Lenovo is being dragged down by its mobile business

Lenovo is accustomed to good financial news, but even it’s not immune to the tepid smartphone market. The company’s mobile division lost $112 million as sales took a 23 percent nosedive, including both Moto and Lenovo handsets. Not long ago, Lenovo was the number one smartphone maker in China, with mobile sales (including tablets) actually besting PCs. Now, however, it’s well behind arch-foes Oppo, Huawei and Vivo.

The company paid Google $3 billion for Motorola when its mobile business was still soaring, but a lot has changed in three years. Nevertheless, it doesn’t plan on selling it off like analysts want, despite the drag on PC sales, which rose mildly by 2 percent. Rather, CEO Yang Yuanqing said the company is rebuilding its team under new chief Gina Qiao, and hopes to break even within a year or so. “Mobile should be our core business as well [as PCs],” he told Reuters.

Luckily, PCs are still selling well, particularly to businesses, so sales were a relatively flat $12.2 billion and Lenovo still made a profit. However, it needs to execute better on models like the Phab 2, which could have made a splash as the first Google Tango phone but was sunk by lousy components and iffy software. If it keeps doing what it did with the Moto Z, though, it could start to win back fans of the brand.

Via: Reuters

Source: Lenovo

FCC Chairman Encourages Activation of the FM Radio Chip Built Into Your iPhone

FCC chairman Ajit Pai has advocated for the activation of FM radio receivers built into nearly every smartphone, as part of opening remarks he made at the Future of Radio and Audio Symposium in Washington D.C. today.

Many smartphones sold today, including iPhones, have an FM receiver built into the LTE modem that would allow people to listen to FM radio over the air; however, many carriers and phone makers have not enabled the functionality, forcing users to use an app to stream FM radio over Wi-Fi or cellular data.

Pai cited a NAB study that found only 44% of the top-selling smartphones in the United States had activated FM receivers as of last year. The vast majority—94%—of the non-activated smartphones are iPhones, according to the study.

“We could be doing a lot better,” said Pai, who was appointed as FCC chairman last month. “It seems odd that every day we hear about a new smartphone app that lets you do something innovative, yet these modern-day mobile miracles don’t enable a key function offered by a 1982 Sony Walkman.”

The activation of FM receivers in iPhones would have several benefits, including battery life savings, less data usage, and most importantly, the ability to receive emergency alerts over radio without service.

“You could make a case for activating chips on public safety grounds alone,” added Pai. “The former head of our Federal Emergency Management Administration has spoken out in support of this proposal. The FCC has an expert advisory panel on public safety issues that has also advocated enabling FM radio chips on smartphones.”

Pai said that while he will keep speaking out about the benefits of activating FM receivers in smartphones, he is a believer in free markets and the rule of law, and he thereby cannot support a government mandate requiring activation of these chips, nor does he believe the FCC has the power to issue said mandate.

In 2015, an online campaign was launched to “free radio” on smartphones. It calls for U.S. carriers to activate the FM radio receivers in smartphones. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile now support the functionality, or will soon, on all or select Android-based smartphones. The campaign extends to Canada.

Apple’s stance on the activation of FM receivers in iPhones, and whether it could do so with a simple iOS update, is uncertain. Some have said that iPhones would need another antenna, which may not fit, for proper FM signal reception. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tag: FCC
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Apple’s Siri thinks you’re Lego Batman if you say “hey computer”

Apple’s Siri voice assistant is one of the stars of Lego Batman, with the voice appearing in the film as the Bat Computer.

Now you can get in on the fun yourself as themed Easter Egg has been added to Siri on Apple devices to respond to certain phrases.

You can say “hey computer” or “hey ‘puter” to Siri on iPhone, iPad or Mac to get a Lego Batman-style response. There are plenty of references to Alfred, Robin and the gang. It’s nice to see Apple having a little fun with the film.

