AppleMagazine #549

Amazon workers at a warehouse on Staten Island overwhelmingly rejected a union bid on Monday, dealing a blow to organizers who last month pulled off the first successful U.S. organizing effort in the retail giant’s history. This time around, warehouse workers cast 618 votes — or about 62% — against the union, giving Amazon enough support to fend off a second labor win and raise questions as to whether the first victory was just a fluke. According to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees the process, 380 workers — or 38% — voted in favor of the grassroots union. Turnout was 61%, with about 1,600 workers eligible to vote, according to a voter list provided by Amazon. The few ballots that were challenged by either the company or the nascent Amazon Labor…

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has laid out some bold, if still vague, plans for transforming Twitter into a place of “maximum fun” once he buys the social media platform for $44 billion and takes it private. But enacting what at the moment are little more than a mix of vague principles and technical details could be considerably more complicated than he suggests. Here’s what might happen if Musk follows through on his ideas about free speech, fighting spam and opening up the “black box” of artificial intelligence tools that amplify social media trends. FREE SPEECH TOWN SQUARE Musk’s feistiest priority — but also the one with the vaguest roadmap — is to make Twitter a “politically neutral” digital town square for the world’s discourse that allows as much free speech as each country’s laws…

Apple reported strong quarterly results despite supply shortages, but warned that its growth slowdown is likely to deepen. The company said it’s still struggling to get enough chips to meet demand and contending with COVID-related shutdowns at factories in China that make iPhones and other products. Although initial results for the January-March period topped analysts’ projections, the good news was quickly eclipsed when management warned of trouble ahead during a conference call. The main takeaway: Apple’s sales will be squeezed by the supply problems much harder in the current April-June quarter than in its previous one. The company estimated it would take a hit to revenue of $4 billion to $8 billion as a result. “It will affect most of the product categories,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts. Apple’s stock price fell 4%…

Google has expanded options for keeping personal information private from online searches. The company said that it will let people request that more types of content such as personal contact information like phone numbers, email and physical addresses be removed from search results. The new policy also allows the removal of other information that may pose a risk for identity theft, such as confidential log-in credentials. The company said in a statement that open access to information is vital, “but so is empowering people with the tools they need to protect themselves and keep their sensitive, personally identifiable information private.” “Privacy and online safety go hand in hand. And when you’re using the internet, it’s important to have control over how your sensitive, personally identifiable information can be found,” it said. Google Search earlier had…

Orkut might not have been as popular as MySpace or Tumblr back in the day, but the social network, once owned by Google, boasted an impressive 300 million users at its peak, with more than half in Brazil. Eight years after the website was shuttered, its original founder has vowed to be “building something new” under the brand for a new generation of consumers. THE HISTORY OF ORKUT First launched 18 years ago in 2004, Orkut was a social networking website that was owned and powered by Google. The network, like Facebook, MySpace, and Tumblr, was designed to help users find their old friends, maintain relationships, and start new conversations with those who had similar interests. First developed by Orkut Büyükkökten under a workplace scheme where Google allowed employees to work on…

Continuing its push to dramatically boost sales of electric vehicles, the Biden administration announced $3.1 billion in funding to U.S. companies that make and recycle lithium-ion batteries. The investments from last year’s $1 trillion infrastructure law are separate from an executive order President Joe Biden issued this spring, invoking the Defense Production Act boost production of lithium and other critical minerals used to power electric vehicles. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the new program will offer grants to companies that process or recycle battery components to increase domestic supplies of a market now dominated by China and other countries. The grants will help strengthen U.S. energy independence and support Biden’s goal to have electric vehicles make up half of all vehicles sales in America by 2030, she said. Electric vehicles accounted for 4.2%…