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Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, arrive for a State Dinner reception in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Sept. 25, 2015. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Among over 200 titans of industry, finance and entertainment this evening, Apple’s Tim Cook and former EPA head and Apple’s VP of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives Lisa P. Jackson attended President Obama’s Chinese State Dinner. The two reportedly sat at the President’s table with FaceBook’s Mark Zuckerberg with wife Pricilla Chan, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Apple Board member and Disney CEO Bob Iger among the 18…
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Tim Cook among tech leaders meeting with Chinese President as Obama threatens import restrictions

Ben Lovejoy Sep 24 2015 - 5:27 am PT

Apple CEO Tim Cook is one of a large number of tech leaders meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit to Seattle. It’s believed that the Chinese head of state is trying to enlist support from U.S. tech companies in his attempt to persuade President Obama not to implement threatened import restrictions against China. Obama had threatened the action over hacking and intellectual property theft by Chinese firms.

A report by the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property earlier this year (via the WSJ) found that intellectual property theft amounted to $300B a year, much of it carried out by hacking systems belonging to U.S. firms.

It’s been suggested that President Xi Jinping wants to emphasise the interdependence between U.S. tech companies and China as both a manufacturing base and a growing market. China is already a larger market for Apple than Europe, and looks set to overtake the USA, with Apple reporting 112% revenue growth in its Q3 earnings call.

Other tech CEOs present include Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, IBM’s Ginni Rometty, Intel’s Brian Krzanich, Microsoft’s Satyta Nadella and Qualcomm’s Steven Mollenkopf.

Photo: Pool/Getty Images

Instagram reaches 400 million active users, 80 million photos shared per day

Chance Miller Sep 22 2015 - 2:43 pm PT

3 Comments

Popular image sharing service Instagram today announced that it has grown to have more than 400 million active monthly users, up from 300 million in December of 2014 and double the number it had in March of 2014.

Furthermore, Instagram says that more than 80 million photos are shared via the social network every day. The company also notes that of the last 100 million users to join, more than half live in Europe and Asia. This accelerated global growth rate means that more than 75 percent of all Instagram users live outside of the United Sates.

We are thrilled to announce that the Instagram community has grown to more than 400 million strong. While milestones like this are important, what really excites us is the way that visual communication makes the world feel a little bit smaller to every one of us.

Our community has evolved to be even more global, with more than 75 percent living outside of the US. To all the new Instagrammers: welcome! Among the last 100 million to join, more than half live in Europe and Asia. The countries that added the most Instagrammers include Brazil, Japan and Indonesia.

Instagram was, of course, acquired by Facebook back in 2012 for $1 billion, although Facebook has maintained a rather hands-off approach when it comes to interfering with Instagram. Most recently, Instagram on iOS gained long awaited support for landscape photos and videos.

Facebook debuts Siri competitor ‘M’ built into Messenger app

Mike Beasley Aug 26 2015 - 10:48 am PT

Facebook today confirmed previous rumors that it was developing a Messenger-based virtual assistant codenamed “Moneypenny.” The software was debuted today under the name “M,” and will be available in a very limited release to users in the Bay Area starting today.

Flash’s demise continues as Amazon stops accepting Flash ads due to browser settings

Zac Hall Aug 20 2015 - 8:31 am PT

7 Comments

Amazon may have been Apple’s target when it unveiled its iBooks Store alongside the iPad in 2010, but the digital retail giant’s latest move is helping fulfill Steve Jobs’ vision of a web without Flash. Amazon Advertising issued an update to its technical guidelines today declaring that it will stop accepting Flash-based ads starting next month. Adobe cited “recent browser setting updates from Google Chrome, and existing browser settings from Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari” that interfere with displaying Flash ads.
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WhatsApp Web feature now supports iOS, available for some iPhone users

Zac Hall Aug 19 2015 - 9:11 am PT

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The highly popular WhatsApp messaging service owned by Facebook appears to be adding a new feature that allows iPhone users to chat in the browser using a web app. The feature is called WhatsApp Web and became available on various platforms including Android and Windows Phone earlier this year, but the feature was absent for iPhone users at the time “due to Apple platform limitations.” Using the chat service on the web requires running WhatsApp on a corresponding smartphone.
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Facebook is reportedly developing a Twitter-like breaking news app

Zac Hall Aug 11 2015 - 12:17 pm PT

Notification system reportedly being tested (via <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-mobile-notification-breaking-news-app-2015-8?op=1" target="_blank">BI</a>)

Update: A Facebook spokesperson has issued a statement to 9to5Mac, saying “We don’t comment on rumors or speculation.”

