New Apple center another opportunity for Chinese theft?

by | Aug 16, 2016 | News

 

Despite the increasing difficulties for foreign companies operating in China, Apple Inc. will build its first Asia-Pacific research and development center in the country, Chief Executive Tim Cook said Aug. 14.

The pledge comes after China’s industry and technology regulator in May told Apple  that China could deepen its cooperation with the country in research and development and stressed information security. Given China’s record of engaging in massive intellectual-property theft and in cracking down on Internet freedom in China while its government engages in frequent cyberattacks against the United States, it’s unclear how beneficial the center will be to Apple,  other U.S. technology companies or, indeed to U.S. and other Western nations’ national security in general.

The regime of President Xi Jinping may see the new Apple center as yet another way of undermining American technology superiority.

To read a Reuters story on the new center, please hit this link.

Apple trying to get more information on user behavior

by | Jun 16, 2016 | AI World Society Summit

 

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple Inc. is using new technology “to garner insight into user behavior, in an effort to keep pace with rivals’ insights without violating its privacy pledges.’’

The WSJ reports that “Apple’s short-term ambitions for the technology are limited. The company will use it to keep user data anonymous while analyzing how customers are using emojis or new slang expressions on the phone, or which search queries should pop up ‘deep links’ to apps rather than webpages. It will also improve the company’s Notes software.

“In the long term, however, differential privacy could help Apple keep up with competitors such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google that collect user data more aggressively and use it to improve offers such as image- and voice-recognition programs.’’