Thursday, December 19

Tag: Apple

Now Play Temple Run By Swiping Your Finger Across Your Arm
Tech

Now Play Temple Run By Swiping Your Finger Across Your Arm

Soon, you'll be able to play Temple Run by swiping your finger across your arm as a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University has developed a new wearable technology Called SkinTrack that can turn the entire lower arm into a touchpad. Developed by the Human-Computer Interaction Institute's Future Interfaces Group, the new system allows for continuous touch tracking on the hands and arms. It also can detect touches at discrete locations on the skin, enabling functionality similar to buttons or slider controls. Previous "skin to screen" approaches have employed flexible overlays, interactive textiles, and projector/camera combinations that can be cumbersome. SkinTrack, by contrast, requires only that the user wear a special ring, which propagates a low-energy, high-frequency ...
Amazon Bolsters Voice Based-Platform Alexa With Investment in TrackR
FUNDING

Amazon Bolsters Voice Based-Platform Alexa With Investment in TrackR

Amazon.com Inc is investing between $250,000 and $500,000 in Bluetooth technology company TrackR to extend the reach of its Alexa virtual assistant, according to a source familiar with the matter Alexa is the cloud-based system that controls the Amazon Echo, a speaker system launched by Amazon in 2014 that has emerged as a surprise hit. "Alexa" is the name the device responds to when users make requests, such as "turn on radio." Amazon and TrackR declined to comment on the size of the investment. Like Apple Inc's Siri and Google's Google Now, Alexa is designed to answer questions or take other actions in response to simple voice queries. Unlike its rivals, Amazon allows non-Amazon devices to integrate Alexa technology. The investment in TrackR came through Amazon's $100 million "...
Apple Suffers Worst Slowdown in iPhone Sales Since 2013
BUSINESS

Apple Suffers Worst Slowdown in iPhone Sales Since 2013

Tech giant Apple Inc has reported its worst week on the stock market since 2013 with a slowdown in iPhone sales. The shares of Apple have dropped 11 percent in the past five sessions, Reuters reported. The Revenue from China plunged further to 26 percent during the March quarter after Apple's iBooks Stores and iTunes Movie service were shut down in the country last week. "If you are going to buy Apple, you have to buy it for the long term, because the next year or two are going to be very tough," said Michael Yoshikami, chief executive of Destination Wealth Management.
I Sold My Entire Apple Stake Because of China – Billionaire Carl Icahn
Entrepreneurs Talk

I Sold My Entire Apple Stake Because of China – Billionaire Carl Icahn

Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn said Thursday he had sold his entire stake in Apple Inc, citing the risk of China's influence on the stock. Icahn, in an interview with cable television network CNBC, also said he was "still very cautious" on the U.S. stock market and there would be a "day of reckoning" unless there was some sort of fiscal stimulus. Icahn had been a huge cheerleader of Apple, acquiring a stake in the company almost three years ago, repeatedly calling the investment a "no brainer." In an open letter to Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook in May 2015, Icahn had argued that shares of the iPhone maker were worth $240, about 90 percent more than they had been trading. At $240 a share, Apple's market cap would be $1.4 trillion, Icahn asserted. But Icahn, wh...
We Bought a Tool To Hack Terrorists iPhone: FBI chief
News

We Bought a Tool To Hack Terrorists iPhone: FBI chief

The US government purchased "a tool" from a private party to unlock the iPhone used by a Pakistani-American shooter involved in the San Bernardino terror attack, according to FBI Director James Comey. "Litigation between the government and Apple over the San Bernardino phone has ended, because the government has purchased, from a private party, a way to get into that phone, 5C, running iOS 9," Comey said. Law enforcement officials said last month that they had finally cracked the iPhone 5C used by Syed Farook, one of two shooters in the December 2015 attack that left 14 people dead in California. But they did not go into details, other than to say an unnamed third party had provided assistance. In an effort to access information stored on his phone, the US government had pursued ...
White House Declines To Support Encryption Legislation – Sources
USA

White House Declines To Support Encryption Legislation – Sources

The White House is declining to offer public support for draft legislation that would empower judges to require technology companies such as Apple Inc to help law enforcement crack encrypted data, sources familiar with the discussions said. The decision all but assures that the years-long political impasse over encryption will continue even in the wake of the high-profile effort by the Department of Justice to force Apple to break into an iPhone used by a gunman in last December's shootings in San Bernardino, California. President Obama suggested in remarks last month that he had come around to the view that law enforcement agencies needed to have a way to gain access to encrypted information on smartphones. But the administration remains deeply divided on the issue, the sources s...
Apple Should Unlock San Bernardino iPhone: Bill Gates
Entrepreneurs Talk

