‘Tekken 7’ delayed to June 2

After saying that it would arrive in early 2017, developer Bandai Namco revealed that Tekken 7 is coming to the Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC later, on June 2nd. “We were trying our best to get the game out … as early as possible,” director Katsuhiro Harada told GameSpot. However, he didn’t want players to “bash the product” over lack of content, so “we made some hard decisions and that was the result.”

Tekken 7 is supposed to come to Playstation VR as well, but the company made no mention of that in its announcement. As a quasi-2D, third-person fighter, the title is an odd choice for virtual reality. However, as director Katsuhiro Harad told Engadget at E3 last year, a first-person game would probably be a bit too intense for VR. “Imagine if your brother or sister or friend came up and started punching or kicking right in front of your face, how jarring that would be.”

The company also revealed a few more details about the title. For one, if you preorder, you’ll get a bonus character, Eliza, “the vampire dark beauty of the Tekken roster.” Playstation 4 owners will also have exclusive content like legacy Tekken 4 and Tekken 2 costumes for characters King, Xiaoyu and Kin, along with a “Jukebox Mode” that lets you listen to and create playlists of old Tekken tracks. For the first time in the serries, buyers of the deluxe edition will get a season’s pass, including a “new playable characters, stages, a game mode, and a bonus 35-piece Metallic Costume Pack,” Bandai Namco said.

Source: Sony

Every Chromebook released in 2017 will support Android apps

You currently have to be picky about your choice of Chrome OS devices if you want to run Android apps, but you won’t have to be quite so choosy going forward. Google has quietly mentioned that all Chromebooks arriving in 2017 or later will support Android software — you won’t have to spring for premium models just to run your favorite mobile apps. The news isn’t surprising given Google’s eagerness to push the feature (especially with talk of a hybrid Android/Chrome platform due this year), but it’s a relief if you’re in the market for a machine. It also makes Chrome OS a better competitor to conventional PC platforms, since you no longer have to wonder whether or not you’ll have a large app ecosystem at your disposal.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Chromium Projects

Come for this Einstein robot’s facial expressions, stay for his smarts

“I had the worst dream,” said Professor Einstein. “My vast intellect had been downloaded into a prosthetic body. I was then made to present the world of science to perfect strangers.”

Within moments of being activated, the 14-inch robotic replica of Albert Einstein made a meta comment about being trapped in a knowledge-dispensing machine. It shook its head from side to side and slowly blinked its eyes as if it were contemplating his situation. As it continued to speak, it held up its right arm, pointing a finger at me while casually making a point about the theory of relativity.

The mechanical professor from Hanson Robotics is designed to be your favorite teacher. It’s loaded with tons of knowledge, funny anecdotes and exaggerated expressions. Wearing black pants, a white sweater with shirt collars and a black tie, little Einstein is dressed the part. While the robot’s straight, white hair is far too tame in comparison to the unruly “genius hair” that it’s modeled after, the wide bushy moustache is an accurate representation.

At a time when digital assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Home are making voice-controlled human-machine interactions more common, a chatty “personal genius” for kids seems like a natural progression for mechanical toys.

Einstein communicates in both online and offline modes. When it’s connected to the cloud via WiFi, it uses natural language processing to keep the conversation going. Instead of building its own speech recognition technique, the company taps into open-sourced APIs, allowing the robot to do things like pull up weather updates or tell you about Donald Trump. But it seems to be most active in its offline mode, when it connects to an accompanying app called Stein-o-Matic that’s designed to keep kids engaged through audio-visual activities.

The app has a clean, simple interface intended to make it easier for kids to work through complex science concepts. As a child works through brain games, watches research videos or plays a space rocket game that illustrates gravity, the professor steps in frequently for directions or additional context in line with the visuals in front of them. The professor also delivers compliments (“that was pure genius”) when a child does well in a quiz. If they don’t, Einstein encourages them to try again.

