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The European-Catalogue Edition Sunday, December 13, 2020

Will Ireland Block Apple TV+?, by Adrian Weckler, Independent.ie

Not only does 30pc of the catalogue have to be European, but it also has to be given "prominence".

This, the law clarifies, means promotions, home page placement and other marketing placement captivity.

Vaccinated? Show Us Your App, by Natasha Singer. New York Times

The advent of electronic vaccination credentials could have a profound effect on efforts to control the coronavirus and restore the economy. They could prompt more employers and college campuses to reopen. They may also give some consumers peace of mind, developers say, by creating an easy way for movie theaters, cruise ships and sports arenas to admit only those with documented coronavirus vaccinations.

But the digital passes also raise the specter of a society split into health pass haves and have-nots, particularly if venues begin requiring the apps as entry tickets. The apps could make it difficult for people with limited access to vaccines or online verification tools to work or visit popular destinations. Civil liberties experts also warn that the technology could create an invasive system of social control, akin to the heightened surveillance that China adopted during the pandemic — only instead of federal or state governments, private actors like employers and restaurants would determine who can and cannot access services.

Stuff

6 Privacy-Focused Alternatives To The Apps You Use Every Day, by David Nield, Wired

By comparison, a lot of Apple's apps are already fairly well locked down from a privacy standpoint: Safari, Mail, Apple Maps, and so on. However, we've avoided both Apple and Google in this rundown to give you options across multiple devices and platforms.

CullAi Is A Free Artificial Intelligence Culling Tool For The Mac, by Jaron Schneider, PetaPixel

CullAi says that while the final selection of the best images from a shoot will very likely always require a human touch, its simple app assists in the process by filtering out what it determines to be “objectively bad quality photos” and is able to select “relatively better” quality ones from groups of similar images.

The 6 Best Meditation Apps Of 2020, by Taylor Bryant, Byrdie

Calm offers a huge library of meditations, even narrated by celebrities and musicians. Plus, it tailors the user experience to meet your needs depending on your goals.

Notes

The iPhone 12 Pro Max Is Hard To Use With One Hand Because Of iOS, Not Screen Size, by Ben Sin, XDA

Telling us to “just get the smaller iPhone” — which is a frequent response I get on social media when I lament the Max iPhones being hard to use — is not the right response. As I’ve made my case already — it doesn’t have to be this way. Big phones with screens north of 6.6-inches can still be optimized for one-hand use. Apple just doesn’t really care. But if enough of us point it out, maybe it will.