Uber founder Travis Kalanick has resigned his position as CEO, following a series of controversies and scandals that have recently dogged the ride hailing company.
Five major investors demanded Kalanick's immediate resignation on Tuesday in a letter delivered to the chief executive, according to The New York Times. After "long discussions" with some of the investors, Kalanick agreed to step down, but will reportedly stay on Uber's board and continue to hold the majority of voting shares. Kalanick recently took a leave of absence following the death of his mother.
"I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life I have accepted the investors request to step aside so that Uber can go back to building rather than be distracted with another fight," Mr. Kalanick said in a statement.
Uber's board said in a statement that Kalanick had "always put Uber first" and that his resignation would give the company "room to fully embrace this new chapter in Uber's history." An Uber spokesperson declined to comment further.
The ride-hailing service clearly hopes that news of Kalanick's resignation will be perceived as a company reboot, as it attempts to revive its tarnished image following multiple controversies over recent months.
Just last month it was revealed that the Department of Justice is investigating Uber over its use of "secret" software that allowed its drivers to operate in areas where the company was banned or restricted. The so-called "greyball" software is said to have allowed the company to identify undercover officials and block them from booking rides, in order to prevent them from proving that Uber was operating illegally.
In April it emerged that Apple CEO Tim Cook threatened to pull Uber's app from the App Store in early 2015 after discovering that it was secretly "fingerprinting" iPhones that used the app. Uber said it used the identification method to prevent fraud, despite knowing the tactic is a clear violation of Apple's app privacy guidelines. The revelation came in a New York Times article detailing the ride-hailing service's history of controversial business tactics.
Spotify today announced a new mobile feature called Group Playlists for Messenger, which enables users of Facebook's chat app to create music mixes collaboratively within a conversation thread.
With Group Playlists for Messenger, users can create new Spotify playlists with friends and immediately begin collaborating to build out their perfect mix. Ideal for parties, road trips, or simply collecting new favorites, Group Playlists provide a seamless way for users to collaborate and share music more easily than ever before.
The new feature means Messenger users can create a Group Playlist, share it with friends, and add songs to it directly from within the Messenger app via the Spotify Chat Extension, which is available by tapping the blue + icon next to the composer.
By tapping the Create button at the bottom of the screen, users can give their playlist a name before sending it to the group chat session, where it will appear as a thumbnail preview accompanied by a button below to add songs.
While the person creating the playlist must be a current Spotify user, others in the conversation thread can add more songs to it, even if they aren't on Spotify. The Group Playlists extension can also be accessed from within Messenger using this link.
With iOS 11, Apple is delving into augmented reality in a big way, introducing an ARKit development platform that will allow developers to quickly and easily build augmented reality experiences into their apps and games.
ARKit is positioned to be the largest AR platform in the world when it launches this fall, using the camera, processors, and motion sensors in the iPhone and iPad to create some incredibly impressive augmented reality interactions.
While we won't see the first augmented reality apps and games built on ARKit for a couple of months, Apple has an ARKit demo app to show off what ARKit can do. We went hands-on with the demo to give MacRumors readers just a small taste of what to expect.
ARKit uses technology called Visual Inertial Odometry to track the world around an iPad or iPhone, allowing a device to sense how it moves in a room. ARKit automatically analyzes a room's layout, detecting horizontal planes like tables and floors, which then allows virtual objects to be placed upon those surfaces.
With ARKit able to place any virtual object within a physical room, developers can create all kinds of unique experiences, and developers have already released several demos showing what might be possible.
Apple already has at least one major retailer on board to use ARKit -- IKEA. IKEA is developing a new augmented reality app built on ARKit that will let customers preview IKEA products in their own homes before making a purchase. IKEA has offered augmented reality functionality for a few years now, but the company says Apple's new platform will much improve the experience. With ARKit available, IKEA says augmented reality will now "play a key role" in new product lines.
At its 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced Metal 2, the next-iteration of its graphics API for iOS, tvOS, and macOS. Metal 2 includes support for VR content creation for the first time, and when Metal 2 was highlighted at the event, Apple said Valve, Unity, and Unreal would bring their VR tools to the Mac.
Epic Games is making good on Apple's promise, and has announced that it is releasing early access support for developing for virtual reality on Mac platforms through the Unreal Engine Github.
