MacRumors

Music video platform Vevo has confirmed that it will be shutting down all of its mobile apps and consumer-facing video hosting website, signaling a shift in its business to focus on YouTube (via Variety). Apps affected include those for iOS and Android, but as of now "select" smart TV apps, potentially including Apple TV, will continue to run.

Vevo is well known for being a platform that users can go to watch the latest music videos, but many viewers simply use the company's YouTube channel, leading Vevo's iOS, Android, Apple TV, and other apps to struggle with growth. After the discontinuation of its apps and website, Vevo's YouTube channel will become the primary source of its music video distribution.

Major-label owned Vevo is giving up on plans to build its own music video platform outside of YouTube’s control: Vevo is shutting down its mobile apps and consumer-facing website, the company announced Thursday morning.

“We will phase out elements of our owned and operated platforms,” the company said in a blog post Thursday. “Going forward, Vevo will remain focused on engaging the biggest audiences and pursuing growth opportunities.”

To ensure a smooth transition, Vevo will provide a playlist tool to its mobile app users so they can import their Vevo playlists over to YouTube. In the iOS app [Direct Link] for iPhone and iPad, Vevo offers its users personalized recommendations, user profiles to follow, specific notifications about new videos and live performances, and more -- all of which will now go away.

The announcement comes a few weeks after it was revealed that YouTube and Vevo have a new deal that lets YouTube sell the music video platform's clips directly to advertisers, in an effort to boost ad sales. The sunsetting of Vevo apps also follows months of shakeups at the company, with former CEO Erik Huggers leaving in December, head of product Mark Hall leaving in January, chief technology officer Alex Nunes departing in the spring, and "significant" layoffs to Vevo's product and engineering teams at the same time.

Apple has also been increasing its focus on music videos within its Music app, launching a dedicated "Music Videos" section inside of Apple Music this spring. In the new area, subscribers can find new weekly playlists for various genres, browse through the latest videos, watch exclusive content, and more.

Pioneer has joined Alpine as the second electronics maker to release wireless CarPlay systems for aftermarket installation.

Introduced at CES 2018 in January, product listings have since confirmed that Pioneer's latest AVH-W4400NEX and AVIC-W8400NEX receivers are capable of not only wired and wireless Android Auto, but also wired and wireless CarPlay, enabling drivers to connect an iPhone to either receiver via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Receivers with wired implementations require connecting an iPhone with a Lightning to USB cable to access CarPlay functionality.

The lower-end AVH-W4400NEX features a double-DIN design with a seven-inch resistive touchscreen. The receiver has a suggested price of $699.99 in the United States through resellers such as Crutchfield and Sound of Tri-State. It's also available for C$899.99 in Canada via Best Buy's online store.

The higher-end AVH-W8400NEX features a double-DIN design with a seven-inch capacitive touchscreen. The receiver has a suggested price of $1,199.99 in the United States through resellers such as Crutchfield and Sound of Tri-State. It's also available for C$1,399.99 in Canada via Best Buy's online store.

The $500 price difference between the two receivers largely relates to the type of touchscreen used. Capacitive touchscreens—think of an iPhone—rely on the electrical charge of a finger, and are generally considered to be better than resistive touchscreens, which rely on the physical pressure of a finger or stylus.

Both receivers feature CD/DVD drives, AM/FM, HD Radio, SiriusXM compatibility, two rear USB-A ports, SD card readers, and hands-free phone calls and music playback via Bluetooth in standard AppRadio Mode.

Alpine released the first aftermarket wireless CarPlay system in June 2017. Its iLX-107 receiver features a seven-inch capacitive touchscreen and is available for a suggested price of $900 in the United States. Wireless CarPlay is also available in select new vehicles from BMW, and Mercedes-Benz starting soon.

Pioneer has also released some wireless CarPlay receivers in Europe, according to the blog CarPlay Life. Thanks to MacRumors reader Dean Cobb.

