T-Mobile will announce its next major Uncarrier move on Sep. 6

T-Mobile will be making an announcement ‘you don’t want to miss.’

T-Mobile will be revealing its next Uncarrier move on September 6. The teaser video for the upcoming event is deceptively vague — with CEO John Legere carrying a script titled “Un-carrier Next” — but the video description says that T-Mobile is “going to flip the wireless industry” on its head.

T-Mobile switched on its 600Mhz network last month, with the LG V30 the first device to sport Band 71. The company also rolled out its latest self-branded device, the REVVL.

There’s no indication as to what T-Mobile will be targeting with its next Uncarrier move, but Legere dropped a few hints during last quarter’s earnings call, saying that the carrier will fix a “gigantic shortcoming:”

If I announce the topical area that we think is gigantically poised for fixing, it may give away too much as to what the topic is. But there’s one that we’re working on that we’ll do this quarter that is so intuitively obvious of a gigantic shortcoming of the wireless industry that we’re going to attack it, and we’re going to attack it soon.

The Un-carrier Next will kick off on September 6 at 8 a.m. PT/11 a.m. ET, and you’ll be able to watch the livestream here.

Samsung gets DMV’s OK to test autonomous cars in California

The California DMV has just updated the list of companies that can test self-driving technologies in the state, and there’s one notable addition: Samsung Electronics. In a statement, a company spokesperson confirmed that it’s participating in California’s Autonomous Vehicle Tester Program. However, he clarified that the Korean conglomerate still has “no plans to enter the car-manufacturing business.” Samsung will instead continue to develop sensors that use its AI and deep learning software, as well as other components for autonomous vehicles.

Samsung first got a permit to test self-driving technologies in its home country earlier this year. The chaebol revealed then that it was planning to test the sensors and parts it’s developing aboard a Hyundai car. It unfortunately didn’t elaborate on what those components can do, but we might find out more details when the company starts testing them in California.

The number of companies testing on California roads is only bound to grow, especially now that the government is mulling on giving tech titans and automakers exceptions to federal safety rules. Next week, lawmakers are slated to vote on the SELF DRIVE Act that would prevent states from regulating autonomous vehicle designs. If it passes, companies like Waymo will be able to test 100,000 autonomous vehicles, though, in exchange they have to turn in more data to the feds.

Via: CNET, TechCrunch

Source: California DMV

‘Destiny 2’ rumors and news – everything we know so far

Destiny has pretty remarkable legs for a nearly three-year-old game. Players continue coming back to Bungie’s online loot-and-shooter thanks to continued updates adding new features and robust expansions like The Taken King and Rise of Iron. At this point, though, many fans are ready to move onto the next chapter in the series. At long last, Destiny 2 is almost here! The sequel will pick up where the original left off September 6, 2017, with a PC release coming shortly after on October 24. Since you’re probably every bit as excited as we are, here’s everything we know about Destiny 2.

The Last City in ruins

Destiny featured the “Last City” as its hub world, free of enemies and filled with vendors for Guardians to meet. This is not the case in Destiny 2. The commander of the Red Legion, Ghaul, has taken over the city and “stripped the city’s Guardians of their power,” according to the game’s official website. The players’ guardians must band together to rally heroes from across the solar system and take back the Last City.

In the game’s first gameplay demonstration on May 18, we learn that humanity has since taken up refuge in an area known as the “European Dead Zone.” Without the technology afforded to them by the Traveler in the Last City, the impressive buildings have been replaced with feeble huts and a population just struggling to survive.

Unlike the campaign found in the original version of Destiny, which was light on cinematics, Destiny 2 will be packed to the brim with extra cut scenes and deep story content, with the first “Homecoming” mission offering up plenty of “wow” moments, including massive explosions and an aerial combat sequence — Guardians running on the outside of a craft — that seemed like it could have been pulled out of Battlefield 1. The Guardians also fight through city streets filled with neon lights, with tight corridors that resemble the Call of Duty franchise.

More information about Dominus Ghaul’s invasion was revealed during the E3 press event for the game, where a new trailer showed that he was coming for Earth’s Light and that he would be the one to remind Guardian’s why they should fear death.