From games about scientific theories to the mannerisms with which the professor guides the kid, everything about Einstein is built to make the world of science fun and approachable. While this is the first commercial robot of its kind from Hong-Kong based Hanson Robotics, it’s not their first attempt at a talking humanoid. The company, which has been around 2013, is known for building robots that have life-like expressions. Chatty Sophia made a splash at SXSW last year, while BINA48 was widely acclaimed as one of the most realistic robots. Then there was the lifesize Einstein, which had an uncanny resemblance to the man it emulated. Each machine came one step closer to replicating human facial expressions.

Now with the miniature professor version, which debuts on Kickstarter today, the company wants to bring that expressive expertise to home companions. It paid close attention to physical and expressive details with Einstein. Staying true to the original scientist’s friendly disposition, the little robot breaks into an endearing smile. It also raises its eyebrows to follow a surprising fact or wrinkles its forehead into a deep-thinking-frown to follow a question. But one of its highlights is a quirk that is modeled after Albert Einstein’s most iconic photograph, where he stuck out his tongue instead of posing for the picture. The little robot lives up to the scientist’s eccentricity by sticking out its tongue ever so often in a conversation.

Mini-Einstein also moves across a flat surface. There is no lifting of legs or complex bending of robotic joints. When told to walk, he takes a few seconds to get warmed up. The machine relies on infrared sensors that are embedded in the outsoles of the shoes to make sure it’s on solid ground. The sensors also keep it from walking off a table. Ultimately, he takes small, awkward steps that are a little underwhelming when you think about the robots that are now capable of dancing around your house. But Einstein’s appeal isn’t intended to be in the movements. It lies in its ability to interact with kids through human-like expressions that can keep people engaged and potentially more interested in learning about the world of science.

One of the ways that the robot holds your attention is through its gaze: Einstein’s brown eyes stare right at you. Through a camera placed behind a small round hole in the professor’s black tie, the machine picks up movements of the face right in front of it. This tracking, known as “blob detection” in computer vision, is different from facial recognition. It doesn’t record or memorize faces. Instead, it can spot facial features to detect and keep up with movements to maintain eye contact through most conversations.

The robot isn’t the most advanced mechanical toy on the circuit. But, it entertains and educates, and for an early bird $249 price point it comes in just under Mattel’s recently announced Aristotle — a $300 connected speaker aimed at a young generation. It also undercuts Lego’s Mindstorms collection, a range of robots starting from $350.

While Einstein is pegged as an affordable personal companion, it doesn’t seem to have the output required to compete with the personal assistant speakers that have already found a spot on thousands of kitchen counters across the country. The robot’s speaker, which is concealed in the professor’s stomach, lacks the clarity of an Amazon Echo or Google Home. And as the machine moves its mouth and head to create the expressions that the company is famous for, a whirring sound makes its voice that much harder to pay attention to. What’s more, Einstein’s ability to pull information from the web is a lot slower than say Alexa, for instance. It compensates for its pace with a polite teacher-like disposition: “Let me think about that for a moment.” But when you have a string of questions, it’s easy to run out of patience.

What the professor lacks in mechanical ability, it makes up for with its personality. In addition to the glorious expressions that make it hard for you to look away, Einstein laces scientific theories with heavy doses of humor that most kids (and childlike adults like me) would find entertaining. While the robot is designed for kids 13 and older, I think that’s a rather conservative guideline. Einstein exudes a strong cartoony vibe through its voice modulations and over exaggerated expressions that would surely keep younger kids entertained. For older children, the app offers lessons in physics, IQ games and an undeniable connection with one of the best scientists who ever lived.

Bringing Albert Einstein to the digital age, which seems like the real motivation behind the kids robot, comes through in all the little details. After an hour or so of demo time, during which the robot displayed a dozen facial expressions and talked me through his dream, I looked down at its shiny shoes. Just like the real physicist, the robotic professor wore black sandals and no socks.

Sprint Buys 33% of Jay Z’s Streaming Music Service Tidal, Plans Exclusives for Customers

Sprint today announced that it has acquired a 33 percent stake in Jay Z’s music streaming service Tidal, which the carrier said will soon give its customers “unlimited access to exclusive artist content not available anywhere else.” Under the deal, artists partnering with Tidal will create music only available to new and existing Sprint customers.

