Latest news

Apple chief Tim Cook moved this week to refute claims that the company received private user data from Facebook.

Recent report showed how data such as a users' relationship status, religion and even political leanings were shared with at least 60 device makers. Cook wanted to be absolutely clear that Apple does not receive, and does not request, such information in its relationship with Facebook.

"The things mentioned in the Times article about relationship statuses and all these kinds of stuff, this is so foreign to us, and not data that we have ever received at all or requested -- zero," Cook told NPR's Steve Inskeep and Laura Sydell.

Instead, cooperation with Facebook amounts to making it more convenient to do things within an operating system, like share photographs more easily.

"We weren't in the data business. We've never been in the data business," Cook stressed.

The Apple boss has been vocal about the collection and use of users' personal data by some silicon valley firms, and declared that he believes private to be a fundamental human right.

Apple introduced yesterday the updated version of macOS. The 10.14 version carries the name macOS Mojave, and brings along a few interesting improvements.

Perhaps the most requested, and most visible, update is the new dark mode. People have been requesting a dark theme for quite a while, and now Apple provides us with a mode with both darker navigation elements and windows but also a custom dark wallpaper of the Mojave desert that obviously inspired the name of the release.

While dark mode might be the most visible new feature, it might be Desktop Stacks that are the most significant. Stacks are like folders, except with a click they explode on your desktop and when you click again they stack up again to clean up your desktop.

There are also improvements to Finder with a new Gallery view to show larger pictures and more metadata details as well as Quick Look now supports quick edits to both pictures and video.

Following Microsoft's suit Apple has updated their screenshots to have a quick link to edit and share straight after a screen grab has been taken.

Continuity on the other hand got a Continuity Camera feature which allows you to use your phone camera to take pictures for macOS devices and embed them easily to documents you are editing.

Apple announced yesterday the new iOS 12 at WWDC in San Jose, California. The new version of Apple's mobile operating system will be available later this fall to all Apple devices released in 2013 and later.

One of the key focus points for Apple has been improving performance. According to the company, iOS 12 brings along speedier operation, more responsive experience and more performance to those apps that truly need it.

Apple has sped up app launch 40-70 percent from previous iteration. Under higher stress the platform performs even better compared to earlier versions being up to twice as fast.

Another big improvement, also extensively demoed on stage, is the AR support in iOS. Apple released a new augmented reality file format called USDZ. This allows companies like Adobe us it in their software, including Photoshop of course. Apple, and Lego, showed off the AR capabilities in a multiplayer games as well with the new Measure tools that allows users measure real life object from their iOS device's screen.

Obviously iOS 12 brings along updated apps with improved functionality. One of these apps is Photos that got a little bit smarter with some AI capabilities. One of the bigger improvements is the grouping of notifications, which has been highly requested for a while now.

SpaceX will not send two private tourists around the Moon by the end of 2018 as originally planned, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Last year, SpaceX had revealed that two private citizens would be sent on a trip around the Moon by the end of 2018. The plan would utilize a Falcon Heavy rocket and a human-rated Dragon v2 capsule. It would send the two private space tourists on an automated trip around the Moon and then bring them back to the surface of Earth.

However, doubts circulated about the plan for a number of reasons. At the time, the Falcon Heavy rocket had not flown at all and made its first test flight in February of this year. SpaceX had also detailed its plans to develop the BFR ("Big Falcon Rocket") in the meantime, which will eventually replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.

It was reported that SpaceX would not seek to have the Falcon Heavy human rated at all. The Falcon 9 Block V is currently undergoing the process to become human rated and the plan is to ferry astronauts to the ISS with it.

The WSJ report confirms that SpaceX definitely will not send private citizens on the planned trip around the Moon until mid-2019 at the earliest. It may take quite a while longer than that as SpaceX develops the BFR.

Several sources claim that Microsoft is about to announce its acquisition of GitHub later today.

GitHub is a de facto open source distribution and code management service for thousands and thousands of developers and open source projects. Site allows anyone to start a Git code repository for free, invite others to participate and to manage the project development.

For end users, it is also the place to download the latest releases of various open source projects.

According to sources, including Bloomberg, Microsoft has been in talks with GitHub to buy the company. Sources claim that the discussions have reached the point where Microsoft is about to announce its acquisition of GitHub later today.

GitHub's latest funding round back in 2015 valued the company at $2 billion. While Bloomberg doesn't state the price the Microsoft is willing to pay for the service, it is highly likely that the price is much higher than the 2015 valuation.

