Charlotte Henry and Andrew Orr join host Kelly Guimont to discuss ad blocking in Safari and the latest report of plaintext password storage.
WWDC 2019 Media Invites Arrive, Featuring Unicorns
With just 12 days to go until WWDC 2019, media invites to the keynote have started to arrive. Rather pleasingly, this year they involve an Animoji unicorn, AppleIsider reported. WWDC 2019 will take place between June 3 and 7 in San Jose.
Invitations to the media started to arrive on Wednesday, 12 days before the start of the conference. The invitation specifically advises the person is «invited to the keynote address at our annual Worldwide Developers Conference.» The media invites follow a similar design as those who applied for the ticket lottery in March, featuring an Animoji head with items exploding out from above, drawn in a neon light style. Whereas previous header images featured the robot, skull, alien, and monkey, the latest version uses the unicorn, again with the item-explosion motif.
Vignette App Lets You Update Your Contact Photos Privately
Vignette app allows you to change all those ugly grey circles with initials into actual photographs. By searching Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Gravatar—no login required—Vignette will attempt to pair your contacts with their profile pictures on social media. After amassing all these images, using Vignette’s easy to use interface, you can select which avatar you’d like to use, or none at all. Once you’re all set, Vignette will write those updates to your contacts database on your phone. That means in Messages, Phone, and all of your other apps, you see beautiful images instead of ugly initials. Vignette is free to try, but in order to save the updates to your contact list, you will need to buy the one-time in-app purchase. Vignette app runs entirely on your phone; your contacts stay on your device and are never transmitted *anywhere*. Privacy is a critical factor to Vignette; your trust is important and will not be squandered. App Store: Free (Offers In-App Purchases)
UN Report Says Making Siri Voice Female by Default is Sexist
A report from the United Nations says that making virtual assistants like Siri have female voices by default is sexist.
As voice-powered technology reaches into communities that do not currently subscribe to Western gender stereotypes, including indigenous communities, the feminization of digital assistants may help gender biases to take hold and spread. Because Alexa, Cortana, Google Home and Siri are all female exclusively or female by default in most markets, women assume the role of digital attendant…
I think it’s a fair point.
Apple AR Hiring Increases to 33 Positions Since Last Year
Last May Apple had one AR job position open. It gradually increased to five by the end of 2018. Now, Apple AR hiring has increased to 33 open positions.
The hiring upswing is a clear sign that the Cupertino tech giant is looking to make AR a major part of its mobile iOS devices moving forward…Of the current 33 openings, the extreme majority — 30 — are located at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters.
Are AIs Being Designed to Harm Us?
The question we must always have for the high tech giants is embedded in this essay at the Internet Health Report:
“Are you going to harm humanity and, specifically, historically marginalized populations, or are you going to sort of get your act together and make some significant structural changes to ensure that what you create is safe and not harmful?”
Given the demonstrated proclivity of many high tech companies to, without adult supervision, create technologies that callously enrich them at our great expense, the above is a great question to ask. Every day. Of every technology.
New Backlight Service Program Addresses ‘Flexgate’ Problem
Some 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro displays suffered problems with the backlight, and Apple will repair them under a new Backlight Service Program.
Apple will repair affected devices, which includes machines sold between October 2016 and February 2018, for free. Eligible models are listed below:
- MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
- MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
No other MacBook Pro models are included in the repair program at this time.
2018 MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Added to Keyboard Service Program
The new 8-core MacBook Pro brings with it an updated version of the butterfly keyboard. Additionally, the 2018 MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are being added to Apple’s Keyboard Service Program.
Apple has updated its official Keyboard Service Program support page with the 2018 and 2019 MacBooks. If you’ve been having issues with your 2018 MacBook Pro or MacBook Air keyboard or any MacBook notebook with a butterfly keyboard, get in touch with Apple Support to get the repair process started. Keep in mind you’ll likely be without your machine for a least a day, if not longer.
Influencer Data Breach, Consumer Privacy Rollback – TMO Daily Observations 2019-05-21
Andrew Orr and John Martellaro join host Kelly Guimont to talk about a social media database breach and a new wrinkle in consumer privacy.
Federico Viticci’s iPad Manifesto Covering Seven Years
I’m a big fan of MacStories and today Federico released what he calls an iPad manifesto. He writes about his experience using the iPad as his main computing device over seven years.
Seven years after I started (slowly) replacing my MacBook Air with an iPad, my life is different, but one principle still holds true: I never want to find myself forced to work on a computer that’s only effective at home, that can’t be held in my hands, or that can’t be customized for different setups. For this reason, the iPad Pro is the best computer for the kind of lifestyle I want.
