Thursday, 26 April 2018

The Morning After: Cyborg dragons, Facebook's AI and hate speech

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It's Thursday, April 26, 2018.

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

Facebook is still making money. Samsung’s made record profits and Elon Musk tweets about building a cyborg dragon. Of course. Oh, and the latest pro-gamer recruit is a 13-year-old ‘Fortnite’ player.

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But slow OLED sales suggest bad news for the iPhone X.

Samsung shows record profits

The South Korean giant just reported its fourth straight quarter of record-breaking operating profit, but the key note is about sales of mobile OLED displays. They were weaker than expected, which, combined with reports from other companies that make iPhone parts, suggest Apple’s high-end device didn’t sell quite as many units as anticipated. But for Samsung, things look good, with high Galaxy S9 sales and updated products like a new Galaxy Note, 8K TV and MicroLED display on track for release later this year.

Okay.

Zuckerberg: It’s easier for AI to detect nipples than hate speech

Facebook’s Q1 earnings showed the company can still make more money and attract more users year-on-year despite all that controversy. During a Q&A session with Mark Zuckerberg and other executives, the CEO fielded a question on artificial intelligence's role in automatically detecting harmful content on the platform. Its AI isn't so good at catching hate speech, but has done a great job intercepting terrorist content. Zuckerberg added:"It's much easier to build an AI system to detect a nipple than it is to detect hate speech."

Given the platform's history of banning, then begrudgingly allowing, breastfeeding and nudity in iconic photos, it might not come as a surprise. But it’s also an unusual thing to mention after an earnings report.

Borrowing from George RR.

Elon Musk: 'Oh btw I’m building a cyborg dragon'

What are you talking about, Elon?

So, is he allowed to play during class?

Pro-gaming team signs 13-year-old ‘Fortnite’ player

While age restrictions might lock Kyle "Mongraal" Jackson out of competition in a (hypothetical) official Fortnite league run by developer Epic Games, there are other tournaments where the 13-year-old can show off his skills. Team Secret CEO John Yao told ESPN that “I actually had no idea he was 13 until the team told me… What immediately stood out to me was how mature he was, and he sounded just like one of the other guys."

But lots of crossovers, SUVs and trucks.

Soon, Ford will only sell two kinds of cars in North America

Ford is scaling back its small-car lineup in North America to just two vehicles, the Mustang and the unrevealed Focus Active crossover, in the "next few years." While the brand wasn't too specific beyond that, it noted it was adding hybrid powerplants to many of its vehicles, ranging from the Mustang to historical gas guzzlers like the Explorer and F-150. It reiterated it'll launch its first all-electric vehicle (the Mach 1 SUV) in 2020, and it’d have 16 EV models on the market by 2022.

Police an alternate-reality internet from an arcane operating system.

This is pretty much GeoCities: The Game

If you used the internet in the mid-to-late ’90s, you probably remember GeoCities. It was all bright, garish web pages full of animated glitter and barely readable text. The old web-hosting service is now the inspiration for an upcoming adventure game called Hypnospace Outlaw. You're tasked with finding the pages and corresponding users that are breaking the company's rules. Each investigation is a unique text-based puzzle. The process and solutions, of course, are a mystery for now. In an interview, developer Jay Tholen hinted that page tags and a search engine will play a crucial role, however. "There are other weird ways to solve the puzzles," he said, "but I don't want to spoil the conceits of those."

It could give a user access to an entire hotel within minutes.

Researchers create device that opens hotel doors with old keycards

Researchers at cybersecurity firm F-Secure have designed a device that can pull data from hotel keycards and essentially create a master key for an entire hotel. The keycard doesn't even have to be in use. The device can give the user access to pretty much any room in the hotel in just a matter of minutes. "It can be your own room key, a cleaning staff key, even to the garage or workout facility," said F-Secure's Tomi Tuominen. "We can even do it in an elevator if you have your key in your front pocket; we can just clone it from there."

But wait, there's more...

1. Adidas' NYC-inspired shoe was designed using data from runners

2. Philips' huge 4K monitor is the first with super-bright HDR

3. Rumored 'YouTube Remix' could mean the end of Google Play Music

4. Volvo's Polestar 1 luxury hybrid will cost $155,000

5. Police take down the world's largest DDoS-for-hire service

6. The latest Harry Potter mobile game puts Hogwarts in your pocket

7. Amazon made a kid-friendly Alexa with an Echo Dot to match

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Wednesday, 25 April 2018

ECT News Network Weekly Newsletter

ECT News Network Weekly Newsletter: Wednesday -- April 25, 2018

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Amazon, Best Buy Unite on Smart TV Strategy
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This Week's Top News Headlines From TechNewsWorld

'Holy Grail' Exploit Puts Nintendo Switch Consoles at Risk
(Posted 25-Apr-18)
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A Home Robot Could Be Amazon's Next Gamble
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With Custom Skills, Alexa Inches Closer to Being One of the Family
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Facebook Rolls Out European-Style Privacy Protections
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The Electronics Industry: A Pawn in the US vs. China Chess Game
(Posted 19-Apr-18)
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This Week's Top News Headlines From CRM Buyer

SalesHero's Robin Takes On New AI Sales Assistant Job
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Hybrid Messaging Key to Upselling Success: Report
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This Week's Top News Headlines From LinuxInsider

Microsoft Calls On Linux for Its New IoT Security Platform
(Posted 22-Apr-18)
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Nix This Innovative OS for Its Uninviting Complexity
(Posted 19-Apr-18)
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The Morning After: Gmail gets an overdue redesign

Engadget Email Newsletter

It's Wednesday, April 25, 2018.

