A sly Now TV update is culling sideloaded apps like Plex

Ever since the launch of the first Now TV box for just £10 in 2013, some buyers have been using the little streaming pucks in ways Sky hadn’t originally intended. Cut through the branding, and Now TV boxes are just Rokus in disguise, complete with a developer mode that lets users sideload apps not available in the sparse Now TV store. But no longer, as Sky has quietly begun issuing an update to Now TV boxes that disables developer mode and purges any apps that’ve been installed on them using the loophole.

Not many Roku apps can be found neatly packaged for sideloading, and you can only maintain one shoehorned app on the boxes at any one time. It’s no surprise, then, that a niche community has developed almost exclusively around filling that one slot with Plex. For starters, the official Plex Classic client is easily found online, and the powerful media centre software adds a plethora of otherwise absent functionality to the Now TV boxes.

As a post on the Now TV support forum explains: “The latest update has been designed to safeguard the device from piracy and illegal streaming of content; therefore it will disable the use of unofficial third party software or apps.”

I’ve pressed Sky to elaborate, including asking for examples of illegal activity in which developer mode was accomplice. At time of writing, I haven’t heard anything more than the above, illogical explanation. As far as I know, Plex is the only sensible use for the lone sideload slot, and I’ve kept a lazy eye on the community ever since I penned a guide on how to turn the first Now TV box into a Plex machine. The software is both popular and available in the Roku app store, and it’s probably worth mentioning at this point that Sky is a significant investor in Roku. It just doesn’t add up.

So, if the piracy line is a PR exercise, what’s the real motive behind killing developer mode and the adjoined community? Doing this, it would seem, needlessly alienates part of the Now TV customer base. I suspect — and this is just spitballing, mind — that Sky simply doesn’t want to encourage the Plex crowd to buy Now TV hardware any longer. The primary purpose of the boxes has always been to push Sky’s paid content, and I believe they are sold at a loss — the second-gen Now TV puck sells for just £15, yet it’s based on the Roku 3, which launched in the UK for £99.

It’s understandable that Sky would prefer buyers to have a genuine interest in purchasing complimentary content passes, not those in the market for a cheap-as-chips Plex machine. Sky has never advertised developer mode as a feature, and of course, the company is perfectly entitled to disable it, even if does come across as a tad anti-consumer given some people have bought Now TV boxes purely to take advantage of sideloading.

But business is business, not piracy.

Update: Apparently, you can stop Now TV boxes from automatically applying the update if you haven’t already received it. The trick is to get into the “Platform Secret Screen” using a button combination similar to the one that lets you enable developer mode in the first place. From the main homescreen, use the remote to punch in:

Home, Home, Home, Home, Home, Fast Forward, Play, Rewind, Play, Fast Forward

You should end up on the Platform Secret Screen. From there, head into the “System Operations Menu” and “Disable network pings.” Close out and everything on the Now TV box should continue to work as normal, it just won’t check for platform updates anymore.

Source: Now TV Help Forum

The US Navy wants gamers to stop the rise of the machines

In a bid to help solve its real-world problems, the U.S Navy has called upon the aid of the most dedicated corner of mankind — gamers. Launching its own week-long online game on March 27th, the Navy plans to crowd-source ideas in a bid to help them tackle the issue of singularity. While this sounds like the plot to a Terminator prequel, technology’s rapid advance has caused genuine concern among the office of Naval Research (ONR) over the rise of highly capable AI.

In the browser-based game, contributors will be able to post ideas and interact with other players as together they devise solutions to the futuristic problem. Ideas that manage to reach critical mass in the MMOWG (massively multiplayer online war game) have the potential of being adopted by The Navy and put into action.

Dr Eric Gulovsen, director of disruptive technology at the ONR said in a statement: “Technology has advanced to the point that we can see the Singularity on the horizon,” he explained. “What we can’t see, yet, is what lies over that horizon. That’s where we need help from players. This is a complex, open-ended problem, so we’re looking for people from all walks of life-Navy, non-Navy, technologist, non-technologist to help us design our Navy for a ‘post-Singularity’ world.”

