Monday, 12 February 2018

The Morning After: Cryptocurrency's million-dollar security woes

Engadget Email Newsletter

It's Monday, February 12, 2018.

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

Welcome back! Over the weekend, you may have missed the cost of Apple HomePod repairs (they’re not cheap) and more shaky security around crytocurrencies. We’ve also got the best coffee equipment you should have in your life -- which is well-timed, as I’ve had two weeks off the stuff, and I’m very, very ready to reacquaint myself with a cortado or two.

Friends might not panic if your phone dies.

Google Maps may let you share your battery-life status

Want to know if someone made it home safely but didn't know if they had enough battery life to stay in touch all the way? You might not fret quite so much about it in the future. Code spotted in a Google Maps beta for Android hints at sharing your remaining battery life alongside your location. You'd only get a generic range but this could be helpful if a friend's phone is running low on their way home from a night out. The code also alludes to sharing your mass-transit trips with others, including the exact time you arrive at a given stop.

It's an excessive but intriguing exploration of digital consciousness.

'Altered Carbon’ is more than just a 'Blade Runner’ ripoff

Altered Carbon is the very definition of a guilty pleasure. The show, adapted by Laeta Kalogridis from Richard Morgan's novel, isn't exactly well written. And, like most Netflix joints, it goes on for way too long. But it's gorgeous, it's filled with charismatic actors and its cyberpunk aesthetic feels like a '90s anime brought to life. (That's a good thing -- to Devindra Hardawar, at least.) Altered Carbon is simply a lot of fun. And while it owes an obvious debt to Blade Runner, our senior editor was surprised that underneath the ultraviolence and gratuitous Cinemax-esque sex scenes, it's also an intriguing exploration of where digital consciousness could take us.

You'll want to get AppleCare if you think an accident might happen.

HomePod repairs cost nearly as much as a new speaker

If you're getting a HomePod, be sure to place it somewhere safe... depending on what you break, it might be expensive to get a fix. Apple has updated its support pages to reveal that an out-of-warranty HomePod repair will cost $279 (£269). Throw in the shipping fee ($20 US or £13) for a mail-in repair and you're not far off the price of a brand new smart speaker. This is one of those times where the AppleCare extended warranty ($78 (£68) if you include the incident fee) might be warranted if you’re clumsy or have particularly speaker-curious kids. The HomePod, at least, is a static gadget where most control is done without touching the thing. Placing it out of reach sounds like the wisest option.

It's the second time a crypto exchange lost a massive amount this year -- and it's only February.

Italian cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail loses $170 million

One of the biggest problems with cryptocurrency exchanges is they're a juicy, enticing target for high-tech criminals. Case in point: Italian exchange BitGrail, which lost $170 million worth of Nano tokens, a little-known digital coin previously called RaiBlocks. BitGrail is the second exchange that lost a massive amount of money this year -- and it's only February -- following Tokyo-based Coincheck, which lost between $400 and $534 million worth of coins in a cyberattack on its internet-connected wallet back in January.

But wait, there's more...

1. Kendrick Lamar bans all cameras during his latest tour

2. 'Monsters Inc' is the next Pixar world coming to 'Kingdom Hearts 3'

3. The best espresso machine, grinder and accessories for beginners

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Saturday, 10 February 2018

Tech News Flash

Tech News Flash: Saturday -- February 10, 2018

TechNewsWorld -- All Tech - All The Time
http://www.TechNewsWorld.com
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Headline Scan
EHang Shows Off Passenger Drone's Flight Successes
Leak of Stale iOS Source Code Could Trigger Fresh Problems
New MIT Project to Probe Mysteries of Human Intelligence
With 4K HDR, Olympics May Be More Colorful Than Ever
Open Up the Source Code to Lock Down Your Data
Critics Love HomePod's Sound but Rap Its Smarts

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Today's Story Highlights

EHang Shows Off Passenger Drone's Flight Successes

EHang this week released footage of the latest test flights of its EHang
184 personal Autonomous Aerial Vehicle. The EHang 184 can transport a
single person at up to 130kph in Force 7 typhoon conditions, the company
said. EHang plans to further improve the passenger experience and add an
optional manual control so passengers with piloting experience can
operate the AAV manually.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/85127.html

