Total Pageviews

Thursday, 22 October 2020

Jony Ive is bringing his design talents to... Airbnb

Sir Jony Ive

I’m not going to pretend it makes obvious sense, but famed former Apple designer Jony Ive and his firm LoveFrom will soon be working for Airbnb. Yes, the company that primarily makes it easy for you to rent someone else’s home needs design help, and they’re going to the man best known for turning consumer tech on its head — as well as the occasional all-diamond diamond ring, a Christmas tree that is actually just a tree, and a magazine cover with no content.

So if you’ve been been put off renting one of Airbnb’s recently introduced, exorbitantly priced Luxe accommodations because they have too many furnishings, perhaps this is just the ticket? Dude loves minimalism.

Airbnb is calling the deal a “special...

Continue reading…



from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/34gGwQ8
via IFTTT

Justice League on HBO Max: Jared Leto's new Joker scenes, reshoots and everything we know - CNET

Zack Snyder's version of Justice League just gained a wild card. Here's everything we know.

from CNET https://ift.tt/3jlaCpY
via IFTTT

Jony Ive, Apple's former Chief Design Officer, has been hired at Airbnb

Airbnb is bringing on another Apple executive.

What you need to know

  • Airbnb has hired Jony Ive in a creative consultant role.
  • The former Chief Design Officer at Apple will assist with the company's design and marketing.
  • Ive joins Hiroki Asai, another former Apple executive who worked on the iPhone.

Reported by The Information, Airbnb has hired Jony Ive, Apple's former head of design, as a creative consultant ahead of the company's public offering.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced the hiring on Wednesday, saying that the company's current Chief Design Officer, Alex Schleifer, would be moving to a part-time role. According to Chesky, bringing Ive on board is part of a "multi-year relationship to design the next generation of Airbnb products and services."

Chesky for months has mentioned to design staff that the company might tap the former Apple chief designer. Ive has been friendly with Chesky for years, and wrote the Airbnb CEO's entry for Time magazine's top 100 most influential people in 2015. The two also worked together on the redesign of Airbnb's logo in 2014. Chesky has spoken often about Apple's design prowess as a source of inspiration for the travel company.

According to the report, Ive's position at the company could afford him major influence over its website, app, and marketing.

The design and creative functions at Airbnb are largely in charge of how the company's app, website and marketing campaigns look to customers. One recent priority has included a redesign of the website and app to make it easier for customers to find unique places to stay, rather than having to sift through screens of listings, two people familiar with the matter said.

Ive will be joining Hiroki Asai, another former Apple executive who is now serving as the company's global head of marketing.

Schleifer, a longtime Chesky confidante, had led the design team for nearly six years. Schleifer's departure also follows the arrival last year of Hiroki Asai, a former Apple executive who was named global head of marketing. Asai took on some design responsibilities that previously had been overseen by Schleifer. But the group has seen significant turnover lately. At least three other senior designers have left recently.

Asai, like Ive, had also worked together at Apple on the launch of the iPhone.



from iMore - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch blog https://ift.tt/3jiURQc
via IFTTT

This former Tesla CIO just raised $150 million more to pull car dealers into the 21st century

“I have to choose my words carefully,” says Joe Castelino of Stevens Creek Volkswagen in San Jose, California, when asked about the software on which most car dealerships rely for inventory information, to manage marketing, to handle customer relationships and to otherwise help sell cars.

Castelino, the dealership’s service director, laughs as he says this. But the joke has apparently been on car dealers, most of whom have largely relied on a few frustratingly antiquated vendors for their dealer management systems over the years — along with many more sophisticated point solutions.

It’s the precise opportunity that former Tesla CIO, Jay Vijayan, concluded he was well-positioned to address while still in the employ of the electric vehicle giant.

As Vijayan tells it, he knew nothing about cars until joining Tesla in 2011, following a dozen years of working in product development at Oracle, then VMware. Yet he learned plenty over the subsequent four years. Specifically, he says he helped to build with Elon Musk a central analysis system inside Tesla, a kind of brain that could see all of the company’s internal systems, from what was happening in the supply chain to its factory systems to its retail platform.

Tesla had to build it itself, says Vijayan; after evaluating the existing software of third-company providers, the team “realized that none of them had anything close to what we needed to provide a frictionless modern consumer experience.”

