Volvo’s self-driving cars will hide from UK ‘bullies’
If you could see that the car in front of you was being driven autonomously and therefore navigating in an ultra-safe manner, how would you react? Would you treat it as you would any other road user or be more inclined to torment it, knowing it would yield to your advances? It’s a very real question that car makers and insurance companies are wrestling with and one that has prompted Swedish automotive giant Volvo to take preemptive action. The Guardian reports that it’s decided that when the first 100 self-driving 4x4s hit London’s streets in 2018, they’ll look no different to any other Volvo of the same model so that other road users aren’t tempted to “take them on.”
Those are the words of Erik Coelingh, senior technical leader at Volvo Cars: “From the outside you won’t see that it’s a self-driving car. From a purely scientific perspective it would be interesting to have some cars that are marked as self-driving cars and some that are not and see whether other road users react in a different way,” he told the newspaper. “I would expect they will, but I don’t know how and to what extent. So just to be on the safe side they will all be unmarked cars. I’m pretty sure that people will challenge them if they are marked by doing really harsh braking in front of a self-driving car or putting themselves in the way.”
Coelingh’s words echo sentiments from a recent London School of Economics study that polled European road users on their attitudes towards autonomous vehicles. The inquiry found that drivers would be tempted to drive aggressively around or “bully” driverless cars. One Brit went as far to say: “[The AVs are] going to stop. So you’re going to mug them right off. They’re going to stop and you’re just going to nip round.”
The UK government is already taking its first steps to modernize road laws, opening a consultation on whether it’s fair to blame drivers for improper use of autonomous driving features and ensuring that car makers are on the hook should their technology fail to operate in the desired manner. Some UK self-driving car projects are already navigating public roads, but the vehicles are covered with stickers and branding to identify the fact that they’re driving on their own.
Volvo is already taking to Transport for London (TfL) and Highways England to safely integrate its first SUVs, which will be deployed on certain UK roads, including the M4 motorway from Heathrow into London. Drivers will given the choice to deploy autonomous features on traffic-heavy routes, allowing Volvo to see how its vehicles operate in typical, if not stereotypical, conditions.
Source: The Guardian
MIT taught a machine to give you nightmares
Robots are learning to create zombie faces and apocalyptic landscapes, and with your help, they can make them even more terrifying. Researchers from MIT and Australia’s CSIRO have created the Nightmare Machine, an AI algorithm that can transform a normal face or landscape into nightmare fuel. The AI analyzed 200,000 normal human faces and was soon able to generate its own, but the team wanted to take it in another, freakier direction.
“We want to produce scary faces,” Dr. Manuel Cebrian told the Sydney Morning Herald. “So we take a zombie face –- a really scary one –- and feed it into the neural network.” From just a single heavily weighted image, the algorithm was able to produce scary images on its own. At least, sometimes — it also produced images that were more goofy than scary, and that’s where you come in.
The team asked humans to vote on which faces are scariest, then fed the data back into the AI. After 200,000 votes and counting, it was able to refine the algorithms and produce scarier images more consistently. (You can vote yourself on faces and landscapes in various styles, including “slaughterhouse,” “toxic city” and “alien invasion.”)
You might wonder why you would help create your own personal hell, but researchers from MIT and Australia’s CSIRO think their work could actually aid humanity. The idea is to teach machines what humans don’t like, then apply the opposite to help them. “The same technology we are using in this silly project could actually be used to comfort, to invite humans to co-operate with machines,” Dr. Cebrian says. Let’s hope like hell he’s right about that, because teaching machines exactly what we’re afraid of sounds like a … scary idea.
Via: Sidney Morning Herald
Source: CSIRO
The bottom line: Our quick verdict on Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL
What happens when Google designs its own phones, as Apple does with the iPhone? You get some of the best handsets money can buy, that’s what. The 5-inch Pixel and 5.5-inch Pixel XL are well-built, with fast performance, excellent cameras and great screens (especially on the larger model). No product is perfect, though, and indeed, we’ve identified a few areas where Google can improve with the inevitable second generation. In particular, we were disappointed to see that these phones are less water resistant (and arguably less stylish) than other handsets you’d find in this price range.
Speaking of the sort, these things are expensive, with starting prices of $649 and $769, respectively. That’s on par with other flagships, but for the money, we don’t want to see too many “cons” in those review cards you see below. Thankfully, the pros here vastly outweigh the few shortcomings, and both Pixel phones both earn our strong recommendation.
Apple Supplier Sharp Confirms New iPhones to Switch From LCD to OLED Displays
Multiple rumors have pointed towards Apple releasing at least one new iPhone with an OLED display next year, and now the best confirmation yet has surfaced.
