Buffett Bought 75 MILLION Apple Shares During Q1; Total Stake Now Worth $42.5 BILLION

Buffett Bought 75M Apple Shares During Q1; Total Stake Now Worth $42.5B:

Warren Buffett took a break from explaining his views on bitcoin to pop star Katy Perry to reveal during an interview this week that Berkshire Hathaway bought another 75 million Apple shares during the first quarter – bringing Berkshire’s total stake to 240.3 million shares worth roughly $42.54 billion.

That’s nearly twice as much stock as Apple itself bought back during the first quarter as it marshaled a flood of repatriated profits unleashed by the Republican tax reform law to carry out the largest corporate buyback in US corporate history.

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Apple Says All iPhones, Macs Exposed To “Meltdown”, “Spectre” Flaws

Apple Says All iPhones, Macs Exposed To “Meltdown”, “Spectre” Flaws:

All Mac iOS devices and systems are exposed and vulnerable to the recently discovered chip bugs known as Spectre and Meltdown, Apple confirmed on Thursday. The flaws, which as we discussed before, allow hackers unauthorized access to a computer’s memory and sensitive data, were discovered by security researchers at Google Project Zero on Wednesday. Security vulnerabilities called Meltdown and Spectre affect almost all modern CPUs, including those produced by Intel, AMD and ARM Holdings.

All Mac systems and iOS devices are affected,” Apple acknowledged in a statement on Thursday, adding that no cases had yet been reported of customers being affected by the security flaws.

Read moreApple Says All iPhones, Macs Exposed To “Meltdown”, “Spectre” Flaws

Apple faces lawsuits over its intentional slowing of older iPhones

Apple faces lawsuits over its intentional slowing of older iPhones:

Plaintiffs from two separate class-action lawsuits claim Apple did not have user consent to slow iPhone performance and that it was forcing new purchases

Apple is facing lawsuits over the revelations that it intentionally slows down older iPhones without user consent.

Apple has admitted to slowing down the iPhone 6, 6S, 7 and SE when their batteries are either old, cold or have a low charge to prevent abrupt shutdowns.

Two separate class-action lawsuits were filed Thursday, brought by plaintiffs in California and Illinois, arguing that Apple did not have consent to slow down their iPhones.

Two people from Chicago, along with residents of Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina, claim that Apple’s iOS updates were “fraudulently forcing iPhone owners to purchase the latest model offered by Apple.”

Read moreApple faces lawsuits over its intentional slowing of older iPhones

Pro tip: You can log into macOS High Sierra as root with no password

Pro tip: You can log into macOS High Sierra as root with no password:

Apple, this is Windows 95 bad – but there is a workaround to kill the bug

Updated A trivial-to-exploit flaw in macOS High Sierra, aka macOS 10.13, allows users to gain admin rights, or log in as root, without a password.

The security bug can be triggered via the authentication dialog box in Apple’s operating system, which prompts you for an administrator’s username and password when you need to do stuff like configure privacy and network settings.

If you type in “root” as the username, leave the password box blank, hit “enter” and then click on unlock a few times, the prompt disappears and, congrats, you now have admin rights. You can do this from the user login screen, too.

Read morePro tip: You can log into macOS High Sierra as root with no password

Apple Diversity Chief Forced Out After Saying White Men Can Also Be ‘Diverse’

Apple Diversity Chief Forced Out After Saying White Men Can Also Be ‘Diverse’:

Silicon Valley’s disdain for its mostly white, mostly male tech workforce has reached absurd new heights.

The New York Post is reporting that, after just six months on the job, Apple Diversity Chief Denise Young Smith, who was named vice president of diversity and inclusion in May, has resigned her post after making a “controversial” comment last month during a summit in Bogota, Colombia.

What was Young’s crime? She insinuated that “diversity” can still exist among a group of white men because of their different life experiences.

“There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blond men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation,” the inaugural diversity chief said.

“Diversity is the human experience,” she said, according to Quartz. “I get a little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the people of color, or the women, or the LGBT.”

That’s right: Young, who is – for the record – a black woman, has been forced out of Apple because her views on diversity were too inclusive.

Read moreApple Diversity Chief Forced Out After Saying White Men Can Also Be ‘Diverse’

Hackers Crack Apple’s Face ID With $150 Mask

Hackers Crack Apple’s Face ID With $150 Mask:

On Friday, Vietnamese security firm Bkav released a blog post and video purportedly showing them cracking Face ID with a composite mask of 3-D-printed plastic, silicone, makeup, and simple paper cutouts, which they assembled to successfully trick the iPhone X into unlocking…

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“This Is Embarrassing”: 2 People Show Up For iPhone 8 Launch in China

–  “This Is Embarrassing”: 2 People Show Up For iPhone 8 Launch in China:

Confirming reports that reception for Apple’s iPhone 8 may be “underwhelming” to put it lightly, is the following report from Hangzhou, China which reveals that all of 2 people were waiting in line for the latest gizmo from Tim Cook.

