<br /><br />AP Photo/Wally Santana<br /><br /><keyword id="46274" type="COUNTRY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Taiwan">Taiwan</keyword> air force stand in attention in front of a battery of the indigenous Tien Chien "Sky Sword" surface to air missiles during an exercise at the air base, Tuesday, Aug. 24, in Chiayi, central Taiwan.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><ul class="summary-list"><li>Taiwan is scrambling to hide secret military sites exposed to the general public by new maps from Google, Taiwanese media reported Friday.</li><li>The new 3D renderings revealed the National Security Bureau, the Military Intelligence Bureau, and a previously secret Patriot <keyword id="43035" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Missile">missile</keyword> base, among other <keyword id="6354810" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="defense">defense</keyword> infrastructure.</li><li>The defense ministry has reportedly called for calm and is currently discussing the matter with Google.</li></ul>Google released new maps of Taiwan Wednesday, and in the process, exposed some of the island's hidden missile sites, Taiwanese media <a href="https://www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/201902155002.aspx">reported</a> Friday.<br /><br />Taiwan, a self-ruled democratic territory perceived in Beijing as a renegade province, faces an ever-present threat from the massive Chinese military force situated just across the strait.<br /><br />China maintains that it will use force to achieve reunification if necessary. Therefore, Taiwan must be strategic and cautious in its handling of its limited yet advanced armed forces.<br /><br />Google Maps, as part of an effort to produce 3D maps of the world that began in 2012, released impressive three-dimensional renderings of Taipei, New Taipei, Taoyuan and Taichung Wednesday. And, that's when the general public began finding things that were supposed to secret.<br /><br />New city maps from Google offered a clear look at some of the island's defense infrastructure, Taiwan News <a href="https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3638800">reported</a> Friday. Visible in the new maps are the National Security Bureau, the Military Intelligence Bureau, and a previously secret Patriot missile base, Taiwan's Central News Agency <a href="http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201902150022.aspx">reported</a>. The missiles and the launchers are easily observable in the maps.<br /><br />The Ministry of National Defense is currently in talks with Google over the issue. Minister of National Defense Yen De-fa has urged the public to remain calm, insisting that the "location of defense infrastructure in times of peace does not indicate its location during times of war."<br /><br />While concerning, the exposure may not be a severe problem for the island. "Actually, the confidential parts are all inside the structures which would be highly difficult to expose through the 3D maps," a defense official <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/2186351/taiwans-darkest-military-secrets-revealed-google-maps">told</a> the South China Morning Post.<br /><br />Taiwan's military is taking steps to combat observation by commercial satellite technology, a problem for militaries around the world.<br /><br />Taiwan, in particular, has dealt with issues like this before. The Taiwanese defense ministry had to ask Google in 2016 to blur out a military installation on an island in the South China Sea known as Itu Aba, Reuters <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-21/taiwan-asks-google-to-blur-south-china-sea-facility-images/7866578">reported</a> at the time.<br /><br /><br />            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twin-brothers-chicago-helped-take-down-el-chapo-margarito-pedro-flores-wives-cocaine-traffickers2017-6">The wives of high-level cocaine traffickers reveal how their husbands took down 'El Chapo'</a></h3>        <pre style="display: none;">function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</pre>        <br />

Google Maps just accidentally exposed Taiwan's secret missile sites

<p class="source"><span>Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">The coronavirus pandemic presents an unparalleled challenge to social media companies</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Coronavirus has forced big tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Google to take unprecedented action to stop the spread of harmful misinformation. </li><li>The pandemic has so far killed close to 50,000 people worldwide, and the internet has been overrun with fake cures and conspiracy theories. </li><li>Social media companies have previously insisted they only offer "platforms", meaning they don't share the same legal responsibilities as publishers for the content on their sites.</li><li>But experts told Business Insider this argument will be significantly weakened once the pandemic is over - and could change the way they operate forever. </li><li><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime?module=article&amp;area=summary">Click here for more BI Prime stories</a>.</strong></li></ul><p>Coronavirus has forced the Big Tech giants to take unprecedented steps in the battle against misinformation. </p><p>The pandemic has disrupted everyday life for millions around the world, forcing many to remain indoors and so far claiming the lives of close to 50,000 victims. </p><p>In response, tech titans such as Facebook, Twitter and Google have ramped up their efforts to combat conspiracy theorists and snake oil salesmen online. </p><p>Facebook <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-coronavirus-information-center-news-feed-feature-covid-2020-3?r=US&amp;IR=T">launched a "COVID-19 Information Hub"</a>, compiling guidance from reliable sources - such as the CDC and WHO - and placing it at the top of every user's news feed. </p><p>Twitter <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-cracks-down-on-coronavirus-content-that-could-endanger-people-2020-3?r=US&amp;IR=T">broadened its definition of "harm"</a> to include content that goes against guidance provided by "authoritative sources of global and local public health information".</p><p>Both Facebook and Twitter have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-facebook-block-jair-bolsonaro-coronavirus-misinformation-2020-3?r=US&amp;IR=T">begun removing posts</a> from politicians such as Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro for endorsing the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a cure for the novel coronavirus. Facebook has up until now argued it won't remove posts from politicians, even lies, saying that they count as political speech.</p><p>Meanwhile, the Infowars Android app <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-banned-infowars-app-for-disputing-accepted-coronavirus-advice-2020-3?r=US&amp;IR=T">has been banned from the Google Play store</a> after host Alex Jones "disputed the need for social distancing", and the firm is working to remove harmful content from YouTube and its own search engine results. </p><p>But now that a global pandemic has forced them to exercise unparalleled control over what appears on their platforms, experts are contemplating what social media will look like in a post-coronavirus world. </p><h2>Platform or publisher? </h2><p>Facebook and its contemporaries have long denied the responsibilities that burden "publishers", such as newspapers or TV broadcasters, insisting they are merely "platforms" allowing said publishers to transmit content to their audiences.</p><p>This stance has kept them safe from legal challenges in the past, and meant they only had to take action in the most serious of circumstances, such as when video footage of the Christchurch massacre was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-zealand-shooting-facebook-youtube-struggle-to-keep-video-off-sites-2019-3?r=US&amp;IR=T">widely circulated on Facebook and YouTube</a>. </p><p class="source"><span>Alex Jones/YouTube</span></p><p class="caption">The Infowars app has been removed from the Google Play store</p><p>Despite mounting pressure, the tech titans have been reluctant to ban individual users - reserving that right for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-bans-tommy-robinson-over-islamophobia-2019-2?r=US&amp;IR=T">only the most egregious offenders</a> - instead relying on the principle of free speech to avoid making tough judgment calls.</p><p>Pushed on this issue, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/22/17150772/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-content-policy-guidelines-hate-free-speech">has previously said</a>: "I feel fundamentally uncomfortable sitting here in California in an office making content policy decisions for people around the world."</p><p>But an unprecedented challenge has provoked unprecedented action. </p><p>Emily Cox, a partner at Stewarts, one of the biggest litigation law firms in London, told Business Insider that Facebook and others' moves against misinformation in recent weeks marked a "continuum in incrementally altered behavior" since the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica-a-guide-to-the-trump-linked-data-firm-that-harvested-50-million-facebook-profiles-2018-3?r=US&amp;IR=T">Cambridge Analytica data scandal</a> broke in 2017. </p><p>"Big Tech arguments about free speech are not being rehearsed in the way that they have been in the past," she said. "It's unlikely they'll be able to put the genie back in the bottle."</p><p>As far as Google executives are concerned, the firm is simply applying pre-established principles around reliable information, rather than doing something unique in response to the coronavirus outbreak. </p><p>But critics <a href="https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1244361971572428800?s=20">have highlighted</a> the proliferation of "herbal cures" for cancer still advertised in the search engine's results, questioning why these haven't been removed with the same enthusiasm. </p><p class="source"><span>Google</span></p><p class="caption">Google search results for 'Herbal cure for stage 4 cancer'</p><p>Niall O'Malley, digital director of tech marketing firm T/F/D, told Business Insider: "The only certainty is the old rules are dead.</p><p>"The easiest position for [these companies] was to put the responsibility on the user for the content they shared. Now, as they delete misinformation and share public health messages, the game has changed - there's a legislative tsunami heading their way in 2021." </p><p>Critics have questioned how Big Tech platforms have proven so nimble in removing misinformation about coronavirus, while far-right groups and fake remedies continue to flourish. </p><p>"With an increasing social role comes greater social responsibility," said Alfonso Marone, head of media and technology advisory at KPMG. </p><p>"Events like this crisis demonstrate that social media platforms have become important, if not critical, infrastructure at a national and global level...</p><p>"For the dominant digital media platforms, this will eventually translate into greater accountability over safeguarding, opinion-sharing, and democratic processes." </p><p>Like Google, Facebook says it has always prohibited "<a href="https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/credible_violence">misinformation that leads to imminent danger and physical risk</a>" - but there have been questions over how this power is defined and deployed. </p><p>Alex Kantrowitz, a journalist at BuzzFeed and author of the upcoming "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Always-Day-One-Titans-Forever/dp/0593083482">Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Plan to Stay On Top Forever</a>", said the current crisis had "brought the question [of censorship] into focus". </p><p>"Personally, I'm reticent to ask them to be heavy-handed or to filter material on their platforms," he said. "But I'm not blind to the fact that it's been too easy to lie and share misinformation online for too long. </p><p>"We're at the stage now where people are so skeptical of the mainstream media - even in the middle of a pandemic - that many assume it's all just fake news." </p><p>A Twitter spokesperson told Business Insider the firm it would remove "attempts to distort or inorganically influence the conversation" around coronavirus. </p><p>"With a critical mass of expert organizations, official government accounts, health professionals, and epidemiologists on our service, our goal is to elevate and amplify authoritative health information. </p><p>"We continue to work in partnership with the WHO, and ministries of health in 64 countries to provide people with access to credible, verified public health information." </p><p>Facebook and Google declined to comment. </p><p class="tagline"><i>Do you have a personal experience with the coronavirus you'd like to share? Or a tip on how your town or community is handling the pandemic? Please email <a href="mailto:covidtips@businessinsider.com">covidtips@businessinsider.com</a> and tell us your story.</i></p><p><i>And get the latest <a href="/coronavirus-business-impact">coronavirus analysis and research</a> from Business Insider Intelligence on how COVID-19 is impacting businesses.</i></p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-covid-19-social-distancing-looks-from-maxar-satellite-2020-3">How social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic looks from a satellite</a></h3>

