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Here's How Many AirPlay 2 TVs There Are

Andrew Orr ·

Apple shared a full list of the number of AirPlay 2 TVs so far in the market. They include LG, Samsung, Sony, and Vizio TVs.

LG OLED (2019); LG NanoCell SM9X series (2019); LG NanoCell SM8X series (2019); LG UHD UM7X series (2019); Samsung QLED Series (2019 and 2018); Samsung 8 Series (2019 and 2018); Samsung 7 Series (2019 and 2018); Samsung 6 Series (2019 and 2018); Samsung 5 Series (2019 and 2018); Samsung 4 Series (2019 and 2018); Sony Z9G Series (2019); Sony A9G Series (2019); Sony X950G Series (2019); Sony X850G Series (2019 85″, 75″, 65″ and 55″ models); Vizio P-Series Quantum (2019 and 2018); Vizio P-Series (2019, 2018 and 2017); Vizio M-Series (2019, 2018 and 2017); Vizio E-Series (2019, 2018 and 2017); Vizio D-series (2019, 2018 and 2017).

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AT&T Updates Smartphones With Misleading 5G Icon

Andrew Orr ·

AT&T is so excited for the rollout of 5G that it’s updating smartphones a bit early, with a misleading 5G icon.

AT&T has updated three smartphones from Samsung and LG to make them show 5G connectivity logos, even though none of them are capable of connecting to 5G networks…That “E” in the “5G” logo is supposed to tip you off that this isn’t real 5G — just some marketing nonsense. But there’s no way of knowing that just from looking at the logo.

As it turns out, the government didn’t create or ratify 5G. Neither the FCC nor FTC are regulating what the term means, so technically AT&T is still within the law by doing this. Doesn’t make it right, but it shows how absurd the 5G situation is.

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TV's Role in Apple's Services Strategy

Charlotte Henry ·

The announcement yesterday that Samsung TVs will get a new iTunes Movies and TV Shows apps is a big deal. As is the news that Samsung, VIZIO, Sony, and LG are going to integrate AirPlay 2 into their TV offerings. I made that case on TMO Daily Observations on Monday. Pete Kafka at Re/Code has a really incisive piece of analysis looking at the fallout of the Samsung announcement. He lays out how Apple is moving into becoming a services company, or at least how it is making its services business more important, and how TV is part of this strategy.

The obvious and accurate takeaway is that Apple has conceded that Apple TV, the device that was supposed to help it own the living room, isn’t succeeding — it trails Roku, Google and Amazon in streaming market share — and that Apple needs to be on more devices if it is going to sell more services — which is its plan to combat slumping iPhone sales.

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SoftBank Cuts Back Planned Investment in WeWork

Charlotte Henry ·

Japanese bank SoftBank reportedly scaled back its plans to invest in WeWork – the international co-working spaces beloved of tech-startups. The decision followed the recent hit to tech stocks, according to an exclusive in the Financial Times. SoftBank had originally discussed investing $16 billion into WeWork. That number is now thought to be $2 billion and SoftBank’s Vision Fund will not be involved in the deal.

The funding could be announced as soon as this week, according to one of the people, who added that the deal had not yet been agreed and could still fall apart. The scaling back of the planned $16bn investment, which would have been the largest ever in a tech start-up, underlines the rapid shift in investor enthusiasm for technology shares that is now spilling into even the best-known privately held groups.

 

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CES - Toyota Working on Fighter-Jet Inspired Safety Tech for Cars, Wants to Share it

Bryan Chaffin ·

I’m not sure what to make of this yet, but it’s super interesting. The Toyota Research Institute—a research arm of the automaker that dabbles in AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles, and other things—thinks it has a way to use technology from the world of fighter jets to make cars safer, and they’re calling it “Guardian for all.” That’s crazy cool by itself, but TRI says it wants to share it with other automakers. In a crazy-competitive market, that’s unusual, too. That said, it’s not ready for market, and even TRI doesn’t yet have a plan for deploying it. Here’s a description from TechCrunch:

The inspiration was modern-day fighter jets, which use a low-level flight control system to translate the intent of the pilot and keep the aircraft stable and tucked neatly inside a specific safety envelope. TRI calls it blended envelope control, an approach that lets its “Guardian” driver assist system combine and coordinate the skills of the human driver and the vehicle they’re driving.

