ICYMI: Sims yourself into a new VR social network

Today on In Case You Missed It: A new social network for virtual reality just launched, geared towards users who will decorate rooms to their taste, then have online friends over to hang out in their rooms, sharing content and chatting in real time about whatever movie they might be watching. Meanwhile, a bike path in Poland is made of material that glows for 10 hours after being charged by sunlight. It’s being watched through the winter and if it handles cold temperatures well, researchers will begin work on commercializing the material in the spring.

Nissan’s EV mobile office video is here, and if you’re interested in that GoPro contest, the mountain biking video is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.

Apple says why the new MacBook Pro doesn’t have an SD card slot

Did you take one glance at the new MacBook Pro and wonder why Apple removed your precious SD card slot? The company isn’t about to bring the slot back, but it’s at least ready to explain its decision. In an interview with the Independent, Senior VP Phil Schiller says there were a few reasons for axing the card reader. It was a “bit of a cumbersome slot,” he claims, since your card juts outward. He also argues that the slot was a compromise, since it forced high-end camera owners (who often use CompactFlash or XQD cards) to get an external reader. And any slot is less necessary these days, Schiller adds. Many newer cameras have built-in wireless transfers, so you may never need to plug something into your laptop.

The points have some validity, but we suspect that there will still be lots of disagreement from potential customers. An SD card sticking out of your laptop isn’t that much of a pain, and numerous pro-level cameras use SD storage. Also, while it’s true that many cameras from recent years have WiFi, not all of them do — and not everyone can justify buying a new camera to complement their new laptop. This should be less of an issue as time goes on, but it’s no small matter today.

This wasn’t Schiller’s only answer, as you might guess. For one, he explains why Macs don’t have “hey, Siri” voice activation like iOS devices do. It’s a combination of “system electronics” with expectations, the exec says. You’d want to use Siri even while the computer is asleep, but current Macs aren’t equipped to listen with the system off. In other words: while Schiller isn’t promising anything, don’t be surprised if Macs get hands-free Siri activation at some point down the road.

And while the uproar over the MacBook Pro has been a “bit of a surprise,” Schiller is quick to address concerns that Apple made a mistake. Virtually every new Apple product has its “share of early criticism and debate,” he says, alluding to the original iMac’s lack of legacy ports. The company has to “help people through these changes” and have confidence that it made a good long-term decision. And despite the outcry, Apple’s online store is taking more orders than “any pro notebook before.” That last part isn’t completely surprising (Apple has plenty of pent-up demand given an unusually long update cycle), but it does suggest that the new design is alluring to at least some would-be buyers.

Source: The Independent

Security camera uses AI to tell humans from animals or cars

Netatmo’s WiFi-connected Presence security camera is now on sale, making it one of the first on the market with built-in AI. That helps it distinguish between people cars, or animals, then send you a smartphone message like “car seen” or “person seen.” You can program it to start recording or, say, turn off the sprinkler if it detects an animal, thanks to smart home and IFTTT integration. It also lets you watch activities discreetly using the camera’s infrared night vision, or flip on the built-in floodlight manually.

We first saw the Presence at CES in January (see the video, below), when Netatmo promised to release it in Q2 2016. It obviously missed that deadline by a mile, but the Presence is still one of the first security cameras on the market using AI to distinguish specific objects, as far as I can see.

The company says the device can help you avoid monthly monitoring fees by doing work normally done by security personnel. “The camera instantly detects unusual situations and sends precise notifications to the users’ smartphone,” says CEO Fred Potter. “[It then] alerts them in real time if there’s a break-in, an intruder, or property damage.” Netatmo doesn’t say exactly how the AI works, but it presumably needs to connect to company servers over the internet.

You can program the system so it only notifies you in specific circumstances. For example, you can set up specific zones around your gate or garage door and only send alerts when something is detected there. It can also let you know if a package is delivered when you’re not home. The camera stores videos locally on a micro SD card, but you can also save them to Dropbox or another cloud service. The app uses “bank-level” encryption to transmit data to your smartphone, Netatmo says.

The camera has 1080p resolution, a 100-degree field of view and a weatherproof design for outdoor use. Other features include a time-lapse feature that shows the previous 24 hours in just one minute, a DIY installation process that lets you replace an outdoor light, a live video display, and a timeline showing past events.The app works on a iOS or Android devices, and on a PC or Mac via the web, and is now available in the US at Home Depot, Apple or Amazon.com for $300.