Facebook is currently developing a new standalone mobile app geared toward breaking news, Business Insider reports. The mobile app in testing is said to be Twitter-like in a news sense as its focus is said to be around allowing partnered publications to push alerts to users. Another Twitter-like aspect is the character limit of alerts being tested. According to the report, publications will have 100 characters plus an article link for users to click in each alert; similarly, tweets are limited to 140 characters in total.
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Facebook reportedly developing Siri competitor codenamed ‘Moneypenny’

Mike Beasley Jul 13 2015 - 7:12 pm PT

20 Comments

After taking on messaging, cash transfers, and more, Facebook is preparing to challenge Apple in the virtual assistant arena. The social company is in the process of developing a Messenger-based Siri competitor called Moneypenny, a new report indicates.

Facebook’s security exec pushes Steve Jobs’ call for Adobe to kill Flash

Zac Hall Jul 13 2015 - 9:06 am PT

43 Comments

Facebook’s chief security officer, Alex Stamos, echoed a message first delivered quite memorably by Steve Jobs in 2010: it’s time for Adobe to kill Flash. Addressing Apple’s position of not supporting the plug-in on iOS and instead pushing HTML5, security was just one key point in Jobs’ epic Thoughts on Flash essay when the iPad launched.

We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now.

Five years later, our dependence on Flash has greatly diminished on the desktop, but security issues continue to be an issue with the plug-in. In 2010, Jobs used more than 1600 words to explain Apple’s reason for not adding Flash support to iOS. In 2015, Facebook’s security chief pushed the message in less than 140 characters:
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Facebook finally letting you control your newsfeed, coming first to iOS app today

Ben Lovejoy Jul 9 2015 - 6:19 am PT

17 Comments

One of the things we all love to hate about Facebook is the way that it thinks it knows better than we do which posts we want to see. Facebook uses unspecified algorithms to assign rankings to posts, boosting the visibility of those it thinks we want to see, and demoting those it thinks will interest us less.

A new iOS Facebook app rolling out later today will for the first time allow us to choose for ourselves whose posts get bumped to the top of our feeds. Three additional features also allow us to control what we do and don’t see further down those feeds …
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Apple Music may see a new competitor as Facebook reportedly explores streaming music service

Ben Lovejoy Jul 9 2015 - 4:13 am PT

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Update: Facebook tells The Verge it has no plans to enter the streaming music market.

Apple may not be the only new entrant into the streaming music business: Musically suggests that Facebook is in the early stages of planning its own music service.

Facebook has been talking to music labels for some time, but this was believed to relate only to YouTube-style ad-supported videos. But Musically says its sources say that Facebook sees this as a stepping stone toward a streaming audio service.

Music Ally can reveal that while Facebook will expand that trial to music videos soon, the social network is planning to follow that with the launch of an audio music-streaming service to compete with Spotify, Apple Music and others […]

Sources have told Music Ally that an audio service is very much on Facebook’s roadmap, but that both the social network and rightsholders realise that it has to get the monetised-video service right first

There is speculation that Facebook might take the same approach as Apple in buying an existing streaming music service, like Rdio, but Musically says that while this has not been ruled out, its sources suggests that the company wants to build its own service from scratch.

We noted yesterday that Spotify is planning to email its customers to advise iOS users to subscribe to its Premium service via the web to avoid the 30% ‘Apple tax.’

Via Engadget. Photo: Reuters.

Facebook continues to ‘borrow’ Snapchat features as it tests swipeable filters, stickers & text overlays in iOS app

Ben Lovejoy Jun 29 2015 - 4:02 am PT

2 Comments

Facebook has rather a long history of finding inspiration in the Snapchat app, from Poke back in 2012 (which was pulled last month) to Slingshot. TechCrunch reports that the company is now testing three new features in its iOS app, all of which mimic functions available in Snapchat.

