Watch: Android execs talk about the future of Android

Android’s Dave Burke, Stephanie Saad Cuthbertson, and Sameer Samat sat down for a chat on this week’s All About Android.

If you watch All About Android on on the TWiT network on Tuesday nights, you may have caught this week’s interview with three of Android’s top executives. The panel included Dave Burke, Vice President of Engineering for Android; Stephanie Saad Cuthbertson, Group Product Manager for Android; and Sameer Samat, Vice President of Product management for Android and Google Play.

The trio gave a recap of Google I/O 2017, as well as a bit more context about some of the new technologies and announcements made during the keynote. For instance, much of the improvements made to Android O this time around are focused on making the platform stable for both developers and users alike. Here’s how Cuthbertson explains it:

We really focused on three core things. First was the security program we talked about, Play Protect, which is a larger extent exposing many things we were doing already. In particular, the fact that we were scanning every app on every connected device to look for harmful apps.

The second changes: Instead of OS optimizations that are fairly comprehensive, boot time is one of the big ones we talked about and you’ll see that right away [in Android O].

We [also] made optimizations in the runtime and in the compilers. Apps will just run faster and more smoothly and that’s because of a whole maelstrom of changes we made, like concurrent compacting garbage collection. All those changes…mean those apps you have are automatically going to run faster.

One theme remained particularly resonant throughout the interview and that’s Google’s attempt at mending Android’s disjointed software update process. Before explaining how it plans to fix the process, however, Burke offered a colorful anecdote as to why it takes so long for software updates to get to you in the first place:

The right way to think about it is like a pipeline: We write all this code, and then we release it in open source and then the silicon vendors…take the Android code and then they do a lot of work on the code to optimize it for the silicone. The challenge today is that they actually end up changing not just low level code, but quite a lot of pieces of code. And then what happens is they hand that code to device makers, who then make more changes on top of it because they have a specific camera part they want to use, or a specific GPS or what not. Then it goes to carriers to test it, and then [emphasis added] it goes out to users.

Thus, he continues, came the idea for Project Treble. Burke describes it as an interface that will help make it easier for device manufacturers to drop in code relevant to their hardware, without interfering with Android’s existing APIs.

You can watch the interview in its entirety — about 40 minutes — to get the scoop, including how the idea of adding Kotin support in Android Studio came to be, and how Android Go will affect the current Android One program.

Disclosure: I am a co-host on the podcast, but I wanted to share a direct link for anyone who might not have been aware the segment aired.

Android Pay now lets you pay with a PayPal account

The latest software update adds PayPal integration so that you can tap and swipe with your account as if it were cold, hard cash.

A month after it was initially announced, Android Pay finally offers official support for PayPal integration. With the latest app update, you can now file in your PayPal account with the rest of your debit, credit, and loyalty cards to use wherever NFC-enabled wireless payments are accepted.

The setup process is easy. When you’re adding a new card to your virtual wallet inside the Android Pay app, tap Add other payment methods to select the PayPal option. Once it’s logged in there, you’ll be able to choose it as your payment method every time you fire up the app. PayPal will require that you input a “top up” amount, however, so be ready to put away about $10. You’ll need your in-store PIN to set up the payment method, too.

Why would you want to use PayPal to pay for things? Well, let’s say you run a business, for instance, and that’s where all of your earnings go before they make it into your bank account. If you have Android Pay with your PayPal account, you can use that cash flow instantly without waiting for the other-bank transaction.

PayPal is also useful if you’re traveling overseas with the family; it’s great for setting up a budget pool of sorts, and with Android Pay launching in more countries, you’ll be able to use that account on the fly. It’s unclear if that’s available at the moment, however, considering PayPal integration with Android Pay is currently limited to the U.S. If that applies to you, check out the Play Store to see if your app has been updated.

Game of Thrones season 7: When is it on, how can you watch it, and is there a full trailer yet?

Tired of being the only person who doesn’t know who Jon Snow is or what the heck “winter is coming” means?

No worries. Now’s the time to jump on the Game Of Thrones bandwagon. You have until this summer to catch up on the past six seasons, because HBO and Sky have just announced when season seven will premiere. The much-hyped return will surely be a hit, as fans have already been told they should only expect seven episodes in this series and six more in season 8 – the end is nigh.

