Today’s top news is that Huawei’s CFO hearing is now officially underway. In other news, North’s new smart-glasses to include some cool new bleeding-edge features, and Apple supposedly abandoned encrypting iCloud backups after FBI intervention.
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Thank you for tuning in to Hashtag Trending, it’s Wednesday, January 22nd, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
Trending everywhere, the first phase of hearing for Huawei CFO Meng Wan Zhou is now underway. Meng was arrested at the Vancouver airport in 2018 and has been under house arrest after paying a $10 million bail. The hearing will determine if there will be a trial, in which Meng was accused of violating a US trade sanction against Iran. Now, the Canadian court must decide whether Meng has committed a crime against Canada and ultimately whether she should be extradited to the U.S. As expected, China has once again called for Meng’s release. And Huawei has said that it can’t give out comments on legal proceedings, but trusts in Canada’s judicial system.
Trending on Reddit, more info of North’s second-generation Focals smartglasses has surfaced. While North didn’t say what will be included in its upcoming smart glasses, The Logic reported that the company filed over 100 patents in 2019 on everything between encrypted eye communications to new biometric authentication methods. North recently showcased its new Focals at CES 2020, which featured a much sleeker collapsible frame and improved ergonomics.
Trending on Reddit, it seems like Apple caved into FBI’s demands after famously rebuffing its request to decrypt the phone belonging to the San Bernardino gunman in 2016. Shortly after the 2016 fiasco, Apple scrapped the idea to implement end-to-end encryption for iCloud backups. This gave the police and FBI a way to search through a target’s iCloud data without informing the target. Reuters reported that six sources from the FBI and Apple agreed that Apple applied the change under the FBI’s complaints.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. I’m Tom Li, thanks for listening.