UK government pulls YouTube ads over hate speech concerns

The UK government has pulled adverts from YouTube after a report from The Times found they were running alongside extremist content. Ads for campaigns such as promoting blood donation and Army recruitment have been restricted after the apparent failings of Google’s ad platform, which is supposed to work within guidelines set by the advertising party. Other UK brands, including Channel 4 and The Guardian, have also pressed the pause button on advertising with Google after learning their names were appearing alongside content from the likes of hate preachers and rape apologists.

“Google is responsible for ensuring the high standards applied to government advertising are adhered to and that adverts do not appear alongside inappropriate content. We have placed a temporary restriction on our YouTube advertising pending reassurances from Google that government messages can be delivered in a safe and appropriate way,” reads a government statement.

“Google has been summoned for discussions at the Cabinet Office to explain how it will deliver the high quality of service government demands on behalf of the taxpayer.”

While it’s unlikely Google will escape further discussions with the government, the company has accepted some responsibility: “We have strict guidelines that define where Google ads should appear, and in the vast majority of cases, our policies work as intended, protecting users and advertisers from harmful or inappropriate content. We accept that we don’t always get it right, and that sometimes, ads appear where they should not. We’re committed to doing better, and will make changes to our policies and brand controls for advertisers.”

The timing is far from ideal for Google, as many of the internet’s biggest companies are coming under fire for failing to appropriately deal with hate speech and fake news. Just a few days ago, UK politicians grilled execs from Google, Twitter and Facebook over accountability, accusing the companies of reacting sluggishly to offensive material on their platforms. YouTube is particularly problematic, as there is the potential for creators to earn advertising revenue from objectionable content.

Earlier this week, Germany also hit out at Facebook and Twitter for weak platform policing, and late last year the European Union threatened to introduce legislation if tech companies didn’t improve removal practices. The companies themselves argue that accusations are often on the strong side, claiming they are doing what they can but the sheer volume of content on their platforms makes monitoring and takedowns an extremely complex problem.

Via: BBC

Source: The Times (paywalled)

The Engadget Podcast Ep 32: North and South of the River

Senior editors Devindra Hardawar and Nathan Ingraham were among the Engadget team in Austin for SXSW 2017 this week. They sit down to talk about what they’ve seen, from movies to VR experiences to former Vice President Joe Biden. They also discuss how covering SXSW differs from the other big events Engadget typically covers and decide whether or not the show is losing its cool. Also, BBQ. Lots and lots of BBQ.

Relevant links:

• What it’s like playing ‘Rez Infinite’ strapped into a synesthesia suit
• Sony’s Motion Sonic wristband makes sound with a wave of your arm
• Joe Biden implores SXSW crowd to use its talents to fight cancer
• A closer look at the Meta 2 AR headset
• Frank Oz on Muppets, puppets and CG Yoda
• All of Engadget’s SXSW 2017 coverage can be found here

You can check out every episode on The Engadget Podcast page in audio, video and text form for the hearing impaired.

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The Shins made a collage app for band flyers

It’s been thirteen years since Garden State propelled The Shins to mainstream success. In that time, the band’s lineup has changed entirely, save for James Mercer, its founder and ever-present frontman. Now, Mercer is hoping to use his band’s profile to propel another venture into the mainstream. At SXSW 2017, Mercer was in town to promote both his band’s new album, Heartworms, and “Pasted,” a collage application for iPhone and Android.

At a random house in East Austin, Mercer played a short set of Shins songs new and old, and also gave demos of his new app. In an interview with Engadget, he explained why he believes Pasted is a necessary addition to your phone. He’d been searching for an app that could create collages; something that could recreate the “hand-made” look of the flyers he’d created when The Shins first formed in the ’90s. “There are a lot of really amazing AI-based apps,” he said. “Prisma is fantastic, but the problem is that, if you’re somebody that has an artistic bent, you want to be able to hack it and find your thing.”

And so, he, together with ex Love is Laughter drummer (and current coder) Zeke Howard, resolved to create Pasted. It’s a simple app to use — you select photos, and then it combines them together. You can then redefine the masking for each image, enlarge, rotate and position the individual elements, and apply various treatments. You can also add stickers and other pre-made elements to your images.

