J.D. Power is out with its latest study looking at the best wireless purchase experience in the US. T-Mobile came in first place, beating out Verizon and AT&T when it came to overall satisfaction.

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Ahead of a national day of action led by digital rights group Fight for the Future, UCLA has abandoned its plans to become the first university in the United States to adopt facial recognition technology. From a report: In a statement shared with Fight for the Future's Deputy Director Evan Greer, UCLAâ(TM)s Administrative Vice Chancellor Michael Beck said the university "determined that the potential benefits are limited and are vastly outweighed by the concerns of the campus community." Since last year, UCLA has been considering using the university's security cameras to implement a facial recognition surveillance system. These plans have been dogged by student criticism, culminating in an editorial in the Daily Bruin, UCLA's student newspaper, that argued the system would "present a major breach of students' privacy" while creating "a more hostile campus environment" by "collecting invasive amounts of data on [UCLA's] population of over 45,000 students and 50,000 employees." In an attempt to highlight the risks of using facial recognition on UCLA's campus, Fight for the Future used Amazon's facial recognition software, Rekognition, to scan public photos of UCLA's athletes and faculty, then compare the photos to a mugshot database. Over 400 photos were scanned, 58 of which were false positives for mugshot images -- the software often gave back matches with "100% confidence" for individuals "who had almost nothing in common beyond their race"

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Developer Frank Krueger has released a useful new macOS tool for fellow developers today. Dubbed Appstat, the app lives in your Mac’s menu bar and shows you detailed data about the applications you’re selling on the App Store.

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If you’re looking for a way to encourage your child’s interest in programming, then check out this list of the best coding apps for kids on iOS.

After Apple launched updated buttons, icons, and more for Sign In with Apple, Apple Health, and Apple Pay for developers last week, the Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) have seen another update with some big changes to the Siri resources of the Developer HIG.

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Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), a committee that maintains various JPEG image-related standards, has started exploring a way to involve AI to build a new compression standard. From a report: In a recent meeting held in Sydney, the group released a call for evidence to explore AI-based methods to find a new image compression codec. The program, aptly named JPEG AI, was launched last year; with a special group to study neural-network-based image codecs. Under the program, it aims to find possible solutions towards finding a new standard. To do that, it has partnered with IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) to call for papers under the Learning-based Image Coding Challenge. These papers will be presented at the International Conference of Image Processing (ICIP) scheduled to be held at Abu Dhabi in October.

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Apple has seeded the second public betas of iOS 13.4 and iPadOS 13.4 to public beta testers.

The Apple TV+ series "Shantaram", which stars Charlie Hunnam, has seen its production halted due to a writing backlog.

Apple will release the second public betas of iOS 13.4 and iPadOS 13.4 today. This comes after the update was released to developers yesterday, bringing even more changes to the Mail app.

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Pad & Quill is debuting a brand new leather cuff Apple Watch band today. Officially known as the Cafe Cuff Band, it is made of the premium materials Pad & Quill is known for along with handcrafted attention to detail, and of course, a solid launch discount. Now available for pre-order for all 42 & 44mm Apple Watches, head below for a closer look and a big-time early discount. more…

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Sweden's Riksbank said on Wednesday it had begun testing an e-krona, taking the country a step closer to the creation of the world's first central bank digital currency (CBDC). From a report: If the e-krona eventually comes into circulation it will be used to simulate everyday banking activities, such as payments, deposits and withdrawals from a digital wallet such as a mobile phone app, the Riksbank said. "The aim of the project is to show how an e-krona could be used by the general public," the Riksbank said in a statement. In January, the central banks of Britain, the euro zone, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland joined forces to assess the case for issuing CBDCs. CBDCs are traditional money, but in digital form, issued and governed by a country's central bank. By contrast, cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin are produced by solving complex maths puzzles, and governed by disparate online communities instead of a centralized body. The sharp decline in the use of cash and competition from alternative currencies, such as Facebook's Libra, has also prompted central banks around the world to consider issuing their own electronic currencies.

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Thursday’s best deals include Apple TV 4K discounts, August smart locks, and Apple’s official iPad Pro keyboards. Hit the jump for all that and more in the latest 9to5Toys Lunch Break.

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Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said the technology giant will invest $1.1 billion in Mexico over the next five years, according to a promotional video released by the Mexican government on Thursday. From a report: Nadella said the investment is "focused on expanding access to digital technology for people and organizations across the country." Microsoft will build a new data center to deliver "client services to help every organization to really get an advantage and drive digital transformation," added Nadella, who met with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador last year. The U.S. company will also invest in training labs and skills programs, Nadella said.

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A new rumor says that Apple is indeed still planning to launch a new version of AirPods Pro, which could be the "AirPods Pro Lite".

The US and UK governments have issued official statements today formally accusing Russia's military intelligence agency, GRU, with carrying out a coordinated cyber-attack on thousands of Georgian websites in October 2019. From a report: The incident, widely reported at the time, was considered the largest cyber-attack in the former Soviet country's history. According to a report at the time, unidentified hackers broke into at least one web hosting provider and defaced more than 15,000 websites with an image of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, with the text "I'll be back" overlaid on top. The former Georgia President was known for his fierce pro-Western agenda but is now a Ukrainian citizen after leaving Georgia in 2013, citing a political witch-hunt on corruption charges. The messages were reported as appearing on sites for the Georgian government, courts, NGOs, news media, and local businesses. In some cases, the web host disruption also took down broadcasting services for some radio and TV stations.

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Microsoft launched a preview of its Defender antivirus software for Mac last spring and now the company is preparing to bring the app to iOS and Android something this year. For iOS, it’s unclear exactly how it will work or what features will be available, but the antivirus software could be more focused on preventing phishing.

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The 5G hype continues, with a new report claiming that the faster mobile data service will transform live experiences like music concerts…

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Users of Samsung's Galaxy smartphones got a surprise Thursday morning as they were sent a random notification for its mobile tracking app . From a report: The notification, which some CNBC employees also received, was for Samsung's own "Find My Mobile" app and showed the number "1" twice, with no other information. Once clicked on, the notification disappeared, and some users reported via Twitter that it used up a chunk of their battery life. According to Samsung, the "1" notification was sent out by accident to a number of Galaxy phones as part of "internal testing."

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The solution is designed to help prevent, detect, investigate and respond to advanced virus and malware threats.