Samsung chief arrested in South Korea over bribing charges

Samsung Group’s de facto leader Jay Y. Lee is facing jail time over bribery charges in presidential scandal.

Samsung Electronics vice chairman and heir-apparent to Samsung Group Jay Y. Lee was arrested on Friday morning in South Korea on bribery charges linked to a presidential corruption probe. Last month, a Korean special prosecutor sought an arrest warrant for Lee, but a judge ultimately turned down the request. This time around, the judge granted the arrest after “new charges and evidence” were presented.

Lee is accused of bribing an aide to former South Korean president Park Geun-hye in order to secure government backing of a merger between Samsung C&T Corp and Cheil Industries Inc. The corruption scandal led the parliament to impeach Park in December, and now prosecutors have ten days to indict Lee. According to Reuters, the new charges include “bribery, embezzlement, hiding assets overseas and perjury.”

Samsung and Lee have denied wrongdoing, stating: “We will do our best to ensure that the truth is revealed in future court proceedings.” The trial itself as well as a final verdict could take as long as 18 months.

How to change keyboards on Android Wear 2.0

It’s the stuff of dreams — a keyboard on your tiny watch face.

In all seriousness, it’s nice to have a backup input method when Android Wear is having trouble understanding your commands. Android Wear 2.0 comes with built-in keyboard input capabilities, so you can tap or swipe around to reply to messages. And if you have other keyboard apps installed, you can switch to those as default input method, too.

Changing the keyboard on Android Wear 2.0

Swipe down.
Tap on Settings.
Tap on Personalization.
Tap on Input methods.
Select the app of your choice.

You can change the settings of each individual keyboard from this menu, too.

Android Wear

• Everything you need to know about Android Wear 2.0
• LG Watch Sport review
• LG Watch Style review
• These watches will get Android Wear 2.0
• Discuss Android Wear in the forums!

Xiaomi India head Manu Kumar Jain promoted to vice president

Xiaomi India head receives a well-deserved promotion.

Xiaomi India head Manu Kumar Jain, who joined the Chinese manufacturer in May 2014, has been promoted to vice president. Jain will continue to oversee the company’s Indian operations in his role as managing director. Under Jain’s leadership, Xiaomi hit several milestones, with the company now claiming 30% of the online handset market. The Indian business also crossed $1 billion in revenue last year.

@manukumarjain, congratulations from the entire Xiaomi family on your promotion to Vice President of Xiaomi! pic.twitter.com/gxc1mfwPIK

— Mi India (@XiaomiIndia) February 17, 2017

Posting on his own Facebook page, Jain wrote:

Thank You my phenomenal Xiaomi family! I am so glad I got the opportunity to work with the best team on the planet. This further solidifies our plans to work harder to make our Mi Fans happy.
Truly honoured and humbled!

With OPPO and Vivo making inroads into the Indian market, Xiaomi’s goal this year will be to focus on the offline segment and broaden its customer reach. The company has announced that it will introduce several new product categories this year, including those from its Mi Ecosystem label.

Smartphones are still the number one focus for Xiaomi and the main driver for growth, and based on initial sales figures, it looks like the Redmi Note 4 will be one of the best-selling phones this year.

BMW 5-Series (2017) review: Saloon car perfection?

The last-generation BMW 5 Series sold more than two million units worldwide. Two million. To put that into perspective: between 2010 and 2015 Porsche built just over two million cars in total, across its entire range.

It is, therefore, not hard to see why the latest 5 Series (codenamed G30) is such an important car for BMW. And it’s not hard to see why the company has sold so many, given just how good it is.

The 5 Series’ legacy is huge, as is the weight of expectation placed on the shoulders of the latest Munich-made executive saloon. After all, how do you follow a smash hit like the F10 generation?

Well, in typically Teutonic fashion, the new BMW 5 Series has been optimised in each and every area. The engineers leaving neither nut nor bolt unturned in their pursuit for saloon car perfection, and the end result suggests their fastidious work has paid off.

BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Design

If you’re not a BMW fanboy it may take a few moments to notice the key changes to the new-generation 5 Series. However, once your eye is attuned to the G30’s styling tweaks, it’s hard to deny that the refreshed Five is a handsome beast.

Like most modern cars, the new BMW 5 Series saloon is wider, longer and taller than its F10 predecessor (albeit only by 36mm, 6mm and 2mm respectively).

