Technology News

LONDON (AP) — Netflix has acquired the works of Roald Dahl, the late British author of celebrated children’s books such as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

The video streaming giant said Wednesday that it acquired the Roald Dahl Story Co., which manages the rights to the author’s characters and stories. No financial terms were disclosed.

The deal builds on a partnership struck in 2018 to create a slate of animated TV series, under which “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” is getting a reboot by Academy Award winning filmmaker Taika Waititi and Netflix is working with Sony on an adaptation of “Matilda the Musical.”

The new deal paves the way for Netflix to bring all of the author’s back catalogue to screens.

“These projects opened our eyes to a much more ambitious venture – the creation of a unique universe across animated and live action films and TV, publishing, games, immersive experiences, live theatre, consumer products and more,” Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Luke Kelly, managing director of the Roald Dahl Story Co. and Dahl’s grandson, said in a joint statement.

Dahl died in 1990 at the age of 74 but his books, which also include “The BFG,” “The Twits” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” remain popular with young readers, with more than 300 million copies sold worldwide and translations in 63 languages.

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This version corrects the spelling of Matilda in the third paragraph.

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VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuanian cybersecurity experts are urging the country’s government agencies to abandon the use of Chinese-made smartphones after an investigation identified security vulnerabilities and censorship concerns with certain devices.

Lithuania’s National Cyber Security Center said it found four major cybersecurity risks for devices made by Huawei and Xiaomi, including two relating to pre-installed apps and one involving personal data leakage, and warned against using these two brands.

There’s also the risk of possible restrictions on freedom of expression with Xiaomi phones, which contain a content-filtering feature for 449 keywords or groups of keywords in Chinese characters. The center warned the function could be activated at any time and did not rule out the possibility that words using Latin characters could be added. According to the Lithuanian report, apps receive updated lists of censored words and phrases and are capable of blocking them.

The phrases include “Free Tibet,” “Voice of America,” “Democratic Movement” and “Long Live Taiwan Independence.” Although the content-filtering feature was disabled and no censorship was performed on the phones the Lithuanian center inspected, the center warned the function could be activated at any time.

A Huawei spokesperson in Lithuania denied the allegations. Xiaomi declined to comment.

The cybersecurity center, which is a Defense Ministry agency, also investigated phones made by another Chinese company, OnePlus, but found no problems.

“We strongly recommend that state and public institutions not use those devices and plan to initiate legislation which regulates acquiring certain devices for the ministries and various state agencies,” Deputy Defense Minister Margiris Abukevicius said Wednesday.

More than 200 public authorities have purchased such phones, and over 4,500 phones are in use, “which, in our opinion, increases the risks,” Abukevicius said. He didn’t specify the makes of all the phones.

The center’s investigation, released Tuesday, was done “to ensure the safe use of 5G mobile devices sold in our country and the software they contain,” he said.

Also, ordinary “people should also know what’s inside these phones, about the certain software and consider safety before making their decisions,” the minister said.

The Beijing-based Xiaomi, known for its value-for-money devices, became the world’s No. 2 smartphone maker by sales this year, trailing only Samsung. The company was put on a U.S. Defense Department blacklist in the last few days of the Trump administration, which accused it of links to China’s military. It was later removed after suing the U.S. government and denies having any links with China’s People’s Liberation Army.

The move comes amid tensions between Lithuania and China.

Earlier this month, Lithuania recalled its ambassador to China following the Baltic country’s decision in July to allow Taiwan to open an office in its capital under its own name. In August, China recalled its ambassador to Lithuania and told the Baltic nation to “immediately rectify its wrong decision.”

China says Taiwan is part of its territory and doesn’t have the right to diplomatic recognition, although the island maintains informal ties with all major nations through trade offices, including in the United States and Japan. Chinese pressure has reduced Taiwan’s formal diplomatic allies to just 15.

Taiwan and Lithuania agreed in July that the office in the capital, Vilnius, set to open this fall, will bear the name Taiwan rather than Chinese Taipei — a term often used in other countries in order not to offend Beijing. On Wednesday, Lithuania said it was sending another 236,000 COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan.

___ Kelvin Chan in London contributed to this report.

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THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Dutch king outlined a pared-back government plan for the coming year on Tuesday in his traditional speech opening the new parliamentary term that came amid drawn-out negotiations to form a new ruling coalition.

With the government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte in caretaker mode since a March general election and no simple path to a new administration, no major plans were unveiled in the king’s speech that is written by the government.

