Tech Industry

CBS correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, left, with hacker Karsten Nohl

Update: Rep. Ted Lieu has now written to the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform requesting a formal investigation into the vulnerability. In his letter, the Congressman says that the flaw threatens ‘personal privacy, economic competitiveness and U.S. national security.’ The full text of his letter can be found at the bottom of the piece.

Apple may take iOS security so seriously that it’s willing to do battle with the FBI over it, but German hackers have demonstrated that all phones – even iPhones – are susceptible to a mobile network vulnerability that requires nothing more than knowing your phone number. Armed with just that, hackers can listen to your calls, read your texts and track your position.

60 Minutes invited the hackers to prove their claims by giving a brand new iPhone to Congressman Ted Lieu – who agreed to participate in the test – and telling the hackers nothing more than the phone number. The hackers later replayed recordings they’d made of calls made on that iPhone …

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Rumors of Apple’s entrance into the video streaming arena have been swirling for a couple of years now, with Apple wanting to launch a skinny bundle streaming internet cable TV service, however news on the progress of this project has died down in 2016. It is unclear if it is still on the cards, various outlets reports talked had stalled with the television networks. However, Amazon and Netflix continue to battle it out.

Today, just as Netflix customers are forcibly moved to more expensive monthly plans, Amazon has announced it will offer its streaming video service as a standalone monthly subscription for the first time. Priced at $8.99/per month, the plan is a dollar cheaper than Netflix’s most popular offering. Until today, the only way to get Amazon Prime Video through a $99/year Amazon Prime subscription, bundling video, 2-day shipping and other perks into one membership.

Sadly, there was no word on the status of an Amazon Apple TV app …

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To help raise money for the relocation of the prestigious London Design Museum, Apple has submitted a very special lot to be sold at auction. Jony Ive has designed a one-of-a-kind iPad Pro and set of accessories, labelled ‘Edition 1 of 1’. The lot includes a 12.9 inch iPad Pro with a custom yellow-gold anodised finish, a blue leather Smart Cover and an Apple Pencil case cover — an accessory that Apple doesn’t sell at all today. It’s a small carry case for the Pencil, made with orange Italian calf leather. To denote the exclusivity of the products, an ‘Edition 1 of 1’ label has been engraved into the iPad Pro and underside of the Smart Cover.

Given its special edition nature, the auction is expected to sell for a tidy premium over Apple’s normal iPad Pro pricing …

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Although it seems inevitable that the MacBook lineup will see some significant changes this year, as a major upgrade has been due for a while, the rumor mill is yet to close in one particular design or release date. Earlier in the year, Digitimes was reporting new MacBooks (intended to supplant the MacBook Air) are due sometime before July, resembling 13 inch and 15 inch versions of the 12 inch Retina MacBook.

A new report from Digitimes today says otherwise, suggesting the new MacBooks will not be available until the second half of this year, although an announcement at WWDC still seems possible if Apple met the earlier side of that release range.

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Apple has announced that users can no longer setup iTunes Allowances for kids from today, ahead of a complete shutdown of the iTunes Allowances program on May 25th, 2016. iTunes Allowances let parents set up monthly credit for their kids to spend on App Store and iTunes Store purchases.

In the support note announcing the closure, Apple recommends families instead use Family Sharing to manage purchase and spending habits across family members. This does not impact the availability of iTunes Gifts — Apple customers will still be able to buy iTunes gift cards to give to friends and family as normal.

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A proposed law that would force Apple and other tech companies to decrypt devices for law enforcement agencies has reached the stage of a draft bill – but one Senator has vowed to filibuster it. A filibuster is when a parliamentarian makes a lengthy, uninterrupted speech which results in running out of time to debate the bill, causing it to fail.

The Senate Intelligence Committee first proposed to introduce the bill in February, and the FBI lent its support by briefing two sponsoring senators. However, many lawmakers oppose the bill, and it has been reported that the White House will not publicly support it.

The Verge now reports that one senator has pledged to filibuster the bill if it gets as far as a Senate debate …

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Computer peripheral company Logitech today announced that it will acquire popular audio company Jaybird. For those unfamiliar, Jaybird offers a variety of headphone products over recent years, most of which have been wireless. Logitech says the deal is worth $50 million in cash, with an additional earn-out of up to $45 million based on achievement of growth targets over the next two years.

