Facebook has come up with another way to convince users to stay within the social networking app, recently introducing a complete weather forecast section that uses GPS location to present a detailed 24-hour and 5-day forecast, powered by Weather.com (via TechCrunch). The feature is an expansion of the previous "weather greetings" that appeared on the Facebook mobile app beginning about a year ago, which include succinct time-of-day greetings along with a stock forecast message.
Now, users can tap on those greetings and jump into a full forecast of their area. Although the greetings link users to the forecast section, sometimes the prompts aren't always there when the app is opened. To manually find the forecast: open Facebook > tap the hamburger "More" tab on the bottom right of the app > tap "See More" > scroll down and tap "Weather."
The heading of the section includes doodles that change depending on the weather, alongside the current temperature, high and low estimates for the day, and a one-to-three sentence summation of the present forecast. Under that, users can scroll through the next 24 hours, and look ahead to the next 5 days.
If more information is required, the very bottom of Facebook's forecast section has a "see more weather info" button that launches Weather.com. To see the weather for another location, the gear icon on the top right of the screen includes a search field to find more cities.
Weather greetings now launch into the new forecast section
According to Facebook, the goal of adding weather forecasts was to "connect people to the things they care about most."
“We are doing this because our goal is to develop products that connect people to the things they care about most and create moments of joy in people’s day, like simply telling you that it’s going to rain later,” a spokesperson said.
Weather forecasts are now available to around 95 percent of Facebook users globally, on both mobile and desktop. The company is also testing a feature that lets users turn on push notifications in regards to weather forecasts, which should be available widely by the end of the month. Facebook is available to download for free on the iOS App Store. [Direct Link]
Continuing on his lengthy European tour today, Apple CEO Tim Cook has now stopped in London and had a chat with UK Prime Minister Theresa May. According to a spokesperson for May speaking with Business Insider, the meeting focused on Apple's continued investment in the United Kingdom amid the recent turmoil surrounding Brexit. Overall, the meeting was said to have been "a very positive and useful discussion."
"It was a meeting with the prime minister. It was a very positive and useful discussion. Apple have made a recent announcement about their investment in the UK and they had a conversation around that and the importance of government and business on digital skills which going forward will clearly be a huge part of the future industry. It was a chance for the prime minister to outline her plans for negotiating our EU exit. It was also a chance for her to reiterate and welcome Apple's investment in the UK."
The meeting took place at Downing Street at 10AM local time today, and followed Cook's visiting of locations including Marseille, Paris, Vreden, Berlin, and Glasgow. On the Vreden, Germany leg of his trip that took place earlier this week, the Apple CEO even met with Dula, a furniture manufacturer that works with Apple to create some of the furniture and hardware used in Apple's retail stores.
Europe is Apple's second largest market in terms of revenue, and like all other territories the company continues to expand its presence in the area. Last September, it was announced that Apple was working on building a new UK headquarters in London's Battersea Power Station, expected to be complete by 2021. The UK is expected to leave the European Union by 2019, so it appears Cook is using his European trip to prepare Apple for the upcoming shift in UK business and politics happening over the next few years.
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.
Update: Tim Cook tweeted that he met with the mayor of London today and that he is "incredibly excited about Apple's future in London."
Apple is exploring ways to make information sharing between wearables and mobile devices as simple as a wave of the hand, if a new patent application is anything to go by (via AppleInsider).
Published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, an Apple filing for "Gesture-based information exchange between devices in proximity" describes a secure data transfer system between two portable devices that works by detecting customizable gestures, or "greeting events", such as handshakes, high-fives, hugs, fist bumps, bows, waves, and salutes.
The gestures trigger a customizable data set that takes into account device context, with a particular focus on privacy and security. For example, in all cases, users must select the pre-defined gestures to allow the transfer of specific information only between the two devices, reducing the possibility of unintentionally sharing data with other devices in close proximity.
Information shared can be stored either locally or in the cloud, and can include most data fit for transfer across a wireless connection, such as contact details, photos, media files, calendar events, and so on. Greeting events can also generate data for sharing across social media, such as a Twitter post that announces a meeting between two users.
