Apple and Samsung are headed back to court… again

The case that never ends is going back to court. Back in 2012, Apple won a lawsuit against Samsung that sought damages for a handful of patent infringements involving smartphone functionality and design. At the time, Apple was awarded $1 billion, but that sum has been whittled down and in December of 2015, Samsung agreed to pay Apple a lesser $548 million. However, last December, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that overturned the 2012 decision, which ultimately led to yesterday’s District Court decision to retry the case.

The previous damages awarded to Apple were based on the total profits made from the phones that included design aspects that infringed on Apple’s patents. But the Supreme Court’s ruling declared that the design patent violations could only involve components of the phones, not the entire product. Following that decision, Judge Lucy Koh of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California ruled yesterday that the case would be reheard, meaning the damages previously awarded to Apple could be reduced even further.

Around $400 million is now up in the air and the two sides have until October 25th to propose a date for the new trial.

Via: VentureBeat

Source: Scribd

What we’re buying: Instant Pot Ultra, Huel and Sleep Cycle

This month is a (mostly) foodie edition of IRL. Nicole Lee sings the praises of the Instant Pot, while Daniel Cooper doesn’t last long on the meal-replacement system, Huel. Tim Seppala, however, is just trying to get a good night’s rest.

Daniel Cooper
Senior Editor

When your insides don’t work as well as you’d like, you get a weird attitude towards food. Eating isn’t about the sensations you feel as it goes in, but the pain you get at the, well, other end. I long stopped being able to enjoy food, because it’s always a signifier of the discomfort I’m letting myself in for. It’s why I held a secret hope that the new wave of meal-replacement drinks, like Soylent and Huel, would help me move beyond food.

Imagine it, no more stress about what I was going to eat, no worries about meal plans or struggling with choices before food shopping. The web and Facebook marketing followed me around the internet, suckering me into the dream of an all-natural synthesis of the chemicals I need, parceled out in the right proportion. Who needs to go to the gym four times a week when I can slurp down the perfect food three times a day?

After several weeks of research, I spent £45 on a Huel starter kit with a pair of 1.8-kilo pouches, a shaker and a branded t-shirt. Huel is the British equivalent of Soylent, marketing itself as a “nutritionally complete food,” that packs the daily recommended amounts of “all 26 essential vitamins and minerals.” It seemed like the ideal vehicle on which I could begin my journey to become a post-food human.

I cleaned out my kitchen cupboards to prevent backsliding and began on a Monday, with everything planned out. I read up on many others’ stories, saying that novices should blend their Huel with ice cubes to make it taste more like a frappuccino than a diet drink. The first taste wasn’t too bad actually, and Huel is more like a vanilla milkshake that’s been made with water and oats rather than ice cream.

The problem came on the second sip, when you suddenly become aware of just how much sucralose is in the mix. The artificial sweetener isn’t great at the best of times, but there’s just way too much in the Huel to make the experience enjoyable. I could feel the material coat both my teeth and the inside of my mouth, each layer of sickly-sweet sediment building up with every fresh mouthful. I tried to force myself on, to keep choking down this increasingly-unpleasant mush.

And after two hours trying to finish my breakfast, my mind started to think about the impending arrival of my lunchtime meal. The beaker was still half-full, and it was then that the dry heaves kicked in, knowing that I had thought it was possible to live on this stuff.

Suffice to say, by lunchtime I’d made an emergency run to my local store to find some real, solid food. The sticky sensation inside my mouth subsided after about three days and lots of toothbrushing. And the rest of the Huel is sitting in a cupboard as I decide whether to sling it on Facebook Marketplace or give it another go.

Nicole Lee, Engadget

Nicole Lee
Senior Editor

For the past few years now, I’ve had my eye on the Instant Pot, a multipurpose kitchen appliance that has gained a cult following on the internet. This all-in-one wonder promises to replace a rice cooker, a slow cooker, a pressure cooker and you can even use it to steam and saute foods. Some enterprising folks have even made cakes and yogurt in this thing. It is just that versatile.

