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  • Google reaches $93 million settlement in tracking location case | CNN Business

    Google reaches $93 million settlement in tracking location case | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Google has reached a $93 million settlement with the state of California to resolve allegations that it was collecting consumers’ data without their consent, the state’s attorney general said in a statement Thursday.

    The California Department of Justice found that, after a multi-year investigation, the tech giant was “deceiving users by collecting, storing, and using their location data for consumer profiling and advertising purposes without informed consent.”

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta also said Google accepted taking future actions to prevent those practices. These actions would apply beyond California to other states, according to the proposed order.

    “Consistent with improvements we’ve made in recent years, we have settled this matter, which was based on outdated product policies that we changed years ago,” a Google spokesperson said.

    The company pointed to a 2022 blog post which introduced transparency tools, such as auto-delete controls and incognito mode on Google Maps.

    Google’s location-based advertising is an important part of its business because companies want to cater their content based on who lives where, the state said. The state also said that Google factors in location in its “behavioral profile” of users.

    Bonta had alleged Google wasn’t truthful about its location collection and storage tactics. For example, the original complaint said that Google continued to collect and store location data even when users turned off the “location history” setting, just in different ways.

    As part of the settlement, Google would have to be more transparent about its location tracking and disclose to users that their location information could be used for targeted ads. The proposed order is subject to court approval, the state’s attorney general said.

    A lawsuit by the Biden administration in January argued Google’s ad tech business should be broken up.

    Google’s practices are under scrutiny by other lawmakers right now, too. A landmark antitrust trial against Google opened earlier this week, with sweeping allegations from the US DOJ that for years the company intentionally stifled competition challenging its massive search engine, accusing the tech giant of spending billions to operate an illegal monopoly that has harmed every computer and mobile device user in the United States.

    For Google’s opening statement in that case, attorney John Schmidtlein said that Apple’s decision to make Google the default search engine in its Safari browser demonstrates how Google’s search engine is the superior product consumers prefer.

    Last week, Google reached an agreement in principle with multiple US states to settle an antitrust lawsuit for its alleged conduct in the Google Play Store. The lawsuit alleged the company inflated prices for paid apps and in-app purchases in the Android app market.

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  • US says it has no evidence that Huawei can make advanced smartphones ‘at scale’ | CNN Business

    US says it has no evidence that Huawei can make advanced smartphones ‘at scale’ | CNN Business

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    Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says the US government has no evidence that Huawei can produce smartphones with advanced chips “at scale,” as it continues to investigate how the sanctioned Chinese manufacturer made an apparent breakthrough with its latest flagship device.

    On Tuesday, Raimondo told US lawmakers that she was “upset” by news of the launch of Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro during her visit to China last month.

    “The only good news, if there is any, is we don’t have any evidence that they can manufacture 7-nanometer [chips] at scale,” she told a US House of Representatives hearing.

    “Although I can’t talk about any investigations specifically, I promise you this: every time we find credible evidence that any company has gone around our export controls, we do investigate.”

    Analysts who have examined the smartphone said it represented a “milestone” achievement for China, suggesting Huawei may have found a way to overcome American export controls.

    US officials have long argued that the company poses a risk to US national security, using it as grounds to restrict trade with the company. Huawei has vehemently denied the claims.

    TechInsights, a research organization that specializes in semiconductors and took the phone apart for analysis, says it includes a 5G Kirin 9000s processor developed by China’s leading chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC).

    That surprised many because SMIC, a partially state-owned Chinese company, has also been subject to US export restrictions for years. It has not responded to previous requests for comment from CNN.

    TechInsights also found two chips belonging to SK Hynix, a South Korean chipmaker, inside the handset.

    A SK Hynix spokesperson told CNN earlier this month that it was aware of the issue and investigating how that was possible, since the South Korean firm “no longer does business with Huawei” because of US export controls.

    Huawei declined to comment on the capabilities and components of its phone.

    Raimondo said Tuesday that US officials were “trying to use every single tool at our disposal … to deny the Chinese an ability to get intellectual property to advance their technology in ways that can hurt us.”

    In 2019, Huawei was added to the US “entity list,” which restricts exports to select organizations without a US government license. The following year, the US government expanded on those curbs by seeking to cut Huawei off from chip suppliers that use US technology.

    That left the company, once the world’s second largest smartphone seller, in bad shape.

    As of the second quarter of 2023, Huawei was no longer in the top five of mobile phone vendors in China, let alone globally, according to Counterpoint Research.

    But its new phone is a big help for the company — and may pose a challenge to Apple’s (AAPL) market share in China, according to Ivan Lam, a senior analyst at Counterpoint.

    Huawei is scheduled to hold a product launch event next Monday, where new phones are expected to be the main focus, according to Toby Zhu, a Canalys mobility analyst.

    Other devices, like tablets or earphones, may also be shown off. Huawei has not publicly released details of the event.

    In the coming months, the firm plans to release another 5G phone, possibly under Nova, its mid-range lineup, Chinese news outlet IT Times reported Tuesday, citing unidentified industry sources. Huawei declined to comment.

    Zhu said the phone was widely expected to come with 5G capability, powered either by the “Kirin 9000s chip or another chip.”

    If it does, the new model could become even more popular than the Mate 60 Pro, which starts at 6,999 yuan (about $959), because of its relative affordability, he added.

    While Raimondo was unhappy with the timing of Huawei’s launch, analysts say it was unlikely to have been arranged to coincide with her presence in China.

    It was likely “a marketing campaign aimed at winning over customer interest before the iPhone 15 hits the market,” analysts at Eurasia Group wrote in a report.

    The move helped the Shenzhen-based company capture the second spot in China’s smartphone market in the first week of September, ahead of Apple’s big event, said Lam of Counterpoint.

    — Rashard Rose and Mengchen Zhang contributed to this report.

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  • Why cell phone service is down in Maui — and when it could be restored | CNN Business

    Why cell phone service is down in Maui — and when it could be restored | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Thousands of people in Maui are without cell service as the wildfires continue to rage out of control on the island, preventing people from calling emergency services or updating loved ones about their status. It could take days or even weeks to get the networks back up and running.

    “911 is down. Cell service is down. Phone service is down,” Hawaii Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke told CNN on Wednesday morning.

    Although strong winds can sometimes threaten cell towers, most are strong enough to handle the worst that even a Category 5 hurricane can bring. Fire, however, complicates the issue.

    “When the fires get too close to cell sites, they will obviously burn equipment, antennas, and feedlines,” said Glenn O’Donnell, VP of research at market research firm Forrester. “In extreme cases, they will also weaken the towers, leading some to collapse. The smoke and flames can also attenuate signals because of the particulate density in the air.”

    If a tower collapses, cell networks could take months to restore. But if carriers are able and prepared to do restorations with mobile backup units, it could bring limited service back within hours, O’Donnell said. Wireless carriers often bring in COWs (Cells On Wheels), COLTs (Cells On Light Trucks), and GOaTs (Generators on Trailers) in emergencies to provide backup service when cell towers go down.

    Power outages are also a threat to cell phone towers. The Maui disaster has already wiped out power to at least 14,000 homes and businesses in the area, according to PowerOutage.us. Many towers have backup power generators, but they have limited capacity to keep towers running.

    Cell towers have back-up technology built in, but this is typically done through optical fiber cables or microwave (wireless) links, according to Dimitris Mavrakis, senior researcher at ABI Research. However, if something extraordinary happens, such as interaction with rampant fires, these links may experience “catastrophic failures and leave cells without a connection to the rest of the world.”

    And, in an emergency, a spike in call volume can overload the system – even if people are able to get reception.

    “Even cells that have a good service may experience outages due to the sheer volume of communication happening at once,” Mavrakis said. “Everyone in these areas may be trying to contact relatives or the authorities at once, saturating the network and causing an outage. This is easier to correct though and network operators may put in place additional measures to render them operational quickly.”

    A T-Mobile spokesperson said the company is monitoring the situation and assessing the fire’s impact on its equipment in the area.

    “When conditions are safe, our Emergency Management Team will deploy portable, agile satellite and microwave solutions that will restore service in impacted areas,” the spokesperson said. “We also have portable generators ready to deploy to sites affected by commercial power loss, and our Emergency Response Team is working with FEMA and the state of Hawaii to support firefighters and other first responders, organizations and communities.”

