Apple Being Investigated Again By Brazil For Missing iPhone 13 Charger

Brazil’s Foundation for Consumer Protection and Defense (Procon-SP) has revealed that they’ve already started investigating Apple’s decision to once again sell the new iPhone without the charger, before it’s even started shipping in the country. The report by local publication TechTudo says that by 29 September, both Apple and Samsung will be notified for selling the charger separately from the iPhone 13, Galaxy Z Flip3, and Galaxy Z Fold3.

Apple already got in trouble with Procon-SP when it first decided to exclude the power brick from the iPhone 12, with the regulator fining the tech giant US$2 million (~RM8.3 million) earlier this year, which also included charges of misleading advertising and unfair terms. Even before they had taken action against the company, the regulator already concluded back in November that Apple’s move did not demonstrate environmental gain.

Procon-SP’s executive director Fernando Capez told TechTudo that it’s not legal to sell the phone and charger separately as “you can only charge the device with that power brick,” leading to customers being obligated to buy two products. Even though Apple already says on its website that the iPhone 13 doesn’t come with the charger in the box, he believes this is not enough – calling it “camouflaged information”.

Capez added that consumers already have an expectation of getting the charging brick with their smartphones and wants Apple to stamp the change on the packaging so that consumers are aware. For the record, while Samsung also followed Apple’s decision as well, the South Korean firm avoided a fine from Procon-SP by striking a deal to include a “gift” charger with Galaxy S21 pre-orders in Brazil.

The consumer protection regulator is looking into forming a class action to help any consumers who feel that Apple should give them a free charger, and advises consumers that for now, they should file a small claims suit in civil court. Apple did not give a response to TechTudo, though when the company was fined in March, they commented that “all iPhones sold in the country work with the available chargers, including third-party ones since they follow Anatel standards.”

Musk Says Telsa To Accept Bitcoin Again When Miners Use More Clean Energy

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the company will return to accepting bitcoin as payment when the cryptocurrency’s miners use more clean, environmentally friendly energy. The crypto-enthusiast and environmentalist has seen his core passions collide with one another.

“When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions,” he said on Twitter. According to Reuters, bitcoin rallied over 9% after the post.

CNBC said the billionaire was responding to pointed remarks from Magda Wierzycka, the CEO of South African asset manager Sygnia, who accused him of manipulating the price of bitcoin. Previously, Tesla bought US$1.5 billion (~RM6.2 billion) worth of bitcoin and later said it would accept the digital currency as payment for cars.

That policy was abruptly reversed last month with Musk declaring that the push for cryptocurrency “cannot come at great cost to the environment.” To be fair to the billionaire, even then, he maintained that Tesla will accept bitcoin transactions again when miners transition to “more sustainable energy.”

Of course, that statement as well as his latest one raise more questions than answers. Given the tremendous power demands of bitcoin mining, is that transition to cleaner energy even possible? Wouldn’t that require national-level, government-driven efforts to move away from ‘dirty’ energy sources like coal? Why seemingly put the onus on miners and how long would that transition take?

Finally, the billionaire-dollar question: Can enthusiasm for bitcoin be sustained until then?

Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia’s Instagram Page Went Online Again For A Short While

Back in January, the scene erupted with the sudden activation of the Facebook and Instagram page for Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia. This was among the first major indication that the highly anticipated streaming service may be preparing to launch in our market.

However, the social media pages and postings were taken offline not long after that which baffled many fans. At the same time, Disney’s silence regarding the status of Disney+ for Malaysia is not helping the cause as well.

Fast forward to earlier this month, the discovery of the Malaysian-specific user interface and RM 89.90 annual subscription fee within the Disney+ Hotstar’s Android app once again sparked excitement among local consumers. Fueling the excitement further, Twitter users @muhdraziqq_ and @itzwiin have noticed that the Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia’s Instagram page that was deactivated back in January is now live again.

The “Loading…” post that was published back in January has also appeared again inside the verified Instagram page. Unfortunately, minutes after we captured the screenshot above, both the post and the page were yanked out from existence once again.

Hence, we are still not sure whether Disney is finally opening the gates to its streaming service for Malaysian consumers given the flip-flop that we have seen back in January. Nevertheless, we will continue to monitor the situation and will keep you posted if there are any updates regarding Disney+ rollout in our market.

Clubhouse Chat Audio Stolen; Causes Privacy Concerns Yet Again

Clubhouse chats may not be as private as expected. According to Bloomberg, Clubhouse spokesperson Reema Bahnasy said a user was able to stream audio from “multiple” rooms into their own third-party website – an action that is clearly against the app’s intended purpose (and selling point) of only allowing people within chatrooms to exclusively hear or discuss certain topics.

The app’s developers claimed that the aforementioned user has now been “permanently banned”, and that new “safeguards” has been newly installed in order to prevent a potential repeat incident. However, some privacy and security analysts aren’t entirely convinced.

“Clubhouse cannot provide any privacy promises for conversations held anywhere around the world,” former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos told Bloomberg. Stamos now heads the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), which last week revealed the social app’s potential vulnerability to spying by the Chinese government.

The SIO had also pointed to Clubhouse’s links to Agora, a Shanghai-based company that is subject to China’s internet laws and legal requests. Agora handles a good chunk of the app’s back-end operations, including the processing of data traffic and audio production.

Bloomberg added that the Chinese company’s value has climbed over 150% since mid-January, making its current worth close to USD$10 billion (~RM40.4 billion). Clubhouse itself has seen astounding growth, doubling its global downloads in a span of weeks. In Malaysia, it is currently holds the ranking of most popular free iOS software available on the Apple App Store.

