United Kingdom-based data firm Cambridge Analytica is shutting down operations following the ongoing Facebook data scandal, in which the firm improperly amassed sensitive Facebook user data to target messages to voters during the previous U.S. presidential election. Cambridge Analytica affiliates SCL Group and SCL Elections will also shut down in the U.S. and U.K.
In a statement on the closure, the company said that "parallel bankruptcy proceedings" will begin for Cambridge Analytica and "certain of the company's U.S. affiliates." The decision to end its business came after it began losing clients and facing "mounting legal fees" from the Facebook investigation, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.
In its statement, Cambridge Analytica remained adamant that many of the accusations against the data firm have been "unfounded."
“Over the past several months, Cambridge Analytica has been the subject of numerous unfounded accusations,” the statement said. “The siege of media coverage has driven away virtually all of the company’s customers and suppliers. As a result, it has been determined that it is no longer viable to continue operating the business.”
Cambridge Analytica has denied wrongdoing in the Facebook incident. The company said in the Wednesday statement that despite the efforts to correct the record, it “has been vilified for activities that are not only legal, but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the political and commercial arenas.”
Despite the closures, leaders at Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group are said to be "involved in a variety of other entities," which could lead to the companies rebranding their data firm operations under a different name. The New York Times suggests this could be a new Britain-based firm called Emerdata, with one SCL Group executive, Nigel Oakes, publicly describing Emerdata as a way of rolling up the two companies under one new banner.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in 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.
Nest's new Temperature Sensor, which works with the company's latest Learning Thermostat and the Thermostat E, is available to buy online from today.
The battery-powered, inch-wide sensors are designed to be placed in different rooms around the house where they silently monitor how warm or cold it is.
The white puck-shaped sensors continually relay this information to the companion thermostat, which responds by adjusting the central heating system to keep those rooms at the temperature level the user specified.
Nest started taking pre-orders for the Temperature Sensor in March, but is now selling them direct from the website. Each sensor costs $39, or $99 for a three-pack, and comes with wall mounting screws and up to 2 years of battery life. Up to six sensors are supported per connected thermostat, and up to 18 are supported per home.
Customers looking to pick up a Nest Learning Thermostat or Nest Thermostat E can also order the Temperature Sensor as part of a bundle pack, which gets them $20 or $10 off the standard price for a single sensor, respectively.
Nest products don't integrate with Apple's HomeKit setup, but are popular competing connected home solutions. See the Nest website for more details.
Spotify this afternoon reported its first quarterly earnings since its February IPO filing, and in the report, the company revealed that it now has 75 million paid subscribers.
The 75 million number is up from the 71 million paying subscribers that Spotify reported at the end of February, and it's almost double the number of subscribers who pay for Apple Music.
Apple in April said that it had 40 million paid subscribers across 115 countries and an additional eight million people using the service through the free three-month trial.
Though it has 75 million paid subscribers, Spotify's total subscriber base is much larger at 170 million subscribers due to the free tier that it offers.
While Spotify has more paying subscribers than Apple Music, the latter service has been gaining new subscribers at a quicker rate. A recent report from The Wall Street Journal suggested Apple Music is on track to overtake Spotify in U.S. subscribers as soon as this summer because its five percent growth rate per month outpaces Spotify's two percent growth rate.
Spotify last month beefed up its free tier with on-demand playlists, song recommendations, and a new low-data mode with the hopes that a more robust free tier will convert more listeners into paid subscribers.
Spotify stock is down following its earnings release as its $1.36 billion in revenue fell short of the $1.4 billion in revenue estimated by Wall Street.
Following the release of iOS 11.3.1 on April 24, Apple has stopped signing iOS 11.3, the previous version of iOS that was available to consumers.
iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch owners who have upgraded to iOS 11.3.1 will no longer be able to downgrade to earlier versions of iOS.
Apple routinely stops signing older versions of software updates after new releases come out in order to encourage customers to keep their operating systems up to date.
iOS 11.3.1 is now the only version of iOS 11 that can be installed on iOS devices by the general public, but developers and public beta testers can download iOS 11.4, an update that is currently being beta tested.