Apple Should Unlock San Bernardino iPhone: Bill Gates

A day after some victims of theSan Bernardino shooting said that they would file a legal brief in support of the U.S. Government's attempt to force Apple Inc. to unlock the encrypted iPhone owned by one of the shooters, technology giant Microsoft came out in support of the victims and asked Apple Inc. to unlock the iPhone. The Financial Times quoted Bill Gates as saying that he was in disagreement with Apple CEO Tim Cook that the FBI's request would create an iPhone backdoor. "This is a specific case where the government is asking for access to information. They are not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case," Bill Gates said. "It is no different than the question of should anybody ever have been able to tell the phone company to get information, should...
MobileIron Software Could Have Opened San Bernardino Shooter’s iPhone
USA

MobileIron Software Could Have Opened San Bernardino Shooter’s iPhone

The US investigation agency FBI demands that Apple Inc unlock an iPhone used by San Bernardino shooter Rizwan Farook might have been avoided if his employer, which owns the device, had equipped it with special mobile phone software it issues to many workers. San Bernardino County, which employed Farook as an environmental health inspector, requires some, but not all, of its workers to install mobile-device management software made by Silicon Valley-based MobileIron Inc on government-issued phones, according to county spokesman David Wert. That software is designed to secure corporate data. It also allows information technology departments to remotely unlock phones, even without assistance of the phone's users or access to the password needed to open the phone and unscramble the data. "I...
First time, Alphabet Disclosed The Profitability of Google's Search Engine
News

First time, Alphabet Disclosed The Profitability of Google's Search Engine

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Alphabet Inc. announced financial results for the quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2015.  Alphabet easily beat Wall Street's quarterly profit forecasts on Monday, helped by strong mobile advertising sales, sending the shares of Google's parent higher in after-hours trading to surpass Apple Inc as the most valuable U.S. company. "Our very strong revenue growth in Q4 reflects the vibrancy of our business, driven by mobile search as well as YouTube and programmatic advertising, all areas in which we've been investing for many years. We're excited about the opportunities we have across Google and Other Bets to use technology to improve the lives of billions of people," said Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet. For the first time, the company disclosed the profitabil...
Apple Acquired Education Technology Startup LearnSprout
ACQUISITION

Apple Acquired Education Technology Startup LearnSprout

Apple Inc announced that it has acquired an education technology startup called LearnSprout in a drive to expand it's initiative to make the iPad the future of education. LearnSprout, and their CEO Franklin Chien have been working diligently on creating a new type of educational software, which is already used in 2,500 school districts within the United States. The acquisition is possibly an important one for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), as they have already been pushing education tools for the iPad into school districts around the nation. As for the price that Apple paid, or just what their plans may be to integrate LearnSprout into their current educational framework, the company refused to say. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discus...
Kim Kardashian Apologizes to Apple
News

Kim Kardashian Apologizes to Apple

When Paper Magazine said that Kim Kardashian was out to break the Internet, maybe they weren’t wrong? Kardashian’s emoji app, Kimoji, debuted in the Apple App Store Monday to great fanfare. Currently, it is the top paid app (knockingMinecraft: Pocket Edition off the pole position). Kimoji is also the App Store’s no. 11 highest-grossing app, generating more revenue currently than much-advertised games Boom Beach and Mobile Strike. The app — which features emoji of Kim’s most famous assets, as well as food and makeup — apparently caused an interruption in the App Store. While the app is very popular, it currently has only a 2-star rating. In a Facebook post and stream of tweets, she apologized to fans and followers about the App Store error. Apple, I'm so sorry I broke your App S...
‘Walmart Pay’ Is the Newest Mobile Payment Option
News

‘Walmart Pay’ Is the Newest Mobile Payment Option

Reuters- Wal-Mart Stores Inc said it would launch 'Walmart Pay,' to become the first U.S. retailer to offer its own payment feature to expand consumer payment options and increase the speed of checkouts. Walmart Pay will be introduced in select U.S. stores on Thursday and in additional stores after the holiday season, Wal-Mart executives said on a video call with reporters on Wednesday. The free service, integrated into the retailer's app, will be available nationwide by the first half of 2016, the executives said. Walmart Pay will be available on devices using Apple's iOS or Alphabet Inc's Android operating system and allows payments with any major credit, debit, pre-paid or Walmart gift cards, the company said. It will also allow for the integration of other payment options s...