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Google has agreed to pay almost a billion euros to settle a tax fraud case in France, which was initiated with a raid on its French offices four years ago.

Tax authorities in France had been seeking evidence that Google had underpaid its tax liabilities in the country by not fully declaring its activities in the country. Google, as part of Alphabet Inc., reports almost all of its sales in Europe in Ireland where its headquarters are located in Dublin. It is noted to pay very little tax in European countries and has provoked the ire of tax collectors all across the continent.

Google's French offices were raided in 2016 in a tax fraud investigation. Today, it is confirmed by Google that the company has reached a settlement with the French authorities to bring the dispute to an end.

The settlement - which will set a precedent in the country and may result in more actions taken against other multinational firms - will see Google pay a fine of 500 million euros and an additional 465 million payment in taxes. This falls short of the 1.6 billion the French finance ministry was hoping to win, but the precedent may be more valuable.

Google commented that this settlement addresses the past disputes in France once and for all.

Apple unveiled their new smartphone models earlier this week with iPhone 11 replacing last years cheaper iPhone XR and the new iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max replacing iPhone XS and XS Max.

However, there was a lot of other, smaller, announcement littered across the event as well. One of them was the gaming service Apple Arcade. The Cupertino giant had already briefly unveiled the service early in the year, but now we've got all the key details about it too.

The most important of them are of course availability and price. Both of them were announced, and we're happy to let you know that Apple Arcade is launching in less than a week.

It becomes available September 19 in 150 countries around the world. According to the company it offers over 100 titles in the following weeks of the launch, and costs only $4.99 for the whole family.

Furthermore, Apple revealed that it will include a one month free trial.

Some of the Apple Arcade developers joined Tim Cook et al on the stage. This included Konami with their classic remake Frogger in Toy Town as well as Capcom and Annapurna Interactive with their own titles.

Apple announced today the iPhone 11. However, that is not the new flagship of the iPhone lineup, instead the cream of the crop is iPhone 11 Pro, and it's bigger sibling iPhone 11 Pro Max.

The successor to last year's iPhone XS features the same 5.8 and 6.5 displays with Face ID cutouts. The display's have been improved, though.

According to Apple they provide better brightness and color accuracy, and that is why they've adopted a new moniker Super Retina XDR.

The iPhone 11 Pro, just like the cheaper iPhone 11, is powered by the new A13 Bionic chip, which Apple says improves upon CPU, GPU as well as NPU performance up to 20 percent.

Not only is it more powerful but it's more energy efficient, which improves battery life. Apple says iPhone 11 Pro lasts up to 4 hours more than its predecessor iPhone XS.

Even better, it now comes with a faster charger out of the box, and you won't have to use your iPad charger no longer.

Clearly the biggest improvement over the previous generation, however, is the camera. In the back you now have three cameras instead of two. The new one being the wide angle camera, just like in iPhone 11.

The trio thus consists of a 12 megapixel optically stabilized main shooter, a 2x telephoto camera, and a wide angle camera with a 120 degree view, or as Apple calls it 0.5x camera.

Apple has today announced the new iPhone 11 in three different forms at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, Ca.

The cheapest of the bunch is the regular iPhone 11, which is actually the successor to last year's iPhone XR, not the XS.

The new iPhone 11 improves upon the cameras most importantly. In the back you'll now get two cameras instead of one and even the Facetime camera has been upgraded.

The new addition is a 120 degree wide angle camera next to the regular 12 megapixel shooter. The regular camera offers a f/1.8 and optical image stabilization.

Apple also upgraded the front camera from mere 7 megapixels to a 4K ready 12 megapixel camera. All cameras support 4K video recording at 60 frames per second as well as things like slow motion video and extended dynamic range.

Additionally, Apple announced the new Night Mode which is their version of Google's Night Sight that makes very dark conditions light up.

As you might imagine, there's also a new A13 Bionic chip underneath it all. It makes everything run even smoother and, better yet, even the battery life has been improved.

Prices start at $699 and the the phone will be available on September 20th with pre-orders starting this Friday.

Apple's fall event is starting in just mere hours, but we've still got you one last thing before the actual unveiling on new devices.

The rumors have it that perhaps the most unexpected device Apple is going to release today is a new type of wireless tracking device, MacRumors reports.

This iTag, or whatever they'll call it, is designed to be attached to items that you'd lose easily. With the wireless connection and tracking capabilities the new Apple device will tell fairly precisely where it is.

This isn't the first ever thing of its kind, but reportedly Apple has something up its sleeve that makes it more precise.

According to famed Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is using ultra-wideband (UWB) technology to make locating your lost keys that much easier.

While Bluetooth might get you as close as 15 feet from the target, UWB allows precision of just 5 feet. According to the analyst new iPhones support UWB as well, which makes the dongle a perfect companion.

