Charlotte Henry

LONDON- Apple’s March 25th “It’s Showtime” event looks like it is going to be a bit different from normal tech-company shows. The Times of London reported that Hollywood A-Listers like Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Oprah Winfrey, who is producing a show for Apple, could attend. It is just another element of the firm’s battle for streaming supremacy with the likes of Netflix.

The iPhone maker is ramping up the star power to support its long-awaited push into the entertainment business. For nearly two years Apple executives have been signing up the cream of Tinseltown on lucrative contracts for its on-demand TV and movie service. Next Monday, Apple will explain how it plans to dethrone Netflix and Amazon, the largest players in paid-for video streaming. It may also unveil a subscription news and magazine service, sources said.

In June 2018, Steve Hardigree awoke to find that his marketing firm, Exactis, was at the centre of a massive data leak. In fact, his company had accidentally exposed the personal records of almost everyone in the U.S. Mr. Hardigree spoke to Wired, who broke the news originally, about what is was like to be at the center of data scandal.

The ordeal has been a grueling lesson for Hardigree, who says that he’s learned the hard way how much even a tiny firm like his has to prioritize security. “Be careful with your data, and be careful with the people who manage your data,” Hardigree says. “I hired some guys that were careless. But at the end of the day it’s the CEO who’s responsible. I take responsibility.”

There have been a number of amazing stories about how an Apple Watch alerted users to a heart condition, saving their life. Results from a large Apple-funded study, presented Saturday at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology, backed-up the company’s healthcare claims. Reuters reported that the study found that 84% of irregular heart pulse notifications sent by the Apple Watch were confirmed as episodes of atrial fibrillation. Furthermore, 57% of participants who received such an alert on went and sought medical attention.

Of the 400,000 participants, 0.5 percent, or about 2,000 subjects, received notifications of an irregular pulse. Those people were sent an ECG (electrocardiography) patch to wear for subsequent detection of atrial fibrillation episodes. A third of those whose watches detected an irregular pulse were confirmed to have atrial fibrillation using the ECG technology, researchers said. Some 84 percent of the irregular pulse notifications were later confirmed to have been AF episodes, data showed.

Both Facebook and YouTube moved to delete footage of the terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, that resulted in the deaths of 49 Muslim worshipers in 2 mosques on Friday. Parts of the attack were live-streamed over the two platforms. CNET reported that Facebook had removed unverified footage and praise for the shooting. YouTube made a similar commitment in a tweet from its official twitter account.

Facebook told CNET it had removed the unverified footage and was also pulling down “praise or support” posts for the shootings. “New Zealand Police alerted us to a video on Facebook shortly after the livestream commenced and we removed both the shooter’s Facebook account and the video,” said Mia Garlick, a Facebook representative in New Zealand. “We’re also removing any praise or support for the crime and the shooter or shooters as soon as we’re aware. We will continue working directly with New Zealand Police as their response and investigation continues.

The days of bored teenagers passing notes around a classroom are long gone. However, it is not the likes of Snapchat, Instagram or TikTok that they now use to plot, gossip and flirt during class. According to The Atlantic, teens have turned Google Docs into the place to talk. The service is often used in the classroom and has a live chat function – quite a dangerous combination!

“We don’t really pass physical notes anymore,” said Skyler, 15, who, like all the other students in this story, is identified by a pseudonym. As more and more laptops find their way into middle and high schools, educators are using Google Docs to do collaborative exercises and help students follow along with the lesson plan. The students, however, are using it to organize running conversations behind teachers’ backs.

Apple’s suppliers in Tawain are preparing to produce new iPads and AirPods. DigitTimes reported that Flexium Interconnect and Zhen Ding Technology are getting ready to mass produce the next generation of the devices. Those sources said that the new iPads and AirPods will also be unveiled art Apple’s March 25th event. It is though expected  that even will largely focus on services,

Flexible PCB firms Flexium Interconnect and Zhen Ding Technology are gearing up for mass production for Apple’s next-generation iPad devices, while Compeq Manufacturing and Unitech PCB supply rigid-flex boards for the forthcoming AirPods, according to industry sources….Both Zhen Ding and Flexium may see their shipments for Apple’s upcoming iPad models offset a slowdown in shipments for the iPhones in the first half of 2019, the sources noted. Meanwhile, the availability of Apple’s long-awaited AirPods 2 is seen as a boost to revenues at both Compeq and Unitech during the six-month period, the sources continued.

LONDON – London’s underground Tube train network has WiFi, but only in the stations. Meanwhile, the likes of Tokyo, Barcelona, Hong Kong and Melbourne, all have WiFi connectivity in tunnels. The Tube will soon be getting 4G, but that does not mean there will be no restrictions.  Wired looked into why WiFi is still only in stations, and found multiple reasons, with cost and the shape of the tunnels high-up the list.

London’s failure to connect has multiple causes. First is cost. “Technically, it is straightforward, although expensive, to deliver Wi-Fi in stations,” says Matthew Griffin, head of commercial telecoms at TfL. To install it, individual access points have to be placed within the station ceiling or hidden in voids, with flat antennas providing the signal. While this sounds simple, it’s very expensive to lay cabling to reach all these access points.

We’ve heard stories about iPhones identifying heart defects. However, AppleInsider picked up on another way an iPhone has saved a life – the device blocked an arrow shot at it’s user!  Police in New South Wales, Australia, were called by a man reporting someone wielding a bow and arrow. When the victim went to take a picture of the assailant, they fired an arrow, which was absorbed by the iPhone.

The arrow struck the iPhone, with the arrowhead partially passing through the device but ultimately embedding the ammunition… This is not the first time a person has escaped major harm thanks to the company’s hardware. In 2017, a witness to a shooting at a Fort Lauderdale airport revealed a MacBook Pro in his backpack was hit by a stray bullet, one that could have caused serious injury.