Skip the line and grab a Uniqlo jacket from a vending machine
You can get Best Buy products, Snapchat Spectacles and Instagram likes from a vending machine these days. You can even get a car. Now, Uniqlo wants to add its clothing to the myriad of items you can snag from a machine. The retailer is planning to install 10 apparel-spouting vending machines in markets across the US over the next two months. Locations will include airports and shopping malls in New York, Houston and Oakland, among other cities.
Uniqlo expected to do much better than it has in the US, where brand recognition and popularity failed to reach the suburbs as strongly as it did in major cities. The company has, therefore, shifted its focus onto more temporary locations like pop-ups and now vending machines. “We’re trying to understand where we can be more successful without making a big commitment,” Uniqlo’s US marketing chief, Marisol Tamaro, told the Wall Street Journal.
The vending machines will sell just two items — heat-retaining shirts and lightweight down jackets — in a variety of sizes and colors that will be dispensed in boxes and cans. Anything purchased can be returned if need be to a Uniqlo store or through the mail.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Goofy AirPod pockets are the latest ridiculous fashion statement
“I’m always losing my AirPods,” says everyone who’s purchased a pair of Apple’s questionably fashionable wireless headphones. While it’s unlikely that putting them in tiny pockets in your shirt collar will help much, Stone Island has come out with two new ways to do just that. Both pieces, part of the fashion company’s Fall/Winter 2017 collection, will at least let you show off the fact that you bought the $160 peripherals while also proving that AirPod users are objectively the worst. (Full disclosure: I’m using my own pair right now.)
It’s hard to see these little sewn-in AirPod slots as anything more than vanity ports for the terminally fashion-conscious. Surely your AirPods will fall out of their protective mini-pocket as soon as you start to move your body at the club or even just bend down to tie your shoes. Do yourself a favor and grab something from the collection with actual pockets, preferably with zippers.
Via: High Snobiety
Source: Stone Island
Tesla is getting 1,800 Model 3 reservations per day
After narrowly meeting its promise to launch the Model 3 in July, Tesla has released its latest earnings report (PDF). Other than slightly higher than expected revenue, the company says that since the delivery event, it has averaged 1,800 Model 3 pre-orders per day. Of course, if you’re getting in line now you could be in for quite a wait. The company expects to build about 1,500 Model 3s during the third quarter, but is maintaining its prediction that it will expand production to reach 5,000 of the cars per week by the end of this year.
Developing…
Source: Tesla Q2 2017 Earnings Report (PDF)
HBO data breach included thousands of internal documents
It looks like the data taken during Monday’s HBO hack is more than just a couple show episodes and Game of Thrones spoilers. The company paid security contractors to sniff out exactly what leaked online, and they’ve revealed that the hackers stole thousands of internal company documents.
The news comes out of a formal DMCA takedown notice that the contractors IP Echelon supplied to Google, which is standard procedure when HBO wants the search engine to take down links to leaked material. The hackers had originally contacted media revealing their exploits and linking to what they stole: Episodes of current shows Ballers, Insecure and Room 104, as well as two from Bill Hader’s hitman comedy series Barry that isn’t expected to air til 2018.
But the first info dump also includes personal information from a senior HBO executive, including access credentials for online services. The hackers claimed to have stolen 1.5 terabytes of data from the company, which they plan to keep releasing in future batches. While this obviously brings Sony’s 2014 hack to mind, that was a far larger breach resulting in the release of “under a hundred” terabytes of data. Time will tell whether this will be a more devastating leak, though HBO leadership was quick to inform its employees that the company email system had not been breached.
Source: Variety
Researchers think algorithms can improve your trash selfies
Whether we take selfies to match our own perception of what we think we look like or trying to understand how others perceive us, there’s no doubt that the self portrait is the defining photographic trend of our time. Chances are, we could all use a little help in upping our selfie game, which is where new research and the resulting algorithm-powered smartphone app comes in.
Computer scientists at the University of Waterloo in Canada asked thousands of Mechanical Turk workers to rate artificial selfies to find the best choice across three dimensions: lighting direction, face size, and face position. They had workers rate the selfies and then created an app that acts as a “director” for selfies, helping you get your best possible self-portrait. The researchers then had real people take photos with and without the app and submitted the selfies to raters from Mechanical Turk. They found a 26 percent improvement in the ratings of self-portraits taken with the app than those taken without direction.
The study’s co-authors Qifan Li and Dan Vogel think the research can go even further. “This is just the beginning of what is possible,” Vogel said in a statement. “We can expand the variables to include variables aspects such as hairstyle, types of smile or even the outfit you wear. When it comes to teaching people to take better selfies, the sky’s the limit.”
