Americans have not needed iceboxes to keep food cold for nearly a century, ever since refrigerators became widely available. But that doesn’t stop folks in Holderness, N.H., from carrying out a winter task that’s been done for more than 120 years — harvesting ice for the summer months. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Scientists are helping patients fight flu, diabetes and other maladies with the help of a smart watch that monitors body chemistry for blood sugar, sweat and other data. Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas say it can also help couples get pregnant by tracking the stress. Mariia Prus traveled to Texas to learn more. Joy Wagner narrates her report.
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A new kind of electric car charging point has been switched on in London. It’s designed to make electric vehicle, or EV, charging infrastructure cheaper and greener. It also acts as a data port, as VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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One of the world’s top research universities, the U.S.-based University of California, Berkeley, has stopped new research projects with Huawei Technologies, a Chinese telecommunications giant.
The university’s suspension, which took effect on January 30, came after the U.S. Department of Justice filed criminal charges against the corporation and some of its affiliates two days earlier. The department announced a 13-count indictment against Huawei, accusing it of stealing trade secrets, obstruction of justice, violations of economic sanctions and wire fraud.
Vice Chancellor for Research Randy Katz said in a letter addressed to the Chancellor’s cabinet members the campus would continue to honor existing commitments with Huawei that provide funding for current research projects.
Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, has been under house arrest in Canada since December 1 for allegedly deceiving U.S. banks into clearing funds for a subsidiary that interacted with Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. Her extradition to the U.S. is pending.
Meng’s arrest has prompted some observers to question whether her detention was an attempt to pressure China in its ongoing trade war with the U.S. She is the daughter of the corporation’s founder, a relationship that places her among the most influential corporate executives in China.
UC Berkeley and other leading U.S. universities, meanwhile, are getting rid of telecom equipment made by Huawei and other Chinese companies to prevent losing federal funds under a new national security law.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump alleges Chinese telecom companies are manufacturing equipment that allows the Chinese government to spy on users in other countries, including Western researchers working on innovative technologies.
UC Berkeley has removed a Huawei video-conferencing system, a university official said. The University of California, Irvine is also replacing Chinese-made audio-video equipment. Other schools, such as the University of Wisconsin, are reviewing their telecom suppliers.
The action is in response to a law Trump signed in August. A provision of the National Defense Authorization Act prohibits recipients of federal funding from using telecom and networking equipment made by Hauwei or ZTE.
Universities that fail to comply with the law by August 2020 could lose federal government research grants and other funding.
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Wearing a headscarf and a smile, Muslim movie director and writer Lena Khan stands out when she walks in Hollywood circles.
“It’s very hard to be a female filmmaker in Hollywood, that is for sure,” she said. “I think they feel like you don’t have as much authority, or you can’t command a set as much. And for the Muslim thing, I think they are still trying to process that.”
Khan is a child of immigrants from India. Born in Canada, she moved to the United States with her family when she was 2 years old and settled in a neighborhood east of Los Angeles. In school, she explored several career options before deciding on filmmaking.
“I had wanted to become a teacher. You look around and you’re like, ‘Nobody learns from teachers anymore,’” Khan joked. “Sometimes it feels like it,” she added. “And at least people learn so much from movies and films, about people, about social issues, about everything.”
However, Khan’s decision to pursue a career of writing and filmmaking sparked some criticism.
“When I was starting out, people in the community, South Asians most of all, they’re like, ‘Why are you entering such a stupid career?’”
Stories have value
But Khan persisted. Her first success was a movie she co-wrote and directed called “The Tiger Hunter.” The 2017 comedy is about the immigrant experience of a man from India in the U.S. Khan said the movie’s success surprised people in her community.
“People who are South Asian or Muslim can’t seem to believe that our stories have really real value. And so, the moment you start talking about, ‘Oh, you know such and such person from this company’ — aka white person — ’said this movie is good.’ That’s when their eyebrows raise. That’s when they feel like, ‘Oh, OK, somebody else validated this brown person’s story, and thus it has something to say.’”
Khan said the film’s universal themes and the coincidental timing of its release helped draw attention to it.