This isn’t the first time the U.S Navy has used an online game to help them make decisions. Known internally as the Massive Multiplayer Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet (or MMOWGLI) the initiative was first launched in 2011. Previously the service has called upon participants to focus on issues such as how to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia and even tasked players with helping to reduce the Navy’s consumption of fossil fuels. Maybe by getting great minds together, they can avoid spending billions on ships that barely work.

If you’re interested in preventing the rise of Skynet you can enroll here.

Swatch is working on its own smartwatch operating system

WatchOS or Android Wear? Neither, says the head of Swatch, who revealed that his company is working on its own smartwatch OS. CEO Nick Hayek told Bloomberg that his business has developed a new platform for wearables in partnership with the Swiss Center for Electronics. The new software, it’s claimed, will do a better job of protecting your personal data and use significantly less battery life.

The report claims that the first Swatch smartwatch will launch towards the tail-end of 2018 as a Tissot-branded timepiece. That’s the limit of the news, but that announcement may, at least, explain the disappearance of the Tissot Smart-Touch. That was the company’s smart-ish watch that it promised to launch late last year, but you’ll struggle to find one available to buy — or a mention of it on the website.

Nick Hayek is famously obsessed with low-power devices, and has previously said that he’s aiming for a watch with a six month lifespan. That dovetails with Swatch’s announcement, earlier in the month, that it has created the “world’s smallest” Bluetooth chip with the “lowest energy consumption.” Of course, late 2018 is quite a way away, giving Tag Heuer, Apple and Fitbit an even longer headstart in the smartwatch races.

Not to mention that Swatch has had a second consecutive year of negative growth, with net sales dropping almost 11 percent in 2016. With commentators suggesting that the “smartwatch market” may already be played out, crowning Apple the obvious winner, Swatch’s innovations may be too little, too late.

Source: Bloomberg

LG lures G6 shoppers with a free Google Home

LG is giving away a $129 Google Home music-playing assistant to anyone who orders its flagship G6 device (arriving in stores on April 7th) from T-Mobile, AT&T and other carriers prior to the end of April. The handset will be one of the first non-Pixel handset to get Google Assistant, so the promotional push does make a certain amount of sense — buyers will be able to use the AI helper on either device.

Home, as you likely know by now, is Google’s Echo-like AI voice helper that uses Google Assistant instead of Amazon’s Alexa. Given that it just launched recently, it has limited capabilities compared to the rival device, but it does use Google’s massive and sophisticated search engine — for better or for worse. Up until now, you could only access Assistant via Home, Google’s Allo chat app and Pixel phones, but the search giant recently announced that it would roll out to other recent Android phones as well.

T-Mobile carriers will pay $26 down and $26 a month for two years for a total $650 price, while AT&T will let buyers have it via the Next phone trade-up program for $24 a month over 30 months. However, AT&T is also throwing in a second LG G6, assuming you add an additional line on your Next program, and giving buyers the option to pick up an LG Watch Sport for $50. (You might need a PhD to figure out which carrier has the better deal.)

T-Mobile will start selling the G6 when it arrives on April 7th, but AT&T is opening up pre-orders starting tomorrow (March 17th). Given past sales numbers on its last few flagships, supply shouldn’t really be a problem, but LG is no doubt hoping the G6 will change that. The offer expires on April 30th.

Source: T-Mobile, AT&T

Elektron’s Analog Heat upgrades your synth and drum machine

The proliferation of digital modeling of analog synths has lowered the barrier for cash-strapped would-be musicians hoping to become the next big synth group like S U R V I V E (the band responsible for the Stranger Things theme). Cheaper synths and drum machines are great, but because they don’t decay like analog instruments, they also lend themselves to everyone sounding the same. For anyone looking to add more warmth and variety to their sound, Elektron recently started shipping the Analog Heat sound processor.

If you are looking to enhance the sound or your gear either new or old, the $750 Heat comes equipped with eight analog distortion circuits (Clean Boost, Saturation, Enhancement, Mid Drive, Rough Crunch, Classic Distortion, Round Fuzz and High Gain) that can be tweaked to your liking. It also has a stereo EQ, multi-mode filter, LFO and assignable envelope. During my time using the device at SXSW, the plethora of features and adjustments resulted in sounds that sounded full and warm even with the gain turned all the way up.

