IBM’s Watson-powered voice assistant is built for security pros

If it wasn’t already clear that AI-powered voice assistants are ready for the workplace, it is now. IBM is not only launching Watson for Cybersecurity, a cognitive computing service that parses legions of security reports to extract relevant info, but is unveiling an experimental voice helper to go along with it. Havyn lets digital defense experts ask for threat updates and recommended solutions when it would otherwise be too time-consuming. If security analysts are already hip-deep in work, they don’t have to sidetrack themselves with a new research path when Havyn can produce a useful answer in seconds.

The combo could be particularly helpful given Watson’s depth. The system has studied over 1 million security documents to brush up on the language of security, and it parses reports from sources as diverse as research papers, blogs and incident data. In theory, this cuts the total time for an investigation from days to minutes — you spend less time interpreting info and more time working with it.

Don’t expect to see Havyn in widespread use just yet. It’s currently in testing with a handful of IBM analysts, and it’s only four months old — it came about when company inventor Mike Spisak and his son decided that sending text commands to Watson was cumbersome. That leaves a lot of room for Havyn to grow, however, and it’s easy to imagine the assistant becoming indispensable to security pros who could quickly be overwhelmed if they’re not careful.

Via: Wired

Source: IBM

Pros and cons: Our quick verdict on Microsoft’s Surface Ergonomic Keyboard

Who really cares about desktop keyboards anymore? Well, people who need to type all day without hurting their wrists, for one. Microsoft has been in the ergonomic keyboard business for decades with its “Natural” lineup. Now with the wireless Surface Ergonomic Keyboard, it’s delivered its most comfortable model yet. It’s a joy to type on, and its luxurious wrist rest will spark envy among your co-workers. The only big problem? It’s $130. That’s a high price just for a keyboard, but if you have the cash it’s well worth it.

The gore of ‘Resident Evil 7’ is heavily censored in Japan

A big part of the fun in Resident Evil 7 is the way it pays off the creeping tension with jolts of pure gore. It turns out, however, that gamers in Japan aren’t getting quite the same effect. As the Censored Gaming group found out, several of the more shocking scenes of body horror have been dumbed down to TBS levels there.

In one ridiculous scene in the international version, you have to retrieve a key by reaching down the throat of a beheaded corpse. In in another, luckless deputy David Anderson gets the top of his head removed by a shovel.

In the “Grotesque” Japanese version of RE7 that’s supposed to be the scariest, however, Anderson’s head stays on his body. That makes a subsequent scene where it’s revealed in a fridge pretty tame — instead of the disfigured noggin, there’s just a photo. And with the head still on the body in the key-retrieving scene, you don’t “get” to reach into the corpse through the neck to retrieve it.

Japan’s “Grotesque” version has a CERO Z that’s roughly equivalent to the ESRB’s “A” adults-only rating, so the regular game is even more redacted. Either will probably scare the hell out of most of us, even without Saw levels of torture porn, but it’s something to be aware of if you’re thinking of buying it. And if the violence and tension aren’t enough, you can go and discover new sensations in the virtual reality version.

Via: Polygon

Source: Censored Gaming (YouTube)

Target Says it Has No Plans Underway to Accept Apple Pay in Stores

Target currently has “no plans” to support Apple Pay in its stores, a company spokesperson confirmed to MacRumors today.

Regarding a since-deleted AskTarget tweet that said Apple Pay was “awesome” and suggested support was forthcoming, the U.S. retail giant said “the information shared with this guest was incorrect.”

We have no plans or work underway currently to make Apple Pay available in our stores.

We continue to offer Apple Pay for online purchases in the Target app. And while we are exploring mobile wallet opportunities for our stores, we have no updates on our plans to share at this time.

Target has been one of the most notable Apple Pay holdouts since the iPhone-based payments service launched in October 2014.

In May 2015, Target CEO Brian Cornell said the retailer would be “open-minded” about supporting additional payment systems like Apple Pay after implementing chip-and-PIN card support. Target began supporting chip-and-PIN cards in October 2015, but it has yet to accept Apple Pay in its stores.

