Self-driving cars to prove their mettle on an Ohio highway

When you think of American states that are crucial to the future of transportation, you probably think of California, Michigan and maybe Nevada. Ohio, however, is determined to put itself on the map. Thanks to a mix of federal and local funds, the state is wiring a 35-mile portion of Route 33 for vehicle-to-infrastructure communication tests. Ideally, this will solve traffic issues by helping connected and self-driving cars talk to both highway systems and each other. With enough test data, these smarter cars could both take better advantage of the available lanes and drive in closely-packed platoons.

The wiring takes place this summer, although tests will have to wait until everything is in place. There are already partners lined up to use it, though: Intel’s Wind River is teaming up with Ohio State University, the city of Dublin and the Transportation Research Center to use the Route 33 segment as an autonomous vehicle testbed. Honda and other companies could also use the smart highway for their own research.

You aren’t likely to see the results of this work for years. However, it could prove vital to the future of self-driving tech. The first fully autonomous vehicles to enter service are likely to start driving on highways first, not city streets — this will help them make full use of those simpler but faster passageways, and should refine the technology until it’s ready for trickier situations.

Source: TechCrunch, Wind River

Apple’s 2017 Design Awards winners showcase the best apps iOS offers

Why it matters to you

Apple’s award-winning apps can take you on an adventure, help you get things done, and make your photos look even more amazing.

Apple honors the achievements of some of its most creative and talented developers every year at its Worldwide Developers Conference and 2017 was no different. The winners of this year’s Apple Design Awards comprise a variety of games that use the company’s hardware and rendering technologies in unique ways, as well as productivity apps with impeccable user experience design that also work across Apple’s other products.

Among the 12 games and apps is Splitter Critters, a puzzle title originally built in just 72 hours with a revolutionary gameplay mechanic. After seeing favorable reception to the original version, developer RAC7 games went back to the drawing board to finish the project. In Splitter Critters, your goal is to help wandering aliens back to their space ship by slicing and dragging the level around until they are able to reach it.

Apple

Apple also honored Drinkbox Studios, the developers of Severed, an action-adventure game. The judges were impressed by the title’s intuitive touch controls for sword swinging, critically-acclaimed soundtrack, and the vibrant graphical presentation optimized for iOS through Apple’s Metal API.

If you have had enough fun killing time and you are ready to get to work, Apple suggests you check out Things 3, the latest release of the long-running task management app. Things 3 integrates with iOS and iCloud services like Calendars and Reminders, and supports a wide range of gestures to accelerate certain actions. The app also integrates with Apple Watch for unique watch face complications and comes alongside a MacOS version that even supports the Touch Bar in the new MacBook Pro.

Apple

For the photographers out there, Lightricks’ Enlight was made to harness the full power of the CPU and GPU in Apple’s devices to deliver one of the iOS’s most powerful photo editing tools. Enlight takes advantage of the wide color gamut of the iPhone 7’s display and features an extensive roster of customizable filters and special effects, allowing you to create even more amazing things with the device’s capable camera.

There were many more apps recognized at this year’s WWDC, including virtual coloring book Lake, currency converter Elk, and cooking app Kitchen Stories. For the full results, check out Apple’s Design Awards site.

These robots get better at grabbing objects by playing poorly together

Why it matters to you

An adversarial approach to training robots could make them more quickly adapt to new tasks and environments.

Whether it was your favorite toy or the last portion of mashed potatoes, anyone who grew up with a sibling knows that you learn to forcefully stake your claim to what’s rightfully yours.

It turns out that a similar idea can be applied to robots.

In a new piece of research — presented at the recent 2017 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) — engineers from Google and Carnegie Mellon University demonstrated that robots learn to grasp objects more robustly if another robot can be made to try and snatch it away from them while they’re doing so.

When one robot is given the task of picking up an object, the researchers made its evil twin (not that they used those words exactly) attempt to grab it from them. If the object isn’t properly held, the rival robot would be successful in its snatch-and-grab effort. Over time, the first robot learns to more securely hold onto its object — and with a vastly accelerated learning time, compared to working this out on its own.

