Apple Magazine №554 2022

SUMMARY  08ONE PLUG AND DONE: EU TO REQUIRE COMMON WAY TO CHARGE PHONES  24CALIFORNIA REGULATORS APPROVE STATE’S 1ST ROBOTIC TAXI FLEET  46NEW M2 AIR - WWDC22: BREAKTHROUGH OS FEATURES & THE NEXT-GEN CHIP  86FIRM PROPOSES TASER-ARMED DRONES TO STOP SCHOOL SHOOTINGS

1ST REMOTE AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL CENTER IN US TO BE IN ALABAMA   16 US SOLAR COMPANIES WEIGH CHALLENGE TO BIDEN PAUSE ON TARIFFS   34 MUSK THREATENS TO WALK AWAY FROM TWITTER DEAL   76 CRYPTO MELTDOWN IS WAKE-UP CALL FOR MANY, INCLUDING CONGRESS   102 LANDMARK BILL TO LIMIT CRYPTOMINING PASSES NY LEGISLATURE   116 NEW YORK BILL TARGETS AMAZON’S USE OF PRODUCTIVITY QUOTAS   124 HIGH PRICES, LOW INVENTORY, A NEW NORM FOR CAR SHOPPERS   130 AMAZON SAYS IT PREVENTED 4 BILLION BAD LISTINGS IN 2021   138 FACING HUGE INVENTORY, TARGET CUTS VENDOR ORDERS, PRICES   146 FORD CEO SEES ELECTRIC VEHICLE PRICE WAR AS EV COSTS DECLINE   178 NASA TO LAUNCH 3 ROCKETS FROM PRIVATE AUSTRALIAN SPACE PORT   188 BILL MAKES CODING AN ALTERNATIVE TO LANGUAGE FOR SCHOLARSHIP   194 CURB INFLATION WITH 5 CREDIT CARD PERKS   198 EU LAWMAKERS TO VOTE ON BANNING COMBUSTION-ENGINE CARS   208 UN CLIMATE CHIEF: DON’T GIVE IN TO DESPAIR ON GLOBAL WARMING   214 MUSIC   152 MOVIES & TV SHOWS   160 TOP 10 ALBUMS   168 TOP 10 MUSIC VIDEOS   170 TOP 10 TV SHOWS   172 TOP 10 BOOKS   174 TOP 10 SONGS   176





ONE PLUG AND DONE: EU TO REQUIRE COMMON WAY TO CHARGE PHONES Forget rummaging through the junk drawer. Soon, Europeans will only need to reach for one cable to charge their smartphones and other devices. European Union officials said they inked a provisional agreement that will require a uniform charging cord in the 27-nation bloc. It’s part of a wider effort to make products sold in the EU more sustainable and cut down on electronic waste. 08

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The new rules, which will take effect by fall 2024, mean EU consumers will only need to use a common USB Type-C cable for small and medium-sized rechargeable, portable electronic devices. “European consumers were frustrated with multiple chargers piling up within their homes,” Alex Agius Saliba, the European Parliament’s lead negotiator, said at a press briefing in Brussels. “Now, they will be able to go with a single charger for all portable electronics, which is an important step to increase consumer convenience.” The devices covered include mobile phones, tablets, e-readers, earbuds, digital cameras, headphones and headsets, handheld videogame consoles, keyboards and mice, portable speakers and navigation devices. Laptops also are covered, but manufacturers will have extra time to comply. The rules apply only to devices sold in the European single market, which consists of 30 countries. However, like the EU’s strict privacy regulations, they could end up becoming a de facto standard for the rest of the world. While many electronics makers have started adopting USB-C sockets into their devices, Apple has been one of the main holdouts. Apple, which did not respond to a request for comment, has previously said it’s concerned the rules would limit innovation and hurt consumers. The company’s iPhones come with its own Lightning charging port, though newer models include cables that can be plugged into a USB-C socket. 11

