Apple Announces HomePod Launch in China
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| Apple Announces HomePod Launch in China | |
| Number | 724 |
| Broadcast Date | JANUARY 14, 2019 |
| Episode Length | 4:58 |
| Hosts | Sarah Lane |
Facebook tests new Stories feature for events, Ryuk ransomware generates big money, Apple finally manufacturing AirPower wireless charger?
Headlines
- Apple announced that HomePod will be available in mainland China and Hong Kong this Friday, January 18th. It will be available in white and space gray. Apple also played up integration with Apple Music’s “New Artist of the Week” feature in China, as well as curated playlists like Mandopop and Cantopop being available via HomePod in China. HomePod is already available in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, and Spain.
- Apple announced its upcoming AirPower wireless charging with the iPhone 8 and iPhone X back in 2017 and a new rumor points to it maybe possibly being a real thing that ships soon. The Twitter account ChargerLAB, which is based in Hong Kong, says Apple is manufacturing the AirPower mat based on a credible source. Luxshare Precision is named as the manufacturer, which already makes Apple’s AirPods, and has been rumored to be a supplier for the AirPower mat since 2017. Last year, Pegatron was also rumored to be producing AirPower, and ChargerLAB followed up its tweet saying that Pegatron would also begin manufacturing on January 21st.
- Facebook said it plans to start testing a way “to share the events you’re interested in and coordinate to meet up with friends IRL” using its Stories feature in the US, Brazil, and Mexico on both iOS and Android. The stories will show up with event details, and friends can mark themselves as “interested” or “going” to the event within the story itself. A link to the event page is built in and a group chat in Messenger with friends who respond is included as well.
- The Google News Initiative has partnered with WordPress to invest $1.2 million in creating a “fast, secure, low-cost publishing system tailor-made to the needs of small newsrooms” called Newspack. The new publishing platform could include website design, a CMS, and commerce options, with support for existing WordPress plugins, with “operating fees of between $1,000 per month and $2,000 per month” after launch. WordPress' parent company Automattic is creating the platform and other funders besides Google include Lenfest Institute for Journalism, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Civil Media. Early sign-ups for Newspack are open now and a beta version is expected by July.
- Researchers at CrowdStrike and FireEye estimate that the code for Ryuk ransomware has produced the equivalent of $3.7 million in bitcoin since August, spread across 52 payments. Ryuk attacks typically start by infecting systems with TrickBot malware, often through email, that allows intruders to study their targets. Ars Technica notes that Ryuk doesn't even launch if it's deemed the organization isn't large enough to generate a big enough payout. Although the source of Ryuk is unknown, CrowdStrike (which nicknamed the attackers Grim Spider) suggests they might be Russian based on internet addresses and language trends.
- Last year, Norwegian financial newspaper Dagens Næringsliv said it had an internal TIDAL company hard drive showing that the music streaming platform’s play-counts for Beyoncé’s album Lemonade and Kanye West’s album The Life Of Pablo – had been artificially inflated to generate large royalty payouts at the expense of other artists.’ Tidal has denied DN’s claims, although the company then opened a third-party internal review into a potential data breach. Meanwhile, Norwegian collection society Tono, which represents around 30,000 songwriters, filed an official police complaint against TIDAL. Today, DN reports that Norway’s National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Økokrim) is now investigating the potential ‘fake stream numbers, and several former TIDAL employees have been interrogated before a judge. A lawyer for Tidal declined to comment on the investigation as it's still ongoing.
- Dataminers have found references to multiple Super NES games in the files for the Switch's "Nintendo Entertainment System - Nintendo Switch Online" subscription emulation service. This points to the company possibly planning to expand the system's emulated offerings in the future. A hacker with the moniker KapuccinoHeck—who previously shared mods and hidden data for Splatoon 2 and other Switch games - tweeted the text of a file said to be stored in the NES Online's file system, and another hacker named OatmealDome tweeted that the file is indeed authentic.
- A photo of an egg has dethroned Kylie Jenner’s birth announcement as the most-liked Instagram post ever. The New York Times pointed out that the egg’s likes have passed the population of Australia, with over 30 million as of Monday morning.
Links
| Preceded by: "Week in Review for the Week of 1/7/19" |
Apple Announces HomePod Launch in China |
Followed by: "Apple Had Record Battery Replacements in 2018" |