It was around then that a lightbulb turned on. If Tesla could transform the experience for its own customers, maybe Vijayan could transform the buying and selling experience for the much bigger, broader automotive industry. Enter Tekion, a now four-year-old, San Carlos, California company that now employs 470 people and has come far enough along that just attracted $150 million in fresh funding led by the private equity investor Advent International.

With the Series C round — which also included checks from Index Ventures, Airbus Ventures, FM Capital and Exor, the holding company of Fiat-Chrysler and Ferrari — the company has now raised $185 million altogether. It’s also valued at north of $1 billion. (The automakers General Motors, BMW and the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Alliance are also investors.)

Eric Wei, a managing director at Advent, says that over the last decade, his team had been eager to seize on what’s approaching a $10 billion market annually. Instead, they found themselves tracking incumbents Reynolds & Reynolds, CDKGlobal and Dealertrack, which is owned by Cox Automotive, and waiting for a better player to emerge.

Then Wei was connected to Tekion through Jon McNeill, a former Tesla president and an advisory partner to Advent.

Says Wei of seeing its tech compared with its more established rivals: “It was like comparing a flip phone to an iPhone.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, McNeill, who worked at Tesla with Vijayan, also sings the company’s praises, noting that Tekion even bought a dealership in Gilroy, Calif., to use as a kind of lab while it was building its technology from scratch.

Such praise is nice, but more importantly, Tekion is attracting the attention of dealers. Though citing competitive reasons, Vijayan declined to share how many have bought its cloud software — which connects dealers with both manufacturers and car buyers and is powered by machine learning algorithms — he says it’s already being used across 28 states.

One of these dealerships is the national chain Serra Automotive, whose founder, Joseph Serra, is now an investor in Tekion.

Another is that Volkswagen dealership in San Jose, where Castelino — who doesn’t have a financial interest in Tekion — speaks enthusiastically about the time and expenses his team is saving because of Tekion’s platform.

For example, he says customers need only log-in now to flag a particular issue. After that, with the help of an RFID tag, Stevens Creek knows exactly when that customer pulls into the dealership and what kind of help they need, enabling people to greet him or her on arrival. Tekion can also make recommendations based on a car’s history. It might, for instance, suggest to a customer a brake fluid flush “without an advisor having to look through a customer’s history,” he says.

As important, he says, the dealership has been able to cut ties with a lot of other software vendors, while also making more productive use of its time. Says Castelino, “As soon as a [repair order] is live, it’s in a dispatcher’s hand and a technician can grab the car.”

It’s like that with every step, he insists. “You’re saving 15 minutes again and again, and suddenly, you have three hours where your intake can be higher.”

Interestingly, the steepest competition, should it come, might eventually be from Tesla itself.

In an earnings call earlier today, Musk told analysts that there are essentially a dozen startups housed inside of Tesla, including one centered on vehicle service. It’s the very business that Vijayan helped to create.

As for whether Musk might spin out any of these, he said Tesla currently has no plans to do so, suggesting it has enough on its plate for the time being.



via Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/3jqtMec

Iran and Russia obtained US voter registration data, officials say

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

National security officials announced Wednesday that Iran and Russia obtained voter registration information that could support efforts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. The officials also confirmed that Iran sent threatening emails designed to intimidate voters.

“Iran and Russia have taken specific actions to influence public opinion relating to our election. Some voter registration information has been obtained by Iran and separately by Russia,” Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said in a press conference Wednesday evening. “This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to convey misinformation.”

Voter registration information is often publicly...

Continue reading…



from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/3kiPGRC
via IFTTT

Misinformation in America Thrives in Two Languages

False and misleading information is being spread widely in Spanish, researchers say.

from NYT > Technology https://ift.tt/3dKYCN8
via IFTTT

TikTok Cracks Down on QAnon and Hate Speech

TikTok’s changes follow in the footsteps of its larger and more popular contemporaries.

from NYT > Technology https://ift.tt/31twucH
via IFTTT

A TV Station’s Mistake Highlights Fears of Election Night Misinformation

A graphic on an evening news broadcast in Arkansas showed President Trump winning the state three weeks before Election Day.

from NYT > Technology https://ift.tt/3kl3afP
via IFTTT

Trump Official’s Tweet, and Its Removal, Set Off Flurry of Anti-Mask Posts

The tweet, from Dr. Scott Atlas, one of the president’s top science advisers, was debunked by many experts and deleted by Twitter.

