Apple HomeKit Support Coming for IKEA’s Trådfri Affordable Smart Lighting System

Swedish home store IKEA has announced that its recently announced Trådfri smart lighting system will soon be compatible with HomeKit, Apple’s smart home management platform.

The affordable range of home lighting products was originally announced in late March and includes LED bulbs, illuminated panels, a motion sensor kit, a gateway kit, and dimming lights, but no mention was made about whether the collection would be able to integrate with existing smart home solutions like HomeKit.

However, IKEA says HomeKit support is in the works, enabling users to control the devices using the Apple Home app on iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch, or voice using Siri.

We believe that smart home technology should be accessible to everyone. For this reason, we will continue to work with our products to be compatible with other products available on the market.

According to iphone-ticker.de, which first spotted the announcement, IKEA plans to retrofit the new functions in the summer, via a software update to the Trådfri Gateway and Trådfri app. In addition to HomeKit, the update will also make IKEA’s smart products controllable through Amazon Echo and Google Home.

Tags: HomeKit, Ikea
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Valve hired the team behind ‘Kerbal Space Program’

Worried that Valve’s recent departures mark an end to conventional game development at the Half-Life studio? You might have a glimmer of hope. Valve has confirmed that it hired the team at Squad, better known as the creators of the shipbuilding hit Kerbal Space Program. The company isn’t saying just how many people it hired, what they’re working on or what’s happening to KSP (“more details soon,” a spokesperson says), but former Valve designer Roger Lundeen had said in the Game Dev Unchained podcast that the “entire team” had made the leap.

The hire happened 4 to 6 months ago, Lundeen says.

There are a number of possibilities for the Squad team. It could signal a deeper commitment to game development, whether it’s for the VR titles already in the works or something else entirely (don’t get your hopes up for Half-Life 3, folks). Alternately, their gaming chops might be secondary. They could help create VR apps and experiences, for starters.

Whatever the reasons, the hires represent some bittersweet news. Squad is considered one of the darlings of Steam’s early access program, having built up enough buzz around unfinished versions of KSP that its official launch was really just a formality — it had fans who’d played for years. Valve’s move rewards a team that had poured its heart into one of the most ambitious indie games of recent memory, but it also casts doubt on the future of KSP or any other games that might have been in the pipeline. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next, even if it’s not what gamers were expecting.

Source: Eurogamer, SoundCloud

‘Gray Pubic’ is proof even AI can’t get paint names right

When the robots take over your job, remember this: you can try naming paints for a living. Research scientist and neural network enthusiast Janelle Shane experimented with the idea of using AI to name new paints. After all, we keep coming up with new shades, and professional paint naming doesn’t exactly sound lucrative. As Shane learned, though, it’s not easy training a neural network to conjure up names that are both creative and appropriate.

To teach the neural network how to create new shade-and-name combinations, the research scientist fed it 7,700 Sherwin-Williams paint colors along with their RGB values. Its first iteration created a bunch of dull, nearly identical shades — cranking up the creativity setting boosted the colors’ variety, but it paired them up with a bunch of gibberish, such as “Bylfgoam” and “Dondarf.”

The final iteration was much better and can recognize some colors, including white, red and grey. Like the neural network Shane trained to churn out pick-up lines, it’s still no Shakespeare, but it did come up with some amusing, slightly risqué names like “Gray Pubic,” “Bank Butt,” “Sindis Poop,” “Stanky Bean” and “Turdly.”

That said, even if you can think of something better than “Stoner Blue” and “Stoomy Brown,” you may still want to think of an alternative career for a world after the robot apocalypse. Shane admits that it could’ve been done better using different parameters, something another individual or a tech titan working on AI like IBM could do in the future.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: Postcards from the Frontier of Science

iPhone SE Tops Customer Satisfaction Survey Despite Shift Towards Larger Screens

Despite a shift towards smartphones with larger screens, the iPhone SE has topped all other smartphones in the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

Apple’s four-inch smartphone received a customer satisfaction score of 87 out of 100 to finish just ahead of Samsung’s 5.7-inch Galaxy S6 edge+ and the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus.