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Apple’s New “FaceID” Could Be A Powerful Mass Spying Tool

Apple’s New “FaceID” Could Be A Powerful Mass Spying Tool:

On Tuesday, Apple revealed their newest phone. The new line was anticipated by Apple users and is another cult favorite.  But many are rightly skeptical of the “FaceID” feature.

FaceID, is a tool that would use facial recognition to identify individuals and unlock their phones for use. Unsurprisingly, this has generated some major anxiety about mass spying and privacy concerns. Retailers already have a desire for facial recognition technology. They want to monitor consumers, and without legally binding terms and Apple could use FaceID to track consumer patterns at its stores or develop and sell data to others.

That seems minor on the surface, but the ramifications could be enormous. 

It’s also highly possible that police would be able to more easily unlock phones without consent by simply holding an individual’s phone up to his or her face, violating the rights of the person to privacy.

Read moreApple’s New “FaceID” Could Be A Powerful Mass Spying Tool

Prostate cancer breakthrough: Combination of three plant-based nutrients found to MELT AWAY prostate cancer cells

Prostate cancer breakthrough: Combination of three plant-based nutrients found to MELT AWAY prostate cancer cells

H/t reader kevin a.

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Manufacturing Might Come Back to the US, but Robots will Get the Jobs: Apple CEO

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Obsolete — Full Documentary (Video) (Must-watch!)


Manufacturing Might Come Back to the US, but Robots will Get the Jobs: Apple CEO:

Robots are the Great Equalizer.

Apple will invest in and promote “advanced manufacturing” in the US, CEO Tim Cook told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Wednesday after the somewhat uninspiring earnings report. It was one of the ways Apple would create jobs in America, he said. To do that, Apple would put $1 billion in a fund that would invest in “advanced manufacturing” companies.

Apple has already “created two million jobs in America,” he said in the interview. This includes 80,000 jobs at Apple in the US; plus jobs at US suppliers, such as Corning, which makes the glass for the iPhone and iPad, and 3M, which makes adhesives that Apple uses in its devices; plus the “developer community” of almost 1.5 million people who write apps that, as he said, “change the world.”

Read moreManufacturing Might Come Back to the US, but Robots will Get the Jobs: Apple CEO

Here Is The “Open Letter” Google, Apple, Facebook And Others Are Sending To Donald Trump

Here Is The “Open Letter” Google, Apple, Facebook And Others Are Sending To Donald Trump:

In the backlash over Trump’s executive order on immigration, Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, Uber, Stripe, CPG and various manufacturing companies have penned a letter opposing U.S. President Trump’s travel ban, ReCode reported overnight.

The letter stresses that the executive order’s blanket “suspension” – it avoids the word “ban” – is “not the right approach” to strengthening national security. The letter also argues in favor of supporting the DACA program. The goal is to publish the open letter this week, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. Changes are still being made to the document, and it’s possible it may not be released.

Read moreHere Is The “Open Letter” Google, Apple, Facebook And Others Are Sending To Donald Trump

Project Mayhem – Man Calmly Enters Apple Store And Crushes Every iPhone In Sight With A Ball Bearing

Project Mayhem – Man Calmly Enters Apple Store And Crushes Every iPhone In Sight With A Ball Bearing:

It is unclear what caused this Frenchman to walk into an Apple store and crush every single iPhone in site with a metal ball bearing but that is exactly what he decided to do.  Perhaps he was one of the unfortunate victims of a spoof video that apparently succeeding a convincing people to drill a headphone jack in their new iPhone 7?

Luckily for the iPhone smasher, this event occurred in France where security guards quickly surrendered the store and allowed the man to simply walk out and go on his merry way.

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Apple’s new ‘wireless’ headphones emit radiation … right next to your brain

Apple’s new ‘wireless’ headphones emit radiation … right next to your brain:

To much fanfare and excitement, Apple has announced that the iPhone 7 will come with wireless earbuds, ditching the much-reviled and ever-tangled cords of conventional earbuds. The wireless earbuds, dubbed “AirPods,” will be water-resistant and are, in the words of company CEO Tim Cook, the first step to a “wireless future.”

They will also fire dangerous, cancer-causing radiation directly into the brains of users, experts have warned.

The iPhone will communicate via Bluetooth directly with the right earbud, which will send a separate Bluetooth signal to the left earbud. This means the radiation carrying the signal will pass directly through the user’s brain.

Read moreApple’s new ‘wireless’ headphones emit radiation … right next to your brain