Amazon’s Alexa is coming to Wileyfox phones

Once upon a time, Wileyfox phones shipped with Cyanogen OS, a community-driven version of Android. Cyanogen’s demise means Wileyfox has been forced to go back to vanilla Android — but that doesn’t mean it’s now cosy with Google. Today, the company announced that all of its phones will soon support Amazon’s Alexa, a rival to Google’s own Assistant. Starting with the Swift 2 range later this month, customers will be able to access all of the same Alexa skills found on the Echo speaker. Wileyfox says it’s the cheapest way to use Alexa on the move.

The move makes sense given Wileyfox’s tech enthusiast image. The company makes some good-value handsets, but so do Motorola, Honor and “Nokia” HMD Global. How do you differentiate in such a crowded market? For Wileyfox, it’s meant adopting software that will appeal not only to the masses, but also the Android hardcore. Cyanogen’s death put a dent in those plans, but with Alexa, it seems to have found a half-decent alternative. Sure, there’s the squeezable HTC U11, but otherwise it’s hard to find an Alexa-powered phone — especially one for under £200. Once more, the company has a unique proposition for budget buyers in Britain.

Apple Files Trademark Application for Apple Pay Cash Peer-to-Peer Payments Service in European Union

Apple has filed a trademark application in the European Union for Apple Pay Cash, the company’s new iMessage-based peer-to-peer payments service coming with iOS 11.

Unearthed by tech blog LetsGoDigital, the application was filed with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) on Thursday and is classified as “computer software for use in connection with electronic payment and funds transfers”.

By integrating with iMessage in iOS 11, Apple Pay Cash will enable users to make person to person payments right from within chat threads. To send a cash payment, the user authenticates it with Touch ID (or perhaps via facial authentication on the upcoming “iPhone 8”) on their iOS device or Apple Watch.

Money received using the service goes on to an auto-generated virtual Apple Pay cash card, similar to a gift card, that gets stored in the Wallet app. The cash card can then be used to make regular Apple Pay purchases at retail stores and on the web. Alternatively, users will be able to transfer the money to an allocated bank account.

Apple has yet to offer further details on how Apple Pay Cash will work, but Brazilian tech blog iHelp BR has uncovered code references in the Apple Pay framework that suggest users will need to authenticate the service with a driver’s license or Photo ID before they can send any money through iMessage. This may be done by holding the ID in front of the camera, similar to when adding a bank card to Apple Pay.

While yesterday’s trademark application has yet to be granted by the EUIPO, the fact that it has been filed already may mean Apple Pay Cash will go live across EU countries soon after the initial U.S.-only rollout.

Hopefully we’ll know more on September 12, when Apple is expected to launch iOS 11 in tandem with new iPhones, new Apple Watches, and possibly a new 4K Apple TV at its fall event, set to take place at the Steve Jobs Theater in Apple Park.

Related Roundups: Apple Pay, iOS 11
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Alexa Virtual Assistant Coming to Bragi Dash Wireless Earbuds in October

Bragi has announced that Alexa is set to become a new feature of its Bragi Dash wireless headphones later this year. The company revealed at the IFA trade show today that a software update coming in October will allow Dash and Dash Pro owners to talk to Amazon’s virtual assistant in both English and German languages (via The Verge).

After the forthcoming 3.1 update is installed, to activate Alexa users will need to either tap an earbud or use the Dash’s “4D menu”, which relies on motion sensing to enable users to turn their head left or right and select from a virtual menu.

While Dash (and Dash Pro) users can already use their earbuds to activate Siri and Google, today’s news means Bragi Dash are likely to become the first truly wireless earbuds to offer Alexa support, allowing wearers to, say, order a ride from Uber or a coffee from Starbucks.

MacRumors reviewed the Bragi Dash Pro ($330) wireless earbuds back in July and found that the gesture controls impress, but some UI and design frustrations remain. You can read the full review here.

Tags: Bragi Dash, Alexa
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Netatmo Rolls Out HomeKit-Compatible Smart Radiator Valves in the U.K.

