China appears to be censoring searches of words and phrases insulting to Kim Jong Un ahead of the US-North Korea summit on Tuesday.

Business Insider discovered the term "Fatty Kim the Third" appears to have been censored on both microblogging site Weibo and Chinese search engine Baidu. When the characters 金三胖 (pronounced Jin San Pang) are searched on these platforms, no results come up, despite dozens of articles being listed earlier in the year.

Empty results also occurred when Business Insider searched for other common nicknames for Kim, including "Prosperous Fat" (鑫胖). "Kim the Third Pig" (金三猪) turns up zero posts on Weibo and nothing from the last two years on Baidu, while "Fatty Kim Two Plus One" (金二加一胖) appears to be blocked on Baidu, but not on Weibo.

It's likely Beijing is trying to promote a positive perception of North Korea ahead of President Donald Trump's summit with Kim on Tuesday, and a potential China-Russia-North Korea meeting in the future.

Advertisement

Business Insider's findings come after Yonhap reported that China has "completely blocked internet searches for words and articles" that could be used to insult Kim Jong Un. But unlike in the past, Kim's name and other insults like "Fatty the Third" (三胖子) have not been blocked.

Earlier this year, China censored the term "Fatty on the Train" (胖坐火车) after people tried to avoid censorship of Kim's name and "North Korea" during the leader's surprise visit to Beijing by rail. Searching the term now on Weibo, Business Insider found no posts between January 2017 and May 2018.

Pyongyang has reportedly asked China to scrub unflattering nicknames of Kim in the past. But China maintains a strong bent toward censorship regardless of North Korea, which inadvertently pushes Chinese internet users to get creative with their search terms in order to avoid censorship algorithms and the thousands of human censors hired by large tech companies.

When Beijing ended presidential term limits earlier this year, dozens of words were banned on social media including just the letter 'n'. Censors also tried to block #metoo, but women instead used the term "Rice Bunny" (米兔) which is pronounced 'mi tu.'

Ride-hailing giant Uber is looking to get in on the scooter business, Axios reported Thursday.

The scooter companies say that these simple vehicles are a cheap, efficient way to provide so-called "last mile" transportation solutions, for trips that are too long to walk but too short to warrant a car ride. In that sense, this move makes sense for Uber — and will put it right up against its archrival Lyft in a burgeoning new market.

Uber confirmed to Axios the company is applying for a scooter permit in its hometown of San Francisco. The permit process was instituted after thousands of electric scooters descended on San Francisco in April with little-to-no-warning to city officials. However, despite the drama, these scooters have won plenty of fans.

With Uber joining the fray, at least seven companies are vying for a maximum of five scooter permits in San Francisco. These include the three companies that have already launched fleets in the city — Bird, LimeBike, and Spin — as well as newcomers, such as Lyft, Skip, and bike sharing company Ofo.

Advertisement

Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The permits allow a maximum of five companies to operate 500 each in San Francisco for a yearlong pilot program. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency hopes to grant permits by the end of the month. Other cities across the country, including Seattle, Nashville, and Santa Monica, have all been targeted by the scooter companies, with worldwide expansion likely soon to follow.

If you're a criminal hacker you probably spend a lot of time on the "dark web."

That's the corner of the internet where hackers do things like sell stolen credit cards; buy "exploit kits," aka software products that help them hack; hire "botnets," or networks of hacked computers that can be programmed to do their misdeeds; or even hire a contract killer. The dark web is not accessible through a regular browser.

If you are a cyber security researcher, like Ziv Mador, you also spend much your time on the dark web, infiltrating the online criminal networks, studying them, and using your knowledge to help businesses defend against them.

Mador has spent two decades doing that. He's currently a lead researcher for security company Trustwave and previously spent 14 years working in computer security at Microsoft.

One of the most surprising findings in his years on the dark web is that these criminal organizations operate with a code of ethics much like the same ethics used by legit businesses, he told Business Insider.

"These are vivid communications, very functional. These are communities where cyber criminals exchange a lot of information and are very helpful [to each other ] if they are looking for a piece of information," he described.

So just like a programmer can get advice from fellow programmers on Stack Overflow or an IT pro can get product recommendations from others in IT on Spiceworks, cyber criminals will freely help one another solve problems or find products to do their own dark sites on their community websites.

A trustworthy reputation

There's a good reason for this: their street cred is their most important asset.