'The old rules are dead': How a pandemic could change the way Google, Facebook, and Twitter tackle misinformation forever

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP</span></p><p class="caption">AT&amp;T CEO Randall Stephenson.</p></div><p></p></div></div>AT&amp;T has officially unveiled its new streaming TV service called DirecTV Now.</p><p>There's a lot to unpack here, so let's make it as simple as possible.</p><p>DirecTV Now will let you stream live television from networks you typically find on cable and satellite over the internet to your smartphone, tablet, computer, or set-top box like an Apple TV.</p><p>Plans start at $35 per month for 60 channels and go all the way up to $70 per month for 120 channels.</p><p>Check out the details in the press release below.</p><p><em>This story is developing... refresh for the latest.</em></p><p>Here's the press release:</p><p>The future of TV is NOW. On Nov. 30, AT&amp;T begins offering 3 video streaming services - DIRECTV NOW, FreeVIEW and Fullscreen. It's your favorite TV networks and made-for-digital video content delivered with more choice and flexibility than ever. </p><p>This is rules-free TV for anyone in the U.S. who wants to stream shows and movies anytime, anywhere. For the more than 20 million U.S. households who have dropped cable or are flirting with cutting the cord, we're now delivering video over a technology platform that will have multiple product capabilities, the first of which we're unveiling today.</p><p>"We're extending our entertainment portfolio for those who value premium content but also want more TV freedom suited for their lifestyle, whether watching at home or on their mobile devices. This is TV your way," said John Stankey, CEO, AT&amp;T Entertainment Group.</p><p>"Our new customer-centric offers show that mobility and entertainment are better together," added Stankey.</p><p>Sign up online for DIRECTV NOW or Fullscreen. Within minutes, you have the power to stream content over a U.S. internet connection on a variety of devices. No set-top-boxes, satellite dishes, annual contracts or credit checks required. </p><p>And, if you're an AT&amp;T Mobility customer, DIRECTV will pick up the tab for data to help you achieve all your binge-worthy goals. Data Free TV means you won't use your AT&amp;T mobile data for watching DIRECTV NOW or FreeVIEW in the App. Fullscreen will also cover your data for streaming in the Fullscreen App on the AT&amp;T mobile network.<sup>2</sup></p><p><strong>DIRECTV NOW</strong></p><p>Starting Nov. 30, stream your favorite live sports, on demand, premium channels, popular shows, and hit movies right to your tablet, smartphone or TV. It's the experience you love, without the limits you don't. </p><p>Experience any of our packages free for 7 days when you sign up at www.directvnow.com and download the app from the Apple App Store or Google Play. To celebrate our historic launch of DIRECTV NOW, we're making streams come true by offering our "Go Big" package with more than 100 channels for just $35 per month. This is a limited time offer. Customers who sign up for this offer will continue to enjoy this special price for as long as you keep the package, subject only to future reasonable programming price increases applicable to all packages.</p><p>DIRECTV NOW programming packages are seeded from our existing satellite TV service, putting popular channels together for a great entertainment value:</p><ul><li><strong>Live a Little</strong> - $35 / month (60+ channels)</li><li><strong>Just Right</strong> - $50 / month (80+ channels)</li><li><strong>Go Big</strong> - $60 / month (100+ channels)</li><li><strong>Gotta Have it</strong> - $70 / month (120+ channels) </li></ul><p>Fans of HBO® and Cinemax® can add these channels for just $5 each per month in addition to your base programming package.</p><p>DIRECTV NOW will be available at launch through the following:</p><ul><li>Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick</li><li>Android mobile devices and tablets</li><li>iPhone, iPad and Apple TV</li><li>Chromecast (Android at launch; iOS in 2017)</li><li>Google Cast-enabled LeEco ecotvs and VIZIO SmartCast Displays</li><li>Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari web browsers</li></ul><p>In 2017, we plan to add more devices to our lineup including Roku® streaming players and Roku TV™ models<sup>3</sup>, Amazon Fire tablets, and Smart TVs from Samsung and other leading brands.</p><p>Customers can get an Apple TV included with 3 months pre-paid of any DIRECTV NOW package. Apple TV features high-performance hardware and an intuitive and fun user interface using voice and the Siri Remote. For details, visit www.directvnow.com/appletv. </p><p>Customers can opt for an Amazon Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote included with 1 month pre-paid of any DIRECTV NOW package. For details, visit www.directvnow.com/FireStick.</p><p>Starting tomorrow, LeEco is also offering DIRECTV NOW service with the purchase of LeEco smartphones and TVs. For more information, visit www.LeMall.com.</p><ul><li>3 months: Le S3 and Le Pro3 ecophones or Super4 X43 Pro ecotv</li><li>6 months: Super4 X55 or Super4 X65 ecotvs</li><li>12 months: uMax8 ecotv </li></ul><p>Or for a limited time, you can get 1 month of DIRECTV NOW service when you buy a Lenovo laptop with Intel® Core™i3, i5 or i7 processor. For more information, visit www.lenovo.com.</p><p><strong>Fullscreen</strong></p><p>Mobilizing entertainment is at the heart of our collaboration with Fullscreen Media, a global leader in social-first entertainment experiences that knows mobile video users best. Tailored for digital natives, Fullscreen SVOD launched earlier this year and is $5.99 per month.</p><p>Fullscreen now brings you more than 1,500 hours of ad-free premium scripted and unscripted original series, TV shows and films licensed from studio partners. You'll also get exclusive content from top online creators. Fullscreen Media has nearly doubled its programming since launch - including more original series and acquired content announced earlier this month.</p><p>Now AT&amp;T will introduce an exclusive offer for our Mobility customers. Enjoy Fullscreen at no charge for 1 year included with eligible new and existing wireless plans with messaging service. Starting Nov. 30, sign up for the offer at www.fullscreen.com/att and stream Fullscreen without using your data.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Get Fullscreen anytime, anywhere in the U.S. at www.fullscreen.com and via iPhone, iPad, select Android Phones, Chromecast and Apple TV.</p><p><strong>FreeVIEW</strong></p><p>Our FreeVIEW experience lets anyone enjoy unique and exclusive content free of charge. It's a highly curated, always-fresh, ad-supported video service. It has a sampling of on-demand content from AUDIENCE Network, Otter Media properties and other channels on DIRECTV NOW. </p><p>Download the DIRECTV NOW app to access FreeVIEW or visit www.directvnow.com and start streaming free of charge.</p><p><strong>Existing Premium Services</strong></p><p>AT&amp;T will continue to provide DIRECTV's premium satellite TV entertainment service. This includes our most advanced Genie HD DVR and an outstanding lineup of live and on-demand programming, plus add-on features like premium sports packages and the industry's best picture format: 4K Ultra High Definition. The DIRECTV App also lets satellite customers watch all live and recorded programs virtually anywhere.<sup>5</sup> AT&amp;T will continue to offer our U-verse TV and internet service.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hidden-iphone-settings-and-features-2016-11">3 hidden iPhone features only power users know about</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="U2ZnFqMDE6BYtPWtnOyKHxbH0ZjKS5SJ" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