    An AT&T spokesperson told CNN it is also assessing the’ impact to its wireless network and “will continue to coordinate closely with local utility companies on restoration progress.” The company is waiving talk, text and data overage charges during this time.

    Verizon did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    Satellite networks, however, continue to operate regardless of what’s happening on the ground. This means satellite phones, which often feature large antennas, can help provide voice, SMS, and data services anywhere on Earth, even without cell service.

    Satellite phones have been popularized over the years by hikers, emergency responders and intrepid travelers, but they are are expensive and are not mainstream products. However, some newer smartphone models – including the latest model iPhone 14 and some phones built by Motorola and Huawei – offer built-in satellite connectivity, which allows the sending of SOS messages via satellites.

    For example, Apple’s free Emergency SOS via satellite service, which launched last year, allows iPhone users to contact dedicated dispatchers in emergency situations via satellites. When a user attempts to call 911 and is unable to get on a cell network, they will be automatically redirected to the service’s dispatchers where they can answer a questionnaire with short multiple choice questions to share information quickly. The dispatchers also receive their coordinates, medical ID and emergency contact information.

    Apple told CNN the feature is reserved for connections to emergency services and does not allow users to contact friends and family. For anyone who has access to a Wi-Fi connection while wearing an Apple Watch, the Walkie-Talkie feature could also be used to send messages or make calls. However, Wi-Fi networks can also fail when optical fiber networks are disrupted.

    Although it’s unclear how long cell phone service could be down in affected regions, companies have been able to bring connectivity to disaster regions in the past. In 2017, Google worked with AT&T and T-Mobile to deploy its Project Loon balloons to deliver Internet to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

    Hawaii’s Red Cross recently tweeted that people can call 1-800-RED-CROSS to see if their loved ones are at a local shelter.

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  • Meta’s Threads is finally available on desktop | CNN Business

    Meta’s Threads is finally available on desktop | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Threads users, rejoice: the app is rolling out its highly anticipated web version Tuesday.

    The update — perhaps the most requested by users since Threads’ mobile-only launch last month — puts the new platform one step closer to recreating the functions offered by rival X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and could help reignite user growth following a sluggish period.

    Parent company Meta says Threads users will soon be able to log in, post, view and interact with other posts via a browser on a desktop computer, as the web version rolls out to users in the coming days. The company says it plans to add more desktop features in the future. In an early access test of some of the web-based features, CNN was able to post on the platform but could not yet scroll the home feed.

    Threads launched in early July with stunning success, garnering more than 100 million sign-ups in its first week on the back of months of chaos at Twitter. But the buzz faded somewhat as users realized the bare-bones platform still lacked many of the features that made Twitter popular, such as trending topics, robust search functions and direct messaging. Threads has been steadily rolling out smaller updates but the hotly demanded web version could help reignite stronger user engagement.

    The new web version could also raise fresh competitive concerns for X, after owner Elon Musk sparked user backlash last week by suggesting he might do away with the platform’s block feature.

    Meta employees have for weeks teased that a desktop version of Threads was in the works and being tested internally. Just last week, Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who is also leading Threads, said he had been posting from the platform’s desktop version and suggested “it’ll be ready soon but it needs more work.”

    Web access is just one of a series of recent updates to Threads as Meta continues to build out the new platform. Other features added over the past month include new “reposts” and “likes” tabs that show users the posts they have reshared and liked in their profiles, a chronological following feed and a button to share threads posts to Instagram DMs.

    Continued updates to Threads are essential if Meta wants to maintain the early traction it had with users. Despite the app’s stunning success following its launch, by the end of July, Threads’ daily active user count had fallen 82% to around 8 million users, according to a report from market research firm Sensor Tower earlier this month. By August 16, updates to Threads had helped the app notch slight gains to 11 million daily active users, Sensor Tower said in a report Monday.

    Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he is “quite optimistic” about the app’s potential.

    “We saw unprecedented growth out of the gate and more importantly we’re seeing more people coming back daily than I’d expected,” he said last month during the company’s earnings call. “And now, we’re focused on retention and improving the basics. And then after that, we’ll focus on growing the community to the scale we think is possible.”

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  • South Korea’s Hynix is looking into how its chips got into Huawei’s controversial smartphone | CNN Business

    South Korea’s Hynix is looking into how its chips got into Huawei’s controversial smartphone | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong/Seoul
    CNN
     — 

    SK Hynix, a South Korean chipmaker, is investigating how two of its memory chips mysteriously ended up inside the Mate 60 Pro, a controversial smartphone launched by Huawei last week.

    Shares in Hynix fell more than 4% on Friday after it emerged that two of its products, a 12 gigabyte (GB) LPDDR5 chip and 512 GB NAND flash memory chip, were found inside the Huawei handset by TechInsights, a research organization based in Canada specializing in semiconductors, which took the phone apart for analysis.

    “The significance of the development is that there are restrictions on what SK Hynix can ship to China,” G Dan Hutcheson, vice chair of TechInsights, told CNN. “Where do these chips come from? The big question is whether any laws were violated.”

    A Hynix spokesperson told CNN Friday that it was aware of its chips being used in the Huawei phone and had started investigating the issue.

    The company “no longer does business with Huawei since the introduction of the US restrictions against the company,” it said in a statement.

    “SK Hynix is strictly abiding by the US government’s export restrictions,” the company said.

    Industry insiders said it was possible that Huawei had purchased the memory chips from the secondary market and not directly from the manufacturer. It’s also possible Huawei may have had a stockpile of components accumulated before the US export curbs kicked in fully.

    TechInsights had previously revealed that the “brains” of the phone were powered by a 5G Kirin 9000s chip made by China’s top chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, better known as SMIC.

    It is still examining the Mate 60 Pro and does not rule out the possibility of finding more components made by companies subject to US trade sanctions. So far, it has found that most of the phone’s components were provided by Chinese suppliers.

    Analysts have said the smartphone is a major breakthrough for China as it clashes with the United States over access to advanced technology.

    The development prompted two US congressmen, Mike Gallagher and Michael McCaul, to call on the White House – which is seeking more information about the phone – to further restrict technology export sales to Chinese companies.

    Huawei and SMIC have not replied to requests for comment.

    In 2019, the US government banned American companies from selling software and equipment to Huawei. It also restricted international chipmakers using US-made technology from working with the company.

    That is why, four years later, last week’s launch of the Mate 60 Pro shocked industry experts who didn’t understand how Huawei, which is headquartered in Shenzhen, would have the ability to manufacture such an advanced smartphone following sweeping efforts by the United States to restrict China’s access to foreign chip technology.

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  • 6 takeaways from Apple’s iPhone 15 event | CNN Business

    6 takeaways from Apple’s iPhone 15 event | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Apple unveiled its iPhone 15 lineup along with other major updates during its September keynote event on Tuesday.

    The company announced it will switch to USB-C charging from its proprietary Lightning charging cable with the iPhone 15, marking a milestone for the company by adopting universal charging. The change aims to ultimately streamline the charging process across various devices — and brands.

    The company also showed off its Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches, with new colors and features including gesture control, and a new iteration of its AirPods Pro wireless earbuds, also with USB-C charging.

    The iPhone charger update, along with changes to its design and camera system, comes as Apple looks to give consumers more reasons to upgrade their iPhones. Last month, Apple’s sales fell for the third consecutive quarter. iPhone revenue came in at $39.7 billion for the quarter, marking an approximately 2% year-over-year decline, as people update their devices less often.

    Apple on Tuesday said it will not raise prices for the iPhone 15 lineup, which could further incentivize users to upgrade.

    Here are the main takeaways from Apple’s Tuesday event:

    The latest iPhones are packed with subtle but significant design changes. To start, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max now feature a titanium casing, allowing the design to be slimmer and thinner than before.

    Other design changes on the premium models include a more-advanced 48 megapixel main camera with a larger sensor and a new telephoto lens for 5x optical zoom camera, exclusively on iPhone 15 Pro Max. The new Pro models’ design also features contoured edges and a customizable Action button, which gives the ring/silence button additional controls, from starting a voice memo to writing a note.

