Nest major update: Phone geo-tracking added, family accounts introduced

Nest has introduced a major update to its app and services today, adding family accounts for up to 10 individual users per account and phone-based geo-tracking for smarter auto-home/away activation.

As long-time users of the Nest Learning Thermostat, Nest Cam home monitoring camera and Nest Protect smoke alarm products we’ve been waiting what feels like an age for location-based information to be introduced for smarter learning. 

Until now it’s been all too easy for the Learning Thermostat to think you’re away from home when you’re not, by simply not walking past it enough. That’s all about to change: version 5.3 of the app will breathe new life into the Nest family of products, by monitoring your – and those in your family account’s – location.

But that’s not the sole way the system will decide whether you’re at home or not: the products will continue to use their sensors to detect for home presence, should, say, you have a guest over freezing half to death.

By introducing geo-tracking any Works with Nest product – from Philips Hue lights to Yale locks and beyond – will get smarter without the necessity of a Nest Learning Thermostat being installed too. Nest Cam also adds a privacy feature, preventing constant motion-based recording when you or your family are at home, if you wish.

Nest says this geo-tracking technology won’t be tracking you non-stop, therefore avoiding draining battery life of your phone. It also promises that the system will continue to get better and better over time thanks to these new features.

The Nest app is available for iOS and Android and version 5.3 will be available to download for free after 14:00 on 10 March. We’ll be updating our full reviews once we’ve determined how much of a difference it makes to the Nest experience.

Sony admits Oculus Rift is technically better than PlayStation VR

With Oculus, HTC, Samsung and Sony all set to take on one another in the battle for virtual reality dominance, it’s obvious that consumers will assess the strengths and weaknesses of each product. Take into account what they need to run: both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive require high-end gaming PCs, Sony’s only needs the modestly powerful PlayStation 4, while the Gear VR just asks for a compatible smartphone.

It’s perhaps best, then, that the executives behind the headsets are honest about what their products are capable of. That’s the approach from PlayStation executive vice president Masayasu Ito, who admitted in a recent interview with Polygon that the PlayStation VR will not match the VR quality of the Oculus Rift.

“If you just talk about the high-end quality, yes, I would admit that Oculus may have better VR,” Ito said. “However, it requires a very expensive and very fast PC.” It could be perceived as a damning statement, but it’s true. If you look at the specification sheets provided by Oculus and HTC, both companies require an Intel i5 processor or greater, an NVIDIA GTX 970 graphics card as the bare minimum and at least 4GB of RAM. While you can mix up parts and and build your own rig with the very lowest specifications to save money, you’re not going to get much change out of $1,000 for a decent PC.

The PlayStation 4, on the other hand, costs less than a third of that. But Sony executives aren’t going to lie and say the console can go toe-to-toe with a high-specced gaming PC, either. “The biggest advantage for Sony is our headset works with PS4,” notes Ito. “It’s more for everyday use, so it has to be easy to use and it has to be affordable. This is not for the person who uses a high-end PC. It’s for the mass market.”

When compared side-by-side, the Oculus Rift does beat its console-centric rival with its higher screen resolution (2160 × 1200 vs 1920 x 1080) and wider field of view (110 degrees vs 100 degrees), but the PlayStation VR does have a slightly better refresh rate. We still don’t know how much the headset will cost, but Sony’s Andrew House has said it will priced like “a new gaming platform,” which likely puts it around the $300-$400 mark. For reference: the Rift costs $599 and the Vive is priced at $799.

With 35 million PS4 sales already in the bag, Sony hopes that a cheaper, albeit less powerful, VR package will give it the advantage. We only have to wait until next Tuesday (March 15th) to learn more about what Sony has planned for PlayStation VR — hopefully that’ll include a launch date and price.

Via: MCV

Source: Polygon

ICYMI: Music with your eyes, 3D print everything and more

Today on In Case You Missed It: An engineer built a DIY musical instrument for people with disabilities, helping them create music with an eyetracking device. Two 3D-printed bits of technology caught our attention: One is for flesh, the other graphene aerogel. We are also reviewing a messenger app and a Kickstarter campaign for a speaker that basically makes us crazy.

As always, please share any interesting science or tech videos, anytime! Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag to @mskerryd.