The Reform Government Surveillance coalition, which includes several major tech companies who have teamed up to lobby for surveillance law reform, this week released a statement condemning recent proposals for backdoor access into electronic devices and reaffirming a commitment to strong encryption.
The coalition is made up of multiple tech companies who have taken a strong stance against weakening encryption, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, Snap, Evernote, LinkedIn, Oath (owned by Verizon) and Facebook.
Reform Government Surveillance recently announced a new core principle on encryption that will guide our advocacy efforts, and we continue to believe that strong encryption helps protect the security and privacy of individuals and companies around the world. We have consistently raised concerns about proposals that would undermine encryption of devices and services by requiring so-called "exceptional access" for law enforcement. Recent reports have described new proposals to engineer vulnerabilities into devices and services - but they appear to suffer from the same technical and design concerns that security researchers have identified for years. Weakening the security and privacy that encryption helps provide is not the answer.
As ZDNet points out, the statement comes following a WIRED article profiling Microsoft chief technical Ray Ozzie and his suggestion for a solution called "Clear" that would supposedly provide law enforcement with access to encrypted data with less security risk.
Ozzie's proposal uses a public key and a private key (housed and protected by a company like Apple) that are used to encrypt and decrypt a PIN generated on the device. No one is meant to be able to decode and use the PIN to unlock the device aside from the vendor, using the aforementioned private key.
So, say the FBI needs the contents of an iPhone. First the Feds have to actually get the device and the proper court authorization to access the information it contains--Ozzie's system does not allow the authorities to remotely snatch information. With the phone in its possession, they could then access, through the lock screen, the encrypted PIN and send it to Apple.
Armed with that information, Apple would send highly trusted employees into the vault where they could use the private key to unlock the PIN. Apple could then send that no-longer-secret PIN back to the government, who can use it to unlock the device.
Ozzie demonstrated his "Clear" solution to representatives from tech companies that included Apple, Google and Facebook, according to WIRED, but unsurprisingly, none of them had "any interest whatsoever" in voluntarily implementing that kind of access into their devices and services.
The coalition Apple is a part of in April published a core principle pledging to ensure device security through strong encryption and calling on governments to avoid taking actions that would require companies to "create any security vulnerabilities in their produces and services."
Strong encryption of devices and services protects the sensitive data of our users - including individuals, corporations, and governments. Strong encryption also promotes free expression and the free flow of information around the world. Requiring technology companies to engineer vulnerabilities into their products and services would undermine the security and privacy of our users, as well as the world's information technology infrastructure. Governments should avoid any action that would require companies to create any security vulnerabilities in their products and services.
The renewed activity from the Reform Government Surveillance group follows reports that have suggested law enforcement officials are quietly revisiting proposals that would require tech companies to add backdoor access into electronic devices for use by law enforcement officials.
FBI and DOJ officials have been meeting with security researchers with the aim of developing approaches that would offer "extraordinary access" to encrypted devices like the iPhone, with DOJ officials reportedly "convinced" there is a way to create a backdoor without weakening a device's defense against hacking.
Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi recently said that this kind of backdoor access would "inject new and dangerous weaknesses into product security."
"Weakening security makes no sense when you consider that customers rely on our products to keep their personal information safe, run their businesses or even manage vital infrastructure like power grids and transportation systems," Federighi said.
Apple vehemently opposes backdoor solutions like the one Ozzie proposed because they have the potential to weaken device encryption and provide new ways for bad actors to access device data.
Apple's strong stance against weakened device protections for the sake of law enforcement access was highlighted in the 2016 Apple vs. FBI conflict that saw Apple refuse to create a backdoor access solution to allow the FBI to crack the iPhone 5c owned by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook.
GrayKey iPhone unlocking box via MalwareBytes
Without device backdoors, law enforcement officials have still found ways to crack devices like iPhones through other means. At the current time, for example, agencies like the FBI and DOJ have access to an iPhone unlocking box called GrayKey, which is capable of unlocking Apple's most recent iPhones running modern versions of iOS.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in 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 has given a series order for 10 episodes of "Are You Sleeping," a drama series that will star Octavia Spencer, who is known for her work in movies that include "Hidden Figures," "The Help," "Gifted," and "The Shape of Water."
