Earbud translators will bring us closer: The Future IRL

The moment Google Pixel Buds were used earlier this month to demonstrate real time translation from Swedish to English, people started freaking out about potential use cases for this kind of technology. But the thing is, Google isn’t the only company taking this on.

Doppler Labs offered me a chance to try the beta version of its translation software, used inside of its existing Here One earbuds. It plans to release the translation feature in a software update early next year. I jumped at the chance, and first exchanged pleasantries with a fluent Cantonese speaker, then let folks in San Francisco’s Dolores Park use the buds to translate Spanish. Everyone that tried them in front of me loved them, but that doesn’t mean they’re perfect. Proper nouns are enormously difficult to translate with ease across languages, and that was apparent when we asked one person in Spanish whether she preferred House Stark or House Targaryen in Game of Thrones. The translation spit out mostly gobbledygook. I struggled similarly when trying to understand where my conversational partner lived (Near Ocean Beach in San Francisco, from what I could tell) but it took about three tries to get there.

Doppler Labs plans to up their earbud ante even future in Q3 of 2018, when an updated earbud will give even longer battery life and power for translation, enabling some compute either on the earbuds or on a paired phone, without having to touch the cloud for translation, a pretty common occurrence in most products like it now.

The wise gadget lover might wait for that updated bud, or for that matter, v.2 of Google Pixel Buds or other competitors. But if you imagine yourself an intrepid explorer of the world, translation earbuds are probably already on your wish list. You could wait for generation two or later products from Google, Doppler, Bragi and more, but let’s be real: This technology is simply too life-changing to make yourself wait.

Facebook and Google reportedly helped set up anti-Muslim election ads

It looks like Russia wasn’t the only one buying ads online to help sway the election last year. Facebook and Google worked closely with conservative non-profit Secure America Now and advertising firm Harris Media on ad campaigns targeting swing state voters with anti-Muslim and anti-refugee messages, and linking Democratic candidates to terrorists, according to a report from Bloomberg. “Unlike Russian efforts to secretly influence the 2016 election via social media, this American-led campaign was aided by direct collaboration with employees of Facebook and Google,” the publication says.

One ad is a mock tourism video titled “Book Your Trip to the Islamic State of France.” It features an Eiffel Tower with a crescent moon and star atop it, terrorist training camp footage and Muslims praying while a narrator describes a burka-clad Mona Lisa as finally looking “how a woman should.”

“Under Sharia Law, you can enjoy everything the Islamic State of France has to offer, as long as you follow the rules,” the narrator says.

The ads apparently ran in Nevada and North Carolina during the final weeks of the election, and caused at least one Harris Media employee to feel uncomfortable about their content.

Bloomberg’s sources say that Facebook’s and Google’s sales team worked closely with Secure America Now to improve their multimillion dollar ad campaigns. Google eventually pulled a number of the ads because they violated the company’s policies.

Facebook’s “eager” sales team supposedly went as far as using Secure America Now’s ads for A/B testing a new vertical video format at scale:

“The video they used was ‘Are We Safe?’, which contrasts colorful scenes of Main Street America with black-and-white pictures of Muslims who have carried out attacks in the US. Facebook tested 12 different versions of the video.”

Facebook also worked with a Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party, also a Harris Media client, to target voters with anti-immigration ads in the country this year.

This report comes after it was discovered that Russia bought some 3,000 ads and cut Facebook a check for over $100,000 during the 2016 election. It was found that Russian agents also purchased ads with Google leading up to last November.

We’ve reached out to Facebook and Google for more information and will update this post should it arrive.

Source: Bloomberg

YouTube says it spots most terrorist videos before they’re flagged

Last year, tech giants started working together to combat the spread of terrorist content online. One of them is Google-owned YouTube, which began implementing stricter measures in June in an effort to get rid of extremist videos that tend to pop up on the platform. According to the video streaming website, its flagging technology is now good enough that over 83 percent of the terrorist-related videos it removed over the past month didn’t stay online long enough to get a single flag from a human user. That’s apparently up eight percent from August.

YouTube upgraded the technology by feeding it a huge volume of new training examples. The company tasked the people working on the feature to review over a million videos and find the right ones. To ensure that the team is updated on issues regarding hate speech, radicalization and terrorism, YouTube has also teamed up with 35 more non-government organizations, including the International Center for the Study of Radicalization from King’s College London and The Wahid Institute in Indonesia. Both of those groups focus on counterterrorism and counter-radicalization.

