ChargePoint’s Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Now Displayed in Apple Maps

Electric vehicle charging network ChargePoint today announced a new partnership with Apple that sees its electric vehicle charging stations listed within Apple Maps.

Drivers can click on new Electric Vehicle Charger badges in Apple Maps to get directions to charging stations, find hours of operation, and get details on pricing.

When at a ChargePoint charging station, iPhone users can start the charging process, pay for the charge, and see other station details through a Maps link that leads to the ChargePoint app. ChargePoint operates over 31,100 charging stations and has delivered more than 19,400,000 charges to electric vehicle owners.

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Apple Seeds Sixth macOS Sierra 10.12.2 Beta to Developers and Public Beta Testers

Apple today seeded the sixth beta of an upcoming macOS Sierra 10.12.2 update to developers and public beta testers, a few days after releasing the fifth 10.12.2 beta and over a month after the public release of macOS 10.12.1.

macOS Sierra 10.12.2 beta 6 is available for download through the Apple Developer Center or through the software update mechanism in the Mac App Store.

macOS Sierra 10.12.2 includes new emoji, introducing Unicode 9 characters like clown face, selfie, face palm, fox face, owl, shark, butterfly, avocado, bacon, and more, plus many profession emoji are available in both male and female genders.

Apple has also updated the artwork on many existing emoji characters, adding detail to make them look less cartoonish and more realistic. New wallpapers are also included in macOS Sierra 10.12.2, introducing the color explosion options that were previously used in iPhone marketing materials.

There are few other outward-facing changes aside from the addition of new emoji and wallpapers, but the 10.12.2 update also includes some important bug fixes. A serious graphics issue that has been affecting some new MacBook Pro owners has been solved, and a Time Machine crashing issue, also impacting the new MacBook Pro, has been fixed.

Available since September, macOS Sierra is the latest Mac operating system. It includes Siri support, Apple Pay for the web, Universal Clipboard, Apple Watch auto unlocking, improved iCloud Drive integration, Picture-in-Picture multitasking, and dozens of smaller features that can be found in our macOS Sierra roundup.

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MrMobile Head to Head: Pixel vs iPhone!

A war is brewing! Well, not a war. It’s more like… not a war. But for the iPhone and the Pixel, it can only mean one thing — War! Alright, this paragraph may be ridiculous, but what we’re talking about isn’t. It’s time for the iPhone and Pixel to face off!

MrMobile is pitting these two titans head-to-head, bringing to light the most important questions of our day. Do the iPhone’s lush camera colors outshine the intense image stabilization of the Pixel? Can having an headphone jack edge out those who might want to Snapchat underwater? And who really is behind the mystery of the abandoned theme park? Michael Fisher reveals all in this thrilling episode! (Except the one about the abandoned theme park — that was Old Man McCreevy.)

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Google’s Trusted Contacts is a simple way for families to have some peace of mind

Getting your child their first phone is maybe as exciting for the parent as it is the kid. It’s also scary as hell, yeah, but part of the idea of putting a computer in their pocket is so that you can keep in touch with them as they start branching out into the world — especially if things go wrong. (And they will at some point, right?)

Now emergency contact apps are nothing new. Various manufacturers have had them baked into their phones for some time now. (See Motorola Alert for one, and Samsung’s SOS service for another. Google — which makes this little operating system called Android — has oddly been missing from that equation. Until now, with the release of Trusted Contacts.

Here’s how it works.

Fire up the Trusted Contacts app and you’ll get a short walkthrough of what to expect. And the app is easy enough to use that you probably won’t need too much more instruction than that. First you’ll select some contacts you want to use as your “Trusted Contacts.” Add them, and they’ll be sent an email that lets them know you think so much of them you want to put your wellbeing in their hands. (Presumably you’ve already done this anyway, but whatever.) They have to approve your request before anyone gets notified of anything.

Once that’s done they’ll show up in your list of Trusted Contacts. (Do note that at launch Trusted Contacts only works on Android, though iOS support is coming. But that won’t keep you from adding someone who uses an iPhone — and they’ll still receive notifications by email.) You can pin your contacts so that they’re always present in your notification area, if you really want to keep track of things.

