The Engadget Podcast Ep 25: Black Hole Sun

Senior editor Chris Velazco, reviews editor Cherlynn Low and Social Media Editor Mallory Johns join host Devindra Hardawar to chat about the biggest stories of the week, including HTC U Ultra phone, which may or may not save the company. Moving on, they dive into the Nintendo Switch’s launch, and discuss President Obama’s commutation of Chelsea Manning’s prison sentence.

Relevant links:

• ‘Final Fantasy XV’ tricked me into buying Cup Noodles
• Using Tinder’s swipe UI isn’t always a good idea
• HTC’s ‘U Ultra’ flagship phone pairs AI with a secondary screen
• Nintendo’s Switch makes a great first impression
• Playing all the games at Nintendo’s Switch event
• President Obama commutes most of Chelsea Manning’s sentence

You can check out every episode on The Engadget Podcast page in audio, video and text form for the hearing impaired.

Researchers make a graphene superconductor

Graphene is the miracle cream of the physics world, with scientists all across the globe looking to unlock its powers. Researchers at the University of Cambridge believe they’ve found a way to transform the substance into a superconductor. Superconductors are nothing new, of course, but they normally have to be cooled to very low temperatures to be effective. In this experiment, however, the materials were left at the current temperature. Now, like so many graphene projects, it’s still early days, but if it works, it could up-end the way we build electronics forever.

All materials have a level of resistance, which is a measure of the fight it puts up to stop electricity passing through it. A copper wire, for instance, has quite a low level, which is why it’s used a lot to build electronics and computers. Wood’s at the other end of the spectrum, at least when it’s dry, which is why your smartphone isn’t hewn from trees.

When electricity encounters a material with any level of resistance, it has to fight to get from one end of it to the other. Imagine trying to run down a crowded high school corridor when everyone else is walking the other way. Barging past all of those elbows and carried textbooks would cause you to expend energy, same as energy does in a wire. It’s why your smartphone gets warm, because the bulk of the wasted power is converted into heat.

Superconductors are like that high school corridor, but completely empty, so you don’t even break a sweat walking down them. That’s good for the environment, good for your energy bill and good for pretty much everything else, too. Computer chips, for instance, would no longer need heatsinks and fans, making it an ideal component for a quantum computer.

The superconductors that we use today are predominantly employed inside MRI machines and on MagLev trains. But, as we’ve established, they only develop their useful properties when chilled down to extremely low temperatures. A superconductor that doesn’t require a small nation’s worth of refrigeration would be an immensely powerful thing indeed.

Scientists had long suspected that graphene could act as a superconductor, but couldn’t work out a way to activate that ability. Previous experiments saw the substance “doped” with an existing superconducting material, which isn’t as effective. This time out, graphene was coupled to praseodymium cerium copper oxide, a superconducting material in its own right.

Pairing the two in this manner also produced a result that the scientists weren’t expecting: a possible p-wave form of superconductivity. This, again, could open up a new horizon in both scientific research and engineering. But, as with all of this, there’s still lots of experiments, tests and studies that need to be performed before we’ll know for sure.

Source: University of Cambridge, Nature

BT to start charging TV subscribers for BT Sport

In the coming months, things are going to get a little more expensive for BT customers. The provider confirmed today that it will be raising the price of its broadband and landline services, while BT TV customers will be charged for access to BT Sport. For some customers, it will be the first time they need to pay for BT’s sporting coverage, but others will see an increase in their subscription costs too.

BT says that TV subscribers will be asked to pay £3.50 each month for BT Sport from August 1st this year. Customers who have BT broadband and watch BT channels via Sky will see a £1.50 increase to £7.50. The standard subscription — i.e. anyone who doesn’t have BT broadband — will go up by £1 to £23 per month. Both of these will come into effect from April 2nd. If you just pay for app access, the good news is that the monthly charge will stay at £5.