Netatmo yesterday announced the availability of its new Apple HomeKit-compatible smart radiator valves in the U.K. The smart home company claims Netatmo Smart Valves allow users to control their heating on a room-by-room basis and use on average 37 percent less energy to heat their home without compromising on comfort.

The Smart Valves can be used in houses with both individual heating and collective heating systems by fitting them on hot-water radiators, where they work to regulate the temperature of each room as part of a heating schedule and adapt to the habits and movements of residents.

For example, the bathroom is heated to 21°C during the morning, but not for the rest of the day when it is not being used; the parents’ bedroom remains at 16°C during the day when it is empty, and the children’s room is heated to 19°C from 5PM on weekdays when they come back from school.

In addition to dynamic temperature regulation, the valves can detect when a window is open and stop heating the room so as not to waste energy. And by utilizing smart regulation, the valves analyze external elements in real time – the weather, insulation of the house – and adjust the heating of the room to save as much energy as possible.

The user can also temporarily increase the temperature of a room at any time by manually turning the Valve or adjusting it directly from the Netatmo app, as well as via HomeKit and Google Home.

Netatmo Smart Radiator Valves are compatible with Apple Homekit, enabling users to control their heating with their voice. By simply asking Siri to change the temperature in the house, they improve their comfort at home without lifting a finger. With Apple Homekit, users can also create customised scenarios and interactions to connect smart devices together according to different combinations.

Netatmo Smart Radiator Valves join the existing Netatmo Smart Thermostat (£149) and are available in the U.K. today. They will retail for £70 each and can be found at John Lewis, Cefco, Maplin, ShopUK, Amazon.co.uk and Netatmo.com, as well as retailers for professionals Plumb Center, CEF, and Graham.

Tag: Netatmo
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LG’s focus on the V30 cameras is great for pros and amateurs

Manual mode? LOG video? Focus Peaking? A smartphone after my camera nerd heart.

Almost every phone these days comes with at least an adequate camera. Some, like the Samsung Galaxy S8 have exceptional cameras, but it takes a phone like the LG V30 to say that it was designed with camera buffs in mind. The Galaxy S8’s camera truly is exceptional, but it’s designed to be great for the average phone user, somebody who just wants to open the camera app, take a few shots, and then tweak it with Instagram and start collecting those likes.

The V30 has ease of shooting quality photos down pat. The camera launches quickly and shoots with no lag, capturing great photos with nearly every press of the shutter button. But for people that want to take the time to frame up their shots and make sure the lighting is just right, the manual options available on the V30 are second to none.

For the Pros

A number of the V30’s headline videography features are carried over from last year’s V20. Those include the use of focus peaking when using manual focus, electronic stabilization for video, and tracking focus. There’s also something new, and a first for any smartphone: a special recording mode called LG Cine-Log that will get the video nerds really excited.

Focus peaking is a feature typically available on high-end DSLR and ILC cameras, used in conjunction with manual focus. It highlights the portion of the image that is in focus with a green line, allowing the camera operator to easily see what’s in focus without having to jog the focus dial forward and back. Focus Peaking is only available on the main camera, as the wide angle is fixed focus.

Steady Recording is LG’s implementation of the third-generation electronic video stabilization tech Qualcomm built into the Snapdragon 835 processor. Steady Recording works by cropping in the video on the sensor to provide a surrounding buffer margin of pixels to move the recording area into should shake or bumps hit the camera.

There’s a trade-off, though: the buffer margin required on the sensor means that it’s only available for standard 1080p HD video — 4K’s pixel area demands mean the software cannot crop in enough to provide sufficient buffer space for the stabilization.

Focus tracking is a feature that’s long existed on high-end video cameras and is now filtering its way down to smartphones. This feature allows the videographer to select a focus point (tap to focus, here) and the camera will maintain focus on that object even as it moves around the frame and closer and away from the camera. This allows for more dynamic filming, both from motion of the subject, but also in the camera, while keeping everything sharply in focus.

LG Cine-Log format is possibly the master stroke for video recording on the LG V30. This special video format takes after the popular (with video pros) S-LOG and V-LOG formats you’ll find on high-end Sony and Panasonic cameras. If you were to graph the standard video recording brightness and saturation profiles, what’d you’d get would basically be a straight line, with the same value weighting applied to pure black as pure white and 50% gray — all colors and brightnesses are equally represented in the table of values.