In addition, YouTube is now looking into expanding Jigsaw’s Redirect Method to cover more languages. The method redirects people watching terrorist propaganda videos to ones that offer an opposing viewpoint and ones the debunk their message. Since fighting terrorist propaganda online is an ongoing process that needs constant enhancement, YouTube promises to continue working with counter-terrorist NGOs and to continue improving its flagging technology.

Source: YouTube

Best Buy 3-Day Sale Launches With Early Access Discounts on Latest MacBook Air and 4K TV Sets

Best Buy today launched an early access sale for members of the My Best Buy program, marking the first day of a new 3-Day sale that’s gearing up this week. Only one Apple product has an early access discount — the mid-2017 refresh of the MacBook Air — but there are a few other deals on 4K television sets and Bluetooth headphones. As the week progresses and Best Buy opens up the sale to more users and adds new products, we’ll be sure to share any notable discounts.

For now, take a look at a few of the early access sales below:

• MacBook Air with 13.3-inch Display, Intel Core i5, 8GB Memory, 128GB Flash Storage – $874.99, down from $999.99

• MacBook Air with 13.3-inch Display, Intel Core i5, 8GB Memory, 256GB Flash Storage – $1,074.99, down from $1,199.99

• Sony 1000X Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones (Black or Grey Beige) – $249.99, down from $399.99

• Sharp 43-inch Class LED 2160p Smart 4K Ultra HD TV – $329.99, down from $349.99

• Samsung 55-inch Class LED 2160p Smart 4K Ultra HD TV – $999.99, down from $1,499.99

For these early access deals, remember that you’ll need to be logged in to your My Best Buy account in order to see the sale prices.

There are also a few discounts on items outside of the 3-Day Sale, ranging from the latest iMacs, to multiple Philips Hue lamps, and even DJI’s new miniature Spark drone. Check them out below:

• Apple 21.5-inch iMac, Intel Core i5 (2.3GHz), 8GB Memory, 1TB Hard Drive (Latest Model) – $999.99, down from $1,099.99

• Apple 27-inch iMac, Intel Core i5 (3.5GHz), 8GB Memory, 1TB Fusion Drive (Latest Model) – $1,899.99, down from $1,999.99

• Philips Hue Lamps and Light Fixtures – Get 20 percent off the Hue White Ambience Wellness Lamp, Wellner Lamp, Beyond Lamp, Phoenix Lamp, and more.

• DJI Spark Quadcopter in Alpine White – $449.99, down from $499.99

• Sphero Spider-Man – $129.99, down from $149.99

It’s worth noting that previous sales on Apple Watch Series 2 and iPad mini 4 remain ongoing at Best Buy, so if you’re interested in those products you still have a chance to purchase them at a discount. There are many more items on sale on Best Buy’s Hot Deals page, including Epson all-in-one printers and select Insignia cables and chargers, so be sure to browse all of the discounts here.

For more of the latest deals on Apple products, accessories, and more, head over to our Deals Roundup.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy

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Fantastical Maker Flexibits Launches ‘Cardhop’ Interactive Contact Management App for Macs

Flexibits, the company that makes popular calendar app Fantastical, today launched a new contacts management app, Cardhop. Designed to be more than just a simple contacts app, Cardhop is interactive and is designed to be your communications hub, allowing you to email, message, and interface with your contacts from one central location.

When developing Cardhop, Flexibits aimed to do the same thing for contacts that it did for the calendar – turn an app that can be dull, unintuitive, and slow into a robust, streamlined app that offers a lot more utility.

Cardhop imports all of your contacts from your Mac (which are typically also synced with iOS devices using iCloud) and it provides an interface that makes it easy to search for an existing contact or add a new one using the same natural language parsing that’s available in Fantastical.

A search for “Eric” for example, will bring up the card for a contact named Eric, with information like phone number, email address, birth date, home address, Twitter handle, Facebook profile, Skype username, and more. There are dozens of fields that can be added for each contact.

