On Tuesday, at Apple’s latest event at the Steve Jobs Theater, CEO Tim Cook announced the launch of three different iPhone devices: iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. The three smartphones look nearly identical, though they differ in some key areas.

The iPhone XR is the cheapest of the three, thanks to its removal of more than a few desired features. The lack of those niceties, coupled with a $749 price point, means deciding which iPhone you really want is a bit more complicated than before.

On the surface, the iPhone XR feels like an iPhone X, at least from the front. It’s large, with a 6.1-inch display and familiar cutout at the top of the screen for FaceID recognition. It also feels particularly dense, weighing just a few grams more than the XS. There’s no home button, meaning there’s no TouchID (though you can tap the front to view its lock screen). Inside it even shares the same brand new A12 Bionic processor found in the new XS and XS Max, and features IP67 waterproofing up to one meter for 20 minutes. The iPhone XR’s LCD display (dubbed Liquid Retina HD) looks sharp, and won’t disappoint, but the differences in quality are noticeable when compared to its more costly iPhone XS and XS Max counterparts, both of which have OLED displays.

Turn it to the side, however, and you’ll see how you can confuse it with an iPhone 8 (or 7, or 6). Instead of the stainless steel of the iPhone X, its housing is made of aluminum, and features a glass back to make wireless charging possible. On that back is one 12-megapixel camera. Want two back cameras? Cough up an extra $250 for the XS, buddy.

That brings me to pricing, a real issue when it comes to the iPhone XR. It’s certainly cheaper than the $999 iPhone XS, and since it starts at $749, it’s certainly nice to see Apple releasing phones that don’t cost $1000. Still, that “cheap” price will cost you in the long run as far as features are concerned.

The removal of 3D Touch as a navigation tool, substituted with a handicapped version that only launches the camera from the lock screen, is a real shame. No second camera lens means no 2x optical zoom. And the Portrait Mode only relies on software rather than an actual second lens.

The introduction of the XR is somewhat befuddling to me. It’s not a flagship device but it’s price point suggests it would at least, like an iPhone 8 Plus, have features like a secondary camera. In terms of feature fragmentation, Apple had been doing what Google couldn’t when it came to ensuring nearly every device had the same (or comparable) hardware. With the introduction of iPhones ditching the Apple-made feature of 3D Touch, it could spell the death of one of Apple’s most promising features, even if no one really uses it. It also means developers might have a harder time taking advantage of those features if Apple decides to remove any more.

Those colors really pop, though. The iPhone XR, available for pre-order Oct. 19 and launching on Oct. 26, will be available in Red, Yellow, White, Coral, Black and Blue. That might be just enough to get someone to buy it, even if it’s for their teenage kid.

(MADISON, Wis.) — Foxconn Technology Group said Monday that its manufacturing facility in Wisconsin will be producing flat-screen panels by the end of 2020, with construction starting later this year.

The news came after the worldwide electronics manufacturing leader sent mixed signals earlier this year about whether it planned to suspend work in Wisconsin. After a meeting with President Donald Trump, Foxconn’s leader recommitted to building a smaller manufacturing facility in Wisconsin than what was originally promised.

The Taiwan-based Foxconn is building what is known as a Generation 6 factory, which typically makes smaller liquid crystal display screens for cellphones, tablets, televisions and other devices. It first said it was going to build a larger Generation 10 plant, which would have used glass more than three-times as large as what the smaller facility will use.

Even with the changes, Foxconn has remained committed to investing up to $10 billion in Wisconsin and hiring 13,000 people. If it does that, the company would qualify for about $4 billion in state and local tax credits.

The project, and the promise of taxpayer-funded tax credits, has drawn considerable backlash in Wisconsin and became fodder in the governor’s race last year. Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker made the deal with Foxconn. Current Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has been critical of the project, calling for more transparency, while also working with the company on its plans.

Evers, who talked with company officials last week, tried to take credit for the news that Foxconn was moving forward with construction of the plant. The governor’s spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff said the announcement “makes it clear that Gov. Evers is getting results” and he will continue to talk with the company to ensure transparency and accountability.

Foxconn on Monday announced dates for moving ahead with that project, including awarding bids for roads, utilities and storm drainage work by April 1 and issuing construction bids in May. Construction will begin by the summer, with the first panels produced in the last three months of 2020, Foxconn said.

“Our commitment from day one has been to establish a winning formula for Foxconn and for Wisconsin,” Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn founder and CEO Terry Gou, said in a statement. “We continue to expand our presence around the state, create jobs, and deepen our partnerships while innovating and adapting to meet changing market needs.”

