Daily brief: Thanks for nothing, Verizon

What happened in Android news on October 6, 2016? A lot, actually.

I’m not American, but even I can tell that buying a Google Pixel from Verizon is probably not a wise move if you value expeditious software updates — and why wouldn’t you, if you’re reading Android Central?

News broke earlier today that Big Red would be overseeing updates to the Pixel and Pixel XL, mainly for quality control purposes but also because they are inserting some custom software, including three apps (coughbloatwarecough).

Let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment, though: There are likely many more people walking into a Verizon store looking for a Galaxy S7 ambivalent about update speed than there are people up in arms about Google’s business decision to let Verizon do what it wants with a phone it paid a lot of money to customize and sell exclusively. If such decisions backfired for these carriers, they would stop making these deals. But judging from the number of exclusives we’ve seen this year, from the Moto Z Force Droid on Verizon to the Galaxy S7 Active on AT&T, there is still a healthy contingent of people willing to switch providers — or re-up for another 24 month period — to continue on this path. For better or worse.

But that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop shouting about it. Because sometimes it’s fun to shout, you know?

And with that, today’s news.

LG V20 coming to the U.S. on October 28

Both T-Mobile and AT&T announced availability of the LG V20 today, which goes up for preorder at the latter carrier tomorrow and will be widely sold on October 28.

The phone’s release is surely anticipated, but if its amortized cost of $830 from AT&T is indicative of the MSRP from all carriers, I fear the phone may not sell in great quantities — a disappointing proposition given the Note 7’s recent troubles (good for LG) and the impending release of the Pixel XL (bad for LG). More

Nexus 9 LTE picks up Nougat

After rolling out Nougat for the Nexus 6 earlier this week, Google is now doing the same for the Nexus 9 LTE. The Android 7.0 factory image and the flashable OTA file are now available for the tablet. The update increments the build number to NRD90R, and includes the September 6 security patch.

Google is opening a pop-up Pixel store in Manhattan

Google is opening a #madebygoogle pop-up store in New York’s SoHo district on October 20, likely to align with the Pixel’s launch on the same day. It’s unclear whether the store will actually sell unlocked devices, or just operate as a Verizon sales funnel, but it’s an interesting move from the company. The store, at 96 Spring St, is only a couple blocks from Apple and Microsoft stores in the same area. Bring on the competition!

CPSC investigating Galaxy Note 7 that reportedly caught fire on Southwest flight

The Consumer Protection Safety Commission is opening an investigation into the replacement Galaxy Note 7 that reportedly caught fire on a still-grounded Southwest flight earlier this week. The government body was instrumental in helping Samsung expedite the original Note 7 recall in September, and is likely following the expansion of the replacements very closely. More

Verizon will control Google’s Pixel updates

Hell. No.

Verizon will reportedly control the cadence of Pixel updates, says Google. The company confirmed to 9to5Google that it will leave the onerous task of updating its flagship phone to a carrier that has traditionally been terrible at it. Remember the Galaxy Nexus? Need I say more?

Monthly security updates will come from Google (for all models), and system updates will be managed by Verizon for Verizon models, and Google for unlocked models bought from Google Store.

Verizon’s Pixel will be bloated, but less so than normal

Verizon’s version of the Google Pixel will be encumbered in a few ways compared to the unlocked model, which of course will also work with Big Red: it will have slower updates (see above), and it will come with three apps pre-installed from the carrier, Go90, Verizon Messages, and My Verizon. Thankfully, they’ll be removable, but your feelings of disgust may take longer to dissipate.

Rogers rolls out per-user data controls for share accounts

Full disclosure: I’m Canadian (it’s me, Daniel. Hi.) That means some of these briefs will be aimed at the millions of Canucks, double-doubles in hand, who read AC every month. #sorrynotsorry

Earlier today, Rogers unveiled a new version of its MyRogers app that allows account holders — those that pay the bill every month — to over and make changes to data usage for all the members of a share plan. Parents can now get alerted when their kid has reached a certain threshold and turn off data access completely, or just issue a stern warning. It’s a major move that reportedly took over a year to build, since data usage is reported to the app in real-time, something no other carrier has done before. Parents or account holders can then add top-up data at $7 per 300MB, or $15 per gigabyte, if necessary. Unfortunately, data prices haven’t dropped as a result.

