Comcast sets its sights for the wireless market with Xfinity Mobile

The television and internet conglomerate has teamed up with Verizon Wireless in an attempt to become its own mobile operator.

In its ever-present quest for wireless superiority, Comcast quietly launched its own mobile network, aptly dubbed Xfinity Mobile. The service offers an unlimited data plan or you can pay by the gigabyte. It’s only available to those with existing Comcast internet service, however.

Xfinity Mobile began its nationwide rollout last week. It’s typically $65 a month for unlimited data access, but Comcast is currently offering a promotion at $45 a month. Speeds will be reduced after 20GB, however, which might not make it the best option for large family plans. The alternative is to pay-as-you-go at the $12 per gigabyte rate, but that option becomes quite pricey if you’re using more than four gigs a month. The subscription also garners you access to Verizon Wireless’s network, as well as access to Comcast’s Wi-Fi hotspots in the U.S. and its TV streaming service.

All this this not without its caveats. Xfinity Mobile is available to Comcast’s internet customers only, so you’ll have to pay for internet in addition to the mobile service. And though the $45 a month rate will continue to apply to existing high-end X1 plan subscribers, that quickly adds up when you’re paying for the whole suite of offerings. You also can’t bring your own device to the network, though you can pick from a Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, or a low-end LG X Power at typical prices.

But for light data users who maybe don’t rely on their smartphones outside of the home as much as the rest of us do, Xfinity Mobile could be a convenient add-on when a tethered internet connection is already getting the most use. Just as long as you don’t mind being entirely beholden to Comcast.

Give your friends a reason to snap with Snapchat’s custom stories

Snapchat’s new feature isn’t a killer one, but it will certainly give its existing users another reason to keep using it.

A new Snapchat feature could help you when encouraging your friends to at least install the Snapchat app for the weekend. Snap has introduced custom Stories, which are designed to help friends and family groups collectively snap even the most mundane of events on the fly.

Custom Stories are easy to set up and don’t require that much planning beforehand. Tap the new Create Story icon in the top-right corner of the main Stories screen. Type in a name for the event, and then invite your friends. You can extend the invitation to anyone you’d like to participate in the as-it-happens festivities, regardless of their location. The new feature isn’t geofenced. You can also invite nearby Snapchat users to participate if it’s, say, a public event, like a high school prom or college graduation. Snapchat will create a one-block geofence around your current location.

Custom Stories will stay up on the main Stories page for as long as they are live, or until no one contributes for 24 hours. Each user is limited to three custom Stories at a time.

Is this a killer feature that will bring back hoards of budding Snapchat users? Not likely. It’s hard to ignore Snapchat’s declining numbers, especially when Instagram has all but run rampant with its own story-making features. But in the realm of mobile-first apps, it’s encouraging to see social networks attempting to become more of an extension of our social lives rather than a replacement.

The update is slowly rolling out to Snapchat users right now. If you don’t see it in the Google Play Store just yet, hang tight.

The Galaxy S8 iris scanner can be hacked with aging tech

Biometrics are becoming our next de facto security measure, and they’re supposed to be a vast improvement on easily-forgotten and hackable passwords. Yet a point-and-shoot camera, laser printer and contact lens is all it took for German hacking group Chaos Computer Club to crack the Samsung Galaxy S8’s iris scanner. “By far [the] most expensive part of the iris biometry hack was the purchase of the Galaxy S8,” the group wrote on its website.

They pulled it off by taking a photo of the target from about five meters away, and printing a close-up of the eye on a laser printer — made by Samsung, no less. A regular contact lens was placed on top of the print to replicate the curve of an eyeball. When the print was held up to the smartphone, the S8 unlocked.

“The security risk to the user from iris recognition is even bigger than with fingerprints as we expose our irises a lot,” said Dirk Engling, spokesperson for the group, which previously hacked the iPhone 5S fingerprint sensor using photos of a glass surface. “Under some circumstances, a high-resolution picture from the internet is sufficient to capture an iris.”

Biometric security is taking off, particularly with the rise of mobile payments. Mastercard has rolled out “selfie pay” in Europe, while Australia has introduced facial recognition to replace passports in airports, and Chinese ride-share company Didi helps passengers verify their driver’s identity using face scanning.

