Charlotte Henry

Apple and Google have had a major influence in how COVID-19 contact tracing has progressed, or hasn’t, in various countries. Writing for Businesss Insider, Tom Loosemore, a cofounder of the UK’s Government Digital Service, expressed concern at their unaccountable power.

I hope I am wrong, but I fear that Google and Apple’s approach will not prove particularly valuable in the messy real world of contact tracing. It is just too crude. Google and Apple have given governments an abacus in an era of machine learning. I’ll admit I was instinctively pleased when I heard of Google and Apple’s decision. Throughout my career, I’ve defended people’s privacy from your typical state’s propensity to collect ever more data about their citizens, often without reason. But in the weeks since April 10, I’ve reflected more on the nature of power. Who has power? And how is it held to account?

Pixelmator Photo 1.3. for iPad has been released. AppleInsider has given it a test drive, and noted that, amongst other new features, batch editing shortcuts have been introduced.

Pixelmator Photo 1.3 now lets users press and hold on an image in the app’s photo gallery, to bring up a context menu with shortcuts. They’re chiefly basic options that tend to be used regularly, so they are a quicker way to share, duplicate, revert, or mark an image as a favorite. However, there is also always an option called Copy Adjustments. When an image has been edited, choosing this option from the context menu copies all of the effects that have been applied. It copies color changes, exposure adjustments, and, in our testing, all but cropping or resizing. Then tapping and holding on another image brings up the same menu, but now with Paste Adjustments.

It appears that free trials of Disney+ are no longer available. As The Verge noted, that has ended just before Hamilton arrives on the streaming service.

It’s not clear when Disney removed the ability to try out Disney Plus for free, but the timing does sense, given that Disney is just weeks away from releasing what might be the single most anticipated title on the service yet: the recording of the Broadway production of Hamilton, set to debut on the service on July 3rd. Without a free trial, anyone who wants to watch Hamilton when it’s out will have to pay for at least one month of Disney Plus (which costs $6.99, or $12.99 for the more prominently advertised bundle that also includes Hulu and ESPN Plus) — customers that Disney is presumably hoping will turn into long term subscriptions.