While the app the researchers created isn’t commercially available, it’s likely we’ll start to see them out in the wild soon. We can all use a little direction when it comes to taking better selfies.
Source: University of Waterloo
HomePod Firmware Details iPhone ‘SmartCamera’ Feature for Autodetecting Pets, Babies, and Scenes
The HomePod firmware Apple released early continues to offer up insight into future software and hardware capabilities for the HomePod, iPhone 8, and other devices, with the newest discovery coming today developer from Guilherme Rambo.
He’s unearthed a new “SmartCamera” feature, which appears to be something that will be built into future iPhones and/or iOS 11, perhaps taking advantage of the new facial recognition software that we expect to see in the iPhone 8.
The firmware suggests the camera app will be able to detect different types of scenes, photo conditions, and photography subjects like pets and children. Several scenes are referenced, including Fireworks, Foliage, Pet, BrightStage, Sport, Sky, Snow, and Sunset/Sunrise, indicating the iPhone’s camera may be able to detect a scene and then set the ideal exposure, shutter speed, and other factors to take the best photograph.
Many cameras, from point and shoot models to DSLRs, have a range of scene presets that can be selected, and it looks like Apple’s planning to implement something similar.
There are also specific references to a “freezeMotion” feature that mentions face scenes, pets, and babies, perhaps pointing towards new scene detection functionality that can recognize a fast moving target and automatically capture a photo at an ideal moment.
A third screenshot covers several “Confidence” metrics and hints at the camera’s ability to recognize not just pets and babies, but documents and QR codes. Both document scanning and QR code scanning with the camera are built into iOS 11, so at least some of these features will be available for all iPhone models. It’s not entirely clear, however, what will require the facial recognition hardware rumored for the iPhone 8 and what will be available for other devices.
Existing iPhones running the current version of iOS already include object recognition functionality, but it’s limited to the Photos app right now. The Photos app uses AI to detect objects and people in photos for smart search and organization, and it seems some of that technology could be making its way to the Camera app going forward.
The HomePod firmware contains hints about future iOS 11 functionality and the iPhone 8 because the HomePod runs a full version of iOS. The current version of iOS 11 in testing has been stripped of references to unreleased features, but Apple neglected to make the same edits to the HomePod firmware, allowing enterprising developers to dig up the company’s secrets.
Apple has accidentally leaked the general design of the iPhone 8, confirmed that it has an infrared facial tracking mechanism, and given us hints of several upcoming features like a split status bar at the top and a tap to wake feature. It also seemingly confirms both a virtual Home button and function area along with the absence of an under-display Touch ID solution.
Related Roundup: iPhone 8
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iPhone 8 Facial Recognition Will Likely Work With Apple Pay According to HomePod Firmware
Recent iPhone 8 rumors have suggested Apple may be planning to replace Touch ID with a new facial recognition system, but there’s been a lot of question about how Apple Pay will work and whether Apple will indeed be able to eliminate Touch ID entirely.
We’ve already seen confirmation that Apple is working on facial recognition in the iPhone 8 through a recent HomePod firmware release, and now additional information found in the code confirms Apple has a mechanism for authenticating Touch ID payments with a face scan instead of through a fingerprint.
A com.apple.passbook.payment string found in the HomePod firmware by iOS developer @r_idn features two references to “pearl.field-detect” and “pearl.pre-arm” among other payment verification data. As we learned from earlier leaks, “pearl” refers to Pearl ID, the codename for Apple’s facial recognition system. Apple’s current implementation appears to be incomplete, as pearl is only mentioned under presentation and not authentication.
While many are skeptical that Touch ID can be replaced by a facial recognition system that’s equally secure, rumors have suggested Apple’s facial recognition technique captures more data points than a fingerprint scan, making it more secure than Touch ID.
It’s not yet clear how Apple Pay will work without a Home button and without a fingerprint, but it will presumably be able to authenticate by scanning a user’s face, with a payment completed via a finger on the screen as is the case in current iPhones.
Previous HomePod firmware leaks related to the iPhone 8 have suggested Apple has not implemented an under-display Touch ID solution as was initially rumored for the device, and it’s looking more and more like there’s no other physical Touch ID solution built into the upcoming smartphone.
For more on the iPhone 8, make sure to check out our extensive roundup, which aggregates all of the rumors we’ve heard about the device so far. Lately, we’ve unearthed a lot of new information thanks to the HomePod firmware, including details confirming infrared facial tracking, the design of the iPhone 8, a split status bar and tap to wake, and an upcoming “SmartCamera” feature.
Related Roundups: Apple Pay, iPhone 8
Discuss this article in our forums
Mobile printing to a Mopria-ready printer is as easy as it gets (Review & Giveaway)
Let’s be honest for a moment. Printing from a smartphone hasn’t always been easy. Up until the more recent versions of Android it was, for all practical purposes, nearly impossible. But, things have changed over the years and we’re getting to a place where cloud-based and connected printers make things much simpler.
In an increasing number of cases, manufacturers are making it easier to print to their respective products. HP, Canon, Epson, Samsung, and others have all done things in the space to enable mobile printing, and it continues to get better. A quick search of the Play Store yields quite a few apps to help you out.
One way in which printing from mobile devices has gotten exponentially easier is through the Mopria Alliance. This mobile printing alliance was formed in late 2013 through the help of founding members that include Canon, HP, Samsung, and Xerox. Yes, it’s quite a few of the biggest names in printing working together. In fact, today Mopria Alliance accounts for some 98 percent of the worldwide printer business and also includes players from the software, typeface, and other industries. (Wikipedia)
In 2014, Mopria released a plug-in for Android that enables printing from devices running Android 4.4+ to Mopria-certified printers and multi-function printers. We’ve recently spent some time playing with the plug-in and have found it to be among the more simple and valuable ways of further extending the capabilities of your smartphone.
Learn More About Mopria!
- Website
- YouTube
Note: We were sent a Huawei Mate 9 smartphone and a Canon PIXMA TS6020 printer to use in our testing of the Mopria plug-in. Further, we were allowed to keep them after our testing. This did not color our experience one way or the other, but we feel compelled to share this information.
Huawei & Mopria
It might sound like a small feature, but one of the things about Huawei’s new phones is that it already comes with support for Mopria-supported printers. Indeed, the handsets are locked and ready to go when it comes to printing to one of the numerous printers and MFPs.
You’ll find there are a wide variety of apps or services in your phone which can print. Chrome, Gmail, Drive, Microsoft Office, and Adobe Acrobat Reader are just some of the more popular clients that you’ll use along the way.
Installing on another phone
Should you want to ready your other phones or tablets for printing, it’s a straightforward process. Installing the Mopria plug-in is as simple as heading to the Google Play Store and downloading an app. Once installed, you are one step away from printing to a Mopria-supported printer.
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To fully complete the setup, and to try out the first printing job, we went into Gmail and pulled up an email. As you know, Android has an excellent sharing feature that hands off to apps and services. Have a photo? Share it to another person via myriad apps. Or, perhaps export it to Dropbox, Google Drive, or another storage option. In Gmail, though, we now have the option to simply select “Print” from the drop-down menu.
It was here where we “added” a new printer, the Canon PIXMA TS 6020. While we had installed it on a laptop computer, we didn’t do anything mobile yet. After selecting the Mopria option from our menu, the phone searched our Wi-Fi connection for the printer. A few seconds later, the phone was ready to talk to the printer.
Tapping print on the email prompted us with another pop-up advising that the document could travel through a number of servers on its way to the printer. Tap okay and out comes the printed email.
One of the biggest pain points of printers from days gone by is installing drivers. In previous years, we thought nothing of installing files from a CD or downloading from a website. But now that we’re mobile-minded, we expect things to work differently.
Mopria essentially does all the dirty work associated with drivers. Installing the plug-in is all the heavy lifting you’ll do; from there, your phone or tablet has all that is necessary to talk to the printer.
Each time you print, you have the same options that you’d normally get from a desktop experience. Only need to print a specific page? Want to change from portrait to landscape? Paper size, two-sided printing, and color? All of those options are at your disposal. It’s quite awesome, really, how great printing is from a mobile device.
Win a Huawei Mate 9 and Canon printer!
As we indicated earlier, we were sent a phone and a printer from our extremely generous friends at the Mopria Alliance. We loved the experience; the phone is one of the best you’ll find on the market and the camera is stupendous. The Canon printer works terrific as a small office unit and we’ve already taken advantage of the flatbed scanner, too.
Our partners at Mopria are giving us a second phone and printer combination specifically for us to give out. That’s right, one of you lucky readers is going to end up with the Huawei Mate 9 and Canon PIXMA TS6020 multi-function printer!
The Rules
Sorry international fans, this one is US only. When we choose our winner, you’ll be contacted for your shipping address. You must be 18 to enter and have a US address.
In the widget below, you’ll see a few options to enter. The only mandatory option is that you must enter your email address. We will not sell or give away your email address and you will not be signed up for any kind of mailing lists. We only collect your email address so we can contact the winner.
Beyond that, you have a couple of options to gain more entries into the contest like following AndroidGuys on Twitter, following Moprina on Twitter, and tweeting out a message letting your friends know that you’re entered into the contest. None of these are mandatory, but you can tweet once a day from the widget for more entries if you wish.
This contest will run from right now until 11:59 on August 31, 2017. We’d like to thank Moprina one more time for teaming up with us on this giveaway.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
About Mopria Print Service
Mopria Print Service is an Android system app that allows you to print to multiple printer brands without having to download an individual app for each printer you encounter. It saves you both time and valuable disk space. Easily print photos, web pages and documents when your mobile device is connected to a Mopria® certified printer through a wireless network or using Wi-Fi Direct®. For more information, you can check out the video below on how to print using Mopria.
Future smartphones could edit images even before you take the picture
Why it matters to you
Editing taking too long? Future smartphones could edit your shots in real time as you take them.
Photo editing software often enhances a smartphone’s limited hardware, but what if those shots could be edited automatically — in real time? That’s the question researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Google asked when expanding an earlier machine-learning program that automatically improved shots after sending them to the cloud. Presented during this week’s Siggraph digital graphics conference, the new automatic photo software edits so quickly that the user actually sees the results on the screen in real time — before that shot is even taken.
The program is based on earlier MIT research that trained a computer to edit images automatically. Researchers taught that program how to automatically apply specific adjustments by feeding the system five variations of each image, all edited by a different photo editor. After repeating that process a few thousand times, the program learned how to identify and fix common image issues.
The new software is built on the same artificial intelligence platform but speeds up the program to the point where it completes edits in a tenth of the previous time. This allows the live view from the camera to show edits in real time instead of sending the shot to a cloud system for editing. So how did researchers achieve the speed boost? The output of the software actually isn’t an image, but an image formula. Calculating the changes (and only applying them if a photo is taken) speeds up the process.
The original image is also divided into grids, a form of downsizing the image for faster editing without losing pixels in the final image. The program works on each of the divided sections at once, editing hundreds of pixels simultaneously instead of factoring every single pixel.
With those two changes, the program only needs about 100 megabytes to perform each image edit, while without those two modifications the same software needed 12 gigabytes.
The research is a growing trend of looking to computational photography to solve the shortcomings of the hardware that can fit inside of a smartphone. Unlike earlier programs, the automatic photo software from MIT and Google looks to solve one of computational photography’s biggest obstacles, the limited processing power of a mobile device. In the researcher’s experiment, the program applied a high-dynamic range algorithm in real time, boosting the image’s colors and range of light beyond what the hardware itself could achieve.
“This technology has the potential to be very useful for real-time image enhancement on mobile platforms,” said Jon Barron, a Google researcher who worked on the project. “Using machine learning for computational photography is an exciting prospect but is limited by the severe computational and power constraints of mobile phones. This paper may provide us with a way to sidestep these issues and produce new, compelling, real-time photographic experiences without draining your battery or giving you a laggy viewfinder experience.”
Telegram messaging app strikes deal with Indonesia on encryption
Why it matters to you
As security-minded developers continue to clash with governments seeking to curb illegal activity, your privacy hangs in the balance.
End-to-end encryption used to be the domain of particular messaging apps built with it in mind, like Signal and Telegram. Eventually, the feature made its way to more mainstream-focused apps, like WhatsApp and Allo. Although regular users can now enjoy the added peace of mind that encryption offers, encryption has posed a problem for governmental authorities scouring the web for clues to terrorist plots in the making.
Telegram’s desktop version was banned in Indonesia during the latter half of July for this very reason, though the development team has worked with lawmakers to strike a compromise. Telegram has agreed to set up a local moderation team that will search chats for illicit activity, according to a report from The Jakarta Post. In addition, a direct communication line will be opened between the moderators and the Indonesian government, so authorities can act on threats more quickly.
Part of the reason Telegram has been singled out is ISIS’ apparent penchant for the app. It’s said to be “the most popular messaging application among jihadists linked to the Islamic State,” according to the Post, and a hub for the spread of violent propaganda. As a result, Indonesia labeled the service as a threat to national security, and even warned it may have to extend the ban to the mobile app as well.
In Jakarta, meeting with local teams brainstorming ways how to eradicate ISIS propaganda more efficiently.
— Pavel Durov (@durov) August 1, 2017
That led to the events of this week, when Telegram founder Pavel Durov met with Indonesian information minister Rudiantara to discuss the ban. Following the agreement, Rudiantara agreed to resume activity through the web app over the coming days.
“We have some Indonesian speaking members in the team now,” Durov told the Post, adding that the company will now be able to block users more efficiently than in the past, when the process took up to 36 hours.
Of course, this is not the first time Telegram has run into a snag with government officials on the basis of national security. The app was booted out of Iran years ago after local authorities requested access to what Durov called “spying and censorship” tools. More recently, Durov has said that the FBI pressured him and his team during a visit to the United States last year to build a backdoor into the app. Then, last December, competitor Signal was banned in Egypt.
AIVAnet 