Thomson Reuters "Their reputation is very important to them. Much like it is in the business world," Mador says. "Even though they are involved with criminal or shady activities, they have their own rules of engagement and it's very similar to what people in the legit world do."

For instance, they don't share another's contact info without that person's permission. Spamming each other is a no-no and, above all else, they can't cheat or con one another.

Should they violate these ethics of behavior they would face any number of repercussions.

For one, they would lose customers to their competitors. "They are very competitive," Mador says.

Or, if they've really angered their fellow hackers, they could be "doxed," Mador says, meaning everything about their their real-life identity would be published for the other hackers to see. Unmasking a hacker's identity, especially in relation to a pissed off customer, is dangerous for them on all sorts of levels.

They are also price competitive with the products they sell. For instance, a handful of gangs sell exploit kits and compete aggressively on price and features. These kits must always be up-to-date on the latest security holes that can be used for hacking.

For the criminals that specialize in running botnets, networks of hacked computers for hire, they offer sophisticated realtime customer data analytics tools, similar to what any app developer wants from a cloud provider

"They have administration panels where their customers can login and see live data on infections," he describes.

Violence for sale

Even services that advertise a terrifying list of violent services are often run with similar code-of-conduct considerations.

For instance, these criminals often post a price list for the explicit acts of violence they will do from burning the car of an enemy to breaking bones.

When offering a hitman for hire, some outfits advertise the money saving option of hiring a novice who might fail. That could cost $5,000 compared to $200,000 to hire the most experienced killer on the roster.

Being a researcher on the dark web takes a level of courage but also patience, Mador says. It can take years to infiltrate such websites, getting criminals to trust that the fake identity of the researcher is indeed a fellow criminal and not the account of a researcher or law enforcement officer.

But once there, security researchers use their fake identities to monitor the underground, learning about things like stolen passwords, new types of malware and "what the next attacks are going to look like," Mador says.

He also shared with Business Insider a few examples of actual ads pulled from the dark web.

Google Cloud chief Diane Greene Business Insider

Google's pledge to quit doing military work involving its AI technology does not include its current job helping the Pentagon with drone surveillance.

Diane Greene, the head of Google Cloud, wrote in a blog post on Thursday that Google will continue to honor the controversial Project Maven contract that it entered into last year.

"I would like to be unequivocal that Google Cloud honors its contracts," Greene said in the blog post, adding that Google would fulfill the contract in a way that's "consistent" with the company's AI principles.

The comments came shortly after Google CEO Sundar Pichai published a list of governing principles on how the company plans to work with AI technology in the future. Those principles include not building applications that can be used as weapons or cause harm to humans.

Advertisement

The principles follow a conflict inside Google, pitting thousands of employees against management. These workers protested the company's involvement in Project Maven — the controversial collaboration between Google and the US Department of Defense. In March, news leaked that Google had quietly supplied AI technology to the Pentagon to help analyze drone video footage.

Greene described Maven on Thursday as a "limited contract" that Google entered into in September 2017 that "involved drone video footage and low-res object identification using AI" in which "saving lives was the overarching intent."

"We will not be pursuing follow on contracts for the Maven project," Greene said, but noted that the company would see the current contract through.

"While this means that we will not pursue certain types of government contracts," Greene wrote, "we want to assure our customers and partners that we are still doing everything we can within these guidelines to support our government, the military and our veterans. For example, we will continue to work with government organizations on cybersecurity, productivity tools, healthcare, and other forms of cloud initiatives."

Greene's comments underscore the tricky balance facing Google, particularly its cloud business, as it seeks to compete with Amazon, Oracle and Microsoft for lucrative government contracts while seeking to quell concerns among employees who feel that the company has veered from its Don't Be Evil corporate credo.

Read Greene's memo here.

For many in the cryptocurrency community, the hashtag #whenlambo signifies the Lamborghini as the embodiment of the aspirational wealth they someday hope to possess.

But for Elizabeth White, #whenlambo conveys a personal challenge.

When the hashtag started trending in cryptocurrency forums last year, White says she thought to herself, "You know what, I can get these people a Lambo."

Affluence may abound in the cryptocurrency community, but it isn't always easy to transform digital wealth in for real-world assets. Punishing transactional fees, low daily exchange limits on trading platforms, and wildly fluctuating values can make trading digital currencies in for fiat a difficult endeavor.

