Cortana now has over 141 million monthly users

One way or another, there are a lot of people using Cortana.

On stage at BUILD today, Microsoft announced 141 million monthly active users for its Cortana assistant. This number is slightly off from the 145m rumored to be sent to prominent Alexa developers in order to lure them over for the Cortana Skill launch, which also happened today, but it’s an impressive figure all the same.

141 million monthly users surpasses Amazon’s Alexa by a considerable margin, considering 3 million Echo units have reportedly been sold as of last month. The big question here, which in an early briefing Microsoft was unable to answer, is how many of those monthly active users are actually speaking to Cortana. Microsoft’s figures are for any kind of Cortana use, which includes text, voice, and assistant notifications based on user input. That information may prove useful for developers looking to target Cortana Skills to the largest portion of the user activity type, but for now it’s not available.

Either way you look at it, Cortana’s significant user base across Windows, Xbox, Android, and iOS is more than a little impressive. Microsoft expects Cortana Skills will put Cortana in a position to better compete with the whole category of digital assistants, and if that figure is enough to convince developers to give this platform a fair shake that monthly figure will likely expand even faster.

Everything you need to know about Microsoft Build

Samsung Bixby voice-controlled speaker incoming? Patents would suggest so

Patently Mobile has obtained a granted design patent for an “audio device” made by Samsung. However, since it’s only a design patent, it doesn’t give away any details as to specs or features, but just shows us a design that Samsung has in mind.

• What is Bixby? Samsung’s smart AI explained

However, given it’s described as an audio device, coupled with the fact the company has its own voice-assistant called Bixby and the design looks like a screen mounted on a tripod; we wouldn’t be surprised to find out Samsung is prepping its very own Amazon Echo Show rival.

Just because this particular design patent has been granted, doesn’t mean it will represent the design of the final product, but it’s clear that Samsung is planning a device to takeover your home.

It may be sometime before we see Samsung’s Bixby speaker see the light of day, especially since the Bixby voice assistant can only understand Korean at the moment and wasn’t even available on the Galaxy S8 at launch. Clearly, Samsung has some work to do with its voice assistant before it rolls it out on a more global scale.

• Apple’s Siri speaker: What’s the story so far?
• Amazon Echo vs Amazon Tap vs Echo Dot vs Echo Look vs Echo Show: What’s the difference?

If the Bixby speaker does become a reality and have a touchscreen, it would be only the second voice-controlled smart hub to feature a screen after the Amazon Echo Show. We’d expect it to work in a similar way, being able to show you video clips of the latest news, make and receive video calls, and access smart home products such as cameras. 

Pico Goblin is a wire-free Android VR headset that doesn’t need a smartphone

Virtual reality headset firm Pico Interactive will debut its new all-in-one Pico Gobiln next month at the E3 2017 videogames show in Los Angeles.

It’s a mobile-style Android headset, with no wires and similar to a Daydream or Samsung Gear VR device, but also runs without a smartphone.

The Pico Goblin has its own processing, display, storage and Android operating system, so is a real pick-up-and-play product.

It runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor with Android 7.0 Nougat driving two 70Hz displays – one for each eye – with a combined 2.5K resolution.

• Best VR headsets to buy in 2017, whatever your budget
• E3 2017: Rumours, press conferences and what to expect from the world’s biggest games show

The headset itself has the company’s three-degrees-of-freedom (3DoF) head tracking on board. It also comes with a 3DoF tracking controller to use to interact with virtual reality experiences.

“We created the Pico Goblin to liberate people from clunky VR technology,” said Pico’s vice president of design, Ennin Huang.

We don’t yet have a price but the company claims it will be set at an “affordable” level.

Pocket-lint will be going hands-on with the Pico Gobiln during E3 next month. The manufacturer will also be showing its flagship device, the Pico Neo CV. That too is an untethered, standalone headset but with 3K AMOLED displays and 4GB of RAM to offer an upgraded experience.