“The Muslim ban happened right when the movie came out,” she said, referring to President Donald Trump’s executive order that temporarily barred people from seven countries, most with a predominantly Muslim population, from entering the U.S. “That was never intended. It’s not a good thing, but it became very, very relevant.”
Her own path
“The Tiger Hunter” opened doors to opportunities that Khan never had. She is now working on a TV comedy and directing a movie for Disney. She said she surprised many people during Hollywood meetings.
“The first thing when you walk into a room in a lot of places is them kind of looking at your head — sort of just a quick eye-glance over there. And then, when you say things like how I play the drums, and they were just very shocked,” she said. “They want people who they feel like they can hang out with that are part of their club. And you really don’t look like you’re a part of their club.”
But Khan said she will not compromise who she is. She just creates her own path.
“I’m not going to hang out in a bar until 2 a.m., which sometimes a lot of business gets done that way, and sometimes meeting those people on TV that you need to meet. So, you kind of have to make up for it in other ways,” she said. “For me, I’ve always had to make up for it, part of it. That’s how I started making my own movies.”
What keeps her going, even with obstacles from Hollywood and within her own community?
“I like what I’m doing,” she said. “I like it. I feel like it has some value. It’s incredibly fun. Then, I’m also a faithful person, whereas it’s always for me, it’s about sort of like how you went about your day, and kind of what you tried, and the results are up to God.”
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The Hollywood film industry is hard for anyone to break into. There may be a few more hurdles if you are a woman and Muslim. One filmmaker found success both in Hollywood and in her own community. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from Los Angeles.
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The Vatican’s former doctrine chief has penned a “manifesto of faith” to remind Catholics of basic tenets of belief amid what he says is “growing confusion” in the church today.
Cardinal Gerhard Mueller didn’t name Pope Francis in his four-page manifesto, released late Friday. But the document was nevertheless a clear manifestation of conservative criticism of Francis’ emphasis on mercy and accompaniment versus a focus on repeating Catholic morals and doctrine during the previous two papacies.
Mueller wrote that a pastor’s failure to teach Catholic truths was the greatest deception — “It is the fraud of the anti-Christ.”
Francis sacked Mueller as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2017, denying the German a second five-year term.
‘Truth of revelation’
In the document, which was published by conservative Catholic media that have been critical of Francis, Mueller repeats basic Catholic teaching that Catholics must be free from sin before receiving Communion. He mentions divorced and remarried faithful, in a clear reference to Francis’ opening to letting these Catholics receive Communion on a case-by-case basis after a process of accompaniment and discernment with their pastors.
Mueller also repeats that women cannot be ordained priests and that priests must be celibate. Francis has reaffirmed the ban on ordination for women but has commissioned a study on women deacons in the early church. Francis has also reaffirmed priestly celibacy but has made the case for exceptions where “pastoral necessity” might justify ordaining married men of proven virtue.
“In the face of growing confusion about the doctrine of the faith, many bishops, priests, religious and lay people of the Catholic Church have requested that I make a public testimony about the truth of revelation,” Mueller wrote. “It is the shepherd’s very own task to guide those entrusted to them on the path of salvation.”
Nostalgic for Benedict XVI
The manifesto was the latest jab at Francis from the conservative wing of the church. Already, four other cardinals have called on the Jesuit pope to clarify his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.
And the Vatican’s former ambassador to the U.S. has demanded Francis resign over what he claimed was the pope’s 2013 rehabilitation of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick despite knowing the high-ranking American slept with adult seminarians. McCarrick is likely to be defrocked in the coming days after he was more recently accused of sexually abusing minors.
Mueller’s manifesto carries the date of Feb. 10, the eve of the sixth anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s historic announcement that he would resign. Many conservatives are nostalgic for the doctrinal clarity and certainty of Benedict’s reign.
It was published after Francis penned a joint declaration of “fraternity” with a prominent Muslim imam during his recent trip to the United Arab Emirates. Some conservatives say the document’s claim that the pluralism of religions is “willed by God” muddies Catholic belief about the centrality of Christ. Francis has defended the document as doctrinally sound.
