Mexico City’s new hybrid taxis have a ‘panic’ button
While President Trump continues to claim Mexico will pay for his big, beautiful wall, our neighbors south of the border are busy spending money on making their largest city safer and less polluted. The Mayor of Mexico City, Miguel Ángel Mancera, has revealed new hybrid-electric taxis that feature WiFi and a “panic” button for passengers. When activated, officials will be alerted of your location and help could be sent immediately in case of an emergency. It’s similar to what Uber started offering a couple of years ago in India, with the main difference being that the ridesharing service’s panic button is built into its app.
Although only 100 of these taxis will hit the road today, Mancera claims more are coming soon, adding that the goal is to have the whole fleet equipped with this tech in 12 to 15 years. He also said that each hybrid car is expected to reduce harmful gas emissions by up to 45 percent, a vital element for a place as polluted as Mexico City. What’s more, riders are also getting access to a newly developed app, which they can use to call a taxi and get fixed fares — another idea borrowed from Uber’s playbook.
En la sustitución progresiva de vehículos convencionales, hoy se incorporan a tu servicio 100 unidades nuevas de #TaxisHíbridos #mm pic.twitter.com/zbyA4lNUel
— Miguel Ángel Mancera (@ManceraMiguelMX) January 30, 2017
Via: Informador (Spanish)
Source: Miguel Ángel Mancera (Twitter)
You’ll soon be able to save preset destinations in the Lyft app
Why it matters to you
Lyft’s calendar integration and upcoming pre-set destinations make it easier for you to get where you want to go.
Lyft’s app just got a little smarter when it acquired the ability to suggest destinations based on your calendar events. What’s more, the app will soon let you save more than your home and work addresses to make getting to your destination even faster.
The update, which is rolling out now, allows you to connect your phone’s native calendar to the app. Then when you click on the destination field in the Lyft app, you will see destinations from upcoming events listed at the top. On iOS, you will need to sync third-party calendars to your iPhone if you are interested in utilizing this feature. You will also need to type in a venue’s full address in the calendar’s location field for it to show up in Lyft’s app.
More: Study: Uber may have lowered wages, but taxi driver jobs have not been displaced
One of the more interesting announcements in Lyft’s update is that you’ll soon be able to add “all your favorite places in the Lyft app.” Currently, you can only have two pre-set destinations: Home and work. The company says it will soon roll out an update that lets you add shortcuts for other addresses, like the grocery store or a friend’s house.
Uber recently added a feature called Calendar Shortcuts that offers a quick way to access a destination from an upcoming event on the app. It doesn’t have pre-set destinations other than home and work either, but it’s safe to say it’s a feature that may follow suit after it has been deployed by Lyft, although it’s unclear when that feature might roll out.
The update is available on the Google Play Store as well as the App Store.
Gargantuan offshore wind turbine crushes record for most energy produced in 24 hours
Why it matters to you
This is a huge achievement for wind energy, and the technology will help us move toward a greener future
There’s a massive offshore wind turbine in Østerild, Denmark breaking energy generation records left and right.
MHI Vestas Offshore Wind — a joint venture between Vestas Wind Systems and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries — showed off its 9 MW turbine prototype in December 2016, an upgrade to its V164-8.0 MW version. The Goliath of wind turbines generated nearly 216,000 kWh over 24 hours during its December test, breaking the previous record for energy generation record for a commercially available offshore wind turbine. To put the numbers in perspective, that’s enough energy to power the average American household for roughly 20 years.
Related: The answer to climate change could be 10 million wind turbines in the Arctic
“We are committed to delivering turbine technologies that [are] in line with the development of our industry, based on our 20+ years of offshore experience,” MHI Vestas Offshore Wind CTO Torben Hvid said in a statement. “Reliability remains a key enabler, and our approach to developing our existing platform supports this strategy.”
Increased energy production means that fewer turbines will be needed to reach energy needs and decrease the cost of energy.
“We are confident that the 9 MW machine has now proven that it is ready for the market and we believe that our wind turbine will play an integral part in enabling the offshore industry to continue to drive down the cost of energy,” Hvid added.
Related: Portable river turbine could trigger a ‘riverlution’ in clean energy
The turbine is 722 feet tall, with 38-ton blades that measure to be 263 feet in length. It’s blades have a total swept area of 227,377 square feet, which is larger than the London Eye ferris wheel, according to a press release. Its incredible size leaves it unparalleled in competition. There aren’t very many wind turbines likely to break MHI Vestas Offshore Wind’s record any time soon.
