An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Taiwan-based electronics manufacturers Foxconn and Pegatron are among companies eyeing new factories in Mexico, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, as the U.S.-China trade war and coronavirus pandemic prompt firms to reexamine global supply chains. The plans could usher in billions of dollars in badly needed fresh investments over the next few years for Latin America's second-largest economy, which is primed for its worst recession since the 1930s Great Depression. According to two of the sources, Foxconn has plans to use the factory to make Apple iPhones. However, one of the sources said, there had been no sign of Apple's direct involvement in the plan yet. Foxconn is likely to make a final decision on a new factory later this year, and work will commence after that, the two people said, adding there was no certainty the company would stick to the plan. Pegatron is also in early discussions with lenders about an additional facility in Mexico mainly to assemble chips and other electronic components, said the people, who declined to be identified as the talks are confidential. Pegatron declined to comment. Foxconn has five factories in Mexico mainly making televisions and servers. Its possible expansion would underscore a broader and gradual shift of global supply chains away from China amid a Sino-U.S. trade war and the coronavirus crisis.

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NoMoreACs shares a report: On Friday, the internet erupted in a small way to learn that Apple had successfully forced WordPress to monetize its free app -- forcing it to sell premium plans and custom domain names seemingly just so that Apple could get its traditional 30 percent cut. But one afternoon and evening of surprise and outrage later, Apple is backing off. The company is issuing a rare on-the-record apology, and it says that WordPress will no longer have to add in-app purchases now that all is said and done. Here's Apple's full statement: "We believe the issue with the WordPress app has been resolved. Since the developer removed the display of their service payment options from the app, it is now a free stand-alone app and does not have to offer in-app purchases. We have informed the developer and apologize for any confusion that we have caused." You'll notice that Apple is positioning this as the developer -- WordPress -- having done the right thing and removed the "display of their service payment options from the app," and to my knowledge that is technically true. But as far as I'm aware, that didn't happen today: it happened weeks or months ago.

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Back in 2012, a team of Japanese and Belgian researchers in Antarctica found a golf ball-sized space rock resting in the snow. Now, NASA astronauts have had a chance to study a piece of that meteorite, Asuka 12236, and they say it may hold new clues about the development of life. From a report: Inside the meteorite, astrobiologists from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center found a high concentration of amino acids, particularly aspartic and glutamic acids. Those are two of the 20 amino acids that make millions of proteins, which are essential for the bodily functions of animals. Researchers have found amino acids in other space rocks, but not at such a high concentration. Perhaps most surprisingly, Asuka 12236 contains more left-handed versions of some amino acids. While there are right-handed and left-handed versions of each amino acid, life as we know it uses only left-handed amino acids to build proteins. Researchers want to know why there was an imbalance toward left-handed amino acids and what kinds of space conditions might have led to that. They believe Asuka 12236 was exposed to very little heat or water -- two important clues.

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phalse phace writes: Researchers in Hong Kong on Monday reported what appears to be the first confirmed case of Covid-19 reinfection, a 33-year-old man who was first infected by SARS-CoV-2 in late March and then, four and a half months later, seemingly contracted the virus again while traveling in Europe. The case raises questions about the durability of immune protection from the coronavirus. There have been scattered reports of cases of Covid-19 reinfection. Those reports, though, have been based on anecdotal evidence and largely attributed to flaws in testing. But in this case, researchers at the University of Hong Kong sequenced the virus from the patient's two infections and found that they did not match, indicating the second infection was not tied to the first. There was a difference of 24 nucleotides -- the 'letters' that make up the virus' RNA -- between the two infections. Experts cautioned that this patient's case could be an outlier among the tens of millions of cases around the world and that immune protection may generally last longer than just a few months.

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Videoconferencing software Zoom experienced a widespread outage Monday morning with many users unable to join or launch video meetings. From a report: Why it matters: During the coronavirus pandemic, Zoom has become the go-to solution for many businesses and schools trying to function remotely. What they're saying: "We have identified the issue causing users to be unable to start and join Zoom Meetings and Webinars and are working on a fix for this issue," Zoom said in a statement to Axios. "We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience." The issue has been resolved.

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Facebook on Monday blocked access within Thailand to a group with 1 million members that discusses the country's king, after the Thai government threatened legal action over failure to take down content deemed defamatory to the monarchy. From a report: The move comes amid near daily youth-led protests against the government led by the former military junta chief and unprecedented calls for reforms of the monarchy. The "Royalist Marketplace" group was created in April by Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a self-exiled academic and critic of the monarchy. On Monday night, the group's page brought up a message: "Access to this group has been restricted within Thailand pursuant to a legal request from the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society." Pavin, who lives in Japan, said Facebook had bowed to the military-dominated government's pressure. "Our group is part of a democratisation process, it is a space for freedom of expression," Pavin told Reuters.

