Watch Elon Musk’s Boring elevator hide a car underground

Elon Musk is once again updating everyone on the progress of his tunnel-digging operation’s first segment. Judging from his latest vid, even the process of entering the underground route will be more elaborate than what we’re currently used to. Fittingly, the Instagram clip shows a Tesla Model S driving on to a vertical lift platform and descending into the tunnel. It’s enough to make you feel like Batman entering the Batcave.

Testing The Boring Company car elevator

A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on Jul 25, 2017 at 11:26pm PDT

Less than a month ago, The Boring Company began digging its first tunnel linking the SpaceX lot in Hawthorne, LA, to its car park. Musk’s broader plan is to build a subterranean network of routes city-wide that will carry cars, bikes, and pedestrians on electric sleds at 125 miles per hour. The resulting reduction in traffic congestion will cut half-hour above-ground drives into five-minute sprints below, according to a concept video. Lacking the necessary permits to dig elsewhere, however, the project remains restricted to the SpaceX offices for now.

In tweets, Musk recently claimed his Hyperloop connecting New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC received verbal approval from government officials. However, it later emerged the Tesla founder hadn’t been in touch with the cities themselves, ruling out possibility of the plan going ahead any time soon. The Boring Company’s tunnels are facing the same scenario. While SpaceX employees will get to try them out first, the rest of us will just have to carry on waiting for Godot.

Source: Elon Musk (Instagram)

Apple and Cochlear team up on made-for-iPhone hearing implant

We’ve known that Apple has an interest in iOS-based hearing aids for some time, as they’ve worked with various manufacturers to bring these devices to the market. Now, Cochlear has teamed up with Apple to make the first cochlear implant sound processor that is specifically made for the iPhone. The Nucleus 7 Sound Processor, which promises to be both the smallest and lightest behind-the-ear device of its kind that’s currently available, was approved by the FDA back in June.

The Nucleus 7 works natively with the iPhone. Users can go to the Accessibility settings of their device (locating in “Settings” then “General”) and pair it the same way you do a Bluetooth device. After that, the volume control on the iPhone will control the implant’s settings. You can do even more by downloading the Nucleus Smart App, including location tracking to figure out the last place the Nucleus 7 was connected (handy for lost devices).

Cochlear also is selling the Made for iPhone Bimodal Solution, which consists of a cochlear implant in one ear and a hearing aid in the other ear. This allows for synced streaming into both ears from your compatible iOS device — you just need one of Cochlear’s ReSound hearing aids.

Interested consumers have to wait until September 2017 for the Nucleus 7, and it will only be available in the US and Canada. If you have a Nucleus CI24RE, CI500 or a Profile Series implant, then you’ll be eligible for an upgrade starting in October. Tech advances and partnerships such as this are always welcome news. With over 360 million people worldwide suffering from serious hearing loss, it’s nice to see companies working together to make a positive impact on their lives.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Cochlear

The wearables battlefield is strewn with casualties

In business, the phrase “we are reviewing strategic options” is a useful sign that shutters are being drawn. Wareable reports that those words were uttered by TomTom CEO Harold Goddijn when discussing his company’s wearables division. Sales of its running watches have fallen by 20 percent in a year, and Goddijn wants to “focus” on TomTom’s core businesses. It’s likely that TomTom will exit the wrist-worn hardware market at some point soon, and it won’t be alone.

2017 has been a turbulent time for what, for brevity’s sake, we’ll call the smartwatch industry, with Fitbit’s long-delayed smartwatch still trapped in development hell. Fitbit’s biggest rival, Jawbone, recently began winding itself down despite raising nearly a billion dollars in capital across its life. Then there’s Intel, another deep-pocketed player that reportedly chose to quietly shutter its wearables division to focus on augmented reality.

We’re reaching a point where all of the battles for our wrists have been fought and won, and now it’s just about clearing up the mess. Various brands and businesses that may have seen a bright future for themselves may soon realize that survival is too difficult a goal to achieve. Look at the personal computing, MP3 player and tablet markets, where hundreds of companies all tried and gain a foothold in the space, but only a few survived as the initial enthusiasm died down and the easy sources of cash started to run out.

We made this point not too long ago, but falling prices have taken much of the wind out of the smartwatch and fitness tracker world. If you want a tracker, then Xiaomi’s MiBand 2 does everything you need for less than $30. Meanwhile, Ticwatch is offering a relatively high-end Android Wear device for $159 on Kickstarter. The idea of a premium wearable device isn’t tied to features — since all have pretty much exact spec lists — but one that is being pushed by brands.

