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Apple iOS 15
Apple

Apple released iOS 15, its big annual iPhone software update, on Monday.

This year’s version has some big changes, including the ability of FaceTime to make calls to Windows and Android users, artificial intelligence that can better identify animals, plants and other items in photos, and a feature that better controls limits on notifications.

While Apple pushes out updates on a regular basis throughout the year, the annual update that is released alongside new iPhones has the most additional features and changes.

IOS 15 is available for a lot of older phones, too, all the way back to the iPhone 6S, which was released in 2015. Here’s what you’ll get.

What’s new in iOS 15?

FaceTime on Android
Apple

FaceTime that includes Windows and Android users. FaceTime, Apple’s videoconferencing software, used to be reserved for Apple products only — users who wanted to FaceTime with an Android phone or Windows PC were out of luck. Starting in iOS 15, anyone with an Apple computer will see a button that allows them to create a link to a FaceTime chat. Users can send that link to any computer or phone with a modern web browser, and they can join in the chat too. Users will need to be let into the chat, so the link won’t let random people join without your permission.

Apple’s new Focus feature in iOS 15
Todd Haselton | CNBC

New Messages integration. Some people get lots of different links in Apple Messages, formerly iMessage, throughout the day but don’t have time to check them out until later. Now, Messages will share that information with other apps. For example, if someone sends a link to an Apple News news story, it will show up in the Apple News app in a section called “Shared with You.” Same for Apple Music and Apple Photos. This new integration also applies to Safari web links, podcasts and Apple TV movies and TV shows.

Apple iOS 15 can identify text in photos.
Apple

AI that can tell what’s in a photo, including text. Apple has been improving its photo recognition capabilities in its Photos app for years, and this year it takes a big step forward in terms of the types of objects inside photos it can recognize. With iOS 15, Apple’s software can identify and provide more information about animals, landmarks, plants and books. It also makes text inside your photos searchable, and users can even copy and paste text from a photo into a document. Apple’s AI runs on an iPhone, instead of using the cloud to do the work on a remote server, so the things you identify or copy won’t be sent back to Apple.

Apple’s new Focus feature in iOS 15
Todd Haselton | CNBC

More control of notifications during off-hours. For a few years, iPhone users have had a mode called “Do Not Disturb” that limited notifications except from a list of close contacts. These features have received a big upgrade in iOS 15 that Apple calls “Focus.” The main feature shows only notifications from people and apps you’ve pre-approved. If someone is texting a user who is in Focus Mode, they’ll receive a message that notifications have been silenced, sort of like an away message. Users can create multiple Focus profiles for different situations, such as work, play and sleep. It will allow users to create special home screens so they can, for example, have different collections of apps for work or home.

Apple Maps
Source: Apple

Apple Maps reminders. Apple Maps comes with annual improvements, including better directions, public transit schedules, and an augmented reality walking directions feature that places big arrows over scenes of the real world telling users where to go. But commuters will probably like best the new real-time alerts that tell users when they need to get off the bus, train or subway before they miss their stop.

Safari Tabs
Source: Apple

New Safari redesign. The default browser on the iPhone is getting its biggest redesign in years, bringing the address bar and back button from the top of the screen closer to the bottom to make it easier for thumbs to reach. If you don’t like the new Safari, you can change it back to the old look. Safari will also save groups of open tabs, so you can come back to them later, and supports extensions — just like Google Chrome or Safari on the desktop — for the first time through Apple’s app stores. Extensions are little apps that let you do more on a site, such as block ads, but there aren’t a lot available yet.

Spotlight
Source: Apple

Better system search. Apple’s Spotlight is a power-user feature that searches the web and your files and makes apps easier to access. Users access it when swiping down from the top of the screen. It has a new look this year, with more photos, and Apple-provided information about TV shows, movies, musicians, and links that have been shared with you.

Apple iOS 15
Apple

Privacy protections. Apple has emphasized privacy in recent years, but in iOS 15 it’s starting to become a feature worth upgrading for. One new feature is called “App Privacy Report,” and it will show you how often an app accessed your microphone or location over the last seven days. It also will tell users if apps are phoning home to their own servers — which is normal but can highlight certain uses of data that have previously been overlooked. People who pay for iCloud will also get “iCloud Private Relay,” a beta feature that is similar to a VPN and hides IP addresses, which can give away your location. People who use Apple’s Mail app can provide random burner email addresses and hide tracking pixels that tell marketers whether an email has been opened or not.