20 other smartphones, mostly including other iPhone and Galaxy models, received customer satisfaction scores of between 70 and 85, according to the ACSI results published today.

“Over the past few years, the general trend for smartphones has been toward larger screens,” says ACSI Managing Director David VanAmburg. “But apparently, consumers were craving a new iteration of a smaller, less expensive phone as the iPhone SE – Apple’s first update to a 4-inch phone since 2013 – comes in first in ACSI this year.”

ACSI said the results are based on interviews with 36,194 customers in the United States, chosen at random and contacted via email between May 2016 and April 2017. The survey data was inputted into ACSI’s so-called “cause-and-effect econometric model,” which in turn estimates customer satisfaction.

Apple introduced the iPhone SE in March 2016, acknowledging that some people simply love smaller phones, as evidenced by the 30 million 4-inch iPhones that it sold in 2015. The smartphone is essentially an iPhone 5s with newer tech specs, including a twice as fast A9 chip and a 12-megapixel rear camera.

Given its lower $399 starting price, the iPhone SE is also a popular smartphone in more price-sensitive markets such as India.

Apple has yet to release a second-generation iPhone SE, but it doubled the smartphone’s previous 16GB and 64GB storage capacities to 32GB and 128GB a few months ago, without raising prices. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple is unlikely to refresh the iPhone SE in the first half of 2017.

Related Roundup: iPhone SE
Tag: ACSI
Buyer’s Guide: iPhone SE (Caution)
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A speed benefit in solid-state disk design opens them up for attack

Why it matters to you

Your SSDs might be fast, but they’re also designed in a way that opens you up to yet another kind of attack.

Solid-state disks (SSDs) offer some serious benefits over their older hard-disk drive (HDD) siblings. SSDs are faster by orders of magnitude than HDDs, and they’re fundamentally more reliable — particularly for mobile devices where moving parts can be affected by movement and drops.

As SSD pricing has dropped from being significantly more expensive than HDDs to only a little more expensive, the price-to-performance ratio has improved to where SSDs have become by far the preferred storage device. However, some new information suggests that SSDs aren’t perfect and bring a unique vulnerability to particular kinds of attacks, as ExtremeTech reports.

The details are complex and require digging into the details of how SSDs are designed and how they work. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University were the first to uncover the flaw, and their findings are covered in copious technical detail in a recently published paper.

In simpler terms, the vulnerability affects particular kinds of SSDs that are based on multilevel cell (MLC) technology, which make up the majority of those currently being sold and developed. The vulnerability in question does not affect older single-level cell (SLC) devices. The most advanced 3D NAND flash used in some SSDs are not affected yet but could be affected in future designs.

The vulnerability leverages a design quality of MLC-based SSDs that actually confers some benefits, including lower latency and better performance. The problem stems from the fact that data is written into a buffer directly from the individual flash cell that’s going to be written and not from the SSD’s flash controller.

Again, it’s all very technical, but basically, data can be corrupted by an attacker introducing interference and introducing errors during the programming process. That can result in corrupted data and actual damage to an SSD.

The solution would be to buffer data into the SSD flash controller and allow the controller to correct errors. The problem with this response is that it would also increase latency by around 5 percent and thus reduce performance — something that manufacturers might not be quick to do in the consumer market in particular given the important of raw speed to selling SSDs.

In any event, there’s something else to worry about to go along with the waves of malware and ransomware attacks we’ve seen lately. Our SSDs aren’t as safe as we thought they were, and that’s all we needed.

What’s on TV: ‘War Machine,’ ‘Get Out,’ and ‘Beat Shazam’

This week Netflix premieres its Brad Pitt movie War Machine, as well as the third season of Bloodline. Meanwhile, Archer wraps up its Dreamland season on FXX, while Jordan Peele’s Get Out comes home on Blu-ray. The NBA and NHL are closing out their conference final rounds this week, and gamers can check out a new Switch edition of Ultra Street Fighter II. Finally, Fox is premiering its Beat Shazam show, where players will have their ability to identify songs tested against the app. Look after the break to check out each day’s highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).

