iPhone 12 In Box Rumors; Google Will Pay SOME for News Content; AWS Launches Amazon Honeycode; Lyft Settles with DOJ over Accessibility

A new rumor from British bank Barclays picked up by macrumors.com has no EarPods in the box, and possibly no power adapter….only a USB to Lightening cable. The basic 5W Apple power adapter is $19, and while there will be some whining, most people probably have a drawer full of these by now who have prior iPhones. Also, there are multi-cord chargers such as those from Anker that charge much faster…in fact, faster than the 18W adapter that has shipped with the iPhone 11 Pro models (which run $29.) The Barclays report also says production is about 4 weeks behind, and they confirmed earlier rumors of a triple lens cam system AND a LiDAR Scanner on the Pro models, as the latest iPad Pro got. That would allow for AR on the iPhone Pro models.

Ever since news started popping up on web platforms like Google and Yahoo, most, or all of it was stolen from news sources that employ actual reporters, writers, and editors. Now, according to cnet.com, Google is starting a licensing program to pay publishers for some content. The search platform says it will pay publishers for ‘high quality content’ for a news eater it will launch later this year. The licensing program will also pay for free access to some paywalled articles on a punisher’s site. Google claims that will give publishers an opportunity to grow their audience. Publishers have railed against Google and Facebook and others for years, claiming the giant tech platforms have distributed their content, but undermined their advertising business model.

Amazon has rolled out the beta of Amazon Honeycode, a new, fully managed low-code/no code development tool that attempts to make it easy for anyone in a company to build their own apps. Techcrunch.com reports that Developers can build apps for up to 20 users for free. After that they pay per user and for the storage their apps take up. The system comes with a set of templates for common uses like to-do list applications, customer trackers, surveys, schedules and inventory management. Using Honeycode will eliminate the need to create these and share them via spreadsheets. Honeycode databases can easily scale up to 100,000 rows per workbook, so businesses can just produce them and go, without having to worry about scale.

Lyft has settled with the US Department of Justice over allegations that the ride sharing program discriminated against people who use foldable walkers and wheelchairs…a blatant violation of the ADA. According to theverge.com, as part of the settlement, Lyft will be required to update its policy to make it clear that drivers have to assist people with wheelchairs, walkers, and scooters and to include details about its accessibility policies as part of its onboarding for new drivers. Drivers who fail to comply with the policy could face possible termination from the platform.