Techlife News #379

Apple says Facebook can no longer distribute an app that paid users, including teenagers, to extensively track their phone and web use. In doing so, Apple closed off Facebook’s efforts to sidestep Apple’s app store and its tighter rules on privacy. The tech blog TechCrunch reported late Tuesday that Facebook paid people about $20 a month to use the Facebook Research app. While Facebook says this was done with permission, the company has a history of defining “permission” loosely and obscuring what data it collects. “I don’t think they make it very clear to users precisely what level of access they were granting when they gave permission,” mobile app security researcher Will Strafach said Wednesday. “There is simply no way the users understood this.” He said Facebook’s claim that users understood the scope…

Facebook reported robust earnings and revenue that handily surpassed Wall Street expectations for the final quarter of 2018 despite heavy spending on safety and security. Facebook said Wednesday that it earned $6.9 billion, or $2.38 per share, in the October-December period. That’s up 61 percent from $4.3 billion, or $1.44 per share, a year earlier. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected $2.18 per share. Revenue increased 30 percent to $16.9 billion, beating expectations of $16.4 billion. Facebook’s stock almost 12 percent in after hours trading to roughly $168. The social network has been plagued by privacy scandals and the threat of regulation, but those haven’t appreciably slowed its expansion. Its user base, for instance, also grew to 2.32 billion monthly users, up 9 percent from a year earlier — also higher than analyst…

Nokia has reported increased fourth-quarter earnings on the back of grown orders from telecom operators of new-generation mobile networks that are expected to be rolled out commercially this year. The Espoo, Finland-based company said Thursday that its net profit for the October-December period was 741 million euros ($852 million), against 716 million euros a year earlier. Sales were up 3 percent at 6.9 billion euros. Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri said the company’s performance is expected to improve further this year as “a fast and meaningful shift” into the new 5G networks takes place. He said particularly the latter part of 2019 is expected to be “robust” with operators worldwide updating their existing networks and technology.…

Activists from an anti-globalization group have staged a protest at Google’s Paris headquarters to criticize the company for paying little tax. Attac members gathered at Google’s offices Thursday and set up a pulley to pass bags of fake money between the firm’s premises and a public finance center across the street. According to Attac, Google’s French subsidiary reported revenue of 325 million euros ($371 million) in 2017 and paid 14 million euros ($16 million) in income tax. The group says Google France shifts more than 85 percent of its French revenue to countries with more favorable tax regimes. So-called profit-shifting is technically legal in the EU, where foreign companies have their regional base in one country where they negotiate favorable tax terms. France’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, this month announced plans to tax…

China urged Washington to accept its industrial development after U.S. intelligence officials said Beijing steals or copies foreign technology, as the two sides prepared for another day of talks aimed at ending a tariff war over Beijing’s technology ambitions. It is “totally unreasonable to make random accusations,” said a foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang. This week, U.S. intelligence officials told Congress that China is the biggest commercial and military threat to the United States. A separate report this week said Beijing will steal or copy technologies it cannot make itself. “The United States is the world’s top power in terms of technology, we acknowledge that,” Geng said. “But we hope that the US can see the scientific and technological progress of other countries with an open and inclusive attitude. It must allow others…

The U.N.’s intellectual property organization says companies in Japan, South Korea and the U.S. are the top filers of patent applications involving artificial intelligence. The World Intellectual Property Organization has issued a first report aiming to show trends in AI, seen as a growth area in coming years, although still a tiny fraction of all patent applications each year. WIPO said this week that machine learning is the dominant AI technique disclosed in patents. The report provides little in the way of analysis, such as what WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry called the “huge question” about whether artificial intelligence is “replacing or displacing employment.” It found that IBM and Microsoft have the most AI patent applications, followed by Toshiba, Samsung and NEC. WIPO’s figures run through 2016, the most recent data available.…