Last month, Target confirmed it plans to launch its own mobile payment service in its stores this year. An earlier report said the retailer was leaning towards using QR code technology for the wallet app, rather than NFC, enabling customers to purchase goods by scanning a code at checkout akin to Walmart Pay.

Target was a founding member of the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a consortium of retailers that planned to launch the indefinitely-postponed payments platform CurrentC. A number of MCX members have since reversed course and began to accept Apple Pay, including Best Buy and pharmacy chain Rite-Aid.

Target does support Apple Pay in its shopping app for in-app payments.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
Tag: Target
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Apple Maps Now Provides Transit Directions in Detroit and Windsor

Apple Maps has been updated with comprehensive transit data for the Detroit, Michigan metropolitan area, and for the Canadian city of Windsor, Ontario directly across the Detroit River, enabling users in both cities and certain suburbs to navigate using public transportation such as buses and trains.

In the Metro Detroit area, Apple Maps routing supports DDOT and SMART buses, the Detroit People Mover, the Michigan Flyer, and Amtrak. Limited navigation extends to a number of Detroit suburbs in Oakland, Macomb, and Wayne Counties, including Ann Arbor, Dearborn, Pontiac, Sterling Heights, and Warren.

In the Windsor, Ontario area, Apple Maps routing supports Transit Windsor buses. Navigation extends to immediate suburbs in Essex County such as Tecumseh, Ontario. Tunnel Bus routing is also available for cross-border trips between Windsor and select locations in the Metro Detroit area.

Apple introduced Transit in Maps as part of iOS 9 in select cities around the world, including Baltimore, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto, and over 300 cities in China. The feature has its own tab in Apple Maps on iOS 10 for entering directions.

Transit continues to expand to several other cities, including Atlanta, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Honolulu, Houston, Kansas City, Melbourne, Miami, Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Montréal, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Portland, Prague, Rio de Janeiro, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, Seattle, Vancouver, and Victoria.

(Thanks, Bernd and David!)

Tags: Apple Maps, transit
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Best app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time

Everyone likes apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers make paid apps free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest apps on sale in the iOS App Store.

These apps normally cost money and this sale lasts for a limited time only. If you go to the App Store and it says the app costs money, that means the deal has expired and you will be charged. 

More: 200 Awesome iPhone Apps | The best Android apps for almost any occasion

BlackCam

BlackCam helps you to take stunning black and white photographs with live preview, because B&W is always classier, right?

Available on:

iOS

Smart Merge Pro

Smart Merge Pro easily helps you detect and merge duplicate contacts. Keep your address book clean and neat.

Available on:

iOS

Magnifier Flash

Just pick your iPhone to transform it instantly into a magnifying glass with flashlight, that comes in full screen with light and no wasted screen space.

Available on:

iOS

Compound Interest Calc

Quickly and easily calculate compound interest with this easy-to-use app. Who needs a CPA when you’ve got this app?

Available on:

iOS

VisualSignals

Send your friends secret messages in the form of visual signals. This app displays easily viewable images from your iPhone so you never have to wave your hands to get someone’s attention again.

Available on:

iOS

Space Cadets Star Fighter

In this game, a young Space Cadet must take on the entire Imperial army with only his starfighter, a trusty astromech droid, and a little help from his hokey religion called the force.

Available on:

iOS

Augment your reality with the best Project Tango apps and games

Google’s Project Tango comprises special software and sensors that together make devices spatially aware. Tango phones and tablets layer digital objects on top of surrounding walls, floors, ceilings, and furniture, delivering a level of immersion far beyond headsets like Samsung’s Gear VR, Google Cardboard, and Daydream View. The best Project Tango apps and games enable computer-generated characters to bounce on top of a nearby table, virtual drapes to draw closed over real-world windows, and virtual dominoes to topple onto physical floorboards.

It took a few years for Project Tango to emerge from the halls of Google’s skunkworks lab, but the day has finally come. Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro, the first consumer device to pack the requisite sensors, went on sale in early November, and more are on the way. Asus took the wraps off the ZenFone AR, the world’s thinnest Tango device, at the Consumer Electronics Show, and rumor has it that Lenovo’s modular Moto Z will get an accessory with Project Tango sensors in the near future.