New, larger, more connected zones

Thus far, Bungie has officially revealed four playable locations for Destiny 2. These include the Jupiter moons of Titan and Io, the planetoid Nessus, which has largely been overrun by the robotic Vex seen in the original game, as well as the European Dead Zone on Earth.

The game will include the largest playable areas Bungie has ever developed, and each is intended to make exploration more rewarding than those in the original game, thanks to the addition of new side characters and  “adventures” that will send Guardians searching for treasure and fighting optional bosses.

An updated map system will showcase each activity, and how long it will be available. Plus, every zone in Destiny 2 can be traveled to without the need to go back into orbit.

We’re starting from scratch, pretty much

Players will be able to transfer their characters from Destiny to the sequel, at least on a visual level. Destiny characters will carry over to its sequel as long as they meet certain criteria, Bungie said in a March 2017 blog post. Your character must be at least level 20 and have completed the Black Garden mission — the final mission of the base game — to make the jump.

However, only character personalization traits such as class, race, and physical appearance will transfer, from Destiny to its successor. Besides a familiar looking hero, expect to start from scratch.

“Sequels represent the start of a new adventure for every player, with new worlds to explore, new stories to tell, new powers to acquire, new loot to earn, and much more,” Bungie said. “This led us to a decision that would enable us to serve both the game and the player’s best interests: Destiny 1 power, possessions, and Eververse-related items and currency will not carry forward. They will, however, remain accessible to you in Destiny 1.”

Presumably, this means that even when you transfer a character to Destiny 2, you can still play as that character in the original with all of your gear intact.

If it’s any consolation, Bungie said it plans to give seasoned players “honors that reflect your Destiny 1 accomplishments.”

Sensor-stuffed Bin-e trash can automatically sorts garbage, spares you the task

Why it matters to you

The Bin-e smart trash can means you’ll never have to sort through your own trash again.

When you think about real-world uses for artificial intelligence, chances are that “smart trash can” isn’t one of the first things that springs to mind. Nonetheless, that’s what an innovative startup from Poland, called Bin-e, has created with its forthcoming line of trash-sorting waste disposal units. The smart bins use a range of smart sensors, cameras, deep learning image recognition algorithms to make it so you’ll never again have to sort your paper from your plastic or glass — if the technology catches on, that is.

“Bin-e uses artificial intelligence to identify the type of waste that is being disposed of, segregates the waste, compresses it, and places it in the relevant chamber automatically,” Jakub Luboński, CEO and co-founder of Bin-e, told Digital Trends. “The embedded computer gathers data about every item that enters each chamber, and uploads it on the cloud database. The maintenance crew of the office building management company is notified via an app when to collect the contents of full chambers. The software is based on deep learning algorithms and learns with time about new objects. Data stored includes information on consumption patterns, which products and brands the users are consuming, the time, and quantity.”

Although we’ve covered some nifty trash disposal units in the past, the Bin-e trash can claims to be the world’s first smart waste bin company, complete with its own cloud-based Internet of Things platform. At present, the team is still showing off prototypes, but going forward, the plan is to develop solutions that could be used in offices, in outdoor environments, or even in regular homes.

“Bin-e will be introduced to the Polish and German smart buildings market this October,” Luboński continued. From there, the plan is to start rolling out to additional countries from 2018. No price has been finalized, but the plan is to charge an upfront cost for installation and then a monthly subscription fee.

If the results can help improve recycling rates and, heck, just make the simple act of tossing away an empty can of soda a little bit more fun, we’re all for this. It’s certainly not the weirdest IoT device we’ve come across, by any stretch of the imagination.

Awesome 3D-printed plant-carrying robot seeks out light to keep your plants healthy

Why it matters to you

If you struggle to keep your houseplants alive, this autonomous robot buggy will help you, thanks to some AI smarts.

Imagine if, instead of sitting still, your plants could move about during the day to soak up the maximum amounts of sunlight or fresh air. No, we’re not talking about a scene from the “when plants attack” sci-fi movie Day of the Triffids from 1962, but rather a new Kickstarter campaign for 3D-printed robot buggies, called “Plantoids.” Created by the Citizen Scientific Workshop (CSW), Plantoids utilize a range of smart sensors to autonomously track down the best growing conditions for their houseplant cargo.

