Inside Honda’s money-making, AI-based NueV concept car

According to Honda, a vehicle is parked a whopping 96 percent of the time. With that in mind, the automaker this week unveiled the NueV (New Electric Urban Vehicle) concept, an autonomous automobile that could potentially make its owner some extra cash by acting as its own low-level, Uber-like ride-hailing service.

The car (which looks like a small, futuristic version of the automaker’s discontinued Element SUV) would autonomously pick up and drop off customers around town while the owner was at home or work. Honda also stated that the vehicle could potentially sell excess energy it had generated back into the grid.

And when the NeuV isn’t making its owner money, it’s learning about that person through the Honda Automated Network Assistant AI (HANA, for short). But it’s doing more than just figuring out when a person is most likely to drive and the best route to their job; it’s using what the company calls an “emotion engine” to detect the “emotions behind the driver’s judgments.”

Feelings-detection aside, the car itself looks perfect for driving around (and more importantly, parking) in a dense urban environment. Honda says that it won’t recess the steering wheel while in autonomous mode to give the driver the opportunity to take over whenever they want. The automaker says it really wants people to continue to enjoy driving.

Even though I couldn’t actually drive the car, I suspect that the small wheelbase and electric motors could make it a fun city car. Plus, thanks to the glass roof and high profile, it doesn’t feel as small on the inside as it looks from the outside. And the doors opening upward instead of out means you can cram it into tiny parking spots. In fact, if Honda were to release the NueV next year, it would be well poised to complete against the Mini, Fiat and other small cars.

Unfortunately, there’s no word when or if the NeuV will make it out of concept territory and into showrooms. So we’ll wait and hope the HANA AI guilts the automaker into releasing her into the world.

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

US intelligence releases report linking Russia to election hacks

As promised, the US intelligence community has released the public version of its report connecting the Russian government to election-oriented hacks… and it isn’t pulling any punches. The findings directly accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering an “influence campaign” to destabilize the American vote, with hacks as a major component. The authoritarian leader wanted to both “undermine public faith” in the democratic process and “denigrate” Hillary Clinton to make sure that Russia’s preferred candidate, Donald Trump, took office. Many of the unclassified details will seem familiar, but the US notes that its conclusions are drawn from both intelligence collected by the CIA, FBI and NSA as well as knowledge about both the Kremlin and the organizations it props up.

Crucially, the agencies have “high confidence” that Russia used both its bogus Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks to disseminate info that its hackers had obtained from both the Democratic National Committee and Democratic officials. The Russians chose to feed this info to WikiLeaks because of its “self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity,” according to the report, as well as state-backed media outlet RT’s business with and sympathy for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Moreover, the Kremlin cherry-picked data — while it did scoop up information on both political parties, it only disclosed information about Democrats. The campaign is believed to have started no later than March 2016.

Russia has a recent history of anti-US hacking campaigns, the report adds. It compromised numerous local and state electoral boards (though not the voting systems), and has been targeting the World Anti-Doping Agency after it got caught running a cheating program.

Officials add that Russia’s propaganda machine worked in concert with the hacks, with RT, Sputnik and other government-backed outlets trying to discredit Clinton (such as by celebrating WikiLeaks and parroting lies about Clinton’s health) both online and on TV. There was even a social media campaign, “#DemocracyRIP,” that was waiting in the wings if Clinton won — if Russia didn’t get its preferred US President, it would tarnish Clinton’s presidency and sow chaos by questioning the democratic system.

The report also has dire predictions for the future. It believes Russia will use the “qualified success” of its US strategy for subsequent campaigns, both against the States and its allies. Notably, Russian intelligence started a spearphishing campaign against both US government workers as well as non-governmental organizations involved in defense and foreign policy. They may be gathering additional info to conduct more influence campaigns and learn what the Trump administration’s plans will be.

As for Trump’s response after seeing the classified version of the report? It’s vague, and ultimately repeats his attempts to downplay or deny Russia’s involvement. He doesn’t single out Russia (he instead lumps it in with China and other organizations attacking the US), and insists that the hacking had “absolutely no effect” on the election, singling out the absence of voting machine hacks in particular. He also casts doubt on the conclusion, pointing to the DNC’s reported reluctance to offer direct access to compromised servers.

