On a practical level, the answer seemed straightforward. Nobody disputed how swiftly or reliably eucalyptus could grow in the tropics. This knowledge was the product of decades of scientific study and tabulations of biomass for wood or paper. Each tree was roughly 47% carbon, which meant that many tons of it could be stored within every planted hectare. This could be observed taking place in real time, in the trees by the road. Come back and look at these young trees tomorrow, and you’d see it: fresh millimeters of carbon, chains of cellulose set into lignin.
At the same time, Apple and the others were also investing in an industry, and a tree, with a long and controversial history in this part of Brazil and elsewhere. They were exerting their wealth and technological oversight to try to make timber operations more sustainable, more supportive of native flora, and less water intensive. Still, that was a hard sell to some here, where hundreds of thousands of hectares of pasture are already in line for planting; more trees were a bleak prospect in a land increasingly racked by drought and fire. Critics called the entire exercise an excuse to plant even more trees for profit.
Tim Cook has said that Apple's greatest contributions will be through its developments in health -- and nowhere is this more true than through the Apple Watch. Throughout its 10-year run, the tech giant has churned out lifesaving features around a user's wrist.
In celebration of 10 years of the Apple Watch, here are some of the most impactful features that have come out of the device and revolutionized wearable technology.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could link to specific bits of text on a Web page rather than forcing people following your links to scan the page for whatever piece of information you’re trying to convey? With full support from major browser manufacturers appearing late last year, the Web has finally caught up with hypertext theory from the previous century.
Apple’s commercial concern is as much a philosophical one, with the company seeing little reason to back down in what it sees as a defense of the interests of its users.
“They have a degree of insistence that they are the sole orchestrators of their ecosystem and get to decide what level of security risk users get, and too much choice makes it a poor experience for consumers,” said CERRE's Meyers.
Now Apple would have to remove technical and commercial restrictions that prevent app developers from steering users to cheaper deals outside the App Store.
Apple has 60 days to comply with the Commission's decisions or risk periodic penalty payments.
That would likely lead to a cheaper price for apps that consumers can directly download from outside Apple's store.
The EU’s fines mark an “escalation” in the transatlantic trade conflict, said Kay Hazemi-Jebelli, senior director for Europe at tech lobbying group Chamber of Progress, which is funded in part by Apple. He said the new penalties against Apple and Meta “should focus the U.S. administration’s attention on the DMA in particular.”
[...]
An Apple spokesperson declined to comment when asked if the DMA should be a negotiating point in U.S.-EU trade negotiations. The spokesperson called the bloc’s €500 million fine against Apple, and mandated behavioral changes, “bad for the privacy and security of our users” and said they “force us to give away our technology for free.”
Fines this pathetic become simply part of the cost of doing business. They risk failing to deter tech companies from abusing their power in the future, just as they have done in the past.
[...]
It’s not so much that these “tsk-tsk”-level fines will crater Europeans’ confidence in their government as it is a missed opportunity to show voters what it looks like to actually rein in powerful corporations who assume – rightly, I guess – that at the end of the day, they can pay and go on their way.
Logitech’s excellent MX Creative Console is even better, thanks to a new update that adds native support for popular creative editing apps Adobe Lightroom, Affinity Photo, Apple Final Cut Pro, Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve, and more.
It’s a single-purpose app with many settings and keystrokes you can use to customize how it identifies active windows and for how long.
When a satire of the movie industry takes a big swing, it can succeed only if it connects in a piercingly funny and bold way. It has to offer us an eye-opening new take on how Hollywood works (or, increasingly, doesn’t work). And that’s the bar “The Studio” has set for itself. I think Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s Apple TV+ series about the inner workings of a contemporary movie studio triumphantly clears that bar. “The Studio” isn’t just addictively entertaining — it’s wickedly perceptive. It has a bead on the film business today like nothing you’ve seen.
The truth is, there’s never a good time to redesign anything. There will always be another pressing new feature that takes precedence, and that usually goes on for years as the fixes pile up, creating more and more tech debt and making the existing product that much harder to update and alter. Eventually, it reaches a breaking point–the whole thing needs to be redesigned. If not now, when?
Apple’s operating systems probably reached that breaking point a few years ago. And there’s no better example, in all its details, than three years ago when Apple replaced the macOS System Preferences app with the new Settings app.
Here’s a nice little distraction from your workday: Head to Google, type in any made-up phrase, add the word “meaning,” and search. Behold! Google’s AI Overviews will not only confirm that your gibberish is a real saying, it will also tell you what it means and how it was derived.
I agree, movies can be art, and many are art.
But, of course, Mr Studio Head, please do read the room.
(Yes, please go and watch The Studio on Apple TV+. It's good.)
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Thanks for reading.