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Munich’s stylists have decided to play with this extra real estate, accentuating the new 5 Series’ front end with wider LED headlights (available as standard with a range of over 300 metres) that run from the edge of the more angular kidney grille right out onto the front wings.

Combined with the more chiselled front bumper treatment, the latest 5 Series’ expression is certainly a menacing one, with the sporting pretences carried over to the rear, where dual tailpipes are now standard issue (round on SE models and trapezoidal on M Sport-specced cars).

As well as being the best-looking 5 Series for over a decade (in our opinion, at least), BMW has streamlined the executive saloon, reducing its drag coefficient by 10 per cent, using tweaks such as the moveable ‘louvres’ in the front grille that can close to optimise the aerodynamics.

Good looking and intelligent. We’re off to a good start already.

BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Interior

Unusually, our first experience of the new BMW 5 Series’ cabin is from the back seats, where the increased head and legroom, along with the more luxurious leather, certainly provides an improved executive ambience. It’s likely to be cliché that runs through many new 5 Series reviews, but it certainly feels like a mini 7 Series from the rear pews.

Pocket-lint

Up front, it becomes even more obvious that Munich’s designers have worked hard to improve the look and feel of the cockpit. The high-gloss wood inserts wouldn’t look out of place in a Swedish designer kitchen, while the new digital dashboard firmly brings the latest 5 Series into the 21st Century, especially when combined with the optional HUD pack (head-up display for the driver in line of sight; this now features an 800×400 pixel resolution, which is 70 per cent larger than the previous generation).

There are a choice of three sound systems, the standard stereo packing 12 speakers, while the optional Harman Kardon punches out 600 watts through 16 speakers and provides impressive clarity, aided by the lack of ambient noise in the well-sealed cabin. At the top of the range sits a 1,400 Bowers and Wilkins Diamond surround sound system, pumping your favourite tunes out across 16 different speaker units (it ain’t a cheap addition, but does sound glorious).

BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Infotainment and connectivity

Even BMW will probably admit that its original iDrive control system was a little on the complex side. However, 16 years on from that, the latest iteration is much improved.

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The various facets of the 5 Series’ infotainment system have been rationalised into a new three-square grid system on the high-resolution, 10.25-inch central display that, as well as via touch or the iDrive wheel, can now be controlled via a wide range of voice commands and, if ticked on the options list, an impressive array of gesture commands, the latter premiered last year on the latest 7 Series.

In terms of connectivity, the 5 Series boasts a comprehensive repertoire. Apple CarPlay is available wirelessly – an automotive first – while you can even sync your Office365 account to the car, allowing you to exchange emails (via the voice command you can dictate notes without your hands having to leave the steering wheel) or sync your calendar appointments.

With the latter, addresses from your upcoming appointments can be seamlessly integrated into the Professional Navigation system, guiding you to your next meeting and allowing you to update your colleagues with a revised ETA should you hit traffic on your commute.

Talking of traffic, each new BMW 5 Series comes with a SIM card, providing live traffic updates as standard. With an in-built data connection, the latest model can also act as a portable WiFi hotspot for up to 10 separate devices.

Pocket-lint

The piece de resistance, though, is the BMW Connected app (available for iOS and Android devices). As well as learning your regular journeys and notifying you when you need to leave to reach your next destination on time, the app can access the built-in radar sensors and parking cameras to develop a 3D scan of the area surrounding the car, allowing you to effortlessly find your car in a crowded car park.

That’s some impressively futuristic shiz right there.

BMW 5 Series (2017) review: The drive

For the launch of the new 5 Series saloon, BMW is offering two diesel and two petrol options and, while the 530i and 540i may feel more worthy of the Ultimate Driving Machine moniker, it’s the oil-burning motors that will likely tempt buyers to part with their hard-earned cash.

The four-cylinder 520d generates 190bhp and 400Nm of torque while remaining capable of 68.8mpg on a combined cycle but, while this will likely be the powerplant of choice for many company car customers, we plumped for the smooth inline six-cylinder 530d (complete with the optional xDrive four-wheel drive system).

