For Google, HTC deal is about the Pixel’s next decade

Google wants to win the smartphone game, and with the recent HTC deal, there’s a realistic roadmap to getting there.

When rumors began swirling about Google buying HTC’s smartphone division, anyone with an opinion on the industry had thoughts; here’s why it’s good for Google; here’s why it’s a terrible idea. Both sides were probably right, to some extent.

Now that the deal is done, though, we have a more nuanced understanding of exactly what transpired, and why Google chose not to acquire HTC’s entire smartphone division, but instead over 2,000 of its employees, most of which have worked in some capacity on the company’s Pixel lineup. The deal ensures that the Pixel lineup is here to stay, that Google is not just invested in hardware as a division — this is not some ephemeral project that will dissipate into Google’s core business as so many others have over the years — but in the Pixel smartphone as a concept.

Google was a very different company when it bought Motorola in 2012.

I agree with many things about Alex’s beautifully-written Editor’s Desk from a few weeks ago, but we divert in a couple of key matters — and I have the benefit of hindsight, so forgive me — when it comes to Google’s past and future. For starters, I firmly believe that Google didn’t buy Motorola primarily for its patents in 2012, nor did it “become a smartphone vendor by accident.” That lets Google off too easily, by allowing the company to reframe its enormous mistake in a way that, in retrospect, still makes sense. Yes, we lost a ton of money, but it was all about the patents anyway, so it was still a good deal for us.

Google definitely bought Motorola to become a smartphone vendor. It wanted to build Motorola into a tier one smartphone vendor to take on Samsung and Apple by reshaping the company in its own image. Under Google, Motorola went through a metamorphosis of simplicity and focus that, even under Lenovo today, it is still benefiting from. Similarly, Google learned a tremendous amount about the smartphone industry, about making deals with wireless carriers, and about manufacturing smartphones, that likely led it to understand that it didn’t want the overhead. If, under Google, Motorola had risen to sell tens of millions of phones a year and turn a handsome profit, Google would be boasting today of its success in delicately balancing the needs of Android the platform and its in-house smartphone division.

This is an oversimplification, but when Google sold Motorola to Lenovo in 2014 for less than a fifth of what it paid it also shed itself of the tremendous ongoing financial burden of actually owning the equipment, and maintaining the logistics and distribution deals, that go along with being a smartphone maker. It’s tough, capital-intensive work — work that Apple, which makes the most money in the industry by an enormous margin, outsources to partners all over China. Apple may design an increasing number of components inside its phones, but it doesn’t actually build, or employ people that build, any of them.

Google, by “aqui-hiring” a couple thousand HTC employees, and gaining non-exclusive access to the Taiwanese company’s patent portfolio, is moving in that direction. It is setting itself up for the next ten years of the Pixel, building on the foundation of its relatively successful foray into smartphone collaboration with the Nexus line.

The first-generation Pixels have a lot more HTC DNA than Google is willing to admit.

When the Pixels were announced last October, it was no secret that HTC was heavily involved not only in the manufacturing of the phones but the designs as well. When the inevitable teardowns came in the days following their October 20 release, it became immediately apparent that these were HTC phones in nearly all but name; the internal designs, from the placement of the batteries to the choice of vibration motors, were all HTC. To be clear, Google enforced a set of rules for HTC to follow, and held its hand to finalize the design, ensuring that these would be the most “Google” phones released to date, but they still shared plenty of HTC DNA.

Google could work with the likes of Foxconn, Pegatron and other specialized manufacturing firms to build in-house-designed flagships, but that’s a ways off. Spending $1.1 billion for more than 2,000 HTC employees, though, ensures that future is accessible when the time comes.

The Google that spent $12.5 billion for Motorola in 2012 is not the same one that spent less than a tenth of that amount last week. Back then, Google was run by Larry Page and Android overseen by Andy Rubin. Android, despite having been around for nearly half a decade at that point, was nowhere near the polished, mature, and capable operating system it is today. In late 2011, when Google announced it was purchasing Motorola, it was HTC, not Samsung, that dominated the ecosystem’s conversation — and its sales. It wouldn’t be until the following year, with the Galaxy S3, that Samsung would rightfully overtake HTC — and everyone else — in dominating the Android space. In the intervening time, Google worked with Motorola to build what is still today one of the most ambitious flagships of the last decade, the Moto X.