“Robustness is a challenging problem for robotics,” Lerrel Pinto, a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute told Digital Trends. “You ideally want a robot to be able to transfer what it has learnt to environments that it hasn’t seen before, or even be stable to risks in the environment. Our adversarial formulation allows the robot to learn to adapt to adversaries, and this could allow the robot to work in new environments.”

The work uses deep learning technology, as well as insights from game theory: the mathematical study of conflict and cooperation, in which one party’s gain can mean the other party’s loss. In this case, a successful grab from the rival robot is recorded as a failure for the robot it grabbed the object from — which triggers a learning experience for the loser. Over time, the robots’ tussles make each of them smarter.

That sounds like progress — just as long as the robots don’t eventually form a truce and target us with their adversarial AI, we guess!

These robots get better at grabbing objects by playing poorly together

Why it matters to you

An adversarial approach to training robots could make them more quickly adapt to new tasks and environments.

Whether it was your favorite toy or the last portion of mashed potatoes, anyone who grew up with a sibling knows that you learn to forcefully stake your claim to what’s rightfully yours.

It turns out that a similar idea can be applied to robots.

In a new piece of research — presented at the recent 2017 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) — engineers from Google and Carnegie Mellon University demonstrated that robots learn to grasp objects more robustly if another robot can be made to try and snatch it away from them while they’re doing so.

When one robot is given the task of picking up an object, the researchers made its evil twin (not that they used those words exactly) attempt to grab it from them. If the object isn’t properly held, the rival robot would be successful in its snatch-and-grab effort. Over time, the first robot learns to more securely hold onto its object — and with a vastly accelerated learning time, compared to working this out on its own.

“Robustness is a challenging problem for robotics,” Lerrel Pinto, a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute told Digital Trends. “You ideally want a robot to be able to transfer what it has learnt to environments that it hasn’t seen before, or even be stable to risks in the environment. Our adversarial formulation allows the robot to learn to adapt to adversaries, and this could allow the robot to work in new environments.”

The work uses deep learning technology, as well as insights from game theory: the mathematical study of conflict and cooperation, in which one party’s gain can mean the other party’s loss. In this case, a successful grab from the rival robot is recorded as a failure for the robot it grabbed the object from — which triggers a learning experience for the loser. Over time, the robots’ tussles make each of them smarter.

That sounds like progress — just as long as the robots don’t eventually form a truce and target us with their adversarial AI, we guess!

Tallest all-wood building in the U.S. approved for construction

Why it matters to you

Wood construction may find new life in taller buildings based on this new technology.

Timber is becoming an increasingly attractive construction material thanks to advances in wood-binding technologies. This week, city officials in Portland, Oregon, approved a construction permit for the United States’ first all-wood high-rise.

The developer is set to begin construction of the 11-story building, called Framework, this fall. Once completed, the complex will house subsidized apartments and offices for Albina Community Bank and Beneficial State Bank.

Framework will utilize a technology known as cross-laminated timber (CLT). These CLT panels are constructed from small wooden planks bound to one another by a polyurethane adhesive, giving them the strength of traditional construction materials such as concrete and steel.

In fact, tests have show that CLT designs can withstand large-scale earthquakes. Researchers at Portland State University and Oregon State University used seismic testing to verify the structural integrity of Framework’s design.

State officials have high hopes for the future of CLT and believe the technology could bolster the floundering regional timber industry. Pacific Northwest logging has struggled in recent years due to trade deals, automation, and government regulation, among other factors.

Oregon has invested heavily into CLT technologies, including a rather robust $150,000 grant to help a Douglas County logging company, D.R. Johnson Lumber Co., create its manufacturing line. Currently, CLT is manufactured predominantly in Europe and Canada, but the Framework high-rise will source the bulk of its CLT panels locally from D.R. Johnson.