Here’s everything you need to know about the premiere, including when, how, and where to watch it.

When does Game of Thrones season 7 start?

We finally have a date for the start of the seventh season of Game of Thrones. It will return to HBO on 16 July 2017 in the US, and it’ll be simulcast by Sky Atlantic in the UK on 17 July. As it is being broadcast at 9pm EST in the US, the most dedicated of UK fans will be able to watch the show at 2am BST that morning. Sky is also showing it at 9pm on Sky Atlantic later the same day.

Later episodes will be available in the same time slots (not simulcast) 

Where can you watch Game of Thrones season 7?

Considering each subsequent season of Game of Thrones has broken records for the amount of pirate downloads, it comes as no surprise that episodes in standard and HD (720p and 1080p) will no doubt be available and widely shared on torrent sites. However, if you refuse to head down the less salubrious stealy web route, you might wonder where else you can see the show.

Here we list several ways to do just that. And it’s all above board.

HBO, HBO Go and HBO Now

As HBO makes the show, it screens it in the US. That means it is available on all of the channel’s subscription services – the main HBO channel for TV viewers, through the HBO Go apps and platforms for existing HBO subscribers, or HBO Now for those who don’t pay for the main channel. The first episode will screen at 9pm EST on 16 July.

All of its on demand services will offer the show as catch-up content from that date. A HBO subscription is generally offered as a premium service through cable providers in the States, costing around $15 a month to add to an existing package. HBO Go is a free service for subscribers to the TV channel. HBO Now is for those who don’t have cable TV but still want access to the channel.

HBO Now also costs around $15 a month. There are HBO Now apps for a wide array of devices, including iOS, Android, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV and Roku.

Sky+ and Sky Q

Sky exclusively screens HBO content in the UK, so has the rights to season 7, albeit with adverts. The US screening is ad-free. It will simulcast the show on Sky Atlantic with the first HBO screening, so fans can watch it at 2am on 17 July. As with the repeat showing, all following episodes will be screened in their normal time slot of 9pm on the channel the day after the US airing.

The show airs each Sunday on HBO so will appear on Sky Atlantic on Mondays. Sky+ and Sky Q subscribers will be able to watch them live, record them (with series link) or catch up with each episode on demand, as long as they have their set-top-box connected to the internet. It will be available on catch-up early on Monday 17 July. A Sky Q subscription, which includes Sky Atlantic, starts at £32 a month.

• Sky Q review: The future of multi-room television?
• What is Sky Q, how much does it cost and how can I get it?

Now TV

With a £6.99 a month Now TV Entertainment Pass, you can watch Sky Atlantic live alongside a range of other channels, Sky, and otherwise. That means you can watch the first episode when it airs. However, you can also watch it on demand on the service. And Now TV catch-up is devoid of adverts, save for a few dedicated stings, so you can jump into a mostly uninterrupted version.

Now TV can be viewed through a dedicated Now TV or Now TV Smart Box, Roku media streaming boxes or online through a browser. Apps are also available for iOS, Android, PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One, YouView and select LG Smart TVs. You can also use the Now TV app on a smartphone or tablet to play the show through a Google Chromecast.

• Now TV Smart Box review: Is live TV and Sky in one device worth the price?
• Now TV vs Now TV Smart Box vs Sky+HD vs Sky Q: Which Sky package is right for you?

One additional benefit to Now TV is: you can catch up with any of the previous series of Game of Thrones before plunging into season 7.

Sky Go and Sky Q apps

Sky Go offers the show on catch-up or live, but you do need a Sky subscription to access the app for iOS, select Android devices, PS4, PS3, Xbox One and Xbox 360. Or watch it online through a PC or Mac. You used to be able to subscribe to Sky Go from £15 a month without being an existing Sky customer, but no longer seems to be the case.

And, to be honest, at £6.99 a month, Now TV is a better option and is available on all the same devices and more.

Where Sky Go becomes a great option though is if you have a parent or friend with a Sky subscription and they have no interest in registering their free Sky Go accounts on mobile devices. You could ask if they would let you use one of the device slots instead (you can register up to two devices on one account). They might even let you take up a device slot for the duration season 7, and you can deregister it after.

