Facebook Tests Related Articles Fact-Checking Update in Ongoing Quest to Combat Fake News
Facebook product manager Sara Su today shared a blog post that highlights a test launching on the company’s iOS and Android apps, consisting of an update to the “Related Articles” feature found beneath posts shared by your friends and family.
For users included in the update, Related Articles will now highlight differing perspectives from separate publications on the same subject mentioned in the parent article, namely “including articles by third-party fact-checkers.”
This marks Facebook’s newest leg in its anti-“Fake News” quest, which it began earlier in April by educating its users on the subject with a “tips for spotting false news” gateway that sat atop the Facebook app for a few days. With today’s launch of the Related Articles test, Su mentioned that Facebook users will now have more tools at their disposal to see a “complete picture of a story or topic” before they even click on the original story.
One of our main goals is to support an informed community on Facebook. This includes helping people have conversations about the news and giving people more ways to see a more complete picture of a story or topic.
Today, we’re beginning to test Related Articles that might appear before you read an article shared in News Feed. These additional articles, which appear for topics many people are talking about on Facebook, will appear in a unit below the link. That should provide people easier access to additional perspectives and information, including articles by third-party fact-checkers.
The Related Articles test is “one of many tests” that Facebook is working on to improve the service’s reputation with rampant fake news sharing, an issue that has been on the rise since before the U.S. presidential election last year. When Facebook launched the educational tool for spotting false news, Google also debuted a “Fact Check” label in search results for all countries.
The problem reached such heights earlier this year that Apple CEO Tim Cook called it “one of today’s chief problems,” while Eddy Cue said that Apple itself is “trying to do some things in Apple News” that would address fake news directly.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
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Sony Xperia XZs review
Sony took the wraps off of two new high-end smartphones at this year’s MWC. While the Xperia XZ Premium deservedly garnered most of the attention, the company also unveiled the successor of the Xperia XZ, which was their 2016 flagship.
The new flagship, dubbed the Xperia XZs, features only mild upgrades when compared to its predecessor, but are these changes enough to make this device more noteworthy? Find out in our Sony Xperia XZs review!
See also:
Best Android phones
3 weeks ago
Design
As mentioned, there are only a couple of changes with the Xperia XZs when compared to its predecessor, but none as far as the design or build quality are concerned. Like the Xperia XZ before it, this device features what Sony calls a loop design, complete with sides that are rounded and taper towards the front and back, allowing for an in-hand feel that’s comfortable in the hand. The Xperia XZs’ loop design also features a flat top and bottom on which the phone can stand.
The XZs also comes with a metal plate on the back, plastic along the sides, and glass up front. The headphone jack and USB Type-C port are at the top and bottom respectively, and the power button, volume rocker, and a dedicated shutter camera shutter button are all found on the right side.
Sony, it may be time for a change
Sony has always been known to create impressively-designed smartphones, but it has to be mentioned that in a world where we are increasingly moving towards near bezel-less designs, the top and bottom chin on the Xperia XZs may be especially glaring to some. Granted, the design is reminiscent of previous Sony flagships going back a few years and isn’t bad by any means, but as some other OEMs have done, it may be time for a change.
Display
The Xperia XZs also retains the 5.2-inch IPS LCD display, with a Full HD resolution resulting in a pixel density of 424 ppi. As expected, the screen is sharp and vibrant, provides excellent viewing angles, color reproduction is good and doesn’t look too oversaturated, and the brightness is good enough for comfortable viewing outdoors. The 1080p resolution more than gets the job done here, and unless you are planning to use this device for VR, you aren’t going to miss Quad HD.
Performance
The first difference between the original Xperia XZ and the Xperia XZs comes in the performance section, but even this isn’t particularly significant. The Xperia XZs comes with the same processing package as its predecessor, including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor backed by the Adreno 530 GPU, but the RAM has been bumped up from 3 GB to 4 GB.
The Snapdragon 820 processor may not be the latest and greatest anymore, but is more than capable of handling even processor-intensive tasks. There have certainly been no issues with lag or dropped frames when opening apps, browsing the web, or playing games, and multi-tasking and having more apps running in the background has only improved with the availability of an additional gigabyte of RAM.