Different attempts can yield different responses, so we’re not 100 per cent sure how many there are. You can try it our for yourself though, and you don’t even need to put on a gruff Lego Batman voice to get it to work.

• What is Siri? Apple’s personal voice assistant explained
• 63 ways to get a giggle out of Siri
• Best tech toys for Christmas 2017: Star Wars, skateboards, smartwatches and more

Apple and Lego have had a lot of fun with their collaboration. We particularly like tongue in cheek tweet from iTunes Movies, referring to Find My iPhone tracking in reference to Bruce Wayne and Batman.

Ever notice how Bruce Wayne’s iPhone and LEGO Batman’s iPhone are always in the same place?#LEGOBatmanMovie pic.twitter.com/xN1i8QwiSF

— iTunes Movies (@iTunesMovies) February 14, 2017

The Lego Batman movie has been a big box office success already, with an estimated $92.5 million return so far on its reported $80 million budget.

Project Cars 2 gameplay preview: Racing realism amplified to new heights

The roaring success of Project Cars was one of 2015’s most heart-warming feel-good stories. You may remember it as the game that seemingly rose without trace: created by hitherto somewhat obscure UK indie studio Slightly Mad Games, it was crowdfunded to the tune of over £2.5 million, Japanese giant Bandai Namco snapped up the publishing rights, it garnered critical praise and proved to be a big hit (save for some server teething issues).

Now, Project Cars 2 has made it first public appearance, at a showcase at Bandai Namco games. We had a hands-on taste of the game ahead of release, and grabbed game director Andy Tudor for an interview to get the lowdown on what the 2017 sequel is all about.

Project Cars 2 review: Taking on the big boys

The emergence of Project Cars 2 – slated for release some time in 2017 – actually came as no surprise: the game was effectively announced when the original Project Cars came out, and Slightly Mad Studios immediately launched a crowdfunding round for its successor.

A move which proved controversial at the time, as Tudor explains: “Everyone was like: ‘You’re abandoning the first game.’ I remember tweeting out: ‘No, we’re not abandoning it: we’ve got a whole programme, and we’re not going to forget you guys.’ But people need to be educated that if you want to start a new project, you need money. And therefore with crowdfunding, you need to start, because by the time you’ve got the money and the project is starting, it’s too late.”

Slightly Mad Studios soon brushed aside those criticisms by supporting Project Cars with an extensive programme of downloadable content. Tudor admits that the company’s second round of crowdfunding differed from the first, but contends that it meshed perfectly with the developer’s extremely ambitious plans.

With the crowdfunding for the first game, he said: “We had a super-large community, but a lot of people were just getting the game and playing it, and not giving us feedback, and that wasn’t really giving us what we wanted. So this time around, it’s a lot smaller, but everyone is just as vocal. With every previous game, we’ve been nipping at the heels of the competition, and ended up with the Game Of The Year Edition of Project Cars which was on a level playing-field with Forza and GT. So the pressure is on now, with competing titles out this year. It’s a three-way battle now. We’re here to win.”

Bandai Namco

Fighting talk, and Tudor is keen to point out that Slightly Mad Studios sudden emergence is a misconception – the developer evolved from SimBin, which made the highly regarded sim-racer GTR. “We are a big company, and we are one that has been around for a long time, but I think in most people’s views, it may feel like we’ve kind of come out of nowhere. But actually, we haven’t: we’ve been doing this for 17 years.”

Project Cars 2 review: New features

But what of the game itself? What will Project Cars 2 have that the original game didn’t?

“It will have the largest track roster on console ever and every single one, unlike other games – which just have a subset of tracks with that – has got dynamic time of day, dynamic weather and dynamic seasons.

Bandai Namco

“Then there’s the LiveTrack 3 [track evolution due to weather conditions] stuff: fluid dynamics, which will actually generate giant puddles on the track in realistic spaces. The more cars go over the same bit of wet tarmac, the more they start to dry it out. Even to the extent that, in extremely sunny conditions, the sun actually raises the temperature of the grass that is in the sun, compared to the grass that is in the shadow.”

