Google’s self-driving cars are getting better at autonomy

Perhaps more than any company (with the possible exception of Tesla), Google’s autonomous driving record has been under close scrutiny. Today the company bears news that while dramatically increasing the number of miles tested, the number of times a human had to grab the wheel because something went wrong — “disengagement” — actually decreased. As Waymo’s blog post (and California-DMV-mandated report (PDF)) tells it, these disengagements fell from 0.8 per thousand miles to 0.2 from 2015 to 2016.

In 2015 the cars ran 424,331 miles with 341 disengagements, and last year mileage increased to 635,868 while disengagement sharply fell to 124 times. Comparatively, General Motors’ Bosch logged 9,895.21 miles and 568 disengagements. Tesla only tested (PDF) in California last October through November and its 550 miles on public streets resulted in 182 disengagements.

Waymo says that all of its testing time has taken place on “complex” urban and suburban roads versus testing facilities and that its these conditions that’ve caused the increase in performance.

“This has given us valuable experience sharing the road safely with pedestrians and cyclists,” head of Waymo’s self-driving tech Dmitri Dolgov writes on Medium. “For each [disengagement] event we can create hundreds — and sometimes thousands — of related scenarios in simulation, varying the parameters such as the position and speed of other road users in the area.”

As Bloomberg notes, however, these tests aren’t standardized and because automakers are also logging miles outside of the Golden State, the data isn’t anywhere near comprehensive.

For Waymo’s full report and those from BMW, GM, Ford, Honda and others, hit the links below — just be prepared to not find a lot of uniformity in the papers’ organization.

Source: California DMV, Waymo (Medium)

Facebook’s friend-based Recommendations come to the UK

We’ve all been there. It’s late and you’re wandering around town, aimlessly looking for a place to grab dinner. Where do you turn for suggestions? Foursquare? Google? Maybe Facebook? The social network is a popular choice, given you know the people who will be commenting on your post (and therefore trust their advice). Now, the company is making it easier to crowdsource information with a new Recommendations tool. Write a status update and Facebook will “convert” it automatically, giving your friends a chance to chime in. All of their comments will be saved in a simple list, with a complimentary map to show you how close they are.

The useful feature was launched in the US last October, but now it’s available in the UK too. A recommendations bookmark is also available on the web, should you prefer writing questions on your laptop or PC.

Facebook Adds New ‘Discover People’ Section to Mobile App

Facebook is rolling out a new section to its mobile app called “Discover People”, which is designed to encourage connections between people who aren’t yet Facebook friends (via TechCrunch).

The new feature, which can be found at the bottom of the navigation section of the app, allows users to scroll through a list of upcoming events to see who else is going, as well as browse through lists of people in the local area or those who share the same employer.

Image via TechCrunch
Entering “Discover People” for the first time, users are asked to introduce themselves by updating the various sections of their public profile. Once the profile is set, a list of upcoming events appear below, featuring any events the user plans to attend, has registered an interest in, or has been invited to. Users can also check out the profiles of others similarly linked to the event.

True to the feature’s billing, profiles of people already befriended on Facebook don’t show up in the lists, only people who don’t know each other – though whether this “discovery” mechanism will sit comfortably with all users is unclear. For example, not everyone automatically wants to make their interest in an event public knowledge, and currently there’s no way to control privacy settings when a user registers such interest.

Facebook has tested similar features in the past, only to roll them back following users’ privacy concerns – “Friends Nearby” being one example. TechCrunch suggests that with the latest attempt to connect people, Facebook is pushing back against dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, two apps that recently expanded their dating remit to include finding new friends to hang out with.

“Discover People” was first launched late last year, but was initially restricted to New Zealand and Australia. Facebook says the feature is rolling out now and should appear for all iOS users in the coming days.

Facebook is free download on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. [Direct Link]

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Apple Pay to Coming to Taiwan ‘Soon’, Says Apple

The Apple Pay mobile payment system will be available in Taiwan soon, Apple announced on its regional website today.

A total of seven banks, including Cathay United Bank, CTBC Bank, E. Sun Commercial Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank, Taishin International Bank and Union Bank of Taiwan, will join Apple to launch the mobile payment service initially, Apple said.

