Tech

The Current Heads of Apple TV+ Should Be Terrified – Gizmodo

Published

5 years ago

January 3, 2020

Image: Apple

Apple just entered an exclusive partnership with Richard Plepler, one of the chief architects of HBO’s last two decades of success. According to the New York Times, Plepler’s new production company has a five-year exclusivity deal with Apple’s TV+. If Apple’s entertainment executives aren’t worried about what the incoming titan’s arrival means for their jobs and the platform’s future yet, they probably should be. At least from where I’m sitting.

For some context, here, Plepler departed his role as chief executive of HBO last year following AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner. At the time, it was reported that Plepler found the merger minimized his autonomy, as AT&T bosses stepped in and immediately started tinkering with HBO’s highly successful entertainment model. Reports last year detailed a new regime under which the business model would be closer to Netflix’s than HBO’s—namely, churning out more content instead of necessarily good content.

Plepler left after nearly three decades at HBO. But AT&T’s loss was evidently quickly interpreted to be a potential gain for Apple TV+. In many respects TV+ competes more directly with HBO than it does other streaming competitors. Apple’s own executives have described TV+ as a sort of antithesis to Netflix.

According to a New York Times interview with Plepler about the move, Apple’s Eddy Cue reached out to the former HBO head soon after he left HBO last February. Those talks landed Plepler at the company with a five-year producing role for series, documentaries, and films produced for Apple TV+. Cue, who oversees Apple’s services business, including TV+, previously brought on Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlich to oversee the TV+ division over two years ago.

Plepler told the Times that a condition of his arrival at Apple is that Van Amburg and Erlich were game. This makes sense on Plepler’s part, given that corporate dust-ups appear to be the driving force behind his leaving HBO. Based on Plepler’s statements to the Times—specifically that all he wants to do “is run my own little PT boat”—that probably also involved ensuring some creative autonomy for his direction.

But Plepler’s Apple deal—to be clear he is not running TV+, just contributing—also feels significant in light of the reception of Apple’s new tentpole service. TV+ just hasn’t popped on the cultural landscape like Apple might have wanted. And there were issues early on, like axing a show based on Dr. Dre’s life because it was too violent, and canceling one about Richard Gere on a shooting spree because it wasn’t friendly enough.

But the initial launch of TV+’s 2019 slate is where the real problem lies. Despite The Morning Show’s Golden Globe nods, the show—Apple’s biggest bet for its debut content offerings—generated mixed reviews, as did much of Apple’s other original content. It didn’t get anywhere near the attention that it, in theory, should have.

For All Mankind, the platform’s science fiction drama series about the space race from Hugo- and Emmy Award-winning showrunner Ron Moore, made nowhere near the splash it should have. Yet it is exactly the kind of weird, alt-historical series that should have been a contender during awards season.

Part of the issue with this series—as with virtually all of Apple’s content offerings—is that Apple’s typical shroud-of-mystery and tight-lipped approach to its product rollouts is fundamentally at odds with how you make people give a shit about entertainment. There was virtually zero buzz about these respective shows prior to launch because we knew nothing about them. All viewers knew prior to launch day, based on rumors, was that Apple TV+ amounted to nothing more than an “expensive NBC.” That we’ve still heard little about its 2020 lineup doesn’t exactly help its cause.

For a company that hopes to position itself as a kind of taste-making kingpin for news, entertainment, and music, its thin slate of content upon launch hinted that Apple’s own hubris may have impeded its ability to meet the expectations it had fanned for viewers and critics.

Mark Duplass, who stars as Chip in The Morning Show, said as much in a recent interview this week. “I think Apple knows this now, but they didn’t do a very good job of welcoming critics into the process because they’re used to keeping their product secret, When you’re dealing with critics, you don’t keep secrets,” Duplass told The Hollywood Reporter during a red carpet review for Bombshell. “The critics did not like that, and I think they lashed out a little bit.”