Vinfusion wine robot blends a glass based on your taste

Take it from a former wine seller when I say that wine snobs are the worst, constantly trying to prove the the extent of their oenophilia. For everyone else, it’s nothing but a wave of unnecessary intimidation thanks to the complexity and variety of wines and the potential risk of embarrassment. Cambridge Consultants feels that technology should be able to get us past that moment of panic that comes when you’re asked to choose a wine. The company has created Vinfusion, a device that enables people to blend a glass of wine that’s been customized to their specific requirements. Cheers!

Vinfusion itself is a series of pipes, pumps, sensors and controllers that are designed to sit below the counter of a high-end bar or in a rich person’s kitchen. Mounted into the tabletop is a tap that’s connected to a conical centrifuge that rolls down toward the pouring spout. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Sat beside the Vinfusion tap is a tablet with an app that lets you pick a wine to match your menu or customize one yourself. Should you opt for the latter, you’ll be shown three volume sliders that let you choose between light and full-bodied, soft and spicy, and sweetness. Each one is selected by drawing your finger left or right, and when you’ve made your selection, you hit the pour button.

Lurking inside Vinfusion’s guts are four reservoirs of red wine: a Pinot Noir, a Shiraz, a Merlot and a red Muscat — a dessert wine that provides the sweetness. When the particular mix is determined, the liquid is pulled up into the centrifuge via four small nozzles in the lid. The mix is then spun around to be blended together and aerated in a nice piece of theater before rolling down into the glass below.

Wine-blending machines aren’t a new invention, but Cambridge Consultants’ researchers believe that they have uncovered the secret to identifying the elements of taste. That way, they can produce a blend on demand that will theoretically satisfy anyone’s palate. Although it’s worth noting that certain types of wine snob get very tetchy around the notion of blended wines — which they see as a cheapo affront to grapekind.

I wanted to try and get a nice wine for day drinking; a medium-bodied, reasonably dry wine, and the system said my selection was close to a Cabernet Sauvignon. The end result, however, came out a little bit more like a Pinot Noir, thinner than I was expecting with a very strong ethanol-y kick at the back. But that shouldn’t take away from the fundamental soundness of the project, which seems to be quite compelling at first blush.

Cambridge Consultants is a big freelance R&D outfit, a privately-owned mad science factory that sells its ideas to big-name tech companies. It’s looking to perfect Vinfusion and sell it on to a third party that can commercialize it for the world. It’s not just red wine that it could be used for, since it’ll work with any form of blended liquid, from white wine all the way through to customized perfumes. It’s not too expensive, either, with the components only costing a few thousand dollars at most.

It’s not the first time that the firm has dabbled in the food and drink space, either, having released Té, a tea machine that brewed a stunning cup of chai. The business then turned its attention towards ales to develop Hoppler, a smart beer tap that produced dry-hopped ales in the style of an espresso machine. Unfortunately, neither of those devices were picked up by industry, and are currently languishing inside the company’s archives. Let’s hope that Vinfusion doesn’t suffer the same fate.

* That’s a $500 word for “being a wine geek.” Told you wine was unnecessarily intimidating.

Adobe Announces Upcoming 2016 Creative Cloud Updates at MAX

Adobe’s MAX creativity and design conference is set to kick off this morning, and during the MAX event, Adobe plans to show off several upcoming software updates and new software experiences that are coming to its product lineup later this year.

All of Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps are being updated with new features. Photoshop, for example, is gaining a new universal search bar with visual search options, stock templates, tighter integration of SVG elements, and better support for SVG color fonts, while Illustrator is gaining font, text, and glyph enhancements along with new alignment tools for creating pixel-based artwork.

Adobe Experience Design CC (XD), Adobe’s tool for designing and prototyping, is gaining support for layers and symbols, along with the ability for users to comment on shared designs, making it easier to get feedback from clients. During the first half of 2017, XD will also support real-time sharing and collaboration features along with visual versioning to make it easier to keep track of changes.

After Effects features a new 3D rendering engine that can render 3D elements up to 20x faster, while Premiere Pro is gaining new virtual reality capabilities and optimized video publishing for social networks. The new software is able to auto detect virtual reality video, applying the proper settings. Character Animator is getting faster puppet creation and animation that better integrates with Photoshop and Illustrator. Team and Enterprise users will soon be able to co-edit video files in Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Prelude with updated workflows.

Mobile apps are also being updated. Photoshop brushes will be able to be used in Sketch, and both Sketch and Draw will gain layer blend modes. Comp, meanwhile, will gain auto mockups and the ability to copy/paste within and across documents.