The sophisticated customization features of the system are of particular note, since they allow users to decide beforehand what kind of information is shared, and with whom, based on pre-defined contextual parameters, such as encountering someone for the first time, versus meeting a family member or an old friend. Device identifiers, location data, and user histories are all corralled in order to enhance the reliability and security of the system.
On another security note, the patent describes the use of cryptographic keys to identify individual sharing sessions, which can be either automated or user-initiated via an on-screen interface, with the possibility of using artificial intelligence-managed sharing under the hood.
As always with patents, the invention may or may not be used in-house or in a product, but the document offers another example of Apple's commitment to simplifying close-proximity data sharing while also paying particular attention to the security and privacy implications of such systems.
Apple has begun advertising for staff positions at a planned retail store in the Austrian capital of Vienna. As noted by German tech site Flo's Weblog, multiple front-of-store job listings recently appeared on Apple's site, suggesting that the company's presence in the upmarket shopping street of Kärntner Straße isn't too far away.
Reports that Apple was planning to open a brick-and-mortar store in Austria first emerged in August, when local newspaper derStandard reported that the company was close to securing the necessary contracts on a flagship retail property formerly occupied by fashion company Esprit.
Construction at the three-floor premises began in November, according to reports. The distinctive corner location makes the property an unmistakeable feature of the old town, and a typical premier site for a brand like Apple.
Kärntner Straße is in close proximity to Stephansplatz, the square at the geographical center of Vienna and home to the Stephansdom cathedral, one of the tallest churches in the world.
Bang & Olufsen brand subsidiary B&O Play has announced a new pair of wireless headphones called the Beoplay H4, which "focus on pure essentials".
At $299, the over-ear Bluetooth headphones offer a less costly alternative to the company's pricier wireless models, like the the H8 and H9, and instead of a touch interface they feature traditional physical buttons to control volume and playback.
The headphones adopt B&O Play's signature premium braided textile and aluminum construction, and come with lambskin-covered memory foam ear pads for comfort and isolation.
B&O Play says the headset can be used for up to 19 hours on a single charge (via micro-USB) and can also be used wired with the 3.5mm jack and provided cable. An omnidirectional mic is built in for taking calls.
The listening experience can be tweaked using the Beoplay app and the H4's also offer an Apple Watch app for adjusting settings from the wrist.
The Beoplay H4 are available to buy now from the Beoplay website for $299.
Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming macOS Sierra 10.12.4 update to public beta testers for testing purposes, two weeks after seeding the first public beta and one day after releasing the second 10.12.4 beta to developers.
Beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program will receive the second 10.12.4 macOS Sierra beta through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store.
Those who want to be a part of Apple's beta testing program can sign up to participate through the beta testing website, which gives users access to both iOS and macOS Sierra betas. Betas should not be installed on a primary machine due to the potential for instability.
macOS Sierra 10.12.4 brings iOS's popular Night Shift mode to the Mac, allowing users to cut down on blue light exposure in the evening. Believed to affect sleep by upsetting the body's circadian rhythm, blue light is thought to be more harmful than yellow light.
With Night Shift, the Mac's display automatically shifts from cool to warm at sunset and then shifts back at sunrise. Users can also set custom times for the display's colors to shift, or toggle the effect on manually. A Toggle to turn Night Shift on is available in the Notification Center, and Siri can also be used to activate the feature.
macOS Sierra 10.12.4 also includes Shanghainese dictation support, cricket scores for Siri, improved PDFKit APIs, and iCloud Analytics options.
Apple CEO Tim Cook received an honorary degree from the University of Glasgow in Scotland today as planned. Cook then sat down for a Q&A session with the audience of students, reflecting on topics ranging from his personal beliefs and influences to U.S. President Donald Trump's recent immigration ban.
One student asked if he could work at Apple as a tongue-in-cheek question, and Cook noted the company is hiring worldwide and pointed him towards its jobs website. Cook later said "coding should be required in schools," as "kids will never know any other environment other than the digital one."
