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Apple’s iPhone 12 and Mac sales skyrocket despite ongoing pandemic

Apple’s iPhone 12 lineup maintained enormously strong demand from consumers from January through March, according to the company’s fiscal Q2 earnings posted today. Apple reported record March quarter revenue of $89.6 billion, up 54 percent year over year. The iPhone took in just under $48 billion, jumping up by 66 percent from a year ago…. Read more

Fortnite’s cash cow is PlayStation, not iOS, court documents reveal

Earlier this month, we learned that the iOS version of Fortnite was a huge revenue driver for Epic Games — the game earned more than $700 million from iOS customers over the two years before it was pulled by Apple, according to court documents (PDF) released ahead of Epic’s trial against the iPhone maker. But… Read more

Android bug exposed COVID-19 contact tracing logs to preinstalled apps

The Android version of Google and Apple’s COVID-19 exposure notification app had a privacy flaw that let other preinstalled apps potentially see sensitive data, including if someone had been in contact with a person who tested positive for COVID-19, privacy analysis firm AppCensus revealed on Tuesday. Google says it’s currently rolling out a fix to… Read more

Apple will now let you add virtual lasers and confetti to your Clips videos

Apple now lets you add augmented-reality lasers, confetti, and more to your Clips videos, thanks to an update to the short-form video app. The feature, called AR Spaces, will let users with LIDAR-equipped Apple devices (so far, that’s the iPhone 12 Pros and iPad Pros from 2020 or later) add room-filling effects that can interact… Read more

REvil Ransomware Group Reportedly Drops Apple Threat

Home News (Image credit: Shutterstock) The hacking group known as REvil has reportedly pulled all references to a ransomware attack against Apple supplier Quanta Computer from its home on the dark web, MacRumors reports. Last week, the group had threatened Quanta with ransomware, demanding $50 million by April 27 in order to stop it from… Read more

Apple announces new $1 billion North Carolina campus and $80 billion additional US spending

Apple has announced new spending plans for the US, including the establishment of a 3,000-employee “campus and engineering hub” in North Carolina and the commitment of an additional $80 billion in investment across the country. Back in 2018, the firm said it would spend more than $350 billion in the US over the next five… Read more

The Competitor

How Nick ‘Nickmercs’ Kolcheff battled his way to the top of Twitch The first thing you see is his forehead, because Nick “Nickmercs” Kolcheff is hunched forward and focused on his on-screen opponents. (Gamer stance, for the initiated.) The second thing you see is his crosshair begin to make its way, unerringly, to an opponent’s… Read more

Watch NASA’s mission control track the first flight on Mars

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter is slated to attempt the first-ever powered flight on another world at 3:30AM ET on Monday. The twin-blade rotorcraft will try to ascend 10 feet above ground and hover in place for 30 seconds while cameras on NASA’s Perseverance rover record the historic attempt from a distance. The four-pound Ingenuity copter landed… Read more

Google Project Zero will give a 30-day grace period before disclosing security issues

Google’s Project Zero, a team of dedicated security engineers tasked with reducing the number of “zero day” vulnerabilities around the entire internet, says it will give developers an extra 30 days before disclosing vulnerability issues, in order to give end-users time to patch their software. Developers will still have 90 days to fix bugs, but… Read more

Sony invests another $200 million in Epic Games

Sony has just invested another $200 million in Epic Games as part of a $1 billion funding round, Epic announced today. Over a dozen investors contributed toward the funding round, which valued the Fortnite developer at $28.7 billion. That’s over $10 billion more than Epic Games’ estimated value at the time of Sony’s major investment… Read more

Apple says it will send a witness to Senate hearing on app stores after all

After several senators criticized the company, Apple said on Sunday it would send its chief compliance officer to an April 21st hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bloomberg reported. Leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook on Friday demanding that the company send a representative to the hearing,… Read more

Apple refuses request to testify for Senate app store hearing

Senate Judiciary Committee leaders are demanding that Apple provide a witness for an upcoming hearing on app stores and digital competition after the iPhone manufacturer has refused to participate, according to a new letter to the company released Friday. In the letter addressed to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee… Read more

Tim Cook says Apple wants to use AR to make conversations better

Apple CEO Tim Cook rarely provides details on unannounced products, but he offered some hints about Apple’s thinking on augmented reality and cars in an interview with Kara Swisher for The New York Times this morning. When it comes to augmented reality, he agreed with Swisher’s framing that the tech is “critically important” to Apple’s… Read more

Apple will use Tesla’s ‘megapack’ batteries at its California solar farm

Apple announced Wednesday that it’s building a big battery storage project at a Northern California solar farm it spearhead in 2015. But what the company didn’t share is that the battery packs will come from Tesla, The Verge has learned. The newly-announced setup, which will store up to 240 megawatt-hours of energy, was approved by… Read more

The electric bucket trucks are coming

We’ve seen electric pickup trucks, electric school buses, and even a few electric 18-wheelers. But where are the electric aerial work platform trucks, known colloquially as bucket trucks? Con Edison may have an answer. The energy utility for New York City, and one of the largest energy companies in the US, is teaming up with… Read more