Hey, good morning!

It’s the middle of the week? Already? Well, we advise you take a peek at Gmail’s new look and get ready for a slew of earnings reports later today that will include Facebook, Twitter, AT&T and LG.

We're upgrading Engadget's daily newsletter and want to hear from you. Tell us exactly what you think by emailing us at themorningafter(at)engadget.com.

An electric BMW sleeper that’s ready for the mall.

BMW’s Concept iX3 dials back the futuristic styling

Say hello to the pure electric Concept iX3, a vehicle that in one form or another will eventually make its way into production. Other than a few design tweaks and an off-white matte paint job, the crossover looks like an X3. That's the point. Launched with two very different and equally polarizing vehicles, the i brand includes the urban i3 and the i8 hybrid supercar. The futuristic design was off-putting to some. "It's difficult with such niche products to reach the main customers in the wide range," Domagoj Dukec head of the design team for BMW i and M vehicles said during the unveiling.

They’ve smoothed out the body to reduce wind resistance and removed the iconic BMW "kidney" grill (found at the front of all the automaker's cars) -- the radiator doesn’t need an air feed, after all, and without it, the vehicle's aerodynamics lower, too. One thing that will differentiate the Concept iX3 is its color: blue. Even the space where you would typically see the exhaust now has blue rectangles.

A fresh coat of paint and a ton of new features.

Gmail’s big redesign helps you spend less time in your inbox

Gmail has become the email service of choice for innumerable people since it first went live in 2004. New features have popped up at a steady clip ever since, but we haven't really seen a big redesign since 2011. Whispers started cropping up earlier this month of another considerable overhaul, which Google is formally revealing today. The bulk of the overhaul is designed to make Gmail a more productive place for business users. But the updates apply to Gmail as a whole, so there's plenty for the rest of us to play around with, too.

The app is now all about personalized playlists.

A first look at Spotify’s redesigned free mobile experience

As rumored, Spotify unveiled a redesigned app geared toward users of its free music-streaming service. The new mobile experience is all about personalized on-demand listening, with 15 playlists curated by Spotify based on your listening habits. That includes sets like the Daily Mix, which feature songs you've "hearted" (aka liked) and Discover Weekly, to help you expand your music taste with artists and tracks you may not be too familiar with. The Release Radar playlist, meanwhile, will let you keep up with all the new music popping up on the service. Spotify says that the more songs you heart or hide, the smarter its playlists will get and others will begin to populate as a result.

The company says its new approach, one not based simply on shuffling tracks (though you can still do that), should keep its more-than-90-million free users locked in to the app.

Key In-Car saves you from driving home to get your package.

Amazon can deliver packages to the inside of your car

Amazon Key's in-home delivery is all well and good (if rather creepy), but there's an obvious caveat: You have to go home to get it. Amazon’s new Key In-Car service lets couriers deliver packages to the trunk of your vehicle as long as it's in a publicly accessible parking space. You'll need a 2015 or newer GM-made or Volvo car with an internet-savvy account (OnStar or Volvo On Call), making it a relatively niche audience, but after that it's relatively seamless. The delivery driver requests access to your car, and you'll get a notification when the package is in your car and the courier has locked it. If you’re a little nervous about that, Amazon notes that the driver never gets a special code or key, so they won't have access to your vehicle beyond a given delivery.

The Z06 Carbon 65 is what happens when raw horsepower meets computing.

The 65th anniversary Corvette is a performance beast for data nerds

The Corvette is 65 years old. Typically, in your sixties, you slow down. You relax. The 2018 Z06 Carbon 65 convertible is doing none of those things. If anything, Chevrolet has produced one of the best Corvettes ever. It's fast (duh), but thanks to lightweight materials and an onboard data tracking system, the Vette is ready for a new generation of drivers to take the wheel. Just be ready to drop a lot of cash. All of it.

Sorry, Naruto, you can't legally own the copyright to your selfie.

Selfie-snapping monkey loses copyright infringement case (again)

The copyright battle over who owns that famous simian selfie taken by a macaque monkey in Indonesia apparently didn't end last year. On Monday, an appeals court affirmed the lower court's decision that Naruto, the seven-year-old crested macaque in the selfie, can't file a copyright claim for the photo. "[W]e conclude that this monkey -- and all animals, since they are not human -- lacks statutory standing under the Copyright Act," Judge N. Randy Smith wrote in the ruling.

The Big Picture

Hubble flies through the Milky Way's 'raucous star nursery'

NASA has unveiled a new fly-through video of the Lagoon Nebula, in the center of the Milky Way. NASA calls it a "raucous star nursery" full of dust and star formation with Herschel 36, a star 200,000 times larger than our sun, at its center.

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