The Wall Street Journal reports Apple has confirmed it has made an acquisition of artificial intelligence startup Emotient. The cloud-based technology developed by Emotient uses artificial intelligence to detect emotion by analyzing facial expressions. The company’s website is still live following the news and describes the tech as ‘the leader in emotion detection and sentiment analysis based on facial expressions. The company is at the vanguard of a new wave of emotion analysis that will lead to a quantum leap in customer understanding and emotion-aware computing....

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6XS6HE178I] Former Apple Mac Engineer Doug Field gives our Seth Weintraub a test drive of the new P85D Perhaps annoyed by Tesla’s persistence in picking off its engineers, Apple is attempting to win over some of the electric car maker’s employees with signing bonuses of a quarter-million dollars and salary increases of up to sixty percent, Bloomberg revealed today. Pick a color, any color! @teslamotors #tesla #teslamodelS A post shared by Gody (@gody) on Feb 7, 2014 at 12:26pm PST...

To celebrate Diwali, Apple has announced that it will offer shoppers in India a free pair of AirPods when they buy an iPhone 11 smartphone. The deal will kick off on October 17, Apple says. Specific details about the promotion are unclear, including specific details on eligible AirPods models. We would expect the base model AIrPods to be included for free, but that Apple will also allow users to upgrade to AirPods Pro at an added cost....

The iPhone Upgrade Program is a new program that gives you a new iPhone every year, with AppleCare+ for just $32 a month for two years. Keeping paying and you keep getting new phones and service coverage. This option is available in US Apple Stores to start with more countries coming soon. The service is starting in US but rolling out to other countries soon. You get to pick your carrier and includes AppleCare+ for service repair....

Apple has started sending developers access to the first beta version of Swift Playgrounds 2. The company originally announced the update at WWDC, but only opened TestFlight signups rather than releasing the first build. This evening, however, developers have started receiving Swift Playgrounds 2. Apple says that Swift Playgrounds 2 includes new features and capabilities such as Swift 4 support, iOS 11 support, and more: The release of Swift Playgrounds 2 follows the release of Swift Playgrounds 1....

Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to speak at the EU data protection conference CPDP this week, and Apple is also serving as a sponsor and partner for the conference. Cook will speak during a topic focused on giving users more control over online advertising. As first reported by Macerkopf, Cook will appear virtually during the CPDP conference on Thursday, January 28. The focus of the CPDP conference this year is “”Enforcement of rights in a changing world,” and Cook specifically will speak at the beginning of the session in a talk titled “A path to empowering user choice and boosting user trust in advertising....

At the end of last week, it was reported that Apple had refused to send a witness to a senate hearing on the state of app store policy and industry competition. Representatives from the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee said that Apple had “abruptly declared” it would not provide a witness, and that lack of participation was unacceptable. However, Apple says that this is inaccurate and Apple had simply asked for more time to arrange scheduling matters....

Apple has just released iOS 13.5.1 to the public with “important security updates.” Now the company has revealed more details about today’s update, which in fact patches the exploit found by unc0ver Team that allowed a jailbreak for all devices running iOS 13.5. According to Apple’s official security page, iOS 13.5.1 and iPadOS 13.5.1 fixes a vulnerability that allowed applications “to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.” Apple has also mentioned that the exploit is the same one found recently by unc0ver Team, which confirms that the latest version of iOS 13 blocks the jailbreak process once again....

Apple today has launched an interesting new service for iTunes Store, App Store, and iBookstore users in Japan with iPhones and iPod touches. The new service, called iTunes Pass (no, not that iTunes Pass), allows users to go to an Apple Store in Japan, purchase credit in-store for the iTunes Store, App Store, and iBookstore, and have that money immediately applied to the Apple ID account instead of needing to receive a gift card and enter a redemption code…...

Another report from Sports Business Daily mentions that Apple is interested in negotiating with the Pac-12 Conference for media rights deals starting in 2024. Sporting events, something lacking on many streaming services due to cable rights, would be live streamed to Apple TV+ subscribers. Currently, Apple TV+ offers a collection of original movies and TV shows purchased or produced by Apple. Live sports partnerships would be one way for Apple to help differentiate the service from the competition, as its streaming platform still has a limited catalogue compared to competing video services....

