New rumors suggest that 2020 Apple Watch models could get microLED screens, moving away from its current OLED display.
Switching from OLED to microLED is expected to bring miniaturization and battery life longevity improvements, as microLED pixels are more power-efficient. microLED panels are also less susceptible to burn-in artifacts compared to OLED.
A spate of Netflix preschool programming has been announced and geared towards kids aged 2 to 6 with educational content.
For several days, Andy Newman worked as a deliveryman for apps like Uber Eats and Postmates, revealing an inside look at on-demand workers and how they can be exploited.
Nearly a third of delivery cyclists missed work because of on-the-job injuries last year, one survey found, and at least four delivery riders or bike messengers have been killed in crashes with cars this year. Riders on electric bikes face fines and confiscation, though that may change.
Maria Figueroa, director of labor and policy research for the Cornell University Worker Institute in Manhattan, called the food couriers “the most vulnerable workers in digital labor.”
Writing for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman writes about Apple’s COO Jeff Williams and how he contributes to Apple’s culture.
Williams has distinguished himself as a modest, disciplined, demanding leader in the current CEO’s style. He’s negotiated with suppliers, shipped hundreds of millions of devices a year from Chinese factories to the rest of the globe, and been a bit more hands-on with product development than Cook, they say. Williams attends weekly reviews of product and industrial design progress, subsequently briefing Cook for a final signoff, and has been the lead executive shepherding the Apple Watch to market.
Slack 4.0.0 on the desktop now launches 33% faster and uses 50% less memory. VoIP calls are also 10 times faster.
watchOS 5.3 is now available, along with other software updates like iOS 12.4. watchOS 5.3 brings a fix for the Apple Watch Walkie Talkie.
Providing further evidence the robots are coming to get us, Reuters has a video of insect-like mini-robots. These devices combine and work together to overcome obstacles. This included stairs and rough terrain. A team of academics in the Reconfigurable Robotics Lab at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne created them.
Today Apple released iOS 12.4 with improvements to Apple News+, wireless data migration, and more. However, it appears that Apple Card hasn’t officially been released.
A new report from Mircosoft researchers found that Google and Facebook secretly track users’ activity on porn sites. And they weren’t the only ones. Forbes reported that the researchers found that overall 93% of the porn sites they investigated leak user data to third parties.
While FaceApp was only ever accused (wrongly) of accessing photo galleries and user names, the nature of this latest social media exposure goes further, into the darkest recesses of the internet, because “analysis of 22,484 pornography websites,” the researchers say in their report, “indicated that 93% leak user data to a third party.” Despite privacy policies that “were written such that one might need a two-year college education to understand them,” and the false sense of security that private browsing might bring—”this only ensures browsing history is not stored on the computer”—the researchers found that Google and its ecosystem was tracking almost 75% of the porn sites, Oracle almost 25% and Facebook a still eye-watering 10%.
Charlotte Henry and John Martellaro join host Kelly Guimont to talk about display technology in Apple devices, and an “entry level” iPhone.