Also on April 2nd, all basic broadband subscriptions will increase by £2 per month, while BT Infinity Fibre customers will see a slightly larger jump of £2.50 a month. BT says line rental will be frozen at £19, but Anytime calling plans will rise by 49p to £9 a month and evening and weekend call tariffs will be increased by 30p to £3.80.

“Customers will get a better package and improved service from us this year in exchange for paying a little more. Millions will have the chance to upgrade to faster broadband and almost a million will be able to upgrade to enjoy unlimited usage for no extra cost,” said BT chief John Petter. “As usual, we’ve taken care of low income customers by freezing the price of BT Basic and capping call costs. We’ve also frozen line rental, which will particularly help customers who only take a traditional phone service from us.”

Last year, BT announced price hikes in April before rolling them out in July. This year, they come a little earlier. The decision to raise prices by as much as 6 percent comes after the company spent hundreds of millions of pounds on Premier League coverage and securing access to the 2017-18 Ashes series. BT also promises to award automatic compensation if it fails on its service promises, which is something that Ofcom has been watching very closely.

Via: City A.M.

Source: BT

‘Dear Angelica’ from Oculus shows the power of VR illustration

Illustration is an unusual choice for a virtual reality experience. After all, when you can build and render fully-realized 3D worlds, relying on drawings alone almost feels like a step back. But that didn’t stop Oculus from pursuing a bold new animated style for its next short, Dear Angelica. In fact, the company had to build a new VR tool (Quill, its VR drawing software) to make the film. The end result is a truly unique short — one that shows that virtual reality can be immersive even when you’re basically looking at static images. It’s premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and will be made freely available to Rift owners today.

Dear Angelica centers on a young girl (voiced by Mae Whitman), who’s coping with the death of her film star mother (Geena Davis). As she revisits memories of watching her mother’s films, they’re drawn out in front of you. It’s all gorgeously rendered, with a wondrous sense of scale. In many ways, watching Dear Angelica is like stepping into an interactive motion comic; there’s some wonderful illustration talent at work, but it’s also buoyed by a bit of movement and changing camera perspectives.

While the film isn’t very long, you can pause and step through a scene at any point. And since there’s sometimes a lot to take in — I sometimes found myself spinning around trying to capture every detail of more epic scenes — it’ll likely reward repeated viewings. It’s clear that Oculus spent a lot of time crafting Dear Angelica. Art director Wesley Allsbrook painted the entire experience on his own. And the voice work by Whitman (who narrates the bulk of the film) and Davis is genuinely moving. Rounding out the entire experience is some fantastic sound design, which makes the relatively small-scale short feel like a Hollywood blockbuster at times.

Looking ahead, I hope Oculus can take the concept of VR illustration further to give us a fully animated experience. Dear Angelica is a tremendous accomplishment, especially since Allsbrook drew it on his own, but it would be intriguing to see what an even larger team can do. As an aficionado of animated films, I’d love to step into the equivalent of a traditional Disney or Miyazaki movie at some point.

As the third VR short from Oculus Story Studio, Dear Angelica feels like a more focused effort. It’s not trying to wow you like their first short, Lost, or relying on a fun cartoon animal to spark your interest, as Oculus did with Henry. At its core, Dear Angelica is a simple story of loss and grief, it’s just told in a completely new way.

Tim Cook Cashes in $3.6 Million in Stock as Respected Analyst Gives Him Passing Grades

Apple CEO Tim Cook sold 30,000 shares of Apple stock this week, valued at $3.6 million based on the company’s stock price of $120 at the time of the transactions, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission disclosure. The shares were sold as scheduled pursuant to Cook’s predetermined trading plan.

Cook retains 1,009,809 company shares worth over $121 million based on Apple’s current stock price following the sale.

A recent SEC filing revealed Cook was paid $8.7 million in 2016, which is $1.5 million less than he was paid in 2015. The decrease stems from Apple failing to meet its own target performance goals for both net sales and operating income in 2016, resulting in senior executives receiving only 89.5% of their cash incentives.

