BlackBerry Mercury wins big at CES 2017

Now that CES 2017 has wrapped up, folks are looking back on everything that was announced in Las Vegas and handing out awards for what they feel was the ‘Best Of CES.’ Unsurprisingly, one of the items that continues to appear on several lists is the BlackBerry Mercury, which TCL offered a sneak peek of at CES.

The last phone designed by BlackBerry has managed to grab a lot of attention in the past few days and a new post from Ralph Pini, Chief Operating Officer and General Manager, Mobility Solutions, at BlackBerry, highlights that even further. Mercury wasn’t the only winner, though, the DTEK50 scored some love at CES as well taking home an Innovation Award.

We took a peek at the BlackBerry Mercury during CES and even though we don’t know the whole story, we like what we’ve seen so far.

We’re very excited about the coming BlackBerry branded “Mercury” smartphone. It’s the last phone that we designed and engineered in-house. Our global licensing partner TCL will be manufacturing Mercury and bringing it to market in many countries around the world.

Providing state-of-the-art security software is what we’ve delivered since day one to our customers, and what we will continue to do. BlackBerry is 100 percent focused on software solutions, providing the embedded intelligence to secure the Enterprise of Things so that the Internet of Things can thrive. As part of this strategy, we are now leveraging third parties for the development, distribution, and marketing of BlackBerry handsets, while we continue to own the BlackBerry brand.

The agreement with TCL Communication is BlackBerry’s second licensing agreement. TCL is a global top ten smartphone provider best-known for its Alcatel-branded devices. BlackBerry’s brand recognition and security and software expertise, along with TCL’s hardware and distribution prowess, are a powerful combination.

During CES, TCL gave a sneak peek of Mercury, a secure Android, keyboard-equipped device.

More details about the smartphone, including its official name, will be coming at the Mobile World Congress show in February.

The reception to Mercury was strong. The publications Android Central, Phone Scoop and Android Police all gave BlackBerry Mercury “Best of CES” awards. TechCrunch praised its “solid feel coupled with a modernized version of the iconic BlackBerry design.” Mercury was also a finalist in Engadget’s BEST of CES awards (we should also mention DTEK50 won an Innovation Award from the CES organizer itself).The

We also expect BlackBerry branded phones from BB Merah Putih to come out in Indonesia soon. As our CEO John Chen noted at a press event during CES: “There’s going to be more BlackBerry phones out there because now I have multiple parties creating and distributing and I have local partners to compete in the local space.” We are starting to gain great momentum with our licensing strategy. Look for us to continue pursuing additional licensing partners to bring Mercury as well as other new smartphones to the rest of the world.

Parrot lays off 290 drone division employees

It was a disappointing holiday season for French drone maker Parrot. The company announced Monday that it will lay off about 290 employees — or more than a third of the employees currently working on drone-related projects — after it missed fourth quarter sales targets by about 15 percent.

Parrot’s drone line has always straddled the line between executive toys and high-end gadgetry, and according to the company’s announcement, the first order of business in 2017 will be to refocus its product offerings to concentrate on the most profitable areas. Parrot cites extremely low margins in the consumer drone space as the main reason for the layoffs, so we won’t be surprised if we see fewer one-off jumping, flying and seafaring minidrones as the company continues to grow up with more prosumer-level devices like the Bebop 2 or the fixed-wing Disco in the future.

As Recode notes, Parrot’s main competitor DJI has been dominating the consumer drone space by slashing prices and cutting into profit margins, which it can pull off because it also owns the manufacturing facilities in Shenzhen. American company 3D Robotics blamed DJI’s pricing when it bowed out of the hardware game to focus on drone software and navigation instead. In Parrot’s case, however, the company also has a range of audio products and “connected garden” smart flower pots to help out that bottom line.

Via: Recode

Source: Parrot Corporate (PDF)

Disappearing videos are coming to a Bumble profile near you

The next way dating app Bumble is separating itself from Tinder is video. If you’re familiar with Snapchat Stories or Instagram’s ephemeral offerings, BumbleVID should sound be pretty recognizable. Users can make a story out of an unlimited amount of ten-second video clips from within the app. Anyone swiping past your profile can see them and after 24 hours, they disappear.

TechCrunch writes that you can add pre-recorded videos as well, but they have to have been created within the last 24 hours. More than that, they’ll be flagged as having not been created within the app. The feature will launch in a few weeks and is open to everyone who’s had their profile verified.

It might sound superfluous and unabashedly “me too,” but this could actually be a better way to vet someone before swiping right. Hell, if you’re lucky, it could even eliminate a few first date surprises.

