Charlotte Henry

TikTok, the social app popular with younger users, is under investigation for the way it handles personal data. UK authorities are looking into whether it prioritizes protecting children who use it, reported The Guardian.

Elizabeth Denham, the information commissioner, told a parliamentary committee the investigation began in February, prompted by a multimillion-dollar fine from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for similar violations. “We are looking at the transparency tools for children,” Denham said on Tuesday. “We’re looking at the messaging system, which is completely open, we’re looking at the kind of videos that are collected and shared by children online. We do have an active investigation into TikTok right now, so watch this space.”

The Mars Rover, set to head into Space in 2020, is getting an overhaul CNET reported. One of the more eye-catching conditions is a laser that can zap rocks, which is part of the new SuperCam.

What does the SuperCam do? It’s the next-generation version of the ChemCam instrument installed on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover, which is currently going about making its own discoveries on the Red Planet. According to NASA, the instrument’s camera, laser and spectrometers “can identify the chemical and mineral makeup of targets as small as a pencil point from a distance of more than 20 feet (6 meters).” NASA intends to put the SuperCam to good use examining Martian rocks and soil, in particular to seek out organic compounds that could be related to past life on Mars.

Apple’s autonomous vehicle project – Project Titan remains ongoing. We have not seen much of anything yet. However, a patent, awarded today and reported on by Cult Of Mac, gives us some insight. It appears Apple wants to reinvent a normally uninspiring feature.

A car’s bumper may not be its sexiest feature but they are a critical line of defense in the event of collisions. True to Apple form, it believes it can improve on what already exists. According to claims in its application filed in 2016 with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Apple’s bumper would include an inflatable structure between the bumper cover and car body. It would also be able to retract to reduce the length of the car for parking. Apple says an extended bumper changes the initial point of collision.

Apple’s new AirPods ad, Bounce, is a typically beautiful, artistic, creative, offering from the company and its ad agency TBWA\Media Arts Lab. AdWeek told the story of how the gravity-defying clip was created.

To achieve the trampoline effect on a sidewalk, the set was crafted six feet above the floor of the soundstage, enabling the talent to bounce deep into the ground for maximum lift. The talent, by the way, is a French actor chosen in part for having trampoline experience—but he’s not an acrobat or professional dancer, as the ad’s creative team wanted a lead who moved in a natural way rather than with otherworldly grace. The ad’s most impressive moment, when the star tumbles off a bench and into a wall behind him, was also achieved with practical effects. The scene was first shot right-side-up, then the set was Ad 90 degrees, allowing the actress in the scene to keep sitting (really lying on her back) while the star fell backward to bounce off what appears to be a wall.

Powerbeats Pros are the best AirPods alternative. That’s according to Avery Hartmans, who wrote about his experience with the wireless headphones for Business Insider after he used them for two months.

Beats really overhauled the look and feel of the Powerbeats with the new Pro model. They’re sleeker, and they feel more premium. The coating on the outside is that kind of smooth-yet-velvety material that’s pleasing to touch, and they have a bit of heft to them (although they’re not so heavy you’ll hate wearing them). Beats also upgraded the case, which is now a hard outer shell that can charge up your headphones, just like the AirPods case. It, too, has a luxurious look and feel, and acts as a good ambassador for the headphones inside: expensive-looking, branded — of course — but not ostentatious.

In the days since Sir Jonny Ive’s imminent departure from Apple was announced, many commented that he had long checked out. The Wall Street Journal published a fascinating, detailed piece outlining his long exit.

As the deadline loomed for the 10th anniversary iPhone, Apple Inc.’s top software designers gathered in the penthouse of an exclusive San Francisco club called The Battery. They had been summoned some 50 miles from the company’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters to demonstrate planned features of the product to Jony Ive, Apple’s design chief, who seldom came to the office anymore from his San Francisco home. For nearly three hours on that afternoon in January 2017, the group of about 20 designers stood around waiting for Mr. Ive to show, according to people familiar with the episode. After he arrived and listened to the presentations, he left without ruling on their key questions, leaving attendees frustrated. “Many of us were thinking: How did it come to this?” said a person at the meeting. There was a sense “Jony was gone but reluctant to hand over the reins.”

A fascinating feature in Sunday’s New York Times tells the story of Conficker. The giant botnet could have wreaked havoc on the internet, but didn’t. We now have some idea why.

Conficker’s botnet was easily capable of launching any of the above — and far worse. At its height, when it consisted of at least 10 million individual IP addresses, there were few computer networks in the world secure enough to withstand an attack from it. And yet it was used only once, to spread a relatively minor strain of “scareware” intended to frighten unsuspecting users into downloading fake antivirus software. That attack was surprisingly pedestrian, like taking a Formula One racecar for a slow ride around the block. Surely something bigger was coming. But it never did. Why? Who created Conficker, and why bother if they were not going to use it?

Under Tim Cook and Lisa Jackson’s leadership, Apple has prided its self on its contribution to tackling climate change. However, there is still a lot of tech firms could do. Fast Company looked at what they could learn from the Green New Deal.

Given that many corporations aren’t as focused on sustainability, the tech companies’ efforts to reduce emissions appear at first to be a good track record. But as the fight against climate change heats up, the big tech companies’ claims and commitments still are not enough to make an impact on a widening emissions gap… And while much of that growth in emissions can be attributed to a range of corporate bad actors, some leaders in the climate community think tech companies are not doing enough to use their clout and tech prowess to make real change.

Sir Jony Ive is leaving Apple. You might have heard about it. John Gruber gives his take over on Daring Fireball and highlights the key issue about the departure – design is now reporting to operations. (I know Gruber doesn’t like formal titles, which is fair enough, but I’m a Brit so I have to use them!)

It makes me queasy to see that Apple’s chief designers are now reporting to operations. This makes no more sense to me than having them report to the LLVM compiler team in the Xcode group. Again, nothing against Jeff Williams, nothing against the LLVM team, but someone needs to be in charge of design for Apple to be Apple and I can’t see how that comes from operations. I don’t think that “chief design officer” should have been a one-off title created just for Jony Ive. Not just for Apple, but especially at Apple, it should be a permanent C-level title. I don’t think Ive ever should have been put in control of software design, but at least he is a designer.

Facebook’s announcement it was launching a cryptocurrency freaked lots of people out. It’s not just about privacy. It’s not too far-fetched to say that firms like Facebook are almost becoming countries in their own right, as Molly Wood outlined for Wired.

While Facebook’s ambitions appear unsubtle (at least to me), the biggest tech companies are all building more and more advanced and immersive ecosystems. So maybe it’s time to start asking: What is the functional difference between a company and a country? It’s not a crazy question: We’re already at a point where huge multinational tech monopsonies have so much power over the global economy that central bankers and regulators are starting to wonder if they even have the tools to set economic policy, like they used to in the old days.