LiftMaster’s Garage Door Openers Will Support HomeKit in April

Following in the footsteps of its parent company Chamberlain, LiftMaster today announced that all of its residential garage door openers can be upgraded to work with HomeKit using the new MyQ Home Bridge starting in April.

HomeKit compatibility will enable users to open, close, or check the status of their garage door, and turn MyQ-connected lights on or off, using the MyQ Connected Home app on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Siri voice commands and HomeKit scenes will also be supported on compatible devices.

The MyQ Home Bridge will have an introductory price of $49.99, and cost $69.99 afterwards.

Tags: HomeKit, LiftMaster
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iOS Apps Postmates and DoorDash Testing Automated Delivery Via Self-Driving Robots

Popular delivery apps Postmates and DoorDash have announced a partnership with automated robot startup Starship Technologies, which will see a fleet of self-driving robots make courier deliveries for Postmates in Washington D.C., and food deliveries for DoorDash in Redwood City, California (via TechCrunch).

The robots built by Starship are designed to travel among people walking on the sidewalk and can achieve a max speed of 4 mph while carrying up to 40 lbs, all within a delivery radius of 2 miles. The personal couriers are powered by rechargeable lithium ion batteries to ensure that they are quiet when running. Although “they primarily rely on computer vision and street map data to navigate,” the robots aren’t entirely self-operating as they require a human overseer to manage the fleet through an app.

Images via @StarshipRobots
Postmates and DoorDash aren’t the first clients of Starship, with overseas companies like Just Eat, Hermes Parcel Delivery, Media Markt, Swiss Post and Wolt previously supporting the robotic fleet of personal couriers. In total, Starship says at least 1.7 million people in 16 countries and 56 cities have been in contact with one of its robots.

DoorDash co-founder Stanley Tang made sure to state that the addition of Starship’s technology doesn’t mean the company is seeking to completely replace its human workers. Instead, Tang has a vision to use the robots as a way for its human workers to avoid small deliveries, and subsequently small tips, because the app tips workers based on the total cost of the order they deliver. His ultimate goal is to “use robots to alleviate “dashers” of the deliveries they don’t want to do anyway.”

According to DoorDash co-founder Stanley Tang, testing out robotic “dashers,” doesn’t mean the company will attempt to replace human workers any time soon, or ever. He said, “We have people who use cars, bikes, scooters, motorcycles or walk to make a delivery. And each has a different strength and suitability for different deliveries. Robots will be another type of vehicle in our system.”

With DoorDash, Starship is expected to be integrated into the app from as early as the ordering stage: users will have to choose to have their order delivered by a robot instead of a human, and then they will receive a text message when the courier arrives at the door. Thanks to Starship’s security measures, the robot’s compartment will be calibrated to be opened through a link in the text message that the user receives, so no one else can take their food order.

Postmates is said to be preparing a similar system as DoorDash, with Senior Vice President Holger Luedorf saying, “we don’t have a grand vision that robots would be the ultimate delivery mechanism or something. It’s far too early to say. We do want to gather a lot of data.”

Automation in technology has been surging as a popular topic in recent years, from Amazon’s successful first drone delivery with Prime Air last month to Apple’s confirmation of its interest in a self-driving vehicle system. Companies like Uber and Google have expressed interest in self-driving cars as well, but recently began scaling back their ambitions due to trouble with automotive legislation.

Tags: Postmates, DoorDash
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CBS Sports Radio Launches on Apple Music

CBS this morning announced that its 24/7 sports radio channel, CBS Sports Radio, has now become a dedicated radio channel within Apple Music. Previously, users could listen to CBS Sports Radio on a variety of local radio channels, online, and on the Radio.com mobile app [Direct Link].

With its launch on Apple Music, users can now tune into the channel on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, Mac, PC, Android, and Sonos speakers. CBS Sports Radio is already being highlighted under the Featured Stations section of the Radio tab in Apple Music.