The new photo uploader adds:

swipeable filters, allowing you to instantly preview the effects
the ability to paste Facebook stickers on top of photos
the option to overlay text on a photo

Facebook appears to have rolled-out the new version of the app to a limited number of users so far. Most of the photo filters are based on the seasons …
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You no longer need a Facebook account to use Messenger

Tom Maxwell Jun 24 2015 - 11:11 am PT

Facebook Messenger is a beautifully designed messaging app available on both Android and iOS, and now you don’t even need to a Facebook account to use it.

Facebook Moments app makes it easier to exchange photos with friends

Tom Maxwell Jun 15 2015 - 10:44 am PT

7 Comments

Facebook has today unveiled a new app called Moments from its Creative Labs division that makes it easier to exchange pictures amongst friends who were together at an event or place, all documenting it through their own photos. Here’s how Facebook describes the problem they’re solving:

It’s hard to get the photos your friends have taken of you, and everyone always insists on taking that same group shot with multiple phones to ensure they get a copy. Even if you do end up getting some of your friends’ photos, it’s difficult to keep them all organized in one place on your phone.

Through the use of location and facial-recognition data (both areas where Facebook has invested heavily), Moments groups photos together and then asks if you’d like to share them with the people it has recognized, and vice-versa. It’s very reminiscent of the now-defunct Color, although that app was more real-time and ephemeral (Moments allows you to collect and sync photos with friends after an event is over), and wasn’t integrated closely with Facebook’s 1 billion plus user base.

https://vimeo.com/130380325

It’s available now in the iOS App Store and on Google Play, which is useful in the event that some of your friends are on Android (gasp, I know).

Apple’s ‘Proactive’ to take on Google Now with deep iOS 9 search, Augmented Reality Maps, Siri API

Mark Gurman May 27 2015 - 9:59 am PT

55 Comments

After several years of quiet development, Apple is readying a major new iOS initiative codenamed “Proactive,” which will leverage Siri, Contacts, Calendar, Passbook, and third-party apps to create a viable competitor to Google Now for Android devices. Like Google Now, Proactive will automatically provide timely information based on the user’s data and device usage patterns, but will respect the user’s privacy preferences, according to sources familiar with Apple’s plans.

As an evolution of iOS’s Spotlight search feature, Proactive is the fruit of a long-term initiative that involved the acquisition of small app developers, and integration of core iOS apps. It will also work with Apple’s Maps application to display personally relevant points of interest using an augmented reality interface, and integrate with a third-party Siri API codenamed “Breadcrumbs”…

Facebook Messenger’s free video calling now available worldwide

Jordan Kahn May 20 2015 - 8:27 am PT

After adding support for a new cross-platform video chat service through its Facebook Messenger mobile apps, Facebook has now announced that the feature is rolling out to all worldwide.

The feature first launched back in April for users on iOS and Android in Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Laos, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, the UK, the US and Uruguay. Today, Facebook said the feature is now rolled out globally “with the exception of a few countries” that it’s still working on:

Quick update on video calling in Messenger: we’re happy to share we’ve now rolled out the capability globally, with the exception of a few countries we’re still working on improving quality for.

You can check out the new Facebook Messenger video calling feature through the latest versions of the iOS and Android apps.

Review: Dotti & Notti, fun (if pointless) ways to receive notifications

Ben Lovejoy May 20 2015 - 6:17 am PT

5 Comments

My conclusion in my Skeptic’s Apple Watch diary series was that the device didn’t really have a unique selling-point to me, but was a slightly more convenient way to receive notifications. Ultimately, though, I kept it because it was a cool gadget.

The same argument, I think, would have to be deployed to justify what are really a couple of fun toys that happen to alert you to notifications: Dotti and Notti …
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Facebook launches new ‘Instant Articles’ feature in iPhone app

Mike Beasley May 13 2015 - 7:45 am PT

1 Comment

Facebook has launched a new feature in its official iOS client called “Instant Articles,” the company announced today. The feature will allow web publishers to create versions of their stories optimized for display inside the Facebook app. As suggested by the name, these optimized articles are designed to load instantly and provide a more native-feeling experience.

