Chrome will automatically block annoying ads in early 2018

Google will launch a version of the Chrome web browser in early 2018 that automatically blocks annoying ads. Google’s new ad-filtering technology will define “annoying” as outlined by the Coalition for Better Ads — that means Chrome users are about to see a lot fewer pop-ups and auto-playing audio spots.

“The reality is, it’s far too common that people encounter annoying, intrusive ads on the web — like the kind that blare music unexpectedly, or force you to wait 10 seconds before you can see the content on the page,” Google SVP of ads and commerce Sridhar Ramaswamy says. “These frustrating experiences can lead some people to block all ads — taking a big toll on the content creators, journalists, web developers and videographers who depend on ads to fund their content creation.”

Reports started swirling in April that Google was building an ad-blocking version of Chrome. While getting rid of annoying content makes sense from a consumer perspective, this is still a surprising move for a company that rakes in upwards of $20 billion each quarter from advertising alone.

Publishers will be able to see whether their ads violate Google’s new standards with the Ad Experience Report.

The Coalition for Better Ads generated its initial Better Ads Standards after surveying 25,000 internet users across North America and Europe. Here are the most annoying ways to sell something online, according to this research:

Desktop

• Pop-ups
• Auto-playing ads with sound
• Large sticky banners
• Countdowns that force users to wait before loading the desired page

Mobile

• Pop-ups
• Auto-playing ads with sound
• Large sticky banners
• Countdowns that force users to wait
• Ads that take up more than 30 percent of a screen
• Flashing animations
• Full-screen scrollovers

When Google begins enforcing the Better Ads Standards in early 2018, these types of spots will be purged from Chrome.

Source: Google Blog

Facebook reportedly has a teen-friendly chat app in the works

As Snapchat continues to rule among the teen set, Facebook continues to take a more active role in encouraging younger folks to use its own communication apps. According to a report at The Information, code inside the main Facebook app points to a new, unreleased app called Talk. The code alludes to parent-centric features for filtering who teens can talk to, saying “Talk is a messaging app where you fully control the contacts.” Another line in the code states that children will talk to parents in Messenger. Another line from the code appears to reference additional features that might actually appeal to teens. One comment in the code says, “Kids love using the creative tools in “Talk” to play games and share fun masks with family and friends,” according to The Information.

With a reported 158 million daily users, Snapchat is still the messaging app to beat. Teens use the disappearing photo features to connect with friends much more often than Facebook-owned services WhatsApp, Instagram Stories or even Facebook itself.

A Talk app, which would likely be restricted to users 13 years or older, wouldn’t require a Facebook profile, according to the code, making it yet another feature that appeals more to parents than children. A kid-centric app with strict parental controls may help older folks feel good about sharing it with their own children, sure, but it’s doubtful Talk will replace Snapchat any time soon. Code from Facebook’s main app aren’t a confirmation of an actual release, of course. Facebook declined to comment on this story when Engadget reached out via email.

Source: The Information

Xbox’s Netflix-style game service is available for everyone

Microsoft has kept its promise to add more backwards compatibility to the Xbox One, enabling owners to play select Xbox 360 titles on the new machine. But it’s the console’s Game Pass that shows the most promise: A Netflix-style monthly subscription service giving access to old and new games. While Xbox Live Gold members got early access last week, Game Pass is now live for anyone with an Xbox One.

Xbox Game Pass is now available for Xbox One owners & you can now browse the Game Pass catalog thru the Xbox App on your Windows 10 PC!

— Larry Hryb 💬 (@majornelson) June 1, 2017

For $10 per month, players can download any of over 100 titles at launch, including new(ish) Halo 5: Guardians, Payday 2, NBA 2K16 and classics like Soul Calibur II and Banjo-Kazooie. If that expense seems pricey on top of an Xbox Live subscription, Microsoft is offering a 14-day free trial to see if the service and its catalog is right for you.

Source: Major Nelson (Twitter), Xbox Game Pass

61 US cities and three states vow to uphold Paris climate agreement

Shortly after Donald Trump told the world that the US would withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, American cities and states vowed they would abide by the international compact anyway. At least 61 mayors followed through on a previous pledge to ignore Trump’s decision and released a statement vowing to uphold the Paris accords. Meanwhile, the governors of California, New York and Washington announced they would form the “United States Climate Alliance” to do the same as a multi-state coalition.

