Apple Digital Legacy Service Lets Users Choose Heirs For Their iCloud Data After Death

Apple is adding a Digital Legacy feature that allows users to nominate contacts as legacy contacts who will be granted access to their Apple account in the event of their demise.

For years, users and campaigners have lobbied the tech giant to implement a formalised method of accessing emails, photos, and other contents of a loved one’s iCloud account after their death.

Up until now, the company had only advised users to include access to their personal information in their will:

“We encourage customers to add an inheritance plan to their will that covers the personal information they store on their devices and in iCloud. This may simplify the process of acquiring a proper court order and reduce delay and frustration for family members during a difficult time.”

With Digital Legacy, that process is both simplified and formalised; Legacy contacts will use a “legacy contact Apple ID” to sign in. The user will have access to the iCloud data and will be able to download it using the ID and access key.  Once logged in, the legacy contact user must provide a valid copy of the primary user’s death certificate in order to gain access to the deceased person’s data.

It should be pointed out that Facebook has had a Legacy contact feature for years. In the case of the social network, its Legacy contacts feature is in charge of memorialised accounts or offers users the choice of having their account deleted after Facebook is informed of your death.

It should be noted that for Apple’s Digital Legacy service, payment information such as credit card details, subscriptions, licensed media, and Keychain password will be excluded from the accessible data.

Baidu Introduces Driverless E-Hailing Service In Beijing

Chinese search giant Baidu launched what it claims to be a fully driverless e-hailing service in Beijing yesterday – the first of its kind in China.

The company said the Apollo Go Robotaxi service would be available in the capital’s Shougang Park – one of the venues of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics – where it’ll be ferrying visitors at the games. Apollo is Baidu’s AI-powered autonomous driving platform.

People can call for the robotaxi service by using the Apollo Go app. It has features like virtual reality navigation and remote car honking to help users locate the car. To unlock the car’s doors, users have to scan a QR code and health code on the vehicle for identity verification and COVID-19 prevention reasons.

Once they’re on board and the “Start the Journey” button is pressed, the system ensures that seat belts are fastened and doors are closed before beginning the trip. What happens in an emergency? Baidu said its 5G Remote Driving Service will be present at all times, allowing human operators to intervene if necessary.

The search giant said the robotaxi service was launched “only after conducting countless scalable driverless tests in many cities over a long period of time.” The company plans to introduce the service in more cities in the future, promoting it as a way of alleviating traffic congestion and helping China achieve its climate goals.

The Star To Close Down Dimsum Streaming Service This September

Local on-demand video streaming service, Dimsum will cease its operation later this year. The closure was announced by its parent company, The Star Media Group (SMG) who also counts the daily English newspaper, The Star as one of its subsidiaries.

Set to take place by 30 September, one of the key reasons behind the closure is the fact that SMG’s key management team has identified new opportunities to pursue. It is not clear for now whether this decision is being spearheaded by SMG’s new CEO, Alex Yeow Wai Siaw who has just taken over the role on 1 March.

Meanwhile, the media conglomerate also said that the Dimsum team will be reassigned to other projects within SMG. Originally launched at the end of 2016, Dimsum primarily focused on contents from Asian countries including South Korea, China, Thailand, India, Indonesia, and Singapore as well as from Malaysia itself.

At the moment, the service runs on a freemium model with most of Dimsum’s contents  being made available for free with ads while those considered as premium contents can be accessed with a monthly fee of between RM 8 to RM 13.90. According to SMG’s annual report for 2019, more than 1.1 million users have subscribed for the service but seems like it is still not enough to save Dimsum from its imminent closure.

Sony Will Cease PlayStation Store Service For PS3, PSP And PS Vita From July Onwards

Sony has quietly confirmed that it will be ceasing the PlayStation Network (PSN) Store service for its older video game consoles later this year. According to the company’s recently updated PlayStation support page, it is revealed that the service is slated to shut down on the PS3 and PSP on 2 July, while the PS Vita will lose access to it much later on 27 August.