from NYT > Technology https://ift.tt/2TeXtEb
via IFTTT

In Hubbub Over New York Post Report, YouTube Stands Apart

Facebook and Twitter clamped down on an unsubstantiated New York Post article about Hunter Biden. YouTube has gone a different route.

from NYT > Technology https://ift.tt/3jkhqUT
via IFTTT

GMC Hummer EV revealed with Wrangler-beating off-road ability, 0-60 in 3 seconds for $112,595 - Roadshow

Hummer's electric pickup packs 1,000 horsepower, removable roof panels, four-wheel steering with CrabWalk mode and standard Super Cruise tech.

from CNET https://ift.tt/3dL0Vjk
via IFTTT

NASA just landed on asteroid Bennu. What you need to know about the mission - CNET

NASA's Osiris-Rex spacecraft attempted to swipe space souvenirs from Bennu Tuesday to bring home to Earth. Soon we'll know how successful it was.

from CNET https://ift.tt/31szdCU
via IFTTT

Check out the 2022 GMC Hummer EV's CrabWalk mode in action - Roadshow

At the press of a (virtual) button, the new Hummer can move diagonally like a crab. Seriously.

from CNET https://ift.tt/3kk2Cqh
via IFTTT

FBI says Iran and Russia trying to undermine US election security - CNET

Both countries have obtained voter registration data, the agency says.

from CNET https://ift.tt/3jkG9Ik
via IFTTT

Tesla CEO Elon Musk outlines the planned rollout for FSD - Roadshow

The beta is out in the wild now on a limited scale, but it could be rolled out to a lot more people soon.

from CNET https://ift.tt/3oeto61
via IFTTT

2020 AFL Grand Final: How to watch Tigers vs. Cats, start time, cable, streaming - CNET

Australia's Super Bowl is on this Saturday.

from CNET https://ift.tt/3m81Ptc
via IFTTT

How do I track my ballot? Here's how for every state - CNET

Each state has its own way of tracking your ballot, from BallotTrax to VoterView.

from CNET https://ift.tt/37vnpDU
via IFTTT

World Series 2020: How to watch Rays vs. Dodgers Game 2 today on Fox without cable - CNET

The Tampa Bay Rays will look to rebound tonight after losing the opening game of the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

from CNET https://ift.tt/3kwoMpm
via IFTTT

Gasoline new car ban possible in New Jersey following state agency recommendation - Roadshow

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection said the state will need to phase out the internal-combustion engine by 2035 to meet its climate goals.

from CNET https://ift.tt/3kncQpW
via IFTTT

The iPhone 12 lineup comes packed with Qualcomm's X55 modem

Confirming reports from as far back as 2019.

What you need to know

  • The iPhone 12 lineup features Qualcomm's X55 modem.
  • A new teardown video on the Chinese social media website Weibo confirmed the chip.
  • The company is planning to include Qualcomm modems in the iPhone as far out as 2024.

Reported by MacRumors, a new teardown video of the iPhone 12 posted to Chinese social networking website Weibo seems to have confirmed that Apple's new iPhone 12 lineup features Qualcomm's X55 modem.

The video shows off the internals of the new iPhone, complete with its new logic board and the X55 modem.

The inclusion of the chip confirms reports from as far back as 2019. While some thought that Apple may have upgraded to the new X60 chip, its first built on a 5nm process, an earlier report from today indicates that chip is reserved for use on the 2021 iPhone lineup.

As alerted to us by Danny Walsh on Twitter, page 71 of an Apple-Qualcomm settlement filing reveals that Apple intends to launch new products with the Snapdragon X60 modem between June 1, 2021 and May 31, 2022. Apple has also committed to using as-yet-unannounced X65 and X70 modems in products launched between June 1, 2022 and May 31, 2024.

The X60 chip is also able to "aggregate data from both mmWave and sub-6GHz bands simultaneously," making it a great candidate for Apple's next rounds of iPhones.

Built on a 5nm process, the X60 modem packs higher power efficiency into a smaller footprint compared to the X55. Smartphones equipped with the X60 will also be able to aggregate data from both mmWave and sub-6GHz bands simultaneously to achieve an optimal combination of high-speed and low-latency network coverage.

The X55 modem still supports both mmWave and sub-6GHz technologies, just with less power efficiency a larger footprint. It is still a leap in performance and power efficiency to its Intel counterpart, which Apple dropped in order to feature Qualcomm's chip.



from iMore - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch blog https://ift.tt/35jM0sx
via IFTTT

Apple lobbying the U.S. to possibly bring chip production to the country

Apple may eventually build its A-series chip in the United States.

