larryjw
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European countries form coalition over contact tracing app concerns
Don't be clueless on the health information collected. Health data is being collected on a weekly basis, not just in support of personal medical care (by hospitals, insurance companies, doctors, dentists), but by governments at all levels. Death certificates are analyzed, flu-like symptoms from every region, and internationally, is collected and analyzed. Employee injuries, traffic accidents, crime victims, etc.lkrupp said:WTF is a ‘digital epidemiologist’? Sounds like a bureaucracy on steroids. First we had the French ‘digital technology minister’. Now we have a Swedish ‘digital epidemiologist’. here in the U.S. we call them ‘czars’ I guess. Any differences other than expanding the bureaucracy exponentially?
WHO and the CDC, and other nations versions of our CDC are constantly monitoring for Influenza A and Influenza B. Other agencies monitor farming operations for diseases, food processing plants (by law). Now, they will likely be monitoring for coronaviruses also, since SARS-Cov-2 is the first coronavirus that has become a pandemic. There is international monitoring for Ebola, polio, smallpox, HIV, Zika. Symptoms of all kinds are making their way into formal and informal data collections to help detect new diseases, and localized, regional outbreaks.
Data is collected world-wide for demographic information like base death rate, birth rate, gender, age, economic output of all sorts -- not just the stock market. The St. Louis Federal Reserve maintains and analyzes 800,000+ separate databases of economic activities; the New York Fed does the same for international trade. All banking transactions are monitored for fraudulent transfers and to prevent the same dollar from being spent twice.
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Why Apple will move Macs to ARM, and what consumers get
The programs we write using XCODE generates code for a virtual CPU. The final step is to translate the virtual CPU code into the real CPU code. This is not new technology though its non-trivial. The virtual CPU would likely need to be enhanced to allow for more efficient and better final step of generating for a real CPU.
And, it's not like there is no existing software for the ARM. And, you think the new iOS support for keyboards and mice is some accident not related to supporting iOS software on the MacOS ARM laptop?
So, maybe the new ARM MBP will have touch screens? Or maybe the ARM MBPs will accept alternate input from connected iPads? The technology is there for both alternatives.
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How WeChat's ascent suggests the iPhone may never again dominate in China
First, most drugs, the common critical drugs on every ER cart are made in China OR India.lkrupp said:So for Apple to succeed it must let go of all of its security and privacy? Is that what the author is saying? The author seems to imply that unless Apple does this it is doomed. I guess that’s okay in a totalitarian dictatorship but what about democracies burdened with human rights and privacy protections?
Anyone who thinks ANY Chinese company is not monitored and controlled by the government is simply delusional.
One good thing that has come out of the pandemic so far is that people are realizing that almost all PPE is produced in China. The U.S. makes almost none of it, from masks, to ventilators, to hand sanitizer. Oh, and almost ALL generic drugs are manufactured in China too. That blood pressure or diabetes medication you take... made in and shipped from China. Because of cheap labor don’t you know. We now know that we in the U.S. are basically at China’s mercy economically. Maybe, just maybe, this crisis will open some eyes but I doubt it. Price trumps everything, just like the trolls who scream about Apple’s products being overpriced.
And as for the author’s claim that Google’s services are banned in China, I dispute that. As I recall Google made the decision to exit China because it would not acquiesce to the communist dictatorship’s demands.
But, not cheap labor but a lot of labor -- skilled labor. The number of people with a necessary skill in China would fill several football stadiums -- in the US, we might be able to fill the orchestra seats in a theater.
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Using Apple CarPlay impairs driver reaction more than alcohol, study shows
I generally agree. But, it's realistic in that 50% of drivers using such devices are morons.ihatescreennames said:I’m somewhat skeptical of reports like this. Not that they’re entirely wrong but I feel they aren’t real world tests.
Years ago Myth Busters did something similar. If I recall correctly it was a comparison of talking on a cell phone to driving while intoxicated. But the cell phone part was fairly ridiculous in that they had to be doing math problems in their head and giving the answer in a certain amount of seconds while also driving through the road course they had set up (that might not be accurate but gives an idea of what it was like).
In my experience when something on the road demands my attention while I’m on a call then the call immediately takes a back seat (no pun intended) and my focus is on the road. Likewise, if I’m in moderate to heavy traffic I’m paying attention to traffic and not fiddling with CarPlay or making Siri requests. I notice similar behavior when I’m on a call with somebody else who is driving. Sometimes they just stop talking for a few seconds and then apologize saying that, say, someone ahead was braking hard or some car was swerving.
To make it at least a little more realistic the people who are intoxicated and driving should also need to accomplish some sort of task.
That being said, my wife’s car has CarPlay but doesn’t have a touch screen. The only way to interact is with the dial on the center console. I recently rented a Ford Fusion that had CarPlay with a touch screen. I found it much more distracting to use the touch screen than it is to use the dial in my wife’s car.
This is the part that makes it unrealistic:AppleInsider said:As part of the test, users would be required to follow another car, navigate an erratic motorway, and perform a figure-eight loop. During these tests, users would be told to perform a task, such as accessing music on Spotify, input data into a navigation app, or read texts and take phone calls.
Just last week, was driving with a woman on my tail, one handed, with the other hand talking the phone. Not for a few moments but for 10-15 minutes. She was, probably still is, an accident waiting to happen. Not only did I have to watch the road in front of me, but had to be aware of that if I needed to make any adjustment due to conditions on the road, she would rear-end me with 100% certainty.
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Editorial: No WSJ, Apple isn't stuck in China
Tim Cook has been interviewed repeatedly on the matter of building in the US, and as DED states, Cook has repeatedly stated that it isn’t the cost of labor in the US, it’s non-existence of manufacturing infrastructure of education and skill that prevents Apple from building their products in the US.randominternetperson said:
"IT managers" don't run manufacturing facilities and certainly don't decide where to build them.knowitall said:I think, not being able to locally produce goods, was a self fullfilling prophecy of asshole (it) managers back then driven by squeezing the last penny out of almost loss making products.
I don't see how history could haven't worked out much differently. The US as a mature, industrialized nation has a very expensive labor market; China, over the past few decades, has millions of well-educated people willing to work for nearly nothing. The choice to use Chinese manufacturing isn't about squeezing pennies, it's starkly black and white.