Sci-fi has told us that iris scans are so accurate you’d need to cut out someone’s eyes to fool them. But the disappointing reality so far is that stuff a hacker could rummage for on Craigslist is probably good enough.

Source: Chaos Computer Club

‘Overwatch’ turns one with more skins for your arsenal

Last week, Blizzard answered the susurrous rising from Overwatch fans wondering whether the studio would celebrate the game’s one-year anniversary: Yes, an event was in the works. (And there was much rejoicing.) To commemorate the game’s arrival exactly a year ago, and in recognition of its wild critical and commercial success, Overwatch is launching a new event and releasing a Game of the Year edition for $40. But if you need convincing, the game will be free to play this weekend.

Like each of the half-dozen events in the game’s first year, Overwatch: Anniversary will run a few weeks offering exclusive new skins, sprays, emotes and other tchotchkes in every loot box until it ends on June 12th. After that, it’s unclear when said items will be available again, as previous event exclusives haven’t returned. And if you think the last round of limited-time skins was impressive, wait til you see Super Sentai Green Ranger Genji, dapper Lucio and Cyberlegionary Zarya.

The event also brings three new Arena maps to the game: Necropolis, Castillo and Black Forest. All take design cues from existing levels but are scaled down for the Arcade modes up to 3v3. If you’ve been ignoring the weekly Brawls to avoid having to play on the Arena’s only level prior to this update, Arctic Base, your ship has come in.

If you haven’t bought Overwatch yet, Blizzard’s replaced its Origins edition of the game with a Game of the Year version for $40. It contains all the goodies that the former edition had, including exclusive skins and Overwatch-themed ornamental items for Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 and Hearthstone along with unlocking the character Tracer in Heroes of the Storm — plus ten loot boxes to start filling out your Overwatch collection. The regular version of the game will also get discounted to $30 and players with the core game can upgrade to the GOTY edition for $10, but buy soon: The sale ends on June 5th.

Source: Blizzard

New York forces smart lock maker to improve its security

Smart locks promise the security of a traditional lock without the need to carry around a key. Most can be unlocked with a mobile app or an RFID-equipped card you can store in your wallet. Unfortunately, they’re also pretty easy to hack open. The office of New York’s attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, announced a settlement today with one such smart lock manufacturer. Utah-based Safetech Products has agreed to encrypt all of its smart lock passwords, electronic keys and other credentials within its locks, prompt users to change the default password upon initial setup and establish a more comprehensive security program.

Safetech makes both padlocks and door locks, each available on Amazon. According to the New York AG’s office, independent security researchers found that the company’s locks did not secure passwords or other security information in its locks, which left customers open to hacking and theft.

“Companies employing new technologies must implement and promote good security practices and ensure that their products are secure, including through the use of encryption,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “Together, with the help of companies like Safetech, we can safeguard against breaches and illegal intrusions on our private data.”

While this may be the first time an attorney general has taken legal action against a smart lock company like this, it won’t likely be the last. Kwikset was sued recently for its Smart key lock’s alleged culpability in the rape and murder of a young woman in Florida by the building security guard. While not a true smart lock, the lock in question has a programmable cylinder that can be made to work with any key, which can be used to give temporary access to anyone. It’s also easily broken into with a screwdriver and a paper clip.

As we all turn to smart devices and the Internet of Things in our lives, it becomes even more important to make sure we’re being protected from both hackers and ourselves. The settlement with Safetech could be the first big step towards companies building better security into their smart devices.

The devices in our homes are increasingly connected to the internet—posing new privacy & security risks to consumers. We’re taking action.

— Eric Schneiderman (@AGSchneiderman) May 23, 2017

Source: New York Attorney General’s office

Target settles with 47 states over its 2013 data breach

Believe it or not, Target still isn’t done paying the price for the 2013 breach that exposed the shopping data of tens of millions of customers. The retailer has reached a settlement with 47 states (and the District of Columbia) that will have it pay a collective $18.5 million and institute key reforms. It’ll have to separate its card data from the rest of its network, further control access to its network (such as by implementing two-factor authentication) and run “appropriate” encryption policies. It’ll also have to implement a “comprehensive” info security program with a dedicated executive, and hire an outside firm for security reviews.

As far as settlements go, this is one of the smaller examples. Target is shelling out more than the $10 million it paid to individual victims, but the current settlement is peanuts compared to the $39 million paid to banks and the $67 million Visa agreement. It’s barely comparable to the $19 million MasterCard payout.

