Wednesday 28 December 2016

Tech News Flash

Tech News Flash: Wednesday -- December 28, 2016

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Headline Scan
2017: More Apple Security Flaws, Cyberattacks, Hacktivisim
2016: The Year That Was
Fact-Checking the President-Elect's Tweets
Gadget Ogling: Heightened Hearing, Toasty Toes, and Glass Speakers

Today's Story Highlights

2017: More Apple Security Flaws, Cyberattacks, Hacktivisim

More security vulnerabilities will appear in the software of Adobe and
Apple than in Microsoft's, more attacks on the Internet's infrastructure
will occur, and cybersecurity events will stoke international tensions.
Those are a few of the predictions for 2017 that security experts have
made. Signs of hackers' increased interest in Adobe and Apple started
appearing in 2016, Trend Micro noted.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/84192.html

2016: The Year That Was

2016 really was a year like no other. We had yet another election
defined by the misuse of analytics -- and folks seem to be getting worse
rather than better at this. We had a rush to robotics, particularly
self-driving cars, and some firms even leaped ahead to self-flying,
people-delivering drones. We had a wave of fake news, mostly paid for by
Google, because that company has no compass.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/84191.html

Fact-Checking the President-Elect's Tweets

Fact-checking President-elect Donald Trump can be a chore, even for
people paid to do it. The Washington Post wants to make it less so, with
add-ons to the popular Chrome and Firefox browsers. The browser
extension, RealDonaldContext, is available from the Chrome Web Store or
the Mozilla Foundation. Once installed, the extension displays any fact-
checking the Post may have done.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/84190.html

Gadget Ogling: Heightened Hearing, Toasty Toes, and Glass Speakers

Bose's latest earbuds are designed to help you tune in to the specific
sounds you want to hear. Hearphones are a sort of blend of noise-
cancelling earbuds and hearing aids. There are several presets in the
app, with names like "focused conversation," "gym," "airplane" and
"television." You can opt to crank up the volume on all sound from the
world around you or turn it down.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/84189.html

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The Morning After: Mech suits are here, and Amazon's Echo gets caught up in a murder case.

It's Wednesday, December 28, 2016.

Hey, good morning! Suit up!

It’s Wednesday and we’re talking about an Amazon talking speaker that’s involved in a murder case, artificial intelligence making smarter game opponents (and Samsung phones), and a giant robot that you can get inside and pilot. My Christmas presents suddenly don’t look so hot. Yes, I’m an ungrateful swine.

Your IoT devices can and will be used against you in a court of law

Police seek Amazon Echo data in murder case

In the first such case we’ve heard of, police requested audio data from Amazon. The recordings they sought could have been captured by an Echo speaker, for use in a first-degree murder. While Amazon apparently declined the request, it raises more questions about the presence and potential complications of always-listening virtual assistants.

In this case, however, the police may rely on a different IoT log to close their case. A smart water meter that showed 140 gallons used that night, which prosecutors are alleging was used to wash away evidence.

Looking for a MilSpec Yoga?

Lenovo’s latest ThinkPads are bloatware-free

In a pre-CES announcement, Lenovo is showing off some new laptops, but the most important detail is what they don’t have: bloatware. In a move that can speed up performance and ease concerns about built-in security flaws, this new mid-tier line of Thinkpads are all Microsoft Signature Edition, shipping with just the basic stuff. They also have 7th generation Intel Core CPUs and some are even packing speedy Optane 3D storage.

Great. An even harder 'Dark Souls'.

One gamesmaker bought an AI startup to make smarter baddies

Bandai Namco, the games publisher behind Tekken, Dark Souls and a whole bunch of Dragonball games, has invested in an artificial intelligence startup. The team at Heroz have an algorithm for shogi (Japanese chess) that's bested several professional human players in public matches. Bandai Namco is hoping to tap into that know-how to improve its non-playing character behavior in future titles. The AI startup had already dabbled in a Pokémon card game, but it was no Pokémon Go. (As in, not a mega-hit.)