As The Hollywood Reporter noted, there’s a pretty big discrepancy between audience and critical reception of that series in particular. (Your feelings on Duplass’s show may depend, in part, on your individual response to it using a real national tragedy as the backdrop for a cringe-worthy plot device.) But there’s no doubt the platform as a whole could use some work, and there’s a reason that so many other of Apple’s debut series were snubbed for their own awards nods.

The deal with Plepler feels like a desire to alter course for Apple. Plepler did tell the Times explicitly that he does “not want to run anything again” and instead wants to focus on producing. Still between TV+’s muted debut and his deal, if I were running TV+ right now I might be worried.

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Tech

Ottawa orders TikTok’s Canadian arm to be dissolved

Published

11 hours ago

November 6, 2024

Anne Joseph

The federal government is ordering the dissolution of TikTok’s Canadian business after a national security review of the Chinese company behind the social media platform, but stopped short of ordering people to stay off the app.

Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced the government’s “wind up” demand Wednesday, saying it is meant to address “risks” related to ByteDance Ltd.’s establishment of TikTok Technology Canada Inc.

“The decision was based on the information and evidence collected over the course of the review and on the advice of Canada’s security and intelligence community and other government partners,” he said in a statement.

The announcement added that the government is not blocking Canadians’ access to the TikTok application or their ability to create content.

However, it urged people to “adopt good cybersecurity practices and assess the possible risks of using social media platforms and applications, including how their information is likely to be protected, managed, used and shared by foreign actors, as well as to be aware of which country’s laws apply.”

Champagne’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment seeking details about what evidence led to the government’s dissolution demand, how long ByteDance has to comply and why the app is not being banned.

A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement that the shutdown of its Canadian offices will mean the loss of hundreds of well-paying local jobs.

“We will challenge this order in court,” the spokesperson said.

“The TikTok platform will remain available for creators to find an audience, explore new interests and for businesses to thrive.”

The federal Liberals ordered a national security review of TikTok in September 2023, but it was not public knowledge until The Canadian Press reported in March that it was investigating the company.

At the time, it said the review was based on the expansion of a business, which it said constituted the establishment of a new Canadian entity. It declined to provide any further details about what expansion it was reviewing.

A government database showed a notification of new business from TikTok in June 2023. It said Network Sense Ventures Ltd. in Toronto and Vancouver would engage in “marketing, advertising, and content/creator development activities in relation to the use of the TikTok app in Canada.”

Even before the review, ByteDance and TikTok were lightning rod for privacy and safety concerns because Chinese national security laws compel organizations in the country to assist with intelligence gathering.

Such concerns led the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a bill in March designed to ban TikTok unless its China-based owner sells its stake in the business.

Champagne’s office has maintained Canada’s review was not related to the U.S. bill, which has yet to pass.

Canada’s review was carried out through the Investment Canada Act, which allows the government to investigate any foreign investment with potential to might harm national security.

While cabinet can make investors sell parts of the business or shares, Champagne has said the act doesn’t allow him to disclose details of the review.

Wednesday’s dissolution order was made in accordance with the act.

The federal government banned TikTok from its mobile devices in February 2023 following the launch of an investigation into the company by federal and provincial privacy commissioners.

— With files from Anja Karadeglija in Ottawa

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

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Health

Here is how to prepare your online accounts for when you die

Published

2 weeks ago

October 24, 2024

Anne Joseph

LONDON (AP) — Most people have accumulated a pile of data — selfies, emails, videos and more — on their social media and digital accounts over their lifetimes. What happens to it when we die?

It’s wise to draft a will spelling out who inherits your physical assets after you’re gone, but don’t forget to take care of your digital estate too. Friends and family might treasure files and posts you’ve left behind, but they could get lost in digital purgatory after you pass away unless you take some simple steps.

Here’s how you can prepare your digital life for your survivors:

Apple

The iPhone maker lets you nominate a “ legacy contact ” who can access your Apple account’s data after you die. The company says it’s a secure way to give trusted people access to photos, files and messages. To set it up you’ll need an Apple device with a fairly recent operating system — iPhones and iPads need iOS or iPadOS 15.2 and MacBooks needs macOS Monterey 12.1.