Alternatively, if they subscribe to Sky Go Extra or you upgrade them to Sky Go Extra for £5 a month, you can take one of four device slots. One issue with this method is that the iPhone and iPad app won’t allow AirPlay mirroring or direct connection to get the pictures onto a TV. In this case, you really do get what you paid for. The new Sky Q app cannot be subscribed to separately. It is for Sky Q subscribers only.

• Which is the best movie streaming service in the UK? Netflix vs Amazon Prime vs Now TV and more

Is there a Game of Thrones season 7 trailer?

Yes. Here’s the first full season 7 trailer:

Microsoft Surface Pro event: What was launched and how to watch

Microsoft held a special event in Shanghai on Tuesday 23 May, which it used to announce three Surface devices.

Two of them had been previously revealed at other recent events, the Surface Laptop and Surface Studio, although it was revealed that they will be coming to China too. However, the new Surface Pro was unveiled for the first time globally. So here’s everything that was revealed at the #MicrosoftEvent in Shanghai and how you can catch up.

• Microsoft unveils the Surface Laptop, a Windows 10 S device looking to take down the MacBook

Microsoft

Microsoft Surface event in Shanghai: When was it?

Microsoft held its event in Shanghai on 23 May but didn’t livestream it (apart from a Chinese language version on a website there). However, you can read a timeline of what happened on its blog here.

Microsoft Surface event in Shanghai: Where can you watch?

You can re-watch Microsoft executives announce the Surface Pro here:

Microsoft Surface event in Shanghai: What was launched?

Apart from confirmation that the Surface Laptop and Surface Studio devices will be available from 15 June – in China too – the main product revealed at the event was an all-new Surface Pro. It has a 12.3-inch PixelSense screen and runs on a seventh-generation Intel processor. There is also a new Surface Pen, with a claimed 4,096 levels of pressure.

Upgraded, versatile, and exceptionally powerful, with iconic Surface design. Meet the new Microsoft #SurfacePro. #MicrosoftEvent pic.twitter.com/o1RQjzlySE

— Microsoft Surface (@surface) May 23, 2017

The biggest changes between the new Pro and existing Pro 4 is that the newer model is lighter, weighing just 0.77kg. It also has a bigger battery, with a claimed life of up to 13.5 hours between charges.

Microsoft

You can read more about the new Surface Pro here.

EU approves plans forcing Facebook and YouTube to act on hate speech

The European Union has just approved a proposal to implement Europe’s very first mandatory social media restrictions. In a bid to clamp down on hate speech across Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, the EU is proposing a law that allows them to block videos which incite hatred or promote terrorism. While these initial proposals were approved yesterday, the new regulations still need to get past the European Parliament before they become official legislation.

If the law gets passed, this would mark the first European law that actively intervenes in social media. Interestingly, these regulations would only apply to recorded videos, not live streamed content. Still, given the rampant rise of hate speech and the EU’s previous statements, its stance on the matter is fairly unsurprising. Yet for those who relish the autonomy afforded by the internet, the move could be seen by some as encroaching on people’s freedom of speech.

Interestingly, the same proposals that were approved in a bid to help protect EU citizens also have a clause about European representation on video streaming services. If passed, the new laws would demand that streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video hit a content quota, ensuring 30 percent of their video catalog consists of European films and TV shows. Even more surprisingly, the law would also mean that video streaming companies have to help fund the production of shows and movies in the EU countries they operate in. Given the whole Cannes Netflix debacle, we’re sure that France will be very keen to get this law passed.

When it comes to social media regulation, however, many of the big names have already made promises to help clean up their platforms. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft have already agreed to review and remove content flagged as hateful within 24 hours, but according to the EU and the UK, all the companies have failed to deliver.

With Germany also imposing aggressive fines on companies that fail to remove hate speech, it seems likely that the European Union will pass the legislation. While an exact date for the discussions has yet to be set, a statement from the European Commission states that the issue will be raised “in the coming weeks”.

