Wednesday, 8 January 2020

Alcohol Is Killing More Americans Than Ever

More and more Americans are drinking themselves to death. A new study this week finds there were around 72,000 alcohol-related deaths among people over the age of 16 in 2017—more than double the number of similar deaths recorded two decades earlier.

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Save Big on TaoTronics SoundLiberty 53 Wireless Earbuds [Exclusive]

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Apple TV App Coming to Select Sony and Vizio Smart TVs Later This Year

In addition to select LG smart TVs, Apple today announced that its Apple TV app will be available on select Sony and Vizio smart TVs later this year. Apple shared the news in a press release highlighting the success of its various services.


When available, the Apple TV app will allow owners of newer LG, Sony, and Vizio smart TVs to stream Apple TV+ shows and movies, use the à-la-carte Apple TV Channels feature, access their iTunes libraries of movies and TV shows, and buy or rent more than 100,000 shows and movies from the iTunes Store.

The Apple TV app is already available on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, PC, Apple TV, select Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, and select Samsung smart TVs.


This article, "Apple TV App Coming to Select Sony and Vizio Smart TVs Later This Year" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple Says App Store Set Single-Day Spending Record of $386 Million on New Year's Day

Apple has marked the close of a "historic 2019" for its services offerings with a press release celebrating Apple Arcade, Apple TV+, Apple News+ and Apple Card, as well as the continued success of its App Store, Apple Music, and iCloud.

"2019 was the biggest year for Services in Apple's history. We introduced several exciting new experiences for our customers, all while setting the standard for user privacy and security," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "We begin the new decade with incredible momentum and gratitude to our customers who have shown such enthusiasm for all of our Services, and we continue to celebrate the work of the world's best creators, storytellers, journalists and developers."
Here are some key takeaways from Apple's services highlights of 2019, including some things that the company says customers can look forward to in 2020:
  • ‌App Store‌ customers spent a record $1.42 billion between Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, a 16 percent increase over last year, and $386 million on New Year's Day 2020 alone, a 20 percent increase over last year and a new single-day record.


  • Over 50 percent of ‌Apple Music‌ listeners have used the new time-synced lyrics feature that was introduced in 2019 with iOS 13.


  • ‌Apple TV‌+ "made history" as the first streaming platform to receive multiple Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations in its launch year, and is the first and only streaming service to debut instantly in over 100 countries and regions.


  • ‌Apple News‌ draws over 100 million monthly active users in the US, UK, Australia and Canada.


  • In 2020, ‌Apple News‌ will provide live coverage of key moments in the US presidential election in partnership with ABC News.


  • Apple Podcasts now delivers listeners over 800,000 shows in 155 countries.


  • In 2019, entry to more than 150 stadiums, ballparks, arenas and entertainment venues around the world was available with contactless tickets on iPhone and Apple Watch.


  • In 2020, customers will be able to tap their ‌iPhone‌ and ‌Apple Watch‌ to ride trains and buses in Washington, D.C., Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Foshan, Guangdong, and will be able to access dorms and services at additional universities across the US.


  • Over 75 percent of ‌iCloud‌ users are protected with two-factor authentication, an extra layer of security designed to ensure that no one else can access their account or data.
During its last earnings call of 2019, Apple revealed that in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2019 its services segment brought in $12.5 billion, up from $10.6 billion in the year-ago quarter and $11.46 billion in the third quarter of 2019. Services grew 18 percent year-over-year, and Apple said that it saw growth in all regions around the world.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said that almost every one of Apple's services had set new all-time revenue records, including its search ad business, ‌‌Apple Music‌‌, Apple Care, cloud services, and the ‌‌App Store‌‌. Apple's services category is now the size of a Fortune 70 company by revenue.


This article, "Apple Says App Store Set Single-Day Spending Record of $386 Million on New Year's Day" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple's Privacy Officer Jane Horvath Uses CES Appearance to Defend Company Stance on Encryption and Software Backdoors

Apple's chief privacy officer attended a discussion panel at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday to debate the state of consumer privacy, marking the first time in 28 years that Apple has been at CES in an official capacity.

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Jane Horvath, Apple's senior director for global privacy, joined an all-female panel consisting of representatives from Facebook, Procter & Gamble and the Federal Trade Commission. During the discussion, Horvath defended Apple's use of encryption to protect customer data on mobile devices.
"Our phones are relatively small and they get lost and stolen," Horvath said. "If we're going to be able to rely on our health data and finance data on our devices, we need to make sure that if you misplace that device, you're not losing your sensitive data."
Apple has held a consistent position regarding its use of encryption, even if that means it has limited ability to help law enforcement access data on devices involved in criminal investigations.

Just this week, the FBI asked Apple to help unlock two iPhones that investigators believe were owned by Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, who carried out a mass shooting at a Naval Air Station in Florida last month. Apple said that it had already given the FBI all of the data in its possession.

Apple's response suggests it will maintain the same stance it took in 2016, when the FBI demanded that Apple provide a so-called "backdoor" into iPhones, following the December 2015 shooter incidents in San Bernardino. Apple refused, and the FBI eventually backed down after it found an alternate way to access the data on the iPhone.

Horvath took the same tack by saying that Apple has a team working around the clock to respond to requests from law enforcement, but that building backdoors into software to give law enforcement access to private data is something she doesn't support.
"Building backdoors into encryption is not the way we are going to solve those issues," Horvath said.
Horvath went on to talk up Apple's "privacy by design" technologies like differential privacy, user randomization in native apps and services, the on-device facial recognition in the Photos app, and minimal data retrieval for Siri. Horvath also confirmed that Apple scans for child sexual abuse content uploaded to iCloud. "We are utilizing some technologies to help screen for child sexual abuse material," she said.

Horvath became Apple's chief privacy officer in September 2011. Prior to her work at Apple, Horvath was global privacy counsel at Google and chief privacy counsel at the Department of Justice.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.


This article, "Apple's Privacy Officer Jane Horvath Uses CES Appearance to Defend Company Stance on Encryption and Software Backdoors" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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