Sky Kids is a simple tablet app for junior streamers

Kids have never been better served by content providers than they are today. Between Netflix, YouTube, DisneyLife and others, competition for the attention of younger members of the household is fierce. Not one to be left behind, Sky grew its on-demand library of kids TV significantly last year, not long before it revealed it was working on a standalone app to put it all in one place. And nine months later, the Sky Kids app is now ready for your tyke’s bumper-bound tablet.

Created with the help of digital design studio and Monument Valley developer ustwo, Sky Kids is a colourful and incredibly simple app. That’s intentional, with channel logos and lead characters populating a visually driven UI that keeps text to a minimum. Most of the app’s target demographic only have basic reading skills, after all. Parents can set up individual profiles for up to ten kids (good luck getting them to share), which all have personalised homescreens based on age and gender.

These homescreens suggest appropriate shows, highlight new content available on the service and group episodes based on specific themes. At the moment, there’s an Easter-themed section, though this will be swapped out for something else soon enough. Depending on the age of the child, parents can either give them full access to the complete Sky Kids catalogue, or only the providers making shows aimed at the very young.

This is the sum of parental controls for now, but Sky is working on adding usage limits with a special bedtime setting. Rather than simply telling children they’ve exhausted their cartoon allowance, the “Sky Buddy” character kids pick when they first load up the app will get sleepy and announce it’s too tired to keep streaming. There are other features still in development, too, including the ability to download shows for offline viewing.

Sticky fingers can navigate the app in various ways. Beyond the personalised start screen, the home button brings up a grid of channels to choose from, though these also exist in an infinite carousel that can be cycled through by swiping or prodding at on-screen arrow keys — the idea is that children never get “stuck” in the UI because they aren’t used to gestures, or buttons, or menus. The persistent player is equally simple, and kids can keep watching a show while they find what they want to put on next. Tap or swipe to expand the player and all you’ll find is a big play/pause button, a slider for skipping forward and backward, and a red “X” to minimise.

And.. that’s about it. There are no search or discovery features to complicate things. Just channels, shows and episodes, all available on-demand to anyone with a Sky subscription and the appropriate channel bundle. The Sky Kids app itself will be available to download on iOS and Android tablets from tomorrow, but the broadcaster has decided to do more than aggregation. Sky announced today that it will begin producing kids TV in-house, starting with new episodes of Morph — the clay character’s second comeback in as many years.

Source: Sky

ICYMI: A space-based full service stop, bat drone and more

Today on In Case You Missed It: DARPA’s own AAA satellite service to service satellites orbiting Earth could launch in about five years, if all the testing goes as planned. A new drone is based on the form of a bat and the resemblance is uncanny. And Google is helping robotic graspers learn hand-eye coordination by giving them new objects to pick up.

If you’ve followed along with some of the 3D-printed prosthetics we’ve done stories on, you’ll want to see this glitter shooting, darling girl. And as always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.

Spotify bets on debt to fund expansion

Spotify has raised $1 billion in a deal onlookers have called “strict” and “devilish.” Rather than another equity-based funding round, the money was raised through convertible bonds (i.e. debt), with some restrictive terms mostly tied to Spotify going public with an IPO. Investors will be able to convert their bonds to shares at a 20-percent discount within the next year. After that, if the IPO still hasn’t happened, that percentage will increase by 2.5 percent every six months. Additionally, as it’s debt, there’s interest to pay — 5 percent yearly, which similarly will increase every six months after a year, this time by one percent.

If you’re not interested in the exact terms, the summary is that Spotify has locked itself into a contract that will start getting much more costly after 12 months. After two years, for example, that $1 billion cash injection could cost the company some $1.25 billion worth of shares and more than $100 million in interest — it’s in the company’s best interest, then, to go public sooner rather than later.

As for what the money could be used for, the official line is that it’ll be spent on growth and marketing. While the latter term is clear, what exactly “growth” entails is nebulous. An acquisition of an embattled rival service like Pandora has been posited — such a deal would likely have to involve ramping up more debt or handing over equity, though. Recode’s Peter Kafka suggests it could be used to purchase more rights to expand the company’s efforts in video. The final, less interesting option, would be that the company is just making sure it has enough money to compete with Apple Music. It has a considerable lead over that service, but Apple’s coffers run very deep (even if they’re shallower than many suggest).

Whatever the reason, Spotify had “more than $600 million left” in the bank before the new cash injection, according to The Wall Street Journal. Adding another billion to that figure gives the company a considerable war chest for the year ahead.