Anyway, if you’re a Clubhouse user, we strongly urge you to be cautious when using the app. For the time being (at least), just assume everything you say in chatrooms on the platform isn’t private.

Twitter Says Trump Is Permanently Banned, Even If He Runs For President Again

Twitter has confirmed that Donald Trump will never ever, ever return to the platform – even if he runs for the presidency again. The permanent, irrevocable loss of his Twitter privileges is a huge blow to the former US President who arguably owes his improbable rise in politics to the platform.

“The way our policies work, when you’re removed from the platform, you’re removed from the platform – whether you’re a commentator, you’re a CFO or you are a former or current public official,” Twitter CFO Ned Segal told CNBC’s Squawk Box when asked about Trump.

He added, “Our policies are designed to make sure that people are not inciting violence, and if anybody does that, we have to remove them from the service and our policies don’t allow people to come back.”

To be sure, there was some ambiguity as to the length and permanence of Trump’s exile from Twitter when he was “permanently suspended” for inciting violence against the US Congress. “Suspended” implied he could be unbanned at some later point.

According to the company’s own explanation, “permanent suspension” is its “most severe enforcement action”, but those suspended may still appeal the decision. It’s not clear if Trump filed an appeal, or if an appeal would even be entertained at this point.

Regardless, Twitter put all that to bed today – Trump isn’t coming back, period. And the company isn’t too concerned about possible blowback from Trump fans on the platform. “We’re a platform that is obviously much larger than any one topic or any one account,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on the company’s latest earnings call, according to CNBC.

Database Seller Strikes Again: Personal Data of 10 Million Malaysian Voters Could Be On The Line

Following the databases that were said to contain information about E-Pay Malaysia and Ifmal customers, there is a new listing that claimed to have 10 million Malaysian voters in its database. The listing took place last weekend on the same marketplace forum that featured the two previous databases.

First reported by OMG Hackers, it was put up by the same seller that claimed to have the personal information from 200,000 Ifmal customers which have since been refuted by the e-commerce platform.

The images that the seller has included in the listing also contained a reference to the #KitaMintaLima hashtag that has gone viral on Twitter recently. The seller also claimed that the database is being split according to individual birth years from 1950 to 1996.

Aside from names, the seller also claimed that the database contains other details such as IC numbers and addresses. Also noticeable in the screenshots within the listing are voters’ areas and localities as well as their assigned state legislative and parliamentary zones.

The seller didn’t put up any pricing inside the listing although it was noted that buyer has to pay for the database using either Monero or Bitcoin. Four days have passed since the listing went online but the Election Commission of Malaysia (SPR) has yet to release any official statement regarding it even though the commission is already aware of the listing according to a report by Harian Metro.

That being said though and you may not be aware of this but the electoral roll (DPPR) can actually be purchased directly from SPR. Of course, only a select group of organizations such as political parties can get their hands on the DPPR which comes in the form of physical book and CD.

The pricing of the DPPR for each state legislative and parliamentary zone are different from one to another as it is generally based on the number of voters within respective zones. During the 14th General Election (PRU 14) in 2018, the complete DPPR for the whole Malaysia which contained 14,940,624 voters was priced at RM 60,520.20 by SPR [pdf].

So, if the claim by the sellers of the so-called leaked voters’ database is true, that means the database is likely to be incomplete. Nevertheless, SPR and related authorities need to address this matter urgently since not only it involved personal data that belonged to millions of Malaysians but it has also cast doubts on the ability of SPR and local political parties or whoever that has access to the database, to safeguard the information.

Tesla Is Officially Back In Singapore Once Again; Model 3 Price Starts From SGD 113,000

After a botched attempt to enter the country a few years ago which has led to this tweet by Elon Musk, Tesla has once again brought its electric vehicles (EV) to Singapore. It has joined the likes of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Macau as the official markets for Tesla in Asia.

At this moment, only Model 3 is available for purchase through Tesla Singapore’s official website which apparently takes around 12 to 14 weeks to be delivered. Without a Certificate of Entitlement (COE), the Standard Range Plus model which has a rear-wheel drive motor, 0-100 km/h acceleration rate of 5.6 seconds, 225 km/h top speed, and an estimated range of 448 km is priced from SGD 112,845 (~RM 344,433) onwards.

For the Performance model which has a dual motor and all-wheel drive capability alongside a longer travel range of 567 km, it starts at SGD 154,815 (~RM 472,522). Equipped with 20-inch Uberturbine wheels, lowered suspension, performance brakes, carbon fibre spoiler, aluminium alloy pedals, and access to Track Mode, this particular variant also offers higher top speed at 261 km/h and much faster acceleration rate of 3.3 seconds.

Tesla also provides the self-driving option for the Model 3 although customers need to fork out an additional SGD 11,500 (~RM 35,100) to install the self-driving computer into their car. Once enabled, customers can have their Model 3 change lane and park automatically as well as summon the car to come to them.

While the price tag can be deemed as premium, some have pointed out that the Singaporean pricing for Model 3 is quite competitive. To put things into perspective, here is how much a Toyota Camry costs in Singapore:

Tesla re-entry into the Singaporean market is yet another interesting chapter for the South East Asian’s EV industry. Recently, the Indonesian government has invited Elon Musk to utilise the country’s massive nickel reserve for battery production and the Thai government has also revealed its intention to boost the production of EV over there.

Given that these three countries are our closest neighbours, Malaysia may feel the heat in some way or another. However, we doubt that Tesla is going to set up shop in Malaysia until our government finally makes up its mind and come out with a clear policy for the EV industry.