Alphabet brings burritos-by-drone delivery to Australia

Apparently, Project Wing brought airborne burritos to Virginia Tech last year as preparation for something bigger. Alphabet X’s experimental project is now dropping burritos (and medicine) from the skies of Australia as part of a series of tests to figure out how to run a drone delivery service efficiently. Project Wing Co-Lead James Ryan Burgess said they’ve teamed up with Australia Mexican food chain Guzman y Gomez and pharmacy chain Chemist Warehouse to drop off orders to testers living in a rural area. These testers usually have to take a 40-minute round trip by car to get to the nearest grocery or restaurant, making them the perfect subjects for Wing’s experiments.

Project Wing has to conduct these tests, because while it has a system that can pre-configure routes, its drones rely on on-board sensors to avoid obstacles. The more tests the sensors go through, the better they become at protecting the UAVs from collision. Of course, the drones don’t have tall buildings to look out for in a rural setting, but baby steps are a must.

Burgess said dropping off burritos will help them fine tune the logistics of getting food to customers while it’s still hot. It’ll also help them figure out how much time to give restos to cook, pack and load food. Delivering over-the-counter meds, vitamins and other items you can buy from drugstores, on the other hand, will help them conjure up the perfect way to pack different items and to optimize how many items can be delivered per flight.

He explained:

“The information we gather from both of these test partners will help us build a system so that merchants of all kinds can focus on what they’re good at  — like making food or helping people feel healthier  —  rather than being distracted by complex delivery logistics.”

Going by what he said, Project Wing most likely intends to conduct more tests… hopefully, in other parts of the globe, so more people can experience the thrill of waiting for airborne burritos.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: X

Google Maps ditches misleading walking calorie counter

Google is ditching a planned feature for Maps following criticism on social media. The update was tied to directions and displayed how many calories you’d burn if you were to walk to your destination. By clicking on the walking option, you’d even be shown the calories in equivalence to mini cupcakes (of all things). Chances are, the search juggernaut was trying to encourage people to take the active route as opposed to driving. But, its attempt at promoting a healthy lifestyle didn’t go down well online. A number of people lambasted the feature on Twitter, claiming it would “shame” and even “trigger” those with eating disorders.

Taking note of the negative reaction, Google is now dumping the experiment. It confirmed to Engadget that the update was briefly tested on iOS, and has been abandoned based on user feedback.

I guess Google maps now automatically shows you how many calories you’d burn if you walk somewhere instead of driving pic.twitter.com/eixqCh00rn

— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) October 17, 2017

As Politico’s Taylor Lorenz noted in her tweets, there was no way to turn off the feature. Lorenz also claimed that using pink cupcakes as the unit of measurement was “lowkey aimed at women.” Others pointed out that Maps wasn’t the appropriate place for the update. After all, there are plenty of fitness and calorie counting apps that keep track of your activity and consumption — again emphasizing how misplaced the feature was. Maybe now Google will stick to its strengths, providing updates (like parking guides, videos, and Q&A comments) that are genuinely useful. It can save the sweet treats for Android.

any woman could have told you this is a supremely bad thing a) to do b) to not be able to turn off https://t.co/QKLv74R2Lw

— Casey Johnston (@caseyjohnston) October 17, 2017

Source: Taylor Lorenz (Twitter)

BBC iPlayer Radio now plays nice with Carplay and Android Auto

For many, BBC radio is synonymous with driving. When you’re stuck in a traffic jam, holiday road trip or boring post-work commute, sometimes the best company is a never-ending playlist punctuated with cheerful DJ chatter. For the longest time, that’s meant FM airwaves, but now of course you can use the iPlayer Radio app too. Today, the BBC is going one step further with support for Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto platforms. If you have a compatible in-car entertainment system, or don’t mind sticking your Android phone to the dashboard, you can now use these large, touch-friendly interfaces while you’re out on the road.

