FCC Chairman wants Apple to enable FM in iPhones for emergencies

You might think of radio as an archaic form of listening to music, but it’s still one of the more effective ways to get information to people, especially when cell networks go down. Most smartphones already have an FM chip baked right into the chipset, but they tend to be inaccessible, especially in the US. Now FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is asking Apple to activate these FM chips already in iPhones. “Apple is the one major phone manufacturer that has resisted (activating the chips),” said Pai in a statement. “But I hope the company will reconsider its position, given the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.”

This isn’t a new push by Pai to get FM enabled in smartphones, either. “In recent years, I have repeatedly called on the wireless industry to activate the FM chips that are already installed in almost all smartphones sold in the United States,” he said. “And I’ve specifically pointed out the public safety benefits of doing so.” In his first public speech as FCC chairman, Pai notes, he said that “you could make a case for activating chips on public safety grounds alone.”

As The Verge notes, many companies, including Motorola, LG and Samsung (among others), have allowed for FM access in their smartphones. Many are on the list of supported devices provided by NextRadio, a smartphone app that provides FM broadcasts to smartphones. AT&T already asks manufacturers of Android phones to enable the FM systems, too. “I applaud those companies that have done the right thing by activating the FM chips in their phones,” said Pajit.

Source: FCC

The Hero 6 and ‘GP1’ is GoPro’s chance to grow again

“When I first was listening to our team’s desire to make a chip, I felt a bit of anxiety, like, are we getting a bit ahead of ourselves? This might be beyond what our capabilities are,” Nick Woodman, GoPro founder and CEO, told me in a rare break from his boyish bombast.

His anxiety stems from a narrative in the media over the past year or two that GoPro can’t seem to shake. Share prices slid sharply in 2015, divisions closed and staff were let go. Since then, the message has been clear: GoPro is in trouble. Except apparently Woodman didn’t get that memo. Either that or he knew what his company has been working on over the past three years: a custom image processor called the GP1. It’s a chip that makes the Hero 6 the first GoPro built to the company’s own specification, and it could change everything.

“We’ve finally been able to make a GoPro without compromises. We haven’t had to work around somebody’s else chip design and chip limitation,” Woodman said, returning to form. The “somebody else” in that sentence refers to Ambarella, the company that’s made the processor for almost every GoPro up to this point — and the processor for most other action/drone cameras on sale right now, for that matter. Woodman is enthused about GP1 for a number of reasons I’ll soon learn, but key among them all is the fact that GoPro is no longer sharing technology with its rivals.

GoPro fans might not be too excited about the GP1 right now. After all, it’s not a feature that easily translates to an in-store display. Some cynics might also dismiss the divorce from Ambarella as a mere cost-saving move. Woodman would partly agree with them.

“People are sometimes confused about how much it costs to build a GoPro,” he said. “How much it costs to design, engineer, manufacture, distribute. It’s an expensive business, and unfortunately, over the last couple of years, it’s not always easy to run profitably.” The GP1, then, is also part of the reason why his company stands a good chance of getting back in the black. “If we didn’t design the GP1 chip ourselves, Hero 6 Black would be much more expensive than it is today.”

Whether that will appease the GoPro faithful who are being asked to pay $100 more for the Hero 6 ($499) at launch than the Hero 5 when it came out remains to be seen. The Hero 5 ushered in a new design, after all. It was waterproof without a case and had a slew of usability improvements. The Hero 6 is trading on improved image quality, better dynamic range, enhanced slo-mo and higher frame rates. These are less-tangible concepts to the average person reading the box in Target, even if they matter a lot more.

“I think that’s one of the things it’s got going for it: [The Hero 6’s footage] looks much less ‘GoPro-y,’ than in the past,” said Abe Kislevitz, GoPro’s senior creative director, when I asked him about it. “[That] GoPro look, where it’s a little yellow, or it’s a little soft.” He’s referring to those telltale signs that GoPro videos can have. “[When testing the Hero 6] I didn’t have to touch the color at all.”

You shouldn’t trust Kislevitz though. Search Google for his tutorials and you’ll realize he could probably wrangle a beautiful image out of a sheet of paper and a cardboard tube. Kislevitz likely sensed my speculation and showed me unedited images of the same scene taken with the Hero 5 and Hero 6. The color and dynamic range in the Hero 6 was undeniably improved, but I still had to learn why this was so.