However, upon reaching his fifth anniversary as Apple CEO last year, Cook cashed in nearly $137 million in previously-awarded stock bonuses tied to both his tenure and Apple’s performance under his leadership. Accordingly, after bonuses, Cook actually earned roughly $145 million last year, his biggest payout yet.

Yesterday, Apple analyst Neil Cybart opined that Cook and his inner circle are “doing what needs to be done in order to maintain Apple’s relevancy,” but he noted “there is room for improvement.” He called out sporadic Mac and iPad updates, and slow progress with Siri, as two blemishes among others in its product strategy.

In attempt to add a bit of relative context to this subjective grading:

• Product Strategy: A-
• Product Pipeline/R&D: A
• Operations: B-
• Marketing/Storytelling: C+
• Culture: B+
• Public Face: A+
• Financials: B

In related shareholder news, the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock has increased its stake in Apple and now holds 6.1% of outstanding shares in the company, up from 5.7% a year ago. Its 322,683,504 shares are valued at over $38.7 billion based on Apple’s current stock price.

Tags: Tim Cook, AAPL, SEC, Above Avalon
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Amazon adds virtual Dash buttons to its website

It’s already extremely easy to purchase stuff from Amazon’s website, but now you won’t even have to search for every day items you tend to re-order. Amazon has launched digital versions of its Dash buttons and has added them to its homepage, according to Recode. The digital Dash buttons, which enable one-click buying, reportedly started popping up on Amazon.com and on its app’s home screen on Thursday night. Amazon will auto-generate buttons for your most recent purchases, but a spokesperson told Recode that you can also create your own. So long as you’re a Prime member, you can use the new “Add to your Dash buttons” option that’s now in all eligible products’ pages.

[Image credit: Recode]

The spokesperson said the company decided to launch virtual Dash buttons due to the physical version’s popularity. These have the potential to be an even bigger hit because they’re free, whereas the physical buttons cost $5 each. But it all depends on whether people choose to use them instead of just shopping the regular way when they’re already on the e-commerce giant’s website or app.

Source: Recode

PlayStation VR now supports 360-degree YouTube videos

PSVR is still a young whippersnapper in the virtual reality world, striving for parity — and in games, superiority — with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Today it’s taken another step forward with support for 360-degree videos on YouTube. That means you can boot up anything on the platform, including a New York Times ‘Daily 360’ video, and move your head to change the perspective. You’re stuck in one place, of course, but the experience is still fairly immersive, especially in comparison to the desktop YouTube experience (dragging around with your cursor isn’t much fun).

We’ve seen glimpses of this functionality before. A handful of early PSVR owners received the update last December, but said the quality of the service was poor. That’s because the videos were capped at 1080p and had to be stretched to accommodate the headset’s 100-degree field of view. We’re hoping that Sony and Google have worked out the kinks — a huge library of immersive 360 videos would make PSVR a more useful and attractive proposition. If nothing else, it’ll tide us over while developers work on new VR games, like the much anticipated Resident Evil 7.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Uber Agrees to $20M Settlement After Claim it Falsely Advertised High Income to ‘Entice’ Potential Drivers

The Federal Trade Commission recently filed a complaint against popular ride-hailing app Uber for posting inflated yearly wages on various job-seeking websites, which “enticed numerous consumers to become Uber drivers” under false pretenses, according to the FTC. Uber isn’t fighting the allegations placed against it, and has instead this week quickly agreed to a settlement deal in the way of paying $20 million as equitable relief to the FTC.

As reported by BuzzFeed News, the FTC’s complaint explains that from May 2014 through August 2015 Uber published a statement on its website which included various annual earning rates for its drivers. In the post the company mentioned that for UberX drivers the “median income is more than $90,000/year/driver in New York and more than $74,000/year/driver in San Francisco.”