However, this will likely serve as yet another reminder that lax security (such as Target’s decision to ignore hack alerts for 12 days) can have long-lasting consequences for retailers, let alone customers. It also represents a closure of sorts Target can spend less time dealing with the fallout from the breach and focus more on reducing the chances of a repeat disaster.

Source: New York Attorney General

Fashion and technology will inevitably become one

There’s no denying that the technology world is obsessed with fashion. Amazon, Apple and Google, three of the biggest names in tech, are all trying to carve their own path into the fashion space. Apple’s doing so with fancy smartwatches, Amazon with a shopping platform and voice-controlled cameras, and Google with conductive fabrics embedded in a smart jacket made by Levi’s. And the interest is mutual. Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel’s creative director, has expressed his love for tech by experimenting with partially 3D-printed pieces and runway shows that simulate a rocket launch. He’s not the only one, either. Zac Posen, with help from fashion house Marchesa, worked with IBM’s Watson supercomputer to create a cognitive dress that lights up and changes colors based on activity on social media.

All of this is to say the line between these two industries is blurring. And now more than ever, it feels like high-tech fashion is on the verge of being more than just a gimmick. In the not-too-distant future, you could even be 3D printing your own shoes or clothes at home. Instead of going to a store, you’ll buy designs straight from the designer. And we’re quickly heading toward a world in which “wearable” will be more than a fancy word for a smartphone accessory. Think about it: Your Apple Watch is basically a brick if you don’t have an iPhone paired with it.

3D printing’s potential

Three-dimensional printing has come a long way and is no longer just for prototyping. Sportswear giant Adidas, for example, is on the way to making 3D-printed shoes a consumer product as part of an effort known as Futurecraft, which began in 2015. Earlier this year, it teamed up with Silicon Valley startup Carbon 3D on a new manufacturing technique called digital light synthesis, which mixes light and oxygen with programmable liquid resins to create 3D objects in a matter of minutes. Adidas says this technology will allow it to 3D-print sneakers on a large scale; it’s planning to ship 100,000 pairs by the end of 2018.

Adidas Futurecraft 4D.

While 3D-printed shoes may at first sound like a gimmick, the reason Adidas is betting on the technology is its customization potential. Imagine being able to walk into a store, hop on a treadmill, have your foot measured to a T and get a pair made based on your results in less than 24 hours. This approach means the shoes would match your footprint elements, including contour details and precise pressure points — which, in turn, could give you the most amount of comfort.

Sponsored athletes already benefit from this, because brands typically custom-make designs for them, but the idea is to expand the concept to every consumer. That’s the future Adidas imagines, one that’s also going to depend on the company’s Speedfactory, a manufacturing facility staffed by robots that can make products at a rapid pace and in high volumes. It’s an automated assembly line that’s straight out of a sci-fi film.

Vanessa Friedman, fashion director and chief fashion critic at The New York Times, says 3D printing will have a significant value for fashion companies down the road, especially if it transforms into a print-it-yourself tool for shoppers. “There’s real sense that this is not going to happen anytime soon,” she says, “but it will happen, and it will create dramatic change in how we think both about intellectual property and how things are in the supply chain.” She adds: “Certainly some of the fabrications that brands can use will be dramatically changed by technology.”

“Power laces, alright!”

Nike, on the other hand, has been busy with self-lacing shoes. What started as a project inspired by nostalgia for the Mag — a prop with power laces worn by Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) in Back to the Future Part II — has turned into something with larger implications. The HyperAdapt 1.0, which features a self-lacing system dubbed E.A.R.L. (Electro Adaptive Reactive Lacing), is essentially the consumer version of Nike’s beloved Mag. The company says one of the reasons it created it is because athletes often complained about their shoes untying during workouts, and HyperAdapt solves that problem because it requires little to no effort when you’re putting it on. It’s a costly solution, though — each pair is a whopping $720.

Still, just like high-definition TVs, they will go from being a luxury item to commonplace over time. While Nike isn’t pitching HyperAdapt or E.A.R.L specifically to people with disabilities (particularly those unable to tie their own shoes), there’s definitely potential there. Nike does have its Ease Challenge, a project that recruits outside designers and engineers to “advance and reinvent footwear design for athletes of all abilities.” This year, Nike awarded $50,000 to the designer of a shoe with a heel counter that acts as a small door for your feet, removing the need to tie laces or use a shoehorn. The winner, Brett Drake, will work with the brand to create a prototype of the design and perhaps eventually bring it to market.

