Daily Tech Snippet: Monday, February 22

• New Chinese Rules on Foreign Firms’ Online Content: China is taking another step to restrict what can be posted on the Internet in its country by issuing new rules barring foreign companies or their affiliates from engaging in publishing online content there without government approval. The rules, which were jointly released this week by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that beginning March 10, foreign companies or foreign joint ventures will be restricted from disseminating a wide range of content online, including text, maps, games, animation, audio and video. The rules also apply to digitized books, art, literature and science. The new regulations would allow foreign-owned companies to cooperate with a Chinese partner to publish content on the Web in China, but they must get government approval. China already has some of the world’s most restrictive policies on the dissemination of information. Chinese TV and the news media are censored; the government has censors monitoring popular social media platforms, like WeChat; and American Internet giants, like Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, have been blocked in China for years. One key question is the impact such regulations would have on companies like Apple and Microsoft, which run online platforms in China that provide services and sometimes content. For example, Apple’s Chinese App Store offers games and other apps in the country while Microsoft has a joint venture through which it provides a cloud version of Windows and Office software. Internet companies, like Akamai and Cloud Flare, have operations that work to speed traffic to foreign websites or host them through servers in China.

• Apple Still Holds the Keys to Its Cloud Service, but Reluctantly: In Silicon Valley — if not Washington — Apple is being hailed for digging in its heels on a court order requiring it to aid the Federal Bureau of Investigation in gaining access to an an iPhone used by one of the attackers in the December mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, emphasized on Tuesday in a letter to customers that helping the F.B.I. essentially hack into one of the company’s own phones would be a dangerous precedent. What’s more, Apple said it would have to create new software to do this. But while company executives have embraced the notion that Apple is no longer able to intervene for law enforcement when investigators want access to an iPhone, it has repeatedly cooperated with court orders for access to online services like its iCloud. That may sound like hypocrisy, but to people familiar with how Apple’s products and services work, it is simply a matter of technology. ICloud is an Internet service Apple customers can use to back up information that is stored on their devices. It is helpful if your phone, tablet or computer is lost or badly damaged. And it, like other online services, is a gold mine for law enforcement — as the government spying revelations by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden showed. Every few months for the last few years, tech giants like Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter have published transparency reports, which are lists of instances in which a company turned over data on users at the behest of a court order in the United States or other countries.In its most recent report, covering the first six months of 2015, Apple received nearly 11,000 requests from government agencies around the world regarding information on roughly 60,000 devices. Apple provided some data in roughly 7,100 of those requests, the report said.Apple has stated repeatedly that it would hand over data to comply with a court order when it is technically able to do so. And as that report indicates, it has. Often.But the operative phrase to understand the difference between Apple’s cooperation and its resistance is “technically able.”In the fall of 2014, with an update to its iOS software, Apple switched off its ability to retrieve data from its phones and tablets. By doing this, Apple tried to take itself out of the equation when law enforcement is looking for access to a phone. In essence, the company could no longer fulfill a request if it was technically unable to do so.ICloud is a different story. Apple encrypts that data on its servers and holds on to the key, which it uses to gain access to the data when it is required to do so by a court order.There are practical reasons for managing security in the cloud differently from on an iPhone. ICloud exists, in part, to save backups in the event that, say, you drop your phone in a swimming pool. Apple needs to have that key to get your data back for you.It is not so easy for a company to take away its ability to gain access to your information when that company’s ability to retrieve your information is the reason you are using its service.

• Facebook Brings 360 Dynamic Streaming To Samsung Gear VR, Forms Social VR Team: Zuck shocked everyone by appearing on stage for the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event for MWC 2016. He wasn’t there to push Samsung’s new phones or talk about Messenger, his time onstage was all about virtual reality. Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook (which, in case if you’ve forgotten, is the parent company of Oculus) will be bringing its dynamic streaming technology for 360 video to Gear VR (which, in case if you’ve forgotten, is powered by Oculus). This technology allows significant performance upgrades to streaming content by only playing back what’s in view of the headset at any given time rather than processing the entire 360 sphere of video at once. All of this is done by seamlessly switching between dozens of variants of each 360 video taken from multiple angles. Facebook revealed more about the technology at its Video @Scale event last month. The results speak for themselves, Facebook says their efforts have “quadrupled the resolution quality of 360 streaming video in VR by reducing the amount of required network bandwidth by 4x.” Another interesting tidbit comes from a Facebook blog post today—they’re building a social VR team to focus “entirely on exploring the future of social interaction in VR.”

