcomm and Apple had settled their differences. An Australia-based trader with the handle ‘Arminoxx’ revealed that he had woken up in the night to look after his crying baby. At the same time, he sold some of his position in Qualcomm, trying to limit his expected losses. That was hours before the firms settled. The move cost the trader a $50,000 return, according to MarketWatch.

“I live in Australia, so I am mostly sleeping during U.S. trading hours,” [the trader] said. “However, I woke up at 4 a.m. and decided to put a limit sell order of $0.06 on my options to salvage my losses given that only 2 days are remaining till expiry, and went back to sleep.” Ouch. Arminoxx, in an exercise in self-flagellation, tallied what he would have made had he slept through the night: $50,000 or a 6,000% gain.

Apple TV+ is on its way, but should the company actually be buying Roku? Tim Beyers on Motley Fool thinks it should. He said it should remake its streaming service as the Roku Channel. It’s certainly an idea…

Now imagine Apple acquiring Roku and making Apple TV+ with its original content a featured channel and selling access as part of the hardware bundle. (“Buy an Apple Roku player and get both Apple TV+ and the Roku Channel, free,” they might say.) Netflix, which has long been available through Roku, could remain on the platform without streaming its data through Apple servers. Everyone wins. Even better, Apple would be putting its service out in the wild — i.e., unbundling the service from the device — just as Roku is getting traction for being the most widely used TV operating system.

Diversity, or lack thereof, is a big issue in the tech industry. The problem has particularly serious ramifications in AI. The Verge looked at a new report on the topic, and what the industry can do about it.

Diversity, while a hurdle across the tech industry, presents specific dangers in AI, where potentially biased technology, like facial recognition, can disproportionately affect historically marginalized groups. Tools like a program that scans faces to determine sexuality, introduced in 2017, echo injustices of the past, the researchers write. Rigorous testing is needed. But more than that, the makers of AI tools have to be willing to not build the riskiest projects. “We need to know that these systems are safe as well as fair,” AI Now Institute co-director Kate Crawford says.

Leander Kahney’s biography of Tim Cook hit stores Tuesday. In a piece for Wired, the author explained why he believes Mr. Cook is a better CEO of Apple than Steve Jobs. The proof, he said, is in the numbers.

Apple is the world’s first trillion-dollar company, a milestone reached under Cook’s watch. Apple reached this landmark valuation on August 2, 2018, when Apple’s stock hit $207.05. By comparison, when Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011, Apple’s stock was $50.53 (split adjusted), which valued the company at about two-thirds less: $300 billion. During his tenure, Cook has almost tripled Apple’s revenue. In 2018 Apple earned $265.6 billion, the highest annual revenue in the company’s history.