Even with the DNC’s hesitance, though, Trump’s assertion mostly contradicts both the report and what we saw during the election. More than a few people cited WikiLeaks’ data on the DNC and Podesta as a factor in their support for Trump. While there’s no way to double-check the raw intelligence (that would “reveal sensitive [espionage] sources or methods,” the US says), Trump is effectively accusing the intelligence community of spreading misinformation — a pretty serious claim.

Via: New York Times, Washington Post

Source: DNI (PDF), IC on the Record

CES 2017: Mixtile Hub Promises to Expand HomeKit to ZigBee and Z-Wave Smart Home Devices

Focalcrest, a Chinese company focusing on intelligent hardware solutions, today debuted a new HomeKit hub that promises to bring HomeKit connectivity to various connected home products that would not otherwise be able to interface with Apple’s smart home platform.

The Mixtile Hub, which is MFi certified by Apple, is designed to connect to ZigBee and Z-Wave products and interface with HomeKit, allowing them to be controlled in via Siri and with Apple’s Home app.

The hub plugs into a television set, which is used as a display to allow users to discover smart devices located in the home. From the television, the devices can be connected to the hub, and an accompanying smart phone app allows users to designate what a product does so that it can be used appropriately through HomeKit.

According to Focalcrest, it can interface with Z-Wave and ZigBee products, as well as connect to various smart home devices through Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Focalcrest did not provide specific examples of the kinds of hardware the hub can work with, so there are some unknowns with the product at this point in time.

The Mixtile Hub supports wireless communication protocols such as ZigBee, Z-Wave (optional), Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. It can also communicate with various other sensors (temperature and humidity sensors, optical sensors, door sensors) surveillance devices (monitors, alarms, intelligent locks) and smart home products (intelligent lamps, outlets and air conditioners), through ZigBee and Z-Wave.

Several existing hub-based HomeKit products work the same way as the Mixtile Hub, such as the Philips Hue. The Philips Hue base station is HomeKit enabled, while all bulbs connect to and receive commands from the base station using the ZigBee protocol.

ZigBee and Z-Wave are popular options for smart home products that don’t support HomeKit. Many home security companies use Z-Wave, as do some major brands like Honeywell, GE, Schlage, D-Link, and First Alert. A wide range of connected home products use ZigBee, like the Logitech Harmony Remote, Cree lightbulbs, GE lightbulbs, and more.

Hardware wise, the hub is equipped with a quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, and 8GB of storage space. It has a built in 2,500mAh battery, dual microphones, an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, a micro-USB port, and a USB 2.0 port.

Focalcrest says the Mixtile Hub will be priced at approximately $150, and it will tentatively see a release sometime around March of 2017.

Tags: HomeKit, CES 2017, Mixture Hub
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Hands-on: WeMo Dimmer and Google Home make home automation seamless

Google Home + WeMo is a recipe for home automation bliss.

Belkin’s WeMo brand has been in the business a long time, and by now it knows how to make a good product. Dimmer is WeMo’s latest must-have connected home accessory, especially since it works seamlessly with the new Google Home.

WeMo Dimmer will be available in the spring for $49.99.

What was your favorite CES 2017 announcement? Let us know in the comments below!

Top 5 Android predictions for 2017!

After the dumpster fire that was 2016, it’s time to look forward to a whole new year of Android-related goodness. Of course, 2017 will see a familiar pattern of device launches, Android updates (or lack thereof, depending on your phone), and undoubtedly some surprises that we couldn’t predict (hey there Note 7).

Predicting the future is always a tricky game, but we’ve narrowed our expectations down to this top five Android trends for the coming year. Agree? Disagree? Be sure to share your thoughts down in the comments, and keep watching throughout the year to see how things unfold!

• More Andromeda rumors
• 4K phones and the Galaxy S8
• Snapdragon 835 announcement
• Xiaomi Mi Mix video (Thanks MrMobile!!)
• Android O nicknames

Watching two Google Homes trying to have a conversation is the best thing you’ll see today

In the future, computers will be able to talk to one another. Perhaps intelligently.