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A Deeper Analysis of Apple's Mini Crisis

John Martellaro ·

Sometimes, well almost always, it’s good to wait awhile after Apple encounters a crisis of some sort and not get swept up in the venting, rage and fury. Later, cooler, experienced heads weigh in. This time it’s Ben Thompson at Stratechery. “As rare as last week’s Apple revenue warning from CEO Tim Cook may have been — the company last issued a revenue warning in June 2002 — the company has had other bad quarters in the iPhone era.” This is great analysis, worth reading.

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Browser Fingerprinting? DuckDuckGo says DuckDuckNo!

Andrew Orr ·

In a Whonix forum a person alleged that DuckDuckGo was using browser fingerprinting techniques to track people. The search engine denies the claim however.

“Fingerprinting-detection libraries unfortunately create false positives because they don’t anticipate good actors using some browser APIs for non-nefarious purposes for which they were designed. We know this not only because we’re falsely identified here (and have been elsewhere) but because we are building this type of detection into our mobile app and browser extension and don’t similarly want to make false claims.”

DuckDuckGo CEO Gabe Weinberg said an API they use to determine the size of the browser might be triggering the fingerprinting flag.

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RCS, Successor to SMS, Could Come to Apple Devices

Andrew Orr ·

RCS is a technology touted as the replacement for SMS. It will bring rich, iMessage-like features to texting, and major carriers support it. And it sounds like Apple is interested.

According to the purported slide from the conference, Apple has “engaged in discussions with the GSMA and Operators about including RCS in iOS.” This is inherently vague and doesn’t offer too many details about the extent to which Apple is involved, but the pitch seems to center on three things.

I find it unfortunate that RCS seems to only support encryption during transport, and not end-to-end encryption. Governments around the world would probably not let end-to-end encryption become so widespread.

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Salesforce’s Marc Benioff Talks Time Off and Time Magazine

Charlotte Henry ·

Salesforce boss Marc Benioff is one of tech’s most compelling and surprising characters and has been for a long time. This summer, he made a decision that caught most people unawares – he named a co-CEO. A CNBC interview with Mr. Benioff reveals how time off this summer made he decide to focus only on the things he loves and touches on his purchase of Time Magazine.

Weeks at work are filled with dinners, parties, events and business council meetings exclusively for CEOs, meaning that if anyone from Salesforce is to attend, it has to be him. Meanwhile, he’s trying to run a 30,000-person company, build Salesforce towers across the globe, bolster his philanthropy, invest in start-ups, mentor other business leaders and become a louder voice on a number of social and political issues. “So I made a very good decision — to have two CEOs,” Benioff said with a laugh, during a recent interview at his home in San Francisco. “Then it’s a divide and conquer strategy.” Following his time off the grid, Benioff flew to Hawaii refreshed and resolved to focus only on the things in life he enjoys.

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M.G. Siegler's 2018 Homescreen and How it Changed

Andrew Orr ·

I love reading about how other people use their devices, and every year M.G. Siegler shares how his home screen evolves over time.

We all have our apps that we use on a daily basis. And for new ones to break in, they don’t just have to be better, they have to be so much better that they’re worth replacing another app. More specifically, the time you use another app.

Readers will know I’m a fiend when it comes to organization. So for my iPhone and iPad I keep my most-used apps on the home screen, and organize them all alphabetically.

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Apple's International Privacy Trade-Offs

Charlotte Henry ·

LONDON – Apple has for a long time proudly flaunted its pro-privacy values. It, quite fairly, highlights how its products are aligned with these values, especially when compared to its competitors.  However, this is coming under increasing strain. According to a Techcrunch report, European customers, in particular, are beginning to question whether Apple is still putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to privacy. Deals with Google and its ongoing presence in China, are leaving Apple walking something of a tightrope.

Far from Apple’s troubles in emerging markets and China, the company is attracting the ire of what should really be a core supporter demographic naturally aligned with the pro-privacy stance CEO Tim Cook has made into his public soapbox in recent years — but which is instead crying foul over perceived hypocrisy. The problem for this subset of otherwise loyal European iPhone users is that Apple isn’t offering enough privacy.

