Tech Industry

Updated parental guidelines are needed to help make informed decisions about the use of technology by children, says the American Academy of Pediatrics, as it revealed that more than 30% of U.S. children first use a mobile device while still in diapers. The AAP says that “digital life begins at a young age, and so must parental guidance.”

The Academy says that its existing policy statement was actually drafted before the first iPad was launched. A two-day symposium held earlier this year generated twelve key messages, based not just on limiting screen time but also on distinguishing helpful from harmful use of technology … 
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Apple has declared that Apple Pay is off to a “great start” almost a year after its launch with the company seeing steady growth in Apple Pay transactions every month. In a statement to Bloomberg, the company said:

“We’re off to a great start and we are seeing continued, double-digit monthly growth in Apple Pay transactions since launch,” Apple said in an e-mailed statement.

Apple Pay launched last year with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in the US. The service expanded to the UK a few months ago. In Apple’s January investor call, Cook claimed 2015 was “the year of Apple Pay”. However, Bloomberg notes that not everyone is as thrilled with the mobile payments service as Apple is. At both Panera Bread and Firehouse, Apple Pay transactions make up low single-digit percentages of overall purchases…

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Siri voice control is finally coming to Philips Hue connected light bulbs thanks to promised HomeKit support and a new bridge product. Details have been surfacing over the last month with product listings going up a day early, and today Philips is ready to officially reveal how it’s bringing HomeKit support to Hue bulbs and lamps. As expected, Hue bulb owners will be able to upgrade to the new Philips Hue Bridge 2.0 to enable using Siri to control Hue lights. The new, square-shaped bridge works similar to the old, round bridge — connecting to up to 50 bulbs  only with HomeKit support included even for existing bulbs and plans to support future home platforms as well.
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As we reported last week, Philips is readying new HomeKit enabled smart home accessories, including new lights with better color reproduction and a HomeKit-compatible bridge box, for early October launch. However, it seems that some of the new products have appeared on sites like Amazon and Best Buy a bit prematurely, as Philips is yet to officially acknowledge the new devices.

• Philips Hue Bridge – $59.99
• Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance Starter A19 Kit — $199.99
• Philips Hue White Starter A19 Kit

This is not a complete list of what Philips has in the wings, more should surface soon …

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AT&T has called out two of its competitors, Sprint and T-Mobile, over their decision to offer Wi-Fi calling support on smartphones without first getting proper authorization from the Federal Communications Commission in a letter to that organization’s chairman.

According to AT&T, the FCC has been too slow in issuing a waiver that would allow the company to bypass certain requirements for hard-of-hearing users—a move that’s necessary for Wi-Fi calling to work.

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Update: T-Mobile has reached out and clarified that the breach affects current and former customers who went through a credit check. Anyone who did not go through a credit check is unaffected.

T-Mobile has confirmed this evening that as many as 15 million of its customers have been affected by a data breach. As the company is quick to point out, however, the breach did not occur on its servers, but rather its credit partner’s, Experian.

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The electronics repair site iFixit says that after it published its detailed teardown of the upcoming Apple TV hardware, Apple reached out to say that the company had violated the developer agreement and revoked the account that was used to obtain the device.

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We’re here at Box’s BoxWorks conference in San Francisco where Tim Cook is set to open the event with a fireside chat speaking with CEO Aaron Levie. The event is set to kick off shortly at Moscone Center with enterprise an obvious focus of the conversation. Aside from IBM and Cisco partnerships, Apple recently unveiled the 12.9-inch iPad Pro — coming in November — with optional Apple Pencil stylus and Smart Keyboard case, a new product that will certainly set its targets on enterprise customers. Cook’s talk today also marks the first since Apple announced its record 13 million iPhone sales during launch weekend of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. Check out the details below:
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Update: We’re hearing the date for the new HomeKit bridge is October 6th … In addition, Philips has officially confirmed that the old box will not be getting HomeKit compatibility in any form. However, it will continue to receive other software updates. You can buy the new HomeKit bridge from here.

Philips is finally ready to join the HomeKit ecosystem with a new box that will act as a bridge between the Apple HomeKit standard and its range of smart internet-connected lightbulbs. As shown in the images above, provided by sources, the new box looks very much like an Apple TV — a rounded rectangle ‘puck’ with indicator lights showing connectivity status.

