In separate interviews, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared his views on the proliferation of fake news and the emergence of augmented reality.
A week ago, Cook claimed that Apple has exciting things in the pipeline, especially with the latest version of the iPhone that will be unveiled later this year. The new interviews, however, shift the focus away from the company's flagship product.
Cook Takes A Stand Against Fake News
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Cook called for governments to launch public information campaigns that will help in dealing with the fake news articles propagating in social media.
According to Cook, fake news is a huge problem that affects most of the world, and that it is responsible for "killing people's minds."
The campaign that should be launched to address the problem of fake news should be similar to the ones that were able to change the attitudes of people regarding the environment, Cook claims, and that governments and technology companies should work together for such initiatives. The campaign should be rolled out to the general public, including in schools, with the aim of hitting every demographic.
"We are going through this period of time right here where unfortunately some of the people that are winning are the people that spend their time trying to get the most clicks, not tell the most truth," Cook said, adding that technology companies, which have received criticism for doing too little to address the problem, should create tools to fight fake news.
The crackdown on fake news, according to Cook, will eliminate clickbait articles and help put the spotlight on providers of quality journalism, resulting in the rise of truthful and reliable news articles.
The issue of fake news started gaining steam during the 2016 presidential election, with Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama citing the proliferation of fake news articles on social media as one of the reasons for the victory of President Donald Trump.
Cook Thinks Highly Of Augmented Reality
In another interview, this time with The Independent, Cook expressed his excitement on augmented reality technology. According to Cook, while virtual reality closes out the real world for users once they wear the headset, augmented reality allows users to remain present in the real world while the technology improves their surroundings.
Cook looks at augmented reality as a big idea similar to the smartphone. Cook says that the smartphone is technology that is for everyone, and he holds augmented reality in such regard.
Cook added that he looks at augmented reality not as a product, but rather as core technology, but there are still some improvements and developments that are needed to be made before augmented reality can be added to mainstream products such as the iPhone.
From Cook's comments, it would seem that the next iPhone will not yet be featuring augmented reality technology, nor is the company ready to unveil an augmented reality headset. However, it seems like that is the plan for Apple, especially with its hundreds of employees working on augmented reality and virtual reality applications.