News of Apple's work on "Are You Sleeping" first surfaced in January, but now Variety says the company has decided to move forward with production on the show.
Image of Octavia Spencer via Variety
"Are You Sleeping" is based on a novel by Kathleen Barber, which has been described as a psychological thriller. The book focuses on a podcast that reopens a murder case, similar to the popular "Serial" podcast that led to a new trial for Adnan Syed, in jail for allegedly murdering a former girlfriend. Sarah Koenig, who created and produced "Serial," will consult on "Are You Sleeping."
The novel the TV show is based on explores how the reopening of the murder case impacts the victim's daughter and disrupts her life, and it's likely the TV show will follow a similar plot.
"Are You Sleeping" was written by Nichelle Tramble Spellman, and the series will be produced by Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine and Chernin Entertainment/Endeavor Content.
Apple is also working with Reese Witherspoon's production company on an as of yet untitled "morning show drama" that takes a look into the cutthroat would of morning TV.
It's not yet known when the first of Apple's TV shows will debut nor how they'll be distributed, but rumors have suggested we could see the first fruits of Apple's efforts in 2019.
Apple's 2018 iPhone lineup could ship with new USB-C power adapters that come with USB-C to Lightning cables for faster charging, according to a post on Chinese social network Weibo that cites supply chain sources.
Apple is said to be planning to upgrade to USB-C support for all of its devices, shipping next-generation iPhones with a redesigned 18W power adapter that allows for USB-C fast charging with an included USB-C to Lightning cable.
We're not able to verify this rumor as it comes from a source without a track record for accurate reporting, but switching to USB-C power adapters across the iPhone and iPad lineup would make some sense as Apple's Mac lineup has largely transitioned to USB-C.
An 18W USB-C power adapter would enable fast charging speeds that would allow the iPhone to charge from 0 to 50% in approximately 30 minutes.
This kind of fast charging functionality is available for the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, and iPad Pro models, but at the current time, it requires customers to use a USB-C MacBook power adapter (minimum price $49) or a third-party USB-C power adapter ($15+) paired with a Lightning to USB-C cable, which is priced at $25 and only available as a standalone accessory.
Current iPhone models ship with a 5W power adapter that works with a USB-A to Lightning cable, so an upgrade to an 18W adapter would be a huge change. Presumably, the same changes will be implemented in upcoming iPad Pro models if the rumor is true, with Apple also upgrading the existing 12W USB-A iPad Pro power adapter to an 18W USB-C power adapter.
When using fast charging functionality over USB-C with a USB-C to Lightning cable, maximum charging speeds are achieved on an iPad or iPhone at approximately 18W, as we discovered in a detailed iPhone X charging speed test we performed late last year.
An included USB-C power adapter and USB-C to Lightning cable that supports fast charging would be a huge gain for iPhone users. Such charging speeds promise 50% battery in 30 minutes and can deliver an 80% charge (from zero) in approximately an hour. Many competing Android devices already support fast charging without the need for customers to purchase additional accessories.
Today's report suggests the design of the charger that ships with the iPhone will see an overhaul, going from the traditional square shape used in the U.S. to something more akin to an oval. As mentioned above, it will reportedly include a USB-C to Lightning cable.
Right now, Apple does not allow third-party companies to make USB-C to Lightning cables, and the Weibo report indicates USB-C to Lightning cables will continue to be proprietary technology until 2019, when Apple may open up the standard to allow its MFi partners to manufacture the cables.
Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced over two years ago in March of 2016. Apple designed the Safari Technology Preview to test features that may be introduced into future release versions of Safari.
Safari Technology Preview release 55 includes bug fixes and feature improvements for CSS, Web API, Rendering, Accessibility, JavaScript, Web Driver, Web Inspector, Media, WebRTC, and Security.