Both the CarPlay and Android Auto versions of iPlayer Radio come with four main sections. “Stations” lists all of the national and local stations broadcasting live across the UK. Downloads, meanwhile, is an offline playlist filled with shows and performances that you’ve previously bookmarked online or through the app. Listen Later contains all the episodes you’ve added to, well, Listen Later (it’s supposed to be like your very own station) and Following is a shortcut to shows you’ve subscribed to. Both platforms have simplified, touch-friendly layouts, and with Android Auto you can use your voice to move around the menus.

Via: Gizmodo UK

Face Detection in Google Photos App Now Recognizes Cats and Dogs by Name

Google updated its Photos app on Monday with a new facial recognition feature that lets users organize pictures of their family pets more easily.

Since it was launched, Google Photos has employed facial recognition to identify humans and help users sort their snaps by friend or family member, similar to how Faces works in Apple Photos.

The latest version of Google’s own photos app builds on its face detection feature by recognizing cats and dogs by name, so users no longer need to type in “cat” or “dog” into the search field to bring up the relevant pictures.

Going forward, simply labeling a photo of a furry friend will cause any other photos of the cat or dog to be grouped under that name, just like they do for people.

In addition to the pet grouping feature, Google says users can also now “search by breed to see photos of your Poodle or Maine Coon”, or even search using a single cat or dog emoji.

The new pet detection naturally feeds into the app’s automated movie generator, found in the Assistant view, and users can create their own short films by tapping on the new photo group of their pet, selecting their favorite pictures, and tapping the “+” symbol.

Google has also included six “pet-inspired songs” to choose from in the movie editor to be twinned with four-legged family collections.

Google Photos is a free download for iPhone and iPad available on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tag: Google Photos
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Huffington: Uber ‘very likely’ to close Softbank deal in the next week

An Uber-Softbank deal is “very likely” to occur within the next week, according to Arianna Huffington, who spoke at Wall Street Journal’s D.Live event in Laguna Beach, CA. She wouldn’t disclose the price — it seems they’re still working out the details — but she did say that the Softbank investment would involve primary investing at the last valuation of the company, as well as secondary investing in additional shares. This means that the Japanese company could end up with at least 14 percent of Uber’s shares.

“The Softbank investment is so important,” said Huffington, adding that Uber has lost quite a lot of money because of the competition (aka Lyft). “Having them on your cap table is very important when they’re also investing in so many of our competitors around the world,” she added, referring to rivals like Singapore’s Grab and China’s Didi Chuxing. As for whether she’s concerned about Softbank investing in Uber’s competitors, she waved it off, saying “This is not marriage; this is a business.”

Huffington also talked about how Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s new CEO, is making the company leaner by ending problems that burn too much cash, such as its car leasing program. It’s part of the grand preparation plan for Uber’s eventual IPO in 2019.

She also went on to talk about Uber and how it’s attempting to reshape its culture following the accusations of sexual harassment and the ousting of former CEO Travis Kalanick. “The company needs to stand for something beyond growth,” she said, adding that “the worship at the altar of hyper growth” has led to company-wide burnout, which then leads to people acting out in ways they shouldn’t. “You then forget to build the culture,” she said. “Culture is the immune system of a company […] When the culture is so driven by growth, there are other consequences.”

Yet, she said that even at the lowest moment in the company’s history, people still loved the product. “They didn’t love the company, but they loved the product,” Huffington said. “Now Dara’s goal is to get people to love the company, and not just the product.”

Lawsuit claims Essential stole modular accessory tech

Andy Rubin’s Essential Products is facing more legal troubles. The ex-Android chief’s company previously found itself in hot water with smartphone accessory maker Spigen over its use of the “Essential” name. Now — less than two months since the release of the Essential Phone — it’s getting sued for allegedly stealing trade secrets relating to its modular connector, reports Reuters. Keyssa, the company behind the lawsuit, is best known for developing a wireless standard that lets you make gigabit-sized transfers in seconds. Its backers include Nest co-founder Tony Fadell, Samsung, and Playground Global (the venture fund Rubin heads).