Siri
Source: Apple

Faster Siri. Siri no longer needs to send data to a faraway server in order to understand what you’ve asked it. Now, it can do it on the device itself, which will lead to a snappier experience without a slight delay, as well as additional privacy — Apple won’t have access to all the recordings of your Siri requests anymore.

Apple iOS 15 will support storing a driver’s license in Apple Wallet.
Apple

Driver’s license and keys in Apple Wallet. Apple is adding the ability to put driver’s licenses and keys into the Wallet app, but it may be a while before all users can take advantage of these big new features.

Apple says the TSA and eight states are already on board with the program to put driver’s licenses and state ID’s on the iPhone. Users will have to wait until their state government supports the feature.

Users will also be able to store keys, including car ignition keys, in Apple Wallet. If you have a smart home or go to an office with compatible locks, you can start unlocking your front door with your phone as soon as you update with the new software. The car ignition key feature requires a BMW or other compatible vehicle.

Apple iOS 15 will let you watch movies, TV shows and more with friends over FaceTime.
Apple

One big delay: Apple is planning to launch a feature called SharePlay that lets you watch a movie or TV show with other people over FaceTime. But that feature isn’t included yet and is now promised for later this year.

How to get iOS 15

Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller speaks on the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus during a Special Event at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium September 9, 2015 in San Francisco, California.
Getty Images

It’s really easy to install iOS 15. You just need an iPhone SE (1st generation) or newer or an iPhone 6s or newer. Those phones were released in 2016 and 2015, respectively, so most people should get the update. Here’s what you do:

  • Connect your compatible iPhone to Wi-Fi and power.
  • Open Settings.
  • Open General.
  • Open Software Update.
  • Tap Download and Install.

That’s it!

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Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish files to go public on NYSE

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Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish files to go public on NYSE

Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, holds hundred dollar bills as he speaks during the Bitcoin 2022 Conference at Miami Beach Convention Center on April 7, 2022 in Miami, Florida.

Marco Bello | Getty Images

The Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish filed for an IPO on Friday, the latest digital asset firm to head for the public market.

The company, led by CEO Tom Farley, a veteran of the finance industry and former president of the New York Stock Exchange, said it plans to trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “BLSH.”

A spinout of Block.one, Bullish started with an initial investment from backers including Thiel’s Founders Fund and Thiel Capital, along with Nomura, Mike Novogratz and others. Bullish acquired crypto news site CoinDesk in 2023.

“In the first quarter of 2025, Bullish exchange executed over $2.5 billion in average daily volume, ranking in the top five exchanges by spot volume for Bitcoin and Ether,” the company said on its website. The prospectus listed top competitors as Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.

The IPO filing says that as of March 31, the total trading volume since launch has exceeded $1.25 trillion.

Read more CNBC tech news

The filing is another significant step for the cryptocurrency industry, which has fought for years to convince institutions to embrace digital assets as legitimate investments.

It’s already been a big year on the market for crypto offerings, highlighted by stablecoin issuer Circle, which has jumped more than sevenfold since its IPO in June. Etoro, an online trading platform that includes services for crypto investors, debuted in May.

Novogratz‘s crypto firm Galaxy Digital started trading on the Nasdaq in May, moving its listing from the Toronto Stock Exchange. And in June, Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange and custodian founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, confidentially filed for an IPO in the U.S.

Meanwhile, investors continue to flock to bitcoin. The digital currency is trading at over $117,000, up from about $94,000 at the start of the year.

President Donald Trump, on Friday, signed the GENIUS Act into law — a set of regulations that establish some initial consumer protections around stablecoins, which are tied to assets like the U.S. dollar with the intent of reducing price volatility associated with many cryptocurrencies.

In its filing with the SEC, Bullish says its mission is partly to “drive the adoption of stablecoins, digital assets, and blockchain technology.”

Crypto industry players, including Thiel, Elon Musk, and President Trump’s AI and Crypto czar David Sacks spent heavily to re-elect Trump and have pushed for legislation that legitimizes digital assets and exchanges.