Advertisement

White, who has long worked in the racecar industry, decided to leverage her connections to hedge funds and luxury car dealerships to provide cryptocurrency holders access to the Italian supercar of their dreams.

"There's so much new wealth in the cryptocurrency community," says White. "Cars seem to be a big seller because it establishes you as a cryptocurrency holder."

Elizabeth White pictured with one of her cars, a Porsche 918 Spyder Weissach Edition. Elizabeth White

Typically, White's initial exchanges take place over the secure messaging app Telegram. White says she can facilitate a deal for a luxury car in exchange for cryptocurrencies in a matter of days.

"We had a very large sale to a buyer in China from a seller in California for a $4 million car," says White. "The negotiation was very quick. It took less than a week and the settlement took about 30 minutes."

White says her company, suitably called "the White Company," can handle such fast-paced deals in a mix of fiat and digital currencies because of the liquidity of the hedge fund, Apis Capital Management, with which she works.

"We're able to quickly convert someone's holdings at any moment," says White. "I can take these large amounts of money and purchase the items for my client, and then re-ingest their cryptocurrencies back into the fund."

Among the transactions she's handled are deals for Super Bowl suites, yachts, honeymoons, luxury fashion items, and engagement rings.

The ability to cash in digital assets for real-world goods is an important and validating function for cryptocurrencies, says White.

Advertisement

"It all goes back to offering cryptocurrency holders something they need," she says. "They need the ability to purchase something in the real world with their digital wealth."

Elizabeth White with a McLaren P1 Carbon Series. Elizabeth White

White's experience cashing in cryptocurrency assets for tangible goods has inspired her in an entirely new direction. Now, along with her finance partner Edgar Radjabli, she's launching her own cryptocurrency called "the White Standard" that she hopes will someday be used to handle the majority of online transactions.

Unlike ether and bitcoin, which have both been historically traded as a method of speculation, the "White Standard" is a "stable coin" — a digital token with the chief goal of serving as a means of digital commerce. White says that each White Standard, which are built on the blockchain application Stellar, will be backed by an American dollar, ensuring that the coins maintain a real-world value.

"As they gain adoption, White Standards will be trade-able on other exchanges," says White's finance partner, Edgar Radjabli. "You'll always be able to trade ether and bitcoin in and out of the White Standard."

Advertisement

Radjabli said that both he and White started considering the possibility of their own dollar-backed digital currency when rumors began swirling that Tether, another dollar-backed stable token, wasn't accurately representing the fiat backing for their coins.

The White Standard, which will be backed by Radjabli's hedge fund, plans on building a foundation of payment networks for cryptocurrency trade worldwide.

"We want to build a coin that will let you instantly buy a cup of coffee or a Lambo with cryptocurrencies anywhere in the world," says Radjabli.

Microsoft's Xbox group is in a weird place.

It has sold an estimated 30 to 50 million Xbox One consoles, putting Microsoft in a distant second place in the console race behind Sony's PlayStation 4 with more than 75 million.

And Nintendo's Switch console? It's a runaway success.

"Super Mario Odyssey" is available only on the Nintendo Switch. Over 9.7 million copies were sold between its launch in October and the end of 2017. Nintendo

In just over a year, Nintendo sold more than 17 million Switch consoles; it's the fastest-selling console in US history. Nintendo attributes this success primarily to one thing: a lot of really good games you can play only on the Switch.

The Xbox One, by comparison, isn't doing so great — though on paper it's competitive with or outright better than the competition from Sony and Nintendo.

Starting at $200, the Xbox One is cheap and jammed with great games to boot. Even the lowest-end model of the Xbox One supports HDR, a high-end video technology that makes games look better on TVs that support it.

It does everything a set-top box like the Apple TV does, like let you watch Netflix. And it plays blockbuster games.

The Xbox One S, the entry-level model, costs a cool $199. Florence Fu / Business Insider

In reality, though, it's the console I'm least likely to suggest.

The PlayStation 4 has many of the same games, like the latest "Call of Duty," and a bunch of great exclusive games, including the critically acclaimed "God of War."

Though the Nintendo Switch doesn't have third-party blockbusters like "Call of Duty," it has a big edge in terms of exclusives — there's no other way to play the latest "Super Mario" games. That's a pretty big advantage.