“The appetite for compelling and hard-to-ignore sports analysis, commentary and fan debate continues to grow across all audio platforms,” said Chris Oliviero, Executive Vice President, Programming, CBS RADIO. “CBS Sports Radio delivers this to fans 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so it’s an ideal next step to launch a channel on Apple Music, one of the most popular streaming services today, as yet another way we continue to meet the evolving desires of this passionate audience anywhere and everywhere.”

CBS launched the sports-centric radio station four years ago this month, with national coverage of the latest in sports news, commentaries on the latest games, and interviews with athletes, all “hosted by leading sports figures.” The company updates its fans with a schedule on its Twitter account, but the consistent weekday lineup includes:

• 6:00-9:00 AM: Gio and Jones (featuring Gregg Giannotti and Brian Jones)
• 9:00 AM-12:00 Noon: Tiki and Tierney (featuring Tiki Barber and Brandon Tierney)
• 12:00 Noon-3:00 PM: The Jim Rome Show
• 3:00-6:00 PM: The Doug Gottlieb Show
• 6:00-10:00 PM: The DA Show (featuring Damon Amendolara)
• 10:00 PM-2:00 AM: Ferrall on the Bench (featuring Scott Ferrall)
• 2:00-6:00 AM: After Hours with Amy Lawrence

The Radio section of Apple Music has seen a few updates throughout last year, ranging from the addition of new stations like Bloomberg Radio, to a dynamic Beats 1 banner, as well as updated artwork for the stock stations. Beats 1 radio host Zane Lowe has also been in the spotlight as a representative of Apple Music, including the announcement that he will be a keynote speaker at SXSW this March.

Tag: Apple Music
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Tesla will manufacture Model 3 parts at the Gigafactory

Nevada governor Brian Sandoval has announced that Tesla will bring some of its manufacturing for the Model 3 across from California. At a speech outlining policy initiatives for the last two years of his term, Sandoval revealed that the car company will build electric motors and gearboxes in the state.

The new lines will be installed at the Gigafactory, Tesla’s 4.9 million square foot battery plant that it’s building along with Panasonic. According to Fortune, the deal will create 550 new jobs at the facility, based in the city of North Las Vegas.

Pleased to announce that @TeslaMotors will expand its investment in #NV by producing electric motors & gearboxes at #Gigafactory #nvsots

— Governor Sandoval (@GovSandoval) January 18, 2017

The news goes some way to answering the question as to how Tesla will build more than 400,000 of its new Model 3 cars in a reasonable time frame. Demand for the affordable EV vastly exceeded Elon Musk’s wildest dreams, sending the company into something of a spin.

By moving the bulk of the drivetrain construction to the Gigafactory, Tesla’s main Fremont facility in California will have more space to construct the rest of the vehicle. But even then, there are still issues for a business that has yet to ship a quarter of the Model 3’s expected demand in a single year.

In 2016, Tesla managed to deliver 83,992 of its cars to customers, its most successful year as a car company. By 2018, it’ll need to produce at least twice that figure on an annual basis or risk angering pre-order customers.

In order to cope, Tesla is raising a war chest apparently worth upwards of $2 billion and has recently purchased an automation company. No to mention that you’d be quite foolish to bet against Elon Musk when he’s got all those rockets on standby.

Via: Seth A. Richardson (Twitter)

Source: Brian Sandoval (Twitter)

Russia will let Edward Snowden stay for another three years

Less than 24 hours after President Obama commuted the majority of Chelsea Manning’s 35-year sentence, the Russian government has updated its position on whistleblower Edward Snowden. Local authorities have confirmed that Snowden has been granted another three-year extension to his residency permit, which was first granted in 2013, allowing him to stay in the country until 2020.

Although his lawyer said previously that he would need to decide whether to stay in Russia or return to the United States, Snowden is now only a year away from legally being able to claim citizenship. “In effect, he now has all grounds to receive citizenship in the future, over the course of a certain period, since under the law we have a period of residence on Russia soil of not less than five years” said Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden’s legal representative.