Tinder’s most recent big deal was a not-VR headset at CES. But beyond that PR stunt, the last new feature that affected how its users communicate was GIF messaging last January. The app still won’t let you send pictures, so video is probably even further off.

Considering Bumble’s origin story — CEO Whitney Wolfe was unceremoniously fired from Tinder and stripped of any credit for her work there — Tinder being outclassed by a former co-founder’s project (again) is all the more satisfying.

Source: TechCrunch

Showtime’s ‘Twin Peaks’ revival will finally premiere in May

You can breathe easy now. Showtime might have missed its 2016 target for the Twin Peaks revival, but it’s still full steam ahead for the series’ creators. In fact, you won’t have to wait that much longer for its premiere: the cult classic’s new season will begin at 9PM on May 21, 2017. The two-episode premiere will be two-hours long, followed by 16 more hour-long episodes. If you have Showtime On Demand, though, you’ll have access to episodes 1 to 4 from the start.

While the network hasn’t released a lot of details about the revival, we at least know that it’s a modern-day continuation from where the series left off. It’s also bringing back most of the people involved in the first two seasons, including Kyle MacLachlan as FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper. David Lynch, who almost backed out due to budget constraints, is also back to direct all the episodes. Plus, he wrote the new season with series co-creator Mark Frost, so you don’t have to worry about new players butchering your favorite show.

Via: The Verge

Source: The Wrap

MIT model reveals role of inhibitory neurons in the brain

Recent digital tech advancements have produced prototype artificial neurons and light-based neural networks, but we’re still discovering ways our brain actually works. Researchers at MIT have built a computational model that could illustrate how inhibitory neurons work efficiently to block others from firing.

The team’s model, as described in their paper, uses theoretical computer science applied to a “winner-take-all” operation. It starts with a number of input neurons and finding an efficient configuration of inhibitory ones that will produce a signal from a single output neuron. Abstracting real neural networks in this way could help the field of computational analysis assist neuroscience. NEC Professor of Software Science and Engineering at MIT Nancy Lynch led the team, which will present their results at this week’s Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science conference.

Lynch’s team spent years working on communication and resource allocation within ad hoc personnel networks before shifting to investigate biological phenomena.

“There’s a close correspondence between the behavior of networks of computers or other devices like mobile phones and that of biological systems,” Lynch said in a press release. “We’re trying to find problems that can benefit from this distributed-computing perspective, focusing on algorithms for which we can prove mathematical properties.”

Source: MIT Press Room

Is a new Google Voice in the works?

Google Voice needs a little love and might be getting it.

At least that’s what Google tells us when we visit the Google Voice website. You’ll see it near the top of the page if you direct yourself over to voice.google.com while you’re signed into Chrome. If you’re a Project Fi subscriber you’ll need to click the link at the bottom of the page to get to the actual Google Voice site after it redirects you to the fancy Fi site.

Of course, clicking on it doesn’t do much. It seems to reload the same page, and sending you back to the Fi site if you’re a Fi sub. The URL scheme (https://www.google.com/voice/b/0/redirection/new) looks like it’s the same sort of auto-redirect we’ve seen with Google+ and the Project Fi site when they weren’t public and available for all. This might mean it works, just not for us mere mortals.

We have no idea what to expect from a new Google Voice. This could be just a redesign of the website and might not include any changes to the service, or it could be a true overhaul now that Hangouts is basically an enterprise app in Google’s eyes. Or maybe it will go the way of the dodo and join other Google services we all loved in internet-Valhalla.

I’m sure people are trying to see what magic might be done to actually get to the new page, but for now, we only get a teaser that something new is coming, and we should TRY NOW!

‘Final Fantasy XV’ out-of-bounds glitch reveals an unused open world

The world of Final Fantasy XV feels enormous, stretching out for miles across freeways, plains, lakes and mountains — but in the game’s closing act, that open world becomes incredibly linear. Instead of taking a road trip across a fantastic land, players in the third act can merely look out upon one. A newly discovered out-of-bounds glitch changes that, revealing a surprisingly fleshed out landscape with a frozen tundra, beaches, towns and a vast savannah. There’s not much to do in the area, but fans are now wondering if its a hint at what’s coming for the game’s DLC.

Breaking out of the game’s linear section takes a little bit of doing. To start, players have to be running the version of the game that came on retail discs without any updates — then they must reach a train station in a late section of the game. From there, a few careful jumps can land the player outside of their linear prison and into the lands Niflheim. Between the towns, mountains and fields there’s plenty to see, but not much to do: there are no enemies to fight, no quests to take on and no Chocobo to ride. Still, when users who have made it into the unused lands update their game, things get interesting: suddenly the open fields have roads.