The EU rules also outline standards for fast charging technology and give consumers the right to choose whether to buy new devices with or without a charger, which the EU estimates will save consumers 250 million euros ($266 million) a year. Reducing electronic waste is another goal. The EU estimates disposed or unused chargers account for 11,000 metric tons of e-waste in Europe every year. “One in every three chargers that is bundled with these products is never opened from its original packaging,” according to an impact assessment from the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, Saliba said. To keep pace with the latest advances, there are also provisions to draw up standards further down the line for wireless charging, which is seen as the next leap forward for charging technology, Saliba said. The EU spent more than a decade trying to cajole the electronics industry into adopting a common charging standard, an effort that whittled different charging plugs down to a handful until the commission forced the issue with draft legislation last September. The European Parliament and European Council are expected to give formal approval to the agreement after the summer break. 12

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1ST REMOTE AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL CENTER IN US TO BE IN ALABAMA A company is seeking to build the country’s first-ever remote air traffic control center, which could handle traffic for multiple airports, on the site of an old Air Force base in Alabama, a newspaper reports. Advanced ATC Inc., an air traffic control academy based in Valdosta, Georgia, announced plans to invest about $4.7 million at Craig Air Field, now a public airport in Dallas County, just southeast of Selma, the Selma Times-Journal reported. The company also announced it will establish an international training academy at the site. The remote tower uses cameras, real-time video and other features, allowing air traffic controllers 16

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to remotely accomplish the duties they would previously have carried out in a traditional control tower, the company said. “Remote towers represent an important and innovative step in airspace modernization efforts in the U.S., and I’m excited to see Advanced ATC establish its pioneering operation at Craig Field,” said Greg Canfield, secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce. While the technology is gaining a foothold in Europe, it is relatively new to the United States, Dan Cunningham, chief operator officer for Advanced ATC, told. “Remote tower systems are brand new in the United States,” Cunningham said. He said the tower will be part of their training academy at the site — where they anticipate training students from around the globe — but will need approval from the Federal Aviation Administration before handling air traffic in the United States. The Federal Aviation Administration has not approved any remote tower systems for use. But Cunningham said remote towers at two airports are currently going through the evaluation process, and “our process will be the same.” Advanced ATC officials said the remote tower will be equipped to support aviation expansion and provide air traffic control services for up to 40 airports in the U.S. “The outlook for small airports to be able to afford ATC service without the requirement to build a $5 million to $10 million control tower is now available with the advancement of camera and satellite technologies changing almost 19

daily,” Cunningham said. “The Selma RTC will be the catalyst for this historic change in the United States.” The company’s five-year plan seeks to bring as many as 119 jobs to Selma, with a payroll of $8 million. Of those, the company will hire 28 people to operate the facility at Craig Field within the first year, with a payroll of $3.1 million. Indra, an aviation navigation systems company, will partner with Advanced ATC and contribute staffing, software and logistics for each remote tower system established in North America. Meanwhile, the international training academy will provide operational training and certifications for between 25 and 50 students each year. “We are thrilled to reach a win-win agreement and are very anxious to get started making aviation history at Craig Field,” said Advanced ATC President Monica Cunningham. When asked for a timeline of when to expect the new additions to be operational, Craig Field Executive Director Jim Corrigan said the academy would accept its first class in September and the remote air traffic control tower will be certified in December. He added that Craig Field will also have a staffed air traffic control tower. 20

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CALIFORNIA REGULATORS APPROVE STATE’S 1ST ROBOTIC TAXI FLEET 25

California regulators gave a robotic taxi service the green light to begin charging passengers for driverless rides in San Francisco, a first in a state where dozens of companies have been trying to train vehicles to steer themselves on increasingly congested roads. The California Public Utilities Commission unanimously granted Cruise, a company controlled by automaker General Motors, approval to launch its driverless ride-hailing service. The regulators issued the permit despite safety concerns arising from Cruise’s inability to pick up and drop off passengers at the curb in its autonomous taxis, requiring the vehicles to double park in traffic lanes. The ride-hailing service initially will consist of just 30 electric vehicles confined to transporting passengers in less congested parts of San Francisco from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Those restrictions are designed to minimize chances of the robotic taxis causing property damage, injuries or death if something goes awry. It will also allow regulators to assess how the technology works before permitting the service to expand. Cruise and another robotic car pioneer, Waymo, already have been charging passengers for rides in parts of San Francisco in autonomous vehicles with a back-up human driver present to take control if something goes wrong with the technology. But now Cruise has been cleared to charge for rides in vehicles that will have no other people in them besides the passengers — an ambition that a wide variety of technology companies and traditional automakers have been pursuing for more than a decade. The driverless vehicles 26

