Inside LeEco’s spectacular fall from grace

With additional reporting by Chris Ip and Richard Lai.

Behind the doors of the five-star Bohao Radegast Hotel in Beijing’s central business district on Monday, troubled Chinese tech conglomerate LeEco held an extraordinary shareholder’s meeting to elect new directors. Outside, some two dozen protesters set up tables and held up signs asking to be paid what they were owed for services rendered. According to multiple reports, they had come from 20 cities all over China and were reportedly due about 33 million yuan (around $5 million) in all. Many of them demanded to see Jia Yueting, but the company’s billionaire founder and public face was nowhere to be seen.

LeEco’s fall from grace has been spectacular. Once hailed as the “Netflix of China,” the daring startup and its then-outspoken founder were bold enough to challenge Tesla and criticize Apple as “outdated.” But in recent months, the company has faced a series of setbacks, and may be reaching its breaking point. Jia stepped down as chairman and CEO in May, while the company continues to fend off unhappy vendors who are protesting outside its Beijing headquarters. On the other side of the Pacific, LeEco has also massively scaled back its American operations, laying off hundreds of workers in the process, while facing two lawsuits from US TV maker Vizio. Faraday Future, a futuristic car company with close ties to LeEco, recently canceled its plans to build a $1 billion plant in Nevada as well.

This is the tale of a company that grew too quickly. It shows how a ravenous appetite for growth without a solid financial foundation can cause a business to topple. Simply tracing LeEco’s cash flow is a Herculean task, since its financial activity is obscured by a dizzying organizational structure comprising a publicly listed holdings company, privately owned organization and dozens of subsidiaries.

It’s incredible that LeEco was able to continue operations for as long as it did without getting into any real legal trouble. But since 2016, it has been slammed with several lawsuits. Manufacturing partners in Asia, including Zhejiang Haosheng Electronic Technology, Compal Electronics and Truly International Holdings have sued for outstanding debt. The most recent significant case was Vizio’s $100 million claim for a failed $2 billion acquisition.

From interviews Engadget conducted with unpaid vendors, former employees and investors, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for their careers, it became apparent that LeEco’s future may be in serious trouble.

When LeEco first started making the news in the US two years ago, the media was fascinated. Jia had an intriguing, albeit complicated, involvement with Faraday Future, and in those early days it was easy to believe that the heretofore unknown company had the means to follow through on all its deals. After all, LeEco was well known in China as a startup darling that swiftly rose to the top of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s ChiNext board, China’s equivalent of Nasdaq.

LeEco’s rapid expansion after its 2010 listing was impressive. In a few years, it broadened its offerings from an online streaming service to an ecosystem of hardware, including smart TVs, smartphones, bicycles and cars. This kind of diversification requires a sizable injection of cash, which is reasonable if a company is making money.

Many Silicon Valley startups rely on venture capital funding for years before even turning a profit. Snap Inc. and Uber report hundreds of millions in losses each year as they continue to survive on investments. But Uber focuses on ride-sharing and self-driving cars, while Snap has kept its hardware efforts limited. LeEco, on the other hand, has expanded on so many fronts that, rather than behaving like one startup, it’s behaved like seven. Neither Uber nor Snap has been sued for unpaid bills or reported to be behind on payments to contractors yet either.

LeEco’s holding company told Engadget that its “innovative ecosystem model has been widely recognized both at home and abroad,” noting that it “received the ‘North America Smart Technologies Visionary Innovation Award’ from Frost & Sullivan” for “‘having created a cross-functional ecosystem that allows seamless connectivity and a shared content experience across a variety of form factors and environments.’”

“It’s a shell game of moving money from one company to another.”

In 2015, LeEco raised at least 805 million yuan ($119 million) from Series A funding for its sports-streaming division as well as the sale of about 500 million shares. Meanwhile, LeEco’s publicly listed umbrella holding, LeShi Internet, reported revenue of about 13 billion yuan ($1.9 billion) for 2015, and profits of 573 million yuan ($85 million). But because of its public-private structure, these figures don’t even tell half the story.