As part of the deal, Sprint’s chief executive officer Marcelo Claure will also join Tidal’s board of directors. The carrier mentioned that Tidal will continue to function as normal, and Jay Z will remain in charge of the streaming service’s artists and music content. In a statement, Jay Z said that Sprint understands and shares Tidal’s goal of creating a dynamic and revolutionary addition to the streaming music service industry.

“Sprint shares our view of revolutionizing the creative industry to allow artists to connect directly with their fans and reach their fullest, shared potential,” said JAY Z. “Marcelo understood our goal right away and together we are excited to bring Sprint’s 45 million customers an unmatched entertainment experience.”

Artists under Tidal will gain access to a dedicated marketing fund provided by Sprint, which the carrier says “will allow artists the flexibility to create and share their work with and for their fans.” Further information about the Sprint/Tidal partnership will be coming soon.

Apple was thought to be interested in acquiring Tidal last summer in an effort to further boost Apple Music, but the company eventually denied those reports with Apple Music executive Jimmy Iovine saying “we’re not looking to acquire any streaming services.” Apple Music and Tidal have been competitors since their launch, each promoting exclusive artist deals with a rivalry that Kanye West said is negatively affecting the music industry as a whole.

Tags: Sprint, Tidal
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Twitter botnet quotes ‘Star Wars’ from the middle of the sea

Along with trolls and bullies, one of Twitter’s biggest problems is bots — automated accounts that puff up follower numbers, troll users or turn fake news into trending topics. Researchers investigating botnets found maybe the strangest one ever: 350,000 that tweet only random Star Wars quotes from Windows Phone devices. While that’s actually kind of amusing, the researchers say that it reveals “profound limitations of existing bot detection methods” and shows the potential risks that hidden networks pose to the Twitter ecosystem.

The University College London team discovered the so-called Star Wars botnet purely by chance. They started by downloading data from six million random English-speaking accounts (about one percent of all users) including their last 3,200 tweets and location information. After plotting that on a map (below), they noticed that around 23,000 tweets originated in uninhabited regions, including deserts and oceans, in two distinctively square geographic regions.

They concluded that someone had created a botnet and assigned fake users to random areas within two geographical blocks, “perhaps as an effort to pretend that the tweets are created in the two continents where Twitter is most popular,” the team wrote. They manually checked the text in each tweet, and found that, bizarrely, all included random text from Star Wars novels, often starting or concluding with an incomplete word:

Luke’s answer was to put on an extra burst of speed. There were only ten meters #separating them now. If he could cover t

Hashtags appeared on random words, or used terms like “#teamfollowback” associated with gaining followers. Each bot had a specific user ID range, tweeted less than 11 times, had fewer than 10 followers and used “Twitter for Windows Phone” as the source of the tweets.

Using that information, the team manually identified 3,244 bots with a high amount of certainty, then created a machine learning algorithm that found over 350,000 in total, all controlled form a central “botmaster.” When the botnet was first created on June 20th, 2013, it tweeted 150,000 times daily, then suddenly stopped on July 14th, 2013, and hasn’t been tweeting since. However, the bots were still on Twitter at the time of the study and have could easily been reactivated.

It’s well-known that there are millions of botnets out there, but the most interesting (and disturbing) thing about this one, says the team, is how easily it was able to hide. To do that, it kept a fairly low profile, hence the low user counts and number of tweets. And the Star Wars quotes, while random, “helped the tweets appear [to be] … a real human’s language,” they wrote. Furthermore, the bots used realistic-looking profiles that often included photos.

All of that helped them circumvent Twitter’s regular bot detection methods and stay on the site. From there, they could have been re-activated and used for schemes like spamming, fake trending topics, astrotufing, fake followers, opinion manipulation and more. For instance, in a separate study, researchers from Oxford University believe that pro-Trump bots rampaged on Twitter, spreading false stories to influence voters. It’s also possible that the botnet was used to test Twitter’s defenses, so that its creators could build a better one in the future.

