Pros and cons: Our quick verdict on the LeEco Le Pro3
The Le Pro3 is the first phone available in the US from LeEco — a company already well-known in its native China for its mobile devices and TVs (among many other things). Similar to Motorola and OnePlus, LeEco is competing on price, with the Le Pro3 ringing in at just $400. And in many ways, the company succeeded in putting out a quality product: The device is well-constructed with fast performance and long battery life. Unfortunately, the phone falls short of greatness thanks to an unreliable camera and an unintuitive interface. The lack of both a headphone jack and microSD slot don’t help either, though the Le Pro3 is hardly the only phone to suffer from those shortcomings. All things considered, then, it still offers good value for the money, but isn’t the best device in its price class.
‘Dark Souls’ publisher bets on AI for smarter game foes
Bandai Namco, the gamesmaker behind Tekken, Dark Souls and a whole bunch of Dragonball games, has invested in an artificial intelligence startup. The team at Heroz have an algorithm for shogi (Japanese chess) that’s bested several professional human players in public matches. Bandai Namco is hoping to tap into that know-how to improve its non-playing character behavior in future titles, although expect to see it in much simpler games long before that eventual Dark Souls successor.
Heroz has dabbled with games outside the likes of chess and backgammon. Earlier in 2016, it worked with the Pokemon Company to make Pokemon Co-master, a figurine-battling board game for smartphones that (according to Nikkei) didn’t do so well. The startup is hoping that Bandai Namco’s expertise will help ensure a hit.
Heroz’ expertise in traditional (and cutesy-character based) games could ensure it’s well-placed to develop for Sony’s incoming Project Field product. This card-reading smart pad is designed to bridge the gap between digital and physical cards games. The first title announced for it was Yokai Watch — a Bandai Namco game. It might be too early to join the dots, but eh, that’s not stopping us from doing exactly that.
Via: Nikkei
Source: Bandai Namco (Japanese)
Cuba opens its first computer factory
Cuba is slowly opening up to technology, but it hasn’t actually been making technology. Its exports are dominated by natural products like nickel, sugar and tobacco. The nation is about to diversify, however: it just inaugurated its first computer factory, which officials claim will “promote technology and digital literacy.” It’s a modest plant, to put it mildly. The factory is only capable of producing 120,000 devices per year, and Chinese electronics giant Haier is shouldering a lot of the responsibility by supplying equipment, tech and training. The facility is thoroughly modern, however, and will make modern laptops (using Celeron, Core i3 and Core i5 chips, Cuba eagerly points out) as well as 8- and 10-inch tablets.
It’s not hard to see why Haier would take an interest in a Cuban factory. This lets it produce devices for the region (except the US, as you might guess) while keeping labor costs low — remember, even services like Netflix are relatively expensive on a typical wage. The odds aren’t high that many of these PCs and tablets will reach Cuban hands, and it’s not clear that the factory will create many jobs. Nonetheless, it’s an important step for a country determined to get a stronger presence in the global economy.
Source: Granma
Police seek Amazon Echo data in murder case
Amazon’s Echo devices and its virtual assistant are meant to help find answers by listening for your voice commands. However, police in Arkansas want to know if one of the gadgets overheard something that can help with a murder case. According to The Information, authorities in Bentonville issued a warrant for Amazon to hand over any audio or records from an Echo belonging to James Andrew Bates. Bates is set to go to trial for first-degree murder for the death of Victor Collins next year.
Amazon declined to give police any of the information that the Echo logged on its servers, but it did hand over Bates’ account details and purchases. Police say they were able to pull data off of the speaker, but it’s unclear what info they were able to access. Due to the so-called always on nature of the connected device, the authorities are after any audio the speaker may have picked up that night. Sure, the Echo is activated by certain words, but it’s not uncommon for the IoT gadget to be alerted to listen by accident.
Police say Bates had several other smart home devices, including a water meter. That piece of tech shows that 140 gallons of water were used between 1AM and 3AM the night Collins was found dead in Bates’ hot tub. Investigators allege the water was used to wash away evidence of what happened off of the patio. The examination of the water meter and the request for stored Echo information raises a bigger question about privacy. At a time when we have any number of devices tracking and automating our habits at home, should that information be used against us in criminal cases?
Bates’ attorney argues that it shouldn’t. “You have an expectation of privacy in your home, and I have a big problem that law enforcement can use the technology that advances our quality of life against us,” defense attorney Kimberly Weber said. Of course, there’s also the question of how reliable information is from smart home devices. Accuracy can be an issue for any number of IoT gadgets. However, an audio recording would seemingly be a solid piece of evidence, if released.
Just as we saw with the quest to unlock an iPhone in the San Bernardino case, it will be interesting to see how authorities and the companies who make smart home devices work out the tension between serving customers, maintaining privacy and pursuing justice.
We reached out to Amazon for comment and will update when we hear back.