AT&T announces its new streaming TV service DirecTV Now

Archaeologists found an astonishing site in the Brazilian jungle that may have housed over a million people  - and it could change everything we know about the mysteries of the Amazon

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Good morning! It's a dark and rainy day in London today. Here's the tech news you need to know today.</p><p><strong>1. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-goldman-sachs-conerence-2015-2">Apple CEO Tim Cook gave a speech yesterday at a Goldman Sachs conference.</a></strong> He talked about the Apple Watch, Apple's presence in China, and diversity in tech.</p><p><strong>2. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-announces-huge-solar-farm-near-monterey-2015-2">Apple is spending $850 million on a giant solar farm south of San Francisco.</a></strong> It's going to power Apple's new campus in Cupertino.</p><p><strong>3. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/android-sales-in-decline-for-first-time-ever-2015-2">Android sales are in decline for the first time ever.</a></strong> The number of Android shipments dropped in Q4.</p><p><strong>4. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-is-raising-1-billion-in-switzerland-to-fund-share-buybacks-and-higher-dividends-2015-2">Apple is raising $1 billion through a Swiss bond sale.</a></strong> It's going to use the money for share buybacks and paying out dividends.</p><p><strong>5. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-io-dates-announced-2015-2">Google will hold its I/O event on May 28/29.</a></strong> That's when Google reveals new products and software.</p><p><strong>6. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/udi-manber-leaves-google-2015-2">A key Google executive has left to join the National Institute of Health.</a></strong> Udi Manber was a big part of Google Search.</p><p><strong>7.<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-cfos-account-hacked-2015-2"> Twitter CFO Anthony Noto had his Twitter account hacked.</a></strong> He has previously sent multiple private messages out as public tweets by accident.</p><p><strong>8. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-cracks-down-on-iphone-ipad-accessory-makers-2015-2">Apple is cracking down on accessory makers who design products using leaked information.</a></strong> They're being forced to sign new contracts.</p><p><strong>9. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-takes-on-craigslist-with-for-sale-groups-2015-2">Facebook has launched new support for groups where people sell items.</a></strong> A new "Sell" option lets people enter in important information for items.</p><p><strong>10. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-rocket-landing-test-watch-live-2015-2">SpaceX is going to attempt another rocket launch today.</a></strong> It tried to launch the satellite on Sunday and Monday but called off both launches.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/eighth-grader-invents-braille-printer-2015-1">A 13-Year-Old Made A Revolutionary Invention Out Of Legos And Now Intel Is Investing In His Company</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="5oanB2cjrl7OZQZKJ15oB_-fMpAdPXBF" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

