Alexa voice control coming to all existing Sonos speakers, soon

Sonos will be introducing voice control to all its existing speakers through Amazon’s Echo and Echo Dot later this year, though an exact date has yet to be detailed.

The company announced plans to introduce voice control in March 2016, but it said it would not expedite it just because rivals are doing it. 

In a blog post last year, former Sonos CEO, John MacFarlane, said it would take its time to find the best platform: “Sonos is taking the long view in how best to bring voice-enabled music experiences into the home. Voice is a big change for us, so we’ll invest what’s required to bring it to market in a wonderful way.”

That platform is now in testing stages, with Sonos delivering its first public demo of the Alexa voice control in action at its offices in Boston, USA. 

The company is still keen to get the experience right though and although Alexa worked very well in our demo, responding quickly and efficiently to pause the Sonos speaker, search for David Bowie tracks and tell us which Bowie track it was then playing, it isn’t quite ready for release yet.

Echo and Echo Dot currently require users to say “on Sonos” at the end of the command to Alexa, which the company has said won’t be the case at launch. It told us it was working closely with Amazon in order for the voice control to be as seamless as possible.

New Sonos CEO, Patrick Spence, also said Amazon was only the beginning when it came to voice control. He said Sonos is committed to using multiple voice assistants in the future, which suggests compatibility with Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant might not be too far away.

• Which Sonos speaker is best for you?
• Sonos tips and tricks

Verizon quietly debuts its first watch ‘Wear24’ running Android Wear 2.0

Buried in announcement that it would sell Google’s new LG watches, Verizon has quietly announced its own Android Wear smartwatch.

That’s right. Verizon is releasing its own branded Android Wear device, called the Wear24. Like the LG Watch Sport and Style, it runs the latest version of Android Wear, otherwise known as Android Wear 2.0. It features a 1.39-inch circular display (480×480 resolution), and it comes with LTE, Wi-Fi, and NFC connectivity options. You’ll also find all the usual sensors, including an accelerometer and a heart-rate sensor.

• LG Watch Sport and LG Watch Style are official

Specifications are spare so far, and there’s only one image of the watch, which you can see above, so it’s difficult to determine how big it is or how it compares to LG’s latest Android Wear watches. Still, Wear24 is interesting because its the first wearable device that the carrier has sold under its own brand. The Wear24 will be available on Verizon for $300 (about £240) with a two-year contract sometime in March.

It’ll presumably be available just in the US, though we’ve contacted the company for more details.

Adidas thinks Tesla’s old Model 3 logo is a little too familiar

Would you confuse the Tesla Model 3’s three-bar logo with Adidas’ signature stripes? No? Don’t tell that to Adidas. The apparel giant has filed a challenge to prevent Tesla from registering the Model 3’s logo as a trademark. It’s similar enough to Adidas’ stripes that it’s “likely to cause confusion” and suggest the two brands are connected, according to the filing. It’s a tenuous claim — we’re pretty sure people know that shoes and electric cars are different things. However, it may not be as much of an issue given Tesla’s recent actions.

We’ve reached out to Tesla, and a spokesperson notes that the EV maker quietly changed the logo to the numeric “3” weeks ago, well before Adidas filed its notice. While the company did withdraw its application for the old three-bar logo on February 7th, it maintains that this was strictly a Tesla branding decision and not a response to the trademark issue. We’ve asked Adidas for its take on the situation, but it looks its objection is based more on principle than what Tesla is actually doing.

@seanbroswag @FredericLambert Numeric

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2017

Via: Law360, GeekWire

Source: USPTO, Elon Musk (Twitter)

An unofficial ACLU Dash Button offers one-touch donations

Amazon’s Dash Buttons offer one-click ordering for items your purchase through that Prime membership on a regular basis. In fact, there are over 250 of the buttons from a range of different brands. Last May, the online retailer revealed a $20 IoT version that can be programmed to help with other tasks besides just buying products. Designer and programmer Nathan Pryor is using the handy connected button to provide some relief every time he reads a tweet from President Trump or a headline about the latest happenings at the White House.