Amazon is launching a Spotify competitor imminently

Amazon is set to unveil two music-on-demand products near future, one to take on Spotify directly, and the other to augment the usefulness of the Echo platform.

Reportedly called Amazon Music Unlimited, the Echo version will reportedly launch in the next couple of weeks for $5 per month and be limited to the Echo, Dot and Tap, while a more full-featured version will launch in January for $10. The latter is meant to compete with Spotify, Apple Music and others, and won’t be tied to a Prime subscription the way the company’s current music products are.

Facebook wants to give you free internet in exchange for your soul

Facebook is talking to the regulators about bringing its Free Basics internet offering, currently only available in India, to the U.S. The upshot is that Facebook, in exchange for some of your personal information, can offer a walled-garden approach to the internet — replete with many Facebook services — at no cost. It’s unlikely to work, because the FCC is looking into zero-rating, but it’s definitely interesting.

All the big announcements from Oculus Connect 3

Oculus revealed a final iteration of its Rift Touch controllers, a social meeting ground with personal avatars, new minimum system specs for the Rift, a bunch of new games designed for the Touch Controllers, and more!

Read more at VR Heads

Oculus announces ‘Earphones’ in-ear headphones for Rift

Facebook-owned Oculus VR has introduced a new audio product for Rift.

It’s called Oculus Earphones.

As you’ve probably guessed, Earphones are in-ear headphones, which Oculus has described as “next-level audio integration” and a “new sound solution to satisfy even the most serious audiophiles”. 

You can use them instead of the on-ear headphones that currently come with the company’s Rift VR headset. Priced at $49, they’re sold separately but should deliver sound as good as headsets that costs much more, according to Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe, who announced them at the third-annual Oculus Connect developers conference in San Jose, CA.

Oculus Earphones will be available to buy from 6 December, though you can pre-order them starting 10 October on Oculus.com. There’s no word yet on pricing or availability outside of the US. 

For more announcements from Connect, see Pocket-lint’s Oculus hub.

Comcast’s 1TB data caps start to roll out nationwide

Comcast’s data restrictions are going from testing to reality for most of its customers. Its ‘XFINITY Terabyte Internet Data Usage Plan’ is already in place in a number of places, and will roll out to 18 new markets (including California, Michigan, Florida and others listed on its FAQ) beginning November 1st. For its part, the ISP claims 99 percent of customers use less than 1TB of data per month, and that median use is just 75MB. Of course, with digitally delivered games and software, and streaming video that is increasingly coming in HD and 4K resolutions, that could change rapidly.

So what happens if you go over 1TB per month? For the first two months in a 12 month period that it happens, nothing. Also, Comcast customers can adjust their settings for notifications via email, browser or text when they reach thresholds like 50, 70, 85 or 125 percent of the cap. The third time it’s exceeded within a 12 month period, however, the “courtesy months” go away and users will be charged $10 for an additional 50GB of data, which will continue happening to a limit of $200 per month. If you want unlimited data access, you can buy it up front, for an additional $50 per month over your current internet bill.

So what if you’re like me, and you use a lot of data? Between downloading games on Xbox One and PS4, streaming in 4K and everything else, I used 1.2TB of data last month. Even for me, that’s a bit extreme, but with games pushing out multi-gigabit updates and high-res video streaming available from more sources, eventually more of us will be nudging up against the limits. I have cable and do most of my TV viewing there, but for cord-cutters leaning on streaming from services like Sling TV or PlayStation Vue, the 1TB red line could be approaching even faster.

It’s probably not a coincidence that this move is taking place at the same time Comcast is allowing Netflix streaming via its X1 cable boxes. In the first section of its FAQ, Comcast says this decision is about “fairness,” but unless someone’s internet usage is so extreme that it negatively impacts neighboring connections, that falls flat. Sure, it is also offering a “Flexible Data Option” for people at the other end of the spectrum, but they can only save $5 by using less than 5GB per month. If people try to switch their news and entertainment consumption away from cable TV to internet sources, Comcast is going to charge them more. Just how fair that really is, depends on your perspective.

Netflix has called on the FCC to fix “unreasonable” caps, but it referenced limits of just 300GB per month. The commission is looking into caps and zero rating, but at least for now, this is the reality for the majority of Comcast’s home internet customers.