Pocket-lint

Packing 265bhp, it’s the second most powerful motor in the current 5 Series range (topped only by the 340hp 540i xDrive) but, when it comes to torque it’s the daddy, with a total output of 620Nm. That’s enough to take the 530d xDrive from 0-62mph in 5.4 seconds and all the way on to a limited top speed of 155mph.

For an executive saloon intended, primarily, to ferry businessmen around in comfort, it’s certainly sprightly.

The eight-speed auto gearbox – now standard across the range – is actually at its most impressive when left to its own devices, smoothly and discreetly swapping cogs whereas in the manual mode, the response is sometimes found lacking, especially at the heady heights of the 530d’s 5,500rpm redline.

Dynamically, the optional M Sport pack on our test 5 Series lowers and stiffens the car, providing an impressive level of roll control, while still allowing the saloon to float uncannily well over imperfect surfaces – a promising sign for when the car reaches rutted UK roads proper.

Helped by nearly 100kg of weight saving compared to the outgoing model – achieved without the need for carbon fibre, unlike the 7 Series – the latest 530d will happily tackle twisting tarmac, doing a passing impression of a dedicated sports tourer when it wants to, especially when set in the optional Adaptive drive mode.

Pocket-lint

This setting automatically adjusts the suspension depending on your driving inputs and GPS data, allowing the car to literally predict upcoming corners. Clever stuff indeed – but it’s only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the new BMW 5 Series’ electronic talents.

There’s a whole host of autonomous tech packed into the new generation saloon, including a lane-keep assist function, which can pilot the car for up to 30-seconds at speeds up to 130mph. Not that we’re quite ready to take our hands from the wheel at those sort of velocities (not that we could even achieve such speeds on the UK’s public roads – it’s something reserved for the Autobahn).

Verdict

When BMW says the new 5 Series is the most technologically advanced car the company has ever made, it’s easy to see why. Everything on board adds up to an impressively polished package which blends together stunning driving dynamics and performance with cutting-edge connectivity and technology.

Even in fairly basic spec, many of the headline features are included as standard – which makes the £36,025 start price for the 520d look like incredibly good value compared to its competitors.

What’s more, despite the digital masterclass, the new BMW 5 Series doesn’t make you feel detached from the driving experience. It’s probably Munich’s most charming saloon yet.

Indeed, we can’t think of a more accomplished saloon car on the market.

How to evolve Eevee into Espeon and Umbreon in Pokemon Go

Eevee is one of the most interesting Pokemon characters. Not only is it ridiculously cute, but it doesn’t have a defined evolution path – and some of the Eevee evolutions have been the best Pokemon to take into a battle – like Vaporeon. 

With the release of the second-gen Pokemon hitting Pokemon Go, you’ll be looking to unleash some of those new characters, namely Espeon and Umbreon. 

If you were smart, you’d have been collecting Eevee all though the quiet Pokemon Go months so you’ll have plenty of candy and you can basically evolve straight away to bag yourself these new characters. 

Here’s all you have to do:

Open up your Pokemon collection and find an Eevee that’s spare
Change the name from Eevee to Sakura (for Espeon) or Tamao (for Umbreon), by tapping the pencil next to that character’s name
Hit the evolve button and your Eevee will change into Umbreon of Espeon

If you don’t change the name, the Eevee will evolve into any of the forms that are available in Pokemon Go: Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Umbreon and Espeon.

But what are these names you have to change? They are the names of the Pokemon owners, dug out from Pokelore. So, for example, Espeon was Sakura’s, and one of her older sisters is Tamao, who owned Umbreon.

The original Eevee evolutions – Sparky, Rainer and Pyro – that you’ll need to control evolution to Jolteon, Vaporeon and Flareon respectively, again come from the Eevee brothers in Pokemon anime.

• Pokemon Go: How to use battery saver
• Help! Pokemon Go isn’t working: How to fix common Pokemon Go problems
• Best smartphone battery packs: Pokemon power and more
• Pokemon Go: How to raise your XP level, power up and evolve your Pokemon

The Morning After: Friday, February 17 2017

Hey, good morning! We made it to Friday. But what about yesterday? Some poor soul got their hands on Nintendo’s new console two weeks in advance — but has no games to play on it, Apple is tinkering with a 4K TV box. Oh, and if you’d like some bedtime reading, may I suggest Mark Zuckerberg’s lengthy treatise on the future of Facebook?