Flawed as it was, if Motorola had sold ten million Moto Xs instead of the same number of Moto Gs, the Android ecosystem today may look very different. But what happened happened, and Google has since hired Rick Osterloh, the man responsible for steering that unwieldy Motorola ship, to run its nascent hardware division. And under him, not only have we been given Pixels, but Google Home, Google Wifi, Daydream, and an emerging optimism for a Google that understands the types of hardware experiences people want.

The first generation Pixels are also flawed. They also didn’t sell in the tens of millions. But Google just spent $1.1 billion to make sure that it can, and will, sell in that number sometime in the future. Because neither Apple nor Samsung, nor BlackBerry or Nokia before them, sold in those numbers in their first years. The phone business is a long-term investment, one that involves making hundreds of precarious right moves before finding true success. What this HTC deal tells me is that Google wants the Pixel line to be around in 10 years, and that it wants to compete with Samsung and Apple in every market, from hardware to machine learning and computational photography to smart assistants and media acquisition.

There’s a reason I haven’t talked much about the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL in this column, the phones that Google wants us all to focus on right now. That’s because this HTC deal won’t bear fruit in 2017 but in 2023. The HTC of 2017 helped Google build a smartphone; by 2023, Google hopes those same people will help it build an empire.

Here’s what else is going through my mind this week.

• The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are clearly not this year’s Apple flagships, but the camera upgrades are going to be reason enough for many people to upgrade.
• I don’t put too much stock in DxOMark crowning the iPhone 8 Plus the best phone camera out there right now, but I’m optimistic that Google will be able to improve the Pixel 2’s cameras an equal amount over its predecessor.
• I’ve spent the last week and a bit with the Fitbit Ionic smartwatch and Flyer wireless earbuds, and while they’re both flawed fitness products, there’s a lot to like. Review to come.
• I compared the Note 8’s Live Focus to the iPhone 7 Plus’s Portrait Mode last week. Now that I have an iPhone 8 Plus in-hand, I’ll be doing the same.
• I’m looking forward to reading Andrew’s thoughts on the Sony Xperia XZ1, largely because it looks like Sony has finally (finally!) fixed its awful photo processing. Fingers crossed, because despite the bezels there’s a lot to like there.
• Nest is making some great products right now, and I can’t wait to try the new Ring Doorbell competitor.
• T-Mobile and Sprint are inching towards a merger, and that should scare the shit out of Verizon.

That’s it for me this week! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, and I’ll see you all here again tomorrow.

-Daniel

After Math: Like looking into the future

It was an exciting week for futuristic technologies. Knightscope debuted its newest roboguard, Nest showed off a face-recognizing outdoor camera, and Google came up with a way to close your garage from anywhere in the neighborhood. Numbers, because how else will you know how long to wait for the future to arrive?

The best air purifier

By Tim Heffernan and John Holecek

This post was done in partnership with The Sweethome, a buyer’s guide to the best homewares. When readers choose to buy The Sweethome’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here.

After carrying out 300 hours of research, three lab tests in the past four years, and a new weeklong real-world test encompassing 18 purifiers, we’re more confident than ever that the Coway AP-1512HH Mighty is the best air purifier for most people.

Who should get this

Despite prolific marketing to the contrary, scientific studies do not support claims that air purifiers improve your health, in part because it’s exceptionally difficult to disentangle their impact from the many other factors that influence your health. There is, however, overwhelming evidence that breathing particulate pollution can exacerbate asthma, allergies, heart disease, and other medical conditions. And removing particulates is a job HEPA-rated air purifiers excel at.

How we picked and tested

For this guide, we focused on portable air purifiers, which is a blanket term for any purifier not installed directly into your home HVAC system. Several criteria guided our selection:

• We required true HEPA certification (the US definition), which means an air filter removes 99.97 percent or more of airborne particles of 0.3 micron diameter.
• Generally, each air purifier had to be rated for at least 350 square feet—bigger than the average living room. We did test one inexpensive purifier rated for spaces smaller than 150 feet in response to reader feedback.
• Each air purifier should cycle all the air in a room at least twice per hour, and ideally four or five times.