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Albert Finney, one of the most respected and versatile actors of his generation and the star of films as diverse as “Tom Jones” and “Skyfall,” has died. He was 82.
From his early days as a strikingly handsome and magnetic screen presence to his closing acts as a brilliant character actor, Finney was a British treasure known for charismatic work on both stage and screen.
Finney’s family said Friday that he “passed away peacefully after a short illness with those closest to him by his side.” He died Thursday from a chest infection at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, a cancer treatment center.
Finney burst to international fame in 1963 in the title role of “Tom Jones,” playing a lusty, humorous rogue who captivated audience with his charming, devil-may-care antics.
He excelled in many other roles, including “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning”, a 1960 drama that was part of the “angry young man” film trend.
Finney was a rare star who managed to avoid the Hollywood limelight despite more than five decades of worldwide fame. He was known for skipping awards ceremonies, even when he was nominated for an Oscar.
“Tom Jones” gained him the first of five Oscar nominations. Other nominations followed for “Murder on the Orient Express,” ″The Dresser,” ″Under the Volcano” and “Erin Brockovich.” Each time he fell short.
In later years he brought authority to bid-budget and high-grossing action movies, including the James Bond thriller “Skyfall” and two of the Bourne films. He also won hearts as Daddy Warbucks in “Annie.”
He played an array of roles, including Winston Churchill, Pope John Paul II, a southern American lawyer, and an Irish gangster. There was no “Albert Finney”-type character that he returned to again and again.
In one of his final roles, as the gruff Scotsman, Kincade, in “Skyfall,” he shared significant screen time with Daniel Craig as Bond and Judi Dench as M, turning the film’s final scenes into a master class of character acting.
“The world has lost a giant,” Craig said.
Although Finney rarely discussed his personal life, he said in 2012 that he had been treated for kidney cancer for five years.
He also explained why he had not attended the Academy Awards in Los Angeles even when he was nominated for the film world’s top prize.
“It seems silly to go over there and beg for an award,” he said.
The son of a bookmaker, Finney was born May 9, 1936, and grew up in northern England on the outskirts of Manchester. He took to the stage at an early age, doing a number of school plays and — despite his lack of connections and his working-class roots — earning a place at London’s prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
He credited the headmaster of his local school, Eric Simms, for recommending that he attend the renowned drama school.
“He’s the reason I am an actor,” Finney said in 2012.
Finney made his first professional turn at 19 and appeared in several TV movies.
Soon, some critics were hailing him as “the next Laurence Olivier” — a commanding presence who would light up the British stage. In London, Finney excelled both in Shakespeare’s plays and in more contemporary offerings.
Still, the young man seemed determined not to pursue conventional Hollywood stardom. After an extensive screen test, he turned down the chance to play the title role in director David Lean’s epic “Lawrence of Arabia,” clearing the way for fellow RADA graduate Peter O’Toole to take what became a career-defining role.
But stardom came to Finney anyway in “Tom Jones”.
That was the role that introduced Finney to American audiences, and few would forget the sensual, blue-eyed leading man who helped the film win a Best Picture Oscar. Finney also earned his first Best Actor nomination for his efforts and the smash hit turned him into a Hollywood leading man.
Finney had the good fortune to receive a healthy percentage of the profits from the surprise hit, giving him financial security while he was still in his 20s.
“This is a man from very humble origins who became rich when he was very young,” said Quentin Falk, author of an unauthorized biography of Finney. “It brought him a lot of side benefits. He’s a man who likes to live as well as to act. He enjoys his fine wine and cigars. He’s his own man. I find that rather admirable.”
The actor maintained a healthy skepticism about the British establishment and turned down a knighthood when it was offered, declining to become Sir Albert.
“Maybe people in America think being a ‘Sir’ is a big deal,” he said. “But I think we should all be misters together. I think the ‘Sir’ thing slightly perpetuates one of our diseases in England, which is snobbery.”
He told The Associated Press in 2000 that he would rather be a “mister” than a “Sir.”
Instead of cashing in by taking lucrative film roles after “Tom Jones,” Finney took a long sabbatical, traveling slowly through the United States, Mexico and the Pacific islands, then returned to the London stage to act in Shakespeare productions and other plays. He won wide acclaim before returning to film in 1967 to co-star with Audrey Hepburn in “Two for the Road.”