Apple Supplier Foxconn Agrees to $3.5 Billion Takeover of Sharp

Apple’s primary manufacturer Foxconn has reached an agreement to purchase troubled Japanese electronics maker Sharp for a revised 389 billion Japanese yen, or roughly $3.5 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The two companies had originally settled on an estimated $6.2 billion takeover last month, but Foxconn put the deal on hold after discovering that Sharp had hundreds of billion of yen in “previously undisclosed liabilities.”

The deal, which is expected to be finalized on Saturday, should strengthen Foxconn’s position as both an electronics maker and assembler. Sharp has been one of Apple’s main LCD display suppliers for iPhones and iPads in recent years.

Foxconn has long been interested in producing displays, which are typically one of the most expensive components in iOS devices. The supplier entered into a strategic partnership with Sharp in 2012, but the deal was ultimately unsuccessful.

Apple could soon be shifting away from LCD displays, however, as recent rumors claim it plans to release at least one OLED-based iPhone as early as 2017, with display panels sourced from some combination of Japan Display, LG, and/or Samsung.

Tags: Foxconn, Sharp
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iPhone SE Orders Now Shipping Ahead of March 31 Launch

iPhone SE online orders, which commenced March 24, are now shipping to select customers in the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, and elsewhere, ahead of the new 4-inch smartphone’s official March 31 launch tomorrow in twelve countries and territories.

Multiple users tracking their iPhone SE shipments in the MacRumors discussion forums have received delivery estimates of between March 31 and April 4. As usual, it appears that UPS is Apple’s primary courier for orders placed in North America, while DPD is handling deliveries in the United Kingdom.

iPhone SE Order Tracking

→ United States
→ United Kingdom
→ Canada
→ General Discussion

iPhone SE should also be available tomorrow at Apple retail stores, and through AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and select other carriers. Authorized resellers like Best Buy may also have limited stock, generally on a first-come, first-served basis. Some retailers may accept reservations for in-store pickup.

Apple’s first wave launch countries for iPhone SE include the United States, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. Orders started March 29 in an additional 20 countries, with more to follow in early April.

Related Roundup: iPhone SE
Tag: Apple retail
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Huawei Mate S2 reported to feature cutting-edge curved display

The affordable yet advanced smartphone manufacturer Huawei may be about to start gunning for Samsung with its first curved display smartphone in the Mate S2.

According to reliable supply chain sources, analyst Sun Changxu claims, Huawei is working on the curved screen right now. But, unlike the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, this won’t curve at the sides. How it will curve has not been made clear.

This could mean we will see a smartphone with curved top and bottom edges – something useful when glancing at notifications from a pocket.

For context, the Mate S smartphone was announced as the world’s first pressure-sensitive display – ahead of Apple. So if this curved screen is to appear on its successor the Mate S2, as is suggested by the source, it will also likely be a high-end, cutting-edge offering. That’s why it’s unlikely to feature an entire screen curve like the LG or Samsung efforts of the past did, which didn’t do so well – unlike the more recent S6 and S7 edge phones which are very popular.

This would also suggest the Mate S2 will target the more expensive end of the market like the Mate S did with its price at around $800.

Rumours suggest we will hear more in September, which is when the first Mate S was announced in 2015.

READ: Huawei Mate S review: Yes mate!

Sky Kids app ‘Buddies’ bring TV and on demand fun to the little ones

Sky has announced its new Sky Kids app which aims to keep your children entertained. It will be available from 31 March, arriving just in time to help keep them busy over the Easter holiday.

The Sky Kids app, available for iPad and some Android tablets, will feature cartoon characters called Sky Buddies that guide the child through the experience. They will help find the thousands of live and on demand kids shows available which are all suitable for under nine year olds.

Thanks to personal account logins the app will be tailored to suit the user. Lucy Murphy, Sky’s head of kids content says: “It’s an intensively personal experience. Whether you’re a 3-year-old girl or an 8-year-old boy, when you open up the Sky Kids app, it will feel like yours.”

Sky has said it is committed to improving the app, already. It plans to offer the ability to download shows onto the device to watch later. It will also add new Buddies animations including yawning to show when it’s time for bed – something a parent can set so content shuts off at a certain time.

The Sky Kids app will be available from 31 April in both iOS and Android app stores and is free to Sky customers with a Variety bundle or higher.