Sandor Barna, VP of Hardware Engineering, was able to share why. “We’re able to study the scenes as they’re coming [into the camera] and adjust the mapping of color and mapping of exposure to what’s displayed to really make it more pleasing,” he said. It’s a process called tone mapping, and it’s one of the many benefits that GP1 allows. Another is bespoke HDR. With the camera able to shoot 12-megapixel stills at the rate of 120 per second, you can capture multiple exposures just fractions apart in time (so no motion or blur).

The Hero 6 isn’t lacking in marquee features though. There’s a new “wake on voice” mode so you can rouse your camera from its slumber many hours after switching it off. There are those aforementioned HDR photos as well as improved image stabilization (it’s still EIS, but it can now stabilize in more directions, so less warping). And don’t forget the usual slew of things that are faster/better (file transfer speed, frame rate, low light performance, et cetera).

What’s especially telling is how GoPro weathered its recent stormy years. The drone problems, the ambitious media aspirations, the constant tap on the shoulder from shareholders. All the while it knew it was working on something different. Something potentially make-or-break. To make such a fundamental change with so much noise going on requires a lot of faith. Or bravado. Possibly both.

GoPro is in good company. Making your own processor gives a level of ownership to your product that few can deny. Samsung makes its own silicon. So does Apple. Apple in particular has been relying on its own silicon for years in the iPhone, and it’s doing fine by most standards.

Much like GoPro, Apple has been the company to beat in its respective market. Excited fans therefore have high expectations each time there’s a new product and complain when older technologies are positioned as state-of-the-art features (wireless charging? mobile payments?). GoPro suffers the same expectations and criticisms (just read this subreddit for more than five minutes), yet it’s still the action-camera brand that most people reach for.

“I think what’s most exciting about GP1 is we’ve yet to tap its full potential,” Woodman told me. “With every new release of a new GoPro, we come out with firmware updates that unlock new features, new performance. That’s especially true with Hero 6 Black.” The difference this time is that these updates can be much further reaching. When someone else controls your processor, your limits are defined by them. GoPro has an opportunity here to make its cameras work with its other products (Karma, most notably) in new ways.

“No, you’re onto something,” Woodman told me when I asked about exactly that (Karma integration). “GP1 is a major step toward us being able to optimize the GoPro ecosystem.”

Kislevitz thinks it can even go beyond the drone. “I think in the future, and I don’t want to speak for what engineering’s planning, but [with] customizations in terms of dual streams you can film in high resolutions, and you could potentially stream to the web at the same time.”

Livestreaming isn’t something GoPro has fully capitalized on yet, although it’s starting to. “We now think of a GoPro as an untethered lens for your phone, and we recognize that,” said Woodman. “A really important area where we’re going to iterate and update the Hero experience is through software enhancements that enable it to connect to your phone faster and more easily.”

But it’s not just streaming we can hope for. A lesser-known feature introduced with the GP1 is machine learning. The camera analyzes images as they come in, looking not only for the best lighting options but also for faces. GoPro will leverage facial recognition to improve QuikStories and its automatically generated video clips.

Of course, Woodman and his team are keen to extol the virtues of the GP1, but this is new ground for the company. New ground is usually unfamiliar and often brings fresh challenges. So how does Woodman think his team will navigate it when companies like Ambarella have been making processors for years?

It was at this point in the conversation that Woodman looked to the past: “When we produced the first Hero camera, even the 35mm film wrist camera back in 2004, we’d never done that before. Were people going to like it? I didn’t know.”

Spotify’s new playlist is personalized to your teenage years

Spotify has added another personalized playlist to its lineup, but rather than a compilation of what you’ve been listening to or what you might like to hear, this one takes you back to what you used to play, probably on a CD or something. “Your Time Capsule” features 30 songs that “take you back in time to your teenage years,” and the playlist is around two hours long.

