Ford wants its electric self-driving delivery vans to launch drones

Last week, UPS revealed it is testing drone-launching delivery vans, and now, Ford is upping the game by unveiling its own electric self-driving delivery van that can launch a fleet of drones.

The company unveiled its new concept, called Autolivery, at MWC 2017 in Barcelona on Tuesday. The idea behind the delivery van – which, unlike the UPS van, is both electric and self-driving – is that it can drastically speed up distribution. The van is equipped with enough technology so that it is able to launch a fleet of drones capable of picking up and dropping off packages in hard-to-reach areas.

Autolivery aims to address the last-mile challenge in delivery, or rather, the last few metres between the delivery truck and the drop-off place. When UPS showed off its drone-launching van, it estimated that if it could shave a mile off of every driver’s route each day, it would cut about 66,000 miles per day overall, which equals a $50 million savings per year. Now, Ford is tackling that same issue.

In UPS’ case, the van launches a drone from the top of a truck so it can autonomously deliver a package, and then the drone returns to the van, which has already moved to a different location. Ford, of course, is taking a more lux-livery approach. It’s basically envisioning how future delivery services might work. Imagine you’re making a recipe and need milk. You could order it through an app that works with Autolivery, and the van will come to you – even directly to the 30th floor of your building, because the drones will deliver to your balcony.

• Best drones to buy in 2016, whatever your budget

While UPS’ van is best suited in rural areas, where there are large distances between houses, Ford is focusing on urban areas, where people live in high-rise buildings. Either way, both are trying to make delivery services more efficient in terms of cost and for the driver.

Autolivery is currently a concept within Ford’s City of Tomorrow vision, but we’ll keep you posted if it ever starts to test the vehicles.

Walmart’s new app helps you skip store lines

Walmart doesn’t just want its mobile app to speed up your checkout — now, it might help you avoid lines altogether for certain services. An upgrade to the app has introduced “express lane” services for both prescription pickups and money transfers. Once you’ve filled in a medicine or money transfer order on your phone, you just have to waltz up to the appropriate store counter, scan a QR code with the app and complete your business.

You may have to wait a while to use these features. They’ll start rolling out to stores in March, but the deployment will only finish sometime in the fall. Still, this could be a serious time-saver, particularly for prescriptions. If you just need a refill, the biggest hassle in the near future may be the trip to the store.

Source: Walmart

Google now lets developers offer sales on Android apps

During Google’s Developer Day at GDC 2017 today, the company introduced a few new features that will benefit both developers and consumers on the Google Play Store. The one customers will notice most starting today is strikethrough pricing, which makes it more obvious when apps are being sold at a reduced rate.

Now, devs can run promotions on apps while also listing regular prices, which are crossed out above the “Buy” button. This leaves consumers more informed about how much they’re saving, and Google says this leads to more sales. In a pilot phase testing the feature, developers saw installs increase by as much as 20-fold, and that momentum continued some once the sales were over.

Google is also putting more focus on good games that people are actually playing, instead of just installing and forgetting about. Games that have “strong engagement and retention metrics” should become more visible in the Play Store as Google continues tweaking its algorithms, the company says. Additionally, the store will soon be rolling out editorial pages featuring hand-picked games, with sections highlighting titles based on different genres and styles.

Another way for developers to get fingers tapping on screens is to use emojis in their app descriptions, a study recently proved. So basically, game makers, pair that strategy with Google’s new Play Store optimizations if you want to keep it 💯.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from GDC 2017!

Source: Android Developers Blog

Tesla engineer sues over sexist workplace culture (updated)

If it wasn’t already evident that Silicon Valley’s issues with sexist culture extend beyond Uber, it is now. Tesla engineer AJ Vandermeyden has revealed that she’s suing her employer over allegations that the electric car maker ignored complaints of discrimination and “pervasive harassment.” She says she was paid less than men she replaced, and that she and fellow female engineers weren’t given promotions even though they were at least as qualified as men. The harassment, meanwhile, included “inappropriate language, whistling and catcalls,” according to the lawsuit.

To make matters worse, Vandermeyden claims that management retaliated whenever she brought up workplace sexism. Higher-ups would say that she could only get a promotion if she hit targets loftier than those expected from men, and that she wasn’t given overtime pay or breaks (including meal breaks) when she was in a sales role. She also maintains that she was punished for whistleblowing when she raised the alarm over cars knowingly sold with defects.