The first iteration of the wind turbine released in April 2014 and started breaking records shortly after. In October 2014, the V164-8.0 MW version broke the world power record for power produced by a wind turbine, reaching up to 16,000 British households.
Blackphone’s latest update bricks counterfeit devices
Why it matters to you
If you want to buy a super secure Blackphone, don’t get one on eBay or you’ll end up with a bricked phone.
Owners of Silent Circle’s security-minded Blackphone who purchased the device from vendors other than the company itself or one of its approved sellers are finding themselves with a security-minded paperweight after a recent update. Thing is, the update is functioning precisely as Silent Circle intended.
In an effort to crackdown on gray-market devices that have been manufactured without the company’s consent or are straight-up counterfeits, the 3.0.8 release of Silent OS, which was pushed to the Blackphone 2 last week, deliberately disables phones that Silent Circle identifies as fraudulent. The company warned potential buyers against buying from unauthorized resellers on January 16 before issuing the update.
More: Keep your Facebook account safer with a physical USB key or NFC-enabled phone
A user in Germany shared his experience of a bricked device with Ars Technica on Friday. The owner purchased the phone off eBay and reports that, after upgrading to 3.0.8, he was hit with the following message:
“This smartphone has been identified as an unlicensed device. Only Blackphones sold through accredited vendors are authorized to operate SilentOS. SilentOS has been disabled on this device.”
The message invites users to contact customer support if they believe their device is legitimate.
When the individual reached out to Silent Circle, a representative responded that the IMEI number provided was not that of an official Blackphone, and the company could not provide any further assistance.
“Silent Circle is aware that unauthorized devices have been manufactured as Blackphones and we’re working aggressively to stop the sale of those,” said Blair Young, Silent Circle’s VP of Product Management, in a statement. “As we’ve counseled, it’s imperative for consumers and companies to work directly with authorized sales partners when purchasing the Blackphone 2. We invite people to check with us prior to purchasing, so we can help them be sure they’re securing an authorized phone to ensure they get the software and services that come with it.”
Of course, purchasing a phone designed primarily to be secure from a potentially disreputable eBay seller is certainly counter-intuitive and Silent Circle cannot guarantee the protection of such devices. However, the company’s decision to brick illegitimate Blackphones is controversial, as buying from resellers is fairly common practice with smartphone buyers.
Lenovo Moto G5 specs, news, and rumors
The Moto G has long been an important phone in the Lenovo Motorola lineup, and it was always expected that the Moto G4 would be followed up with a Moto G5. To date, however, we haven’t heard that much about the upcoming phone — until now.
From rumors to other online speculation, here’s everything we know about the upcoming Lenovo Moto G5 so far.
More: Lenovo Moto G4 Play review
Specs
So what are the specs that we’ll see on the phone? Thanks to the Federal Communications Commission, they’re no longer a mystery.
The unannounced Moto 5G appeared to sail through FCC testing in late January. Documents reveal that the upcoming flagship features a 3,000mAh battery with support for Turbo Charging, Lenovo’s proprietary fast-charging technology, and NFC connectivity.
The listing from the seller of the G5 Plus claims the phone sports a Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) screen and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor with an Adreno 506 GPU, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. The device will also boast a 13MP rear-facing camera and a 5MP front-facing camera, and a battery that’s reportedly 3,100mAh in capacity. It appears to have a home button/fingerprint sensor combination, and will reportedly ship with Android 7.0 Nougat, according to the listing.
The Moto G5 and G5 Plus are largely similar in terms of hardware, but the former is expected to feature 3GB of RAM instead of the 4GB of RAM found inside the G5 Plus.
Design
The latest leak pertaining to the Lenovo Moto G5 comes from Chinese social media network Weibo, and basically shows a full-on press render of the Moto G5 Plus, which is expected to be a slightly larger version of the Moto G5. The render pretty much falls in line with previous leaks that we’ve seen, but it does give us a nice, detailed look at the phone. For example, it seems a lot sleeker and stylish in the press renders compared to in the hands-on leaks that we saw earlier. Of course, this is likely more to do with marketing than the phone actually looking better than real-life images.
The previous leak was an interesting one, and not just because it was a hands-on leak of an unreleased phone — it turns out that it came from someone claiming to be selling the Moto G5 Plus, saying that the phone won’t appear on the market until later in 2017. On top of offering to sell the device, the listing details the specs, and includes a number of pictures showing us what the G5 Plus will look like.