Spotify’s personalized playlists are one of its best features. The streaming service launched its “Discover Weekly” playlists back in mid-2015 and less than a year later, over 40 million users had streamed around 5 billion tracks from their personalized selections. Last year, it launched Daily Mixes — six playlists separated by genre curated based on your listening habits — as well as “Release Radar,” which features new songs from artists you like, updated every week. And this summer saw the release of “Your Summer Rewind.”

This latest playlist will only be available to users over 16 years old. To travel back in musical time, go to “Browse” in the Spotify app and then “Decades,” or click here.

Source: Spotify (1), (2)

The Wirecutter’s best deals: A good time to buy an air conditioner

This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, they may earn affiliate commissions that support their work. Read their continuously updated list of deals here.

You may have already seen Engadget posting reviews from our friends at The Wirecutter. Now, from time to time, we’ll also be publishing their recommended deals on some of their top picks. Read on, and strike while the iron is hot—some of these sales could expire mighty soon.

ASUS ZenPad 3S 10

Street price: $290; MSRP: $300; deal price: $269

One of the first deals we’ve seen on our top Android Tablet pick. At $269, while this is only about $20 off the street price for the Zenpad 3S 10, we haven’t seen it lower. As this is the first drop under $270 we’ve seen, it could be an outlier or signal future drops – either way, it’s a good price to pick one up if you’re looking for a quality Android tablet right now. Shipping is free.

The ASUS ZenPad 3S 10 is our top pick in our guide to the best Android tablets. Ryan Whitwam writes, “The ASUS ZenPad 3S 10 offers the best combination of features, performance, and price for most Android tablet buyers. The high-resolution 9.7-inch screen produces crisp text and detailed images; it’s not as bright or vibrant as the screen on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S3, our upgrade pick, but the Tab S3 costs almost twice as much. The ZenPad 3S 10 costs less than $300 and has enough power to run apps in split-screen mode, a feature of its recent upgrade to Android 7.0. The ZenPad has the same screen size and resolution (2048×1536) as the 5th-generation iPad, and a similarly durable metal frame, but it’s even thinner and lighter.”

Flexi New Neon Retractable Tape Dog Leash

Street price: $24; MSRP: $24; deal price: $18

A great deal on our top retractable dog leash pick, the Flexi New Neon Retractable Tape Dog Leash. At $18, this matches the lowest price we’ve seen on this leash. This retractable leash has only seen sub-$20 pricing once before, so grab one while you can as such drops seem to be pretty infrequent. Shipping is free with Prime.

The Flexi New Neon Retractable Tape Dog Leash is our top pick in our guide to the best retractable dog leash. Audrey Pavia writes, “After interviewing veterinarians and professional dog walkers, plus looking into more than 60 models and testing six of them, we think the Flexi New Neon Retractable Tape Dog Leash is the best retractable dog leash for most dogs and their owners. It is built sturdily out of bright, reflective material, is affordable, and comes from a company serious about pet and user safety (and that developed the retractable leash in the first place). But before you buy a retractable leash, be sure you actually need one.”

Whynter Elite ARC-122DHP Portable Air Conditioner

Street price: $465; MSRP: $500; deal price: $350

An excellent drop, matching the lowest price we’ve seen, on our top portable air conditioner pick. The Whynter Elite ARC-122DHP is usually well above $400 and hasn’t seen a price this low since a drop in the spring that was followed shortly thereafter by a shortage of stock. As it seems there’s still plenty of warm weather left in many places, it’s a great time to pick one up for now or next summer. Shipping is free, but looks to be a touch on the slow side with an estimated 5-7 day wait.

The Whynter Elite ARC-122DHP is our top pick in our guide to the best portable air conditioner. Liam McCabe and Tyler Wells Lynch wrote, “After putting in 45 hours of research, comparing more than 100 portable air conditioners and testing seven of the best models, we recommend the Whynter Elite ARC-122DHP. We think this dual-hose unit will cool a room faster than other portable ACs, using the least energy, even in extreme heat. It’s significantly smaller and lighter than its closest competitors, and it has a typical noise level, installation kit, and price. It also has a built-in heater and a drain pump.”

Seagate Backup Plus Portable 5 TB

Street price: $140; MSRP: $160; deal price: $125

If you’re in the market for a fast, reliable drive with more storage than typical portable drives offer, this is a good price on the Seagate Backup Plus Portable 5 TB drive. As the street price regularly sits between $140 and $150, this is a nice chance to pick one up. Shipping is free.