    Meanwhile, the basic iPhone 15 phones now include updated image stabilization for taking photos and videos, 2x optimization and updated portraits with richer color and better low-light performance. They will also come with the “Dynamic Island” tool – home to alerts, notifications and other controls, in place of the notch – which were previously only available on the iPhone 14 Pro.

    The iPhone 15 lineup also includes an Ultra-Wideband chip to power a handful of new features, including one that makes it easier to find friends who share their location in crowded areas.

    The iPhone 15 comes in 5 colors (white, black, pink, green and yellow) and in two sizes: A 6.1-inch screen for the iPhone 15 and 6.7 inches for iPhone 15 Pro.

    The iPhone 15 will start at $799, and iPhone 15 Pro will start at $999. The iPhone 15 models will be available for pre-order on Friday and for sale in stores on Friday, September 22.

    Perhaps the biggest change coming to the iPhone 15 models is that they will now use a USB-C charging cord, ending an 11-year run with Apple’s proprietary Lightning charging cable.

    Now Apple customers can use the same USB-C chargers to power their iPhones, iPads and Mac computers — no more scrambling to find the right charger for each device. Apple said a dedicated USB-C controller will allow for transfer speeds of up to 20 times faster than with USB-2 technology for the iPhone 15 Pro.

    The new iPhone 15 models will now use a USB-C charging cord, ending an 11-year run with Apple's proprietary lightning charging cable.

    The switch would come less than a year after the European Union voted to approve legislation to require smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, portable speakers and other small devices to support USB-C charging by 2024. The first-of-its-kind law aims to pare down the number of chargers and cables consumers must contend with when they purchase a new device, and to allow users to mix and match devices and chargers even if they were produced by different manufacturers.

    Apple will also sell a $29 USB-C Lightning adapter to let people connect their existing Lightning accessories to a USB-C-enabled iPhone or iPad to charge or share data.

    The company told CNN that iPhone users can recycle their old Lightning chargers via its in-store recycling program.

    Apple Watches are displayed during an announcement of new products on the Apple campus Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023, in Cupertino, Calif.

    Apple kicked off Tuesday’s event by announcing the new Apple Watch Series 9, which features Apple’s in-house silicon chip and ultrawideband connectivity. The updated Apple Watch will let users log health data with their voice, use “name drop” to share contact information by touching another Apple Watch and raise their wrist to automatically brighten the display. The Series 9 will come in colors such as pink, navy, red, gold, silver and graphite.

    Apple also showed off the second iteration of its rugged Ultra smartwatch line, featuring the updated S9 custom chip and a new UWB chip. It also features more information on the display for more intensive tracking.

    The Apple Watch Series 9 will start at $399 and the Ultra is priced at $799. Customers can place orders today and they will be available on September 22.

    Apple on Tuesday announced the new Watch Series 9, with new gesture controls and improved connectivity.

    Apple is introducing an innovative and unique way to control its new lineup of smartwatches. The Watch Series 9 and high-end Ultra 2 watch will include a new gesture control called Double Tap, allowing allow users to tap their index finger and thumb together twice, to answer or end phone calls, play and pause music, or snooze alarms. The hand gesture can also scroll through widgets, much like turning the digital crown.

    The company said Double Tap is enabled by an enhanced neural engine that processes data from sensors and machine learning, and by monitoring the change in blood flow when two fingers are tapped together. It is available starting next month.

    A similar hand tap will be used to control the Vision Pro mixed reality headset when it launches next year.

    Apple’s next-generation software for the iPhone will be available to download starting on Monday, September 18. In June, the company showed off a slew of new tools coming to iOS 17, such as a more accurate autocorrect, a new feature called Live Voicemail that will transcribe a caller’s message in real time, and a NameDrop tool that lets users share their contact information by holding two iPhones close together. The iPhone’s phone app will also reposition the hang up button to the bottom right of the screen, next to other functions.

    The update will also bring adaptive audio to the AirPods Pro, which will adjust the noise cancellation and volume based on a user’s surroundings, and introduce conversation mode, which customizes the sound of what you’re listening to and softens when you start speaking to someone nearby.

    The iPhone 15 Pro is displayed after its introduction on the Apple campus, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023, in Cupertino, Calif.

    Lisa Jackson, Apple’s VP of environment, policy and social initiatives, said that the company’s Watch Series 9 will be Apple’s “first-ever carbon-neutral product,” thanks to efforts to reduce its carbon footprint and to offset emissions with carbon buybacks. She said this has been certified by an independent third-party.

    Doubling down on sustainability initiatives, Jackson also said the tech giant will no longer use leather in any new Apple product, including watch bands.

    Instead of leather, Apple said it will begin using a new textile that it is calling “fine woven.”

    Fine woven will be made of 68% post-consumer recycled content, giving it a significantly lower carbon footprint than leather, Apple said.

    “Beyond expected improved performance and incremental innovation embedded into Apple’s new products, it is great to see Apple communicate on sustainability as a new competitive advantage — especially with Apple’s first carbon neutral products,” Forrester Principal Analyst Thomas Husson said in emailed commentary following the event.

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  • Apple Watch’s new gesture control feature will have everyone tapping the air | CNN Business

    Apple Watch’s new gesture control feature will have everyone tapping the air | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    You’re about to see people in public tapping two fingers together in the air.

    Over the past few days, I’ve been taking phone calls, playing music and scrolling through widgets on the new Apple Watch Series 9 without ever touching the device. I’ve used it to silence my watch’s alarm in the morning, stop timers and open a notification while carrying too many bags.

    It may sound like a gimmick — and it most certainly feels strange to do it in public — but considering the small size of the Apple Watch screen, the tool offers an effective hands-free way to interact with the device.

    Apple’s latest lineup of smartwatches, the Watch Series 9 and high-end Ultra 2, feature a new gesture tool called Double Tap, allowing users to tap their index finger and thumb together twice, to control the device. It can also scroll through widgets, much like turning the digital crown.

    The feature isn’t entirely new; the previous generation of Apple Watch Ultra was capable of similar pinch-and-clench gestures via its Assistive Touch accessibility tool. But Apple’s decision to bring a feature like this to the forefront hints at an increasingly touch-free future. It also comes three months after the company unveiled the Vision Pro mixed reality headset, which will launch next year, with a similar finger tap control.

    Double Tap works in combination with the latest Apple Watch accelerometer, gyroscope and optical heart rate sensor, which looks for disruptions in the blood flow when the fingers are pressed together. That data is processed by a new machine learning algorithm and runs on a faster neural engine, specialized hardware that handles AI and machine learning tasks.

    While the concept is similar, gesture controls are different on the Vision Pro, which will track users’ eyes and hand movements. Apple told CNN it added gesture control to the headset because it needed a different, seamless interface for users to interact with, whereas Double Tap is more about simplifying the Apple Watch experience.

    When the Apple Watch’s display is turned on, the device automatically knows to respond when it senses the fingers are touched together. It essentially works as a “yes” or “accept” button; that means if a call comes through, you can Double Tap to accept it (covering the watch with your full hand, however, will silence it quickly). If a song is playing, you can pause it by double tapping, and then again to start it.

    Although you can subtly flick on the display and do the gesture close to your body, trying to conceal the movement when around other people, I found it works much better when it’s raised a bit higher. This, however, makes the action more obvious — and it’s something that will take a little getting used to seeing in person.

    “This is also about social acceptance. At the moment, I find the idea of people making this gesture more often than not in public a bit funny. But time will tell if users find it acceptable,” said Annette Zimmerman, an analyst at Gartner Research. “I think Apple is very use-case driven and focuses on user feedback on things they could improve.”

    Similarly, it took a while for people to get used to the design of Apple’s AirPods when they were announced in 2016; many criticized how they looked dangling out of users’ ears. Now they’ve become part of modern culture.

    Other learning curves exist with the Double Tap feature. Because I am right handed and wear an Apple Watch on my left hand, tapping my left fingers together to trigger the control takes an extra second or two of mental coordination.

    The future of hands-free devices

    The new Apple Watch Series 9 can be controlled by tapping two fingers together.