What this means is that users will no longer be able to purchase any new content for the aforementioned PlayStation consoles once the PSN Store service officially ends. Sony added that wallet vouchers will no longer be applicable to the PS3, PSP and PS Vita around that time as well. Naturally, since the service is universal to PlayStation’s ecosystem, any remaining balance in your PSN wallet can still be used to purchase digital content for other platforms such as the PS4 or PS5 – provided that you own these consoles.

Fortunately, all is not lost for those who still game on the older generation Sony platforms. According to the company, any existing content such as games or media in a player’s library will still be retained and can be redownloaded at any time, even after the closure of the PSN Store. In addition, users may also still be able to redeem non-wallet vouchers on these consoles, such as PS Plus subscriptions and codes for claiming digital versions of certain video game titles.

The closure of the PSN Store will certainly cause inconveniences to fans of retro gaming (yes, these consoles are considered retro now), especially for acquiring console-exclusive titles such as Metal Gear Solid 4 for the PS3 and even Patapon for the PSP. Even though there is still a chance that used (or new, in some rare cases) copies of these games may still be available for sale, the most sure shot way of having them in your gaming library is by buying them digitally.

Purchasing these games digitally via PSN Store also guarantees that you’ll be able to nab them at a recommended retail price, therefore saving you the trouble of potentially sifting through physical copies sold by scalpers at unbelievable prices. That being said, the time is right if you are planning to fill up your library with these games, as you won’t be able to do so once Sony ceases its Store service for its aging consoles this summer.

Satellite-Based 35Mbps Broadband Service Coming To 839 Locations Nationwide

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) today announced that 839 locations throughout the country will receive broadband service through satellite. The implementation of this service is being done under the Jalinan Digital Negara (JENDELA) plan.

These areas consist of Orang Asli settlements as well as remote areas with 178 of them have been identified in Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Johor, Pahang, and Kelantan. As for Sabah and Sarawak, there are 138 and 523 locations for each state, respectively.

According to the Request for Proposal (RFP) document that the commission has published on its website today, here are the project’s main deliverables:

• Average throughput of 35Mbps per user during all three (3) peak hours, defined as: 7.00am – 10.00am / 2.00pm – 3.00pm / 8.00pm – 10.00pm.
• 60% of the subscribers in location to get an average throughput of 35Mbps.
• The network must be available at least 98% of the time in a year, excluding any scheduled downtime.

The document also stated that the satellite-based broadband service is being rolled out as a temporary solution to these areas for up to two years, while they are waiting for a permanent solution. It also said that the chosen providers have to roll out the service, which includes free Wi-Fi access for the population in the listed areas, in four months’ time.

That rollout period seems like a tall order but then again, MCMC has stated in today’s announcement that the commission expects the service to be up by October 2021. Ambitious aim aside, it is certainly an interesting addition to the JENDELA plan which already includes the discontinuation of the 3G network and 4G & fibre coverage expansion as well as to a certain extent, MyDigital’s expedited 5G implementation.

Google Denies Service Downtime Caused By Data Centre Fire In France; Russian Authorities Disagree

Google and Russia have provided conflicting reasons to why Google and YouTube services were briefly disrupted in the country, the BBC reported. The Russian government blamed a fire at cloud provider OVH data centres in Strasbourg, France. But Google disputes this.

Instead, the tech giant attributed the downtime to a router misconfiguration at a local third-party internet service provider.

“Following extensive investigation we have no evidence to indicate that the fire in OVHCloud’s data centre, or Google’s own infrastructure, was the root cause of this incident,” Google said, according to the BBC.

In contrast, Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media regulating authority, pointed fingers at the fire and said the service disruptions were “not connected to the agency’s actions on restriction of speed of access to the Twitter social platform”.

Roskomnadzor had recently slowed down the speed of Twitter in the country, claiming the platform failed to remove 3,000 posts related to suicide, drugs, and pornography. The authority said the move was aimed at protecting Russian citizens.

Incredibly popular in Russia, Twitter is frequently used by government opponents like Alexei Navalny, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

OVH, which operates the affected data centre, boasts 1.6 million customers across 140 countries. But Google services in Russia are not believed to be routed through OVH, the BBC said.

The fire does have one confirmed victim – the multiplayer video game Rust. The game’s developers tweeted that some player progression data was gone for good.