For iPhones, go to settings, tap Sign-in & Security and then Legacy Contact. You can name one or more people, and they don’t need an Apple ID or device.

You’ll have to share an access key with your contact. It can be a digital version sent electronically, or you can print a copy or save it as a screenshot or PDF.

Take note that there are some types of files you won’t be able to pass on — including digital rights-protected music, movies and passwords stored in Apple’s password manager. Legacy contacts can only access a deceased user’s account for three years before Apple deletes the account.

Google

Google takes a different approach with its Inactive Account Manager, which allows you to share your data with someone if it notices that you’ve stopped using your account.

When setting it up, you need to decide how long Google should wait — from three to 18 months — before considering your account inactive. Once that time is up, Google can notify up to 10 people.

You can write a message informing them you’ve stopped using the account, and, optionally, include a link to download your data. You can choose what types of data they can access — including emails, photos, calendar entries and YouTube videos.

There’s also an option to automatically delete your account after three months of inactivity, so your contacts will have to download any data before that deadline.

Facebook and Instagram

Some social media platforms can preserve accounts for people who have died so that friends and family can honor their memories.

When users of Facebook or Instagram die, parent company Meta says it can memorialize the account if it gets a “valid request” from a friend or family member. Requests can be submitted through an online form.

The social media company strongly recommends Facebook users add a legacy contact to look after their memorial accounts. Legacy contacts can do things like respond to new friend requests and update pinned posts, but they can’t read private messages or remove or alter previous posts. You can only choose one person, who also has to have a Facebook account.

You can also ask Facebook or Instagram to delete a deceased user’s account if you’re a close family member or an executor. You’ll need to send in documents like a death certificate.

TikTok

The video-sharing platform says that if a user has died, people can submit a request to memorialize the account through the settings menu. Go to the Report a Problem section, then Account and profile, then Manage account, where you can report a deceased user.

Once an account has been memorialized, it will be labeled “Remembering.” No one will be able to log into the account, which prevents anyone from editing the profile or using the account to post new content or send messages.

It’s not possible to nominate a legacy contact on Elon Musk’s social media site. But family members or an authorized person can submit a request to deactivate a deceased user’s account.

Passwords

Besides the major online services, you’ll probably have dozens if not hundreds of other digital accounts that your survivors might need to access. You could just write all your login credentials down in a notebook and put it somewhere safe. But making a physical copy presents its own vulnerabilities. What if you lose track of it? What if someone finds it?

Instead, consider a password manager that has an emergency access feature. Password managers are digital vaults that you can use to store all your credentials. Some, like Keeper,Bitwarden and NordPass, allow users to nominate one or more trusted contacts who can access their keys in case of an emergency such as a death.

But there are a few catches: Those contacts also need to use the same password manager and you might have to pay for the service.

___

Is there a tech challenge you need help figuring out? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your questions.

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Tech

Google’s partnership with AI startup Anthropic faces a UK competition investigation

Published

2 weeks ago

October 24, 2024

Anne Joseph

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s competition watchdog said Thursday it’s opening a formal investigation into Google’s partnership with artificial intelligence startup Anthropic.

The Competition and Markets Authority said it has “sufficient information” to launch an initial probe after it sought input earlier this year on whether the deal would stifle competition.

The CMA has until Dec. 19 to decide whether to approve the deal or escalate its investigation.

“Google is committed to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem in the world,” the company said. “Anthropic is free to use multiple cloud providers and does, and we don’t demand exclusive tech rights.”

San Francisco-based Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The company has focused on increasing the safety and reliability of AI models. Google reportedly agreed last year to make a multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic, which has a popular chatbot named Claude.

Anthropic said it’s cooperating with the regulator and will provide “the complete picture about Google’s investment and our commercial collaboration.”

“We are an independent company and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships diminish the independence of our corporate governance or our freedom to partner with others,” it said in a statement.

The U.K. regulator has been scrutinizing a raft of AI deals as investment money floods into the industry to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom. Last month it cleared Anthropic’s $4 billion deal with Amazon and it has also signed off on Microsoft’s deals with two other AI startups, Inflection and Mistral.

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