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Microsoft stops relying on Chinese engineers for Pentagon cloud support

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Microsoft stops relying on Chinese engineers for Pentagon cloud support

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella (L) returns to the stage after a pre-recorded interview during the Microsoft Build conference opening keynote in Seattle, Washington on May 19, 2025.

Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images

Microsoft on Friday revised its practices to ensure that engineers in China no longer provide technical support to U.S. defense clients using the company’s cloud services.

The company implemented the changes in an effort to reduce national security and cybersecurity risks stemming from its cloud work with a major customer. The announcement came days after ProPublica published an extensive report describing the Defense Department’s dependence on Microsoft software engineers in China.

“In response to concerns raised earlier this week about US-supervised foreign engineers, Microsoft has made changes to our support for US Government customers to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DoD Government cloud and related services,” Frank Shaw, the Microsoft’s chief communications officer, wrote in a Friday X post.

The change impacts the work of Microsoft’s Azure cloud services division, which analysts estimate now generates more than 25% of the company’s revenue. That makes Azure bigger than Google Cloud but smaller than Amazon Web Services. Microsoft receives “substantial revenue from government contracts,” according to its most recent quarterly earnings statement, and more than half of the company’s $70 billion in first-quarter revenue came from customers based in the U.S.

In 2019, Microsoft won a $10 billion cloud-related defense contract, but the Pentagon wound up canceling it in 2021 after a legal battle. In 2022, the department gave cloud contracts worth up to $9 billion in total to Amazon, Google, Oracle and Microsoft.

ProPublica reported that the work of Microsoft’s Chinese Azure engineers is overseen by “digital escorts” in the U.S., who typically have less technical prowess than the employees they manage overseas. The report detailed how the “digital escort” arrangement might leave the U.S. vulnerable to a cyberattack from China.

“This is obviously unacceptable, especially in today’s digital threat environment,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a video posted to X on Friday. He described the architecture as “a legacy system created over a decade ago, during the Obama administration.” The Defense Department will review its systems in search for similar activity, Hegseth said.

Microsoft originally told ProPublica that its employees and contractors were adhering to U.S. government rules.

“We remain committed to providing the most secure services possible to the US government, including working with our national security partners to evaluate and adjust our security protocols as needed,” Shaw wrote.

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The investor behind Opendoor’s 190% run nearly shut down his fund

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The investor behind Opendoor's 190% run nearly shut down his fund

Courtesy: Opendoor

On June 6, online real estate service Opendoor was so desperate to get its beaten-down stock price back over $1 and stay listed on the Nasdaq that management proposed a reverse split, potentially lifting the price of each share by as much as 50 times.

The stock inched its way up over the next five weeks.

Then Eric Jackson started cheerleading.

Jackson, a hedge fund manager who was bullish on Opendoor years earlier when the company appeared to be thriving and was worth roughly $20 billion, wrote on X on Monday that his firm, EMJ Capital, was back in the stock.

“@EMJCapital has taken a position in $OPEN — and we believe it could be a 100-bagger over the next few years,” Jackson wrote. He added later in the thread that the stock could get to $82.

It’s a long, long way from that mark.

Opendoor shares soared 189% this week, by far their best weekly performance since the company’s public market debut in late 2020. The stock closed on Friday at $2.25. The stock’s highest-volume trading days on record were Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week.

Jackson said in an interview on Thursday that the bulk of his firm’s Opendoor purchases came when the stock was in the 70s and 80s, meaning cents, and he’s bought options as well for his portfolio.

Nothing has fundamentally improved for the company since Jackson’s purchases. Opendoor remains a cash-burning, low-margin business with meager near-term growth prospects.

What has changed dramatically is Jackson’s online influence and the size of his following. The more he posts, the higher the stock goes.

“There’s a real hunger for buying the next big thing,” Jackson told CNBC, adding that investors like to find the “downtrodden.”

It’s something Jackson’s firm, based in Toronto, has in common with Opendoor.

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When Opendoor went public through a special purpose acquisition company in 2020, it was riding a SPAC wave and broader gains driven by low interest rates and Covid-era market euphoria. Investors pumped money into the riskiest assets, lifting money-losing tech upstarts to astronomical valuations.

Opendoor’s business involved using technology to buy and sell homes, pocketing the gains. Zillow tried and failed to compete.