Based on these criteria, we’ve surveyed hundreds of models, read dozens of editorial reviews, and tested 18 air purifiers since 2014. This year, we conducted two tests. First, John Holecek re-created his 2016 lab tests, measuring factors like filtration speed and efficiency, noise level, and ownership cost over time. Read more about John’s tests in detail in our full guide to air purifiers.

In the second test, Tim Heffernan used seven air purifiers for a week in a 200-square-foot room in a New York City apartment. This helped us form a detailed picture of how each air purifier performed in the real world. The week he ran the tests was one of the worst of the year in terms of air pollution, with numerous health advisories related to outdoor air quality. Learn more about Tim’s tests in our full guide.

Our pick: Coway AP-1512HH Mighty

Photo: Michael Hession

After three tests in the lab, one in a New York City apartment, and three years of in-home use, we are more confident than ever that the Coway AP-1512HH Mighty is the best air purifier for most people. It’s one of the best-performing air purifiers we’ve ever tested, and has maintained that level of performance for several years. On long-term costs, it’s also one of the cheapest air purifiers we’ve tested, costing just $600 to buy and run 24/7 for five years.

In terms of measured particle removal, the Coway is very nearly the best we’ve tested. In our 2016 lab test, it purified better than all but two units (the differences were marginal), and in the 2017 lab test, it again outperformed the competition, reducing particulates to as little as 12 percent of the initial level in just 20 minutes. It performed just as well in the 2017 New York City apartment test, reducing particulate pollution to less than 20 percent of the starting level in 20 minutes—again, better than all but two much pricier models, and the differences marginal.

We ran our original test model virtually nonstop for two years without replacing the filter—twice the length of time Coway recommends—and it still worked as well as it did on day one. That’s not hyperbole: In 2016 we measured its performance using both the original and new filters, and found no significant difference.

Runner-up: Winix 5500-2

Photo: John Holecek

If the Coway AP-1512HH Mighty is unavailable, the Winix 5500-2 is a close runner-up. It, too, is HEPA-certified and rated to 350 square feet. In our 2016 lab test, it slightly outperformed the Coway, reducing particulate levels to 10 percent of their initial levels, versus 12 percent for the Coway. We prefered the Coway because of its aesthetics, proven long-term performance, and lower five-year purchase-and-operating cost: The Winix costs roughly $180 more, or $36 per year, to run than the Coway.

Upgrade: Coway Airmega 300

Photo: John Holecek

If you need to purify the air in a seriously large space, we recommend Coway’s Airmega 300. It’s HEPA-certified to clear spaces of roughly 500 square feet at five complete air changes per hour, or 1,250 square feet at two complete air changes. Its unique twin filters permit very high airflow, allowing it to rapidly filter large volumes of air. Although the Airmega is a great machine for large, open rooms, it’s quite expensive, setting you back about $1,200 to run 24/7 for five years. That’s almost exactly twice the cost of the Coway—and if you need to clean (for example) a bedroom and a living room, two Coways would be a better choice.

Also great: Austin Air HealthMate Standard HM-400

Photo: Austin Air

Most air purifiers (including our picks) claim to reduce VOCs, odors, and molecular-sized pollution that’s far smaller than the particulates a HEPA filter can catch. But only the Austin truly delivers that claim, with a 15-pound activated-carbon filter that easily outperformed all other air purifiers (their thin, lightweight activated-charcoal filters proved far too small to make a meaningful difference). In our tests for VOC/odor/molecular-pollution removal, the Austin reduced a heavy load of ethanol vapors to 13 percent of the starting level within 20 minutes, performing twice as well as the nearest competitor. This is a big reason FEMA and the Red Cross deployed Austin Air units for at Ground Zero after 9/11.

The Austin is also a very solid performer on particulates, reducing them to less than 20 percent of starting levels after 30 minutes on high in our real-world test and to 50 percent on low. However, the dense carbon filter means it consumes more electricity than our pick. Its five-year cost is about $1,300, more than double the price of the Coway.

Budget pick: GermGuardian AC4825

Photo: Michael Hession

If you need to use a purifier only in a bedroom, small office, or dorm room, the GermGuardian AC4825 is a decent choice. It’s rated for 156 square feet of space, but in our 350-square-foot lab, it still reduced particulates by about 80 percent, and by about 70 percent in the 200-square-foot NYC apartment (compared with approximately 87 percent by the Coway in both spaces; 30-minute tests, on the high setting). It’s cheaper up front than the Coway, but costlier long-term: about $740 to run for five years, or roughly $140 more. So it’s a budget pick only if you plan to use it short-term, or if you aren’t paying the utility bill (as in an office or dorm).