LeEco founder Jia Yueting.

For years, while it was raising money, the company looked healthy. According to Caixin, it enjoyed “five years of uninterrupted double-digit growth” beginning in 2010. But large parts of the business, including its privately owned sister company, which has major stakes in at least 39 subsidiaries in China, do not disclose its financial performance.

Former employees told Engadget that LeEco shuffles funds between its subsidiaries to mask losses. “It’s a shell game of moving money from one company to another,” one ex-employee said, “if info comes out of LeEco, it cannot be trusted.” Zhou Hang, former CEO of ride-hailing service Yidao Yongche, which LeEco bought a 70 percent stake in two years ago, has accused the conglomerate of “misappropriat[ing]” funds to cover its debts. Yidao and LeEco have denied these allegations.

In 2016, the company laid out aggressive plans and received even more investment. Its sports-streaming division, LeSports, raised $1.2 billion, while LeEco itself secured $1.08 billion for its car venture and, later, $600 million from a consortium of Chinese corporations and Jia’s friends. The New York Times reported that LeEco had raised some $2.1 billion since the start of 2016, partly from a combination of tapping securities brokerages and selling wealth management products to the Chinese public.

That year, the company rebranded from LeTV to LeEco and kicked off its operations in the US with a splashy launch event. It also purchased Yahoo’s 49-acre Santa Clara site to use as its global “EcoCity” headquarters for 12,000 employees, announced a $2 billion merger with TV maker Vizio and said it would invest $3 billion in a car plant in China.

As it continued to sign expensive deals, LeEco soon struggled to pay off its debtors. News of the company’s financial troubles trickled out of its regional offices in Asia, leading Jia to admit later that year that the business was overextended. Months later, LeEco let go of 325 workers in its US operations and announced it would focus on selling to Chinese-speaking households. The Vizio deal fell through in April, the company is said to be trying to sell the Santa Clara site, and Faraday Future canceled its plans to build a Nevada factory.

Jia Yueting at the Hollywood announcement of LeEco’s planned acquisition of Vizio.

Up until early 2017, LeEco’s fundraising efforts had been surprisingly successful, so where did all this money go? It doesn’t appear to have gone to vendors it owes money to. The situation had gotten so bad that LeEco has had to deal with disgruntled picketers at its doors, wielding signs that read, “Return my hard-earned money.”

Keith Yim, who works for Hong Kong tech news site ePrice.com.hk, told Engadget that as of Chinese New Year in February this year, LeEco still owed his website HK$2 million ($256,000) in advertising fees. As Yim worked with an ad agency that brokered the deal, his company was paid. The middleman, Yim said, had to pay an estimated total of HK$5 million ($640,000) owed by LeEco to a group of the region’s tech outlets that it represented, which all displayed banner ads or advertorial packages for LeEco.

Yim also claimed that other publications had called LeEco’s finance department every day for their unpaid fees. According to him, half of the publications in question were paid before the Chinese New Year holiday, while the remaining were promised their money after that.

Pixels, a large ad agency operating in Southeast Asia and headquartered in Hong Kong, ran into similar issues. Its co-founder and CEO, Kevin Huang, told Engadget that he stopped accepting orders from LeEco in October of last year after the tech conglomerate racked up multiple late payments. Huang said his agency had placed ads and advertorials for LeEco for about two years. “I remember that there were no problems at the beginning; it was just like any ordinary deal between an advertiser and media outlets,” he said. “They paid on time, they continued to place orders; it was like that for about a year and a half.”

Around the middle of last year, Huang said LeEco’s payments would be overdue by as many as 70 days.

LeEco then proposed to pay back its debts in monthly installments. Without disclosing the actual amount owed and the payment period, Huang explained, “Say it was a six-month schedule. They stalled after five months, then we had to chase them again.” To date, Huang said LeEco still owes Pixels the relatively small amount of HK$200,000 ($26,000) and continues to make timely payments.

“The whole industry got unlucky.”