What we have seen of late is a lot of fashion brands partnering with Google to slap their logo on a commodity Android Wear device. The cases and straps may be different, but they’re almost always the same system, running the same software, available for far less money elsewhere. Those devices will, of course, be catnip to brand devotees, but will do little to ensnare folks who are otherwise resisting the advent of wearables.

We don’t know, for certain, how many Android Wear devices have sold, but journalist Charles Arthur has worked hard to give a good estimate. At the end of 2016, he believed that around five million devices had been sold in the two years since the platform’s inception. Those figures represent sales from a variety of companies — Motorola, LG, ASUS, Huawei, Acer and the rest. It boils down to less than a million devices sold across 115 weeks, hardly something to get excited about.

The elephant in this room is, of course, the Apple Watch, which is gently eroding everyone else’s position in the smartwatch world. Parks Associates believes that, across 2016, the company sold 12 million devices, which rings true enough. Whatever the third generation device brings, it’s likely that it will, again, use the combination of Apple’s brand and its utility to embarrass the rest of the field.

The great hope in all of this is that Fitbit’s long-gestating smartwatch will be able to provide a true alternative to Google and Apple. But the longer it remains unavailable, the harder its task becomes, because impatient customers will take their money elsewhere. But even if it arrived tomorrow, it’s not likely that it would do everything it needs to do to succeed.

Think about it: Fitbit’s smartwatch needs to be popular and profitable enough to banish any concerns about the company’s long-term survival. It also needs to sell enough devices that developers are encouraged to devote time and resources to building apps for it. It needs to be adaptable enough that third parties will invest in building accessories for customization — an ecosystem, if you will. Oh, and it needs to do all of those as good as, or ideally better, than the Apple Watch and Android Wear.

The big test will be to see what happens at IFA in September, which has previously been a showcase for new watches. It’s entirely possible that many of the aforementioned companies, which have been burned by tiny sales of their devices, will dampen down or axe their efforts. If Samsung, LG, ASUS and Acer all demonstrate something innovative, then perhaps I’m wrong. But the rumor mill has been suspiciously quiet on device news coming out of the show.

If Samsung, LG, ASUS and Acer all offer up new devices — and the rumor mill has been suspiciously quiet on that front — then perhaps I’m wrong. What’s more likely is that those companies will no longer see enough value in being on the wrist to try. Either they’ll pull out altogether, quietly letting their devices fall into obsolescence, or produce lazy me-too devices. In the end, it’s entirely plausible that we’ll see a greatly diminished wrist-worn wearables industry going in to 2018 and beyond.

Apple Partners With Cochlear to Launch First Made for iPhone Hearing Implant

Apple has partnered with hearing implants company Cochlear to launch the first made for iPhone Cochlear implant, which can stream audio from a compatible iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch directly to a surgically embedded sound processor (via TechCrunch). Cochlear implants are reserved for people with profound hearing loss that traditional hearing aids can’t help to alleviate, and consist of both an internal and external component.

Thanks to the Apple-approved certification, patients can control the Cochlear implant directly from their Apple device and not have to download and launch a separate iOS app. Users can navigate to their iPhone Settings app, click General, and then Accessibility, and find their the Cochlear hearing implant — with a Nucleus 7 Sound Processor — listed for them under “hearing devices.”

Image via TechCrunch

“The approval of the Nucleus 7 Sound Processor is a turning point for people with hearing loss, opening the door for them to make phone calls, listen to music in high-quality stereo sound, watch videos and have FaceTime calls streamed directly to their Cochlear implant,” Cochlear CEO Chris Smith said in a statement. “This new sound processor builds on our long-standing commitment to help more people with hearing loss connect with others and live a full life.”

After being paired, users can control the implant’s volume using their iOS device’s volume controls, and any audio can be sent into the implant including phone calls and music playback. In addition, the external component of the Nucleus 7 is said to have a longer battery while being smaller and 24 percent lighter than the previous version of the device.

There have been other audio-assisting technologies that Apple has showcased in the past, like the ReSound LiNX 3D hearing aid, and speaking with TechCrunch the company reiterated its intent to push accessibility features in every version of iOS.

