Google’s Toontastic 3D app lets kids create 3D movies

Google’s latest kids app can conjure up stories, science reports and more!

Google’s longstanding focus on educational apps has taken a turn towards fun with the launch of the company’s latest kids app, Toontastic 3D. Available from today on Android and iOS, the app lets kids create their own animated 3D movies, choosing from “dozens” of characters, story types and settings, add their own voiceovers and mix background music, before exporting and sharing with the world.

It’s designed to be a powerful yet approachable creative tool, and can be used for a both storytelling and school projects like science reports, with 3D drawing tools for an extra personal touch.

As the official site explains, the app aims to help kids express their creativity and develop their digital skills, as they build their creations and share them with friends and family. The new app is free to download (and free of in-app purchases too), and supports phones and tablets running Android 5.0 Lollipop and up.

Now you can easily hail a ride from Uber or Lyft inside Google Maps

Why did it take so long for this kind of functionality to come to Google Maps?

Google has announced that you can now hail a ride from your preferred ride-sharing service directly through the Maps app. Tap on the icon of the guy hailing a ride and Maps will offer you a complete list of ride options, including special offers and promotions for both Uber and Lyft.

The Google Maps update actually shows you where your car is, compared to the older version that merely offered a link to launch the app in another window. You don’t even have to have the Uber or Lyft apps to hail a ride, though you will need an active account.

The new version is rolling out through Google Play starting today.

Are drones in trouble? Now Lily autonomous drone is shutting down

Yesterday, Google killed its Titan Aero-based drone program, and now the crowd-funded Lily camera drone has shut down.

The two are unrelated, but we’re beginning to wonder if the drone market is consolidating or simply dying. It’s too early to tell, of course, but two companies in two days could signal an industry downturn. On Thursday, after raising more than $34 million in pre-orders from 60,000 customers, the company behind Lily announced it still didn’t have the finances to do full-scale production.

Lily founders Antoine Balaresque and Henry Bradlow posted a blog, called The Adventure Comes to an End, to apologise and reassure customers that they would refund everyone: “We have been racing against a clock of ever-diminishing funds,” they said. “Over the past few months, we have tried to secure financing in order to unlock our manufacturing line and ship our first units — but have been unable to do this.

They continued: “As a result, we are deeply saddened to say that we are planning to wind down the company and offer refunds to customers.” Customers will get their refunds over the next 60 days, but they’ll need to fill out a form if they want the funds returned to a different card that wasn’t used to preorder the $499 Lily, which supposed to be autonomous, waterproof, and offer battery life of up to 20 minutes.

Keep in mind Lily and Titan aren’t the only drone projects to be shuttered in recent months. Zano is known as one of Europe’s biggest Kickstarter failures, and even Parrot, a major player in the commercial drone space, recently announced it is cutting a third of its drone staff.

Twitter to stream PBS live coverage of Inauguration Day

Just like it did with the conventions, Presidential debates and election night, Twitter will livestream President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20th. The social network is teaming up with PBS for six hours worth of coverage hosted by NewsHour managing editor Judy Woodruff. PBS will also have reporters stationed at the US Capitol and the National Mall in addition to a panel of guests to discuss all of the proceedings.

When the time comes, you can access the stream at inauguration.twitter.com or on the PBS NewsHour page (@NewsHour). What’s more, you will be able to watch even if you aren’t logged in to a Twitter account. Coverage begins at 11AM ET next Friday and you can expect to see the inaugural address, parade and the arrival of the 45th President of the United States at the White House before the stream concludes at 5PM ET.

Source: PR Newswire

Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem is exploding, for better and worse

The Internet of Things still mostly feels like the Internet of Crap, but there’s one ray of hope in the connected home on which plenty of companies are jumping aboard: Amazon’s Alexa. In particular, I’m talking about the voice-powered ecosystem that’s quickly grown around the company’s virtual assistant. At CES, we saw Alexa integration in Dish’s upcoming Hopper, washing machines and, much to our delight, a dancing robot. It’s even heading outside the home: Both Ford and Volkswagen are bringing Alexa to their cars for hands-free commands.

In a little over two years, Alexa has gone from being a baffling product (a connected speaker from Amazon, really?!) to an essential feature for any connected device. It’s no wonder why. With more than 7,000 Alexa Skills — what Amazon calls third-party integrations — it’s the most robust voice platform around. And as we move into 2017, you can expect Alexa’s capabilities to grow even further. Tech companies are thirsty for a ubiquitous and reliable voice platform, although based on what we’ve seen at CES, there are signs they may be getting a bit too thirsty.

