Upcoming ‘Google Home Mini’ Smart Speaker Details and Images Leaked

We’ve previously covered rumors that Google has been working on a “mini” version of its $129 Google Home smart speaker, which is expected to be unveiled at the company’s Pixel 2 smartphone event scheduled for October 4. But it looks as if details and images of the “Home Mini” have already been leaked, courtesy of DroidLife.

According to the tech site, Google Home Mini is the official name of the new smart speaker, which will cost $49 and come in Chalk, Charcoal, and Coral colors.

The Google Home Mini is said to be able to help users with their schedule, set reminders, catch up on news headlines, and other Home-related inquiries, thanks to integrated Google Assistant.

The pictures show lights on top of each unit, which will likely indicate interaction with Google Assistant. But unlike the original Google Home, the images suggest owners won’t be able to change the color of the bases on the Mini versions.

Alongside the new smart speaker, Google is expected to launch a rebranded Chromebook or “Google Pixelbook” at its Pixel 2 smartphone event. DroidLife has also managed to unearth pictures of the new notebook, which will reportedly come in silver, offer stylus support, and have three different storage tiers – 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB, costing $1,199, $1,399, and $1,749, respectively.

Tags: Google, Google Assistant, Google Home
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Apple Investigating Fix for Series 3 Watches Connecting to Unknown Wi-Fi Networks Instead of LTE

Apple is investigating a fix for an issue where an Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE may stay connected to unknown Wi-Fi networks with no connectivity, at times preventing the watch from using cellular, it has told The Verge.

“We have discovered that when Apple Watch Series 3 joins unauthenticated Wi-Fi networks without connectivity, it may at times prevent the watch from using cellular,” an Apple spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We are investigating a fix for a future software release.”

In her Apple Watch Series 3 review, The Verge editor Lauren Goode said, on more than one occasion, the watch would connect to a single bar of an unknown Wi-Fi signal, and remain on that network, rather than switching to LTE.

On more than one occasion, I detached myself from the phone, traveled blocks away from my home or office, and watched the Watch struggle to connect to LTE. It would appear to pick up a single bar of some random Wi-Fi signal, and hang on that, rather than switching to LTE.

Goode explains further in her review:

The way the LTE version of the Watch is supposed to work is that it will “hand off” from your smartphone’s connectivity to whatever other type of connectivity is available. In some cases, like when you’re in a place with a Wi-Fi network you’ve connected to before, this will be Wi-Fi. In other cases, like when you’re out without your phone, and you’re nowhere near a known Wi-Fi network, this will be LTE.

It’s reasonable to expect it might take a minute for the Apple Watch to “find” LTE after you’ve walked away from your phone. It’s not reasonable for this to take many minutes or not work at all. This almost makes me wish there was a way to actively turn off Wi-Fi on the Watch, so it would just default to LTE. But that’s also another step that I, the wearer, the person-who-is-not-wearing-it-wrong, would have to take.

Apple said it will address the issue in a future watchOS software update, but it didn’t specify how long that will take.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 4
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Buy Now)
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Amazon reportedly working on Alexa-enabled ‘smart glasses’

Amazon wants to make Alexa a more formidable competitor to Google Assistant and Siri by letting you put it on your face and take it anywhere, according to a Financial Times report (paywall). The company is said to be developing a pair of normal-looking eyeglasses that tether to your smartphone and allow you hear, and presumably speak to, Alexa via a bone-conduction audio system. There won’t, however, be a screen or camera on the model as with Google Glass.

Though the lack of a screen and camera would seem to neuter the glasses, dropping them would dramatically improve its battery life. And in any case, the idea is not to have Google Glass-like vision, but to give users a direct line to Alexa on a smartphone without having to open an app, as is currently the case. That would make them much more useful in a vehicle or on the street, especially if they can be incorporated into comfortable, daily-worn eyeglasses.

On top of that, the lack of a screen would simplify the development process considerably, reducing the time to market and increasing its chances of success. While Amazon’s popular Alexa Echo devices are arguably the king of digital assistants, it’s easy to forget the the retailer had a string of failures before that, especially the Fire Phone. If “Alexa Glasses” or whatever is a hit, then it might embolden Amazon to offer a camera- or screen-equipped model.

Amazon’s top-secret (whoops) Lab126 group is also reportedly working on home-security products, particularly a connected security camera not unlike models from Nest and others. It could be controlled by Alexa-enabled Echo products, and show the video feed on Amazon’s Echo Show screen (above). It could also signal you when an Amazon product has been delivered, completing some kind of weird retail loop.

Adding merit to the FT report (which hasn’t been confirmed by Amazon), Google Glass founder Babak Parviz, hired away by Amazon in 2014, has been reportedly heavily involved with the Alexa glasses project. Given his area of expertise, it seemed inevitable that Amazon would do something spectacle-related. The eyeglasses and security products are supposedly coming by the end of the year, presumably in time for Christmas.

Update: Amazon tells Engadget that it has “no information or comment” about the Alexa-powered glasses.