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At times like this I like to say: NYC is not dead because it was never alive. Words like dead should not be thrown around casually. Death is a heavy word, and should be reserved for real death, not an imaginary stupid metaphoric death.

Anna Masera, journalist: "The problem that needs fixing is that journalists have always had 'the privilege' of separating their work from its marketing, which has always been exclusively managed by their publisher with a different, separate team. We cannot/never could meddle and change is too slow."

Unity Software, a San Francisco-based company known for its popular video game engine, has filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "U." An interesting point it raised in its filing: In particular, operating system platform providers or application stores such as Apple or Google may change their technical requirements or policies in a manner that adversely impacts the way in which we or our customers collect, use and share data from end-user devices. Restrictions in our ability to collect and use data as desired could negatively impact our Operate Solutions as well as our resource planning and feature development planning for our software. Similarly, at any time, these platform providers or application stores can change their policies on how our customers or we operate on their platform or in their application stores by, for example, applying content moderation for applications and advertising or imposing technical or code requirements. Actions by operating system platform providers or application stores such as Apple or Google may affect the manner in which we or our customers collect, use and share data from end-user devices. In June 2020, Apple announced plans to require applications using its mobile operating system, iOS, to affirmatively (on an opt-in basis) obtain an end-user's permission to "track them across apps or websites owned by other companies" or access their device's advertising identifier for advertising and advertising measurement purposes, as well as other restrictions. We expect that Apple may implement these changes as early as fall of 2020.

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Microsoft has stepped into the brewing legal battle between Apple and Epic Games over the former's policies with regard to its ubiquitous App Store. From a report: In a declaration filed on Sunday, a senior Microsoft engineer said that allowing Apple to block Epic Games' developer account would deal a significant blow to game makers including Microsoft by making them unable to use Epic's Unreal Engine. The Unreal Engine, a type of gaming engine, is a widely used set of technologies that provides a framework for the creation of three dimensional graphics. Epic licenses the engine to companies that use the technology for a fee. "If Unreal Engine cannot support games for iOS or macOS, Microsoft would be required to choose between abandoning its customers and potential customers on the iOS and macOS platforms or choosing a different game engine when preparing to develop new games," Kevin Gammill, Microsoft's general manager for Gaming Developer Experiences, said in the declaration. He added that "Apple's discontinuation of Epic's ability to develop and support Unreal Engine for iOS or macOS will harm game creators and gamers." While there are alternative gaming engines, Gammill said that "very few" are available with as many features and the same functionality. The declaration came as part of a lawsuit brought by Epic against Apple over the iPhone maker's rules guaranteeing itself a 30% cut of in-app purchases. The suit is filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Epic Games tested Apple's policy by sidestepping the rule in an update to its hit game Fortnite, and then sued after Apple removed the game from the App Store. The company has brought a similar suit against Google over its Play Store.

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I also replaced the picture in the Facebook and Twitter metadata, so when you paste a link to bingeworthy.io, you'll get a more meaningful image. The place holder in the first version was a picture of Mr White from Breaking Bad and in version 2, the Rose family in Schitt's Creek.

Audible has announced a new service that will provide unlimited listening to a curated library of audio entertainment. Audible Plus will provide subscribers access to 68,000 hours of content from more than 11,000 original productions, audiobooks, and podcasts. From a report: The new offering will be available for $7.95 per month. Audible will continue to offer its credit-based premium service for $14.95 per month. "Audible has always kind of been on the crux of innovation in this space," Rachel Ghiazza, exec VP and head of U.S. content for Audible, told Variety. "For us this is an opportunity to highlight really well-crafted storytelling." Existing Audible members will be able to access the new Plus library today. New users will be able to subscribe to the Audible Plus service beginning Aug. 27.

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BingeWorthy continues its march to perfection. There's now an RSS feed that lists all the recent ratings and program additions. It supports rssCloud so you can get instant notification of updates. I expect to plug this into other stuff I'm working on. Comments or questions here.

TikTok, the video-sharing application owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government Monday, challenging the Trump administration's efforts to ban the company's American operations. From a report: TikTok explained its rationale for the lawsuit in a blog post on Monday, arguing the ban prevents the company from due process, as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. TikTok argued Trump's executive order, made earlier this month under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, ignored the company's efforts to prove it doesn't share data with the Chinese government and isn't a national security threat. "We do not take suing the government lightly, however we feel we have no choice but to take action to protect our rights, and the rights of our community and employees," TikTok said in the blog post. "With the Executive Order threatening to bring a ban on our US operations -- eliminating the creation of 10,000 American jobs and irreparably harming the millions of Americans who turn to this app for entertainment, connection and legitimate livelihoods that are vital especially during the pandemic -- we simply have no choice."

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