Following in the footsteps of companies like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, YouTube this week confirmed that it is "experimenting" with a way to organize its users Subscription Feeds that removes reverse chronological order and uses algorithms to "personalize" the video order. The news came from the @TeamYouTube Twitter account after it responded to a disgruntled user (via iGeneration).

YouTube's Subscription Feed traditionally begins with a "Today" banner, presenting users with a reverse chronological list of every video that has been posted by the YouTubers they subscribe to, going back to "Yesterday," "This Week," "This Month," etc. For those in the experiment, this order is replaced with what Team YouTube calls a "personalized order," which appears to use a viewer's watch history and other factors to recommend videos from their subscriptions that the company thinks the user will want to watch.

YouTube already presents "Recommended" videos on its homepage and in the sidebar of other videos, leading many YouTubers to respond negatively to the change of the last chronological list of videos that could be found on the service. It's unclear what platforms the experiment is currently taking place on, but if it launches for all users it would likely affect YouTube across mobile, desktop, TV, and more.

Using algorithms to surface content has long been popular among social media networks. Facebook's News Feed has done this for years, and Instagram followed in March 2016 stating that as it's grown its users "often don’t see the posts [they] might care about the most," although the company has made slight tweaks to the algorithms since then. For its part, Twitter as a whole still shows tweets from new to old, but it does choose to surface non-chronological content with features like "In case you missed it," displaying followers' liked tweets among your own, ads, and more.

Apple Pay is launching a new promo today, offering new Postmates customers the chance to get their first delivery free when they check out with Apple Pay. This summer promotion is a bit lengthier than previous offers from Apple, running through 11:59 p.m. on June 30.

Apple notes in the fine print of the deal that the offer is only applicable to new customers who have not previously made an order on Postmates. Otherwise, you can place your first order, use Apple Pay to check out, and wave the delivery fee. No promo code is required.

The summer-themed e-mail promotion also highlights other stores where Apple Pay is accepted, like Whole Foods, Gap, and Crate and Barrel, where Apple says you can "find all you'll need to entertain" for summertime parties. In apps, the company encourages you to pay using Apple Pay in Overstock, Jet, and Kohl's.

Apple previously partnered with Postmates in one of these promotions during the holidays last year, offering free deliveries on all orders over $20 if you used Apple Pay to sign up for Postmates Unlimited. More recently, the company has promoted Hayneedle, 1-800-Flowers, and Instacart.

Popular read-it-later service Instapaper has temporarily suspended user access across Europe as it comes to terms with the EU's impending General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws.

In a message sent to users yesterday – subsequently shared via Twitter courtesy of tech reporter Owen Williams - the bookmarking service said it needs extra time to make necessary changes to comply with GDPR before the deadline on Friday, May 25.

Starting tomorrow May 24, 2018, access to the Instapaper service will be temporarily unavailable for residents in Europe as we continue to make changes in light of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which goes into effect May 25, 2018. We apologize for any inconvenience, and we intend to restore access as soon as possible.

If you have any questions about your account, would like us to generate an export of your saves, or want to check in on our progress, please let us know at support@help.instapaper.com. We look forward to having the same Instapaper service you know and love accessible in Europe in the very near future. Thanks for your patience.

Instapaper gave no indication how long the service would be suspended, and offered no further details on why it has waited until now to take action, almost two years after companies were informed of the GDPR timeline.

Created by Marco Arment in 2008, Instapaper was one of the first apps that implemented read-it-later functionality, and it was certainly one of the most widely used and well-known apps in the genre. The service was acquired by Pinterest in 2016, which may have complicated efforts for GDPR compliance given the potential for data sharing between the parent company and its subsidiary.

Businesses that interact with users in the EU must comply with the GDPR law, which sets out requirements on the collection, storage, and handling of personal data. Companies who fail to do so by the deadline risk heavy fines.

On Wednesday, Apple launched a new Data & Privacy website, which provides customers in the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland with the ability to download all the personal information tied to their Apple ID account.

(Via The Verge.)