10 things in tech you need to know today

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Mike Nudelman/Business Insider" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/537758b6eab8ea603250be53-960/larry-page-sergey-brin-eric-schmidt-google-portrait-illustration.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Mike Nudelman/Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Google is finding more and more ways to integrate itself into nearly every aspect of our lives.</p>
<p>Google has the largest search engine in the world, biggest video platform (YouTube), biggest web browser (Chrome), most-used email service (Gmail,) and the largest mobile operating system (Android).</p>
<p>What that all means is that Google essentially knows everything about us - be that what we search for, what ads we click on, what we write about, what we watch, and what apps we like.<br /><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Google's moonshot projects - like Google Glass and driverless cars - are merely the next steps in Google's quest to become a total knowledge company. </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Google's driverless cars mean the company will know your driving habits and where you like to go. With Glass, people can access information in real-time without having to check a phone. </span></p>
<p>Google's recent acquisitions hint that it's about to go even further. It's moving toward knowing <em>everything</em> about us - not just in the online world, but also in the offline world.</p>
<h3>Google is about to have satellites watching everything in near real-time.</h3>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Thanks to </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-skybox-imaging-2014-6" target="_blank">Google's $500 million acquisition of Skybox Imaging</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">, Google has an all-seeing eye in the sky. Skybox Imaging has access to loads of high-resolution imagery and video of landscapes throughout the world.</span></p>
<p>"Their satellites will help keep our maps accurate with up-to-date imagery," Google said at the time of the acquisition. "Over time, we also hope that Skybox's team and technology will be able to help improve Internet access and disaster relief - areas Google has long been interested in."</p>
<p>But Google failed to mention that it also now has the intelligence to determine things like when the next iPhone will be released. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-google-can-do-with-skybox-2014-6" target="_blank">That's because Skybox measures the density of trucks outside Foxconn.</a> If Google keeps a close eye on Foxconn, it could theoretically use that information to decide the optimal time to start discounting products, or ramping up its marketing campaigns.</p>
<p>In short, Google essentially now has its own surveillance network and inside knowledge of Apple's manufacturing operations.</p>
<p>Or anyone else's operations, for that matter.</p>
<h3>Google's drones can monitor anything from oil spills to deforestation. The drones can stay in the air for up to five years.</h3>
<p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Titan Aerospace" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/539f4c43eab8eae6375f9f76-960/titan-drone-5.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Titan Aerospace</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-buys-drone-company-titan-aerospace-2014-4" target="_blank">Google bought Titan Aerospace this year for its high-flying solar powered drones,</a> for a reported $60 million. </p>
<p>Titan Aerospace, via Google, is developing a solar-powered drone called an "Armostat," <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/04/16/titan-aerospaceceo-tells-the-story-of-google.html?page=all" target="_blank">which is an atmospheric satellite</a>. </p>
<p>The idea is to use the drones to beef up Google's Maps and Google Earth products, as well as help bring internet to parts of the world that are not yet connected. <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br /></span></p>
<h3>Google's robots can crawl, jump, climb, and gallop, even over tough terrain.</h3>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br /></span>Google spent an undisclosed amount on Boston Dynamics, an engineering company that specializes in building robots and software for human simulation. </p>
<p>The company is best known for its robot BigDog, a quadruped robot designed for the U.S. military.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Boston Dynamics" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/53a1da14eab8ea9235291b21-960/boston-dynamics-7.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Boston Dynamics</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Its robots need to react independently to their environment - and perfecting that type of machine-learning is widely regarded as the key to the next phase of tech.</p>
<p>Assuming that Google successfully deploys internet access to the two-thirds of the world without it, the robots could make it easier for new users to understand the web. </p>
<h3>Soon, Google will know what you do inside your home thanks to its acquisition of smart thermostat Nest.</h3>
<p><span>Google could easily become your next power company, thanks in part to its energy-related investments and its $3.2 billion acquisition of smart thermostat maker Nest. </span></p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/green/energy/investments/" target="_blank">Google's energy investments include</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"> residential solar power company SunPower, Panhandle 2 wind farm, and Elon Musk's SolarCity. In fact, </span><a href="https://www.google.com/green/bigpicture/references.html#investments" target="_blank">Google has invested over $1 billion in wind and solar projects</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">. </span></p>
<p>Meanwhile, Google's acquisition of Nest "<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-29/tv-web-phone-electricity-a-new-threat-to-utilities.html" target="_blank">ought to give utility officials a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs,</a>" Adrian Tuck, CEO of energy company Tendril Networks, told Bloomberg. Tuck thinks the Nest acquisition could be just the thing that gives Google a back door into the utility industry, given that the consensus is that the battle over the next five years in electricity will be in the home.</p>
<p>With Nest, Google could leverage its smart, energy-saving thermostats and smoke detectors into "massive quantities of salable demand response," Tuck said, even as it starts to directly compete with some of the companies it's invested in.</p>
<p>Before its acquisition of Nest, Google had already been tinkering with an app to control a smart thermostat to help people manage their home energy. </p>
<h3>Google still has some work to do when it comes to privacy.</h3>
<p>Google's motto has long been "Don't be evil." By and large, it has kept its word.</p>
<p>But with the number of resources and data it has, envisioning what Google could do with of its army of robots, drones, and satellites can be somewhat terrifying. </p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Meanwhile, the National Security Association has access to all of the information we freely give Google, albeit not with Google's permission. In order to make government spying more difficult, <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/06/transparency-report-protecting-emails.html" target="_blank">Google has since announced that it plans to encrypt all Gmail messages while they're in transit</a>.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Google is doing its best to assure people that their data is secure, but in reality, the U.S. government still has access to your communications on Google's servers.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"The email provider can still see the message," <a href="http://news.investors.com/technology/061714-705038-google-gmail-encryption-good-start-say-privacy-advocates.htm" target="_blank">Seth Schoen, a senior technologist with privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Investor's Business Daily</a>. "They're just encrypting it when it's going over the Internet, not when the message is in their own system."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">The only way to achieve true security would be for Google to encrypt your email to the extent that only you could decrypt and read it. But because Google nee</span>ds to see what we're talking about in order to serve up ads, it seems unlikely that Google would offer full encryption. The scary part is that there's only so much Google can do to prevent the government from requesting and accessing its data.</p>
<h3>Our choices are diminished</h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facepalm">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></p><p class="caption">Caïn by Henri Vidal, Tuileries Garden, Paris, 1896</p></div><p></p></div></div>Google has achieved its dominance in our lives fairly. Its products are generally superior to those of its competitors. And they are often free to use. But now Googl<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">e has access to way more information and data than it did 10 years ago. It's actually difficult to imagine what it would take to not choose Google.<br /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-making-bets-on-drones-and-robots-2014-4" target="_blank">Google has the No.1 smartphone platform, with Android owning 52% market share</a><span> in the U.S. Worldwide, </span><span></span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/android-owns-over-80-of-world-market-2013-11" target="_blank">Android owns more than 80% of the smartphone market</a><span>. Even on non-Android devices, Google offers its search app, Chrome, maps, and email. </span><span>It has a massive audience of 187 million unique visitors on desktop alone, making it the most-visited web property in the U.S. Meanwhile, Google owns 67.6% of the search market in the U.S., </span><span></span><a href="http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Market_Rankings/comScore_Releases_May_2014_US_Search_Engine_Rankings" target="_blank">according to the latest comScore report</a><span>.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span>From the consumer side, you could stop using all of Google's products, but living without Google is genuinely hard - there just aren't many better alternatives for search, web browsers, and email. </span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Even if you were to completely cut out Google from your life, that wouldn't stop Google from taking high-resolution satellite images of your house. It also wouldn't stop Google Glass wearers from filming you.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">So it's not just that Google knows a lot about us, it's that we're at a point where our ability to <em>not</em> let Google know about us has serious consequences. It would be very difficult - for some people impossible - to live life without Google.</span></p>

It's Time To Admit That The Amount Of Information Google Is Gathering About Us Is Genuinely Terrifying

<h3 class="sub-heading"><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi </span></p><p class="caption">Free Syrian Army fighters sit as they look at a mobile phone in Deir al-Zor, eastern Syria February 17, 2014. </p></div><p></p></div>It's now worth $19 billion to Facebook, but it's priceless for Syria's rebel fighters</h3>
<p>In March 2012, the Syrian government banned the free and safely encrypted messaging application WhatsApp from all national networks, primarily to disrupt the rebel opposition's cellular privacy. Judging from online search trends, the ban isn't working. It's doing the opposite of working.</p>
<p>Syrian rebels and journalists in huge numbers are finding new ways to use the messaging service to organize, share news, track government security forces and warn of national army movements.</p>
<p>In the past 12 months, WhatsApp, written in Arabic, spiked 1,350 percent in Google searches within Syria, according to Google Trend. Facebook, in second place, spiked 350 percent over the same period.</p>
<div id="attachment_8020" class="wp-caption aligncenter">
<p class="wp-caption-text">Multiple spellings of Facebook, games and Samsung were the other items on the list of 10 terms that spiked in Syria. There was no spike in searches relating to the daily carnage in Syria, the government or the rebels.</p>
</div>
<p>"WhatsApp is very popular among Syrians, and particularly Syrian opposition activists," says Tuma, a citizen journalist from border town of Tal Al Shihab. "Even Free Syrian Army soldiers are using the app, but not all of them."</p>
<p>The Free Syrian Army, the primary opposition group inside the country, posted a link on its website to download the application. It also included a contact number where it could be reached via WhatsApp.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The government's block of WhatsApp (primarily used by Syrians on the Android platform but also available in Apple's App Store) seems to only have inspired Syrians, anti-government and otherwise, to discover new ways of circumventing it. </p>
<p>In southern Syria, people are tapping into the Jordanian cellular networks, and in the north, near Aleppo, they are jumping on Turkish ones, a Syrian citizen journalist named Ali tells Vocativ. In other parts of the country it is possible to access WhatsApp using a satellite connection.</p>
<p>According to Ali, recent spikes in WhatsApp users was partly due to Syria's ban on Skype, another communications app. Although using Skype would be possible with the same loopholes as WhatsApp, The New York Times reported that the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has "developed tools to install malware on computers that allows officials to monitor a user's activity" specific to Skype.</p>
<p>"WhatsApp is considered safe, free and easy to use," says Tuma, the citizen journalist. "We can easily share photos and videos using the app."</p>
<p>WhatsApp <a href="https://www.demworks.org/blog/2013/05/instant-messaging-smartphones-whatsapps-lack-security">has not specified</a> what type of cryptography is used for its service, leaving some wary of how safe it truly is. But according to the company's website, "WhatsApp communication between your phone and our server is fully encrypted. We do not store your chat history on our servers."</p>
<p>Syrians were outraged at the initial WhatsApp ban. A Facebook group "Bring WhatsApp Back to Syria" was created and began publicly posting proxy numbers to access the app.</p>
<p><a href="http://media.vocativ.com/photos/2013/06/whats-app-2.jpg"></a></p>
<p>Tom Sanders, a co-founder of Whatsapp Status, a service that monitors the app's outages and availability, tells Vocativ he was not aware of the app's popularity in Syria.</p>
<p>"We don't track Whatsapp usage in Syria, and don't track Syria in general," says Sanders.</p>
<p>The Saudi Arabian government announced last week that they might also ban the app if the developers didn't comply with their requirements for easier monitoring before Ramadan.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.vocativ.com/"><strong>Read more stories at Vocativ &gt;</strong></a></p>

Facebook's $19 Billion App Is Hugely Popular Among The Syrian Opposition

A new phone-tracing technology could tell if you've been exposed to the coronavirus - without sacrificing privacy. 130 researchers are offering it to countries for free.