A single autonomous car could greatly reduce man-made traffic

Traffic. We all hate it, but what can honestly be done to significantly reduce it? Well, according to an experiment conducted by the university of Illinois, simply introducing a few self-driving cars to roads could be the answer. Conducting experiments in Tucson, Arizona the team discovered that even adding a single autonomous vehicle to the roads can massively reduce traffic. They programmed a self-driving car to loop a track continuously and then added 20 other human-driven cars to the mix.

While humans somehow naturally create stop-and-go traffic even without lane changes or other disruptions, thanks to the robotic racer, both traffic and fuel consumption were reduced by 40 percent.

This isn’t the first example of modern tech helping to reduce congestion. With fixed traffic sensors widely swapped for navigation systems using GPS data, Professor Daniel B. Work believes that automated cars could be the next step — replacing the traffic-reducing variable speed limits. The next stage of the experiment is to test autonomous cars in situations where both human and AI drivers have to change lanes. From our experience with freeways, we already feel bad for the robot cars.

Still, this isn’t the only way that drivers can use automation to reduce traffic. With the margin of human error being so high, the same study suggests that even existing tech like adaptive cruise control has the power to greatly reduce the amount of traffic on our roads.

With many people understandably wary at the prospect of roads completely ruled by automated cars, the idea of mixing a few with regular vehicles seems like a good way to pilot the risky tech.

Via: Phys.org

Source: Cornell University Library

MIT teaches machines to learn from each other

There are two typical ways to train a robot today: you can have it watch repeated demonstrations of what you want it to do or you can program its movements directly using motion-planning techniques. But a team of researchers from MIT’s CSAIL lab have developed a hybridized third option that will enable robots to transfer skills and knowledge between themselves. It’s no Skynet, but it’s a start.

The system, dubbed C-LEARN, is designed to enable anybody, regardless of their programming know-how, to program robots for a wide range of tasks. But rather than having the robot ape your movements or hand-coding its desired movements, C-LEARN only requires that the user input a birt of information on how the objects the robot will interact with are typically handled then run through a single demonstration. The robot can then share this kinematic data with others of its kind.

First, the user inputs the environmental constraints — essentially how to reach out, grasp and hold the items it’s interacting with. That way the robot isn’t not crushing everything it touches or holding objects in a way that will cause them to break or fall. Then, using a CAD program, the user can create a single digital demonstration for the robot. It actually works a lot like traditional hand-drawn animations wherein the robot’s motions hit specific movements and positions as “keyframes” and fills in the rest.

Of course, the robot doesn’t have the final say in this, all motion plans have to be verified by the human operator first. Overall, the robots were able to choose the optimal motion plan 87.5 percent of the time without human intervention, though that number jumped to 100 percent when a human operator was able to tweak the plan as needed.

The first robot to benefit from this new system is the Optimus, a two-armed bomb disposal-bot. The CSAIL team taught it to open doors, carry items and even pull objects out of jars. The Optimus was then able to transfer these same skills to another robot in the CSAIL lab, the 6-foot, 400-pound Atlas.

Microsoft didn’t make Xbox One’s first easy-pairing headset

In an age where technology is becoming increasingly wireless, it’s baffling that Xbox One headsets still require either a transmitter or lengthy wires in order to work. Thankfully, LucidSound’s latest is about to change that. Connecting directly to Xbox One (just like a controller), the LS35X is the first truly wireless audio peripheral on Microsoft’s console. Interestingly, the headset is also confirmed to work with upcoming Xbox One successor– Scorpio, making it the first peripheral announced for the mysterious hardware so far.

The LS35X will also work with Windows 10 out of the box, instantly connecting to PCs that include built-in Xbox Wireless technology or to the aging Xbox Wireless Adapter. Although we have yet to try the LS35X, we’ve been consistently impressed with LucidSound’s other headsets. While we wouldn’t be caught dead wearing most gamer audio products on our commute to work, LucidSound’s headsets look refreshingly adult, making them a nice multi-use product. A price point for the officially-licensed headset has yet to be announced.

There’s no price yet, but the LS35X launches worldwide holiday 2017 — conveniently the same time gamers will be able to get their hands on Microsoft’s new console.

Watch Microsoft’s Build 2017 opening keynote right here!