Cook, responding to a question about Apple's future activism plans, said he does not view Apple or himself as an "activist." Instead, he said Apple simply stands up for things it is deeply knowledgeable or has a strong point of view about.
Cook reiterated that he does not support Trump's recent immigration ban, echoing a memo he sent to employees a few weeks ago. Apple was one of several tech companies that sent a letter to Trump opposing the executive order, noting "we are a nation made stronger by immigrants."
Apple was also one of nearly 100 companies, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Snap, Uber, Twitter, and Intel, to jointly file a legal brief backing the original lawsuit brought by Washington state's attorney general that brought a temporary halt to the immigration ban on Friday.
Cook finished by noting that late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had the biggest influence on his own life by far.
"He took a risk with me when I was 36 years old, and it was sort of that instance, and many instances thereafter, that I recognized that I had been on the wrong path—and that I was sort of rudderless in a way. I met a CEO for the first time that was totally focused on basically one thing: making great products. He had a focus that was unlike any other. His thinking was so pure. He wasn't trying to maximize his wealth or anything else. He really understood the sort of things we work on, and the results that come from those things, and he separated those two."
Cook said Jobs had a clear order in his life that was necessary in order to remain focused: family, Apple, Pixar, and very little else.
Cook remained in Bute Hall following the chat to take photos with students. Earlier in the day, he was spotted at a local Apple Store.
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's 2017 iPhone, which is expected to feature premium parts and radical design changes, could cost "north of $1,000," reports Fast Company, citing a source with "knowledge of Apple's plans."
Rumors suggest the upcoming iPhone, which may be called the iPhone 8, will feature an OLED display that's more expensive than traditional LED displays. Other improvements, such as an increase in memory and wireless charging functionality may also drive up the price. It's not hard to imagine the iPhone hitting that price point when the 256GB iPhone 7 Plus is already at $969 in the United States, and previous rumors have also suggested it will be a "premium" device.
Fast Company's source also confirms some iPhone 8 design rumors, describing the device as "something like a smooth black monolith, with few visual interruptions to its sleek design." That jibes with rumors indicating Apple design chief Jony Ive has been aiming for an iPhone that looks like a single sheet of glass with the Home button and Touch ID fingerprint sensor located under the display.
The Home button technology is still "evolving" according to Fast Company's source, but Apple's goal is to get it done in time for inclusion in the iPhone 8. Physical buttons, such as the volume button, power button, and mute switch could also be eliminated, a rumor we haven't heard before, and the iPhone 8 is said to include a "far bigger battery."
The source also claims Apple is working with Lumentum to develop 3D sensing technology that will be used in the device, but did not provide details on how the feature will be used.
It remains unclear how the technology will be applied, however. It could be used to recognize the user's face for authentication. It could also be used in the camera to provide better image resolution. It could even be used in some form of augmented reality application, according to our source.
The iPhone 8 is expected to include a glass body with a stainless steel frame for durability, and while Fast Company suggests the display will measure in at 5.8 inches, rumors disagree on this point. We've heard everything from 5 inches to 5.8-inches and don't yet have a clear picture on sizing.
With Apple likely planning to position the new OLED iPhone as a high-end premium device with a premium price tag, the company is also rumored to be planning to introduce two more affordable devices with LCD displays that are closer in design to the existing iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, measuring in at 4.7 and 5.5-inches.
These two devices may feature similar design changes, such as a glass body, but will have pared down features like an LCD display to keep the price down.
With such major changes expected for the 2017 iPhone, which marks the 10th anniversary of the device, rumors have been running rampant for months, making it hard to suss out some of the exact specifications of the device, including display design, screen size, and wireless charging functionality.
As we creep closer to September and start to see the first part leaks, we can expect to have a much clearer picture of what to expect from the first significant iPhone redesign since 2014.