Apple's aim with Safari Technology Preview is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development process. Safari Technology Preview can run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while designed for developers, it does not require a developer account to download.
Apple CEO Tim Cook on Tuesday said AirPods continue to be "incredibly popular" and a "runaway hit" for the company.
"AirPods are incredibly popular and we're seeing them in more and more places—in the gym, in coffee shops, wherever people are enjoying music on their Apple devices," said Cook, following Apple's earnings report. "This product is a runaway hit, and we're working hard to meet the incredible demand."
Apple does not disclose AirPod sales, and instead groups the wireless earphones into its broad "Other Products" category in earnings results, but there are at least a few reasons to believe they're very popular indeed.
For starters, Apple reported $3.9 billion revenue from its "Other Products" category in the March quarter, an impressive 38 percent increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple said its wearable and home products like the AirPods, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and HomePod accounted for over 90 percent of that growth.
Second, Apple said unit sales of both AirPods and the Apple Watch reached a new all-time high for the March quarter, without revealing specifics.
Third, since launching in December 2016, AirPods have rarely been in stock on Apple's online store. Orders placed today still face a one-week delivery estimate, suggesting Apple can't keep up with strong demand, may be experiencing mass production challenges, or some combination of those two factors.
Looking ahead, Apple plans to release a wireless charging case for AirPods to be used with its AirPower charging mat, slated for release in 2018. Beyond that, Mark Gurman reported that Apple may release new AirPods with "Hey Siri" functionality as early as this year, and a water-resistant pair as early as next year.
AirPods are available for $159 on Apple's online store. Limited supplies are also available at select Apple retail stores.
Nintendo's next president, Shuntaro Furukawa, will make smartphone gaming a priority when he takes the helm of the company this June. In a new interview with Nikkei, Furukawa said that he envisions a future where Nintendo's smartphone gaming arm can become a 100 billion yen ($910 million) business. In fiscal 2017, the segment including mobile games grossed 39.3 billion yen.
To do this, Furukawa plans to increase the output of smartphone gaming apps for iOS and Android devices, as well as launch a singular app that surges in popularity. Outgoing Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima referenced Pokémon Go as an inspiration for this plan. Pokémon Go was a collaboration between developer Niantic and The Pokémon Company, which Nintendo has a joint investment in.
"From what I can see, smartphone games are the ones I want to expand the most," said Shuntaro Furukawa.
"The idea that something will emerge that transforms into something big, in the same manner as game consoles, is the defining motive of the Nintendo business," he said.
When asked if any of the upcoming apps would adopt Pokémon Go's augmented reality gameplay, Furukawa said that he "can't say that there are any that are like that." It's also unclear if the plans for the singular, so-called "game-changing hit" would include existing Nintendo characters or be entirely original.
Nintendo has already begun adding on new developer partners besides DeNA to work on games with new characters, while DeNA continues outputting those with Nintendo IPs like the upcoming Mario Kart Tour. According to Furukawa, Nintendo is also gearing up to "expand cooperative ties" with its developer business partners down the road, further hinting at an increased output for gaming apps.
Smartphone games that have been confirmed by Nintendo include Mario Kart Tour and Dragalia Lost, both with vague late 2018 launch dates. These will follow Nintendo's previous titles Miitomo, Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes, and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. In terms of unconfirmed mobile spin-offs, The Legend of Zelda could be the next big Nintendo IP to launch on iOS.
Apple's share of the worldwide smartphone market grew slightly in the first three months of 2018, despite Samsung launching the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ in March, according to research firms IDC and Strategy Analytics.
Apple on Tuesday reported that it sold 52.2 million iPhones last quarter. Based on that, the research firms estimate that the iPhone accounted for around 15.5 percent of smartphone shipments during the quarter, a slight increase from 14.7 percent in the year-ago period.
While the single-percentage-point growth is modest, the slight gain becomes more impressive when considering that the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ launched March 16 in several countries, a full two weeks prior to the quarter ending. Pre-orders of the devices began even earlier on March 2.