“This is the very first baby step toward having a truly adaptable shoe,” Matt Powell, a sports-industry analyst at research firm NPD, says about Nike’s E.A.R.L. technology. “It isn’t just going to tighten or loosen laces; it could increase or decrease cushioning, it could ventilate or warm [the shoe]. This is a very, very small step in a long path of making footwear that is adjusting to our needs on the fly.”

Smart fabrics

Google’s Advanced Technologies and Projects (ATAP), the group that handles the company’s offbeat innovations (like the now-defunct Project Ara), has been rethinking the very materials clothes are made of. For the past couple of years, the tech giant has been experimenting with conductive fabrics that can make fashion garments smarter. With Project Jacquard, Google created a system for weaving technology that can turn clothes or any other textiles into gesture-controlled surfaces. Google hopes designers and developers will implement this tech in sensor-laden garments that can be used in everyday life, including jeans, T-shirts and jackets.

To show Project Jacquard’s potential, Google teamed up with Levi’s on a connected Commuter denim jacket that has 15 conductive threads on the left sleeve, each just visible enough for you to know where to touch to trigger certain actions. A Bluetooth cuff pairs the jacket to a smartphone, letting you brush your fingers on the smart fabric to check the time or swipe to play music, etc. And Google and Levi’s could make the jacket more interactive.

Levi’s and Google’s Commuter jacket is slated to hit stores this fall for $350, and it’s the first of many products the tech company hopes to see integrate with Jacquard. “We think about Jacquard as a raw material that will make computation a part of the language which apparel designers and textile designers and fashion designers speak,” the company said when it introduced the tech at its I/O developers conference in 2015. “We want digital to be just the same thing as quality of yarn or colors used.”

Google’s Project Jacquard.

The smartphone-dependance

More often than not, technology and fashion seem to have trouble understanding each other — remember that underwhelming tech-themed Met Gala in 2016? So perhaps collaborations like Levi’s’ and Google’s are the way forward. And although it’s unclear if the smart denim jacket will be a success ( it probably won’t be), Google is already planning to work with more fashion labels on future Jacquard projects. Who wants some Gap Jacquard khakis?

Whatever it may be, Friedman says tech companies need to figure out a way to make their fashion products less dependent on smartphones. “Right now we’re just saying, ‘OK, here we have these devices that we all love which is our phones. How can we attach that to something else that we have?’” she says.”I think the real question is: ‘What doesn’t the phone do? What is something completely new that our clothes could do?’”

Kate Sicchio, an assistant professor of integrated digital media at New York University, says the future could be a “more embedded” one, in which the clothes or accessories we wear have a better way of sensing our every move. She says part of the problem now is that the tech industry doesn’t necessarily take the time to fully understand our bodies or movement, but she’s hopeful that’ll change. “Electronics sometimes aren’t flexible enough or don’t form to the body quite right,” she says. “We can’t change the shape of the body, but hopefully we can mold our tech to fit it better.”

Sicchio adds that it’s imperative to move away from the smartphone being the brains of the operation. “That will make a huge difference,” she says. “If we look at the history of ubiquitous computing … in the ’90s, all these MIT researchers had backpacks full of laptops, and now we just have this little [rectangle] we keep in our pocket, and soon that’s going to disappear and it just will be a small microcontroller in our garments.”

We can’t change the shape of the body, but hopefully we can mold our tech to fit it better.

Time to think outside the box

The hope, Sicchio says, is that soon enough we’ll have clothes that will be able to collect your health and fitness data without the need for an auxiliary device like a smartwatch, band or phone. “That’s one of these things that smart fabrics are really good at, they can be on the body and read the body,” says Sacchio “So far, all we’ve done is quantify and measure that rather than apply it. Tech people have to realize there are experts on bodies and movements out there that they should be listening to.”

Still, you get the feeling technology companies are on the verge of a major breakthrough in fashion, and it’s only a matter of time before we see products that are both useful and accessible to everyone. We have to remember that what may seem like a gimmick now could end up laying the ground for something bigger: What if Google’s Jacquard jacket could one day measure your heart rate, along with letting you pick which song to play next? Or if Nike’s self-lacing shoes could also track your step count? That future can’ be far off.