Taiwan becomes the 14th region to gain access to Apple Pay, following the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, China, France, Russia, Switzerland, New Zealand, Spain, Singapore and Japan.

During Apple’s 2017 first quarter earnings call, CEO Tim Cook said Apple Pay was “setting records”, with transaction volume up over 500 percent year over year. Apple Pay on the web is also seeing great results, said Cook, with nearly two million small businesses now accepting the payment system online.

(via DigiTimes.)

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
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Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 vs. Moto G4 Plus: Same price, different strategies

Two of the best budget phones go head-to-head.

The Moto G series paved the way for affordable phones. The current-generation Moto G4 Plus offers significant upgrades from its predecessor in the form of a fingerprint sensor and a vastly improved camera, while sticking to the same pricing model.

The same holds true for the Redmi Note 4. Xiaomi’s meteoric rise in recent years is because of the success of its budget Redmi series, which catapulted the manufacturer to third place in India’s handset segment.

The Redmi Note series, in particular, has led the way forward for the brand, with the Redmi Note 3 becoming one of the best-selling phones in the country last year. With the Redmi Note 4, Xiaomi introduced subtle improvements in the imaging and design departments, turning the device into a more compelling handset.

India is Motorola’s largest global market, and as such there’s a lot at stake. Read on to find out if the Moto G4 Plus can hold its own next to the Redmi Note 4.

Hardware

The Redmi Note 4 has an all-metal aluminum chassis, while the Moto G4 Plus is made out of plastic. The soft touch plastic on the device makes it grippy, but it doesn’t look nearly as premium as the Redmi Note 4.

The Moto G4 Plus is also unwieldy to use one-handed. Although both phones offer 5.5-inch displays, the Moto G4 Plus is larger, wider, and thicker than the Redmi Note 4. The larger dimensions wouldn’t have been an issue had the device offered more battery capacity, but that isn’t the case. The 9.8mm thick Moto G4 Plus has a 3000mAh battery, whereas the Redmi Note 4 fits a 4100mAh battery in a slimmer 8.5mm profile.

Round the back, the Moto G4 Plus has an oblong camera strip that houses the camera sensor and the dual-tone LED flash module. The camera housing protrudes slightly from the back, which leads to a wobble when using the device on a flat surface. The camera module on the Redmi Note 4 sits flush with the body of the device, and the fingerprint sensor is located at the back.

The always-on fingerprint sensor on the Redmi Note 4 lets you unlock the device even when the display is switched off. The sensor is quick to authenticate and works well as long as there isn’t any moisture on your fingers.

The Moto G4 Plus has a fingerprint sensor at the front, which also lets you unlock the device when the panel is switched off. The square sensor is smaller than those you usually find at the front, but it does a good job of recognizing your fingerprints. That said, the major drawback of the fingerprint sensor on the Moto G4 Plus is that it doesn’t double up as a home button. You can use it to unlock the phone, and that’s pretty much it. That’s a design fail as the sensor takes up valuable real estate at the front, and it would’ve been a better idea to use a rear-mounted sensor instead.

There isn’t a traditional notification LED light on the Moto G4 Plus — the Redmi Note 4 has one — and you’ll have to rely on Motorola’s Moto Actions to preview incoming notifications. The Moto G4 Plus also lacks 2.5D curved glass at the front, with the frame jutting out over the outer edge of the panel. While the device has certainly picked up much-needed upgrades when seen against its predecessor, it falls short next to the Redmi Note 4.

On the plus side, the removable back comes with a provision for two SIM card slots and a dedicated slot for the microSD card, allowing you to use two SIM cards and a microSD card at the same time. The Redmi Note 4 has a hybrid slot, which means you can use just one SIM card if you want to expand storage via a microSD card. Though the back cover is removable on the Moto G4 Plus, the battery is sealed.

Aggressive pricing has been Xiaomi’s forte from the beginning, and as a result the Redmi Note 4 undercuts the Moto G4 Plus. The base model of the Redmi Note 4 offers 2GB of RAM and 32GB storage, and is available for ₹9,999 ($150). Then there’s the model with 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage, which costs ₹10,999 ($165). Xiaomi is also offering a variant with 4GB of RAM and 64GB storage for ₹12,999 ($190), which is one of the best deals in this segment. In contrast, the Moto G4 Plus with 2GB of RAM and 16GB storage costs ₹12,499 ($185), with the model offering 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage available for ₹13,999 ($210).