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Beats worn by Weezy F Baby.</p></div><p></p></div></div>While most of us are totally shocked by the news that Apple is late stage talks to buy Beats audio for $3.2 billion, there's one person who saw it coming - <a href="http://lefsetz.com/">music industry insider Bob Lefsetz</a>. </p>
<p>On April 1, in what some people might have confused for an April Fool's joke, <a href="http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2014/04/01/apple-buys-beats/">Lefsetz predicted this would happen</a>. </p>
<p>He said that Apple would pay $1 billion for Beats, which is off slightly. <a href="http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2014/04/01/apple-buys-beats/">But, he did predict it</a>. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">His rationale is that Apple needs a streaming service, and Beats it the way to do it. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Here's his analysis:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Cook wanted to launch the service in September, with the iPhone 6, but now with Scott Forstall gone, Apple software development is still in disarray, and this timetable is impossible, so the launch will come in the new year, right after Christmas, before the Super Bowl, when Cook is scheduled to appear on the Howard Stern show to introduce the product.</span><br /><br /><span>That's right, Stern now has more impact than football, and as a lover of Apple products he's willing to host Cook for free. Furthermore, with endless reruns on both Howard 100 and Howard 101, the message will continue to get out. And, the interview will stream free on iTunes Radio, so you won't need a satellite subscription to hear it.</span><br /><br /><span>Cook was very close to making a deal with Rush Limbaugh instead, but Rush's hatred of gays queered the deal. That's right, despite being an Apple fanboy, Rush's political positions did him in.</span><br /><br /><span>As for Cook's request that his sex life be off limits on Stern's show...Gary Dell'Abate told me that Howard will not negotiate, everything's fair game.</span><br /><br /><span>So where does this leave us?</span><br /><br /><span>1. Streaming wins. People have been waiting for years for Apple to get into the market, now it has. Is it too late? Apple owned the portable music sphere with its iPod, no one else could get traction, but Android has significant market share in phones. Therefore, despite Cook portraying this as a breakthrough acquisition, it's really about catching up.</span><br /><br /><span>2. Jimmy Iovine demonstrates that he's a winner, that all the naysayers are wrong. He went on "American Idol" with those godforsaken Beats headphones around his neck and he willed them to be successful. Now that he's unloaded Beats Music, rumor has it that Iovine will be shepherding a return to rock movement, saying it's all about being able to play your instrument and that hip-hop is dead. He will reunite Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty for another duet, maybe around the time of the Apple/Beats launch, Jimmy has always known it's about marketing.</span><br /><br /><span>3. Spotify is history. Daniel Ek is no competition for Apple. In tech timing is everything. Spotify fought the war, got customers softened up to embrace streaming, Apple will gain the lion's share of the revenue (and yes, there will be an Android version of the Apple/Beats streaming service, it will launch simultaneous with the Apple version, just like iPod for Windows broke Apple through, Cook is taking no chances, he's replicating the formula.)</span><br /><br /><span>4. Tim Cook shows that he is willing to go against Steve Jobs's wishes, that Apple is now truly his company.</span><br /><br /><span>5. Once again, the money flows to the techies. Yes, Iovine got paid, but only once, he's got no ongoing remuneration coming from Apple, like Ian Rogers, he's out.</span><br /><br /><span>So the war is over. Our long national nightmare is history. We've evolved from CDs to piracy to the iTunes Store to legal streaming services. Now the person proffering the best music wins. Distribution is available to everyone, if not marketing dollars. Then again, just like Apple has been jawboning labels for exclusives, expect this behavior to continue on the Apple/Beats service, home page real estate continues to be valuable.</span><br /><br /><span>And one more thing...</span><br /><br /><span>YouTube's streaming music heyday is about to end. As part of the Beats deal, the heads of the three major labels have secretly agreed not to renew their YouTube licenses. You can't win unless you kill the competition, and Tim Cook has made a preemptive strike.</span></span></p>

One Of The Music Industry's Smartest Insiders Wrote About Why Apple Might Buy Beats Last Month

<p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Coming to a dashboard near you.</p>Automakers have given up fighting Apple and Google and are now joining the tech giants.<p>General Motors has made Apple CarPlay and Android Auto available on its entire model lineup, and other automakers are quickly following that lead.</p><p>This is all happening at a time when Apple, Google, and other tech companies are pursuing self-driving cars in a big way. We might have thought that the Apple Car was dead, but it now looks as if <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-catastrophically-late-to-self-driving-car-game-2017-4">Apple is continuing to work on autonomous technology</a>.</p><p>We got our first real taste of Apple CarPlay a while back, spending a few days with the technology in a 2016 GM vehicle, and the experience was a mixed bag.</p><p>But that might have had more to do with the car than with CarPlay.</p><p>GM lent us a Corvette Stingray that was CarPlay-equipped. The Stingray was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chevrolet-corvette-stingray-business-insider-car-of-the-year-2014-12">Business Insider's 2015 Car of the Year</a>, and, for our money, it's just about the best high-performance bargain in the market.</p><p>So you're really supposed to be thinking about how much giddy fun you're having while driving this sleek beast, not whether you're disconnected from your iExistence while behind the wheel. My first CarPlay test might have been a bit easier had GM lent me an SUV. (Since then, I've put CarPlay through its paces in a wide variety of vehicles.)</p><p>Also, the Vette was a convertible. And when I took CarPlay for a spin, it was the waning days of summer. You get the idea.</p><p>Here's the bottom line, and it's still true: CarPlay is astoundingly impressive in one critical respect - Siri.</p><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Maybe not the best car for testing out CarPlay.</p><h2>The best Siri can be</h2><p>Siri, the iPhone's virtual assistant, hasn't exactly been a ravishing success. But that's because no one really wants to talk to their phone, at least not often. Not in public. Maybe not even that much in private. </p><p>Talking to Siri in a car, on the other hand, is much more natural. Plenty of new cars and trucks have some kind of voice interface, but in my experience, they're all pretty bad.</p><p>Siri on CarPlay, however, is brilliant. It's like having K.I.T.T. or J.A.R.V.I.S. or the computer from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" installed in your dashboard. You speak simple voice commands, like "Send a text" or "Find me a Starbucks" and Siri responds. It reads your texts and reads them mellifluously. Its machine brain understands your human diction - better, it seems, in a car.</p><p>You can actually envision having a relationship with Siri in a car. And you feel good about driving him or her around in your Vette.</p><p>It's a revelation. And it really should make for safer driving in the long run, because a sophisticated voice system like this really does cut back on distracted driving, without the voice system being a distraction.</p><p>Getting CarPlay to work is straightforward. You plug your iPhone (which has to be running iOS 7.1) into the car's USB port and presto! CarPlay appears as an option on the central infotainment touchscreen. Tap it and a suite of CarPlay-ified Apple icons takes over. The navigation is then very iPhone-like, managed through a round, white home button that picks up the iPhone's critical interface feature.</p><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption"> Look familiar? </p><p>CarPlay is effectively a way for drivers to have access to the iPhone without have to interact with it. CarPlay doesn't fully mirror your smartphone or its collection of apps, but it does reduce your selection to apps that deal with messaging, music, and other types of audio, such as podcasts and audiobooks.</p><p>CarPlay also provides mapping and directions, and because of the Siri voice interface, it's a bit easier to use than the navigation systems that most new cars are outfitted with. It's not necessarily any more accurate, however.</p><p>Bear in mind that because CarPlay relies on your iPhone, it's piping data through the phone. It's the phone doing the work, not the car. But in GM vehicles, you can connect your iPhone to a 4G LTE Wi-Fi hotspot through OnStar and avoid having to deal with steep wireless-data charges (other carmakers are adapting to this reality, as well).</p><p>The Siri thing is incredibly cool. There's nothing quite like hearing that familiar voice emanating from premium Bose speakers. Siri has never sounded this good. If you're looking forward to the "Her" future of falling in love with operating systems, CarPlay Siri is a clear step in that direction. And CarPlay Siri comes across as useful, pleasant, and benign. There are no HAL 9000 overtones. Siri <em>enjoys </em>being your copilot.</p><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">The infotainment system becomes ... an iPhone!</p><h2>The bad</h2><p>It wasn't all great. I couldn't really get CarPlay to slip up, but I did find that playing music off my iPhone was a little iffy at times. Spotify was better.</p><p>But I wasn't tempted to use CarPlay for entertainment when I had SiriusXM satellite radio in the Vette. And once I was tooling along, listening to "Deep Tracks" or "Classic Vinyl," I wasn't all that motivated to jump back over to CarPlay.</p><p>Also, GM's own infotainment setup is quite good. In the cars we've tested over the past year, GM's system has been neck and neck with Audi's for speed and ease of use (Audi's took the prize for our <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/audi-business-insiders-2016-infotainment-system-of-the-year-2016-12">Infotainment System of the Year in 2016</a>, however).</p><p>GM has OnStar, which enables you to push a button and talk to an operator, asking for directions to be sent to your car. I've long been a fan, preferring OnStar to in-vehicle nav systems.</p><p>There could be some behavioral or generational stuff going on here. I overwhelmingly use headphones or earbuds with my iPhone, and I'm accustomed to that setup. When I'm in a car, I want the old-school radio experience. But over time, and especially if I had a commute and wanted to take in audiobooks or podcasts, I could change my ways.</p><p>Additionally, while CarPlay greatly reduces distractions while driving, it doesn't eliminate them. I'm old enough to know that even fiddling with an ancient push-button car radio from the 1980s could lead to death. Infotainment systems, pre-smartphones, brought numerous new reasons to take your hands off the wheel and your eyes off the road.</p><p>The advent of the smartphone sent us over the top. I now routinely ask auto executives when they - the experts on what causes people to die behind the wheel - are going to push back against the tech industry and its obvious agenda to keep us ceaselessly glued to our phones (defensive driving is no match for push notifications). I usually get a very ambivalent answer to that one.</p><p>But CarPlay is the best solution I've yet seen to getting the phone out of the driver's hands.</p><h2>The shape of things to come</h2><p>There's been some chatter in the auto industry about how continuing to invest in the development of new infotainment systems doesn't make much sense if Apple and Google can do it better. "Let's just give Apple the dashboard" is the verdict.</p><p>It isn't difficult to then make the leap to the infotainment system morphing into the interface that controls the entire car. Siri plus maps plus autonomous driving add up to a car that would be radically different from what we've had for a century: steering wheels and pedals and the need for the driver to be more or less constantly engaged with the driving experience.</p><p>CarPlay is absolutely fantastic in that it unleashes Siri's true potential. For me, this could be the beginning of a vast disruption. If a car can be voice-controlled, science fiction will become reality. Traditional automakers have been trying and pretty much failing for a decade to make in-vehicle voice commands work well.</p><p>But in a short time, Apple has shown that a voice interface can work very well in a car, and that it can work so well that drivers using CarPlay can imagine an entirely different future for mobility.</p><p class="tagline">Get the latest Google stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GOOG-Quote"> here.</a></p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-we-know-about-apple-iphone-8-rumors-2017-2">Everything we know about the next iPhone - including a possible $1,000 price tag</a></h3>                                    Please enable Javascript to watch this video