The fact that game’s latest update added detail to the unused area could merely just be set dressing for players who look upon it from the game’s locked-down linear aream but some players are speculating that SquareEnix may add new areas later on. Even if that never happens, the glitch is a fascinating look at a even larger open world map.

Via: Verge

Source: YouTube (1), (2)

Windows 10 Creators Update will add tab previews and a night mode

Windows 10’s Creators Update will have its fair share of pleasant surprises, apparently. Microsoft has released a new Windows Insider preview that stuffs in quite a few new features, some of which you might just use every day. For one, its Edge browser now includes tab previews. This isn’t a novel concept (hi, Opera), but it’ll be immensely helpful if you have loads of tabs open and don’t want to play a guessing game. Also, Microsoft’s Flash crackdown is in full effect: Edge now blocks untrusted Flash content as a matter of course, and you’ll have to click to play it.

There’s plenty more beyond the web. The preview introduces a “lower blue light” option that, like F.lux or the night modes on some phones, will gradually shift colors to ease the strain on your eyes (and theoretically, help you sleep) when it gets dark. And did we mention that you can organize the Start menu’s tiles into folders? It’ll seem familiar if you’ve used Windows Phone or Windows 10 Mobile, but it’s definitely welcome if you’d like to have a lot of app shortcuts.

Other improvements? You’ll find a more app-centric sharing option with increased awareness of what you’re running and what you like to use. Windows is also building in a selective screen capture mode that was previously limited to OneNote, a more formal introduction to Cortana for new users, an on-demand “refresh Windows” option to reinstall the OS and better support for very high resolution displays. If you’re an Insider and are willing to live with the inevitable glitchiness of a preview, you’ll definitely want to give this a peek.

Via: The Verge, ZDNet

Source: Microsoft

Marissa Meyer to resign from Yahoo’s board of directors

Marissa Mayer has been virtually synonymous with Yahoo ever since she took the helm, but things are about to get a bit muddier now that the Verizon’s acquisition is near closing. Yahoo has announced that Mayer, co-founder David Filo and four other people are resigning from the company’s board of directors once Verizon officially takes control. According to the SEC filing, it’s “not due to any disagreement” with how the business is run — it’s just that Yahoo will technically be considered an investment company once the buyout wraps up, and doesn’t believe it needs more than five people on its board after that.

The shakeup will also see Yahoo change the name of the post-acquisition company, which will hold Alibaba assets (that is, the part of the company that isn’t going to Verizon), to Altaba. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? This move had been planned since the acquisition was made public, but the name wasn’t certain until now.

It’s not explicitly mentioned why Mayer is exiting the board, but it’s likely just because she has no reason to help manage an investment firm — that’s not why she became Yahoo’s CEO. Still, it’s a symbolic move. Given that Mayer also won’t lead the part of Yahoo that’s merging with Verizon (that’s up to the telecom’s Marni Walden), this effectively marks the end of her leadership at Yahoo. She’ll still be around in the Verizon era, but it won’t be the same now that she isn’t calling all the shots. Not that she’ll necessarily mind given Yahoo’s extremely rough 2016.

Via: Business Insider

Source: SEC

FDA warns that certain pacemakers are vulnerable to hacking

According to a cybersecurity notice from the Food and Drug Administration, certain pacemakers and cardiac devices are currently vulnerable to hacking. Although security researchers have warned about the security risks to medical devices for years now, this is the first time we’ve seen the government publicly acknowledge a specific threat.

The vulnerable devices included under the FDA’s warning are not the pacemakers themselves, but rather the Merlin@home Transmitters made by St. Jude Medical. The transmitters are part of a home monitor that connects to pacemakers and other implanted cardiac devices using a wireless RF signal. The Merlin is designed to read the data stored on a pacemaker and then upload that data to its own cloud on the Merlin.net Patient Care Network, where a physician can access and monitor the device and the patient’s health. Although it doesn’t mention specifics of the threat, the government acknowledges that Merlin monitors could be hacked to send modified commands to a patient’s pacemaker or other device. With the right access, a hacker could do anything from deplete a pacemaker’s battery to shocking a patient or throwing off their heartbeat.

On the bright side, the FDA says there have been no reported hacks and no patients have been harmed so far. To fix the problem, a software patch will be automatically applied over-the-air to affected Merlin@home devices starting today. Patients or their caregivers only need to ensure the devices are online and connected to get the fix.

Source: FDA, St. Jude Medical