Entering a phrase like “Eric 867-5309 work” will automatically add the phone number you entered to Eric’s contact card under the work heading, and similar phrases can be used to quickly update or remove information for all contacts. Added information will sync to the default Apple Contacts app.

If you start typing a name that’s not already in your contacts list, Cardhop will automatically add a new entry with the information. Groups of contacts are also supported, so you can create a group like “work” to automatically send an email or a message to everyone you work with.

Cardhop’s most useful feature is perhaps its quick actions. Every contact card in Cardhop features four customizable quick action buttons for interacting with contacts and performing tasks like placing a call, sending a tweet, or sending an email. The following quick actions are available: Call, Copy, Directions, Email, FaceTime, FaceTime Audio, Large Type, Message, Skype, Telegram, Twitter, URL, and VoIP.

Clicking on one of the quick action buttons performs the task assigned to the button, but typing a quick action like “Skype Eric” or “Message Eric” also works. When using the call feature, there’s also an option to place the call on your iPhone from your Mac using Bluetooth. Cardhop has the potential to save time in a workflow because it automates tasks that would normally take several clicks.

Cardhop also takes advantage of the underused “note” feature available in the default Contacts app, making a notes section front and center for each contact in the app. Notes can be used to add details about contacts that you want to remember, leading to richer interactions.

“Until now, contacts apps were basically boring databases,” said Michael Simmons, Co-founder of Flexibits. “Cardhop is an entirely different approach and we think it’s going to simplify and truly change the way people think about and interact with their contacts.”

Cardhop is normally priced at $19.99, but to celebrate its launch, Flexibits is offering it for $14.99 for a limited time. Cardhop can be downloaded from the Mac App Store.

Tag: Flexibits
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World’s first floating wind farm powers up in Scotland

The blades of five huge turbines have begun spinning on the world’s first offshore wind farm, located over 15 miles off the coast of Peterhead, Aberdeenshire in Scotland. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is cutting the ribbon on the renewable energy site today — presumably in an on-land ceremony — which is capable of pumping 30 megawatts of clean electricity into the grid. In more human terms, that’s enough to power approximately 20,000 homes. The turbines of Hywind Scotland stand 253 meters tall in total (around 830 feet), with 78 meters (256 feet) of that bobbing beneath the surface, tethered to the seabed by chains weighing 1,200 tonnes.

It’s quite the feat of engineering, with the obvious benefit of floating wind farms being the inhospitable environments in which they can be erected. Energy firms Statoil and Masdar partnered on the Hywind Scotland project, and the plan within the next year or so is to install a huge 1MWh “Batwind” storage battery to better manage the site’s output.

The UK, and Scotland in particular, is no stranger to trend-setting clean energy projects that are contributing towards encouraging renewable milestones. The UK is home to the biggest wind turbines in existence, and after Hywind Scotland, the Irish Sea is expected to host an even bigger offshore wind farm in the future. Then there’s the world’s first lagoon power plants, still in development, and while England doesn’t really have the right weather, windy Scotland has also been earmarked for the world’s first commercial kite-driven power plants.

Via: BBC

Source: Statoil

‘Monument Valley 2’ comes to Android on November 6th

Monument Valley 2, the follow-up to UsTwo’s beautiful and head-turning puzzler from 2014, is almost ready for Android phones and tablets. The London studio announced today that the game will arrive in the Play Store on November 6th, five months after its debut on iOS. The title, if you need a refresher, follows a mother and her child as they traverse a world filled with crisp and colorful M. C. Escher-inspired architecture. Like the first game, your success is dependent on figuring out the different pathways that unlock as you tap, slide and rotate various parts of the environment.

Hopefully UsTwo can earn some money on the platform this time. In 2015, the studio revealed that a mere five percent of Monument Valley installs were “paid for.” The rest, bar a “small number” of exceptions (likely review or promotional copies) were obtained illegally. Piracy isn’t a new problem for Android but does affect the business model and, ultimately, livelihood of small game developers. UsTwo is a little different because its business spans many disciplines, including commercial app development, and therefore isn’t solely reliant on Monument Valley revenue. Still, the sequel is a cracker, and one we feel is more than worthy of its $5 asking price.

