Facebook wants to simplify blood donor searches in India

Facebook is lending a hand to help solve India’s safe blood shortage. Its solution is to leverage its popular social network to put people in touch with blood donors. Starting in October, users in India will be able to sign up to become donors via their profile or by clicking on a designated promo message on the News Feed. The tool will ask you to submit info, such as your blood type and whether you’ve donated blood before. Facebook promises to keep your details private, but you can choose to share a simple donor status with others on the timeline.

Going one step further, the company will also make it easier for donors to connect with institutions and individuals in need of blood. Pages and users alike will be able to share special posts in order to make requests. Facebook will then automatically notify nearby donors to get involved or help spread the word. After reviewing the post, donors will be able to respond to the request directly through WhatsApp, Messenger, or a phone call. Again, user info will be hidden from the person seeking blood, unless you choose to provide your details. The company seems to be aping Google’s mobile-first approach to the region, as the tool is only available on Android and the mobile web for now.

The feature falls in line with Facebook’s global safety efforts. And, like its “crisis response” assistance tool (which connects victims of disasters with locals offering aid), it adds a humanitarian element to its response mechanisms. Along with its Safety Check option — that lets users mark themselves as safe after a major local incident — they form part of the always-on crisis hub that serves its global community. Therefore, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if the blood donation tool gets integrated into the platform’s overarching safety system. And, if it proves effective, Facebook may even decide to roll it out elsewhere in the future.

Source: Facebook

Equifax to launch a free lifetime credit lock service

Equifax’s new chief knows it’ll take a lot of effort to make people trust the credit reporting agency again. He started by penning a letter of apology published by The Wall Street Journal, wherein he admitted that the company wasn’t able to live up to people’s expectations. Equifax was hacked, he wrote — its website “did not function as it should have,” and its “call center couldn’t manage the volume of calls” the company received after the security breach was made public. The interim CEO has also revealed that Equifax will launch a new service on January 31st that will give you the power to lock and unlock your credit anytime. Best thing about the offer? It will be free for life to all its customers in the US.

Equifax suffered one of the biggest security breaches in history earlier this year, putting info for 143 million US citizens at risk. Turns out the attackers exploited a known flaw in the company’s server that it should’ve patched. As a result of the massive breach, Equifax CEO and chairman of the board Richard Smith stepped down, and the firm appointed Paulino do Rego Barros, Jr. as interim CEO. Barros was the one who wrote the apology letter.

In addition to launching the new credit lock service, Barros said Equifax will also extend the sign-up window for a free credit freeze until the end of January. The company will also offer its credit monitoring service for free until January 31st.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Uber’s former self-driving lead is creating an AI religion

In a development that wouldn’t be out of place in a Black Mirror episode, we could soon be worshipping an artificially intelligent god figure. And this isn’t a satirical take on our existing roles as disciples of social media, or the transcendental joy we feel when an Uber Eats delivery arrives. According to state filings uncovered by Wired, in September 2015 disgraced engineer Anthony Levandowski established a non-profit religious corporation called Way of the Future. Its mission: “To develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on artificial intelligence and through understanding and worship of the Godhead contribute to the betterment of society.” In the last two months alone we’ve seen robots perform funeral ceremonies and AI chips mimic the human brain — could a Deus ex Machina really be that far behind?

The organization hasn’t responded to requests for further information about its activity, but a quick look at Levandowski’s resume shows that he’d be a strong contender for divine leadership within an AI-driven faith. He was co-founder of autonomous trucking company Otto, which was bought by Uber in 2016, and he played a pivotal role at Google in developing the self-driving cars that are already on the roads in some parts of the US. Still, his work brings us ever closer to the Singularity — the so-called day when machines overtake humans in intelligence and life as we know it goes to pot — so maybe Way of the Future is Levandowski’s way of making sure he’s got the computers on side when that day comes.

Via: Wired

US Senate reaches deal on self-driving cars

Democrats and Republicans can’t get on the same page about most things, but robots driving cars is apparently a-okay no matter your political affiliation. After the House approved a bipartisan pact, both sides in the Senate agreed to a deal making it easier for Ford, GM and other automakers to get self-driving cars on public roads. “We expect adoption of self-driving vehicle technologies will save lives, improve mobility for people with disabilities, and create new jobs,” Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Gary Peters (D-MI) said in a statement.