But, Essential’s Phone beat Keyssa to the punch by launching with a magnetic connector for modular parts and wireless data transfers in September. Keyssa claims Essential held design and tech talks with it for 10 months, before dumping it in favor of its rival SiBEAM’s chip in November 2016. The lawsuit alleges that the Essential Phone carries many of the wireless connector elements Keyssa developed specifically for handsets — from antenna designs to methods of testing phones during production. Keyssa said it’s been working on its tech since 2009, and signed a non-disclosure agreement blocking Essential from using its feature. Now, it’s taking the matter to a San Francisco federal court.

Essential’s path to its debut smartphone has been a bumpy one, plagued by delays, privacy blunders, and trademark disputes. Just when it thought it was in the clear, it’s staring down yet another obstacle.

Source: Reuters

Greenpeace Gives Apple a B- in ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’

Greenpeace today published its Guide to Greener Electronics, which provides insight into the environmental practices of 17 major companies including Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, Samsung, and more.

Among all of the companies Greenpeace evaluated for energy, resource consumption, and chemicals, Apple received the second best marks, trailing behind only Fairphone, a device designed with minimal environmental impact in mind.

Apple was lauded for its commitment to renewable energy and reducing supply chain emissions and its efforts to be transparent about the chemicals that are used in its products.

According to Greenpeace, Apple is the only company to have set a renewable energy goal for its supply chain, and several of its suppliers have already committed to using 100 percent renewable energy.

Apple is also committed to renewable energy at its own facilities and is ultimately aiming for a closed-loop supply chain. As for chemicals, Apple is one of two companies (along with Google) that have eliminated all brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride.

Apple’s overall Greenpeace “grade” was a B-, but broken down, the company received an A- for the aforementioned environmental efforts, a B for chemicals, and a C for resources, due in large part to the lack of repairability of its devices and its use of proprietary parts.

Apple continues to design products with proprietary parts to limit access and actively lobbies against right to repair legislation in New York and Nebraska.

It is reported that Apple and Sony have blocked attempts to strengthen environmental electronics standards that would encourage device designs that are easier to repair, upgrade, and disassemble for recycling.

Greenpeace has previously targeted Apple in a repairability campaign to combat planned obsolescence, accusing Apple’s difficult-to-repair devices of shortening device lifespan and leading to more electronic waste. Apple is not likely to make changes to the way its devices are manufactured to make them easier for third-parties to repair, but its efforts towards a closed-loop supply chain could eventually result in far less waste.

Earlier this year, in Greenpeace’s annual green report, Apple was ranked the most environmentally friendly technology company in the world. That report focused on factors like energy transparency, energy efficiency, renewable energy commitment, and advocacy.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tags: Greenpeace, Apple environment, Right to Repair
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Qualcomm has managed to fits its once briefcase-sized 5G modem into a phone

Qualcomm has a 5G modem that works in an actual phone.

Back at Mobile World Congress in February, I walked through Qualcomm’s sprawling show floor exhibit and was struck by the emphasis being paid to a technology that, at least at the time, had little form or concrete narrative.

5G is a term thrown around to denote the next generation of wireless technology, combining the benefits of today’s high-speed 4G LTE with something faster, more ubiquitous, and significantly cheaper. While it won’t be available to the public until, at the earliest, 2019, companies like Qualcomm are already preparing for the shift.

This is a 5G modem. Qualcomm has until 2019 to shrink it to fit inside a phone. #mwc17 pic.twitter.com/fMNfNpALP1

— Daniel Bader (@journeydan) February 28, 2017

Almost exactly a year ago, the company announced its first 5G modem, dubbed X50. It was a prototype product, using an unfinished specification of an unproven wireless technology, but it was, in the company’s opinion, an important first step towards proving 5G was a thing. At the time, the modem was briefcase-sized, and was shown off in a glass display.

Today, the company has announced that same product, the X50 modem, has not only been shrunk down to phone-appropriate dimensions, but it’s working inside Qualcomm’s first 5G reference smartphone.