And if you already own a PlayStation 4 or PC? There simply aren't many major Xbox exclusive games that make the Xbox One worth owning. And this year's big Xbox One game, "Crackdown 3," just got delayed to February 2019.

"Crackdown 3" has been shown off by Microsoft for several years, but has yet to launch. Microsoft

So what's Microsoft going to do? That's the big question.

Here are some ways it could go:

Google CEO Sundar Pichai published a set of "ethical principles" on Thursday about how the company will work with artificial intelligence.

Pichai said that while AI technology provides consumers and businesses with many benefits, Google realizes the tech "will have a significant impact on society for many years to come" and that the managers "feel a deep responsibility to get this right."

Pichai said the AI applications will be screened to make sure that they are socially beneficial, won't create unfair bias, are safe, accountable to people, incorporate design principles, consistent with scientific excellence, and be made available for uses that maintain the previous principles.

The principles follow a conflict inside Google, pitting thousands of employees against management. These workers protested the company's involvement in Project Maven — the controversial collaboration between Google and the US Department of Defense. In March, news leaked that Google had quietly supplied AI technology to the Pentagon to help analyze drone video footage.

Advertisement

In April, more than 4,000 workers signed a petition demanding that Google's management cease work on Project Maven and promise to never again "build warfare technology." Soon after that, Gizmodo reported that a dozen or so Google employees had resigned in protest.

Pichai also made it clear on what sorts of applications that Google will not develop. Those include weapons or technologies that ccause overall harm, as well as anything that can be used for surveillance that violates "internationally accepted norms" or anything that conflicts with "widely accepted priciples of international law and human rights."

Read Pichai's full memo here.

Story developing...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company will update its semi-autonomous Autopilot feature and start letting Tesla owners try it for free.

Speaking during the company's annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday, Musk said he thought the update would arrive this week and mark a "significant improvement" over Autopilot's current iteration. Musk didn't elaborate on what the update will include, and a Tesla representative declined to offer details.

Musk also said Tesla will give free trials of Autopilot to Tesla owners who didn't purchase the feature (it costs between $5,000-$6,000) and have the necessary hardware to run it "hopefully next month." Tesla last offered free trials of the feature in 2016.

In the next year, Musk said he expects Autopilot to make exponential improvements. When asked by a shareholder about when the full "Enhanced Autopilot" suite — which includes the ability to change lanes without driver input, switch from one freeway to another, and exit a freeway when close to the driver's destination — would arrive, Musk said at least one new feature could be rolled out in the next few months.

Advertisement

In its current iteration, Autopilot can keep a car in its lane and adjust its speed based on surrounding traffic, among other features. Recent accidents involving the feature have raised questions about whether drivers place too much trust in it and fail to pay attention to the road. Tesla has repeatedly said Autopilot is meant to be used with an attentive driver whose hands are on the wheel, but the most visible accidents involving Autopilot have included reports of distracted drivers.

Tesla has received criticism for how it has promoted the feature. In May, Consumer Watchdog and the Center for Auto Safety sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission asking the agency to investigate the strategies the company has used to sell Autopilot.

Limebike scooters were emitting loud screams and threats to call the police if they were tampered without being paid for, The Guardian reported Thursday. But the company said it's phasing out the anti-theft alarm, and that no scooter actually ever called the police.

While all scooters in San Francisco are temporarily banned until they get permits from the city, The Gaurdian's Sam Levin noticed a Lime scooter in Oakland, California loudly emitting robot sound effects and a woman's voice saying, "Unlock me to ride me, or I'll call the police."

The warning is triggered when a person who hasn't unlocked a scooter through LimeBike's app attempts to press buttons on the scooter, stand on it, or otherwise fiddle with the two-wheeler, according to The Gaurdian.

Jack Song, a LimeBike spokesman, told The Guardian the company had updated the alarm to no longer blare a message. Song added that the scooters, while threatening to do so, never actually called the police.

Advertisement

LimeBike has not responded to request for comment from Business Insider

Cannibalism is a clear taboo in our society. But, putting ethics aside, what are the other reasons why you should not eat other humans? The following is a transcript of the video.

Did you know that cannibalism used to be a popular medical remedy?

That's right! In the 17th century, well before Advil Europeans would ingest ground up mummies for headaches. And human fat, blood, and bone were used to treat everything from gout to nosebleeds.

Yet cannibalism is largely absent and morally frowned upon in today. But let's forget the social quagmire. There are plenty of reasons why you shouldn't eat people these days.