The tracks themselves will be more detailed than ever, since Slightly Mad Studios didn’t just laser-scan them, but augmented the resulting info with photographic output from drones: “The drones can actually scan the tracks as well, so we can almost get a second pass on the laser-scan, which is brilliant. And now, they can stitch everything together so we get not only the mathematical data but also the visual data.”

Tudor continues: “We’ve got the iconic manufacturers that were missing from the first game: they’re now in it. We’ve got brand-new motorsports that are unannounced currently. But we can talk about IndyCar: we’re now an officially licensed IndyCar Game.

“There’s a whole new-surface racing system, so it’s not just about tarmac, but also dirt, gravel, snow, ice and mud. Then there’s a new tyre model, which brings physics for going over the level of grip and sliding, and getting it back again.”

Bandai Namco

He adds that after the first Project Cars established itself firmly among the e-sports fraternity – Red Bull, for example, adopted it as its official e-sports racing game – Slightly Mad Studios has upped the e-sports ante in Project Cars 2: “The first thing we added is the idea of a competitive racing licence. So initially, we’ll sort out the people who really shouldn’t be there, versus the people who are there to have a good time. The next bit now that the right people are playing off against each other is to work out who is the best out of those. And the system communicates how long you’ve been playing the game for. So I can immediately look at your licence and see you’ve been playing the game for a long time, you’re really professional and you’re bloody good at the game. As opposed to this guy, who has just bought the game, is crashing into everyone and is not very good – so I’ll avoid him.”

Project Cars 2 review: How does it play?

We raced around three tracks in Project Cars 2, which highlighted many of the game’s improvements over its predecessor.

First up was a very striking turn (it was just us on the track) around an ice-circuit, complete with the Northern Lights in the background, and snow-banks either side of the deliciously slippery track (we were at the wheel of a big AMG Mercedes).

Bandai Namco

Cute touches were in evidence – snow built up on the bonnet as we got a few laps of the rather long track under our belt. But mostly, the ice-track offered evidence that Slightly Mad Studios has addressed one of the biggest criticisms of the first game: that the controls weren’t sorted out of the box and, in particular, you had to fiddle around with sensitivity settings when playing with a gamepad.

We played all three tracks on a PC via an Xbox One gamepad, and both throttle and steering sensitivity were spot-on – the former, in particular, being highlighted by the ice-track.

The other two demos took place on Fuji Speedway, with us at the wheel of an FIA GTR Mercedes. The first took place on a dry track, and the second had the LiveTrack 3 system triggering a downpour towards the end of the first lap, so for the second lap, the track was wet, and throughout the third, it was drying out.

Bandai Namco

The results are stunningly realistic: while we managed to post a win on the dry-track run, a few minor indiscretions on the wet lap of the LiveTrack 3 run put us back in the pack, but as the track dried on the final lap, we found some imaginative lines and were able to pull a few places back.

Andy Tudor is a great, passionate talker, and his masterplan to take the fight to Forza and Gran Turismo may sound fanciful, coming as it does from an upstart British studio. But our initial taste of Project Cars 2 suggested that he may well have a point.

Apple TV 2017 will be 4K, maybe HDR too

Apple is said to be working on a new Apple TV set-top-box, possibly even for release later this year, as sales of the current generation device are reportedly slowing.

Part of the reason given is that, while competitors embraced the 4K Ultra HD revolution, the Apple TV launched with a maximum 1080p output. And considering it is more expensive than the Amazon Fire TV or, in the US, the Roku 4K boxes, it put the device at a distinct disadvantage.

Now sources have revealed Apple is looking to rectify that error in judgement. There are claims that 4K Apple TV is in development, and the fifth generation box could even embrace high dynamic range (HDR) pictures.