This guide may have been updated by The Sweethome. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

Note from The Sweethome: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

Not happy with the latest? Here’s how to downgrade from iOS 11 to iOS 10

Some may be celebrating all the new iOS 11 features, but others may already regret updating their iPhone. A new iOS version can mean incompatibility issues with older apps, or may lead to battery life issues — and have you wondering how to downgrade from iOS 11.

Whatever the reason, we’re glad you’re here now. There’s still time for you to go back to the previous version of iOS, which was iOS 10.3.3. The way it works is that Apple signs iOS software for a while until newer versions are released. Because iOS 11 was just released, Apple is still signing iOS 10.3.3, so that means you can roll back to that version of iOS. If you want to do this, you’ve picked the perfect time, because when newer versions of iOS 11 come out, Apple will stop signing iOS 10.3.3 and then you will no longer be able to roll back to iOS 10.

So, how do you do it? How can you go back to a previous version of iOS? The process isn’t very difficult, but you have to keep two things in mind. The first thing is that you’ll have to download iOS 10.3.3 manually, but don’t worry because we’ll show you how in the steps below. Secondly, if you need to restore a backup, you’ll only be able to restore backups made under iOS 10.3.3 or restore your iPhone or iPad as a new device.

With that out of the way, let’s get into it. Follow the steps below to downgrade from iOS 11 to iOS 10.3.3

How to downgrade from iOS 11

Step 1: Make sure that you have the latest version of iTunes installed. Go to Help > Check for Updates.

Step 2: You will have to download the iOS 10.3.3 IPSW file for your particular device manually. Download it to your desktop or somewhere easy to find.

Step 3: Before you perform a restore you have to turn off Find My iPhone. To do this, go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud. Scroll down to Find My iPhone and make sure that it is turned off.

Step 4: Connect your iOS device to your computer and make sure that iTunes is open.

Step 5: Let’s put your iOS device into DFU recovery mode. If you don’t know how to do this, please follow our guide on how to reset your iPhone. Once you enter DFU mode, iTunes will let you know that it detected an iPhone in recovery mode. You can click OK on this message and begin the recovery process.

Step 6: Hold down the SHIFT key if you’re on Windows, or the Option key if you’re on a Mac, and at the same time click on Restore iPhone in iTunes.

Step 7: A window will come up asking you to browse for the iOS IPSW file. In this case, you want to select the iOS 10.3.3 IPSW file that you downloaded in step 2. For example, if you have an iPhone 7 Plus the file name will be “iPhone_7Plus_10.3.3_14G60_Restore.ipsw.”

Step 8: At this point, iTunes begins the process of restoring your device.

Once finished, iOS will ask you if you want to restore a backup or if you want to set up as a new device. Note that you’ll only be able to restore backups made with iOS 10.3.3.

If you have any issues in the future, don’t forget to check out our guides on how to perform a Factory Reset on any iPhone, and tips on how to fix the most common problems with the iPhone 7 or iPhone 6S.

The best 360-degree stories on YouTube

Here is a chance to see something truly magical and fun

When Google first released Cardboard we got our first view of a “360 Story” from Motorola. It featured a cute mouse looking for his hat and was so endearing it spawned a host of other stories. We will take you through some of them today. Here’s our top 5.

Read more at VRHeads!

The Ben Heck Show: Motor control

Stepping onto the other side of the camera, Max decides he wants to learn more about motors, from motor control to motor drivers. Luckily, Felix is on hand to play teacher as he takes Max on a comprehensive tour. Will the combination of DC motors, transistors, electromagnets and Arduino coding prove too much for Mr. Olmstead to master? Or can Felix push his new student to create a successful working concept? Connect with the team over on the element14 Community.

Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: 8K VR, smoke-free fires, a drone for your home

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the Web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there – alongside some real gems. We’ve cut through the Pebble clones and janky iPhone cases to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project — even the best intentioned — can fail, so do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.