Additionally, it lends itself to quick knob twists via the on-board controls and fine tuning of parameters with the Heat’s display. That tiny window into waveforms also serves as the navigation for the up to 128 presets that can be added to the device. That’s probably more than enough ready-to-go processors for even the most prolific artist.

The Heat supports 1/4″ stereo audio in and out and has two control ports for pedal manipulation of features like gain and LFO so your feet can get in on the action. Plus, it hooks up to your favorite music application as a VST/AU effect plugin, which is great for at-home musicians.

Whether you’re recording at home or performing in front of an audience, then, if you’re looking for a fuller sound and you have $750 burning a hole in your pocket, the Elektron Analog Heat is worth checking out.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from SXSW 2017.

Source: Elektron

Intel wants to be a tech ‘enabler’ for the fashion industry

The line between technology and fashion is blurring. Brands and designers are now using electronics to make cutting-edge wearables and experiences, while companies like Amazon are trying to break into a space that hasn’t until now been very welcoming of outsiders. Intel is another tech company that’s set its sights on the fashion world, with various smart garments and accessories, including dresses, glasses and bracelets. In an interview at SXSW, Intel Vice President of Wearables Sandra Lopez said her team’s mission is to be an enabler first and foremost, rather than trying to become a fashion brand unto itself.

Lopez pointed to last year’s New York Fashion Week, when Intel teamed up with 13 designers to livestream a runway show in virtual reality — a medium that’s being embraced by many fashion houses. Another example, she says, is Tag Heuer’s Connected Modular 45 smartwatch, which Intel helped build with Google and the Swiss watch maker. “Our strategy is focused on collaboration and empowering leaders in the fashion industry to push the boundaries of fashion with technology,” Lopez said. “We are constantly working to make our technology smaller, faster, more energy efficient and more capable than ever before to help our partners succeed.”

One of the challenges for brands is figuring out how to make the most out of technology, she says, especially in terms of the data their collecting through connected garments, other types of wearables and at their retail stores. “There is a real opportunity to help the fashion industry harness the power of data,” Lopez said. “How can you analyze what consumers are doing in store, online, and through every interaction you have in real time to maximize sales and open up new revenue streams?” That’s something designers like Rebecca Minkoff are already trying to do with in-store features like smart mirrors, self-checkout and RFID tags that let the brand know more about customers’ buying habits.

“Personalization and customization is only beginning to be tapped into,” Lopez says about the potential of both industries working together on wearable products. “Technology has the ability to transform industries and fashion is no different.”

Click here to catch up on the latest news from SXSW 2017.

Review: Jabra Elite Sport Wireless Biometric Earbuds Make Your Workouts Sound Better

Headphone jack controversies aside, Apple’s cord-free AirPods have contributed to a recent surge of interest in “truly wireless” earphones, with several companies vying for a piece of the market.

Denmark-based audio outfit Jabra has embraced the freedom-of-movement appeal of wireless buds more than most with its Elite Sport headphones ($250), which it calls “the most technically advanced true wireless sports earbuds” around. Boasting a number of features such as in-ear coaching and heart-rate tracking, they’re an intriguing prospect for fitness-focused headphone users frustrated by flailing cords.

While Jabra claims the Elite Sport buds improve your workouts while providing great sound, $250 is a lot to pay for a wireless headset. We checked out a pair to see if they deliver on their promises.

Design and Features

Opening the Elite Sport box presents you with a number of accessories for use with the buds, which come with an on-the-go charging case. Three sets of EarGels and three pairs of FoamTips are included, plus two sets of EarWings to secure each bud more firmly in your ear. There’s also a micro-USB to USB-A cable for connecting up the charging case to a power source when its internal battery is drained.

A quick start guide is included in the box, while the accompanying Jabra Sport Life iOS app is a free download on the App Store. The earbuds have a stated battery life of up to three hours, while the charging case provides an extra two full charges, hence the “up to nine hours charge” claim on the packaging.

While the earbuds look bulkier than most, Jabra deserves credit for packing a lot of tech into them, including a heart-rate monitor and a tri-axis accelerometer to track motion. Each earpiece also contains two integrated microphones: The first listens out for your voice, while the other is sensitive to external noise. With audio pass through, the two are overlaid to make voice calls clearer.