What you need to know

  • Apple is lobbying the U.S. government on domestic chip production.
  • It suggests the company is interested in bringing chip production to the United States.
  • Apple already makes the Mac Pro in Texas.

Earlier today it was reported that Apple spent about $1.5 million on lobbying efforts in the United States in the third quarter of 2020. Now, it appears that one of those areas could result in iPhone production coming to the U.S.

Reported by Bloomberg, Apple is lobbying the United States government on tax breaks for chip production in the country, suggesting that the company may be interested in moving some of its supply chains to the U.S.

In the disclosure report, one of the lines mentioned was "issues related to tax credits for domestic semiconductor production." According to Bloomberg, Apple lobbied the Treasury Department, Congress, and the White House on the issue.

Since releasing its first custom processor in 2010, chips have become a major performance differentiator for Apple. The company designs some of these components in house, but outsources production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Many other parts for Apple devices are made in China. That has exposed the company to import tariffs and other risks from a trade war between the U.S. and China. Taiwan, where TSMC operates, has also become an increasing focus of geopolitical tension between China and the U.S.

Apple's potential plans to bring iPhone chip production to the United States aligns somewhat with TSMC, who manufactures chips for Apple, and their plan to build a $12 billion plant in Arizona. Apple currently produces its high-end Mac Pro at its facility in Texas.

Apple has been working to diversify its supply chain outside of China for a while now. It has made investments in India, the United States, and other areas to protect its manufacturing and assembly process.



from iMore - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch blog https://ift.tt/3odGeRP
via IFTTT

Customers are getting shipped iPhone 12 cases missing speaker holes

Collect the defective cases!

What you need to know

  • Apple is shipping defective MagSafe iPhone 12 cases to customers.
  • The defective cases are missing the cutouts for the speakers on the bottom of the case.
  • Two customers have reported the issue to Reddit so far.

Reported by MacRumors, some customers are getting shipped defective iPhone 12 MagSafe Silicone cases that are missing the cutouts for the speaker grills.

The report references two separate posts to Reddit, showcasing the missing speaker holes on the cases. One of the customers was apparently told by an Apple advisor that the case was not supposed to have speaker holes, so hopefully, that employee can get some training.

There have been two separate threads on Reddit from iPhone 12 customers who purchased a case and received one without speaker holes. One customer was told by an Apple advisor that the case wasn't meant to have speaker holes, which is, of course, incorrect. One of the original posters uploaded a video showing the defective case from more angles.

iMore has received and, of course, verified that the new MagSafe Silicone cases for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro should have cutouts on the bottom of the case for the speakers. For customers who receive a defective case, they should be able to exchange it with Apple.

Have you received one of the new MagSafe Silicone cases for the iPhone 12/12 Pro and are missing the cutouts for the speakers? You might have something as elusive as a defective Charizard card.



from iMore - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch blog https://ift.tt/31uAR70
via IFTTT

New Google Nest Hub experiment nixes the “Hey Google” voice hotword

Here's an interesting experiment Google is kicking around on its smart displays: voice-command input without a hotword. A video detailing the feature is up on YouTube from Jan Boromeusz, a Nest Home hacker who has a proven track record of scoring early smart display features before they get announced.

Boromeusz's Nest Hub Max is somehow in "Dogfood" mode, which means it receives early, non-public builds of the smart display software meant only for internal use at Google. A special menu called "Dogfood features" lists a "Blue Steel" feature that will let the device respond to commands without having to say the "Hey Google" hotword first—you just say a command and it will respond. Boromeusz says the device will listen for commands after "detecting presence," so if someone is in front of the display, it will just start answering questions.

Today Google's voice command hardware listens all the time, but only for the "Hey Google" hotword. Once that's detected, it will start processing additional commands. The more modern implementations also use the hotword as the cutoff point for connecting to the Internet—"Hey Google" detection is processed locally, and anything after that will get uploaded, processed, and stored on Google's servers. The hotword also acts as a form of consent, not just by having the following words uploaded to the Internet, but also because letting the device listen all the time and respond to every possible thing that could be interpreted as a command would be annoying.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments



from Tech – Ars Technica https://ift.tt/2ThH6qx
via IFTTT