Forget self-driving tech - Apple CarPlay is already disrupting the auto industry

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Coming to a dashboard near you.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Automakers have given up fighting Apple and Google and are now joining the tech giants.</p><p>General Motors has made Apple CarPlay and Android Auto available on its entire model lineup, and other automakers are quickly following that lead.</p><p>We got our first real taste of Apple CarPlay a while back, spending a few days with the technology in a 2016 GM vehicle, and the experience was a mixed bag.</p><p>But that might have had more to do with the car than with CarPlay.</p><p>GM lent us a Corvette Stingray that was CarPlay-equipped. The Stingray was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chevrolet-corvette-stingray-business-insider-car-of-the-year-2014-12">Business Insider's 2015 Car of the Year</a>, and, for our money, it's just about the best high-performance bargain in the market.</p><p>So you're really supposed to be thinking about how much giddy fun you're having while driving this sleek beast, not whether you're disconnected from your iExistence while behind the wheel. My first CarPlay test might have been a bit easier had GM lent me an SUV. (Since then, I've put CarPlay through its paces in a wide variety of vehicles.)</p><p>Also, the Vette was a convertible. And when I took CarPlay for a spin, it was the waning days of summer. You get the idea.</p><p>Here's the bottom line, and it's still true: CarPlay is astoundingly impressive in one critical respect - Siri.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Maybe not the best car for testing out CarPlay.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>The best Siri can be</h2><p>Siri, the iPhone's virtual assistant, hasn't exactly been a ravishing success. But that's because no one really wants to talk to their phone, at least not often. Not in public. Maybe not even that much in private. </p><p>Talking to Siri in a car, on the other hand, is much more natural. Plenty of new cars and trucks have some kind of voice interface, but in my experience, they're all pretty bad.</p><p>Siri on CarPlay, however, is brilliant. It's like having K.I.T.T. or J.A.R.V.I.S. or the computer from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" installed in your dashboard. You speak simple voice commands, like "Send a text" or "Find me a Starbucks" and Siri responds. It reads your texts and reads them mellifluously. Its machine brain understands your human diction - better, it seems, in a car.</p><p>You can actually envision having a relationship with Siri in a car. And you feel good about driving him or her around in your Vette.</p><p>It's a revelation. And it really should make for safer driving in the long run, because a sophisticated voice system like this really does cut back on distracted driving, without the voice system being a distraction.</p><p>Getting CarPlay to work is straightforward. You plug your iPhone (which has to be running iOS 7.1) into the car's USB port and presto! CarPlay appears as an option on the central infotainment touchscreen. Tap it and a suite of CarPlay-ified Apple icons takes over. The navigation is then very iPhone-like, managed through a round, white home button that picks up the iPhone's critical interface feature.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption"> Look familiar? </p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>CarPlay is effectively a way for drivers to have access to the iPhone without have to interact with it. CarPlay doesn't fully mirror your smartphone or its collection of apps, but it does reduce your selection to apps that deal with messaging, music, and other types of audio, such as podcasts and audiobooks.</p><p>CarPlay also provides mapping and directions, and because of the Siri voice interface, it's a bit easier to use than the navigation systems that most new cars are outfitted with. It's not necessarily any more accurate, however.</p><p>Bear in mind that because CarPlay relies on your iPhone, it's piping data through the phone. It's the phone doing the work, not the car. But in GM vehicles, you can connect your iPhone to a 4G LTE Wi-Fi hotspot through OnStar and avoid having to deal with steep wireless-data charges (other carmakers are adapting to this reality, as well).</p><p>The Siri thing is incredibly cool. There's nothing quite like hearing that familiar voice emanating from premium Bose speakers. Siri has never sounded this good. If you're looking forward to the "Her" future of falling in love with operating systems, CarPlay Siri is a clear step in that direction. And CarPlay Siri comes across as useful, pleasant, and benign. There are no HAL 9000 overtones. Siri <em>enjoys </em>being your copilot.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">The infotainment system becomes ... an iPhone!</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>The bad</h2><p>It wasn't all great. I couldn't really get CarPlay to slip up, but I did find that playing music off my iPhone was a little iffy at times. Spotify was better.</p><p>But I wasn't tempted to use CarPlay for entertainment when I had SiriusXM satellite radio in the Vette. And once I was tooling along, listening to "Deep Tracks" or "Classic Vinyl," I wasn't all that motivated to jump back over to CarPlay.</p><p>Also, GM's own infotainment setup is quite good. In the cars I've tested over the past year, GM's system has been neck and neck with Audi's for speed and ease of use. And GM has OnStar, which enables you to push a button and talk to an operator, asking for directions to be sent to your car. I've long been a fan, preferring OnStar to in-vehicle nav systems.</p><p>There could be some behavioral or generational stuff going on here. I overwhelmingly use headphones or earbuds with my iPhone, and I'm accustomed to that setup. When I'm in a car, I want the old-school radio experience. But over time, and especially if I had a commute and wanted to take in audiobooks or podcasts, I could change my ways.</p><p>Additionally, while CarPlay greatly reduces distractions while driving, it doesn't eliminate them. I'm old enough to know that even fiddling with an ancient push-button car radio from the 1980s could lead to death. Infotainment systems, pre-smartphones, brought numerous new reasons to take your hands off the wheel and your eyes off the road.</p><p>The advent of the smartphone sent us over the top. I now routinely ask auto executives when they - the experts on what causes people to die behind the wheel - are going to push back against the tech industry and its obvious agenda to keep us ceaselessly glued to our phones (defensive driving is no match for push notifications). I usually get a very ambivalent answer to that one.</p><p>But CarPlay is the best solution I've yet seen to getting the phone out of the driver's hands.</p><h2>The shape of things to come</h2><p>There's been some chatter in the auto industry about how continuing to invest in the development of new infotainment systems doesn't make much sense if Apple and Google can do it better. "Let's just give Apple the dashboard" is the verdict.</p><p>It isn't difficult to then make the leap to the infotainment system morphing into the interface that controls the entire car. Siri plus maps plus autonomous driving add up to a car that would be radically different from what we've had for a century: steering wheels and pedals and the need for the driver to be more or less constantly engaged with the driving experience.</p><p>CarPlay is absolutely fantastic in that it unleashes Siri's true potential. For me, this could be the beginning of a vast disruption. If a car can be voice-controlled, science fiction will become reality. Traditional automakers have been trying and pretty much failing for a decade to make in-vehicle voice commands work well.</p><p>But in a short time, Apple has shown that a voice interface can work very well in a car, and that it can work so well that drivers using CarPlay can imagine an entirely different future for mobility.</p><p class="tagline">Get the latest Google stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GOOG-Quote"> here.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-we-know-about-apple-iphone-8-rumors-2017-2">Everything we know about the next iPhone - including a possible $1,000 price tag</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="UzdnZxOTE6N9YaF4DVRqQEpYehOU35lk" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

