State of the Art: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent
Apple’s decision this weekend to give in to China’s demand to remove unregistered VPN apps is a blow for the liberties of its customers.
Month: July 2017
How Apple, Google, and others will eradicate Adobe Flash by 2020
“Last week, Adobe announced it would dig a deep hole for its Flash Player, drop in the plug-in, and cover it with dirt by the end of 2020. So will end a technology that, in many ways, made the Web — even as users, security experts and browser makers took turns whacking it like a piñata at a six-year-old’s birthday party,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld.
“‘We will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020,’ Adobe said in a post to its primary blog,” Keizer reports. “The long lead time, the company contended, will give content makers time to complete the transition to Web standards, like HTML5 and WebGL.”
“ecause browsers have been the primary delivery vehicle for Flash content, how they handle the plug-in’s demise will be important to users and content creators alike,” Keizer reports. “Each of the top four browser makers — Apple, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla — have, to greater or lesser degrees, explained how they’re going to sunset Flash.”
Read more in the full article here.
Discovery Communications will buy Scripps for $12 Billion offer
(ABC News) Discovery Communications (owners of such TV Networks such as Animal Planet and Investigation Discovery) will buy Scripps Networks (owners of HGTV and others) for close to $12 billion, tying together two powerful stables of TV shows ranging from Animal Planet to the Food Network.
The deal, announced Monday, puts the combined company in a strong position to draw more women viewers.
Other channels include Discovery's TLC and the Discovery Channel. Scripps owns HGTV and the Travel Channel, among others. The combined company will house five of the top pay TV networks for women and account for more than 20 percent share of women watching prime-time pay TV in the U.S.
The transaction is valued at $90 per share, about a 4 percent premium to Scripps' Friday closing price of $86.91. The per-share price includes $63 per share in cash and $27 per share in Discovery's Class C shares. The transaction also includes approximately $2.7 billion in Scripps' debt.
The companies said Monday that they expect about $350 million in cost savings.
The buyout, which still needs approval from the shareholders of both companies, is targeted to close by early next year.
Shares of Discovery Communications Inc. rose 2.6 percent before the market open, while shares of Scripps Networks Interactive Inc. edged up slightly.
Apple’s Trademark Tricks to Hide the Real Name of the next iPhone
“One of Apple’s most fiercely guarded secrets? The name of the next iPhone,” Mark Gurman reports for Bloomberg. “It may be called the iPhone X to celebrate the iconic product’s tenth anniversary or just iPhone 8. But Tim Cook doesn’t want us to know for sure until he utters the name on stage.”
“In recent years, Apple-obsessed sleuths have managed to ferret out the names and details of the company’s products by searching trademark offices around the world,” Gurman reports. “But their challenge has become exponentially harder thanks to a well-timed rule change at Jamaica’s trademark office and some clever maneuvering in Liechtenstein.”
The approach “involves registering names in foreign countries without searchable trademark databases. The tactic leverages a rule in section 44(d) of the U.S. Trademark Act that lets companies apply for a trademark in one country and receive registration priority in the U.S. if filed there within six months of the original, foreign filing date,” Gurman reports. “Of the 177 countries that comply with U.S. rules, 66 lack online trademark databases. These include Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Peru and Jamaica. The latter has become a favorite hiding place for companies such as Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