Samsung shipped 78.2 million smartphones last quarter, according to the research firms, but its estimated 22.6 to 23.4 percent market share was essentially unchanged from the year-ago quarter, despite the bumped-up Galaxy S9 launch. Last year, the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ were released April 21.
Samsung continues to lead the smartphone market in shipments, but it sells a variety of handsets at a wide range of price points. Apple typically ships fewer iPhones, but the company captured an estimated 87 percent of smartphone profits in the December quarter, according to research firm Canaccord Genuity.
Apple doesn't disclose iPhone sales on a model-by-model basis, but given iPhone revenue increased 14 percent last quarter despite only a three percent rise in unit sales, the higher-priced iPhone X was likely a big factor.
During its Upfronts presentation in New York City today Hulu confirmed that users will be able to download content from the streaming service and onto their mobile devices. This will let subscribers watch shows and films when not near Wi-Fi or a reliable mobile data connection.
The streaming company also confirmed that its offline download solution will be an "ad-supported downloadable content experience" for subscribers of Hulu's standard $7.99/month Limited Commercials plan. Those who pay for the $11.99/month No Commercials option will still be able to avoid ads offline.
According to TechCrunch, this means that Limited Commercials subscribers will download commercials along with their shows, and "customers won't have the ability to fast-forward through these offline commercials." As of now, Hulu has not announced which shows will be available for offline viewing, but it's likely to be a limited assortment similar to Netflix's feature for mobile devices.
Netflix originally launched offline viewing for many of its shows and some films in late 2016, opening up a new section on the iOS app for content specifically designated as "Available for Download." Showtime followed in 2017 with an offline viewing feature that supports the service's entire TV and movie catalog. Amazon, Starz, and Epix also support offline downloads, but HBO still lacks the ability. Hulu's will be the first to include ads.
During the presentation, Hulu announced that it has reached 20 million subscribers across all of its business, including on-demand and Hulu with Live TV. That count is up from 17 million in January. Later this month, subscribers will also be able to tell Hulu to "stop suggesting" a show they don't have any interest in with a new button. "We want you to be in control of the experience. If you don't like something, you should be able to tell us," said Hulu's Head of Experience, Ben Smith.
In regards to a launch date for Hulu's offline downloads, all the company said was that it will be available sometime during the "2018-2019 Upfront season," which should mean within the next few weeks.
LG is today unveiling its newest flagship smartphone, the LG G7 ThinQ, at an event in New York City. Before the new device's debut, MacRumors had a chance to go hands-on with it, and we thought we'd compare it to Apple's flagship smartphone, the iPhone X.
You see, the G7 ThinQ is the first smartphone with an iPhone X-style front notch from a well-known manufacturer that sells devices in the United States. So how does the G7 ThinQ measure up to the iPhone X? Read on and watch the video to find out.
Other companies like Essential, Huawei, and Chinese manufacturers have previously launched smartphones with notch designs, but LG's newest device is the highest-profile smartphone to get a notch, and it's the first notched device that's going to be widely available in stores aside from the iPhone X.
Because of the notch included at the top, LG's G7 ThinQ looks quite similar to the iPhone X. As is the style these days, it features a glass and aluminum body, a smaller form factor, minimal bezel, and a 6.1-inch display that's nearly edge to edge.
Unlike Apple, LG hasn't quite mastered maximizing screen space. While the bottom of the iPhone X has no bezel, there's a small chin on the G7 ThinQ. And, of course, at the top of the G7 ThinQ is the infamous notch, which allows LG to get more vertical screen space while still including front-facing camera equipment.
The LG G7 ThinQ has a smaller notch than the iPhone X, and that's because the notch isn't doing quite as much. The iPhone X notch houses the entire TrueDepth camera system that enables the secure Face ID biometric authentication that Apple uses, and the G7 doesn't have an equivalent feature.
Sure, there's a front-facing camera and an option to use face unlock, but it's not the secure 3D-based facial recognition Apple uses - instead, it's much less secure and can be used solely for unlocking the smartphone rather than verifying mobile payments or replacing passwords.