Software

It’s a one-sided contest on the software front in favor of the Moto G4 Plus. Motorola has been offering a pared down UI that’s close to vanilla Android for some time now, and the move has worked out very well for the manufacturer. The Moto G4 Plus doesn’t come close to the Redmi Note 4 in terms of specs, but the uncluttered UI and Motorola’s optimizations give it the edge when it comes to the software.

MIUI has steadily picked up features over the last three years, and as a result, MIUI 8 feels bloated in comparison to Motorola’s UI. You get a ton of customizability and several useful features — like Dual Apps and Second Space — but there is a steep learning curve.

Moto G4 Plus has a clean uncluttered UI. Redmi Note 4 does not.

If you want a phone with a clean UI and hassle-free software experience, you should get the Moto G4 Plus. The phone has already picked up the Nougat update, becoming the first phone in the country to do so. Xiaomi is offering a Nougat beta build for the Redmi Note 4, but a stable release is likely some time away.

With Nougat, Motorola rolled out a new one-handed mode, which shrinks the display down for easier one-handed usage. MIUI has offered a similar mode for some time now, which is accessible with a swipe across the navigation keys. As you can imagine, MIUI’s implementation is more customizable, and you have the option of shrinking the screen down to 4 inches, 4.5 inches, or 3.5 inches.

Although there isn’t a whole lot in the way of customization on the Moto G4 Plus, you do get Motorola’s proprietary Moto Actions, a series of gestures that make it easier to interact with the phone. With Moto Actions enabled, you can do a double-twist motion to open the camera, put the phone face down on a surface to activate do not disturb mode, make a chopping motion to toggle the flashlight, and more. There’s also a display setting that lets you view incoming notifications without turning on the screen.

Battery life

Battery life on the Redmi Note 4 is outstanding. A 4100mAh battery combined with an energy-efficient 14nm SoC makes the device one of the best in this segment when it comes to battery longevity. It isn’t hard to consistently get a screen-on-time of over seven hours from the Redmi Note 4.

The Moto G4 Plus also has a decent battery, and you’ll get a day’s worth of usage from a single charge. But it doesn’t last nearly as long as the Redmi Note 4. That said, the Moto G4 Plus has fast charging in the form of Motorola’s TurboPower, which lets you get up to three hours of usage from a 15-minute charge. Fast charging on the Redmi Note 4 is limited to 5V/2A, and you’ll have to wait an agonizing two hours for the battery to fully top up.

Camera

With the Moto G4 Plus, the Moto G series finally has a camera that doesn’t fail miserably. In fact, its 16MP camera is now one of the best in this segment. The camera app itself is simplistic, but it offers a surprising amount of features. You get toggles for HDR, flash, timer, shooting modes, and for switching between the front and rear cameras, and there’s the ability to adjust exposure on the fly. There’s also a manual mode that lets you tweak the shutter speed, focus, ISO, exposure, and white balance.

One of the key areas of focus for Xiaomi with the device was the camera, which has been overhauled for the device. The camera doesn’t hold up well when it comes to low-light imagery — that’s still a limitation for budget devices — but in bright conditions, you’ll get great shots from the Redmi Note 4.

Redmi Note 4 on the left, Moto G4 Plus on the right.

Images taken from the Moto G4 Plus offer true-to-life colors, and the camera does a much better job of taking photos in low-light conditions. When it comes to ease of use and image quality, the Moto G4 Plus wins out.

Which should you buy? Redmi Note 4

The Redmi Note 4 wins out when it comes to the overall design and hardware, but MIUI 8 is cumbersome to use. The phone is made for nerds, so if you’re comfortable tinkering with MIUI and are looking for tons of customizability, the Redmi Note 4 is a great choice. It offers a lot for its asking price, and is currently the device to beat in the budget segment. Considering the minor difference in retail cost, you should opt for the variant with 4GB of RAM and 64GB storage, which is available for ₹12,999.

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The Moto G4 Plus doesn’t have a lot of the hardware prowess and is missing a few features, but for the most part, it gets the basics right. You get a decent Full HD panel, all-day battery life, and great camera, all tied together with a software experience that’s unmatched in this segment. That said, Motorola is rumored to launch the Moto G5 later this month, so you’re better off waiting to see what’s on offer with the newer model.