Google today announced the all-new Android Wear 2.0 operating system update for its line of Android-based smartwatches, alongside two new devices debuting this Friday, February 10: the LG Watch Sport and LG Watch Style. The LG Watch Sport includes a number of features that aligns it as a direct competitor to the Apple Watch, including a new "rotating power button" akin to the Digital Crown, NFC and mobile payments features, 4GB of internal storage, and more.
The biggest difference between Apple Watch and the new LG watches is their circular OLED display, which measures 1.38 inches on the LG Watch Sport and 1.20 inches on the LG Watch Style. The two new LG watches differ in a variety of other categories as well: the Style is thinner and has more strap customization options, but it lacks cellular connectivity, GPS, NFC, and has a smaller battery.
Specifically, users can purchase the Style in three design finishes -- silver, rose gold, and titanium -- and choose from a collection of "snap and swap" 18mm leather and silicone band options. Even though the Style lacks the Sport's richer features, users can still bring up Google Assistant and perform other basic app-launching functions, according to Google.
That sets up the LG Watch Sport as the new flagship smartwatch from the company, with a built-in gyroscope, accelerometer, cellular connectivity, heart rate sensor, and GPS sensors to fuel a fitness-focused lifestyle, as well as NFC for Android Pay. There are also dedicated buttons for Google Fit and Android Pay so users can more quickly access these features, with Google calling it "Android Wear's most powerful watch yet."
The LG Watch Sport is available in titanium and blue with a high performance elastomer strap, but it's non-customizable beyond this set-up. Those interested in the U.S. will be able to buy the LG Watch Style at Best Buy and the Google Store for $249, while the LG Watch Sport will be available at AT&T, Verizon, and the Google Store for $349. Both smartwatches launch on February 10, and more countries will begin selling the devices in the coming weeks.
Debuting alongside the new watches is Android Wear 2.0, which brings personalized watch faces, workout improvements, Google Assistant, and more to Android smartwatches. Users can now customize an always-on watch face to include more helpful information to glance at, which can be chosen from downloaded and supported apps. A quick swipe will bring up another watch face that can be pre-set with different information, similar to Apple's watch face carousel update in watchOS 3.
You can now personalize your Android Wear always-on watch face with information and actions from your favorite apps. Simply glance at your wrist to check your next appointment, stock performance, progress on fitness goals, or whatever is important to you.
A quick tap on your watch face lets you instantly order an Uber ride, start a workout, or get in touch with your significant other. Interested in different info throughout the day? Just swipe to switch your watch face as you go from the office to the gym to dinner with friends and home again.
A cellular-connected Android Wear watch can also fuel better workouts, according to Google, thanks to the ability to stay in touch with calls and messages, stream Google Play Music off the watch and through Bluetooth headphones, and the addition of weight-lifting, push-up, sit-up, and squat rep counters. When a message is received, users can dictate or handwrite an answer, and "Smart Reply" includes intelligent, contextual responses based on the incoming message.
A number of sites have published reviews for both new smartwatches and Android Wear 2.0 today, including TechCrunch, The Verge, TIME, and more. The current consensus on Android Wear 2.0, as well as the LG Watch Style and LG Watch Sport, appears to be that the new products are a welcome addition to their respective categories, but still feel lacking. As The Verge pointed out in regard to the 2.0 update, "in a lot of ways, it's just Google playing catch up to what Apple and Samsung were already doing."
For Apple, an update to watchOS is in the works with an expected launch date sometime this year, although it's still largely a mystery as to what might be included in watchOS 4. In the nearer future, watchOS 3.2 plans to introduce users to a "Theater Mode" that will mute sounds and disable Raise to Wake, preventing the screen from lighting up with arm movement and potentially disturbing other theatergoers.
In terms of hardware, Apple is expected to launch a third-generation Apple Watch alongside the tenth-anniversary iPhone in the fall of 2017. Apple Watch rumors remain unclear with the launch date so far out, with some suggesting the first major design overhaul is coming to the Apple Watch this year, while others have pointed to another minor update in 2017 with a focus on performance over design changes.