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Until today, the only way to get a premium Apple Watch Hermès band was to buy the band and watch together from the Apple Store, or buy a very-similar (and cheaper) knockoff band and pretend it is genuine. It was also only offered in one color, fauve brown. That is all about to change however. Apple has announced that it will soon start selling Apple Watch Hermès bands standalone and in several new colors.

Soon, customers will be able to buy Double Tour, Single Tour and Cuff bands separately in fauve brown, feu red, blanc white, bleu paon green and blue saphir blue shades. The new bands will be available from April 19, 2016 …

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Although the battle over encryption between the FBI and Apple has currently subsided, the issue of privacy and security in technology continues. Today, WhatsApp is announcing that all messages, photos, phone calls and videos sent over its messaging app will be encrypted end-to-end. This means that no one can access any communications apart from the people in the conversation. This means if WhatsApp is subpoenaed by government for information, WhatsApp will not be able to help them as it simply cannot help them.

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Over nine months since Apple Pay was introduced to the UK, Barclays bank has finally gone live and launched its support for Apple’s mobile payments service. This means that every major bank in the UK now supports Apple Pay, a big win for a country that already has wide availability of contactless merchant terminals in many stores.

If you are a Barclays customer, open Wallet on your iPhone to get started and setup Apple Pay for your account. NFC comes bundled with Apple’s recent iPhones: iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus and the new iPhone SE ..

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Apple doesn’t normally improve the capabilities of Siri outside of a major operating system update, but it has made an exception this time around for baseball. Apple has dramatically improved the knowledge base Siri can draw from for Siri, allowing the voice-activated personal assistant to answer a wider range of questions about the sport. Via The Verge, Siri now covers 28 leagues, not just Major League Baseball, too.

Siri first started answering sports questions with iOS 6. Apple says that the upgrade to baseball, timed alongside the new MLB season, allows users to ask more detailed questions about career statistics and baseball history.

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In homage to its history, Apple has hung a pirate flag at its Infinite Loop Headquarters (images via @twfarley and @mjisrawi). On April 1st, 40 years ago, Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. The iconic flag, complete with rainbow Apple logo for an eye, dates back to the creation of the original Mac. The Mac team hung the flag as an act of rebellion, distinguishing their cool work, led by Jobs, from the rest of the company which was preoccupied making the Lisa.

Watch Apple’s 40 year celebration video, first shown at its event last month, after the jump …

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Apple has released iOS 9.3.1 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The bug fix update to iOS 9.3, released last week, contains a crucial improvement for iOS users: it addresses the widespread issue where apps (and sometimes the whole OS) would crash or hangs when tapping links.

We’ll update the post if we spot anything else notable, although the Release Notes do not suggest anything else has changed …

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Deja vu? The Foxconn acquisition of Sharp was almost a done deal a few weeks ago, until Sharp revealed some additional liabilities at the eleventh hour it had not previously disclosed. This meant Foxconn had to go back to the drawing board and re-assess the deal, renegotiating some parts of the contract with Sharp. The initial offer was worth $6.2 billion. Today, the companies announced Foxconn will buy Sharp in a $3.5 billion dollar deal.

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Apple and Major League Baseball have agreed a deal to use iPads in the dugouts during games, showing performance stats, analyze pitcher-hitter matchups, compare pitching range and more, via the Wall Street Journal. The iPads will use a custom app called ‘MLB Dugout’, created by MLB’s media division with help from Apple.

In the new deal, Apple and MLB will provide 12.9 inch iPad Pros to every team in the league, fitted with rugged cases for protection. The deal was made possible because of a recent change to the rules which lifts the ban on smartphones, tablets and laptops in the dugouts. Whether Apple paid for the promotion or MLB paid for the products was not disclosed.

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Since posting our original story, we have heard from a lot of readers that are affected by iOS 9 crashes or app hangs when tapping links, spanning multiple iOS versions (not just 9.3) and devices. In a statement, Apple has now confirmed that they are working on a fix for the problem, coming in a software update (presumably iOS 9.3.1).

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Apple has released an updated build of iOS 9.3 for users affected by an activation bug, first reported last week. Although the version number is still 9.3, the update features a new build number, 13E5237, to signify the change. The issue prevented some iPhone and iPad owners from successfully completing the upgrade steps for iOS 9.3 if they could not recall their Apple ID info immediately, to pass Activation Lock.

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