Bloomberg writes that information comes from “people familiar with the plans”. They state that the box, codenamed J105, will be capable of streaming 4K video in “more vivid colours”. That could well be HDR.

The leaked information is backed up by the fact that Apple recently hired Timothy Twerdhal, formerly the head of Amazon’s Fire TV unit. Amazon was one of the first to embrace 4K with its streamer, and it’s still one of the best devices on the market.

Who knows, maybe we’ll find out a bit more during WWDC in June, with the start date of 5 June revealed today? Let’s hope so.

Huawei joins voice assistant craze, is making its own helper for phones

If you haven’t noticed already, 2017 is the year of voice assistants.

Amazon’s Alexa seems to be everywhere, and now we have Google Assistant. And companies are putting these assistants in everything from speakers and phones to connected appliances. Samsung is even developing its own assistant for the Galaxy S8, and LG is rumoured to include both Alexa and Google Assistant in its upcoming LG G6. So, it’s not surprising to learn Huawei is jumping on board.

• Samsung Bixby voice assistant: All you need to know

In an effort to differentiate itself and grab more market share (it is the third-largest phone maker worldwide), it is said to be working on an assistant to go after Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana. According to Bloomberg, it’s employed a team of more than 100 people in Shenzhen to develop the assistant. The company also funds research into artificial intelligence.

In October, Huawei partnered with UC Berkeley on a $1 million “strategic partnership into basic research” of deep learning, natural language processing, and computer vision. Richard Yu, Huawei’s CEO, said the company wanted to “bring to the consumer the best services.”

It’s interesting to see Android phone-makers invest in their own assistants, especially when they could one day potentially leverage Google Assistant. Also, remember, Huawei has already announced Amazon Alexa will be available in the US version of the Mate 9 handset. We’re basically assuming that Huawei is just dipping its toes in the water of voice assistants with that partnership.

We’re excited to see what happens when it decides to go for a full swim.

NASA wants to send humans aboard the first SLS flight

The first Space Launch System flight scheduled for 2018 was supposed to be unmanned, designed to test the new rocket and its companion Orion capsule. But now NASA has grander plans for its maiden flight: acting administrator Robert M. Lightfoot Jr. has announced that the agency is considering adding a crew on board. While authorities already expect the SLS debut to be delayed by a year, its first manned flight wasn’t supposed to take place until 2021 at the earliest.

If NASA does decide to turn SLS’ maiden flight into a manned mission, a lot of work needs to be done. Lightfoot understands that it would force them to push back the launch date, as he wrote in his memo to NASA employees:

“I know the challenges associated with such a proposition, like reviewing the technical feasibility, additional resources needed, and clearly the extra work would require a different launch date.”

The acting administrator has already asked Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations, to conduct a feasibility study of adding a crew to the mission. Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which are building the SLS rocket and the Orion capsule, respectively, seem to be onboard with the idea, as well. “The possibility of NASA accelerating the timeline to put humans into the vicinity of the moon and onto Mars is exciting,” a Boeing spokesperson said.

In order to make the capsule ready for human passengers, Lockheed Martin would have to add a working life support system. It wasn’t supposed to be added until Orion’s second flight. Boeing would also have to fast track its work on the rocket’s upper stage, because it was planning to use a Delta 4 rocket’s upper stage that hasn’t been tested for crewed missions. One issue NASA might have face is funding. These changes would likely require an even bigger budget for the project for the next few years. SLS and Orion already eat up most of the agency’s money — it even sought public input on how to minimize costs associated with the system last year.

NASA originally planned for the Orion capsule to spend three weeks in space while orbiting the moon around 40,000 miles above its surface. Since that would be impossible to achieve with a crew on board, the adjusted mission would orbit the moon 10 times and then return to Earth within 20 hours instead. It’ll be a much shorter flight, for sure, but Lightfoot believes it can “accelerate the effort of… pushing humans farther into space.”

