A German privacy watchdog is demanding answers from Apple Inc over whether its iPhones and iPads are secretly collecting data on users’ locations.
Thomas Kranig, head of the data protection authority for the state of Bavaria, where Apple has its German headquarters, said in an interview published in Saturday’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung that the company has until May 10 to respond.
Apple has come under pressure since researchers raised questions about how tracking data gathered by iPhones and iPads is being handled. Last week, US lawmakers said they were seeking an explanation from Apple after a pair of British security researchers, Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, said the -position-logging feature is contained in iOS 4, the operating system for the iPhone and iPad released in June last year.
Germany has some of the world’s strictest privacy laws and has tangled with Google, Facebook and other US-based technology companies over personal data and how it’s used.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that Google’s Android smartphones also regularly transmit their locations back to Google.
Google and Apple are storing location information to help them tap the US$2.9 billion market for location-based services, according to the paper.
The Journal cited research firm Gartner Inc, which said the -location-information market is expected to rise to US$8.3 billion in 2014.
Separately, ISuppli cut its forecast for iPad shipments this year by 9 percent after Apple failed to meet demand in the first quarter.
The electronics maker will probably ship 39.7 million iPad tablet computers this year, according to ISuppli, which made an estimate of 43.7 million in February.
A shortfall in iPad 2 production during the first three months of this year prompted the cut, the El Segundo, California-based research company said in a statement on Friday.
Apple, the largest technology company by market value, probably faced issues including quality concerns over LCDs and shortages of speakers, which disrupted supply of the tablets, ISuppli said.
Problems during the quarter weren’t related to the record March 11 earthquake that struck Japan, but quake-related component constraints may limit Apple’s production in the second half, the researcher said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to