This was to be a familiar pattern, with Finney alternating between film work and stage productions in London and New York.
Finney tackled Charles Dickens in “Scrooge” in 1970, then played Agatha Christie’s sophisticated sleuth Hercule Poirot in “Murder on the Orient Express” — earning his second Best Actor nomination— and even played a werewolf hunter in the cult film “Wolfen” in 1981.
In 1983, he was reunited with his peer from the “angry young man” movement, Tom Courtenay, in “The Dresser,” a film that garnered both Academy Award nominations.
Finney was nominated again for his role as a self-destructive alcoholic in director John Huston’s 1984 film “Under the Volcano.”
Even during this extraordinary run of great roles, Finney’s life was not chronicled in People or other magazines, although the British press was fascinated with his marriage to the sultry French film star Anouk Aimee.
He played in a series of smaller, independent films for a number of years before returning to prominence in 2000 as a southern lawyer in the film “Erin Brockovich,” which starred Julia Roberts. The film helped introduce Finney to a new generation of moviegoers, and the chemistry between the aging lawyer and his young, aggressive assistant earned him yet another Oscar nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actor.
His work also helped propel Roberts to her first Best Actress Oscar. Still, Finney declined to attend the Academy Awards ceremony — possibly damaging his chances at future wins by snubbing Hollywood’s elite.
Finney also tried his hand at directing and producing and played a vital role in sustaining British theater.
The Old Vic theater said his “performances in plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov and other iconic playwrights throughout the ’60s, ‘70s and ’80s stand apart as some of the greatest in our 200-year history.”
Finney is survived by his third wife, Pene Delmage, son Simon and two grandchildren. Funeral arrangements weren’t immediately known.
Up to 85 percent of the jobs that today’s college students will have in 11 years haven’t been invented yet.
That’s according to a panel of experts assembled by the Institute for the Future, although an exact percentage is impossible to predict.
The IFTF, a nonprofit that seeks to identify emerging trends and their impacts on global society, forecasts that many of the tasks and duties of the jobs that today’s young people will hold in 2030 don’t exist right now.
“Those who plan to work for the next 50 years, they have to have a mindset of like, ‘I’m going to be working and learning and working and learning, and working and learning,’ in order to make a career,” says Rachel Maguire, a research director with IFTF.
By 2030, we’ll likely be living in a world where artificial assistants help us with almost every task, not unlike the way email tries to finish spelling a word for users today.
Maguire says it will be like having an assistant working alongside you, taking on tasks at which the human brain does not excel.
“For the human, for the people who are digitally literate who are able to take advantage, they’ll be well-positioned to elevate their position, elevate the kind of work they can do, because they’ve got essentially an orchestra of digital technologies that they’re conducting,” she says. “They’re just playing the role of a conductor, but the work’s being done, at least in partnership, with these machines.”
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says today’s students will have eight to 10 jobs by the time they are 38.
And they won’t necessarily have to take time away from any one of those jobs for workforce training or to gain additional certifications related to their fields. Instead, they’ll partner with machines for on-the-job learning, wearing an augmented reality headset that will give them the information they need in real-time to get the work done.
“It eliminates the need for people to step away from income generating opportunities to recertify in order to learn a new skill so they can level up and earn more money,” Maguire says. “It gives the opportunity for people to be able to learn those kinds of new skills and demonstrate proficiency in-the-moment at the job.”
And forget about traditional human resources departments or the daunting task of looking for a job on your own. In the future, the job might come to you.
Potential employers will draw from different data sources, including online business profiles and social media streams, to get a sense of a person and their skill set.
Maquire says there’s already a lot of activity around turning employment into a matchmaking endeavor, using artificial intelligence and deep learning to help the right person and the right job find each other.
In theory, this kind of online job matching could lead to less bias and discrimination in hiring practices. However, there are potential pitfalls.
“We have to be cognizant that the people who are building these tools aren’t informing these tools with their own biases, whether they’re intentional or not,” Maguire says. “These systems will only be as good as the data that feeds them.”