Source: The New York Times

Twitter starts temporarily restricting abusive accounts

In a bid to stop trolling and online harassment, Twitter has now begun to reduce the reach of abusive accounts. The social media site’s new vetting system temporarily restricts the tweets of abusive users, making them effectively invisible to those who don’t already follow them. As well as stopping them being retweeted outside of their inner circle, this measure also works with mentions too. If the offending user tries to tweet at someone who isn’t following them, for example, the intended receiver now won’t get any notifications.

While this certainly isn’t the first measure Twitter has taken against abusive behaviour, this latest step reinforces the company’s commitment to cracking down on harassment. Predictably, some users aren’t particularly happy about the new system. Since the new measures were implemented last week, one person has insisted that his account was restricted simply for using a word that Twitter deemed unacceptable. The social media giant, however, states that it looks at an account’s behavior rather than simply just restricting people based on abusive language.

>automatically get limited cause I said retard

I’m just considering leaving Twitter, fuck them pic.twitter.com/2NZpOPmlo2

— 🇺🇸 Drybones ム🗽💀 (@Drybones5) February 14, 2017

While some will inevitably see the new protocol as anti-free-speech, for many users the new moderation system is long overdue. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently announced that providing its users with better controls is the company’s top priority and it looks like these new security measures are a key part of that.

With trolling plaguing Twitter since its inception and high profile accounts being shut down after repeated vulgar behavior, many see Twitter as the Wild West of social media. Where competitors like Facebook have always strictly moderated its users, it now looks like the second largest social networking platform is finally starting to follow suit.

Source: Buzzfeed

IBM’s new weather app sends emergency alerts without a network

What good is a weather app when the network is down? Not much — typically. But with an upcoming Weather Channel app for Android, IBM is offering one solution for emerging markets: “Mesh Network Alerts,” a new technology that can transmit notifications from phone to phone via Bluetooth and WiFi. It’s potentially much more useful than typical emergency alerts from governments, because those don’t work when cellular networks go down. The app offers much more than just a mere weather update, in some places it could up saving lives during emergencies.

At this point, IBM is only planning to launch its mesh-capable Weather Channel app in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The Android app is also built with emerging networks in mind. It’s only 3.2MB large and it’s built with slower 2G connections in mind. You can store offline weather data for 24 hours, and you can choose weather to enable updates via cellular or WiFi. IBM notes that the mesh networking technology won’t be a battery drain — unlike other implementations of that technology, it turns devices into nodes and not full-fledged access points.

The new feature might seem like a surprising one for IBM, but don’t forget that it purchased The Weather Company’s technology assets in 2015. The weather apps now serve as the backbone of Watson’s Internet of Things unit, and they give IBM’s AI a lot more data to work with.

Source: IBM

YouTube now has over one billion auto-captioned videos

Over a billion videos on YouTube are accessible to viewers who are hard of hearing or completely deaf, thanks to the video platform’s automated captions. YouTube product manager Liat Kaver has announced the milestone number in a blog post, where he also talked about how hard it was growing up as a kid who’s hard of hearing and having very little access to closed captions. After his team launched automated captions in 2009, they started concentrating on making it more available and improving its accuracy.

Kaver said they made automated captions more available to YouTubers by combining Google’s automatic speech recognition technology with the YouTube caption system. They then achieved a 50 percent leap in accuracy — for English captions, at least — by improving the service’s machine learning algorithms and expanding its training data. We all know how funny caption fails can be, but people who have no other way of knowing what was actually said would end up missing bits of information. In the image above, you’ll see an example comparing the service’s old (left) and current (right) models.

Going forward, the company aims to improve the accuracy of the 10 other languages its caption tech supports. Kaver is encouraging YouTube creators to chip in and review the accuracy of machine-generated captions for their videos, as well. After all, the more data they have on their hands, the easier it’ll be to improve the technology.

Source: YouTube