Wood has many benefits over traditional construction materials. CLT structures can be erected faster than concrete and steel structures, and, most importantly, wood is far more environmentally friendly. Carbon dioxide is a chief byproduct in the creation of iron, steel, and the non-metallic minerals that are the raw components in concrete. It is estimated that these materials contribute as much to climate change as all of the automobiles on the earth combined.

This initiative and others like it may very well lay the groundwork for more ambitious wood construction projects in the future.

Facebook launches disaster maps to help relief organizations during a crisis

Why it matters to you

With the launch of disaster maps, Facebook could help to make relief efforts more reliable and efficient during a natural disaster or crisis.

In an effort to bridge the gap between obtaining crucial information quickly during a crisis and acting accordingly, Facebook has announced the launch of “disaster maps.” The company is partnering with multiple organizations such as UNICEF and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, among others, to gain feedback on the most useful data to aggregate.

Disaster maps serve the purpose of providing a more concrete visual for relief organizations to work off of when making important decisions during an emergency. The data used to create the maps is shared at regular intervals — not quite in real time, but close to it — as a disaster unfolds.

Tracking this information can potentially better identify where resources such as food and water are needed, the directions most people are heading to find safety, and congested areas to avoid in order for help to arrive at the scene quicker.

The data for these maps is gathered specifically through the Location Services tool enabled on the Facebook app. If you’re ever in an area where a natural disaster strikes, relief organizations will receive that information because your location is logged in the database.

Attempting to improve safety and security isn’t new for Facebook, which has customizable safety features in place to make people feel like they can post personal information on its platform. The social network has now decided to use that info to create mapping resources on a global scale. To stay within the boundaries of privacy policies, the company is using de-identified data that users have agreed to share. This means that the information provided by your Facebook app won’t include any personal details other than your location.

As of now, Facebook is only working with a limited group of relief organizations that are capable of handling such large disasters, but hopes to work with more organizations and governments in the future.

The disaster maps are divided into three sections to help with response efforts. There’s the location density map — which shows where people are located before, during, and after a disaster — and the movement map that displays where people are relocating to over several hours. The third, and most familiar, is the Safety Check map that helps identify unharmed areas based on where people are checking in.

The Safety Check tool launched in 2014, and was one of the first initiatives Facebook took toward providing useful data in the wake of a natural disaster or attack. The tool has since been used across the globe, including in the U.S. following a mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub and the Dallas police shootings.

The data collected through these maps is also intended to have a lasting effect after the natural disaster is over. Comparing these maps with historical records can help organizations gain insight on any common patterns during a crisis, as well as on future plans for recovery or rebuilding.

Gigabyte pushes an Intel Core i7-7740K processor to a record-breaking 7.5 GHz

Why it matters to you

With Intel and AMD continuing to one-up each other in the CPU wars, your next PC is guaranteed to be faster than ever.

Intel has responded to AMD’s highly competitive Ryzen CPU line with lower prices on some Core processors and an aggressive rollout of its own high-end chips. The X299 chipset and Core-X series of CPUs are the latest Intel response to the sudden increase in competition in the company’s most important market.

PC component maker Gigabyte has a vested interest in knowing exactly how well all of these new processors and chipsets perform. One way of accomplishing that objective is to push them to their limits, which is exactly what it did with the Intel Core i7-7740K in a recent record-setting overclocking session, according to The Tech Report.

Gigabyte has its own overclocking experts on staff, including the one known as HiCookie, who has his own team of five overclockers. This group put the Core i7-7740K to the test running on Gigabyte’s X299-SOC Champion motherboard, and used some fairly aggressive cooling techniques.

Specifically, liquid helium at -220 degrees C was paired with a Corsair AX 1500i power supply. The team also used 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-4333MHz memory for the CPU test, as well as  G.Skill Trident Z 3600C17 RAM and dual Gigabyte Aorus GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GPUs for the 3DMark tests.

The results were impressive. First, the team managed to overclock the CPU to a staggering 7.5 GHz, which is a record-setting speed. The 3DMark results also set new records, scoring 356,678 points in 3DMark03, 71,928 points in 3DMark06 with a single GTX 1080 Ti, and 71,176 points in 3DMark06 with two GTX 1080 Ti cards.

