Apple pulls iPhone models in Germany, artificial intelligence can predict alzheimer’s and Marriott gives more detail on data hack.
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First up from LinkedIn: Apple is still making headlines after a crazy last week, but this time for losing a court battle in Germany that led the phone maker to pull certain iPhone models out of the country. Apple was ordered to remove its iPhone 7 and 8 models from German stores. This comes after a December 20th court ruling that the tech giant infringed on Qualcomm’s chip patents. Late last week Qualcomm paid a required $1.5 billion bond which means that the ban on iPhones proceeds. According to a BBC report Apple has stated that it will appeal the decision. Qualcomm has also made patent complaints against the iPhone creator in China and the U.S.
Next from Reddit: A breakthrough in alzheimer’s research has led to the discovery that artificial intelligence can detect the disease six years before a typical diagnosis. A team of researchers from the University of California San Francisco programmed a machine learning algorithm to look at PET brain scans and the technology was able to diagnose early-stage alzheimer’s about six years before a clinical diagnosis. Alzheimer’s has no cure and while promising drugs have emerged to help slow the disease, catching it early is key. So this type of early diagnosis tool could be key to helping those you live with the disease. The algorithm isn’t readily available just yet as more tests and calibrations need to be done but if it passes these tests has the ability to help many alzheimer’s patients get treatment much sooner.
Finally from LinkedIn: Marriott’s data hack was one of the largest in history and now the world’s largest hotel chain says the number of guest records affected by the data breach is smaller than first estimated. The hotel chain has announced that instead of the 500 million estimated in November, now only 383 million guest records were compromised. With that announcement Marriott also gave further detail on the hack. It stated that it believes approximately 5.25 million unencrypted passport numbers were accessed by hackers, with another 20.3 million encrypted passwords. 8.6 million encrypted credit cards were also accessed. Marriott also stated that it has officially phased out its Starwoods reservation database that was the source of the hack.