XFINITY Internet customers in the following locations have the Terabyte Internet Data Usage Plan:

• Alabama (excluding the Dothan market)
• Arizona
• Arkansas
• Florida (Fort Lauderdale, the Keys, and Miami)
• Georgia (excluding Southeastern Georgia)
• Illinois
• Northern Indiana
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Maine
• Southwestern Michigan
• Mississippi
• Tennessee
• Eastern Texas
• South Carolina
• Southwest Virginia

Effective November 1, 2016:

• Alabama (Dothan)
• California
• Colorado
• Florida (North Florida, Southwest Florida and West Palm)
• Southeastern Georgia
• Idaho
• Indiana (Indianapolis and Central Indiana; Fort Wayne and Eastern Indiana)
• Kansas
• Michigan (Grand Rapids/Lansing, Detroit, and Eastern Michigan)
• Minnesota
• Missouri
• New Mexico
• Western Ohio
• Oregon
• Texas (Houston)
• Utah
• Washington
• Wisconsin

Source: Comcast Voices

The Wirecutter’s best deals: Save $250 on KEF bookshelf speakers

This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. Read their continuously updated list of deals atTheWirecutter.com.

You may have already seen Engadget posting reviews from our friends atThe Wirecutter. Now, from time to time, we’ll also be publishing their recommended deals on some of their top picks. Read on, and strike while the iron is hot—some of these sales could expire mighty soon.

Logitech Logi Circle

Street price: $170; MSRP: $200; Deal price: $150

A well-timed deal, since we just updated our guide on security cameras. This deal matches the best price we’ve seen on the black model, and is just a couple of bucks above the best price we’ve seen on the white model.

The Logitech Logi Circle is our pick for the best Wi-Fi home security camera. Stewart Wolpin wrote, “Logitech’s Logi Circle sets up more easily and includes more useful features and functions, and fewer annoyances, than any of the cameras we tested. It operates on a battery as well as AC so it can be placed in more locations, offers free 24-hour cloud storage for videos, creates a unique 30-second review of the last 24 hours of footage it’s captured, is more selective in the number of alerts it sends out, and performs better than the competition in dim light.”

Garmin Forerunner 630

Street price: $400; MSRP: $400; Deal price: $330

The first time we’ve seen a great deal on this watch, which almost never gets discounted. We saw this sale start at $350, and since then, we’ve seen another drop down to $330, a great savings compared to the street price. Both colors are available during this deal.

The Garmin Forerunner 630 is our auto-syncing upgrade in our best GPS running watch guide. Jim McDannald said, “You get a touchscreen (useful in warmer climates or while wearing our favorite touchscreen gloves), more advanced running metrics, and one big convenience: automatic Wi-Fi uploading of your run data to Garmin Connect.”

How automatic is it? Consider Jeff Dengate of Runner’s World’s example: “I went out for a run this morning, took a quick shower and it was already uploaded to Garmin Connect.” If you run every day or often forget to upload, that’s no small thing.

KEF Q100 Bookshelf Speakers

Street price: $550; MSRP: $550; Deal price: $300

A huge drop on our upgrade pair of bookshelf speakers, bringing the price down to the range of our main pick. We’ve seen this $300 Q100 sale once before, and it tends to happen once a year in the fall for a couple weeks. The rest of the year, you’re looking at a $550 price tag.

The KEF Q100 are our upgrade pick in our best bookshelf speakers guide. Chris Heinonen said, “The Q100 speakers sound superior in every respect, from soundstage and detail to bass response and vocal clarity. Music sounds more refined and defined through the Q100 set. During complex test tracks like Beck’s “Lost Cause,” the Q100 made it easy for us to pick out individual instruments, while on other speakers they were more jumbled together. The KEF Q100 pair sounds relaxed and comfortable, while still presenting lots of detail. You could easily listen to these speakers for hours without your ears growing fatigued.”

KEF Q Series Q400b Subwoofer

Street price: $700; MSRP: $700; Deal price: $500

This is a huge drop in price and a great deal on this KEF subwoofer. We haven’t seen the Q400b go on sale once from it’s original $700 pric, so this first sale is a doozy—a booming $200 drop. If you’re looking for a high quality subwoofer, this one is a no-brainer. It’s everything we look for in a deal—WC tester unanimously preferred, a huge drop in price, and unlike many of the other speakers, it’s actually in stock.