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It is Still Down to Humans to Fight Fake News

Charlotte Henry ·

2019 is undoubtedly going to be a big year in AI. The discussion over fake news will continue too. Sean Gourley, CEO of machine intelligence company Primer, wrote in Wired that while progress in AI is being made, at the moment humans, not algorithms, need to lead the fight against fake news. I know from my own research into fake news how important a role bots play in the spread of disinformation. Unfortunately, the technology is not yet discerning enough to be relied upon to separate fact from fiction. AI has not been able to fight back. It may be able to one day, but until then, it is down to us humans.

One of the reasons that computational propaganda has been so successful is that the naïve, popularity-based filtering systems employed by today’s leading social networks have proven to be fragile and susceptible to targeted fake information attacks.To solve this problem, we will need to design algorithms that amplify our intelligence when we’re interacting together in large groups. The good news is that the latest research into such systems looks promising.

 

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Apple TV 4K Features HDMI 2.0a. But HDMI 2.1 is Coming

John Martellaro ·

4K/UHD TV is now mainstream.  But new 8K TVs are coming. CNET writes: “The current version of the ubiquitous HDMI [2.0] audio video connection can handle pretty much every video format available today, but with 8K on the horizon, TV and other hardware makers could hit its limits in the next few years. That’s where HDMI 2.1 comes in.”

This article fills you in on the new standard, what video protocols it supports, which TV makers are moving to it in 2019, and whether you’ll need new cables.

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Amazon Go Stores Could be Worth Over $4 Billion by 2021

Charlotte Henry ·

Amazon Go could be a multi-billion dollar business for the retail giant, according to new figures reported by Re/Code. Analysts at RBC Capital Markets concluded that Amazon Go stores could earn 50% more than conventional stores. They found that the average store generates an estimated $1.5 million in revenue annually.  Amazon plans to open up to 3,000 stores over the next two years, meaning the business could be worth around $4.5 billion by 2021. However, each store requires a $1 million investment in hardware before it opens.

Amazon’s new cashless, cashierless stores — which allow customers to just grab items off shelves and automatically get charged upon exiting, thanks to a bevy of sensors and cameras — bring in about 50 percent more revenue on average than typical convenience stores, according to new estimates from RBC Capital Markets analysts.

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Manage iPhone Privacy With This iMore Guide

Andrew Orr ·

Rene Ritchie put together a good iMore guide to manage your online information and privacy settings.

Now, just to be clear, these aren’t security tips. I’ll cover those in another column. These are privacy tips. They’re ways to make sure people and companies learn as little as possible about you, while you still get the most you can from them. Cool?

It’s a good guide and everyone should read it. It’s full of tips to manage privacy settings on iPhone and online accounts. While you’re at it, check out my guide where I include privacy apps I’ve used.

TMO Deals

Hold Your iPhone Like a Camera with Shuttercase: $40.49

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on the Shuttercase, a case for your iPhone designed to make it easier to take photographs. It has a physical button for snapping photos, and it has a 3,000mAh battery built into it that is placed to let you hold your iPhone like you’d hold a SLR/DSLR camera. It’s $49.99 through our deal, but coupon code NEWYEAR2019 at checkout takes off 19%, bringing it down to $40.49. I’m linking to the black model designed for iPhone X/XS, but there are white and red options, as well as black model for iPhone 7 Plus/8 Plus.


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Apple is Better Placed than Most to Ride Out a Tech Downturn

Charlotte Henry ·

Despite the events of this week, in which Apple offered a revenue warning and saw its share price take a hit, the company is better placed than most other tech firms to ride out an economic storm. That’s the view of Tim Culpan, who ran the numbers for Bloomberg News. While we’ve heard warnings about the tech bubble bursting for years now, the piece certainly helps give some useful context to recent events.

When I first ran the numbers on a selection of nine companies — a mix of branded electronics, product assemblers and chipmakers — I concluded that the decade-long tech party looked headed for a nasty hangover. I’ve now added September-quarter figures to the same analysis, which includes inventory levels, turnover and cash conversion cycles. The situation is even uglier than four months ago. Apple’s warning this week that it won’t meet revenue guidance proves the initial concerns to be true, but it’s only a small part of the industry’s woes.

