Michael Simon, Macworld:

The company, Xnor.ai, might not be one you’ve ever heard of, but they’re hardly unknown. Since last summer, the Seattle-based startup’s tech has been the brains behind the popular Wyze cam’s marquee feature: people detection. Simply put, it allowed the $20 camera to distinguish between faces, pets, and dust, and vastly improved its abilities, putting it a somewhat level playing field with the far-more-expensive Ring and Nest cams of the world.

Michael makes the case that Xnor.ai’s “Edge AI” approach can greatly enhance what Siri might be able to do on-chip, without iCloud.

For example:

Xnor.ai estimates that Edge AI runs 10 times as fast with 15X memory than cloud-based systems, and a responsive assistant dedicated to each specific phone could finally let Apple build a voice recognition system with near-perfect accuracy.

And:

That same engine could be applied to speech patterns. Siri dictation isn’t bad at all, but saying “period” and “comma” gets tedious. Edge AI could recognize our vocal patterns, so when we pause a certain way it adds a period, or if we change out inflection it adds a question mark.

Really interesting read.

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

Apple today began selling certified refurbished iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max models for the first time since the devices were released in September 2018.

At the time of writing, the refurbished models are available in Space Gray, Silver, or Gold with 64GB, 256GB, or 512GB of storage through Apple’s online store in the United States. All of the models are unlocked, aka SIM-free.

Follow the headline link for all the pricing info.

One example: A 64GB iPhone XS Max, $799. Compare that to a 64GB iPhone 11 Pro Max at $1099.

Variety:

Apple TV Plus is on the board. The new streaming service won its first major Hollywood honor on Sunday, as “The Morning Show” star Jennifer Aniston picked up a SAG Award for best female actor in a drama.

“The Morning Show” had previously been nominated for three awards at the Golden Globes (for Aniston and co-star Reese Witherspoon, as well as best drama), while Billy Crudup won a Critics’ Choice Award for best supporting actor. But the SAG Award gives “Morning Show,” Aniston and Apple TV Plus major momentum as it enters what should be the most crowded Emmy race in history.

Interesting first-time individual win for Aniston. She was up against a strong field in Helena Bonham Carter and Olivia Colman for The Crown, Jodie Comer in Killing Eve, and Elisabeth Moss in The Handmaid’s Tale.

Yahoo:

Everyone knows that the global corporate tax system needs to be overhauled, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said on Monday, backing changes to global rules that are currently under consideration.

“I think logically everybody knows it needs to be rehauled, I would certainly be the last person to say that the current system or the past system was the perfect system. I’m hopeful and optimistic that they (the OECD) will find something,” Cook said.

“It’s very complex to know how to tax a multinational… We desperately want it to be fair,” the Apple CEO added after receiving an inaugural award from the Irish state agency responsible for attracting foreign companies recognising the contribution of multinationals in the country.

Cook’s not wrong but trying to overhaul the entire global system may be a task worth of Sisyphus.

The Verge:

Comcast and NBCUniversal announced today that Peacock will be available in three tiers: a free option (Peacock Free) that comes with limited programming; an ad-supported complete version that is free to existing Comcast customers and $5-a-month for everyone else; and a $10-a-month ad-free subscription option that is open to anyone. That one is known as Peacock Premium.

And:

This brings us to Comcast and NBCUniversal’s final ace in the hole: licensing. NBCUniversal and Comcast own some of the most important licenses in Hollywood. The entire Harry Potter collection, for example, belongs to NBCUniversal right now. WarnerMedia licensed the rights to the franchise a while back, and it will have to wait until those expire (or a new deal is struck) before the movies can migrate over to HBO Max. Since NBCUniversal owns a few important licenses and can license its own series to other streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, which rely on third-party content, Peacock becomes less of a risky bet on streaming. There’s always something for the customer, with NBCUniversal being able to rotate new and older series in and out on a constant basis.

If the streaming biz is of interest, read the whole article. From the marketing shots I’ve seen, NBC has an Apple TV app in the works. I suspect it’ll be available at rollout.

Here’s a link to the Peacock home page. Be sure to click play/sound on to play the weird egg-hatching video at the top of the page.

9to5Google:

Last year, Google announced that all Android 7+ devices can be used as two-factor authentication when signing into Gmail, Drive, and other first-party services. Most modern iPhones can now be used as a built-in phone security key for Google apps.

And:

A built-in phone security key differs from the Google Prompt, though both essentially share the same UI. The latter push-based approach is found in the Google Search app and Gmail, while today’s announcement is more akin to a physical USB-C/Lightning key in terms of being resistant to phishing attempts and verifying who you are. Your phone security key needs to be physically near (within Bluetooth range) the device that wants to log-in. The login prompt is not just being sent over an internet connection.