Blu-ray & Games & Streaming

• Get Out
• Logan (4K)
• The Great Wall (4K)
• Vixen: The Movie
• Dheepan (Criterion)
• The Void
• D2: The Mighty Ducks
• D3: The Mighty Ducks
• Shadow Warrior 2 (PS4, Xbox One)
• Endless Space 2 (PC)
• Chroma Squad (PS4)
• Portal Knights (Xbox One, PS4)
• StarCrawlers (PC)
• Puzzle Showdown 4K (PS4, PC)
• Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (PS4)
• MXGP3 (PS4, Xbox One)
• Deliriant (PS4)
• Darksiders: Warmastered Edition (Wii U)
• Vanquish (PC)
• Ultra Street Fighter II (Switch)
• Embers of Mirrim (Xbox One, PS4)
• Everspace 1.0 (PC, Xbox One)
• Spellspire (Xbox One)
• Rime (PS4, PC, Xbox One)
• Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 (PS4, PS3)

Monday

• Lucifer, Fox, 9PM
• NBA WCF: Spurs/Warriors, ESPN, 9PM
• Jane the Virgin (season finale), CW, 9PM
• The Twins, Freeform, 9PM
• Mommy Dead and Dearest, HBO, 10PM
• The Wall, NBC, 10PM
• Better Call Saul, AMC, 10PM
• The Late Late Show Carpool Karaoke Primetime Special, CBS, 10PM
• American Dad, TBS, 10PM
• The Therapist, Viceland, 11PM
• Angie Tribeca, TBS, 10:30PM
• Desus & Mero, Viceland, 11PM

Tuesday

• Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King, Netflix, 3AM
• Casual (season premiere), Hulu, 3AM
• Victorian Slum, PBS, 8PM
• Great News (season finale), NBC, 8PM
• Downward Dog, ABC, 8PM
• Pretty Little Liars, Freeform, 8PM
• The Flash (season finale), CW, 8PM
• The Manns, TV One, 8PM
• WWE Smackdown, USA, 8PM
• The Challenge: Reunion, MTV, 8PM
• Dancing with the Stars (season finale), ABC, 8:30PM
• NBA ECF Game 4: Celtics/Cavaliers, TNT, 8:30PM
• The Voice (season finale), NBC, 9PM
• The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros, MTV, 9PM
• Famous in Love, Freeform, 9PM
• Deadliest Catch, Discovery, 9PM
• iZombie, CW, 9PM
• Prison Break, Fox, 9PM
• Bull (season finale), CBS, 9PM
• Switched at Birth, Freeform, 9PM
• Face Off, Syfy, 9PM
• Outsiders, WGN, 9PM
• Imaginary Mary, ABC, 9:30PM
• Fargo, FX, 10PM
• Cooper’s Treasure, Discovery, 10PM
• Team Ninja Warrior, USA, 10PM
• The Americans, FX, 10PM
• Rebel, BET, 10PM
• Imposters, Bravo, 10PM
• Truth & Iliza, Freeform, 10PM
• Desus & Mero, Viceland, 11PM
• Problematic with Moshe Kasher (season finale), Comedy Central, 12AM
• The Dunk King (season finale), TNT, 12AM

Wednesday

• The Handmaid’s Tale, Hulu, 3AM
• Dirty Dancing, ABC, 8PM
• Shots Fired (season finale), Fox, 8PM
• Catfish, MTV, 8PM
• Arrow (season finale), CW, 8PM
• Survivor (season finale), CBS, 8PM
• Are You the One: All Star Challenge, MTV, 9PM
• Empire (season finale), Fox, 9PM
• Law & Order: SVU (season finale), NBC, 9PM
• The 100 (season finale), CW, 9PM
• The Magicians, Syfy, 9PM
• Major Crimes, TNT, 9PM
• Archer (season finale), FXX, 10PM
• I Am Heath Ledger, Spike TV, 10PM
• The Expanse, Syfy, 10PM
• Nobodies, TV Land, 10PM
• The Quad, BET, 10PM
• Desus & Mero, Viceland, 11PM