At WWDC, Industrial Light & Magic Chief Creative Officer John Knoll took the stage to demo the Unreal Editor running live in VR mode on one of Apple's newly announced iMacs.
Going forward, Epic Games plans to add full support for VR development on macOS in an upcoming release. Mac VR support, along with general Metal 2 support and Mac optimizations, will ship in Unreal Engine 4.18, with previews coming in September and a full release coming in early October.
The Unicode Consortium today released version 10.0.0 of the Unicode Standard, introducing 56 new emoji characters ranging from crazy face and face with monocle to t-rex, pie, and pretzel.
Emoji site Emojipedia has details on all of the new emoji that are included in the update, and has shared a sample image featuring visual representations of the new additions.
Some of the new emoji include star-struck, face with raised eyebrow (which Emojipedia says is also known as the "Colbert" face), exploding head, face vomiting, shushing face, face with hand over mouth, love you gesture, palms up together, brain, orange heart, scarf, gloves, coat, socks, zebra, giraffe, hedgehog, sauropod, cricket, coconut, broccoli, dumpling, fortune cookie, pie, cup with straw, and chopsticks.
New child, adult, and older adult emojis in a range of skin tones are included, as are options for person in steamy room, bearded person, mage, fairy, vampire, merperson, elf, genie, person climbing, person in lotus position, and more, with all of those emoji available in multiple skin tones and genders. While there are 56 distinct new emoji characters, gender/skin tone modifiers and flags bring that total to 239.
These new emoji will not be available for Apple products until Apple adds support for Unicode 10, and the actual artwork for each emoji on iOS and Mac devices will be up to Apple to provide.
It typically takes Apple several months to implement support for new emoji, so the Unicode 10 options could be implemented in the fall of 2017. Emoji in Unicode 9, which was released in June of 2016, were added to iOS in iOS 10.2 in October.
Philips today sent out an email announcing that its White Ambiance E12 candle light bulb is now available for pre-order in the United States.
Priced at $29.95, the candle (or candelabra) bulb is designed to fit small decorative lamps with E12 sockets in the United States. Like other Hue bulbs, the new candle bulb can be connected to a Philips Hue bridge and controlled via HomeKit.
At the current time, Philips is only offering the White Ambiance candle bulb for pre-order in the United States, but the company has said that it also plans to offer a color version, so customers who prefer the Hue bulbs that support shades beyond white may want to wait for that version.
Philips originally announced its candle bulbs in March of 2017, launching them first in Europe. E14 candle light bulbs have been available in Europe in both color and white ambiance versions since April. According to Philips, the candle bulb is "one of the most requested products" from Philips Hue customers.
The bulb is a 40W equivalent, offering up to 570 lumens. It features deep dimming from warm white to cool daylight with a 2200k to 6500k color temperature range. The White and Color Ambiance version, when available, will offer the same white options along with support for 16 million colors.
MBNA Canada, a division of TD Bank Group, today launched Apple Pay support for its MasterCard and Visa credit cards.
Multiple iPhone users have successfully activated an MBNA-branded credit card in the Wallet app today, as reported by iPhone in Canada.
Apple has also added MBNA to its list of Apple Pay participating issuers in Canada, accompanying TD Canada Trust, BMO, CIBC, RBC, Scotiabank, Tangerine, Desjardins, HSBC Canada, PC Financial, ATB Financial, Canadian Tire Financial Services, and non-bank-issued American Express cards.
MBNA Canada, which had 1.8 million active accounts when it was acquired by TD in 2011, primarily offers affinity credit cards associated with sports teams, universities, charities, and other groups, ranging from the Toronto Blue Jays and Vancouver Canucks to McGill University and the Canadian Wildlife Federation.
Apple today updated its Mac recycling program to partner with a new company, replacing longtime partner PowerOn with Phobio, a company that promises a seamless device buyback program. Apple's recycling program is designed to offer Apple users cash for their old devices by providing simple trade-in options.
Starting today, when you use Apple's Renew and Recycling program to recycle a Mac desktop or notebook, Apple will now direct you to Phobio's site where you can find your Mac by entering a serial number. After answering a couple of questions about condition, Phobio offers up a price estimate and lets users choose an Apple Store Gift Card, Paypal, or Virtual Visa Reward as a payment option.