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Weather Channel Accused of Mining User Data

Andrew Orr ·

The Los Angeles city attorney has filed a lawsuit saying that the Weather Channel collects user data for commercial purposes, not just to provide local forecasts.

The government said the Weather Company, the business behind the app, unfairly manipulated users into turning on location tracking by implying that the information would be used only to localize weather reports. Yet the company, which is owned by IBM, also used the data for unrelated commercial purposes, like targeted marketing and analysis for hedge funds, according to the lawsuit.

The New York Times uses the word “covert” in its headline. It’s not that covert though. The Weather Channel has a How is My Data Used page. I’m not defending them but people really need to start reading privacy policies and service terms. Although using dark patterns to obfuscate this is wrong.

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Human War Follows a Universal Mathematical Law

Andrew Orr ·

Here’s something you don’t read every day. A new study of human war over the past 600 years that it appears to follow power law distribution.

The thinking goes like this. Society is a complex web of social, political, and economic forces that depend on the network of links between individuals and the countries they represent. These links are constantly rearranging, sometimes because of violence and death. When the level of rearrangement and associated violence rises above a threshold level, we describe the resulting pattern as war.

The second step is building a machine learning system that can predict when the next large-scale conflict is likely to occur. Or maybe we’ll have dystopian war AIs that will use this information against us.

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Apple Services are Where the Growth is Now

Andrew Orr ·

After some rough financial news, Tim Cook is reassuring investors that Apple isn’t done growing by highlighting Apple services.

Step back from the gyrations of the moment, and there’s an emerging strategy for Apple: Sell fewer iPhones and assorted devices such as Macs and iWatches at a higher price than mass-market rivals, and then flood those millions of users–who have more than average disposable income because they were able to afford those devices in the first place–with apps and content that they will pay for.

I expect big improvements in Apple services in the future. Better iCloud storage, an Apple News content subscription (which I will happily pay for if it means no longer needing to visit ad tracking-riddled websites), an Apple video subscription, and more.

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First Images of Galaxy S10 Posted Online

Charlotte Henry ·

The first images of the Galaxy S10 have appeared online, just under two months before Samsung’s likely announcement of the phone. The images were posted by known gadget leaker and VentureBeat reporter Evan Blass on Twitter, and reported on The Verge. The Galaxy S10 looks to have thin bezels around all the edges, a camera cutout on the top right-hand corner, and a hint of chin towards the bottom.

The photo shows a phone with a nearly full-screen design that’s disrupted only by a camera cutout in the top-right corner and thin bezels around each edge. There’s just the slightest additional thickness for a chin on the bottom. Blass indicates that this will be the standard version of the Galaxy S10. A cheaper model is also expected along with a larger Plus model and a 5G model. Samsung typically announces its Galaxy S phones at the end of February.

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Eight Depressing, Illuminating Months With a Flip Phone

John Martellaro ·

Sometimes, an author can get away with writing about anything if it’s done with charm and grace. In this case Wired’s Jason Kehe decided to try living with a flip phone for eight months to see what he might learn. The story is not so much about the awkward disconnectedness of it all, but rather the remarkable social and technical impact.

Frankly, I’m embarrassed to write about this semifailed experiment. Disconnection has become the most congratulated, least convincing narrative gimmick of recent times, a widely excusable hypocrisy.

The author writes with a certain colorful, literary irony and sparkle. As a result, his social commentary about our fixation and dependence on the smartphone is delightful reading in and of itself. And yet, and yet, the author manages to make us ponder. What have we done to ourselves as humans?

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Apple Watch Saved Woman Trapped in Car

Andrew Orr ·

A woman from Florida was recently saved by her Apple Watch after she was trapped in a car underwater.

Amanda Antonio told first responders in Hillsborough County, Fla., that she used her Apple Watch to locate her iPhone to call 9-1-1 after her car rolled in a ditch full of mud and water. “It’s up to my waist,” Antonio said according to a transcript of the call obtained by Spectrum Bay News 9, a television station covering the Tampa-St. Petersburg area. She later said, “It’s now up to my chin. I’m freezing. I’m so scared.”