ZTE will launch an Android Wear smartwatch in 2017

Bucking the trend of other Android manufacturers, ZTE thinks the time is right to launch an Android Wear smartwatch.

With the impending release of Android Wear 2.0, and two accompanying wearables from Google itself, ZTE says that it plans to enter the market, according to CNET. “[ZTE] already has a US carrier partner lined up to sell the watch, which has its own LTE connection and can run independent of a phone,” the story says, and that battery life, a primary issue with the last generation of smartwatches, has been improved tremendously.

Whether independent LTE connectivity will be enough to get people to replace their current smartwatches, or buy into the ecosystem in the first place, remains to be seen, but despite the tepid recent response it’s clear some phone makers still believe there is always money in the smartwatch banana stand.

Facebook says new battery issues can be fixed with an app reset, no update on old battery issues

If your Facebook battery usage has been especially bad recently, it has apparently been fixed server-side.

You don’t use Facebook and also get surprised by battery drain issues, especially with the ocean of data to support just how hungry both Facebook and Messenger can be, but recently several users noticed a dramatic spike in power consumption. Some users reported as much a 1% every minute when Facebook Messenger was open, and it turns out that’s not the intended battery consumption rate for that app.

Facebook’s Messenger lead David Marcus responded to a recent complaint about power consumption on Twitter recently with an explanation and an apology, and it looks like whatever was going wrong has been fixed.

@bestsportnascar @alxpap issue was isolated and fixed server side. If you restart Messenger the problem should be gone now. Very sorry.

— David Marcus (@davidmarcus) January 10, 2017

Facebook itself is still a significant battery hog, but even when you’re playing games with friends Messenger is usually not too bad. As the tweet suggests, if you’re still experiencing higher than usual drain from Messenger, force close the app and restart it so the new connection is no longer affected by the server-side issue that has been addressed recently.

If you feel compelled to do this more than once because of continued battery drain, chances are you’re experiencing something entirely different from this problem. Fortunately for you, it looks like the guy in charge is pretty responsive.

Paper centrifuge can help detect diseases in developing nations

A piece of paper, some twine and plastic could make testing for certain diseases more accessible even in the poorest areas of developing nations. Manu Prakash, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, used those materials to create a simple centrifuge alternative that he calls the “paperfuge.” Centrifuges are rapidly rotating machines in the lab that scientists use to separate the different components of a liquid by density. If you want to test for diseases like African sleeping sickness, malaria, tuberculosis or even HIV, that liquid is blood. Heavy red blood cells settle at the bottom, plasma floats to the top, while parasites and pathogens occupy the middle part. The machine is effective, but it’s also expensive and needs electricity to work.

According to the bioengineer, he was inspired by a whirligig toy that spins as you pull the strings. Upon examining the toy with a high-speed camera, he found that the disc in the center rotates at 10,000 to 15,000 rpm. So, he did what any curious scientist would do: he developed a prototype and attached a small container of blood on its disc. After it successfully separated the blood’s different components, he and his team worked on the prototype further until they came up with an iteration that can rotate at 125,000 rpm.

They were able to find malaria parasites within 15 minutes of spinning the new prototype in the lab. Since they used an orange dye to stain the parasites, they were easily able to identify their presence under a microscope, as well. However, they still need conduct further tests to make sure it works as intended, so they’re now using the paperfuge prototype on the field in Madagascar.

Source: Stanford University, Nature

Wading through the Internet of Crap

Connected home gadgets were everywhere at CES 2017 — we saw WiFi cameras, smart walking canes and Echo clones aplenty. But while several of them were truly innovative, there were some that made no sense at all. Just because something has Bluetooth or internet connectivity that doesn’t make it useful. Even more ridiculous are devices that have voice controls when they don’t actually need them. As Nick Offerman said on our Engadget stage a few days ago, sometimes the best tech is low-tech. As far as tech for tech’s sake goes, here are some of the worst offenders from this year’s show.

