Bernie Sanders wants to take a look at tech giants like Apple, Amazon, and Google, although he didn’t specifically say they should be broken up.
Openly Operated Wants to Improve Privacy Policies
Openly Operated is a certification for apps and services. The certification process ensures that they live up to their privacy and security claims with an audit.
An OO-certified app or site must meet three criteria. First, it needs to demonstrate “a basic level of transparency” by making its code and infrastructure — among other things — public and fully documented. Second, it needs to lay out its policy in the form of “claims with proof,” establishing what user data is collected, who can access it, and how it’s being protected. Third, those claims must be evaluated by an OO-certified auditor who then makes the audit results public.
I’ve complained about privacy policies before, and this sounds like a great idea. I hope it gets traction.
Bitcoin Inventor Claims Battle Heads to Court
Craig Wright says he is Satoshi Nakamoto – the inventor of Bitcoin. Many dispute his claim. That includes Ether creator Vitalik Buterin. The two men clashed a conference and now Mr. Wright is going to court, Bloomberg News reported.
The supposed fraud is Craig Wright, an Australian-born technologist who gained notoriety three years ago when he declared himself the inventor of Bitcoin. The provocateur is Vitalik Buterin, a baby-faced Russian-Canadian programmer who helped create another popular digital currency called Ether. No one disputes Buterin’s role in Ether; many reject Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious genius behind Bitcoin…At some point, Wright determined the courts could be a useful venue for achieving his own goals. Wright, who says he holds a master’s degree in law from Northumbria University in the U.K., hopes a series of lawsuits can establish himself as the father of Bitcoin. “This will give me the chance to prove my credentials in front of a judge, rather than being judged by Twitter,” Wright told Bloomberg in an email.
Apple Could Shift 30% of Output From China
Apple is considering moving between 15% and 30% of its output away from China as a result of trade tensions and a number of other issues.
Pro Users Tell What They Think of the New Mac Pro
AppleInsider writes:
Apple aimed the new Mac Pro at the most demanding of all high-end users, so we went to users like that and asked what they thought. Video editors, medical experts and the Department of Defense are all considering this new Mac closely.
Hearing the reactions and purchase plans from pro users carries enormous weight.
Why I Won't Be Buying a 4K/UHD Blu-ray Player
John, who often obsesses over all things video, made the leap to 4K/UHD TV long ago. But he’s not making the leap to a 4K/UHD Blu-ray player. He tells us why.
The Sexy, Minimal StandONE iPhone X Stand: $22.99
Check out the StandONE iPhone X Stand we have for a deal today. I think it looks sexy, a lovely exercise in minimalism. It’s made of uni-body stainless steel with a high-reflective, mirror-polished finish. It’s $22.99 through our deal.
What if Plants Could Be Smart Home Devices?
What if plants could be smart home devices? That’s the idea of Harpreet Sareen and Pattie Maes in their cyborg botany research.
These experiments led the researchers to possible future applications that include sending notifications—the plant might jiggle to alert you when your package is delivered, for instance—or as a motion sensor, which could help you keep track of your pet or be applied to security systems.
Cool idea. When most people talk about “invisible interfaces” they usually mean things like smart clothing or using your voice like with a HomePod. Now if only trees transmitted Wi-Fi…
Updates Tied to iPhone in watchOS 6 Beta 1
Although Apple introduced an over-the-air (OTA) mechanism in watchOS beta 1, software updates still require an iPhone. But it is still a beta, after all.
What Finder Sync on macOS Catalina Looks Like
In macOS Catalina, you won’t sync your iDevices in iTunes. Instead, you’ll have Finder sync. Stephen Hackett gives us an idea of what it will look like and how it works.
When you plug in an iPod to a Mac running Catalina, the device appears in the Finder sidebar,and clicking it reveals a wide range of syncing options, organized in a much nicer fashion that what is found in iTunes 12…
As you would imagine, each section in this interface surfaces content across various apps on the system. For example, Finder sees the local files I have in the new Music app…
Critically, most of the UI is pretty much the same.