But because I already had a slow cooker and a stovetop pressure cooker, I held off on getting it for a long time. Then a few months ago, Instant Pot unveiled a new model called the Instant Pot Ultra, which just looks way nicer and sleeker than previous versions. Instead of using old-fashioned buttons for controls, it has a stainless steel knob that you rotate and push. Plus, it has a new Ultra mode, which is a sous-vide-type function that promises to keep foods at a certain temperature for hours on end. The Ultra’s modern design (I’m a sucker for looks) and additional sous-vide function won me over.

After owning it for a few months, I can safely say that there is really only one reason to own the Instant Pot, and that’s for its pressure cooker function. I have almost no reason to use my stovetop pressure cooker anymore. That’s because, with the stovetop pressure cooker, you still have to babysit it so that the pot stays at high pressure. With the Instant Pot, all of that is done automatically — you can literally just set it and forget it.

The Instant Pot’s Keep Warm function also means that I can put stuff in the pot, cook it, and it’ll still be warm when I get home hours later. This latter function means that I don’t really need a slow cooker anymore either. In fact, the Instant Pot has completely replaced the slow cooker for me. Who needs to cook pulled pork for 16 hours in a slow cooker when you can have the same thing in just 90 minutes?

What I love the most about the Instant Pot though, is that it makes healthy cooking so much easier. I can make hard boiled eggs in five minutes, which are great for quick breakfasts or snacks. I can make quick healthy soups in just ten minutes, or braised kale and carrots in seven minutes. Making homemade stock takes about an hour, but that’s way faster than the all-day cook time it usually takes. And because I know what’s going in all my foods, I can control the amount of salt, sugar and fat.

I’ve lost about ten or so pounds now, which of course is mostly due to cutting out sugar and eating more vegetables, but I swear having an Instant Pot really helped. It made home cooking faster and more convenient than going out to a restaurant, and it’s sometimes tastier, too. Who needs to go out for fast food, when you can have “fast food” at home?

Timothy J. Seppala
Associate Editor

I’ve been using Sleep Cycle for the past year or so for a few reasons. One, I have sleep apnea, which means unless I sleep on my stomach I snore a lot and routinely start and stop breathing while I’m off in dreamland. Sure, I have my eyes closed, but I don’t wake up feeling rested and refreshed. The other reason is because I’m genuinely pretty bad at waking up without an alarm. The app’s main conceit is that it uses your iPhone’s mic to monitor your breathing to gauge where you are in a sleep cycle (hence the name) and will wake you up at the most optimal time. You can set it on your bed and use the accelerometer for tracking as well. So, if I set an alarm for 8AM, it’ll wake me up between 7:30AM and 8, depending on my breathing.

For that, it works incredibly well. I switched from working an overnight shift for almost four years here at Engadget to normal-people hours back in April, and it’s been instrumental in helping me rise when the sun does. What drew me to the app was that it was free (although there was a premium option for advanced features like syncing data), and that I didn’t need to don (or buy) an activity tracker to get the baseline functionality. I also love that I can snooze an alarm by reaching over to my nightstand and blindly tap on my phone while half-asleep. Now, I’m awake before my alarm goes off more often than not.

Engadget

The app combines sleep info with weather data, location information and the amount of steps I take each day to give a comprehensive view of the various factors that might affect my slumber. It’ll even track time spent snoring. I sleep better at home when it’s raining, for example. For a budding quantified data geek, I thought the app was great. Then something happened.

Early in the year, all of the features aside from nightly sleep tracking, were locked behind the premium paywall. That means I can no longer look at personal sleep-trend graphs and see how my shuteye quality has changed over time, or how much my exercise or lack thereof is impacting my sleep. I can still view a summary of each night’s sleep quality (which I still don’t fully understand; nights where I’ve slept horribly have gotten me 100 percent ratings), but I can’t see how that compares to a year ago unless I want to pony up an annual $24.

I’m still using the app, but since I know my data is locked away, I’m not as worried if I stumble to bed and forget to activate it. Now, the main reason I use Sleep Cycle is because it automatically puts my phone in Do Not Disturb mode when the tracker is active — which isn’t really the point of the app. Of course, there are other sleep apps available, but I don’t feel like paying quite that much for them and I’m a creature of habit.

“IRL” is a recurring column in which the Engadget staff run down what they’re buying, using, playing and streaming.

