MacRumors

Following last week's introduction of a California State bill that would require all cellular phones sold in the state to include antitheft technology, four senators have today introduced (via Re/code) The Smartphone Theft Prevention Act, a similar federal bill that would mandate the inclusion of such a "kill switch" in all smartphones sold across the country.

The bill would require smartphones to be equipped with both a kill switch to make a lost or stolen device inoperable and a system allowing consumers to remotely wipe their personal data.

"This legislation will help put consumers in control of their cell phone data through a 'kill switch' to immediately disable a stolen phone. Victims of cell phone theft should be able to fight back so they aren't victimized again through data and identity theft. And thieves should know that whenever they steal a cell phone, they won't be able to use it or sell it."

Introduced by U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar, Barbara Mikulski, Richard Blumenthal, and Mazie Hirono, the act is also supported by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, who have both been highly vocal about decreasing smartphone theft through a kill switch system built into smartphones.

As with the California bill, it is likely that Apple's Activation Lock, introduced alongside iOS 7, satisfies the listed requirements. Activation Lock effectively disables a stolen smartphone by preventing it from being wiped and reactivated without an Apple ID and password. Apple's Find My iPhone also allows for devices to be remotely wiped and locked.

Cellular industry group CTIA has already spoken out against the newly introduced legislation, calling on lawmakers to criminalize tampering with mobile device identifiers rather than requiring cell phone manufacturers to build kill switches into their devices.

"Rather than impose technology mandates, a better approach would be to enact Senator Schumer's legislation to criminalize tampering with mobile device identifiers. This would build on the industry's efforts to create the stolen device databases, give law enforcement another tool to combat criminal behavior, and leave carriers, manufacturers, and software developers free to create new, innovative loss and theft prevention tools for consumers who want them."

The CTIA has long opposed kill switches and instead supports a nationwide database of stolen phones as an alternative solution. Though a database of stolen phones was created in cooperation with the four major U.S. carriers in 2012, it is said to be largely ineffectual.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread has been moved to our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Apple sold more iPhones, Macs, iPads and iPod Touch devices than the total number of computers sold by the entire Windows PC industry in the holiday quarter, according to research done by analyst Benedict Evans. According to the data, it's the first time that Apple has surpassed the PC market in hardware sales.

The company has long said that it believes the tablet market will eventually be larger than the PC market. If iPhones are considered, Apple's iOS ecosystem alone -- never mind its Mac sales -- is already very close to surpassing the PC market in unit sales, and perhaps even in dollar sales as well.

Two years ago, we noted that Apple's hardware ecosystem -- the iPhone, iPad and Mac -- had a combined average selling price well above that of the PC market as a whole, and that statistic remains accurate to this day. For the just-ended holiday quarter, Apple saw an average hardware selling price of $584 across the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Mac lines, according to MacRumors research.

For the third quarter of 2013, the most recent quarter with data available, the average Windows PC sold for just $544.30. This suggests that not only is Apple selling more devices than the entire Windows PC market, but it is making more revenue as well.

Apple has developed a system for both avoiding spam and locating its source, according to a patent application published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday (via AppleInsider).

The patent, originally filed for in 2012, describes an email system that would allow users to create temporary, disposable email addresses linked to a permanent email account. These temporary addresses could be used to join websites or make purchases, with incoming emails to these addresses forwarded to the permanent email address.

If the temporary email address is sold by a site or otherwise compromised and begins to receive spam emails, it can simply be disabled and unlinked from the permanent account, effectively ending the spam emails.

As a bonus, assigning temporary email addresses when signing up for various accounts around the web also allows for specific identification of sites or parties that have misused email addresses. Apple specifies that contextual information can be included in the temporary addresses for easy identification.

An integrated system allows easily creating and using disposable email addresses. The disposable email address is created by an email server, which manages correspondence using the disposable email address to avoid exposing the associated non-disposable email address. Context information may be associated with a disposable email address, where the context information is not visible in email sent using the disposable email address. Should the disposable address be misused, the associated context may allow a user to recognize what correspondent exposed the disposable address to misuse.