Opendoor shares peaked at over $39 in Feb. 2021 for a market cap just above $22.5 billion. But by the end of that year, the shares were trading below $15, before collapsing 92% in 2022 to end the year at $1.16.

Rising interest rates hammered the whole tech sector, hitting Opendoor particularly hard as increased borrowing costs reduced demand for homes.

Jackson, similarly, had a miserable 2022, coinciding with the worst year for the Nasdaq since 2008. Jackson said his key client withdrew its money at the end of the year, and “I’ve been small ever since.”

‘Epic comeback’

While his assets under management remain minimal, Jackson’s reputation for getting in early to a rebound story was burnished by the performance of Carvana.

The automotive e-commerce platform lost 98% of its value in 2022 as investors weighed the likelihood of bankruptcy. In the middle of that year, with Carvana still far from bottoming out, Jackson expressed his bullishness. He told CNBC that April that he liked the stock, and then promoted its recovery on a podcast in June. He also said he liked Opendoor at the time.

Investors willing to stomach further losses in 2022 were rewarded with a 1,000% gain in 2023, and a lot more upside from there. The stock closed on Friday at $347.52, up from a low of $3.72 in Dec. 2022, and almost triple its price at the time of Jackson’s appearance on CNBC in April of that year.

After Carvana’s 2022 slide, “then obviously began an epic comeback,” Jackson said. Opendoor, meanwhile, “continued to roll down the mountain,” he said.

Jackson said that the fallout of 2022 led him to pursue a different method of stockpicking. He started hiring a small team of developers, which is now four people, to build out artificial intelligence models. The firm has experimented with several models —some have worked and some haven’t — but he said the focus now is using what he’s learned from Carvana to find “100x” opportunities.

In addition to Opendoor, Jackson has been promoting IREN, a provider of power for bitcoin mining and AI workloads, and Cipher Mining, which is in a similar space. He’s seen his following on Elon Musk‘s social media site X, which he said was stuck for years between 32,000 and 34,000, swell to almost 50,000. And after a lengthy lull, investors are reaching out to him to try and put money into his fund, he said.

Jackson has a lot riding on Opendoor, a company that saw revenue and number of homes sold slip in the first quarter from a year earlier, and racked up almost $370 million in losses over the past four quarters.

In early June, Opendoor announced plans for a reverse split — ranging from 1 for 10 to 1 for 50 — to “give us optionality in preserving our listing on Nasdaq.” With the stock now well over $1, such a move appears less necessary, as shareholders prepare to vote on the proposal on July 28.

“I think it’s a terrible idea,” said Jackson. “Those things usually further cement a company’s move into oblivion rather than hail some big revival.”

Opendoor didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Banking on growth

Analysts are projecting a more than 5% drop in revenue this year, followed by 20% growth in 2026 and 12% expansion in 2017, according to LSEG. Losses are expected to narrow over that stretch.

Jackson said his analysis factors in projections of $11.5 billion in revenue for 2029, which would be well over double the company’s expected sales for this year. He looked at the multiples of companies like Zillow and Carvana, which he said trade for 4 to 7 times forward revenue. Opendoor’s forward price-to-sales ratio is currently well below 1.

With Zillow and Redfin having exited the instant-buying home market, Opendoor faces little competition in allowing homeowners to sell their property online for cash, rather than going through an extended bidding, sales and closing process.

Jackson is banking on revenue growth and increased market share to lead to a profitable business that will push investors to value the company with a multiple somewhere between Zillow and Carvana. At $82, Opendoor would be worth about $60 billion, which is roughly 5 times projected 2029 revenue.

Jackson said his model assumes that “like Carvana, Opendoor can prove that it can permanently turn the tide and get to sustained profitability” so that the “market multiple would get reassessed.”

In the meantime, he’ll keep posting on X.

On Friday, Jackson wrote a thread consisting of 11 posts, recounting the challenge of having “99.5% of my AUM” disappear overnight after his primary investor pulled out in 2022.

“Translation: he fired me for losing him too much money,” Jackson wrote. He said he almost shut down the fund, and was even encouraged to do so by his wife and accountant.

Now, Jackson is using his recent momentum on social media to try and attract investor money, while still reminding prospects that he could lose it.

“All I have is my reputation,” he wrote, “and, unless I keep picking good stocks, it will be gone.”

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