The phone looks very similar to leaked images of the Moto X that were spotted recently. It does seem more likely that the phone is indeed an upcoming Moto G rather than an upcoming Moto X, but it’s also possible that the two phones will have a similar design as Lenovo attempts to make the design of its phones a little more consistent.
We’ll update this article with more information as we get it.
Updated on 01-30-2017 by Kyle Wiggers: Added new details from Federal Communications Commission documents.
Everything you need to know about the ZTE Hawkeye
ZTE’s Project CSX, a competition that empowered customers to submit their vision of the next great mobile device, might be getting some heavy modifications. The goal was to produce the world’s first “crowdsourced” mobile device — one with functionality, hardware, and an aesthetic voted on by ZTE’s online community.
After an extended brainstorming session involving 400 submissions from more than 176 countries, the company settled on a winner: the Hawkeye, an eye-tracking phone that adheres to the surface of tables, walls, and chairs. But to keep the phone affordable, the company had to keep the Hawkeye’s specifications on the lower end — this didn’t sit well with the backers who were expecting a flagship phone.
As such, ZTE may cancel the Kickstarter, and is also thinking about creating a new one for the Hawkeye with superior specs, and a higher fundraising goal. Here’s everything you need to know about it.
More: How ZTE’s Project CSX was born, and why it’s so exciting
Canceling the Kickstarter?
In an interview with MobileSyrup, Jeff Yee, ZTE’s vice president of Technology Planning and Partnerships, said the company is still deciding on whether or not it should pull the Kickstarter. Yee said that in retrospect, ZTE should have offered a flagship variant as Kickstarter backers are often early adopters.
So far, ZTE has only raised $36,056 of its $500,000 goal — a far cry from what it needs, with only 19 days to go.
“We haven’t decided what we’re going to do yet, a lot of it comes from consumers themselves anyway so we’re conducting yet another poll but I think we will make a decision based on consumer feedback that will probably take us a different direction than what’s currently posted on Kickstarter,” Yee said in the interview.
Yee went on to say that pulling the Kickstarter down is “most likely” as the specs are just not interesting to enthusiasts. It doesn’t mean the project is dead in the water, but that ZTE will “change some things around” and possibly post a new Kickstarter.
“We get a lot of different ideas from different people and sorting through that and determining what exactly is the best product for everyone is tough,” he said. “Ideally, we would do a customized phone for everyone because everyone is so different. The reality is we can’t do that so we’re just trying to go with what the majority wants.”
How to buy one
The campaign hasn’t been pulled yet, but if you desperately want the Hawkeye, you can always try backing it through Kickstarter. It’s unlikely it will be funded in time though.
The phone costs $200, and will be available for a limited amount of time on the site, just like a regular Kickstarter project. It’s still a pre-order, and is not expected to be released until September this year though, so you’ll still need some patience. However, if you want one it’s the time to get it, because the Hawkeye will be more expensive in the future.
What makes the Hawkeye special?
Everything. From the way it has been conceived and produced, to the way it’s being sold and promoted, ZTE’s Hawkeye phone breaks away from conventional methods of making and selling smartphones.
“With Project CSX, we experimented by turning the typical R&D process on its head and did something completely different within the industry,” said Jeff Yee, ZTE USA’s vice president of technology planning and partnerships. “We believe that the Hawkeye name reflects the spirit and vision of ZTE as we continue to put the consumer throughout this entire process and will continue to do so in every phone we deliver.”
More: Augmented reality, anyone? Lenovo is releasing another Tango phone in 2017
The Hawkeye beat out several other contending ideas in Project CSX. One was a stock Android flagship phone that would do away with the company’s third-party overlay. Another was a virtual reality diving mask that would let users swim anywhere while showing images that make them feel like they are in the ocean.
But the winner is in some ways even more radical. It uses eye-tracking sensors to translate eye movements to software tasks, a self-adhesive backing that allows it to be mounted to a wall or flat surface, and split-screen technology that allows two users to view different content at the same time.
If you’re wondering how ZTE settled on the name, it was put to the vote, just like most other aspects of the phone. However, the Hawkeye name wasn’t the top choice. There were apparently at least five other names ahead of it, but all had been snapped up as trademarks by other companies. ZTE got lucky when it arrived at Hawkeye, given the phone’s headline eye-tracking feature.