Pryor’s ACLU Dash Button uses Amazon’s IoT version to donate $5 to the non-profit organization every time it’s pressed. He created a script that pulls up the ACLU donation page an inputs his contact information and payment details before submitting the funds. If the transaction goes through, he gets a confirmation via text on his phone. To complete the package, Pryor designed a custom label and stuck it on the Dash Button to make it look a little more official.

He says that the button stays close to his laptop and every time he presses it, $5 more goes to the ACLU. Pryor admits a recurring donation would probably be more efficient, but the act of pressing the button offers a “tactile thrill” and he learned to program the device in the process. He made the code available for others to use as well, but he warns that there are no guarantees in terms of security. If the ACLU updates the donation page with new fields, the code won’t work.

There are also no safeguards in place to keep your child or pet from donating your entire bank account if they get a hold of the button. We recommend taking Pryor’s advice and using a prepaid gift card, especially if you’re prone to Trump-induced rage. For now, you can take a look at the DIY ACLU Dash Button in action via the video below.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Nathan Pryor (Medium)

Signal tries its hand at encrypted video and voice calling

Open Whisper Systems’ Signal app is no longer limited to keeping text chats out of the wrong hands. A beta version of the Android app now includes experimental support for video and voice calling. Both sides of a conversation will have to switch the features on in settings for this to work, but you’re otherwise free to talk knowing that encryption should prevent eavesdropping.

It’s not certain when the feature will be available to every Signal user, although the phrasing of the update suggests that it’s more a matter of “when” than “if.” And iPhone owners won’t be left out — OWS has mentioned that video and voice will be available in an upcoming iOS beta release.

Via: Android Police, TechCrunch

Source: Google Play

Facebook is closing half of Oculus pop-ups in Best Buy stores

Facebook is shutting down 200 of its 500 Oculus VR pop-up stores from Best Buy locations around the country due, in large part, to underwhelming interest from the public. Per pop-up workers speaking to Business Insider, some of these kiosks would “go days without giving a single demonstration.”

Oculus denied that reasoning, however. “We’re making some seasonal changes and prioritizing demos at hundreds of Best Buy locations in larger markets,” Oculus spokeswoman Andrea Schubert said while confirming the closures. “You can still request Rift demos at hundreds of Best Buy stores in the US and Canada.”

Facebook began the marketing push last May when a select 48 Best Buys received the VR headsets for demo and sale. The company expanded the rollout to 500 stores in August. However, the public just wasn’t that into it. “They didn’t press on selling,” an anonymous worker from Texas told BI. “Their main thing was to have us do demonstrations and get people talking about Oculus.

Source: Business Insider

DHS could demand social media passwords of US visitors

Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments from the State of Washington v. Donald Trump lawsuit that suspended the President’s controversial executive order preventing entry of anyone traveling from seven Muslim-majority countries. Into this stormy climate strides Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, who told Congress on Tuesday that his agency is considering a new vetting measure for US visitors from Trump’s banned nation list: forcing them to hand over passwords for their social media accounts.

“We want to get on their social media, with passwords: What do you do, what do you say?” Kelly told the House Homeland Security Committee. “If they don’t want to cooperate then you don’t come in.”

It’s just one of many vetting options the DHS is considering specifically for visitors from those countries, but it’s far from a new concept. Last June, the agency submitted a proposal to add fields asking for foreign nationals’ social media handles on departure and arrival forms, itself a development from the agency’s 2015 policy scrutinizing social media posts in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting. But last year’s proposal would have just provided travelers the option to disclose their account names. The new DHS measure would require they hand over passwords.

Access to their social media accounts would shed more light on a person than the existing vetting process allows, Kelly told the committee, which amounts to their documentation and background interviews. This is especially threadbare when they visit from “failed states” like Syria and Somalia, where infrastructure and record-keeping have degraded, according to NBC News. But other options they’re considering include obtaining financial records of individuals DHS would suspect are on terrorists’ payroll.