According to the FTC, the truth is that the median income is $29,000 less than Uber claimed in New York, and $21,000 less in San Francisco, specifically when looking at hours locked to a standard 40-hour work week. In total, less than 10 percent of drivers in New York and San Francisco have reached Uber’s $90,000 and $74,000 yearly income claim, respectively.

“To induce individuals to become Uber Drivers, Uber has advertised and marketed the earning potential of its Drivers on Craigslist, its company website, and other advertising and marketing media. Uber has publicized high annual and hourly earnings to entice consumers to become Uber Drivers. However, once Drivers have begun to receive their paychecks, Drivers have discovered their actual earnings were substantially less than Uber has claimed.”

The complaint specifically mentions a collection of job postings published by Uber in cities across the United States, all backing Uber’s inflated earnings rate that the FTC sees as a false tactic to get drivers onto the service.

Uber also has “made numerous claims” regarding the cheap cost and unlimited mileage of its Vehicle Solutions Program, which lets drivers buy or lease a car they can use to drive for Uber. According to the FTC’s complaint, the company “has had no basis with which to make these claims,” saying that Uber has had zero oversight or even monitored the terms and conditions of any driver entering into the Vehicle Solutions Program.

“Further, Drivers in Uber’s Vehicle Solutions Program – which has connected Drivers with subprime auto companies and dealers – have in many instances received worse than industry average rates, made payments for hundreds of dollars more per month than advertised, and entered into leases imposing costs for mileage.”

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has acknowledged the FTC’s complaint in the settlement agreement, and a company spokesperson said the following in a statement:

“We’re pleased to have reached an agreement with the FTC,” an Uber spokesperson said in a statement. “We’ve made many improvements to the driver experience over the last year and will continue to focus on ensuring that Uber is the best option for anyone looking to earn money on their own schedule.”

The ride-hailing company has hit a few rocky patches over the past few months, most recently hearing concerns from users after an update introduced background GPS tracking that follows a rider up to five minutes after their trip ends and even if the app is closed. A company spokeswoman told BuzzFeed News in December that one of the biggest advantages of the five minute tracking update is that it “could also help customer service representatives investigate complaints or safety issues” raised by users following a ride.

Tag: Uber
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Tips for surviving Inauguration Weekend

Okay, so we’re doing this.

America is inaugurating its 45th President this weekend, and that means a number of important things. People have traveled from all over the U.S. to experience the event, either in support or in protest, and historically that influx of people means a dramatic increase in strain on the cellular networks. Each of the major carriers claim to have beefed up their service in preparation, but there’s a lot more to the Internet than just that connection. In a situation where anything can happen and likely everything you’re imagining will happen to some degree, it’s important to be prepared.

Here are some quick tips for getting through Inauguration weekend with your sanity, and hopefully also your phone, intact.

If you’re in Washington DC

Whether you’re a DC native or you’ve travelled in from far away, there are some tools you’re going to want handy.

Amazon Prime Now is your friend

Before you head out to any of the events this weekend, make sure you have everything you need for a safe trip. Multiple payment methods on hand, a direct walking path to and from the event so you don’t get lost, and a good rugged case for your phone. If you’re not the phone case type, or you’re rocking a slim folio, upgrade immediately. You’re going to be surrounded by hundreds of people with arms that aren’t likely to know exactly where you are holding your phone to get that perfect video. Fortunately, Prime Now works well in DC, so you can have a case or a glass screen protector delivered to you before you head out.

Check out Amazon Prime Now

Don’t rely on Wi-Fi

Someone else’s wireless network is not your friend this weekend. It’s way too easy to walk around with the equipment necessary to create hotspots built specifically for snooping your data and stealing your passwords. Crowded events like this are an incredibly common way to have your data stolen and your credit cards used before you even know what happened. Stay on your cellular network, unless you’re using a service like Project Fi that secures your connection with a safe VPN.