Hardware
32 GB and 64 GB are the built-in storage options available, but if that isn’t enough for you, expandable storage via microSD card is possible for up to an additional 256 GB. Depending on the market, a dual-SIM version of the device is also available.
A couple of signature flagship Sony features are retained with the Xperia XZs, the first of which is the dual front-facing speaker setup. While they do sound pretty good, they unfortunately don’t get as loud as what you’d expect from stereo speakers. The second feature is an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance, which means that the device will be safe even if submerged under a meter of water.
US buyers: no fingerprint sensor for you
There is a fingerprint scanner embedded into the power button of the phone, but this feature is once again not available for the US version of the device. Unfortunately, Sony has made it clear that this is something that isn’t going to change anytime soon.
One area where Sony could have, and should have, made an improvement is with regards to the battery. You get the same 2,900 mAh unit as is found with the Xperia XZ, and this means that you also get the same mediocre battery life.
Light usage that involves texting, reading emails, and browsing social media will get you a full day of use, but anything heavier like watching videos on YouTube or playing games for even a small amount of time will require you to reach for the charger at some point before your day ends.
It would have been great if Sony had followed in the footsteps of OnePlus and squeezed in a larger battery in the same space as the latter did with the OnePlus 3T, and it certainly feels like a missed opportunity.
Camera
Megapixels aren’t everything when it comes to image quality
What is easily the biggest change between the Xperia XZs and its predecessor comes in the camera department. This time around, you get a 19 MP Motion Eye camera on the rear, which may seem like a downgrade from the 23 MP unit found with the Xperia XZ, but as we all know, megapixels aren’t everything when it comes to image quality. In this case, there may be a reduction in megapixels, but the pixel size has been increased for better performance in low-light conditions.
I’ve been very impressed with the camera experience overall. The camera is quick to launch, focus, and take a shot, and the predictive hybrid autofocus system is a fantastic feature for capturing moving objects. Of course, the inclusion of a hardware shutter and quick launch button is just as handy and useful as it has always been. Photos offer plenty of sharpness and detail, great color reproduction that looks very natural and lifelike, and excellent dynamic range, with this camera very rarely underexposing or overexposing a shot.
It also performs surprisingly well in low-light conditions, and it is safe to say that this camera is one of the better low-light performers that you will currently find on a smartphone. There is still a fair amount of detail, noise is kept to a minimum, and it doesn’t have any issues with blowing out highlights or maintaining a proper white balance, as can be seen with a lot of other smartphone cameras out there.
This camera is one of the better low-light performers that you will currently find on a smartphone
The front-facing camera is also exceptionally good. A 13 MP front-facing shooter lets you capture plenty of detail and really nice looking colors, and the high megapixel count provides a lot more flexibility with zooming and cropping without a huge loss in quality. If you are into taking selfies, you are certainly going to have a great experience with this camera.
Sony Xperia XZs camera samples
As good as this camera is with photos, the big story here is actually what you can do in video, with the camera having the ability to record slow motion video at a ridiculous 960 frames per second. It can look incredible when you capture the right moment and it is a lot of fun to use, but it isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.
You can only record at 960 fps in short bursts, and it is capped at a 720p resolution. The biggest problem with it being 720p is that you are dealing with a huge crop factor, which deteriorates the quality and sometimes makes it hard to get exactly what you want into the frame unless you’re shooting outside or in an open area where you can take a few steps back. This frame rate also means that the shutter speed is extremely short, and as a result, doesn’t work very well in low light situations.
Software
On the software side of things, the Xperia XZs is running Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box, with the latest version of Sony’s UI on top. Sony’s user interface has always kept things light and simple, and that remains the case this time around, making for a very smooth software experience. It isn’t a stock experience though, with Sony features like a built-in theme engine, custom launcher, wallpapers, and Settings menu setting it apart.
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Unfortunately, Sony still continues to ship their phones with a slew of Sony apps and other third-party bloatware like Amazon Shopping and AVG. Other than that, the overall software package is pretty clean, and because the device is running Android Nougat, you are also able to take advantage of Google Assistant right out of the box.
Specifications
| Display | 5.2-inch Triluminos Display IPS LCD 1920 x 1080 resolution 424 ppi |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor |
| GPU | Adreno 530 |
| RAM | 4 GB |
| Storage | 32/64 GB |
| MicroSD | Yes, up to 256 GB |
| Camera | Rear: 19 MP sensor, f/2.0 aperture, EIS
Front: 13 MP sensor, f/2.0 aperture |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Bluetooth 4.2 GPS + GLONASS NFC USB Type-C (USB 3.1) |
| Battery | 2,900 mAh Non-removable |
| Software | Android 7.0 Nougat |
| Dimensions and weight | 146 x 72 x 8.1 mm 161 g |
Gallery
Pricing and final thoughts
So there you have it for this in-depth look at the Sony Xperia XZs! The Xperia XZs and the Xperia XZ that came before it are certainly not bad devices by any stretch of the imagination, but the $700 price point of the former is unfortunately going to be a deal breaker for some.
If you want a real upgrade from the Xperia XZ, you’re better off waiting for the XZ Premium
The Xperia XZs is definitely not worth an upgrade from its predecessor, and if you are in the market for a new phone, there are quite a few options out there that undercut the Xperia XZs by several hundred dollars, such as the Moto G5 Plus and the OnePlus 3T. If you want a real upgrade from the Xperia XZ, you are better off waiting for the more powerful Xperia XZ Premium, which will be more worth your money.
Best app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time
Everyone likes apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers make paid apps free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest apps on sale in the iOS App Store.
These apps normally cost money, and this sale lasts for a limited time only. If you go to the App Store and it says the app costs money, that means the deal has expired and you will be charged.
More: 200 Awesome iPhone Apps | The best Android apps for almost any occasion
Adrian James High Intensity Workout
Adrian James High Intensity Interval Training is the fat-burning workout that’s become an international hit. Download the chart-topping app and take your fitness to the next level.
Available on:
iOS
Easy Backup Pro
Your contacts are the most important data in your phone, but they can be lost in seconds. Easy Backup Pro keeps your contacts in a safe place.
Available on:
iOS
File Manager Pro
File Manager Pro is the best app to download, organize and view all your files on your iPhone. You can always have your documents right at your fingertips.
Available on:
iOS
Thermo-Hygrometer
Thermo-Hygrometer is a weather app that utilizes GPS location. It displays outside temperature, humidity, air pressure, and THI of current location.
Available on:
iOS
Protect Your SMS
Your private messages will never been seen again thanks to this app, which features a pattern lock screen to secure your text messages.
Available on:
iOS
Chinese Food Restaurant Menu
This is a perfect app for anyone learning Chinese. It contains 2,500+ frequently used Chinese restaurant menu terms, and audio files for each term recorded by native Chinese speakers.
Available on:
iOS
5G is closer than you think, and it’s going to change entire industries
Mobile 5G, which is short for “fifth generation,” is about as nascent and nebulous a term as they come. It’s a wireless standard, like 4G before it, but one without a formal definition. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the governing engineering body behind mobile specs, isn’t expected to finalize 5G’s specs until November 2017; chip makers are far from settling on 5G hardware; and telecoms are just beginning to experiment with the standard.
But that’s not stopping forward-thinking firms from forging ahead. Carriers including Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and others are testing 5G in cities around the country, and equipment vendors like Nokia, Qualcomm, and Intel are producing 5G prototypes that’ll eventually make their into smartphones, tablets, laptops, and more. Still, they’re not exactly in agreement about when 5G will arrive, and in even less agreement about what it’ll look like when it’s deployed.
To figure out what it’ll mean for the devices we use every day, we asked experts in the industry their take on 5G.
What is 5G?
5G is best understood in terms of its predecessors — 2G, 3G, and 4G. With the debut of 2G in the early ’90s, wireless phone technology expanded from a voice-based technology to one that supported text messaging. 3G carried data in addition to text messages and phone calls, and 4G LTE (Long-term Evolution) enhanced those capabilities with greater speeds and greater reliability.
5G brings about more improvements, but it’s also comprised of a suite of new technologies. Not every vendor agrees on what should be included in the final specifications, but the most popular contenders are small cells, millimeter waves, massive Multiple-input Multiple-output (MIMO), beamforming, and full duplex.
Small cells are miniature cell phone towers that can be placed in inconspicuous places like light poles and the roofs of buildings. They don’t require as much power as full-sized towers, and perform better when clustered together.
Small cells transmit data using millimeter waves, which get their name from their narrower-than average wavelength. They occupy frequencies in the 30 to 300 GHz range — high enough to avoid interference from surrounding signals, but too high to pass through physical barriers. In some cases, the leaves of trees are enough to interrupt a download.
Millimeter waves have limitations, but they’re a good fit for MIMO. MIMO is a wireless system that uses multiple radios to send and receive data simultaneously. The 4G LTE networks of today support a maximum of eight transmitters and four receivers, but 5G cell towers can theoretically support dozens.
More radios mean more interference, though, and that’s where beamforming comes in. At its most basic, beamforming uses algorithms to choreograph wireless signals’ movements and increase their strength by focusing them in a beam.
A 5G technology called full duplex helps boost the signal even further. Most current-gen cell towers and phones can’t transmit and receive data at the same time, but full duplex phones can route incoming and outgoing signals simultaneously, potentially doubling bandwidth.
5G in the real world
If preliminary tests are any indication, 5G will be fast. Really fast. The ITU’s latest draft specification calls for a minimum of 20Gbps downlink and 10Gbps uplink per mobile base station.
In wireless scenarios, that capacity will be split between all users on a cell tower. But carriers like AT&T still expect 5G to deliver impressive speed improvements. At the Brooklyn 5G Summit in New York, Dove Wolter, assistant vice president of radio technology and architecture at AT&T, said engineers had achieved speeds of up to 6 Gbps at AT&T’s 5G test site in Austin, Texas. That’s fast enough to download a 100GB 4K movie in two and a half minutes.
In many ways, it’ll seem more like Wi-Fi than a cellular technology.
The 5G draft spec also calls for extremely low latency (the amount of time it takes for data to be stored or retrieved). The ITU defines 5G as transfer with a minimum of 5ms (down from 4G LTE’s 20ms), a potential boon for video chat apps and multiplayer video games.
But 5G won’t provide nearly as much coverage as 4G LTE, or even 3G. In many ways, it’ll seem more like Wi-Fi than a cellular technology. Instead of beaming connectivity from tall cell towers, 5G transmitters will be positioned a closer to the ground. They won’t have the range of current-generation cellular, and they’ll be line-of-sight — if you step behind a barrier, canopy, or trimmed hedge, you’ll lose signal.
Because 5G’s high frequencies have correspondingly low wavelengths, they have difficulty penetrating solid objects like walls, windows, and even trees. The near-term result will be “pockets” of 5G deployed in heavily trafficked areas — think public parks, coffee shops, and airports.
“We’re talking densely populated urban centers in cities like New York and Chicago, Bassil El-Kadi, marketing director at Qualcomm, told Digital Trends. “You’ll see it first in spaces like convention centers and open-air parks.”
Jason Elliot, director of marketing and corporate affairs at Nokia, framed it in terms of city planning.
“[Operators] will have to be careful about how they plan,” he said. “If you look at a top-down map of Manhattan, you’ll see that the avenues generally have no trees, unlike the streets. If a carrier were to deploy 5G there, you’d probably get worse reception in the streets.”
5G hotspots will vary drastically in size, from a “sports stadium” to “entire neighborhoods.” Unsurprisingly, some areas perform better than others. “You’ll have faster and lower-latency ‘hotter spots’ within the hotspots.” Elliot said.
Those shortcomings will be enough to discourage carriers from doing away with 4G LTE anytime soon. “Most 5G devices will have 4G LTE radios. If a device moves out of a 5G coverage area, it’ll fall back to 4G,” El-Kadi said. “The LTE network will have to be there.”
For that reason, El-Kadi expects 4G LTE to advance alongside 5G. Sprint’s collaborating with Ericsson on gigabit 4G LTE connectivity, and T-Mobile said portions of its existing network reach gigabit speeds. “LTE networks will evolve,” El-Kadi said. “We expect to see 2Gbps speeds on 4G LTE in the next two to three years.”
Home broadband
You might be able to get 5G service to your house before your smartphone.
In February, Verizon announced that it would embark on customer trials of 5G technology in five U.S. cities — Ann Arbor, Mich., Atlanta, Ga., Bernardsville, N.J., Brockton, Mass., Dallas and Houston, Texas, Denver, Colo., Miami, Fla., Seattle, Wash., and Washington DC — later this year. In partnership with Samsung, Ericsson, Intel, and Qualcomm, it’ll install 5G Access Points in homes capable of delivering gigabit speeds to connected devices.
Verizon isn’t the only one. This year, AT&T will begin streaming DirecTV to residential customers — reportedly as part of a “quad play” bundle of television service, 5G home internet, wireless phone, and home phone.
That could be good news for consumer choice. According to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2015 Broadband Progress Report, 51 percent of Americans only have one option for 25Mbps or higher home Internet service.
The focus on home — or “fixed” — 5G service partially has to do with equipment footprint, El-Kadi said. Chip makers like Intel and Qualcomm, both of which unveiled “5G-ready” modems in early 2017, are making inroads, but they’ve got a long way to go.
“Fixed wireless is going to be easier to get done in a short timeframe,” El-Kadi said. “Battery life, processing, and other problems present a challenge.”
It won’t be cheap, and carriers are likely to pass at least some of the costs onto subscribers. Analysts at iGR project that building and deploying 5G networks will cost $48 billion in LTE network upgrades through 2019 and an additional $56 billion in new 5G build costs between 2017 and 2025. Cisco forecasts that increases in mobile data traffic will grow 57 percent by 2019, driving the cost of an average data plan from $51 to $119.
“Implementing 5G will be an expensive task,” Ian Gillot, president of iGR, said in the report. “Unlike previous wireless technologies, where costs were concentrated in the air interface, 5G will require significant investment in data centers [and] central offices […] The success of 5G will depend on the ability to support a wide range of low latency applications and services, as well as high bandwidth video content delivery.”
5G applications
5G’s speed and reduced latency has the potential to transform entire industries.
Cars
Connected cars are one growth driver. Futurists predict that the self-driving vehicles of the future will exchange cloud management info, sensor data, and multimedia content with one another over low-latency networks. According to ABI Research, 67 million automotive 5G vehicle subscriptions will be active, three million of which will be low latency connections mainly deployed in autonomous cars.
IoT
According to Asha Keddy, general manager of mobile standards for advance tech at Intel, 5G will be the first network designed with the Internet of Things (IoT) in mind.
“These next-generation networks and standards will need to solve a more complex challenge of combining communications and computing together,” Keddy told Quartz in an interview ahead of the 2017 Mobile World Congress. “With 5G, we’ll see computing capabilities getting fused with communications everywhere, so trillions of things like wearable devices don’t have to worry about computing power because network can do any processing needed.”
Keddy envisions smartwatches and tablets that use location- and context-aware sensors to share data with someone on your calendar, and save energy while delivering location-based services. Eventually, everything from wearables to internet-connected things such as washing machines, smart meters, traffic cameras, and even trees with tiny sensors could be connected.
“There will be an underlay network with computing and communications, so not everything needs to go through backhaul because lots of capabilities will be available close to where [they’re] needed,” he said. “Even wireless charging will be integrated to help keep devices running.”
Virtual reality and augmented reality
5G could bring about advances in virtual reality and streaming video. Sprint recently demonstrated streaming wireless VR at the Copa America soccer tournament, and Huawei showed a demo of 360-degree video streamed live from a 5G network.
Cloud-powered apps
Remote storage and web apps stand to benefit from 5G.
“The cloud becomes an infinite extension of your phone’s storage,” El-Kadi said. “You never have to worry about running out of photo space.”
Google’s instant apps, the cloud-powered web applications that launch instantly from a mobile web browser, stand to benefit, too. With faster network speeds, you don’t have to worry about slow loading times.
How long will we have to wait?
Most carriers are targeting 2020 for widespread launch, after the ITU finalizes 5G’s technical specifications in March 2018. But others are confident they can deploy it sooner.
AT&T plans to expand residential and small business trials in the second half of this year, ahead of a “standards-based” rollout as soon as 2018. According to El-Kadi, 5G-compatible devices will begin to emerge in earnest this year.
“We expect to see eight to ten devices globally,” he said. Qualcomm expects networks to follow, some as soon as mid-2019. “We’re pulling in the schedule,” El-Kadi said. “It’s coming sooner than you think.”
Zerotech Dobby drone set to get 4K big brother with longer flights this summer
Why it matters to you
Impressed by the size of the Zerotech Dobby but not the standard definition video? A 4K pocketable drone from the same company is launching this summer as the price of the Dobby drops by $50.
The company behind the Dobby pocket drone will be launching an advanced folding drone later this year, after dropping the price on its original small selfie drone. On Monday, April 24, Zerotech teased for a summer launch of the new Hesper Advanced Pocket Drone. Along with the folding drone, the company also launched the Drone Formation Dance Set for programming multiple drones to fly in formation.
The Hesper is a 4K drone camera with up to 18 minutes of flight time. Like the Dobby, the Hesper joins Zerotech’s “Pocket” drone family with folding wings. As a more advanced version, however, the Hesper offers a longer flight time along with that higher-resolution video.
At this point, Zerotech is just teasing with a few small details on the drone during the NAB Show in Las Vegas that runs from April 25 to April 27, with the drone — and the rest of the details — slated to land sometime this summer.
That portable drone lineup will also soon be able to create aerial displays with the company’s new Drone Formation Dance Set, which includes eight Dobbys and a control system to choreograph their flight patterns. The system starts with ten flight patterns, but the company says more will become available with a download through the mobile app.
Unlike other drone flight formation controllers, Zerospace’s option is designed for both indoor and outdoor aerial shots, thanks to an advanced computer vision positioning system. The platform also requires minimal space — you can fly four drones in formation in an area as small as about 8.5 feet (2.5 m) in diameter, and eight drones in twice that space. The system can also be used to add lighting effects during stage performances.
The drones and controllers all pack up into a suitcase for easier storage.
While the prices on the Dance Formation Set and Hesper drone are not yet available, the company also dropped the price of the Dobby drone while adding another battery to the package. The small drone now starts at $349, a $50 drop from when the drone was first launched.
AI drug discovery bot can screen one million new compounds each day
Why it matters to you
The lifesaving drugs of the future may very likely be designed by robots. With the ability to test one million new compounds per day, this AI system demonstrates why that’s a good idea.
Artificial intelligence is helping transform every aspect of our lives, and drug discovery is no exception.
AtomNet, a system created by San Francisco-based startup Atomwise, is designed to help with the goal of curing major diseases by predicting the bioactivity of small molecules using a deep learning neural network. The result? New drugs, invented by robots.
“AtomNet is an artificial intelligence system that we use to help design and discover new compounds for medical research,” Dr. Kong Nguyen, Atomwise’s senior scientist, told Digital Trends. “It works by analyzing the biological structures and processes involved with diseases like cancer, multiple sclerosis, and Ebola, and simulating how potential medicines will interact with them. Research labs at universities and pharmaceutical companies [can then] take AtomNet predictions, synthesize them in the real world, and test them to discover their medical value.”
A quick glance at any medical history textbook will reveal that humans haven’t done too badly when it comes to drug discovery. What makes AtomNet exciting, however, is its ability to not just learn from millions of example of past data about unsolved diseases, but to do this incredibly quickly.
How quickly?
“AtomNet performs its work extremely fast, screening about 1 million compounds each day,” Nguyen continued. “That speed, combined with its high accuracy, allows us to do new and interesting kinds of research. For example, the AIMS program for academics uses AtomNet to allow any academic researcher to consider 10 million compounds for their diseases. This would be extremely hard them to do by other means, potentially taking millions of dollars and many years of physical experimentation.”
AtomNet has already created promising drugs for battling multiple sclerosis and Ebola. One of these has been licensed to a pharmaceutical company in the U.K., while the Ebola drug is set to be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for further appraisal.
As Nguyen points out, though, it may still be a little while before we’re using drugs designed by bots.
“The discoveries Atomwise helps make will certainly take some time to find their way through clinical trials and eventually regulatory approval,” he said. “Today, the total process for a single new medicine takes approximately 15 years, on average.”
But the hope is that AI can also help speed this up. “We are optimistic that Atomwise can help shorten that considerably, helping to reverse the trend in recent decades towards longer timelines in the discovery and development of new treatments,” he noted.
We’ll keep our fingers crossed!
Apple hires former NASA augmented and virtual reality whiz Jeff Norris
Why it matters to you
Apple has lofty ambitions for augmented reality, and a high-profile hire like this one demonstrates just how seriously the company is taking its research.
Apple has reportedly hired virtual and augmented reality expert Jeff Norris to help shape its long-gestating implementation of the technology. Norris has been working with NASA since 1999, and for the past three years he has served as the lead for the organization’s Mission Operations Innovation Office.
Anonymous sources have confirmed that Norris joined Apple earlier in the year, and is working as a senior manager of the AR team, according to a report from Bloomberg. This group is prototyping a pair of glasses capable of displaying AR imagery, as well as software for the iPhone that can take advantage of these capabilities.
During his time at NASA, Norris contributed to various projects that centered around applying AR and VR technology to the space program. One such endeavor outfitted scientists on Earth with headsets that could receive live imagery from the surface of Mars.
Norris was also involved with a program that sent Microsoft’s HoloLens headsets to astronauts on the International Space Station. His familiarity with that hardware could prove to be critical, as Microsoft and Apple seem poised to do battle for control of the AR market over the coming years — provided the technology takes off as anticipated.
It’s no secret that AR is a major priority for Apple in the long term. The company sees the technology as having the potential to provide a major evolution of the iPhone’s current capabilities, so it seems that AR features could hit the smartphone first, in the hopes of convincing users that its AR glasses are a worthwhile investment once they’re ready for the marketplace.
However, it’s difficult to predict when Apple will unveil its implementation of AR to the public. Rumors persist that the tech could be ready by 2018, and the recent upswing in news about the project may lead credence to those reports.
Apple hires former NASA augmented and virtual reality whiz Jeff Norris
Why it matters to you
Apple has lofty ambitions for augmented reality, and a high-profile hire like this one demonstrates just how seriously the company is taking its research.
Apple has reportedly hired virtual and augmented reality expert Jeff Norris to help shape its long-gestating implementation of the technology. Norris has been working with NASA since 1999, and for the past three years he has served as the lead for the organization’s Mission Operations Innovation Office.
Anonymous sources have confirmed that Norris joined Apple earlier in the year, and is working as a senior manager of the AR team, according to a report from Bloomberg. This group is prototyping a pair of glasses capable of displaying AR imagery, as well as software for the iPhone that can take advantage of these capabilities.
During his time at NASA, Norris contributed to various projects that centered around applying AR and VR technology to the space program. One such endeavor outfitted scientists on Earth with headsets that could receive live imagery from the surface of Mars.
Norris was also involved with a program that sent Microsoft’s HoloLens headsets to astronauts on the International Space Station. His familiarity with that hardware could prove to be critical, as Microsoft and Apple seem poised to do battle for control of the AR market over the coming years — provided the technology takes off as anticipated.
It’s no secret that AR is a major priority for Apple in the long term. The company sees the technology as having the potential to provide a major evolution of the iPhone’s current capabilities, so it seems that AR features could hit the smartphone first, in the hopes of convincing users that its AR glasses are a worthwhile investment once they’re ready for the marketplace.
However, it’s difficult to predict when Apple will unveil its implementation of AR to the public. Rumors persist that the tech could be ready by 2018, and the recent upswing in news about the project may lead credence to those reports.
Close to the Metal Ep. 40: The Optane Difference
After a seriously long build-up, the first Intel Optane powered storage devices are making their way into consumers’ hands. Unfortunately, they aren’t exactly groundbreaking either. The first iteration is Intel Optane Memory, available in 16 or 32 gigabyte capacities, which act as a cache drive, accelerating even the slowest SATA HDDs into a new world of speed and low latency.
In order to take advantage, users will need a system with a Seventh Generation Intel Core processor and compatible motherboard, locking older systems, Intel Optane Memory’s most relevant demographic, completely out of the market. Users won’t be able to use the drives to upgrade their old systems, and with most modern units including an SSD of some sort, demand may not be very high.
Still, at just $44 for the 16GB version, and $77 for the 32GB version, there’s a chance Optane Memory could make a name for itself in mainstream, pre-built systems, where OEMs have turned back to HDDs to reduce costs and keep users happy with more space for files. We’ve been advising users again slower mechanical drives for quite some time now, so the chance of an alternative option is certainly appealing.
That’s a lot of “ifs” and “maybes” for a product that’s demanding so much attention right now, and our review goes in-depth with exactly the scenarios where Optane Memory shines, and where it proves dull. On this week’s episode of Close to the Metal, we’ll talk about whether users should be looking to take advantage on their next build, or whether they should hold out for something a little more advanced.
Close to the Metal is a podcast from Digital Trends that takes a deep dive into computing and PC gaming topics. Each show, we’ll focus in on one topic, and leave no stone unturned as we show off the latest in hardware and software. Whether it’s the latest GPU, supercomputers, or which 2-in-1 you should buy, we break down the complicated jargon and talk about how user experience is affected in the real world. Please subscribe, share, and send your questions to podcast@digitaltrends.com. We broadcast the show live on YouTube every Tuesday at 1pm EST/10am PST.
ZTE’s Blade Max 3 sports an HD screen, dual cameras, and a high-quality DAC
Why it matters to you
If you’re in the market for a budget phone that doesn’t compromise, the Blade Max 3 is a great option.
If you’re looking for a powerful smartphone that won’t break the bank, you could do worse than ZTE’s Blade series. The Shenzhen, China-based smartphone maker’s budget-minded smartphone line has incrementally improved with each new release, and the newest entry, the Blade Max 3, is no exception.
The Blade Max 3, a spiritual successor to last year’s Imperial Max, sticks to the curved, ergonomic design language of its predecessors. It sports a 6-inch Full HD screen (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) with 2.5D Gorilla Glass shielding, and a 2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor paired with 2GB of RAM under the hood. There’s 16GB of onboard storage (expandable via MicroSD slot), and a 4,000mAh battery that ZTE said should deliver up to 40 hours of talk time and 31 days on standby.
The Blade Max 3 doesn’t skimp in other areas. Dual rear cameras — a 13MP primary sensor and a 2MP companion camera that captures color data — can take pics in all lighting conditions, and a 5MP front camera handles selfies. And uniquely, the Blade Max 3 features a digital-to-audio (DAC) converter, which ZTE says will ensure a high-quality headphone experience.
In terms of sensors and ports, the Blade Max 3 is outfitted as well as any other smartphone in its price range. You’ll find a fingerprint sensor and USB Type-C port, plus a 3.5mm audio jack. Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, a light sensor, a proximity sensor, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and a compass round out the hardware.
Perhaps the Blade Max 3’s only downside is its software. Oddly, it runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow, a version behind Android 7.0 Nougat, the newest. Making matters worse, it’s unclear if it’s going to be updated anytime soon.
Nevertheless, the Blade Max 3 isn’t much of a compromise. It costs $200 in full for new and existing U.S. Cellular subscribers, or $12.50 a month for 24 months on an installment plan. That may not be as cheap as ZTE’s new Max XL ($130), but you’d be hard pressed to find a high-definition screen, large battery, and DAC for less.
ZTE is hoping U.S. Cellular customers agree. It’s angling to rank among the world’s top three smartphone makers by 2020, and it’s well on its way. Last year, the company joined the ranks of the top six global smartphone manufacturers, coming in fourth in North America with 3.5 percent of the country’s market share. And this year, ZTE is projecting it will rank first in 4G global shipments and increase its market share “in both wireless and wired markets.”
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