These are some impressive results for sure, and demonstrate that Intel remains firmly ensconced in the high-end of the CPU market. AMD has yet to release its full line of new CPUs based on the Zen architecture that includes the 16-core Threadripper, and Intel itself has its own even more aggressive Core-X processors on the way. Combine those with with AMD’s upcoming Vega architecture of GPUs, and it’s clear that PC performance has significant room for growth.

Facebook Video is now on Android TV

Facebook has updated its app for Android TV, but with a twist.

While you won’t see a dedicated Android TV version of the app itself, you will find a slick Facebook Video player built for your big screen. Once installed and logged in (you’ll need your phone handy for the login part), you can check out suggested videos by topic, live videos, games, and your own videos. You can also search to find something worth watching using your TV remote.

Getting the app is easy. Fire up the Google Play Store on your Android TV and install the Facebook app. You can search for it or find it at the top of the “Top Free Apps” list. Google Play knows you’re using an Android TV device so it automatically sends you the Facebook Video app.

If you don’t see Facebook for your TV right away, don’t worry. Google Play can take a day or two to have an update available for everyone and you might not have it just yet. We also have no word on when (if ever) to expect an optimized Facebook timeline app for Android TV. For now, this will have to do.

Do these leaked iPhone 8 drawings reveal the phone’s final design?

With all the excitement of WWDC 2017, you may have momentarily forgotten Apple is also working on new iPhones.

We’ve seen several leaks on Apple’s next-generation iPhones at this point. Rumors about the iPhone 8, iPhone 7S, and iPhone 7S Plus have been popping up at a feverish pace within the last few months, with the latest leak suggesting Apple has finalised plans for its new phones. We event get a look at their finished designs.

Twitter user @VenyaGeskin1 has revealed the finished designs of both the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 7S Plus. He posted drawings of the designs and claimed that mass-production of Apple’s next-generation iPhone models is now underway. But he’s done this before, and it appears the design of the iPhone 8 has changed in his leaks.

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Over the past few weeks, however, he has been sharing a single design obtained from an unnamed source. This latest drawing shows an iPhone 8 design that matches up with existing rumours. The phone is about about the same size as Apple’s iPhone 7 but fits in a 5.8-inch OLED screen with narrow bezels around all sides.

@VenyaGeskin1

The iPhone 8 is expected to have a vertically dual-lens camera on the back – and that is pictured in the drawing. Geskin posted a second drawing to show the design of Apple’s new iPhone 7S Plus, as well. Once more, it look like the existing iPhone 7 Plus and seems to be in line with the current crop of leaks.

It’s important to maintain some skepticism over these drawings, but nevertheless, they’re fun to look at and question. For more information about Apple’s next iPhones and what they’ll most likely feature, check out Pocket-lint’s round up.

#iPhone8 & #iPhone7SPlusLatest drawings. Mass Production Started. Three new iPhones this year. pic.twitter.com/sm3b5agkms

— Benjamin Geskin (@VenyaGeskin1) June 7, 2017

DirecTV Now will only stream in Chrome on the web

Heads up, DirecTV subscribers: AT&T’s streaming TV service will drop support for Apple and Microsoft’s baked-in browsers starting at the end of the month. According to Apple Insider, AT&T has already started directing cord-cutting Mac customers to tune in using Google Chrome. The same goes for anyone still streaming DirecTV on a PC using Internet Explorer.

“We will no longer be supporting Safari or Internet Explorer browsers after June,” a new notification page reads, “of course the DirecTV Now app will still be your go-to when streaming on your mobile devices.” The page includes links to either stay in the current browser or download Google Chrome.

Given Chrome’s market dominance, the switchover is unlikely to affect too many of DirecTV’s customers. As the notice says, users should have no problem tuning in via the service’s mobile or streaming box apps. And, finally, after years as the most commonly used browser on the web, users actually ditching Internet Explorer.

Source: Apple Insider