The KEF Q Series Q400b is our upgrade pick for subwoofer in our guide for the best surround sound system for most people. Dennis Burger wrote, “If you’re willing to spend a good bit more for even better audio performance, all of our testers unanimously preferred the KEF Q Series for its extra sparkle, enhanced detail, and significantly deeper bass compared with the ELAC Debut system. The system’s Q400b subwoofer is an absolute beast. Despite being a little smaller than the ELAC S10EQ sub, with the same size driver and a roughly comparable power rating, the KEF delivers much deeper bass without sacrificing anything in the way of impact or overall sound output. It also blends with its satellite speakers just as well as the ELAC does.”

Deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go to The Wirecutter.com.

You don’t need a ridiculous PC to run Oculus Rift anymore

Back when we reviewed the consumer-ready Oculus Rift in March, we found its minimum specs requiring an Intel Core i5 4590 (or equivalent) processor and an NVIDIA GTX 970 graphics card to be in line with a typical midrange gaming PC. Below that, a computer won’t just fail to run VR smoothly: It’ll drop frames and make you sick. But without changing any of the headset’s hardware, Oculus has lowered the Rift’s minimum spec to a Nvidia 960 graphics card and an intel i3-6100 or AMD FX4350 processor. That’s all thanks to its new framerate-fixing tech, “asynchronous spacewarp,” which they announced at today’s Connect keynote.

On stage today, Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe said that the system’s apps “must hit 90 frames per second, period.” Compared to conventional two-dimensional games, it only takes a few skipped frames to induce nausea in players. The VR company cut down on dropped frames by introducing “asynchronous timewarp” back in March, which lowers latency and reduces judder (vibration and shaking) by pre-rendering images before they’re needed, fixing almost all of the 11 percent of dropped framerate issues in VR apps on the Rift.

That’s fine to fill in gaps when users stand still and look around, but their new “asynchronous spacewarp” tech helps when a player moves, their head shifts, or the entire scene changes around them. To do this, the system takes the two previous frames generated, analyzes the difference, and creates a “synthetic frame” that syncs with the user’s current head movement. When spacewarp kicks in, it allows games to run at an internal 45 frames per second, inserting a synthetic frame between every natively generated one to send 90 fps to the headset.

In essence, better a consistent 45 fps with faux-frames spliced in than any judder. It’s no replacement for true 90 frames-per-second rendering, Iribe told the crowd, but it will fill in the gaps when a computer rig can’t hit that framerate natively. This lower-performance workaround is exactly what allowed Oculus to reduce the Rift’s minimum spec without boosting the headset’s hardware. To prove their point, Iribe introduced the lowest-cost VR-capable machine: A CyberPowerPC for $500. That in itself is roughly half the cost of the baseline Oculus-approved entry-level computers introduced back in February. But the CyberPowerPC can also be bought in a Rift bundle for $1000, meaning PSVR’s affordability margin has just shrunk.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: Oculus Connect

BitTorrent reportedly fires its CEOs, gets out of the media game

BitTorrent has had a big interest in making it easy for creators to distribute and sell music and films, but it looks like that initiative might have just ground to a screeching halt. Variety is reporting that the company has fired its two CEOs, laid off an unknown number of staffers and is shutting down BitTorrent Now, its recently-launched ad-supported video and music streaming platform.

If this is all true, it would mark a pretty dramatic change of pace for the company, which has sought to build an identify as a champion for an open internet. Not through piracy, for which the company is still closely linked thanks to the peer-to-peer sharing technology the company developed, but through more legit means.

In addition to shuttering BitTorrent Now, the company has also reportedly closed a Los Angeles studio that served as the headquarters for the initiative. While BitTorrent Now was a bit of an update and rebrand, the company had been offering “bundles” of content from indie artists for years now. According to Variety, the company was bleeding money on the venture; one source said that spending was “out of control.” BitTorrent had also recently launched a live streaming platform, hired a news director and started its own news network. While today’s report didn’t have any details on what will happen with those initiatives, it’s not unreasonable to imagine they’re also in jeopardy.

With both CEOs Robert Delamar and Jeremy Johnson out, CFO Dipak Joshi has apparently stepped in as interim CEO. All the turmoil reportedly started a few weeks ago, with layoffs kicking off in the second half of September. We’re reaching out to BitTorrent and will update this story with more details as we learn them.

Source: Variety