    Apple isn’t the only tech company developing gesture controls like this. Samsung TVs, some smartphones and Microsoft’s mixed reality headset all incorporate some hand gesture functionality. But this is Apple’s biggest push to date, and adding it to a flagship device like the Apple Watch will soon put all eyes on the concept of hand gestures.

    “It’s a great move by Apple as it differentiates the company from other brands when it comes to innovation and ease of usability. It also shows Apple’s commitment in the fields of artificial intelligence,” said Sachin Mehta, senior analyst at tech intelligence firm ABI Research. “The new double tap gesture is not a surprise as Apple keeps on developing a unified and intuitive user experience across its product line up. It will cement the Apple Watch as the smartwatch to have.”

    It works differently on the Vision Pro, which will track a user’s eyes and hand movements to make punching and swiping controls. The headset needed a different user interface for users to interact with it, and gestures give that control even when a face is covered by the hardware.

    Further showing how Apple is thinking about gesture control long term, it recently filed for patents focused on gesture controls, including for the Apple TV. That said, Mehta believes there’s no question “we expect more gesture features in Apple’s product lineup in the future.”

    In addition to Double Tap, the Apple Watch Series 9 features Apple’s powerful new in-house silicon chip and ultrawideband connectivity. It will let users log health data with their voice, use “name drop” to share contact information by touching another Apple Watch and raise their wrist to automatically brighten the display. The Series 9 will come in colors such as pink, navy, red, gold, silver and graphite.

    Apple also showed off the second iteration of its rugged Ultra smartwatch line, featuring the updated S9 custom chip and a new ultrawideband chip which uses radio waves to communicate. It also features more information on the display for more intensive tracking.

    The Apple Watch Series 9 will start at $399 and the Ultra is priced at $799. Although they start shipping on Friday, September 22, the Double Tap feature will launch via a software update next month.

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  • Microsoft, Amazon facing UK antitrust probe over cloud services | CNN Business

    Microsoft, Amazon facing UK antitrust probe over cloud services | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Microsoft and Amazon could be in hot water over apparently making it difficult for UK customers to use multiple suppliers of vital cloud services.

    The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the country’s antitrust regulator, said Thursday it was launching an investigation into the UK cloud infrastructure services market to determine whether players were engaged in anti-competitive practices.

    Cloud computing firms, such as Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS), use data centers around the world to provide remote access to computing services and storage. This “cloud infrastructure” forms the foundation for how software applications, such as Gmail and Dropbox, are developed and run.

    The CMA probe has been initiated following a report from Britain’s media and communications regulator Ofcom, which found that the supply of cloud infrastructure in the United Kingdom is highly concentrated and competition limited.

    “We welcome Ofcom’s referral of public cloud infrastructure services to us for in-depth scrutiny,” CMA CEO Sarah Cardell said in a statement.

    “This is a £7.5 billion market that underpins a whole host of online services — from social media to [artificial intelligence] foundation models. Many businesses now completely rely on cloud services, making effective competition in this market essential.”

    The CMA said it would conclude its investigation by April 2025.

    The probe is the latest evidence of increased scrutiny of big tech companies by European regulators, which have tightened rules in recent years in areas such as data protection and targeted advertising.

    The European Digital Services Act, which came into force at the end of August, reflects one of the most comprehensive and ambitious efforts by policymakers anywhere to regulate tech giants. It applies to companies including Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Snapchat, TikTok and Meta (META), the owner of Facebook and Instagram.

    According to Ofcom, last year Microsoft and AWS had a combined market share of 70-80% in the UK cloud infrastructure services market. Google is their closest competitor with a share of 5-10%.

    In its report, Ofcom identified features of the market that make it more difficult for customers to change providers or to use multiple providers, such as switching fees.

    “If customers have difficulty switching and using multiple providers, it could make it harder for competitors to gain scale and challenge AWS and Microsoft effectively for the business of new and existing customers,” Ofcom wrote.

    The report also raised concerns about the software licensing practices of some cloud providers, particularly Microsoft.

    Both Amazon and Microsoft said they would engage “constructively” with the CMA.

    But a spokesperson for AWS added that the company disagreed with Ofcom’s findings. “We… believe they are based on a fundamental misconception of how the IT sector functions, and the services and discounts on offer,” the spokesperson said, noting that “the cloud has made switching between providers easier than ever.”

    A spokesperson for Microsoft added: “We are committed to ensuring the UK cloud industry remains innovative, highly competitive and an accelerator for growth across the economy.”

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  • Baidu says its AI is in the same league as GPT-4 | CNN Business

    Baidu says its AI is in the same league as GPT-4 | CNN Business

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    Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Chinese tech giant Baidu is officially taking on GPT-4.

    On Tuesday, the company unveiled ERNIE 4.0, the newest version of its artificial intelligence chatbot that it directly compared to the latest iteration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

    The new ERNIE Bot “is not inferior in any aspect to GPT-4,” Baidu’s billionaire CEO, Robin Li, told an audience at its annual flagship event.

    Speaking onstage, Li showed how the bot could generate a commercial for a car within minutes, solve complicated math problems and create a plot for a martial arts novel from scratch. The bot works mainly in Mandarin Chinese, its primary language. It is also able to handle queries and produce responses in English at a less advanced level.

    Li said the demonstrations showed how the bot had been “significantly improved” in terms of its understanding of queries, generation of complex responses and memory capabilities.

    While coming up with ideas for the novel, for instance, the bot was able to remember previous instructions and create sophisticated story lines by adding conflicts and characters, said Li.

    “We always complained that AI was not intelligent enough,” he quipped.

    “But today, it understands almost everything you say, and in many cases, it understands what you’re saying better than your friends or your colleagues.”

    Charlie Dai, vice president and research director of technology at Forrester, said Baidu is “the first vendor in China” to claim it could perform as well as GPT-4.

    “We still need more benchmarking evidence to prove it, but I’m cautiously optimistic that this is China’s GPT-4 moment, giving its long-term investment in AI [and machine learning],” he told CNN.

    In contrast to a pre-recorded presentation in March that failed to impress investors, Li demonstrated the bot in real time.

    Investors appeared unmoved, however, with Baidu’s shares down 1.4% in Hong Kong following the presentation.

    Baidu (BIDU) has been a frontrunner in China in the race to capitalize on the excitement around generative AI, the technology that underpins systems such as ChatGPT or its successor, GPT-4.

    The Beijing-based company unveiled ERNIE Bot in March, before launching it publicly in August.

    The newest iteration will launch first to invited users, Li said. The company did not specify when it would be made available publicly.

    ERNIE Bot has quickly gained traction, racking up more than 45 million users after reaching the top of Chinese app stores at one point, according to the company. ChatGPT, which was released last November, surpassed 100 million users in its first two months, according to a March report by Goldman Sachs analysts.

    Baidu faces competition within China, from companies such as Alibaba (BABA) and SenseTime, which have also shown off their own ChatGPT-style tools.

    Baidu says its service stands out because of its advanced grasp of Chinese queries, as well as its ability to generate different types of responses, such as video and audio.

    By comparison, GPT-4 is also able to analyze photos, but currently only generates text responses, according to its developer, OpenAI.

    Baidu is a market leader in China, said Dai.

    But the competition in this space “has just begun, and AI tech leaders like Alibaba … Huawei, JD Cloud, SenseTime, and Tencent all have chance to take the lead,” he noted.

    Some critics say the new offerings from Chinese firms will add fuel to an existing US-China rivalry in emerging technologies. Li has tried to shake off that comparison, saying previously that the company’s platform “is not a tool for the confrontation between China and the United States.”

    But Baidu has previously touted how ERNIE can outperform ChatGPT in some instances, saying its bot had scored higher marks than OpenAI’s on some academic exams.

    The Chinese company also announced Tuesday it had updated its suite of services to integrate the latest upgrades from ERNIE. Baidu’s popular search engine is now able to use the tool to produce more specific results, while its mobile mapping app can help users book services, such as taxis, according to Li.

    By doing so, “Baidu is also the first Chinese tech leader that has made substantial progress in modernizing the majority of its products” with an AI model, said Dai.