Size of Jabra Elite Sport buds compared to AirPods
Like Bragi’s The Headphone, the Elite Sport earbuds have physical buttons so you don’t have to touch your phone during a workout. The +/- buttons on the left bud can be tapped to change volume or held to skip tracks, while the right bud has a Sports button that starts and stops recorded workout sessions and offers activity updates on demand. A power/playback button below it can also be used to take/end calls or activate the HearThrough mode, which mutes playback and lets in sound from the outside world.

The earbuds are listed as having IP67 water resistance, so they’re not covered for swimming purposes, but sweat and rain aren’t going to cause issues. If you lose an earbud, Jabra offers individual replacements on its online store for $79. For comparison, replacement Apple AirPods cost $69 each.

Jabra says the buds have a “flexible wearing style”. This refers to the fact that you can wear one or both earbuds to receive music, calls, audio guidance, and biometric tracking. They also provide stereo audio for calls and music, whereas most other “truly wireless” products only offer mono audio for calls.

The charging case for the Elite Sport earbuds is bulkier than the AirPods case, but it has a nice solid heft and the rounded edges make it feel pebble-smooth.

Dropping the buds into the charging cradle automatically charges them, while a couple of LEDs light up on the case edge to indicate the charge level of each bud, glowing red during charging and blue when fully charged. Leaving them in for 15 minutes gets your buds around an hour of juice. The AirPods case, which holds up to 24 hours of battery, delivers three hours of battery life to the AirPods for the same 15-minute charge.

Performance

It took a while for me to find my preferred combination from the bevy of tips and wings provided with the Elite Sports, but after some mixing and matching I found the foam tips to be most comfortable. They were also better for boosting bass and blocking out noise – suitable for the gym, perhaps – although I preferred the silicone tips when out on runs because they allowed me to hear more road traffic.

Inserting the buds into your ear involves rotating each one to fit snug inside your ear canal, and then tucking the ridge of the EarWing into the ridge of your ear. It’s easier than it sounds, and after a couple of attempts inserting them, the action became second nature. I also ended up taking off the Earwings after a few test sessions without any appreciable difference in the fit, making insertion even quicker.

As mentioned, the Elite Sports are a bit bulkier than your average bud, but the black color scheme makes them fairly inconspicuous and they don’t stick out of your ears anything like the AirPods do. They’re deceptively light, too.

Using the Elite Sports for the first time involves holding down the multifunction Sport button on the right bud and the volume down button on the left, after which a voice guides you through a pretty straightforward Bluetooth pairing process that involves firing up the Jabra Sport Life mobile app and performing a calibration test.

Once that’s done, the in-ear heart rate monitor and TrackFit motion sensor feed biometric data to the app, which provides the ability to plan, monitor, and analyze your workouts in real-time with in-ear guidance.

After filling in a user profile, you select the type of activity you’d like to try: Cycling, running, and walking make up the most used outdoor workouts, with additional options like skating, spinning and hiking included in the activities list. Alternatively, you can choose “Just Track Me” if your activity isn’t defined. The ability to track an interval training session sounded impressive at first glance, but I was disappointed to find there aren’t any pre-loaded interval workouts to get you up and running – you have to set them up manually.

The situation is markedly different when it comes to cross-training activities, which get a separate section in the app that includes a number of pre-defined Jabra circuits with names like “CardioCore” and “BellyBurn”. Over 55 different exercises are listed, with clearly laid-out sets and resting periods, and video demonstrations provided for each exercise.

I found the available selection of mostly bodyweight circuits just right, with equivalent beginner, intermediate, and advanced options catering to a mix of fitness abilities. Whatever the activity I chose, I could set activity goals for distance, duration, or calories burned, as well as a target pace, cadence, or heart-rate zone. A battery of fitness tests are also on offer, including VO2max and a Cooper endurance test.