Rival agency Innity, which is based in Malaysia, has sued LeTV Sports for approximately HK$3.8 million ($487,000) in outstanding advertising fees. “The whole industry got unlucky. It’s just that out of the unlucky ones, we’re the luckiest,” Huang said, referring to the smaller sum his company is owed.

Another Hong Kong publication owed advertising fees by LeEco, Mobile Magazine, showed Engadget an email exchange in which a LeEco employee proposed a payment schedule with installments due in August and November this year. Similar to Pixels, the source ran advertisements for LeEco for a while with no issue, but payments slowed in May of last year. Mobile Magazine has since lodged a complaint in Hong Kong’s courts in an attempt to recoup its money. It’s a big move for a small outlet, but it might be necessary.

“Honestly, chasing money is about ‘Whoever is the loudest will get the money first,’ right?” Huang said. “When you go loud, if they get scared, they’ll pay you first.”

Former employees paint a picture of a business that repeatedly missed payments, and a CEO who sat on a “throne” while employees suffered.

Inside LeEco, the situation was not much better. Former employees paint a picture of a business that repeatedly missed payments, and a CEO who sat on a “throne” while employees suffered. They told Engadget that some LeEco branches delayed payment to smaller contractors for as long as possible as part of “cost-cutting measures.” Some employees said salaries, prior to mass layoffs, were also delayed, while expenses took longer and longer to be paid out.

This sentiment is backed up by anonymous reviews on Glassdoor, which claim the company was not “honest to its employees about layoffs and company status.” Multiple people have claimed that the US office would roll out a “special cheesy chair” or “throne” when Jia would visit, and rent furniture for the building’s lobby “to make us seem like a real company.” One review suggested the “throne” is now “collecting more dust in storage” than the “vacant desks previously used by laid off employees.”

Not all employees that LeEco laid off had a bad experience, though. Shiraz Datta, the company’s former senior director of research and strategy in the US, told Engadget after he left that his stint was a positive one. “Yes, there were challenges, but I enjoyed my stay,” he said. He also confirmed having received a severance package.

As it reportedly continued to incur debts and neglect to timely pay some of its employees, LeEco funneled cash into its LeSEE car-making business. Jia’s obsession with automobiles began with a personal investment in Faraday Future, and then he tied that company’s fortunes to his own. LeEco’s co-founder Ding Lei worked as global CEO at Faraday Future for a spell and also headed up the Chinese company’s LeSupercar division. The companies define their relationship as a “strategic partnership,” and sources describe seeing Faraday employees at LeEco’s offices, in a demarcated area for employees working in the car division. A BuzzFeed report from last year claimed that Faraday Future employees designed LeSEE’s concept car and that the company was not reimbursed for their work.

LeEco’s holding company told Engadget that it has “been very much focused on solving problems we’ve encountered as we grow our businesses. We always maintain proactive and transparent communications with suppliers and employees to get their understanding and support, at the same time we’re pulling all efforts looking for solutions in a collaborative manner.”

While in a mountain of debt, LeEco agreed to buy a stake in a production company founded by Jia’s wife, Gan Wei.

The collective symptoms of financial woes points to poor management. Jia himself even acknowledged in a letter to employees that the company “blindly sped ahead” and that “the scale of our external fundraising had trouble satisfying the demands of our rapid expansion.” But instead of pulling back its cash-hungry projects in 2016, LeEco continued to seek more financing, offering up more and more shares in exchange.

As the company struggled to climb out from under its mountain of debts, it announced plans to buy a web TV and film production company founded by Jia’s wife, Gan Wei. According to a Reuters report, LeEco will buy Gan’s 47.8 percent stake in Le Young Pictures to “comply with regulations” and resolve an “industry competition issue.” LeEco is getting a 50 percent discount on the current valuation of the stake, but even at that rate Gan will reportedly see a 30-fold return on her initial investment.

In January this year, after a six-hour-long meeting, LeEco scored a $2 billion bailout from real estate giant Sunac China Holdings Ltd. but had to hand over a 33 percent stake in its business. This lifeline turned out to be more of an apron string. While the backing of a large, stable company bought LeEco time and a reprieve from its debtors, as well as the guidance of an established mentor, it also required sacrifices. In May, Jia stepped down as the public company’s CEO, reportedly due to pressure from Sunac, and has since vacated several other positions within the company.