Governors of New York, California, and Washington announce the formation of the “United States Climate Alliance”. pic.twitter.com/KvAAGbP2F6

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 1, 2017

According to the statement above, the governors intend to recruit more states into the US Climate Alliance. Together, they aim to meet the same goals as the Paris agreement, including reducing emissions from 2005 levels and beating the targets set by the federal Clean Power Plan. As noted, the three founding states represent about 68 million people, a fifth of the US population — who produce a fifth of the US GDP.

The group of city leaders, known as the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda (or, Climate Mayors) stated back in March they would resist Trump’s efforts to roll back Obama-era climatae policies. Their statement today lists all 61 participating mayors — including William Peduto of Pittsburgh, a city Trump mentioned in today’s speech.

As the Mayor of Pittsburgh, I can assure you that we will follow the guidelines of the Paris Agreement for our people, our economy & future. https://t.co/3znXGTcd8C

— bill peduto (@billpeduto) June 1, 2017

Via: Curbed, Kyle Griffin (Twitter)

Source: Medium

Offensive YouTube videos won’t earn ad money from Google

YouTube released new creator guidelines today, clarifying what makes videos ad-friendly and expanding the restrictions that deem videos ineligible to earn advertising revenue. The stricter rules are an attempt to make sure ads don’t appear on videos that advertisers deem offensive or inappropriate.

In March, the Times revealed that a number of advertisements were appearing on YouTube videos promoting extremist, hateful and inappropriate content, which led many companies to pull their ads from the website. Audi, L’Oreal and the UK government, among others, all removed ads in light of the findings. But, in today’s announcement, YouTube said that “many” advertisers have returned to the website after lengthy discussions and the addition of new controls.

Among the changes are additional details regarding what kinds of content advertisers would and would not like to be attached to. YouTube is also now taking a harder line against hateful content, inappropriate usage of family entertainment characters as well as incendiary and demeaning content. Additionally, YouTube announced a new course in their Creator Academy to help creators make content that’s appealing to advertisers.

The company notes that any video that complies with their terms of service can be posted to YouTube, but videos not conforming to the new advertising guidelines won’t be eligible to earn revenue through ads. So, if you want to be awful on YouTube, you’re going to have to do it for free.

Source: YouTube

Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 4+ is both faster and cooler

We all want more power with less charging on our mobile phones. Qualcomm, the maker of the Snapdragon 835 processor, has long been working to provide lower power usage and faster battery charging. The current Quick Charge 4 technology, announced in November of last year, promises five hours of charge in five minutes, a 20 percent improvement in charging speed and 30 percent improvement in efficiency than the previous Quick Charge system.

The company announced even more improved specs today: the Quick Charge 4+ system, which the company promises is up to three degrees cooler, up to 15 percent faster and 30 percent more efficient than Quick Charge 4. The first smartphone to use this new charging technology will be the Nubia Z17 from Chinese phone maker ZTC.

The new Quick Charge 4+ designation means that your smartphone or accessory has three enhancements: dual charging abilities, intelligent thermal balancing, and more advanced safety features. These all seem important in a world with exploding mobile devices. Dual charge devices include a second power management integrated chip which cuts the charge current in half, letting the chip dissipate heat faster and reducing charging time. Intelligent thermal balancing takes this even further, moving current to the coolest path automatically, which eliminates hot spots. Quick Charge 4+ devices must also monitor both case and connector temperature levels at the same time, which can help avoid overheating and damage to the Type-C connector.

Only a few notable handsets include the Snapdragon 835 chip, including Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, Sony’s Xperia XZ Premium, Xiaomi’s Mi 6 and HTC’s U11. Further, Qualcomm’s list of Quick Charge-enabled models shows no devices with the 4th generation charging technology yet. This scarcity could mean that the new 4+ is more likely a replacement for the QC4 in upcoming smartphones, rather than a sequel.

Source: Qualcomm

VR headsets could soon be half the size of the Oculus Rift

The digital worlds we see through today’s virtual reality headsets are amazing, but the goggles themselves leave something to be desired. Despite offering high resolutions and room-scale VR, the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are bulky, front-heavy devices. Wouldn’t it be better if they were smaller? Soon, they could be. Today at Augmented World Expo, Kopin revealed a new, 4K reference design VR headset that’s half the size of today’s consumer goggles.