Once you’ve racked up a few activity sessions, the app starts offering meaningful coaching recommendations based on your current fitness level, your training load over the past four weeks, and the training days in your chosen plan. The app also offers a Race Time Predictor and a Recovery Advisor. The former works by estimating the time it takes to complete your runs based on your current fitness level and your personal profile (age, weight, height, and so on), while the latter works by keeping track of your physiological state and automatically suggests a recovery schedule to optimize the balance between rest and training.

All of these features were more than welcome, and made my exercise routine feel less aimless and a lot more structured, giving me a clear view to improving on my fitness goals. I was particularly impressed by the way my repetitions were counted automatically during cross-training sets, thanks to the sensors in the earbuds. The voice readouts during workouts were also helpful and informative, telling me when to get moving or rest, and I was able to customize which metric data was piped into my ears as well as how frequently the updates occurred. A slew of data is on offer in real time, so the granular options here made a big difference and allowed me to avoid being bombarded with numbers and achievements while exercising.

The only blot on the analytics front was the accuracy of the in-ear heart-rate tracking, which seemed to fluctuate wildly at the top end when I really pushed my runs. I consistently recorded a 1-5bpm difference in average heart rate readings between the Elite Sport buds and my Wahoo Tickr HRM chest strap. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s enough to push you into another HR zone and skew the overall results. The issue didn’t crop up during cross-training though, oddly. Unless you’re a professional athlete I wouldn’t call the issue a deal breaker. Otherwise, the post-workout analytics were well presented in-app and offered nuanced, practicable performance insights to take into future training.

The earbuds communicate with each other using near-field magnetic induction, which worked flawlessly throughout my tests. There was no perceptible delay when listening to video on my iPhone either. The Bluetooth proved plenty strong enough, too, and kept a connection during all my workouts, including circuit training when I left my phone nearby in the same room instead of secured to my body in a waistband.

The dual mics on each earbud did a good job of picking up my voice during outdoor activity (according to Jabra, they dynamically switch between left and right buds to whichever picks up the least external noise) and I was able to say “answer” to take an incoming call on every occasion I tried it. I was also able to communicate with Siri by using the multifunction button, but just saying “Hey Siri” doesn’t work like it does with Apple’s AirPods, and in-ear button pressing isn’t always a comfortable experience.

With all these fitness-focused features headlining in the marketing material, the big question is whether they actually sound any good. I thought they delivered great audio for in-ear buds – definitely beating what Bragi has managed with The Headphone, which have a similar design but a lot less built-in tech.

The clarity and detail are impressive considering the physical limitations of the driver housing, and with the silicone tips attached the bass doesn’t feel so overblown. There’s surprising detail to be enjoyed in instrumental tracks and easy-listening numbers, and if you do want to listen to, say, hip hop or drum n’ bass, then you can switch to the gel tips for a boomier sound, which is arguably more suited to doing strenuous reps in a crowded gym.

Bottom Line

Overall, the Jabra Elite Sport earbuds live up to their billing as a fully fitness-focused wireless audio accessory. The advanced activity tracking features work well and with the amount of cross-training (if not interval running) categories on offer as well as the custom-training options, there’s a real incentive to take on new training challenges or improve upon your existing performance and analytic scores.

Despite the convenience of an on-the-go charging case, I do feel the Elite Sport buds are still lacking in the battery department. The three-hour capacity of the buds means they’re unlikely to get most runners through a marathon, whereas a pair of AirPods will. That makes the Elite Sport buds more suited to training rather than race day, and given Jabra’s general marketing message, most users will likely be fine with that caveat.

Pros

• Comfy and secure fit
• Surprisingly good sound
• Advanced tracking features
• Motivational workout app

Cons

• Occasionally erratic HR tracking
• Short battery life
• In-ear buttons won’t suit everyone

How to Buy

Jabra Elite Sport cost $250 and can be ordered from the company’s website.

Note: Jabra supplied the Elite Sport earbuds to MacRumors for the purposes of this review. No other compensation was received.

Tag: Jabra
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First Evidence of Fifth-Generation Apple TV and tvOS 11 Possibly Spotted in Developer Logs

Just one month after Bloomberg reported that Apple is testing a new Apple TV capable of streaming high-resolution 4K video, which it said is codenamed “J105” and could launch as soon as this year, the first evidence of the rumored fifth-generation streaming box may have surfaced in developer logs.