Koren Shadmi

LeEco, as it exists today, may not last much longer. Unpaid vendors continue to stake out the company’s headquarters, while the ruckus outside the recent extraordinary shareholders’ meeting required police intervention. Jia’s conspicuous absence led some Chinese media to speculate that he’s staying in the US while the drama blows over — something he has apparently done in similar situations before.

LeEco also has to deal with Vizio’s suits, which ask for at least $50 million for a breach of guarantee and also claim that LeEco breached the $100 million breakup-fee provision that was part of the $2 billion merger agreement that fell through. Even though both companies blamed “regulatory headwinds” at the time, Vizio has since claimed that the real reason was LeEco’s monetary issues and that the deal was meant to mask those problems. In fact, according to Vizio’s filing, at the time negotiations for the merger were happening, LeEco “and its far-flung corporate empire had begun to collapse due to their severe cash flow and financial problems.”

Vizio claims:

“They desperately needed to either obtain the instant financial stability, credibility and resources that a merger with Vizio would bring, or at least to create a widespread and dramatic public impression of their own financial health and well-being to grow or continue in business that would come with the announcement of such an intended merger.”

The recent events also drew the ire of Tencent co-founder Liqing Zeng. He called LeEco a scam on his WeChat profile, saying that “anyone who can’t recognize such an obvious scheme doesn’t deserve to run in investment circles and isn’t suited for entrepreneurship.” Indeed, some experienced fund managers managed to get out before all hell broke loose. China Bridge Capital, which was the largest external investor in LeEco before Sunac joined in, divested 60 million of its shares of the company in March and April.

“[LeEco] is virtually a gone case.”

A former investor told Engadget that LeEco is “virtually a gone case.” The source, who is well connected in the Chinese investment community, speculated that Sunac buying out LeEco would be “the wiser way” but that it would “also come with restructuring of the entire businesses.”

LeEco’s holding company said that it doesn’t comment on litigation. It did say that “users are at the center of [our] ecosystem, and we have always been actively seeking for user feedbacks/comments to improve products and services. But this does not include malicious comments or ungrounded speculations about the company.”

At the shareholder meeting on Monday, Sunac chairman Sun Hongbin and two other directors were elected to LeEco’s board. A shareholder who attended the event told the South China Morning Post that Sun is very likely to be appointed as the troubled company’s next chairman at another meeting later this week.

While Jia’s empire continues to crumble, one former employee pointed out that Faraday Future may be the next to falter. The electric carmaker is reportedly developing an extravagant 1,400,000 square-foot campus on Mare Island, California, but it has been accused of defaulting on vendor payments, much like LeEco has before. The Verge also reported on internal turmoil and “financial mismanagement” at Faraday late last year, quoting one ex-employee who described the auto company’s relationship with LeEco to be like “indentured servitude.” But before the world gets distracted by another Jia-backed company that might be on the brink of collapse, LeEco’s cautionary tale could turn out to be its ultimate legacy.

Image credits: Koren Shadmi (all illustrations); Jeff Lewis/AP for LeEco (LeEco/Vizio merger photograph).

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cherlynn (dot) low (at) engadget.com.
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VFX company files injunction to block three Disney blockbusters

You probably haven’t heard of a special effects company called MOVA, but you’ve seen its Contour facial-capture technology in films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Beauty and the Beast. It could also have a big impact your entertainment choices. The company behind the tech, Rearden LLC, has filed an injunction against Walt Disney Co. to block those two films, along with Avengers: Age of Ultron, from sales or distribution.

MOVA Contour is used to capture facial movements in a much more detailed way than rival tech. Rather than using markers, actors’ faces are painted with a phosphor dye. Then, over 25 cameras capture their facial expressions, resulting in many more data points than competing systems. “I’m so pleased that we did it the way we did it because … [the system] really captures the subtlety of Dan’s facial expression and the performance he gives,” said co-star Emma Watson about Beauty and the Beast.