From there you have two basic options — share your location with your contacts, or request (nay, demand!) the location of your contacts.

Sharing your location

You’ve got a couple options for sharing your location with your contacts. You can do in the normal, non-emergency way, which allows you to select who will get to see where you are. Or you can send out an emergency blast (after a 10-second “are you sure?!?!” period) to every single person in your Trusted Contacts. They’ll be notified on their phone, as well as by email. Simple enough.

Requesting a location

You also can ask your contacts to share their location with you. Basically as a “Where are you, are you OK?” sort of thing. They’ll get a big, bright pop-up stating that you want to know where they are. If they approve, they’ll be sharing their location for 24 hours, or until they manually stop sharing. If they don’t respond back within 5 minutes their phone will automatically share its location for the next 24 hours.

There are limitations here, of course. It’s possible for your phone to be somewhere other than where you are. Phone batteries die. This isn’t the be-all, end-all of keeping folks safe, for sure. And it’s really meant as more of a safety thing than a snooping thing. It doesn’t hide the fact that someone can see where you are at all.

And you also have to have installed the Trusted Contacts app in the first place. For my money I’d love to see it baked in to Google’s default suite of apps, unless it’s going to conflict with a manufacturer’s version. Because this is a basic safety service that really should be employed by anyone with a phone.

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What is T-Mobile Digits and why do I want it?

T-Mobile’s Digits brings phone calls and texts into the 21st century, but at a time when people care little about those things, will it make a difference?

T-Mobile has unveiled a new service called Digits, making phone numbers less reliant on a SIM card, and expanding the simple phone number into the smartphone age.

But for all of its big talk, Digits is a bit confusing, so let’s break it down.

What is Digits?

At its core, Digits is T-Mobile’s way of utilizing its new IMS (IP Media Subsystem) backend to dynamically direct calls to any device, or store multiple numbers on a single device.

Basically, without the technical mumbo jumbo, it’s a way to free the phone number from its legacy place, and to utilize the flexibility data-based nature of Voice over LTE and Voice of Wi-Fi to allow a call to take place, or to be received, in the most convenient place. This is very similar to Google Voice, and to many other Voice over IP services like Viber and Skype, but T-Mobile has one major advantage: it owns the network, and it distributes the phones.

So what can Digits really do for me?

Provided you’re on one of T-Mobile’s compatible postpaid plans (yes, this is yet another way for T-Mobile to upsell you), Digits can make it easier to manage phone calls in the increasingly inevitable situation you have multiple devices.

The basic idea is that if you receive a call on your traditional T-Mobile number, your phone should ring, along with any device — another phone, a computer, a tablet, even a connected smartwatch — at the same time. You can also make calls from any of those same devices without your phone nearby, and without the need to have a SIM card.

A secondary but for many people equally important feature is the ability to have more than one number available on a single device. So instead of having separate personal and work phones, you can have a single smartphone make and receive calls from two or more numbers.

This sounds a lot like Google Voice

Yes, it does. The major difference here is that T-Mobile is committing to a couple of things that even Google, which creates both Android and Google Voice, can’t do:

• It is integrating Digits directly into the Android phones it sells, working with manufacturers like Samsung to seamlessly add Digits support into devices like the Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S7 and Gear S3.
• It is making it easy to do so-called “SIM replication,” which allows you to duplicate a phone number onto a second device, such as another smartphone or a connected smartwatch.

This is in addition to the Google Voice-like Digits app that’s available for Android and iOS, to make and receive calls and texts from any device, anywhere. There’s also a Digits portal on the web for people who sit in front of a computer all day and want to be able to initiate communications that way. And because the app is available natively and through an app, devices with SIM cards from AT&T, Verizon or Sprint — any carrier, really — can access Digits messages. If you lose your phone, for instance, you can download the Digits app onto a friend’s device and make and receive calls and texts from there, too.

Like many cross-platform messaging services, call logs and messages also sync in real-time between devices, which is a huge boon to productivity if you don’t always have your phone in front of you.

It’s tailor-made for Android

Android is the only platform on which T-Mobile can rely to help Digits grow.