Industry has been seeking US approval of autonomous cars without steering wheels and pedals, provided regulators find them to be safe (as it stands now, self-driving vehicles must have human controls). It also wants the law to prevent individual states from blocking the use of self-driving cars. According to Reuters sources, the bill won’t include commercial trucks.

The House measure allows car companies to sell up to 25,000 self-driving cars with no controls in the first, year and up to 100,000 by year three, as long as the vehicles are found as safe as current models with human controls. After it passed the bill, it seemed like the Senate’s stamp, and therefore passage of the law, was a fait accompli. However, things were a bit thornier, as the Senate has reportedly been negotiating over the inclusion of trucks and issues with self-driving lawsuits currently in progress.

We expect adoption of self-driving vehicle technologies will save lives, improve mobility for people with disabilities, and create new jobs.

Automakers like Ford and GM, along with Waymo, Uber and other tech firms, have also lobbied for legislation that’s consistent from state to state. They’ve complained, for instance, that too-strict California rules are are impeding self-driving progress. With the law, states could reportedly control registration, licensing, liability and insurance but not interfere with technological standards.

We’ll know exactly what’s in the law later today, but as of now, no tech or auto companies are even close to being able to put driverless cars with no human controls on public roads. When it does happen, the US Department of Transport (DoT) and most experts agree that they’ll reduce road deaths considerably. After all, the AI and sensors never have lapses in concentration and aren’t, obviously, affected by drugs or alcohol.

As it stands, only one car company — Audi, with the A8 — has released a commercial vehicle with level 3 self-driving capability (stay tuned to see how that works). That allows you to look away from the road and do other things during certain phases of driving, but you still must be ready to take the wheel at any time. For a car without driver controls to be feasible, you need level five autonomy — and by all accounts, we’re still far from that.

Source: Reuters

Google Play matches Apple’s $20 price for select 4K titles

Two weeks ago, Apple announced that 4K HDR titles would be available in the iTunes store to go along with the 4K Apple TV. Ultra HD movies were priced at just $20, which led Amazon to recently follow suit. And now Google has done the same — select 4K movies in the Play store are priced at $20.

We reached out to Google for comment, and they confirmed that the price change is new. A representative stated, “We always look to offer consumers competitive pricing on Google Play and have been working closely with our studio partners to do so.” It makes sense that they’d move to match Apple’s and Amazon’s pricing.

Google introduced the 4K compatible Chromecast Ultra last November and added 4K media to its Play Store in December. To see Google Play’s current Ultra HD offerings, you can simply input “4K movies” into the store’s search box.

Via: TechCrunch

Apple Music Now Has Over 30M Paid Subscribers, Up from 27M in June

In an interview with Billboard posted today, Apple Music executive Jimmy Iovine has discussed a number of topics related to the streaming music service’s “long game,” including its growth over the past three months. At WWDC in June, Apple mentioned that Apple Music had 27 million paid subscribers, and today the company confirmed to Billboard that it has now reached “well over” 30 million.

Iovine was enthusiastic about Apple Music’s growth, but admitted that simply adding more subscribers, launching entire back catalogues through record label deals, and staying on the forefront of new hits isn’t enough to maintain Apple’s presence in the streaming music market. “I just don’t think streaming is enough as it is,” he said.

“I believe we’re in the right place, we have the right people and the right attitude to not settle for what exists right now.” But ultimately? “Just because we’re adding millions of subscribers and the old catalog numbers are going up, that’s not the trick. That’s just not going to hold.”

“I just don’t think streaming is enough as it is. I don’t agree that all things are going to be OK [just] because Apple came into streaming and the numbers went up. Look at the catalog: It’s a matter of time before the ’60s become the ’50s and the ’50s become the ’40s. The people that are listening to the ’60s will die — I’m one of them. Life goes on. So you have to help the artists create new stuff that they would never be able to do on their own.”

Apple Music’s main rival remains Spotify, which counted 60 million paid subscribers in July. Spotify has continued to grow faster than Apple Music thanks to the former streaming service’s free tier that allows users to listen to music interspersed with advertisements, which Apple Music does not have.