According to a source that spoke to MacRumors about the partnership change, Apple opted to go with Phobio because the site offers higher trade-in values, is easier to navigate, and provides an option for cash payments alongside Apple Store Gift Cards, something that wasn't available via PowerOn.
Based on our testing, Phobio and PowerOn offer similar trade-in values for many machines, with PowerOn offering a slight edge in value for newer Macs, while Phobio seems to have slightly better pricing for some older models.
Apple is only partnering with Phobio for Mac trade-ins at the current time. For PC trade-ins, Apple continues to work with PowerOn, and for iPad and iPhone trade-ins, Apple is still using longtime partner Brightstar.
Apple today continued on with its line of iPhone 7 advertisements, introducing a new spot called "The Archives," which focuses on the Memories feature that's available in the Photos app.
In the video, available on YouTube, an archivist is shown working in a vast photo archive, carefully selecting and then pasting together physical versions of Live Photos and videos into a montage that's first shown on a projector and then transferred to the iPhone 7.
"Her Dreams" by Luca D'Alberto and "Unchained Melody" by Lykke Li accompany the video, as does the tagline that Apple's been using for all of its recent ads, "practically magic."
Apple has done several ads in this series that focus on the photographic capabilities of the iPhone 7, including "The City" and "Take Mine," but this is the first ad that has highlighted the Memories feature that's baked into iOS. Memories aggregates photos and videos around selected dates, locations, and people, turning them into slideshows accompanied by music.
Today's ad is also accompanied by a simple tutorial video that outlines how to use the Memories feature, which joins many other iPhone 7 photography tutorials that Apple has been producing since May.
Apple's Memories feature is set to see a major improvement in iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra, gaining support for a range of new categories including pets, babies, outdoor activities, performances, weddings, birthdays, and sporting events.
Uber today announced a new "180 Days of Change" initiative that's designed to improve working conditions for its drivers and bolster its public image. As part of the upcoming changes, Uber plans to implement tipping, a feature that drivers have long desired.
Tipping is currently available in the Uber app in Seattle, Minneapolis, and Houston, with Uber pledging to add more cities over the next few weeks. Tips will be available to all U.S. drivers by the end of July, says the company.
For end users, when a ride is complete, there's a new option alongside the star rating to add a tip of $1, $2, $5, or a custom amount. The new in-app tipping option is a huge change, as Uber has long resisted tipping with the excuse that it kept the service "hassle-free," even as competitors like Lyft implemented tips for drivers.
Along with tipping, Uber also announced several other changes that are being implemented starting today. Driver Destination trips will count towards promotions and are available for all U.S. drivers, $2 has been added to the base fare for all teen account trips, drivers will earn a per minute fee for waiting over 2 minutes for riders, a cancellation fee will be implemented if a rider cancels after two minutes (it was 5 minutes), and there's a new Driver Injury Protection insurance option offered by Aon.
Uber plans to announce and implement additional changes over the course of the next six months.
OnePlus today introduced its new flagship device, the OnePlus 5. During the event where the new phone was announced, OnePlus threw some shade at Apple, mocking the removal of the headphone jack in the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus.
"On the bottom, you'll notice that we ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack. The elegance of the overall design is instantly heightened. And who needs a headphone jack anyway? That's why Bluetooth exists, right?" deadpanned Diego Heinz, a designer at OnePlus. "Just kidding. Of course the OnePlus 5 has a headphone jack."
Heinz goes on to pull up a tweet on the subject of headphone jacks, displaying a poll where 88 percent of 8,000 responders said they "like headphone jacks."
Ahead of the launch of the OnePlus 5, there was a lot of discussion on whether OnePlus would follow in Apple's footsteps and remove the headphone jack from the device. There were early design leaks and cases that featured no headphone jack, sparking speculation and leading to the on-stage joke.
This isn't the first time an Apple competitor has mocked the company's design decisions. When Samsung introduced the now-defunct Galaxy Note 7 in August of 2016, Samsung marketing VP Justin Denison made sure to point out the device's headphone jack. "Want to know what else it comes with?" he asked. "An audio jack. I'm just saying."