Along with the other films mentioned, it’s also been used in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Gravity, Deadpool and many others. Much of that work was done by special effects firm Digital Domain (known legally as Digital Domain 3.0) which worked on The Fate of the Furious, Spider-Man: Homecoming and many other tent-pole CG films.

“Beauty and the Beast” (Walt Disney Co.)

The problem, Rearden claims, is that Digital Domain 3.0 doesn’t own the rights to MOVA’s technology. Founder Steve Perlman alleges that a former employee, Greg LaSalle, pilfered the tech and unlawfully sold it to a Chinese firm affiliated with the effects firm for a mere $25,000 in mid-2013 (see this THR report for much more on the saga).

Rearden claims that it directly worked with Disney in the past on four major features. Furthermore, it said the studio knew it was disputing Digital Domain’s ownership, because Disney was considering buying the tech itself and dropped out after receiving a “demand letter” from Rearden.

In other words, it’s claiming that Disney can’t plead ignorance about who owned the tech. “Disney never bothered to contact its longtime MOVA Contour service provider Rearden LLC to ask any questions or to verify Disney’s authorization to use the MOVA Contour system,” the lawsuit states.

The Chinese company affiliated with Digital Domain 3.0 that purchased MOVA last year claimed that Perlman had “a severe bout of ‘seller’s remorse’ ” after the technology won an Academy Award. However, in June, 2016 a judge blocked Digital Domain 3.0 from using the tech, putting the technology “temporarily out of play” in Hollywood, an IP lawyer said at the time. A trial was held later in the year, but a decision is still pending.

The lawsuit hinges on whether Perlman’s firm or the Chinese companies that licensed the tech to Digital Domain 3.0 are the actual owners. However, an IP lawyer told the NYT last year that its unlikely that a court will block the release of a major movie. It could, however, disrupt movies that Digital Domain is currently working on, something the FX company confirmed last year to THR.

Nevertheless, Rearden wants a court to order Disney to destroy all infringing copies of Beauty and the Beast, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Guardians of the Galaxy. All told, those films have raked in over $3.5 billion.

Via: THR

Source: HBSS Creative

Smart harness can help stroke victims learn to walk again

People recovering from spinal cord injuries and strokes often struggle under the weight of gravity. Recovering gait, or a regular walking rhythm, can be a real challenge. A group of scientists may have just made it a little easier, though: They discovered that a smart walking harness brought immediate and dramatic improvements to patients struggling with mobility.

The main problem lies with the way our brains our wired: Our bodies learn to walk a certain way. After a neurological disorder or an injury, the body needs to be taught to walk a different way. That rewiring, and the loss of muscle mass that results from being immobile after injury or a stroke, is very difficult. Often patients will never fully relearn how to walk naturally, and instead will keep trying to reproduce a motion that is no longer physically possible.

The team of scientists suspended a robotic harness from the ceiling that was equipped with smart programming. An algorithm constantly adjusted the support and force to the body’s trunk depending on what the patient needed. The results were stark: Every single patient (thirty in total) showed marked improvement. “Patients unable to walk without assistance (nonambulatory) were able to walk naturally with the harness, whereas ambulatory patients exhibited improved skilled locomotion such as balance, limb coordination, foot placement, and steering,” says the article in Science Translational Medicine. You can see the process for yourself in the video below.

This could be huge for patients recovering from spinal cord injuries and neurological issues, such as strokes. Teaching yourself to learn how to walk all over again is no small thing, and it’s encouraging to see more and more attention being paid to how “smart” devices can assist in medical recovery.

Source: Science Translational Medicine, EurekAlert

Twitter says everyone, even Trump, has to follow the rules

Earlier this week, journalists asked Twitter’s VP of Trust and Safety, Del Harvey, whether the company could really treat President Trump’s Twitter account the same way it does everyone else’s. After first saying that she couldn’t discuss individual accounts, which is a response Twitter representatives tend to use, Harvey added, “The rules are the rules, we enforce them the same way for everybody,” as reported by Recode.