Source: The Information
LEDVANCE Announces HomeKit-Enabled ‘Sylvania Smart Multicolor Bulb’ That Doesn’t Need Central Hub
Smart home company LEDVANCE today announced the Sylvania Smart Multicolor A19 bulb, a HomeKit-enabled Wi-Fi smart light that users can control through Siri and the new Home app without the need of a separate hub. Because there’s no hub installation, all users have to do is screw in the bulb into a light source and sync it with HomeKit to begin controlling the Sylvania lights.
The hub-free system works when users are both inside and outside of their home. When away, Sylvania bulbs sync with a connected Apple TV or iOS 10-enabled iPad as a hub for the smart home so users can keep checking in on and controlling the lights from afar.
“For more than a century, consumers have looked to the brand SYLVANIA for innovation, and this announcement represents another exciting advancement,” said Aaron Ganick, who heads up the Smart Home Americas group at LEDVANCE. “For us, making the Smart Home a reality for consumers is all about quality products and strong partnerships with leaders in the industry.
By working with Apple to provide smart lighting that works directly with the Home app, we’re making it easier for Apple enthusiasts to seamlessly integrate quality lighting into their Smart Home, bringing convenience and simplicity to their daily lives.”
The company said there’s also the ability to set scenes and activities in combination with other HomeKit devices “to create custom experiences through the Home app.” Users could, for example, set up a simple Siri phrase like, “I’m on my way home,” to activate lights, unlock a door, and turn on the heat in the winter.
LEDVANCE currently sells a collection of smart home bulbs, but they all require hubs to function — similar to Philips Hue — and aren’t HomeKit compatible. Beginning in 2017, the company hopes to expand its Apple-supported product line, beginning with the launch of the Sylvania A19 bulb on Amazon sometime early in the new year.
Tags: HomeKit, Sylvania, Ledvance
Discuss this article in our forums
Apple Watch Owners Notified of Upcoming ‘Ring In the New Year’ Activity Achievement
Like it did on Thanksgiving, Apple today has begun notifying Apple Watch owners of a soon-to-launch Activity challenge, hoping to encourage users to get moving and work out in the new year. To earn the achievement, Apple Watch owners will have to close all three Activity rings each day for an entire week in January.
Image via MacRumors forum member friednoodles
The challenge should become visible for all Apple Watch wearers within the Activity app at midnight local time on December 28. Similar to the Thanksgiving Achievement, if users complete the new challenge they’ll gain access to “special stickers” in iMessages.
Related Roundups: Apple Watch Series 2, watchOS 3
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)
Discuss this article in our forums
Turkey says it’s investigating 10,000 social network users
Turkey has been cracking down on internet activity at a frenetic pace ever since an attempted military coup in the summer, and it’s now clear that there are a lot of people caught in the dragnet. The country’s interior ministry has revealed that officials are investigating about 10,000 social network users suspected of backing terrorism. About 3,710 people have been questioned in the past 6 months, authorities say, and 1,656 were arrested. The rest were let go, but 1,203 of them are still under watch.
There’s one inescapable question, however: just how many of those internet socialites really support terrorism? Despite protests to the contrary, the Turkish government is notorious for blocking Facebook, Twitter and other internet services whenever there’s a surge of dissent against President Erdogan, and that kind of knee-jerk response has only intensified since the coup. The country has closed down 150 news organizations in the period as well. While it’s certainly possible that some of those 10,000 users are plotting senseless acts of violence, the terrorism charges may simply be a pretext for silencing online political opposition.
Source: Reuters
How to rearrange the Samsung Gear S3’s app drawer and widgets
You can easily tame some of the chaos that is the Gear S3’s app and widget situation.
With so many apps, services and utilities available on Samsung’s Gear S3 smartwatches, it’s easy to get carried away while setting things up and all of a sudden be in a stressful situation. Dozens of apps across multiple pages of the app drawer sit beneath a dozen pages of widgets to the right of your watch face — but thankfully you can clean up this situation to make it easier to get just what you want.
While you can’t altogether hide or delete most of the pre-installed apps on the Gear S3, you can rearrange them in a way that puts what you want front and center, leaving the rest to the background so it isn’t in the way. Here’s how to get it done.
Configuring widgets
Widgets on the Gear S3 are the glanceable bits of information that are available to the right of your watch face. You can think of them as full-screen app experiences that are always available to you, without having to explicitly launch an app. By default Samsung loads up the Gear S3 with a bunch of widgets, and you can even install more on your own. Either way, you can have as many or as few as you see fit — adding as much functionality or simplicity as you desire.
This is how you configure widgets on your Gear S3:
Rotate the bezel clockwise to view a widget on screen.
Press and hold anywhere on the screen to activate “Edit mode”.
- Rotate the bezel to select widgets to interact with.
- Press the – button to remove a widget.
- Press and hold a widget, dragging it left or right to rearrange its position in the list.
To add more widgets, rotate the bezel clockwise to the very end of the list and tap Add widget.
Select the widget you want, then press and hold the widget to rearrange its position in the list.
