15-20 words explaining the main thrust of the story.

Apple's reliance in China will likely lead to higher prices for iPhones.

See how DD brought so many robots to life. The post Digital Domain’s VFX breakdown for ‘The Electric State’ is here appeared first on befores & afters.

Senators including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Chuck Schumer of New York signed a letter on Friday asking the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate President Trump. The move comes after the president’s April 9 Truth Social post in which he told followers it was a “GREAT TIME TO BUY”—just hours before announcing a 90-day pause on the sweeping international tariffs that he’d enacted just days earlier.  The letter urges the SEC to determine if any administration officials or insiders engaged in “insider trading, market manipulation, or other securities laws violations.” It also comes following a video filmed in the Oval Office of Trump explaining how much several of his guests made in the market on Wednesday.  “He made $2.5 billion today and he made $900 million. That’s not bad,” Trump said in the video, posted by More Perfect Union on X, pointing out his friend and investor Charles Schwab as one of the beneficiaries of the intense gains the stock market made on Wednesday.  U.S. stocks rose at record-breaking speeds on Wednesday as Trump paused some of his tariffs. The S&P 500 surged 9.5% in response to his announcement, marking the third-best day for the index since 1940.  Questions around SEC’s ability to pursue enforcement The senators’ letter, addressed to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, also poses a series of questions, including about cutbacks in staff and enforcement activity at the SEC. The questions ask explicitly about the SEC’s ability to “monitor and respond to large-scale market events” and “investigate and pursue enforcement actions.”  Warren posted a tweet Friday morning concerning the investigation request. “Did President Trump tip off big donors or family to cash in on his tariff chaos?” she wrote. “Today with @SenSchumer and Senate Democrats, I officially called for an SEC investigation to find out. Presidents are not kings.”  Jordan Belfort, a former Wall Street stockbroker and convicted financial criminal known as the “Wolf of Wall Street,” told Sky News that there’s “no way” Trump is guilty of illegal insider trading.  “I personally don’t find it overly suspicious. Especially since he’s told it to everybody at once,” Belfort said in a segment of The World.  White House spokesperson Kush Desai responded to Fast Company’s inquiry with the following statement:  “It is the responsibility of the President of the United States to reassure the markets and Americans about their economic security in the face of nonstop media fearmongering,” Desai said. “Democrats railed against China’s cheating for decades, and now they’re playing partisan games instead of celebrating President Trump’s decisive action [Wednesday] to finally corner China.”  A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment.  On Thursday, Senators Adam Schiff of California and Ruben Gallego of Arizona also sent a letter, this one to White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles and U.S. Office of Government Ethics Acting Director Jamieson Greer, requesting an “urgent inquiry into whether President Trump, his family, or other members of the administration engaged in insider trading or other illegal financial transactions.”  A list of questions requesting information about alleged ethical violations by White House administration or members of Trump’s family follows, with a deadline of April 18. 

For adventure seekers, carrying essential EDC is vital for survival and protection in the wild. Flashlight is one of them – be it hiking, camping, fishing, or exploring the great outdoors. There are plenty of options on the market, including Olight, Fenix, Nitecore and ThruNite – known for their brightness levels in a compact form and rugged build that can take on any of nature’s elements. Wuben, however, wants to get the better of every OG flashlight you swear by with a utilitarian offering that is palm-sized and fits your EDC kit without any headaches. This is the Wuben G5 EDC flashlight that is built for any unknown adventures, proving to be a lifesaver in most situations. Wuben likes to call its outdoor flashlights ECL (Easy Carry Light), and this one is true to its name. Designer: Wuben The all-purpose EDC has a design that’s unique compared to similar outdoor gear available for purchase, thus making it worth the attention. Its small form factor, designed to fit in your pocket like a lighter, means you don’t have to make extra space in your backpack if it is already full to the brim. Wuben G5 flashlight comes with a built-in adjustable clip and a strong magnet to tether it to any metal objects. This is useful when your hands are occupied. The accessory comes with a lanyard too, so that you can attach it to anything desired. Compared to the X2 Pro series by the maker, the G5 flashlight loses out on the sidelight and the electronic battery to achieve a compact size. It is IP68-rated for protection against water dunks up to 2 meters and dirt protection. Also, the pressure-proof design reassures it won’t budge if run over by a vehicle, or if someone accidentally slips on it, or if you throw it in your luggage with heavy items on top. The design of the 52-gram ECL is squarish and flat, so that it doesn’t topple over very easily. On top, there is a flashlight head that turns 180 degrees, for hands-free convenience. A 180-degree movable spring tensioned clip can hook onto things and gives more freedom of movement. This comes in handy when you are moving through a thick jungle of bushes, and you need to keep the light steady, pointed in a particular direction. The little flashlight can go up to a maximum of 400 lumens brightness, with a beam distance of 82 meters, which is enough illumination in the pitch dark. Depending on usage, the internal battery lasts for around 50 to 60 minutes before needing a recharge. You can toggle the brightness levels using a rotatable tactile switch, or change the color of the projected light in the RGB spectrum. G5 comes with a beacon mode that flashes blue and red light, but we would suggest not using it unless it is an emergency, else you’ll have to do some explaining to the local authorities. Wuben has cleverly designed the switch on the toggle that alternates to reveal the USB-C charging port. For $25, the compact and lightweight flashlight promises the ultimate convenience and adaptability with its clip-on mechanism. The post This pocket-sized, lightweight flashlight has a highly flexible clip-on mechanism first appeared on Yanko Design.

