Apple CEO Admits iPhone Devices Make Use Of Sony Camera Sensors

In what is being dubbed as an absolutely rare finding about iPhone hardware, Apple’s CEO is making a confirmation that not a lot of people saw coming.

Tim Cook took out the time to release a tweet that spoke about the leading iPhone maker using image sensors from Sony in iPhones. This was mentioned while being a part of a supplier tour to Japan.

Cook added that it’s not something new and Apple has been partnering up with Sony for more than 10 years to produce the best camera sensors from around the world for its iPhones. Similarly, he thanked the brand and its CEO for taking the time to show him around the facility that handles manufacturing.

An image was similarly released showcasing his own brand’s smart device which many found to be a little funny. This is definitely one unique tweet as Apple prefers to remain hush on such matters regarding the specifics of where the hardware of the iPhone comes from. So confirming news like this, right off the bat, is definitely a unique ordeal.

On a usual basis, the website for Apple just goes on detailing the specs for the leading iPhone camera. From aperture to resolution and field of view too- they’ve really got it nailed down. But with time, it makes one realize that such matters don’t really matter as we’re dealing with the day and age of computational imagery.

With that being said, so many reports from the past have gone on detailing more about industry aspects leading toward Apple’s reliance on brands like Sony. In the past, a report from the Wall Street Journal even went on to claim that the iPhone 6 smartphone has two sensors hailing from Sony. And even before that, others have claimed the real specifics of model numbers.

In case you did not know, Sony is considered to be a leader in the market of image sensors. It commands a 44% market share for image sensors as per statistics from the previous year. On the other hand, we’ve got the likes of Samsung being the second largest holder for market share in this respect.

But with a visit like this involving the Apple CEO, it’s quite evident that the partnership between both of these firms won’t be dwindling away anytime soon. In fact, we feel such moves solidify the bond and offer hints about more such projects in the near future.

Sony mentioned how it is working on a brand new image sensor that makes use of semiconductor technology to attain the best light out there and limit overexposure and underexposure.

This is expected to make its way to Apple iPhones’ next batch of smart devices so we’ll have to stay tuned for that. At the same time, the leading tech giant hopes to strike a deal with some more smartphone manufacturers other than Apple. For that, we just need to keep our eyes open and we’ll surely be doing that here.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Google Executives Outline The Reputational Risks Of Providing Wrong Information Through AI-Technology

Google is really working hard to compete with the growing trend entailing the adoption of AI technology. Therefore, it’s not in a race to go too quickly as executives warn against the effects of doing so.

Employees are really witnessing a lot of buzz around ChatGPT, powered by Microsoft. This is the name reserved for AI chatbots that went public toward the end of last month. And it didn’t take time for it to transform into a sensation on Twitter.

A lot of people ended up wondering about Google entering the race because it does like to label itself as the pioneer of AI technology. In case you didn’t know, it’s behind the LaMDA which is the name for Language Model for Dialogue Applications.

During a recently held meeting, so many workers at the search engine giant’s head office couldn’t help but express concerns about the leading edge provided with AI thanks to the incremental rise in popularity for chatbots in today’s day and age from others.

The fact that Google was taking a back seat while others were busy leading the industry was definitely a concern expressed. But executives don’t think so. They don’t look at it as a chance of Google missing out on anything.

In fact, the firm’s CEO was quick to elaborate on how Google couldn’t move too fast in this regard. It had a huge responsibility on its shoulders and the risks linked to setting out the wrong information would really cost the firm in the long run.

The firm’s CEO similarly highlighted how the costs of winning the race would bring numerous losses as a lot could go wrong. So many users blindly trust Google in terms of providing answers to searches conducted on a daily basis.

There are billions of users from all around the world that use the search engine while AI-driven chatbots like ChatGPT only recently passed the one million user mark at the start of this month.

Similarly, executives highlighted how AI models are great but they have certain issues that can’t be overlooked. And while language models are definitely taking over the market share around the globe, it’s not as simple as it appears.

Google is embarking on a slow and steady pace and is taking calculated risks that wouldn’t disrupt its entry point in the market on the web.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

CIRP Has Published Data About the Places From Where Consumers Buy iPhones the Most And the Top Place Is Not The One You Are Thinking

New data published by CIRP shows where the people in the USA get their iPhones from and it's not directly from Apple stores. According to this data, it is revealed that most people in the USA buy their iPhones from carrier stores. Physical as well as online carrier stores are the ones that make the most with iPhone sales. After these carrier stores comes the Apple Store. It is rather shocking that Apple Stores aren't the first place people go to if they want to buy iPhones.

