Apple and Goldman Sachs are potentially ending their partnership four years after joining forces on an Apple credit card, The Wall Street Journal reports. The companies recently extended their agreement until 2029, but Apple proposes ending the contract in the next 12 to 15 months.

Although the pair launched a high-yield savings account in April of this year, it's likely that Goldman won't be too upset by a possible breakup. Last month, reports suggested the bank was aiming to get out of the consumer lending business. It had gone as far as to tell Apple earlier this year that it would like to get out of the agreement and approached American Express to take over its side of operations. 

Goldman also recently made arrangements to sell home improvement loan company Green Sky and plans to end its other credit card partnership with General Motors. Basically, Goldman tried to diversify outside of corporate and very wealthy clients, potentially writing off billions of dollars before returning to basics. The bank told employees that any layoffs would include one year's salary.

In a statement to CNBC, an Apple representative said: "Apple and Goldman Sachs are focused on providing an incredible experience for our customers to help them lead healthier financial lives. The award-winning Apple Card has seen a great reception from consumers, and we will continue to innovate and deliver the best tools and services for them."

Apple and Goldman's partnership was never a match made in heaven for the companies or consumers. Goldman employees were frustrated with aspects such as the payment schedule and a push for mass application approval. Customers, on the other hand, reported that the bank's customer service was a nightmare, including delayed transfers and lectures from representatives, according to The Information.

The future of Apple's credit card and high-yield savings account is uncertain. The pair are part of Apple's services sector, which is seeing growing revenue compared to reductions in its general sales. Synchrony Financial, which works with Amazon and PayPal, has been exploring the possibility of taking over Goldman's role. The company originally bid against Goldman for the program.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-is-reportedly-ending-its-partnership-with-goldman-sachs-104511694.html?src=rss

Apple is discontinuing in-house modem development after several unsuccessful attempts to perfect its own custom 5G modem chip, according to unconfirmed reports coming out of Asia.


According to the operator of news aggregator account "yeux1122" on the Naver blog, supply chain sources related to Apple's 5G modem departments claim that the company's attempts to develop its own modem have failed so far, and that Apple is in the process of winding down its years-long investment in the project. Separately, the leaker known as @Tech_Reve today said they had heard similar reports from a Japanese supply chain source.

It's too early to say if the latest reports are accurate, but according to a September Wall Street Journal report, Apple's attempts to develop its own modem chip have been hampered by major issues related to unrealistic goals, an inadequate understanding of the challenges involved, and unusable prototypes.

Apple's plan to design its own in-house modem led to the hiring of thousands of engineers: Apple acquired the majority of Intel's smartphone modem business in 2019, and as it filled the project's ranks with Intel engineers and others hired from Qualcomm, company executives set a goal to have the modem chip ready for fall 2023.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that Apple was continuing to run into troubles in its attempt to develop a 5G modem to replace Qualcomm's 5G modems in the iPhone and other products. The modem chip launch was said to have been postponed until the end of 2025 or early 2026, but Apple was reportedly still planning to introduce the technology in a version of the low-cost iPhone SE.

Development on a modem chip was said to be in the early stages, and it "may lag behind the competition by years." One version in development does not support faster mmWave technology, and Apple has also run into issues with the Intel code that it has been working with. Rewrites have been required, and adding new features has been causing existing features to break, plus Apple has to be careful not to infringe on Qualcomm patents while developing the chip.

Despite delays, the company was thought to be continuing development because it is eager to end its expensive deal with Qualcomm. In 2017, Apple sued Qualcomm over alleged anticompetitive practices and $1 billion in unpaid royalty rebates. The two companies settled the lawsuit in 2019.

Apple's first modem chip was expected to be a standalone chip, but the company hoped to eventually develop a system-on-a-chip that would also cut out suppliers like Broadcom and give it more control over component development.
This article, "Apple to Discontinue Custom 5G Modem Development, Claim Reports" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple has shared a behind-the-scenes look at the video production of its recent "Scary Fast" M3 MacBook Pro event, which was shot entirely on iPhone 15 Pro Max and edited on Mac.