In a LOG format, more of that weight is transferred to the middle brightnesses and saturations, giving the videographer more flexibility when editing their footage. It looks rather flat unedited, but when tended to by an experienced video editor you can see much greater dynamic range and image fidelity that might otherwise by lost.

LG’s Cine-Log video format is meant for the pros out there, allowing editors more flexibility in producing a quality, professional color balance.

Our early tests with LG Cine-Log have revealed quite a bit of noise in the footage, particularly in the dark at 4K, but noise is hard to avoid at this resolution on a sensor this small (and even high-end Sony S-LOG footage is super noisy in the dark). But then again, the whole point of LOG formats is to give the video editor more control over the final result — if they want to filter out the noise in post production, they’re more than welcome to do so, but now they have control over how strongly and in what manner that noise is filtered. LG Cine-Log format is not available on the wide-angle camera which, while not a shock, is also a bit disappointing.

Manual controls offer the same sort of fine-grained control that was present on the V20. You can adjust the shutter speed (a faster shutter will result in sharper footage), ISO (how sensitive the sensor is to light), exposure value compensation (adjust overall brightness), hop into manual focus, and play with the overall blue or orange coloring of the recording by adjusting the white balance.

Hi-Fi Audio controls allows for detailed adjustments to what’s recorded by the microphones. The gain slider allows you to adjust the overall volume, LCF (Low Cut Filter) lets you cut out low frequencies (such as HVAC systems, the sound of a train, etc), and LMT sets a maximum volume to prevent loud noises from blowing out an otherwise reasonable recording.

For the rest of us

Beyond all of the pro-level video features, LG has built in a few new enhanced video features for the more pedestrian videographers among us. Those mostly surface in the Cine Video mode (yes, there are three video modes here: Auto, Cine, and Manual).

Point Zoom is an enhanced version of traditional zoom — instead of simply zooming in on the center of the frame, you can specify any point the screen to zoom into. Tap, drag up on the slider to zoom in, and drag down to zoom out. It’s worth noting that this doesn’t determine the focus point or use tracking focus, so if you move the camera while zooming in, you’ll still be zooming in on that point of the frame versus following a subject in the frame. As with any digital zoom, the more you zoom the more the picture quality will rapidly degrade.

Cine Filters are, well, cinematic filters. These let you replicate in-camera a selection of cinematic styles. Some are fairly obvious — “Classic” replicates black-and-white film, including how the color red comes through darker than similarly-bright blues or yellows, while “Flashback” is basically a sepia filter — while others replicate the color grading you’ll see in various styles of movies. Want the [blue-and-orange look] of Marvel, Transformers, and DC? Hit the “Summer Blockbuster” filter. Tapping “Romantic Comedy” will give you more reds, “Noir” goes heavy on the blues, and “Thriller” turns down the brightness and washes everything in dark blue. They’re all neat effects, and LG thankfully included sliders to let you adjust the intensity of each in case going full Michael Bay wasn’t the look you wanted.

All of this combined leads to what should make the single best video-recording smartphone on the market. LG positioned the V20 in that position, and the V30’s additions on top of that — Cine-Log, improved lenses, and more — make it a worthy successor.

Oh, and it takes photos, too

While LG has done much to position the V30 as a videographer’s delight, they didn’t forget that this is also a camera you can use to take pictures. There are a number of modes that will satisfy the needs of nearly all photographers, though your mileage may vary on the usefulness of each, and it’s helpful to know what these modes do because the name isn’t always descriptive enough.

Auto is exactly what you think and how you’ll likely use the camera most of the time: point, then shoot. The phone handles all of the shutter speed, exposure, and focusing for you (though tap to focus is here) and all you have to do is frame up the shot. Auto also encompasses auto video record (tap the red button and video begins) and is the default mode on launching the camera app. Auto is perfectly adequate for 99.9% of shots.