The factory will be a part of a massive Foxconn campus located near Racine, close to the Wisconsin border with Illinois.

Local leaders near the development site praised the news.

“It’s an exciting time for the entire state,” said Jenny Trick, executive director of the Racine County Economic Development Corporation.

Google is wishing a happy 89th birthday to public health pioneer Helen Rodríguez Trías with its July 7 Doodle.

Trías, who died in 2001, was born in New York City on this day in 1929. She spent her early childhood years in Puerto Rico, and the island and its people would remain significant throughout her life.

Trías completed both her undergraduate and medical studies at the University of Puerto Rico, securing her medical degree in 1960. During her residency — and while raising four children — Trías established Puerto Rico’s first care center for newborn babies, halving her hospital’s infant death rate in three years, according to the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Changing the Face of Medicine project.

A decade after graduating, Trías returned to New York City and threw herself into work at Lincoln Hospital, which served largely low-income Puerto Rican patients in the South Bronx. There, she headed the department of pediatrics and eventually developed a passion for improving women’s health and abortion rights.

Trías was pivotal in reshaping practices around female sterilization, which at the time was commonly used on women of color, women with disabilities and low-income women, according to the NIH. She was a founding member of both the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse and the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse, and helped draft federal sterilization guidelines in 1979.

In the 1980s, Trías worked as the medical director of the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute, where she fought to improve the health and well-being of women with AIDS. Throughout the rest of her career, she continued to devote herself to women’s and children’s health, along the way becoming the founder of the New York Latino Commission on AIDS and the first Latina president of the American Public Health Association, according to the New York Times.

In 2001 — the same year she died from complications of lung cancer — her efforts earned her a Presidential Citizen’s Medal.

The Dutch Bros Coffee chain, which is based primarily on the West Coast, is recalling the free eclipse glasses it had been giving away to customers after discovering they may not be safe for viewing Monday’s solar eclipse. The historic event will be visible from the continental U.S. for the first time since 1979, and it can be dangerous to watch without proper eclipse glasses.

In a statement posted to its social media accounts, the coffee chain said while it had received a compliance notice saying the eclipse glasses were safe, the company had reason to question the certification.

The only safe way to view the Aug. 21 eclipse is through special solar filters, because looking directly at the sun, even when it’s partially covered by the moon, can cause severe damage to your eyes. The brief period when the moon completely blocks the sun, in a total eclipse, is the only time it is safe to view the eclipse without a filter.

Because eclipse viewers are in such high demand — and fake products have popped up across the market — the American Astronomical Society has provided a list of authorized manufacturers and dealers.

Dutch Bros, which has more than 200 locations across seven states, says consumers can return their glasses to any location and receive a free drink. The chain is headquartered in Oregon, where the eclipse’s path of totality begins.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has finally addressed the growing crisis confronting his company over how Cambridge Analytica allegedly used data collected from 50 million users without their direct consent in its work for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. After days of silence, Zuckerberg on Wednesday outlined steps he said would protect users’ information in the future.

“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you,” Zuckerberg said Wednesday in a lengthy Facebook post. “I’ve been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn’t happen again. The good news is that the most important actions to prevent this from happening again today we have already taken years ago. But we also made mistakes, there’s more to do, and we need to step up and do it.”

Facebook is planning to investigate all apps that have had access to users’ data prior to a change the company made in 2014 to limit the information third-party apps could receive, Zuckerberg said. Apps that do not agree to the audit will be banned, and Facebook will alert any users that may have had their information misused. The social media site is also planning to further limit the data that apps currently have access to and remove data access to apps a user hasn’t used in three months. Lastly, Facebook will be adding a tool that will help people understand what apps have access to their information and provide an easy way to revoke that access.

Facebook’s privacy crisis was brought to light after it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica had gained access to user data provided to a Facebook app “thisisyourdigitallife,” created by Cambridge University researcher Aleksandr Kogan. Kogan’s sharing of that information with Cambridge Analytica, a group that claimed to have helped get Trump elected, was a violation of Facebook’s terms of service. The app was downloaded by approximately 300,000 people after it was first created in 2013, according to Zuckerberg. Cambridge Analytica was able to leverage Kogan’s app to get data from 50 million users because thisisyourdigitallife didn’t just access the data of users that downloaded that app, it also grabbed data from users on their friends list.

Lawmakers in the United States have called on Zuckerberg to testify on Capitol Hill, and in Britain a parliamentary committee summoned him to answer questions on the matter.