The researchers were lucky to find the botnet, but say future ones could easily be programmed to escape their detection methods. That’s why, they say, new protections are needed “to detect other hidden bots and future bots that will look more and more like normal uses.” Thanks perhaps to publicity on the research (which is awaiting peer review), Twitter seems to have scrubbed the Star Wars botnet — the only trace I could find of it was a search entry in Google (above).

Source: Arxiv

Sprint buys a 33 percent stake in Tidal’s music service

Well, this was somewhat unexpected. Sprint just bought a 33 percent stake in Tidal, giving the carrier a significant (though not controlling) influence over Jay Z’s streaming music service. They’re not discussing the terms of the partnership, but it’ll take Tidal’s fondness for exclusives one step further. Tidal will offer exclusive content that will only be available to Sprint subscribers — yes, even being a loyal listener won’t be enough. you’ll hear more details on offers and promos “soon,” Sprint says.

The two unsurprisingly hope to grow their customer bases through the alliance, albeit for somewhat different reasons. Sprint gets the sort of media perk that it hasn’t had lately. It now has an answer (if currently a limited one) to AT&T’s DirecTV services and promos, T-Mobile’s Music Freedom and Binge On, and Verizon offerings like Go90 and NFL Mobile. The network has been faring better than usual lately (it’s adding more customers and lowering its turnover), but it’s still posting losses and isn’t growing as quickly as peers like T-Mobile.

For Tidal, this may be more vital. Even if you discount questions about its subscriber base, the service is unquestionably smaller than heavyweights like Apple Music and Spotify — a pact with Sprint could help it get noticed by customers that might otherwise make a beeline for one of the bigger names. Also, a 33 percent stake is hefty for any company, but it’s particularly important for a relatively small company. This could help Tidal focus more on growth and less on worrying about its bottom line, at least in the short term.

Source: Sprint

Corsair’s new K95 gaming keyboard is surprisingly classy

When I first encountered the Corsair Rapidfire K70, it was love at first sight: The feel of the brand-new Cherry MX Speed keys and their short 1.2mm actuation point was par excellence, and the RGB lighting gave me faint Candy Land vibes with its bright colors. However, while it was good for typing and many games, configuration fanatics were left out of the fun by the lack of dedicated macro keys. This month, Corsair finally added MX Speed keys to its flagship K95 model, but that’s not the only upgrade gamers and typists will discover. The $200 K95 RGB Platinum features some redesigned buttons, a reversible wrist rest and a snazzy lighting bar. It’s more of a refinement than a revamp, but it’s one that makes the new K95 a flashy, yet somehow tasteful, addition to any desk. Yes, even with the colors.

The rainbow shades are the first thing you’ll notice upon seeing the K95 plugged in. In my case, comments from nearby co-workers ranged from an enthusiastic “That’s really cool” to a confused “Uh, that’s really … colorful?” The lighting patterns can be customized in the Corsair Utility Engine, which lets you select specific shades if you want multiple colors and different lighting patterns. The “visor” configuration, which I assume is meant to invoke the distinctive vacillating red beam of a Cylon Centurion, is one of the most irritating things I have ever seen (and I’ve been to Las Vegas). The default “rainbow wave” is actually rather pleasant, and if you’d rather eschew the lighting altogether, a button on the upper-left area of the keyboard turns it off.

Most of the design changes are found in the media controls. The volume roller is a little wider, and it’s silver, in contrast to the black keyboard deck. That makes its purpose as a control a lot more obvious, as well as more fun to flick back and forth. The media keys are also now wedge-shaped instead of flat; they’re not as springy as before, but it doesn’t matter, since you don’t use these to type.

Meanwhile, the profile switcher, lighting control and Windows Lock (to turn the OS button off) have been moved to a small row of buttons on the upper left. It’s a small, mostly insignificant change, but it really helps the K95’s overall aesthetic as a sleek keyboard. The only real flourishes are the light bar along the back edge, which can be customized along 18 different zones, and the fact that the logo is now illuminated as well. I guess Corsair didn’t want you to forget who made this thing.

