UK Developing Digital Driving License Stored in Apple Wallet App

  by Juli Clover

In the future, drivers in the United Kingdom may be able to store their driver's licenses digitally in Apple's Wallet app, bringing Apple one step closer to fully replacing the traditional physical wallet.

Oliver Morley, CEO of the UK's Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, showed off a prototype version of a digital driving license on Twitter this morning (via The Independent). In the image, the Wallet app on the iPhone was shown with a virtual copy of a UK driving license, stored right next to other Wallet cards.

So here's a little prototype of something we're working on #drivinglicence pic.twitter.com/a5eItrdiNI

— Oliver Morley (@omorley1) May 13, 2016

According to Morley, the feature is still a prototype and will not serve as a full replacement for a driving license, but an add-on, with its implementation possible following the discontinuation of a paper driving license counterpart in June of 2015. Security is one of the main priorities for the introduction of the digital driving license in the UK.

iCloud Mail and Notes Down for Less Than 1% of Users [Resolved]

by Joe Rossignol

Apple has updated its System Status page to reflect that iCloud Mail and Notes may currently be unavailable for approximately 0.86% of users.


Apple says "users may be unable to send or receive mail and may also be unable to use Notes" until the services are restored.

The outage began shortly after 5:00 a.m. Pacific. This article will be updated when new information becomes available.

Update 9:41 AM: According to Apple's System Status page, the issue was resolved shortly after 9:00 AM Pacific Time.

Oracle paints Google as unfair competitor in retrial over Android

 By Dan Levine

An attorney for Oracle Corp told jurors on Tuesday that Alphabet Inc's Google deliberately took Oracle's intellectual property without permission, kicking off a $9 billion retrial.Oracle claims Google's Android violated its copyright on parts of the Java programming language, while Google says it should be able to use Java without paying a fee under the fair-use provision of copyright law.
The case previously went to trial in 2012, but a jury deadlocked. If the new jury in San Francisco federal court rules against Google on fair use, then it will consider Oracle's $9 billion damages request.
In court on Tuesday, Oracle attorney Peter Backs said about 100,000 Android smartphones will have been activated by the time he finished his hour-long opening statement, and 3 billion phones had been activated since the lawsuit began.
That translated into $42 billion in revenue, he said, and all those phones contained Oracle's valuable property.
"You do not take somebody's property without permission and use it for your own benefit," Backs said. He said Google's defense cannot cover what they did with Java, and called it the

Apple Patents Advanced iPad Covers With Customizable Displays and Notification Widgets

by Mitchel Broussard

The United States Patent and Trademark Office today granted Apple a patent that describes a collection of iPad-compatible Smart Covers that could integrate various display technologies to greatly enhance "the overall functionality of the tablet device." The original patent application was published in August 2012 and dates back to August 2011, four years before Apple introduced the original iPad Pro and its Smart Connector. (via Patently Apple).


The first integration of a next-generation Smart Cover lies in video playback, where a user could watch a video with the cover folded up into a triangle like Apple's current Smart Covers allow, but now supporting a set of touch-sensitive areas for play, pause, fast forward, and rewind controls. Although the user would not be able to directly see where they were pressing down, "the size and location of the touch sensitive areas can allow for a user to easily learn the locations after a short familiarization period," according to the patent.

Tim Cook Named Keynote Speaker at Startup Fest Europe in Late May

by Joe Rossignol

Apple CEO Tim Cook has been named as one of several tech industry executives that will speak at Startup Fest Europe, a festival geared towards helping startups grow faster, according to the event website.

Tim Cook (Apple) and Travis Kalanick (Uber) have accepted their invitation to come to the Netherlands with great enthusiasm. Neelie Kroes (special envoy StartupDelta) personally invited Cook and Kalanick during her visit to San Francisco together with Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

What video games get wrong about love and sex

As a medium, games are only really now getting to grips with romance and relationships, but they’re

still too goal-orientated

Romance is an important part of the Dragon Age series, but, as in most games, it is simplified into a goal rather than an emotion Photograph: Bioware

Kate Gray

Let’s say I want to know what love is ... and I want something to show me. I could listen to pop music. I would discover that love is the greatest thing. It’s a drug. It’s something you can’t hurry. Apparently it’s thicker than water, which doesn’t really tell me much, other than love will be difficult to drink and may have a lower freezing point. By this point, I’ve already had enough of silly love songs.
Cinema, too, has explored it for many years – all those two-hour stories of forgiveness and redemption, and Julia Roberts just being a girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her. Books have been there for centuries, covering both ends of the sexy spectrum from the gently smouldering affection between Elizabeth and Darcy, to Morrissey’s car crash of a sex scene.

The Bitcoin affair: Craig Wright 'to move' Satoshi coin

Rory Cellan-Jones Technology correspondent

The man who has identified himself as the creator of Bitcoin plans to provide further proof to his claim.

Craig Wright's spokesman told the BBC that he would "move a coin from an early block" belonging to the crypto-currency's inventor "in the coming days".
The Australian entrepreneur announced he was behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto on Monday.
Critics have said that the evidence produced to date is unconvincing.
You can read the strongest case for the prosecution in this post on Github, where Wright's blog is described as "flimflam and hokum which stands up to a few minutes of cursory scrutiny, and demonstrates a competent sysadmin's level of familiarity with cryptographic tools, but ultimately demonstrates no non-public information about Satoshi.
 
"The author goes on to speculate that Craig Wright "used amateur magician tactics to distract non-technical or non-expert staff of the BBC and the Economist during a stage-managed demonstration."

It's not completely unfair to describe me and Mark Ward - the other BBC reporter at the briefing - as non-technical or non-expert. Indeed, in yesterday's blog I said this: "What we saw seemed impressive - though it would need a far higher level of expertise than we possess to be certain."

Apple Increases iPhone SE Orders Amid Growing Sales Pressures

 by Joe Rossignol

In line with Apple CEO Tim Cook's recent comments about "very strong" iPhone SE demand exceeding supply, the company has reportedly increased orders for the low-priced 4-inch smartphone in the second quarter of 2016.

DigiTimes claims that the second-quarter outlook for iPhone SE-related chip orders has been revised to more than 5 million units, up from 3.5-4 million, and the upward trend is expected to continue through the third quarter.

Apple Design Chief Jony Ive Attends 'Manus x Machina' MET Exhibition Opening

by Juli Clover

The Metropolitan Museum of Art today opened its "Manus x Machina" Costume Institute Exhibition, which is being sponsored by Apple. The show focuses on the dichotomy between handmade haute couture and machine-made fashion, featuring pieces that juxtapose traditional hand techniques like embroidery, pleating, and lacework with technologies like laser cutting and thermo shaping.

Apple Design Chief Jony Ive, who is serving as co-chair alongside pop star Taylor Swift and actor Idris Elba, was on hand at the opening and gave an introductory speech, a portion of which was captured on social networking site Periscope.

Image via Jim Shi

We are thrilled at Apple to help bring to life Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology. When Anna and Andrew first talked to me about the exhibition, I was particularly intrigued that it would stimulate a conversation exploring the relationship between what is made by man and what is made by machine. That it would challenge the preconception held by some that the former is somehow inherently more valuable. Not only in the context of today, but also the future.