Hadoro, a Parisian company that specializes in high-priced upscale iPhone cases, custom iPhones, and Apple Watch bands, today released a new lineup of custom iPhone X models made from a range of luxury materials including wood, sapphire glass, carbon fiber, marble, and alligator leather set in anodized stainless steel frames.

It's not cheap to replace the entire casing of an iPhone with a new shell crafted from expensive, rare materials, so these iPhones, priced at 4,500 to 8,900 euros ($5,250 - $10,400) are not designed for the average Apple customer.

The most expensive of the devices replace the glass body of the iPhone X with a gold-plated frame covered in alligator leather complete with a diamond Apple logo, while some of the more affordable options are made from anodized, gold plated stainless steel covered with Karelian birch, sourced from a small forest in Finland.

Several other iPhones feature back panels made from durable, scratch proof sapphire glass, which as we know, Apple at one point explored as a material for the iPhone. The Moire Gold iPhone X, for example, features sapphire glass with a silkscreen printed moiré design nestled in a frame made from black anodized stainless steel and carbon fiber.

The craziest of Hadoro's iPhone X models is a carbon fiber model that has a 3D image of a skeleton with glowing eye sockets. The eyes of the skeleton light up whenever the iPhone is turned on, and the color can be customized in the device settings.

All of these modified iPhones start out as the 256GB iPhone X and then have the housing, buttons, and Apple logo replaced with new materials. In many cases, the logos on these devices light up thanks to the modifications put in place. Core functionality remains intact, but for devices where the glass has been replaced by other materials, wireless charging is likely to be affected.

The aforementioned light up Apple logos glow whenever the iPhone is turned on or when an incoming call or text message is received, and the settings can be tweaked on the phone itself.

Replacing the casing of the iPhone naturally voids the standard Apple warranty, but people able to shell out thousands of dollars for a fancy iPhone aren't likely too concerned about that. Hadoro does, however, include a one-year warranty with purchase.

If you have $5,000+ earmarked for a new iPhone, you can check out Hadoro's full custom iPhone X collection on its website.

There's been a market for insanely priced custom iPhone models for years now, and Hadoro isn't the only one selling crazy custom devices. Caviar, another manufacturer known for creating iPhones from custom materials, recently debuted the iPhone X Tesla, an iPhone inspired by Tesla vehicles that is able to charge using solar power.

The iPhone X Tesla is is priced at just over $4,600, and for that price, you get the aforementioned solar charger with shock resistant panel and a custom carbon fiber frame. Caviar also has a range of other custom iPhone X models for those seeking the most ostentatious designs available.

Earlier this month, smart bike helmet Lumos debuted at Apple retail stores and online, leveraging technology to help make your ride safer. Outfitted with a total of 48 LEDs on the front and back in red, white, and yellow, the Lumos helmet significantly increases your visibility to drivers and pedestrians while also allowing you to signal upcoming turns.

Since its Kickstarter launch, Lumos has supported bike helmet turn signals using a two-button remote mounted on the handlebars, lighting up yellow LEDs on the corresponding side of the helmet at the front and rear. A brand-new feature adds Apple Watch gesture support, letting you calibrate the system to detect bicycle arm signals based on watch orientation and automatically turn on the left or right signals on the helmet accordingly.

My wife Laura is an avid cyclist, so she was a good test subject for the Lumos helmet, which she has taken out on several group rides over the past few weeks. She came away impressed with some of the helmet's features and the comforting feeling of being more visible as it became darker in the evening, but other aspects still need some tweaking.

Installation

Mounting the turn signal remote is a relatively simple affair, using a pair of rubber rings to wrap around the handlebars and secure the remote base, and then the remote itself simply twists onto the base to lock it in. It's an easy installation process that fits a variety of handlebar diameters, although if you've already got a headlight and bike computer mounted on your handlebars you might find yourself running out of room to mount the Lumos remote.

In fact, given the other items already on her handlebars, Laura's only option was to mount the remote base on her grip tape, which made securing it a bit tricky with the uneven and somewhat squishy surface. She would have preferred some sort of stem mounting option to keep it within easy reach on her crowded handlebars. But depending on the style of bike you ride and the accessories you have, the crowding may not be an issue for you.

