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Apple is known for their unrelenting product security and secrecy. Ever after one of the employees lost a prototype iPhone in a bar, Apple has been extra careful about their products leaking.

Of course leaks still happen but not allowing to take prototypes home means that there's been fewer lost prototypes, for sure.

However, the current COVID-19 outbreak has thrown a spanner in the works of Apple's prototype security. Since everyone is encouraged to work from home, it also means that they've had to allow taking prototypes with them.

As said, normally this wouldn't be allowed, unless you are an executive of the highest caliber. Now, even lesser development staff can take the devices home and potentially cause some issues to what Apple hopes is a impenetrable veil of secrecy around its upcoming products.

Apple hasn't quite given every average Joe the access to prototypes, though. Only a select personnel can still take home the precious development samples.

Accordingt to rumors, currently in development are at least a new HomePod, Apple TV, MacBook Pro, iPad, Apple Watch, iMac, and of course the 5G enabled iPhone. In addition, Apple is of course developing updates to each of its operating systems.

World's leading contract manufacturer Foxconn has been struggling to keep up with production during the past few months. Factories in China have mostly returned to business as usual, but demand is still a problem.

Foxconn's profits are undoubtedly going to sink, after all they did that already last year, after a global crisis due to COVID-19. Apple is among the largest customers, and iPhone demand determines much of the profits both Apple and Foxconn can make.

An economic downturn affects nearly every industry in the same fashion. When people don't have excess money, a thousand dollar smartphone is much harder sell.

Apple has made up to 18 percent less orders to Foxconn in early 2020 compared to last year, Reuters reports. The sources also claim that Apple might be slowing down the production of upcoming 5G capable iPhone, although release could still be on schedule.

The demand for new iPhones is currently not there, and apparently Apple estimates that it won't be still there in time for the new iPhone, due in September.

COVID-19 is still running rampant in most of the world, and in many places still going to ramp up. It is unclear how long the economic woes will shrink the demand.

IBM and The Weather Channel have released a new online tool for tracking COVID-19 cases around the world. The Weather Channel, which is owned by IBM, hosts the service.

The data used in the visualization is provided by World Health Organization WHO and Johns Hopkins University, and it includes confirmed cases and deaths for most of the world.

There are, however, differences in accuracy. The U.S. has the best data available, and you can browse it in a separate section by county. Worldwide data only has country-specific numbers.

Out of the seven counties with most reported cases, the state of New York has eight of them with Washington and Lousiana each one.

According to IBM, offering the most accurate data available on the outbreak ensures that people grasp the magnitude of the issue which in itself helps to fight the spread.

As of yet, IBM and The Weather Channel have not released tools that try to model the spread, which might be a more complicated issued than predicting the weather.

Both The Weather Channel website (accelerator.weather.com) as well the mobile app provide the statistics.

Coronavirus has put a wrench in a lot of companies futures, and even though electronics giants aren't the ones most susceptible to market volatility, there are certainly implications to the Apples and Googles of the world.

Especially since China was hit the hardest last couple of months, due to the novel coronavirus originating in the country, and that's where much of the world's electronics manufacturing is located in. Now, China has mostly returned to business as usual, but aforementioned implications are still to be fully felt.

Apple is among the companies that might see changes due to manufacturing issues. According to Nikkei Asia Review, Apple is considering delaying their upcoming iPhone. Postponing the launch by months could be in the cards, although it might not necessarily be due to production issues, as was previously suggested.

Cupertino giant fears that markets haven't recovered enough by September, and people would not the phone as much as the company expects.

According to the source, the decision hasn't been made yet, and there's no launch date as of yet for iPhone 12. However, don't be surprised if you can't upgrade your iPhone as early as last year.

Coronavirus pandemic is undoubtedly going to be a problem still for weeks if not months, even with very strict social distancing and curfew policies. However, Apple seems to be fairly confident that it can soon open some if its stores.

Apple senior VP of Retail + People Deirdre O'Brien has sent a memo to employees saying that some of the stores are looking to open as soon as early April, VentureBeat reports. Reopening the stores that were closed indefinitely just a week ago so soon seems premature, but perhaps Apple has some information we don't.

While President Trump was suggesting that he'd like to see more of the country open by Easter, he's also listening to his important aids, including Dr. Fauci, whether this is wise. Whether Apple's idea came from the president or not, is unclear.

There's obviously pressure for both Apple and the economy in general to open up as early as possible, but Apple also said it is prioritizing the health of employees and customers. This seems like a contradiction if indeed stores are opened after April 5.