Source: ustwogames (Twitter)

London’s new electric black cabs hit the streets

London’s new electric taxis are almost ready for the public. Six test vehicles are being introduced to the city’s streets today ahead of a planned roll out later this year. Participating drivers will be collecting data about potential emissions savings and the reality of using London’s charger network. “We will now be able to accurately quantify the significant improvements these vehicles will make to London’s air quality,” Chris Gubbey, CEO for the London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) said, “which will benefit all Londoners, regardless of whether [they] use taxis or not.”

We first saw the new vehicle, known then as the TX5, in late 2015. From the outside, it looks like a regular taxi with its black paint job, large front grille and illuminated sign on the roof. Inside, however, is a 1.3 litre, three-cylinder petrol engine, which acts as a generator for a battery pack and electric motor. As a pure EV, it can go 70 miles on a single charge, but with its gas-guzzling aid that rises to 400 miles. Its green credentials are, therefore, limited, but it does meet the “zero emission capable” requirement that will be introduced for all new taxis on January 1st, 2018.

The taxi’s cabin has been upgraded too. The new TX has six seats, contactless card machines — a requirement in London since October 2016 — onboard Wi-Fi, USB charging and a panoramic roof. Up front, drivers will have access to a sat-nav with information about traffic congestion and electric charger locations. The screen will also integrate with taxi-hailing apps — think Gett, myTaxi and Kabbee — to help drivers compete with Uber (which for now is still operating in London). It is, in short, a long overdue overhaul for one of the city’s most iconic and, for some, beloved vehicles.

Source: LEVC

Where are VR and AR headed? We’ll explore at the Engadget Experience.

We’re diving head-first into the world of virtual and augmented reality next month at the inaugural Engadget Experience. The event, which takes place at LA’s Ace Hotel on November 14th, will bring together pioneering minds in these new mediums. (Tickets are available here.) It’s almost impossible to discuss VR and AR without considering how far they’ve come over the past few years, and where they’re headed in the future. That’s what we’ll be tackling in “The Big Picture,” a panel discussion with Marcie Jastrow of the Technicolor Experience Center; Jen Dennis from Ridley Scott’s RSA Films; and Ruthie Doyle from Sundance’s New Frontier.

We’ll tap into the panelists’s diverse industry experience to explore the biggest issues facing AR and VR today; how they’ll co-exist moving forward; and what, specifically, these new technologies offer that existing mediums don’t. And that’s just a start.

The VR and AR industry are still in their early stages. It’s reminiscent of where the internet was in the ’90s, long before it became an essential part of our lives. Call it the “West West” period — an exciting time where the rules are still being written for new technology. As we explore the new opportunities in VR and AR, it’s important that we keep an eye forward to avoid pitfalls, and make sure it’s something normal people will actually want to use.

Adobe remakes Lightroom CC as a hybrid app and 1TB cloud service

Adobe has unveiled a raft of new apps and updates for Max 2017, most notably a big revamp of Lightroom CC to make it more cloud-friendly for mobile users. The centerpiece is an all-new Lightroom CC with a 1TB cloud service — the “Project Nimbus” app that leaked last year. It features a streamlined version of Lightroom CC that keeps images, edits and metadata synced in Creative cloud across PC and Mac, Android and iOS. For desktop users who prefer the current, non-cloud app, Adobe has re-branded it as Lightroom Classic CC.

Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic CC

To be clear, because Adobe’s new naming system is pretty darn confusing, Lightroom CC is a series of apps app and a service. As Adobe describes it, Lightroom CC “is designed to be a cloud-based ecosystem of apps that are deeply integrated and work together seamlessly across desktop, mobile and web.” Lightroom Classic CC, on the other hand, “is designed for desktop-based (file/folder) digital photography workflows.”

Despite the fact that it’s cloud-based, Adobe says Lightroom CC is “built on the same imaging technology that powers Photoshop and Lightroom.” The desktop app has changed considerably, however. The new version for PC and Mac has an all-new, simplified interface with streamlined sliders, presets and quick-adjustment tools, and some of the features in the old version of Lightroom CC are missing.

The prime feature of Lightroom CC is the cloud sync, which works automatically to save all of your RAW images, edits and metadata, letting you pick up where you left off regardless of your location or device. Another key new feature is Adobe Sensei, an AI algorithm that figures out what’s in your images and automatically tags them, much as Google Photos does. Adobe is also highlighting its built-in sharing tools that let you build cutom galleries and share them on social media or through the new Lightroom CC Portfolio integration.