“Plantoids are the first easy-to-build organic robot,” creator David Ultis told Digital Trends. “Much like we have regions of our brains that deal with signaling involuntary needs like energy levels and hunger, the Plantoid’s sensors are tuned into the needs and qualities of life of the plant specimen that it carries. The Plantoid is then able to give the formerly inert-seeming plant the ability to mobilize and hunt for better survival conditions.”

The Plantoid probably won’t replace all of your existing plant pots, but that’s not really the point. It’s as much of a fun DIY robotics project as anything else, and a great opportunity to build your own autonomous wheeled robot that comes with its own unique use case.

The kit comes with everything you need in terms of sensing equipment for measuring the moisture in soil, air temperature, humidity, ambient light, and air quality. If the completed robot can’t find what it’s searching for, it will sound an alarm so that you can provide it with what it needs to stop your plant from dying. (Think of it like a cross between a Roomba and a Tamagotchi!)

“We’ve already facilitated some pilot workshops with our local botanical gardens to great success, and we are very excited about the new topics for education that we are able to give public gardens everywhere,” Ultis said. “I’ve seen children as young as 12 building Plantoids on their own for the first time, to families enjoying a tinkering project together, to adults finding time to dig into this compelling science project. It is a new and novel addition to the robotics market.”

Plantoids are currently available for pre-order on Kickstarter, where kits start at $64. Provided it reaches its funding goal, shipping is set to take place in February.

From climbing walls to gripping objects, these fleshy robot muscles do it all

Why it matters to you

These modular artificial robot muscles can carry out virtually any task that is thrown their way.

Whether it’s climbing up vertical surfaces or carrying out fine manipulation of objects, there are robots capable of performing virtually any physical task in 2017. But usually, it is not one single robot that can do it all. That is part of what makes a new modular robotics project by researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology so ambitious — and exciting.

Describing their work as being to build the Swiss army knife of robots, researchers at the institute have developed a fleshy-looking robotic soft artificial muscle, powered by vacuum. By connecting the robot segments together in different ways, the ensuing creations can execute a wide variety of tasks. And all while looking a bit like something out of a David Cronenberg movie!

“Using vacuum makes various capabilities for a robot possible, including force and motion, suction for grabbing objects and climbing, and adds a layer of safety to already soft, safe systems,” Jamie Paik, founder and director of the university’s Reconfigurable Robotics Lab, told Digital Trends. “Our modules are the beginning of a hopefully new trend in soft robotics as a whole, which is to provide a sort of a toolbox kit for building soft robotic systems that suit a wide range of applications.”

According to Matt Robertson, another researcher on the project, artificial muscles are exciting because they serve as as an alternative to conventional motors and servo drives. This particular artificial muscle is especially intriguing because, by using suction for manipulation — rather than the air pressure that drives most artificial muscle-based robots — it is much closer to the way that humans move their limbs.

“Our future work will build on this current project, and put the concepts of both soft robot modularity and vacuum power to the test in new applications,” Paik continued. “Additionally, we aim to make the process of low-level design for systems and the actuators themselves even easier by developing analytical and computational tools for predicting and testing new materials, geometries, and configurations of modules. These tools will help bring soft robotic system design into the engineering domain, allowing future research in the field to focus more on high-level applications.”

A paper describing the research was recently published in the journal Science Robotics.

Netatmo adds further HomeKit functionality to its security cameras

Why it matters to you

Take control of your security cameras, both indoor and outdoor, with your voice via Netatmo’s new HomeKit integration.

Protecting your home from your phone just got a little bit easier. Netatmo, the smart home company behind the Welcome and Presence indoor and outdoor security cameras, announced a new integration with Apple HomeKit. This means that both existing and new Netatmo users can create an easily manageable smart home system capable of being controlled with nothing but their voice and a tap of a finger. The new feature will roll out via an automatic firmware update, and applies to security cameras already being used and those on store shelves.

