2019年6月6日
Afterpay in hot water with Australia's terrorism financing watchdog
The Australian-born ‘buy now, pay later’ service pioneer Afterpay announced on Wednesday that it has inked new partnership deals with US brands including Levi’s, Ray-Ban, O’Neill and Tarte Cosmetics, taking the total number of American consumers that have used the product to 1.5 million across 3,300 retailers.
The announcement saw its stock price surge on the Australian Securities Exchange, closing up 7.079% at $23.90. But come Thursday, Afterpay revealed has attracted the attention of Australia’s financial intelligence agency, AUSTRAC.
“As a scheduled part of our existing program, we are in the process of appointing a leading professional service firm to conduct an independent review of the design and operation of our [compliance] framework.” Afterpay’s stock price tumbled 1.76% to $23.48 on Thursday as Australian investors reacted to the revelation.
The statement also confirmed Afterpay’s intention to launch in the UK under the Clearpay brand, following a “soft test” — an announcement that has been overshadowed by the AUSTRAC revelation. Given the Australian AML/CTF laws are based on internationally-recognised standards, Afterpay will be hoping AUSTRAC’s UK counterpart isn’t paying attention.
Apple is rolling out a feature in its next big software update that will prevent your iPhone’s battery life from getting shorter over time
The upcoming version of Apple’s iPhone operating system – iOS 13 – comes with a new feature that will prevent your iPhone’s battery life from getting shorter and shorter over time.
The feature is simply called “optimised battery charging,” and its goal is to prevent your iPhone’s battery from staying at a 100% charge for too long. Indeed, batteries age faster when they’re under stress, and staying at a 100% charge for long periods of time – like charging overnight every day – is stressful for batteries.
When you plug in your iPhone to charge, it will only charge up to 80%. This will prevent your iPhone from being at a 100% charge for long periods of time.
It will only finish charging the remaining 20% in the time before you typically unplug your iPhone from the charger. Your iPhone will eventually learn that you usually wake up and unplug your iPhone at, say, 8 a.m., and it will only finish charging the last remaining 20% just before you typically unplug your iPhone.
With its optimised battery charging feature, Apple is simply making it easier for you to control how fast your iPhone’s battery ages. You don’t actually have to do anything differently, which is great.
Amazon is doing a lot more to help Alexa predict what you need and ask you about it
Amazon on Wednesday previewed a new type of skill for its Alexa voice assistant, dubbed Alexa Conversations. Conversations is a tool for app developers that makes it easier for them to create skills (or apps) for the device with far less code. Not only does it limit the amount of programming that they must do, but it also helps the device converse with users more naturally, even if the programmer didn’t code in all the possible responses.
The first Alexa Conversation the Amazon team created is called “book an evening out.” The demo involved a person asking Alexa to buy movie tickets via Atom, a popular app for the same. After that transaction, Alexa asked if the person would be going to dinner near the theatre, brought up nearby restaurant recommendations and booked a reservation via OpenTable. And then Alexa asked if the person wanted to order an Uber for the date night and took care of that as well.
Rausch highlights features like Alexa Guard, a new feature that listens for sounds like glass breaking or a fire alarm. If Alexa hears these things it can wake you up, tell you about the noise, and ask you if you want it take action in response.
“If I walk into a room of my house, I don’t have to say, ‘Turn lights on in kitchen or living room,'” Dave Limp, senior vice president of Amazon Devices & Services explained. After a one-time setup, the Alexa in the room “understands context” and knows to turn the lights on in that room ” I can say watch ‘X,Y,Z on Netflix’ and it knows what room I’m in” and what TV to turn on, he said.
网友评论