Literary horror game exceeds $125,000 Kickstarter goal in 4 hours

Literary RPG Sunless Skies received full funding on Kickstarter in just four hours. The upcoming title is a sequel to the well-reviewed indie-darling Sunless Sea.

Getting a video game fully paid for on Kickstarter in under a day is remarkable. Four hours is nowhere near the 17-seconds it took the Pebble smartwatch to hit its goal, but crowdfunding sites are positively drowning in doomed gaming campaigns.

The story-based horror game from developer Failbetter Games will focus on the skies above the same Lovecraftian London where Fallen London and Sunless Sea were set.

Check out the slick video here.

Sunless Skies will see you in control of an airship, soaring through the clouds and navigating both eldritch obstacles and enemies, but also the ambition of your competitor captains. If the previous titles are any indication, this is a deeply-written game with tons of lore, plenty of plot twists and pretty slick rogue-like mechanics.

For example, if you die when navigating the dangerous, elder-horrors in the skies above Victorian London, you’ll start again as a new captain. When you do, however, you just might be hampered by the choices you made in your first life.

The Sunless Skies Kickstarter campaign ends in a few weeks, leaving plenty of time to get your own pledge in to support the game for Mac, PC and Linux computers. Sadly there’s no release date yet, but you can check out Sunless Sea on Steam or Fallen London on iOS and Android.

Bat Bot is an autonomous drone that mimics a bat’s flight

For roboticists working in the field of biomimetics, copying a bat’s complex flight patterns has been a difficult problem to solve. Or, as Caltech professor and Jet Propulsion Laboratory researcher Soon-Jo Chung put it during a press conference, “bat flight is the holy grail of aerial robotics.” And according to a new research paper published by Chung and his JPL colleagues in the journal Science Robotics this week, that holy grail has officially been discovered.

Robotic birds and winged insects are relatively easy to create, but with over 40 joints in their wings, bats offer a new level of intricacy. By simplifying that wing structure into just nine key joints covered by a flexible membrane, however, the team successfully created the first Bat Bot. Built from carbon fiber bones and 3D-printed socket joints, Bat Bot weighs just 93 grams and the silicon-based wing membrane is only 56 microns thick with a roughly one-foot wingspan. “Our work demonstrates one of the most advanced designs to date of a self-contained flapping-winged aerial robot with bat morphology that is able to perform autonomous flight,” Alireza Ramezani, one of the paper’s co-authors said.

Like a real bat, Bat Bot can move each wing independently and constantly change each wing’s shape to perform complex maneuvers that would be impossible otherwise. The flapping motion also conserves battery power, making it both quieter and more efficient than its fixed-wing or quadcopter counterparts.

Although the battery technology is still too clunky to allow for long flights, the research team believes Bat Bot’s agility would make it ideal for search and rescue operations or other applications in tight, urban environments. For now, however, the team is working on their next major milestone: teaching Bat Bot how to perch like its SCAMP cousin.

Via: CNET

Source: Science Robotics, Caltech

Instagram nabs 400 million daily active users less than a year since its previous milestone

Instagram now has 400 million daily active users. The photo-sharing app’s unabated growth has seen it add an extra 100 million new daily users to its already impressive tally in just over seven months.

The new data was casually dropped by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during his company’s fourth quarter earnings call on Wednesday. Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 when it had a mere 30 million registered iOS users and had just launched on Android. By February 2013, the app reached its first major milestone of 100 million monthly active users.

More: Darkr brings the dark room feel to your smartphone photography

In mid-December 2016, Instagram announced that it had 600 million monthly users with 100 million users joining its service in the six months leading to that date. At the time, we noted that it had remained strangely silent on its daily active users — a statistic that is the crowning glory of its closest rival Snapchat (which reportedly boasted 150 million daily users at last count).

It seems Instagram’s growth has not been challenged by its competitor, although for a while there was talk of a drop in user engagement. The solution to its woes seems to have come in the form of a feature it borrowed from Snapchat: Stories. The temporal social-sharing function that allows users to post slideshows made up of images and video was copied wholesale in August from the app that pioneered it.