The Seagate Backup Plus Portable 5TB is a larger, slightly faster version of our more storage pick in our guide to the best portable hard drive. Justin Krajeski and Kimber Streams wrote, “Seagate now sells a 5 TB model that’s the same dimensions and weight as the 4 TB version, but we found the larger capacity to be about 5 percent faster. The 5 TB model was about 6 MB/s faster than the 4 TB model in HD Tune tests and 18 seconds faster at reading and writing the Blu-ray rip.”

Because great deals don’t just happen on Thursday, sign up for our daily deals email and we’ll send you the best deals we find every weekday. Also, deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go to The Wirecutter.com.

Snapchat’s AR Lenses are the newest tool for ads

Remember Snapchat’s dancing 3D hot dog? Well, you might start seeing a few more Lenses like that one because Snap is opening up its 3D World Lenses to advertisers. So far, it has partnered with Warner Bros. and Bud Light to create Lenses featuring the Blade Runner “Spinner” car and a bud light vendor.

3D World Lenses are active through the outward facing camera and can be placed on pretty much any surface. You can resize it, move it around and even walk around it once it’s in place. Snap says that its dancing hot dog was viewed over 2 billion times on Snapchat and that its Lens popularity has an impact on advertising with ad campaigns using them resulting in increased ad and brand awareness.

Snapchat introduced the ability to add 3D objects into an image in April and 3D Bitmoji followed earlier this month. Today’s announcement brings these AR capabilities to advertisers who can offer them nationally, targeted by age, gender or interest or via a swipe-up attachment to a regular ad. And with users snapping over three billion times a day, snap-based advertisements stand to be seen quite a lot.

Source: Snapchat

Mazda and Toyota will work together to design EVs

Six months ago, Toyota showed off a customized electric, self-driving Lexus. Just yesterday, the auto maker revealed an update to the vehicle line with new Lidar and deep learning AI that can better see objects around the car and predict safer paths on the road. Today, the company is announcing a new joint development agreement between Toyota, Mazda and auto component supplier Denso for the production of electric vehicles. The three companies are also forming a new company, EV C.A. Spirit Co., Ltd., to manage the collaboration.

In the statement, Toyota said there are “increasingly stringent policies to help reduce greenhouse gases” around the globe, leading to new regulations to ensure the production of electric vehicles. The agreement between the three companies will cover many different models like mini-cars to passenger vehicles, SUVs to light trucks. Mazda will contribute its planning and computer modeling-based know how, while Denso will become the go-to for electronics technologies.

The newly formed company will research the common architecture needed in EVs, verify the resulting performance of vehicles created by the collaboration and judge the final product for viability. Ultimately, Toyota sees the joint initiative as a way for Mazda and Toyota to share resources and “avoid the commoditization of EVs.” It also hopes to create a way for other automakers and suppliers to join in, which could lead to a whole new standards-based way of making electric vehicles.

Source: Toyota

Alcatel Idol 5 hands-on: A decent phone for $200

Alcatel is back with a new Idol flagship that won’t cost you a month’s rent (unlike some other phones we know). The Idol 5 is the latest addition to the company’s line of affordable handsets that offer mid- to high-end specs. The international version made an appearance at IFA earlier this month, but we now have details of the Idol 5’s release here in the US. The phone will be available exclusively on Cricket Wireless starting October 27th for just $200, and from my brief hands-on with a preview unit, I’m cautiously impressed by what it offers.

The first thing I noticed was the Idol 5’s sturdy, elegant build. Its aluminum unibody lends the phone a premium feel, and I appreciate its matte finish.The glass rear that used to be a fingerprint magnet on previous models is thankfully gone. The Idol 5 also sports a round button on its right edge that the company calls the Now key. You can program this to launch any app from any screen, or to do specific tasks in certain apps, like taking a series of pictures instead of just one in the camera.

I was also surprised by the Idol 5’s bright, colorful screen, which made graffiti-esque wallpapers and cartoonish icons looked vibrant and crisp. The phone runs a mostly stock version of Android 7.0 Nougat, and offers apps from previous Alcatel phones like Deezer music and Color Capture. The latter creates color schemes from things you point the camera at, then applies it to the OS. It’ll even change the colors of the app icons. This is a nifty feature for those obsessed with customizing their phone, but the rest of us won’t find it all that useful.

Unlike some of its predecessors, the Idol 5 uses a MediaTek processor instead of a Qualcomm option, which I suspect has to do with keeping costs down. A spokesperson for Alcatel told Engadget, “At this tier, we felt the MediaTek chipset and GPU delivered the better experience, without sacrificing on overall device value.”

For the most part, the Idol 5 was responsive during my hands-on — scrolling through pages of apps and launching the browser did not exhibit any noticeable lag. But when it came to graphically taxing tasks, like applying a beauty filter in the camera app and exiting out of the VR launcher, the Idol 5 stuttered. A company rep told me the software on my preview unit still wasn’t final, so this might improve by the time the phone launches.

The Idol 5’s battery is smaller than its predecessor 2,850mAh but Alcatel is quick to point out the Idol 5 supports MediaTek’s fast-charging feature called Pump Express. Alcatel said this will get you from 0 to 100 percent juice in 100 minutes.

In addition to all the above features, you’ll also get NFC, which enables Android Pay, a USB C port, and a headphone jack. (Yay!) You won’t find dual cameras (which are all the rage even on cheaper phones) here, though. The Idol 5’s 12-megapixel rear and 8-MP front cameras don’t offer special features like the competition, but they appear to be serviceable. The selfies I took during my preview were clear and accurate, but not so beautiful that I wanted to share them.

Overall, the Idol 5 offers a decent set of features for the price. I’m concerned about the lag I encountered during my testing, but otherwise the phone provides relatively modern components for hundreds less than high-end flagships. It also offers some features that competitors like the Moto G5S don’t, like NFC. The Moto G5S does have a larger battery, but it costs $30 more.

Alcatel also unveiled a $50 VR headset called the Uni 360 Goggles (or Uni Goggles for short, which isn’t much better of a name). Instead of bundling the phone with the goggles like it did last year, the company is selling the accessory on its own. The headset is designed for first-time VR users, and the company claims it’s easier to use and less-intimidating than existing options. That’s why the Uni doesn’t have handheld controllers that, according to Alcatel, can confuse first-timers. The headset has on-device buttons for navigation, so you press down on the right for Yes and on the left to go back. I liked the travel (depth) and responsiveness of these buttons during my preview, and I quickly understood how to navigate the system.

The company also refined its existing VR software launcher, which will be available on the Idol 5. The new app is called VR Home, and it feels more polished and developed than before, featuring a three-column layout that’s reminiscent of the Gear VR and Oculus launchers. It’ll pull in compatible content from the Google Play Store as well as VR company Littlestar. Alcatel said it opted for its own ecosystem instead of using something like Google’s Daydream or Oculus, to help it circumvent hardware requirements so it could make a device that’s affordable and easy-to-use. I’m not convinced that will truly be better for VR newbies, but the low price could very well tempt folks who want to dip their toes in VR, but want something better than a Google Cardboard.

All told, Alcatel’s new products show its commitment to making decent low-cost devices for people who aren’t looking to shell out for the likes of the latest iPhones and Galaxies. But the affordable phone market is competitive, with companies like ZTE, Huawei and Moto each offering compelling products for under $250. We’ll have to spend more time testing the Idol 5 and Uni 360 to see if they’re the best budget option, but in the meantime, they appear to be worthy of a closer look.

Live out your Bond fantasies with Aston Martin’s submarine

Aston Martin, the company behind James Bond’s whip, has partnered with Triton Submarines on a submersible concept called “Project Neptune” for incredibly well-heeled folks. It’s the first design from Aston Martin Consulting, recently formed to design and market things to oil barons and Silicon Valley types with nothing else to spend their cash on. The platform is based on Triton’s 1650/3 LP (low-profile) sub, but Aston Martin says it will be a “strictly-limited edition vehicle.”