“We wanted to see something that could become ubiquitous out in the world,” Apple’s Sarah Herrlinger, senior manager for global accessibility policy and initiatives told TechCrunch. “We want everybody to use our technology and to say ‘wow my iPhone is the best piece of technology I’ve ever used before’…with every iteration of our operating system our goal is to add in new accessibility features in order to expand the support that we can give to people all over the world.”

In celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day this year, Apple held a concert at One Infinite Loop with headliner Stevie Wonder performing for employees during the event. Following the release of a collection of accessibility-focused “designed for” videos, CEO Tim Cook sat down and talked about macOS and iOS accessibility features with YouTubers who use these features daily.

Tag: accessibility
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Apple No Longer Replacing Some MacBook Pros Needing Battery Service With Newer Models

In an internal memo obtained by MacRumors, Apple has informed Genius Bar employees and Apple Authorized Service Providers that it is actively working to rebuild worldwide supply of top case assemblies with batteries for Mid 2012 and Early 2013 models of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display.

Apple’s memo says, effective July 26, service inventory of top case assemblies with batteries are now available for new repairs. The directive adds that MobileGenius, the service and support tool that Genius Bar employees use on the iPads they carry around, has stopped presenting messages about delayed repairs.

For all new repair requests, Apple advises Genius Bar employees and Apple Authorized Service Providers to order the necessary inventory. Apple advises its service providers to inform customers that the inventory should arrive within 15 business days of the part order, corresponding with early August.

Prior to today, a customer with an eligible MacBook Pro that failed Apple’s battery diagnostic test was offered the option of exchanging the notebook for a functionally equivalent model. Or, customers could wait until battery inventory became available, in exchange for Apple covering the cost of the repair.

Likely because Apple no longer makes Mid 2012 and Early 2013 models of the 15-inch MacBook Pro, the functionally equivalent model ended up being a refurbished 2015 MacBook Pro, or sometimes even a 2016 or 2017 model, according to many customers who shared their experiences on MacRumors and Reddit.

What made the deal so compelling is that, for the exchange, Apple only charged its out-of-warranty battery fee of $199 in the United States, £199 in the UK, or $259 in Canada, significantly less than a new MacBook Pro costs.

Apple’s memo today appears to mark the end of the company offering outright exchanges for newer MacBook Pro models. Many users on MacRumors and Reddit have confirmed Genius Bar employees are now informing customers that battery inventory is available in 15 business days as instructed.

It’s unclear if Apple Stores will honor exchanges initiated prior to July 26 that are still being processed.

Apple previously said top case assemblies with batteries for the MacBook Pro models would remain severely constrained until September 15, 2017, according to an older internal memo obtained by MacRumors. The directive did not identify a reason for the shortage, which has been ongoing since at least March.

Related Roundup: MacBook Pro
Buyer’s Guide: MacBook Pro (Buy Now)
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eBay Announces Image Search Feature Coming to iOS App This Fall

eBay today announced two new features coming to its mobile apps this fall, called “Image Search” and “Find it on eBay,” both of which leverage photography and images to fuel the discovery of new products on eBay. The company said that both new features use computer vision and deep learning to be able to find matching product listings using only images.

Image Search will be coming to iOS and Android, and allows users to take a picture of something they want to buy — or upload an existing image from the Camera Roll — and use it as a search tool that sifts through more than 1.1 billion eBay listings to find items that match. Find it on eBay will be Android-only at launch, and it allows shoppers on other social networks to tap a “share” card and upload the image of a product, crop it, and use it as a search tool within the eBay app.

“Moments of shopping inspiration can come at any time, whether you’re walking down the street or browsing your social media feed,” said Mohan Patt, Vice President of Buyer Experience, eBay. “At eBay, we’re focused on creating new complementary technology that helps our millions of shoppers easily find the things they love at the best value. eBay Image Search and Find It On eBay make it possible for people to shop eBay using any image or photo that inspires them.”

The company said it developed Image Search during its internal “Hack Week,” an annual company-wide challenge that pits employees against one another in a friendly competition to discover ways to bolster eBay’s marketplace using new technology. The team that had the idea for Image Search won Hack Week in 2015 and has added more members and built upon its original features in the subsequent years, with eBay noting it expects “to launch more computer vision products in the coming months.”

eBay hopes the new image-focused search features will help reduce the time users spend searching for items on its marketplace with a more seamless solution, as well as occasionally present buyers with new and unexpected items that wouldn’t have been discovered using traditional text searches.

