The latest Google Transparency Report shows that since January 23, 77 percent of all requests to its servers have used encrypted connections.
The numbers on the new report are current as of February 27, and the company says it’s “working hard” to achieve full encryption across all of its services.
Apple’s upcoming fashion exhibition at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art is set to open in May, but if you can’t make it to the Big Apple to see which designer pieces Jony Ive and Co. hand-picked as examples for how technological advancements have altered fashion, the museum has given a sneak peek at some of the weird and wonderful gowns that will be on display.
The exhibit will feature over 100 pieces made from the 1880’s up to 2015, including gowns from icons like Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Dior, Miuccia Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, and more.
Take a look at some of the pieces coming to the Manus x Machina exhibit:
Commentary on the encryption battle between Apple and the U.S. government might have received its strangest metaphor yet.
Stewart Baker, who used to serve as a counsel for the National Security Agency, appeared on a panel at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin this week. During the discussion, he said that Apple’s current, outspoken position in favor of privacy is a recent development and compared it to the sort of PR-driven whitewashing that Hollywood studios have used to promote actresses as “innocent” and “pure.”
“Who remembers Tim Cook before he was a virgin?” Baker said, paraphrasing composer Oscar Levant’s barb at ’60s everygirl Doris Day.
It got a little less polite from there.
Before Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple Computers, he was just a super-nerdy kid who loved to operate HAM radios. In a new video interview detailing the most formative moments in his totally geeky life, Woz explains how he went from tinkering with electronics to teaching himself binary by 5th grade, and then made a machine that played tic-tac-toe in 6th grade.
Woz eventually got so good with machines that he could design a mini-computer in two days. Those skills led to his creation of the Apple II computer, which put his and Steve Jobs’ fledgling company on the map.
Watch as Woz recounts his childhood obsession with computers, during the humble beginnings of Silicon Valley, below:
Your Android apps are going to get an iOS-style makeover soon, thanks to new design guidelines from Google.
Mostly concerned with the bottom of Android apps, Google is looking to have its developers place a bar across the bottom of their apps that will let users navigate between different sections of the app, just like iOS currently does.
Google Inbox’s awesome Smart Reply feature, which was launched on mobile back in November, is now available on the web.
The feature is already being used for 10 percent of all replies on Android and iOS — and it’s just as good in your browser.
Apple is not quite done tinkering with OS X 10.11.4 before its public release.
The company seeded the seventh beta of OS X 10.11.4 to developers this morning, a little over a week after Apple released the last beta for the desktop operating system.
The iPhone 7 may come with a Smart Connector if photos of what appears to be an early iPhone 7 Plus unit can be believed.
Photos of the alleged iPhone 7, leaked by a Chinese website, show Apple integrating a dual-lens camera into the design of the rear case. If the case is accurate, it looks like Apple won’t be ditching its protruding camera lens this year.
If you’re a movie fan, you may well have visited the website Letterboxd at some point — giving you a fun way of tracking your movie-watching, built around a neat social network premise.
Today Letterboxd finally got around to launching its official mobile app, bringing the service to iPhones everywhere. Trust us, if you’re a cinema lover, this is a “must download!”
Samsung is already developing a Galaxy S7 mini that will go head-to-head with Apple’s upcoming iPhone SE, according to a new report — and it won’t be a disappointing version of its latest flagship like previous iterations of the Galaxy S mini series have been.
Instead, the new device is expected to pack exactly the same processor — and exactly the same punch — as its bigger brother.
If you’re a fan of EDM (that’s “electronic dance music” for the older Cult of Mac readers out there!), Apple Music is about to become your best option for streaming music — courtesy of a new deal Apple has signed that will let it bring thousands of rare DJ mash-ups, remixes, and mixtapes to its subscription music service.
At $17k, the Apple Watch Edition is currently the most expensive product Apple sells.
But according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, that record is likely to be obliterated when the Apple Car finally ships — since his projected price tag of “around $75,000” would put it at around four-and-a-half times the cost of Apple’s high-end wearable. Or the equivalent of 100 brand new iPhones 6s handsets.
Apple will join multinationals Google, McDonald’s and IKEA in defending its European tax deals against E.U. lawmakers this Wednesday.