Presence, Netatmo’s outdoor security camera, is capable of distinguishing people, cars, and animals, and notifying users of these faces and objects. Welcome, on the other hand, is meant for indoor use, and notifies users whenever a familiar face is detected, or when a potential intruder appears to be in the house — all notifications come complete with photos and video. And now, with HomeKit, homeowners can control their security cameras more easily than ever. For example, you can now say, “Hey Siri, show me the entrance” or “Hey Siri, show me the front garden,” and check out a live-stream of that particular area. But it’s not just monitoring that you’ll be able to do from afar — you can also say, “Hey Siri, turn Presence’s light on,” and enable the security camera’s companion flood light to scare off a stranger.

Simon Cohen/Digital Trends

“Having both of our security cameras compatible with Apple HomeKit through a software upgrade demonstrates Netatmo’s mission to constantly provide our existing and new users with the most advanced smart home system and technologies available,” said Fred Potter, founder and CEO of Netatmo. “Through regular software updates, Netatmo can ensure the best and most up-to-date services to our clients.”

Thanks to HomeKit, users can also create custom scenarios that can align a number of different functions from different connected devices using a single command. For example, if you have an “Arrive home” scenario, you can ensure that the Presence smart floodlight is turned on, your door unlocked, and your thermostat set at your favorite temperature when you walk through your front door. These scenarios can either be activated by way of a gesture in the Apple Home app, in your smartphone’s Control Center, or simply via your voice with Siri.

A number of other Netatmo products already boast HomeKit integrations, including the Netatmo Smart Thermostat, the Netatmo Smart Radiator Valves, and the Netatmo Healthy Home Coach. Presence will be made HomeKit compatible later this fall, whereas Welcome’s compatibility will come at the end of 2017.

Levi’s Virtual Stylist helps you slip into the jeans of your dreams

Why it matters to you

If the idea of ordering jeans online makes you nervous, Levi’s Virtual Stylist may put your mind at ease.

Move over, Tommy Hilfinger. Levi Strauss & Co has a new chatbot that sells the most essential piece of your wardrobe. On Thursday, the pedigreed fashion brand launched Virtual Stylist, a bot that helps customers compare styles, find sizes, and pick the jeans of their dreams.

“By strategically tapping into emerging technologies like AI (artificial intelligence), we can give consumers a more personal and convenient experience like what they would find in store, thus increasing conversation and driving online sales growth,” Levi’s said in a statement. “This will allow the shopping experience to be consistent and seamless for consumers no matter where and how they shop.”

Virtual Stylist, which Levi’s claims is one of the first chatbots accessible on both Facebook Messenger and the web, uses artificial intelligence to recommend clothing that suits your tastes. Instead of directing them to listings pages like a website might, Virtual Stylist asks questions like, “How would you like your jeans to fit through your hips and thighs?” and, “Which color combinations do you prefer?” to narrow down the selection.

True Fit, the Virtual Stylist’s third-party sizing tool, ensures pants fit perfectly by mapping “millions” of styles to individual sizing preferences. But if that isn’t enough to put your mind at ease, there’s Virtual Stylist’s See It Styled feature, which uses image recognition to pull up galleries of customers wearing the same items. And if you need a second opinion, the Share tool lets you circulate your picks among friends, who can vote for and comment on their favorites.

It might sound like overkill, but Levi’s says it’s trying to win over the more than 60 percent of U.S. buyers who don’t shop for clothes online.

“No matter where the customer chooses to shop, we want to give them a personalized experience that leverages our expertise in fit and style to address the biggest challenge of finding the pair of perfect-fitting jeans,” Marc Rosen, executive vice president at Levi’s, said in a statement. “[New] technologies like our Virtual Stylist are integral to that evolution at [Levi’s].”

T-Mobile will unveil its next iteration of Un-Carrier on September 6

Why it matters to you

T-Mobile has consistently bucked the status quo for carriers and even if you don’t use T-Mobile, other carriers often follow suit.

Something big seems to be brewing in the T-Mobile camp. The company sent out invitations to its next major Un-Carrier event. Not only that, but the company published a web page with a countdown rolling for September 6 at 8 a.m. (PT) — which we assume is when we will see the next iteration of Un-Carrier.