It's not too late to save on the latest smartphones. Shop now.

Robot knows best

Samsung's next Galaxy S phone might use AI across all its apps

Speaking of AI, we may have got a better sense of Samsung’s already-teased Galaxy S8 assistant. A SamMobile source claims that a voice-guided helper (reportedly named Bixby) will have a presence in all of the phone's Samsung-made apps. You could use it in the Gallery app to show you photos of the beach, for example. Not a radical development when both Google Photos and iOS 10 can already do it -- but at least it looks likely to replace S Voice, Samsung's creaky in-house voice command feature.

Exploding phones and washing machines will have that effect.

Samsung's 2016 went up in smoke

The story oh Samsung’s year is how thing went wrong. Its deep cash reserves could handle a hit from two different lines of malfunctioning products, but what’s harder to rebuild is its reputation. Nearly everyone has heard about its Galaxy Note 7 issue, and the company still hasn’t answered the question of why its phones were exploding.

Say hello to the Method-2.

South Korean company builds “world's first manned bipedal robot”

Mechs aren’t just for Gundam and Pacific Rim anymore, now that Hankook Mirae Technology has shown off a real one. It’s not especially useful at the moment, but it is just as cool-looking as we’d imagined, and could serve as a testbed for mech technology going forward.

But wait, there's more...

1. What to watch this week: NYE countdowns on Netflix, bowl games, "Snowden" and "Sherlock"

2. House Republicans propose fines for members who livestream from the floor

3. Facebook Safety Check erroneously says a bomb exploded in Bangkok

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Tuesday 27 December 2016

The Morning After: Apple's artificial intelligence research and 2016's worst gadgets

It's Tuesday, December 27, 2016.

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

Welcome back from the long weekend. In the midst of all that egg-nog, present opening and family router troubleshooting, you might have missed Apple’s first published AI research, the worst gadgets of the year, and the latest Chinese luxury smartphone that goes all-in on battery.

No, you’re the worst.

The worst gadgets of 2016

Sidestepping the rest of the bad news that 2016 managed to deliver, there were some stinkers when it came to this year’s new gadgets. Smoking (then exploding) phones, plain racist app photo filters, excessively overpriced smartwatches and those dongles.

It’s all about object recognition.

Apple reveals its work on artificial intelligence

When Apple said it would publish its artificial intelligence research, we had a few questions: Would the company keep potential trade secrets close to the vest? What exactly is the company working on? Well, in its first published AI paper, it outlined the issues with teaching AI to recognize objects using simulated images, which are easier to use than photos (since you don't need a human to tag items) but poor for adapting to real-world situations. Apple says the trick is to pit neural networks against each other: one network trains itself to improve the realism of simulated images (in this case, using photo examples) until they're good enough to fool a rival "discriminator" network. Ideally, this pre-training would save massive amounts of time. It's still far too early to say how this will make its way to Apple’s assembled collection of goods or services. For now.

Big battery, big price tag.

China's latest luxury phone goes all-in on battery life

China’s Gionee is taking a different approach with its new big-screened premium phone: it's giving you one huge feature that might help to excuse its ‘luxury’ price tag. It just launched the M2017, a metal-and-leather 5.7-inch phone that houses an enormous 7,000mAh battery. Possibly a bigger battery than your tablet. When the M2017 goes on sale in China on January 6th (an international release isn't likely), it'll start at about $1,007 for a 128GB version and jump to $2,500 for a 256GB model. Not the most expensive smartphone, but likely more than that iPhone 7 Plus model you were eyeing up in the new year sales.

It's not too late to save on the latest smartphones. Shop now.

Floating egg.

LG has a floating speaker ready for 2017

Levitating (and magical) Bluetooth speakers have been around for years, but LG is the first major electronics company to throw a product in the ring, and is doing so with its classy-looking, albeit blandly named, "Levitating Portable Speaker," which will make its debut at CES in January. The company promises 10 hours of playback, although it looks like we’ll have to wait for the big tech show in a week to pin down a price.

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