Google Calendar’s Material Design refresh on desktop is officially rolling out

Along with the new UI, Google’s also introducing a ton of new features for making you as productive as can be.

Back in August, a version of Google Calendar on the desktop with a new Material Design UI was spotted by a lucky user on Reddit. This offered us a few screenshots of things to come, but at the time, it was unclear when the changes would be made available for all. Well, it looks like that day is upon us.

In a blog post that was recently published, Google officially announced the visual refresh and that it’ll be rolling out to all users starting today. Google Calendar’s appearance on the desktop had been getting long in the tooth, and it simply didn’t mesh with the Material Design found on its own mobile app. As such, the new look is greatly appreciated.

However, a new coat of paint isn’t all Google Calendar is receiving. Along with the updated look, Google is also introducing a few new features that should make using Calendar on the desktop a lot more efficient and productive.

When creating calendar invitations, you’ll now have access to more formatting tools and the ability to add hyperlinks to documents, spreadsheets, etc. Plus, when these links are clicked, they’ll open up directly in Google Calendar with the new “Event Detail” mode. There’s also a new feature with Day view that allows you to view multiple calendars side by side – potentially saving supervisors that manage employees’ calendars a lot of time.

Add this together with rich information about room location and features when holding a meeting in a conference room, easier access to Day, Week, and Month views, the ability to see contact info when hovering over an individual within a calendar invite, and even more, and it should now be a lot more useful and enjoyable to manage your events, meetings, and parties from your computer.

If you aren’t seeing the new design right away, look for an option in the upper-right that says “Use new calendar.”

Google Calendar: Ultimate Guide

Enter Android Central & Mint SIM’s Ultimate Pixel 2 Giveaway!

A hot phone and a year of free service could be yours, FREE!

Android Central is teaming up with Mint SIM for the Ultimate Google Pixel Giveaway! One lucky winner will receive their choice of either a Google Pixel 2 or a Google Pixel 2 XL. That’s not all! A great phone deserves a service that provides awesome and reliable LTE data along with unlimited text and calls.

Thanks to Mint SIM, the winner will also receive a prepaid SIM card good for one year of paid service that includes 10GB of data per month with unlimited talk and text. We’re big fans of Mint SIM, thanks in part to its low-cost plans and nationwide 4G LTE coverage. For savvy shoppers, it’s the perfect service to pair with any unlocked phone, including the Pixel 2.

Now on to the giveaway!

THE PRIZE: One Android Central reader will win their choice of Pixel 2 or Pixel 2 XL and a year of service from Mint SIM!

THE GIVEAWAY: Head down to the widget at the bottom of this page. There are several ways to enter, each with varying point values. Complete all of the tasks for maximum entries and your best shot at winning! Keep in mind that all winning entries are verified and if the task was not completed or cannot be verified, a new winner will be chosen. Please note that while the giveaway is open internationally, Mint SIM only provides service in the U.S., and no substitutions for that part of the prize will be made. It’s up to you to determine if the phone will work on your carrier. International winners will be responsible for any customs fees incurred during shipping.

The giveaway is open until November 15, 2017, and the winner will be announced right here after the closing date. Good luck!

Enter Android Central’s Ultimate Google Pixel Giveaway!

Play Atari’s ‘Centipede’ on a tiny, authentic arcade cabinet

There’s something special to playing a vintage arcade cabinet, but it’s usually impractical to own one. It’s no mean feat to lug a gigantic machine into your home, and you’ll probably have to restore it to recapture its glory. Atari and New Wave Toys think they have a better idea. They’ve partnered on Replicade X Centipede, a 1/6th-scale cabinet replica that lets you play (what else?) Centipede in an authentic-looking system that won’t chew up tons of space in your den. The 3.5-inch LCD won’t recreate the experience you get with an old-school CRT screen, but everything else is surprisingly close. It’s made of metal and wood, the art is sourced directly from Atari’s vaults, and you even steer the game using a tiny trackball.