Thursday

• Beat Shazam (series premiere), Fox, 8PM
• American Ninja Warrior: Celebrity Ninja Warrior, NBC, 8PM
• Love Connection (series premiere), Fox, 9PM
• Running Wild with Bear Grylls, NBC, 9PM
• The Amazing Race, CBS, 10PM
• Beerland, Viceland, 10PM
• Inside the FBI, USA, 10PM
• Dark Net (season finale), Showtime, 10PM
• Desus & Mero, Viceland, 11PM
• Impractical Jokers, TruTV, 11PM

Friday

• Bloodline (S3), Netflix, 3AM
• War Machine, Netflix, 3AM
• Long Strange Trip (S1), Amazon Prime, 3AM
• Dino Dana (S1), Amazon Prime, 3AM
• The Originals, CW, 8PM
• First Dates (season finale), NBC, 8PM
• Vice, HBO, 11PM
• Motherboard, Viceland, 11:30PM

Saturday

• Neon Joe: Werewolf Hunter (season finale), Cartoon Network, 12AM
• Doctor Who, BBC America, 9PM
• Class, BBC America, 10PM

Sunday

• Sunday Night Baseball, ESPN, 7:30PM
• NCIS: Los Angeles, CBS, 8PM
• White Princess, Starz, 8PM
• American Gods, Starz, 9PM
• The Leftovers, HBO, 9PM
• Twin Peaks, Showtime, 9PM
• Silicon Valley, HBO, 10PM
• United Shades of America, CNN, 10PM
• Veep, HBO, 10:30PM

‘LawBreakers’ makes the leap to PlayStation 4

LawBreakers isn’t confined to the PC any longer: The game is also heading to PlayStation 4, developer Boss Key Productions announced today. LawBreakers comes from Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski, and it’s a rapid-fire, five-on-five, first-person shooter set in a low-gravity, sci-fi world.

If LawBreakers is going to succeed, it has capture a part of the online multiplayer market that’s currently dominated by Overwatch. Making the game available on PS4 is a solid step toward that goal. Bleszinski told Engadget at E3 2016 that he wasn’t worried about diving into a saturated market because there was plenty of room for multiple games in the team-based shooter genre.

“I’m not the only asshole who had this idea a few years ago,” he said.

LawBreakers has an edge, too: It will cost $30, half the price of Overwatch on consoles. LawBreakers is set to hit PC and PS4 later this year.

And Xbox owners, have hope. Bleszinski made it clear in a Reddit AMA and on Twitter that LawBreakers might still head to Xbox One or Project Scorpio, Microsoft’s coming 4K console.

“Scorpio is promising,” he said. “[Microsoft] bet on Kinect too hard last round. Don’t rule out an Xbox version, btw.”

Source: PlayStation Blog

Samsung’s extra-stretchable display can survive dents

Flexible displays are nothing new. However, most of them don’t live up to the dreams of flexible tech — they may only bend in a limited way. Samsung thinks it can do better. It just unveiled a 9.1-inch prototype OLED display that’s stretchable in seemingly every way imaginable: you can bend, roll and even dent it (up to half an inch deep) knowing that it’ll revert to its original form. The technology is still very young, but Samsung believes the stretchy screen will be useful for everything from wearables to in-car displays. Imagine a very thin smartwatch that can take some knocks without smashing into pieces.

That’s not the only trick Samsung has up its sleeve, either. It’s showing off a 1.96-inch 4K LCD whose ridiculously high 2,250 pixels per inch density would be ideal for virtual reality. You might not notice the distracting “screen door” effect (where you can see the gaps between pixels) common to VR headsets. There’s again no roadmap, but it’s just as well when even PC-based VR still requires a fairly speedy computer. It could be a while before enough people have PCs that can handle this extra-high resolution at the frame rates you need for smooth VR.