We’ve reached out to Tesla for a response. In a statement to the Guardian, it didn’t directly address the points mentioned lawsuit but did say that it believes in “fostering an inclusive workplace” and that there’s “more we can do to promote diversity.” It also downplayed Vandermeyden’s case, maintaining that there would always be a “small number” of people who make claims against the EV company.

As with Uber, the question isn’t so much whether or not Tesla understands the importance of fighting sexism as whether it’s willing to implement deep structural reforms that would help prevent and punish sexist behavior. Right now, it’s not clear that this is the case — there’s no mention of organizational and policy decisions that would let women like Vandermeyden feel safe and valued.

Update: Tesla now directly disputes Vandermeyden’s claims. A spokesperson tells us that an independent investigator determined the discrimination and harassment claims “have not been substantiated.” Also, it maintains that the engineer’s advancement into “at least one other role” is proof that it rewards skilled workers of all stripes. You can read the full statement below. There’s no guarantee that the court will agree with Tesla’s findings, but it’s important to take them into account.

“Tesla is committed to creating a positive workplace environment that is free of discrimination for all our employees. Ms. Vandermeyden joined Tesla in a sales position in 2013, and since then, despite having no formal engineering degree, she has sought and moved into successive engineering roles, beginning with her work in Tesla’s paint shop and eventually another role in General Assembly. Even after she made her complaints of alleged discrimination, she sought and was advanced into at least one other new role, evidence of the fact that Tesla is committed to rewarding hard work and talent, regardless of background. When Ms. Vandermeyden first brought her concerns to us over a year ago, we immediately retained a neutral third party, Anne Hilbert of EMC2Law, to investigate her claims so that, if warranted, we could take appropriate action to address the issues she raised. After an exhaustive review of the facts, the independent investigator determined that Ms. Vandermeyden’s ‘claims of gender discrimination, harassment, and retaliation have not been substantiated.’ Without this context, the story presented in the original article is misleading.”

Source: Guardian

Unity’s ‘2017’ game engine will focus on artists and designers

Unity’s keynote at this year’s GDC was all about the future of its game engine. The company has outlined plans for the next major version of its platform, Unity 2017, which is being designed with creators in mind. Unity says one of the main goals is to improve team productivity and collaboration features for non-programmers, particularly those who are artists and designers — someone like a cinematic animator, for example. Developers will be able to sign up for a beta in April, marking the end of the Unity 5 cycle that began in 2014.

Before that arrives, though, the Unity 5.6 release will provide further resources for devs who want to create 360-degree experiences, as there’s now support for a 4K video player within the engine. Unity also incorporated something called Navigation Mesh, which uses artificial intelligence to help developers easily control game characters who need to navigate a giant world. This version is scheduled to arrive at the end of next month, on March 31st.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from GDC 2017!

Amazon outage breaks large parts of the internet

If your favorite website or internet service isn’t accessible today, it’s probably not just you. Amazon Web Services’ S3 cloud storage is experiencing “high error rates” that have caused chaos among many of the sites that depend on AWS to work. Our own website is one of them, but the failure has also affected some or all of Giphy, Medium, Slack, Quora and a slew of other websites and apps you likely use. Some connected home devices aren’t working correctly, either. Even Amazon’s ability to report problems was broken for a while — the AWS dashboard wasn’t changing color because its issue was “related” to S3’s problems.

Amazon hasn’t explained exactly what went wrong or offered an estimated time of repair, although its status page has narrowed the outage down to a North Virginia location. We’ve asked Amazon for more info and will let you know if it can share additional details.

No matter what’s at fault or how long the outage goes on, the incident underscores a mounting problem: an increasing dependence on a handful of services to power large swaths of the internet. AWS and its rivals make cloud features viable for companies that can’t always afford to run their own servers, but they also increase the chances that a failure will affect many people. Unless the tech industry can find a way to diversify its online data sources, these internet-wide crises aren’t going away any time soon.

The dashboard not changing color is related to S3 issue. See the banner at the top of the dashboard for updates.