The mini cabinet runs on a lithium-ion battery to let you play where you want, and New Wave is promising “lag-free” performance through its chipset.

New Wave is crowdfunding the project, and backers can pledge $90 or more to get a Centipede system of their own starting in April 2018. That sounds like a lot, but the company expects to price the mini cabinet at $160 when it hits retail. This isn’t for those of us who are happy to save some money by playing Atari classics on PCs and consoles — it’s for those who want to relive the arcade’s heyday while making a few concessions to modern realities.

Source: Kickstarter

Intel aims to conquer AI with the Nervana processor

Intel makes some pretty fast chips, but none are very efficient at the hottest thing in computing right now: Artificial intelligence (AI). Deep-learning apps that do computer vision, voice recognition and other tasks mostly just need to run matrix calculations on gigantic arrays — something that doesn’t suit general-purpose Core or Xeon chips. Now, thanks to its purchase of deep learning chipmaker Nervana, Intel will ship its first purpose-built AI chips, the Nervana Neural Processor family (NNP), by the end of 2017.

Intel enlisted one of the most enthusiastic users of deep learning and artificial intelligence to help out with the chip design. “We are thrilled to have Facebook in close collaboration sharing their technical insights as we bring this new generation of AI hardware to market,” said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich (below) during his keynote speech at WSJDLive. On top of social media, Intel is targeting healthcare, automotive and weather, among other applications.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich at WSJDLive (AOL/Nicole Lee)

Unlike its PC chips, the Nervana NNP is an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that’s specially made for both training and executing deep learning algorithms. “The speed and computational efficiency of deep learning can be greatly advanced by ASICs that are customized for … this workload,” writes Intel’s VP of AI, Naveen Rao.

The chips are designed to do matrix multiplication and convolutions, among the most common calculations done by deep learning programs. Intel has eliminated the generalized cache normally seen on CPUs, instead using special software to manage on-chip memory for a given algorithm. “This enables the chip to achieve new levels of compute density and performance for deep learning,” says Rao.

The chip is also designed with high-speed interconnects both on and off the chip, allowing for “massive bi-directional data transfer.” That means if you link a bunch of the chips together, they can act as a huge virtual chip, allowing for increasingly larger deep-learning models.

Oddly, the Nervana NNP uses a lower-precision form of integer math called Flexpoint. “Neural networks are very tolerant to data ‘noise’ and this noise can even help them converge on solutions,” Rao adds. At the same time, using lower-precision numbers allowed designers to increase so-called parallelism, reducing latency and increasing bandwidth.

The goal of this new architecture is to develop a processor that is flexible enough to handle Deep learning workloads and scalable enough to handle high intensity computation requirements by making core hardware components as efficient as possible.

NVIDIA has famously pushed Intel to the side of the road in AI thanks to a sort of lucky accident. As it happens, the GPUs it uses in graphics cards and supercomputers are the best option for training AI algorithms — though not executing them — so companies like Google and Facebook have been using them that way. Meanwhile, Intel’s arch-rival Qualcomm has been working on chips that are exceptionally good at executing AI programs.

Intel is no doubt hoping to change that formula with the Nervana NNP chips, which are efficient at both AI training and execution. The company says it has “multiple generations” of the chips in the pipeline, and obviously has the manufacturing and sales infrastructure needed to pump them out in volume and get them into clients’ hands. Intel is also working on a so-called neuromorphic chip called Loihi that mimics the human brain, and of course has the Myriad X chip designed specifically for machine vision.

While Intel is hoping to at least catch up to NVIDIA, the latter isn’t exactly standing still. It recently released the V100 chip specifically for AI apps, and hired Clément Farabet as VP of AI infrastructure, likely with the aim of making chips that are just as good at running deep learning programs as they are at training them. At the same time, Google has built its own “Tensor Processing Unit” (TPU) that it strictly uses in its own data centers, and IBM has a neuromorphic chip dubbed “True North.” In other words, if you think we’ve reached peak AI, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Head of Facebook’s future lab will leave early next year

It’s only been 18 months since Facebook enticed Google’s advanced technology lead, Regina Dugan, to work at the social network’s secret hardware lab, Building 8. Before starting Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group (ATAP) , Dugan worked as the director of DARPA, the US government’s out-there research agency. Now the executive is moving on yet again. According to a Facebook post, Dugan will be leaving the social network “early next year … to focus on building and leading a new endeavor.”

