Apple Wants Everyone Seeing RED For World AIDS Day

Apple fans, get ready to see red: Apple is using its ubiquitous presence to raise awareness and money for the AIDS awareness campaign Red on World AIDS Day.

Expanding on the growing attention the company has paid to charitable events under chief executive Tim Cook, the company on Thursday will release several products to raise money for the AIDS awareness project co-founded by U2 frontman Bono.

The goal? To achieve a generation that is AIDS-free at birth, by ending cases where mothers transmit the disease to their children. Deb Dugan, chief executive of Red, said she believes that goal could be accomplished by 2020.

Apple has planned some new ways to raise money this year.

“We’ve deeply thought through every single way our customers touch us. And we’ve tried to make it really simple for them to participate in eradicating this disease,” Cook said.

These include working with outside app developers to raise money for the charity, special red versions of product cases and an appropriately hued Beats wireless speaker and headphones. The company will turn the logos red at more than 400 of its stores. It is making a documentary about Red, “The Lazarus Effect,” free to all iTunes users. And it has worked with the band The Killers to release a special track on iTunes — a rendition of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” — and will donate 100 percent of the proceeds to Red.

Apple will also donate to Red $1 from every purchase made through Apple Pay at any of its stores (online or not) up to $1 million; Bank of America will match that donation for Apple Pay payments made with its cards from Dec. 1-7.

Being able to inspire broad participation, Cook said, is Apple's most important charitable responsibility.

“That has much more value to it, I think, then just merely writing a check,” he said. “This is about getting an enormous amount of people, and trying to be the ripple in the pond.”

The companywide effort is the largest Apple has undertaken for a cause — even under Cook, who has raised Apple’s philanthropic profile and used his position to speak out on social issues.

Cook declined to comment on whether he thinks Apple — which has championed issues such as LGBT rights and environmental protection — will find itself at odds with the incoming administration. But he rejected the idea that Apple’s decision to take a stand on issues such as eradicating AIDS should be viewed through a political lens.

“We think … corporations should have values like people do — and do their part in leaving things better than we found it,” Cook said. “I view all of this stuff as being as far away as you can get from politics as possible, to be honest.”

This year’s efforts take a decade of Apple participation with Red to a new level, Cook said. Apple was a founding partner of the charity Project Red — often stylized (RED) — after Bono and philanthropist Bobby Shriver founded it in 2006. The first Apple product for Project Red was a special red iPod nano. It was so popular that Apple had to reissue a second model within four weeks, said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPhone and iOS product marketing.

This year, it has moved its efforts far beyond the iPod — although you still will be able to buy red iPods to support the cause. The company worked with the developers of several games including Angry Birds, Best Fiends, SimCity BuildIt, Candy Crush Jelly Saga, and Clash of Clans to create special in-app purchases. All of the proceeds from those purchases will go to Red.

Red has raised $360 million to fight AIDS over the past decade. What many may not realize, however, is that Apple has raised one-third of that: $120 million.

“For us it’s been a game-changer, quite frankly,” Dugan said. Although AIDS may not be viewed as quite the crisis that it was in the 1990s, she said it's still the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age and the second-leading cause of death among teens. And, she said, the world is at a crucial moment in the fight to eventually wipe it out. “We can eliminate mother-child transmission of HIV — which for an infectious disease is a tipping point,” Dugan said.

That Shopping App You Downloaded Might Be Fake

Fake news isn't the only thing that smartphone users should be cautious about these days.

As the Christmas shopping season is in full swing, a slew of fake retail apps are appearing in smartphone app stores. These apps, which usually look like official shopping apps from retail brands, install malware on the phones of unsuspecting customers once downloaded. From there, identity and credit card information can be stolen, or downloaded ransomware can remotely lock a user's phone until they pay up.

Last week, researchers at cyber security company Risk IQ released a report estimating that one in 10 apps advertising Black Friday deals was fraudulent.

"This problem has been worse this year than any of the previous years," said Ian Cowger, security researcher at RiskIQ. "Malicious authors targeting app stores have become much more adept at targeting holidays and other events that can net them users."

As shopping increasingly moves online, the holiday season has become a traffic boon to shopping apps and websites. This past Black Friday, phone and tablet app shopping hit a record US$3.34 billion revenue, an increase of 33 per cent from last year, according to an estimate by software and analytics company Adobe. Meanwhile, the number of brick-and-mortar Black Friday shoppers has dropped.

In an interview with CBS News, fashion blogger Michelle Madhok cited the ease of price shopping on mobile platforms. "It's a click to see what the other prices are," she said. "Before, you had to drive from store to store to compare prices or go through tons of inserts in your newspaper."

The RiskIQ report said that five popular US shopping brands were the biggest targets for counterfeit apps. The report did not detail which brands were most affected for fear of causing customer confusion or panic, but the Better Business Bureau of Mississippi, which issued a similar warning last week, cited stores such as FootLocker, Nordstrom, Zappos.com and Christian Dior as common targets.

The report, compiled by monitoring about 180 app stores worldwide, pointed to Google Play, AppChina and Baidu as the app stores with the highest number of counterfeit apps.

When asked for comment, Google supplied information on their prevention process for fraudulent apps, which includes automated scanning for spam-like code and the presence of malware, a team of experts who review apps for potential violations, and a user/developer community flagging function. "We take security seriously," a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

But smartphone users need to stay vigilant. Jocelyn Baird, an editor at consumer safety website NextAdvisor.com, recommends downloading apps from official store websites whenever possible to avoid counterfeits. She said that an app purchase that shows up under an unrelated company name on a credit card statement is another typical warning sign. Baird also suggested reading the app name and description carefully for subtle distinctions from an official brand.

