Fix Britain’s Internet: ISPs campaign to tear BT and Openreach apart
After reviewing the tangled relationship between BT and its broadband infrastructure subsidiary Openreach for more than a year, Ofcom yesterday put forward its plan to create a greater distinction between the two businesses. Under the proposals, Openreach would become “a legally separate company,” whilst remaining under the BT Group umbrella; a move Ofcom says is the most cost-effective and least disruptive way of giving Openreach greater independence. But — surprise, surprise — BT competitors, which are also Openreach customers, believe Ofcom hasn’t gone far enough.
Ofcom wants Openreach to have its own board, its own directors and its own CEO, with none of these execs reporting to anyone within the larger BT machine. Openreach will then be free to make decisions on strategy and investment without a perceived bias towards BT’s agenda.
As soon as Ofcom announced last year it was putting BT and Openreach under the microscope, the likes of Sky and TalkTalk (which use Openreach’s network to underpin their own services) called for a full split. Criticisms included a lack of investment in broadband infrastructure, particularly fibre, as well as a general poor quality of service, including slow installations and fault resolutions — all stemming, they argue, from Openreach’s focus on BT’s interests above all else.
Sky half-heartedly accepted Ofcom’s proposals yesterday, though it did admit they fall short of expectations. TalkTalk voiced similar views. Three even piped up to vent its disappointment — the company still reeling after its merger with O2 was denied after BT’s relatively smooth road to acquiring EE. Industry lobbying-slash-moaning isn’t looking like it’ll quiet down any time soon, however.
A group that includes Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone have today launched the “Fix Britain’s Internet” campaign, which basically parrots all the criticisms of BT and Openreach we’ve heard time and time again. The campaign’s website urges you to email Ofcom and your local MP — through a handy form that does most of the work for you — to express your dissatisfaction at the current status quo. You don’t exactly have to read between the lines to also see the prepared statement implies Ofcom could be bolder in its proposals.
Ofcom’s tango with BT isn’t over yet. Its proposals aren’t set in stone and it will have to work with the company for some time while the greater separation of Openreach plays out. But Sky and Co., it seems, are a tough crowd to please, and one that isn’t going to stop pushing its own agenda of a full separation until there are no open ears left to listen.
Via: ISPreview
Source: Fix Britain’s Internet
Comet lander Philae says goodbye as communications are cut
Farewell Philae, it was a short but wild ride. In February, mission controllers said goodbye to the comet lander, but kept comms open with mother ship Rosetta on the slight chance it might wake up. “It’s cold & dark on #67P … but I won’t give up just yet,” Philae tweeted hopefully. However, controllers elected to cut Rosetta’s “ESS” lander radio at 5AM ET today to preserve its precious remaining power.
At nearly 520 million km (323 million miles) from the Sun, the probe is losing power at the rate of 4 watts a day and needs to keep working for another two months. On September 30th it’ll crash into the surface of the comet, but take numerous final photos and measurements on the way down.
It’s cold & dark on #67P & chances of communicating with @ESA_Rosetta are decreasing, but I won’t give up just yet. https://t.co/HAJIbi59KO
— Philae Lander (@Philae2014) February 12, 2016
Philae had problems from the get-go after it bounced off its intended landing site and settled in a rocky area, but was by no means a failure. It managed to take a few dramatic pictures and did 80 percent of the research it was tasked with in a frenetic 64 hour period after the landing, according to ESA. For instance, it found many organic compounds that could be precursors to life-giving amino acids and sugars, and calculated the temperature range on the comet.
Controllers figure that Philae was not only trapped in a low-light area, but also in an awkward position and covered with dust. Rosetta did get a signal from Philae several times last year and received a final batch of scientific readings on July 9, 2015. Despite maneuvering to within seven precarious miles of the comet’s surface, however, it never regained contact with the lander.