Ending her resignation post with a quote from President Kennedy (“United, there is little we cannot do…”), Dugan provided no other details, besides the obligatory promise to make sure her transition from Building 8 is as smooth as possible. It’s likely she’ll be leading another big deal initiative in the area of tech research. One of Dugan’s projects at Facebook included a brain interface device that might even “listen” to your skin, so whatever comes next could be just as exciting and out there.

Via: Recode

Source: Regina Dugan/Facebook

Niantic CEO: AR will reach full potential ‘when we get the glasses’

Imagine playing Pokémon Go not with your phone, but with a pair of augmented reality glasses. That is the future that John Hanke, founder and CEO of Niantic (the company behind Pokemon Go) wants. “The potential for AR is immense,” he said at the Wall Street Journal’s D.Live conference today, adding that while AR on phones is a good start, the ultimate goal would be to have augmented reality on glasses.

“The cell phone is great, but the UI is not perfect,” Hanke said. “It’s not the ideal interface for getting information into our minds.” He gave the example of navigating with your phone — you have to keep glancing down at the screen and then up at the real world. “AR has the potential to build interfaces that allow this to happen in a much more natural way,” he said.

Still, he thinks that phone-based AR is a great gateway. “I think it’s awesome to see giants of technology pivot towards AR,” Hanke said, referring to Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore. “If you want to build a product, you build it on a platform that exists,” he said, and mobile is the largest platform currently.

“VR is the ultimate escapist entertainment,” said Hanke. “[But] AR is woven into your daily lives.” He said that AR could be used for easier navigation while driving, or finding your way around an unfamiliar subway system, or when shopping for clothes and furniture. Games like Pokémon Go is a good use case, but the use of AR goes beyond that. “I think AR will make a thousand things we do on our phones significantly better.”

Yet, Hanke says that “AR on the phone is a stepping stone” and believes in the future of AR glasses. That’s even if Google Glass didn’t pan out. “Ultimately, it didn’t do enough,” Hanke admitted about Glass. But he has high hopes that companies like Magic Leap and Microsoft’s HoloLens can help push the tech of AR glasses forward. He gave an interview with Variety that hinted Niantic could be making AR apps for Magic Leap.

“I think it’s a few years out,” he said. “We’ll have to give it multiple tries before it really breaks in.”

eBay will now verify luxury handbags sold on the site

eBay is now offering a new service for sellers of high-end handbags. Today the company launched eBay Authenticate, a program that photographs, lists, sells, ships and verifies the authenticity of luxury handbags from 12 major brands. eBay says the goal is to provide would-be buyers with more confidence in the items they’re about to throw down a lot of money for.

The service covers handbags and wallets valued more than $500 and produced by Balenciaga, Burberry, Céline, Chanel, Christian Dior, Fendi, Goyard, Gucci, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Prada or Valentino. Sellers who want the eBay Authenticate backing just have to send their item to the company for free via FedEx. Then once the bag’s authenticity is verified, eBay will take care of the rest. But not for free, of course. The service will collect 20 percent of the final sale price, which is equal to the commission collected by Poshmark and less than that taken by The RealReal — companies that offer similar services. For buyers, not only do they get a bag marked with an “Authenticity Verified” label, it also comes with a 200 percent money back guarantee.

The service is available now and eBay says it will be expanding it to cover additional brands and items next year. Anyone using eBay Authenticate before January 31st will receive 90 percent of the selling price instead of the regular 80 percent.