LG did do something with the notch that Apple didn't - rather than forcing customers to embrace the design, LG gives customers the option to turn off the notch and hide it within a more traditional status bar.
LG's ThinQ G7 is a decent Android device that has a premium look and feel and many of the features expected of flagship devices: a fingerprint sensor, 16-megapixel dual cameras, a dedicated assistant button (for summoning Google Assistant), water resistance, an AI camera feature to improve photos, and a powerful processor.
As with most smartphones, the question of whether it's "better" than the iPhone X largely comes down to ecosystem preference. Those who enjoy the openness and customization available on the Android platform will prefer the G7 ThinQ to the iPhone X, while those who are committed to Apple's ecosystem will see the iPhone X as the better device.
What do you think of the G7 ThinQ's notched design and the overall trend toward embracing the notch as a way to maximize screen real estate? Let us know in the comments. Stay tuned to MacRumors because we'll have a detailed comparison of the G7 ThinQ camera and the iPhone X camera coming.
Cardhop, the popular contacts management app from Flexibits, makers of Fantastical, today received its first major update to introduce new features and new functionality.
For those unfamiliar with Cardhop, it's designed to turn the standard Apple Contacts app on the Mac into an interactive communications hub, providing you with tools to email, message, tweet, and interface with all of your contacts from one central location.
Today's 1.1 update to Cardhop introduces Smart Groups, a feature that lets you create a group of contacts based on specific search criteria that updates automatically from details like company, location, link domains, and more.
So, for example, if you add several contacts from the same company, you can have them all grouped up in one easy to access spot.
With printing support, you can print customized envelopes, labels, and lists of contacts, and there's now an option to include a timestamp when you use Cardhop's "Notes" feature to add details about a contact.
There are new template preferences for customizing fields and labels for contacts, and when you type into a name field, you'll now see suggestions for other names in your contacts list.
Finally, today's update introduces full support for French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese, plus it includes a range of bug fixes and performance improvements.
"We're very excited to present our first major update for Cardhop," said Michael Simmons, Co-founder of Flexibits. "With 5 new languages, printing, smart groups, and much more, Cardhop is even more so the contacts app you'll actually want to use."
Cardhop for Mac can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for $19.99. [Direct Link] It's also available from the Flexibits website, where you can get a free 21 day trial to test it out.
Newton Mail today announced an update for its iOS app that aims to make it easier than ever for users to keep track of email conversations by making the "Sent" folder obsolete. Called "True Inbox," the feature automatically places any sent emails at the top of the Inbox, no matter if the recipient has responded to the message or not.
This treats each email conversation more like a messaging app, with each thread sorted by activity so that any time a response is sent or received, that conversation shifts to the top of the screen. As usual, Newton users can still archive, snooze, star, view read receipts, and more from the new True Inbox, but now "there's absolute no need to go to Sent folder any more."
In the blog post announcing the update, Newton designer Umesh Gopinath explained the company's purpose for getting rid of the Sent folder.
When I start a new conversation, the mail I sent, remained in the Sent folder, till I received a reply. Which meant, I had to still jump between Inbox and Sent folders to follow up on mails. I always wondered why Gmail never thought of it. People found work-arounds for this problem by Auto BCCing mails to themselves to bring sent mails to inbox. Another recent way was to snooze the sent mails. Needless to say, we found all these hacks ugly, non intuitive and cumbersome.
When we designed Read Receipts in Newton to show 2 ticks on a conversation, like a chat app, we felt that the only time it took one step backwards was when I started a new conversation and then had to go to Sent folder to see the ticks. We really wanted to fix this problem. We wanted to truly make email modern.
Newton users will begin seeing True Inbox automatically, but Gopinath mentioned that the update will see a rollout in "phases" to start. Those who don't want to wait can turn the feature on in Settings > General > Conversation View > True Inbox. Newton Mail is available to download from the iOS App Store for free [Direct Link].
Yesterday during its F8 conference, Facebook announced that an update coming to Messenger would simplify the chat app and reduce the amount of visual clutter that had been added into the user interface over the last few years. The Next Web has shared images of this new update, showing off the cleaned up interface, a dark mode, and more.
