Have 4 minutes? That’s all it takes to watch our video highlights of today’s Apple stories:
If you’d rather consume your news the old fashioned way, here are the headlines:
Quanta Computers supplying “autonomous driving solutions” to Apple
Taiwanese manufacturer Quanta Computer is apparently supplying Apple with what are called “autonomous driving solutions.” This story comes from DigiTimes, which has a mixed track record with rumors about Apple, so you might want to keep from getting too excited about the idea of an Apple car. According to DigiTimes, Quanta has developed and tested an autonomous vehicle on closed tracks in the United States to “prove its ability in designing an autonomous driving platform.” Quanta is also supplying Google with autonomous driving solutions, so the company is keeping its options open. Industry analysts have predicted that an Apple Car could launch by 2025, although other reports say that the company is only focused on developing technologies and systems for autonomous driving.
The New 16-inch MacBook Pro May Be Closer To Release Than We Think
If you’ve been waiting for Apple to announce the long-rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro, the device may be getting closer to release. French blog MacGeneration discovered two icons in the just-released beta of macOS Catalina 10.15.1 that appear to depict the 16-inch model in both silver and space gray. The file names are in line with common icon naming conventions for Apple products, and show a MacBook Pro with much thinner bezels than those that exist on the existing models. The smaller bezels would allow a larger display to fit into the same physical size as the existing 15-inch MacBook Pro. Industry analysts have been expecting a 16-inch model with an all-new design to be released this fall, but its unclear at this time whether the release of the new notebook might be delayed until 2020. One analyst from IHS Markit, Jeff Lin, believes that the 16-inch model would feature a 3072 x 1920 resolution display and be powered by Intel’s 9th-generation processors configurable up to an 8-core Core i9.
Tim Cook Tweets Support for Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act
Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted his support for the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, asking the US Senate to quickly pass the bipartisan bill. The High-Skilled Immigrants Act would eliminate per-country limits on employment-based green cards and increase per-country limits for family-sponsored green cards. As Cook noted in his tweet, “The contributions of these workers are critical to America’s future”.
Google Pixel 4 Facial Recognition Works With Eyes Closed, Unconscious Users, Dead People
Yesterday, I highlighted a story about how the Samsung Galaxy S10’s fingerprint authentication can be easily bypassed by installing a cheap screen protector on the device. Today, Google is in the hot seat, with the new Pixel 4 that was released this week showing a major bug. The facial recognition feature — which was touted as being very quick — doesn’t require the user’s eyes to be open for the phone to be unlocked. This means that anyone could hold the phone up to the face of a sleeping, unconscious or dead person and unlock their Pixel 4. While this could be handy for law enforcement or criminals, it’s not exactly a secure way to lock a smartphone. It’s apparently not a bug – Google told the BBC that it would “continue to improve Face Unlock over time.”