It’s a startling difference, too. Most headsets are at least as large as Google’s Cardboard viewer. Kopin’s prototype, on the other hand, is at least a third smaller. That’s because it’s built around two tiny, low-power high resolution displays that measure just 1-inch diagonally — the same tiny 2K VR panels the company showed off at CES earlier this year. The end result is a diminutive headset that looks like a squashed version of the Oculus Rift. I only wore the rig for a few minutes, but during that time the compact, lightweight headset felt comfortable.

Unfortunately, it’s not perfect. Kopin’s pint-sized VR headset showed me sharp, high-res visuals, but it confined them to a small field of view. The shrunken optics offer a sphere of vision that’s about half the size of a typical VR headset. The optics can’t currently be adjusted either. Kopin told Engadget the company is experimenting with different lens configurations to try and expand the FOV, but it’s ultimately a limitation of the display technology. A one-inch 2K screen is amazing, but it’s just too small to make a completely immersive VR headset.

Still, we’re talking about an early prototype here, and Kopin says the above issue can be fixed. The miniaturized screen technology can be used to make larger displays, and improved optics could also increase the FOV — but it might not need to. Kopin announced the prototype with the eventual goal of fitting a VR display into a device about the size of a pair of sunglasses. If they created a headset that really was that small and portable, a loss of peripheral vision might be an acceptable compromise.

Either way, it’s still a bit early to judge. The company says it only started designing the prototype two months ago, and there’s still a lot of work to be done. Today, the company’s tiny reference headset is just a curiosity — but it’s an encouraging one. One that may lead to smaller, lighter and more consumer accessible virtual reality in the future. And that future may come sooner than we expected.

Nintendo’s solution for ‘Splatoon 2’ chat requires lots of wires

Saying Nintendo’s solution to voice chat on the Switch is inelegant would be a gross understatement. At least for Splatoon 2, that is. This morning the game’s Twitter account posted images of how you’ll talk smack in the ink-fueled multiplayer shooter. The setup, dubbed “Empera Hook HDP,” consists of a arrow/squid-shaped dongle, a set of swoop-style on-ear headphones with a boom mic and a trio of 3.5mm aux cables. One cable goes from the Switch’s headphone port to the dongle, another runs from your cellphone to the dongle, and the last one connects the dongle to said headset. Phew.

Why so complicated? Because while the Switch is Nintendo’s first console to offer online voice chat, the system isn’t compatible with wireless headphones. That means if you want to play Splatoon 2 from your couch, you’re going to need an awfully long cable. The aux cords packed in with the kit are apparently only 1.2 meters (just under 48-inches) long. And because voice chat is handled via a smartphone app, well, everything needs to be in close proximity of each other. Hopefully you don’t have an iPhone 7, because, well, that will entail yet another dongle.

The kit is made by Hori and officially licensed, so at least we know it should be decent quality. Nintendo Switch (translated) says that the headset will be released June 21st in Japan to coincide with Splatoon 2 for ¥3480 ($31.25). You’ll also be able to dress your Inkling kid up with an in-game version of the headset.

On the surface, this looks like an accessory built specifically for Splatoon 2 in the way that the GameCube controller adapter was built specifically for Super Smash Bros for Wii U. Nintendo’s overall plans for voice chat are still ambiguous, so maybe consider this piece of hardware an awkward olive branch.

In January, Nintendo America president Reggie Fils-Aime defended his company’s decision to use a smartphone app and headphones for handling voice chat to IGN with the following:

“We want to reinforce the capability to take your experience with you on the go…. The ability to do matchmaking, voice chat through your phone, it’s a hell of a lot more convenient than having a gamer headset stuck into your backpack trying to do that. That’s why we’re doing it the way we are. We see the convenience, we see the ease of delivery. We think it’s going to lead to a better experience.”

What a difference five months makes. And you thought the amount of dongles and wires needed to connect accessories to a new MacBook was ridiculous.