Pimax — 8K VR headset

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VR headsets have come a long way in the past few years. Ever since the Oculus Rift reignited the world’s enthusiasm for virtual reality, tech companies have been in an arms race to develop better and better headsets. Today, VR enthusiasts have a smorgasbord of different options to choose from — everything from the accessible and affordable Samsung Gear VR, all the way up to the industry-leading HTC Vive. But in many ways, the competition is just starting to heat up — especially now that Pimax’s much-hyped 8K headset has landed on Kickstarter.

On paper, the Pimax 8K is an absolute beast. With a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 per eye, a refresh rate of 90Hz, and a 200-degree field of view, it’s easily one of the most hi-spec VR headsets ever conceived. To put that in perspective, the current VR heavyweights, the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, both boast 1,080 x 1,200 pixels per eye and a meager 110-degree field of view. With all those extra pixels, Pimax aims to offer “the ultimate VR experience” — one devoid of the dreaded “screen door effect” that many currently-available headsets suffer from.

Biolite Firepit — Smoke-free, power harvesting fire pit

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Biolite originally won the hearts of the outdoor community with its gadget-charging, biomass-burning Campstove, which was first released back in 2013. And in the past couple years, the company has increasingly branched out and expanded its product offerings. And the best part? For its latest product (an ultra-efficient, power-harvesting fire pit) the company has once again turned to Kickstarter, so if you hop on the Biolite bandwagon and pledge your support early, you can snag one for a discounted rate.

The company’s new Firepit, as it’s called, incorporates some innovative features that are designed to drastically improve the traditional campfire experience. The designers at Biolite know that most of the smoke generated from such fires is a result of how inefficiently wood tends to burn. To change that, the FirePit features a built-in fan that pushes air through 51 individual jets, providing more oxygen directly to the flames. This helps the wood to burn more efficiently, resulting in less smoke and a warmer, more fuel-efficient fire. In other words, no more switching seats because the wind changes and blows campfire smoke in your face!

‘Arduventure’ — 8-bit RPG for Arduboy

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In a world where smartphone owners have an endless library of games at their fingertips, it’s increasingly difficult to justify buying a handheld gaming console like a Game Boy or PlayStation Vita. That said, standalone gaming devices still have some distinct advantages. If you’re in the market for something that’s portable, has physical buttons, and won’t bombard you with app notifications while you play, then the latest Arduboy might be worth looking into.

For those of you who might not be familiar, Arduboy is a miniature game system the size of a credit card. It comes installed with a single 8-bit game, and can be reprogrammed from a library of open source games available online. Until recently, the creators of the system generally let the community make games that you can play on Arduboy, but now they’re flipping the script.

Arduventure is a home-brewed RPG that’s purpose-built for the Arduboy console. Back the project now and you can be one of the first to play it. Oh, and don’t worry about the dreaded Kickstarter failure on this one. Arduboy has been producing these systems for the past couple years and has worked out all the kinks in the manufacturing process, so as soon as it’s done with the software, it’ll ship!

Aire — Home security drone

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Some ideas you hear about in the tech world are so “now” that it’s like they were birthed by popular culture itself. Others make you feel like you’re living in the future. Aire is definitely one for the latter category. Launched on Kickstarter earlier this week, the Aire is described as the first self-flying robot designed specifically for the home. It’s essentially a drone security camera that flies around your house investigating any security alerts, snapping photos of you and your family (if requested), or just keeping an eye out for anomalies.

“Unlike typical drones, which are optimized for outdoor flight, Aire is meant to be operated around people so we focused on safety, approachability, industrial design, and user experience with an emphasis on sound quality,” creator Jeffrey Tseng told Digital Trends in an interview. “With this in mind, we decided to go with a flight platform called a ducted fan, which is far more complex than a quadcopter, but was able to satisfy our vision of building a human-friendly flying robot. To complement the novel mechanical flight platform, we added processors, sensorsm and software very similar to what you would find in a self-driving car to enable intelligent behaviors.”

Delfast eBike — long distance electric bike

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We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: humanity is living in the golden age of rideable technology right now. In the past few years, electric motors have become smaller and more powerful, and batteries have become more capacitous and long-lasting. The two trends that have coalesced and kicked off a renaissance in personal mobility devices.  There’s almost too many of them to keep track of anymore. Between all the electric skateboards, gyroscopically stabilized unicycles, and motorized skates, staying on top of all the new rideable gizmos that get announced each month is near impossible.