Cambridge Analytica reportedly used the information from millions of Facebook users to better target and influence potential voters to support Trump. The company responded to the scandal in a statement denying that the data was used to influence the election. Cambridge Analytica added that all users’ data was deleted after the company learned it was in violation of Facebook’s terms of service. However, the company’s CEO Alexander Nix has been suspended pending an investigation.

Zuckerberg also provided a timeline for the events surrounding the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Read Zuckerberg’s full post below:

Nearly 85 years ago, at the height of the Great Depression, the Dionne Quintuplets, born two months premature in a tiny farmhouse in Northern Ontario, amazed, then charmed, an international audience. Long before fertility drugs and in vitro fertilization, the odds of naturally occurring identical quintuplets surviving to birth is estimated at one in 57 million. But survive they did, producing a generation of well-wishers who celebrated their every milestone.

In time, those fans came to associate the quintuplets with a range of products that purportedly played a role in helping them survive, then thrive. Before the age of 2, Annette, Cécile, Marie, Yvonne and Émilie Dionne, collectively, were the cherubic face of Quaker Oats (World Watches Dionne Quins Race to Gain Weight!) Lysol Disinfectant, Libby’s Homogenized Baby Food (A Head Start in Health!) and many other brands. In 1937, the same year their photo would grace the May 31 cover of TIME magazine, their names would become synonymous with Palmolive Soap and Colgate Dental Cream. Over the course of their childhood, Karo Corn Syrup (The food-energy sugar!), Five Flavor Life Savers and Baby Ruth Chocolate bars were also marketed in the name of the quintuplets. That’s despite the fact that the sisters themselves — whose every mood, outburst, intake and bowel movement were meticulously recorded for the sake of “science” — were forbidden from eating sugar.

Today, thanks to savvy parents, “kidfluencers” with loyal followers on Instagram and YouTube can earn tens of thousands of dollars for the products peppering their social feeds long before they can spell the names of the products they’re shilling. Back in the 1930s, however, it was the Ontario government that propelled the Dionne quintuplets into the spotlight after taking custody of the girls in the first few days of their lives on the grounds that the parents had neither the knowledge nor finances to keep the frail babies alive. It would be nine years before the girls, who grew up in a “nursery” where tourists flocked to come and watch them play, would finally be returned to live with their family. Country doctor Allan Roy Dafoe was their chief overseer during the “Quintland” years, himself regularly appearing in magazine ads, authoring a “Guidebook for Mothers,” and writing a weekly advice column on “The Quintuplets and the Care of Your Children.” At the time of his death, Dafoe’s personal fortune — believed to have been amassed principally from his cut of product endorsements and Dionne movie deals — was more than CAD $180,000, roughly equivalent to $2.5 million in today’s dollars. The Dionne parents, meanwhile, opened a souvenir shop and received a monthly payment from the revenues their famous daughters were unwittingly bringing in.

The pitfalls and payoffs of advertising directly to children have consumed psychologists, pediatricians, marketers and anxious parents for the better part of a century, but the ethics of using children and babies for product endorsement has received much less attention.

In 1996, researchers at the University of Akron, Ohio, reviewed 36 year’s worth of advertisements in three of the biggest U.S. magazines, looking at trends in the use of children in promotional materials. During the period studied, 1953 to 1988, the researchers found that 2,000 out of 30,000 (6.6%) advertisements contained children. Moreover, the use of preschool-age children, as compared with school-age children and infants, increased over the study period.

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That analysis builds on earlier research, including a study published by Joanna Kinsey in the International Journal of Advertising, that looked at both the use of children in advertising and its impact, concluding that there are “moral issues involved in using children in advertising and in advertising’s influence on children’s behavior.”

Because, indeed, who better to advertise products to children than other tikes and toddlers? There are laws and advertising standards in place to protect children from the types of targeted promotional material that can be delivered during kiddie TV shows or in magazines for children, as well as labor laws ensuring protections for minors performing on screen, television and radio. But the bulk of the public debate over kids and marketing has been focused on the former, not the latter, with parents typically making the decision to get their kids endorsement deals long before the children themselves are aware of what they’re doing. A flurry of research in the 1980s suggested that it is not until the age of 8 that children start to clue in to the notion of “selling intent” and not until age 11 that they fully grasp the concept. The Dionne girls, however, were used in advertisements long before they had any exposure to the wider world — indeed, after being moved from their birthplace to the purpose-built “nursery” as infants, they never set foot beyond the gates until they were almost 5 years old.