Hyperloop deal would link three European capitals

One of the companies vying to make Elon Musk’s transportation dream a reality has signed a deal with the government of Slovakia to explore building a three-country Hyperloop. Crowdsourced engineering project Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) will look into a route that links three European capitals. From Vienna, Austria to Bratislava, Slovakia, and from Bratislava to Budapest, Hungary.

While the idea of a three-country Hyperloop might seem extreme, the distances between the three cities is actually fairly trivial. Vienna to Bratislava is a 35-mile straight line, or 50 miles by current transport routes. Bratislava to Budapest is a 100-mile straight line, or 125 miles by transport. Both are well within the realm of possibility.

HTT suggests the Vienna link would shuttle passengers between the two cities in eight minutes, while the Budapest link would take ten minutes. It also believes there’s potential for a link with Slovakia’s second-largest city, Košice, which lies 248 miles away. All three possibilities are just that: possibilities. This agreement will assess the viability of each, and put forward a (hopefully fully budgeted) proposal to be financed.

HTT is one of two entities seriously pursuing the Hyperloop dream. It’s crowdsourced not in the Kickstarter (i.e. finance) sense, but rather in the spirit of collaboration between independent scientists, designers and engineers. The group is currently planning to build a five-mile test loop in the California new town Quay Valley, which it hopes will be operational in 2018. The similarly named Hyperloop Technologies is backed by venture capital, and has broken ground on a test site in North Las Vegas, Nevada.

Nest devices get better at knowing when you’re home

If you’re a Nest owner, you’ve probably experienced the company’s thermostat flipping itself to Away mode while you were still home. Most likely, that’s because someone didn’t walk past the motion sensor on the tech in a timely fashion. Thankfully, Nest announced two new features that will improve the the gadgets’ ability to tell when someone’s home. First, there’s a new Home/Away Assist that uses your phone’s location in addition to the motion sensors and software algorithms inside the household gear.

Worried the Nest app will keep tabs on your location at all times? The company reiterates that it keeps user privacy a top priority and the Home/Away Assist will only ping your phone to determine if you’re home. What’s more, that info is kept secure via an encrypted connection.

There’s a second new feature that also lends a hand with improving accuracy: Family Accounts. Before now, you had to share a log-in in order for everyone to have access to a thermostat, smoke detector or camera. With the new Family Accounts, up to 10 folks can use their own sign-in credentials inside the Nest app. Those individual log-ins will also help with the Home/Away Assist by only switching to Away mode when everyone leaves the house.

With the new changes, you should see performance improvements across Nest’s entire line of products. The Nest Cam will be a better security camera now that it has a better idea of when you leave and return. Nest Protect can run that monthly sound check while you’re at the office instead of potentially interrupting your evening. Works with Nest devices will get a boost as well, so those smart lights are less likely to turn off when you’re still sitting in on the couch. The new features are available now, so grab the latest version of the iOS and Android apps to see how well they work.

Source: Nest

Hackers tried and failed to steal a billion dollars from bank

Hackers stole $80 million from a bank, but it could have been a lot worse if they had just Googled the name of a company, according to Reuters. Thieves got inside servers of the Bangladesh Bank, stealing the credentials used to make online transfers. They then bombarded the Federal Reserve Bank in New York with up to 13 money transfer requests to organizations in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. The Fed allowed four to go through totaling $81 million, but the next one was flagged by a routing bank in Germany because the hackers misspelled “foundation” as “fandation.”

Once alerted, officials put a stop to the the remaining transfers, which amounted to nearly $850 million. The $81 million theft is still one of the largest ever, but if all the transfers had gone through, it would have been one of the biggest heists on record. Last year, Russian hackers reportedly got away with up to $1 billion from 100 banks using malware.

Meanwhile, Bangladeshi officials are trying to lock down their systems and figure out how the attack happened, but say there’s little hope the hackers and money will be recovered. As with many large-scale attacks, experts told Reuters that the thieves likely targeted and spied on employees to gain access to servers. While the bank blames the US Federal Reserve Bank for not stopping the transfers, Fed officials say that it’s systems were not breached and that it has been cooperating in the investigation. Luckily, hackers are just as bad at spelling in large fraud attempts as they are in basic spear-phishing attacks.