For starters, we now know that human meat is a surprisingly low source of calories compared to other red meat. According to one study human muscle contains about 1,300 calories per kilogram. That's less than beef and nothing compared to bear and boar meat.

Now, you might think this would actually make human burgers a great low-cal alternative until you remember you're probably trying to eat humans because you're starving to death. So, low-cal is the opposite of what you want.

Plus it's not worth taking the risk — if you can help it. Turns out, we carry some pretty nasty diseases that make 24-hour food poisoning look like the sniffles. Eat someone raw, and you risk contracting any blood-borne diseases they carried.

But even if you cook the meat, it still won't always go well for you. Case in point are the Fore people of Papua New Guinea. They would eat the body and brain of deceased family members out of cultural tradition. But that practice stopped after hundreds of people died in the 1950s and '60s from an otherwise rare neurological disorder which they contracted from eating infected human brains.

Turns out, the brain tissue contained prions — deadly misfolded proteins that form spongy holes in your brain. They survive the cooking process and, if eaten, are highly contagious.

On the legal side of things, cannibalism falls into a gray area. Oddly enough, cannibalism itself is not illegal in the US or UK, but you probably committed some crime along the way to get that slab of meat.

Grave robbing, desecration of a corpse, murder, or maybe all of the above?

One exception that won't put you behind bars, is if you eat … yourself! Yup, that's a thing. It's called autocannibalism.

The most common example today, called placentophagy, is when a woman eats her placenta after giving birth. The idea is that it can raise energy levels and reduce the risk of postpartum depression by stabilizing hormones. But the science is still out on whether there's any real benefit.

Regardless, this ancient practice has recently found new life in Western culture. Kim Kardashian and Alicia Silverstone have reportedly done it. And there are numerous US companies that will grind your placenta into a powder so you can take it like any other vitamin supplement.

But the CDC warns that even this cutting-edge form of cannibalism is a bad idea. Because it can transfer harmful bacteria from mother to child.

So, if you have a hankering for human, maybe try some pork instead. After all — that's what we taste like. Wait … we obviously mean: ACCORDING TO CANNIBALS ANYWAYS!

"The world's most important demographics" are about to take over, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Millennials, aged 19-35, have already overtaken baby boomers as the largest living generation in US history, and Gen Z, aged 0-18, is coming right behind them. BAML estimates that their combined income could grow from an estimated $21 trillion in 2015 to $62 trillion by 2030.

Investors can earn a slice of that cash pile.

BAML compiled a list of buy-rated companies positioned to benefit from the growth of these demographics. It identified the 17 companies below as having "high" millennial exposure, meaning millennial/centennial-related products are core to their sales and business models.

"We need to prepare for the rise of the 2.4bn Centennials — born at the turn of the century and set to live to over 100Y," Beijia Ma, an equity strategist, said in a note on Monday. "They are embracing diversity, sustainability, globalization, disruptive technology, "peak stuff", new business models, and entrepreneurialism like no generation before them — and they are economically optimistic to boot.

Ma said investors should look into the fundamentals of each company before making any decisions to buy the stocks. She added that while these stocks are going to be moved by more than their relationship to millennials, they're important to keep track of, since the demographic boom is set to be a long-term trend.

Emoji depicting ginger people are making their way onto the internet, with a major update that starts rolling out today.

Cupcakes, superheroes, bagels, toilet paper, kangaroos, and llamas will also be included in Unicode's 11.0 update, which has an official launch date of June 5, 2018.

A selection of other new emoji in Unicode's 11.0 update. Unicode/Business Insider

The Unicode Consortium, which is in charge of creating new emoji, announced the changes in February.

Advertisement

A total of 157 new symbols will be added. The site Emojipedia broke them down in this YouTube video:

After the update, there will be a total of 2,823 emoji available, according to Emojipedia.

Though the emoji are technically available from Tuesday, don't expect to immediately see them on your devices. Different mobile systems and platforms will need to update before they can support the new symbols.

Some platforms, like Twitter, have historically done that very quickly, while Android and Apple devices have waited longer to fold the emoji into broader operating-system updates that could take several months.

Advertisement

As of early on the morning of June 5, Business Insider has yet to see any of the new emoji rendering properly on the internet.

We are getting in touch with the major platforms to find out when we can expect the new symbols to be here and usable.