Apple event is set to begin 10 a.m. PDT, and we'll see whether Kuo was right.

Tesla has been productive this year by increasing the production and even announcing a new vehicle, the reasonably priced crossover Model Y, but there should be still another vehicle coming soon.

Or at least, that is what we were told to expect. Musk talked about the upcoming pickup truck in June, and even assured it would be unveiled around the end of the summer. I guess the summer is continuing in Palo Alto, CA, since there hasn't been any Tesla pickup events, or even invites yet.

One can imagine that some problems with the product has appeared, although even without any obstacles Musk's schedules can be called hopeful at best. Fortunately we aren't totally in the dark, as Musk himself has decided to clear up the situation a tiny bit on Twitter.

Responding to a Twitter user asking whether he could expect an October reveal, Musk stated that it would most likely be November. Most likely, though, means that there's a chance – in this case very real chance – that it will be December, or even later.

However, Tesla pickup truck is still in the works if you were wondering. The "Cyperpunk truck" might be delayed but if you are looking for a futuristic replacement for your F-150, keep your eyes peeled from November onward.

Apple's new iPhone is just couple dozen hours away as Cupertino is readying for a celebration on Tuesday. Rumors and leaks have been circling the internet for weeks and months, and we've already got a fairly good and reliable guess at what to expect from the new iPhone 11.

Some changes are expected to happen. For example, at least some of the new iPhone models are going to have a new triple camera setup which is setup in a square module, if leaks are to be believed.

However, while this might suggest larger design revamps as well, leading Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that is not going to happen this year, 9to5Mac reports. According to the former KGI Securities analyst, nowadays representing TF International Securities, Apple is going to wait until next year for a major do-over.

Thus it would be the third year in a row that Apple has the same, or at least very similar iPhone design. The design is of course based on the 2017 iPhone X that changed pretty much everything about the iPhone.

The iPhone X brought a full screen display, notch with Face ID, and a new industrial body design.

Streaming music has been a thing ever since Spotify launched in 2006, but started off really, really slowly. It took years upon years for the service to get into the U.S., and other regions were even harder to capture.

Now it seems odd, that streaming music has been a dominant thing only for a few year. In fact, it was only in 2015 that streaming officially surpassed digital downloads as the number one revenue source.

Now, according to new report from RIAA, streaming constitutes 80 percent of the entire revenue of the music industry. Digital downloads are no longer a thing, and even physical copies have weathered the storm better.

Vinyl and CD sales actually went up in the first half of the year, 5 and 13 percent respectively. Although their share is still only around 13 percent with a combined revenue of just over $700 million.

The entire pie is worth $5.4 billion in the first six months of the year which means around $4.3 billion of that came from largely unfairly maligned streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.

While one can already hear the wails of people who want artists to be compensated more fairly, you cannot blame Spotify, a company who pretty much single-handedly turned the waning music industry around.

If you are like us, part of the tech press or even a fanthusiast of Apple, you've probably watched some of company's annual launch events online.

Streaming those things, whether it is the WWDC or the iPhone event, usually involves using your precious Mac, iPad or other Safari-powered device to watch Tim Cook do his best Steve Jobs impression.

But it's not always because you necessarily want to use an Apple product in one way of another, but it has been the way Apple has intended it to be.

At some point is was nigh impossible to watch Apple's press event streams without an Apple product, but they've slowly come around to welcome more people on the stream.

Now they've gone even further, and are truly welcoming everyone. Next week, Apple will stream their first ever press event, the launch of iPhone 11 if any of you live under a rock, on YouTube.

Never has Apple before streamed any of their events on YouTube, although they have used their YouTube channel to spread the word afterwards. In fact, you can watch whole launch events as far back as September 10, 2013 and the introduction of such gems as iPhone 5c.

Anyways, now you've been unofficially invited to join and watch couple hours of the best technology press event of the year next Tuesday right on YouTube.

Apple is becoming more and more influential in the finance space, especially with the new Apple Card developed in partnership with Goldman Sachs. The company is not stopping there, and why would you?

According to Apple VP of Internet Services, Jennifer Bailey, the company is closely watching the cryptocurrency space. In an interview with CNN, Bailey says that Apple sees long-term potential in the virtual currencies.

The likes of Facebook are already developing their own strategies with virtual currencies, and considering Apple has payment systems like Apple Pay and within Apple Card, it is not out of question that Cupertino might be developing their on Bitcoin, or perhaps join another effort.

One has to remember that Apple is always "interested" in things that they will not invest in, and you probably shouldn't hold your breath waiting for the Apple Coin. It might be that actual virtual currencies are not the technology Apple wants to pursue, but instead the more general technology of blockchain that has applications elsewhere as well.