To top it all off, Samsung is also exhibiting a 5.09-inch OLED with “glassless” stereoscopic 3D — yes, it’s still kicking around the concept despite the decline of 3D technology. The use of OLED should offer more natural-looking results than an LCD, Samsung says. There is the risk of a panel being used for gimmickry (Samsung talks about games and pop-up books), but it could also add depth to VR experiences.

Via: Korea Herald, TechSpot

Source: Samsung Display (translated)

Smart lock maker Safetech agrees to better protect its users’ passwords

Why it matters to you

Are your passwords safe? This settlement shows government officials are starting to take passwords and online security more seriously.

These days, we have a login and password for just about everything, ranging from our online bank accounts to Amazon to our smartphone apps. The average person has 27 discrete online logins, according to a 2016 poll by Intel Security, and we protect them with passwords. But are these passwords safe? For the first time in history, an attorney general’s office took legal action against a wireless security company for failing to protect its customer’s security.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office recently settled with Safetech Products LLC, maker of Bluetooth-enabled door locks and pad locks marketed under the name Quicklock. The locks are designed to turn doors and closets into secure areas, protecting you and your belongings. Schneiderman began investigating Safetech when a group of independent security researchers found that the Bluetooth-enabled locks transmitted unencrypted passwords between the lock and the user’s smartphone in plain text, allowing a potential hacker or thief to intercept the password and open up the lock. The researchers also found that the default passwords on the locks were very weak, and could easily be discovered through a brute force attack.

Although Safetech’s locks limit the Bluetooth range to around 50 feet and have a built in safeguard where they shut down for two minutes after two failed login attempts, the settlement agreement between the Schneiderman’s office and Safetech calls for increased security to protect consumers.

The settlement agreement says Safetech must encrypt all passwords, security keys, or other security credentials in their locks. Safetech will also have to prompt users to change the default password during setup. In addition to securing user passwords, Safetech agreed to put a comprehensive written security program in place to address any potential future security risks.

“Today’s settlement with Safetech marks the first time an attorneys general’s office has taken legal action against a wireless security company for failing to protect their customer’s personal and private information,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “Companies employing new technologies must implement and promote good security practices and ensure that their products are secure, including through the use of encryption. Together, with the help of companies like Safetech, we can safeguard against breaches and illegal intrusions on our private data.”

What do you get when you combine AI, a laser pointer? The best cat toy ever

Why it matters to you

Bored pets can be destructive or wind up overeating. This smart laser toy promises to help.

If you’ve got a pet dog or cat at home, you almost certainly had the experience of having to leave it alone at some point when you go out to work.

That is what the folks behind a new Kickstarter campaign called Felik want to help with. They developed a smart device they describe as being a bit like a “Kinect for pets.” It combines a camera, computer vision algorithms, motion tracking, and artificial intelligence to keep your beloved cat or dog entertained (and therefore mentally active) with a laser pointer in your absence.

“All existing laser pet toys move in unnatural random or pre-programmed patterns and do not react to pets’ movements,” inventor Yuri Brigance told Digital Trends. “Others, like PetCube, allow a human to control the laser via an app, but it requires real-time human interaction and there’s a lag between using the app and seeing the laser move. Felik doesn’t require any human interaction and produces laser movements that are almost identical to a human moving a laser by hand. It is designed to mimic natural prey like a bug or a mouse.”

Brigance said he started developing Felik to look after his two cats, Mike and Molly, which he had adopted from a local pet shelter. After a change in his living situation, Brigance found himself without someone at home to look after the cats during the day when he was out working. “I couldn’t leave them with just the food bowl and nothing to play with so I started working on Felik to bridge that gap,” he said.

Felik doesn’t just help take care of your pets while you’re out, either. It also comprises a mobile app, which reminds human owners to play with their resident feline or canine when they are at home — if the constant meowing or barking isn’t enough of a reminder! It will even log how many hours you spend with your pet.

The device is currently available for pre-order, with prices starting at $104. Shipping will take place this November.