Apple's system would also carefully manage incoming emails, assigning the proper address for replies so that a user’s permanent account is never revealed, and the temporary emails, unlike existing disposable email solutions, would be indistinguishable from standard email addresses.

While there are a variety of sites that provide access to temporary emails such as Mailinator and Guerrilla Mail, few of these services are able to be linked to a permanent account for ongoing usage until spam occurs and must be checked individually. Apple notes that current disposable email systems are difficult to use.

Gmail has its own solution in the form of email aliases, allowing customers to receive messages to username+anyalias@gmail.com, which is treated as the standard email address. Aliases in Gmail can be filtered to specific locations like the trash when subjected to spam, but they cannot be deleted entirely as Apple proposes.

Apple's solution combines a standard mail service with a temporary service like Mailinator, making it simple to create, manage, and delete disposable email addresses. The described system has the potential to allow users to greatly cut down on the amount of spam emails received if it is implemented, but as with many patents, it is unclear if Apple has plans to move forward with such a system.

Apple continues to add to its team of medical and biosensor experts, with the hiring of Marcelo Lamego, the former chief technology officer of non-invasive patient monitoring company Cercacor. Lamego's recent change in employment was spotted by Network World.

Before joining Apple in January, Lamego spent the previous eight years as the CTO of Cercacor working on sensor-based medical technologies like those used in the Pronto-7, a portable, non-invasive device which measures hemoglobin, oxygen saturation, pulse rate and more. The Pronto-7 is sold by pulse oximetry company Masimo, from which Cercacor was spun off in the late 1990s.

Lamego worked on the Rainbow SET Technology platform used in the Pronto-7 during his time as a research scientist at Masimo, continuing that work after moving to Cercacor. Rainbow SET is described by Masimo as "a noninvasive monitoring platform enabling the assessment of multiple blood constituents and physiologic parameters that previously required invasive or complicated procedures."

It is not clear what position Lamego holds at Apple, but he is one of many recent biomedical and sensor research scientists who are now employed by Apple. These new hires allegedly were recruited to join Apple's iWatch team, which according to MobiHealthnews, has grown to include 200 employees. Lamego isn't the first Apple hire to come from Masimo either. Last year, Apple also added Michael O'Reilly, M.D., former Chief Medical Officer and EVP of Medical Affairs at Masimo, to its ranks.

Network World's report also highlights several other health-related experts who are either confirmed or speculated to be working for Apple, including biosensor algorithm architect Nima Ferdosi from Vital Connect. Ferdosi's hiring late last year came around the same time that Apple hired Ravi Narasimhan from the same company. A third Vital Connect employee, biomedical engineer Alexander Chan, is alsp speculated to have joined Apple, although his LinkedIn profile lists his employer only as "technology company" in the Bay Area.

Several other health-related companies were reported to have lost employees to Apple last year, including AccuVein and C8 Medisensors. Network World has identified AccuVein engineer Yuming Liu as one of those employees and speculates that C8's Stephen Waydo may be another.

Details on the iWatch are still elusive, with contradicting reports on the features that'll make it into the launch version of the device. 9to5Mac stands behind its original report that the iWatch will be able to sense hydration and glucose levels, while MobiHealthNews claims the device will drop these advanced functions and focus on basic health parameters like exercise, diet, stress and medication scheduling.

Apple is winding down production of the iPad 2 as customer interest in the legacy device dwindles, according to a report from AppleInsider. First introduced in early 2011, the iPad 2 has remained in Apple's product lineup as a lower-price option even as newer iPad models have been discontinued.

According to people familiar with Apple's plans, the company has made the decision to ramp down iPad 2 production given that customers are resoundingly shifting purchases towards its more modern and capable iPads, namely the iPad mini and iPad Air.

Apple continues to sell 16 GB iPad 2 models priced at $399 for Wi-Fi only and $529 for Wi-Fi + Cellular for the time being, coming in $100 lower than corresponding iPad Air models. There is no word yet, however, on just when Apple plans to stop selling the iPad 2 as its stocks wind down.