Apple’s offer for new users is a three-month free trial to test out the service before deciding to pay the $9.99/month price point. In May, Iovine said that if Apple Music did have a free tier, “it would have 400 million people on it” and make his job easier, but he and Apple believe in focusing everything into creating a quality experience for the people who are paid subscribers, making them “feel special” in the process.

Check out Billboard’s full interview with Jimmy Iovine, Zane Lowe, and Larry Jackson right here. Other topics discussed include how the Apple Music team discovers new artists, Spotify’s plan to go public, and Iovine’s belief that while Apple Music is good where it’s at, the company is “not even close” to being done with iterating and adding onto its features.

Tags: Jimmy Iovine, Apple Music
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Apple Faces Renewed Pressure to Enable FM Radio Chip in iPhones Amid Strong Hurricane Season

A series of powerful storms over the past six weeks, including Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, has placed renewed pressure on Apple to enable the FM radio capabilities of the wireless modem in every iPhone.

The biggest push continues to come from the National Association of Broadcasters, a lobbying group that represents over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States, according to Bloomberg.

“Broadcasters are providing information on how to evacuate quickly, where flood waters are raging, how to get out of harm’s way if there’s a tornado or a hurricane,” said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters. “The notion that Apple or anyone else would block this type of information is something that we find fairly troubling.”

Both the Qualcomm and Intel chips that enable Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity in every iPhone have a built-in FM tuner that would allow people to listen to FM radio over the air. Apple has not enabled the functionality, forcing users to use an app to stream FM radio over Wi-Fi or cellular data.

Powerful storms can leave thousands or millions of people without power or cellular service for weeks or even months, however, which can make it difficult or impossible to listen to FM radio over Wi-Fi or cellular.

FCC chairman Ajit Pai also renewed his calls for smartphone manufacturers to enable the chip during a recent trip to areas of southern Florida devastated by Hurricane Irma earlier this month, according to the report.

Pai, speaking with ABC affiliate WPBF 25 in West Palm Beach, said the chip is especially valuable “when it’s an emergency.”

“The FM chip is a valuable functionality, not just when times are good or when it helps you save battery life or reduces congestion on the wireless network, but especially when it’s an emergency. People want to tune in to the radio broadcast and get emergency information and this can be a valuable way of doing that,” said Pai.

In February, at the Future of Radio and Audio Symposium in Washington D.C., Pai said “radio is vital” when disaster strikes.

When disaster strikes, often knocking out cell networks and Internet service, over-the-air radio is a lifeline, providing the latest weather forecasts or directions on where to seek shelter or relief assistance. After hurricanes or tornadoes or fires or floods, time and again, we see an exponential surge in radio audiences.

He added that most consumers would enjoy the ability to access free content over the air, like music on FM radio stations, which some critics believe is a key reason why Apple hasn’t enabled the functionality.

It seems odd that every day we hear about a new smartphone app that lets you do something innovative, yet these modern-day mobile miracles don’t enable a key function offered by a 1982 Sony Walkman.

You could make a case for activating chips on public safety grounds alone. The former head of our Federal Emergency Management Administration has spoken out in support of this proposal. […]

Moreover, most consumers would love to access some of their favorite content over-the-air, while using one-sixth of the battery life and less data. As more and more Americans use activated FM chips in their smartphones, consumer demand for smartphones with activated FM chips should continue to increase.

Pai noted that he is a believer in free markets and the rule of law, and he thereby cannot support a government mandate requiring activation of these chips, nor does he believe the FCC has the power to issue such a mandate.

Apple declined to comment on the report, and its stance on the activation of FM receivers in iPhones remains unclear.

Tag: FM radio
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iPhone 8 Shows Modest Improvements in Cellular Network Bandwidth Tests

With a number of iPhone 8 and 8 Plus devices now in the hands of users, Ookla’s network benchmarking suite Speedtest.net has been able to gather data on how the latest iPhones are performing compared to previous-generation models and has shared details with PCMag.

Based on data collected by Ookla, improvements appear to be around the 10 percent mark for most users, but users in Australia could expect up to nearly 25 percent faster speeds thanks to their network structure. Those users can expect up to the full 80 MHz carrier aggregation bandwidth in the phone due to Telestra’s use of the appropriate bands.

iPhone 8 download speeds compared to previous generations
Beyond speed comparisons to previous-generation iPhones, PCMag also compares the iPhone 8’s cellular architecture to competing phones, such as the Galaxy S8.