Pinterest today announced the launch of a new "Lens" visual search tool, which allows users to take a picture of a real-world object and find related products and images on the Pinterest website.
With Lens, for example, pointing the camera at an item of clothing, a piece of furniture, or a food product will cause the app to search for similar items in the Pinterest database.
Just point Lens at a pair of shoes, then tap to see related styles or even ideas for what else to wear them with. Or try it on a table to find similar designs, and even other furniture from the same era. You can also use Lens with food. Just point it at broccoli or a pomegranate to see what recipes come up. Patterns and colors can also lead you in fun, interesting or even just plain weird new directions.
The app uses machine learning to recognize items. According to Pinterest, Lens currently works best with home decor, clothing, and food, but the company plans to make continual improvements so the app can learn to recognize new items.
First introduced last year, Lens, which is built into the Pinterest app, is now in beta and is rolling out to iOS and Android users "over the coming weeks."
Pinterest is also introducing "Instant Ideas" and "Shop the Look," two new features available today. Instant Ideas is designed to let users quickly find related pins, while Shop the Look is aimed at letting users find and buy products in fashion and home decor pins.
Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced 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 23 includes fixes and improvements for Gamepads, Pointer Lock, Media, Accessibility, and Web Inspector.
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.
Brilliant today introduced the Brilliant Control, designed to replace an existing light switch and provide homeowners with a range of smart home controls.
Brilliant Control has a 5-inch touchscreen with swipe-based lighting, music, and climate controls, and homeowners can interact directly with other smart home devices, such as the Nest thermostat, Sonos speakers, Philips Hue lights, Ring doorbells, and the Honeywell Lyric. It also works with IFTTT and SmartThings and Wink hubs.
In addition to touch capabilities, the Brilliant Control has both a built-in microphone and speaker for native voice control and Amazon Alexa services. The idea is that users can control their smart homes without taking out their smartphone, which Brilliant co-founder Aaron Emigh described as "clumsy."
"While renovating my house, it was important to me that anyone in any room could adjust lighting, music, and climate control as easily as flipping a light switch," said Emigh. "Requiring a mobile phone and apps to adjust your environment is clumsy, and for guests or children, it's impossible."
Nevertheless, Brilliant said it will offer a free companion app for iOS and Android.
The control features 720x1,280 resolution, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to interact with other smart home devices, a video camera with a physical cover for added security, motion detection, and compatibility with existing security systems. Brilliant told MacRumors that HomeKit support could be added later if consumer demand is strong enough.
Brilliant Controls cost $199 each and are available for pre-order beginning today. The first 1,000 customers will receive an early-bird price of $149. Two, three, and four switch models are also available for $249, $299, and $349 respectively. Shipping is expected to begin in late summer 2017.
Alternatively: Best Buy has the iPad mini 2 on sale for $215. MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy.
News-focused iOS app Flipboard today announced an update that introduces a new UI which creates custom, curated magazines based on various user "passions." The Version 4.0 update is said to be a direct response to the overabundance of news sources -- from magazines to online outlets and social media -- and serve as a way to "effortlessly get you to the things you love."
The heart of the new update is a featured called "Smart Magazine." Here users can search and specify specific passions and topics they care about (photography, movies, etc.), and Smart Magazine will create a digital collection of up-to-date stories and news on each topic, and continuously update the section as new stories break. The new tool is said to be curated "by experts and enthusiasts."
Flipboard 4.0 is a response to our ever-growing ecosystem of publishers, Flipboard Magazines, topics and more. With over 30 million magazines created, thousands of publishers on our platform, and tens of thousands of topics—plus input from social networks like Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn—we re-imagined Flipboard to more effortlessly get you to the things you love.
Long-time readers who follow lots of content should find a more streamlined experience, while new users will be able to dive right into their passions with minimal setup.
Users will be able to pick from a collection of sub-categories once they search for a Smart Magazine passion to follow, and a learning algorithm will improve Flipboard's news aggregation features over time. On the Home carosuel users can have up to nine Smart Magazines.