Apple Pay Expanding to All Saks Fifth Avenue, Albertsons, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Other Locations

Apple Pay is rolling out to all Saks Fifth Avenue, Albertsons, and Dick’s Sporting Goods locations across the United States. It’s also coming to McDonald’s and Chipotle’s order-ahead apps in several cities later this year.

Meanwhile, contactless tickets supported in Apple’s Wallet app are coming to all Ticketmaster sports and concert venues in the United States.

Jennifer Bailey, Vice President of Apple Pay, revealed the news at the Money20/20 conference in Las Vegas over the weekend. On stage, she also revealed several other statistics about Apple’s mobile payments service.

Namely, she said Apple Pay will be available in 20 markets after it launches in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and the United Arab Emirates as early as this week. We’ve also heard rumors about Apple Pay coming to the Netherlands, Poland, and Norway, but Apple has yet to confirm a rollout to those countries.

Bailey said that Apple Pay now works with over 4,000 banks and other participating issuers around the world. She added that 50 percent of retailers in the United States now accept the mobile payments service.

As mentioned during Apple’s most recent earnings call, Bailey echoed that Apple Pay is by far the most popular contactless payment service on mobile devices, accounting for nearly 90 percent of all transactions globally.

In related news, payment processor First Data today announced that Clover Go, its all-in-one contactless, chip, and swipe card reader, will be available in the coming weeks on Apple.com and in Apple retail stores across the United States.

First Data also said more than one million of its business clients now accept Apple Pay. The company plans to enable Apple Pay support for loyalty and gift cards at these merchants through integration with its Clover platform.

Meanwhile, Apple Pay Cash could launch alongside iOS 11.1 or shortly afterwards in the United States. Apple has invited both its corporate and retail employees to test the feature in beta over the past few weeks.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
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Animal Crossing Smartphone App Will Be the Focus of New Nintendo Direct Coming This Week

Following Miitomo, Fire Emblem Heroes, and Super Mario Run, Nintendo appears finally ready to reveal details for its fourth iOS gaming app, Animal Crossing. The company has confirmed on its Japanese website [Google Translate] that a new Animal Crossing-focused Nintendo Direct will debut this Wednesday, October 25 at 12 p.m. local time in Japan, meaning the direct will take place on October 24 in the United States at 8 p.m. PT (via GameSpot).

The announcement has so far been shared through Nintendo’s Japanese and Animal Crossing UK Twitter accounts. Anyone will be able to watch the broadcast worldwide on Nintendo’s Japanese YouTube channel right here, and the company’s English language YouTube channel should see the new Direct posted around the same time.

Image via Nintendo Japan
The pre-recorded broadcast will last 15 minutes and will focus on Animal Crossing’s iOS application, with no news coming at this time for 3DS or Switch versions of the franchise. There also won’t be any details on any other smartphone apps, according to the company’s website.

Animal Crossing for iOS was first announced in April 2016, alongside Fire Emblem’s iOS game, as the two newest titles in Nintendo’s original goal to release five smartphone apps before March 2017. When Animal Crossing didn’t show up for its original fall 2016 launch window, Nintendo delayed the game in January 2017 until its next fiscal year, running from April 2017 to March 2018. So, with the upcoming Nintendo Direct, it appears that the company is ready to debut Animal Crossing as its next iOS game, potentially before the end of the year.

After Animal Crossing — which will be the fourth game in Nintendo’s partnership with iOS developer DeNA — rumors have suggested that the final fifth game will be one set in The Legend of Zelda universe. Sources speaking to The Wall Street Journal in May predicted that Animal Crossing will hit iOS sometime “in the latter half of 2017,” and a smartphone version of The Legend of Zelda would launch afterwards, so if the Animal Crossing release window is accurate there may be some veracity to Zelda being the next Nintendo IP to come to iOS devices.

Tags: Nintendo, Animal Crossing
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Quicken 2018 for Mac Launches With Online Bill Management, New Subscription Service

Quicken today announced the launch of the 2018 version of its popular finance and budgeting software for the PC and Mac.

Quicken 2018 introduces access to online bills from more than 11,000 companies, all of which are integrated into a streamlined bill and payment dashboard. The bill management center is designed to let Quicken users manage all of their bills in one place, with features like downloading PDFs of each bill.