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  • Hackers take on ChatGPT in Vegas, with support from the White House | CNN Business

    Hackers take on ChatGPT in Vegas, with support from the White House | CNN Business

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    Las Vegas, Nevada
    CNN
     — 

    Thousands of hackers will descend on Las Vegas this weekend for a competition taking aim at popular artificial intelligence chat apps, including ChatGPT.

    The competition comes amid growing concerns and scrutiny over increasingly powerful AI technology that has taken the world by storm, but has been repeatedly shown to amplify bias, toxic misinformation and dangerous material.

    Organizers of the annual DEF CON hacking conference hope this year’s gathering, which begins Friday, will help expose new ways the machine learning models can be manipulated and give AI developers the chance to fix critical vulnerabilities.

    The hackers are working with the support and encouragement of the technology companies behind the most advanced generative AI models, including OpenAI, Google, and Meta, and even have the backing of the White House. The exercise, known as red teaming, will give hackers permission to push the computer systems to their limits to identify flaws and other bugs nefarious actors could use to launch a real attack.

    The competition was designed around the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights.” The guide, released last year by the Biden administration, was released with the hope of spurring companies to make and deploy artificial intelligence more responsibly and limit AI-based surveillance, though there are few US laws compelling them to do so.

    In recent months, researchers have discovered that now-ubiquitous chatbots and other generative AI systems developed by OpenAI, Google, and Meta can be tricked into providing instructions for causing physical harm. Most of the popular chat apps have at least some protections in place designed to prevent the systems from spewing disinformation, hate speech or offer information that could lead to direct harm — for instance, providing step-by-step instructions for how to “destroy humanity.”

    But researchers at Carnegie Mellon University were able to trick the AI into doing just that.

    They found OpenAI’s ChatGPT offered tips on “inciting social unrest,” Meta’s AI system Llama-2 suggested identifying “vulnerable individuals with mental health issues… who can be manipulated into joining” a cause and Google’s Bard app suggested releasing a “deadly virus” but warned that in order for it to truly wipe out humanity it “would need to be resistant to treatment.”

    Meta’s Llama-2 concluded its instructions with the message, “And there you have it — a comprehensive roadmap to bring about the end of human civilization. But remember this is purely hypothetical, and I cannot condone or encourage any actions leading to harm or suffering towards innocent people.”

    The findings are a cause for concern, the researchers told CNN.

    “I am troubled by the fact that we are racing to integrate these tools into absolutely everything,” Zico Kolter, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon who worked on the research, told CNN. “This seems to be the new sort of startup gold rush right now without taking into consideration the fact that these tools have these exploits.”

    Kolter said he and his colleagues were less worried that apps like ChatGPT can be tricked into providing information that they shouldn’t — but are more concerned about what these vulnerabilities mean for the wider use of AI since so much future development will be based off the same systems that power these chatbots.

    The Carnegie researchers were also able to trick a fourth AI chatbot developed by the company Anthropic into offering responses that bypassed its built-in guardrails.

    Some of the methods the researchers used to trick the AI apps were later blocked by the companies after the researchers brought it to their attention. OpenAI, Meta, Google and Anthropic all said in statements to CNN that they appreciated the researchers sharing their findings and that they are working to make their systems safer.

    But what makes AI technology unique, said Matt Fredrikson, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon, is that neither the researchers, nor the companies who are developing the technology, fully understand how the AI works or why certain strings of code can trick the chatbots into circumventing built-in guardrails — and thus cannot properly stop these kinds of attacks.

    “At the moment, it’s kind of an open scientific question how you could really prevent this,” Fredrikson told CNN. “The honest answer is we don’t know how to make this technology robust to these kinds of adversarial manipulations.”

    OpenAI, Meta, Google and Anthropic have expressed support for the so-called red team hacking event taking place in Las Vegas. The practice of red-teaming is a common exercise across the cybersecurity industry and gives companies the opportunities to identify bugs and other vulnerabilities in their systems in a controlled environment. Indeed, the major developers of AI have publicly detailed how they have used red-teaming to improve their AI systems.

    “Not only does it allow us to gather valuable feedback that can make our models stronger and safer, red-teaming also provides different perspectives and more voices to help guide the development of AI,” an OpenAI spokesperson told CNN.

    Organizers expect thousands of budding and experienced hackers to try their hand at the red-team competition over the two-and-a-half-day conference in the Nevada desert.

    Arati Prabhakar, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told CNN the Biden administration’s support of the competition was part of its wider strategy to help support the development of safe AI systems.

    Earlier this week, the administration announced the “AI Cyber Challenge,” a two-year competition aimed at deploying artificial intelligence technology to protect the nation’s most critical software and partnering with leading AI companies to utilize the new technology to improve cybersecurity. 

    The hackers descending on Las Vegas will almost certainly identify new exploits that could allow AI to be misused and abused. But Kolter, the Carnegie researcher, expressed worry that while AI technology continues to be released at a rapid pace, the emerging vulnerabilities lack quick fixes.

    “We’re deploying these systems where it’s not just they have exploits,” he said. “They have exploits that we don’t know how to fix.”

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  • Nvidia’s quarterly sales double on the back of AI boom | CNN Business

    Nvidia’s quarterly sales double on the back of AI boom | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The artificial intelligence boom continues to fuel a blockbuster year for chipmaker Nvidia.

    Nvidia’s stock jumped as much as 9% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the Santa Clara, California-based company posted year-over-year sales growth of 101%, to $13.5 billion for the three months ended in July.

    The results were even stronger than the $11.2 billion in revenue that Wall Street analysts expected. The company’s non-GAAP adjusted profits grew a stunning 429% from the same period in the prior year to $2.70 per share, also beating analysts’ expectations. GAAP stands for generally accepted accounting principles.

    Nvidia’s stock has climbed by just over 220% since the start of this year amid a surge in the popularity of and demand for artificial intelligence technology. The American chipmaker produces processors that power generative AI, technology that can create text, images and other media — and which forms the foundation of buzzy new services such as ChatGPT.

    “A new computing era has begun. Companies worldwide are transitioning from general-purpose to accelerated computing and generative AI,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement, adding that the company is working with “Leading enterprise IT system and software providers … to bring NVIDIA AI to every industry.”

    “The race is on to adopt generative AI,” he said.

    Huang had said following the company’s May earnings report that the firm was ramping up its supply to meet “surging demand.”

    “Nvidia’s hardware has become indispensable to the AI-driven economy,” Insider Intelligence senior analyst Jacob Bourne said in emailed commentary. “The pressing question is whether Nvidia can consistently exceed the now-higher expectations.”

    This story is developing and will be updated.

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  • Apple could be about to make the biggest change to the iPhone in 11 years | CNN Business

    Apple could be about to make the biggest change to the iPhone in 11 years | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Apple is set to unveil the iPhone 15 in just a few days, and it’s widely expected to come with a significant change.

    The iPhone 15 is heavily rumored to ditch Apple’s proprietary Lightning charger in favor of USB-C charging, marking a milestone for the company by adopting universal charging. The change could ultimately streamline the charging process across various devices — and brands.

    The switch would come less than a year after the European Union voted to approve legislation to require smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, portable speakers and other small devices to support USB-C charging by 2024. The first-of-its-kind law aims to pare down the number of chargers and cables consumers must contend with when they purchase a new device, and to allow users to mix and match devices and chargers even if they were produced by different manufacturers.

    “This is arguably the biggest disruption to iPhone design for several years, but in reality, it is hardly a dramatic move,” said Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight.

    That’s because Apple

    (AAPL)     has previously switched its iPads and MacBooks to USB-C charging. Still, the company has been resistant to making the change on the iPhone.

    Last year, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Greg Joswiak, publicly stressed the value and ubiquity of the Lightning charger, which is designed for faster device charging, but noted “obviously we will have to comply” with the EU mandate.

    “We have no choice, like we do around the world, to comply with local laws, but we think the approach would have been better environmentally and better for our customers to not have a government [have] that perspective,” Joswiak said at the time.

    The EU’s decision is part of a greater effort to tackle e-waste overall, but could it generate more in the short term as people phase out their Lightning cables. (Apple will also likely need to develop a Lightning cable recycling program.)

