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Daily Crunch: Facebook cancels F8 over coronavirus concerns – TechCrunch

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Coronavirus fears prompt even more event cancellations, controversial facial recognition software is being used widely and DocuSign acquires Seal Software. Here’s your Daily Crunch for February 28, 2020.

1. Facebook cancels F8 conference, citing coronavirus concerns

Facebook has confirmed that it has canceled its annual F8 developers conference over growing concerns about the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. More specifically, the company says it’s canceling the “in-person component” — there may still be video presentations, along with live-streamed and local events, under the F8 umbrella.

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At the same time, companies, including Microsoft, are pulling out of the Game Developers Conference over similar concerns. And the Geneva Motor Show was just canceled.

2. Clearview said its facial recognition app was only for law enforcement as it courted private companies

After claiming that it would only sell its controversial facial recognition software to law enforcement agencies, a new report in BuzzFeed News suggests that Clearview AI is less than discerning about its client base, and has in fact shopped its technology far and wide.

3. DocuSign acquires Seal Software for $188M to enhance its AI chops

Seal Software was founded in 2010, and, while it may not be a mainstream brand, its customers include the likes of PayPal, Dell, Nokia and DocuSign itself. (DocuSign previously invested in the company, too.) These businesses use Seal for its contract management tools, but also for its analytics, discovery and data extraction services.

4. Senate passes ‘rip and replace’ bill to remove old Huawei and ZTE equipment from networks

Written as a response to recent concerns around Chinese hardware manufacturers, the bill would ban purchase of telecom equipment from embattled Chinese manufactures like Huawei and ZTE. It also includes $1 billion in funding to help smaller rural telecoms “rip and replace” existing equipment from specific manufacturers.

5. The world Bob Iger made

The Disney executive has been openly thinking about retirement and searching for a successor — a search that culminated in this week’s announcement that he’d be stepping down from the CEO role immediately. But Iger’s succession planning hasn’t stopped him from solidifying Disney’s dominance of the entertainment business, a position designed to last long after his departure. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

6. ‘Robot’ was coined 100 years ago, in a play predicting human extinction by android hands

Published 100 years ago, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Czech writer Karel Čapek is best remembered for bringing the word “robot” to sci-fi — and English, generally.

7. Catching up with Startup Battlefield

We’re trying out something new: As you (hopefully) know, TechCrunch hosts a number of Startup Battlefield events, and afterwards, those startups often go on to do interesting and newsworthy things. But there are so many Battlefield alumni at this point that we can’t cover every announcement. So occasionally, I’ll be rounding them up here.

This week, we’ve got news from Berlin 2019 competitor Nodle.io, which is crowdsourcing the connectivity of smart sensors by offloading the task to smartphones. And Nodle announced this week that it has acquired Internet-of-Things security company Brickchain.com.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

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Apple announces Worldwide Developers Conference dates, in-person event – CityNews Toronto

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Apple has announced their annual developers conference will take place June 10 through June 14.

The big summer event will be live-streamed, but some select developers have been invited to attend in-person events at Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California, on June 10.

The company typically showcases their latest software and product updates — including the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AppleTV and Vision Pro headset — during a keynote address on the first day.

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Contributing to a drop in Apple’s stock price this year is concern it lags behind Microsoft and Google in the push to develop products powered by artificial intelligence technology. While Apple tends to keep its product development close to the vest, CEO Tim Cook signaled at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in February that it has been making big investments in generative AI and plans to disclose more later this year.

The week-long conference will have opportunities for developers to connect with Apple designers and engineers to gain insight into new tools, frameworks and features, according to the company’s announcement.

The Associated Press

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iPhone 16 Rumors Point to Action Button and New, Vertical Camera Layout – CNET

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The upcoming iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro are still months away from their expected launch this fall, but a new set of images published online may give us a better sense of their potential features. Among the revelations, the iPhone 16 may include an action button, similar to the one on last year’s iPhone 15 Pro, and it may have redesigned cameras in a vertical stack.

AppleInsider published a series of photos it says show dummy 3D prints of the upcoming iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro from an unnamed leaker. Aside from the action button and reworked cameras on the iPhone 16, AppleInsider also said its source found the iPhone 16 Pro to be “slightly larger” than its predecessor. Analysts had earlier said they expect the Pro model screens will grow somewhat.

Read more: iPhone 16: All the Major Rumors on Apple’s Next iPhone

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The new details suggest that a series of expected hardware updates are likely for this year’s new iPhones. Apple typically announces new iPhones around September, and the company tends to offer incremental upgrades to each new phone, introducing, over the period of several years, better cameras, screens and battery life, features that end up seeming like major upgrades when people get around to buying a new phone

Last year, Apple added a new titanium frame, action button and USB-C charging to its iPhone 15 Pro, which starts at $999. For its entry-level iPhone, Apple followed its well-worn strategy of trickling pro features down to the mainstream, adding the iPhone 14 Pro’s well-received Dynamic Island to the $799 iPhone 15, along with USB-C charging.

AppleInsider didn’t indicate whether its leaker had divined a reason for the iPhone 16’s shifted camera placements, but the two lenses will now reportedly be stacked one on top of the other, instead of diagonally. Apple has previously said it uses stacked lenses on the iPhone 15 Pro for spatial video capture, a key new technology the company highlighted as part of its $3,499 Apple Vision Pro headset, released in February.

Though AppleInsider’s leaks appear to confirm many previous rumors, not all renders and 3D prints are accurate, something the rumor blog notes itself in its report. Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the veracity of the leaks.

Watch this: What Google Gemini AI on the iPhone Could Look Like

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I Took 600+ Photos With the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. Look at My Favorites

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Leaked iPhone 16 dummy units hint at larger sizes and new buttons

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The iPhone 15 Pro Max, with a 6.7-inch screen
(Image credit: Future)

We’re already counting down to the arrival of the iPhone 16 series – most probably sometime in September – and a leak showing dummy units of the upcoming phones has revealed a few of the changes we can expect to see later this year.

These dummy units are usually based on supply chain information, and have various business uses – like helping case manufacturers get their wares ready for new phones before they’re launched, for example. In this case, the images were posted to Chinese social network Weibo, as spotted by MacRumors.

Perhaps the most interesting reveal from these blocks of plastic and metal is that they show the previously rumored increase in size for the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max displays – up to 6.3 inches (from 6.1 inches) and 6.9 inches (from 6.7 inches) respectively.

That’s not a huge jump of course, but it does mean more screen space for apps and media. The bezels are apparently shrinking down to accommodate the larger screens, which means the increase in the physical size of these handsets is only a slight one.

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On the button

iPhone 16 dummy units leak

The next iPhones might look a bit like this, but less blue (Image credit: Weibo)

Further reveals from this leak match up with what we’ve heard before: that all four models are going to get the Action button that replaced the Ring/Silent switch on the 2023 Pro models, as well as a brand-new Capture button for getting more creative with photos.

Also of note is the redesigned rear camera module that we think is coming to the back of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus. The new vertical, pill-shaped look has been leaked already, but this is more evidence that it’s on the way – taking us back to a design that’s more reminiscent of the iPhone 12, which came out in 2020.

As always with such rumors, be somewhat cautious about reading too much into the look of these dummy units. That said, as more and more similar leaks pile up, it becomes more likely that they’re based on accurate information.

The next big Apple date for your calendar is WWDC 2024 – its Worldwide Developers Conference starts on June 10, at which time we should hear much more about what’s coming this year with iOS 18 and Apple’s other software platforms.

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Freelance Contributor

Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you’ll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.

Leaked iPhone 16 dummy units hint at larger sizes and new buttons

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