The software also includes expanded investment capabilities with more specific lot tracking and a more customizable portfolio view, along with new loan tracking features that include “what-if” loan analysis.

“We are always listening to customer feedback and the 2018 releases of Quicken reflect the balance of new features and refinements to existing capabilities that we know our users want,” said Eric Dunn, chief executive officer of Quicken. “With our latest products, Mac offerings are more robust, our interfaces are more intuitive, and our new membership program ensures that customers always have the latest and greatest Quicken without the pain of manually upgrading.”

Quicken 2018 for Mac offers Mac users access to Quicken Starter, Quicken Deluxe, and Quicken Premier for the first time, allowing Mac users to choose the best Quicken software to meet their financial needs. Previously, these separate versions of Quicken were limited to Windows users.

The software offers different features depending on version, with Deluxe and Premier offering features for creating budgets, creating multiple savings goals, and tracking loans and investments. Premier offers investment evaluations, tax reports, and automatic updates to estimated home value.

With this change also comes a shift to a subscription-based service. Instead of purchasing upgrades each year, Quicken customers will automatically receive the latest version of Quicken as long as a membership is maintained, with one and two-year memberships available.

All of the 2018 versions of Quicken will include 5GB of cloud storage for Quicken backups provided through Dropbox.

Quicken 2018 Starter is priced at $34.99 for a one-year membership and $49.99 for a two-year membership, while Quicken Deluxe is priced at $49.99 for one years and $79.99 for two years.

Quicken Premier, the highest tier software available for Macs, is priced at $74.99 for a one-year membership and $119.99 for a two-year membership.

Tag: Quicken
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16 Years Ago Today, Apple Unveiled the Original iPod

Today marks the 16th anniversary of the debut of the first iPod, which was introduced by Apple on October 23, 2001. Then Apple CEO Steve Jobs stood on stage at the Apple Town Hall in Cupertino and showed off a device that could fit in a pocket but hold an entire music library.

The first-generation iPod, which Apple advertised with the tagline “1,000 songs in your pocket,” was a rectangle-shaped device with a 5GB 1.8-inch hard drive capable of holding 1,000 songs.

It featured a black and white LCD and the first click wheel, a mechanical scrolling interface that let users quickly and conveniently scroll through long lists of music. The click wheel also included easy access buttons for playing, pausing, rewinding, and fast forwarding through music content. The first iPod’s battery lasted for up to 10 hours before needing to be recharged, and the device was priced at $399.

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPod, he called it a quantum leap forward and outlined three major breakthroughs: ultra-portability, Apple’s legendary ease of use, and auto-sync with iTunes.

iPod is an MP3 music player, has CD quality music, and it plays all of the popular formats of open music. The biggest thing about iPod is that it holds a thousand songs. Now this is a quantum leap because for most people, it’s their entire music library. This is huge. How many times have you gone on the road with a CD player and said ‘Oh God, I didn’t bring the CD I wanted to listen to.’ To have your whole music library with you at all times is a quantum leap in listening to music. The coolest thing about iPod is that your whole music library fits right in your pocket. Never before possible.

New versions of the iPod were released on a yearly basis following the launch of the original device, and other notable launches included the iPod Photo in 2004, which had the first color display, the smaller iPod mini in 2004, the tiny iPod nano in 2005, the even smaller iPod Shuffle, also in 2005, and the first iPod touch, which came out in 2007 following the launch of the iPhone.

An early version of the iPod Nano
Today, the iPhone, unveiled six years after the iPod, has largely replaced Apple’s original music device. The iPhone does everything the iPod did and more, and has served as an iPod replacement since its debut.

Over the course of the last 16 years, Apple has stayed at the forefront of music technology with the debut of Apple Music, a streaming music service that now has more than 30 million paid subscribers.

Apple retired the iPod nano and the iPod shuffle in July of 2017, and now the iPod touch is the sole remaining iPod the company has for sale. The iPod touch was last updated in July of 2015 and it is not clear if the product will see additional updates in the future.

The iPod touch is available in 32GB and 128GB capacities for $199 and $299, respectively.

Related Roundup: iPod touchBuyer’s Guide: iPod Touch (Caution)
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John Hancock Offers Apple Watch Series 3 to Vitality Life Insurance Customers for Just $25

Life insurance provider John Hancock has announced that new and existing members of its Vitality program can receive an Apple Watch Series 3 with GPS only for an initial payment of just $25 plus tax. Additional fees apply for customers who choose a cellular model or other more expensive models.