More: The 20 best Augmented Reality apps

It’s still early days, but Project Tango apps, games, and experiences have already begun to fill the Google Play Store. With our trusty Project Tango device in hand, we ran some of the best through their paces.

Best Project Tango Games

Woorld

Woorld, from 2004 cult hit Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, is one of the most effective uses of Tango tech we’ve seen. You’re tasked with building the village of your dreams, bound only by the dimensions of your real-world environment. A vast library of buildings, foliage, and other forms of scenery let you craft a homey hamlet fit for the cute little digital creatures that come to inhabit it. It’s like a fairy garden come to life.

Especially impressive is Woorld’s use of environmental tracking. Houses sit on real-world tables and chairs, and the creatures run in-between your feet. That’s not to say Woorld doesn’t suffer from the occasional glitch — Project Tango sometimes misjudges the geometry of objects, resulting in floating houses. But for the most part, it’s far and away the most fun we’ve had with Tango.

Download now from:

Google play

Domino World

As far as Project Tango apps are concerned, Domino World is pretty self-explanatory. Just like the kids gunning for a shot at the domino-toppling world record, you’re given a collection of rectangular blocks to arrange in courses on real-world tables, desks, floors, and chairs. Props at your disposal include ramps, stairs, and wackier options, like toy army helicopters, UFOs, plastic dinosaurs, TNT, mythical creatures, and colored dominoes that react in unexpected ways when toppled. Once you’re finished, the fun doesn’t stop there. Move and Erase tools make it easy to delete and remake portions of the course, and a Clear button lets you start anew.

Sharing makes it better. Once you’ve crafted the domino course of your dreams, you can record the carnage with a built-in capture tool and share the highlight reel with your closest friends and relatives.

Download now from:

Google play

WeR Cubed

WeR Cubed, which beat out more than 190 submissions to Google’s 2015 Project Tango app contest, tasks players with flipping over cubes to solve puzzles. The puzzles in question are projected onto nearby walls and other surfaces, and require you to move the blocks in place with carefully considered taps.

The gameplay is inventive. You’re given a colored block — or several, in some cases — that dispense blocks of the same color onto segments of the game board. The challenge is to maneuver them in such a way that the block colors correspond with the game board grid colors. It’s often easier said than done. Sometimes, the blocks are stacked. Other times, you’re forced to contend with split game boards which limit the number of possible moves.

WeR Cubed’s tracking is spot on, in our experience. Even cooler, it features a “virtual reality” mode that lets you move the blocks in VR if you happen to have a compatible headset on hand.

Download now from:

Google play

Augment your reality with the best Project Tango apps and games

Google’s Project Tango comprises special software and sensors that together make devices spatially aware. Tango phones and tablets layer digital objects on top of surrounding walls, floors, ceilings, and furniture, delivering a level of immersion far beyond headsets like Samsung’s Gear VR, Google Cardboard, and Daydream View. The best Project Tango apps and games enable computer-generated characters to bounce on top of a nearby table, virtual drapes to draw closed over real-world windows, and virtual dominoes to topple onto physical floorboards.

It took a few years for Project Tango to emerge from the halls of Google’s skunkworks lab, but the day has finally come. Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro, the first consumer device to pack the requisite sensors, went on sale in early November, and more are on the way. Asus took the wraps off the ZenFone AR, the world’s thinnest Tango device, at the Consumer Electronics Show, and rumor has it that Lenovo’s modular Moto Z will get an accessory with Project Tango sensors in the near future.

More: The 20 best Augmented Reality apps

It’s still early days, but Project Tango apps, games, and experiences have already begun to fill the Google Play Store. With our trusty Project Tango device in hand, we ran some of the best through their paces.

Best Project Tango Games

Woorld

Woorld, from 2004 cult hit Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, is one of the most effective uses of Tango tech we’ve seen. You’re tasked with building the village of your dreams, bound only by the dimensions of your real-world environment. A vast library of buildings, foliage, and other forms of scenery let you craft a homey hamlet fit for the cute little digital creatures that come to inhabit it. It’s like a fairy garden come to life.