Take LG’s new smart refrigerator, for example. It has a giant screen on one of its doors, it can show you what’s inside the fridge without opening the door, and, most importantly, it’s a full-fledged Alexa device. Like the Echo, it can tell you the weather, add things to your shopping list or tap into any Alexa Skill. It sounds cool on paper, but considering that LG’s previous smart fridge launched at a whopping $4,600 last year, we don’t have much faith in this one being affordable. And seriously, doesn’t it make more sense to shell out $50 for an Echo Dot or $180 for an Echo and put it in your kitchen?

What’s notable this year is that developers no longer seem afraid to jump on the Alexa bandwagon. Even Mattel is joining in with Aristotle, a $300 device that starts out as a connected baby monitor but grows with your kids as a learning device as well. While Mattel has put together its own voice-powered service to make Aristotle easy to use for kids, it also functions as an Alexa device for adults. It’s hard not to notice that the winds have changed for voice-powered computing when you see a major toy company trying to get kids into it.

I’ve written plenty about my love for Alexa. The Echo is still something I rely on daily, especially as its capabilities continue to evolve. At first I started out by asking it the weather and playing NPR; now it can control the lighting in my living room. The smaller Echo Dot has also been a useful addition to my bedroom, where it’s connected to an aging Logitech speaker. And now that the Echo Dot is only $50, I’m tempted to get another one for my office.

With the Alexa ecosystem growing at a rapid clip, it’s worth looking back and considering how Amazon managed to outpace Apple, Google and Microsoft in the voice arena. One reason: It released a device that’s primarily controlled with your voice. The Echo doesn’t have a screen; you’re forced to start talking to it as soon as you set it up. While you can control some aspects of the Echo with your phone (it also works as a Bluetooth speaker), that all feels secondary.

Amazon solved a lot of problems with voice commands that have plagued the computing world for years. The Echo uses far-field microphones with built-in noise cancellation to pick up your commands in loud rooms. It’s circular, so it works equally well from any angle, and Amazon wasn’t afraid to work with third parties to make its Alexa virtual assistant more useful. Also, Amazon was able to focus and improve its voice-recognition capabilities by limiting the Echo to English speakers in the US for its first two years (it only recently made its way to the UK).

While Siri, Google Now and Cortana were all available on phones before the Echo, they also rely on less-capable microphones. And it’s often easier to simply swipe and tap over to whatever you want on your phone rather than hope and pray your voice command gets picked up. In this respect, Amazon’s choice to limit the Echo’s input mostly to voice seems even wiser in retrospect.

The competition, on the other hand, is still trying to make sense of voice computing. Siri has been notoriously finicky since its release, and Apple also dragged its heels on third-party integration. Google Now long seemed like an experimental feature in Android, only recently evolving into something as consumer friendly as Google’s Assistant. Together with the Google Home stand-alone speaker, Assistant might actually give Amazon a run for its money.

Microsoft’s Cortana has actually been a pretty useful addition to Windows 10, and we’re also seeing plenty of companies adopting it as well. But the failure of the Xbox One’s Kinect, which was the gateway to Cortana voice commands on that console, and Windows Mobile left Cortana mostly relegated to the desktop. Still, you can expect to see Microsoft’s assistant on roads as part of its new connected car platform, which Volvo, Toyota and BMW are looking into.

Given that hands-free commands aren’t at all new for cars, it only makes sense to see virtual assistants headed there. “We know that voice interfaces have been a part of cars for a long time, primarily to support safe operations,” Amazon’s Automotive Lead, CJ Frost, told Engadget at CES. “When you look at how easily you can engage — order a pizza in five to six seconds, check the weather — it’s a very easy, safe and consistent interaction and it adds functionality to the car. You can bring your phone to the car, but depending on how the consumer uses it, it can add a level of risk as well. But finding a way to converse without being distracted, with your hands still on the steering wheel, becomes a positive experience.”

Both Ford and Volkswagen plan to use Alexa in their cars for the voice commands you already know — asking for the weather or what’s on your calendar — along with things that are actually useful for driving, such as dealing with navigation. But Frost eventually sees Alexa going even further. “What’s big this year is vehicle-to-vehicle communication and data-sharing between cars,” he said. “Not an active data sharing or interaction between consumers but cars talking to each other. What happens in the near future when a car can detect snow on the road and tell 15 cars behind it, ‘Hey, there’s snow on the road’?”

Here’s one thing we know for sure about voice computing this year: The competition will only heat up. And hopefully, that will make all the offerings even better. Amazon wants to eventually turn Alexa into something like the ubiquitous ship-wide computer in Star Trek, that can answer any question and take care of your every need. There’s no guarantee it will be the company to accomplish that, but so far, it’s the closest.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2017.

Google’s new image compression tech is actually pretty cool

In a bid to save you precious mobile data, Google has developed a technique that improves image quality without taking up more bandwidth. Entitled RASIR (Rapid and Accurate Super Image Resolution) this impressive software quickly reads large photos and manages to replicate them using a quarter of the pixels.