The cost of the Apple Watch is actually split up into 24 monthly payments, which can be paid off by walking, running, biking, swimming, or completing various other exercises. Vitality members must earn at least 500 fitness-related Vitality Points per month over two years to avoid owing any of the instalments.

By connecting the Vitality Today app to Apple’s Health app and confirming sharing of data, customers can earn Vitality Points for Light, Standard, and Advanced Workouts in the Workout app. Customers can share steps measured by their iPhone or Apple Watch, as well as active calories from the Apple Watch.

The Vitality program is available with select John Hancock life insurance policies in the United States. The free Apple Watch Series 3 offer will be available starting November 6 everywhere except New York.

John Hancock, owned by Manulife Financial, first started offering Apple Watches to a limited number of members last year. About half of the people who received the device achieved their monthly goals and did not pay for the device, John Hancock senior vice president Brooks Tingle told CNBC.

John Hancock is the first life insurance provider to offer the Apple Watch at a discounted rate to its members. Health insurance provider Aetna offers a similar program to its employees, and may expand it to 23 million customers soon.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 4Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Buy Now)
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Dutch cyclists can ride over a 3D-printed bridge

A town called Gemert in the Netherlands just became home to the first 3D-printed cycling bridge ever. It took its creators at Eindhoven University three months and 800 layers to complete the 26-foot-long bridge, but now it’s open and ready to support hundreds of cyclists a day. The researchers had to develop a new 3D printing technique that uses steel reinforcement cables to create pre-stressed concrete. Once they were done laying out all its layers, they tested the bridge by placing a five-ton weight on top of it. Their efforts paid off: while they’ll surely improve the method even more, they believe they’re now capable of using the technique to build even bigger structures.

Printing out concrete has a number of advantages over typical techniques. To start with, it can form any shape, since it’s not limited by molds. Further, anything made using the method might be finished a lot quicker, since it doesn’t require the construction of formware structures to give shape to concrete. Finally, it’s much more environmentally friendly than typical methods, since it only deposits concrete where it’s needed and doesn’t waste cement. Since cement production is characterized by high carbon dioxide emissions due to the extreme heat it requires, reducing the amount of concrete needed will also reduce the CO2 generated per structure.

If the technique can be refined further to build just about anything we want more quickly, who wouldn’t want to use a method that can also help our planet? The researchers still have to create more experimental structures like this, though, and are in fact involved in the 3D printing of five houses that are actually going to be occupied.

Source: Eindhoven University of Technology

France and China will study ocean-based climate change next year

France and China, both key leaders of the Paris Climate Accord now that the US is leaving, have unveiled a new satellite to better predict storms and model climate change. The China-France Oceanography Satellite (CFOSAT) includes two radars that can study both wind strength and direction as well as the direction and wavelength of ocean waves. The latter can help scientists predict heat waves and other important climate data, according to recent studies.

CFOSAT will be used primarily to improve forecasting accuracy, particularly for hurricanes and other ocean-spawned storm events. “In practical terms, it will be used to improve forecasts of strong storms, cyclones or waves for all coastal activities,” France’s research lead on the project, Daniele Hauser, told the AFP.

Data from the satellite will also help scientists improve climate models by better understanding how oceans affect the atmosphere. “We think that if we can improve climate change predictions, we can better prevent it,” Hauser said.

The satellite was originally supposed to be a partnership between the French and European space agencies. However, France and China have been working closely on space technology over the past decade, prompting the change. Both parties acknowledged the political element, while saying there were technical reasons, too. “We partnered with France because we were certain of the support of both states, but also because of France’s expertise in wave analysis,” said China’s CFOSAT project manager Lili Wang.

The 650 kg (1,450 pound) satellite is set to be launched next year from a rocket in China’s “Long March” program. Given the spate of hurricanes in 2017, made unusually powerful by global warming, any extra forecasting accuracy can’t come soon enough.