How Apple CarPlay could completely disrupt the auto industry

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Coming to a dashboard near you.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Automakers have given up fighting Apple and Google and are now joining the tech giants.</p><p>General Motors, for one, will be making Apple CarPlay available on nearly its entire 2016 model lineup, according to Consumer Reports. Android Auto will come later.</p><p>We recently spent a few days with CarPlay in a 2016 GM vehicle, and the experience was a mixed bag. But that might have had more to do with the car than with CarPlay.</p><p>GM lent us a Corvette Stingray that was CarPlay-equipped. The Stingray was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chevrolet-corvette-stingray-business-insider-car-of-the-year-2014-12">Business Insider's 2015 Car of the Year</a>, and, for our money, it's just about the best high-performance bargain in the market.</p><p>So you're really supposed to be thinking about how much giddy fun you're having while driving this sleek beast, not whether you're disconnected from your iExistence while behind the wheel. My CarPlay test might have been a bit easier had GM lent me an SUV.</p><p>And one other thing - the Vette was a convertible. And it's summer. You get the idea.</p><p>Still, CarPlay is astoundingly impressive in on critical respect: Siri.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Maybe not the best car for testing out CarPlay.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>The best Siri can be</h2><p>Siri, the iPhone's virtual assistant, hasn't exactly been a ravishing success. But that's because no one really wants to talk to their phone, at least not often.</p><p>Talking to Siri in a car, on the other hand, is much more natural. Plenty of new cars and trucks have some kind of voice interface, but in my experience, they're all pretty bad. But Siri on CarPlay is brilliant. It's like having K.I.T.T. or J.A.R.V.I.S. or the computer from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" installed in your dashboard. You speak simple voice commands, like "Send a text" or "Find me a Starbucks" and Siri responds. It reads your texts and reads them mellifluously. Its machine brain understands your human diction - better, it seems, in a car.</p><p>It's a revelation. And it really should make for safer driving in the long run, because a sophisticated voice system like this really does cut back on distracted driving, without the voice system being a distraction.</p><p>Getting CarPlay to work is straightforward. You plug your iPhone (which has to be running iOS 7.1) into the car's USB port and presto! CarPlay appears as an option on the central infotainment touchscreen. Tap it and a suite of CarPlay-ified Apple icons takes over. The navigation is then very iPhone-like, managed through a round, white home button that picks up the iPhone's critical interface feature.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption"> Look familiar? </p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>CarPlay is effectively a way for drivers to have access to the iPhone without have to interact with it. CarPlay doesn't fully mirror your smartphone or its collection of apps but reduces your selections to apps that deal with messaging, music, and other types of audio, such as podcasts and audiobooks.</p><p>CarPlay also provides mapping and directions, and because of the Siri voice interface, it's a bit easier to use than the navigation systems that most new cars are outfitted with. It's not necessarily any more accurate, however.</p><p>Bear in mind that because CarPlay relies on your iPhone, it's piping data through the phone. It's the phone doing the work, not the car. But in GM vehicles, you can connect your iPhone to a 4G LTE Wi-Fi hotspot through OnStar and avoid having to deal with steep wireless-data charges.</p><p>Really, though, the Siri thing is incredibly cool. There's nothing quite like hearing that familiar voice emanating from premium Bose speakers. Siri has never sounded this good. If you're looking forward to the "Her" future of falling in love with operating systems, CarPlay Siri is a clear step in that direction. And CarPlay Siri comes across as useful, pleasant, and benign. There are no HAL 9000 overtones. Siri <em>enjoys </em>being your copilot.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">The infotainment system becomes ... and iPhone!</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>The bad</h2><p>It wasn't all great. I couldn't really get CarPlay to slip up, but I did find that playing music off my iPhone was a little iffy at times. Spotify was better.</p><p>But I wasn't tempted to use CarPlay for entertainment when I had SiriusXM satellite radio in the Vette. And once I was tooling along, listening to "Deep Tracks" or "Classic Vinyl," I wasn't all that motivated to jump back over to CarPlay.</p><p>Also, GM's own infotainment setup is quite good. In the cars I've tested over the past year, GM's system has been neck and neck with Audi's for speed and ease of use. And GM has OnStar, which enables you to push a button and talk to an operator, asking for directions to be sent to your car. I've long been a fan, preferring OnStar to in-vehicle nav systems.</p><p>There could be some behavioral or generational stuff going on here. I overwhelmingly use headphones or earbuds with my iPhone, and I'm accustomed to that setup. When I'm in a car, I want the old-school radio experience. But over time, and especially if I had a commute and wanted to take in audiobooks or podcasts, I could change my ways.</p><p>Additionally, while CarPlay greatly reduces distractions while driving, it doesn't eliminate them. I'm old enough to know that even fiddling with an ancient push-button car radio from the 1980s could lead to death. Infotainment systems, pre-smartphones, brought numerous new reasons to take your hands off the wheel and your eyes off the road.</p><p>The advent of the smartphone sent us over the top. I now routinely ask auto executives when they - the experts on what causes people to die behind the wheel - are going to push back against the tech industry and its obvious agenda to keep us ceaselessly glued to our phones (defensive driving is no match for push notifications). I usually get a very ambivalent answer to that one.</p><p>But CarPlay is the best solution I've yet seen to getting the phone out of the driver's hands.</p><h2>The shape of things to come</h2><p>There's been some chatter in the auto industry about how continuing to invest in the development of new infotainment systems doesn't make much sense if Apple and Google can do it better. "Let's just give Apple the dashboard" is the verdict.</p><p>It isn't difficult to then make the leap to the infotainment system morphing into the interface that controls the entire car. Siri plus maps plus autonomous driving add up to a car that would be radically different from what we've had for a century: steering wheels and pedals and the need for he driver to be more or less constantly engaged with the driving experience.</p><p>If Apple's "Project Titan" is an actual car, then CarPlay can be seen as the first stage in the development of a user interface that at first assists and then <em>replaces</em> the driver. And even if Project Titan isn't a car, CarPlay is going to get better and be a cornerstone of Cupertino's efforts to keep the iPhone truly mobile, in every sense of that word.</p><p>At the moment, the bottom line is that CarPlay is generally not that great, although it's absolutely fantastic in that it unleashes Siri's true potential. For me, this could be the beginning of a vast disruption. If a car can be voice-controlled, science fiction will become reality. Traditional automakers have been trying and pretty much failing for a decade to make in-vehicle voice commands work well.</p><p>But in a short time, Apple has shown that a voice interface can work very well in a car, and that it can work so well that drivers using CarPlay can imagine an entirely different future for mobility.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-self-driving-car-problem-driverless-humans-2015-9">Google's self-driving car has a huge problem</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="NrOWVjdzqcfE7uioV2jlxu3iQFQZkTQj" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