Digits is a cross-platform play, sure, but it is tailor-made for Android. Not only does iOS have its own cross-device communications protocol in iMessage, which may mess with Digits’ ability to route texts, but Apple doesn’t allow for any system-level alterations, rendering one of Digits’ primary use cases moot.

Indeed, Android is the only platform on which T-Mobile can rely to help Digits proliferate, but by potentially limiting half of the population to merely an app-based experience, it is almost immediately cut off at the proverbial knees. Still, Digits has a five-device limit, and can easily be tuned to be used on an iPhone or iPad, especially since as of iOS 10 VoIP apps can take over the lock screen like a regular dialer.

The best Digits experience will always be on Android, and initially is only natively available on the Samsung Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 edge +, Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge or Note 5 purchased through T-Mobile.

So should I sign up?

Digits, while free during the beta period, won’t be afterwards, and T-Mobile isn’t saying how much it will cost.

Digits is an intriguing product, and an example of what it looks like when a carrier turns next-generation core technology like IMS and HLR (which works to virtualize SIM data on the core network) into something that is truly compelling to consumers.

There are a couple of caveats, though: Digits, while free during the beta period, will not be afterwards, and T-Mobile isn’t saying how much it will cost. It’s likely going to be just a few dollars per month, but users already need to have one of the carrier’s postpaid plans such as T-Mobile One or Simple Choice. And only the primary account holder can actually sign up for a second line in order to carry two on a single device; secondary users can merely share their existing number across multiple devices.

During the beta period, which is indeterminate but should go into next year, T-Mobile will ask users to provide feedback on the service. This is a complicated thing, despite its upfront simplicity, and bugs will need to be worked out.

In the long run, though, Digits is coming to market at a time when the phone number is likely the least important aspect of a smartphone user’s experience. Data, and the avenues to the internet it provides, is the backbone of the mobile experience. Phone calls and rich texts sent over a carrier network, even one as advanced as T-Mobile’s, still feel somewhat anachronistic.

Nonetheless, the Digits beta seems like a great option for T-Mobile users running select Samsung phones on Android, and we look forward to trying it out!

See Digits at T-Mobile

Your Google Assistant is about to get smarter thanks to Actions on Google

Actions are the tools developers need to integrate their products into Assistant on your Google Home.

Google has opened up the Actions on Google program today, and developers can now start building their own tools and conversational bots for Google Home.

First seen at Google I/O 2016, the Actions SDK brings everything developers need to integrate their services into Google Assistant the same way Pandora or Google Cast is. Once implemented — there is nothing to install and all the integration with services is done through Google’s cloud servers — we can tell Google Home that we want to talk to or about a service and the new conversations are ready to take what we say and provide the appropriate response.

Google’s Wayne Piekarski walks through a demo using a service they built called “Personal Chef” in the video below. (This will trigger your Pixel or Google Home. Several times.)

Note: The demonstration starts at 1:25

For developers: Google’s Conversation Actions web documentation pages are where you’ll get started building your services into Google Assistant. You can choose to transcribe and decipher a user’s words yourself using the conversation API to process input and use the Actions SDK to process and build actions as intents.If you’d rather not process transcribed speech yourself, you can use api.ai which can build out the workflow of a conversation using Conversation Actions. Google also has integrated Gupshup to help build, test and deploy conversational bots and actions on Google Home.

For users: All of this is handled by the folks who built a service and there’s nothing to install. You’ll be able to tell Google Home you need a thing or want to talk to/about a thing and Assistant will automatically handoff to the correct service the same way things are done now when you tell Google to play a song or cast a video. Seamless integration is what makes Assistant seem “smart”.

For now, the service is only available for Google Home but Google plans to bring Actions to Assistant on the Pixel and in Allo in the future. Google also is working on enabling support for purchases and bookings, and developers who are interested in creating actions using these upcoming features can register for our early access partner program.

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Mozilla helped build a gallery-style exhibit on data security

For a few moments after stepping in from the cold, it was easy to forget I wasn’t in a ritzy SoHo holiday pop-up shop. The room was stark white. Cheerful staffers huddled around display tables in matching hoodies. It wasn’t until I spotted a set of tomes filled with stolen LinkedIn passwords — just feet away from a pair of Air Yeezy 2s purchased off the deep web by an automated bot, naturally — that the space’s true purpose became clear.