RASIR achieves this by analyzing both low and high-quality versions of the same image. As it reads the image, it learns from the superior version and applies filters to its low-res counterpart that simulate extra detail, creating a convincing data-friendly replica of the original high-res photo.

Unfortunately for the majority of smartphone users, the bespoke tech is currently only available on Google+. The company has rolled out the tech to a subset of Android devices, and claims to be upscaling over a billion images per week. Impressively, Google states that thanks to RASIR, it has used 75% less bandwidth per image its upscaled.

For those not interested in Google+, Google aims to expand its use of the tech more broadly across its many apps and services over the coming weeks and months.

Source: Google Blog

Uber rival Karhoo back from the dead thanks to Renault

Make no mistake, it’s hard going up against Uber. Traditional taxi companies have been forced to evolve or die, while other startups like Hailo have found it difficult to compete the ride-hailing service’s incredible growth. Karhoo, a price comparison service for hailing black cabs and the like, also found this out the hard way.

Despite raising tens of millions of pounds and enjoying a splashy launch last May, the company quickly burned through its investment and closed in November as it looked “at the next steps for the business.” Administrators got involved and employees suddenly found themselves without a job. However, two months later, Karhoo is making a return, thanks to the financial arm of French car giant Renault.

In a statement, RCI Bank and Services confirmed that it had taken a majority holding in Flit Technologies Ltd, a company formed by former Karhoo employees that bought the remaining assets of the liquidated company.

“The acquisition of the start-up Karhoo appeared as a sudden opportunity that we did not want to miss and the acquisition was completed rapidly,” said Gianluca De Ficchy, CEO of RCI Bank and Services. “We have met the highly-motivated teams, and I have every confidence in Karhoo’s business model; it is innovative and underpinned by a first-class technological platform. We will also be able to capitalize on this platform as part of our activities for the Alliance brands.”

Renault becomes the latest car maker to sink money into on-demand transport. Daimler owns the majority of Hailo, Volkswagen has poured $300 million into Gett and General Motors has invested $500 million into Lyft. Karhoo operates a little differently to many of its rivals in that it doesn’t operate its own cars, it simply provides a platform for taxi and private hire firms to feed ride pricing into its app, allowing users to choose the provider that suits their needs.

Before the company shut down last year, Karhoo employees Boris Pilichowski and Nicolas Andine ran operations following the departure of founder Daniel Ishag. Pilichowski and Andine have become co-CEOs of the new entity and hope to relaunch the service, which is based in London but also has operations in New York, later this year.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Renault

Chrysler pulls a VW, cheats emissions tests

The Environmental Protection Agency has just notified Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) that the carmaker has violated the Clean Air Act, alleging that it installed software in some of its diesel vehicles that increased emissions beyond what the company claimed. Specifically, the EPA says that “light-duty model year 2014, 2015 and 2016 Jeep Grand Cherokees and Dodge Ram 1500 trucks with 3.0 liter diesel engines sold in the United States” are releasing excess nitrogen oxide emissions.

This move has likely been brewing for a bit — several class action lawsuits against FCA said that some of the company’s vehicles were using defeat devices to cheat emissions tests. But now the federal government is getting involved (although it hasn’t yet determined if FCA was indeed using a defeat device), and that can’t be good news for FCA.

Just look at what happened to Volkswagen after it was revealed the company was engaging in widespread cheating on emissions test: The company was hit with a $4.3 billion fine, the largest given to an automaker in the US. The EPA is additionally working with the California Air Resources Board (CARB), which has also accused FCA of violating clean air laws.

FCA’s transgressions appear to be on a smaller scale than VW’s, at least at this point. The EPA alleges that approximately 104,000 vehicles were covered in the claim, whereas VW’s covered nearly 500,000 cars. Still, it’s rather troubling that another automaker has been lying about emissions — but on the positive side, the EPA says that FCA’s alleged cheating was discovered thanks to enhanced testing following the VW fiasco.

“Once again, a major automaker made the business decision to skirt the rules and got caught,” said CARB Chair Mary D. Nichols said in a press release. “CARB and US EPA made a commitment to enhanced testing as the Volkswagen case developed, and this is a result of that collaboration.”

At this point, FCA is denying wrongdoing and appears to be looking to the Trump administration for shelter — a reasonable tactic given Trump’ pro-business, anti-environmental standpoint. “FCA US intends to work with the incoming administration to present its case and resolve this matter fairly and equitably and to assure the EPA and FCA US customers that the company’s diesel-powered vehicles meet all applicable regulatory requirements,” FCA said in a statement posted by CNBC. “FCA US looks forward to the opportunity to meet with the EPA’s enforcement division and representatives of the new administration to demonstrate that FCA US’s emissions control strategies are properly justified and thus are not ‘defeat devices’ under applicable regulations and to resolve this matter expeditiously.”