— Amazon Web Services (@awscloud) February 28, 2017

The moment the presenter realizes S3 is down. #AWS #S3 #Amazon pic.twitter.com/S8gY1J9lrH

— Ian Sherwood (@ian_surewould) February 28, 2017

Via: TechCrunch, Bloomberg

Source: Amazon Web Services, BuzzFeed Tech (Twitter)

YouTube TV is Google’s live TV service

It’s been rumored for a long time now, but YouTube has just officially announced its entry into streaming live TV. YouTube TV will let you access live and recorded content from major networks both broadcast and on cable. All of this will be coupled alongside YouTube’s existing content, and it’ll work on any screen that YouTube is available on. It’ll be available later this spring to customers in the US for $35 a month with no contract; that’ll let up to six users access content whenever they want.

Networks taking part include CBS, Fox, NBC and CBS along with USA and FX. Sports networks include ESPN, Fox Sports and NBCSN — there’s a total of 10 sports networks available. You can also add on Showtime for an additional fee. Local networks for your area will also be included, so you can get the local news and programming broadcasts from the channels you’d see over the air. All in all, the total of “more than 40 networks” is similar to what you get from something like Sony’s PlayStation Vue (you can see them all below).

Still, there are a lot of major networks missing. Most notable are channels from Viacom, Discovery, A&E, AMC and Turner (including TBS and TNT). CNN is also notably absent from the news networks available. This is a place where PlayStation Vue has an advantage — the $35 plan from Sony includes CNN, TBS, TNT, AMC and a number of other channels that YouTube TV doesn’t offer.

YouTube TV also includes unlimited cloud DVR storage, so you can add any series or sports team to your favorites and it’ll save all of them for you. Naturally, YouTube will also use the massive amount of data is has on your interests to help serve you recommendations thanks to its machine learning network. YouTube TV will also eventually work with Google Home, so you can ask Home to start playing a show on your Chromecast and it’ll “just work.”

The standalone mobile app features three main sections: live, library and home. The live tab shows everything currently being broadcast organized by network. As you scroll, you’ll see a live preview of what’s being broadcast on each channel. If you want to watch, you can just tap and it’ll start playing. If you want to watch something later, you can tap the plus icon and start recording a show. When watching in portrait mode, you’ll see recommendations down below it, but you can of course flip the phone on its side to go into full screen mode. There’s also an ever-present “cast” button if you want to send video to your Chromecast or a compatible TV.

The app’s search page lets you see recommendations by genre and network as well as specific categories tailored to your viewing habits. You can also search for something like “time travel” and get a list of movies or TV shows that feature time travel in the plot. Typing in a specific show will take you to a page listing out all the episodes available to you at any given time. The library is pretty self-explanatory. It features all the shows you’ve recorded, sports teams you’re interested in and also lets you view everything scheduled to be recorded on your DVR.

Lastly, the “home” tab is similar to what you currently see when using the basic YouTube experience. It’s full of things you’ve watched recently, recommendations based on what you watch, things you’ve been watching that you might want to resume, and so on.

The company also wants to offer excellent customer service, something a YouTube executive said is one of cable’s biggest pain points right now. You’ll be able to contact customer service through the YouTube app any time, either via text chat or voice chat.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said that the company was doing this as a way to reach the many younger people who don’t want TV on a standard TV screen. People are watching plenty of TV content on YouTube already — particularly clips from late night shows and sports — but the company wanted customers to be able to get more TV content in that fashion. Wojcicki said that YouTube wants to offer customers TV “whenever they want, on any screen, on their terms.”

This is a separate product offering from YouTube Red, which the company launched in late 2015 as a way to give users an ad-free YouTube experience. It also features some original programming, but overall it’s been more in keeping with the personality-based content rather than longer, high-end productions you might find from the big networks. However, YouTube TV will contain all of YouTube Red’s original programming.

There’s a few unanswered questions, still. Most over-the-top services have some restrictions about what episodes of shows from different networks are available or if you’l be able to save content indefinitely. There may end up being some catches, but YouTube said that users will be able to save “virtually” anything they watch on YouTube TV.

The company focused its big-screen conversation around streaming to your TV with a Chromecast, and in a follow-up conversation a YouTube executive said that would be the only way to get content to a TV for starters. Chromecast and cast-enabled devices will be compatible, but other devices like Apple TV, Roku, the PS4 and Xbox One will be excluded for starters. However, YouTube did indicate that it would work with other companies to get YouTube TV on other platforms in the future.