Apple hit the augmented-reality button hard at its developer's conference on Monday. On top of introducing the new AR app Measure, which acts as a kind of virtual measuring tape, it showcased the "next level" of AR gaming.

Apple showed off its new and improved AR building software ARKit 2 with a demo from Lego during the keynote address. Lego Director of Innovation Martin Sanders got up to demonstrate the game at the Worldwide Developer's Conference.

You start off with a regular, physical Lego building, but point the iOS camera at it and the AR makes it springs into life. You're able to build a virtual world around it, complete with characters, buildings, and the occasional disaster.

Sanders demonstrated the lego game during his WWDC presentation. Apple

Not only this, but you are able to do so with the help of a friend. Multiplayer AR has been a tough nut to crack, but the demo showed that in "Lego AR City" two users are able to operate within the same virtual space.

Advertisement

"It seems like such a simple feature," Sanders told TechCrunch, "but to create together is the next level I think. It really turns a corner from a creative perspective."

Apple showcased these same multiplayer capabilities offstage with another app developed on ARKit 2 called SwiftShot. The game pits two teams of two against each other in competitive slingshotting, with each team trying to knock down virtual pillars belonging to their opponents.

The Verge played with the app at WWDC:

If Apple's new ARKit 2 really delivers on what it promises with fully functional multiplayer AR games, it could hold really exciting possibilities for gaming in the future. Plus, it could mean fewer excruciating Lego bricks to step on.

LONDON — Renowned short seller Jim Chanos thinks cryptocurrencies are a product of the run-away global bull market and have little use beyond avoiding tax.

Chanos, known for predicting the collapse of Enron, addressed the topic of cryptocurrencies in an interview with the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Chanos, who runs New York-based Kynikos Associates, said investors are getting "a little bit jiggy with their capital" and are more "willing to take risks, willing to believe things" the longer the current bull market goes on.

"So today we've got bitcoin and ICOs [initial coin offerings], which went ballistic in 2017," Chanos said. "I suspect going forward we're going to see more and more evidence of questionable companies as this bull market keeps advancing and aging."

Advertisement

"We're now nine years into this bull market, same as the '90s, so I suspect that now things are starting to percolate. I think bitcoin and the ICOs are just one manifestation of that," he said.

Chanos expressed scepticism about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies more generally. Huge amounts of capital flowed into the sector last year, which peaked at over $800 billion in value in December.

Bitcoin's original enthusiasts were drawn to the fact that the cryptocurrency was independent of any nation state or central bank, making it theoretically immune from things like quantitative easing. They also argued that its independence made it a more viable long-term currency.

Chanos said: "For those who believe it's a store of value in the coming apocalypse, the idea is that you're going to have to safeguard your key under a mountain with fingerprint and eye scan security while the hordes are outside your bunker trying to get in to use it — for what, I have no idea. Because for those who believe that you need to own digital currency as a store of value in the worst-case scenario, that's exactly the case in which a digital currency will work the least. Food would work the best!"

The interviewer then suggested bitcoin is a "libertarian fantasy," to which Chanos replied: "That's exactly what it is. And if you say, well, fiat currency is going to bring the world down, which could, of course, happen, then I say the last thing I'd want to own is bitcoin if the grid goes down."

Advertisement

He added: "Bitcoin is still the area for people who are trying to avoid taxation or other examinations of their transactions. That's one thing where I think it probably still has utility, but the governments have figured that out.

"This is simply a security speculation game masquerading as a technological breakthrough in monetary policy. Someone at Grant's interest rate conference recently said that it was as if we had intentionally created a 'monetary Somalia'."

You can read the full interview here.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has criticised Donald Trump's decision to wage trade wars with the world — but has reassured his customers that the iPhone price will not be impacted by higher tariffs.

Speaking on the day of Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference on Monday, Cook told CNN that getting into trading disputes with other countries is never a good idea.

In an interview with tech correspondent Laurie Segall, he said: "No one will win from that. It will be a lose-lose. And I think that when the facts are so clear like that, I think that both parties will see that and be able to work things out."

Cook met with Trump last month in an attempt to get the president to back off his trade war with China. Apple and other tech firms rely on China to build their products.

Advertisement

But with talks between the US and China so far yet to yield a breakthrough, the threat of America imposing tariffs on Chinese goods looms large. It follows the Trump administration last week slapping tariffs of 10% on aluminium and 25% on steel from the EU, Canada and Mexico.