Besides these small elements, the bigger changes that make the K95 RGB Platinum stand apart as Corsair’s “flagship” are the reversible wrist rest and the row of macro keys. The wrist rest is a nifty bit of design, with the base easily connected by simply sliding it up toward the deck and waiting for the click. The base is rimmed so that the rubber mat slides into it perfectly, held in place via the wonder of magnets. One side is smooth, and the other side has a pattern of raised triangles to add a bit more texture. The mat is impossible to wipe completely clean, as I learned after eating a bag of white cheddar corn puffs while working, but a quick run under a tap in the bathroom cleared the crumbs nicely. As on previous models, the keys can be removed for easy cleaning using the included tool.

The six macro keys can easily be set to any combination of commands you want, or just simply mapped to do one particular thing. It’s as easy as going into the “actions” tab of the utility software, locating the key on a graphic of the K95 and choosing what you want it to do via the drop-down. Some parts are still a bit confusing — you need to select “Create action” before customizing anything — but the process is generally less opaque than it was when I tested the K70. All told, the keyboard comes with 8MB of RAM, meaning it can store three profiles on board and take them anywhere. That’s handy if you ever have to switch computers; once you’ve got things exactly where you want them, you never have to fuss with the software again and can get down to business faster.

Unlike the standard keys, the macro buttons are gray, with a bit of hatch texture on them, supposedly so you don’t hit them accidentally. The thing is, I tended to hit them a lot anyway when my fingers went in search of the Ctrl or Shift commands. The macro keys weren’t set up, so it wasn’t a programming problem so much as a physical issue, easily solved by using the key remover to just take them off. Probably not what Corsair intended for the K95, but hey, it’s all about customization, right?

Besides the improvements to the Utility Engine, there’s one under-the-hood change worth mentioning. The Vengeance K70 RGB had a weird quirk where there’d be a slight delay after hitting the caps lock, meaning letters typed after it was hit wouldn’t appear on the screen right away. I’d usually end up with a jumble of mixed caps, only because I’d notice the caps lock was on, try to turn it off, and then have to wait for the system to adjust again. The same problem would occur in the media buttons as well — the roller would take a second or two to change the volume. On the new K95, the volume seems to work instantaneously, while caps lock still exhibits some delay, but it’s at least shorter.

A few years ago, the choice between Corsair’s K70 and K95 was easy: Do you want macro keys or not? But now it’s gotten a bit more complicated. If you don’t need those six extra buttons, it comes down to how subtly stylish you want to be, and how much you want to pay for it. The K95 RGB Platinum is available this month.

SEC probes Yahoo’s response to billion-user hack

The SEC has this thing about companies keeping secrets, especially if those secrets could hurt investors. Yahoo, meanwhile, suffered two significant hacks in recent years, but dragged its feet in telling everyone about them. So it should be no surprise that regulators are now apparently investigating the moribund company to determine any wrongdoing.

The story comes from the Wall Street Journal’s cadre of anonymous people familiar with the matter, who say that the investigation is at its earliest stage. The paper says that the SEC is looking to use Yahoo as a very public whipping boy for its potential refusal to make a material disclosure.

Back in 2011, the commission issued vague guidance about how, and when, companies should make declarations about their data being breached. Target, for instance, took a couple of weeks to announce its wide-ranging 2013 breach that involved people’s credit card numbers.

At the time, the SEC found that delay to be reasonable, but there’s a difference between a couple of weeks and the several years it took for Yahoo to come clean. One question that will be asked is how much Yahoo executives knew and understood about the 2014 breach when it came to their attention.

After all, plenty of things happened between the company finding out about the deal and when it chose to disclose that information to the public. The fact that Verizon had agreed to buy the business in the summer, but this rather material news was held back until fall and winter doesn’t, uh, look great.