Update: Apple has now confirmed that the iPhone 5 will launch in Russia on December 14. iPhones.ru posted images of the Russian iTunes gift cards pictured right. Hot off the heels of the iTunes 11 launch last week, Russia looks to be gaining the service very soon. According to a forwarded invite obtained by TechCrunch, Apple is holding a small iTunes event at the local GUM shopping center in Moscow’s Red Square tomorrow evening....

Apple announced back in May that it would be opening an iOS App Design & Development Accelerator in Bengaluru, India – and the Economic Times reports that it has now agreed to lease more than 40,000 square feet of office space to house the facility. Citing ‘three people familiar with the matter,’ the report says that the center will be spread over two floors at Galleria in North Bengaluru. Bengaluru – formerly called Bangalore – is known as ‘the IT capital of India,’ home to more technology startups than any other part of the country....

Apple’s Mac Pro is still slated to ship sometime this fall and a new image asset shows off new Apple Magic accessories including a keyboard in silver and black without the numpad. So far, Apple has only made its space gray Magic Keyboard in the larger variant that includes the number keypad. Noticed by Steve Troughton-Smith, a new image asset shows off the upcoming silver and black accessories for the Mac Pro that were first shown at WWDC....

In celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Apple has shared a few editorials on the iOS App Store in addition to featuring a homepage photo and quote on its website. The top billed story is Serve Your Community, which looks to help users give back by highlighting several apps and services. The new story shares four tips and corresponding apps on ways to: Share your time Get yourself out there Sightsee for good Discover a cause The first app, Golden Volunteer Opportunities helps users find fun, local ways to give back to schools, non-profits, and charities....

Apple may not have found the right time to launch its long-rumored AirTags locator products yet, but the infrastructure behind the scenes is expanding today. Apple has officially announced the launch of support for using its Find My network with third-party accessories. Find My has historically been used for locating iPhones, iPads, and other Apple products. Now Find My can be used to locate non-Apple products that integrate with Apple’s locator platform....

Apple’s futuristic spaceship campus in Cupertino has been valued at over $4 billion, according to the Santa Clara County assessor. This valuation comes as Apple has pushed back against property valuations in the past in an effort to avoid property tax. According to the assessor, Apple Park itself is worth $3.6 billion. Once you factor in things like computers, furniture, and grounds maintenance equipment, however, that valuation increase to $4.17 billion....

The problems with Anthem on PlayStation 4 are so severe that Sony has started honoring refund requests of players having issues with the game. Anthem is the ambitious looter shooter by BioWare that was initially a hyped release, but since launch, the title has been plagued with numerous problems. Its critical reception is also troublesome, as Anthem is the worst-reviewed game in BioWare’s long history. On the surface, Anthem sounds promising: its world is set in a place that was once inhabited by the gods....

While 2020 was all about social distancing and staying at home, there was a controversial app promoting secret private parties during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thankfully, the iOS app was removed from the App Store this week. “Vybe Together” was recently launched as a new way to allow people to promote secret parties that should not happen during the pandemic.”Get your rebel on. Get your party on,” said the app website — which was also taken down....

Apple Business Chat continues to expand as a seamless way for companies to offer a more personalized and smooth customer experience. David’s Bridal is the latest company working on Apple Business Chat support and expects to be the first in its industry to do so. Apple Business Chat became available back in 2017 with iOS 11. We’ve seen some unique applications, like sports arenas offering the service as a way to order food and drinks and even wireless providers like Sprint and T-Mobile use it for customer support....

A new report from Bloomberg today outlines several potential manufacturing partners that Apple could work with for Apple Car production. The report walks through multiple possibilities and speculates on why Apple might pick each company. The Bloomberg report is meant to recap potential candidates, as it’s clear that Apple has not made any decision on a partner for Apple Car. With that in mind, the report leads with the suggestion that Apple could expand its relationship with Foxconn as part of its work on Apple Car....