At least one retailer accidentally shipped Nintendo’s next console two weeks early.A new Nintendo console… but nothing to play

One eager Nintendo Switch buyer saw his new console arrived two weeks ahead of schedule, Unfortunately, he has absolutely nothing to play on it. “I have no games at all,” he told the popular gaming forum NeoGAF. “All I can do is flip through the menus.” It looks like Nintendo has taken a better direction with its console UI, landing somewhere between Android and the PS4’s interface. Just a few weeks to go, you brave soul.

Beyond 1080pBloomberg: There’s a 4K Apple TV box on the way

Even with an App Store onboard, the Apple TV hasn’t revolutionized TV in the way some analysts predicted. Still, the company is working on this project, shifting execs around to possibly revive stalled plans for a Sling TV-esque “skinny bundle” of channels. For now, however, Bloomberg reports there’s a 4K and HDR-capable version of the box in the pipeline, but that should be the only big difference.

New boss, new direction.Google Fiber refocuses, may shift towards wireless

While gigabit fiber connections everywhere are a wonderful dream, rolling it out can get pricey, fast. That’s why Google Fiber is pulling back from previous expansion plans, and shedding employees. Under a new CEO, it may look to roll out high speed connections that “follow” users around town like WiFi, or expand the Webpass wireless service it acquired.

Competition is good, again.AT&T will offer unlimited data for all customers

Well that didn’t take long. Just a few days after Verizon announced it would start offering an unlimited data plan after years of selling capped data packages, AT&T will be doing the same. As of tomorrow, AT&T will let any current or potential customer buy an unlimited data plan — until now, only DirecTV customers were able to purchased unlimited data from the carrier. Stream, my friends. Download!

“Ok Google, order toilet paper.”Google Assistant now helps with your shopping on Google Home

Amazon’s Echo and its Alexa virtual assistant had a big head start before Google debuted Home, but the company has revealed a big addition that could strike at the heart of Alexa’s domain: shopping. You can now use Google Assistant on the company’s connected smart speaker to order goods from its Express shopping service.

Does that really need 5,700 words to explain?Zuckerberg challenges Facebook to build the foundation of a global community

If you have some time today, you can peruse Facebook’s new mission statement. In a sprawling essay, Mark Zuckerberg challenges his company to deal with issues like finding the line between responsible filtering and censorship across different communities. In his vision, Facebook can be a part of a social infrastructure. Of the few concrete plans mentioned, one focuses on connecting people by their interests — book club, anyone?

But wait, there’s more…

• Samsung’s South Korean leader has been arrested for bribery
• ZTE announces the first gigabit LTE-ready phone
• Hasbro’s Proto Max robot dog teaches coding on the sly
• Lenovo is being dragged down by its mobile business
• NASA wants to send humans aboard the first SLS flight

Giphy made 2,000 GIFs to help you learn sign language

A GIF can be more than a well-timed punchline for a tweet or group chat. Now, the looping clips can be used to teach people new languages. As Mashable reports, GIF provider Giphy has launched a new “channel” containing more than 2,000 educational sign language clips. They’re all dead simple: just the hand movements and a text caption explaining what they mean. These bite-sized flash cards have been pulled from Sign With Robert, an instructional series for American Sign Language (different versions are used throughout the world). The hope is that people will pick up a word or two by sharing them at convenient moments online.

“The GIF format has the ability to loop infinitely, so it’s perfect for learning new signs,” Hilari Scarl, director and producer for Sign With Robert said. “It doesn’t require the back and forth of hitting play, rewind or repeat.”

It’s unlikely that you’ll learn sign language through GIFs alone. But it’s a clever way of promoting a truly life-changing skill, and could encourage more people to study the language in greater depth. For many, Giphy is the go-to GIF repository, so there’s a good chance these loops will surface as people conduct their usual searches. Sign language GIFs have been done before, but now they’re more likely to have a real impact on the web.

Via: Mashable

Source: Giphy (Sign With Robert)

Microsoft Brings Animated GIF Support and Account Switching to OneDrive App

Microsoft updated its OneDrive iOS app this week with a couple of features requested by premium users, with the added bonus that the improvements can be used by free 5GB account holders as well.

First up, Microsoft has added support for animated GIF files in OneDrive, which should come as good news for users working with marketing and promotional content. The GIFs can now be viewed from within the cloud file browser, instead of having to download and preview them outside the app.