READ: EE TV Recordings To Go enables mobile viewing, takes fight to Sky Q

Japan is trying to rescue its tumbling X-ray satellite

Japan’s JAXA space agency is struggling to figure out what happened to its Astro-H “Hitomi” satellite after it lost contact on Saturday. Radar data from the US Strategic Command’s Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) initially showed that several parts may have broken off and JAXA’s radar has spied at least one separated piece. Yesterday, scientists received intermittent signals from the craft, showing that it might be at least partially functional. However, amateur video now appears to show the $360 million X-ray telescope-equipped craft tumbling through space.

A video shot by amateur astronomer Paul Maley (below) shows the satellite flickering as it streaks across the field of view. That likely indicates that the satellite is spinning as sunlight flickers off of its solar panels and other reflective surfaces. “The fact that it is rotating with extreme variations in brightness indicates that it is not controlled and that some event caused it to begin its rotation,” Maley tells National Geographic.

Speculation about the cause of the problem has ranged from a battery explosion to a gas leak to a collision with debris or a small meteorite. The news is obviously bad for JAXA and its partners, including NASA and the ESA, particularly since Japan lost its previous two Astro X-ray satellites. At this point, JAXA can’t even diagnose the craft’s state of health from the brief signals it received. However, the pieces that broke off may be insulation or other non-essential parts and JAXA says it’s doing “its best to recover communications with Hitomi,” and possibly rescue the craft.

Via: Space.com

Source: JAXA

EE TV lets you download recordings to phones and tablets

EE TV is a combination of free-to-view TV channels, DVR-style recording and on-demand apps like BBC iPlayer and Now TV. Today, it’s being updated with “Recordings to Go,” a new feature that lets customers watch their saved programmes on the move. You can set and manage TV recordings through the EE TV app, which are then handled by the EE box in your living room. Once they’ve been recorded, you can download them to your phone or tablet over your home’s WiFi network, making them accessible anywhere and, perhaps more importantly, offline.

Recording and playback should work for all of EE’s roughly 70 free-to-view TV channels. Better yet, there are no time restrictions — so unlike BBC iPlayer, you can record The Night Manager and watch it indefinitely. EE has also updated its mobile app today so the guide experience is the same across your set-top box, phone and tablet. It’s a small change, but one that should make the entire experience feel just a little more cohesive.

EE TV is still a niche proposition. That’s because it’s exclusive to EE’s broadband customers, ruling out anyone with a BT, Sky or Virgin Media connection. It’s a nice EE extra that could tempt people to switch — especially those who are disinterested in expensive satellite TV packages. But there are other ways to get free-to-view TV and DVR functionality in your living room, which is why today’s mobile access is so important for EE. Recordings to Go is a pretty unique selling point, and one the company should market heavily in order to boost its slim subscriber base.

Source: EE (Press Release)

Drones deliver sterile insects to tackle disease in Ethiopia

To combat disease-ridden tsetse flies in Africa, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is enlisting heavy-duty drones. An autonomous system has been developed by Embention, which can fly for up two hours at a cruise speed of 20 meters per second. Under each wing is a stack of temperature controlled pods, each containing a swarm of sterile male insects. These little creatures have been pummelled with gamma radiation, courtesy of the IAEA, while they were bred in captivity. Once they’re in the wild, they mate ferociously with the native population, producing no offspring and consequentially lowering the tsetse fly population.

“The wild population will decline progressively,” Argiles-Herrero, an IAEA scientist working on the drone project said. “The survivors are overwhelmed with more sterile males every week, at a ration of 10:1, so in the end the population cannot recover and can eventually be eradicated.”

The approach could be replicated with manned aircraft, but there are benefits to using the drones. First of all, they’re cheaper to use, given their size and autonomous flight capabilities. They’re also more effective because they can fly lower than their manned equivalent. Embention’s system is convenient too, as it can be programmed to drop the insects at different rates depending on the area. So if the region has a particularly high tsetse fly population, the drone can up its dosage accordingly. Otherwise, it will simply drop the boxes at predefined coordinates.

The drones are being tested in Ethiopia, where tsetse flies affect at least 200,000 square kilometers of fertile land. Embention and the IAEA are working with the Ethiopian Ministry of Livestock and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation to fine-tune the system. If it’s successful, the autonomous planes could be rolled out further, tackling the problem in wider areas. That would slow the spread of trypanosomosis, commonly known as sleeping sickness, and ultimately save human lives.

Via: Popular Science, Motherboard

Source: Drones Against Tsetse