Crowding issues aside, the simple installation process is a benefit for commuter cyclists in particular, making it easy to take the remote with you so that it doesn't get stolen from your parked bike. The remote also needs to be recharged periodically, so easy installation and removal are key.

Getting on the Road and Signaling

Pairing everything up is also simple, just holding some buttons on the helmet and remote and coordinating with the iPhone app and then you're good to go. It's easy to use the remote to signal left and right turns, with large, easy-to-press buttons that light up while a turn is being signaled, although you do have to manually press the button again to turn off the signaling.

Gesture-based Apple Watch signaling should make life significantly easier while also encouraging riders to use arm signals that help make drivers aware of upcoming movements, although Laura had a bit of trouble getting it to work consistently at first. There is a calibration process that walks you through holding your left arm straight out to signal a left turn and then pointed upward to signal a right turn.

The calibration process is quick, requiring you to hold your arm in a neutral position on the handlebars and then while signaling left and right, but once she was out on the road for her first ride, Laura found that gesture recognition was rather finicky. Initially, it would register only one direction, and after she stopped and recalibrated only the other direction would register. Several recalibrations during that ride failed to result in consistent signaling.

On her second ride, however, she apparently found a sweet spot in the calibration, as it was much more consistent in recognizing her arm movements and properly signaling. On the downside, limitations in the movements the watch's accelerometer can detect did result in some unintended signaling. Waving to a friend or even scratching her nose activated the turn signals, and with your hands frequently moving around on the bike to adjust grip, wipe away sweat, or grab a drink of water, it's easy to unintentionally activate the turn signals.

When using the Apple Watch to initiate turn signals on Lumos, you have to shake your wrist to turn off the signal once you've completed your turn, and Laura found that she had to shake rather vigorously to get the signals to turn off.

The helmet also beeps while the turn signal is activated, which gives you some important feedback considering you can't see the lights on your head. The beeping is clearly audible to others around you, which can be a benefit or annoying depending on your environment and your biking companions, although you can adjust the frequency of the beeping.

The beeping is also nondirectional, as it comes from the main electronics center in the rear of the helmet. It would be nice if Lumos had a speaker on each side near your ears to give you audible confirmation of which signal is flashing. At the very least, different beeping tones or patterns for each direction would be helpful.

It would also be nice if the remote and Apple Watch worked better together, such as allowing either one to deactivate the turn signal regardless of which method was used to activate it, or having the appropriate button on the remote flash when the signal has been activated via Apple Watch. As it stands, the two methods of triggering the turn signal work essentially independently.

One interesting benefit to using Lumos is that it encourages more consistent use of arm signals in general. With many riders not adequately signaling their turning intentions, tying those signals into the watch on your wrist and your helmet gives you extra motivation to use those arm signals. Some of that is undoubtedly a novelty effect that will wear off with regular usage, but it still provides a bit of incentive to signal.

Lighting Modes

Lumos offers three distinct lighting modes, steady, rapid flash, and slow flash. Which one you use is largely personal preference based which one you believe will make you most visible, but it's worth noting that the helmet's battery will last significantly longer if you use one of the flashing modes rather than steady mode. Switching between modes is accomplished by short presses on the single power button at the rear of the helmet. It's easy to do unless the helmet is on your head, so make sure you decide which mode you want before you start riding, or else pull over to a safe place to change it. For the most part, however, it's simply going to be "set it and forget it" at the beginning of your ride.

Laura felt that all three modes were sufficiently bright, offering a comforting feeling that she could be easily seen on the road, particularly as it started to get darker out in the evening. The lights appeared roughly as bright as the taillight she uses on her road bike, although Lumos advises that the helmet should not be used as a substitute for mounted bike lights.

The front helmet lights in particular are only intended to make you more visible, and you're still going to want a more focused headlight for your bike to help you see where you're going and make you even more visible at dusk or at night.

As with regular bike lights, Lumos really won't do much for you during the day, particularly in bright sunlight.