First technology conference that was cancelled in 2020 due to the novel coronavirus was Mobile World Congress more than a month ago. Ever since, one gathering and conference after another have postponed or postponed.

In addition to MWC in the tally we've got Google and Microsoft developer conferences, gaming conference E3, and of course Apple's own WWDC among others.

Now one of the largest computer conferences, Computex, has decided it would be in their, and their quests', best interest to not have their annual gathering in June. Computex 2020 isn't cancelled, however. Instead, the organizers have postponed it until coming fall.

According to them, Computex 2020 will be held in Taipei, Taiwan on Semptember 28, nearly three months after it's original June 2 date.

People having to work from home and spend most of their leisure at home unsurprisingly has meant that internet usage has gone up tremendously. While using a VPN connection or browsing the coronavirus news isn't going to impact hugely the data caps, streaming video certainly is.

If the network capacity is reached with streaming, it might also mean that people are going to have trouble working from home. Authorities in Europe have been ringing alarm bells and requesting data capping.

Many of the streaming video platforms are slowing down connections to avoid any issues. Disney and Facebook have both joined Netflix, YouTube, and others in efforts to reduce the traffic by degrading the quality in Europe.

Disney has also decided to postpone the launch of Disney+ in France, as requested by the French government. According to Reuters, Facebook is dropping Instagram quality a notch, among other things, to help with data infrastructure.

Many of our dear western democracies have had to issue some form of curfew to slow the spread of COVID-19. Fortunately at this point many are taking the threat seriously but there's a fair few that don't seem to care about suggestions, or even orders, to not leave home unless necessary.

The threat is so serious, that many of the countries are considering, or have already implemented, policies that might violate some of our rights. One can ask, where do we draw the line?

European governments are working with mobile carriers to gather data about crowd movements, Reuters reports. Operators in Europe are sharing anonymous location data to guide in efforts to stop the spread.

The aggregate data can help local governments to see where people are gathering and determine hot spots without sharing individual data. In Germany Deutsche Telekom has donated data and in Italy three different carriers (Telecom Italia, Vodafone and WindTre) are working with the authorities.

A1 Telekom Austria has developed a tracking app with Invenium to guide the efforts in Austria, and others are likely to join in other countries.

Smartphones have made many of the world's leading technology companies what they are. Without a doubt Apple wouldn't be today's Apple without the iPhone.

Many of the leading manufacturers and their partners have been on the smartphone hype train for a decade or more. For most of it, in fact until very recently, it has provided them with immense growth and great profits.

However, it seems that the smartphone industry is now in a crucial spot of reckoning. The past year or two have been much tougher on them than what they are used to, and last month with Chinese factories closing meant a decline that no one expected.

According to Strategy Analytics, smartphone shipments declined a massive 38 percent in February. A total of 61.8 million units were shipped last month compared to 99.2 million previous February.

This is by far the largest decline ever in smartphone history.

March is likely not going to be much better, even though factories in China are pumping out again much more product, as people in the west are stuck at home, and uncertain about their financial situation.

Strategy Analystics expect a lot of the products to be sold on a discount soon as manufacturers and retailers are stuck with products that aren't selling fast enough, and are getting obsolete every second they spend on the shelves.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has tweeted that the carmaker can make ventilators at its factories if there is a shortage.

The Tesla and SpaceX boss has tweeted a bit recently about the COVID-19 pandemic and seems to have taken some flack for suggesting the panic over the virus will do more damage than the virus.

Whether true or not, Elon responded to a tweet asking him if Tesla's factories could make ventilators.

"We will make ventilators if there is a shortage," Musk responded. Later he was told there was a shortage now and he replied by asking for the details of hospitals currently experiencing a shortage.

Tesla makes cars with sophisticated hvac systems. SpaceX makes spacecraft with life support systems. Ventilators are not difficult, but cannot be produced instantly. Which hospitals have these shortages you speak of right now?

-- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 19, 2020

Tesla's main Fremont factory has been impacted by a "shelter in place" order in the Bay Area that seeks to slow the spread of the coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic.

As Internet Service Providers note an increase in Internet usage during the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU is suggesting you lower your resolution.

European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Thierry Breton is urging streaming providers to act to keep the Internet working smoothly as more people depend on it to work or learn from home.