It’s time for me to say goodbye. Tomorrow, the unit on @ESA_Rosetta for communication with me will be switched off forever…
— Philae Lander (@Philae2014) July 26, 2016
Philae’s team was satisfied with the mission, though. “Although some measurements could not be carried out, overall, Philae was a success,” planetary scientist Ekkehard Kührt said in February. “We ended up in an unknown environment and for the first time ever, gathered scientific data from a comet’s surface, which we were able to complement with measurements from the orbiter.” Considering the extreme difficulty of the mission and nearly 400 million km (250 million miles) distance, we’d second that. If you want to say goodbye to the lander yourself, send a picture here.
Via: Wired
Source: ESA
‘Microsoft Pix’ for iOS Introduces Smart AI to Automatically Adjust Photos
Microsoft today launched a new camera app for iOS devices called Microsoft Pix, which uses an artificial intelligence to adjust settings, choose the best photos, and automatically enhance each picture you take. The app will work on the iPhone 5s or newer, running iOS 9.0 or newer, with the company planning an Android release in the future. It did, however, remain curiously silent on introducing the new app’s features into its own Windows Phone line.
In order to obtain the very best image, Microsoft Pix takes a burst of shots before and after the image capture shutter button is tapped, similar to holding down the button for a burst shot in Apple’s first party camera app. The new app goes one step further, however, and intelligently siphons through each shot to choose the best image, and delete whatever is left over to save memory. This usually ends up with up to three “Best Images” for you to choose from.
Microsoft calls the app “people-centric,” with the AI’s biggest enhancement feature centering around its ability to focus in on faces within a photograph to enhance and adjust the focus, color, and exposure “so people look their best.” The app’s underlying algorithms can even detect whether a person has their eyes open or closed, and use that information as another factor in picking the best photo.
“They are building this for people who aren’t photographers but who like to take pictures — and would like to take better pictures — but don’t want to take the time to learn what goes in to making better pictures,” says Reed Hoffman, a Kansas City-based photography consultant and instructor with the Nikon School of Photography who tested beta versions of Microsoft Pix.
Once a picture has been taken, Microsoft Pix even lets users filter back-and-forth between the “normal” shot without any of the app’s tinkering, and the higher-quality, post-enhancement photo.
When “interesting motion” is detected in a picture, Microsoft’s app functions similarly to Apple’s Live Photo feature in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. The app will create a “Live Image” with these motion-based images, that loop an animation repeatedly instead of requiring a user to impress upon them to begin their animation, like in Live Photos. A handful of other features include automatic stabilization, or “Hyperlapse,” syncing with Apple’s Camera Roll, and easy sharing to social networks from directly within the app.
Users can download and try out Microsoft Pix for free on the App Store. [Direct Link]
Tag: Microsoft
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Motorola Moto E3 (2016) vs Moto G3 (2015): What’s the difference?
Lenovo-owned Motorola has launched a flurry of smartphones this year, one of which is the new Moto E.
It’s being called the Moto E3 and it offers some pretty decent specs for its £99.95 price tag. With last year’s Moto G now starting at just £129 though, which model should you pick?
Here is the Moto E3 (2016) up against the Moto G3 (2015).
Motorola Moto E3 (2016) vs Moto G3 (2015): Design
The Motorola Moto E3 features a similar design to the more recent Moto G family, offering a more refined appearance compared to last year’s Moto G.
It measures 143.8 x 71.6 x 8.55mm and weighs 140.6g, meaning it is slimmer, narrower and lighter than the Moto G3, but ever so slightly taller.
The Moto G3 measures 142.1 x 72.4mm and has a curved rear between 6.1mm and 11.6mm. It hits the scales at 155g and it has a water resistance rating of IPX7.
Motorola Moto E3 (2016) vs Moto G3 (2015): Display
The Motorola Moto E3 and Moto G3 both have a 5-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. This puts both their pixel densities at 294ppi.
The two devices’ screens are also protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and they both use IPS LCD technology so you can expect a very similar experience when it comes to the display.