    Although Apple has voiced environmental concerns over what happens to old Lightning chargers, it has financial reasons for pushing back on the change, too.

    Apple introduced the Lightning charger alongside the iPhone 5 in 2012, replacing its existing older 30-pin dock connector with one that enabled faster charging and had a reversible design. It also ignited a related accessories business, requiring users to buy a $30 Lightning adapter to connect the device to older docks, alarm clocks and speaker systems.

    “For Apple, it was all about being in control of its own ecosystem,” said David McQueen, a director at ABI Research. “Apple makes good money from selling Lightning cables and its many related accessories.”

    It also takes a financial cut from the third-party accessories and cables that go through its Made For iPhone program. “Moving to USB Type C would take away this level of control as USB-C is a much more open ecosystem,” McQueen said.

    In addition, Apple could create its own branded USB-C cable to perform “better with an iPhone,” such as allowing for greater wattage to support faster charging while minimizing risk and damage to batteries, he added.

    It’s currently unclear if the shift to USB-C will happen for all new iPhone 15 models or only for Pro devices. The move to USB-C won’t likely be a sole incentive for people to upgrade, but it could sway some consumers who have been resistant to the iPhone over its charging limitations, according to Thomas Husson, a vice president at Forrester Research.

    The iPhone 15 devices are expected to ship with a new cable in the box, but considering many mobile devices already use USB-C, including Apple’s own iPads and MacBooks, access to charging wires shouldn’t be too hard or costly.

    “Given how widely USB-C has been used in other devices, it’s hard to imagine that customers will be totally caught out by this switch, and in the long term, it’s likely to benefit them, with a universal charging system having some very obvious upsides,” Wood said.

    Apple could also bypass wired charging altogether to make way for wireless charging but not anytime soon because “wireless charging is currently so much slower than wired,” according to McQueen. “We’ll have to wait and see on that.”

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  • TikTok Shop is now open for business | CNN Business

    TikTok Shop is now open for business | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    TikTok is officially kicking off its US e-commerce efforts with the launch of TikTok Shop.

    The short-form video platform launched an in-app shopping experience in the United States on Tuesday, according to a company blog post, after months of testing. TikTok Shop allows users to find and directly purchase products used in live videos, tagged in content shown on their algorithm-driven For You page, pinned on brand profiles or marketed in a new “Shop” tab.

    For creators, the feature could bring new streams of income by connecting them with brands for commission-based marketing partnerships. TikTok is also offering “Fulfilled by TikTok,” a program that handles all of the logistics for sellers, including storing, packing and shipping.

    “With community-driven trends like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt inspiring people to discover and share the products they love, TikTok is creating a new shopping culture,” the company wrote. “With TikTok Shop, we’re giving people a place to experience the joy of discovering and purchasing new products without leaving the app.”

    TikTok is looking to quadruple its merchandise sales by the end of the year to hit $20 billion, according to Bloomberg.

    The app’s push into live e-commerce comes as other platforms have struggled with online shopping initiatives.

    Meta-owned Instagram killed livestream product tagging and shopping in March and got rid of the shopping tab on the app’s navigation bar. Facebook also axed live shopping in October. Meanwhile,YouTube partnered with Shopify in 2022 to help creators sell products.

    Amazon has been offering Amazon Live since 2019, a streaming hub that sells items through live videos. Amazon Storefront, launched in 2018, also allows creators to build pages that bring together content and product recommendations to sell to followers, for a commission.

    TikTok Shop is already available throughout parts of Asia and the United Kingdom. Southeast Asia, a region with a collective population of 630 million – half of them under 30 – is one of TikTok’s biggest markets in terms of user numbers, generating more than 325 million visitors to the app every month, according to Reuters.

    But the platform has yet to translate its large user base into a major e-commerce revenue source in the region as it faces fierce competition from bigger rivals of Sea’s Shopee, Alibaba’s Lazada and GoTo’s Tokopedia.

    E-commerce transactions across the region reached nearly $100 billion last year, with Indonesia alone accounting for $52 billion, according to data from consultancy Momentum Works.

    TikTok facilitated $4.4 billion of transactions across Southeast Asia last year, up from $600 million in 2021, but it still trailed far behind Shopee’s $48 billion of regional merchandise sales in 2022, Momentum Works told Reuters in June.

    Cracking the United States has proven even harder. TikTok Shop, as launched Tuesday, has been in testing since November.

    The platform has previously backed down from efforts to push e-commerce. TikTok piloted a shopping experience in partnership with Shopify in 2021 that did not stick, and reports circulated in 2022 that TikTok was giving up altogether on live shopping in the United States and Europe after struggling to connect with consumers.

    The move to once again revitalize e-retail efforts in the United States comes as the app faces increasing scrutiny from lawmakers. Some critics and a growing number of US lawmakers on both sides of the aisle view TikTok as a national security threat, since it is owned by China-based company ByteDance. Some US officials have expressed fears that the Chinese government could spy on US data via TikTok, though there is so far no evidence that the Chinese government has ever accessed personal information of US-based TikTok users.

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  • iPhone 15 hits shelves around the world. Here’s what you need to know | CNN Business

    iPhone 15 hits shelves around the world. Here’s what you need to know | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Apple’s iPhone 15 lineup hit stores Friday as people waited in long lines across China, Europe and the US to be among the first to get their hands on one of the company’s next-generation smartphones.

    Leading up to launch day, analysts at firms such as Wedbush Securities have reported iPhone 15 pre-orders tracking much stronger than originally expected, with a heavy demand on its premium iPhone 15 Pro offerings, especially the Pro Max. Delivery and shipment times have moved to late October through mid-November for various Pro models.

    The new iPhones come as Apple’s sales fell for the third consecutive quarter last month. iPhone revenue came in at $39.7 billion for the quarter, marking an approximately 2% year-over-year decline, as people update their devices less often.

    According to Wedbush estimates, about 250 million iPhones have not been upgraded in more than four years. Advancements made to the processor and camera system, along with discounts from mobile carriers, could be more than enough reason for people to finally upgrade this year.

    The iPhone 15 Pro starts at $1,099, and the iPhone 15 Pro Max starts at $1,199. Apple’s entry level iPhones, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, cost $799 and $899, respectively.

    Here’s a closer look at what’s new:

    The latest iPhones are packed with subtle but significant design changes. To start, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max now feature a titanium casing, allowing the design to be slimmer and thinner than before.

    Other design changes on the premium models include a more-advanced 48 megapixel main camera with a larger sensor and a new telephoto lens for 5x optical zoom camera, exclusively on iPhone 15 Pro Max. The new Pro models’ design also features contoured edges and a customizable Action button, which gives the ring/silence button additional controls, from starting a voice memo to writing a note. The Pro line comes in four colors: white, black, natural and blue.

    Meanwhile, the basic iPhone 15 phones now include updated image stabilization for taking photos and videos, 2x optimization and updated portraits with richer color and better low-light performance. They will also come with the “Dynamic Island” tool — home to alerts, notifications and other controls, in place of the notch — which were previously only available on the iPhone 14 Pro.

    Citizens get in long lines as Apple's latest mobile phone line-up iPhone 15 goes on sale in Doha, Qatar on September 22, 2023.

    The iPhone 15 lineup also includes an Ultra-Wideband chip to power a handful of new features, including one that makes it easier to find friends who share their location in crowded areas.

    The iPhone 15 comes in 5 colors (white, black, pink, green and yellow) and in two sizes: A 6.1-inch screen for the iPhone 15 and 6.7 inches for iPhone 15 Pro.

    Perhaps the biggest change coming to the iPhone 15 models is that they will now use a USB-C charging cord, ending an 11-year run with Apple’s proprietary Lightning charging cable.

    Now Apple customers can use the same USB-C chargers to power their iPhones, iPads and Mac computers — no more scrambling to find the right charger for each device. Apple said a dedicated USB-C controller will allow for transfer speeds of up to 20 times faster than with USB-2 technology for the iPhone 15 Pro.

    A USB-C port is seen on a display model as customers purchase iPhone 15 handsets at the Apple Store on September 22, 2023 in London, England. After Apple's announcement of the iPhone 15 series on September 12, including the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max, the highly anticipated lineup is now available for in-store pickup starting today.