Case in point: this ridiculously badass ebike from Delfast. It straddles the line between electric mountain bike and electric motorcycle — but its beefy, fat-tire design isn’t even its most important feature. What sets the Delfast ebike apart from the rest of the pack is its range. According to the bike’s creators (who got their start running courier service that relies on a fleet of efficient, all-terrain ebikes), a fully-charged Delfast electric bike can travel up to 236 miles before it craps out and needs to be juiced up again. We can’t confirm that those numbers are legit or not, but even if they’re remotely close to the truth, this bike will have a a ridiculous reach when it rolls off the production line.

Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: 8K VR, smoke-free fires, a drone for your home

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the Web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there – alongside some real gems. We’ve cut through the Pebble clones and janky iPhone cases to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project — even the best intentioned — can fail, so do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.

Pimax — 8K VR headset

Please enable Javascript to watch this video

VR headsets have come a long way in the past few years. Ever since the Oculus Rift reignited the world’s enthusiasm for virtual reality, tech companies have been in an arms race to develop better and better headsets. Today, VR enthusiasts have a smorgasbord of different options to choose from — everything from the accessible and affordable Samsung Gear VR, all the way up to the industry-leading HTC Vive. But in many ways, the competition is just starting to heat up — especially now that Pimax’s much-hyped 8K headset has landed on Kickstarter.

On paper, the Pimax 8K is an absolute beast. With a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 per eye, a refresh rate of 90Hz, and a 200-degree field of view, it’s easily one of the most hi-spec VR headsets ever conceived. To put that in perspective, the current VR heavyweights, the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, both boast 1,080 x 1,200 pixels per eye and a meager 110-degree field of view. With all those extra pixels, Pimax aims to offer “the ultimate VR experience” — one devoid of the dreaded “screen door effect” that many currently-available headsets suffer from.

Biolite Firepit — Smoke-free, power harvesting fire pit

Please enable Javascript to watch this video

Biolite originally won the hearts of the outdoor community with its gadget-charging, biomass-burning Campstove, which was first released back in 2013. And in the past couple years, the company has increasingly branched out and expanded its product offerings. And the best part? For its latest product (an ultra-efficient, power-harvesting fire pit) the company has once again turned to Kickstarter, so if you hop on the Biolite bandwagon and pledge your support early, you can snag one for a discounted rate.

The company’s new Firepit, as it’s called, incorporates some innovative features that are designed to drastically improve the traditional campfire experience. The designers at Biolite know that most of the smoke generated from such fires is a result of how inefficiently wood tends to burn. To change that, the FirePit features a built-in fan that pushes air through 51 individual jets, providing more oxygen directly to the flames. This helps the wood to burn more efficiently, resulting in less smoke and a warmer, more fuel-efficient fire. In other words, no more switching seats because the wind changes and blows campfire smoke in your face!

‘Arduventure’ — 8-bit RPG for Arduboy

Please enable Javascript to watch this video

In a world where smartphone owners have an endless library of games at their fingertips, it’s increasingly difficult to justify buying a handheld gaming console like a Game Boy or PlayStation Vita. That said, standalone gaming devices still have some distinct advantages. If you’re in the market for something that’s portable, has physical buttons, and won’t bombard you with app notifications while you play, then the latest Arduboy might be worth looking into.

For those of you who might not be familiar, Arduboy is a miniature game system the size of a credit card. It comes installed with a single 8-bit game, and can be reprogrammed from a library of open source games available online. Until recently, the creators of the system generally let the community make games that you can play on Arduboy, but now they’re flipping the script.

Arduventure is a home-brewed RPG that’s purpose-built for the Arduboy console. Back the project now and you can be one of the first to play it. Oh, and don’t worry about the dreaded Kickstarter failure on this one. Arduboy has been producing these systems for the past couple years and has worked out all the kinks in the manufacturing process, so as soon as it’s done with the software, it’ll ship!

Aire — Home security drone

Please enable Javascript to watch this video

Some ideas you hear about in the tech world are so “now” that it’s like they were birthed by popular culture itself. Others make you feel like you’re living in the future. Aire is definitely one for the latter category. Launched on Kickstarter earlier this week, the Aire is described as the first self-flying robot designed specifically for the home. It’s essentially a drone security camera that flies around your house investigating any security alerts, snapping photos of you and your family (if requested), or just keeping an eye out for anomalies.

