Southwest Airlines recently updated its app with the ability to let customers buy tickets and other services with Apple Pay.
Google launches open-source differential privacy library
Google released an open-source version of its differential privacy library Friday, TechCrunch reported. The library powers some of the company’s core products.
“Whether you’re a city planner, a small business owner, or a software developer, gaining useful insights from data can help make services work better and answer important questions,” writes Miguel Guevara, a product manager in the company’s Privacy and Data Protection Office. “But, without strong privacy protections, you risk losing the trust of your citizens, customers, and users. Differentially-private data analysis is a principled approach that enables organizations to learn from the majority of their data while simultaneously ensuring that those results do not allow any individual’s data to be distinguished or re-identified.” As Google notes, the current version of the Apache-licensed C++ library focuses on features that are typically hard to build from scratch and includes many of the standard statistical functions that developers would need (think count, sum, mean, variance, etc.).
Qualcomm 5G Chips Coming to Mid-Priced Phones
Qualcomm will expand use of its 5G chips into mid-priced phones. Reuters reported the shift from being almost exclusively in top-end phones will happen in 2020.
Qualcomm is already supplying phone makers such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) with chips for 5G wireless data networks, which are expected to be faster than current 4G and LTE networks. But those chips have typically been from the San Diego chip suppliers’ most expensive line, its Snapdragon 8 series. Qualcomm said in remarks prepared for the IFA tech fair in Berlin that it plans to add 5G capabilities to its lower-cost Snapdragon 6 and 7 series devices, which could make 5G phones available at lower prices than the current models, mostly flagship devices priced at a premium. Qualcomm’s 6 and 7 series Snapdragon chips are found in devices from Lenovo Group Ltd’s (0992.HK) Motorola, Xiaomi Corp (1810.HK), Oppo and Vivo that retail in the $300 range.
Siri to Learn How to "Play This on That" in iOS 13
Siri is inline for some significant upgrades, including Find My Friends, the App Store and Shazam support and “play this on that” requests.
Apple Beta Tests Official Apple Music Web Player
Apple is starting to get the hang of what being a services company really means. Charlotte and I have wrote about unofficial web players for Apple Music, and now Apple is beta testing an official one.
To use the new Apple Music web version, subscribers can visit the link beta.music.apple.com and sign in with their Apple ID.
At launch, the service includes many core features, like searching and playing songs from the Apple Music catalog, searching and playing songs from your library (if Sync Library is enabled), accessing your playlists and more.
24/7 Apple Fifth Avenue Store Approaching Re-Opening
The rennovated Apple Store Fifth Avenue now has the tag line ‘Always Open to Minds’ and will will be open 24/7.
Siri Script Rewritten to Deflect Feminism Questions
Apple rewrote Siri’s script to deflect questions on topics such as feminism or the #metoo according to leaked intenral documents.
Activists Ask Jeff Bezos to Buy Amazon Rainforest
Some creative climate activists approached Jeff Bezos with an investment opportunity this week. They asked the Amazon boss to buy the rainforest that shares his company’s name, which is still on fire. Adweek spoke one of the creative directors behind the project.
According to a creative director who helped spearhead the project, he and another creative came up with the idea a few weeks ago while on a shoot in Spain. As they reflected on the news of the rainforest burning, and 16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg’s weeks-long trek to New York on an emissions-free yacht, they became uncomfortable when steaks were served during lunch since Brazil’s booming agribusiness sector has contributed to the rainforest fires. “We had to go lay in the grass and look at the trees,” he said. “It was in that moment that we were like, ‘What can we do?’”
Samsung Rethinks the Galaxy Fold Customer Experience
The Verge writes:
Samsung may have finally fixed the Galaxy Fold and confirmed new release dates for the foldable phone, but anyone who preordered the phone earlier this year may still be out of luck: Samsung is emailing customers to cancel all preorders while it “rethink[s] the entire customer experience” surrounding the sale of the phone,
How un-Apple.
CASA i4 USB-C 4-in-1 iPad Pro Hub: $49.99
We have a deal on the CASA i4 USB-C 4-in-1 iPad Pro Hub. This slim and portable hub features four ports: a USB-C PD port for charging, a USB Type-A for reading flash drives, an HDMI port for video output, and a 3.5mm audio connector for headphones. This device is $49.99 through our deal.