Source: European Commission

FCC stonewalls demands for evidence of cyberattack

The FCC swears that a denial of service attack hit its servers hours after Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver rallied support for net neutrality, but where’s the evidence? Well, don’t expect it any time soon. In an interview with ZDNet, the regulator’s David Bray says the FCC won’t release the logs that might show who was responsible for the incident. The logs contain private info like IP addresses, he says. Bray does note that there wasn’t a botnet involved, though — instead, the traffic came from commercial cloud services using the FCC’s public programming interface. But if it wasn’t a botnet, then who was involved? Some critics are concerned that the FCC isn’t exactly being forthright.

The advocacy group Fight for the Future tells ZDNet that the FCC should disclose information “to the appropriate authorities and to journalists” to have them investigate the data while maintaining privacy. And if there’s an organization behind the attack, the group says, the FCC should divulge who it is. That it isn’t is worrying — does the Commission not know, or is it trying to hide the origins? Fight for the Future is concerned that the traffic is either from net neutrality supporters (and thus evidence that the FCC couldn’t/wouldn’t handle opposition to its net neutrality rollback) or opponents trying to stifle criticism.

And unfortunately, there’s circumstantial evidence that might support either theory. Anti-net neutrality bots recently flooded the FCC’s comments, and Chairman Ajit Pai even suggested that he might honor these obviously fake statements. It doesn’t help that the FCC has since gone into a “sunshine period” where it won’t take new public comments on decisions. And it’s no secret that telecoms are less than fond of net neutrality proponents, especially when they try to expose astroturfing campaigns. Simply put, both the current FCC and internet providers have a vested interest in downplaying net neutrality’s supporters while enshrining its critics.

The FCC says it has since upgraded its website to better handle loads, so it isn’t completely unresponsive. Without more disclosures about what happened around the attack, though, it’s impossible to know just how honest it really is — and it’s not helping its case by being unresponsive to public outcries.

Via: Gizmodo

Source: ZDNet (1), (2)

Let Sony’s favorite developers help pick your next game (updated)

Four years on and the PlayStation 4’s digital storefront is pretty well stocked. But finding more obscure stuff to buy isn’t the easiest and the search function kind of sucks. As a way of addressing that on the store’s web version, Sony is introducing curated lists of games from “the industry’s most creative minds,” dubbed The Creators. PlayStation’s head of worldwide studios Shuhei Yoshida has his picks listed, as does Rocket League studio Psynonix, Street Fighter’s Yoshinori Ono and the Final Fantasy XV team among many, many others.

Like Kotaku notes, there are a lot of repeated games among the lists and self-love from studios here. Guerilla Games’ Herman Hulst is probably contractually obligated to have (the excellent) Horizon: Zero Dawn in his picks, for example, but he also lists the criminally underrated Until Dawn as well. Maybe he just likes games with “dawn” in their titles, who knows.

Where it gets interesting is seeing what indie developers chose. Tom Happ of Axiom Verge fame naturally pulled a few Metroidvania titles like Shadow Complex Remastered and Guacamelee! — the former being the modern game that kicked off the genre’s renaissance. Capy went all in on 2D games with its own Super Time Force Ultra in addition to picking Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove, Broforce and TowerFall Ascension.

It’d be great if this wasn’t just a one-off version of previous lists, and instead became more of a flavor of the week style curation that’d highlight the PS Store’s hidden gems — especially considering just how cluttered the marketplace is.

Will this come to the console version, you know, where people are more likely to peruse the store? That isn’t clear, but we’ve reached out to Sony for more information and will update this post should it arrive.

Update: A Sony spokesperson responded and said that this will indeed be an ongoing thing, but that there isn’t “a firmly established schedule” yet for when the list will refresh.

Via: Kotaku

Source: PlayStation Store

UC Berkeley researchers teach computers to be curious

When you played through Super Mario Bros. or Doom for the very first time, chances are you didn’t try to speedrun the entire game but instead started exploring — this despite not really knowing what to expect around the next corner. It’s that same sense of curiosity, the desire to screw around in a digital landscape just to see what happens, that a team of researchers at UC Berkeley have imparted into their computer algorithm. And it could drastically advance the field of artificial intelligence.

Google’s AlphaGo AI, the one that just repeatedly dominated the world’s top Go players, uses what’s called a Monte Carlo tree search function to decide its next move. Each “branch”, or decision, in that tree has a weighted value that’s determined from previous experiences and the relative rewards associated with them. This is known as “reinforcement learning” and is basically the same way you train a dog: rewarding effective behavior and discouraging the ineffective.