The Frenchman has already reportedly spoken to Netflix chief Reed Hastings about the concerns of high demand on Europe's Internet infrastructure. Breton also is urging Europeans to #SwitchToStandard - to watch videos in standard definition and not high definition or UltraHD 4K.

In comments to the Financial Times, Hastings pointed out that Netflix has adaptive streaming technology that automatically adjusts the resolution of streaming video depending on the available bandwidth in a local area.

Important phone conversation with @ReedHastings, CEO of @Netflix

To beat #COVID19, we #StayAtHome

Teleworking & streaming help a lot but infrastructures might be in strain.

To secure Internet access for all, let's #SwitchToStandard definition when HD is not necessary.

-- Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) March 18, 2020

Microsoft's Teams service has seen its daily users skyrocket as more employees take their work home.

Teams is a group chat and conference app that is suited to an online work environment. In November, Microsoft revealed that it had 20 million users. Businesses are charged for full-featured access to Teams, but it is also available for free for consumers.

Rival Slack had reached 12 million active users by October. COVID-19 pandemic is sending a lot of workers home and services like Slack and Teams are indispensable tools.

Discord also saw a surge in use over the past month and increased its live streaming limits to address it.

Microsoft also said Teams is helping in the medical field too.

It cited St. Luke's University Health Network in Pennsylvania which will start using Teams for videoconferencing with patients, including those in high-risk groups with regard to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Apple has decided to extend the closing of their brick-and-mortar stores. Previously Apple intended to open the stores outside China to the public again after March 27.

Coronavirus has gotten more intense in the past around the world, and most governments have decided to close schools, ban gatherings, and discourage needless contact. This is as good a reason as any to extend close closing further.

At this point Apple doesn't know how long Apple Stores are going to stay closed. It wholly depends on the spread of the virus, and likely stores will open at different points in different regions.

Apple's online store will function as expected, and you can get all the products shipped to you if needed. In repair or warranty issues, Apple asks customers to contact them by email or phone.

Some of the third-party retailers are still open so you can get products from the likes of Best Buy, at least for now.

In China, Apple Stores are already open. Number of new cases has rapidly dropped in the recent weeks, and in many ways China is back to regular business.

We now know the final specs of what's under the hood of Sony's PlayStation 5 (PS5) console, which will launch later this year.

Sony wants the specs of the PlayStation 5 to enable a step up worthy of being called next-generation, though it stresses that something like the total TFLOPs figure won't necessarily tell the full story in terms of performance. However, it is still worth taking a look at the raw hardware specs to see what they are packing into this new system.

Mark Cerny is demonstrating PS5 system architecture as I type, but the raw details of the hardware are already online thanks to Digital Foundry. In a nutshell, here is what the PS5 will pack under the hood:

• CPU: 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz (variable frequency)
• GPU: 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz (variable frequency)
• GPU Architecture: Custom RDNA 2
• Memory/Interface: 16GB GDDR6/256-bit
• Memory Bandwidth: 448GB/s
• Internal Storage: Custom 825GB SSD
• IO Throughput: 5.5GB/s (Raw), Typical 8-9GB/s (Compressed)
• Expandable Storage: NVMe SSD Slot
• External Storage: USB HDD Support
• Optical Drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray Drive

PlayStation 5, like Xbox Series X, will support ray-tracing which makes the propogation of light and its interaction with objects in-game more realistic. For example, water becomes transparent and light sources will be distorted under way. Also, light passing through a colored semi-transparent object will cast a colored shadow.

The streaming giant is being sued for defamation by a prosecutor involved in the infamous 1989 case.

A four-part mini-series about an infamous criminal case in 1989 is the subject of a defamation lawsuit targeting Netflix. The 'Central Park jogger case' emerged from the sexual and physical assault of a 28-year-old lady who was jogging in central park, and numerous other assaults, on April 19, 1989.

The case resulted in the conviction of five youths - the "Central Park Five" - who received sentences ranging from 5-15 years in prison. Prosecution of the teens relied on confessions made by the boys to police, which were later withdrawn.

In 2001, serial rapist and convicted murderer Matias Reyes confessed to the attack on the woman in the case. His DNA matched with samples taken from the scene and he also provided additional confirmatory evidence. The convictions of the Central Park Five were vacated in 2002.

Now a former prosecutor in the case is suing Netflix over a miniseries - When They See Us - based on the case. Linda Fairstein filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. It alleges that the Netflix series depicts her as a mastermind of a racist plot. The victim in the case was white, while four of the convicted teenagers were black and one was Hispanic.