Best Buy retailers are also included in the list of where people buy the most iPhone from. Third-party retail stores are not very popular when it comes to buying iPhones but they still have a percentage in the list. The list goes like this: Physical and Online Carrier stores have 67% of iPhone sales, Apple Stores come second in the list with 24% and other stores have 5%. Third-party Best Buy stores have 4% iPhone sales. The 'others' in this list mean retail stores like Walmart and Target, as well as other stores.

This isn't a good thing because the Apple Store being second in the list is a weak spot because if Apple cannot even sell its products, what's the point of everything? If more than 75% of iPhone sales are not from Apple Store, it means that there is no effort from Apple for iPhone sales. When a person wants to buy a new iPhone, he goes to a carrier site but not to the Apple Store directly even if Apple is giving them offers like long warranty and other accessories. Other carrier websites also have offers for customers, but it's a point to ponder for Apple because why are customers getting attracted to other sales instead of Apple's?

This data is surprising because everyone was expecting that Apple iPhone sales will be bigger than any other shop. One of the reasons why carrier stores are getting high iPhone sales is because the customers think that their carrier will help them in moving their service to the new iPhone. Carriers are also good at advertising their stuff, especially when a promotion is associated with it. Carriers also know who their target audience is so they always advertise in that range. They do most of their advertisements by texting and emailing iPhone users and for the most part, this seems to work.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Ethical Hackers - Pothunter Of Software Vulnerabilities

According to HackerOne’s Report of 2022 on Hacker-Powered Security, ethical hackers have found a 21% increase in software vulnerabilities which is above 65,000 in the year 2022.

Before further digging into the results of the report, there are two terms you must be aware of. The first is software vulnerabilities which refer to the software codes having faults or weaknesses. Vulnerabilities can affect the functionality and security of your program if they are not fixed. They could even provide unreliable agents access to your information and products for exploitation. The second term is an ethical hacker who breaks into a computer network without any harmful or criminal intent but to test or assess its security.

Based on the crowdsourced cybersecurity platform’s analysis of the flaws found by its ethical hackers, vulnerabilities in projects involving digitalization have increased remarkably over the previous year, with their related configuration errors growing by nearly half and inappropriate authorization protocols by two and a half times. The research highlights the fact that in-house security staff cannot manage to depend on manual and traditional approaches to vulnerability assessment while demonstrating the capabilities of ethical hacker groups to uncover weaknesses at scale.

In a poll of more than 5,000 hackers, HackerOne discovered that more than a third of hackers believed that a lack of experience was the main obstacle to the firm’s security situation.

The research shows that many businesses are experiencing the strain of dealing with an increased number of exploits. According to the report, 66% of security representatives report having a load of above 1,000,000 vulnerabilities, and 54% of them are capable to fix only about half of them. Due to a large number of vulnerabilities, a more scaled method of handling them is required, just as companies like HackerOne are supplying.

According to the perception of Chris Evans, the chief hacking officer of HackerOne, corporations learn to create special programs to attract the best hackers with ideas based on insights and experiences, as suggested by the hacking department of the company. He further concludes the demonstration of data that hackers are skilled at finding newly discovered vulnerabilities so that our clients can overcome them before an issue occurs.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Digital media profits decrease in third quarter of 2022, OAREX digital media revenue report shows

As per the 2022 Q3 report issued by OAREX, digital media income has decreased for publicly traded US companies in the third quarter of 2022, which was higher in the second quarter.

As we speak, Meta has seen a 4% fall in its year-on-year revenue, Google Networks has declined by 2% but Snap has seen an increase of 6%.

Moving towards MediaAlpha, a drop of a massive 42% has been recorded in its YOY revenue. But that’s not the case with every company, as a considerable amount of growth in revenues has been noted for IAC/Interactive, Zeta Global, Perion Network, Integral Ad Science, The Trade Desk, Hubspot and DoubleVerify are among the companies that have experienced more than 25% growth in their revenues during Q3.

According to Nick Carrabbia, Executive Vice President at OAREX, he said that current trend as depicted by the report shows that revenues are lowering down and late payments are increasing and that is concerning. He continued by saying that this Q3 report has opposed the previous revenue reports that showed a rise in revenues and thus confirmed the idea of a true slowdown. He also suggested that companies should consider this report as they decide their objectives for 2023.

To make sure that report does not contain any bias in its graphs and reflects the true performance of a particular sector, Tech giants like Google, Meta, and Snap are not included in its analysis and have been discussed separately. In the separate discussion for the above-said companies, it was found that they are performing the same and have the same dip in their graphs just like the other companies in the report. Although Twitter is a private company now, the dip in its revenue is visible as well. Unlike Google Networks, an increase of 6% has been recorded for Google Inc.