Braking

Lumos has rolled out a new beta feature that illuminates extra red lights on the rear of the helmet to signal that you're coming to a stop. The feature is intended to automatically sense hard braking using an accelerometer inside the remote control.

Unfortunately, Laura was unable to get the feature to activate properly during her on-road testing. The feature seemed to work in simulated stopping scenarios holding the remote in the hand off the bike, and it briefly worked during some testing on the bike when the helmet stopped registering gestures from her Apple Watch, so maybe there was some conflict between the watch and the remote. Hopefully this is something Lumos can continue to refine to make it perform more consistently, and as noted it is still considered a beta feature.

App Tracking

The Lumos iPhone app includes a variety of features, including battery status of the helmet and remote, as well as advanced tracking for your rides. With GPS tracking, the Lumos app will map your rides and break down various statistics like calories burned, watts generated, and more.

The app can also be set to automatically start tracking when the helmet senses you've begun riding, so you can't forget to hit the start button on your tracking. Lumos also supports Strava and Apple Health, making it easy to integrate with your other exercise and health tracking.

Battery Life

Lumos says the battery on the helmet last about six hours in flashing mode or about three hours in steady mode. That's pretty accurate based on Laura's testing, which saw a fully charged helmet drop to 46 percent at the end of a ride that lasted about an hour and 45 minutes with the helmet in steady lighted mode. The remote should last anywhere from a week to a month on a single charge, depending on use.

Both the helmet and the handlebar remote charge using a USB-A cable with a proprietary magnetic connector on the other end. The connector allows for low-profile ports on the helmet and remote, but the magnetic connection isn't the strongest. On the helmet in particular, Laura had to be very careful to make sure it was connected properly and then be extremely gentle when moving the helmet at all during charging to prevent the cable from coming loose. Fully charging the helmet takes a couple of hours, while the remote is a bit faster.

Wrap-up

A decent bike helmet can cost $100 or more, and lights for your bike quickly add up as well, so $180 for a helmet with a bright array of lighting mounted high on your front and back doesn't seem out of line, not to mention the added safety factor of turn signals and potentially brake lights. If you don't need the turn signals and brake light capabilities, Lumos offers a cheaper "Lite" version of the helmet for $140 that only has the front and rear lights for visibility.

The regular Lumos helmet is offered in Pearl White, Charcoal Black, and Cobalt Blue, while the Lite version is available in Polar White and Charcoal Black. The regular and Lite versions are also available through Amazon.

Lumos has also just launched pre-orders for a version that includes the increasingly popular MIPS technology that can lessen forces experienced in certain types of impacts. The MIPS Lumos helmet in black will begin shipping in mid-July and is available for pre-order at a discounted price of $199.99, down from the regular $219.99 pricing.

Laura was impressed with the fit of Lumos, as she frequently has trouble finding helmets that fit well and that was certainly not the case with Lumos, even though it's designed as a one-size-fits-all helmet for head sizes of 54–62 cm (21.3–24.4 inches).

Lumos is really aimed at commuter cyclists, where frequent turns in congested urban environments and relatively short rides are the norm. It's a bit less useful for road cyclists who take fewer turns and for whom longer rides might exceed the battery life of the helmet, although those rides are typically in daylight when lights are less important. Even for road cyclists, the bright lights mounted on your head offer great visibility to vehicles around you, and it's comforting to know the most important part of your body is most visible.

There are a few quirks with Lumos, most of which should be able to be fixed via software updates, so hopefully Lumos will continue to refine performance based on user feedback and data collected from testing.

Even with those quirks, the safety factor Lumos brings is a tremendous benefit that makes the helmet worth considering, and the Apple Watch turn signal gestures are a clever way to make the technology integration feel more natural. Overall though, Lumos does seem to require a decent bit of fiddling to keep things working properly, which might be okay if you're into the latest tech gadgetry, but if you just want to hop on your bike and go, you might not get as much fun out of it.

Note: Lumos provided the bike helmet to MacRumors free of charge for the purposes of this review. No other compensation was received. MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon and may earn commissions on purchases made through links in this article.

