Apple’s wireless charging tech may interfere with pacemakers

A new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association shows that the iPhone 12 Pro Max can cause magnetic interference when placed very close to implantable cardiac devices from three major brands. Researchers first tested the iPhone 12 Pro Max by placing it on a patient’s skin right over the implant, replicating the impact of a phone placed in the breast pocket of a shirt. In a second test, they placed the phone on top of an unwrapped implantable device, still in its box. In both cases, researchers were able to detect significant magnetic interference. The study was small, involving three patients and a total of 14 devices from Medtronic, Abbott, and Boston Scientific. Still, interference was present in all of the implanted devices and more than 70% of the boxed-up devices. The culprit here is MagSafe, a feature that was reintroduced in 12-series devices and refers to Apple’s various magnetic accessories for iPhone and iPad. This includes MagSafe wireless chargers, cases, and wallets. To connect iPhones and iPads to these accessories, Apple has installed a ring of magnets inside the 12-series devices. This allows the accessories to snap onto its phones and tablets and stay attached Read More …

Inside YouTube’s 5-year program to help creators that you’re just now hearing about

For the past five years, there’s been a cadre of YouTubers working closely with the company to shape the tools and features creators are using. And it’s not until now that YouTube is pulling back the curtain on its findings and on the program itself. YouTube’s Creator in Residence launched in 2016 as a way for a select group of creators to stress test new additions to the platform and give feedback on the user experience directly to engineers, designers, and product managers. Ten creators are handpicked by the Creator in Residence team for six-month terms that include weekly meetings and, at times, team members visiting creators in their homes and studios to see how being a YouTuber affects their lives on and off camera. Renato Verdugo, a user experience researcher at YouTube an co-lead of Creator in Residence, says typical UX research stops after a week or two with a specific focus on workshopping a product, website, or app. “The more time we started spending with creators without a product agenda, the more we learned [about] their everyday life in a way that allows us to better understand the role that the platform plays in a specific creator’s success, in a specific creator’s business,” Verdugo says. “The residency came from the spirit of, how do we spend time with creators beyond one research session? ” Part of the reason the Creator in Residence program stayed under wraps for five years was to ensure that time with creators was as unfiltered as possible. Renato Verdugo [Photo: courtesy of YouTube] “For this to be effective, the creator needs to know that they’re not here to be a spokesperson, that they’re here to be honest and raw,” Verdugo says. “Giving time to work without the public spotlight and [creators not having] people put pressure on them like, ‘You’re talking to YouTube? Can you also raise this other thing?’ It just creates space to breathe.” Verdugo and his team select creators based on who they deem are doing something “unique or cool” and “really creative” with their channels, regardless of the size of their following Read More …

The political TikToks in your feed might be ads in disguise

There is a lot of political content on TikTok. Much of it has the spontaneous, home-made look of other TikTok content. But looks can be deceiving. Some political TikToks are financed by political influence organizations like Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, and, worse, they often give no indication that they are, in essence, paid political ads. That’s the troubling finding of a new study by researchers at Mozilla. “What we found was evidence of paid or material relationships between political influencer influencers on TikTok and political organizations in the U.S. across both sides of the (political) spectrum,” said Mozilla researcher Becca Ricks, who co-authored the report. Mozilla is now calling on TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, to be more transparent about which short videos on its app are posted by influencers receiving funds from political groups. On Thursday, the nonprofit launched a public petition urging TikTok to prioritize ad transparency. “[W]e looked into the metadata of posts on TikTok and found that TikTok does not seem to be monitoring these posts and considering them as advertising,” Geurkink says. Mozilla found more than a dozen TikTok influencers across the political spectrum that have undisclosed paid relationships—or “dark money” arrangements—with various political organizations in the U.S. TikTok has managed to stay mostly out of the discussion of the social media mis/disinformation crisis by proclaiming that it would not sell political ads on its platform. But, Mozilla points out, even though TikTok doesn’t sell political ads via its social platform (as Facebook does), it’s still easy for political organizations to form direct financial arrangements with TikTok influencers to spread a certain point of view Read More …