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

eBay and LinkedIn founders back research into ethical AI

Some big names in the tech world aren’t just fretting over the possibility of dangerous AI, they’re taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar (through his Omidyar Network) are pouring a total of $20 million into a newly created Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund that will fuel research into the social considerations around AI. The organization wants to be sure that machines aren’t just guided by “engineers and corporations” — they should consider the input of everyone from social scientists through to economists and politicians.

The fund is also getting $5 million from the Knight Foundation, and a total of $2 million between the Raptor Group and the Hewlett Foundation. MIT Media Lab and Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society will be the first academic institutions conducting studies.

The backers acknowledge that there are a lot of factors to consider, and that there won’t be any quick solutions. How do you write AI that considers ethics and morals? How do you make it accountable for its actions? And how do you ensure that companies building AI are working in the public interest without stifling their creativity? Someone has to get the ball rolling, though, and it won’t be surprising if the fund helps influence technology for a long while.

Via: The Guardian

Source: Knight Foundation

Instagram’s latest Stories feature is ads

Instagram shamelessly copied Snapchat last summer by introducing its own “Stories” feature, which lets users make bitesized, ephemeral scrapbooks of images and video. Since the launch, Instagram has added new ways to jazz up these Stories, as well as bringing live streaming into the mix. But it’s time for the social network to pull another Snapchat move. Instagram has announced today that adverts are coming to Stories, because what’s the point of having a neat feature over 150 million people use daily if you can’t monetize it?

As The Telegraph describes, the implementation isn’t as bad as it could be. The 5-second photo and 15-second video adverts will be skippable, and clearly labelled as sponsored content, just like the ads that already pervade your regular activity feed. They will also only appear between stories, so as not to ruin the flow of your friend’s 20-part epic documenting another mundane day at the office.

Instagram has signed up over 30 brands including Airbnb, Nike and Netflix to participate in the initial rollout, which is happening globally over the next few weeks. At the same time, business accounts will start being able to see engagement stats (aka insights) for stories for the first time. The launch comes as no great surprise, and is yet another example of how the line between social networks and ad platforms is becoming ever more blurred.

It’s a gray area Mark Zuckerberg knows extremely well, and a recent report suggests Facebook — which owns Instagram, of course — is planning another advertising push of its own. According to Recode sources, Facebook will soon begin testing mid-roll ads within certain videos on the site, mimicking one of YouTube’s most annoying money-making schemes.

Via: The Telegraph

Source: Instagram

Skippable Ads Coming to Instagram Stories

Instagram today announced that more than 150 million people now use its Snapchat-like Stories feature on a daily basis, and now the company is looking to monetize that user base with the introduction of full-screen ads.

Just like Snapchat, Instagram will sometimes add a 5-second photo or 15-second video ad in between stories when a user watches more than one in a row. The video ads in particular are set to autoplay with audio. The good news: each ad can be skipped by swiping on it, according to TechCrunch.

Instagram said it will begin testing the ads over the coming weeks with over 30 global brands, such as Airbnb, Capital One, Buick, Nike, Netflix, and Qantas. In the future, the company said the ads may be tappable, enabling users to proceed to an advertiser’s website to purchase a product or learn more information.

Instagram Stories enables users to share personalized photos and videos with their followers that disappear after 24 hours.

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iPhone Captured 31% of Smartphone Sales in the U.S. Ahead of Holiday Season

The iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone 6s were the “three most popular smartphones” in the United States in the three month period ending November 2016, when users were purchasing early holiday gifts for friends and family members. According to new data collected by Kantar Worldpanel, the three Apple iPhones captured a total 31.3 percent of smartphone sales in the U.S., while Samsung accounted for 28.9 percent of smartphone sales during the three month period.

In the U.S., iOS grew 6.4 percent in the same three month period, rising to a 43.5 percent share of the market. Android dropped 5.1 percent, but still sits atop Apple with a 55.3 percent share of the market. As Kantar noted, the data marks the sixth consecutive decline for Android in the U.S.

Kantar’s data shows that iOS made gains across most regions around the world in the same September to November period, despite a few losses in Germany and China. Apple’s mobile operating system saw the biggest year-over-year increase in Great Britain, where it jumped 9.1 percent to account for 48.3 percent of the smartphone market in the country. Both Android and iOS increased their presence across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Great Britain, “largely due to the decline of Windows,” according to Kantar.