Image: eBay

Source: eBay

Volvo’s performance brand launches a 600HP plug-in hybrid

When Volvo declared that its Polestar performance brand would revolve around electric powertrains, it wasn’t kidding. Polestar has unveiled its first car, appropriately named the Polestar 1, and it’s a plug-in hybrid coupe that musters 600HP while managing a surprisingly large 93 miles of electric-only driving. This is an EV that just happens to have a gas engine under the hood, according to Volvo, and the odds are that you might never use fossil fuels during your daily commute. It also promises to be nimble thanks to a continuously adjusted electronic suspension and an electric rear axle to maximize grip. The 1 sounds like it could be a relatively guilt-free way to drive, then. However, it’s almost more important for what it isn’t.

When the 1 rolls off the line in mid-2019 (pre-orders are open now), it’ll be the only gas-powered car Polestar will ever release — all models after that will revolve around pure electric power. The first EV in the mix will be the Polestar 2, a mid-sized model meant to tackle the Tesla Model 3 in late 2019, while the Polestar 3 will be an “SUV-style” electric ride. In that light, the 1 is really just a test run that helps Polestar find its footing before it becomes an electric-only badge.

As it stands, Polestar hopes to break ground beyond the car technology itself. Like its sibling brand Lynk & Co., it’s veering away from conventional ownership. You’ll order your car online, and drive on a 2- to 3-year “all-inclusive” subscription that covers service and renting alternate vehicles. Think of it as a truly comprehensive lease. Moreover, you can use your phone both as a car key and as a gateway to concierge services. There will be physical showrooms (Polestar Spaces), but Volvo is taking a cue from Tesla and won’t actually have lots full of cars for you to buy.

It’s not shocking that Polestar would go this route. Like many automakers, it’s preparing for the possibility that ridesharing and self-driving cars will reduce the need for ownership. And of course, subscriptions give Polestar a constant source of revenue where it might lose out if you rely on third-party garages or make your last car payment. It’s betting that generations familiar Netflix and Spotify will prefer the hassle-free nature of an all-you-can-eat service, even if it costs more than you’d otherwise pay.

Via: Business Insider

Source: Volvo

Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs is building an ‘internet city’ in Toronto

The next step for Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs is making a 2,000 acre smart neighborhood in Toronto. Google Canada will relocate its headquarters to the newly created Quayside neighborhood along the Eastern Waterfront to serve as an anchor for the area, and will invest some $50 million in the first phase of planning and project testing, according to a press release. The entire project could cost as much as $1 billion, Wall Street Journal reports. TechCrunch writes that an additional $1.25 billion will come from Toronto itself. Prime minister Justin Trudeau said that the move is to make for “smarter, greener, more inclusive” cities that he hopes will expand across Toronto and eventually the globe.

The plan is to revamp transportation and infrastructure, create affordable housing opportunities and establish “clear governance policies related to data protection and privacy.” Sidewalk will do so by implementing autonomous transit lines, “climate-positive” energy systems with an eye toward sustainability.

To ensure Toronto residents have a say in how Quayside is built out, there will be a series of town hall meetings starting November 1st. Given Toronto’s tech and startup scene, it’s any wonder why Google picked the Canadian city from a sea of proposals.

Source: Sidewalk Toronto

Control YouTube’s live TV service with Google Home

You can already use a Google Home speaker to control regular YouTube videos if you have a Chromecast device, but what about YouTube TV? You’re set from now on. Google has enabled voice control over its cord-cutting television service from Home speakers, making it possible to change channels without touching your remote. You can ask Google Assistant to play a specific channel or show, and it’s smart enough to recognize fuzzier requests. Tell it to “play the MLB game” and it’ll switch to baseball without needing a specific channel or team, for instance.

Of course, this is only useful if you live in one of the major US cities where YouTube TV is available. Google is sweetening the pot a bit to get you onboard, though: it’s running a “limited time” promo that gives you a free Chromecast if you’re a new subscriber. That still means shelling out for a Home speaker to get the full effect, but it’s easy to see the appeal of switching to your favorite TV show while your hands are full in the kitchen.

Source: Google