Unlike many of Apple's design choices, the decision to eliminate the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus has not caught on with other smartphone manufacturers, likely due to the negative reaction from consumers. Though Apple has introduced wire-free AirPods and included Lightning-based EarPods along with the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, many iPhone customers continue mourn the loss of the headphone jack.
Though the OnePlus 5 still has a headphone jack, the company has adopted many other design elements from Apple, with curved edges, rounded rear antenna bands, a dual camera complete with Portrait Mode, and a "Slate Gray" or "Midnight Black" casing. In fact, The Verge called it "a slightly smaller iPhone 7 Plus that runs Android."
The OnePlus 5, which is priced starting at $479 for 64GB of storage, features a 5.5-inch AMOLED display, a high-end Snapdragon 835 processor, up to 8GB RAM, fast charging, haptic feedback, a 16-megapixel wide-angle camera, a 20-megapixel telephoto camera, and a 16-megapixel front-facing camera.
Apple has expanded its lawsuit against Qualcomm, accusing the wireless chipmaker of "double-dipping" by way of unfair patent licensing agreements, according to an amended complaint filed with a United States federal court in San Diego today.
The complaint broadens the claims Apple made in its original lawsuit against Qualcomm in January, when it sued the chipmaker for $1 billion in alleged unpaid royalty rebates. Apple also accused its longtime supplier of the iPhone's wireless chip of engaging in anticompetitive licensing practices.
Since the original iPhone, Qualcomm has supplied Apple with modems that enable the smartphone to, for example, connect to a Wi-Fi or LTE network. But as the iPhone has gained more features, Apple argues that Qualcomm has been unfairly "levying its own tax" on those innovations through "exorbitant royalties."
Apple said Qualcomm wrongly bases its royalties on a percentage of the entire iPhone's value, despite supplying just a single component of the device.
As Apple innovates, Qualcomm demands more. Qualcomm had nothing to do with creating the revolutionary Touch ID, the world’s most popular camera, or the Retina display Apple’s customers love, yet Qualcomm wants to be paid as if these (and future) breakthroughs belong to it. Qualcomm insists in this Court that it should be entitled to rely on the same business model it applied over a decade ago to the flip phone but while that model may have been defensible when a phone was just a phone, today it amounts to a scheme of extortion that allows Qualcomm unfairly to maintain and entrench its existing monopoly.
The licensing agreements are in addition to paying for the wireless chips themselves. Apple said Qualcomm's "double-dipping, extra-reward system" is precisely the kind that the U.S. Supreme Court recently forbade in a lawsuit between Lexmark and a small company reselling its printer cartridges.
If that were not enough, the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent landmark decision in Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., condemned Qualcomm’s business model as a violation of U.S. patent law. The Supreme Court flatly rejected Qualcomm’s business model, holding that a patent holder may demand only “one reward” for its patented products, and when it has secured the reward for its invention, it may not, under the patent laws, further restrict the use or enjoyment of the item. Qualcomm, by its own admission, will not sell chips to manufacturers who do not also pay separate royalties and enter Qualcomm licenses at usurious rates. This is precisely the kind of double-dipping, extra-reward system that the Court’s decision in Lexmark forbids.
Apple said it has been "overcharged billions of dollars" due to Qualcomm's so-called "illegal scheme," including the $1 billion in unpaid royalty rebates that led Apple to sue Qualcomm in January.
Apple, however, argues that Qualcomm's monopolistic licensing demands violate its FRAND obligations.
By tying together the markets for chipsets and licenses to technology in cellular standards, Qualcomm illegally enhances and strengthens its monopoly in each market and eliminates competition. Then, Qualcomm leverages its market power to extract exorbitant royalties, later agreeing to reduce those somewhat only in exchange for additional anticompetitive advantages and restrictions on challenging Qualcomm’s power, further solidifying its stranglehold on the industry.
Apple also claims that Qualcomm has never made it a worldwide offer on FRAND terms for a direct license to its patented technologies.
Apple said Qualcomm subsequently filing lawsuits against iPhone manufacturers Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron, and Compal reveals "its true bullying nature," calling it "a blatant attempt to exert pressure on Apple to acquiesce to" its "non-FRAND royalty demands" by attacking its smaller contract manufacturers.