Using the app, Mercer was able to put together a simple image with his and the Engadget video team’s faces in a matter of minutes. The more time you spend on a collage, obviously, the better results you’ll get. The cover art for The Shins’ latest two singles (like “Mildenhall,” above) was created using the app, and it looks far more professional than the quick image of Engadget faces.

Pasted will launch in April on iOS and Android. Over time, Mercer hopes to collaborate with artists to offer “Paste Packs” that may be charged for, but for now the app and all of its content will be free. “My big picture goal is to be driving around and see a flyer that some band has used our app to make,” said Mercer. “I think we’re just trying to fill a niche, just another little tool where you can express yourself artistically, efficiently, and share it.”

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

Google ‘Motion Stills’ Update Lets Users Customize Default Frame of Live Photos

Last year Google launched an app called Motion Stills that fixed a lot of issues that users had — and still have — with Apple’s new Live Photos feature introduced in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. With the new update, Motion Stills now lets users customize the displayed frame that appears automatically in the camera roll of the iOS Photos app.

The intent is to display more clearly what the Live Photo image is composed of, particularly when the frame displaying the content is taken from a blurry or unclear segment of the Live Photo. Now, users can cycle through any frame from a Live Photo in Motion Stills, choose a new image, and export it back out to the iOS Photos app with the new frame. This exporting process keeps the Live Photo in Apple’s custom 3D touch looping format and not the GIF format of Motion Stills.

As The Verge pointed out, there is a catch in the basic function of Live Photos that could result in a customized frame appearing lower-resolution in the Photos app.

There is a catch. For space reasons, Live Photos only save the primary frame in full 12-megapixel clarity, with the other frames handled as lower-resolution video; choosing one of these frames will therefore result in a photo with less detail than the original. But since the vast majority of Live Photo viewing probably happens on phones, this may not be a major issue for you.

Other than the new frame feature, Motion Stills as a whole lets users turn Live Photos into easily shareable GIFs. The app also uses Google’s video stabilization technology to smooth out jittery images and freeze backgrounds, giving an overall improvement on Apple’s basic Live Photos. Motion Stills can be downloaded for free from the iOS App Store. [Direct Link]

Tags: Google, Live Photos
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Maker of a $14,000 super-secure phone gets cold feet after low sales force cuts

Why it matters to you

Even with plenty of investment and an untapped market niche, it’s hard to make an impact in today’s crowded smartphone world

Proving that making an impact in the smartphone world is really difficult today, even with plenty of investment and an apparently underserved niche audience, Sirin Labs — makers of the massively expensive Solarin phone — has decided to investigate other projects, and made 30 of its staff redundant.

The Solarin phone was launched almost a year ago, at an event attended by celebrities including (briefly, and almost incognito), Tom Hardy and Leonardo DiCaprio, and was marketed as a super secure, unhackable smartphone for the super rich. It costs upwards of $14,000. Naturally, it wasn’t a phone for everyone, and fewer than 750 devices have been sold since, a figure based on numbers quoted to Techcrunch.

More: Vertu sold to exiled businessman for $60 million

While the Solarin was technically impressive, there were many question marks over just how secure the device really was, its ultimate usefulness when used to communicate with other devices, and how much the extra services would end up costing. The phone was sold through Sirin Labs own boutique store in London, in the Harrods department store, and online.

Having failed to make the impact needed to sustain the smartphone business, a local report from Israeli newspaper Calcalist said Sirin Labs was making 30 members of its staff — a third of its total workforce — redundant, and considering shifting away from phones, and towards computing devices. The Solarin is apparently still being made, can still be purchased, and will continue to be supported by Sirin Labs. However, the company is, “pursuing new directions to a new product line,” and is restructuring staff according to a spokesman in a statement.

