There are very real problems with the ways new digital technologies are developed and implemented, and often the decision-making processes involved drift quite drastically away from social responsibility. But I would argue that we are also spending a lot of time and effort worrying about (and researching) the wrong sorts of questions: asking whether screen time is good or bad, or how much screen time is too much, doesn’t really get us anywhere, because those questions don’t reflect the reality of how we use digital technologies.
On Apple’s website, there’s now a dedicated “App Store for Apple Vision Pro” page with all the details about visionOS apps. You can see a rundown on new apps, browse curated collections and categories, view screenshots, and much more.
I think this properly frames something about the DMA: regulation can be good for fostering competition while also being a step back for security. It’s a win-win for Apple to control the flow of cash and potential attack vectors. But the DMA doesn’t exist to satisfy Apple or strengthen platform security.
The DMA is already transforming how big tech does business in Europe, and given that EU digital laws tend to become global standards — what Anu Bradford of Columbia Law School has called the “Brussels effect” — Europe has become a testing ground for the future of digital markets, impacting everything from how video games are sold online to the information available for use in targeted advertising to the ease with which users can communicate between platforms and devices, whether its sending videos from an iPhone to an Android device or texting between iMessenger and WhatsApp.
This might sound like a boon for users. But in the long term, this sort of rule threatens to thwart future innovation by locking tech companies into government-determined feature sets that can be updated or improved only with regulatory approval. Rules like this turn bureaucrats into product designers.
The charging rules are a symptom of a larger problem. E.U. bureaucrats' "regulate-first" approach has been spreading beyond Europe's borders to impact American companies and American consumers. Unfortunately, many American policy makers seem to be looking to Europe as a model.
Apple no longer sells the M1 MacBook Air as of earlier this month, discontinuing it and offering the M2 version of the Air as its entry-level model instead. But it looks like the M1 Air may live on, at least for a while—US retailer Walmart made a point of announcing today that it would carry and sell the M1 Air in its online store and at “select” retail locations for a much-lowered price of $699.
Rogue Amoeba has released Piezo 1.9, updating the “charmingly simple” audio recording tool with an overhauled audio capture technology.
You get to pick the conversations you want to master that are relevant to why you're learning the language and choose the level you want to start at. And the good news is that if you've been learning a language on another app for years and feel very invested, there's a feature that lets you set your level and import your streak from other apps.
Apple researchers have developed new methods for training large language models on both text and images, enabling more powerful and flexible AI systems, in what could be a significant advance for artificial intelligence and for future Apple products.
The work, described in a research paper titled “MM1: Methods, Analysis & Insights from Multimodal LLM Pre-training” that was quietly posted to arxiv.org this week, demonstrates how carefully combining different types of training data and model architectures can lead to state-of-the-art performance on a range of AI benchmarks.
Apple had argued it designed the AirTag with “industry-first” safety measures and shouldn’t be held responsible when the product is misused.
“Apple may ultimately be right that California law did not require it to do more to diminish the ability of stalkers to use AirTags effectively, but that determination cannot be made at this early stage,” the judge wrote in allowing the three plaintiffs to pursue their claims.
Cook had told investors on an Nov. 1, 2018, analyst call that although Apple faced sales pressure in markets such as Brazil, India, Russia and Turkey, where currencies had weakened, "I would not put China in that category."
Apple told suppliers a few days later to curb production.
Apple's long-running butterfly keyboard service program for MacBooks is ending soon, with only a few models still eligible for a free repair.
Below, we take a look back at Apple's butterfly keyboard problems that led to the program.
Sometimes, when I am listening to audiobooks during my commute, I will always be playing a game on the phone too. I always thought that this was to keep my hands occupied, so that my brain can focus more on the book. I've just realize: this game is my fidget toy.
I definitely don't mind this screen time.
(What else am I going to do on a train? Watch the commercials on the train?)
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Thanks for reading.