Images via The Next Web
The updated Facebook Messenger greatly reduces the number of buttons on the bottom of the screen to just three, and moves the camera and call buttons to the top right of the UI. In the current app, the bottom row has five buttons for Home, People, Camera, Games, and Discover. As The Next Web pointed out, Facebook doesn't appear to be removing any features from Messenger, so anything that appears missing is believed to be combined into another button.
Messenger will still open on a recent chat list, with circles of friends aligning the top of the screen that includes a + button to add to your Messenger Day story, the app's Snapchat clone feature. When you click on a chat, the bottom-screen UI buttons shift to include options for chat bots, the camera, and emoji. In this screen, you'll also be able to customize your chat with various color options and set what appears to be a shortcut to your favorite emoji.
During the keynote on the update, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company knows its users want a "simple and fast experience" in a chat app, so it would be "taking this moment to completely redesign Messenger to focus on these ideas." Facebook introduced a pared-down version called Messenger Lite in 2016, but it was only made available for Android devices and has yet to launch on iOS.
For the new update to the iOS Messenger app, Facebook said it's coming "very, very soon." Yesterday, the company also unveiled a "clear history" tool for ads and analytics, showed off a dating feature to rival Tinder, and launched a standalone VR headset "Oculus Go."
Nokia has revealed plans to sell its digital health business back to the co-founder of Withings, the French health tracking company Nokia bought in 2016.
However, it looks as if the acquisition simply didn't pay off for the erstwhile mobile phone powerhouse. In 2017, the digital health division earned just $62.4 million in revenue, but the rest of the company posted sales of $27.9 billion. Now Nokia is handing back the business to Withings' co-founder, Éric Carreel. The sale will likely be at a significant loss, although the Nokia press release didn't mention figures:
Nokia announced a review of strategic options for the Digital Health business in February 2018. The planned sale is part of Nokia's honed focus on becoming a business-to-business and licensing company. The transaction is subject to terms agreed in the negotiations and completion of the information consultation with the Works Council of Nokia Technologies (France) SA., with the deal expected to close in late Q2 2018.
The announcement follows recent reports of layoffs from the company, as well as a leaked memo that revealed the digital health division was in a bad way with little prospect of turning things around. Then in October, Nokia announced a $164 million write-down of the division's assets. Google and Samsung were reportedly looking into taking the ailing health business off Nokia's hands, but today's announcement suggests nothing substantial came of the negotiations.
Say you want to look up a topic online, so you type a search word or phrase into Safari's address bar. The first link in the returned results looks promising, so you click it. On the site you're sent to, you see another link about a related topic, so you click that, too.
Moments later another link grabs your attention, and you check it out. Soon you're distracted by some other tangential subject, and before you know it you've fallen down a rabbit hole of clicks and links without finding out much about what you were actually looking for in the first place.
If that sounds familiar, Safari SnapBack can help you. It's a long-standing feature of Apple's desktop web browser that's often overlooked, but saves having to tediously click the previous page button multiple times to return to your original search results, or start rooting through your web history to locate where your latest online meander began.
You can find it in Safari's menu bar, under History -> Search Results SnapBack, or even better, use its Command-Option-S keyboard shortcut. As the name suggests, SnapBack instantly takes you back to your original search results, although the function's availability depends on a couple of conditions.
First, SnapBack only works if your wayward browsing occurred in the same tab that you used to initiate the search, so if a link you clicked on opened a new tab and you continued browsing in that, the SnapBack menu option will be grayed out. Second, the search needs to be performed from Safari's address bar or from the website of the search engine that Safari is set to use.
To change the browser's default search engine, select Safari -> Preferences... from the menu bar, click the Search tab, and choose one from the Search engine: dropdown menu. Your options are Google, Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. Next time you use the search engine you select and get lost in myriad clicks, SnapBack will be available to help get you back on track.
Following the 
The Reform Government Surveillance coalition, which includes several major tech companies who have teamed up to lobby for surveillance law reform, this week 
Apple today 