Qualcomm knows that these are companies who have been effectively coerced by its monopoly practices in the past. Qualcomm knows that these companies merely pass through the usuriously high royalty demanded by Qualcomm and so have little incentive to resist its monopolistic tactics.
Apple has called for the court to declare Qualcomm's patents in the lawsuit unessential to 3G/4G standards used in the iPhone and its other products, and to prevent Qualcomm from taking any adverse or legal action against Apple's contract manufacturers related to the allegations in today's amended complaint.
Following the worldwide debut of "Today at Apple," Apple in July will launch this year's summer camps for kids at its retail stores, aimed at those between ages 8 and 12. The free "Apple Camp" will educate kids on how to create characters, make movies, design storybooks, code robots, and more while using Apple products (via Macworld).
Apple Camp's workshops this year include Coding Games and Programming Robots, Creating Characters and Composing Music, and Stories in Motion with iMovie. Each workshop is designed as a series of three 90-minute classes that kids visit on three separate days.
For the first two days kids will work on projects specific to the session they choose, while the final day will be a show and tell where they present their final project to parents, friends, and fellow Apple Campers.
Creating Characters and Composing Music: Kids ages 8-12 will create their own stories through drawings and sounds. Campers will start their session by sketching characters and scenes with iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, then they’ll explore the basics for composing a track using GarageBand. They’ll bring their story to life by adding vocals and finishing touches.
Stories in Motion with iMovie: Future filmmakers ages 8-12 will explore the creative process of turning their ideas into real movies. In this three-day session, Campers will learn how to brainstorm and storyboard. Then they’ll get hands-on with movie-making techniques like learning camera angles and editing with iMovie. On the final day, they’ll present their masterpieces.
Coding Games and Programming Robots In this three-day session for kids ages 8-12, we’ll introduce programming through interactive play. Kids will learn visual-based coding by solving puzzles with Tynker. Then they’ll learn how to program Sphero robots, and even create fun stories starring Sphero as the main character.
Apple Camp will begin July 10 and run through July 28, and registration is up now on Apple.com. Today at Apple also offers other kid-focused sessions called "Kids Hour," with more classes teaching coding as well as basic knowledge of GarageBand and iMovie.
New information about the lengths that Apple will go to in order to prevent and track down leaks has been shared online today by The Outline, which obtained a leaked recording of an internal briefing used by Apple to educate employees on the culture of leaks. Called "Stopping Leakers - Keeping Confidential at Apple," the presentation is said to last one hour and be led by a team of Apple's best security and communications experts including David Rice, Lee Freedman, and Jenny Hubbert.
The briefing was held for around 100 employees earlier this month and is believed to be the first of many such secretive events planned by the Cupertino company. The presentation included information on Apple's Global Security team, which employs an undisclosed number of investigators worldwide "to prevent information from reaching competitors, counterfeiters, and the press." The team is stacked by former members of the NSA, FBI, Secret Service, and U.S. military, and when leaks do occur, they hunt down sources to relay the information back to Apple headquarters.
Throughout the presentation, short videos were played that show Apple CEO Tim Cook presenting a new product on stage during one of the company's keynote addresses, reminding employees of the importance of its big reveals.
After the first video concludes, Hubbert addresses the room. “So you heard Tim say, ‘We have one more thing.’ So what is that one more thing?” she asks. “Surprise and delight. Surprise and delight when we announce a product to the world that hasn’t leaked. It’s incredibly impactful, in a really positive way. It’s our DNA. It’s our brand. But when leaks get out, that’s even more impactful. It’s a direct hit to all of us.”
Although former CEO Steve Jobs was well known for his intense secrecy, Tim Cook is continuing those efforts with force as well, according to Apple vice president of iPod, iPhone, and iOS product marketing Greg Joswiak.
“This has become a big deal for Tim,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s Vice President of iPod, iPhone and iOS product marketing, says in one of the videos. “Matter of fact, it should be important to literally everybody at Apple that we can't tolerate this any longer.” Later, Joswiak adds that “I have faith deep in my soul that if we hire smart people they’re gonna think about this, they’re gonna understand this, and ultimately they’re gonna do the right thing, and that’s to keep their mouth shut.”