Today, though, all we have is this: two Google Home units sitting in the same room having a conversation. Twitch channel seebotschat have managed to whip together a Cleverbot API hook that keeps the units speaking in a way that yours wouldn’t be able to, and suffice it to say the outcome is, well… you just have to watch.

Watch live video from seebotschat on http://www.twitch.tv

A log of the conversation is being kept next to the video stream for context, but that’s difficult to find when most of it makes no sense.

Google Home leverages Google’s Knowledge Graph to give it access to the company’s vast array of growing search results. But try to have a chat with it and you’ll fail hard very quickly. Until then, you’ll have this.

New NVIDIA Shield Android TV: Everything you need to know

The latest Android TV box continues to drive the industry.

NVIDIA made a splash at CES 2017 when it unveiled a new version of its extremely popular Shield Android TV box. The new Shield Android TV has a similar design, identical internals, same price and similar value proposition as the original, and isn’t even getting a distinctive name to separate it from the first model.

So what has changed, and what can you expect to get in the new Shield Android TV? Well there’s still plenty to unpack here.

New external hardware

NVIDIA didn’t see a need to overhaul the internal hardware of the Shield Android TV, and it’s hard to blame it for doing so. The original box was more than powerful enough to handle high-end gaming and entertainment, and offered just about everything anyone was looking for. What has changed, though, is the external hardware.

You’re packing the same power into a box nearly half the size.

Though the new Shield Android TV has the same basic shape and look it’s roughly 40 percent smaller overall than the original, which is extremely impressive when you think about what’s inside. It still has a wedge-like shape and geodescent pattern all around, accented by a green light that glows when it’s powered on, and has an optional stand accessory that will place it upright if you’d like to put it more on display.

Around the back of the box you’ll still find an ethernet jack, HDMI out and two USB ports, but one of the room-saving removals is the SD card slot. That may hit a small group of people that liked the idea of using the slot for adoptable storage expansion, but know that you can still do the same with any USB drive if you wish.

Improved controller and remote

The included Shield controller has gone through a complete overhaul. You can immediately see a slimmer overall profile and once again a geodescent pattern all around that offers a unique grip — the joysticks also have more texture around the edges.

When it comes to non-gaming uses, the controller has ditched the somewhat-finicky capacitive navigation buttons for proper hard buttons for back/home/select. You’ll still adjust volume using a capacitive touch pad between the sticks, and a single press of the green NVIDIA button at the top activates the microphone for voice commands. The controller charges over Micro-USB still, and NVIDIA claims 60 hours of battery life when playing games.

The peripherals received much-needed improvements.

Though not everyone will want to play games regularly with the Shield controller, you’ll want to keep it around as it’s a bit of a trojan horse for the console. Thanks to its large battery and microphone, the controller is the conduit for the Shield Android TV to always listen for “OK Google” commands when Google Assistant hits the console in a couple of months. So long as the controller has a charge (a couple weeks with typical use), it’ll stay connected to the Shield Android TV and be always listening for your input — it simply hands the data over to the box, which crunches the information and gives you responses.

The Shield Android TV now includes its remote alongside the controller in the box, which is much better than shelling out $50 for the TV-focused accessory. The new remote is similar in design, but is no longer rechargeable and has lost its headphone jack for private listening — on the upside, though, is a quoted year of battery life. Going a step further, both the controller and remote now have integrated IR blasters, meaning they can control other parts of your home entertainment setup like adjusting volume on an AV receiver or a TV that doesn’t fully support HDMI-CEC.

What’s new in Android Nougat for TVs

Much of the new software being shown off on the Shield Android TV isn’t NVIDIA’s doing but rather just what you get when you upgrade to Android 7.0 Nougat. As we knew already, Nougat introduces features like picture-in-picture mode and an app switching interface, as well as little bits of polish around the interface. A new YouTube 360 app highlights many app improvements as well.

NVIDIA made a couple of changes as well, including removing the “NVIDIA” section of the home screen and tweaking the way the “Games” section is displayed. You’ll now see local, Gamestream and GeForce Now games all in one place to launch all the same. Further, the new “NVIDIA Games” portal will let you shop for and manage games from all three sources. There’s also a new Steam app that will launch you directly into its lean-back “Big Picture” experience so long as you’re a Gamestream user with Steam set up.