Source: WSJ

Apple Selects Wistron as First India-Based Supplier of the 2017 iPhone

Apple has tapped manufacturer Wistron as the first major supplier in India for this year’s iPhone 8, following multiple reports that the company has been looking into manufacturing its products locally in the country. According to a new report from DigiTimes, Wistron will become the first original equipment manufacturer for 2017 iPhones, while Foxconn and a collection of other suppliers are being eyed as back up OEMs “if demand increases.”

In a report by The Times of India last month, Apple was said to be looking into building an iPhone manufacturing plant in Bangalore, India with Wistron as a partner. That plant is believed to have production up and running by April and be a major contributor to the Indian iPhone supply chain by the end of 2017.

In today’s DigiTimes report, Wistron is specifically mentioned to have expanded smartphone production capacity in both India and China.

Apple has reportedly selected Wistron to be the first OEM in India for new iPhones to be launched in 2017, while Foxconn Electronics and other makers will become second OEMs if demand increases. In preparation for OEM production, Wistron has expanded smartphone production capacity in Kunshan, eastern China, and in India. Wistron chairman and CEO Simon Lin declined to comment.

Apple has been attempting to increase its presence in India throughout the past year, most recently looking into manufacturing its products locally, while also creating a new distribution center in India to consolidate its logistics and supply chain.

The company asked for tax concessions from the Indian government so it could get its facilities up and running at a smoother pace, but it was denied such benefits earlier this month. Still, IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that India will keep an “open mind” for any future incentive requests from Apple.

Related Roundup: iPhone 8 (2017)
Tags: India, Wistron
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Hugo Barra Leaving Xiaomi and Returning to Silicon Valley Next Month

Xiaomi vice president Hugo Barra today announced that he will be leaving the Chinese smartphone maker next month.

The former senior Android executive at Google said he will be returning to Silicon Valley in February after the Chinese New Year to reunite with friends and family. He described moving to Beijing, some “6,500 miles out of his comfort zone,” as the “greatest and most challenging adventure” of his life.

But what I’ve realized is that the last few years of living in such a singular environment have taken a huge toll on my life and started affecting my health. My friends, what I consider to be my home, and my life are back in Silicon Valley, which is also much closer to my family. Seeing how much I’ve left behind these past few years, it is clear to me that the time has come to return.

Barra generated headlines in late 2013 when he left his senior position on the Android team to join Xiaomi. As Vice President of International, he helped expand the company’s global presence, although it has yet to officially enter the U.S. smartphone market dominated by the iPhone and other Android-based smartphones.

Xiaomi has made inroads in other countries, including India, where it generated $1 billion in annual revenues faster than any company in the country’s history. The smartphone maker has expanded into over 20 new markets overall, such as Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, Mexico, and Poland.

As I thought about this late last year, I concluded that Xiaomi is in a very good place on its global expansion path, and if there was ever going to be a good time for me to come back home, that time is now — when I can confidently say our global business is no longer just an in-house startup.

In 2014, Xiaomi rose to become the world’s third largest smartphone maker behind Apple and Samsung, but it has since fallen out of the top five vendors, according to the latest data from research firm IDC.

Xiaomi was sometimes described as “the Apple of China” after releasing a number of iPhone lookalikes, which Apple design chief Jony Ive took issue with.

“I’ll stand a little bit harsh, I don’t see it as flattery,” Ive told Vanity Fair in 2014. “When you’re doing something for the first time, you don’t know it’s gonna work. You spend seven or eight years working on something, and then’ copied. I think it is really straightforward. It is theft and it is lazy. I don’t think it is OK at all.”

Barra defended Xiaomi against the copycat accusations, claiming “people couldn’t bring themselves to believe a Chinese company actually could be a world innovator, could build amazingly high-quality products.”

Barra expressed tremendous gratitude for the opportunity he was afforded and said he will now take some “much-needed time off” before “embarking on a new adventure” back in Silicon Valley in the United States. He noted Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun has asked him to remain an advisor to the company indefinitely.

Tags: China, Xiaomi
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