“In the EU5 countries, Android accounted for 72.4% of smartphone sales during this period, with iOS at 24.6%, a strong year-on-year uptick for both ecosystems as Windows’ share declined to 2.8%.

For Android, this represented a 2.8 percentage point decline from the October period, while strong sales of iPhone 7 boosted iOS,” explained Dominic Sunnebo, Business Unit Director for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Europe. “The holiday period is always strong for Apple, but it remains to be seen if demand for the latest devices will level out in the first quarter of 2017.”

Despite dropping 5.4 percent in China from the year-ago quarter, Kantar pointed out that iOS market share did in fact increase slightly (by 2.8 percent) from the previous three-month period thanks to the launch of the iPhone 7, which became the best-selling device in Urban China. “Local brands continued to dominate the market,” according to Kantar analyst Tamsin Timpson, and Android accounts for a massive 79.9 percent of the smartphone market in the country in comparison to Apple’s 19.9 percent presence.

Despite Apple’s iOS growth in places like Australia, Japan, and even the U.S., recent reports surrounding the company’s manufacturing partner Foxconn have pointed towards “lukewarm” demand for the iPhone 7 as a major cause for the assembler’s first-ever profit decline. Apple reportedly shipped 207 million iPhones in 2016, down from 236 million in 2015, but many hope the company can turn around from its own revenue downturn with a profitable 2017 and a major redesign for the “iPhone 8.”

Related Roundups: iPhone 7, iOS 10
Tag: Kantar Worldpanel
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Nokia 6 confirmed to be at MWC, global variant could be announced

HMD Global has just released the first Android Nokia phone, the Nokia 6, in China. An official teaser video has been posted on Nokia Mobile’s Facebook page, but the caption that goes with it says more announcements are coming on 26 February, the day before Mobile World Congress officially begins.

• Nokia’s first Android phone is the Nokia 6, but there’s a catch
• Mobile World Congress 2017: Smartphones, smartphones, smartphones to expect

Considering the caption has gone with the video of the Nokia 6, we expect the announcements to revolve around the phone. There is a chance Nokia will announce a global version of the 6, as at the moment, it’s exclusive to China. Nokia Power User has unearthed a variant of the phone passing through Bluetooth certification.

The current Nokia 6 in China has the model number TA-1000, but another version, TA-1003 has been spotted as well. It’s unlikely to be a different version exclusively for China, so it could mean we’ll see a new one released worldwide.

Whether the specs and features will be different remains to be seen. The specs of the current Chinese model don’t exactly scream flagship, with a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 full HD display, Snapdragon 430 processor with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. The Nokia 6 is also equipped with Dolby Atmos for mobile, although we’re not too sure how effective it is at recreating an enveloping sound effect.

While we may not know exactly what Nokia has planned for MWC, it’s good to have some official information direct from the smartphone brand.

Google may sell off its satellite imaging division

Wall Street has been pushing Google to behave more like a regular company, hacking and slashing at its longer-term projects and R&D divisions. Now, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat has her sword pointed at the search engine’s satellite imaging unit, Terra Bella. According to both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, Google will sell the division to a competitor, Planet, and buy mapping data from other companies in future.

Terra Bella began life as Skybox Imaging, which Google bought for $500 million way back in 2014. The division has developed and launched seven satellites that take high-resolution snaps of our planet. Not only is the imagery used to update and improve Google Maps, but the data is also sold to third parties.

It’s believed that Planet doesn’t have the cash to buy Terra Bella from Google for anywhere near the asking price. As such, the would-be suitor will hand Alphabet equity in its business in exchange for the satellite division.

What we don’t know, and probably won’t for some time, is what this means for Skybox for Good. That was Google’s ambitious plan to hand high-resolution mapping data to non-profits to help them track their work. Let’s hope that nonprofits clearing minefields and preventing deforestation don’t lose out to what could be some short-sighted cost-cutting.

Source: WSJ, Bloomberg