Blockchain could, for exampole, be harnessed to process Apple Pay transactions. This wouldn't make Apple Pay, or Apple Card for that matter, any more volatile or questionable, and could further embolden the security of their monetary service, an aspect that Apple often flaunts.

World's largest streaming music platform Spotify is known for having apps for every platform. Even when your device hasn't got an app installed you can go ahead and use the web player to bust out some beats.

This features is something Apple is interested in adding to their repertoire as well, as evident from the fact that they've just brought it to beta testers.

Apple is now allowing Apple Music subscribers to try out their new beta web player. It is an open beta which means all subscriber around the globe are welcome to test it out at beta.music.apple.com.

Currently, as the app is in beta, all features aren't there but you can definitely find the basics. You can search, play songs from your library, use playlists as well as the main menu with thins like Radio and For You.

However, more complex features will be added later as Apple continues to develop the web player. You might also want to keep in mind that not all features work perfectly at this time, and you might run into some issues.

As long as you aren't too bothered with some hiccups, and have a modern web browser, you can listen to Apple Music on devices without apps.

Facebook has launched a new dating service inside its flagship service. New Facebook Dating is easy to see as a direct competitor to the likes of Tinder.

Facebook Dating is available in the US and 19 other countries, including Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, etc, but excluding Europe. European launch is set for early 2020.

As you might imagine, there's not much to the premise of the service. It is a dating feature, within Facebook's core app, with Facebook-enabled features. This means that it can do things like use interests set in Facebook to match people.

According to Facebook, it has tried to minimize the effort needed to join the service, although not having a Facebook account might be quite a hurdle for some.

Facebook Dating profile can include things like Instagrams posts and later on the company intends to add possibility to add Facebook and Instagram Stories posts too.

Rather obviously you can use Facebook photos in your profile.

Secret Crush feature allows you to show affection to a crush of yours. However, the secret is that it only lets the person know about the crush if it is reciprocated.

Even though the service is seen as a Tinder competitor, Facebook say that "Facebook Dating isn't about swiping or having to wait for someone to like you to get a first chance at reaching out."

As faster and faster 4G connections are available for cheaper than ever, one must wonder why would we ever need a 5G connection on our devices.

Well, this is just the rehash of the good ol' "640 kilobytes should be enough" that has been misattributed to Bill Gates. Of course we will find ways to use the extra bandwidth, and perhaps reduced latency, provided to us by the grace of new cellular towers.

However, it isn't exactly easy to see how this will happen.

According to Microsoft, one clear application is gaming, more specifically cloud gaming. The Redmond company is partnering up with Korean SK Telecom to demo their xCloud cloud gaming service.

As an exclusive test partner SK Telecom will provide Korean customers a first-ever experience with xCloud in both 4G and 5G networks starting in October.

One can imagine Microsoft is working on singing similar deals with carriers in other countries as well, although not many places are where South Korea is in terms of 5G development and deployment.

Also being extremely densely populated, like, say, Seoul, makes 5G deployment much more efficient than pretty much anywhere in the US.

Apple is developing a new fingerprint technology that it is going insert into future iPhone displays.

Even before the release of iPhone X there were rumors that Apple would bring an in-screen fingerprint sensor to the iPhones. Now, according to Bloomberg, it is indeed happening.

As Apple was preparing the launch of iPhone X in the summer of 2017, the press was split on whether they'd release a new authentication system based on face recognition or in-screen fingerprint reading. As we know, the former won and rightly so.

The in-screen technology just wasn't there in a way that Apple would've liked it to be, even though multiple Android manufacturers introduced devices with hidden fingerprint sensors right before and especially after the launch of iPhone X.

However, in-screen fingerprint sensors have gotten much better, and Apple is developing their own too. According to the information, Apple might be ready to use the technology in their devices as soon as early next year. Although Bloomberg's sources aren't sure that it will find its way to iPhones even in 2020.

Over 400 million phone numbers related to Facebook users has been recovered from a leak. The numbers consist users all around the globe and are connected to Facebook profiles.

A large portion of the numbers are from the United States, around 133 million of the 419 million total phone numbers. Vietnam is represented strongly with 50 million, and UK with 18 million numbers, TechCrunch reports.

Alongside the number is found the Facebook profile identification corresponding to the number. In some, one could argue most, cases this will give them the real name to go along with the phone number.

According to Facebook, the numbers have been snatched from their servers before spring of 2018. After that Facebook has limited the default public details it offers. The numbers were stored in a unencrypted server that made it easy to access the data.

This was due to the fact that Facebook intended to use phone numbers as a means to search for people. However, searching by phone numbers didn't become a feature.

While phone numbers aren't really the most private of the information, combined with the persons name in a database it allows abuses like spamming and SIM swap scams.