科技英语新闻:Apple software VP to testify at Congressional hearings on mobile privacy

SAN FRANCISCO, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Bud Tribble, Apple's vice president of software technology, will testify at the Congressional hearings on mobile privacy next week, according to the witness list released on Friday.

Tribble will represent Apple at the hearings of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. The hearings, entitled "Protecting Mobile Privacy: Your Smartphones, Tablets, Cell Phones and Your Privacy," is scheduled to take place next Tuesday in the wake of an iPhone location database controversy.

Tribble is one of the industry's top experts in software design and object-oriented programming, known for helping to design the Mac OS and user interface. He is considered as the right-hand man of Apple CEO Steve Jobs and has been with Jobs since they developed the original Macintosh. When Jobs was forced to resign from Apple in 1985, Tribble followed Jobs and co-founded another computer company NeXT Computer. He rejoined Apple and Jobs in 2002.

At the upcoming Congressional hearing, Tribble will be joined by Alan Davidson, Google's director of public policy for the Americas.

Apple has been under heavy fire after it was alleged last month that its iphones and other smart phones had been collecting customers' location information. In the wake of the controversy, U. S. senator Al Franken, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, scheduled the mobile privacy hearing and asked representatives from Apple and Google to testify.

Apple has denied the alleged practice and released software updates to make iPhone store less location information to quell public concerns over privacy.