Microsoft’s Build 2017 conference is kicking off today in Seattle, and the company’s CEO Satya Nadella will be taking the stage during the opening keynote. We expect there will be lots of talk of Windows 10, Cortana and, who knows, maybe we’ll get a few surprises. It all starts at 8AM PT/11AM ET, and you can watch it happen in the video below.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from Microsoft’s Build 2017.

Possible Leak Suggests Next iPhone SE or iPhone 7s Could Have Strengthened Ion-X Glass Display

A new photo depicting what could be the rear shell for the next-generation iPhone SE or “iPhone 7s” has surfaced on Chinese social network Sina Weibo. The photo was later submitted to leak aggregator Slashleaks.

There’s no way of telling whether this photo is real or not, but it appears to show a bump-less cutout for a single-lens camera with another cutout for what might be a vertically-aligned LED flash.

The document in the photo suggests the iPhone, codenamed N79, could have a strengthened Ion-X glass display like the Apple Watch. If real, the paperwork likely belongs to one of Apple’s contract manufacturing partners in Taiwan, such as Foxconn, Pegatron, or Wistron.

There’s not much else that can be gleaned from the photo, asides from what appears to be more of an iPhone 7-like design, which would be a shift away from an iPhone 5s design if this is indeed for the iPhone SE as Slashleaks suggests.

This would be the first next-generation iPhone SE design rumor we’ve seen so far this year, so treat it with a healthy dose of skepticism. Last year, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple is unlikely to release a new iPhone SE in the first half of 2017, suggesting a refresh won’t occur before the end of June.

If that timeline is accurate, Apple could be planning to announce the next iPhone SE alongside the tentatively named iPhone 7s, iPhone 7s Plus, and iPhone 8 in September. Or, it could wait until spring 2018, given the original iPhone SE launched in March 2016. At this point, it’s too early to say.

Apple doubled the iPhone SE’s storage capacities to 64GB and 128GB a few months ago.

Related Roundups: iPhone SE, iPhone 8 (2017)
Tags: weibo.com, Slashleaks
Buyer’s Guide: iPhone SE (Caution)
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Opera’s new browser comes with WhatsApp and Messenger built in

Thanks to add-ons and extensions, modern browsers are capable of much more than just accessing websites. However, unless you know what you’re looking for, finding useful tools isn’t necessarily easy. Instead of relying solely on its extension marketplace, Opera hopes to claw back market share from Google Chrome by incorporating additional features into its eponymous software. We’ve already seen it roll out low-power mode and a fully-featured VPN, but now it’s making things a lot more social by integrating messaging apps like WhatsApp, Messenger and Telegram into its sidebar.

The features are included in a new version of Opera, codenamed “Reborn.” It takes a lot of inspiration from the company’s experimental Neon browser, which debuted in January. Instead of using the web or desktop versions of your favorite messaging apps, Reborn neatly arranges them on the side of your browser window, allowing you to chat while you browse.

The feature works in two ways. First, you can pin the icons to the sidebar and click them when you feel the need to chat. The other option is to pin the chat window so that it sits alongside your current tab. If you want to share a photo you’ve found online, simply drag it to the messenger’s icon and the browser will take care of the rest.

While messaging is the banner announcement, Reborn does come with a few additional features. The browser itself has been given a fresh look, with lighter tabs and improved icons. You can also switch between light and dark themes depending on your mood and control how the browser blocks ads. Opera says that while only three services are available at launch, it hopes to add more in the near future.

Source: Opera Blog

PBS Kids releases baby’s first HDMI dongle

With the recent arrival of YouTube TV and Hulu Live, it’s clear that cord-cutting is here to stay. Not only is content readily available without a cable subscription, you can watch it on your big screen TV thanks to the proliferation of streaming set-top boxes and HDMI sticks. Yet, these devices are meant for a general audience; there aren’t really any streaming sticks with specialized content. Until now. PBS has just released something called PBS Kids Plug & Play, which is apparently the first streaming stick for kids. Bonus: It even looks like a toy car.