Especially impressive is Woorld’s use of environmental tracking. Houses sit on real-world tables and chairs, and the creatures run in-between your feet. That’s not to say Woorld doesn’t suffer from the occasional glitch — Project Tango sometimes misjudges the geometry of objects, resulting in floating houses. But for the most part, it’s far and away the most fun we’ve had with Tango.

Download now from:

Google play

Domino World

As far as Project Tango apps are concerned, Domino World is pretty self-explanatory. Just like the kids gunning for a shot at the domino-toppling world record, you’re given a collection of rectangular blocks to arrange in courses on real-world tables, desks, floors, and chairs. Props at your disposal include ramps, stairs, and wackier options, like toy army helicopters, UFOs, plastic dinosaurs, TNT, mythical creatures, and colored dominoes that react in unexpected ways when toppled. Once you’re finished, the fun doesn’t stop there. Move and Erase tools make it easy to delete and remake portions of the course, and a Clear button lets you start anew.

Sharing makes it better. Once you’ve crafted the domino course of your dreams, you can record the carnage with a built-in capture tool and share the highlight reel with your closest friends and relatives.

Download now from:

Google play

WeR Cubed

WeR Cubed, which beat out more than 190 submissions to Google’s 2015 Project Tango app contest, tasks players with flipping over cubes to solve puzzles. The puzzles in question are projected onto nearby walls and other surfaces, and require you to move the blocks in place with carefully considered taps.

The gameplay is inventive. You’re given a colored block — or several, in some cases — that dispense blocks of the same color onto segments of the game board. The challenge is to maneuver them in such a way that the block colors correspond with the game board grid colors. It’s often easier said than done. Sometimes, the blocks are stacked. Other times, you’re forced to contend with split game boards which limit the number of possible moves.

WeR Cubed’s tracking is spot on, in our experience. Even cooler, it features a “virtual reality” mode that lets you move the blocks in VR if you happen to have a compatible headset on hand.

Download now from:

Google play

The LG G6 will feature an upgraded 32-bit Quad DAC

The LG G6 will offer the best audio experience on a mobile device.

We already know a lot about the upcoming LG G6 thanks to numerous leaks and teasers, and today the company has confirmed that the phone will feature an upgraded 32-bit Quad DAC. LG rolled out a Quad DAC in the V20 last year, and this year’s flagship will similarly offer audiophile-grade sound thanks to the South Korean company’s continuining partnership with ESS Technologies.

LG says that the DAC on the G6 will be able to control the left and right audio channels separately for a balanced sound. The DAC also reduces static noise, and increased integration with the internal circuitry allows for a distortion level of just 0.0002%. It’s not clear if we’ll see the same DAC (ES9218) as that on the LG V20 with added refinements, or whether it will be a brand-new package.

The LG G6 will be unveiled on February 26 at MWC, with the phone expected to become available in its home market starting March 9.

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Where to buy the Samsung Chromebook Plus and Chromebook Pro

Samsung’s latest Chromebooks are here, and you have plenty of places to buy them.

With the two new laptops, Samsung has tossed its hat into the ring to be considered for the best mid-range Chromebooks available today. With a thin-and-light metal frame, brilliant QHD display and a stylus, it’s worth taking a look at these machines. Your only decision is whether to buy the $550 “Pro” model with an Intel Core m3 processor, or the $450 “Plus” version with a lower-powered ARM processor.

The more mainstream Chromebook Plus is hitting stores first, with the Chromebook Pro to follow at the end of April. This is everywhere you can pick up the latest Chromebooks from Samsung.

Where to buy the Samsung Chromebook Plus

You’ll be able to find the new Chromebook Plus just about anywhere you can find popular laptops, and that’s great to see. The MSRP is $449, and many retailers will offer at least six-month no-interest financing as well.

See at Amazon

See at Best Buy

See at Newegg

See at Samsung

Where to buy the Samsung Chromebook Pro

When Samsung announced its new Chromebooks we knew that the higher-end “Pro” model would lag behind a little, and the only time frame we have is “late April” for its full release. We will update this page when retailers start to make it available.

More: Samsung Chromebook Pro review

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