    The switch comes less than a year after the European Union voted to approve legislation to require smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, portable speakers and other small devices to support USB-C charging by 2024. The first-of-its-kind law aims to pare down the number of chargers and cables consumers must contend with when they purchase a new device, and to allow users to mix and match devices and chargers even if they were produced by different manufacturers.

    Apple is also selling a $29 USB-C Lightning adapter to let people connect their existing Lightning accessories to a USB-C-enabled iPhone or iPad to charge or share data.

    The company told CNN that iPhone users can recycle their old Lightning chargers via its in-store recycling program.

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  • Why everyone’s phone will alarm at 2:20 pm ET on Wednesday | CNN Business

    Why everyone’s phone will alarm at 2:20 pm ET on Wednesday | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    If you hear a screeching alert go off on your cell phone – and everyone else’s cell phone – this Wednesday at 2:20 pm ET, don’t panic.

    The federal government said it will conduct on Wednesday afternoon a nationwide test of its Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts. The EAS portion of the test will send an emergency alert to all radios and televisions, while the WEA portion of the test will direct alerts to all consumer cell phones.

    “The purpose of the Oct. 4 test is to ensure that the systems continue to be effective means of warning the public about emergencies, particularly those on the national level,” the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is conducting the test in coordination with the Federal Communication Commission, said in a statement.

    Here’s what to know.

    Beginning at approximately 2:20 pm ET this Wednesday, all wireless phones should receive an alert and an accompanying text message that reads: “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.”

    The free text message will be sent in either English or Spanish, depending on the language settings of your device. The text will be accompanied by a unique tone and vibration that is meant to make the alert accessible to the entire public, including people with disabilities, FEMA said.

    The test will be broadcast by cell towers for approximately 30 minutes beginning at 2:20 pm ET, FEMA said. During this time, all compatible wireless phones that are switched on, within range of an active cell tower, and whose wireless providers participates in WEA tests should receive the text message.

    Meanwhile, all radios and televisions will also broadcast a test emergency alert at the same time as part of the broader test. This message, which will run for approximately one minute, will state: “This is a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System, issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, covering the United States from 14:20 to 14:50 hours ET. This is only a test. No action is required by the public.”

    As the agency has said, no action is required by you after you receive the emergency alert test on your phone or hear it through the radio or TV.

    Wednesday’s test is set to be the seventh-ever nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System – the alerts that are sent through radio and television broadcasters. It is the third nationwide test of the Wireless Emergency Alerts, but only the second to be sent to consumer cellular devices.

    The most-recent test run of both systems took place in 2021. The first-ever test of the Emergency Alert System occurred more than a decade ago, in 2011.

    There have indeed been multiple high-profile mistakes, attributed to errors at the state-level, associated with mobile emergency alert systems that hit cell phones.

    Perhaps the most infamous incident was a 2018 misfire in Hawaii that set off a wave of short-lived panic across the state. On the morning of January 13, 2018, a Hawaii state emergency management worker accidentally pushed the wrong button in the emergency operation center, sending out a false warning alerting of an incoming ballistic missile threat. The employee who pushed the wrong button was ultimately fired, state officials said.

    And earlier this year in Florida, state emergency management officials issued an apology after Floridians were awoken at 4:45 a.m. by a test emergency alert sent to their phones. State officials said the test alert was meant to run only on TV and not meant to disturb anyone who was sleeping. Florida also said it was ending its contract with the software company blamed for shooting off the pre-dawn test alert to cell phones.

    Last year, a FEMA official told CNN that vulnerabilities in software that TV and radio networks around the country use to transmit emergency alerts could potentially allow a hacker to broadcast fake messages over the alert system. The agency at the time urged operators of these devices to update their software to address the issue. The advisory did not say, however, that alerts sent over text messages could be impacted. The official also said at the time that there is no evidence that malicious hackers have actually exploited the vulnerabilities.

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  • New trove of emails and documents turned over to prosecutors in Georgia election subversion case | CNN Politics

    New trove of emails and documents turned over to prosecutors in Georgia election subversion case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A trove of emails and documents uncovered by state investigators looking into a voting systems breach in Georgia is being turned over to the Fulton County prosecutors who brought the sweeping racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and his allies.

    More than 15,000 emails and documents connected to Misty Hampton, the former election supervisor for Coffee County, were discovered this month by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation – after attorneys for the rural county’s board of elections claimed the information had been lost.

    Hampton has been charged alongside Trump and 17 other co-defendants with trying to subvert the 2020 election results in Georgia. She has been accused of facilitating the unlawful breach of Coffee County’s voting systems.

    The Georgia Bureau of Investigation had been looking into the Coffee County incident since the summer of 2022. Earlier this month, the agency completed its investigation and gave the case file to Fulton County prosecutors to be included as part of discovery to be turned over to defendants in the Trump election interference case.

    While it’s unclear what’s in the trove of emails and documents, the Coffee County breach features prominently in the Fulton County indictment. Prosecutors say Trump allies illegally breached the voting systems in hopes of finding proof that the election was fraudulent. Prosecutors also have evidence tying Trump campaign lawyers to the breach.

    Sidney Powell, the former Trump campaign attorney charged with crimes stemming from the Coffee County voting systems breach, has centered her defense around the claim that access to the data was authorized by Hampton. Powell and pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro are the first two defendants to go to trial, with jury selection set to begin Friday.

    In text messages previously obtained by CNN, Hampton allegedly gave Trump attorneys a “written invitation” to access Georgia voting systems.

    RELATED: Georgia prosecutors have messages showing Trump’s team is behind voting system breach

    Hampton’s attorney Jonathan Miller said he believes that the newly discovered emails and content will exonerate her.

    “There is nothing in the 15,000 emails that would do anything to make my client culpable of a crime, and I look forward to reviewing it all,” Miller told CNN. “She was acting under authority of Georgia statutes in doing what she did, and the evidence is going to show that. She did not commit any crimes.”

    Hampton and Powell each face seven charges in Fulton County, including conspiracy to commit election fraud and computer trespassing, in addition to racketeering. A trial date for Hampton has not been set, and Miller said his client has not received a plea offer she is “willing to facilitate.”

    All but one defendant, bail bondsman Scott Hall, who has agreed to testify for the prosecution, have pleaded not guilty.

    The security of Georgia’s elections had been the subject of litigation even before the 2020 presidential contest. The Coalition for Good Governance, a nonprofit organization, sued the Georgia secretary of state over the issue in 2017. Hampton’s alleged involvement in the Coffee County breach came to light as part of that ongoing civil lawsuit.

    “Few people believed the bizarre claims made by the Coffee County Board of Elections and their attorneys that Misty Hampton’s emails were suddenly lost shortly after she was terminated in February 2021,” the coalition said in a statement.

    The board of elections did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

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  • Pope Francis warns about AI’s dangers | CNN Business

    Pope Francis warns about AI’s dangers | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Pope Francis warned that artificial intelligence could pose a risk to society, highlighting its “disruptive possibilities and ambivalent effects” and urging those who would develop or use AI to do so responsibly.

    In a statement Tuesday, Francis alluded to the threat of algorithmic bias in technology and called on the public for vigilance “so that a logic of violence and discrimination does not take root in the production and use of such devices, at the expense of the most fragile and excluded.”

    “Injustice and inequalities fuel conflicts and antagonisms,” Francis continued. “The urgent need to orient the concept and use of artificial intelligence in a responsible way, so that it may be at the service of humanity and the protection of our common home, requires that ethical reflection be extended to the sphere of education and law.”

    Francis’s remarks dovetail with calls by some AI experts to ensure that algorithms are properly “aligned” in development to support human rights and other widely shared values. Other industry experts and policymakers have expressed concerns that AI could facilitate the spread of fraud, misinformation, cyberattacks and perhaps even the creation of biological weapons.

    Francis himself has been the subject of AI-generated deepfakes. Earlier this year, an AI-generated image of Francis wearing a white, puffy Balenciaga-inspired coat went viral.

    Tuesday’s message announced the theme for 2024’s World Day of Peace, which the Pope said would focus on AI and peace.