One of the more important technology conferences of the year is upon us. Next week Tim Cook and co. will open the World Wide Developer Conference for, well, developers and press. As usual, we are expecting updates to operating systems, including iOS and macOS.

The updates will bring iOS version likely to iOS 12 and macOS to 10.14, and we've even got some leaked screenshots of the latter.

Software developer Steve Troughton-Smith has released some screenshots and even video with the help of 9to5Mac of the upcoming macOS UI. While not many new features are displayed there is one unmistakable difference to previous versions.

That is of course a dark theme.

Dark Appearance, as Troughton-Smith calls it, shows a darker UI theme that has been one of the more requested features for years. It seems to bring along not only darker gray tone in the UI elements and windows but also a new darker background.

Apple is likely to bring two different versions of the background image to accompany each theme.

It certainly looks good, and fortunately we don't have to wait much longer to hear more about it, and hopefully even the release isn't that far off.

By far the largest credit card company in the world has suffered an unexpected problem. Visa's payment network has crashed in the UK and Europe, The Guardian reports.

This means that Visa card payments are not going through in many cases, and the company has acknowledged the faulty system. According to The Guardian, Visa has confirmed the problem and is currently looking into the cause of the outage.

It is not currently known in what portion of the UK and Europe this problem has manifested in, but media and users online have reported problems all across the continent. Some retailers haven't been able to take any Visa transactions while some report only a portion of the customers are affected.

According to FT ATMs are running out of money in some areas because of the crash.

The official statement reads: "Visa is currently experiencing a service disruption. This incident is preventing some Visa transactions in Europe from being processed. We are investigating the cause and working as quickly as possible to resolve the situation."

Canon, one of the more iconic camera companies, has been selling imaging products for 80 years. The company started in Japan before the World War II under the name Precision Optical Industry Co. and produced a film camera, The Kwanon, that was perhaps an omen of the company's future name.

Now nearly two decades ago company released its first digital camera for the consumers, and eight years ago it discontinued development of film cameras altogether. Nevetheless, there's still been some Canon film cameras for sale until this day.

Today Canon has officially stopped selling the last of their film cameras, EOS-1V. In a statement the company says that it will still provide repair for the camera until 2025.

EOS-1V is the predecessor to Canon's popular line of professional digital SLR cameras, EOS-1D, the latest of which is the over $5,000 Canon 1D X Mk II. The EOS moniker comes from Electro-Optical System, if you didn't know, and it first made the jump from mechanical lenses to electronic ones.

Obviously if you still want one you can go on on eBay and get yourself a used one for a few hundred bucks. Perhaps it'll become a collector's item at some point.

Smart speakers have been one of the more popular tech trends in recent years. This odd coupling of audio equipment, smart home applications, and of course artificial intelligence, has been the focus of many of world's largest technology companies.

The trend was started by Amazon and their Echo line of smart speakers, and they've been wrecking havoc on the marketshare leaderboards ever since. Now couple years after Google has their Home lineup and Apple just entered the market with the new HomePod. Furthermore, the likes of Samsung are preparing to launch their own AI powered speakers.

It is now too, that Amazon has first time ever lost their lead in worldwide marketshare. Google has taken the number one spot, analytics firm Canalys reports.

Google sold a total of 3.2 million Google Home devices worldwide while Amazon managed to sell only 2.3 million units of their Echo lineup. The United States remained the leading market with 4.1 million smart speakers sold with China still distant 2nd and South Korea 3rd.

Just a year ago Amazon commanded the market with nearly 80 percent slice of the pie but it only hold 27.7% now. In addition to Google, Chinese manufacturer's including Alibaba and Xiaomi have gnawed on Amazon's share.

Amazon has launched a new feature for its users that allows them to track packages even more closely. In fact, the new feature lets you see where the package is currently on a map.

Map Tracking shows you the delivery truck's location on a small map in your neighborhood or at least nearby when it is closing in on a delivery. The tracking starts when the delivery is 10 stops away from you.

In the Map Tracking view you can find the approximate location as well as how many deliveries the truck will have to do before yours.

This allows you to either hurry home to receive your highly anticipated new toy or perhaps prepare for delivery (read: close the curtains, hide the bodies).

The feature was already available to selected few since last year but now it has reportedly been expanded to most if not all users. The Amazon app will remind you with a notification when Map Tracking is available.