We tried Apple CarPlay, and it could completely disrupt the auto industry in one important way

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Coming to a dashboard near you.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Automakers have given up fighting Apple and Google and are now joining the tech giants.</p><p>General Motors, for one, will be making Apple CarPlay available on nearly its entire 2016 model lineup, according to Consumer Reports. Android Auto will come later.</p><p>We recently spent a few days with CarPlay in a 2016 GM vehicle, and the experience was a mixed bag. But that might have had more to do with the car than with CarPlay.</p><p>GM lent us a Corvette Stingray that was CarPlay-equipped. The Stingray was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chevrolet-corvette-stingray-business-insider-car-of-the-year-2014-12">Business Insider's 2015 Car of the Year</a>, and, for our money, it's just about the best high-performance bargain in the market.</p><p>So you're really supposed to be thinking about how much giddy fun you're having while driving this sleek beast, not whether you're disconnected from your iExistence while behind the wheel. My CarPlay test might have been a bit easier had GM lent me an SUV.</p><p>And one other thing - the Vette was a convertible. And it was the waning days of summer. You get the idea.</p><p>Still, CarPlay is astoundingly impressive in on critical respect: Siri.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Maybe not the best car for testing out CarPlay.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>The best Siri can be</h2><p>Siri, the iPhone's virtual assistant, hasn't exactly been a ravishing success. But that's because no one really wants to talk to their phone, at least not often. Not in public. Maybe not even that much in private. </p><p>Talking to Siri in a car, on the other hand, is much more natural. Plenty of new cars and trucks have some kind of voice interface, but in my experience, they're all pretty bad.</p><p>Siri, however, on CarPlay is brilliant. It's like having K.I.T.T. or J.A.R.V.I.S. or the computer from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" installed in your dashboard. You speak simple voice commands, like "Send a text" or "Find me a Starbucks" and Siri responds. It reads your texts and reads them mellifluously. Its machine brain understands your human diction - better, it seems, in a car.</p><p>You can actually envision having a relationship with Siri in a car. And you feel good about driving him or her around in your Vette.</p><p>It's a revelation. And it really should make for safer driving in the long run, because a sophisticated voice system like this really does cut back on distracted driving, without the voice system being a distraction.</p><p>Getting CarPlay to work is straightforward. You plug your iPhone (which has to be running iOS 7.1) into the car's USB port and presto! CarPlay appears as an option on the central infotainment touchscreen. Tap it and a suite of CarPlay-ified Apple icons takes over. The navigation is then very iPhone-like, managed through a round, white home button that picks up the iPhone's critical interface feature.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption"> Look familiar? </p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>CarPlay is effectively a way for drivers to have access to the iPhone without have to interact with it. CarPlay doesn't fully mirror your smartphone or its collection of apps but reduces your selections to apps that deal with messaging, music, and other types of audio, such as podcasts and audiobooks.</p><p>CarPlay also provides mapping and directions, and because of the Siri voice interface, it's a bit easier to use than the navigation systems that most new cars are outfitted with. It's not necessarily any more accurate, however.</p><p>Bear in mind that because CarPlay relies on your iPhone, it's piping data through the phone. It's the phone doing the work, not the car. But in GM vehicles, you can connect your iPhone to a 4G LTE Wi-Fi hotspot through OnStar and avoid having to deal with steep wireless-data charges.</p><p>Really, though, the Siri thing is incredibly cool. There's nothing quite like hearing that familiar voice emanating from premium Bose speakers. Siri has never sounded this good. If you're looking forward to the "Her" future of falling in love with operating systems, CarPlay Siri is a clear step in that direction. And CarPlay Siri comes across as useful, pleasant, and benign. There are no HAL 9000 overtones. Siri <em>enjoys </em>being your copilot.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">The infotainment system becomes ... an iPhone!</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>The bad</h2><p>It wasn't all great. I couldn't really get CarPlay to slip up, but I did find that playing music off my iPhone was a little iffy at times. Spotify was better.</p><p>But I wasn't tempted to use CarPlay for entertainment when I had SiriusXM satellite radio in the Vette. And once I was tooling along, listening to "Deep Tracks" or "Classic Vinyl," I wasn't all that motivated to jump back over to CarPlay.</p><p>Also, GM's own infotainment setup is quite good. In the cars I've tested over the past year, GM's system has been neck and neck with Audi's for speed and ease of use. And GM has OnStar, which enables you to push a button and talk to an operator, asking for directions to be sent to your car. I've long been a fan, preferring OnStar to in-vehicle nav systems.</p><p>There could be some behavioral or generational stuff going on here. I overwhelmingly use headphones or earbuds with my iPhone, and I'm accustomed to that setup. When I'm in a car, I want the old-school radio experience. But over time, and especially if I had a commute and wanted to take in audiobooks or podcasts, I could change my ways.</p><p>Additionally, while CarPlay greatly reduces distractions while driving, it doesn't eliminate them. I'm old enough to know that even fiddling with an ancient push-button car radio from the 1980s could lead to death. Infotainment systems, pre-smartphones, brought numerous new reasons to take your hands off the wheel and your eyes off the road.</p><p>The advent of the smartphone sent us over the top. I now routinely ask auto executives when they - the experts on what causes people to die behind the wheel - are going to push back against the tech industry and its obvious agenda to keep us ceaselessly glued to our phones (defensive driving is no match for push notifications). I usually get a very ambivalent answer to that one.</p><p>But CarPlay is the best solution I've yet seen to getting the phone out of the driver's hands.</p><h2>The shape of things to come</h2><p>There's been some chatter in the auto industry about how continuing to invest in the development of new infotainment systems doesn't make much sense if Apple and Google can do it better. "Let's just give Apple the dashboard" is the verdict.</p><p>It isn't difficult to then make the leap to the infotainment system morphing into the interface that controls the entire car. Siri plus maps plus autonomous driving add up to a car that would be radically different from what we've had for a century: steering wheels and pedals and the need for he driver to be more or less constantly engaged with the driving experience.</p><p>If Apple's "Project Titan" is an actual car, then CarPlay can be seen as the first stage in the development of a user interface that at first assists and then <em>replaces</em> the driver. And even if Project Titan isn't a car, CarPlay is going to get better and be a cornerstone of Cupertino's efforts to keep the iPhone truly mobile, in every sense of that word.</p><p>At the moment, the bottom line is that CarPlay is generally not that great, although it's absolutely fantastic in that it unleashes Siri's true potential. For me, this could be the beginning of a vast disruption. If a car can be voice-controlled, science fiction will become reality. Traditional automakers have been trying and pretty much failing for a decade to make in-vehicle voice commands work well.</p><p>But in a short time, Apple has shown that a voice interface can work very well in a car, and that it can work so well that drivers using CarPlay can imagine an entirely different future for mobility.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-self-driving-car-problem-driverless-humans-2015-9">Google's self-driving car has a huge problem</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="NrOWVjdzqcfE7uioV2jlxu3iQFQZkTQj" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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