Welcome to the Glass Room.

Designed by Mozilla and the nonprofit activists behind the Tactical Technology Collective, this exhibit serves as both a commentary on consumer culture and a primer on the pitfalls of living our lives online.

The first of the 54 items on display here seem a little absurd, and that’s by design. Consider the Unfitbit. It’s a Fitbit strapped to a metronome, designed by Surya Matty and Tega Brain to disconnect the physical you from the quantified exercise that gets collected by companies and nets people discounts on their insurance. Beyond that lies an array of cloth samples shoved into tiny mason jars. As it turns out, they’re from an honest-to-goodness startup called Smell.Dating that — you guessed it — attempts to hook people up based on their individual aromas. Throw in all those LinkedIn passwords exposed during a 2012 breach — and those sneakers — and you’ve got a fairly benign starting point for an exhibit that becomes surprisingly creepy.

That creepiness settles in once you head down the stairs, where the space begins to show off products that are actually being sold. My churchgoing days are long behind me, and it’s just as well — one exhibit showed off how a bit of software from a facial-recognition-software vendor monitors live video feeds to see who showed up for that week’s service. Nearby was a simulated video feed of the US-Mexico border — bought, built and used by the state of Texas — monitored by some 200,000 volunteers hoping to catch drug deals in action and undocumented immigrants on the move.

Nearby lay a slew of sensors collectively called Silver Mother. These were designed to attach to pill bottles and beds and doors to help worried children more easily check up on their aging parents. It’s the sort of seemingly innocuous tech that eager startups pitch all the time, but co-curator and TTC Executive Director Stephanie Hankey said these products were prime examples of how surveillance has become normalized. These days, she says, Big Brother doesn’t have to be a faceless force peering into our lives. As Hankey put it, monitoring each other has “become more banal, bureaucratic and simple,” to the point where we sometimes willingly assume the role ourselves.

The whole experience is sickening, in a poignant, even helpful, kind of way. Upon completing a few laps around the space, there were two thoughts that not even a trip to the Detox Bar — where “inGeniuses” offer workshops on how to be a more secretive, savvy web user — could shake.

First, you can’t help but feel like a sucker here. Like everyone I know, I use Google to figure out every little thing — and in so doing, give the company a thorough portrait of my interests and habits. I use apps to log the things I eat and how much I move and the places I go and the places I want to go. I trust that the companies to which I give this information won’t do anything nefarious with it, but even when I don’t, I give them my data anyway, in exchange for convenience. I’m not alone, either: These services have become woven into the fabric of modern life to the point where opting out can feel almost a little suicidal.

Second, have we reached the point where we create so much data that it’s impossible to manage all of it responsibly? Hard, reliable numbers are tough to come by, but to paraphrase Douglas Adams: “You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big” the amount of data humanity produces each year is. Because of the sheer volume of just the data you personally generate, and the many services we entrust with that data, there’s isn’t really a way to ensure we’re secure from end to end.

After all, how many apologetic emails have you gotten from stores whose payments systems were breached, or from massive tech companies whose infrastructures fell prey to malware and savvy hackers?

That’s not to say that trying to individually safeguard our personal data is a fool’s errand. But with news story after news story highlighting breach after breach, it sometimes feels like all we can do is minimize potential damage.

This exhibit is bound to open some people’s eyes to truths they might not have been ready for, but the Glass Room wasn’t specifically designed to be a downer, either. Rather, Hankey and her colleagues wanted to craft an experience that would elicit a mix of laughter and latent dread.

“We did that to make people realize they can embrace this without going, ‘Oh my God, this is a terrible world,’” she said. “They might think that, but we’re not trying to present it that way. On the other hand, I think that people should and will find their own entry point to these questions. Everyone has a different reason to care about these issues. That’s why we have a breadth of content — to try to find a place for each person to connect with it in their own way.”

The Glass Room is located on 201 Mulberry Street in NYC, and runs through Dec. 14th.