Pinterest launched a similar feature earlier this year called “Lens,” letting users take pictures of real-world objects to use as a search tool for related products and images on the Pinterest website and app. At the time, Pinterest noted that Lens worked best with home decor, clothing, and food, but the company said it will make continual improvements so the app can learn to recognize new items.

For its app, eBay didn’t say whether specific items work best with Image Search and Find it on eBay, but today’s press releases are heavily focused on clothing items. Both features will begin rolling out to eBay’s mobile apps sometime this fall.

Tag: eBay
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eBay is adding visual search to its mobile app

Next time you see a cute pair of shoes or a cool shirt you’d like to buy, snap a picture or take a screenshot. eBay has just announced two new features that adds image search capabilities, similar to Pinterest’s visual search tool, to its mobile app. “Find It On eBay” gives you the power to share images straight from any social network or website to the online shopping platform’s application. Just choose the website’s logo with the “Find it now” tag line, click “search using this image” when it pops up and highlight the part of the photo you want to look up.

The other feature that’s simply called “Image Search” gives you the power to look for items using photos you’ve taken or saved on your device. Both tools make it much easier to find listings when you’re looking for something really specific or looking up something you have no idea how to describe — hey, it happens to everyone.

eBay says its deep learning-based neural network processes the images you upload and gives its system a representation of the item you’re looking for. The website then compares that representation to its listings, ranks the results based on visual similarities and presents you the top-ranking items for sale.

You’ll have to wait a bit before you can take the features for a spin, though: eBay isn’t rolling them out until Fall. Plus, while Image Search will be available on Android and iOS devices, Find it on eBay will be exclusive to Android users.

USB 3.2 doubles your connection speeds with the same port

Your future computer or phone will be capable of stupidly fast transfer speeds. The USB 3.0 Promoter Group unveiled the USB 3.2 specification that effectively doubles the current USB 3.1 spec by adding an extra lane. As such, it will allow for two lanes of 5 Gbps for USB 3.0, yielding 10 Gbps, or two lanes of 10 Gbps for 20 Gbps with USB 3.1. As a bonus, the “superspeed” USB-C cable you’re currently using already has the capability for dual-lane operation built in.

By way of example, the group says that a USB 3.2 host connected to a USB 3.2 storage device will be capable of 2GB/s transfer over a “superspeed” certified USB 3.1 cable. “When we introduced USB Type-C to the market, we intended to assure that USB Type-C cables and connectors certified for SuperSpeed USB or SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps would, as produced, support higher performance USB as newer generations of USB 3.0 were developed,” said USB 3.0 Promoter Group Chairman Brad Saunders.

You should take those Thunderbolt-like numbers with a grain of salt, however. USB 3.0 or 3.1 devices (which confusingly use USB-C cables) rarely come close to their certified speeds. For instance, WIrecutter found that the fastest USB 3.0 flash drive, the Extreme CZ80, could read and write at 254 MB/s and 170 MB/s, tops — half of what USB 3.0 is capable of. (Some USB 3.1 superspeed SSD drives can saturate a USB 3.0 connection, however.)

Still, flash storage is advancing rapidly, thanks to 64-layer and higher tech from Toshiba, Intel, Samsung and WD, and those kind of speeds are handy if you’re editing RAW or 4K video. The USB 3.0 Promoter Group (with Apple, HP, Intel, Microsoft and others as members) says that the 3.2 spec will be finalized by the end of 2017, so don’t expect to see any devices until then. In the meantime, we’ll hear more about it in September this year in North America during the USB Developer Days.

Source: USB 3.0 Promoter Group

O2 eases roaming strain by secretly throttling data speeds

On June 15th, mobile roaming was more or less abolished across the EU. Great news for anyone wanting to drum up Instagram envy with their holiday snaps, but it’s easy to forget the technical challenges — all of a sudden, cell towers have to deal with domestic traffic and countless non-native phones vying for an uplink. It’s something O2 seems ill-prepared for, having recently been caught throttling the life out of roaming connections in Dublin, Ireland.

One O2 customer took it upon himself to investigate — pretty thoroughly, we should add — roaming performance at various Dublin locations. Not only did he discover a 3G connection was as good as it got, but also that O2 was imposing a download speed limit of around 0.5 Mbps. What’s more, an O2 pay-as-you-go SIM wasn’t subject to the same throttling as his contract SIM. It’s worth noting that Three and a few MVNOs were also guilty of a few bum results, depending on location.