The mobile apps on iOS and Android have also been significantly updated, though they’ll still work as they did before with Lightroom CC Classic. The iOS version gets Adobe Sensei search and tagging, an enhanced app layout and iOS 11 file support. Meanwhile on Android, Adobe has finally added tablet support and a local adjustment brush, along with the same Sensei searching as on iOS.

Using a preview copy, I tried out the new desktop version on Windows 10, and the new user interface is completely different and more like the tablet version. Gone are the top “Library,” “Develop,” “Map,” “Slideshow” and other menus, replaced simply by “My Photos,” and “Edit.” Photo organization has also been simplified, reduced to two grid sizes and a single image, eliminating the “Select/Candidate” and “Survey View.”

All of the tools from “Develop” are now in “Edit,” but some popular tools like “Tone Curve,” “Panorama,” and “HDR Merge” are no longer available. There’s now an “Edit in Photoshop” button that will presumably let you do more fine-tuned work. However, if you’ve got an established workflow and rely on those missing tools, you’ll obviously want to stick to the Lightroom CC Classic version.

As for the Lightroom CC Classic desktop app, Adobe has made a few small changes including a faster boot time, image previews, file imports, and a new color range and luminance masking functionality. It emphasized that Lighroom CC “continues to focus on a more traditional desktop-first workflow with local storage and file and folder control,” compared to the “cloud-centric” operation of Lightroom CC.

I personally liked the new version of Lightroom CC, as I always found the “classic” version to be a bit confusing and cluttered. I generally prefer to use photoshop, but I can now see myself using Lightroom CC for most of my photo editing chores instead. The fact that you can pick up a photo edit where you left off, whether you’re on the train, at home or at work, is also a life-changing feature for me.

However, there are a lot of users who depend on the app to make a living, and have often automated the use of it to a large degree. Many of those folks will have no interest in the new app, but Adobe is slowly but surely shifting everything to the cloud, so one day, you may have no choice. For now, Lightroom Classic CC users don’t have to worry about it, as it’s still available for the same price.

Photoshop CC and new apps

Adobe made some significant changes to Photoshop CC (above), most significantly updates that will make it easier for cloud users to connect. It also added what it calls “major improvements to learning and getting started,” thanks to interactive, step-by-step tutorials and rich tip tools. Other highlights include Lightroom photo access from the start screen (above), 360 spherical panoramic image editing, symmetry painting (tech preview), numerous brush tweaks, new font tools and much more.

The company unveiled three new apps that do three very different things. The first, Adobe XD CC, is aimed at users who want to design and prototype mobile apps and services, developed “in open partnership with the design community through a public beta,” the company said.

For animation creators, Adobe also unveiled Character Animator CC. It lets you take graphics and characters from Photoshop or Illustrator, and add “visual puppet controls,” pose-to-pose blending, physics behaviors and other 2D character animation tools. Finally, there’s Adobe Dimension CC, basically a package that lets designers do quick-and-dirty 3D work for branding, packaging design, etc. “with the ease and simplicity of working with 2D.”

Plans and Pricing

With the introduction of Lightroom CC, Adobe has introduced several new plans that, it has to be said again, are bound to create some confusion because of its naming system. First off, know that all of its image editing products, including Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, Lightroom Classic CC, Illustrator and others fall under the “Lightroom CC Photography Service” moniker.

With that in mine, there are three new photography plans, all available starting today. The first is the “Creative Cloud Photography plan with 1TB,” which includes Lightroom CC (both the desktop and mobile versions) and Lightroom CC Classic, along with Photoshop CC, Adobe Spark with premium features, Adobe Portfolio and 1TB of cloud storage. That costs $19.99, but Adobe’s discounting it to $14.99 for the first year.

The $9.99 “Creative Cloud Photography Plan” gives you the same features, but just 20GB of storage, while the all-new $9.99 “Lightroom CC” plan subtracts Lightroom Classic CC and Photoshop CC, while giving you back the 1TB of storage. Adobe will continue to offer Lightroom 6 as “the last stand-alone version of Lightroom that can be be purchased outside of a Creative Cloud membership.” However, it “will no longer be updated with camera support or bug fixes after the end of 2017,” it adds.