Plenty of other celebrities, from Shirley Temple to Britney Spears, got their start in advertising, says advertising expert Terry O’Reilly, host of the award-winning radio show Under The Influence. But it’s not clear whether that early fame in advertising helps or harms the unwitting child stars, O’Reilly says: “In my experience as a director, there were many parents who had acting aspirations for their children: sometimes it was healthy and fun, and other times we would see parents who were simply driven to get their kids on camera.”

For the Dionne sisters, of course, it was their sameness that fascinated the world and drove the outpouring of interest in using their sweet, identical faces for product endorsements. Advertisers the world over have long known the power of using multiples to sell everything from Wrigley’s Doublemint gum (Double the Flavor, Double the Fun!) to Toni Home Permanents (Which Twin has the Toni?). Back in the 1930s, the liberal licensing of the Dionne names and images for product endorsements was justified by their guardians because of the capital expenses required to maintain first their fragile health, then their bizarre fishbowl existence, then to protect them from the dangers their own celebrity would surely bring them. How ironic that the glossy advertisements and newsreel footage, justified as a necessary means safeguarding their future privacy, were also the very things that helped ensure a private life would be all but impossible.

In 1937, when the girls were 3, the Canadian Government passed the Act for the Protection of the Dionne Quintuplets, ostensibly limiting the range of products the young quintuplets could endorse (a list which, according to biographer Ellie Tesher, included things like eyebrow pencils). But that same Act also included controls on the use of the words quintuplets, quints, quins or cinq jumelles (the French term), which insured that the government would collect a payment when the terms were employed.

In the Dec. 1, 1997, issue of TIME, the three surviving quintuplets — Annette, Cécile and Yvonne, by then in their 60s — published an open letter to the parents of the McCaughey septuplets, born earlier that year. The letter was a reminder that their lives “had been ruined by the exploitation we suffered,” urging the parents to raise their children in a normal environment. “We hope your children receive more respect than we did,” they wrote. “Their fate should be no different from that of other children. Multiple births should not be confused with entertainment, nor should they be an opportunity to sell products.”

Shelley Wood is a journalist and the author of the historical novel The Quintland Sisters, available now.

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Apple on Wednesday unveiled a trio of new iPhone models, ranging from two high-end designs to a more affordable entry-level device.

The two higher-end iPhone models, named the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, feature more advanced screens using what’s called OLED technology. They will be available in gold, silver and space gray finishes. The iPhone XS has a 5.8-inch display, while the iPhone XS Max has a 6.5-inch display. The iPhone XS runs on Apple’s new A12 Bionic processor, helping apps launch faster and providing other under-the-hood benefits. Both models have two rear-facing 12-megapixel cameras, one wide-angle and the other telephoto.

The new iPhone XS models will be available with up to 512GB of storage, the most ever in an iPhone.

A new photography feature will let iPhone XS uses take a photograph, then later select the amount of background blur, or “bokeh,” they want in the image.

The battery in the iPhone XS will last 30 minutes longer than that of the iPhone X, Apple marketing boss Phil Schiller said Wednesday. The XS Max will last 90 minutes longer.

The more affordable model, the iPhone XR, has an LCD display, which are often less impressive than OLED screens. Still, the iPhone XR’s screen, which Apple calls “Liquid Retina,” is also an edge-to-edge design. Instead of 3D Touch, the iPhone XR has “haptic touch,” which offers a similar feature-set without fingerprint scanning, which is replaced with FaceID as a means of unlocking the device. The iPhone XR has a single rear-facing 12-megapixel camera. It has 90 minutes more battery life than the iPhone 8, Schiller said.

Interestingly, the cheaper iPhone XR has the A12 Bionic chip, the same processor as the more expensive iPhone XS models.

All three phones are based on the design of last year’s iPhone X, Apple’s first smartphone with an edge-to-edge screen and other design improvements.

By introducing pricey iPhone XS models alongside a cheaper entry-level model, Apple may risk cannibalizing the sales of its more expensive, and therefore likely more profitable device. But the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant could also be wagering that the higher-end iPhone XS could be seen as a status symbol, and thus attract more affluent buyers.

The iPhone XS begins at $999, while the iPhone XS Max starts at $1,099. Pre-orders begin Friday and shipments start Sept. 21. The iPhone XR will be $749 and up, and begins shipping Oct. 26.

Scientists have gotten awfully good at the business of seismography. At any moment, the Global Seismograph Network (GSM), a web of 150 instruments arrayed around the world, is reliably taking the pulse of the planet. There have been seismographs on the moon — sensitive enough to detect the footsteps of the astronauts who brought them there. A seismograph is currently at work on Mars, as part of the suite of instruments carried by NASA’s InSight lander.