Motorola Moto E3 (2016) vs Moto G3 (2015): Cameras
The Motorola Moto E3 has an 8-megapixel rear camera, coupled with a 5-megapixel front-facing camera.
It is capable of 720p video recording at 30fps and for the first time in the E range, Motorola has added a single LED flash to the rear camera.
The Moto G3 has a higher resolution sensor on the rear at 13-megapixels. It has an aperture of f/2.0, there is a dual-LED flash on board and it is capable of 1080p video recording.
The front-facing camera of the Moto G3 is the same resolution as the Moto E3 at 5-megapixels. The G3 has an aperture of f/2.2 and there is a display flash on board too, something that isn’t present on the E3.
Motorola Moto E3 (2016) vs Moto G3 (2015): Hardware
The Motorola Moto E3 features a 1GHz MediaTek processor under its hood, coupled with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage.
Storage is expandable up to 32GB via microSD and there is a 2800mAh battery capacity to get you through the day.
The Moto G3 opts for the 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor, which is supported by either 1GB or 2GB of RAM, depending on the storage model.
Storage options are 8GB or 16GB, both of which are expandable up to 32GB via microSD, and both of which have a 2470mAh battery capacity.
Motorola Moto E3 (2016) vs Moto G3 (2015): Software
The Motorola Moto E3 launches on Android Marshmallow, while the Moto G3 launched on Android Lollipop but has since been updated to the latest software.
Both devices feature very little bloatware, with only a few pre-loaded Motorola apps rather than an entire skin. This means you’ll not only get a close to vanilla Android experience with Moto devices, but they also are some of the first to get new software updates.
Motorola Moto E3 (2016) vs Moto G3 (2015): Conclusion
This year’s Moto E3 and last year’s Moto G3 are pretty similar in terms of specs, as well as price, now that the 2015 Moto G has been reduced.
The Moto E3 has a more updated design and it is lighter and slimmer than the Moto G3, as well as featuring a larger battery capacity. The two devices have the same size and resolution display but the Moto G3 has a faster processor, the option of more RAM and storage if you pay more, and more capable cameras.
We will update this feature with our review experience when we have spent some more time with the new Moto E3. For now, you can read our opinion on the Moto G3.
Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 battery woes attributed to software
Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 has had a fairly significant issue that the company had yet to officially comment on, until now. The company has finally come forward with a statement, and it looks like the problem that’s causing some Surface Pro 3 units to suffer from reduced battery life is actually software-based.
According to Greg, a forum moderator on the official Microsoft forums, the team has “isolated” the problem to a limited number of customers. The company has confirmed there are no issues with the batteries themselves and are “working through the details” on how to deliver a software-based fix.
Additional information on how the fix will be shared to Surface Pro 3 users with battery issues will be posted on the forums as it becomes available. This likely comes as a great surprise for buyers who were previously concerned their devices may be permanently damaged, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and hopefully Microsoft is spot on about the issue so it can be resolved in an expedient manner.
Via: The Digital Lifestyle
Nintendo’s NES retrospective book looks like a game cartridge
Nintendo’s NES Classic Edition isn’t the only nostalgia bomb the company is dropping this fall. Nope, Playing With Power: Nintendo NES Classics from strategy-guide publisher Prima Games is en route for this November as well. The hardcover boasts 320 pages of interviews from the NES era, bits of old-school advertising and “priceless excerpts from Nintendo Power magazine back issues.” Oh hey, hand-drawn maps and character art are on tap as well. Here’s to hoping some of those are from Howard and Nester artist Bill Mudron.
To complete the yesteryear theme, the whole thing looks like an old NES cartridge. In addition to the bits mentioned above, retrospectives on some 17 games will be packed as well, covering Super Mario Bros. 3, Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda among others. Yearning for your childhood yet? The book is available to pre-order now for $26.99, and it ships out November 18th — a week after the NES Classic does.