Manual for the other 0.1% of photographic opportunities, manual mode is fantastic. Not only does it allow fine-grained control over the white balance, focus (main camera only), exposure, ISO, and shutter speed, it also gives you the option to capture photos in a DNG RAW format. Every other mode, and practically every other smartphone, captures photos in JPG, which is a compressed image format that takes what’s on the sensor and reduces the files size by fiddling with the fidelity of the colors and brightness.

An image is simply a grid of pixels with assigned color values that correspond to the light received by the sensor. If you go across a row and a set of five pixels have varying values of red, but they’re quite close, a JPG file will say they’re all simply the same red because the human eye won’t be able to tell. So instead of saying Pixel 1 is this color and Pixel 2 is this other color and Pixel 3 is that color, the JPG says that Pixels 1-5 are all this color. Spread out across 16 million pixels, that can save a lot of space.

A RAW file goes the complete opposite direction. There’s no compression — each pixel has its own original value — and instead of color values, the file stores the light value recorded by each pixel on the sensor. The end result is much greater fidelity in editing the image: you can pull details out of blown out whites and pitch-black shadows that are simply lost in a JPG where white is #ffffff and there’s nothing you can get out of it. Of course, you need a RAW photo editor (like Adobe Lightroom) to edit those files, but once you get comfortable editing in RAW there’s no substitute for photos that you truly care about.

Snap Shot takes advantage of the 18:9 extra-tall screen of the V30, allowing you to frame up a photo with the top half and preview the previously capture photo below. While this is a nice option, it’s also worth noting that this forces you into capturing square images. But if you’re shooting for Instagram and you’re a square photo purist, this isn’t a bad option.

Match Shot is two options in one. The first take on Match Shot better matches the name: you can take one square photograph and have that be one half of the photo, and then match up another photograph on the other side. It’s not meant to be used as a panorama, instead it’s more of an artistic function of matching up two images. The usefulness of this is debateable, especially when you lose flexibility by doing it in-camera. LG does allow you to zoom and reposition the photos after taking both, but once you save it, that’s that. Match Shot also supports video, though the saved result tends to be a little uneven.

The better half to Match Shot is taking two photos at once, and with three cameras to choose from there are plenty of options. You can do any combination of the standard angle rear camera, wide angle rear camera, and the front camera (at its default 100° wide angle or digitally zoomed). The best use is in combining the front and rear cameras, that way you can show your instant reaction to whatever is visible through the front camera.

It’s worth noting that Match Shot also works with video, so if you want to capture a video of your reaction while skydiving along with the view that you’re seeing at that moment, this is the mode for you. Just hold on to the phone.

Framing and composition are everything when it comes to photography, and Guide Shot is LG’s tool for photographic consistency.

Guide Shot is the serious Instagrammer’s tool. Framing and composition are everything when it comes to photography, and if you’ve got a signature framing style (say, you take food photos and every one is a from dead above and perfectly centered) then you can load up a template photo as an overlay on the viewfinder so you can frame the current shot to match. It can also be useful for replicating old photographs (think the hilarious “20 years later” family photo where everybody wears the same cloths in the same pose) or famous images (getting that Abbey Road shot juuust right). Like with Snap Shot, you need to be cool with square photos, though.

Grid Shot is like Match Shot, but, uh, a grid. You can take four square photos or videos and they get arranged in a grid. LG’s taking advantage of the tall screen here, putting a full-width square viewfinder up top and the 2×2 grid on the bottom. Usefulness is debatable here, but it’s a conscious choice to use Grid Shot.

Pop Out is a carry-over camera feature from the V20, creating a photo that layers the standard angle image over top of the wide angle image. There are a few effects you can apply to the under photo (blur, fisheye, vignette, and black-and-white), but it all honestly seems more like a gimmick to show off the dual cameras than anything.

Food might be named for capturing your meal, but it’s a mode with a single control and purpose: a prominent white balance slider. We’ve all done it: whipped out a phone to take a photo of an incredible meal before digging in, only to get an image that’s awash in the yellow ambiance lighting of the restaurant. Our eyes adjust to such lighting with ease, but our smartphones haven’t always been good at it.