Leak of Stale iOS Source Code Could Trigger Fresh Problems

Apple lawyers have sent a copyright violation notice to Github,
following the publication of leaked iOS 9 source code on the site.
Though iOS 9 is dated, it's possible that the leaked code could be used
to jailbreak older devices or worse. Publication of the code violated
Apple's rights under the DMCA, the attorneys wrote, demanding that the
iBoot source code be removed.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/85126.html

New MIT Project to Probe Mysteries of Human Intelligence

MIT last week launched the MIT Intelligence Quest, an initiative to find
out how human intelligence works, in engineering terms, and how a deeper
grasp of human intelligence can be applied to building wiser and more
useful machines. Life scientists, computer scientists, social scientists
and engineers will collaborate in the effort.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/85123.html

With 4K HDR, Olympics May Be More Colorful Than Ever

The parade of Olympic athletes entering Pyeongchang could be quite
colorful for a few reasons. Athletes from North and South Korea will
enter together for the first time in more than a decade, and viewers at
home will be able to see the ceremony and some events like never before.
NBCUniversal has decided to make the XXIII Olympic Winter games
available to cable and satellite partners in 4K HDR.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/85122.html

Open Up the Source Code to Lock Down Your Data

Meaningful security is more than an app or an OS. It's a mindset. Linux
security tools by themselves will not make you or anyone more secure.
Security requires trade-offs in convenience, so the tools I'll highlight
here are not recommended as "daily drivers." Only you can determine your
ideal balance point. Perhaps the single greatest strength of Linux is
that it is open source.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/85120.html

Critics Love HomePod's Sound but Rap Its Smarts

Critics have begun weighing in on Apple's HomePod smart speaker, and
they're loving the device's sound but don't have much affection for its
smarts. The HomePod's sound outclassed top-shelf competitor SonosOne,
according to Matthew Panzarino. "The HomePod was the 'best' sounding.
It's nuanced and subtle with great separation and clarity across all
kinds of music," he wrote.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/85118.html

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The Morning After: Weekend Edition

Engadget Email Newsletter

It's Saturday, February 10, 2018.

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

It’s been a busy week, with a successful SpaceX launch, Uber and Waymo’s legal tussle, and guides to both smartwatch buying decisions and cameras. Snap is now doing better business, and Twitter finally made a profit.

Watch this video with your sound turned on.

SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon Heavy rocket

After a brief delay, the most powerful rocket in the world launched yesterday afternoon. While the Falcon Heavy’s top portion (complete with Space Oddity-playing Tesla roadster and Starman aboard) is proceeding on a path that will take it beyond Mars’ orbit into the asteroid belt, two of its booster rockets safely returned to Earth. The center core, unfortunately, did not survive an attempted landing on a drone ship but overall the mission appears to be a success. So what’s next for Musk & Co.? The BFR.

The case is finally over.

Uber settles with Waymo over allegations of stolen trade secrets

The case between Uber and Waymo is over, and Uber is settling with Waymo over claims that the former stole trade secrets. The payout is a 0.34 percent equity stake in Uber to Waymo which totals around $245 million, according to CNBC. Waymo's accusation was that Uber stole trade secrets (some 14,000 files, allegedly) after engineer Anthony Levandowski left Uber to start Otto, the self-driving truck company that was then purchased by Uber in 2016 for $680 million.

Thanks to a major redesign, Snap’s future is looking bright for the first time in awhile.

Snapchat swaps mess for money

Snap Inc. took a major risk when it completely redesigned Snapchat a few months ago -- it's no secret that people don't like change. But after constantly struggling to add new users since going public last February, the company decided it needed to make adjustments to attract people and keep others coming back. The solution was to refine the app with an easier-to-use layout and to separate friends' posts from media content. Suddenly Snapchat became a more refined app.

You can do better than a pile of notifications on your wrist.

How to set up your smartwatch

Now that smartwatches are actually useful enough for the general populace, setting them up isn't as pedestrian a task as pairing with your phone and calling it a day. On the surface, customizing your new device may not seem like a complicated task, but people often overlook some of the tools that can potentially make wearables more helpful. From recommended settings to the apps worth downloading, here's a walkthrough of what you should look out for when setting up your new wearable.

We've entered a golden age of video and photography.

How to buy a camera in 2018

Stop waving your smartphone at me. Steve Dent takes a tour of the best cameras out there in 2018, running the full gamut from high-powered compacts to top-of-the-range DSLRs that would make fashion photographers recreate that thinking emoji. If you’re looking to upgrade, or are ready to step up from phone photography, here’s where you should be looking.