Google Assistant isn’t ready yet

One of the biggest features of the new Shield Android TV’s announcement is Google Assistant, but unfortunately it isn’t ready yet. The best that NVIDIA can offer us in terms of a time frame is “in the coming months,” which is understandable considering this is the first expansion of Google Assistant outside of Google’s own hardware. Everyone wants to get it just right.

This may be the most complete Google Assistant experience, even more so than on a Pixel.

From what we’ve been able to see thus far, the Google Assistant experience seems exactly as you’d expect and more fully featured thanks to the large display. Simple queries like asking about the weather or upcoming appointments, or making Google searches, pop up a half-height display over whatever’s on screen giving you the information. Specific questions like asking about your photos or a music video will jump straight to the required app like Google Photos or YouTube.

Importantly, any integration designed for the Google Home today will work on the Shield Android TV via Google Assistant. Anything from calling an Uber to showing you recipes for dinner will yield the same responses, but simply include a visual component whenever possible. In many ways, this is a more complete Google Assistant experience than you can get on a Google Home or even Pixel.

Smart home potential

NVIDIA is putting tons of focus on entertainment, but the Shield Android TV is also poised to be a capable smart home controller. Through a partnership with Smart Things, the Shield Android TV can be transformed into a Smart Things Hub with the addition of a tiny dongle plugged into one of its USB ports. Once configured, you can then talk directly to your Shield Android TV to control any device that integrates with Smart Things.

As soon as Google Assistant is available you’ll be able to command everything through Smart Things using the Assistant as well. The possibilities go even further when you invest in some NVIDIA Spot accessories, which will extend the smarts of the Shield Android TV to any room within Wi-Fi range. With a bit of configuration and these additional accessories this little Shield Android TV could really become not only the center of your entertainment setup but also your smart home.

Now available

The new Shield Android TV is already up for pre-order from Amazon, with a quoted release date of January 16. The $199 price includes the box, controller and remote.

See at Amazon

Meet Lynx, the walking, talking home robot powered by Amazon Alexa

Robot assistants are the natural progression once we’ve nailed down artificial intelligence, right?

AI assistants such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant are cool, but you’re still essentially talking to a speaker or your phone when you use them. Ubtech Robotics is looking to change that with Lynx, a talking and dancing robotic assistant that’s powered by Amazon’s AI.

Ubtech is a Chinese company that’s responsible for creating educational and interactive humanoid robots like Alpha Series, and with Lynx, they’ve combined their proprietary robotics tech with the speech recognition, language comprehension and search utility provided from Alexa to create a unique human-to-robot interface that’s super cool for some, and admittedly a little creepy for others.

This is #LYNX! 👋🏻🤖 He’s a #robot that’s been designed to work seamlessly with #AmazonAlexa, and he just launched today! #CES2017 #Amazon #ShowStoppers

A video posted by Android Central (@androidcentral) on Jan 5, 2017 at 6:59pm PST

Lynx is designed to be an in-home companion, a physical extension of everything you’d expect from Alexa. Talk to Lynx to control music, set reminders and calendar events for yourself, find out the latest news or weather updates, and much more. With Lynx, Ubtech has added a built-in camera to the mix, which is used for facial recognition, remote video access for keeping tabs on your kids or pets, and the ability to conduct video calls over Wi-Fi. Put all those parts together, and you’ve actually got a pretty capable little device, that’ll literally be able to follow you around the house, waiting for your next command.

This little robotic assistant is just more proof that Amazon is building out an impressive and capable operating system that we’ll begin to see integrated in more tech, going far beyond Amazon’s Echo speakers. At CES, we’ve already seen Alexa begin to be incorporated into appliances and autos, and now we can add robots to the list.

The future is here, folks. I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords.

Huawei Mate 9 Pro preview: The Mate we wanted all along

When Huawei unveiled the Mate 9 it overshadowed it by revealing a smaller-scale and better designed Porsche Design model in tandem. But the latter model’s limited availability and €1,395 price tag clearly demonstrated it wasn’t a model for the masses.

Now Huawei has gone and changed all that, with the reveal of the Mate 9 Pro: a Porsche Design doppelgänger, minus the special edition’s branding, that looks more than a little bit like the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge.

