Month: February 2019

Star Trek: Discovery renewed for Season 3

CompuScoop Staff February 27, 2019 0

CBS All Access announces Discovery renewal for season three; Michelle Paradise to join Alex Kurtzman as co-showrunner.

It's official: CBS All Access today announced the third season renewal of Star Trek: Discovery and also that Michelle Paradise will join Alex Kurtzman as co-showrunner for season three. Additionally, Kurtzman will continue to oversee the expansion of the growing Star Trek universe for CBS Studios.

“Michelle joined us midway through season two and energized the room with her ferocious knowledge of Trek,” Kurtzman said. “Her grasp of character and story detail, her drive and her focus have already become essential in ensuring the Trek legacy, and her fresh perspective always keeps us looking forward. I’m proud to say Michelle and I are officially running Star Trek: Discovery.”

“The massive success of Star Trek: Discovery's second season launch exceeded our expectations in both driving subscriber growth and generating a phenomenal response from Star Trek fans,” said Julie McNamara, Executive Vice President, Original Content, CBS All Access. “With Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise at the helm, we look forward to continuing Star Trek: Discovery's journey, growing the Star Trek franchise on CBS All Access and bringing fans new Star Trek stories for many years to come.”

Paradise, prior to serving as co-executive producer on Discovery, was co-executive producer on the CW series The Originals. She also wrote for the series Rogue on the Audience network and The CW’s Hart of Dixie. Additionally, she created, wrote and starred in the MTV/Logo series Exes & Ohs.

Star Trek: Discovery streams exclusively on CBS All Access in the United States and is distributed concurrently by CBS Studios International on Netflix in 188 countries and in Canada on Bell Media’s Space Channel and OTT service Crave.

Apple’s Swift lead discusses upcoming Swift 5

CompuScoop Staff February 27, 2019 0

“Apple is currently working on Swift 5.0, the next major version of its the coding language the company first introduced in 2014,” Juli Clover reports for 9to5Mac. “As Apple prepares to release Swift 5.0, Ted Kremenek, who is leading the project, recently sat down for an interview with John Sundell on his Swift by Sundell podcast.”

“Kremenek is Apple’s senior manager of languages and runtimes, and he is overseeing the release of Swift 5 and is Apple’s voice on the project,” Clover reports. “In the podcast, Kremenek covers topics that include how Apple plans new features for Swift, the process by which pitched ideas turn into release features, and of course, Swift 5.”

Clover reports, “With Swift 5, apps created with one version of the Swift compiler will be able to interface with a library built with another version, something that is not the case now.”

Read more in the full article here.

The 49-minute podcast is here.

Apple Targeted in new lawsuits dealing with the iPhone, iPad, and more

CompuScoop Staff February 27, 2019 0

A group of firms operating under the aegis of Optis Wireless Technology are suing Apple over seven patents connected to LTE cellular standards.

Every LTE Apple device is affected, including not just iPhones but iPads and the Apple Watch, according to court documents. The plaintiffs say that as recently as January 2017, they were talking to Apple about licensing patents on FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms, but came to no agreement.

Optis and its associates appear to be patent "trolls" — businesses that produce no tangible product and instead depend on patent licenses and lawsuits to generate income. The case was in fact filed through the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, infamous for siding with patent holders and being quicker than some other available courts.

Many of the plaintiffs' patents were purchased over the years from technology companies like Ericsson, Samsung, and LG. Nevertheless the complaint asks for a jury trial, and damages "at least in the form of reasonable royalties."

Based on its history Apple will likely try to get the case dismissed, or if not, settled out of court. The company already pays substantial sums in royalties, and adding more could cost millions of dollars per year.

Adding some precedent against Apple is that in August, the District Court found Huawei in violation of the same patents. That cost the Chinese smartphone maker $10.6 million.

The Optis complaint was discovered by MacRumors.

Via: AppleInsider.com

Apple Music coming to Google Home Speakers

CompuScoop Staff February 26, 2019 0

Music is apparently coming to Google Home speakers, yet another sign that Apple’s famous walled garden is beginning to show cracks and that Apple is putting its services in front of as many people as possible as hardware device sales slow.

An option to link an Apple Music account appeared this week in the Google Home app, which is used to manage Google’s smart home devices like speakers and Nest cameras. But the sign-in process for Apple Music doesn’t work in the app yet. It seems likely that Google updated the Home app with the Apple Music option before it was ready.

The move might help persuade people to switch to Apple Music from other services, at least among those who own a Google Home as opposed to Apple’s more expensive HomePod speaker. The HomePod costs $349 — though retail partners often sell it for around $299 — while the Google Home Mini is much more approachable at $50.

Google Home already supports a variety of streaming music services, including YouTube Music, Google Play Music, Spotify, Pandora and Deezer. Until now, Apple appeared to be the big holdout from Google’s smart speakers, which allow people to ask Google Assistant to play music throughout their home.

Google’s larger market share in smart speakers gives Apple an opportunity to boost subscriptions to Apple Music. Apple already offers an Android version of Apple Music, which has opened its music service up to the more than 2 billion monthly active devices that run Google’s operating system. Now, those users, who are the most likely to own a Google Home, can play their songs in more places.

This is a new trend for Apple, as it begins to put more of a focus on services over device sales. At CES in early January, for example, Apple announced that iTunes was coming to Samsung TVs, which would let you purchase and stream movies and TV shows from Apple. Apple Music also recently launched on Amazon Echo devices.

Apple and Google weren’t immediately available for comment.

Via: Stock News and CNBC