Sirin Labs had $72 million in seed funding investment, and its CEO and founder is Moshe Hogeg, known not only for Sirin Labs but also for photo app Mobli and the impossibly-simple, bizarrely-popular-at-the-time Yo app. He is also working on the InfinityAR project, which has gained $18 million in funding for its headset. The exact future for Sirin Labs, and the Solarin phone, is unknown.

Microsoft’s latest build of Windows 10 for Insiders fixes some remaining issues

Why it matters to you

This new build of Windows 10 indicates that Microsoft is wrapping up development of Creators Update.

The latest build of Windows 10 is out for Fast Ring participants in the Windows Insider club, bringing the platform up to Build 15060 on the PC, Windows Insider lead Dona Sarkar said Thursday evening — a bit of polish on an OS update that’s almost ready to roll out the door.

On the features front, there’s nothing new with Build 15060, but that’s to be expected given Microsoft is wrapping up development of Creators Update (Redstone 2). That said, the team is polishing the platform for a general release to all Windows 10 users in April. That includes stomping out troubling issues and making slight improvements prior to Creators Update going gold later this month.

More: RIP Windows Vista: Microsoft is ending support on April 11

The new build fixes seven issues, one of which actually resolved another issue in the process. According to the release notes, the team resolved a problem with the Settings icon on the taskbar that also fixed another visual problem causing the Settings tile on the Start Menu to become grayed out.

Here are the other resolved issues:

Input Method Editors:
Third-party IMEs wouldn’t show up in Settings after installation.
Microsoft Edge:
The MS Pinyin IME would become stuck and a website unresponsive while quickly typing and deleting characters in the website’s search field.
Microsoft Edge:
The browser would fail to launch again after a crash due to previous, suspended instances in the background.
Microsoft Edge:
Problems occurred when exploring pages using the F12 Developer Tools with cross-origin iframes.
Surface Pro 3 / Surface 3:
If the latest drivers and firmware are installed, these devices couldn’t update to a new build with an inserted SD card.
Taskhost:
This executable would crash after pressing Tab while quickly typing in sign-in fields within Universal Windows Platform apps.

As for outstanding issues, there are still six the team needs to address. For instance, there’s a problem with restarting the PC due to a pending update, as the restart reminder dialog doesn’t appear. Until the bug is squashed, Insiders are encouraged to go into Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update to see if they need to restart their PC.

The release notes also point to a gaming-specific problem that’s still outstanding. While broadcasting gameplay, Insiders could see the broadcast live review window flash green on the Game bar. This is only a visual problem on the broadcaster’s end, and only appears on “certain” hardware configurations. It doesn’t affect the quality of the broadcast itself.

Finally, Sarkar warns that if this build fails to install after rebooting the PC, manually reboot the PC again (error 8024a112). If the PC appears to hang after the manual reboot, turn the PC completely off, wait a moment for the RAM to clear, and turn it back on. The install process should move forward after that.

Sarkar had initially noted that builds for Brazil (PT-BR) and Polish (PL-PL) were still forthcoming, pointing out that users would see a message stating that “we will keep trying or you can try again now.” Later Thursday evening those builds were released as well.

Happy testing, Insiders!

Blurry bokeh shots are only for selfie fans to enjoy on the Huawei P10 Lite

Why it matters to you

Slightly stripped back Huawei P10 Lite still provides camera fun for selfie fans, at a lower price than the full P10

We’re really taken by the new Huawei P10, but if it’s slightly more than you want to pay for a new smartphone, Huawei wants to tempt you with its P10 Lite. Rumored ahead of the P10’s launch, the Lite version has now been made official, and while it does include several of the great features that make the P10 so tempting, it’s far from the full package. Here’s what you need to know.

The P10 is defined by the dual rear camera co-developed by Leica, which is missing from the P10 Lite. Instead the rear camera has a single lens with 12-megapixels and a large 1.25 micron pixel size for better low-light performance. There will be no monochrome or blurred background photos with the P10 Lite, at least using the rear camera. The good news is the 8-megapixel selfie camera does have Huawei’s “portrait shot” technology, generating the blurred background effect when you take pictures using the front camera.

