PSA: Apple’s March 27 Event Won’t Be Live Streamed

While Apple often offers a live stream for its special events, the company has confirmed there will be no live stream for the March 27 education-focused event set to take place at Lane Tech High School in Chicago.

Apple today updated the Events app on the Apple TV to add an image of the invitation for the upcoming event and to note that a video will be uploaded later in the day following the conclusion of the event.

Apple has not held an education-focused event since 2012, so we weren’t sure what to expect. That event was not streamed either. Given that this is primarily an event for teachers and students rather than regular customers, it isn’t a surprise that we’ll have no live stream.

MacRumors will offer live coverage of the educational event both here on MacRumors.com and on our MacRumorsLive Twitter account, so make sure to visit us on Tuesday if you want to hear about what Apple has in store for schools.
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OptiTrack Active VR makes for a more mobile zombiepocalypse

My biggest qualm with many home VR experiences involves how I move about in-game. Using a controller for locomotion — whether its a Doom VR-style teleportation mechanism or using a thumbstick a la Farpoint VR — dramatically reduces the immersiveness of the gameplay and reminds me that I’m really just wearing a screen on my face. But with the Active VR system from OptiTrack, players will soon be able to move around in the game the same way they do in real life: by moving their feet.

The company showed off its warehouse-scale optical tracking system at GDC 2018 and during a demo on Wednesday, I was afforded the opportunity to try it out while slaughtering hordes of zombies in Arizona Sunshine from Vertigo Games. The OptiTrack system utilized a suite of VR components including the Oculus VR HMD, the Hardlight VR haptic feedback vest, and a Stryker VR rifle-style controller. Interestingly, the entire system runs wirelessly with shockingly low latency. Rather than have players tethered directly to the PC or forcing them to carry it around on their backs, the OptiTrack system instead mounts a lightweight wireless transmitter on the vest’s back. This reduces the amount of load players are required to carry, making them faster and more mobile.

Taken together, this setup dramatically improves the player’s mobility. For example, in the home VR version of Arizona Sunshine, players move around by teleporting between static positions then have to rotate like turrets while fending off the zombie onslaught. But with the OptiTrack system, you’re instead able to move about the designated area freely: strafing, advancing and retreating from the enemy. You can even take cover and shoot around corners. It really feels like you’re blasting your way through a Zombiepocalpyse.

The OptiTrack system currently supports up to 4 players when playing Arizona Sunshine — though that’s a limit of the game itself, not the tech — but can be expanded to as many as 20 players, a company rep told Engadget. The company hopes to partner with other game studios to adapt their existing first person shooter titles to this free-moving VR landscape (immersive Call of Duty, anybody?). There’s no word, however, as to when this system will land at a VR arcade near you. But once it does, it will be getting all of my quarters.

Craiglist blocks personal ads to protest anti sex-trafficking law

The passing of the controversial, ham-handed Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA-FOSTA) has prompted Craigslist to close its personals section. The bill is designed to punish websites with criminal sanctions if they are seen to be facilitating sex work, as a personals ad could be. Unfortunately, the legislation is drawn so poorly that any website that connects people could be targeted. Which is what has prompted Craigslist to act, with all links in the area now pointing to a short statement.

” US Congress just passed HR 1865, “FOSTA”, seeking to subject websites to criminal and civil liability when third parties (users) misuse online personals unlawfully.

Any tool or service can be misused. We can’t take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services, so we are regretfully taking craigslist personals offline. Hopefully we can bring them back some day.

To the millions of spouses, partners, and couples who met through craigslist, we wish you every happiness!”

This isn’t the first time that Craigslist has pulled its personals section to protest other attacks concerning its hookup-enabling tools. Back in 2010, the site closed that part of its product in response to criticism that it was enabling sex trafficking. But, in The New York Times, Craigslist’s representatives said that it was combatting abuses when they were found, and worked closely with law enforcement. It pointed out that its ability to do so was hampered as many ads went to other platforms, like Backpage.

In addition, there are many, including the EFF, who believe that the bill has been built less to tackle genuine crime, and more as a censorship tool. in 2010, Craigslist said that its critics were simply trying to prohibit casual sex between consenting adults. Now, a large coalition of free speech campaigners and sex worker’s rights groups have decried the legislation, since it will chill free expression in many realms.

Source: Craigslist

Walmart’s future could include drone assistants and smart carts

Walmart is envisioning a high-tech future for its stores, based on the patents it recently filed. In fact, the devices it’s considering sound like they’d be perfect for use in cashier-less stores similar to Amazon’s, including a smart cart that can help shoppers navigate Walmart’s aisles and find specific products. Another patent is for a wearable that can track either shoppers or employees as they enter and leave the premises. Walmart is also thinking of developing a drone that shoppers can summon with their phones to guide them to the specific item they’re looking for.

Yet another patent is for a sensor that can detect the product you put in your cart, while three more are for for shelves that can sense the products in stock. In addition, it looks like the company is thinking of developing a vehicle identification system that makes it possible for a self-driving car fleet to coordinate with each other.