Record, don’t broadcast

As much fun as Facebook Live and Periscope can be, don’t bother trying them this weekend. Your network connection is never going to be good enough to establish a high quality stream surrounded by all of these people with their phones trying to rapid fire tweets from the events in DC. If you want to capture something, record it through normal photos and video. If you’re concerned about losing that recording, turn on Google Photos and set it to automatically back up photos and video so you can access it from anywhere later.

There are so many apps

The volume of information at your disposal for these events in incredible, but here’s a quick list of apps you’ll want installed on your phone to help you through the event.

• Twitter: The Trump Inaugural account on Twitter is going to keep you updated and includes quick glances at details like where the entrances and exits are.

• DC Metro and Bus: Navigating Washington DC without a map of the mass transit system can be a little intimidating, so keep this handy.

• Uber: You could also skip the mass transit system in DC and just go Uber, though at the peak of traffic it’s likely surge pricing will be in effect.

• Mobile Justice: DC: The ACLU app for DC makes it easy to record and report events that aren’t exactly legal.

• Trusted Contacts: Make sure people know where you are. Check in regularly, and stay safe.

If you’re catching the events from elsewhere

Whether you’re interested in viewing the festivities or avoiding them entirely, there are some tools for you.

YouTube Live Stream

The Inauguration and its partner events will be live streamed on YouTube, which means it can be casted to your television with a Chromecast and you can watch all weekend.

Twitter Filters

Not interested in the opinions of others this weekend? Filter them out with Open Tweet Filter. It only works on the web, so you’re on your own if you open the app on your phone, but this will either keep the Inauguration out of your feed entirely or keep you completely focused on the events at hand.

Go find something to do

Quoting Patton Oswalt:

Leave your TV tuned to a channel like Turner Classic Movies or National Geographic or any channel that will have zero inaugural coverage. Then turn off your phone. Then shut down your computer.
And then — IF you can afford it — go find a struggling theater company and pay to see whatever play they’re putting on. Or a struggling art gallery or music club or museum. Leave ’em money and see what they’re about.

Go see an indie film that’s got stellar reviews and no audience. Or a new restaurant or other small business that needs friends and customers. Download a new band. Go to an independent bookstore and buy something from a small press. Go to an open mike. Or see any comedian. Tip your barista or barkeep a little extra.

In other words, do all of the cultural and aesthetic things that Trump thinks are worthless. Make a whole big chunk of existence suddenly spike in importance. And then keep doing that, if you can.

Above all, be safe!

How to change the default launcher on the Huawei Mate 9 and EMUI 5.0

How do I get rid of the launcher on my EMUI 5.0 phone? Easily!

The Huawei Mate 9 comes with its own pretty good launcher — though it helps to add an app drawer — but if you prefer something different, as many people do, it’s easy to change.

The phone ships with EMUI 5.0, which is a big update over what shipped on older Huawei devices, but there are still too many menus. In particular, it’s still too difficult to change the default launcher. But with these steps, you can do it in a snap.

Note: This guide was made using the Huawei Mate 9, but it will apply to all phones running EMUI 5.0, including the Honor 8.

How to change the default launcher on the Huawei Mate 9 and other EMUI 5.0 devices

Swipe down on the notification shade at the top of the screen.
Tap Settings (cog) icon on the far right.

Tap Search bar at the top of the menu.

Type “def” into the search bar until Default app settings appears. Tap on it.
Tap Launcher at the top of the menu.
Choose your new launcher and accept changes.

That’s it! Now you can swap easily between launchers, be it Huawei’s default one or something a little more interesting, like Nova Launcher or Action Launcher 3.

The best Android launchers

Huawei Mate 9

• Huawei Mate 9 review
• Huawei Mate 9 specs
• Where to buy the Mate 9 in the U.S.
• Porsche Design Mate 9 unboxing
• All Huawei Mate 9 news
• Join the discussion in the forums

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