After a slow rollout began in March, Pandora today announced that all Premium tier subscribers can now access their own personalized music playlists. Similar to Apple Music and Spotify, Pandora's selection of playlists personally curate a specific collection of tracks, but Pandora focuses on moods, activities, and genres (via TechCrunch).

For example, Pandora can create "Your Energy Soundtrack," "Your Happy Soundtrack," "Your Rainy Day Soundtrack," "Your R&B Soundtrack," and more, with about 25 songs each. As a comparison, Apple Music's personal curation focuses on New Music Mix, Chill Mix, and Favorites Mix, offering songs aimed at introducing you to new artists, serving up relaxing tunes, and generating a collection of what the service decides are your favorite tracks.

Pandora Premium users can send links to their friends (even if they're on the free tier) as a way to share their personalized playlists. The free tier users will have to watch a video ad to listen to the playlist and test out other paid features as well -- an ability Pandora debuted last December.

In regards to how the app curates the playlists, Pandora says it uses its "Music Genome" and machine learning algorithms to continously determine what music you listen to most often. Combined with human curators, Pandora then gathers songs into the new "Soundtrack" playlists to "perfect the lists and update them, as needed."

Apple Music updates its Mixes on specific days every week, but Pandora's offering appears to be a bit more nebulous. During the rollout phase of the feature, the app was creating "up to four new playlists" for each user every week, and it would continue until it "maxed out" the user's playlist categories. TechCrunch explains further: "This "max" is not a flat number, but varies by user. For example, someone who listens to a lot of different types of music may continue getting new playlists for weeks."

Pandora is offering the stable of personalized playlists as a way to entice its free users to upgrade to Pandora Premium, which runs for $9.99/month. Originally a live radio streaming service only, Pandora launched Premium in 2017 to compete with Apple Music and Spotify, combining its existing radio features into an on-demand music streaming service.

Moving forward, Pandora is planning to release more playlist categories and themes in the coming months. Pandora chief performance officer Chris Phillips says, "This is the beginning of a whole suite of themed playlists that we will automatically build and tailor to each Premium user. In the coming months, we'll be rolling out more even more themes for you to unlock."

Pandora Music is available to download on iOS [Direct Link] and Android for free.

Last December, The Walt Disney Company outlined plans to acquire 21st Century Fox and a collection of its subsidiaries for $52.4 billion in stock. Those plans have been under regulatory scrutiny for months and have yet to be finalized, and now Comcast has confirmed it is in "advanced stages" of sending Fox a "superior" all-cash offer in hopes of besting Disney's all-share offer (via Bloomberg).

Previous reports about Comcast's potential bid also referenced an all-cash deal, and put an estimate above Disney's to as much as $60 billion in cash from Comcast for the designated Fox assets. Comcast's press release today does not disclose an offer amount, but the company says the structure and terms of any offer would be "at least as favorable to Fox shareholders as the Disney offer."

Comcast says that its work to finance the offer for some of Fox's assets is "well advanced," and the company has already prepared to file key regulatory statements. Of course, no final decision has yet been made, but analyst Daniel Ives notes that, "If Comcast won these assets from the arms of Disney, it would be a devastating blow to [Disney CEO] Bob Iger."

In view of the recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by The Walt Disney Company (“Disney”) and Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. (“Fox”) in preparation for their upcoming shareholder meetings to consider the acquisition of Fox by Disney, Comcast Corporation (“Comcast”) confirms that it is considering, and is in advanced stages of preparing, an offer for the businesses that Fox has agreed to sell to Disney (which do not include the Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Fox Broadcasting Company and certain other assets).

Any offer for Fox would be all-cash and at a premium to the value of the current all-share offer from Disney. The structure and terms of any offer by Comcast, including with respect to both the spin-off of “New Fox” and the regulatory risk provisions and the related termination fee, would be at least as favorable to Fox shareholders as the Disney offer.