Not all roaming agreements are equal, and you might find your 4G phone can only pick up a 3G signal in some parts of Europe. Actively throttling connections is a different matter, and could be the doing of either network on the two sides of a roaming contract. In this instance, caught with its pants down, O2 has had little choice but to own up to the practice:

We’ve put in temporary measures to protect the service experience for customers. We’re working to remove these in coming weeks.

— O2 in the UK (@O2) July 25, 2017

In other words, O2 is saying its Dublin network is struggling to accommodate the uptick in roaming connections, so “temporary measures” are necessary to keep everyone online. O2 isn’t the only provider having roaming issues, mind, with some Virgin Media customers reporting they’re having trouble accessing data networks abroad.

Flipping the switch on free EU roaming was always going to increase the likelihood of technical hiccups, so it’s almost surprising we haven’t seen a flood of teething problems. Still, it’s not a good look for O2, which has known for several years — as all providers have — that free roaming was kicking in this summer. And what’s worse than secretly throttling connections and giving customers a poor level of service is being caught red-handed. Cue an Ofcom investigation and fine in three… two…

Via: The Register

Source: O2 Community site, O2 (Twitter)

Waze joins Google Maps on Android Auto

Google Maps has become the de facto way to get from point A to point B. But for commuters and Uber/Lyft drivers, Waze — with Google’s transit information overlaid and crowdsourced data — has become invaluable. The only problem is that while Google Maps is part of Android Auto, Waze still requires you to stick your phone to your dash/windshield. That is, until now.

Waze is finally where it should have been years ago: part of Android Auto. An update to Android brings the road warrior’s favorite to Google’s in-car system, opening it up to any vehicle that supports the bring-your-own-infotainment solution. Ahead of today’s launch we got a chance to drive around in a Chevy Cruze with a beta version of Waze on Android Auto, and even with a few bugs, frankly, it’s already better than the smartphone version.

At first glance, the Android Auto version of Waze is less cluttered. This is, in part, thanks to pressure from automakers and regulators. The important elements are still there: the ability to share information about traffic, police presence, crashes, hazards in the road and issues with the maps themselves. But what’s (thankfully) missing is the most irritating part about Waze: the ads.

In the smartphone app, when you come to a complete stop, an ad for KFC or McDonald’s usually pops up (for me; your ad targeting may vary). I never eat at KFC or the home of Ronald McDonald, yet there they are while I’m waiting for the light to turn green. On Android Auto, those are gone. You will, however, see locations for “partners” along your route. In addition to fast-food restaurants, you’ll see service stations. Which is helpful, because most of us still need gas and beef jerky.

The app’s navigation layout is clear and concise. Upcoming changes to your route are displayed left of the map. You can tap on those directions to access a menu with options to end or take an alternative route. Both can be accomplished with two taps to reduce distraction.

The Android edition does support voice commands you find in the standard app for navigating to destinations. Unfortunately, we encountered a bug with our build of the app, and it wasn’t working. Typing in addresses and locations is obviously also available but only when the car is stopped — another one of the changes to appease automakers and regulators and make driving safer.

In addition to changes meant to remove distractions, a few of the features found in the smartphone app are also missing on Android Auto. The social aspects like carpooling, beeping at other Waze users, gas prices and map chat are gone. Also, there are no speedometer or voice commands for adding hazards to a route. Waze says these aren’t included yet, so there’s a good chance they will show up in future updates.

With the exception of gas prices and using your voice to add hazards to a route, I don’t see the need for the rest. This version of Waze is cleaner and easier to navigate and for drivers — that’s a win. Social aspects are nice on your computer, but behind the wheel, the only information I want from other drivers is traffic info. That’s what sets Waze apart from the competition, and it does that remarkably well. Even if sometimes its directions fall short of a driver’s knowledge of a city and its traffic patterns.

Unfortunately, this is an Android-only release. Don’t expect Waze to show up on CarPlay anytime soon. Waze would like to be on the dashes of all smartphone-compatible cars, but Apple still limits third-party apps on its vehicle-infotainment system to audio and messaging. But if the iPhone maker changes that policy, you can expect Waze to begin porting its app. In the meantime, Android users will be able to enjoy a better Waze experience in their dashboard.

Source: Waze