The iPhone 8 is missing one of the components needed for gigabit LTE, or LTE category 16, in the US. The Qualcomm X16 modem can do Category 16, as we’ve seen on the Galaxy S8 and Moto Z2 Force. The phone supports 256QAM encoding and 4x carrier aggregation to 80MHz of spectrum, but not 4×4 MIMO antennas, which would improve both speed and signal strength. In theory, that would make this an 800Mbps phone, also known as LTE category 15.

The lack of 4×4 MIMO antennas is something we touched on at MacRumors on Tuesday. While the Qualcomm and Intel modems in the new iPhones are likely more power efficient, the cellular front-end and back-end supporting them are largely unchanged in structure from the iPhone 7 models.

The article goes on to point out can that this can result in loss of coverage due to deficient receiver diversity compared to other phones, complete with a New York subway test.

The lack of 4×4 MIMO is probably why the iPhone still falls short of the Galaxy S8 when it comes to recovering from dead zones, a notorious iPhone problem. We took an iPhone 8 and Galaxy S8 on the New York City subway, where they dropped in and out of T-Mobile coverage. The Galaxy S8 recovered faster in 8 out of 11 tests, and where it did, it was an average of 16 seconds faster than the iPhone at regaining LTE signal; when the iPhone won, it did so by 5 seconds on average.

Users looking for an unlocked iPhone should probably still opt for the Verizon or Sprint model, featuring the Qualcomm modem. While it boasts higher peak speeds than the Intel modems in aggregated user data, it is not clear whether it is superior for coverage, which would require more in-depth testing.

Finally, users looking ahead to the iPhone X should expect the same dichotomy of models and performance, given the iPhone X’s tech specs page matches that of the iPhone 8 models in number of models and bands supported. The form factor will likely not have any impact on the antenna structures that will directly impact users in a meaningful way.

Moving forward, adopting 4×4 MIMO antenna structure would be one of the biggest advancements Apple could make for future iPhones’ speed and coverage robustness.

Related Roundup: iPhone 8
Tags: Intel, Qualcomm
Buyer’s Guide: iPhone (Buy Now)
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Blizzard’s Battle.net mobile app is strictly social

With its original moniker intact (sort of), Blizzard Battle.net is making the jump to mobile. The online gaming platform already boasts a desktop portal, through which players can install and patch games, voice chat, message one another, and livestream their gameplay to Facebook. Its brand-spanking new iOS and Android apps, on the other hand, offer a pared-down service focusing entirely on the social aspect.

Battle.net for mobile essentially functions as a messaging app, and even then it’s a bit limited. Still, some of you out there will probably be relieved to learn that it’s a filter and sticker-free zone. Upon logging in, you’ll be able to send and receive friend requests, find users via their Battletag or email address, text chat, and see what your buddies are playing. Like other social networks, the app even uses QR codes to help you connect with pals. For now, that’s pretty much it, but this is just the beginning. To sustain interest, Blizzard could emulate the Steam mobile app by adding the ability to remotely download and install titles.

Naturally, it’s all about getting your gaming organized on the go. For example, when you’re out and about, you can jump on the Battle.net app to see who’s online (and what they’re playing), and then message them to arrange a sesh. That way, when you reach home, everything should be in place — if you have a disciplined clan, that is.

Source: Blizzard

NVIDIA’s Shield TV is the latest home for Google Assistant

Last month at IFA, we heard that more Google Assistant-integrating speakers and appliances were on the way. Today, NVIDIA’s Shield TV joins the list, adding the search giant’s digital assistant SDK to its retinue of entertainment features. In short, instead of a paltry speaker, you’ll be able to use your entire home theater setup to command your life, one ‘Okay Google’ at a time.

The Shield TV update also adds Samsung’s SmartThings integration, allowing owners to turn their set-top box into a connected device hub. And the recent price drop for the basic Shield TV-plus-remote price down to $180 for makes it an even more attractive option. With more devices supporting Google Assistant every day, like LG’s appliances, NVIDIA’s set-top box owners might start seeing their device as less of an entertainment portal and more of a hub for their connected home.