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For the past three days, DOGE and a handful of Palantir representatives, along with dozens of career IRS engineers, have been collaborating to build a “mega API,” WIRED has learned.

Macworld Apple made a surprise–and long overdue–move last summer when it brought Apple Maps to the web. Available at beta.maps.apple.com, the simple web interface brought Apple new and excellent maps to new devices, but in a limited fashion. This web interface has been available only on Chrome and Safari on Macs and iPads, and Chrome or Edge on Windows PCs. You couldn’t access it from phone browsers at all. Now, though the site is still very clearly labeled “beta,” there are far fewer restrictions. You can head to maps.apple.com (no “beta”) on almost any modern device, including Android phones, and we had no trouble accessing it from other desktop browsers like Firefox. The features are still limited compared to the native iOS, iPad, and Mac apps, but the basics are there: walking and driving directions, business info like photos, ratings, and hours, even the Guides are there. Apple added support for Look Around (it’s analog to Google Maps’ Street View) a few months ago. Options like transit and biking directions seem to be missing, for now. With this expansion, Apple Maps is better poised to provide meaningful competition to Google Maps for online services that license map tools, from search engines to delivery services.

In a move that will likely force IT to much more aggressively use web certificate automation services, the Certification Authority Browser Forum (CA/Browser Forum), a gathering of certificate issuers and suppliers of applications that use certificates, voted Friday to radically slash the lifespan of the certificates that verify the ownership of sites. The approved changes, which passed overwhelmingly, will be phased in gradually through March 2029, when the certs will only last 47 days. Website certificates, also known as SSL/TLS certificates, are issued by trusted certification authorities (CAs) and use public-key cryptography to authenticate websites to web browsers. This controversial change has been debated extensively for more than a year. The group’s argument is that this will improve web security in various ways, but some have argued that the group’s members have a strong alternative incentive, as they will be the ones earning more money due to this acceleration. “This is fully what we were expecting,” said Jon Nelson, a principal advisory director at Info-Tech Research Group. “[But] I do question the motives of the group. They are doing this under the auspices of reducing risk, but I question if that is the real reason. Do the people making up this group have a conflict of interest in that this move could generate additional revenue for their companies?” Although the group voted overwhelmingly to approve the change, with zero “No” votes, not every member agreed with the decision; five members abstained. Tim Callan, the chief compliance officer at Sectigo and vice chair of the CA/Browser Forum, said that one of the certificate authority (CA) members who abstained, who he declined to identify, wrote a note to the group. Callan said it read, “we have mixed feelings about this. We are in favor in principle. However, we are unconvinced that the most restrictive terms are necessary, to go all of the way down to 47 days.” Callan said that he personally applauds the changes. “I am thrilled for a couple of reasons. Shortening certificate lifespans are a good trend. It is the right direction for things to go.” The changes, which were primarily pushed by Apple, have two separate elements. First is the length of time after a user proves that they have valid control over their domain (Domain Control Validation (DCV)) that they are permitted to order or renew a certificate without re-validation. The second involves how long the actual Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificate is valid. In roughly one year, on March 15, 2026, the “maximum TLS certificate lifespan shrinks to 200 days. This accommodates a six-month renewal cadence. The DCV reuse period reduces to 200 days,” according to the passed ballot.  Two years after that, on March 15, 2029, “maximum TLS certificate lifespan shrinks to 47 days. This accommodates a one-month renewal cadence. The DCV reuse period reduces to 10 days.” And given the technical nature of the member company representatives, they opted to define what they mean by a day. But they didn’t define it as 24 hours. They took no chances: “For the purpose of calculations, a day is measured as 86,400 seconds. Any amount of time greater than this, including fractional seconds and/or leap seconds, shall represent an additional day. For this reason, Subscriber Certificates should not be issued for the maximum permissible time by default, in order to account for such adjustments.” The passed document also included a preamble written by Apple, which tried to explain the rationale for the change. In that letter, Apple said the gradual phasing in of the changes was intended to allow for discovery of unanticipated issues and to specifically allow for time to make adjustments. But its actual phrasing was pure Cupertino: “In order to shift more unknown unknowns towards known unknowns and known knowns over time, it is useful to ensure broad awareness prior to changes taking effect.” The core argument from Apple was that today’s longer durations give far too much time for bad things to happen. “Certificates are representations of a point in time state of reality. That is, at the point of certificate issuance, all data certified therein is correct and the process followed for that certification is accurately documented for that point in time,” Apple wrote. “The more time passes from that moment of issuance, the more likely it becomes that data represented in the certificate diverge from reality. Thus, a reduction to both certificate lifetimes and data reuse periods increases the average net reliability of certificates.” But, Apple continued, CAs do not always do their job perfectly. “At times, CAs do not issue certificates in accordance with the policies, requirements, or specifications that govern such issuance,” Apple said. “Requiring more frequent validation of information used in the issuance of certificates and lowering the maximum validity period of certificates reduces the risk of improper validation, the scope of improper validation perpetuation, and the opportunities for misissued certificates to negatively impact the ecosystem and its relying parties.” Apple added that the shorter certificate lifespans also allow the industry to more effectively react to changes in cryptography.

Steve Jobs' personality led to some interesting events during his time at Pixar, including firing board of directors members for failing to disagree with him.Steve JobsThe managerial style of Steve Jobs can be described by some as abrasive, and strong-willed by others, during his time at Apple. It's also something that was apparent during his time at Pixar, with stories from Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, which had Steve as a majority shareholder.In an interview about Jobs for the Steve Jobs Archive released on Friday, Catmull and guests discussed the Apple co-founder's managerial style. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums