Baskin-Robbins and DoorDash will deliver ice cream to your stoop

If you’re like me, once the mercury starts rising, your diet slowly becomes more and more ice-cream-and-popsicle based. But what if it’s too hot and you don’t want to drive or walk to the nearest ice cream parlor? That’s where Baskin-Robbins comes in. The franchise claims it has devised a way to deliver its frozen confections, intact, to your door thanks to a partnership with DoorDash. Some 600 stores in 22 cities are making delicious deliveries. There is a catch: While you can surely order whatever you’d like, you’ll have to supply your own whipped cream.

That’s because in Robbins’ tests, it found that the topping was the first to start melting while en route to customers. Oh well. Delivery fees vary by location, but can you really put a price on convenience and not having to put on pants?

Via: Bloomberg

Source: Baskin Robbins, DoorDash

Hacking Team is back

When you call yourself “Hacking Team,” you’re borrowing a legacy of persecution and suffering at the hands of legal authorities. The same kind that drove Aaron Swartz to become the most famous hacker suicide of our era.

You’re effectively wrapping yourself in a mantle bled into by the skins of coders and crackers who are considered criminals by wider society — regardless of innocence. You’ve grafted your brandished title — “Hacking Team” — onto the backs of those living under the oppressive fear of being rounded up, stripped of rights, and imprisoned for vague, state-defined crimes.

Every hacker who has had to rename themselves as a “researcher” or “information security professional” for public consumption knows this. Their friends and heroes have served time for crimes of hacking both real and contrived at the hands of hostile governments.

Some people call themselves “hackers” to reclaim the stigma. Others do it because they’re pretentious dicks. It’s worse with Hacking Team, of course, because they were exposed by actual hackers for being bad at hacking, for helping governments target powerless people for contrived crimes, and also for being pretentious dicks. We even coined a term for it: Hackenfreude.

Surprise: With no sense of self-awareness, Hacking Team is back and they didn’t even bother to change their name.

Not content to leave well enough alone, Hacking Team resurfaced this week. They were discussed in a news item about Saudi Arabia hunting dissenters, and were also spotted cruising for more blood money at a “global policing” conference in Singapore called INTERPOL WORLD. Their business was, and still is, selling intrusion and surveillance software to governments and law enforcement around the world, peddling full-service surveillance suites that target individuals, network infections, monitoring, and more.

Look, they’re alive ! At Interpol World pic.twitter.com/FRGqtG47tv

— codelancer (@codelancer) July 5, 2017

When we last saw Hacking Team, they had just been royally owned. Two years ago this month, online persona PhineasFisher hacked the company (a Reporters Without Borders “enemy of the internet”) and distributed around 400GB of Hacking Team’s company files, while taking over their Twitter account and changing it to “Hacked Team.”

Because HT was so reviled by hackers, taking the company apart and spreading their innards across the web became a group effort. Global security research communities tore into the documents in waves around the clock; hackers created a GitHub repository named “Hacked Team (Hacking Team) We Kill People™.”

It was revealed that Hacking Team really did contribute to killing people with its bespoke services. Services tailored for the worst of the worst in human rights abusers in nearly three dozen countries around the world. We learned from the docs that Hacking Team also targets individuals on behalf of its clients.

One example of a typical Hacking Team client is Uzbekistan. When the documents were published, Hacking Team’s account with Uzbekistan’s National Security Service was active. “Uzbekistan’s human rights record is atrocious,” Human Rights Watch said. “Thousands are imprisoned on politically-motivated charges. Torture is endemic in the criminal justice system.”

The docs also contained emails confirming that the company sold its Remote Control System (RCS) spyware to Sudan, a country the company publicly denied selling to when it was questioned in front of a UN commission regarding Sudanese sanctions. During that period of Hacking Team’s employment for Sudan, Human Rights Watch said, “In addition to indiscriminate bombing, Sudanese government forces are getting away with abusive and illegal tactics under a guise of counterinsurgency, including rape, arbitrary detentions and killings.”

But that was then, and this is now. It’s worse, because whatever the hacktivism was supposed to do didn’t work, and also because Hacking Team has since been hired by one of Trump’s more terrifying buddies.

In late May of this year, a photo from Donald Trump’s trip to the Middle East surfaced, showing Trump, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi laying hands on a glowing globe in a darkened room. The undeniably ominous image (“the orb”) was actually the official opening of Saudi Arabia’s Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology.

When that photo was taken, the king had just fast-tracked his son Mohammed bin Salman to be Crown Prince and next in line to the throne (whom WSJ reported Trump has “embraced” in the role; the two had a March White House meeting prior to the trip). In fact, Prince bin Salman is the one who arranged Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia.

Jump to this week, where it was reported that bin Salman has begun a crackdown on dissenters and activists, Hacking Team is working with him to help the government of Saudi Arabia in a move that will make its human rights record even more appalling.

It’s amazing that Saudi Arabia even thinks it needs to hire hackers at all. Antiterrorism regulations that took effect in 2014 are used to criminalize almost any form of peaceful criticism of the authorities as terrorism. That was the year Saudi Arabian pro-democracy blogger named Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for the crime of “insulting Islam through electronic channels.”

In that year alone, authorities also detained and intimidated hundreds of online political activists and online commentators, implemented strict filtering mechanisms to block sensitive political content from entering the Saudi internet, recruited thousands of online supporters to warn against the call for protests and demonstrations as a countermeasure and continued to apply its excessive monitoring of internet users. Last year, the country carried out 157 public beheadings, from crimes ranging from drug offenses to apostasy (renunciation of a religious or political belief).

The story of Hacking Team was once a lulzy tale of what happens to harmful idiots in the face of hacktivism. But now it’s about how getting owned may very well serve as an advertisement of services; free publicity that gets you seen by those shopping for services rooted in horror.

Hacking Team’s name is an attempt at symbolism. The company was revealed to be bad smart people and bad stupid people working for really bad people, and now it is a symbol of something else entirely: Unstoppable success, built on a legacy of pain.

The pirate ship of hacktivism has crashed here.

The hacktivists get points for trying to take HT down. But all we’re left with is the sickening feeling that hacktivism has always been just another work of fiction we’re clinging to, in hopes someone will save us.

Image: Bandar Algaloud / Saudi Royal Council / Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images (Illuminated orb ceremony)

Apple Begins Surveying Spain With Mapping Vehicles

Since 2015, Apple has been using LIDAR-equipped mapping vehicles to capture street-level imagery for the Apple Maps app. Apple has expanded the areas where it is collecting data several times over the course of the last two years, and according to the latest update to the company’s support page, Apple Maps vehicles have recently made their way into Spain.

Apple regularly highlights the countries and cities around the world where its vehicles are located, and between July 3 and August 13, Apple will collect data in the Biscay province of Spain, in Arratia-Nerbioi, Busturialdea, Durangaldea, Enkarterri, Greater Bilbao, Lea Artibai, and Uribe-Kosta.

Apple is also collecting data in new areas in England, France, Italy, and multiple U.S. states during the months of July and August, but Apple Maps vehicles have been seen in these countries in the past. Data collection in Vermont, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire in the United States may be new, however.

According to Apple’s support page, the information collected by the mapping vehicles will be used to improve Apple Maps, but just what Apple plans to do with the data remains unclear.

Because Apple promises to blur faces and license plates ahead of publication, there’s been speculation that the company is working on a “Street View” addition to Apple Maps to mirror Google Maps, but it’s also possible that the imagery is being used to bolster the autonomous driving software that’s in development at Cupertino headquarters, as was recently proposed by analyst Neil Cybart.

Over the course of the last two years, Apple’s mapping vehicles have surveyed more than 30 U.S. states and several countries including England, Ireland, Italy, France, and Sweden.

Tag: Apple Maps
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TouchArcade iOS Gaming Roundup: Five Nights at Freddy’s, Minecraft Story Mode, Honor of Kings, and More

Even though the first two days of this week were spent by most Americans celebrating the Fourth of July, there were still a ton of happenings in the iOS gaming arena. Kicking things off was a story surrounding a puzzling update from Five Nights at Freddy’s creator Scott Cawthon. Now, this comes with the massive caveat that Cawthon is no stranger to (intentionally or unintentionally) trolling his audience with updates on the state of development of games in the Five Nights at Freddy’s series, but, you really never know.

If Scott Cawthon is to be believed, he’s been working on Five Nights at Freddy’s 6 but eventually decided to pull the plug on the project due to the pressure that comes from trying to develop another unique entry in the series — particularly with the sky-high expectations surrounding another FNAF sequel. Allegedly, instead he’s going to be working on smaller projects loosely based on the FNAF universe like the upcoming movie, a VR title, and other things.

What has us raising our eyebrows particularly high on this one is that Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location was “delayed” because it was “too scary” and then the game was released four days later. Either way, kids are (still) crazy for FNAF, so it seems worth paying attention to, even if these odd updates seem like a strange way to promote a game.

With Season 3 of Rick and Morty only a few weeks away, Adult Swim has updated Pocket Mortys with online multiplayer battles, new dimensions to explore, and tons of other things. Pocket Mortys features a supremely agreeable free to play system that feels truly optional, and is easily among the best, if not the best Pokemon-like game on the App Store. It’s packed with Rick and Morty fan service, but even if you’ve never seen the show, it’s a fantastic collection and battling game only made better by this update.

Another Rome: Total War port is on the way to the App Store, and this time players will travel back in time to an entirely new scenario that begins with the Macedonians and escalates all the way to the Persian Empire. Rome: Total War – Alexander will launch as a standalone expansion for $4.99 soon. The original iPad port of Rome: Total War was received incredibly well by fans of strategy games, so it seems safe to assume Alexander will be just as good.

Telltale’s Minecraft: Story Mode is a clever mash-up between Telltale’s signature narrative-based games and the Minecraft universe which has practically no story in it at all. The first season of the game spanned eight individual episodes that at times felt a lot like playing a Minecraft-y version of the movie The Goonies. Few details are available yet for the second season except for the trailer and the release date of July 11th, but we’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.

The original Sorcery! is now available for free on the App Store, and is a game everyone should download during this promotion. We’ve written extensively about the game, but CliffsNotes effectively amount to Sorcery! is easily among the best game books on the App Store. If you’ve never played one, imagine Choose Your Own Adventure novels from when you were a kid, but fleshed out to an unbelievable extent. There are two more entries in the series, so if you find yourself enjoying Sorcery! be sure to check out the two sequels.

While it seems like everyone and their brother is riffing on Supercell’s Clash Royale these days, Tilting Point and Simutronics released Siege: Titan Wars this week which is another incredibly polished spin on the formula. Players dispatch swarms of troops and powerful titans, and unleash magic spells in realtime PvP battles. This style of game works incredibly well on mobile, so if you weren’t into Clash Royale for whatever reason, it’s worth giving this one a try.

In Hearthstone news, surrounding rumors, speculation, and legitimate leaks, Blizzard finally announced the next Hearthstone expansion: Knights of the Frozen Throne. Launching next month, Knights of the Frozen Throne is loosely based on the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King, but with the requisite signature Hearthstone twist. New Death Knight Hero cards are being introduced, which provide each class with a new Undead-centric hero power.

Finally, Tencent’s Honor of Kings will be launching globally this year. It’s unlikely you’ve heard of this game unless you’re in China, but Honor of Kings has been unbelievably successful, sporting over 50 million daily active users and raking in over $140 million a month. The game is so popular in China that the developers were actually forced to limit how much people can play it by the Chinese government. It’s a situation that’s almost impossible to believe, but I’m incredibly curious to see how it does outside of Asian markets.

That’s it for this week! As always, if you appreciate these iOS gaming roundups and are interested in way more content like this, head over to TouchArcade where we’re posting iOS game news, reviews, guides, and more all day long. We’ve got an iOS gaming Twitch channel, a fantastic Discord server, and a weekly podcast that are also all worth checking out.

Tag: TouchArcade gaming roundup
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Nature, Nordic craftsmanship, and technology meet in Lastu case (Review)

Like it or not, if you want to have a phone in mint condition months after purchase, a case is almost a necessity. With phones being more fragile and prices for repairs soaring, cases are a cheap way of protecting your investment.

Sure, you could buy a $2 TPU case on eBay and slap it on your phone, but why would you do that, when there are so many stylish options available? Lastu cases are one of the most polished cases I’ve seen, with real wood directly from Finland, superb craftsmanship, and the option to personalize it with text and/or logo engravings.

Appearance

When you receive the case, you can see that even the packaging has been given some thought. Rather than using a regular plastic packaging like the rest of case manufacturers, Lastu decided to go for recycled cardboard, conveying a stronger feeling of the product being closely attached to nature.

You can personalize your case with logo and text engravings.

Lastu is very proud of the wood it uses. Since it is based in Finland, the wood it uses all comes from the north of this beautiful nation. Since making cases out of wood means that you actually harm the environment a bit, Lastu makes sure that the wood it uses comes from manufacturers with sustainable development and avoids endangered types, such as Ebony or Zebrawood.

The wood has been polished and waxed in such a superb way that it feels extremely smooth to the touch. Nevertheless, it still has the small imperfections typical of wood elements, which makes it look authentic (because it is). At the bottom, the Lastu logo makes its appearance in a minimalistic way.

Personally, I went for the Ovangkol option that was added just a few hours before I decided to pull the trigger on one of these cases. It looks similar to the Walnut option, but it has a reddish tone to it with black vertical lines. However, the other options, such as Curly Birch, Smoky Ash, and the previously mentioned Walnut look great too. Special mention to Kelo, which in my opinion is the best out of the rest.

It seems like Lastu added some kind of protective layer on top of the case to avoid scratches. I’ve been using this case for three months at the time of publication, and there are very few minor scratches, but they get lost among the colors and imperfections of the wood itself, so they shouldn’t be a problem for a long time.

That is Barcelona Sporting Club, the greatest football team in Ecuador!

One of the most noteworthy elements of Lastu cases is that you can add free text engraving, while a logo engraving can be ordered for an addition €5. For getting your logo engraved, you just need to submit one of the allowed file extensions and the company will do the rest.

I’ve read cases in which a Lastu representative contacts a customer in order to propose a final version based on the image you uploaded. Since I submitted an image with transparent background and black outlines, I guess there was no need for me to give any additional input.

If the authentic wood looks good as it is, the logo engraving and personalized phrase make the case truly yours. It is done in a superb way, making the wood just a bit darker than the overall case so that it is noticeable, and pushing it a bit down. It feels great to the touch, makes the case look stylish, and it’s nice to know that there’s not a single case in the world that looks exactly like yours.

Functionality

The case gives great protection to the sides of my Huawei Honor 7 Lite.

Before talking about functionality, I should talk about the case’s framework first. It is made of a very smooth, black plastic. It gives great protection on the sides of the phone. It even rises a little bit above the screen so that it doesn’t get scratches when placing your phone face down on flat surfaces.

Also, Lastu decided to make cutouts for the buttons, instead of covering them with said plastic. I welcome the decision since this means that operating these buttons is exactly as if the phone was without a case.

However, the top and the bottom sections of the phone are largely unprotected. After all, this is a slim case, not one of those cool armor cases available for iPhones, but it’s something you have to think about.

This has a great side effect, however. Since the top and the bottom are where the headphone jack and microUSB port are located, this means that you can connect headphones and chargers as big or as small as you like without worrying about the size of connectors.

Fitting the phone into the case is very easy, but taking it out sometimes makes me feel like I will break the very small plastic part that separates the power button from the volume keys. It’s only a feeling that I have, though, because so far, the case has proven to be very sturdy. I change my cases a lot depending on the situation, so it’s nice that the Lastu case provides this sense of durability.

She takes care of my phone more than I do.

The case obviously adds a little bit of bulk to the phone. I have two other cases for this phone, both made of TPU. The added thickness is really noticeable at first, but you get used to it after some time. This was very apparent when using the fingerprint sensor on the back since this meant that I had to dig my finger a bit deeper in order to get to it. As you might have guessed, it’s not a big deal, and, if you want a case made of wood, then all of them will add more thickness to the phone compared with regular TPU cases.

Conclusion

In recent years, we’ve seen companies like Motorola and OnePlus introduce wooden options for their products. Thus, overall interest in wooden products have soared, and we’ve seen companies like Carved and Cover-Up offering great alternatives to the regular TPU, plastic, and rubber offerings.

Lastu has put in place an outstanding product that harms the environment as little as possible and looks gorgeous. There are several wood types to choose from, so it’s guaranteed that you’ll find something according to your tastes. On top of that, Lastu lets you personalize it to your like in order to make it truly yours.

The Finnish company has cases for a variety of popular phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S8, LG G6, OnePlus 3 & 3T, Sony Xperia Z5, and Huawei P10. As always, there’s also a lot of options for Apple users. There are even leather straps for the Apple Watch. Unfortunately, there is no support for Pixel phones. I guess they’re not that popular after all…

If you want to know more about Lastu cases and other products, then head to their website and browse through the beautiful work they have for you. There are options to have wood+leather cases, stronger ones called armor cases, and an option to add a nice stand called Jalaka. They can be as cheap as €26.95 or as expensive as €89, plus, they can be shipped worldwide.

Buy Lastu cases from Lastu’s website.

Chaos Chronicle (review)

Chaos Chronicle is made by NEXON, the creators of.. wait, DomiNations? and 44 other games?  Whaaaa- okay NEXON, that is a good start.

Permissions-wise, it only asks for storage – and needs 580MB, so that’s quite a bit.

Let’s get into it!

After installing the base app, you need to download extra files, which brings it to the lovely 580MB file size. Then the game actually begins, with a good ol’ tutorial.

So, the tutorial! its simple really- you pretty much time pressing each person’s ability icon and time the second press right (depending on the skill.) In other words, super simple. Then you get to pick your character out of…

The good ol’ killing machine.

A defender.

The obligatory assassin.

The totally-not-OP-why-do-you-ask mage.

I went for the mage since being insanely ‘broken’ is fun… right? Anyway, then you get to pick your house, AKA team name. It cant have spaces, or symbols, and has to be less than 8 characters – so quite restrictive. But in the process of learning, I tried:

Shame this didn’t work

Aww, what?

Someone already took this

HUZZAH! IT WORKS

So began the story of house ‘swears’ as its struggle of name creation was left behind them.

Once that’s over, you are greeted with a mess of a home screen as you are taught how everything works. Fairly standard – you have your hero editing and leveling menu, some form of social and guild system, as well as all sorts of offers and mission tabs. The shop lets you buy currencies (more on them later) and “hero contracts” which let you recruit new members.

Buttons, lots of them.

The main one you’ll be hitting is “stage,” which greets you with this screen

I wonder who will win between a team of humans and something that looks like it’s from the Transformers universe…

There are 18 levels, with 12 stages each. 216 Stages? Sure! Plenty to do, and they give good rewards. There’s also a plot – from what I can work out, you (and your team) stumble across a large issue after getting a core off a giant golem.

There are also different types of skills. Normal ones are tap-to-activate, Ones with a red icon next to the character need two taps- one to start a reticle moving, the second to use the ability. Blue icons require you to hold your finger on the icon to charge it when you see an “OK!” You can fire for maximum damage, or before then for less power.

In-App Purchases!

Well, there is a lot to go through here, so I’ll get into it:

• Two starter packs – one costs £3.79, the other £26.49. of courses, the second one gives much more.
• A “Grow your house” pack for £26.49. it’s designed to give you a variety of rewards to help in the early days.
• A quick £0.89 pack that can be bought once.
• A £7.99 pack that gives you rubies(the premium currency) every day for 30 days.
• A variety of ruby packs priced from £2.69 to £84.99
• A variety of premium packs (Gold, Rubies and Hero contracts) priced from £8.99 to £89.99.

Now that’s a lot of buyable things.

Conclusion

Well, I can’t say much about a game genre I don’t often play – but from what I can work out, it’s not too bad. Nexon has a good portfolio which does help them, and it is a stable product. Who knows, I might keep it!

And remember the first wall of these sort of games – The mage classes are absurdly strong.

Grow a tree from a loved one’s ashes, and the Bios Incube will keep it alive

Why it matters to you

If you’re looking for a departure from a traditional burial, being planted as a tree isn’t such a bad alternative.

The technology of today isn’t just for this life — it’s for the afterlife, too. If you thought that only the living could enjoy the perks of the 21st century, think again. When you pass on into the Great Beyond, rest assured that some great tech will go along with you. Or at the very least, that tech will make the most out of you. Meet the Bios Incube, the world’s first Internet of Things burial urn, because there really is something for everybody in 2017.

In all seriousness, it’s quite a clever idea. The Bios Incube is a tree incubator specifically designed to work with ashes. After a successful Kickstarter campaign (see, there really is demand here), the Bios team is hoping to disrupt the age-old practice of burying our deceased.

Meant for those seeking an alternative to traditional burials, and perhaps a direct connection with their loved ones, the Bios Incube works alongside the Bios Urn in order to create life after death. The Urn is planted into the Incube, and once everything has been set up (the Incube is, of course, app-connected), users can monitor the plant’s growth, and check out maintenance tips. The Incube comes with a built-in self-watering system that is triggered by a sensor placed at the soil’s surface. Further sensors are capable of detecting light exposure, electrical conductivity, and monitoring moisture, as well as temperature in the atmosphere and soil.

“What we want is simple: We want to combine the intersections of design, nature, and technology to create not just products, but experiences,” said Bios co-founder Roger Moline.

The minimal design of the Bios products allow them to fit rather seamlessly into any home decor, and guests would never guess the contents of the cube. And once your tree has sprouted, you can transfer it to a more permanent location — perhaps your loved one’s favorite destination.

“The goal of all of Bios products is to change the way people think about death by converting the end of life into a transformation and a return to life through nature,” the company noted. So if you’re looking for a way to honor those in your life who have passed, you may consider taking their ashes and placing them in the Bios Incube.

Prisma gets sticky with its new selfie-to-sticker app for iOS and Android

Why it matters to you

The wildly popular app Prisma is proving that it’s not going anywhere by launching yet another app with viral potential.

The app universe is one that is expanding at an alarming rate, and that means that app developers must continue innovating to keep up. Certainly up to the challenge is Prisma, the popular AI-based app that turned photos into art pieces, and shot to viral fame last year. Now, the makers behind Prisma are debuting a new app — it’s called Sticky, and it’s a selfie-to-sticker tool for the digitally (and self-) obsessed generation. The iOS version launched today, and the Android version will follow in the coming weeks.

The technology behind Sticky allows you to cut out your selfie from its background to create a sticker that you can share just about anywhere. “We trained neural networks to find different objects on a photo/ video and even on a live video stream. So basically our trained neural networks are looking for a person on a photo,” Prisma co-founder Aram Airapetyan told TechCrunch. “Then we cut out the background and the sticker is ready.”

From there, you can either take your selfie sans background, or slightly edit the background with a number of different colors, or even add a white border around the image to make it extra obvious that it is, in fact, a sticker. And of course, if you so choose, you can apply a Prisma-esque effect to the sticker (just to remind you of what this app really is).

You can also add a text caption, or even animate your sticker, essentially creating a selfie GIF that you can then share on various social media platforms. Given that the app is still in its nascent stages, there are still a few kinks to work out. “Sometimes the cut-out tech isn’t perfect, but the more people will use Sticky, the better it will become itself!” said Airapetyan. “Sticky is surely going to become a better app with lots of more features. We just need to find out what people need first. Stickers, in general, are very popular nowadays and the popularity will spiral up, for sure.”

Let’s hope he’s right. You can go ahead and download the app for free from the App Store.

An always-on display mode may be coming to Google Pixel smartphones

Why it matters to you

Google’s always-on display mode for Pixel smartphones would ensure you never missed another notification.

Arguably one of the Samsung Galaxy S8’s most useful features is Always On Display, which lights up certain parts of the smartphone’s screen without drawing a lot of power. Now, according to code uncovered by XDA Developers, the Google Pixel phone might be the next to get it.

In a report on Friday, XDA Developers published code in the latest version of Android O Developer Preview 3 that points toward an always-on display mode. It mentions “doze,” a tag that Google uses internally to reference Android’s lift-to-check, double-tap-to-check ambient display feature that lights up a device’s screen when notifications come in. And it includes a toggle that enables an “always-on” state that prevents the Pixel’s display from sleeping.

It appear to be similar to Samsung’s Always On Display. With the experimental always-on display enabled, the Pixel shows notification text and icons in monochromatic colors beneath a clock, date, and battery indicator. Always-on display isn’t accessible without editing the code, and it isn’t fully functional yet. But XDA Developers expects it to make its way to Android’s System UI Tuner, the settings menu on newer Android phones that can be accessed by pulling down the status bar and long-pressing on the settings cog.

If the Pixel gains an always-on display mode via an update, it would be an impressive feat. It took Samsung engineers more than three years to optimize the power draw of display components and sensors for Always On Display, and even longer to develop a new hardware algorithm — Smart Power Saving — to further boost performance.

Always On Display’s secret sauce is its ambient awareness features, which tap the Galaxy S8’s RGB light and accelerometer sensors to fine-tune screen brightness and disable notifications in situations where you’re unable to see the screen, such as when it’s in your pocket or in a bag.

It’s unclear if the Pixel’s always-on display will work the same way. It might be more akin to Moto Display, Motorola’s ambient display mode (since discontinued) that lights up portions of a smartphone’s screen when the display is off. Similar to Samsung’s Always On Display, Moto Display shuts off the screen when the phone is in your pocket or face down on a table. But unlike the Always On Display, it’s actionable: Moto Display lets you reveal a notification’s contents by touching and holding it, or dismiss it by swiping to the left or right.

Whatever form the Pixel’s always-on display mode takes, it’s likely to ship as part of Google’s Android O Developer Preview program. XDA Developers notes that a toggle’s been coded, but not made visible.

The Swiss are combining 3D printing and robots to change how houses get built

Why it matters to you

3D printing, robots, and modular construction are coming together in Switzerland to fundamentally change how buildings are assembled.

Eight scientists from Switzerland’s ETH Zurich University have embarked on a bold plan to build the next generation of construction robots, and their proof-of-concept is a first-generation robot that is actively building a 200-square-foot home on the school’s campus. The project is bringing together a suite of cutting-edge technologies including 3D printing, modular construction, and new methods of construction. The DFAB House is believed to be the first house in the world to be designed, planned and built using primarily digital processes.

“Unlike construction projects that use only a single digital building technology, such as 3D printed houses, the DFAB HOUSE brings a range of new digital building technologies together. This allows us to use the advantages of each individual method as well as their synergies, and express them architecturally,” says ETH professor Matthias Kohler.

The new technologies include a robot designated the In Situ Fabicator I, which is mounted on caterpillar tracks that can fabricate dense mesh sections that act as a framework and reinforcement for poured concrete walls. This robot is dustproof and waterproof, uses standard European electricity, and is internet-connected so that architects and builders can make real-time changes to the construction process at any time.

Once the walls harden, they are topped with an integrated ceiling slab manufactured by a large-scale 3D printer. This “Mesh Mould” technology received the Swiss Technology Award at the end of 2016.

Simultaneously, the individual rooms for the second and third floors are being prefabricated at ETH Zurich’s Robotic Fabrication Laboratory using constructing robots to assemble the timber and concrete elements.

In addition to testing new building and energy technologies under real life conditions, the ETH Zurich house project also allows the team to design solutions for future robots. The current In Situ Fabricator I is too heavy to enter many standard buildings, and can only manipulate objects up to 88 pounds, while the scientists would like it to manage more than 130 pounds. The team has already designed and built a next-generation robot arm with a hydraulic actuator that can manipulate heavier objects with equal precision and better reliability.

The DFAB House is part of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication Project and is being erected, in addition to other futuristic construction experiments, on the periphery of the NEST (Next Evolution in Sustainable Building Technologies), a modular research and innovation building at the ETH Zurich campus.

The DFAB House isn’t the first project to use 3D printing technology in its construction — projects all over Europe from Amsterdam to Russia are actively using 3D technology, and the  Massachusetts Institute of Technology is said to have a robot on its Boston campus that can print an entire home within 14 hours. But the combination of digital design and planning and digital building processes is a bold step toward making construction more sustainable and efficient while lending architects and builders more real-time control over their building projects.

The DFAB House is scheduled to finish construction in summer 2018, when it is planned to be used as a residential and working space for guest researchers of the NEST project.