But it sure seems like some people do get special treatment from Twitter. Just recently, Rob Kardashian tweeted nude photos of Blac Chyna and while Twitter took down the images, Kardashian’s account wasn’t suspended. And Trump himself posted an old Wrestlemania video of himself doctored to make it look like he was knocking down and punching CNN. His account wasn’t touched either. But if anyone else so much as tweets an expletive at a verified account, they could get their account shut off to anyone except their followers for 12 hours.

Plenty of people disapprove of how Trump uses Twitter. Recent polls have shown that the majority of Americans, republicans included, think he either tweets too much or finds his Twitter use inappropriate or dangerous. Some have even called for the president to be banned from Twitter.

“We apply our policies consistently. We have processes in place to deal with whomever the person may be, we try to be as consistent as possible, as scalable as possible, and there’s always all sorts of context and other things that come into play that make it impossible to comment on hypotheticals as is,” said Harvey. Whether those “other things” include “being famous” isn’t clear.

Source: Recode

TSMC Rumored to Be Sole Supplier of A-Series iPhone Chips in 2018

Earlier this week, a report by The Korea Herald suggested that Samsung Electronics could be returning as a supplier for the so-called A12 chip in 2018’s line of iPhones, after being removed from the A-series chip supply chain in 2016 and 2017, years in which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company took on all of the orders. Now, industry observers reported upon by DigiTimes are predicting that TSMC is “still likely” to retain its title as the sole manufacturer of A-series chips in 2018.

In today’s report, TSMC’s integrated fan-out wafer-level packaging technology — which the supplier uses in its 7-nanometer FinFET chip fabrication — is looked at as largely superior to any progress made by Samsung in the same field. Samsung is said to be “aggressively vying” for A-series orders from Apple ahead of 2018, but DigiTimes’ sources state that even the company’s close ties to OLED might not be enough for Apple to add Samsung as a secondary A-series supplier for the reported three iPhones launching in fall 2018.

It is unlikely Samsung will be able to regain application processors orders for Apple’s iPhone, as TSMC’s in-house developed InFO wafer-level packaging will make the Taiwan-based foundry’s 7nm FinFET technology more competitive than Samsung’s, said the observers.

Samsung has grabbed Apple’s A9 chip orders for the new 9.7-inch iPads introduced earlier in 2017, the observers claimed. TSMC, which is already the sole supplier of Apple’s 10nm A11 chips for the upcoming iPhones, will still likely obtain all of the next-generation A-series chip orders for Apple’s 2018 series of iPhones with its 7nm FinFET process, the observers said.

TSMC’s innovation in backend packaging plays a key role in securing exclusive orders for Apple’s processors for the upcoming iPhones, the observers noted.

In Tuesday’s report, it was rumored that Samsung Electronics co-CEO Kwon Oh-hyun already made a deal with Apple concerning 2018 iPhone chip production during a visit to Cupertino last month. Otherwise, The Korea Herald’s report was light on details, with no clear indication on exactly how many orders Samsung might have gained from such a deal besides believing the company would “share some parts” of A-series chip production with TSMC.

If Apple kept TSMC as the sole A-series manufacturer in 2018, it would mark the third year in a row that the supplier created iPhone chips alone, following the A10 in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, and the A11 in the upcoming “iPhone 8,” “iPhone 7s,” and “iPhone 7s Plus.” Otherwise, a return to dual-sourced A-series chips in 2018 would be the first time Apple made that move since 2015, when both Samsung and TSMC supplied the A9 chip in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, which frustrated some users when TSMC’s technology was discovered to boast marginally better battery life.

Tags: Samsung, TSMC, iPhone 9
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Microsoft: No more Windows 10 upgrades for some Atom-based PCs

Everyone knows that technology goes obsolete quickly, but Microsoft and Intel are taking that tenet too far for some folks. Owners of three- to four-year-old “Clover Trail” Atom-based PCs like the HP Envy X2 laptop noticed that they were unable to upgrade to the latest version of Windows 10 Creators Update. Instead, they were greeted with a message saying “Windows 10 is no longer supported on this PC,” and told to “uninstall this app now.”