Feels like a step in the right direction, a tool to help stop SIM-swapping. Ultimately, I’d love all my log-in services to offer a setting that limited logins to Face ID only, with Face ID required to change that setting as well.

The op-ed is a long, logical walkthrough of the claims by Attorney General Barr and the counterclaim on the values of both privacy and encryption.

But at its heart:

Apple is no doubt looking out for its commercial interests, and privacy is one of its selling points. But its encryption and security protections also have significant social and public benefits. Encryption has become more important as individuals store and transmit more personal information on their phones — including bank accounts and health records — amid increasing cyber-espionage.

Criminals communicate over encrypted platforms, but encryption protects all users including business executives, journalists, politicians, and dissenters in non-democratic societies. Any special key that Apple created for the U.S. government to unlock iPhones would also be exploitable by bad actors.

If American tech companies offer backdoors for U.S. law enforcement, criminals would surely switch to foreign providers. This would make it harder to obtain data stored on cloud servers. Apple says it has responded to more than 127,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement agencies over the past seven years. We doubt Huawei would be as cooperative.

A worthy read.

FastCompany:

When I looked into the user interface of Mojo Vision’s augmented reality contact lenses, I didn’t see anything at first except the real world in front of me. Only when I peeked over toward the periphery did a small yellow weather icon appear. When I examined it more closely, I could see the local temperature, the current weather, and some forecast information. I looked over to the 9 o’clock position and saw a traffic icon that gave way to a frontal graphic showing potential driving routes on a simple map. At 12 o’clock, I found my calendar and to-do information. At the bottom of my view was a simple music controller.

This is a mock-up, not a shipping product, but still, an audacious concept.

In the coming decade, it’s likely that our computing devices will become more personal and reside closer to—or even inside—our bodies. Our eyes are the logical next stop on the journey. Tech giants such as Apple and Facebook are just now trying to build AR glasses that are svelte enough to wear for extended periods. But Mojo is skipping over the glasses idea entirely, opting for the much more daunting goal of fitting the necessary microcomponents into contact lenses.

I do believe the future will see more and more augmentation, tech that brings the human body across the chasm, towards robots that are themselves trying to become more human. Will we meet in the middle? Become one giant AI, discarding flesh and bone entirely?

Fascinating read. And worth noting that one of the principals in this project is Steve Sinclair, formerly of Apple.

Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. has engaged a specialist in drone and aviation law as a Washington lobbyist, suggesting the company is pushing further into the growing field.

The Cupertino, California-based tech giant retained Lisa Ellman, a parter at Hogan Lovells, to conduct the lobbying. Ellman leads the law firm’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems practice. She also co-founded the Commercial Drone Alliance and is working to expand the commercial drone industry, according to her biography online.

And:

The company used drones a few years ago to help it collect mapping data. In December, it met with regulators about a proposed law that would require drones to sport virtual license plates. The company also sells several drones from DJI through the Apple website and Apple retail stores.

And:

Apple has a team exploring satellites, a type of unmanned aircraft, and Ellman could assist in regulatory efforts that would need to be conducted to launch such an effort. Apple rivals, including Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc., have developed drones in recent years.

Drones are certainly a massive business, especially on the military side. Does this connect to Apple’s reported autonomous vehicle efforts? Does this simply fall under miscellaneous?

Variety:

Following an extensive review period, Apple will release one of its first-ever original films, “The Banker,” in theaters this March.

“We wanted to take the time to understand the situation at hand — and after reviewing the information available to us, including documentation of the filmmakers’ research, we’ve decided to make this important and enlightening film available to viewers,” a spokesperson for the tech company’s content arm Apple TV Plus told Variety.

The film was delayed from a planned January release after family members of one of the men represented in the film came forth with accusations of abuse at the hands of one of the film’s executive producers, who was also a family member.

This is great news. I’m really looking forward to this movie.

Bloomberg:

I am reminded of an article I wrote four years ago cautioning America’s leaders against making technology and security policy decisions for short-term gains without considering the second- and third-order implications down the road.

Unfortunately, the encryption debate has changed little since then. Law-enforcement agencies advocate for “extraordinary access” to encrypted data to aid investigations – claiming that Americans should accept the security risks inherent in providing this backdoor to protected communications. Meanwhile, technology companies defend the use of end-to-end and device encryption as a key protection against cyberthreats. Then, as now, encryption’s advocates have the stronger argument.

This is a piece from late last year but it has resurfaced in light of recent events. It’s also by a man I like, admire, and greatly respect (even if I disagree with him on occasion) and a man who knows more about the topic than any of us ever will – General Michael Hayden, former director of both the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Nick Heer, on the FBI asking Apple for a backdoor version of iOS:

At no point — then or now — has Cook or anyone at Apple publicly confirmed how such a backdoor may be installed, or if it’s even possible. Presumably, it would use the iOS update mechanism, but how could permission be granted if the passcode to the iPhone isn’t known?