Flipboard originally launched on iPad in 2010, and then on iPhone in 2011, accompanied by a Tweet from Phil Schiller who remarked that the app was "very nice." Since then, Flipboard has gained a bevy of competitors in the online news aggregation space, including Apple News. In 2015 one competitor, Zite, bowed out of the race and encouraged fans to migrate to Flipboard in its stead.
At the time of writing, the update hasn't hit the App Store yet, but it should appear later in the day. Flipboard is available on the iOS App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Verizon is fighting back against T-Mobile's recent attempts to steal the network spotlight as the so-called "Un-carrier," according to the results of OpenSignal's latest State of Mobile Networks report published today.
Verizon regained a statistical tie with T-Mobile in overall network speeds, with an average download speed of 14.63 Mbps versus 14.7 Mbps for T-Mobile, according to OpenSignal. The metric factors in combined 3G and LTE speeds, in addition to the availability of each network technology, which can affect overall speeds.
Meanwhile, T-Mobile came within 2 percentage points of Verizon's lead in nationwide 4G LTE availability, according to OpenSignal. The report found T-Mobile customers had an LTE connection available to them 86.6% of the time, up from 83.2% in August 2016, compared to Verizon's leading 88.2% availability.
It is important to note that OpenSignal's "availability" measurement does not reflect geographical or population-based coverage.
OpenSignal's 'Availability' measures the proportion of time users have network access. By continually measuring whether users have a connection or not we are able to extend our assessment of networks to account for what happens when users are indoors and when they are moving around. We build up a holistic, user-centric measurmement of networks that expresses how users experience them.
The two carriers won or shared every award in every category of the report, leaving AT&T and Sprint with zero accolades.
Verizon still appears to have the faster network in a number of metro areas, including Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.
Verizon ranked highest in speed in 14 of the 36 cities we analyzed, compared to four cities for T-Mobile and one for AT&T, but in seven other metro areas the speed contest between Verizon and T-Mobile resulted in a statistical tie. In three other cities we recorded a draw between AT&T and either Verizon or T-Mobile, while in the remaining markets, we saw ties between three or more operators.
Verizon had the lowest average LTE latency, the delay data experiences as it travels between points in the network, at 59.84 ms, compared to 61.28 ms for Sprint, 61.56 ms for T-Mobile, and 65.62 ms for AT&T. T-Mobile had the lowest average 3G latency at 115.76ms, according to OpenSignal.
OpenSignal said it parsed 4.6 billion measurements collected by 169,683 smartphone users in the fourth quarter of 2016 to gauge the 3G and 4G performance of the "Big Four" networks in the United States: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Read the full report for the complete results and methodology.
Entertainment network Epix today launched an app for the fourth-generation Apple TV, allowing anyone who is subscribed to Epix through a cable provider access to the service's collection of premium film and television content (via Variety).
For those who haven't signed up for Epix yet and download the Apple TV app, they can get a four week free trial to test out the service, but afterwards will have to go through the same cable TV provider sign-up process if they wish to continue using Epix.
Although it's taken a few years to launch, Epix CEO Mark Greenberg mentioned in a statement that the company is now "proud" to have its catalogue of content available for Apple TV users. The content includes around 2,000 movies and original television shows like "Berlin Station" and "Graves."
“Apple has been a renowned leader in shaping the digital landscape and I’m proud to make our content available on Apple TV,” Mark Greenberg, Epix’s president and CEO, said in a prepared statement.
The Apple TV app will allow Epix users to watch live TV, add videos to a queue, browse movie trailers, and more. Those interested in ordering Epix can visit the company's website to find out how to do so through compatible paid-TV providers.
Following weeks of reports and speculation on the potential opening of a United States-based factory built by Apple suppliers Foxconn and Sharp, a report from Reuters today states that Sharp is "taking the lead" on a $7 billion plant in the U.S. that was initially outlined by parent company Foxconn. The plant will break ground sometime in the first half of 2017.