Titled "Behind the Scenes: An Apple Event" and running two minutes and 16 seconds, the video shared on YouTube reveals how footage was captured using multiple iPhone 15 Pro Max devices, with the production team utilizing integration between iPhone 15 Pro, the Blackmagic Camera app, and Tentacle Sync.

Connected via Bluetooth, Tentacle Sync drives timecode and enables all devices on set — including Macs and preview screens — to be synced throughout the production. Beastgrip accessories, including cages and rigs, were also used during the production, as well as cranes, dollies, gimbals, and drones.

Interview clips with the directors, producers, and editors explain how the capabilities of the iPhone 15 Pro allowed them to work effectively with low light conditions, which is traditionally a bit more challenging for a standard video camera.

The production was advised by Apple's Jon Carr, a Pro Workflow video specialist whose credits include Top Gun: Maverick and Terminator: Dark Fate, and Jeff Wozniak, who has worked on productions including Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Avatar, and Iron Man 2.

"When I first got the footage from iPhone 15 Pro Max, I was immediately pleasantly surprised," said Stefan Sonnenfeld, Company 3's CEO, who colored the presentation and has worked on projects including Stranger Things, The Equalizer 3, and Fast X. "The quality of the image on iPhone 15 Pro Max is incredible, and it's there. And I know because I've done it and I've seen it, and we're doing this project with it."

The video specialists also espoused the benefits of being able to shoot directly to external storage and use Apple Log to access more dynamic range in post production.

The ‌‌iPhone 15‌ Pro‌ and iPhone 15 Pro Max models feature an improved camera system, including a main camera with a larger sensor, a new coating to reduce lens flare, optical image stabilization, and better low light performance for Portraits and Night mode.
This article, "Apple Reveals How 'Scary Fast' Event Was Shot on iPhone 15 Pro Max" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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X / Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino has just canceled her appearance at the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference next week, saying “with the global crisis unfolding, Linda and her team must remain fully focused on X platform safety.”

The “global crisis” in question is almost certainly a reference to the war in Israel, which a resulted in a flood of horrific videos being posted to X. Then there is the issue of one Elon Musk, X’s owner, who yesterday posted “For following the war in real-time, @WarMonitors & @sentdefender are good.” @warmonitors has posted obviously anti-Semitic tweets in the past; Elon later deleted the tweet. The Washington Post reports that both accounts “were among the most important early spreaders of a false claim in May that there had been an explosion near the White House.”

Many of the employees who focused on content moderation (known in the industry as “trust and safety”) lost their jobs last year, CNN reports. Recently, the artist formerly known as Twitter removed headlines from link cards, instead showing only the lead image of the article. The removal was Musk’s idea.

Yaccarino’s exit from the WSJ conference follows her chaotic, tense appearance at our own Code Conference, in which she deflected most questions — especially those relating to comments made previously at the conference by former X trust and safety head Yoel Roth.

Last week, Yaccarino told lenders that revenue grew “in the high-single digit percentage during the third quarter compared to the second quarter,” according to Reuters, which cited an anonymous source. Yaccarino also told the banks that X / Twitter was considering subscription tiers that would vary the number of ads shown to users.

Yaccarino previously said at the Code Conference that 90 percent of advertisers are back on the platform, although they appear to be spending less than before, Bloomberg reported, also citing an anonymous source.

Microsoft is rolling out a new and improved version of its Microsoft Teams chat client today. It has been rebuilt from the ground up to make it faster and easier to use and has been in preview since March. After years of development, Windows and Mac users can now freely install the new version of Microsoft Teams.

The new version of Teams is up to two times faster while using 50 percent less memory, according to Microsoft. That’s good news to anyone who uses Teams already, which has been particularly resource-hungry on older laptops and PCs. Installing the new Microsoft Teams app should be three times faster and launching or joining meetings two times faster, with the app now taking up 70 percent less disk space.