The briefing then looked into the "behind the scenes of leaks" that have happened from Apple's supply chain and in Cupertino itself, with Rice stating that Apple has so successfully reduced factory leaks last year that 2016 was the first year that Apple's campuses leaked more information than its supply chain. He even compared Apple's screening of its factory workers to be more intense than that of the TSA.
Although leaks from its own campuses have increased recently, Rice ensured the employees gathered that Apple does not have "a Big Brother culture" overseeing every move of every employee. Still, The Outline points out that the presentation didn't shy away from Apple's more intense mandates for preventing leaks, with Rice encouraging employees to be constantly vigilant about what they say in front of friends, families, and fellow employees.
“I go through a lot of trouble not to talk about what I work on with my wife, with my teenage kids… with my friends, my family,” an employee in one of the videos says. “I’m not telling you that you give up all relationships,” Rice says, “but that you have a built-in relationship monitor that you’re constantly using.” Apple employees are expected to be discrete in their own office. The hallway and the Apple lobby are referred to as “red zones,” which “aren’t places to talk,” Rice says. The fear of accidentally “breaking secrecy” may be why some newly hired Apple employees tend to delete their Twitter accounts.
During the confidential presentation, Apple assured workers that they could discuss the more normal aspects of the job with anyone they want, like how "crappy [their] boss is," their pay, or report to the authorities if they witness illegal activities. But, continuing the theme of the briefing, Joswiak said that he ultimately hopes all Apple employees "do the right thing, and that's to keep their mouth shut" regarding any unreleased hardware or software information.
Leaks and information surrounding the unreleased "iPhone 8" are suggested as a reason behind Apple's upping of anti-leak education among its employees in Cupertino. So far, we have a pretty good picture of what the smartphone will look like when it launches this fall, including the addition of an OLED screen that measures 5.8 inches, Touch ID integrated under the display, a dual-lens rear camera, and with support for wireless charging.
The Outline has a full report on "Stopping Leakers - Keeping Confidential at Apple" and it's well worth a read.
Pioneer today introduced Rayz Rally, which it claims is the world's first Lightning-powered plug-and-play speaker that has no battery.
The portable speaker can be used to listen to music, but Pioneer is heavily marketing it as a speakerphone for conference calling.
For conference calling, Pioneer says users simply plug the Rally into the Lightning connector, initiate calls from the iPhone, and the call is automatically transferred to the speaker. Despite being small enough to fit in a pocket, the speaker is supposedly loud enough to be used in a boardroom.
The speaker has a single button on the front that can mute/unmute calls or play/pause music depending on what it's being used for. It also has a female Lightning connector that allows the speaker to be used with a Mac or PC, or for pass-through charging to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, with a Lightning to USB cable.
Pioneer said the Rayz Rally is available today for $99.95 on Apple.com and at Apple Stores worldwide in the colors Ice, Onyx, and Space Gray. It's also available on Amazon in the United States. Prices vary by country.
Google is today updating its search engine across mobile devices and the web with a collection of results that will make it easier for people to find useful information related to job searches. The update is part of the new "Google for Jobs" initiative that was discussed at its I/O conference this year, with the goal of connecting employer and employee through streamlined and bolstered search results.
For English users in the United States, when searches like "jobs near me" or "teaching jobs" are input into Google, the new search results will return more in-depth information that will lessen the time spent visiting websites around the web thanks to a more centralized accumulation of data.
This includes reviews of an employer from trusted employment rating sites, detailed job qualifications and descriptions, and even an estimated commute time to the workplace if users are signed into their Google account.
People from all walks of life, experiences and backgrounds have undergone a job hunt at some point in their lives. Whether you’re a young adult looking for your first job, a veteran hoping to leverage your leadership experience in civilian life, or a parent looking for a job with better pay to support a growing family, we hope this new experience on Google will help make the job search simpler and more effective.
The feature will also pick up right where users leave off in case they quit their search, and they can turn on alerts for a specific search inquiry to get email notifications the moment new jobs arrive related to it. In an effort to keep the results fresh, more search filters and data will be added in the future.