The initial evidence against FCA looks pretty convincing, however — the EPA says that it has found at least eight pieces of undisclosed software in the vehicles that alter how much pollution these vehicles emit.

Via: CNBC

Source: EPA

Microsoft releases an app to help you swap work shifts

If you’re a shift worker, you might not have to worry about haggling for shift swaps in the near future. Microsoft has released its previously teased work scheduling app, StaffHub, and it promises to make life much easier for everyone from nurses to customer support reps. The Office 365-based software lets bosses easily manage schedules and send memos, which is helpful if you’re tired of reading bulletin boards and group emails. However, the real power comes in the Android, iOS and web apps that you can use as a staffer: it’s easy to trade shifts, find out who you’re working with and keep everyone else up to date. If you know you can’t come in one day, you won’t have to spend hours trying to find someone who can fill in.

It won’t shock you to hear that this isn’t intended for personal use. Your employer will need one of four Office 365 plans (K1, E1, E3 or E5), and everyone needs an Office 365 account. All the same, this could be important for the working world. Most of the business software we cover is aimed squarely at the 9-to-5 office crowd. This is one of the few times when it’ll make a difference for anyone whose hours aren’t set in stone, especially those who rarely if ever access computers when they’re on the job.

Source: Microsoft, StaffHub

FCC: Verizon and AT&T ‘zero-rating’ perks harm consumers

Tom Wheeler may be leaving, but he’s going out swinging. After grilling carriers Verizon and AT&T last month over their “zero-rating” policies, the FCC chairman released a report saying its practices harmed streaming rivals and, ultimately, consumers. It particularly singled out AT&T’s Sponsored Data service, saying it “unreasonably interfere[s] with [rival services’] ability to compete against AT&T’s affiliate, DirecTV.”

Sponsored Data, as a reminder, is an AT&T program that gives consumers free data to try out new apps or services, with the costs subsidized by the providers of those services through payments to AT&T. However, Wheeler’s report says that “AT&T imposes hefty per-gigabyte charges on third parties for use of sponsored data.” By contrast, T-Mobile gives “all [streaming services] the same zero rate for participating in Binge On.”

Verizon’s FreeBee Data 360 service, which is similar to AT&T’s Sponsored Data, also runs afoul of the FCC’s idea of fair zero-rating (Verizon owns AOL and by extension, Engadget). The report says that nothing seems to be stopping Verizon from charging third party streaming or other services higher rates than its net cost to stream its own go90 video service. The carrier the FCC it offers other companies “equivalent” terms to its own costs, but provided no data to back that up.

AT&T imposes hefty per-gigabyte charges on third parties for use of Sponsored Data.

Wheeler reviewed different carrier products on a “case-by-case basis,” asserting that he’s not against the idea of zero-rating in principal. Rather, the FCC is looking at cases where companies like AT&T and Verizon, which control significant chunks of broadband, favor their own “downstream” services (like DirecTV or go90) over competitors.

In a letter sent last month to AT&T, the FCC explained that a third-party streaming service might have to pay AT&T in the range of $16-$47 per month (depending on usage) to zero-rate its service so that it doesn’t count against a user’s data cap. Meanwhile, DirecTV Now costs $35 per month, period, and as it’s part of AT&T’s “Data Free” plan, has no effect on users’ data caps.

That, in effect, makes it infeasible for rivals like Sling TV to compete against AT&T’s own services over LTE networks. It also “favors big content providers who can afford to pay for access to users’ eyeballs, and marginalizes those who can’t, such as nonprofits, startups and fellow users,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote.

Both carriers slammed the FCC’s report, without addressing the FCC’s arguments. “It remains unclear why the [commission] continues to question the value of giving consumers the ability to watch video without incurring any charges,” said VP Joan Marsh. Verizon also dismissed it, saying that “we don’t agree with their view on free data and we don’t think our customers do either.”

I am confident that this latest regulatory spasm will not have any impact on the Commission’s policymaking or enforcement activities following next week’s inauguration.

The FCC won’t take any enforcement action against the carriers, however, as the process could take years. And once Wheeler leaves, the board will be controlled by Republican commissioners who intend to gut net neutrality rules.

In fact, Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai excoriated the report, saying that Wheeler is “pursuing partisan, political agendas that only harm investment and innovation” on his way out. As a prelude to a new FCC that’s likely a lot more carrier-friendly, he added “I am confident that this latest regulatory spasm will not have any impact on the Commission’s policymaking or enforcement activities following next week’s inauguration.”

Via: The Hill

Source: FCC