The move was spoiled by Sharp President and CEO Tai Jeng-wu, who told students at Tatung University in Taiwan that Apple is switching from LCD to OLED panels, according to Japan’s Nikkei Asian Review.
“The iPhone has been evolving and now it is switching from LTPS (low-temperature poly-silicon) to OLED panels,” Tai told students at Tatung University, his alma mater, during a ceremony in which he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree.
“We don’t know whether Apple’s OLED iPhones will be a hit, but if Apple doesn’t walk down this path and transform itself, there will be no innovation. It is a crisis but it is also an opportunity,” Tai said.
Sharp said it is building a new OLED facility in Japan to manufacture the displays for a “key customer,” but it has not ruled out U.S. manufacturing if required.
“We are now building a new [OLED] facility in Japan. We can make [OLED panels] in the U.S. too,” he said. “If our key customer demands us to manufacture in the U.S., is it possible for us not to do so?”
Tai did not specify when new iPhones will switch to OLED displays, but the transition is widely expected to start next year.
Nikkei previously said Apple is planning to release at least three new iPhones next year, including a high-end model with a 5.5-inch-or-larger OLED display that is curved on both sides like Samsung’s Galaxy S7 edge.
The report said the other two models would be traditional 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhones with LCD displays as used currently.
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities said the high-end iPhone will sport a curved 5.8-inch OLED display with glass casing like the iPhone 4.
When applied to the height of an existing 5.5-inch iPhone, a 5.8-inch display would leave an extra 7.25mm of display on each side. This would extend the display across the front and sides of the iPhone, perhaps allowing for a wraparound display with side-based gestures as featured on the Galaxy S7 edge.
In addition to Sharp, Korea’s BusinessKorea today reported LG and Samsung are in a “do or die” fight to secure OLED display orders from Apple.
Japan Display — a joint venture between Sony, Toshiba, and Hitachi — also confirmed it will begin OLED display production in 2018, although its bid to win orders from Apple may fall short. Taiwan’s AU Optronics could also be in the mix.
OLED displays can have sharper color contrast and brighter colors compared to LCD displays, while the technology allows for flexible, curved designs. OLED panels also typically have faster response times and better viewing angles compared to LCD technology, with the option for always-on mode.
Related Roundup: iPhone 8 (2017)
Tags: Sharp, OLED
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How to set up and customize Google Assistant on the Pixel
How do you customize your experience with the Google Assistant on the Pixel?
While Google Assistant made its official debut with Allo, it wasn’t until the release of the Pixel that we’ve seen more of what Google has in store for their personal AI assistant.
There’s so many ways to use the Assistant throughout the day, from getting a daily briefing first thing in the morning to conveniently setting an alarm for the next day and nearly everything in between. To get the most out of Google Assistant, you’ll want to know about all the settings and features, and we’re here to help.
- How to set up Google Assistant on your Pixel
- How to change your account with Google Assistant
- How to customize your “My Day” briefing
- How to customize Google Assistant’s news sources
- How to customize your Google Assistant nickname
- How to unblock offensive words
- How to view your activity history
How to set up Google Assistant on your Pixel
Google Assistant is baked right into the Pixel or Pixel XL, and can be accessed by long pressing the Home button or by saying “OK Google” if you’ve got voice activation enabled. If you’re logged into your Google Account, but have yet to set up Google Assistant, you can start the process by launching it from the home screen for the first time.
Launch Google Assistant by long pressing the Home Button.
Tap Continue on the “Meet your personal Google Assistant” screen.
Tap Yes, I’m in on the next screen to allow permissions.
And that’s that. You might also be prompted to configure voice activation, which just involves you repeating “OK Google” three times. Pretty simple!
How to change your account with Google Assistant
If you have more than one Google account active on your phone, it’s important to make sure Google Assistant is connected with the one you want. Google Assistant is able to pull details from Gmail, Google Photos, and other Google services including your calendar events as well as your Chrome browsing habits, so you’ll want to make sure you’re using your primary account.
If you accidentally set things up with the wrong account or simply want to switch over to a different account, it’s really easy.
Launch Google Assistant by long pressing the Home Button.
Tap the menu icon in the top-right corner of the Google Assistant window.
Tap Accounts.
Tap the account you want to use.
Switching between accounts is easy to do, though you’ll need to go through the quick setup process and allow the required access permissions.
How to customize your “My Day” briefing
You can use Google Assistant to give you a briefing on everything you need to know to start your day, from weather forecasts, calendar reminders, and a preview of your work commute. If you don’t need all that, you can customize it to suit your needs.
Launch Google Assistant by long pressing the Home Button.
Tap the menu icon in the top-right corner of the Google Assistant window.
Tap Settings.
Tap My Day.