そんなフォーリマのギアをかたどった「ステレオヘッドセット エンペラフックHDP for Nintendo Switch」が、ホリさんから発売されることが決定した！
着脱可能なフレキシブルマイクが付属し、当たり前だが、実際にヘッドセットやヘッドフォンとして使用できるぞ！ pic.twitter.com/KYTxdfJfEv

— Splatoon（スプラトゥーン） (@SplatoonJP) June 1, 2017

Via: Kotaku, Nintendo Switch

Source: Splatoon (Twitter) (Japanese)

Zen robot analyzes oddly shaped rocks, figures out how best to stack them

Why it matters to you

This robot’s impressive balancing act could one day pave the way for robots that are able to create structures with local materials.

Remember those mysterious piles of rocks left outside the kids’ tents in The Blair Witch Project? It seems that we might have been barking up the wrong tree with supernatural explanations because, as it turns out, it may have been robots after all!

At least, that’s if the folks at ETH Zurich had anything to do with it. At this week’s ICRA 2017 event in Singapore, the Swiss researchers showed off a robot that is designed to autonomously stack pieces of limestone into balanced towers.

While that is the kind of thing that a human child may be able to do, it is a tough ask for a robot due to the planning involved — not to mention the odd shape of the irregular rocks it is being asked to manipulate. To handle this, the researchers each took charge of a different operation the robot had to carry out: Either object detection, object manipulation, or a pose-searching algorithm that works out how best to stack the rocks based on what it knows about previous rock stacks.

The researchers do, admittedly, cheat a little bit. Sure, each rock is different, but the robot has 3D scanned them in advance of its building task, thereby letting it carry out simulations before starting work on the actual physical stacking. That does not make its achievement any less impressive, though. While kids can, as mentioned, create stacks of a few rocks without too much trouble, the ability to heap six on top of one another is something that is a bit trickier than it looks.

In all, the work represents an exciting step forward in what its creators hope will one day be the ability of robots to use local building materials to create structures — or, at the very least, carry out a spot of landscape gardening.

You can check out the authors’ paper, titled “Autonomous Robotic Stone Stacking with Online next Best Object Target Pose Planning,” here.

‘Pokémon Go’ drove The Pokémon Company’s profits to record heights

Why it matters to you

Pokémon Go’s profitability could mean downloadable expansions, sequels, and new features in the future.

Thought Pokémon Go — the augmented reality smartphone game about hunting, capturing, and battling monsters — was just a fad? Think again. Thanks in part to the app’s continued success, The Pokémon Company recorded 26 times the profit it made the previous year.

That is according to Katan Games, Inc. CEO Serkan Toto, who noticed the line item in Japan’s Kanpo Gazette. “Net profit reached a staggering US$143.3 million in the fiscal year that ended on February 28, 2017 (there are no sales figures given),” Toto wrote in a blow-by-blow analysis on his blog. Last fiscal year (which ended Feb. 29, 2016), the Pokémon Company recorded profits of just $5.6 million.

“It’s widely known that if a developer lands a big hit on mobile, the profitability is much higher than for other platforms,” Toto told The Verge. “Some publicly traded mobile-game makers in Japan, for example, regularly boost operating margins of 40 percent and higher. I think that thanks to Pokémon Go being a mobile title and [Pokémon developer] Niantic getting better at live operations (at servicing, updating, tweaking the game), The Pokémon Company will continue to enjoy handsome profits over the next years,” he said.

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Pokémon Go’s profitability is something of an open secret. In July 2016, app analytics firm Sensor Tower estimated that it hit 50 million downloads from the Google Play Store, Android’s app store, over the course of a single weekend. And in January, Nintendo reported a profit of $569 million on revenue of $1.5 billion — an uptick the company attributed in part to Pokémon Go. 

It wasn’t just Pokémon Go that boosted The Pokémon Company’s bottom line, of course. Pokémon Sun and Moon helped — they clocked a collective 15.69 million in sales on Nintendo’s 3DS — as did Pokémon X and Y, which drove The Pokémon Company’s profits to $10.6 million last fiscal year.

But The Pokémon Company remains very much invested in the app’s future. In a recent interview with Brazilian outlet O Globo, Mathieu de Fayet, Niantic’s vice president of strategic partnerships, said that the company was “working on new features” like “how to give more value to the choice of teams,” the “release of Legendary Pokémon,” and battles between players. “Because of the great success, we had to postpone a few features that were planned,” he said.

The Pokémon Company was founded in 1998 in Tokyo by three companies — Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures. It manages the Pokémon brand, including the franchise’s video games, animated series, films, trading card game, and other ventures.