In an emailed statement, Microsoft confirmed that Clover Trail PCs won’t support the latest upgrades, mainly because Intel won’t provide firmware updates. “These systems are no longer supported by Intel (End of Interactive Support), and without the necessary driver support, they may be incapable of moving to the Windows 10 Creators Update without a potential performance impact,” it said in an emailed statement.

However, Microsoft affirmed that it will keep Clover Trail PCs secure up to the previous version of Windows 10. “We will provide security updates to these specific devices running the Windows 10 Anniversary Update until January of 2023, which aligns with the original Windows 8.1 extended support period,” the company said.

No Windows 10 Creators Update for you, HP Envy X2 (AOL)

Intel introduced the dual-core Clover Trail Atom as a power-sipping chip that could compete with ARM-based Snapdragon and other processors. However, while providing good battery life, the chips lacked horsepower, and Intel quickly moved on to the more powerful Bay Trail architecture. The latest Atom generation is Cherry Trail, which runs Microsoft’s Surface 3, Acer Predator and other tablet-type convertibles.

Unlike the later Atom chips, Clover Trail likely can’t handle new features in Windows 10 Creators Update like Paint 3D, game livestreaming, Cortana and more. The update is the most significant since the launch of Windows 10, and taxes your PC’s graphics and CPU correspondingly.

Unfortunately, Clover Trail owners first had to download 3GB worth of setup files before discovering that the Creators Update wouldn’t work, rather than being notified up front. On top of that, the “uninstall this app” message likely confused many users, as there is actually nothing to uninstall, ZDNet points out.

Microsoft said that those users will be able to update to the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, but will essentially be stuck with a secure version of Windows 10, circa 2016. There’s no word on whether it will change the update process to make it less confusing and stop users from downloading 3GB of useless data, but we’ve reached out for more information.

Via: ZDNet

Twitter says its safety updates are stamping out abuse

It’s safe to say Twitter had an awful 2016. Yet amidst all its turmoil, its abuse problem trumped all others. To make matters worse, the company’s convoluted approach to cleaning up its site left even its most ardent users bemused. Then, at the onset of this year, Twitter promised a more proactive stance. A slew of updates followed, including a bunch of muting and filtering tools. Now, at the halfway stage of 2017, it claims the changes are working.

In a blog post, Twitter’s VP of engineering Ed Ho claims abuse on the platform is “significantly less” than it was six months ago. Ho attributes this recovery to Twitter’s improved response rate. The company is now taking action on ten times the number of abusive accounts every day compared to the same time last year — when it was in snooze mode.

By far Twitter’s biggest recent product update on harassment has been its quality filter. Ho claims the feature has led to a drop in unwanted interactions. As evidence, he cites that blocks after @mentions from people you don’t follow are down 40 percent.

Ho also touts Twitter’s new systems for targeting harassment. In February, the platform started placing a temporary timeout on abusive accounts. These too are doing the job, with profiles placed under the ban generating 25 percent fewer abuse reports. Additionally, the majority of these accounts (65 percent) are only restricted once, which indicates the punishment may actually have an impact on future behavior.

The Center for Democracy and Technology’s Emma Llansó spoke to Engadget about the platform’s reforms. Her non-profit is part of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, an advisory group made up of safety advocates, researchers, and academics. “We’re particularly interested in the work Twitter has been doing to help users better understand the policies that govern the site,” said Llansó. In reference to the timeouts, she added: “Letting someone know they’ve crossed a line helps them avoid the same behavior in the future, without shutting them down or silencing them completely.”

Twitter’s failings make it an easy punching bag, and there are signs that its abuse problem still exists. But, its relatively small audience loves it, despite the harmful aspects of its culture. If the company can carry on policing its free expression train correctly, its toxicity could continue to subside.