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have been hailed as a way to make taxi rides less expensive while reducing the traffic accidents and deaths caused by reckless human drivers. Gil West, Cruise’s chief operating officer, in a blog post hailed vote as “a giant leap for our mission here at Cruise to save lives, help save the planet, and save people time and money.” He said the company would begin rolling out its fared rides gradually. Waymo, which began as a secret project within internet powerhouse Google in 2009, has been running a driverless ride-hailing service in the Phoenix area since October 2020, but navigating the density and difficulty of more congested cities such as San Francisco has posed more daunting challenges for robotic taxis to overcome. That’s one of the reasons Cruise’s newly approved driverless service in San Francisco is being so tightly controlled. Besides being restricted to places and times where there is less traffic and fewer pedestrians on the streets, Cruise’s driverless service won’t be allowed to operate in heavy rain or fog either. While Cruise’s application for a driverless taxi service in San Francisco won widespread backing from supporters hoping the technology will become viable in other cities, some transportation experts urged the Public Utilities Commission to move cautiously. “Many of the claimed benefits of (autonomous vehicles) have not been demonstrated, and some claims have little or no foundation,” Ryan Russo, the director of the transportation department in Oakland, California, told the commission last month. 28

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Just reaching this point has taken far longer than many companies envisioned when they began working on the autonomous technology. Uber, the biggest ride-hailing service, had been hoping to have 75,000 self-driving cars on the road by 2019 and operating driverless taxi fleet in at least 13 cities in 2022, according to court documents filed in a high-profile case accusing the company of stealing trade secrets from Waymo. Uber wound up selling its autonomous driving division to Aurora in 2020 and still relies almost exclusively on human drivers who have been more difficult to recruit since the pandemic. And Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised his electric car company would be running robotic taxi fleet by the end of 2020. That didn’t happen, although Musk is still promising it eventually will. 30

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US SOLAR COMPANIES WEIGH CHALLENGE TO BIDEN PAUSE ON TARIFFS U.S. solar manufacturers say they are considering legal challenges after President Joe Biden declared a two-year pause for tariffs on solar imports from Southeast Asia. Biden also invoked the Defense Production Act on Monday as the White House moved to jumpstart solar installations that have been slowed or abandoned amid a Commerce Department inquiry into possible trade violations involving Chinese products. The White House said Biden’s actions would boost an industry crucial to his climate change- 34

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fighting goals while not interfering with or shutting down the Commerce investigation. But some domestic producers, including a California company that filed a complaint with Commerce about unfair competition from Chinese imports, said Biden’s actions would help China’s state-subsidized solar companies at the expense of U.S. manufacturers. “President Biden is significantly interfering in Commerce’s quasi-judicial process,’’ said Mamun Rashid, CEO of Auxin Solar, which filed the complain with Commerce earlier this year. “By taking this unprecedented – and potentially illegal – action, (Biden) has opened the door wide for Chinese-funded special interests to defeat the fair application of U.S. trade law,’’ Rashid said in a statement. Auxin was not consulted before the White House announcement, Rashid said, nor did the White House contact other U.S. producers. Auxin is currently “evaluating all of our legal options,’’ he said. Timothy Brightbill, a lawyer who represents domestic solar manufacturers, said Tuesday that Biden was using the pretext of declaring a national emergency to negate an ongoing trade investigation. “That is unprecedented, it is bad law and it is extremely bad, short-sighted policy, because it only makes us more dependent on Chinese- owned solar companies,” Brightbill said. The U.S. industry contends that China has essentially moved operations to four Southeast Asian countries — Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia — to skirt strict anti-dumping rules that limit imports from China. 37