More: Our first impressions of the Huawei P10

Huawei has kept a very similar design to the P10 on the Lite. The fingerprint sensor is on the rear though, rather than the newly relocated front sensor on the P10, but the screen is still underneath a curved 2.5D piece of glass, and the body has a slim bezel around the 5.2-inch screen. The resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels, just like the P10. Also brought over from the P10 is Knuckle Sense, the unusual touchscreen technology that recognises knuckles and not just fingertips, to activate additional features such as app shortcuts or taking a screenshot.

It’s not the powerhouse Kirin 960 processor inside the P10 Lite, but the Kirin 658 along with 4GB of RAM, and a 3,000mAh battery with fast charging. We’ve sung the praises of Huawei’s new EMUI 5.0 user interface over Android 7.0 Nougat already — see the Mate 9 for evidence — and it’s EMUI 5.1 onboard the P10 Lite, which refines version 5.0 further.

At the moment, Huawei has announced the P10 Lite for release in the U.K. on March 31, where it’ll be sold through Carphone Warehouse, Vodafone, and EE for 300 British pounds, which is about $370. Pre-orders for the phone begin on March 17, in either black or gold colors, with others to follow in the future. A wider international launch hasn’t been confirmed yet.

Huawei P10 Lite is official — launching Mar. 31 for £299

Affordable version of Huawei’s latest flagship will arrive on EE, Vodafone and at Carphone Warehouse.

Huawei has today expanded its P10 series with a new mid-priced model, the P10 Lite. Pre-orders kick off today at Vodafone, EE and Carphone Warehouse ahead of the March 31 street date.

The P10 Lite sports a double-sided glass design built around a metal frame, with a 5.2-inch 1080p display and Huawei’s latest mid-range processor, the Kirin 658. (An octa-core chip that appears to be a higher-clocked version of the Kirin 655.) That’s backed up by 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and microSD expandability. That’s powered by a 3,000mAh internal battery with 9V/2A quick charging. Camera-wise, you’re looking at a 12-megapixel (1.25-micron pixel) rear camera, likely the main camera from the Mate 9 and other handsets, and an 8-megapixel selfie shooter.

All that’ll set you back £299 outright. A quick glance at on-contract price reveals monthly prices starting at £28, with no upfront cost.

See at EE

Gmail for desktop now lets you stream video attachments

You no longer have to download video attachments to view them.

If you’ve ever received a video attachment in Gmail, the only option was to download the file to view it. That’s changing today, as Google is now rolling out the option to stream video attachments from the Gmail desktop client.

The feature relies on the same infrastructure as that powering YouTube and Google Drive previews, allowing Google to deliver the video at “optimal quality and availability.” When you click on a video thumbnail, you’ll now see a YouTube-style player in the window, with options to adjust playback speed and audio levels. However, the feature doesn’t seem to work just yet, as I got the following error when I tried playing a video:

Gmail’s attachment limits apply to videos as well, which means that individual file sizes are still restricted to 25MB (50MB if you’re sending from another mail provider). That said, the ability to stream videos directly from the browser makes it more convenient to view video attachments. Google is gradually rolling out the feature, with all users expected to receive it within 15 days.

India’s leading mobile wallet Paytm heads to Canada to facilitate bill payments

Paytm lets Canadian customers make bill payments.

After crossing 200 million customers in India, the country’s leading mobile wallet Paytm is now making its way to Canada. The app allows customers to pay for utility, cable, and cell phone bills, with the platform supporting thousands of service providers. Customers will also receive a bill reminder option ten days before a bill is due, followed by periodic reminders as the due date draws near. The app promises “100% Service Assurance,” stating it will only debit money from your account after the bill is paid.

Interestingly, the app also lets customers pay for Indian utility bills as well as mobile bill payments with Canadian credit or debit cards, a move clearly designed with Indian expats in mind. The app’s description on the Play Store notes that bills for Canadian bills payments will be processed within 24 to 48 hours, whereas Indian mobile bill payments will be cleared within 2 to 3 hours.

The decision to launch in Canada was an easy one for the company seeing as how it has an office based out of Toronto. Paytm mentions that it will add more features to the Canadian version of the app in the coming months.