Which leads Maguire to another point. While she doesn’t want to sound melodramatic or evangelical about emerging technologies, she believes it is critical for the public to get engaged now, rather than sitting back and letting technology happen to them.
“What do we want from these new technological capabilities, and how do we make sure we put in place the social policies and the social systems that will result in what it is we all want?” she says. “I have a deep concern that we’re just kind of sitting back and letting technology tell us what jobs we’ll have and what jobs we won’t have, rather than us figuring out how to apply these technologies to improve the human condition.”
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Excess rainwater flowing into streams and waterways — carrying pollutants and contaminants — is a problem for urban areas across the country. To combat it, an increasing number of cities across the U.S. are initiating programs like rooftop gardens to help absorb the rain, and in some cases also grow food. VOA’s Julie Taboh takes us to a rooftop garden in Washington, a city with one of greatest numbers of green roofs.
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There is no real preparation for dealing with the reality of being in a combat zone. But training helps, and that’s the idea behind a virtual reality exercise that the International Committee of the Red Cross is providing to field employees. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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A portion of TransCanada Corp’s Keystone oil pipeline remained shut on Thursday for investigation of a possible leak on its right-of-way near St. Louis, Missouri, a company spokesman said.
TransCanada shut the pipeline on Wednesday between Steele City, Nebraska and Patoka, Illinois and sent crews to assess the situation, spokesman Terry Cunha said in an email.
The 590,000 barrels-per-day Keystone pipeline is a critical artery taking Canadian crude from northern Alberta to U.S. refineries.
Two pipelines operating near the release site will be excavated on Friday to determine the source of the leak, said Darius Kirkwood, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The agency is monitoring the response to the reported leak, he said.
Canadian pipelines are already congested because of expanding production in recent years, forcing the Alberta provincial government to order production cuts starting last month. Canadian heavy oil has attracted greater demand following U.S. sanctions against Venezuela’s state oil company.
The discount on Canadian heavy crude compared to U.S. light oil widened to $10.15 per barrel on Thursday morning from $9.40 earlier, according to Net Energy Exchange.
TransCanada shares eased 0.2 percent to C$55.98 in Toronto.
An official with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources said on Wednesday that the release of oil had stopped and it planned to find the leak on Thursday.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says the National Enquirer is threatening to publish revealing photographs of him unless his private investigators back off the tabloid.
Bezos detailed the revelations in a Thursday post on Medium.com. He accuses the Enquirer of “extortion and blackmail.”
The National Enquirer published a story last month that included lurid texts between Bezos and former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez. Since then, private investigators have been looking into how the Enquirer got the texts.
Bezos says the Enquirer’s parent company tried to get him to agree to a deal for the tabloid not to publish the explicit photos.
As part of the deal, Bezos would have to release a public statement that he has “no knowledge or basis” to suggest the tabloid’s reporting was politically motivated.
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Legendary baseball Hall of Famer Frank Robinson, the first black manager in the U.S. major leagues, died Thursday in Los Angeles at 83.
He had been suffering from bone cancer and was in hospice care at his home.
Even if he had not become baseball’s first African-American manager, Robinson’s feats on the playing field would have been enough to earn him a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
During his career as an outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, California Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers, Robinson hit 586 home runs, played in 14 All-Star games, helped lead the Orioles to three straight World Series, and was an outstanding and aggressive fielder.
He was named Rookie of the Year during his first season in 1956 playing for the Reds.
Robinson is the only player in major league history to win the Most Valuable Player award in both the American and National leagues.
He made history in 1975 when the Cleveland Indians hired him as a player-manager, the first black manager in the major leagues. He made an impressive debut, hitting a home run on the first day.
He later managed the Orioles, Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, Montreal Expos, and Washington Nationals. He was named Manager of the Year in 1989 when he was with the Orioles.
Robinson worked as a baseball executive after retiring as a manager in 2006.
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Apple Inc. on Thursday rolled out software updates to iPhones to fix a privacy issue in its FaceTime video calling service, and said it would contribute toward the education of the Arizona teenager who discovered the problem.