Walmart has yet to announce if it’s planning to open fully automated stores in the future. If it does have plans do so, it’ll be much harder to pull off than Amazon Go, considering Walmart’s stores are much, much bigger. That last patent, however, hints on the possibility of Walmart doing deliveries using self-driving cars. While they’ll all be interesting to see, there’s no guarantee that Walmart will ever build these devices. We might never see them, or Walmart might surprise us with a robotic store — either way, we’ll just have to wait for the retailer’s next move.

Source: Gizmodo, US Patent and Trademark Office, (2), (3), (4), (5), (6)

DOJ indicts nine Iranians for state-sponsored hacking effort

This morning, the Department of Justice announced that nine Iranians have been indicted for an alleged hacking campaign affecting 320 universities around the world, 144 of which were US institutions. The individuals are believed to have been working for the Iranian government and have been accused of stealing research from the affected institutions. They’ve been indicted on seven federal crimes including computer fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and identity theft.

The individuals are also accused of selling the information they stole from the universities. The campaign took place from 2013 to 2017 and targeted over 100,000 university professors around the world with phishing links. They are said to have breached more than 8,000 accounts and stole a whopping 31.5 terabytes of data. The DOJ says that the stolen data cost US universities $3.4 billion to access and maintain. Along with universities, at least 36 private US companies and 11 foreign-based companies were targeted as were government entities like the US Department of Labor, the United Nations and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In some cases, the indicted individuals stole entire email mailboxes. A variety of different sectors were targeted, including law firms, tech companies, consulting firms, financial services, healthcare entities and biotech firms.

The nine individuals are believed to be in Iran currently and are said to have been working for an Iranian group called the Mabna Institute. According to the US Department of the Treasury, the Mabna Institute was founded in 2013 in order to aid Iranian universities and research organizations in obtaining scientific resources from other countries. The Mabna Institute is said to have been contracted but the Iranian government to conduct hacking campaigns. The institute and 10 individuals have been sanctioned by the Treasury Department.

In his statement today, Geoffrey Berman, a US attorney for the southern district of New York, said, “While the defendants remain at large, they are now fugitives from the American judicial system. These defendants are no longer free to travel outside of Iran without the fear of being arrested and extradited to the United States. They cannot leave Iran to conduct business. The only way the can see the rest of the world is through their computer screen, but now stripped of their greatest asset — anonymity.”

Due to the indictments, the named individuals will now risk arrest and extradition in over 100 countries and the sanctions will limit the business and financial transactions they can engage in. “Where we cannot apprehend individuals quickly, we will resort to different methods such as naming and shaming, sanctions and a lot of publicity,” Deputy FBI Director David Bowdich said today. “We will keep at it because the FBI and our partners at the Department of Justice have a very long memory and the long arm of the law reaches worldwide.”

Source: Department of Justice (1), (2), Department of the Treasury

Baidu will start autonomous driving tests in Beijing

This week, China gave tech company Baidu, Inc., which wants to be known as China’s version of Google, the go-ahead to start autonomous driving tests in Beijing’s suburbs, according to Reuters. China is looking to compete with other countries with self-driving technology, so this is an important move that indicates support for the technology at a somewhat contentious time.

This green light comes on the heels of the first fatal accident involving a self-driving car in the United States. An Uber vehicle using autonomous technology (but with a human operator in the car) struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, AZ, earlier this month. That investigation is still ongoing, and it’s unclear what ramifications it might have for self-driving technology as a whole in the US.

Baidu’s self-driving platform is called Apollo 2.0, and it boasts the ability to navigate a car through basic urban environments, whether day or night. The company plans to continue refining the technology through 2018. That will become a lot easier once it has real-world data through these tests. Baidu’s permit covers testing on 33 suburban Beijing roads that cover about 65 miles.

Using Apollo 2.0, Baidu also plans to launch self-driving buses in China. It’s important to note that the company focuses on software only; Baidu will team with Chinese company King Long to actually build the buses. It hopes to release the first bus next year and start mass producing them by 2020.

Source: Reuters

YouTube is still plagued with disturbing kids’ videos

There’s a section of supposedly kid-friendly YouTube that’s rife with odd and often disturbing videos. But though YouTube began actively addressing the issue last year, there still appears to be a problem. Just a few days ago, Business Insider reported that the YouTube Kids app was suggesting conspiracy theory videos and now Wired reports that there’s still quite a bit of strange, deeply troubling content out there geared towards children.

Wired came across videos showing animated characters attempting suicide, setting each other on fire, gouging their eyes out and being violently maimed by an escalator. In many cases, these videos featured knock-off depictions of beloved cartoon characters, such as Minnie Mouse and Peppa Pig. And these videos didn’t even have to be sought out. Wired found some of them just by following the recommended videos in YouTube’s suggested video bar. In just thirteen clicks, YouTube took them from a legitimate CBeebies video to a fake Paw Patrol video featuring a suicide attempt.

The disturbing kids video issue was highlighted last year and YouTube has made some attempts to fix it. In November, the company said it would begin applying its community guidelines more quickly and strictly, removing ads from inappropriate videos targeting kids, blocking inappropriate comments on videos featuring children, providing guidance for those creating kid-friendly content and would continue to engage with experts on the issue. Last June it also added new guidelines that prohibit “content that depicts family entertainment characters engaged in violent, sexual, vile or otherwise inappropriate behavior, even if done for comedic or satirical purposes,” from earning advertising money.