Source: China Daily

How Netflix keeps ‘Stranger Things’ lo-fi in a high-tech world

Netflix is still surprised that Stranger Things, a science-fiction series starring five young kids, became a worldwide sensation immediately after it was released. Unlike some of its biggest hits, like House of Cards (which is based on a British series), Stranger Things was an unknown property when it premiered in July of 2016. But it quickly captivated audiences, thanks to its ’80s nostalgia and the perfectly executed homages to Hollywood classics from the likes of Stephen King and Steven Spielberg.

As the series created by the Duffer Brothers enters its second season on October 27th, we talked to Director of Photography Tim Ives about what it’s like to shoot it. Ives, who has previously worked on shows like Girls, Mr. Robot and House of Cards, said one of the most important elements was to keep Stranger Things 2 feeling retro. That’s something that can become challenging, particularly as he relies on new technologies, such as 4K cameras with high-dynamic range.

Ross (left) and Matt Duffer (right) during the production of Stranger Things 2.

“You have to protect what you’re trying to show,” Ives said. “We tested quite heavily to make sure that our images had the soft and round tones that are in ’80s films.” He claimed that effect was achievable with a combination of Leica lenses and state-of-the-art cinema cameras. For the second season, Ives shot with the Red Helium in 8K, an upgrade over the 6K Red Scarlet Dragon that was used on the first season of the show.

Netflix only streams the shows at up to 4K resolution, of course, but those cameras help provide the highest-quality images possible. Shooting the show with that latest sensors makes it futureproof too, as that might make it possible to see better versions than UHD in the future. Stranger Things also supports 4K in HDR, which delivers better detail in darker scenes. This technology is far from mainstream, though, since compatible TVs are still on the pricey side — at least if you want a good one.

Ives said that when it comes to softening the image, a process that gives Stranger Things that ’80s style, it’s important to ensure the shots are going to look perfect for both HD and HDR. Essentially, he wants people to have a similar experience while watching, whether they’re using a low- or high-end TV. He added that as HDR becomes more accessible, the way HD did, the entire process of editing for different sets will be streamlined.

You have to protect what you’re trying to show. We tested quite heavily to make sure that our images had the soft and round tones that are in ’80s films.

Tim Ives, Director of Photography for ‘Stranger Things’

At the same time, Ives also has to take into account that many people watch on their smartphones. He said that the Duffer Brothers know this, and that’s why their filming technique is composed in a way “where you’re gonna get the same impact whether you [watch] on a small or a big screen.” Naturally, Ives said he would prefer if viewers enjoyed the show on the largest display possible, but he’s fully aware that we’re living in the era of mobile devices.

As much as all of this tech can help behind-the-scenes and with distribution, guarding the wistful magic of Stranger Things also happens through the set and costume design in the narrative. In the first season, the main characters rely on walkie-talkies to communicate as the plot unfolds, and then there are the Walkman and ham radio cameos. For season two, we know arcades and Ghostbusters will be a big part of the story, based on the first trailer.

Ives said he’s inspired by Blade Runner, Star Wars, The Shining as well as Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, and you can clearly see bits and pieces of those in Stranger Things. While the show is often categorized as sci-fi, it’s actually tough to nail down where exactly it fits, given that it pulls from a variety of genres. There’s conspiracy, comedy, friendship, horror and supernatural sprinkled throughout. That, combined with Ives’ and the Duffer Brothers’ cinematic influences and homages, is really what preserves the ’80s vibes from the series.

Heading into season two, and with the third already in the works, one thing that’s changed is that Ives’ team has incorporated drone work in the new episodes. He couldn’t provide specific examples from Stranger Things 2, in order to avoid spoilers, but he noted that the tech gives the series an even bigger feel.

Ives added that he’s intrigued by augmented reality and virtual reality, though he doesn’t feel those technologies are “ready for this show” right now. As great as it would be to have the Stranger Things world come to life in AR or VR, it will probably never happen — not in full, anyway. “Maybe if we get a season 15, we’ll do it,” he said.

Netflix VP of Product Innovation Todd Yellin told Engadget that the company saw Stranger Things as “a good-size bet,” but “we didn’t realize the magnitude” of it. “The way it grabbed our members,” he said, “people really raced through the show.” Still, Yellin knows the biggest test is still ahead, and Netflix can only hope that Stranger Things 2 isn’t just a one-season wonder.

Image credits: Netflix