"When in doubt, you can do some web searching to verify the full name a company uses," she said. "Be on the lookout for misspellings or poor grammar, which you're unlikely to see in the description for a real app."

Cowger also recommended ignoring app reviews as an indicator since these can be forged. He noted that apps that ask for strange permissions, such as access to text messages, credit card information or passwords, should be approached with caution.

And last but not least: "If it seems too good to be true," he said, "it oftentimes isn't true."

Which Is The Best Battery Life Smartphone?

Apple said at the launch of the iPhone 7 that the smartphone would have better battery life. But that doesn’t mean it can top Android competitors, according to new data.

The firm's testing sought to determine exactly how long each phone's battery would last while making voice calls and while browsing the web, both using 3G.

If we compared the iPhone 7’s battery life, when making calls and browsing the web, to those of three top Android competitors: the Samsung Galaxy S7, HTC 10 and LG G5, and the results were staggering.

Image: Smartphone battery life: The results. source via Which?

The iPhone 7 only managed 712 minutes (nearly 12 hours) with a single charge. On the other hand, the rival Samsung Galaxy S7 lasted twice as long.

The HTC 10 lasted an incredible 1,859 minutes (that’s almost 31 hours)!

As for Internet surfing, the iPhone 7 still came in last against its rivals although the differences weren't that major.

The differences seen when web-browsing using mobile data weren’t dramatic. The HTC 10 performed best, managing 790 minutes of continuous use. The iPhone 7 was worst, at 615 minutes, but not hugely lower than LG’s G5 which managed 640 minutes and Samsung’s Galaxy S7 at 677 minutes.


Why does the iPhone 7 battery fare so poorly?

So just why does the iPhone 7 have such a poor battery life? It may sound obvious, but the majority of the fault lies in its comparatively tiny cell. Smartphone batteries are measured in milliampere hours (mAh). The iPhone 7 has a 1,960mAh battery, whilst the HTC 10 has a 3,000mAh battery: it should hardly be surprising that one battery nearly half the size of another offers roughly half as much charge.

Don't Do This When Someone Is Having A Heart Attack

Did you know that heart attack is the leading cause of death. According to  American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease is the leading global cause of death, accounting for more than 17.3 million deaths per year, a number that is expected to grow to more than 23.6 million by 2030.

A heart attack happens when your heart muscle is starved of oxygen-rich blood. This causes damage to your heart muscle.

Like all other tissues and organs in the body, the heart needs a constant supply of oxygen-rich blood. Without this supply, heart muscles may be damaged and begin to die. If this is not treated, heart muscles will experience irreversible damage.

If a large portion of the heart is damaged in this way, the heart will stop beating (known as a cardiac arrest), resulting in death.

How do you know if someone has a heart attack?

The most common symptom is chest pain. But that's only part of the story. Sometimes people can have other symptoms not limited to chest pain, including:

- Any type of chest discomfort or pressure, such as squeezing or achiness
- Feeling queasy or throwing up
- Looking very pale
- Breaking out in a cold sweat
- Feelings of dread
- Pain, or achiness in your back, shoulders, arms, neck or jaw
- Dizziness or passing out
- Weakness or feeling unusually tired
- Difficulty breathing


Heart attacks can happen out of the blue and it is important to know certain things that you shouldn’t do when someone near you is having one:

1. Don't delay calling the emergency hotline

Every minute of delay in treating a heart attack increases the chance of permanent heart damage and death. Call immediately, stay calm, and describe everything you see to the operator.

A Swedish study suggests that half of heart attack patients who are not attended to instantly are at risk of worsening their survival odds.


2. Don't attempt to drive the person to the hospital

Why? You will get the fastest possible treatment by calling the emergency hotline because response teams will start treatment as soon as they arrive at the door. What's equally important, first responders know, in real time, which nearby emergency room is best prepared to handle the situation.


3. Don't hesitate to conduct CPR especially when the person has stopped breathing.

Cardiac pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is essential when the person falls unconscious and has stopped breathing, a condition known as cardiac arrest.

If this happens, CPR will keep the blood circulating while you wait for the ambulance or for someone to get a defibrillator. If you don't know how to conduct CPR, call up the emergency hotline immediately and the responder should be able to guide you through the steps.


4. Don't lay the person flat on the floor

Laying down flat on the floor makes it harder to breathe.

A half-sitting position with their knees bent and head and shoulders supported is the best. The position also helps to ease the pressure on the heart and stop the person from hurting if they collapses.


5. Don't forget to loosen any tight clothing

When the symptoms of heart attack are clearly visible, immediately remove the shoes of the person and loosen their clothing. Tight clothing becomes a constraint to proper blood flow and can increase the chances of a cardiac arrest.


6. Don't give the person anything by mouth unless a heart medication (such as nitroglycerin) has been prescribed.

Do not feed the person anything including water because it might add to the blood volume, making it increase. This, in turn, will increase the pressure of blood on the arterial wall which might be deadly for them.

Instead, give nitroglycerin if it is prescribed to the person. Nitroglycerin is a controlled drug that helps ease chest pain by opening up the blood vessels.


7. Lastly, don't allow the person to deny the symptoms and convince you not to call for emergency help. Better safe than sorry.

As mentioned in #1, the sooner the person gets to the emergency room, the better the chance of survival. Prompt medical treatment reduces the amount of heart damage. It could be nothing but a normal chest pain, but heading to the hospital could uncover a serious underlying problem.

Prevention is better than cure, don't delay and act immediately.

Thankfully, we can reduce the risk of heart attacks by eating healthy, exercise regularly, reduce alcohol intake, and cut down on smoking.