Source: Financial Times (paywall)

Microsoft opens pre-orders for standard Xbox One X

Microsoft’s Xbox One X is now available to pre-order. The console, touted as the most powerful ever (that claim excludes PCs, of course), will be out on November 7th worldwide. The company opened pre-orders for a special ‘Project Scorpio’ edition last month, but those ran out fast. In fact, Microsoft says it was “the fastest-selling Xbox pre-order ever.” The regular version is basically the same, save for a tiny green Scorpio logo on the 1TB console and controller. It costs $499.99/£449.99 and is available now through the Microsoft Store, Microsoft.com and a host of local retailers.

The Xbox One X will run the same games as the cheaper Xbox One S. Many will be “enhanced,” however, with up to 4K resolution graphics and 60 frames per second performance. Today, Microsoft confirmed that “more than 130” new and existing games have now been “enhanced” for the system. Those include Far Cry 5, the remastered L.A. Noire and Okami HD. That number, of course, should improve over time as the One X install base grows and more developers experiment with the console. If, like us, you’re struggling to keep track of the “enhanced” roster, Microsoft has set up a dedicated website at xbox.com/enhanced. That’s nice of them, eh?

Twitch Prime brings ad-free streaming to Mexico

Amazon Prime debuted in Mexico earlier this year, and now the subscription service for the retailer’s $970 million livestreaming platform is available as well. In case you forgot, Twitch Prime doles out free games, in-game items and other goodies via the platform in addition to offering an ad-free watching experience. It’s free for anyone who has an Amazon Prime subscription, and recently started giving away collectibles for Madden ’18’s Ultimate Team mode.

Source: Twitch

Toshiba to Sell Memory Chip Unit to Consortium That Includes Apple

After months of negotiations, Toshiba has decided to sell its memory chip unit to a global consortium that includes Bain Capital, SK Hynix, Dell, and Apple, reports Reuters.

No official announcement has been made by Toshiba as of yet, but the company is expected to announce the sale on Wednesday. As of Tuesday, Toshiba was said to be leaning towards a group backed by Western Digital, but Western Digital is said to have failed to agree to some of Toshiba’s terms regarding limits on WD’s future stake in the business.

Western Digital may still attempt to block the sale and is said to be prepared to seek a court injunction to stop it. Western Digital previously invested in Toshiba’s semiconductor plant and claims its consent is required for the sale.

Toshiba first announced plans to sell its NAND flash memory unit in January of 2017 to raise funds to cover losses associated with its U.S. nuclear subsidiary, Westinghouse. Many companies, including TSMC, Foxconn, Amazon, Google, Broadcom, and a range of private equity firms entered bids in an effort to get a piece of the memory chip unit.

The consortium, led by Bain Capital, was selected as the preferred bidder in June, and in September, entered a higher bid amid fierce competition. Apple, SK Hynix, Dell, and Bain Capital are said to have offered a combined 2.4 trillion yen, equivalent to $22 billion, along with an additional 200 billion yen for infrastructure.

As of early September, Bain and SK Hynix were said to be providing a total of 567.5 billion yen, while Apple was reported to be offering 335 billion yen, equivalent to $3 billion. That sum is in line with reports suggesting Apple was prepared to spend several billion dollars for a “substantial stake” in the memory business.

Bain, Apple, Dell, and SK Hynix will own a combined 49.9 percent stake in the chip unit, with Toshiba keeping 40 percent and Japanese firms controlling the other 10.1 percent should the sale go through.

Apple already uses Toshiba’s flash memory in its products. The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus include memory sourced from both Toshiba and SK Hynix.

Tag: Toshiba
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Amazon Reportedly Working on Smart Glasses With Integrated Alexa AI

Amazon is actively developing a pair of smart glasses with Alexa virtual assistant built in, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

Designed like a regular pair of spectacles, the device will enable Alexa to be invoked by the wearer at any time and at all places, the report said, citing people familiar with Amazon’s plans.

The founder of Google Glass is said to be working on Amazon’s Alexa smart glasses
The company is reportedly including a bone-conduction audio system in the specs so that the wearer can hear Alexa’s voice without inserting headphones.

The founder of Google Glass, Babak Parviz, is said to have been working on the Alexa product since he was hired by Amazon in 2014. Earlier this year, Google re-introduced its Google Glass wearable headset after discontinuing production in 2016.

In addition, The Financial Times reports that Amazon is also working on a more conventional home security camera, and that one or both of these products may appear before the end of this year.

Previous reports have claimed that Amazon is working on a successor to its popular Echo connected smart speaker and plans to bring the device to market this year in time to compete with Apple’s HomePod, which is set to launch this December.

According to rumors that first surfaced in 2016, Apple is also working on several different kinds of smart glasses, with the main application of bringing augmented reality experiences to the wearer.

Reports this year suggest Apple’s glasses will connect wirelessly to the iPhone, much like the Apple Watch, and will display “images and other information to the wearer”.