Firi Games, the developers behind arcade games Phoenix HD and Phoenix II, told us they have seen a single device identified as “AppleTV6,2” and running “tvOS 11.0” connect to Phoenix HD for Apple TV from the United States in its logs. The IP address falls within a range linked to Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino.

The current Apple TV has a model identifier of AppleTV5,3, and Apple TV6,2 does not correspond with any released model.

While the details could be faked, similar evidence of an iPhone 5s running iOS 7 showed up in January 2013, around nine months before the device was announced, and the timeline is appropriate if Apple is indeed testing a new Apple TV. The current Apple TV, the first to run tvOS, launched in October 2015.

No other details surrounding a fifth-generation Apple TV are known at this point. In December 2015, hit-or-miss Taiwanese website DigiTimes, citing supply chain sources, claimed the next-generation Apple TV would feature a new CPU with dramatically improved performance, but that report has yet to materialize.

Last quarter, Apple financial chief Luca Maestri said Apple TV sales declined compared to the year-ago quarter, when the fourth-generation model launched. The product still remains something of a hobby for Apple, which reportedly shelved its rumored streaming TV service and only has its “toe in the water” with original content.

Related Roundups: Apple TV, tvOS 10
Tag: Apple TV 5
Buyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Don’t Buy)
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Amazon iOS App Gains Alexa Voice Assistant to Track Orders, Shop, and More

Amazon today announced that it will introduce its Siri competitor, Amazon Alexa, directly into the company’s iOS app over the course of the next week (via VentureBeat). With the addition of Alexa, users will now be able to ask questions about the status of their orders, use their voice to initiate searches, play music, and start audio books from Audible.

Alexa’s powers go beyond Amazon’s shopping features — users will also be able to use the voice assistant to search current news stories, check the weather, and even control smart home products. This means that iOS users who don’t own any Amazon hardware can now gain access to Alexa’s growing list of skills, which let users easily link multiple services together for quick voice control interactions.

Some users will begin seeing the Alexa update in Amazon’s iOS app [Direct Link] starting today, but the rollout is expected to reach everyone on iOS by next week.

Tags: Amazon, Alexa
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Apple Seeds Seventh Beta of iOS 10.3 to Developers and Public Beta Testers

Apple today seeded the seventh beta of an upcoming iOS 10.3 update to developers, just three days after seeding the sixth beta of iOS 10.3 and three months after the release of iOS 10.2, the last major update to the iOS 10 operating system.

Registered developers can download the seventh iOS 10.3 beta from the Apple Developer Center or over-the-air with the proper configuration profile installed.

iOS 10.3 is a major update, introducing significant new features and changes to the iOS 10 operating system. The biggest consumer-facing feature in iOS 10.3 is “Find My AirPods,” which is designed to help AirPods owners locate a lost earphone. Find My AirPods records the last known location of when an AirPod was connected to an iOS device via Bluetooth and can play a sound on a lost AirPod.

Apple’s latest update also introduces a new Apple File System (APFS), installed when an iOS device is updated to iOS 10.3. APFS is optimized for flash/SSD storage and includes features like strong encryption.

Apple plans to introduce some App Store changes in iOS 10.3, allowing developers to respond to customer reviews for the first time. iOS users are also able to label reviews in the App Store as “Helpful” or “Not Helpful,” which should help surface the most relevant review content.

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Apple also plans to limit the number of times developers can ask for a review, allow customers to leave app reviews without exiting an app, and provide a “master switch” that will let users turn off all app review request prompts.

Also new in iOS 10.3 is a redesigned app open/close animation, an Apple ID profile in Settings, a better breakdown of iCloud storage usage, warnings about outdated apps that won’t work with future versions of iOS, HomeKit support for programmable light switches, improvements to SiriKit (bill paying, bill status, and scheduling future rides), CarPlay interface improvements, iCloud analytics options, and more.

For the last few betas, there have been no additional features discovered as Apple focuses instead on bug fixes and refinements ahead of a public release. We are likely nearing the end of the beta testing period, with a release expected in the near future.

Update: The seventh beta is also available for members of Apple’s public beta testing program.

Related Roundup: iOS 10
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