“Unlike typical drones, which are optimized for outdoor flight, Aire is meant to be operated around people so we focused on safety, approachability, industrial design, and user experience with an emphasis on sound quality,” creator Jeffrey Tseng told Digital Trends in an interview. “With this in mind, we decided to go with a flight platform called a ducted fan, which is far more complex than a quadcopter, but was able to satisfy our vision of building a human-friendly flying robot. To complement the novel mechanical flight platform, we added processors, sensorsm and software very similar to what you would find in a self-driving car to enable intelligent behaviors.”

Delfast eBike — long distance electric bike

Please enable Javascript to watch this video

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: humanity is living in the golden age of rideable technology right now. In the past few years, electric motors have become smaller and more powerful, and batteries have become more capacitous and long-lasting. The two trends that have coalesced and kicked off a renaissance in personal mobility devices.  There’s almost too many of them to keep track of anymore. Between all the electric skateboards, gyroscopically stabilized unicycles, and motorized skates, staying on top of all the new rideable gizmos that get announced each month is near impossible.

Case in point: this ridiculously badass ebike from Delfast. It straddles the line between electric mountain bike and electric motorcycle — but its beefy, fat-tire design isn’t even its most important feature. What sets the Delfast ebike apart from the rest of the pack is its range. According to the bike’s creators (who got their start running courier service that relies on a fleet of efficient, all-terrain ebikes), a fully-charged Delfast electric bike can travel up to 236 miles before it craps out and needs to be juiced up again. We can’t confirm that those numbers are legit or not, but even if they’re remotely close to the truth, this bike will have a a ridiculous reach when it rolls off the production line.

Axon hopes you’ll submit smartphone video as evidence

In theory, handing your smartphone video over to the police if you have evidence of a crime is the right thing to do — it provides accountability and could be the key to a conviction. However, those contributions are about to enter a gray area. Axon (the brand formerly known as Taser) has confirmed that it’s working on a “Public Evidence Product” that would let you submit photos and videos to Evidence.com, its cloud platform normally used for police footage. That doesn’t sound so bad on the surface, but the handling and potential motivations are raising concerns that this amounts to excessive privatization of the justice system.

Axon maintains that it doesn’t own or watch footage, which instead goes directly to the department. However, civil rights advocates are concerned that it might still use the shots for profit, or for things other than the direct case at hand (such as building biometric databases). And what happens if the footage concerns police abuses. Shouldn’t it go to an independent body? Even if Axon lives up to its promise not to watch footage, it’s not going to be completely neutral ground.

There’s also the question of whether or not it’s wise to encourage crowdsourcing for criminal evidence. Axon says its effort isn’t a “fishing expedition,” so your neighbor can’t use this to snitch on your littering habit. This is aimed at specific crimes where there’s already a case. However, there’s a worry that this may spur people to take unnecessary risks, such as doing things that expose them to immediate danger or intimidation. This could help police land convictions they might not otherwise get, but there are plenty of opportunities for unintended consequences.

Source: Intercept

Uber is ready to cut a deal to get its London license back

Uber may have lost its London taxi license with no small amount of drama, but it’s already willing to make concessions. The ridesharing outfit’s city manager Tom Elvidge tells the Sunday Times that he would “like to know what [Uber] can do” to “get this right.” He’s willing to make tradeoffs to get business back, in other words. That’s a sharp contrast to Elvidge’s tone on Friday, when he denounced the move and was promising an immediate legal response. And importantly, it sounds like officials might be willing to give Uber a break.

Times insiders claim that Transportation for London is encouraged by the warmer stance and says that it’s open to talks. It’s not certain how close Uber and TfL are to actually sitting down and talking, but this is clearly the first step. There’s no secret as to what changes Uber is likely to make, at least. In Denmark, Uber had talked about guaranteed benefits like paid sick time — it may promise better conditions for drivers.

The conciliatory attitude isn’t completely unheard of, but it does suggest that Uber’s change of leadership might be having an effect on the company’s once antagonistic approach. After all, new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi suggested that Uber was paying the price for its historical behavior — it’s hard to imagine the previous management saying it earned any kind of punishment. While Uber doesn’t have that much of a choice if it wants to return to such an important market (TfL has the upper hand here), it’s notable that Uber is changing its tone more quickly than it has in the past.

Via: Reuters

Source: Sunday Times (sign-in required)