Apple changed its App Store rules last week to restrict how developers gather, use and share information about iPhone users’ friends, according to a Tuesday report from Bloomberg. In the past, some developers asked users for access to their phone contacts and used the information for marketing. They may also have shared or sold the …

Google on Tuesday began rolling out an update that lets you get more accurate translations even when you don’t have an internet connection. Around two years ago, Google introduced its neural machine translation (NMT) technology, which improved the accuracy of translations. The technology is now being brought offline, and will run in the Google Translate app directly on Android or …

Toshiba is selling its personal PC business to Sharp.  The roughly $36 million deal, announced Tuesday, includes the issuance of $1.8 billion in new shares by Sharp to buy back stock from banks, ZDNet reports.  Sharp, which was acquired by Apple supplier Foxconn in 2016 for around $3.5 billion, will have an 80.1 percent stake in the business, according to a release. …

Google released an app for its Google Lens augmented reality helper on Monday, directing users to a service that provides a quick link between the real world and the digital one.  The software serves as a quick-launch icon for the service, according to Droid Life, similar to an earlier app for Google Assistant. Google Lens, introduced at Google’s I/O conference in 2017, uses …

Instagram users weren’t too happy when the platform announced it was implementing a new algorithm in July 2016. It gave higher priority to posts the photo-sharing app believed people cared about most, rather than displaying the most recent posts at the top of its feed. Instagram says the changes have been effective. Users had been missing half of what their …

Google says a “language detection bug” led to that weird feature that shows Android users their recent personal texts when typing “the1975..com” in the Google app. A Reddit user discovered the glitch earlier this week after typing “the1975..com” in the search bar on the default Google Pixel launcher. Owners of other Android devices made by OnePlus, Samsung, LG and Huawei reported seeing the same thing. Some …

If you have an Android device and you want to see something weird, type “the1975..com” into your Google app.  Seriously, try it.  What you’ll see is quite puzzling: a list of your recent texts.   A Reddit user discovered the glitch after typing “the1975..com” in the search bar on the default Google Pixel launcher. They were trying to type the …

James Murdoch has some advice for non-media companies looking to enter the space: be tolerant of failure and have patience.  That goes for companies “dabbling” in TV content production. Namely, Apple. “Going piece by piece, one by one, show by show, it’s going to take a long time to really move the dial and have something,” Murdoch said in reference …

The Trump administration told lawmakers it reached a deal to keep Chinese phone maker ZTE in business, according to a report Friday in The New York Times.  The deal, arranged by the Commerce Department, requires ZTE to pay a substantial fine, hire American compliance officers and change its management team, says the Times report, which cites an unnamed source familiar …

Mignon Clyburn is concerned the Federal Communications Commission is prioritizing corporations over consumers, according to Ars Technica.  Before leaving the agency this month, the former commissioner told the publication that the FCC’s top priority is to ensure all Americans have “affordable, efficient, and effective” access to communications services. If the agency doesn’t work to make affordable services a reality, “our …