LG put a big emphasis on the color spectrum sensor that they started including way back with the G4, but in truth it’s never lived up to their hype because it could never reliably tell what color the lighting actually was. The Food mode is a concession to that, giving the user manual control over the color temperature in an otherwise full auto mode. If everything looks too yellow, drag it towards the blue side. You can’t go quite as far as you can with the white balance in Manual, but it’s better than nothing.

The makings of the best smartphone camera

LG has touted the V series since the beginning as being all about the media creation experience, and the V30 is the best iteration on that idea yet. LOG video files, manual camera mode, filters and framing for Instagram pros, Hi-Fi audio recording and playback… the V30 checks all the boxes for a mobile media machine.

Of course, it’s no substitute for a proper DSLR or an array of high-end microphones hooked up to a sound board, but it was never supposed to be. The V30 is the smartphone for people who work with and love that kind of professional tech and want that same sort of control out of their phone. There the V30 delivers in spades.

LG V30

• LG V30 hands-on!
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• LG V30 vs. G6 vs. GS8
• The V30 is the first phone to support 600MHz spectrum
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Sanbot’s Alexa-integrated robot can livestream, order takeout

Sanbot is lurking around IFA again. The little robot helper won us over last year, but something seems different this time round. That’s because we’re now dealing with the Sanbot Nano, a brand-spanking new model. And, this one wants to hang out with you — yes, you.

You see Qihan, the China-based company behind the new child-like machine, has a range of robots for various tasks. There’s Sanbot King Kong, which is designed to man reception desks at hotels, and deliver food for restaurants, among other business-oriented jobs. And, our old friend from IFA 2016, Sanbot Elf (who looks like Rosie the robotic maid from The Jetsons). The latest addition to the Sanbot family is Sanbot Nano: The first of Qihan’s robots for the general public. Or at least those of us with a spare $2,800 lying around.

Fork up the cash and you’ll get a robot the size of an infant, with a cute animated face in its display. However, if you think you’re getting a kid android (like something out of Steven Spielberg’s A.I.) think again. In the words of our very own James Trew, Sanbot’s creations look like 1950’s version of robots.

The main difference between the Nano and its predecessors is that it boasts Amazon Alexa integration. As such, you can use it to order food, shopping, and play music (via the speakers attached to the side of its head). The same goes for controlling your other smart home devices, such as speakers, lights, and thermostats. There’s just one issue: an Amazon Echo Dot can do all those things at a fraction of the price, so why should you splash thousands on something that resembles a mini-fridge on wheels?

Let’s be honest, if you’re even thinking about snapping up Sanbot Nano you probably have money to burn. And, the novelty factor is its biggest draw. The robot comes equipped with over 50 sensors, so you can sit back and watch it navigate the room. You can also control it from anywhere, using the Q-Link mobile app. Additionally, it comes packing the same Android SDK that’s available on the Sanbot Elf, giving you access to an app store filled with hundreds of apps. Q-Link also lets you live-stream video, and can convert your texts to voice messages — in case you want to tell your friends how awesome it is to own a robot.

Sanbot Nano will hit the market for $2,800 starting in October, with support for English and German languages.

Follow all the latest news from IFA 2017 here!

Source: Business Wire (press release)

Alexa is coming to Bragi’s wireless earbuds in October

Amazon’s Alexa may be a useful digital assistant, but it’s a lot less useful when you’re away from your Echo hardware. Wireless headphone-maker Bragi is looking to bridge the gap between Alexa and your phone with its Dash and Dash Pro earbuds. Thanks to a software update coming in October, you’ll be able to talk to Alexa using Bragi’s headphones. Once you update your headphones and link your Amazon account in the Bragi app for iOS and Android, you’ll be able to start talking with Alexa through your headphones the same way you can with Siri or the Google Assistant.

The above video shows a few examples of what you can do with this integration, but if you’ve used the Amazon Echo you should have a good idea of what to expect. You’ll be able to ask Alexa to hail you an Uber or Lyft, play music or news reports, order your usual at Starbucks, add items to your calendar and more. Sure, the digital assistant on your phone itself can probably do most of these things as well, but if you’re someone who uses Alexa at home, it might be nice to bring it with you when you’re out and about. Alexa will roll out as part of the October software update to Bragi users in the US, UK and Germany.