YouTube notes that the main YouTube app is meant for those aged 13 and above and younger individuals should use the YouTube Kids app. In a statement, a YouTube spokesperson said, “We’ve taken a series of tough actions to better protect families on YouTube and YouTube Kids, including getting content down faster through technology, hiring more people to help us tackle content that breaks our rules and cutting the revenue streams to content that misleads families. The YouTube team is made up of parents who are committed to improving our products and getting this right.”

All of the videos and channels containing disturbing kid-geared content that Wired reported to YouTube have been removed.

Via: Wired

Sonos to temporarily pull ads from Facebook, Google and Twitter

Earlier this week, Mozilla announced that it was pulling its Facebook ads in light of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and continued concerns over data security. Now Sonos has announced it will also be pulling ads, but not just from Facebook. For one week, starting on Monday, the company will pull all advertising from Facebook, Instagram, Google and Twitter and will donate the money it would have spent on ads to RightsCon — an Access Now event that brings together tech companies and activists to discuss digital rights issues.

“The gesture we are making this week, while small, is meant to meaningfully support the growth of an ecosystem of groups working solely for the social good when it comes to tech,” Sonos said in a statement. “We believe that our industry — and society as a whole — will be healthier if companies like Sonos and Facebook exist in an ecosystem that includes a vibrant activist community focused on advancing the social good.” The company also said that it won’t post on Facebook or Instagram next week.

In regards to why it won’t be instituting a more long-term ad pull, Sonos said that social platforms can be an effective way to reach customers and share its mission. “Despite the flaws of these massive digital networks, we fundamentally believe in the power of technology to bring us together and to create deeper, shared experiences.” It said, adding, “Now is the time to have the hard discussions and to support those who drive things forward in an effort to make us all better technologists and more educated consumers of technology.”

Source: Sonos

Slaughter sentient fruit to save humanity in ‘Juicy Realm’

We saw a number of genuinely unique and innovative games at the Indie Megabooth during 2018, but few can compete with the sheer adorableness of Juicy Realm from Spacecan — even when you’re gunning down Uzi-wielding anthropomorphic pears.

Juicy Realm is based on a simple premise: plants have become self-aware, grown arms and legs, and have armed themselves in an attempt to overthrow humans at the top of the food chain. It’s your job to lead an expeditionary force into the newly-discovered plant kingdom and wipe out the opposing fruit force. Players have five characters to choose from during their roguelike mission, each with their own special abilities such as being able to lob grenades or invoke healing circles.

During the demo that Edgar Alvarez and I played on Thursday, we both came away impressed by not only the bright, clean animation style and variety of enemy types — each of which displays its own unique strengths and attack behaviors — but also how responsive the controls were. Juicy Realm is a dual-stick shooter in that you move your character with the left thumbstick, aim with the right and fire your weapon with the triggers. We were able to quickly orient ourselves to the control scheme and within minutes were barreling through levels in the pursuit of produce to fight.

I do have reservations, however, about the game’s replayability, given that you have to restart all the way back at the beginning of the first level every time you die. I mean, I dig roguelike games if they’re relatively short like Black Future ’88 or if the rogue element is an optional mode like in One Finger Death Punch 2, but having to completely restart in a game that has distinct waypoints between levels feels somewhat unfair.

Juicy Realm is slated for release on Steam in May. The company hopes to port it to PS4, Switch and potentially even mobile platforms shortly thereafter.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from GDC 2018!

Facebook already hit with four lawsuits over Cambridge Analytica

It has been a week since the bombshell reports on Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook user data dropped and already the social media giant is facing at least four lawsuits. Along with a class action suit filed earlier this week on behalf of Facebook users whose data was obtained by Cambridge Analytica, three shareholders have also filed their own complaints.

Bloomberg reported earlier this week that shareholder Fan Yuan filed a class action lawsuit against Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CFO David Wehner in a San Francisco federal court. Yuan’s suit focuses on the drop in share price following the Cambridge Analytica revelations and seeks to represent those who purchased shares between February 3rd, when Facebook released its annual report, and March 19th, two days after the New York Times report was published. Shareholder Robert Casey filed a similar complaint in a San Jose court this week, SFGate reports.

An additional lawsuit filed by Jeremiah Hallisey in San Jose names Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg and Facebook board members Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Reed Hastings, Erskine Bowles, Susan Desmond-Hellmann and Jan Koum as defendants. “Each of the Defendants consciously and deliberately breached their fiduciary duties of candor, good faith, loyalty and reasonable inquiry to Facebook and its stockholders by failing to act to ensure Facebook maintained adequate internal controls to comply with the consent order and other applicable laws,” the complaint states. It seeks damages and a court direction for Facebook to improve its corporate governance.

Facebook has been hit with inquiries from Congress and the UK Parliament. It’s also being investigated by the states of New York and Massachusetts and reportedly the FTC. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg finally addressed the situation this week, days after the reports surfaced.

Via: The Verge

Source: Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy