The future of toys has battling ‘bots, smart telescopes, and Bluetooth Frisbees

The Space Shuttle, the actual Shuttle created by NASA, was the bar for how high-tech things could get when I was a kid.  Today, the toys my kids play have computing power that dwarfs the Space Shuttle of my youth! That’s not a typo. Nowhere is this trend more evident than the annual TTPM spring showcase. TTPM stands for “Time to Play Magazine” or its newer, fresher, online meaning “Toys, Tots, Pets & More.”

The event showcases the top toys that the kids in your life will soon be begging you for. STEM-focused toys (Science Technology Engineering Math) are a win-win for parents who hope they can trick — I mean, encourage — their children to learn while playing. Little Bits, which has traditionally focused on teaching kids about electricity, circuitry, and robotics, now has a $100 Arduino Coding Kit. It comes with eight bits, six accessories, and an invention guide book. Kids create things they then can code to do other things, like a guitar that actually plays notes via a electronic slider. There’s even an online community where users share their ideas, meaning this toy has virtually endless playability.

Adam Balkin/Digital Trends

Ozobots, which start at just over $50, also teach coding through apps and even markers and paper. You code commands for your Ozobot to follow, which can mean simply moving around, or doing battle with other Ozobots. Snap on a Marvel “head,” and the bots actually take on the personality traits of those characters, including a cast of familiar faces from Spiderman and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Telescopes that use some sort of digital component to help you find the stars aren’t terribly new, but the $90 Galaxy Tracker Smart Telescope does it differently: It uses your phone. You stick it up top near the lens and launch the popular Star Walk 2 app, which guides you towards celestial objects you might be able to see, and even offers up information on what you’re looking at. Once you spot something, a custom mount lets you stick your phone onto the eyepiece to snap stills or record video of what the telescope is seeing.

As far as clever names go, Goliath’s “Disc Jock-e” is clever — some might argue more clever than the actual toy. It’s a Bluetooth disc (or Frisbee to most people) that you can chuck clear across the yard as your favorite band blares out of it. How does it sound? Well, exactly as you probably imagine it would sound to hurl a Bluetooth speaker across the yard: It gets louder as you’re catching, and hard to hear after throwing. It is waterproof though, so for $25, it might be worth giving it a shot at a pool. After all, that’s one of the last places you’d probably prefer to chuck around your higher end (more expensive) Bluetooth speaker.

Apple’s fabled iPad redesign may arrive at WWDC

Apple could have more than one hardware treat to unveil at WWDC this year. KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (who has a mostly solid track record for Apple predictions) now believes that Apple is likely to launch a long-rumored 10.5-inch iPad redesign when the developer conference kicks off on June 5th. Kuo understands that mass production is supposed to start in the late second quarter (aka June), so it only makes sense for the tablet to launch around the same time. As for what the device would entail, provided the report is accurate? To no one’s surprise, Kuo mostly focus on the display.

As hinted at in the past, the 10.5-inch iPad (possibly badged as an iPad Pro) would be the first example of the narrow-bezel design that would come to the iPhone this fall. You would get a noticeably larger screen in the same approximate surface area as Apple’s 9.7-inch tablets. There has also been some talk of this new model carrying a souped-up “A10X” processor (much as other iPads have used upgraded “X” chips), but it’s not certain that this would be the case. Other iPads might stick around, whatever happens. Kuo previously asserted that there would be refreshed 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch Pro models as well, so this would just represent a sort of middle child.

The WWDC launch is plausible, although there are definitely reasons to be skeptical. If it largely amounts to the familiar iPad with a bigger screen, it’d be a safe choice for WWDC — it’d make a splash and encourage developers to write apps that take advantage of practical upgrades, such as a higher resolution screen or faster processor. An iPad launch might also ensure that the next iPhone doesn’t share the spotlight with other major introductions.

At the same time, Apple might not want to spoil the next iPhone’s debut by launching an iPad with a similar narrow-bezel design just a few months earlier. And that’s assuming the 10.5-inch device shows up. We wouldn’t rule out Apple sticking to its existing tablet sizes. If both this and the rumored Siri speaker appear, though, WWDC could entail much more than the usual round of operating system updates.

Source: 9to5Mac

SpaceX settles with underpaid employees for $4 million

In 2016, a PayScale survey revealed that Tesla and SpaceX, both high-profile companies helmed by Elon Musk, are two of the lowest-paying employers in tech. A whopping 4,100 employees even filed a class-action lawsuit against Musk’s space corporation for not giving them legally mandated breaks. Today, the company and the plaintiffs have finally agreed to settle that lawsuit for $4 million. According to Inverse, since $1.3 million will go to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, most of them will only get $500 each, with the highest payout being $2,000.

Those amounts definitely look tiny when you take the company’s $12+ billion valuation into account, so at least one plaintiff tried to block the deal from happening. The class-action lawsuit began as several individual ones filed from way back in 2014. See, workers in California are entitled to a rest period every four hours in addition to a lunch break. However, shifts within the company are reportedly structured so that the employees can’t take those breaks. The plaintiffs said they weren’t compensated for those extra hours either, prompting them to take the legal route.

Source: Inverse

Apple acquisition could help Siri make sense of your data

If it wasn’t already clear that Apple is committed to improving AI, it is now. The tech giant has confirmed that it recently bought Lattice Data, a company that uses AI to make sense of unorganized “dark” data like images and text. It’s not discussing what it plans to do with its acquisition, but a TechCrunch source claims that Apple paid $200 million. It’s not a gigantic deal, then, but no small potatoes when only 20 engineers are making the leap. And if that same source is correct, it could be important for Siri — Lattice had reportedly been talking to tech firms about “enhancing their AI assistants.” But what does that mean, exactly?

AI assistants frequently depend on structured data to provide meaningful answers, such as the latest scores for your favorite team or your upcoming calendar events. It’s harder for them to parse the massive amounts of data you generate outside of those neat-and-tidy containers. Lattice could make that data usable, helping Siri handle more of your commands. Need to find some obscure piece of information? You might have a better chance of finding it.

That could be important in the long run, and not just for the usual voice commands on your iPhone or Mac. If you believe rumors, Apple may be close to unveiling a Siri-based speaker. While that device would be unlikely to benefit from any of Lattice’s know-how in the short term (certainly not at WWDC 2017), any eventual upgrades to Siri would improve its ability to compete against rivals like the Amazon Echo series or Google Home. Lattice may not sound like an exciting company on the surface, but its work could be crucial to Apple’s visions for the smart home and beyond.

Source: TechCrunch

Apple Acquires ‘Dark Data’ Machine Learning Company Lattice Data

Apple recently paid around $200 million to acquire Lattice Data, a firm that aims to turn unstructured “dark data” such as text and images into structured data that can then be handled with traditional data analysis tools. News of the acquisition comes from TechCrunch, and Apple has essentially confirmed the acquisition by issuing its standard statement on the topic.

Lattice uses machine learning techniques to take mass amounts of initially unusable data and turn it into properly labeled and categorized data that can be used for AI, medical research, and more.

It’s unclear who Lattice has been working with, or how Apple would intend to use the technology. Our guess is that there is an AI play here: Our source said that Lattice had been “talking to other tech companies about enhancing their AI assistants,” including Amazon’s Alexa and Samsung’s Bixby, and had recently spent time in South Korea.

TechCrunch says the deal closed “a couple of weeks ago,” with roughly 20 Lattice engineers having joined Apple.

Tags: Apple acquisition, Lattice Data
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Open up in this weekend’s comments thread

Sit back, relax and chat about stuff because it’s the weekend!

It’s that time again. Time to talk about stuff, any kind of stuff, because it’s the weekend and talking about stuff while chilling on the deck or whatever you’re doing right now is the best time to do it.

We’re all getting ready to head to Google I/O in just a couple days, so this weekend isn’t as lazy as most. We’ll make up for it by eating too much and drinking too much because the company is paying for it over the next week. Talking about all the things Google tells us while eating a good meal you didn’t have to cook is the best way to digest everything. Speaking of I/O, Daniel, Flo, Andrew, Alex, and Jerry (with special guest Mr. Mobile) will be at Shoreline for the festivities, so if you are there you better come say hey! Flo is going to teach me how to Instagram, so the group selfie game is on. Next step: Snapchat spec thingies.

I’m also going to torture test that BlackBerry KEYone battery (I f’ing love this phone) by using the phone with an open hotspot, so if you see AC@IO in your Wi-Fi list while you’re there feel free to help me abuse some T-Mobile tethering.

So what else is going on? I know you guys do a lot of cool stuff. Let’s hear it!

How to use Samsung Health to build better habits

Samsung Health makes building better habits easier than ever.

The hardest part of making real changes to your lifestyle, comes when you realize you need to build better habits. Whether this involves ensuring that you get enough sleep every night, or cutting down on your daily caffeine intake, Samsung Health can help you in this endeavor.

Use the Tracker

The first big way that Samsung Health helps you out in building better habits is by delivering a Tracker that you can customize. There are 11 different options for your Tracker, from a daily step counter, all the way to your daily Blood Pressure.

You can enable any of these at any time, and the only default tracker that you cannot remove is the step counter. Some of the trackers will allow you to enter your information manually, while others will need a compatible accessory to take a reading.

How to add a Tracker

Open Samsung Health.
Tap Manage Items.

Tap the toggle next to the habit you want to track.

How to manually input information into a Tracker

Open Samsung Health.
Tap the Tracked activity that you want to input information into.

Tap the plus sign to add information.

How to input measure information into a Tracker

Open Samsung Health.
Tap Measure on the Tracked activity you want to measure information for.

Place your finger on the sensor to left of your camera on the back of the phone.

Wait while the sensor measures an activity.
Set a status for more information about the activity collected by the sensor.

Tap Save.

See your progress

After you’ve started to track your habits, the next step is seeing your progress towards better habits. To this end you have two different options. You can view your overall insights from the home page of Samsung Health, or view information specific to a tracked activity.

View your overall Insights

Open Samsung Health
Tap the green lightbulb icon in the upper right corner of your screen.

Tap Set Up Insights.

Type in a nickname and double check your information.

Tap Next.

Set goals that you want to track.

Tap Next.

View Trends on a Tracked Activity

Open Samsung Health.
Tap on the Tracked Activity you want to view Trends for.

Tap on Trends to view a graph of information of that activity.

Have you tried Samsung Health?

The first step is building better habits is having a good look at all of your information. Between tracking your information, and seeing Trends in how these habits change from day to day, it’s easier to see where you’re doing well along with where you still need to improve. Have you tried using Samsung Health to build better habits? Let us know about it in the comments below!

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