Tap the checkboxes to toggle what’s included in your My Day summary.
You can also toggle whether to end your summary with narrated news reports.
How to customize Google Assistant’s news sources
Google Assistant can help you keep up to date on what’s going on in the world with its narrated news service. It pulls radio news reports from reliable news sources which you can listen to after your daily briefing or by saying “OK Google, listen to news”. If this seems like a valuable feature to you, you’ll definitely want to customize your news sources.
Launch Google Assistant by long pressing the Home Button.
Tap the menu icon in the top-right corner of the Google Assistant window.
Tap Settings.
Tap News.
Tap Customize.
Swipe up to scroll through the list of news sources.
Tap the news sources you wish to add.
Tap the back arrow.
Tap and drag the news sources in the order you want to listen to them.
How to customize your Google Assistant nickname
Google Assistant will call you by your first name by default, but you can teach it to call you any nickname you want.
Launch Google Assistant by long pressing the Home Button.
Tap the menu icon in the top-right corner of the Google Assistant window.
Tap Settings.
Swipe up to scroll down to the bottom.
Tap Personal info.
Tap Nickname.
Tap the edit icon next to your name.
Type in whatever you want you nickname to be.
Tap OK.
If you don’t like how the Google Assistant is pronouncing your nickname, you can opt to spell it out phonetically by tapping the “Spell it out” radio button under Pronunciation.
How to unblock offensive words
By default, Google Assistant will censor all offensive words. If you’re alright with salty language, you can turn it off quick and easy.
Launch Google Assistant by long pressing the Home Button.
Tap the menu icon in the top-right corner of the Google Assistant window.
Tap Settings.
Swipe up to scroll down.
Tap Voice.
Tap the toggle switch next to “Block offensive words”.
Google Assistant will never swear, but now words deemed as offensive won’t be censored in the transcriptions of what you say.
How to view your activity history
Your Google Assistant will keep track of not only all your search activity, but also where you were when you made your request. Google assures this data is kept secure and private. If you’d like to review your activity history and see the details, you can access it straight from the Google Assistant settings.
Launch Google Assistant by long pressing the Home Button.
Tap the menu icon in the top-right corner of the Google Assistant window.
Tap Settings.
Swipe up to scroll down to the bottom.
Tap My Activity.
Chrome will launch and you’ll be taken to Google’s log of all your logged activity with Google Assistant. From there, you can tap “details” to see more information, including roughly where you were when the activity occurred. If this sort of creeps you out, you can tap “Activity Controls” to toggle some of the settings, but this is basically what you signed up for to use Google Assistant.
Google Pixel + Pixel XL
- Google Pixel and Pixel XL review
- Google Pixel XL review: A U.S. perspective
- Google Pixel FAQ: Should you upgrade?
- Pixel + Pixel XL specs
- Understanding Android 7.1 Nougat
- Join the discussion in the forums!
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How to play the Halloween Google Doodle
Today is Halloween and to celebrate, Google has created a mini game as its commemorative Doodle. The game sees you playing as a cat on a quest to get back a book of spells from an evil ghoul. We’ve played the full game so we can help you know how to play it.
The game requires you to draw shapes with your mouse to fight off incoming ghouls and ghosts. The shapes are a vertical line, horizontal line, up arrow, down arrow and occasionally an S and a heart if you’re running low on lives. If there is more than one ghoul with the same shape above its head, then drawing this shape will kill them both off, or remove one step of a combination.
The shape that you need to draw to kill each ghoul appears above its head. In the first level you just need to draw one shape per ghoul but as the game progresses you’ll need to draw sequences and combinations for each one.
Each of the five levels has a boss at the end of it, and these take three attempts each to kill them off. In between drawing combinations to kill off each boss, there’s a wave of regular ghouls to try and take your lives away. You get five lives in the game, but if you do lose one, you can either get them back from killing more ghouls, or a small ghoul will appear to the side of the screen with a heart shape above its head, draw a heart and you’ll be rewarded with a life.
You can’t draw a life for a heart at any time, you can only do it when the ghoul appears.
Each time you kill a ghoul and boss you get points, our high score was 84,780 and that included losing a few lives during the game. Presumably it would’ve been higher if we were quicker on the draw. We were using a Mac trackpad for the game too, so it might be easier to use a physical mouse.
Nevertheless, it’s a good little Halloween game from Google and once you’ve got the hang of it, you can play it as many times as you want to try and beat your high score.
Best geek Halloween pumpkins from around the ‘net
Halloween is upon us and you can fully expect to see a host of ghoulies, ghosties and altogether spooky shenanigans going on throughout the day. But let us not forget that scariest of darkened room dwellers, the ghastly geek. They often emerge from their grisly abodes at this time of year, moaning and a-groaning – mainly about JJ Abrams’ overuse of lens flare effects on the Star Trek/Star Wars franchises.