Project Felix, being unveiled at MAX, is an upcoming tool that allows graphic designers to make high-quality photo-realistic images using 2D and 3D assets, even without experience using 3D software. Project Felix includes 3D models, materials, and lights sourced from Adobe Stock, and there are options do to things like adjust camera angles and lighting to make the perfect product shot.

Adobe Spark, available today as a free service, is designed to allow Adobe Creative Cloud users to create social graphics, web stories, and animated videos. Spark is available to everyone, but paid members will have exclusive features, including the ability to remove Adobe branding from projects.

Adobe is officially bringing its Adobe Stock Contributor site out of beta, allowing Adobe users to sell their photographs and design work to other Adobe users. Adobe Stock is gaining an improved image search feature and a new auto-keyword option that makes it easier to find what you’re looking for.

Adobe is also announcing a new partnership with Reuters, incorporating Reuters video and photography of news, sports, and entertainment events, and it is introducing a new way to purchase fonts through the Adobe Typekit marketplace.

Adobe’s Creative Cloud updates will be available to Creative Cloud subscribers before the end of the year. For more details on the upcoming features that will be available in Adobe’s range of Creative Cloud apps, make sure to check out Adobe.com.

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LastPass Announces Multi-Device Password Sync as Free Option for All Users

Password manager LastPass today announced that all users are now able to sync their passwords across multiple devices for free, whereas previously the service’s multi-device feature was locked behind its $1 per month subscription service. Now, users can gain access to their most secure sign-in information on a smartphone, tablet, desktop, or laptop using any of the company’s free mobile and computer apps.

The new LastPass free plan works without any user input needed, so anyone who doesn’t have the app downloaded can do so and begin using the service across all devices LastPass is available on. The $1 per month premium option is still available and includes exclusive features including family sharing with up to five users, no ads, priority tech support, 1GB of encrypted file storage, and more.

LastPass founder Joe Siegrist mentioned in a blog post that the company hopes the move makes it “easier for everyone to make good password habits,” since it’ll be much less of a hassle to create, store, and discover passwords.

From day one here at LastPass, we’ve been on a mission to help you simplify your online life, and make it a whole lot easier to achieve strong password security. By offering LastPass for free across all your devices, we’re making it that much easier for everyone to make good password habits the norm. Because when you have a password manager that goes everywhere you do, you have a strong foundation for securing and taking control of your identity.

Besides the main LastPass iOS [Direct Link] and macOS [Direct Link] apps, the company has made its password managing service available to download as extensions on Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Opera web browsers.

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Apple Has Received More Online Orders for New MacBook Pro Than Any Previous Generation

In a wide-ranging interview with The Independent, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller said the company has received more online orders for the new MacBook Pro so far than any previous-generation MacBook Pro.

And we are proud to tell you that so far our online store has had more orders for the new MacBook Pro than any other pro notebook before. So there certainly are a lot of people as excited as we are about it.

Schiller said the early criticism and debate about the new MacBook Pro has been “a bit of a surprise” to him, but said “that’s cool” and common for new Apple products. He attributed the response to a “passionate” customer base.

Are you surprised by how vocal the critics have been?

To be fair it has been a bit of a surprise to me. But then, it shouldn’t be. I have never seen a great new Apple product that didn’t have its share of early criticism and debate — and that’s cool. We took a bold risk, and of course with every step forward there is also some change to deal with. Our customers are so passionate, which is amazing.

We care about what they love and what they are worried about. And it’s our job to help people through these changes. We know we made good decisions about what to build into the new MacBook Pro and that the result is the best notebook ever made, but it might not be right for everyone on day one. That’s okay, some people felt that way about the first iMac and that turned out pretty good.

Schiller went on to say the new MacBook Pro is “the best notebook ever made,” but admitted it “might not be right for everyone on day one.”

I hope everyone gets a chance to try it for themselves and see how great the MacBook Pro is. It is a really big step forward and an example of how much we continue to invest in the Mac. We love the Mac and are as committed to it, in both desktops and notebooks, as we ever have been.

Whereas some companies are blurring the lines between notebooks and tablets, Schiller said the basic L shape “makes perfect sense and won’t go away.”

You have a surface that you type down on with your hands, with a screen facing you vertically. That basic orientation, that L shape makes perfect sense and won’t go away. The team came up with this idea that you can create a multi-touch surface that’s coplanar with the keyboard and the trackpad but brings a whole new experience into it, one that’s more interactive, with multi-touch.

That response is part of Apple’s belief that the Mac and iOS devices are “fundamentally two different products.”