The articles are built using some of the same user interface elements and concepts first introduced in the alternative Facebook client, Paper, such as large images that scroll as you tilt your phone, and in-line videos that automatically start playing.

New elements added specifically for Instant Articles include audio captions on photos and the ability to like or comment on specific sections of the article rather than the entire thing. Facebook says publishers will still have full control over content and monetization, and loading a story as an Instant Article will still count the same as clicking a link in the browser in terms of traffic tracking.

Only a handful of publishers will be able to take advantage of Instant Articles at launch, including NBC, The New York Times, BuzzFeed, and National Geographic. Only a select few articles from those publishers will be available in this format for now.

Instant Articles is rolling out in the Facebook for iPhone application now.

New Greenpeace report praises Apple for aggressively leading in renewable energy initiatives

Jordan Kahn May 12 2015 - 8:58 am PT

Greenpeace today released an update to its “Clicking Clean: A Guide to Building the Green Internet” report, showing that Apple continues to lead among tech companies when it comes to renewable energy efforts. The report notes that Apple has been “most aggressive” with its renewable energy projects including a number of new initiatives and continuing to maintain “its claim of a 100% renewably powered cloud for another year.”
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iPhone slightly increases lead as most popular smartphone in US – comScore

Ben Lovejoy May 8 2015 - 4:01 am PT

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Apple has further increased its lead as the top smartphone manufacturer in the US, the iPhone increasing its market share by one point from 41.6% in Dec 2014 to 42.6% in March 2015, according to comScore. There was no change in the rankings, with Samsung in second place at 28.3% – a fall of 1.4% – followed by LG, Motorola and HTC.

Android remained the most popular platform, with 52.4% of the market against iOS at 42.6%. Windows, Blackberry and Symbian were all also-rans, totalling just 5% between them.

comScore also reported the top 15 smartphone apps …
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Facebook Messenger for iOS adds cross-platform video chat support

Mike Beasley Apr 27 2015 - 11:04 am PT

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Facebook continues to add new capabilities to its Messenger app today with the launch of a new video calling feature. A new video icon at the top of conversation threads will initiate a call, allowing participants to communicate across platforms over Wi-Fi or LTE connections.

The addition puts Facebook in competition with Apple’s FaceTime, Microsoft’s Skype, and other similar services. Interestingly, web-based video chat has been available on the desktop for some time, and was previously powered by Skype.

Apple releases iOS 8.4 beta 2 to developers with revamped Music app

Mark Gurman Apr 27 2015 - 9:49 am PT

42 Comments

A couple of weeks following the first beta, Apple today released iOS 8.4 beta 2 to developers for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. iOS 8.4 beta 2 is available via Software Update for those running the first beta, and it should be available for download soon via the Apple Developer Website. Apple has also released the iOS 8.4 Public Beta 1, which corresponds to this second developer seed, and Xcode 6.4 beta 2.

As we first reported, iOS 8.4 brings a revamped Music app to iOS with a new design, a Mini-Player feature, improved search, and a larger focus on album artwork. At WWDC, Apple will announce the new Music app and its integration with a new Beats-based streaming music service. We’ll update this post live as new features in the second beta are discovered.

First look: Clear, the iOS app that vets your social media history for indiscretions

Ben Lovejoy Apr 22 2015 - 6:10 am PT

Going for a sensitive job, or just friended your new romantic interest on Facebook, and want to make sure your drunken post from six months ago isn’t going to come back to bite you? That’s the experience Hipster co-founder Ethan Czahor had when he was hired as Jeb Bush’s chief technology officer. Journalists went digging and found some extremely embarrassing posts that led to his resignation.

He’s now put that experience to good use, though, beta-launching Clear, an app which aims to vet your social media history for offensive or insulting posts and offer you the ability to delete them (not to be confused with the to-do list app of the same name). I decided to take it for a quick spin …
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Now you can share your Vine masterpieces with all your social networks at once

Ben Lovejoy Apr 22 2015 - 4:47 am PT