Now, science has stumbled across a new — and inadvertent — kind of seismography, with earthquakes recorded not by tracings on a screen or a paper strip, but by seeming wobbles in the stars above.

On January 20, Chile was hit by a 6.7 magnitude earthquake. The country’s Atacama Desert is home to a growing array of international telescopes — thanks to its high elevation and utterly clear, dry air. At the moment the quake hit, the La Silla Observatory, just 56 miles from the epicenter of the event, was taking 10-second, long-exposure pictures of satellites in what is known as a geostationary orbit.

From the ground, geostationary satellites never appear to move because they fly at such a high altitude — more than 22,000 miles up — that their orbit matches the 24-hour rotation of the Earth. They thus seem forever to hang over a precise point on the ground, which also means that a telescope image of one them — even a long-exposure one — would read as a single point of light. The stars beyond the satellites, however, would come out as streaks, as the telescope moved along with the Earth. If the telescope was shaking when the lens was open, the picture would reflect that.

The luminous tracks in this image represent three ten-second exposures of stars — the first about 41 seconds after the quake began, and the last about 59 seconds later. There’s not much that scientists could learn from the image that the seismographs couldn’t tell them better. But the cardiogram-like tracings are important all the same. We inhabit a living Earth, with its own heartbeat and rhythms and geologic body heat. A picture that reminds us of that fact teaches us more than a seismograph ever could.

 

Apple Inc. announced new versions of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus in red, keeping its entry-level iPhones fresh after being overshadowed for months by the iPhone X.

The new color scheme is part of the “PRODUCT(RED)” initiative, a program that gives a percentage of sales to the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS. Apple didn’t announce a red version of the iPhone X, which remains available in either grey or white.

It’s the second year in a row that Apple has rolled out a red version of its latest iPhone. Last March, Apple launched a red iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus and discontinued those models about six months later when the initial iPhone 8 line launched. The red iPhone 8 models cost the same as the gold, grey, and silver versions, at $699 for the smaller model and $799 for the Plus. The new color goes on pre-order Tuesday and is available in stores from April 13, Apple said.

The back of the phone is red, and the front is black. Last year’s model had a white front, which was derided by some who sought the red and black combination.

The company also introduced a red version of its leather folio case for the iPhone X.

The new model comes as Apple works on a larger, 6.5-inch iPhone, an update to the iPhone X, and a new low-cost model for the fall, Bloomberg News has reported.

A gigantic asteroid will pass by Earth in December — but scientists say the “close” encounter isn’t cause for concern.

A three-mile-wide asteroid called 3200 Phaethon will come within 6.4 million miles of Earth on Dec. 16, according to NASA. While that’s relatively close in space terms — for context, the rock hasn’t gotten this close to our planet since 1974, by NASA estimates — and 3200 Phaethon’s size and proximity to Earth have earned it a “potentially hazardous” asteroid moniker from the International Astronomical Union, scientists say there’s no need to plan for an impending apocalypse.

Michael Mendillo, a professor of astronomy at Boston University, says that while “it would be this kind of object that would cause a catastrophic collision, should there be one,” that kind of collision is highly unlikely.

“This object appears to be, at the moment, in a very stable orbit. It’s very predictable. If no other mass comes close to it, those predictions will be accurate for thousands of years,” he says, adding that there’s no indication that an external force will perturb the asteroid any time soon.

Even NASA’s long-term projections, which predict that the asteroid will come within 1.8 million miles of Earth in 2093, aren’t cause for concern, Mendillo says.

“If you had a more massive object, its gravitational influence might make bigger tides or things of that nature, but it doesn’t really have enough mass to affect the flow of water on Earth, and it’s far enough away that it’s not going to be in our atmosphere,” he explains. “A million miles is still pretty big.”

While there’s no need to worry about a collision, Mendillo says Dec. 16 will provide a unique opportunity to glimpse an asteroid in action. If you know where to look, he says, it should be visible through only a small telescope.

Amateur astronomers can also look forward to another byproduct of 3200 Phaethon: the Geminid meteor shower, an annual display that, at its peak, rains 120 meteors per hour. (This year, the peak will be from the night of Dec. 13 into the morning of Dec. 14, according to Space.com.) Unlike most meteor showers, which come from comets, scientists believe Geminid can be traced back to 3200 Phaethon — but even NASA isn’t quite sure how that could have happened.

 

“This brings up just another aspect of how nature works in strange and wonderful ways,” Mendillo says.