The 1650/3 LP three-place vehicle is described as a “super-yacht” sub, which is apparently all the rage among the ultra-wealthy. And marketing images show supermodels using the remote arm to grasp an underwater bottle of champagne. The price for that model starts at a cool $3.3 million, but expect a massive mark-up from Aston Martin for what is, admittedly, a much cooler design.

Aston Martin has also broken out the rich-dude marketing talk. “Project Neptune is defined by its sleek, elegant exterior,” said VP and Chief Creative Officer Marek Reichman. “We have used forms and proportions that express the same devotion to design, engineering and beauty that shape our cars.” Triton also uses words like “passion,” “timeless” and “truly exciting,” denoting that this thing will cost a fortune.

Still, that talk is likely backed up by some serious performance. You’d be able to take “Project Neptune” down to 500 meters (1,650 feet) and run for 12 hours, if it keeps the specs of Triton’s 1650/3 LP sub. (Triton also makes a sub that can go down to the Marianna Trench at 36,000 feet.)

Anyway, for now it’s just a design, but we’re certainly curious to see the concept sub. Perhaps Aston Martin will break it out in a new Bond film? It’s no Lotus, but it’ll have to do.

Source: Aston Martin, Triton Subs

Netflix will spend over $400 million on Canadian content

Netflix will create a permanent production presence outside of the US for the first time with the establishment of Netflix Canada and a pledge to put over $400 million towards the development of Canadian programming. The money will be spent over the course of five years.

The streaming service has largely avoided the requirements put on Canadian content producers by the country’s government. That has ushered in concerns over loss of Canadian content, worries over how to compete with streaming services and calls for streaming taxes — the money from which has been proposed should go to fund Canadian programming. Canada briefly had its own Netflix rival — Shomi — but it went kaput last year. As of now, the country doesn’t tax digital companies like Netflix and doesn’t plan to anytime soon.

Netflix has worked with Canadian content creators previously. With the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, it developed an Anne of Green Gables series, with a second a second season in the works. It also produced a miniseries with Canadian filmmakers Sarah Polley and Mary Harron based on the Margaret Atwood novel Alias Grace.

In a speech today, Canada’s Heritage Minister, Melanie Joly, said the deal “signals a meaningful partnership in supporting Canadian creators, producers and Canadian creative work, and in bringing that work to millions of viewers around the world.”

Source: Reuters, CBC News

Twitter finds links to hundreds of Russian-backed bot accounts

Following news that Russian-linked operatives bought Facebook ads during the 2016 presidential election to sow divisiveness amidst the American public, Twitter announced on Thursday that it had uncovered a similar scheme afoot within its own social network.

Of the 450 accounts released by Facebook as part of its investigation, Twitter was able to match 22 of those to accounts on its own site. All 22 were immediately suspended. What’s more, Twitter found another 179 accounts linked to or associated with the original 22 that had no ties to any of the 450 Facebook ones.

Twitter VP for Public Policy Colin Crowell reportedly met with members of both the Senate and House Select Committees on Intelligence to discuss Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election. “One congressional investigator has said that the Facebook accounts from the International Research Agency are likely just the ‘tip of the iceberg,’” a congressional aide, speaking on anonymity, told the Washington Post.

And rather than pull a Facebook and have to continually backtrack (and eventually sort of apologize for) against increasing government pressure, Twitter went into these hearings by proactively sharing a roundup of three Russia Today accounts that targeted the US market with ads during the 2016 election. According to Twitter, the RT accounts spent $274,100 to promote 1,823 ads directed at followers of major media outlets and sought to promote RT’s own coverage of trending news events.

Twitter also shared information regarding election voting scams like the “text-to-vote” one targeted at potential Clinton voters (narrator: you can’t vote via text message). While Twitter did not reportedly see any links to Russia, the company did notice that many of the scams appeared to be automated.

Moving forward the company promised to continue its efforts to eradicate spam, bots and compromised accounts from its platform. “We’ll be rolling out several changes to the actions we take when we detect spammy or suspicious activity,” a Twitter rep wrote in a release. “Including introducing new and escalating enforcements for suspicious logins, Tweets, and engagements, and shortening the amount of time suspicious accounts remain visible on Twitter while pending confirmation.” Great, next maybe they can tackle that niggling problem of all the nazis and trolls.