There is reason to be excited about the event. At its Un-Carrier event in January, the company announced it would offer unlimited data to its customers — and not long afterward, the other major carriers in the U.S. followed suit. We have no idea what we will see but it could have important implications.

There are rumors about what we could see at the event though. Recently, news broke that the company will be launching a program aimed at reducing the prices of top-tier phones like the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the iPhone 7 — phones that can easily cost $700 or $800. Of course, it won’t end up being a contract — T-Mobile is specifically against contracts. It seems as though the new program is targeted at those who prefer to pay outright for their phone rather than pay on a month-by-month basis.

The program could end up replacing Jump, which is T-Mobile’s early upgrade plan. With Jump, users can replace their phone after 50 percent of the phone’s cost has been paid — provided they pay a fee of between $9 and $12 per month.

On top of that, rumors indicate that T-Mobile could actually end up launching its own flagship phone, which is an interesting move. We will have to wait and see if the phone can actually compete with other flagship devices out there.

The announcement will come at a time of growth for T-Mobile. The company recently acquired low-band spectrum for a $8 billion, which will allow it to seriously expand on its LTE network. Low-band spectrum is favored by carriers because of the fact that it can travel longer distances without weakening — meaning that a carrier might not have to install as many cell towers. Traditionally, low-band spectrum has been used for network television, but the FCC recently sold much of that spectrum to mobile carriers.

Should your own AI rat you out? It’s complicated, says the man building it

Depending on who you ask, the future of artificial intelligence is either something to be excited about, or fearful of. Elon Musk suggests their ever-growing intelligence will put them at odds with humanity itself, while those who are more optimistic, like Mark Zuckerberg, think AI can help us live more fruitful, efficient lives.

Like most technology, the type of AI we end up with will depend on the people creating them. If developed with privacy and end-user control in mind, we could end up with a firmer grasp of how AI operates.

Kuna Systems is one firm looking into that possibility. The smart security camera and cloud backup provider is starting to experiment with artificial intelligence, and that’s lead to some interesting moral quandaries, which it’s in the process of solving.

Digital Trends spoke with Haomiao Huang, Kuna’s CTO, and picked his brains about the kind of problems that can be faced by developing advanced artificial intelligence. He told us that, with the right mindset, we can retain control over AI while still seeing the benefits they offer.

How AI can improve already smart technology

Modern AI, though commonplace, is limited. We see it in chat bots, image recognition systems, fraud prevention checks, voice assistants. While useful, it’s all pedestrian compared to the kind of intelligence we’re used to seeing in movies and TV shows. Soon, AI could make our already smart devices smarter, removing the need for humans to manually control our technology.

IoT devices — in particular, connected security cameras — are some of the most widely hacked devices in the world.

“What [Kuna] makes is a preventative security system,” Huang told us. “Instead of waiting until someone has broken a window or door, we allow our customers to respond before a crime has taken place.” He went on, explaining that, “a traditional security system is a responsive tool to a crime, but we’re moving into the realm of preventing a crime before it happens. The system can see and respond to a crime and prevent it from happening in the first place.”

Kuna Systems’ cameras require a measure of artificial intelligence to make that possible. They must interpret what the camera feeds are picking up, and then respond accordingly.

“We already have a system in place that can detect whether that’s a person, or a car, how many people, and so on. One of the capabilities we’re working on is detecting suspicious behaviors,” Huang continued. “It’s a pretty common tactic of thieves to ring the front door and if nobody answers, go to the back door and try and find a way in. The [AI] system we’re designing will be able to recognize that and register it as a priority, and then send an alert to our customers, or even potentially call the police.”

Today, such decisions are made with humans involved. The owner receives an alert that an “event” has taken place when someone, or something, trips the camera feed. They can then look at the live stream and respond accordingly. An advanced AI could automate this, responding faster than a human ever could, and do so when there’s no one around to check the camera feed.

“I used to be really worried about locking up my bike, but soon you’re going to be able to leave your bike by your house without locking it up, because the camera will cover it and will be able to check to see if the person taking it is authorized to do so,” Huang continued. “From there, it doesn’t make sense to steal things anymore, because you’re going to get caught and in the future, the items themselves will know whether you’re allowed to use them.”