They also light up the internet with their fine examples of tech-tastically carved pumpkins. And we have curated a mighty fine collection of their wares for you so that you can get in the mood for a spot of trick or treating tonight.
Alex Wer
Games feature heavily, as do Apple and Star Wars (Abrams or not), but there are plenty of surprise carvings too. So sit back, pour yourself a glass of bat’s blood (or Vimto as we like to call it) and enjoy this vast array of amazingly reshaped vegetables, including the superb USS Enterprise versus the Millennium Falcon by habitual pumpkin fiddler Alex Wer and the painted Angry Birds pumpkins we came across a couple of years back.
You can check them all out in our gallery above, just flick through for some classics.
Nintendo’s president confirms the Switch won’t kill off the 3DS
Nintendo recently unveiled the Switch games console with a teaser trailer. In it, it showed the console could be used as a portable handheld machine, which you can use to play multiplayer games with friends using the detachable Joycon controller.
- Nintendo Switch: Release date, specs and everything you need to know
For many, it signalled the end of the 3DS, as it could be seen as a competing console. However Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima has confirmed that the 3DS will stay, claiming the “business still has momentum” in an interview with Bloomberg. Kirishima went on to say “we think the 3DS can continue in its own form” and said that the Switch “isn’t a successor to the Wii U or 3DS”.
The teaser trailer for the new console only gave away a few details, such as the ability play at home or on-the-go, as well as in multiplayer mode. Kirishima told Bloomberg that the trailer serves only to show “a conceptual image of how the Switch is different from the Wii U and previous systems”
“Going forward of course, in terms of what kind of accessories will come out, we want to show this in January and later. By no means was that everything”.
Kirishima is referring to Nintendo’s 13 January event, where more details about the Switch console, including games currently in development will be revealed. It’s also hoped that Nintendo will give some indication as to how much the Switch will cost when it goes on sale in March.
Best Car 2016: EE Pocket-lint Gadget Awards nominees
The Pocket-lint Gadget Awards 2016 will be taking place for the 13th year at the end of November in association with EE. There are 14 categories this year, with a couple of new ones joining in the form of Best VR Device and Best Car, as well as a split of the wearable category into Best Smartwatch and Best Fitness Tracker.
Each of the 14 categories has between five and seven nominations, all of which have been reviewed by us in full at some point in the last 12 months. As usual, we have been detailing the nominations for each category through a series of features over the last couple of weeks, all of which can be found in our Awards hub. This is the last of those features, focusing on the nominations for Best Car 2016, what we love about them and why they have been shortlisted.
This is a brand new category for the Pocket-lint Gadget Awards, as we mentioned, and with seven nominees, it’s a very exciting one. Only one can be crowned king of the road, but which will get your vote? Do you think Ford’s Mustang deserves the crown? Or perhaps Audi’s Q2 is the car of the year in your eyes?
Click here to see the Awards nominees for 2016’s Best Car in a little more detail to help you make your mind up about which one should get your vote.
Voting in the 13th annual EE Pocket-lint Awards is now open so you can let us know which one of these great devices you think should win the Best Car award for this year and give us your verdict on all the other tech across the 13 select categories.
Winners will be announced at the exclusive event in London on 23 November in association with EE. For now, keep an eye on the EE Pocket-lint Gadget Awards 2016 hub for all the latest on how the voting works, who the elite judges are and the EE Pocket-lint Gadget Awards shortlist.
Tesla Solar Roof will power your home and look good in the process
Popping a solar panel on your roof is a great way to generate free, sustainable energy for your home but there’s one major drawback, it is often unsightly. Some councils even frown upon them.
However, Tesla’s latest concept would be approved of by anyone and everyone. Its Solar Roof covers the entire top of a house, yet you wouldn’t notice.
That’s because each roof tile is a smaller solar panel. It looks like slate but is made of strengthened glass with a solar cell contained inside.
There are even different styles of glass tile, with Tuscan, slate, textured and smooth variants, and you’d have trouble distinguishing the former three with a normal, everyday roofing tile.
- What is SolarCity and why is Tesla buying it?
- Tesla: Everything you need to know about Model 3, Model S, Model X, and more
They were announced during a special Tesla event by company head Elon Musk. He didn’t mention price though, so we doubt the Solar Roof will be cheap to fit.
However, Musk did point out that it won’t be much more expensive than having an entire conventional roof refitted. And think of the saving you’ll make on electricity bills in future.
The next solar powered initiative Tesla is speculated to unveil will be a next generation electric car. There’s currently no word on when that will be.
AIVAnet 