Version 8.8.9 also brings fast account switching to the cloud client app. According to Microsoft, users now only need to tap and hold on the Me tab to instantly switch between accounts, whether free or premium.

Elsewhere, student users who own either work or school accounts are now able to receive notifications whenever someone shares a file with them, while Microsoft has also added Instant Preview support in the Sites tab.

Lastly, a number of other smaller bugs and crash issues have also been fixed. OneDrive is a free download for iPhone and iPad available on the App Store. [Direct Link]

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Toyota, GM and Lyft want nationwide rules for self-driving cars

Automakers Toyota and GM and ride-sharing firm Lyft called on the US government to create US-wide standards to ease the testing and adoption of autonomous cars. The problem, they say, is that rules vary widely across the country are more restrictive in some states (like California) than others (Michigan). “Self-driving cars won’t drive while impaired by drugs or alcohol [and] they won’t be distracted by a cell phone,” GM VP Michael Abelson told a subcommittee on Tuesday. “We have the further opportunity to avoid crashes altogether.”

It’s not as though the US Department of Transport (DoT) is doing nothing, as it released a policy document last September. It outlined how the feds would be responsible for setting standards, investigating recalls and enforcing safety standards, but it has yet to lay out what those are. In an op-ed that went with it, then-President Obama wrote that “automated vehicles have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives each year … but we have to get it right.”

The group is looking for “specific exemptions” in the rules of the road for automated vehicle development, said Abelson. They also want the historically slow-moving standards bodies to try to keep pace with the rapid development of automatic driving tech. “Without changes to these regulations, it may be years before the promise of today’s technology can be realized and thousands of preventable deaths … will happen,” he added.

GM CEO Mary Barra shows off an autonomous Chevy Bolt (Rebecca Cook/Reuters)

Volvo is also part of the group pressing for standards, but several notable leaders in autonomous vehicle development, including Tesla and Google’s Waymo, didn’t participate. The group also wants to see expanded testing sites, and just before Obama left office, the DoT picked ten new ones in states including Pennsylvania, Texas, Maryland, California and Michigan.

So far, it’s not clear what the new administration under Trump, including new DoT secretary Elaine Chao, thinks about autonomous tech. However, he has decried the loss of US jobs to nations like China, even though many workers were in fact replaced by robots.

Via: Autoblog

Source: Subcommittee on DCCP

YouTube just hit another ‘one billion’ milestone, this one for auto-captioned videos

Why it matters to you

Hidden away, it’s a feature some of you might have forgotten exists though one that can certainly come in handy.

YouTube first introduced captions for videos in 2006. Three years later it automated the feature, a huge step forward that on Thursday enabled it to announce it now has a billion captioned videos on its site.

Captions show on videos as a text overlay and transcribe dialog and other relevant audio occurrences happening on screen. You can enable them by clicking on the icon on the far left in the bottom right of the video player.

Although primarily geared toward the 300 million people in the world with hearing impairments, captions can also come in handy for a good chunk of YouTube’s global user base of more than a billion people. Consider videos where the audio is a bit ropey or you simply can’t catch what the actors are saying. The feature could also be useful when you’re in a public place without your earphones and you’re still keen to view the content.

And yes, captions is a heavily used feature, with viewers clicking the “on” button more than 15 million times a day.

More: Google launches YouTube Go, a stripped down version of the main YouTube app

But the system isn’t perfect, at least, not yet. Errors in the text of course show up from time to time, with some YouTubers taking advantage of the slip-ups to create their own comedy videos.

However, the team has been working hard in recent years to improve the reliability of its automated captions technology. Discussing the issue in a blog post, YouTube’s Liat Kaver said significant progress has already been made in enhancing its speech recognition software and machine learning algorithms. “All together, those technological efforts have resulted in a 50 percent leap in accuracy for automatic captions in English, which is getting us closer and closer to human transcription error rates,” Kaver wrote.

The team also wants to invest more time in improving the caption accuracy of its other supported languages, which include Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

Kaver said the long-term aim is to get captions on every clip that requires them. “Ideally, every video would have an automatic caption track generated by our system and then reviewed and edited by the creator,” she wrote, adding, “With the improvements we’ve made to the automated speech recognition, this is now easier than ever.”