Source: Reuters

Apple Music Radio Tab Updated With Dynamic Beats 1 Banner

Apple has rolled out a small but notable update to the Radio tab in Apple Music, removing the static Beats 1 logo at the top of the landing page and replacing it with a new UI that dynamically updates to the currently-airing live radio show (via 9to5Mac). In addition to the title, the tab will update with new artwork and the airing location of the show.

The change also brings more direct UI cues for users to navigate through the Radio tab, with a “Listen Now” button under the currently airing show and the less-hidden option to “Explore Beats 1.”

The Radio tab before (left) and after the update (right)
Before the update, the Radio tab had a simple, unchanging Beats 1 logo with a “Listen Now” button that users could tap to jump directly into whatever was airing at the moment without exactly knowing what that would be.

The app also gave users the opportunity to explore more information by delving into a secondary menu that listed live shows and upcoming hosts and interviews on Apple’s radio channel. Some might not have even known about the auxiliary menu, since there was no UI hint to its existence – tapping anywhere on the Beats 1 logo launched it. Now “Explore Beats 1” should help guide more users to the scheduling menu.

Anyone on iOS 9.2.1 — or the beta iOS 9.3 seed — should see the Beats 1 update, but a quick multitasking-enabled close of Apple Music will help it show up if you aren’t seeing it. As of writing, no similar update was seen on the Mac version of Apple Music.

Tags: Apple Music, Beats 1
Discuss this article in our forums

PDF Expert Updated With Handoff Support

Readdle has updated PDF Expert with Handoff support, allowing users to start working on iPhone or iPad and easily pick up on Mac where they left off.

To transfer a PDF document from an iPhone or iPad to Mac, click on the Handoff button in PDF Expert for Mac and select the file. Handoff will automatically transfer the PDF document to the desktop, including all annotations and edits. The iPhone or iPad must be on the same Wi-Fi network as the Mac.

PDF Expert is a popular iOS app for reading, annotating, signing, editing, and merging PDF documents. Readdle launched a Mac version of the app last November, which was selected as an “App of the Year” runner-up by Apple in 2015. Readdle is now working on PDF Expert for Mac 2.0, which will include OCR and PDF text editing.

PDF Expert 5 for iOS is $9.99 on the App Store, while PDF Expert for Mac is on sale for $19.99. Readdle says the Mac version is currently 70% off and will return to its regular $59.99 price tomorrow. A free seven day trial is also available. PDF Expert for Mac 2.0 will be a free update for existing users.

Tags: Handoff, app, Mac apps, PDF Reader
Discuss this article in our forums

News Republic makes worldwide news more social in the latest app update

News Republic, one of the largest news providers in the world, has updated its iOS and Android apps with some exciting new features. Version 6 brings to the table the same worldwide news access many have come to know and love, but now users of the platform have access to publications from 53 countries in a staggering 37 languages.

More than 50,000 stories are published, 40,000 photos shared and 1,500 videos curated every day from licensed partners. But there’s certainly more to the news than the story itself and now News Republic is more socially savvy than ever before. Not only will the apps now recommend content tailored to your interests, but you’ll also be able to see what those around you are recommending, commenting on and reacting to.

“News Republic now also connects its readers with Expert super-users on the topics they care about. Rather than just have the media dictate the topics of the day, the community of readers decides what’s important to them, amplifying both the relevance and discoverability of news content.”

While using the app, News Republic will also be remaining in the loop of what readers care about through the use of pulse polls. These short surveys will be published covering a manner of topics that can gauge just how the community feels about that particular subject. It’s a neat app that certainly warrants a download to try it out, and this update improves not only the user experience but also the way in which one can connect with each story.

You can download News Republic from the Google Play Store.

LG G5 is now available for pre-order at Amazon UK for £529

The LG G5 is now available for pre-order at Amazon UK. The latest flagship from LG was announced back at Mobile World Congress and offers a premium experience for those looking to spend a fair number of coins on a new smartphone.

Running Android 6.0.1, the LG G5 has a Snapdragon 820 processor, 5.3-inch IPS display with a resolution of 2560×1440, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. Available in grey and rose gold, the smartphone will be made available on April 8 for £529.

See at Amazon UK

LG G5

• LG G5 hands-on
• LG G5 complete specs
• LG G5 CAM Plus module
• LG G5 B&O Hi-Fi audio module
• The G5 has an always-on display
• LG G5 keeps the SD card, shuns adoptable storage
• Join the LG G5 discussion