Pocket-lint

That means a 5.5-inch (2560 x 1440; QHD) screen, curved edges, front-placed fingerprint scanner and physical home button, alongside off-screen capacitive buttons. It’s available in white or silver only, the latter of which doesn’t half love showing up smeary fingerprints.

• The best smartphone of CES 2017

And we think it’s far better looking than the larger Mate 9. Really this so-called Pro model should have just been the Mate 9 all along. Shame that Huawei wasn’t bold enough to go along with that idea from the off.

Pocket-lint

The physical home button is an interesting touch, as it’s flanked by two light-up capacitive buttons on the phone body itself rather than the screen. We find these are programmed back-to-front for our use, and without the triangle/circle/square visual reference it’ll take a little bit of getting used to this control format.

Spec-wise the Pro will offer the latest Kirin 960 quad-core (2.4Ghz) processor and Mali-G71 graphics processor. It’s plenty powerful, although the actual specs are somewhat up in the air: Huawei tells us that the phone will come with 6GB RAM and 128GB on-board storage, but the models on show at this year’s CES show floor were kitted with 4GB RAM and 64GB on-board storage.

• CES 2017: All the announcements that matter from this year’s show

Pocket-lint

Perhaps a step-down from the Porsche Design model after all then? Which is odd, as the whole point of its Pro moniker would surely be to squeeze that extra bit of power in.

• Huawei Mate 9 vs Porsche Design edition: What’s the difference?

There’s no change in camera arangement, with the Pro offering the same dual lens arrangement as part of its Leica partnership. That means one 12MP colour and one 20MP black and white snapper, both with f/2.2 aperture and 27mm equivalent focal length.

Pocket-lint

Software wise the Mate 9 Pro runs EMUI 5.0 over the top of Android 7, which – as we’ve said with the Mate 9 (er, standard) – makes for a mixed experience. There are some great additions like dual SIM and app twin (for dual WhatsApp/Messenger accounts), but the never-ending battery alerts and strict permissions frustrate.

• Huawei Mate 9 review: The big screen boss

Speaking of battery, the 4,000mAh cell in the Pro is hugely capacious. We doubt it’ll last quite as long as the Mate 9 given the higher-resolution, but it’ll easily blast the Apple and Samsung devices of this world out of the water… not that this Huawei is waterproof. Maybe next time, eh?

Pocket-lint

Other software points of interest in this build of EMUI include a new Student Mode (for parents to control their children’s profile and access) and Trustspace. Neither of which are on our standard day-to-day Mate 9.

There’s a current catch though: the Mate 9 Pro is only coming to China. At least for now. We suspect a savvy Huawei will release it worldwide to greater reception than the larger Mate models. If, that is, Samsung doesn’t have something to say about the way it looks…

Sony at CES 2017: Everything you need to know

Sony’s big CES booth is built around one product in particular: its first 4K OLED TV. Beautiful, bright (and highly anticipated), the television’s slender OLED panel also doubles as a speaker, with some subwoofer support from behind. Unfortunately, that’s about it, as far as the booth is concerned, anyway. Sony boss Kaz Hirai used his keynote earlier this week to recap all the products the company unveiled over the past year. Which would have been fine at CES 2016, just not this week.

So the booth is completely centered around this new TV?

Yes indeed. What we have here is the Sony Bravia OLED series. It’ll be available in 55-, 65- and 77-inch sizes.

I don’t think any of my apartment walls are that big.

Well, that’s your problem. I’ll be soaking in the 4K OLED joy.

Where are the speakers? Behind it?

Yes and no. There’s a subwoofer behind the thing, but the entire OLED panel itself also works as a speaker.

How?!

Due to the structure of OLED screens, if you attach a driver to them, you can make the membrane vibrate and create sound. We saw LG Display’s experimental prototype with the same tech, but this one is a real consumer product for you, fictional conversation partner!

How does it sound?

Well, it’s backed up by a subwoofer, so it’s hard to discern the sound of the panel itself. That’s a question for review time, perhaps.

Hot take: Sony finally made a 4K OLED.

Don’t say: Wait, was this Sony’s 2016 press conference?

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