Related Roundup: Apple VR Project
Tags: Google Glass, Alexa
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Dual-screen Yota3 is official with a sharper E Ink screen

Well, the wait is finally over. After a teaser back in June, the third-gen dual-screen YotaPhone — now simply dubbed Yota3 — was unveiled in China yesterday. Pretty much all the main specs are identical to the leak Engadget received earlier, but this was our first time seeing this rounded metallic design. First and foremost, there’s a 5.5-inch 1080p Samsung AMOLED screen along with a 13-megapixel f/2.2 camera plus a fingerprint reader on the front. Flip the device around and you’ll see its headlining feature: a 5.2-inch 720p E Ink Carta II display — an expected upgrade from the previous 4.7-inch 960 x 540 screen — accompanied by three capacitive navigation buttons at the bottom.

As previously mentioned, the Yota3 is powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 625, which is a little disappointing given that prices start at 3,699 yuan — about $560 instead of the rumored $350. That said, you still get a 12-megapixel main camera with an efficient 1.4um sensor, and it’s boosted with a speedy f/1.9 aperture plus Dual PD auto-focus. There’s also a handy 3,300 mAh battery with 9V/2A quick charge via USB-C. And no, there is no headphone jack here so you’ll need to use an adapter for personal audio.

The Yota3 comes in three versions: there’s a 64GB base model with the aforementioned price, then the 128GB model jumps to 4,299 yuan or about $655, with both model packing 4GB of RAM plus microSD expansion (if you don’t mind using up one of the two SIM slots). There’s also a 64GB “national gift set” version which is also asking for 4,299 yuan, but instead of aluminum, the phone’s 7.9mm-thick body uses the more premium 316L stainless steel instead; plus it comes with more accessories and some e-book credit.

It’s hard to tell how well the Yota3 will sell in China, let alone the rest of the world. While its rare dual-screen feature will no doubt entertain a presumably small group of enthusiasts, the pricing isn’t attractive enough to push it to the mainstream audience, nor is it positioned as a premium device. Either way, it looks like the Yota3 will be a tough sell, which isn’t good news for this struggling Russian-Chinese partnership.

Via: Engadget Chinese

Source: JD

Scientists want to explore asteroids with a fleet of nanoprobes

Researchers at the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) presented a mission plan today at the European Planetary Science Congress that would allow scientists to observe hundreds of asteroids over the course of just a few years. Their plan is to send 50 nanoprobes — small space instruments — into the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter to take images and chemical measurements of around 300 large asteroids. “Asteroids are very diverse and, to date, we’ve only seen a small number at close range. To understand them better, we need to study a large number in situ. The only way to do this affordably is by using small spacecraft,” FMI’s Pekka Janhunen told Popular Mechanics.

The five kilogram probes would be affixed with a tiny telescope and a spectrometer that would analyze chemical samples from the asteroids. The nanoprobes would be propelled through space with electric solar wind sails, or E-sails. The E-sail would be composed of the main spacecraft, a smaller remote unit and a 20-kilometer-long tether that connects the two. That tether would be kept at a positive charge so that when positive ions emitted by the sun and traveling through space come in contact with it, they’ll repel each other, giving the probe a nice boost.

Each probe would analyze six or seven asteroids and then swing back towards Earth to unload their data, which would negate the need for the large antennas that distant data transmission requires. The whole mission could take just over three years to complete and the researchers estimate it would cost around $72 million — a bargain for space missions.

The mission hasn’t been approved or picked up by a space agency yet, but the information they could gather would be incredibly useful. “The nanosats could gather a great deal of information about the asteroids they encounter during their tour, including the overall size and shape, whether there are craters on the surface or dust, whether there are any moons, and whether the asteroids are primitive bodies or a rubble pile,” said Janhunen. “They would also gather data on the chemical composition of surface features, such as whether the spectral signature of water is present.”

You can read the conference paper here.

Source: EPSC, Popular Mechanics

Oculus tweaks VR audio to seem closer and more realistic

Audio can be just as important as visuals if you want to make true-to-life VR experiences. That’s why Oculus has introduced changes to the Rift SDK that give developers the power to make spatial audio as realistic as possible. One of the features the company added is called Near-Field head-related transfer function (HRTF). Ordinary HRTF is necessary to create a 3D audio experience, but it can only replicate how sounds would reach your ears from a meter away. This improved HRTF can mimic how sounds would reach your ears from a much closer distance. It can, for instance, make a whisper or the sound of a phone ringing as you bring it to your ears much more life-like.

Check it out in action in this sample audio:

You could also encounter some realistic-sounding waterfalls and oceans in the future, now that Oculus has added Volumetric Sound Sources to its SDK. This feature allows developers to give big sources of sound a radius instead of a single source of origin. When you step into that radius, you’ll hear sounds all around you — it could make you feel like you’re truly stepping into a waterfall to meditate. According to the Oculus team, they’re adding features like these two, because they want you to experience a new world upon entering a VR experience. “All these little cues that you’re used to having in real life — they aren’t there in VR,” Oculus Audio Design Manager Tom Smurdon said. “We’re slowly adding them in. Every little piece is cumulative, and it makes a huge difference.”

Source: Oculus