Nick then takes a Mac with a clean Catalina install, and an iPhone that has never been connected to that Mac, creating a simulation of a stolen, locked iPhone. He then installs an iOS update on that iPhone, all done without entering a passcode.

That said:

To be clear, my iPhone still prompted for its passcode when the update had finished its installation process. This did not magically unlock my iPhone. It also doesn’t prove that passcode preferences could be changed without first entering the existing valid passcode.

But it did prove the existence of one channel where an iPhone could be forced to update to a compromised version of iOS. One that would be catastrophic in its implications for iPhones today, into the future, and for encrypted data in its entirety. It is possible; it is terrible.

Does Nick’s experiment show a weakness in the process? Could a compromised iOS update be added which disables the passcode?

Certainly interesting. Taking this with a grain of salt, at least until someone follows this all the way through and unlocks an iPhone using this approach. Which I hope never happens.

Headline says it all. Gonna post an MKBHD video in a bit that asks the question, why all the clones and AirPods wannabes?

Follow the money. Amazing business.

Hollywood Reporter:

The Apple streamer has picked up the documentary about the legendary hip-hop group directed by Spike Jonze and featuring Grammy Award-winning bandmembers Mike Diamond and Adam Horovitz talking about their music career and 40-year friendship.

And:

A special cut of the feature documentary will open exclusively in select Imax theaters for a limited run from April 3, before the film debuts globally on Apple TV+ on April 24.

Looking forward to this one. Hoping there’s a good amount of focus on Def Jam and Rick Rubin. From the Beastie Boys Wikipedia page:

Following the success of “Cooky Puss”, the Beastie Boys began to incorporate rap into their sets. They hired a DJ for their live shows, New York University student Rick Rubin, who began producing records soon thereafter. He formed Def Jam Recordings with fellow NYU student Russell Simmons, and approached the band about producing them for his new label.

As important a subject as the Beasties are, I think Rick Rubin is an even more important figure in the tree of musical history. Would love to see Apple produce a Rick Rubin doc as a follow-on.

Engadget:

As promised, Microsoft is officially releasing its Chromium-based Edge browser today, which is powered by the same engine that’s behind Google Chrome. Windows and Mac users can download and install the update manually, and automatic updates will start rolling out for Windows users next week.

I’ve been using the new Edge browser since last April, and while I’m also disappointed to see Microsoft cede more control of the web to Google, I can’t deny that it’s a far better experience than before. The revamped browser is fast and easy to use; I rarely run into compatibility issues with websites (since everyone tends to build for Chrome); and I found its privacy settings to be a big step forward for average consumers.

I’m going to try using it for the next week and see if I like it. How about you?

The Verge:

Twitter users have been asking for the option to edit tweets ever since the service launched in 2006, but the company has always prevaricated, saying it’s looking into the problem, or considering it deeply, or a hundred other ways of saying “please stop bothering us about this, please.”

Now, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has given perhaps the most definitive answer on the question to date. During a video Q&A with Wired, Dorsey was asked if there’ll be an edit button for Twitter in 2020. He replies, with a faint smile: “The answer is no.”

Good. Now stop asking about it. It’s a spectacularly bad idea for exactly the reasons mentioned in the story. If you need edits, use a full-featured Twitter client like Twitterrific or Tweetbot which allow you to “delete and edit” a tweet.

Macworld:

Tech companies are still investing huge amounts of time and energy in smart-home products, as the recent Consumer Electronics Show displayed. A year ago, Apple hired a new head of home products—but it hasn’t yet resulted in a lot of visible changes to Apple’s strategy.

The biggest move so far is Apple’s joining forces with its competitors to form an alliance to encourage smart-home interoperability. That’s a good start, and I’m hopeful that Apple can begin to push HomeKit forward in 2020.

No, Apple doesn’t need to build a security camera, or smart lock, or video doorbell, or thermostat. Those ancillary products are exactly the sort of thing that third-party hardware companies are great at. What Apple provides is intelligence at the very center of the experience—and that means the home and the home network.

I and others been saying this for years. It should have been the natural extension of Jobs’ vision for the home he put forward long ago at a Macworld Expo keynote. I think it’s a huge blind spot the company is bizarrely ignoring. Something as “simple” as the Apple TV combined with a HomePod that works as a TV soundbar has been talked about and lusted over. Why won’t/hasn’t Apple developed this idea further? I agree with Snell when he says, “The elimination of AirPort wasn’t a mistake. The real mistake was not replacing it with a next-generation product that could be the hub of a home network.”