Source: NBC News

Nintendo’s ‘1-2 Switch’ has 28 ridiculous minigames

Weird Nintendo is the best Nintendo. We now know there are a total 28 minigames in Nintendo’s upcoming party game 1-2 Switch, according to the official Japanese website. One eagle-eyed Reddit user also spotted unlisted trailers for the bite-sized activities on the company’s Japanese YouTube channel. We already knew about the simulated cow milking and sandwich eating; Nintendo revealed them weeks ago during a Switch presentation. But that was apparently just the tip of the quirky iceberg.

In Telephone, two people compete to see who can answer calls the fastest, with the Switch’s Joy-Con controllers acting as the phones. Because office work is fun, I guess?

Then, there’s Shaver, a competition to see who can groom themselves best. Runway has you and a friend strut down a pretend catwalk and strike poses, while Wizard turns the Joy-Cons into wands for an epic magic battle à la Harry Potter (cape not included).

The minigame getting the most attention though, is Baby, a nightmare simulator that turns your Switch into a virtual crying infant you must soothe to sleep.

Via: The Verge

Source: Nintendo

TSA debunks its own airport behavior screening

If you’ve ever suspected that the TSA’s airport behavior screening (where it looks for visual signs of lying or stress) was just another example of ineffective security theater, you now have some science to back up your hunches. Thanks to a lawsuit, the ACLU has obtained TSA files showing that the organization has pushed and even expanded its “behavior detection” program despite a lack of supporting evidence. While the TSA maintains that it can detect signs of shady activity through fidgeting, shifty eyes and other visual cues, studies in its files suggest just the opposite — you’d have just as much success by choosing at random. And those are in controlled conditions, not a busy airport where anxiety and stress are par for the course.

Government auditors also found that the TSA implemented its screening “without first validating” the science behind it, and kept it up when those auditors found that there was no scientific support. When offering reports to the government, the TSA would regularly overstate its case and claim that there’s supporting evidence without bringing up concrete examples.

To make matters worse, the documents show signs of racism, sexism and religious discrimination that may well do more harm than good. TSA behavior screening materials focused exclusively on Arab and Muslim terrorist threats until late 2012, for instance, and suggested in 2006 that women would be easier suicide bomber candidates because they’re “more emotional and therefore easier to manipulate.” Even after the TSA took a more neutral approach, there were still instances where behavior detection officers were encouraged to focus on Middle Eastern passengers. Agents were not only relying on junk science, but applying it selectively — dangerous when many terrorist acts in the US aren’t committed by Muslims.

As you might guess, the ACLU already has suggestions. It wants the TSA to phase out behavior screening altogether, and implement a “rigorous” anti-discrimination training program. The government, meanwhile, should conduct follow-up reviews to challenge the scientific validity of the TSA’s policies. There’s no guarantee that the TSA will take the ACLU’s advice, but the findings may be difficult to ignore.

Source: ACLU (1), (2)

Binge-watch on a virtual beach with Hulu VR’s social features

While Hulu continues to add more and more VR content to its catalog, the company wants to make sure you and your VR-ready friends have a virtual place to enjoy all of it. Today, Hulu announced two big social updates to its Hulu VR app for Oculus Rift and Gear VR including support for avatars, touch controllers and social viewing rooms.

With support for Oculus Rooms, Gear VR users can now step into a virtual viewing space like a beachside outdoor cinema or a (slightly less exotic) virtual living room where friends can join in to watch together. On the Rift, Hulu VR also supports Avatars and Oculus Touch controllers, so users can customize their look, control playback and interact with the VR screening environment while their shows continue to play onscreen.

To win over new VR users, Hulu is also making its entire library of 360-degree videos like The Big Picture: News in VR and The Big One freely available without a subscription. But if you want to have a virtual viewing party for 2D content like say, The Handmaid’s Tale, everyone watching will need a subscription to join in.