As for when this will get to consumers, YouTube isn’t saying just yet — it shouldn’t be too long, though. The company says YouTube TV will be available for customers in the next few months.

Update, 4:30PM ET: YouTube executives answered a few questions for the press during its event. The company confirmed that the service will only work in the US and noted that while you get access to YouTube Red content, you don’t get the full ad-free YouTube experience. The company also confirmed that because of Verizon’s deal with the NFL, you won’t be able to watch NFL games on your phone. You’ll be able to on the desktop or a TV, but not on mobile.

Fortunately for those of us who hate ads, you can fast forward or rewind DVR content, so you can skip right over commercials.

Source: YouTube

Wink’s connected home tech uses Alexa to lock your doors

You can already use Alexa to control Wink-compatible connected lights, switches and thermostats, but now the IoT company is letting you use the virtual assistant to lock your doors. Wink announced today that you can employ those handy voice commands to make sure your doors are locked. The company says that smart locks from the likes of Schlage, Kwikset, and Yale that are compatible with its tech are privy to the update.

To get started, add your smart locks to the Wink app. Once you set unique names for each one (if you have multiple), you’ll need to enable the Wink skill inside the Alexa app. After linking that Wink account and saying “Alexa, discover new devices,” you should be good to go in less than a minute. You can then ask Amazon’s virtual assistant to actually lock the door or to check and see if you forgot to do so. Now you don’t have to leave your seat when your dinner guests leave.

Update: This post originally stated that the new capability could lock or unlock your smart door assemblies. That was incorrect, the system can only lock them and confirm that the deadbolts are engaged.

Amazon wants Alexa to answer customer service calls

In the near future, Amazon’s Alexa could be on the other end of your next call to tech support. With call centers expected to become a more than $15 billion industry in the next five years, the online retail giant has apparently identified another market that is ready for a shift in technology. According to a new report from The Information, Amazon is currently prepping a commercial version of Alexa developed specifically for fielding questions from phone calls and text messages.

Amazon Web Services has reportedly codenamed the new software package “Lily” and it is expected to be formally announced around the middle of March. Baked into Lily’s suite of products are Lex and Polly — two AWS developer services that use the same natural language processing as Alexa to power third-party apps as well as voice and text chatbots. The software is designed to be completely self-service from a caller’s perspective, although companies will still need to hire (or outsource) service representatives for matters that need a human touch. The service also integrates with Salesforce and promises a real-time access to a customer’s call history, so frustrated callers should be able to skip the endless phone menus when they dial that customer service line the second or third time.

On the other hand, it’s been a rough day for AWS, so Amazon may have a hard time getting companies with time-sensitive customer service needs to put their trust in a cloud-based solution.

Source: The Information

Expect four new expansions for ‘Battlefield 1’ this year

If you’re a Battlefield 1 fan, get ready to open your wallet and jump into even more WWI-inspired battles. Gaming heavyweights EA and DICE just revealed four new expansion packs for its popular first-person shooter. All four expansions are included in this brand-new annual Premium Pass, which is available for XBox One, PS4 and PC via EA’s Origin service. Each expansion will be available for purchase separately with the first entry, “They Shall Not Pass,” available to premium members on March 14 and March 28 for non-premium players.

This first expansion has you joining the fight as a French soldier to battle across four new maps including Verdun Heights, Fort De Vaux, Soissons and Rupture. There’s a new game mode, too, called Frontlines, which has two teams fighting for control points in what EA calls “a tug-of-war frontline.” The pack also includes two new tank units, an elite trench raider soldier class and a new stationary weapon, the Siege Howitzer.

The three other expansions, titled “In the Name of the Tsar,” “Turning Tides” and “Apocalypse” feature Russian battles, amphibious warfare, and the most infamous battles of the Great War, respectively.

The $49 Premium Pass will give you all current and future expansions, 14 superior Battlepacks (in-game loot), two-week early access to expansions as they release and 16 new multiplayer maps. In addition, you’ll be able to play with new elite classes, armies, 20 new weapons and extra game modes.

You’ll need the original game to take advantage of the Premium Pass. The Battlefield 1 standard edition currently retails for $30 with various bundles available for more.

Via: VentureBeat

Source: EA