“Major new long-term choices are for the next Cabinet,” King Willem-Alexander told a joint sitting of both houses of parliament.

Even so, he said the government would invest an extra 7 billion euros ($8.2 billion) for measures to help achieve its planned reduction in emissions including making homes and industry more sustainable and promoting use of electric cars.

He also pledged more funds to tackle housing shortages, for education and to bolster rule of law, warning that organized crime gangs are becoming increasingly violent. He called the murder in July of crime reporter Peter R. de Vries “a new nadir.”

For the second straight year, the king’s “speech from the throne” was held in a Hague church instead of the historic Knight’s Hall due to coronavirus restrictions and there was no horse-drawn carriage ride for members of the royal family through packed streets. As the king and Queen Maxima left the church, a small group of people booed.

Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra presents the budget to parliament later Tuesday. It forecasts the Dutch economy will grow 3.9% this year — bringing it back to pre-pandemic levels by year’s end — and by 3.5% in 2022, although both numbers could change depending on how the pandemic develops.

Unemployment is expected to stay around 3.4-3.5% with more job vacancies than unemployed people seeking work.

On foreign policy, the king said that membership of the European Union, NATO and the United Nations remain “cornerstones of Dutch foreign policy,” but he added that the country has choices to make about its relations with China, Russia and the United States.

“Trans-Atlantic cooperation remains the foundation of Dutch security policy, but at the same time we will have to invest more in European security policy,” he said.

Anti-immigration lawmaker Geert Wilders rejected the government plan to pump billions into climate measures and called for fresh elections.

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Space, we have an equity problem.

When three billionaires rocketed into space this summer, they did more than escape Earth’s surly bonds, they helped spread “a malady of mistrust” plaguing an all-too hungry world, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told other world leaders Tuesday.

In his opening speech to the General Assembly, a grim Guterres highlighted the gap between the rich and poor with “billionaires joyriding to space while millions go hungry on Earth.”

In July, billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos flew into space on private rockets that their companies built, gathering worldwide attention in their short trips that didn’t make it into orbit. Both bank on space tourism business from their fellow space fans with big wallets.

After returning to Earth, Branson, 71, sprayed G.H. Mumm champagne over his crew and then chugged it from the bottle.

Billionaire Jared Isaacman led the first all-private orbital mission that splashed down Saturday after three days in orbit. His flight was on a Dragon capsule and Space X rocket built by a fourth space-obsessed billionaire, Elon Musk. Unlike the other two missions, Isaacman’s ride raised more than $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital including $100 million from Isaacman and $50 million from Musk.

Guterres lumped billionaire space hops with the maladies of hopelessness, corruption, curtailing of personal freedoms and “when parents see a future for their children that looks even bleaker than the struggles of today.”

After Branson and Bezos spaceflights and revelations that Bezos, the richest man in the world, didn’t pay any federal income tax in 2007 and 2011, critics called for taxing billionaires with some wanting to tax them out of the 10-digit income level. So far those proposals, unlike the billionaires, haven’t gotten off the ground.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Google is planning to buy New York City’s St. John’s Terminal for $2.1 billion, making it the anchor of its Hudson Square campus.

The announcement Tuesday arrives with the city buffeted by the pandemic and most offices still largely unpopulated.

While CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post late last month that Google is delaying its global return to offices until Jan. 10, the commitment by the company to further invest in New York City real estate was trumpeted both by Gov. Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, who called it “one of the shots in the arm we need as part of our comeback.”

“Google is leading the way here in our economic comeback but also further asserting what we know more and more: New York City is now one of the great tech capitals in the world,” de Blasio said at a virtual news conference Tuesday.

Google’s had a footprint in New York City for more than two decades and it is the company’s largest location outside of California. Its 1.7 million-square-foot Hudson Square campus is on the Hudson River just south of the New York University campus and Greenwich Village.

“As Google moves toward a more flexible hybrid approach to work, coming together in person to collaborate and build community will remain an important part of our future,” the company’s Chief Financial Officer said. “It is why we continue investing in our offices around the world. Our decision to exercise our option to purchase St. John’s Terminal further builds upon our existing plans to invest more than $250 million this year in our New York campus presence.”

Google currently leases the St. John’s Terminal property and expects to open its new space there by the middle of 2023.

The company anticipates that its investment will add another 14,000 employees in New York City.

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AP Writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

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