Rearranging the app drawer
For all of the apps on your Gear S3 that aren’t worthy of their own dedicated widget, you can open up the app drawer by pressing the home button while on the watch face. Just like your phone, the app drawer holds every app that’s installed on the watch, and by default is placed in a haphazard order. Samsung defines the app drawer on its own terms, and any additional apps that you download are put at the very end of the list — which could mean scrolling through three or four pages before you get to it.
But it doesn’t have to be that way for long — here’s how you can rearrange your apps:
Go to your watch face and press the home button to enter the app drawer.
Press and hold on the center of the screen to enter “Edit mode”.
Rotate the bezel to the page you want to rearrange.
Press and hold the app you want to move, drag it to its new position, and lift your finger to place it.
- To move an app between pages, drag the app to the multi-colored circular page indicator at the 1 or 11 o’clock position.
- If an app can be uninstalled, it will have a red – on the corner of the icon; tap it to delete and confirm with the check mark.
When you’re finished editing, press the back button to exit Edit mode.
Once you spend a few minutes getting both the widgets and app drawer on your Gear S3 set just how you like them, you’ll find it much easier to access the information you need when you need it. Skip over the distraction of unused apps and widgets, and take control of your smartwatch!
The Morning After: Tuesday December 27, 2016
Welcome back from the long festive weekend. In the midst of all that egg-nog, present opening and family router troubleshooting, you might have missed Apple’s first published AI research, the worst gadgets of the year, and the latest Chinese luxury smartphone that goes all-in on battery life.
No, you’re the worst.
The worst gadgets of 2016
Sidestepping the rest of the bad news that 2016 managed to deliver, there were some stinkers when it came to this year’s new gadgets. Smoking (then exploding) phones, plain racist app photo filters, excessively overpriced smartwatches and those dongles.
It’s all about object recognition.
Apple reveals its work on artificial intelligence
When Apple said it would publish its artificial intelligence research, we had a few questions: Would the company keep potential trade secrets close to the vest? What exactly is the company working on? Well, in its first published AI paper, it outlined the issues with teaching AI to recognize objects using simulated images, which are easier to use than photos (since you don’t need a human to tag items) but poor for adapting to real-world situations. Apple says the trick is to pit neural networks against each other: one network trains itself to improve the realism of simulated images (in this case, using photo examples) until they’re good enough to fool a rival “discriminator” network. Ideally, this pre-training would save massive amounts of time. It’s still far too early to say how this will make its way to Apple’s assembled collection of goods or services. For now.
Big battery, big price tag.
China’s latest luxury phone goes all-in on battery life
China’s Gionee is taking a different approach with its new big-screened premium phone: it’s giving you one huge feature that might help to excuse its ‘luxury’ price tag. It just launched the M2017, a metal-and-leather 5.7-inch phone that houses an enormous 7,000mAh battery. Possibly a bigger battery than your tablet. When the M2017 goes on sale in China on January 6th (an international release isn’t likely), it’ll start at about $1,007 for a 128GB version and jump to $2,500 for a 256GB model. Not the most expensive smartphone, but likely more than that iPhone 7 Plus model you were eyeing up in the new year sales.
Floating egg.
LG has a floating speaker ready for 2017
Levitating (and magical) Bluetooth speakers have been around for years, but LG is the first major electronics company to throw a product in the ring, and is doing so with its classy-looking, albeit blandly named, “Levitating Portable Speaker,” which will make its debut at CES in January. The company promises 10 hours of playback, although it looks like we’ll have to wait for the big tech show in a week to pin down a price.
But wait, there’s more…
- Tesla’s next-generation Superchargers should be much faster
- This week: The biggest losers of 2016
- Fake news starts an Israel-Pakistan Twitter dispute
- A new ‘Double Dragon’ game is on its way next month
Samsung’s ‘creative’ CES ideas: Bluetooth toy tags and skin care
Last year, Samsung brought a boatload of projects from its Creative Lab to CES. C-Lab projects it considered for business opportunities included a motion controller, a smart belt and a smart band for watches. The WELT fitness tracking belt eventually landed on Kickstarter and is supposed to start shipping next month. So what potential startups will Samsung demonstrate in Las Vegas this year? Meet the Tag+ Bluetooth button, S-Skin skincare system and Lumini cosmetic device.
The Tag+ is a button that imagines connecting to toys and smartphone apps alike via Bluetooth LE. Kids can shake, long-press, tap or bump the tag to prompt responses from a connected app. The demo video isn’t clear on why this is better than just an app by itself, but it does look like a cheap, standard way for adding connected features to kids toys ( …about that).
The other two products appeal to our vanity, as the S-Skin setup teams a microneedle patch with a handheld analyzer, that obtains information about your skin (via physical contact) and your environment. It delivers all of that data to an app that recommends treatment, and tracks changes over time. Meanwhile, the Lumini takes the approach of analyzing skin condition with a photo to identify issues like pimples before they reach the surface.
There’s no way to know which, if any, of these will become real products/businesses, but Samsung says that of last year’s entries, five (including WELT) have successfully spun off.
Source: Samsung
AIVAnet 