“Breakthroughs are hard,” says Friedman. “They only come every once in awhile, and it requires someone who can really think outside any existing boxes, and most of us are very embedded in our boxes.” It’s hard to see the future, but we can take a guess at what it will look like based on today’s reality. What’s clear is that technology and fashion companies must work together to make this vision more than just a sci-fi fantasy.

Welcome to Tomorrow, Engadget’s new home for stuff that hasn’t happened yet. You can read more about the future of, well, everything, at Tomorrow’s permanent home and check out all of our launch week stories here.

Uber admits New York drivers were underpaid for years

Uber drivers have it tough lately. They have to deal with rate hikes they won’t see directly, company plans for self-driving cars, and higher insurance rates. Uber doesn’t have it much easier, already having settled in January to pay $20 million for exaggerating drivers’ earnings, a loss of love for self-driving cars in Pittsburgh and a CEO caught arguing with one of his own drivers. Now, the company admits to “mistakenly” underpaying New York City Uber drivers over the past two and a half years. Thankfully, Uber plans to refund the drivers what they are owed.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Uber took a higher cut of driver earnings when calculating it’s commission from New York-based drivers. It reportedly took its fee before accounting for a local injury-compensation fund fee and sales tax in New York. The company has promised to refund the money to the region’s drivers at an average of about $900 each. Assuming there are at least 45,000 drivers in the city (as reported by the Independent Drivers Guild union) Uber could end up paying upwards of $40.5 million back to its contractors.

“We are committed to paying every driver every penny they are owed — plus interest — as quickly as possible,” said Rachel Holt, Uber’s Regional General Manager for the US and Canada, in a statement to Engadget. “We are working hard to regain driver trust, and that means being transparent, sticking to our word, and making the Uber experience better from end to end.”

While it seems odd that a company with such high-tech routing software could make such a large accounting error, but at least it’s owning up to the mistake. However, it does seem like the ride-sharing company has more than its fair share of missteps lately.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Medium’s existential makeover continues with a revamped homepage

Despite its high profile, Medium still hasn’t quite figured out what it is in the five years since it launched as a minimalist blogging platform. In the meantime, Medium has pivoted from tech company to publishing service and various shades in between as it tries to draw an audience, fix “a broken system” and eventually turn a profit. In March, Medium announced an ad-free $5 premium tier with curated content and audio stories, but it seems that experiment has already run its course. After just two months, Medium has made the curated homepage available to everyone.

The “smarter reading experience,” as Medium is calling it, is designed to “deliver a satisfying, completable, and controllable experience for every reader.” In other words: Medium wants make sure you never run out of things to read, preventing that overwhelming feeling that comes with an endless flood of content. What that means in practice is you’ll be able to subscribe to topics of interest like Tech, Politics, Design, Productivity, Culture, etc. and your homepage will populate with a mix of four to six stories from each. The stories in each Topic collection are hand-picked from the platform by Medium editors and there are over 50 to choose from. You can also switch back to the original feed if you prefer to read chronologically.

The feature is currently rolling out to all users on the web and iOS versions, but Android folks will have to wait until the next app update to get it on mobile. As for the $5 Premium membership, Medium is still advertising that tier with access to exclusive content, offline reading and audio versions of top stories.

Via: The Verge

Source: Medium

Google simplifies sharing notes, calendars and photos with family

Google knows that a large part of its customer base probably have families. That’s why it introduced a family plan option to Google Music a couple of years ago, as well as Family Library sharing for the Play Store last year. When YouTube TV launched a few weeks ago, you could add up to five additional family members to your plan from the start. Now, Google is ready to add family-friendly features to even more of its products; namely: Calendar, Keep and Photos.

With Calendar, this means that you can now have a shared family calendar with everyone’s schedules in one place. A shared Keep account means you can share shopping lists and notes so that everyone’s on the same page. And finally, a shared Photos group means that anyone in the family can add photos and videos to the same album without much hassle. To be fair, these are all features that you could already do before; Google is just making it that much easier with a pre-rolled family group that you can create right from the start.

These family sharing features will roll out starting today in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, the UK and the US.

Source: Google