MIT’s AI knows what’s in your cookies just by looking at them

Imagine an app that can help you figure out how to replicate what you’re eating in a restaurant and help track your calorie intake just by taking a picture of your plate. A team of MIT CSAIL researchers have developed an artificial intelligence system that has the potential to evolve into that kind of application. They call the AI Pic2Recipe, because it can predict the ingredients and recipe used to make a dish from a single snapshot. If that sounds familia, it’s probably because of “See Food,” the fictional app that made an appearance in HBO’s Silicon Valley, and a new-ish Pinterest feature that recognizes the most prominent ingredients in a picture of food.

Other teams and institutions are also working on similar projects, and a common issue is the lack of samples that leads to limited accuracy. The team had to scour various social networks and websites, such as All Recipes and Food, to collect 1 million recipes. They then annotated the collection with more information about their ingredients and used the database to train a neural network.

The result? Their system can identify ingredients like like flour, eggs and butter and can spit out the correct recipe for the dish in an image 65 percent of the time. CSAIL graduate student and lead author Nick Hynes explains:

“This could potentially help people figure out what’s in their food when they don’t have explicit nutritional information. For example, if you know what ingredients went into a dish but not the amount, you can take a photo, enter the ingredients, and run the model to find a similar recipe with known quantities, and then use that information to approximate your own meal.”

Before you can use it as part of your fitness regimen, though, the team still has to work on making it more accurate. They’re also developing its ability to infer how a dish is prepared and to distinguish one ingredient from another. You can put the AI to the test yourself if you want — just upload a pic on the team’s demo website or click one of the available images.

Source: MIT CSAIL

Chat app Viber hopes you’ll shop from its keyboard

If you owned Viber and saw Facebook make a big deal of in-chat shopping, what would you do? Bake shopping into the very heart of your messaging app, apparently. A few months after including an Instant Shopping feature in Viber, parent company Rakuten Viber has snapped up the feature’s architect, Chatter Commerce. The deal gives it full control over a keyboard that lets you browse store catalogs and either share them with your friends or commit to a purchase. You don’t have to jump to a separate app or the web just to share those great shoes you found.

It’s not a shocking move when Rakuten is one of the largest online retailers on the planet and wants to fend off both chat rivals like Facebook and shopping behemoths like Amazon. If you can find what you want right from your phone’s keyboard, you’re less likely to switch chat apps or link to a competing store.

And despite the in-your-face nature of the keyboard’s shopping feature, it has a fair number of takers. The Viber team says that 30 percent of its American users have tried Instant Shopping since launch. The big challenge is keeping your attention: it’s easy to try a shopping feature when it’s fresh, but it’s another to treat it as your go-to option. That’s where the acquisition might help. Now that Rakuten Viber owns its shopping keyboard partner, it can improve and grow features on its terms. If it can improve the keyboard and add more shopping partners, you may have more reasons to stick around.

Source: Viber Blog

Atari introduces the Speakerhat, a hat with speakers

Atari might be best known for classic video gaming, but now the company is debuting a new line of wearables. The first product in the “Atari Connected Life” line is called the Speakerhat, powered by Audiowear.

The Speakerhat (speakerHat? SpeakerHat? The possibilities are endless.) is exactly what it sounds like: a baseball cap with embedded high quality speakers — not headphones, but speakers in the bill of the cap — and a microphone that uses Bluetooth to connect to devices. It’s not clear whether users can swap the tech into a different SpeakerHat, but the components look pretty integrated from the pictures. That’s great news, considering they’re marketing this to a wide range of people, one of which is “fitness enthusiasts” who, you know, sweat.

Atari also promises “a fundamentally new social audio experience” with Multiplayer Mode, which allows multiple users to listen to a single audio stream via Bluetooth. What makes this better than just gathering around a speaker to listen to an audio stream is beyond me, but hey, maybe I’m too old for this. Also, wouldn’t you just end up annoying the people around you with a cap that blasts out music for everyone to hear?

The company is also partnering with NECA, which makes collectibles, to introduce a limited edition Blade Runner 2049 Speakerhat this fall. So I guess if you want to spend a lot of money on a hat you can wear for about two weeks, now’s your chance.