The OAREX Revenue Report for Q3 2022 also consolidated the fact that bigger is better, so the bigger a company is, the more revenue it will generate.

Speaking about the companies that faced a downfall of more than 10%, included Criteo (-12%), Telaria (-19%), and Marin Software (-19%) as well.

This report is a part of OAREX’s quarterly digital media revenue analysis series. OAREX, which stands for Online Revenue Ad Exchange and works on exchanging digital revenues for digital media-based companies to exchange future revenue pay-outs over currently generated capital.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Meta Develops New Open-Source Tool For Moderating Abusive Content Online

Facebook’s parent firm has recently rolled out a new tool for content moderation.

Meta claims the new open-source offering can fight against the likes of terrorist and extremist content. It’s been allotted the term HMA or Hasher-Matcher-Actioner.

The tool can highlight content that’s suspicious on the platform and that entails copies of pictures and videos that go against the company’s policies and were flagged as disturbing by other users on its apps. After that, the tool would be able to act against these types of materials in a collective manner.

HMA has the capability of being adopted by different firms with ease that wishes to fight against inappropriate content online and put an end to its spread at the same time too. Meta says this is very handy for a number of different organizations that work on a smaller scale than the rest and do not possess the flexibility of huge reserves like the big shots in the industry.

Companies that really do desire to make use of such products can deeply benefit by running their content through such content moderation tools online via a database for hash-sharing. They can then follow it up with steps designed to assist themselves and put Meta in line with curbing the amount of hate and abuse seen through posts generated online.

The decision to have this tool up for grabs in the public eye came at a time when the company gears up to assume the leading position on the board for the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, which would occur in January of next year.

The group helps to bring various member firms together as one to better tackle issues linked to terrorist and extremist activities taking place online. And for those who may not be aware, Meta is the founding member of this platform.

The parent firm of Facebook says it has gone about spending a staggering $5 billion on the likes of safety and security in 2021. Moreover, it was seen dedicating an entire team comprising hundreds of individuals that worked round the clock alongside professionals hailing from law enforcement and industries related to national security. They would counteract such extremist activities. Therefore, Meta really does hope this new online tool would better strengthen its goals one step more.

Similarly, we’re seeing Meta take more steps toward combating the likes of data scraping.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Say Hello To Twitter’s New Feature Called VIT’s That Allows Users To Engage With Famous People

Social media expert Matt Navarra has brought forward news about a new Twitter feature that allows users on the app to engage with all types of public figures and celebrities.

The feature is appropriately dubbed VITs or Very Important Tweeters where you can interact and engage with famous people through various mediums on the platform. This includes editorial content, campaigns, collaborations, and even social events/ happenings in the industry.

Navarra broke the news through his social media account on Twitter where he tweeted the feature and how it entails all sorts of cool features. It’s a VIP app and rightly so because it features some exclusive offerings.

But it was definitely interesting to note how the Social Media commentator says this tool is not something new. However, it wouldn’t be wrong to mention that so few people have gained access to it in recent times. Moreover, you’ll find Navarra crediting another fellow user on Twitter who goes by the name Nicholas Mauro. He set out more details about the VIT feature and called it out for being an invite-only application that’s exclusive for VIP account holders on the platform.

So what exactly are these very cool features for the very important tweeter? Well, a recent screen recording showed features of the likes of Question and Answer, Instant Lock, and Hype.

This is Twitter's invite-only app for VIP users.

It's called the VIT app = Very Important Tweeter

It's not new, just very few people have access to it.

It has a bunch of very cool features: pic.twitter.com/objRGcCmDz

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) December 12, 2022

The feature for Q&A entails allowing followers to generate responses through text or video content on the app. The Instant Lock feature would allow the publishing of exclusive news that can only be unlocked through a tweet. This way, more and more people would be encouraged to publish the news on Twitter. Lastly, the Hype is for the purpose of marketing and promotion a certain endeavor by incorporating URLs, headlines, or even a customized video into such tweets.

• Also read: 11 examples of annoying work jargon (and what to say instead)

Mauro reiterated how there are many points worth a mention here in the form of valuable tools on the Twitter VIP application. They’ve been around for quite some time now. Moreover, making such offerings available for all others would certainly be a great venture.

During the time when such a feature was published, Elon Musk who is the app’s chief yet to let out a word or give feedback. Hence, we’re curious what his take on it all would be now that it’s out in the open.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World