Indeed, with its four wheels and the racing stripe down the middle, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was just a Hot Wheels ripoff at first. But if you look at the car’s rear, you’ll see the telltale dongle that fits neatly in any HDMI port. PBS wisely included an HDMI extension cord as well, just in case your TV’s ports are too shallow to accommodate the irregular-size Plug & Play. Just like other streaming sticks on the market, you’ll also need to hook it up to a USB power source, be it from the TV or an AC adapter. The stick has 1GB of memory, 16GB flash storage as well as a microSD card slot.

As for ease of use, well, the name describes it pretty accurately. Plug it in, and it’ll come alive, instantly pairing to the accompanying remote control via Bluetooth. The remote control is green, curved and sized perfectly for small hands. On the front are four direction keys, a center star button, plus a circular “PBS Kids” button that acts as a catch-all home or back key. Once connected, you’ll immediately see the bright green PBS Kids home interface on your TV. There’s no need to sign up for anything, and there are no ads. The Plug & Play has a super simple UI, with a circular navigation menu in the center and a settings shortcut at the top right.

As you might expect, you can use the Plug & Play to watch PBS Kids programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as long as the stick is connected to WiFi; simply navigate over to the Videos section. At this point, you’re probably wondering why you would need a specialized PBS Kids stick in order to do this. After all, you can already watch PBS Kids content on the Roku or online via your computer.

The key with the PBS Kids Plug & Play stick is that it offers way more than just streaming episodes of Clifford the Big Red Dog or Thomas & Friends. It also has games and exclusive content. What’s more, you can access it without an internet connection. An added benefit of the stick is that the content is in a closed environment, so you can rest assured that your child won’t encounter any inappropriate videos while you’re not looking.

That exclusive content includes 50 sing-a-long songs, on-demand episodes of your kids’ favorite shows, Words of the Week, an interactive sound box where you can play around with different instruments and a “Rail Riders” game — where you’re collecting different items on a railroad track. There’s also a “Road Trip Adventure” board game, in which you move across a predetermined route by spinning a wheel, performing silly tasks and actions along the way (examples include buzzing like a bee or waddling like a duck). Last but not least is a series of interactive “scenes,” where you can press the center star button to do things like launch fireworks or boost submarines.

“We know families are busy and on-the-go, and value spending time together whenever they can,” said Dawn Ciccone, vice president of brand licensing at PBS, in a statement. “We have also learned from research that when parents are engaged with their children in activities related to their favorite TV shows or games, children learn more.” She goes on to say that the Plug & Play turns any TV into an “interactive and fun learning resource.”

Yet the value of a streaming stick as niche as the PBS Kids Plug & Play is unclear. Sure, you get all of that extra content, but you could probably get much of the same from existing apps and websites. And, as we said earlier, if all you want to do is watch PBS Kids content, you can already do so without the stick at all. What’s more, the Plug & Play is only $50, which is about the same price as Roku’s streaming stick, even though it’s nowhere near as versatile.

But perhaps there’s something else at play here. PBS is certainly not the only outfit to wrap kids’ programming in a cord-cutter package. YouTube, for example, has recently rolled out a special Kids app for smart TVs. It’s even created four completely original shows just for its YouTube Kids service. Other streaming services have child-friendly programming too; Netflix offers a kids-only profile, as does Hulu. Another on-demand offering for kids is Sprout Online, which is essentially the online component of NBC’s children’s programming. Disney and Nickelodeon are still pretty tied to traditional TV — you can’t watch their live programming without a cable or satellite subscription, for example — but you can watch certain full on-demand episodes on their respective websites.

It’s clear that as cord-cutting increases, even specialty categories have to follow the footsteps of HBO and Showtime in offering a la carte programming. Media companies know all too well that young parents are now sitting their children in front of iPads and computers, thus raising a new generation of kids who aren’t beholden to the whims of traditional TV. Now, it appears that YouTube and PBS are savvy enough to not only cater to this audience but to provide exclusive content that’s not dependent on TV at all.

In this light, the PBS Plug & Play is a pretty shrewd move. It tells the child, hey, this is your own little version of Mommy and Daddy’s Roku. This is your TV, catered for you. It tells the kids that they can watch what they want, when they want, on their own terms. Whether we like it or not, it seems children’s eyeballs are the next untapped market for the media companies. As long as Mommy and Daddy pay for it, that is.