The technology inside
The Hawkeye’s eye-tracking system, or ETS, comprises two laser-focusing cameras — one on the front and one on the bottom — that captures users’ pupil movement. This allows users to scroll up and down a PDF, book, or dense text file without tilting their heads, for instance, or rewind or fast-forward a video by glancing to the left or right.
Its dual directional viewing screen, meanwhile — technology pioneered by Japanese display technology firm Sharp — lets two different types of content be displayed simultaneously. A user standing to the left of the Hawkeye can see a different image than one standing to the right, for instance. ZTE says it’s the first time the technology has been implemented in a smartphone.
The self-adhesive backing — the result of two years of polymer research, ZTE says — consists of medical-grade silicon that provides an adequate adhesion strength that is “neither too strong to peel off […] nor too sticky to the hand.” It won’t be part of the phone though, and will be applied to a case for the phone.
The Hawkeye’s hardware is respectable as well. On the front is a 5.5-inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel LCD screen, eye-tracking cameras and sensors, and an ambient light sensor. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 625 octa-core 2GHz processor inside, with 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage space, and a MicroSD card slot. The 3,000mAh battery is charged using USB Type-C with Quick Charge 2.0 technology.
More: Google Tango-enabled Asus ZenFone AR accidentally leaked by Qualcomm
On the Hawkeye’s back is a dual-lens camera setup. One has 12 megapixels and the other 13-megapixels, and used together will produce the desirable bokeh blurred background effect. We’re told to expect some kind of optical zoom feature, which may operate like the iPhone 7 Plus, plus it has optical image stabilization onboard. On the front is an 8-megapixel selfie camera.
Other features include a fingerprint sensor on the back, ZTE’s continued emphasis on sound with a decent audio system, and NFC to hopefully enable Android Pay.
Uncertain future
It seems as though the company is leaning towards pulling the Kickstarter for a new one, specifically for a Hawkeye with improved specs. We’ll keep you updated on what ZTE is planning to do with Project CSX.
Article originally published in January 2017. Updated on 01-30-2017 by Julian Chokkattu: Added in news that ZTE may pull the Project CSX Kickstarter.
Alcatel phones 2017: Rumors and news leaks
Alcalel has its hands in a lot of pies. It launched a self-contained virtual reality headset, the Vision, in September alongside a virtual reality camera that shoots footage in 360 degrees. But it’s a smartphone maker at heart. The company became the world’s fifth-largest smartphone vendor in 2014 and shipped 4 million units in 2016. It launched the affordable A3 XL smartphone at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. And rumor has it more handsets are on the way.
More: Alcatel jumps into the virtual reality deep end with Vision VR Headset and 360 Camera
Alcatel will launch as many as five smartphones at Mobile World Congress convention in Barcelona, Spain, according to Hungaria blog Tech2.hu. Details are scarce, but preliminary reports suggest that the phones will feature “innovative technological concepts” and retail on the affordable end of the price spectrum.
Here is everything we know so far.
Modular
Tech2
According to several reports, Alcatel’s next smartphones will feature a modular accessory mechanism similar to Lenovo’s Moto Mods and LG’s Friends. Aftermarket modules will reportedly stick to the back of the device and provide additional functionality.
One of the modules, a removable back cover, reportedly features LEDs that glow in tune with music. One report compares it to the JBL Pulse line of speakers.
More: Alcatel launches “affordable but uncompromising” A3 XL 6-inch phablet
It’s a bit of a surprising direction, given the modular phone concept’s recent travails. LG’s mobile division was forced to undergo restructuring as a result of the LG G5’s poor sales and the company is rumored to have eschewed a modular design for the upcoming G6. Google, meanwhile, canned its long-in-development Project Ara modular smartphone out of concern of poor sales.
Innovative Nextbit Robin smartphone with cloud storage is now $160
Amazon is currently offering a 36 percent discount on the popular and well-reviewed Nextbit Robin smartphone, bringing the price down to just $160 for the mint green version. The navy blue model is also available for just a few dollars more at $165.
The Nextbit Robin is a unique device in more ways than one. The Android smartphone is a result of a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter that raised over $1 million within two weeks. The Robin is also notable in that it merges the standard 32GB of internal memory with 100GB of cloud storage, allowing you to back up your files without having to worry about data loss if your phone goes missing.