Yesterday, the White House revealed that the former NSA-contractor turned whistleblower cannot be given a similar reprieve to Chelsea Manning. Snowden won’t be granted clemency because he has not filed paperwork seeking such an action, nor has he been formally charged with any crimes. As President Obama said back in November: “I can’t pardon somebody who hasn’t gone before a court and presented themselves.”

The exact reasons why Russia decided to extend Snowden’s residency aren’t known but his lawyer believes that his desire to stay out of the limelight has aided officials’ judgement. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been critical of his adopted country and stopped him from suggesting that it may have been partly involved in last year’s NSA hack.

“Now he has already been living on Russian territory for nearly four years, he does not violate the law, there are no complaints about him,” Kucherena said. “That’s one of the reasons his residency permit was extended.”

Source: Reuters, The Guardian

12 million declassified CIA files are now available online

The CIA has posted a vast cache of nearly 12 million declassified CIA pages online, including info on Nazi war crimes, the Cuban Missile Crisis, UFO sightings, human telepathy (“Project Stargate”) and much more. It’s been a long time coming — Bill Clinton first ordered all documents at least 25 years old with “historical value” to be declassified in 1995. The agency complied, but didn’t exactly make it easy to see the trove — you had to trek all the way to the US National Archives in Washington DC to get a peak.

The CIA did release an electronic database called CREST (the CIA Records Search Tool) in 2000, but you could only search document titles and still had to visit the archives to read each document. In 2014, a nonprofit journalism organization called MuckRock filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit pressing the CIA to post all of its documents online, but the agency said it would take up to six years to scan everything.

Journalist Michael Best even started a Kickstarter campaign, Buzzfeed points out, to raise funds to manually copy and scan the documents. The CIA finally agreed to post the entire database online last year, and has now made good on that promise.

So, is there anything juicy in there? Not likely. CIA Director of Information Management Joseph Lambert said the agency did one last check through the collection before releasing it, and did not reclassify any more documents.

However, there’s no doubt a lot of thrilling stuff for historians, war buffs, UFO enthusiasts and others. The archives cover events from the 1940s the 1990s (each year, a new batch are declassified) and include details about the flight of war criminals from Nazi Germany, the quarter-mile Berlin tunnel built to tap Soviet telephone lines, internal intelligence bulletins and memos from former CIA directors, UFO reports and more.

Via: Buzzfeed

Source: CIA CREST Library

ICYMI: Mind-controlled mice kill on command

Today on In Case You Missed It: You might have thought things couldn’t get any worse, but you’d be wrong. A recent study published in Nature showed that first, mice could be bred so that the neurons in their brains respond to laser lights. Then, the adult mice were hooked up to laser light helmets and when turned on, the hunt and kill area of the brain was triggered so that mice instantly attacked crickets in their cages. I have one thing to say: You can watch the 2009 movie, Gamer, if you want a prophecy of our future lives.

Meanwhile Japanese electronics company Panasonic is testing its new autonomous delivery bot, Hospi, in the lobbies of hotels. It’s being used to distribute water and make general announcements, though eventually they’re meant to deliver medications and the like inside hospitals.

If you’ve got money to burn, you might be interested in this custom RV with a helipad on top. Also the NASA video about the aerodynamics of drone flight is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.

Stanford Announces New Program to Discover ‘Innovative Uses’ for Apple Watch in Healthcare

Stanford University has opened up submissions to faculty members for an Apple Watch Seed Grant, an inaugural program “focused on innovative uses of the Apple Watch in healthcare” (via Cult of Mac). The program is designed to “stimulate and support” the creation of new uses for the Apple Watch in the healthcare field, an area that Apple has long been a proponent of since the wearable launched in 2015.

In total, up to 1,000 Apple Watch devices will be offered through the seed grant program, which is being given $10,000 in funding and run through Stanford’s all-new Center for Digital Health within the School of Medicine. The CDH’s proposal notes mention that while 1,000 Apple Watches will be given out in total, depending on the project proposals that get accepted, a higher or lower allocation of devices may be provided.