The new HomeKit box will be available in October and connect existing Philips Hue accessories to the Apple platform. The bridge box will be sold standalone as an official ‘Works with Apple HomeKit’ compatible accessory as well as in new combo sets, also depicted above. These sets include new bulbs with a few improvements over the current models …

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Five years in the making and fifteen months since its last speaker release, all-in-one speaker maker Sonos is ready to unveil its next flagship speaker to the world with the all-new Play:5. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because Play:5 is the same name as the previous flagship home speaker from Sonos before today. With its name unchanged, then what exactly is different with the latest premium connected speaker from Sonos? For starters there’s a streamlined design with a new input method for controlling playback. Sonically, the new Play:5 delivers an array of sound with volume that easily fills a sizable room.

And alongside the new Play:5, Sonos is releasing a new speaker calibration tool called Trueplay. Using the built-in mic on your iPhone or iPad, intelligent algorithms, and a bouncy sci-fi tone, Trueplay enables Sonos speaker owners to enhance their speakers to deliver enhanced sound in the home regardless of speaker placement. Current Sonos customers will be happy to learn that Trueplay isn’t just coming to the latest connected speaker either…
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The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus launch today, with a pressure sensitive 3D Touch screen being touted as one of the phone’s flagship new features. Apps can take advantage of 3D Touch in many ways, such as using firm presses to reveal quick actions on the Home screen or use Peek and Pop metaphors to quickly preview content from within the UI.

Naturally, Apple has added 3D Touch features to its own apps. Try firmly pressing on a link from within Safari, or quickly call one of your Favorites by using the Phone app’s 3D Touch quick actions. You can even force press on the keyboard to enable trackpad cursor input. However, as is true in most cases, the most interesting innovations come from the third-party App Store community.

We’ve compiled a list of the best third-party apps that have updated to include 3D Touch features, so you can try them out on your brand new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus …

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Pixelmator today released the latest version of its photo editor for iPhone and iPad, Pixelmator version 2.1. The update brings full support for iPad iOS 9 multitasking, the ability to import and edit 8K resolution images, Open-In-Place document management across iOS and more.

As part of general improvements for iOS 9, such as adoption of Apple’s new system font (San Francisco) in the UI, the primary change is the addition of the iPad multitasking support. This means Pixelmator can now be docked to the side of the screen using Slide Over. On more recent iPads, you can also pop Pixelmator into Split View for true 2-app side-by-side multitasking.

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Ahead of the official launch on Friday, Apple has now sold out out of all iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus on Apple.com in the US and worldwide, twelve launch countries in total. The earliest delivery quote you can now get for a new iPhone is September 29th. The iPhone 6S Plus has been sold out for about a week now and now the 6s has followed suit, four days ahead of release.

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In Belgium, Apple has opened its first ‘next-gen’ redesigned Apple Store in Brussels. The store features huge glass panes that curve around the exterior. The store has also reduced its reliance on backlit screen panels. Instead, Apple is relying on a single huge screen that covers one wall which will serve many purposes, including retail training and product marketing.

Inside, Apple has installed two rows of plant pots with real trees growing inside the store. Even more incredibly, the product tables (made of fine redwood) are actually motion sensitive with power outlets revolving into view when it detects people are nearby. Reader Franklin Schrans has sent in a video showing the cool moving tables in action …

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According to internal Google documents that 9to5Google has obtained, huge updates to the Chromecast platform — in almost every respect — are just around the corner. The long-rumored 2nd generation Chromecast hardware is set to debut at Google’s event later this month with several brand new features, including “Chromecast Audio,” Spotify support (finally!), a brand new Chromecast companion app, and more. Here’s a roundup of everything we’ve learned so far…
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While Apple’s new Move to iOS app appeared to be the company’s first ever Android app, Phandroid did some digging around in the code to discover that it in fact appears to be just a rebadged third-party app called Copy My Data.

If we take a look under the hood of Apple’s Move to iOS app, we see the […] android:name is still set to android:name=”com.mediamushroom.copymydata”. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The two applications share a vast majority of code and functionality. In fact, all of the com.mediamushroom.copymydata strings were left inside Apple’s rebranded version. Essentially, the only differences between the two apps are Apple’s artwork being added, the inclusion of Apple’s licensing agreements, and Media Mushroom’s UI elements being removed. That’s really it.

Apple thus appears to have simply licensed an existing app, rather than creating its first Android app – meaning that the Apple Music app expected to makes its way across to Android sometime this fall may be the first Apple-coded app on the rival smartphone platform … 
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Having previously challenged Apple’s iPads and Apple TVs with rivals called Fire and Fire TV, Amazon today debuted a series of new Fire tablets and Fire TV media streamers at remarkably aggressive price points. Led by the new $49.99 7″ Fire tablet, the Fire tablets aim to dramatically undercut iPads on price, while the $99.99 4K Fire TV and its siblings were designed to leapfrog new and old Apple TVs with specific features…
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