Using the 5G chip, Qualcomm was able to achieve gigabit speeds using “several 100MHz 5G carriers” — carriers being the air channels over which the information flows, not the wireless carriers you pay every month for service — in the 28GHz millimeter wave spectrum. Such high frequencies have enormous capacity advantages to the sub-3GHz ones we use for LTE today, but can only travel fractions of the same distance, and require massive localized antennas to push the signal. It’s also really hard for a phone — with such small antennas — to send and receive signals at those high frequencies.

When 5G networks launch in 2019, Qualcomm envisions its X50 chip side the Android phones that lead the transition. It also expects the technology to co-exist with 4G LTE for a number of years, just as we still use 3G signals for fallback today when LTE isn’t available. But Qualcomm representative Sherif Hanna says that in the early days of 5G, the technology will act as a sort of “turbo mode” for existing 4G, working side by side to add capacity to existing networks.

Eventually, though, 5G is expected to offer speeds ten times what we can currently achieve with the now-mature LTE standard, and Qualcomm envisions a time in the U.S. where wireless bandwidth is so plentiful that unlimited plans will be truly unlimited, not throttled after a certain amount of usage is hit.

For now, though, Qualcomm, despite its contentious legal situation with Apple, as well as accusations of anti-competitive practices, is forging ahead with its 5G strategy, hoping to continue its dominance in an industry that is slowly clawing its way out of paying it licensing fees for CDMA.

Until then, though, we’ll still have fake 5G.

Qualcomm just made it way easier for phone makers to support T-Mobile’s 600Mhz network

Your next phone will probably support a T-Mobile’s push for better coverage in the U.S.

A lot of T-Mobile customers were upset that Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8 didn’t support T-Mobile’s burgeoning low-band 600MHz network; many of those same people wondered why Apple’s iPhone 8 and upcoming iPhone X lack the same capabilities.

In fact, the LG V30 is the only phone to support T-Mobile’s new network, which pushes LTE signals further and penetrates walls better than even the widely-used 700MHz spectrum used by three of the big four carriers in the U.S. today.

That’s all about to change. Qualcomm is releasing a number of components to phone manufacturers as part of its RF Front-End portfolio that include support for Band 71, which comprises the 600MHz band. These parts, which include a Low-Band Power Amplifier Module, an Adaptive Aperture Tuner, along with Duplexer and Diversity Receive (DRX) Filter, work with the baseband inside any number of Snapdragon chips from the 200, 400, 600, and 800 series to support Band 71.

So how did LG get support for it so early? A Qualcomm rep I spoke to wouldn’t speculate, but said that it’s likely using a combination of off-the-shelf and custom components to make it happen. Starting in early 2018, most phones released in the U.S. will support Band 71, since manufacturers are more inclined to add something when they don’t have to work too hard to achieve it.

While T-Mobile owns nearly half of the 600MHz spectrum in the U.S., Band 71 will also be used in the IoT and enterprise fields to enhance long-range LTE communications.

Earlier this year, T-Mobile CEO John Legere said that two products, one by LG and another from Samsung, would support its 600MHz network by year’s end. That Samsung device has yet to materialize. Legere also said that the network would roll out to rural parts of the U.S. not currently served by its existing LTE network.

LG V30

• LG V30 review: The no-BS flagship
• Top LG V30 camera features
• Full LG V30 specs
• LG V30 vs. G6 vs. GS8
• The V30 is the first phone to support 600MHz spectrum
• Join our LG V30 forums

Grab a $50 Google Play Gift Card for just $45 at Amazon

Your next Android app just got more affordable!

Is this deal for me?

Google Play has millions of great apps, some of which are free and others of which you have to pay to use. Buying apps can be expensive, so it’s best to do it when they are on sale, but not every app goes on sale. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to save a little bit on all your app purchases?

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There is a limit of one card per customer, and they are only valid in the U.S. You will have to wait for the gift card to be mailed to you, but the shipping is free and you can have it in as little as two days.

TL;DR

• What makes this deal worth considering? – Google Play Gift Cards very rarely go on sale, so even being able to save $5 is a great deal.
• Things to know before you buy! – There is a limit of 1 per customer, and you will have to wait for a physical gift card to ship to you. This will only work in the United States.

See at Amazon

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