Apple’s long-rumored augmented reality glasses project may have suffered a serious setback thanks to Facebook.
The social network company reportedly reached a licensing deal with Plessey, a British firm that makes displays specifically for augmented reality displays. Apple supposedly was looking into acquiring Plessey. But Facebook rushed in and struck an exclusive supply deal with the company, effectively shutting out Cupertino.
Video conferencing app Zoom has removed controversial code that shared user data to Facebook — even when those users didn’t have a Facebook account.
Zoom insists the data collected did not include personal information, but rather anonymous information about a user’s device. It has apologized for the “oversight” and made changes to the Facebook login process to prevent it.
The Zoom video conferencing app has been a lifesaver for many people unexpectedly forced to work from home during the coronavirus outbreak. But privacy experts have raised concerns that this app shares more user data than many might realize. That includes the iOS version reportedly sending information to Facebook, even about users who don’t have a Facebook account.
Update: Zoom has removed this controversial code.
A brand-new Facebook Messenger app has finally landed on Mac. It gives users the ability to more easily keep on top of their conversations across different devices, and it supports a whole host of useful Messenger features — including group video chat.
You might not be able to download it where you live just yet, however.
Facebook shrunk the size of its Messenger app, and stripped out some features, intending to make it faster to load and simpler to navigate.
Some of the missing features will be back, though.
Facebook is overhauling its Messenger app on mobile to give us a simpler, more enjoyable user experience. The redesign does away with chatbots and games and makes Stories even more prominent.
The coronavirus killed another major tech event today as Facebook revealed the in-person component of its annual F8 developers’ conference is canceled due to concerns around the coronavirus COVID-19.
Facebook’s move comes close to the time when Apple normally announces the dates for its Worldwide Developers Conference. The iPhone-maker revealed WWDC 2019 dates on March 14 last year, but with more and more tech events getting shut down, it could change Apple’s plans for its biggest conference of the year.
Apple triggered a “hot war” that compounded ongoing tensions with Facebook when it pulled the social media giant’s enterprise certificate last year. The decision, which temporarily broke all of Facebook’s internal apps, coincided almost exactly with Facebook’s earnings call.
“As [Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg] spoke [on the call], people on Facebook’s campus could not test new products and were canceling meetings because they could not get the shuttle,” writes author Steven Levy in his new book, Facebook: The Inside Story, which is published in hardcover today.
Google is allegedly planning to launch its own news aggregation service that will compete directly with Apple News.
The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Google has been in talks with multiple publishers about paying a licensing fee for content used in its upcoming news product. So far it sounds like the company is mostly talking to publishers outside the US, but the company says it views the initiative as an important tool for an informed democracy.
Big Tech employees are feeling the Bern as the U.S. presidential primary season shifts into full gear. New fundraising data disclosed this week reveals that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has raised more money from the country’s top tech companies than any other presidential candidate.
Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter employees donated nearly $270,000 to Sanders’ bid to take the White House, with nearly half of that money coming from Google. Check out the full breakdown by company:
Millennials don’t just love Apple for the iPhone. Turns out AAPL is also their favorite stock.
A recent survey of over 734,000 portfolios from US-based investors with an average age of 31 found that Apple and Amazon are the two most popular stocks with young investors by a long shot.
Facebook Messenger could soon add Face ID support to protect your conversations from nosy neighbors.
The feature would prevent access to Messenger until it is first unlocked with your face. It seems like a useful addition to the app for the security-conscious, but it’s still in development for now.
Twitter now lets you add Facebook-style emoji reactions to direct messages.
There are currently seven to choose from — one more than Facebook offers — including the familiar thumbs up, laughing face, and love heart. They help Twitter keep up with rival messaging platforms, such as iMessage.
Apple spent more lobbying Washington last year than it ever has before. Still, its spending was dwarfed by the likes of Google and Facebook.
Chatting with your friends on Instagram is coming soon to a desktop computer near you.
Instagram revealed today that it is testing a new feature that allows users to access their Instagram DMs through the company’s website. For now, the feature is only being tested with a small percentage of users, but it might be available to everyone later this year.
Instagram users are starting to see blurred-out posts the platform’s fact-checkers have flagged as potential fakes.
The popular photosharing app now owned by Facebook announced last month it was ramping up efforts to combat false information in photographs.
Facebook remains one of the most powerful platforms for reaching an audience and customers. But you can’t get the most out of Facebook marketing without learning the ropes.
The holidays have arrived early for Pokémon fans. Two brand-new games from The Pokémon Company just hit Facebook. Both are free-to-play, but only one — a Tetris-like tower builder — is available worldwide.
Facebook owns the top 4 most downloaded apps of the last decade, analytics firm App Annie reports.
The app analytics platform runs down its list of the most downloaded and highest grossing apps of the past decade. This covers both iOS and Android. While Facebook may have had a tough time PR-wise recently, there’s no doubting its levels of downloads dominance.
U.S. Senators grilled Apple and Facebook execs over encryption practices today, threatening to regulate the technology if the companies don’t take action on their own.
Republicans and Democrats appeared unified in their disdain for end-to-end encryption. The technology, which Apple uses for iCloud and other services, sometimes thwarts law enforcement officials’ investigations into child abuse and mass shootings. Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the harshest critics, demanded that the companies add backdoors to their encryption keys.
Apple is finally making a comeback to the biggest tech trade show in the world after being a no show at the event for nearly three decades.
CES posted its speaker agenda this morning which revealed Apple will have an official presence at the event. The company won’t have a product booth and isn’t expected to announce anything major at the event this coming January. Instead, Apple will be there to discuss one of its favorite topics: privacy.
In hiding the number of “Likes” a post gets on Instagram, parent company Facebook is actually hiding another motivation for the grand experiment – making you post more.
Instagram said the hidden “Likes” test was one part of a strategy to reduce cyber-bullying. Removing the count would create a kinder, gentler experience and allow users to connect without the social pressure of feeling liked.
Apple is responsible for some of the most attractive computers ever made. So attractive, in fact, that Facebook’s algorithms seem to be censoring some models for being too darn sexy.
One Power Mac G4 owner recently listed their machine for sale on the social network. But the perfectly innocent post was taken down for including “overtly sexual content.”
Apple stock may have risen fairly consistently through 2019, but that hasn’t been enough to stop Harvard dumping the stock.
Harvard Management Company, the Harvard-owned investment company which is the largest academic endowment in the world, has sold all of its Apple stock. At the end of the second quarter of 2019, it owned more than $100 million of AAPL.
Apple says it spent unspecified “billions” on its updated Apple Maps app.
Cupertino’s revelation about the Apple Maps expenditures came amid answers to questions from the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, which is currently carrying out antitrust probes into Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook.