The iPad 2 remained popular even up until the launch of the iPad Air, with educational institutions and other specialized markets preferring the device for a combination of its lower price and its compatibility with numerous accessories through the legacy 30-pin dock connector. But with the introduction of the dramatically thinner iPad Air and Retina display-equipped iPad mini late last year, sales of the iPad 2 dropped dramatically and the company has apparently decided that continued production is not worthwhile.

Apple today published its 2014 Supplier Responsibility Report, releasing the results of its supplier audit program for 2013 and confirming that its partners only use ethically sourced tantalum, which is a primary metal used in electronic components that can be also be mined from war-torn regions in Africa.

In January 2014, we confirmed that all active, identified tantalum smelters in Apple’s supply chain were validated as conflict-free by third-party auditors, and we will continue to require all suppliers to use only verified tantalum sources. We know supply chains fluctuate, and we’ll maintain ongoing monitoring of our suppliers’ smelters.

Apple's senior vice president of operations Jeff Williams, also spoke to The Wall Street Journal on the matter:

In the company's 2014 Supplier Responsibility report published on Wednesday, Apple identified that its suppliers use 20 global smelters or refiners whose tantalum has been verified by third-party auditors as what the industry calls "conflict-free." Jeff Williams, Apple's senior vice president of operations, said the company has had success in pressuring tantalum smelters to agree to a third-party audit because Apple and other consumer electronics firms are the biggest users of the metal.

The gathering of tantalum, along with other minerals such as gold and tungsten, has become a controversial subject in the tech industry due to their sourcing at mines blamed for funding conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Apple added in its report that it will continue to support conflict-free supply lines and economic development in the region instead of abandoning the questionable minerals.

Apple's report also noted a number of other achievements for 2013, including driving suppliers to achieve a 95% compliance rate with the company's standard maximum 60-hour workweek, requiring suppliers to reimburse $3.9 million in excess foreign contract worker fees, and tracking the weekly work hours for over 1 million supply chain workers.

In its Supplier Responsibility Report for 2012 published last year, Apple revealed that it had dropped one of its suppliers in China after finding evidence of 74 underage workers at one facility.

Apple's plans for its revamped Apple TV have been scaled back compared to what the company had previously intended, reports The Wall Street Journal. According to the publication, Apple was originally approaching media companies directly to obtain content rights for an ambitious a-la-carte-Internet-enabled TV set-top box, but has since gone in a different direction.

In the current discussions, which involve at least two big media companies, Apple envisages working with cable companies, rather than competing against them, the people said. For programming, it would rely on cable providers to acquire programming rights from media companies, rather than acquire them on its own, the people said. Apple might consider seeking some rights directly in the future, one of the people said.

Apple had been trying to negotiate with companies like CBS and Disney to offer the networks' content directly to Apple customers over the Internet, cutting out cable and satellite providers like Comcast, Time Warner and DirecTV. However, the media companies consistently pulled out of negotiations, fearing that any potential deal with Apple could damage their revenue streams.

Apple's ambitious plans went even further, as the company hoped to erase the distinction between live and on-demand TV, allowing users to watch any show at any time via iCloud as well as being able to skip commercials. In addition, Apple explored the possibility of paying media companies more for ad-free TV.

Having abandoned those lofty ideas in the face of failed negotiations, Apple is now asking content providers for the last five episodes of any given show rather than an entire season. This structure is similarly used by Hulu and is considered a standard amongst TV show streaming services.

Apple's latest approach is far less ambitious. Instead of asking for full current seasons of shows, it is asking programmers for just the most recent five episodes of current-season shows—the standard for video-on-demand services in the TV industry, a person familiar with the matter said. Apple is also proposing to disable fast-forwarding on shows for three days after they air, which would protect TV channels.

The Wall Street Journal also suggests that it is unclear whether Apple will sell its own box or allow cable distributors to lease boxes to customers when the company is able to establish a deal for a television service.

Apple has long been in negotiations with Time Warner Cable for some sort of television-related product, with a recent report suggesting talks are ongoing. Apple may run into some trouble reaching a deal with TWC, however, as Comcast has reportedly inked a deal to purchase the company.

Apple may be planning to unveil a redesigned Apple TV box in April, which is rumored to include both app and game support, but it is unclear whether that product will also offer new television-related content.