IRS Sues Facebook for $9 Billion Over Offshore Profits

The IRS is suing Facebook for US$9 billion, saying the company kept profits in subsidiaries based in Ireland.

The IRS argues that Facebook understated the value of the intellectual property it sold to an Irish subsidiary in 2010 while building out global operations, a move common among U.S. multinationals…Under the arrangement, Facebook’s subsidiaries pay royalties to the U.S.-based parent for access to its trademark, users and platform technologies. From 2010 to 2016, Facebook Ireland paid Facebook U.S. more than $14 billion in royalties and cost-sharing payments, according to the court filing.

If the IRS succeeds this would be one of Facebook’s biggest fines.

Apple Pencil May Include a Grip-Monitoring Haptic System in The Future

Future versions of the Apple Pencil may include a haptic system that will monitor the user’s grip. That’s according to AppleInsider, who noticed a recently granted patent.

In a patent granted by the USPTO to Apple on Tuesday titled “Touch-based input device with haptic feedback,” the filing details how a system could be used to perform two jobs: providing haptic feedback to the user, while also being able to read force measurements from the user’s grip. Apple’s proposal involves the use of a piezoelectric device attached to the inside of the housing, one that would be connected to the user grip region of the housing. The grip section would be deformable, both inwards and outwards, allowing it to be used for providing information to the user as well as taking in grip data. The piezoelectric device would theoretically push out the housing in the grip region when it needs to alert the user via haptic feedback.