Serious and potentially very annoying bug has been found in latest WhatsApp version. The bug allows previously blocked contacts to send messages and to see user's online status ("last seen").

Quite many people are familiar with the concept of permanently blocking annoying contacts who harass them via various online services. And just like most other such services, WhatsApp has easy ways to block unwanted contacts from contacting you.

However, now the previously set blocks have been, for unknown reason, failed and messages from previously blocked users have managed to come through.

WhatsApp itself hasn't announced the problem yet, but there seems to be an easy fix for this annoyance: unblock the previously blocked people and block them again. This seems to solve the problem.

The bug seems to be affecting both, iOS and Android users.

Head of IBM Research, Arvind Krishna, attended a panel discussion in San Francisco last week and shared his thoughts about quantum computing and current ancryption methods.

Quantum computing, a concept developed since 1980s, has taken massive leaps forward during the past couple of years, as technologies have advanced. Quantum computing isn't a "holy grail" for all kinds of computer solutions, but it is a technology that is extremely powerful in handling massive, large numbers. The problem? All modern encryption techniques are based on large numbers, namely, large prime numbers.

According to Mr. Krishna, in just five years' time, the quantum computers will be able to break even the strongest, "military-grade" encryptions instantly. This includes the "most secure" versions of AES and more.

Now, luckily, there seems to be a solution. So-called Lattice-based cryptography already exists and is considered to be "quantum-computing-safe". Thus, Mr. Krishna suggests that "if you want to keep your data secret ten years from now, you should change your encryption technology".

The Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus got its notoriety from years back when it vowed to destroy the flagship smartphones of its time with half the price. The company has since matured and dropped the flagship killer slogan but one could argue it really still is the same beast.

This week the company announced OnePlus 6, the latest of its impressive lineup of Android phones.

The device is the first glass sandwich design, which is water resistant but not IP certified, since the company's one-off cheaper model, OnePlus X, and it is definitely one of the more important changes in it. Obviously the system-on-chip has also been updated, and there are other slighter changes.

OnePlus 6 rocks the Snapdragon 845, 6 or 8 gigabytes of RAM, up to 256 GB of storage space, a dual camera setup, and a 6.28-inch Full HD+ resolution Optic AMOLED display covering 84 percent of the front panel which leaves you with a notch at the top, as you might expect.

The battery is the same 3300 milliamp unit from the previous model, and it supports the same super fast Dash Charging. Unlike rumors had it, there is no wireless charging despite the glass back.

The dual camera setup in the back is similar to OnePlus 5T but offers now larger sensors and thus larger pixel which translates to improved low light performance. Improving low light photography, as well as videos, OnePlus has also added an OIS. The megapixel counts are still 16 and 20.

Google has revealed a new service, or actually a renewed service, called the Google One. It is actually the good old Google Drive, one of the more popular cloud services, that has been rebranded and is a little bit easier on the wallet.

The search giant hasn't quite yet revealed the exact, official release date, and currently you can only register to receive news about the service on the website (one.google.com). However, Google does promise it in the coming months for the folks that already pay for Google Drive's storage.

At first Google One will be available in limited quantity which probably means that free tier Google Drive users will be stuck with the old service for a while.

If you've been thinking of getting some more cloud storage, though, you'll be happy to hear that Google One offer better deals than its predecessor. 100 GB package costs the same $1.99 but you now have a 200 GB and $2.99 option. The $9.99 tier has also been updated to hold twice as much stuff at 2 TB. Tiers above 2TB will stay the same price.

There's no news whether Google will kill Drive and when this would happen, but you'll probably be able to use it at least until Google One is available for all.

Google's I/O conference keynote was focused largely on the improvements of Android, its apps, and the new navigation scheme Android P will bring along. It's perhaps hard to pick one that was more important than the others, but there surely was one that was the most controversial.

That is, of course, Google Duplex. That is the upcoming feature of Google Assistant, the search giant's super advanced voice assistant. In fact, Duplex makes Assistant so smart that it can make calls for you.

Pretty much everyone was flabbergasted about how natural the calls sound, although you won't be listening them as Assistant does this in the background, but many were also puzzled whether this might have ethical consequences.

Should the recipient know that he or she is not talking to a human? With all the "umms" and "mmhmms" Google Assistant had seemed to passed the Turing test in demo calls played back at the I/O stage.

And now, in an interview with CNET, Google agrees. Agrees not only that Turing test might have been passed but that it is necessary to make sure the receiving end of the call is aware that they are talking to a robot.