“The White House’s failure to consult with any American solar manufacturing companies before taking this unprecedented action is telling and an embarrassment,” Brightbill said. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Biden was responding to a legitimate emergency,“in this case the threat to the availability of sufficient electricity-generation capacity to meet expected customer demand.’’ Biden’s actions “will help ensure that we have the solar capacity additions necessary to meet our electricity and generation needs,’’ she said, calling the actions ”particularly urgent given the impact of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine on the global energy supply,’’ as well as the intensifying impacts of climate change. U.S. solar installers and environmental groups cheered Biden’s action, saying it would restore certainty and stimulate solar installations that have ground to a halt amid the Commerce inquiry, which includes potentially steep penalties that could be imposed retroactively. Clean energy leaders have warned that the investigation — which could result in retroactive tariffs of up to 240% —imperiled up to 80% of planned solar projects around the country and could lead to thousands of layoffs. Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said Biden’s actions would “protect existing solar jobs, lead to increased employment in the solar industry and foster a robust solar manufacturing base here at home.’’ A Biden administration official, who asked not to be identified to discuss internal deliberations, 38

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said Biden’s decision was driven by White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy and climate envoy John Kerry, along with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. The officials all worried that the Commerce inquiry jeopardized Biden’s goal to achieve 100% clean electricity by 2035. Solar power is a key part of that agenda. At the same time, Biden did not want to interfere with or shut down the Commerce inquiry, the official said. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Biden’s action “ensures America’s families have access to reliable and clean electricity while also ensuring we have the ability to hold our trading partners accountable to their commitments.’’ While Democrats mostly cheered the announcement, many Republicans slammed it as a gift to China. Biden announcement “amounts to a two-year amnesty for the Chinese Communist Party for any violations of our trade laws relating to solar panel imports. This action will help China and harm American solar panel manufacturers and American workers,’’ said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Some Democrats agreed. “Despite the U.S. leading the world in solar innovation, today 80% of the world’s solar panels are made in China — that has to change,‘‘ said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, whose state is home to the largest U.S. solar-panel manufacturer. “We have not invested in building up American capacity the way we should, and we have not 41

addressed China’s repeated cheating, ‘‘ Brown said in a statement. ”On all these decisions, American solar manufacturers and their workers must be at the table.” Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nevada, who has pushed Commerce to conclude its investigation, called Biden’s announcement a positive step that will save American solar jobs, including thousands in her state. “The risk of additional tariffs on imported solar panels would have been devastating for American solar projects, the hundreds of thousands of jobs they support, and our nation’s clean energy and climate goals,’’ she said. 42

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New M2 Air WWDC22: Breakthrough OS features & the next-gen chip 47

This year’s bumper Worldwide Developers Conference focused not only on what was next for macOS, watchOS, iPadOS, and iOS, but also lifted the lid on new hardware from the Cupertino company, with Apple showing off the new MacBook Air, powered by the M2 chip. 48

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LEAPS FORWARD FOR SOFTWARE Although Apple typically saves hardware announcements for separate events held throughout the year, the company made the unusual move of announcing two new MacBook products at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference. As well as an all-new MacBook Air, which has been redesigned, the firm also bumped the specs of its entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro. That’s, of course, on top of the major announcements across iOS, macOS, and iPadOS, with each operating system given new features and tools designed to make the Apple ecosystem even more powerful and attractive to both consumers and professionals. On iOS, Apple premiered a new Lock Screen design, and another exciting change is an overhaul to CarPlay, with Apple now supporting vehicles with large dashboard screens. Apple says that it will now integrate more deeply with vehicles to control things like climate control, and users will be able to personalize their experience. Other changes include new notifications, refinements to the Focus experience, an iCloud Shared Photo Library, and more. iPadOS introduced collaborations in Messages, the long-awaited port of the Weather app, as well as a new Freeform app, a redesigned Game Center, and Reference Mode for iPad and Mac. watchOS was handed new watch face designs, as well as improved workout apps, enhanced sleep tracking, and more. macOS was similarly given some love, with the launch of new Clock and Weather apps, an improved Spotlight experience, Desk View, Stage Manager, and other features. All in all, it was an impressive year for Apple. Sure, it 50