A year after moving its base of operations to Los Angeles, Mad Magazine has announced it will soon cease publishing and will only be highlighting previously published content on their website. It's the end of an era. Leo says that the Internet is largely the reason, since there are so many options for getting this kind of humour, and the advertising revenue simply isn't there anymore.
Speaking of the end of eras, Apple's iconic designer, Jony Ive, has announced he's leaving the company to begin his own startup. Ive designed the iconic gumdrop iMac, the iPhone, iPad, and even the Apple Watch. But Leo says that perhaps his shining design achievement is the Spaceship headquarters at Apple Park. But his worst design were the butterfly keyboards on the recent MacBook Pro. And within days of the announcement Ive was leaving, Apple announced it would dump the butterfly keyboard in favor of scissor switches in the upcoming MacBook Pro in 2020.
June 29, 2007, twelve years ago, Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone. Apple hadn't invented the app store yet, so the original iPhone didn't really have but a few very basic apps. In fact, Steve Jobs thought everything would be done through websites, not apps. It was listed at $499 and people lined up three days before it launched to get one. But a smartphone wasn't really new, what did change the world was having a full-time connection to the internet in your pocket.
Leo doesn't really get what's going on, but it appears that Huawei is now allowed to be sold in the US. For the last few years, Huawei was declared as a "dangerous foreign entity," but now it appears that at the recent G20 summit, the President has officially lifted all restrictions. Which is puzzling, because recent news reports hint that Huawei has been up to no good. Huawei is much more vulnerable to hackers, perhaps even intentionally, according to a recent report.
While the so-called "Trash Can" Mac Pro was made in Texas, the new Mac Pro will be made in China. Leo says that it's purely a cost-effective move since all the manufacturing is now in China.
When political figures make questionable or controversial quotes that may violate Twitter's Terms of Service, the social media company will put them behind a "grey wall" with the note that the post violated their abuse rules. Leaving the reader the option to read it or not. Leo says it'll be interesting to see how this will be received or if it will just add to the problem.
The latest news about YouTube is that the federal government is investigating the streaming video portal for violation of provisions of the Child Online Privacy Act. The problems are in the recommendation engine, which veers to strange videos, even in the YouTube Kids channel. Numerous complaints to the Federal Trade Commission questions if YouTube is collecting data on kids under 13.
Signify has created a new light bulb that has light-emitted wifi, called Trulifi, which can transmit data at speeds up to 150 megabits using light waves.
Niantic, the creators of the successful mobile game Pokemon Go, has finally put out a game based in the universe of Harry Potter, called Wizards Unite. You play a wizard, using your wand to battle other wizards and catch fantastic beasts. All in Augmented Reality. Leo says that it was originally launched in Australia, and people went wild about it. Now it's been launched in the US and around the world, so MORE people are going wild.