The software bug, which had let users hear audio from people who had not yet answered a video call, was discovered by a Tucson, Ariz., high school student Grant Thompson, who with his mother, Michele, led Apple to turn off FaceTime group chat as its engineers investigated the issue.
The technology giant said it would compensate the Thompson family and make an additional gift toward 14-year-old Grant’s education.
Apple also formally credited Thompson and Daven Morris from Arlington, Texas in the release notes to its latest iPhone software update.
“In addition to addressing the bug that was reported, our team conducted a thorough security audit of the FaceTime service and made additional updates to both the FaceTime app and server to improve security,” Apple said in a statement.
Two key U.S. House Democrats on Tuesday asked Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook to answer questions about the bug, saying they were “deeply troubled” by how long it took Apple to address the security flaw.
The company said last week that it was planning to improve how it handles reports of software bugs.
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Filmmaker Woody Allen has filed a $68 million lawsuit against Amazon for breach of contract, accusing the streaming giant of canceling a film deal because of a “baseless” decades-old allegation that he sexually abused his daughter.
Allen says Amazon sought to terminate the deal in June, and has since refused to pay him $9 million in financing for his latest film, A Rainy Day in New York, his lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan allege.
That film was one of several to be produced with the Oscar-winning director under a series of agreements reached after Allen made the Crisis in Six Scenes program for Amazon, which was then a new content provider.
He is seeking that $9 million along with minimum guarantees owed him for other films, totaling “in excess of $68,000,000,” according to a complaint filed Thursday in federal court in New York and obtained by AFP.
He says Amazon told him the deal had become “impracticable” because of “supervening events, including renewed allegations against Mr. Allen, his own controversial comments” and the refusal of actors to work with him.
Allen has been accused of molesting Dylan Farrow, his adopted daughter, when she was seven years old in the early 1990s.
He was cleared of the charges, first leveled by his then-partner Mia Farrow, after two separate months-long investigations, and has steadfastly denied the abuse. But Dylan, now an adult, maintains she was molested.
In June last year, the same month that Amazon apparently terminated his contract, Allen backed the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment — and said he should be its poster boy.
“I’ve worked in movies for 50 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of actresses, and not a single one has ever suggested any kind of impropriety at all,” he said in an interview with Argentina’s Canal 13 television network.
“I — who was only accused by one woman in a child custody case, which was looked at and proven to be untrue — I get lumped in with these people.”
In recent months, a string of actors who have worked with Allen have distanced themselves from him, and said they would no longer work with him.
Amazon did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
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Apple Inc has moved its modem chip engineering effort into its in-house hardware technology group from its supply chain unit, two people familiar with the move told Reuters, a sign the tech company is looking to develop
a key component of its iPhones after years of buying it from outside suppliers.
Modems are an indispensable part of phones and other mobile devices, connecting them to wireless data networks. Apple once used Qualcomm Inc chips exclusively but began phasing in Intel Corp chips in 2016 and dropped Qualcomm from iPhones released last year.
Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, took over the company’s modem design efforts in January, the sources said. The organizational move has not been previously reported.
Srouji joined Apple in 2008 to lead chip design, including the custom A-series processors that power iPhones and iPads and a special Bluetooth chip that helps those devices pair with its AirPods wireless headphones and other Apple accessories.
The modem efforts had previously been led by Rubén Caballero, who reports to Dan Riccio, the executive responsible for iPad, iPhone and Mac engineering, much of which involves integrating parts from the company’s vast electronics supply chain.
Apple declined to comment. Technology publication The Information previously reported that Apple was working to develop its own modem chip.
The Cupertino, California-based company has posted job listings for modem engineers in San Diego, a hub for wireless design talent because of Qualcomm’s longtime presence there and a place where Apple has said it plans to build up its workforce.
Apple’s effort to make its own modem chips could take years, and it is impossible to know when, or in what devices, such chips might appear.
“When you’re Apple, everything has to be good,” said Linley Gwennap, president of chip industry research firm The Linley Group. “There’s no room for some substandard component in that phone.”
5G on horizon
Apple’s investment in modem chips comes as carriers and other phone makers are rolling out devices for the next generation of faster wireless networks known as 5G.