This obviously works well for dogs (all of whom are good) but it does present a significant shortcoming when training neural networks: the AI will only pursue high reward actions no matter what, even to the detriment of its overall efficiency. It will run into the same wall forever rather than take a moment and think to jump over it.

The UC Berkeley team’s AI, however, has been imbued with the ability to make decisions and take action even when there isn’t an immediate payoff. Though, technically, the researchers define curiosity as ” the error in an agent’s ability to predict the consequence of its own actions in a visual feature space learned by a self-supervised inverse dynamics model.”

To train the AI, the researchers taught it to play Super Mario Bros. and VizDoom. As you can see in the video below, rather than blindly repeat the same high value action over and over again, the system plays more like people do with the same basic understanding that there’s more to the game than the wall immediately in front of them.

“In many real-world scenarios, rewards extrinsic to the agent are extremely sparse, or absent altogether,” the study’s authors wrote. “In such cases, curiosity can serve as an intrinsic reward signal to enable the agent to explore its environment and learn skills that might be useful later in its life.”

The implications of this are immense. We’ve already got Google training neural networks to design and generate baby neural nets, researchers at Brigham Young University teaching them to cooperate, and now this advancement enabling AI to teach itself. The pace at which artificial intelligence is getting smarter and more human-like is accelerating. Best of all, it shows no signs of slowing down.

Source: MIT Technology Review

Boeing is building DARPA’s new hypersonic space plane

A few years ago, DARPA started work on a new experimental aircraft project called the XS-1, a vehicle designed to make launching satellites a faster, less expensive endeavor. Today, that project just took a huge leap forward: DARPA has announced that it’s partnering with Boeing to build its next generation hypersonic space plane. Specifically, the aircraft manufacturer has been tapped to complete advanced design work on the XS-1 project, following up on the concept Boeing pitched to the agency during the project’s early stages — which it will now help build and test over the next several years.

In practice, this means Boeing is now building a unmanned, reusable hypersonic jet with the goal of running ten test flights over ten consecutive days by the year 2020 — a program that’s designed to prove that the XS-1 will be able to launch satellites into low-earth orbit on short notice. “The XS-1 would be neither a traditional airplane nor a conventional launch vehicle but rather a combination of the two,” DARPA’s Jess Sponable explained in a press release. “With the goal of lowering launch costs by a factor of ten and replacing today’s frustratingly long wait time with launch on demand.”

The XS-1 will manage this feat by flying to suborbital heights without boosters before deploying a disposable, secondary rocket to push its payload into orbit. Better still, the spaceplane be able to take a second satellite up within hours of delivering the first. Well, that’s the plan anyway — the project is still years away from being finished, and the earliest on-ground engine tests won’t start until 2019 at the earliest. Until then, we’ll have to settle for DARPA’s concept video, which admittedly, is still pretty cool.

Via: Popular Mechanics

Source: DARPA

Ellen coyly hints at return to standup with Netflix special

It’s been over 15 years since Ellen DeGeneres took the stage for a proper stand-up special. With a smash hit daytime talk show, a record-setting Twitter account and bonafide American treasure status, DeGeneres doesn’t exactly need the exposure of another special, but Netflix has been on a hot streak recently, nabbing up standup specials from comedy heavyweights and up-and-coming talent alike. So, the streaming company reached out to DeGeneres on her platform of choice to see if she’d be game for another solo show. Her response? “OK I’m in.”

Looks like it’s been 15 years since you did a stand-up special, @TheEllenShow. How about one for Netflix?

— Netflix US (@netflix) May 24, 2017

Let me think about it. Ok I’m in. https://t.co/kUAdHyXAjS

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) May 24, 2017

Since this was just a Twitter exchange, there are precious few details about the potential comeback special and no release date to speak of yet. Meanwhile, Netflix is reportedly dropping a lot of cash attracting comedy’s top talent. Deadline Hollywood reports that the company spent $40 million total on a two-part special from Chris Rock last year. The company also released three hours of standup from Dave Chapelle and signed Jerry Seinfeld up for two specials plus a new season of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee that should drop later this year. DeGeneres, meanwhile, recently launched a digital content network of her own.

Source: Deadline Hollywood