Tim Cook talks to CNN. CNN

Cook expanded on his trade comments in a separate interview with National Public Radio, in which he made clear his view that eschewing protectionism is key to economic prosperity.

"Countries that have a significant level of openness ... are the [countries] that thrive over time," the Apple boss said. "Trade brings people closer together ... and I think that's true about countries as well. It helps a set of broader issues when there's trade going on."

He does not believe, however, that Trump's policies will impact Apple customers. Cook told CNN that he was "optimistic" about the future, adding: "I don't think that iPhone will get a tariff on it."

Tim Cook has said Apple never took data from Facebook, after reports that Facebook granted more than 60 smartphone makers access to people's information.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Facebook had struck data sharing agreements with multiple device makers, including Apple and BlackBerry.

The deals were forged before most people had access to the Facebook app on their phones, and allowed manufacturers to offer popular Facebook features on mobile, such as "like" buttons and messaging. Facebook made data available on users' political leanings, relationship status, and religion, according to the report.

But Cook told NPR: "The things mentioned in the Times article about relationship statuses and all these kinds of stuff, this is so foreign to us, and not data that we have ever received at all or requested — zero.

Advertisement

"What we did was we integrated the ability to share in the operating system, make it simple to share a photo and that sort of thing. So it's a convenience for the user. We weren't in the data business. We've never been in the data business."

Cook was speaking during Apple's annual developer conference, where his firm took veiled shots at Facebook. The company announced an update to its mobile Safari browser that would give users the ability to block Facebook and other ad tech firms tracking their activity around the web.

The next version of Apple's Safari browser will alert users to the tracking Facebook and other companies do through "like" buttons and comment boxes. Business Insider

The upcoming iOS 12 mobile software will also let users better control their use of addictive apps — like Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram.

"We have never been about maximizing the number of times you pick [the phone] up, the number of hours that you use it," Cook said.

Advertisement

"[Phones] change your daily life in a great way. But if you're getting bombarded by notifications all day long, that's probably a use of the system that might not be so good anymore."

Elsewhere, Cook told CNN that governments needed to step in and regulate tech firms, because "this privacy thing has gotten totally out of control." It was a clear reference to Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Facebook, meanwhile, has defended itself vigorously against The New York Times, saying the newspaper's interpretation of events was wrong. "These partners signed agreements that prevented people's Facebook information from being used for any other purpose than to recreate Facebook-like experiences," the firm said.

Emojipedia

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Tuesday.

1. Apple took a direct shot at Facebook on Monday during its annual developer conference. The company announced new privacy controls and software features to let users block distracting apps and avoid online tracking.

2. After talks were first reported by Business Insider, Microsoft confirmed over the weekend it is acquiring GitHub for a whopping $7.5 million. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

3. Internal documents reviewed by Business Insider reveal just how much of a nightmare Tesla's production is for the Model 3. The car company is blowing through substantial amounts of raw materials and cash, the documents show.

4. Apple is bringing personalised emoji to the iPhone, so users can create their own mini-mes in avatar form. Apple calls the new avatars Memoji and they will mimic users' facial expressions and head movements.

5. Twitter has disbanded its live-video business unit responsible for deals with programming partners like Disney/ESPN, MLB and BuzzFeed, Variety reported. The unit will be consolidated under its content-partnerships team.

Advertisement

6. Apple CEO Tim Cook had an unsubtle dig at Facebook during an interview with CNN, where he said "the privacy thing is really out of control." He said the government needed to step in with regulation because tech self-regulation wasn't working.

7. Washington state is suing Facebook and Google for failing to disclose who has been buying online political ads since 2013. The two companies have recently pledged to create online archives of political ads so people can see who's trying to persuade them to vote.

8. YouTube is reportedly restricting LGBT videos and even adding anti-LGBT ads to some videos, according to The Verge. Trans creator Chase Ross said he struggles with age verification and demonetisation on his videos on a regular basis.

9. Former Thinx CEO Miki Agrawal is back, this time with a bidet startup. Agrawal has launched Tushy, which wants to make the bidet mainstream in the US and kill toilet paper.

10. Emoji are getting a huge update today. Among the new emoji will be people with red hair, cupcakes, superheroes, bagels, toilet paper, kangaroos, and llamas.