• Uber Driver Held in Killing Spree as Police Probe Tie to Routes: A driver for Uber may have picked up passengers in between incidents as he drove around and shot at least six people dead over the span of several hours, according to police in Kalamazoo, Michigan. While there have been other incidents of misconduct by Uber drivers, the Michigan shooting would be the first to involve a mass shooting. In order to become an Uber driver, Dalton would have undergone, and passed, a background check. Uber said it’s referring inquiries regarding the routes to police given that there is an active investigation. “We are horrified and heartbroken at the senseless violence,” Joe Sullivan, Uber’s chief security officer, said in a statement. “We have reached out to the police to help with their investigation in any way that we can.” 

• Yahoo launches auction process as Starboard gears up for fight: Yahoo Inc officially launched the sale of its core business on Friday, a move seen as a positive step for frustrated investors but not enough to keep an activist hedge fund from pursuing a proxy fight against the struggling Internet company.Yahoo shares jumped after the company announced its board has formed a committee of independent directors to explore strategic alternatives, and that it has hired investment banks and a law firm to run the process. The launch of the auction process, a move activist hedge fund Starboard Value and other shareholders have pushed since late last year, showed the company was moving another step closer to selling its core business, which includes search, mail and news sites, rather than spin it off as previously planned. The move follows more than three years of effort by CEO Marissa Mayer to turn around Yahoo by focusing on mobile apps and trying to boost advertising revenue.  Yahoo had acknowledged during its earnings last month that it was open to exploring options for its core business. Despite the launch, Starboard's founder Jeffrey Smith is not backing down, and will continue his pursuit of nominating a group of directors for the Yahoo board, people familiar with the matter said.

• This glove could make eating easier for those with Parkinson’s disease: Eating can be difficult and embarrassing for those with tremors, but GyroGear thinks it has a solution for patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease or essential tremor. The start-up has created a glove that steadies a person’s hand, making it easier to complete everyday tasks such as eating. The glove’s power lies in a bronze disc on the back of the hand, which weighs about as much as a roll of nickels. It spins at up to 20,000 rotations per minute, providing a steadying force. The force of the battery-powered disc is akin to putting one’s hand in molasses. While moving is not as easy, the benefit is that much of the shaking is naturally filtered out. GyroGear is aiming to reduce tremors by 70 percent. In one lab test, the London-based researchers say, it reduced a tremor by 90 percent. GyroGear founder Faii Ong was inspired by a 103-year-old hospital patient who couldn’t eat without spilling food. While cleaning her up, the medical student at Imperial College started to brainstorm solutions.  Ong cautions that there’s still work to be done. The glove hasn’t been tested by outside parties, but they plan to publish their findings in a peer-reviewed journal by the end of the year. They also hope to begin selling the product by year’s end and are raising funds from investors. “The idea of simple, wearable devices to treat tremor and to avoid the side effects from medications or alternatively the dangers of surgery is very appealing to patients and health care providers,” said Michael S. Okun, medical director of the National Parkinson Foundation. “The GyroGlove is an interesting idea, however many of these types of devices fall short of the expectations — especially when faced with very severe and disabling tremor.” There are other efforts to use mechanical solutions to aid those with Parkinson’s disease. Lift Labs, a start-up that Google acquired in 2014, has devised a vibrating spoon and fork to counteract tremors and make eating easier. While having shown promise for mild tremors, Okun said it hasn’t proven the most effective solution for more severe cases. In the long term GyroGear is interested in adapting its glove to other uses, such as for surgeons, physical therapists, photographers or anyone seeking to keep a steady hand.