Good morning and welcome to Apple WWDC day. We’ve got a tonne of new features/products heading our way from the iPhone maker, but there are other things going down in tech land, so let’s jump into what you should care about this morning.
1. Apple WWDC
Getting Apple out of the way and WWDC 2023 kicked off with a slew of announcements covering iOS 17, WatchOS 10, iPadOS 17, a new 15-inch MacBook Air, Mac Studio, Mac Pro, macOS Sonoma…..oh, and a new VR/AR headset known as Vision Pro. We have a summary of everything announced during WWDC 2023 over here if you want to take a scroll through.
2. OpenTable warns of scams
Online restaurant-reservation service company OpenTable has warned of scams targeting diners and the hospitality industry. Usually, an email such as this comes with an admission that a company has been breached, but it seems OpenTable has become aware of an imposter app looking to capitalise on our desire to be contact-free everywhere we can be. “If you receive a call from a restaurant asking for your credit card details (often under the guise of requesting or refunding a deposit), ask questions and exercise caution before sharing. If you are unsure if your credit card details are needed, consider hanging up and calling the restaurant back directly to confirm their identity and whether this information is needed,” the company wrote.
3. Microsoft back after outage
Brought to our attention by Reuters, and Microsoft said that it has restored its online services after an outage affected thousands of users of its 365 software suite, including Teams and Outlook, for more than two hours. Access to its productivity software such as Word and Excel was down for nearly 18,000 users at its peak before easing to 906 at around 2:57 am AEST, according to Downdetector.com. Unfortunately, Teams is back online for you all.
4. Binance charged with running illegal crypto exchange in new SEC complaint
Finishing up with our friends in the U.S. and it seems Binance was hit with a new lawsuit from the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission, with the federal regulator unleashing 13 charges against the world’s largest crypto exchange and its founder Changpeng Zhao, alleging violations of U.S. securities law, accusing the company of operating an illegal exchange. The charges include operating unregistered exchanges, broker-dealers, and clearing agencies; misrepresenting trading controls and oversight on the Binance US platform; and the unregistered offer and sale of securities.
Absolutely legendary quote here in this SEC complaint. https://t.co/tvqFwGCju0 HT: @lopezlinette pic.twitter.com/lBpfkRI0sp
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) June 5, 2023
5. TikTok code being worked on from China
The Australian Financial Review has sounded the alarm on TikTok, this time declaring that software developers in China are working on the code for the video sharing app. It’s, as you could imagine, prompting warnings the country’s authoritarian government could compel staff to secretly suppress or elevate content that supports Communist Party narratives or sows division within democracies.
BONUS ITEM: It’s Apple day, so here’s Apple dad himself giving you a preview of his new AR/VR headset.
Welcome to the era of spatial computing with Apple Vision Pro. You’ve never seen anything like this before! pic.twitter.com/PEIxKNpXBs
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) June 5, 2023
See you tomorrow, folks.