More: Get a week’s worth of power with this Anker portable charger, now $60 off 
Spec-wise, the Nextbit Robin boasts a 5.2-inch capacitive IPS touchscreen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and a pixel density of 424ppi. Durable and scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass 4 helps to keep the display looking clean and pretty. Under the hood, the phone runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 chipset with combined dual-core 1.8 GHz and quad-core 1.44 GHz ARM processors. The phone ships with Android Marshmallow 6.0 and comes unlocked from the factory to work with GSM network carriers.
We reviewed the Nextbit Robin smartphone last year and gave it a thumbs-up with a solid rating of 7.0. Our original review took some points off for the phone’s slow camera and instability issues with the included gallery app, but these problems are said to have been addressed with subsequent firmware updates from Nextbit. Be sure to check out recent customer reviews on Amazon — the Robin currently has a 4.1-star rating with roughly 400 reviews — to see what users are saying.
The Nextbit Robin smartphone was considered a good value when it debuted with a price tag of $400 in February of 2016, so its current availability at just $160 on Amazon represents a pretty solid bargain if you’re on the market for a new Android phone.
$160 on Amazon
LG’s UltraFine 5K display doesn’t want to be too close to your router
Why it matters to you
You’ll want to be sure that your display is far enough away from your router before considering the LG UltraFine 5K display as an option.
Apple has faced some unusual challenges lately, in particular, a number of issues surrounding its 2016 MacBook Pro line announced in October. Removing legacy ports, reducing battery size, and other design decisions haven’t been welcomed by Apple fan base, and the machines have suffered from some graphics and other issues.
Apple also decided to drop its own Thunderbolt Display that served as the best display option to mate with the MacBook Pro, leading the company to recommend LG’s UltraFine 5K display as a substitute. Unfortunately, that display appears to have its own issue that, while perhaps not applicable to every user, is just another inconvenience for MacBook Pro customers, 9to5Mac reports.
More: Collaboration with LG may mean Apple is no longer making its own stand-alone displays
Apparently, the LG UltraFine 5K display has a problem functioning when it’s too close to a router. As 9to5Mac’s Zac Hall indicates, placing the monitor within six feet of his router caused it to malfunction and cause the connected MacBook Pro to lock up as well.
Hall confirmed that at least one other person had experienced the same issue with a wireless access point and had posted a similar experience in a review of the display. LG’s support staff confirmed the issue when contacted, saying, “I understand your concern and the frustration you feel right now. In this case, please check if the monitor is near on the router. This may affect the performance of the monitor. Kindly keep the monitor away from the router so we can isolate the issue.”
Subsequently, Hall moved the router to a location farther away from LG UltraFine 5K display and MabBook Pro to another room, and everything worked as expected. LG further confirmed that the issue does not affect other LG monitors, and that “2 meters” seems to be the magical distance to avoid interference.
If you are in the market for a high-res display for your MacBook Pro, then, it looks like you’ll want to avoid the LG UltraFine 5K display unless you can ensure that your router is at least two meters — and maybe more — from your router or wireless access point.
New drone footage shows progress on Apple’s ‘Spaceship’ Campus 2
Why it matters to you
If you’ve bought Apple devices, then the firm’s new campus is something you’ve paid for — and it’s set to produce all the best new Apple products for years to come.
Another month, another video of the development of Apple’s spaceship campus captured by a drone. The latest footage of ‘Campus 2’ shows some pretty hefty advances to the building, including signs of new work on the canopies, plants around the building, and more.
The new video shows renewed progress — the previous update we got of the campus showed that progress had slowed thanks to bad weather, and excess water seemed to have affected the landscaping. Now, however, it seems as though the water has drained enough to continue work in most areas around the building.
More: Drone video provides updated aerial look at the new Apple spaceship campus
As can be seen in the video, the research and development facility now has pavement in front of it, and lighting poles have been placed around the building — helping illuminate walkways and the paved parking lot area. On top of that, the main transit tunnel is getting a walkway, around which trees have been planted. Trees have also been planted near Apple’s fitness center.
Outside of the main building, workers have been using cranes to install more canopies for the windows, and the finishing touches to other canopies that are already in place are being added, too. It’s also estimated that 70 percent of the solar panels have been installed. It also seems like the parking garages have been installed — and workers are using them to park their cars while they finish the building process.
Apple is hoping to completely finish the building this year, and a whopping 12,000 employees will move in to the 2.8-million-square-foot building. Of course, that doesn’t mean Apple won’t have other buildings in the area — but the new building will certainly serve as a kind of “Apple HQ.”
Check out the video for yourself below.
AIVAnet 