Here’s one example of how they should remain distinct: the Mac from the very first has had a menu bar fixed at the top. It’s core to the identity and the experience you get. But iOS doesn’t have a menu at the top. It never will. The thought of pointing at a menu at the top of an iPhone feels wrong.

If you made the Mac a touchscreen you’d have to figure out how to make it a good experience with your finger on a touchscreen. Trust me, we’ve looked at that — it’s a bad experience. It’s not as good or as intuitive as with a mouse and trackpad.

Also interesting: Schiller noted the new MacBook Pro still has a 3.5mm headphone jack because it is a “pro machine,” but lacks an SD card reader because it’s a “cumbersome” slot best left to adapters or wireless transfers.

Full Article: Apple’s Philip Schiller talks computers, touchscreens, and voice on the new MacBook Pro

Related Roundup: MacBook Pro
Tag: Phil Schiller
Buyer’s Guide: Retina MacBook Pro (Buy Now)
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Smart Outdoor Security Camera ‘Netatmo Presence’ Now Available

Announced back at CES earlier this year, Netatmo today is officially launching its smart outdoor security camera, called “Presence,” for $299.99. Using a “breakthrough deep-learning algorithm,” the Presence security camera detects people, cars, and animals that appear outside the home, and reports all activity via notifications and recordings through the connected Netatmo Security app. [Direct Link]

The camera’s smart learning algorithm allows it to decipher between objects, people, and animals, and subsequently send notifications that dynamically warn users of exactly what’s appearing outside their home with the text: “Person seen,” “Car seen,” or “Animal seen.” The company said this provides peace of mind for everything from everyday to vacation homes, and can alleviate worry for problems when users aren’t home, such as warning when a delivery driver has dropped off a package.

Presence captures 1080p videos “under any light conditions” with an extensive 100 degree field of view and 65 foot detection range. The Wi-Fi connected camera is waterproof and can resist sun, ice, rain and wind.

“Presence marks a new step forward for consumer security cameras. Unlike existing surveillance systems that need human analysis, Presence understands what’s happening outside the house and operates without requiring a subscription. The camera instantly detects unusual situations and sends precise notifications to the users’ smartphone. Presence offers peace of mind to the users: it alerts them in real time if there’s a break-in, an intruder, or property damage”, explains Fred Potter, Founder and CEO of Netatmo.

In terms of the camera’s push notifications, Netatmo says they’re “entirely customizable,” so each person can decide whether they want to automatically record movement caught by the camera, only get notifications for people arriving, only record wandering animals, etc. With a feature called “Alert Zones,” users can also designate Presence to warn them of activity in up to four specific places like a yard, property gate, garage door, or other areas. If users choose to begin recording video footage, Netatmo provides free video storage with the Presence.

There’s also a time lapse feature so users can catch up on the last 24 hours of activity caught on the camera, through one picture taken each minute, so it’s easy to discover and evaluate any potentially dangerous activity taking place outside a home. This includes nighttime activity, because the Presence has a powerful infra-red night vision mode, as well as an integrated smart floodlight “that can detect and scare off any unwanted visitors or light the way when it’s dark.”

Additionally, Presence is compatible with IFTTT, a connected smart platform that allows users to connect hundreds of different services together in one place in order to string together smart “Recipes.” According to Netatmo, this can result in a variety of useful commands to make life easier for Presence users.

They can then use simple “if this, then that” statements called Recipes to automate and control different aspects of their connected home. For example, an IFTTT user could say “if Presence detects a car in my driveway, then open my connected garage door.” Other practical Recipes include, “If Presence detects an animal in the garden, then turn off the sprinkler,” and “if Presence is disconnected from WiFi, send me a notification.”

In terms of storage, Presence stores videos locally on an internal micro SD card, but users can also choose to transfer them to their Dropbox account or their personal FTP server. For those worrying about the addition of another subscription fee with Netatmo’s outdoor camera, the company confirms that “storage is entirely free and does not incur any additional subscription or fee.” The camera is also secured by end-to-end encryption when data is transmitted between it and the smartphone app.

Netatmo said that installation is easy because the Presence simply replaces an existing outdoor light. With iOS 10, the Netatmo Security app also supports rich notifications so users can catch glimpses of each recording of the camera without unlocking their phone. The company’s notification range extends to apps on the Mac and Apple Watch, as well.

Anyone interested can pick up a Netatmo Presence beginning today from Apple, Amazon, and Home Depot for $299.99.

Tags: Netatmo, Netatmo Presence
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