This is similar to the work Microsoft has been doing with AI in various workplace scenarios. At Build 2017, the company showed an AI  concept capable of spotting spillages, warning of workers using tools they aren’t trained for, and even noting those exceeding recommended activity levels after a life-changing operation.

Having an AI keep an eye on us all has a myriad of benefits, but even with Huang’s rosy idea of the future of AIs, he and Kuna understand that there is danger in giving an AI too much control.

The moral implications of an AI in charge

Describing the authorization and oversight capabilities of future AI smart cameras as a “beautiful case,” where property crime is effectively eliminated, Huang held up a dystopian mirror to that same scenario, and showed what a murky world such technology could create.

How can artificial intelligence make decisions based in the realm of morality, and have implications that an AI could never understand? Autonomous vehicles, for example, face the “trolly problem.” Should a car swerve off the road to avoid a family crossing the street, if it will endanger the lives of the passengers?

The world envisioned by Kuna would expand the issue into nearly every part of our lives.

Kuna AI can already differentiate between humans and other sources of motion, like cars and birds. Now they’re focused on teaching it to recognize criminal behavioral patterns to alert you before the crime even happens.

“With smart cameras, if the AI recognizes a crime being committed against the owner, then it’s obvious what it should do,” Huang said. “But if it recognizes a crime that the owner is committing, what should it do then? I think most people would agree, if you commit a bad crime, then it should be reported and you should get in trouble for it,” said Huang. “But there’s a gray area of small crimes. Say your camera catches you watering your lawn when you shouldn’t be, is that really something that should be reported? Probably not. If your security system sees you murdering someone, then it probably should.”

Even then, the concept of an AI security system that turns in its owner is sure to make some people uncomfortable. Security that is always on, always watching, puts society at risk of eliminating privacy altogether. And privacy isn’t the only issue that all-seeing, all-powerful AIs could bring to the table. They could also be co-opted for nefarious purposes.

IoT devices — in particular, connected security cameras — are some of the most widely hacked devices in the world, finding themselves enlisted for denial of service attacks in the millions. That problem would only be compounded if those products had capable artificial intelligences of their own, that could be tricked into performing their functions not at the behest of their owner, but at the whims of whoever infiltrated the device.

Giving owners the AI leash

For Huang, these problems can only be resolved by keeping the humans who own AI devices in charge of those devices. While AI can remove the need for regular human interaction, they should never eliminate human oversight.

“[It’s important to keep] the home owner involved in the loop […] It’s not just a convenience of product features, but a moral responsibility aspect of it,” he said. “Who does the responsibility actually lie with?”

“If they’re buying for it and paying for it, then they’re the one who gets to decide what the AI is going to do.”

Giving owners the option to modify behavior of the AI they own is one possible solution. When you buy a driverless car, you could decide how it should act in certain scenarios. Do you want your car to prioritize you and your loved ones when your safety and that of a stranger’s must be weighed by the algorithm? What happens when the AI must decide between your safety, and that of a group of jaywalking children?

When you buy a smart camera, you could decide if you want it to report crimes to the police, or only to you. You could set your preferences for crimes committed on your property, or on the street opposite. You could decide what scale of crimes it should report, and which ones it shouldn’t.

It could be that governments or developers mandate serious crimes like murder or assault are reported regardless of preference, of course. That sort of system is already in place in certain human-driven institutions, Huang points out. “School counselors are legally obligated to report abuse,” he said — so it may be that AI-powered devices have similar obligations. That’s an issue society, as a whole, will need to decide.

“Ultimately the decisions [these products] make come indirectly from the society they were built in and the company they were built by,” Huang said. “What we need to think about is giving that kind of authority to the users. If they’re buying for it and paying for it, then they’re the one who gets to decide what the AI is going to do in these sorts of situations.”

Despite this progressive outlook, Huang admits that Kuna could do better, and is keen to introduce more user control as AI becomes a more important facet of the service his company offers. Hopefully, others will do the same.

“When it’s automated, you explain to the user what it’s going to do and why it’s going to do it,” he said. “That’s just good design.”