Submissions are open to a select group of Stanford faculty members and close February 26, while the study as a whole will run for one year beginning April 2017. The goal of the program is to use either the Apple Watch’s activity tracking or communication features to see how the device can make a change in healthcare:

“The Apple Watch must be integrated into an overall program or study design where: 1) the sensing capability of the Watch (activity, heart rate, and/or raw accelerometer data) is used to measure the progress of an endpoint relevant to the study population; or 2) the communication/notification features of the Watch are used to drive behavior change/coaching (investigators must use an iOS app with a Watch app extension or design a workflow where push notifications can be delivered to the Watch).

The Apple Watch has been a representative of Apple’s push into health initiatives for nearly two years now, from the debut of the original device and the Activity Rings in 2015 to the announcement of the fitness-focused Apple Watch Series 2 last September. The Apple Watch is just one part of Apple’s health initiatives, however, which consists of the Health app, HealthKit and CareKit, and a collection of company acquisitions and talent hires that highlight its desire to merge health and wellness with technology.

On the eve of the Apple Watch’s launch Apple CEO Tim Cook described services like ResearchKit and the Health app as “significantly underestimated” sections of the technology market. When asked about the “next frontiers” in product development, Cook described health initiatives, and all of the progress made by Apple to provide detailed analysis of a user’s well-being, as “the biggest one of all.”

Related Roundups: Apple Watch Series 2, watchOS 3
Tag: health and fitness
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)
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Verizon starts redirecting outgoing calls for Note 7 holdouts

Verizon is taking additional measures to retrieve the Note 7.

Earlier this month, Samsung announced that it recovered over 96% of Note 7 devices sold in the U.S. With the carriers issuing updates to effectively brick the phone, most customers that have bought the device have returned it to Samsung. However, Verizon has revealed to Fortune that “thousands” of its customers are still using the device, posing a legitimate safety risk:

In spite of our best efforts, there are still customers using the recalled phones who have not returned or exchanged their Note 7 to the point of purchase. The recalled Note 7s pose a safety risk to our customers and those around them.

Verizon rolled out an update that prevents the Note 7 from charging on January 5, but it looks like a few users managed to avoid installing the update. The carrier is now undertaking additional measures to recover the device. Starting today, Verizon will redirect all calls — excluding those for 911 emergency services — placed from the Note 7 to its customer service department.

Verizon may also charge Note 7 holdouts for the full retail price of the phone, even if they were reimbursed previously. With the Note 7 costing upwards of $850 at launch, Verizon is hoping that the financial penalty will convince the remaining Note 7 customers to turn in their devices.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7

• Galaxy Note 7 fires, recall and cancellation: Everything you need to know
• Survey results: Samsung users stay loyal after Note 7 recall
• Samsung Galaxy Note 7 review
• The latest Galaxy Note 7 news
• Join the Note 7 discussion in the forums!

OxygenOS 4.0.2 OTA update now rolling out to the OnePlus 3 and 3T

The latest OxygenOS update has bug fixes and stability improvements.

OnePlus delivered the OxygenOS 4.0 update for the OnePlus 3 and 3T on December 31, and has since rolled out a hotfix 4.0.1 update. The company is now issuing the OxygenOS 4.0.2 update to both the OnePlus 3 and 3T with stability improvements and bug fixes, including additional APN settings, and fixes for Play Store downloads and the proximity sensor.

The 4.0.2 update is still based on Android 7.0 Nougat, and OnePlus mentions that a few bugs from the previous update — including the Wi-Fi connection issue — are yet to be fixed. The OTA rollout will be incremental, so only a few percentage of users will receive the update today.

OnePlus 3T and OnePlus 3

• OnePlus 3T review: Rekindling a love story
• OnePlus 3T vs. OnePlus 3: What’s the difference?
• OnePlus 3T specs
• Latest OnePlus 3 news
• Discuss OnePlus 3T and 3 in the forums

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