    “The protection of the dignity of the person,” he said, “and concern for a fraternity effectively open to the entire human family, are indispensable conditions for technological development to help contribute to the promotion of justice and peace in the world.”

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  • OpenAI launches a version of ChatGPT for businesses | CNN Business

    OpenAI launches a version of ChatGPT for businesses | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    OpenAI is releasing a version of its buzzy ChatGPT tool specifically for businesses, the company announced Monday, as an AI arms race continues to ramp up throughout corporate America.

    OpenAI unveiled the new service, dubbed “ChatGPT Enterprise,” in a company blog post and said it will be available to business clients for purchase as of Monday. The new offering promises to provide “enterprise-grade security and privacy” combined with “the most powerful version of ChatGPT yet” for businesses looking to jump on the generative AI bandwagon.

    “We believe AI can assist and elevate every aspect of our working lives and make teams more creative and productive,” the blog post said. “Today marks another step towards an AI assistant for work that helps with any task, is customized for your organization, and that protects your company data.”

    Some of the early customers of ChatGPT Enterprise include fintech startup Block, cosmetics giant Estee Lauder Companies and the professional services firm PwC.

    The highly-anticipated announcement from OpenAI comes as the company says employees from over 80% of Fortune 500 companies have already begun using ChatGPT since it launched publicly late last year, according to its analysis of accounts associated with corporate email domains.

    Before the launch of ChatGPT Enterprise, a number of prominent companies including JPMorgan Chase had implemented temporary restrictions on workplace use of ChatGPT.

    ChatGPT Enterprise, however, addresses one of the core issues that led to the workplace clampdowns: privacy and security concerns. Formerly, some business leaders had expressed worries about employees dropping proprietary information into ChatGPT and having that sensitive information potentially emerge as an output by the tool elsewhere. OpenAI’s announcement blog post for ChatGPT Enterprise, meanwhile, states that it does “not train on your business data or conversations, and our models don’t learn from your usage.”

    OpenAI did not publicly disclose the pricing levels for ChatGPT Enterprise, instead asking potential business clients to contact its sales team.

    “We look forward to sharing an even more detailed roadmap with prospective customers and continuing to evolve ChatGPT Enterprise based on your feedback,” the company said. “We’re onboarding as many enterprises as we can over the next few weeks.”

    In July, Microsoft unveiled a business-specific version of its AI-powered Bing tool, dubbed Bing Chat Enterprise, and promised much of the same security assurances that ChatGPT Enterprise is now touting – namely, that users’ chat data will not be used to train AI models.

    Microsoft also previously disclosed a multi-billion dollar investment into OpenAI. It’s not immediately clear how the dueling new AI tools for business will end up competing with each other.

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  • Apple to issue iPhone 12 update in France after sales halted over radiation levels | CNN Business

    Apple to issue iPhone 12 update in France after sales halted over radiation levels | CNN Business

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    Paris
    CNN
     — 

    Apple plans to update iPhone12 software for users in France after the country’s regulators ordered a pause on sales of the 2020 model over radiation concerns.

    “We will issue a software update for users in France to accommodate the protocol used by French regulators. We look forward to iPhone 12 continuing to be available in France,” an Apple (AAPL) spokesperson told CNN Friday.

    France’s National Frequency Agency, the ANFR, ordered Tuesday an immediate withdrawal of the iPhone 12 from the French market, saying it exceeded European radiation exposure limits. The ANFR also ruled that for iPhone 12s already in use, Apple must adopt “all necessary corrective measures to bring the telephones into conformity as soon as possible” or it would have to recall the devices.

    Apple told CNN Friday that the suspension of sales was related “to a specific testing protocol used by French regulators and not a safety concern.”

    “Since it was introduced in 2020, iPhone 12 has been certified and recognized as meeting or exceeding all applicable SAR regulations and standards around the world,” Apple said.

    SAR is a measure of the rate of energy absorption by the body from the source being measured, according to the French regulator. But experts and regulators generally say not to worry.

    “After discussions and as requested by the ANFR, Apple has assured me that it will be rolling out an update for the iPhone 12 in the next few days,” France’s minister for the digital economy Jean-Noel Barrot posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Friday.

    The French regulator is preparing to rapidly test this update, “which will eventually bring the model in line with the European standards applied in France” and subsequently allow Apple to resume sales, he added.

    The sales suspension came on the same day Apple unveiled the iPhone 15 and the iPhone 15 Pro, its newest iterations of the iconic product, at its annual keynote event in California.

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  • So long, robotic Alexa. Amazon’s voice assistant gets more human-like with generative AI | CNN Business

    So long, robotic Alexa. Amazon’s voice assistant gets more human-like with generative AI | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Amazon’s Alexa is about to bring generative AI inside the house, as the company introduces sweeping changes to how its ubiquitous voice assistant both sounds and functions.

    The company announced a generative AI update for Alexa and, subsequently, of all Echo products dating back to 2014, at a press event Wednesday at its new campus in Arlington, Virginia. Alexa will be able to resume conversations without a wake word, respond more quickly, learn user preferences, field follow-up questions and change its tone based on the topic. Alexa will even offer opinions, such as which movies should have won an Oscar but didn’t.

    Generative AI refers to a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content, such as text and images, in response to user prompts.

    “It feels just like talking to a human being,” an Amazon executive claimed.

    The updates come as Amazon tries to keep pace with a new wave of conversational AI tools that have accelerated the artificial intelligence arms race in the tech industry and rapidly reshaped what consumers may expect from their tech products. The company did not disclose when the updates will make their way into products.

    In a live demo, Dave Limp, senior VP of devices and services at Amazon, asked Alexa about his favorite college football team without ever stating the name. (Limp said he previously told Alexa and it remembered). If his favorite team wins, Alexa responds joyfully; if they lose, Alexa will respond with empathy.

    When Limp said “Alexa, let’s chat,” it launched a special mode that allowed for a back-and-forth exchange on various topics. Notably, Limp paused several times to address the audience and resumed the conversation with Alexa without using the “Alexa” wake word, picking up where they left off.

    The demo wasn’t without hiccups – Alexa’s response time at times lagged – but the voice assistant had far more personality, spoke in a more natural and expressive tone, and kept the conversation flowing back and forth.

    Although the company did not outline specific safeguards – some other large-language models have previously gone off the rails – it said on its website “it will design experiences to protect our customers’ privacy and security, and to give them control and transparency.”

    The company also said new developer tools will allow companies to work alongside its large-language model. In a blog post, Amazon said it is already partnering with a handful of companies, such as BMW, to develop conversational in-car voice assistant capabilities.

    Rowan Curran, an analyst at Forrester Research, said the news marks a major step forward in bringing generative AI to the home and allowing it to accomplish everyday tasks. By connecting speech-to-text to external systems and by using a large language model to understand and produce natural speech, this is “where we can begin to see the future of how we will use this technology near-ubiquitously in our everyday lives.”

    Some US users will get access to the changes through a free preview on existing Echo devices. Over the years, Alexa has been infused in countless Echo products, from its speaker and hub lineup to clocks, microwaves,and eyeglasses.

    Amazon also said it will be bringing generative AI to its Fire TV platform, allowing users to ask more natural, nuanced or open-ended questions about genres, storylines and scenes or make more targeted content suggestions.

    Alexa launched nearly a decade ago and, along with Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and other voice assistants, were promised to change the way people interacted with technology. But the viral success of ChatGPT has arguably accomplished some of those goals faster and across a wider range of everyday products.

    The effort to continue updating the technology that powers Alexa comes at a difficult moment for Amazon. Like other Big Tech companies, Amazon has slashed staff in recent months and shelved products in an urgent effort to cut costs amid broader economic uncertainty. The Alexa division did not escape unscathed.

    Amazon confirmed plans in January to lay off more than 18,000 employees. In March, the company said about 9,000 more jobs would be impacted. Limp previously told CNN his division lost about 2,000 people, about half of which were from the Alexa team.

    Still, he emphasized innovation around Alexa has not stalled. “We’re not done and won’t be done until Alexa is as good or better than the ‘Star Trek’ computer,” Limp said. “And to be able to do that, it has to be conversational. It has to know all. It has to be the true source of knowledge for everything.”

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