Follow all the latest news from IFA 2017t here!

Nanoleaf delivers music syncing for its Aurora smart lights

Nanoleaf’s WiFi-connected Aurora smart lights are notable for their modular, customizable design plus the ability to program colorful displays via an app or control them with Apple HomeKit, Android and Amazon Alexa. Now, it’s nearly ready to ship a couple of add-ons that should make the panels even more impressive for your guests. The Aurora Rhythm module plugs into the light and picks up on sounds in the room to automatically create matching light shows. You can also create animated “scenes” to play along with certain types of music, and share them with others through its app.

The other new piece of hardware debuting this fall is the remote, which has an unusual dodecahedron design — just turn it to change animations, brightness or other settings. There are many other smart lights on the market (Philips Hue comes to mind, which also just added new synchronization abilities), but the Aurora panels have a sleek design, and these extra connected features could be a difference maker. Nanoleaf is showing of both products at IFA this week, promising that a “Smarter Kit” for the Rhythm (with nine panels and one rhythm module) will be available for 250 euros and individual modules are 60 euros, while the remote is coming later this fall for a price that’s still TBD.

Follow all the latest news from IFA 2017 here!

Source: Nanoleaf

Amazon picks up James Gunn’s ‘Starsky and Hutch’ reboot

Hot off the blockbuster success of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, director James Gunn is reviving a TV classic for Amazon. The tech giant’s studio arm has landed the rights to the Starsky and Hutch reboot, with Gunn penning the script alongside his brother Brian Gunn, and cousin Mark Gunn.

The new series will reportedly be a continuation of the original 1970s show, and is being described as a deconstruction of the buddy cop genre, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It seems Gunn managed to find time to develop the idea between writing Guardians 3 and starting preproduction on the Marvel threequel. The director may also helm the show’s pilot if his busy schedule allows him to. It’s still early days, so there’s no word on who will assume the lead roles, made famous by David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser.

Amazon’s latest win sees it aping the strategy of a streaming rival by resurrecting an iconic TV series. Last year, Netflix unveiled Fuller House, its spinoff of the ’80s family sitcom. The VOD giant also cashed in on its subscribers’ collective nostalgia by rebooting the classic children’s animation Voltron: Legendary Defender.

In case you’re too young to remember, Starsky and Hutch followed the exploits of two street-smart cops (Detective Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson’ and Detective Dave Starsky). Accompanied by their red 1974 Ford Torino (and with the aid of police snitch Huggy Bear) the two buddies went around busting criminals. A film reboot, starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, was released in 2004. And, the show even spawned a video game the previous year.

Gunn seems a solid choice for the revival. The director cut his teeth on reboots and remakes before making the jump to the Marvel fold — his screenplay credits include Scooby Doo and Dawn of the Dead. He also happens to be a sucker for ’70s tunes, as evidenced by the Guardians soundtrack.

Xiaomi’s upcoming phone in India will be the first in an all-new series

Xiaomi could unveil its first Android One phone in India next week.

Xiaomi is all set to introduce a new phone in India on September 5, and teasers from earlier this week hinted at the Mi 5X, which sports the same dual camera setup as the flagship Mi 6. However, it looks like that won’t be the case, as Xiaomi has confirmed in a new tweet that the upcoming phone will the first device in an entirely new series.

The possibilities are endless and it begins with #FlagshipDualCamera! What could it potentially be? pic.twitter.com/KJklWHzut2

— Mi (@xiaomi) August 31, 2017

A rumor from last month suggested Xiaomi was working with Google over an Android One device, and given that the company’s upcoming event in India is being dubbed a “Xiaomi global launch,” we could see the first Xiaomi phone powered by stock Android.

The Android One theory gets stronger when you consider that the device — allegedly called the Xiaomi Mi A1 — is based on the Mi 5X, sporting dual cameras at the back. With the launch set for next Tuesday, we don’t have to wait long to find out what Xiaomi has in store.

What do you guys think the upcoming phone will be?