Via: IGN
Source: Prima Games
Microsoft’s new camera app brings AI to your iPhone
Microsoft sure loves it when research projects beget actual products, and it just released another for the masses to play with. Pix is a replacement camera app (what?) available for iPhones and iPads (what?), and in short, it promises better photos of the people around you without any extra work on your part. It’ll run on just about every iOS device from the iPhone 5s newer, too, and an Android release is in the works too. (Microsoft didn’t have a firm answer when I asked if these features would make their way into the Windows 10 Mobile camera.) And you know what? In some ways, I wish this was the camera app that Apple built in the first place.
First, the basics. Here’s the really important thing about Pix: it’s been tuned to make your pictures of people look better.
“There are things the Apple camera does that we don’t do and might not ever do,” Weisberg told Engadget. “The goal was around people photos — can we make better people photos than the stock camera? And we succeeded.”
From the moment you start Pix, it’s capturing what your camera is pointed at – you can never tell when something’s about to happen, after all. Once you press the shutter button, Pix snaps ten frames in an instant and Weisberg says that’s where the magic really kicks in. Algorithms evaluate those ten frames for obvious things like sharpness or exposure, but also underlying characteristics like whether a person in the shot seems happy or sad. When that near-instantaneous process is done, you’ll be given up to three “Best Images” – the image data from the leftover photos is used to enhance those winners before being deleted. All of this happens on the fly and without any extra fiddling, too, so you don’t need to be a photo buff to snap some great shots.
If the app detects multiple similar photos, it’ll stitch them into a Live Image, but only when it thinks what’s going on in the photos is interesting. Oh, and the Hyperlapse feature that Microsoft has been working on for years is here again too. This time, though, you can turn existing photos into time-lapses, or just use it to stabilize video you just shot.
Using Pix is very much a learning process, and I don’t just mean for you, the user. According to Weisberg, the app sends anonymized bits of “telemetry” — settings data and what Best Images people fave’d or deleted — back to the mothership, where human judges will examine them and adjust the image processing algorithms accordingly. Basically, the more you use Pix, the more insight it gains into what makes a photo really good. Most importantly, Weinberg was right – it really is helpful for improving your photos of people. Well, most of the time anyway.
In no time at all, I was snapping photos using Pix that came out punchier and with a greater emphasis on the people in the shot. When the testing period inevitably overlapped with post-work drinks at a local dive, Pix shined even brighter. I mean that literally, too. Smartphone camera sensors often flounder in dim, dank conditions, leaving software to do the heavy lifting required to make a passable photo. Microsoft’s photo processing was both super-fast and mostly great at brightening up pictures of my colleagues and removing grain without making things look unnatural. I was utterly impressed… until I wasn’t.
(Microsoft Pix left, Apple camera app right)
My biggest issue with Pix in its current form is all about consistency. Sometimes the photos it produced were clear improvements over what I squeezed out of Apple’s camera app. Other times, though, the stock camera app had a clear edge. Take landscape photos, for instance – even before Microsoft’s instantaneous image processing did its thing, the app had trouble exposing shots with bright backgrounds. Pix’s outdoor shots tended to be a little blown out, while Apple’s camera software was generally better at balancing exposure levels. And for all the work that went into teaching Pix to enhance photos of people, it can still struggle at times. A “Best Image” it suggested of a colleague in the dimly lit dive mentioned earlier was noticeably less crisp than the image the camera actually captured; in the app’s zeal to brighten up her face, it smoothed out her features a little too much. Long story short, the version of Pix I played with was still more hit-or-miss than I had hoped.
(Microsoft Pix left, Apple camera app right)
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it. In fact, I’d strongly recommend giving this a download, even if you’re not the sort of person that already juggles multiple camera apps. The benefits of better image processing can be seen from the get-go, but the weightier, far more fascinating goal is to see how much Microsoft’s system can learn about good photographs. In a way, it’s almost as though we’re collectively training it to better understand art. The very nature of Microsoft’s algorithmic processing means these early issues will probably get ironed out over time, and I’m honestly fascinated to see how long it takes before Pix gets to be great in every situation.