As of now, recent reports have stated that the Comcast/Fox offer's final fate may rely on the government's decision regarding AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner. Similar to AT&T owning DirecTV, Comcast owns NBCUniversal, and both companies are looking into purchasing large TV programming entities.

Because of this, it's believed Comcast will take a wait-and-see approach, and if a U.S. judge rules against AT&T on antitrust grounds in a trial coming next month, Comcast is expected to back off of Fox's assets. If AT&T wins the case and Comcast moves forward with a bid, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Paul Sweeney says the Disney vs. Comcast bidding war would be intense: "Disney is likely to put up quite a fight."

Disney and Comcast are looking at Fox's entertainment assets in hopes of expanding their reach outside of the United States, as well as stocking their streaming back catalogs with a quick rush of content. Movie assets that either company could gain from 21st Century Fox include Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox 2000, homes of movies like Avatar, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Deadpool, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Shape of Water, and Gone Girl.

For TV shows, Fox's TV production companies include Twentieth Century Fox Television, as well as FX Productions and Fox21, which bring viewers shows like The Simpsons, This Is Us, and The Americans. Notably, the winning bidder would gain Fox's 30 percent stake in Hulu, and if Disney acquires the company it would become a majority shareholder of the streaming service.

Facebook today updated its mobile Marketplace to include home service professionals, such as house cleaners, plumbers, and contractors.

The company says that Marketplace will integrate with existing service professional marketplaces like Handy, HomeAdvisor, and Porch to provide users with an all-in-one location for finding help around the house. In total, there will be hundreds of thousands of top-rated professionals available across the United States to browse through.

Similar to other Facebook pages, professionals will have ratings, reviews, credentials, and their location to ensure that they're nearby. When you find multiple people who might be a match for your project, you can describe the task and use Messenger to send it to multiple professionals at once and judge their responses.

According to Facebook, there have been an increasing number of users asking for recommendations related to home services, totaling "millions of people" since the beginning of 2018, leading to the launch of the new feature.

The updated Facebook Marketplace is starting to roll out today on iOS and Android, and the social network says that it will be available for all U.S. users in the coming weeks.

Apple supplier Foxconn Technology Group is making a shift in its expansion plans to Wisconsin in the United States, where it will now produce small to medium-size displays for Apple and other customers. This is a change from its original plan of having the Wisconsin plant produce large television displays, and the move to smaller displays is said to help lower initial costs at the factory (via Nikkei).

In total, Foxconn's Wisconsin plant will make displays for car infotainment systems, personal computers, tablets, smartphones, smaller televisions, and other "niche products." If the supplier kept on track with building large TV displays, the output would have required a "more complete" local supply chain lacking in the state, and a greater initial monetary investment for production equipment.

"Previously, Foxconn planned to build a 10.5th-generation display manufacturing factory, which is more suitable for large-sized displays," supply chain sources told Nikkei.

"But later they figured out that it might be more feasible and efficient to build a sixth-generation display plant or an 8.5th-generation factory from which they could move some equipment from Asia."

The incomplete local supply chain is believed to have been one of the bigger obstacles to Foxconn's large panel plans in Wisconsin. Sources speaking to Nikkei said, "It would require other companies like Corning to also set up a glass substrate facility nearby, as it's almost impossible to ship fragile, huge size glass materials from a distant place."

Foxconn has been open to building a facility in the U.S., with news becoming more frequent in late 2016 and the eventual Wisconsin home tipped by sources speaking with The Associated Press in June 2017. Foxconn confirmed the Wisconsin/TV display plant later in the summer, with plans of investing $10 billion into the location and initially employing 3,000 workers, with the potential to expand to as many as 13,000.

As Apple CEO Tim Cook pointed out in a recent interview, many parts of the iPhone are created in the U.S. (like the display glass and Face ID module), but the components manufactured in the U.S. are then shipped abroad, with devices assembled by suppliers like Foxconn in China. Because of this, Cook said: "It's not true that the iPhone is not made in the United States. We have always made the parts here. People just look at where the final product is assembled." In a global world, Cook explained, manufacturing and assembly needs to be done in a variety of places.