Google is partnering with sites including LinkedIn, Monster, WayUp, DirectEmployers, CareerBuilder, Glassdoor, and Facebook to help fill out the search data with new job listings "as soon as they're posted." Furthermore, third-party platforms and direct employers will be able to add their own listings into these results thanks to Google's plan to provide open documentation for all job providers.
Samsung is planning to introduce its newest smartphone, the Galaxy Note 8, sometime in the second half of August, according to people familiar with the company's plans (via Reuters). If accurate, the August announcement will come about four months after the launch of the Galaxy S8 and nearly one year since the first cases of exploding batteries in the Galaxy Note 7 were reported by users.
Although details are somewhat scarce, the Galaxy Note 8 is said to include a curved display that is "marginally larger" than the 6.2-inch display of the current Galaxy S8+, while also including two rear cameras. In comparison, last year's Note 7 had a 5.7-inch curved display with one camera on the back. Today's sources made no comment on the potential pricing for Samsung's new smartphone.
The Samsung Galaxy S8
Analysts said that Samsung is "intent" on continuing to use the Note brand, despite the Note 7 devices that caught fire on a worldwide scale last year and ultimately cost the company $5.4 billion.
Tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd plans to hold a launch event in New York City for its next Galaxy Note smartphone in the second half of August, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.
Samsung is intent on continuing the premium Note series despite the costly collapse of the Galaxy Note 7, which it was forced to scrap roughly two months from launch in October due to fire-prone batteries. The incident, one of the biggest product safety failures in tech history, cost the firm 6.1 trillion won ($5.4 billion) in operating profit and hurt its credibility.
Now, Samsung runs an 8-point Battery Safety Check for its smartphones, beginning with the April launch of the Galaxy S8, and analysts believe that the company's messaging is helping it to recover quickly following the Note 7 drama. Samsung said that pre-orders were its "best ever" for the Galaxy S8 earlier this year, leading to what could be the company's highest profit period ever for April-June 2017.
When it launches, the Galaxy Note 8 will be another competitor for Apple in the premium smartphone space, with Apple's "iPhone 8" launch event expected to take place sometime in the traditional mid-September time frame. For the iterative iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus update last year, industry analysts said that the lack of "a compelling enough feature set" was not enough to convince some owners of potentially exploding Note 7 devices to switch from Samsung to Apple.
Encrypted email provider ProtonMail today launched its own VPN service called ProtonVPN, which includes a free user tier in its pricing plan.
The Swiss-based company said it had been testing its VPN service for four months with the help of over 10,000 members of the ProtonMail community, and the group was ready to make ProtonVPN available to everyone starting Tuesday.
"In the past year, we have seen more and more challenges against Internet freedom," said ProtonMail Co-Founder Dr. Andy Yen, "now more than ever, we need robust tools for defending privacy, security, and freedom online.
"The best way to ensure that encryption and privacy rights are not encroached upon is to get the tools into the hands of the public as soon as possible and widely distributing them," said Yen. "This is why, as with ProtonMail, we're committed to making a free version of ProtonVPN available to the world."
The group says it has worked to make the best possible VPN service by addressing many of the common pitfalls with existing VPNs. Features therefore include a Secure Core architecture that routes traffic through multiple encrypted tunnels in multiple countries to better defend against network based attacks, a no logs policy backed by Swiss law, as well as seamless integration with the Tor anonymity network. Headquartered in Switzerland, the VPN is also outside of E.U. and U.S. jurisdiction and is not a member of the fourteen eyes surveillance network.
The free tier includes servers in three countries and usage on one device, but bandwidth speeds cannot be guaranteed. The Basic tier costs $4 a month (billed as $48 a year) and includes access to all 112 ProtonVPN servers across 14 countries, high speed bandwidth, and usage on up to two devices, while the Plus tier ($8 per month/$96 per year) offers the highest bandwidth, connection on up to 5 devices, Tor servers, and access to Secure Core data networks hosted in Switzerland, Iceland, and Sweden. The Highest tier ($24 a month/$288 a year) includes a ProtonMail Visionary account.
ProtonMail began crowdfunding in May 2014 and launched in March 2016, led by a group of scientists from CERN and MIT who aimed to deliver an easy-to-use end-to-end encrypted email service with freely available open source code. Earlier this year, the team launched a Tor-based site to make ProtonMail available to users in regions under the oppression of strict state online censorship.
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