Image: Microsoft

All of these performance improvements are thanks to Microsoft ditching the Electron foundations of Teams and moving toward Microsoft’s Edge WebView2 technology. Microsoft has also moved to the React JavaScript library and focused on improving the Microsoft Teams design with the Fluent design language system for several UI improvements.

The new Teams has been in preview for months, but during that time, it was missing some features that Microsoft has now added to the final version. “We have made notable progress since the launch of new Teams in public preview,” says Microsoft product lead Anupam Pattnaik. “New Teams now has full feature parity for almost all features including custom line-of-business apps, third-party apps, breakout rooms, 7x7 video, call queues, PSTN calling, contextual search in chats and channels, cross-post a channel conversation, and more.”

New Microsoft Teams features will now be delivered exclusively on this new Teams client, so businesses will need to upgrade. There’s no migration required, though, so upgrading should be as simple as an update. Microsoft says “classic Teams” users will be automatically upgraded to new Teams in the coming months.

Image: Microsoft

The new Teams client also wasn’t available initially for Mac users earlier this year in preview, but with the final release for macOS, there are also improvements for Apple’s devices. “We’re also seeing significant performance improvements on Mac, including the ability to switch between chats and channels faster, and access relevant information quickly and efficiently with a faster scrolling experience,” says Microsoft. “Teams works natively on all Mac devices, including those with Apple silicon, giving Mac users an improved app experience.”

This new Microsoft Teams client is also the foundation for the company’s AI-powered Copilot push in Teams. You’ll be able to use Copilot in Teams to summarize meetings, read action items, and avoid long threads of conversations to get to the key points.

Enterprise users of Microsoft Teams will now see a toggle to upgrade to the new Teams client, and it will become the default app in the monthly enterprise channel in December. You can get the new client by flipping the toggle in the upper-left corner of the existing Teams app. Microsoft has a full schedule for exactly how this rollout will affect different Microsoft 365 users right here.

Long-time Slashdot reader RockDoctor writes: Regardless of their other potential benefits, modern cars, and modern electric cars in particular, involve complex networks of computer code, hardware, and servo systems cooperating (?) to deliver services to the user, like acceleration, steering and braking. Slashdot nerderati know better than most that such complex networks can never show unexpected, non-designed behavior, due to the infallibility of hardware, program coders and system designers... Yeah. Right. "I'll have some of what he's been smoking!" That's Musk-grade optimism. On Sunday evening, a middle-aged driver in a "brand new" vehicle found it would not decelerate below 30mph (50kmph). He retained steering control, and avoided crashing until police vehicles "boxed in" his vehicle and helped him exit into a police van (most have sliding side doors) from the moving vehicle. The police then "carried out a controlled halt" on the unmanned vehicle, stopping it from driving away with the van's brakes until a roadside assistance technician arrived 3 hours later and managed to shut it down. "[W]hen the [technician] got to me [...] later, he plugged in the car to do a diagnostic check and there was pages of faults," said the "kidnapped" driver from Glasgow. "He said he had never seen anything like it and decided he was not willing to turn the engine on to see what was wrong." By inference, the vehicle did not have a mechanical brake ("hand brake": English; "parking brake": American), which should have been able to keep the vehicle halted regardless of the motor's actions (even if a "clutch" did get burned out). From the only time I've been inside an electric car, I can't say if that is normal; it's certainly something I'll look for if I ever rent another. Had the failure happened at 10 a.m. in the morning, not 10 p.m. in the evening, the body count could have been ... substantial. A dumb question, stemming from my only use of an electric car: do they have a weight sensor under the driver's seat that locks-out the main motor unless there is (say) 30kg in the driver's seat? Most have some such sensors -- they trigger the "seatbelt not fastened" alarm or silence it for empty seats -- but whether they can override the drive system ... ?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.