Rival handset makers Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd already make their own modems.
Making its own modem chips would likely cost Apple hundreds of millions of dollars or more per year in development costs, analysts said, but could save it money eventually.
Modem chips are a major part of the cost of Apple devices, worth $15 to $20 each and likely costing Apple $3 billion to $4 billion for the 200 million or so iPhones it makes a year, said Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon.
Apple may also benefit by combining its modem chips with its processor chips, as Samsung, Huawei and most other phone makers do. That saves space and battery life, two important considerations if Apple introduces augmented reality features into future products.
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Twitter said Thursday profits rose sharply in the fourth quarter, lifted by gains in advertising despite a drop in its global user base.
The short-messaging platform said it posted a $255 million profit in the final three months of 2018, compared with $91 million a year earlier, as revenues rose 24 percent to $909 million.
But Twitter’s base of monthly active users declined to 321 million — a drop of nine million from a year earlier and five million from the prior quarter.
Twitter said it would stop using the monthly user base metric and instead report “monetizable” daily active users in the US and worldwide.
Using that measure, Twitter showed a base of 126 million worldwide, up nine percent over the year.
“2018 is proof that our long-term strategy is working,” said chief executive Jack Dorsey.
“Our efforts to improve health have delivered important results, and new product features like a single switch to move between latest and most relevant tweets have been embraced by the people who use Twitter. We enter this year confident that we will continue to deliver strong performance by focusing on making Twitter a healthier and more conversational service.”
Twitter shares sputtered and then fell sharply after the report, dropping as much as eight percent in pre-market trade.
Jasmine Enberg of the research firm eMarketer said the earnings were nonetheless positive.
“Twitter’s Q4 earnings prove that the company is still able to grow its revenues without increasing its user base,” she said.
“The falloff in monthly active users is likely a continuation of Twitter’s efforts to remove questionable accounts.”
Twitter, which has struggled to keep up with fast-growing rivals like Facebook and Instagram, said it changed the measure for its user base to reflect “our goal of delivering value to people on Twitter every day and monetizing that usage.”
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Robert Bosch have agreed to pay lawyers representing owners of U.S. diesel vehicles $66 million in fees and costs, according to court filing on Wednesday and people briefed on the matter.
In a court filing late on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, lawyer Elizabeth Cabraser said after negotiations overseen by court-appointed settlement master Ken Feinberg, the companies agreed not to oppose an award of $59 million in attorney’s fees and $7 million in costs.
The lawyers had originally sought up to $106.5 million in fees and costs.
Under a settlement announced last month, Fiat Chrysler and Bosch, which provided emissions control software for the Fiat Chrysler vehicles, will give 104,000 diesel owners up to $307.5 million or about $2,800 per vehicle for diesel software updates.
The legal fees are on top of those costs. Fiat Chrysler and Bosch did not immediately comment late Wednesday.
Fiat Chrysler is paying up to $280 million, or 90 percent of the settlement costs, and Bosch is paying $27.5 million, or 10 percent. The companies are expected to divide the attorney costs under the same formula, meaning Fiat Chrysler will pay $60 million and Bosch $6 million, the people briefed on the settlement said.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen must still approve the legal fees. He has set a May 3 hearing on a motion to grant final approval.
The Italian-American automaker on Jan. 10 announced it settled with the U.S. Justice Department, California and diesel owners over civil claims that it used illegal software that produced false results on diesel-emissions tests.
Fiat Chrysler previously estimated the value of the settlements at about $800 million.
Fiat Chrysler is also paying $311 million in total civil penalties and issuing extended warranties worth $105 million, among other costs.
The settlement covers 104,000 Ram 1500 and Jeep Grand Cherokee diesels from the model years 2014 to 2016. In addition, Fiat Chrysler will pay $72.5 million for state civil penalties and $33.5 million to California to offset excess emissions and consumer claims.
The hefty penalty was the latest fallout from the U.S. government’s stepped-up enforcement of vehicle emissions rules after Volkswagen AG admitted in September 2015 to intentionally evading emissions rules.
The Justice Department has a pending criminal investigation against Fiat Chrysler.
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