The timing of the news coincides with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's incoming meeting with President Donald Trump, the driving force behind the recentglutof U.S. iPhone manufacturing news. In a phone call with Apple CEO Tim Cook in December, Trump said it will be a "real achievement" for his Presidency when he gets Apple to shift device manufacturing stateside.
A decision by Foxconn to give Sharp the lead would come as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe prepares to travel to the United States to meet U.S. President Donald Trump, who in his inauguration speech vowed to put "America first".
In a package Tokyo hopes will please Trump, Abe will unveil investments to create as many as 700,000 U.S. jobs, people familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier.
Abe will visit Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida over the weekend, where the two leaders will play golf, following a meeting on Friday in Washington.
Sharp previously cited interest in building U.S. plants for LCD panel construction for TV sets and home appliances. Foxconn's rumored U.S. plans are more closely aligned with Apple through a proposed $7 billion joint investment with the Cupertino company, which would potentially lead to a display manufacturing facility in the country. Sharp now appears to be spearheading that project.
According to people familiar with the matter, PM Abe will present a plan to create more than 700,000 jobs through U.S.-based operations and include a variety of manufacturing companies, as well as Foxconn and Sharp. As usual, a Sharp spokesperson said that no official decision has yet been made on building a factory within the U.S.
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.
During Apple's MacBook Pro keynote last October, Apple briefly mentioned that Microsoft was working on introducing support for the new Touch Bar across its suite of Office applications.
While Microsoft has yet to officially roll out the support, Office users can opt to test the new Touch Bar features by becoming an "Office Insider", which is basically a public beta program.
In Word, Touch Bar users will be able to activate the distraction-free Focus Mode to remove the Ribbon, and access text formatting and font style options.
In PowerPoint, the Touch Bar will show a graphical overview of all slides in a deck, and offer the ability to reorder slides. Excel is set to get the most useful Touch Bar features though, bringing recently used functions, color cells, and chart options to the MacBook's OLED strip.
Lastly, Outlook brings a today view to the Touch Bar, allowing users to see calendar appointments for the day, while recently used documents will display when composing emails, for quickly attaching files. Skype call functions are also set to be available from the Bar.
Office users interested in testing the Touch Bar functions in the beta program – along with any attendant bugs/issues – can sign up to become an "Office Insider" here.
Apple's WebKit team today proposed a new Community Group at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) focused on discussing the future of 3D graphics on the web. The goal of the group is to lead to development of a new Web API that would better prepare web browsers to take advantage of modern, and future, GPU technologies on a variety of platforms.
On the WebKit blog, Apple's Dean Jackson says new software APIs "better reflect" modern GPUs, but that many of the major ones -- Direct3D 12 from Microsoft, Metal from Apple and Vulkan from Khronos Group -- aren't available on all platforms. While the success of the web requires common standards, Jackson argues, these platform-specific APIs make following a single API, like OpenGL, impossible in the future.
Instead, Apple's WebKit team is proposing that a new standard is needed. The new standard needs to provide a "core set of required features," an API that can be implemented on a variety of platforms with different system technologies, sitting on top of technologies like Direct3D, Metal and Vulkan, and the security and safety required for the Web.
While being a new open standard that's compatible with platform-specific technologies, Apple says the new standard must also be easy to to adopt, "expose the general-purpose computational functionality of modern GPUs," and work well with emerging standards like WebAssembly and WebVR.
Apple's initial proposal, which it calls an experiment, is "WebGPU." Apple says WebGPU started out as a mapping of Metal to JavaScript, and some graphics programmers are calling the proposal "Metal on the Web." Apple says it doesn't expect WebGPU to become the actual API in the new standard, but it does think there is "a lot of value" in its prototype.
Jackson says that WebGPU is much more object-oriented than WebGL, which is why Jackson says grants WebGPU its efficiencies. For instance, WebGPU handles "states" differently, reducing the work needed before a drawing operation.
The WebKit team will share its prototype with the Community Group, and is also inviting everyone with interest or experience in GPU web technologies to join the group.
Apple today 