The hearing concerns whether or not giants like Apple are receiving illegally favorable tax deals, which give them an unfair advantage over local businesses.
Foxconn, a.k.a. one of Apple’s biggest suppliers, is fighting to piece back together its crumbling deal to take over Japanese electronics firm Sharp — and both sides may well sign a deal this week.
Beats 1 just announced its biggest dance music collaborator yet, in the form of massively-popular, 35-year-old Canadian house music producer Joel Thomas Zimmerman, a.k.a. Deadmau5.
If you’re not feeling great, it may not hurt to take a quick look at your Apple Watch. In fact, it saved one builder’s life.
62-year-old Dennis Anselmo was working last August when he suddenly “felt all over the place.” While taking a break, he checked his heart rate on his recently purchased wearable and got some pretty alarming news.
The first images of what could be the iPhone 7’s dual-lens camera leaked online today, giving fans a possible sneak peek at the future of iPhotography.
Apple is rumored to be including a dual-lens camera sensor on at least the iPhone 7 Plus. If the leaked sensor shown below is the real deal, it appears that one lens will be wider than the other to provide optical zooming.
Check it out:
It seems like iOS 9.3 has been in beta for years now, but Apple isn’t quite done fine-tuning its biggest software update of the year.
Apple released iOS 9.3 beta 7 to developers this afternoon, exactly a week after the last version was seeded to devs and public testers. iOS 9.3 adds new features such as Night Shift mode, multiple Apple Watch pairings on one iPhone, improved Apple News and Apple Music apps, and some great education features for iPad.
Developers can grab the new beta directly from the Apple Developer Center portal or via an over-the-air update if you have the previous beta installed.
Here’s a roundup of the new features to expect:
The guy that warned George Bush about an imminent al-Qaida attack before 9/11 is taking Apple’s side in the company’s fight against the FBI over whether it can be compelled to break into the San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone.
Richard Clarke, who served as the senior counterterrorism official in the US for nine years, sat down for an interview this morning regarding encryption and the FBI’s efforts to hack the iPhone. Despite FBI Director James Comey’s insistence that the FBI has tried everything, Clarke says all it would take to hack the device is a call to Fort Meade.
If you’ve been itching to design the next big app in your spare time, Adobe’s just made it easier with a free trial of its user interface (UI) design tool, Experience Design (XD) CC for Mac.
Previously known as Project Comet, Adobe XD is a full-fledged design tool that lets you prototype mobile or web apps fast, and you can download a free preview right now.
Charlie Rose has become Apple’s go-to guy when it comes to mainstream media interviews, and he recently scored an exclusive conversation with none other than Apple’s design god, Jony Ive.
In a leisurely chat lasting more than half an hour, Rose asks about Ive’s relationship with Steve Jobs, the qualities Apple looks for in a would-be designer, the reason Ive doesn’t fear Apple losing its edge, and much, much more.
Check it out below.
The iPhone SE isn’t an official Apple product yet, but if you’re lucky enough to live in Shenzhen, China, you can already get your hands on a new 4-inch iPhone that looks like the love child of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 5s.
Small shops at the infamous Huaqiangbei market are selling the closest thing to a real iPhone SE. In a new video claiming to spot an alleged iPhone SE in the wild, a Chinese YouTuber shows just how easy it is to roam the corridors of China’s “Silicon Valley of Hardware” and buy the new iPhone before it’s even been announced.
See for yourself:
Google, Facebook, Snapchat, WhatsApp and other tech giants are reportedly working on their own increased privacy measures, as Apple continues to win over the general public during its encryption standoff with the FBI.
Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates may not be fully in support of Apple in its ongoing privacy battle with the U.S. government, but Microsoft is certainly embracing the importance of security.
In its latest update, the Microsoft Outlook app for iOS adds new support for Apple’s Touch ID sensor — meaning that you can set the app to let you read your messages only if you scan your fingerprint first.
John Oliver took on Apple’s continuing privacy standoff with the FBI during Sunday’s Last Week Tonight — describing how crucial encryption is when it comes to protecting important data such as, “our financial information, health records, dick pics, trade secrets, classified government records, [and] dick pics.”
And you know what? As well as being very funny, it’s actually one of the best mainstream news reports I’ve yet seen on the whole issue.
Check it out below.