On Wednesday, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg described the roll-out of Instagram Stories as a “standout example” in product innovation, in an interview with Forbes. The photo-sharing app itself was touting the feature as a success a mere two months after its launch and, sure enough, in January it revealed that Stories were receiving 150 million daily views. To capitalize on its growth, Instagram started inserting skippable full-screen ads in-between Stories at around the same time, in partnership with a handful of brands.

Taking into consideration that less than two years ago Instagram had 400 million monthly active users, today’s quiet announcement seems even more impressive. In the Facebook earnings call, Sandberg also revealed that Instagram business profiles (introduced in May) are now being used by 5 million users.

Nintendo’s first-ever Super Bowl ad is for the Switch, of course

When you consider the fact that Nintendo and its mustachioed mascot are household names, it’s a bit strange to realize the company has never run an advertisement during the Super Bowl. That’s about to change. A new video on the company’s YouTube channel touts itself as the extended cut of the company’s first-ever Super Bowl ad. The commercial highlights the portable and home console modes of the Nintendo Switch to an intense soundtrack — but this is more than your average peek at the company’s next game console. It’s a five million dollar investment toward the Nintendo Switch’s success.

That’s right, just 30 seconds of airtime will set advertisers back a staggering $5 million this year, making Nintendo’s advertisement a huge show of confidence in the future of the Switch. That confidence is reflected in the console’s new teaser, which hits every market Nintendo is aiming for — hardcore gamers that will reach for the console in portable mode before even getting out of bed, groups of friends who play Mario Kart or Splatoon competitively, casual gamers who want to face off in Just Dance of 1-2 Switch and, of course, families who want to bond by playing together in Nintendo’s all-ages arena.

Underscored to the tune of ‘Believer’ by Imagine Dragons, it’s as high energy as a game console advertisement can get. It’s also chock-full of easter-eggs, including a Street Fighter nod in the name of a laundromat, Super Mario themed cookies hiding in the background and a book with the title of a famous Legend of Zelda line.

All told, the extended cut on YouTube is a dense minute and a half of Nintendo Switch previews, but there’s no word on exactly how much of the advertisement will air on Sunday. Even just half a minute, however, speaks to a huge investment. Nintendo clearly believes in its console. We’ll see if the rest of the world does come March 3rd.

Source: YouTube

O2 now sells car insurance and even offers a black box for teens

O2 has launched a car insurance product that includes a black box system.

O2 is now the first mobile operator in the UK to offer a car insurance service. It is called O2 Drive and applies to new and existing O2 customers. Features include discounted car servicing and maintenance, tips on how to become a safer driver, an O2 Drive mobile app, and an optional telematics option called O2 Drive – Box on Board, which is essentially a small black box that sits next to the car battery.

O2 Drive is positioning this add-on as a way to help young car drivers get behind the wheel — without driving up your insurance premiums. The black box is able to monitor the driver’s behaviour, and in return, you may get a discount. Here is how O2 described it:

“O2 Drive’s additional Box on Board product also gives customers the potential to secure an even greater discount up front with a small telematics device alongside their car battery – great for helping young drivers (17-24) get on the road. The device gives customers access to their driving scores via the O2 Drive app, along with tips that could encourage safer driving and keep or improve their no claims discount.

The mobile operator said it will also give all O2 Drive customers exclusive perks throughout the year, such as restaurant vouchers and car accessories. You can get access to O2 Priority exclusive discounts and rewards through the O2 Drive iPhone and Android app, which also gives you access to any needed information (like emergency breakdown services, policy details, and post-accident advice, etc).

O2 is able to provide the O2 Drive service thanks to a partnership with Junction, a division of Peterborough-based insurance services provider BGL Group. In a statement, David Plumb, digital director at O2, said insuring and servicing cars has remained unchanged despite the rapid evolution of technology, so O2 is “on a mission to make customers’ lives easier through mobile,” which is why it created O2 Drive.

He added: “Based on the excellent feedback we’ve had so far for O2 Drive, the Box on Board proposition was created to further simplify the challenges of owning and driving a car safely. It unites our award-winning customer experience with our expertise in mobile to create a more personalised service – insuring people for who they are and rewarding them as they drive.”

O2, which has 10 million 4G customers, is owned by Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica. Pricing and availability details are not yet available for the mobile operator’s new car insurance and Box on Board system.