Robotic exoskeleton for babies can help prevent cerebral palsy
University of Oklahoma’s robotic exoskeleton for babies does two things: (1) make the kiddos look like tiny Dr. Octopuses and (2) help prevent cerebral palsy. The motorized device has power steering that gives babies at risk of the illness a little push needed to be able to move and crawl like their peers can. See, the condition can be caused brain damage, infections and injuries early in a person’s life. To combat the illness, therapy must start as early as possible — unfortunately, it’s not typically diagnosed until a child turns one year old.
The good news is that one of this team’s original members developed a method to detect which babies between two and eight months old are most likely to develop cerebral palsy. Since children at risk of the disease can’t move their bodies the way they want to, they stop trying to crawl after a while, causing the brain to stop developing new motor skills. This machine provides the push they need to crawl normally, promoting brain growth and the formation of motor skills.
The team has been developing this exoskeleton for a while now, but they admit that there’s still much to be done before it’s ready. According to IEEE, they’ve only just begun a large trial comprised of 56 infants and are the midst of collecting real-time brain activity data through the baby Dr. Octopuses’ EEG caps.
Source: IEEE
ICYMI: Robosurgeon, wigglebot and a very cute penguin
Today on In Case You Missed It: A robot from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev produces a wave-like motion that can propel itself across a floor or through water, only with one motor. Also a robotic surgeon called Flex can snake its way down throats or other orifices and perform surgeries in a less-invasive way than traditional means.
But you should probably take in Purps the penguin and her 3D-printed boot, and also the robotic massager we all wish we had. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Xiaomi Announces ‘Redmi Pro’ Smartphone With 5.5-Inch OLED Display and Dual-Lens Camera
Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi today announced a new smartphone, called the Redmi Pro, during an event in Beijing, China, where it also surprised attendees with the ‘Mi Notebook Air’. As TechCrunch pointed out, the company’s Redmi line of smartphone devices angle toward the low-cost spectrum of handsets, with most models costing around $150, allowing the company to move over 110 million models in the last three years.
A few additions to the Redmi Pro place it on the higher-end of that spectrum, since the new smartphone is the first in the Redmi family to have an OLED display, a larger 5.5-inch screen, and — perhaps most notably — pack in a dual-camera system. Specifically, the two lenses are a 13-megapixel Sony IMX258 sensor and a 5-megapixel Samsung sensor, and will result in image quality on par with DSLR-style cameras, according to the company.
Other than these features, the Redmi Pro also has a 4050 mAh battery, a USB Type-C charging port, up to 4GB of RAM and 128GB internal memory, an expected fingerprint sensor for biometric security, and three color options: gold, grey, and silver. Pricing for the Redmi Pro begins at $225 (1,499 Yuan) for 3GB RAM with 32GB of storage, $255 (1,699 Yuan) for 3GB RAM with 64GB of storage, and $300 (1,999 Yuan) for 4GB RAM and 128GB of storage. According to Xiaomi, the difference between the 3GB and 4GB RAM models is a faster and more powerful GPU and Helio X25 chipset.
The Redmi Pro — which will launch on August 6 in China — is debuting at a time when higher-quality smartphone cameras have begun to stand out as a major sticking point for consumers deciding on which device to purchase. Apple’s own upcoming iPhone 7 Plus has been the perpetrator behind dozens of dual-lens camera rumors since the beginning of the year, with a handful of design renderings and images of the smartphone leaking this summer, all showing off the large, pill-shaped enclosure purported to lead to DSLR quality photos as well.
For those interested, Gizchina has a collection of images taken with the Redmi Pro’s dual-camera system on its website.
Tag: Xiaomi
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