Amazon Echo devices can now make free calls in North America

All Amazon Echo devices can now make free calls to the US, Canada, and Mexico without any additional hardware.

Amazon has been adding a steady stream of features to its Echo device family dating back to the release of the first Echo back in 2014. In May, the company announced the ability for Echo owners to make free calls to any Alexa-enabled device, including smartphones with the Alexa app. Now, Amazon is expanding that even further.

AFTVnews reports that that Echo owners and those with the Alexa smartphone application can now make free calls to any phone number in the US, Canada or Mexico completely free with no additional hardware required. The other end of the phone call won’t have any idea you’re using an Echo device since the recipient will see it is coming from your phone number. If you’d like, you can opt out of sharing your number, in which case the recipient will see the call is from an “unknown caller.”

This feature will let users dial contacts by either stating the person’s name (if the app has permissions to view contacts) or by simply speaking the phone number. For the Modern Dads out there with multiple users in the same home, you’ll need to switch to a different user profile on the Echo in order to load the correct user’s contact list. Also, note the calling through Alexa cannot be used for emergency numbers. Users will be able to control volume or hang up a call via voice commands as well, which would be a fantastic way to end a dramatic phone call.

One final note is that users will not be able to receive calls from landline phones through Alexa without the Echo Connect plugged into a landline phone at their end.

Are you interested in free calls through your Amazon Echo? Let us know down below!

Amazon Echo

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• Amazon Echo vs. Google Home
• Get the latest Alexa news

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Equifax breach shows signs of a possible state-sponsored hack

Ever since word of the Equifax hack got out, there’s been one lingering question: was it a state-sponsored attack, or just criminals who took advantage of a security hole? At the moment, it looks like it might be the former. Bloomberg sources have shed light on the ongoing investigations into the breach, and they claim there are signs of a government’s involvement. The initial group of hackers weren’t particularly experienced, according to the tipsters, but they handed things over to a more “sophisticated” team. There are even hints that this might be the work of Chinese intelligence agents, although it’s not yet clear who’s responsible.

The insiders say that “many” of the tools used in the hack were Chinese in origin, and that there are similarities to China-backed breaches targeting the health insurance firm Anthem and the US government’s Office of Personnel Management. Also, none of the stolen data has surfaced online — whoever took it wasn’t in a rush to profit. This was a “‘get as much data as you can on every American’ play,” one of Bloomberg’s contacts said.

However, sources aware of federal investigations say only that there’s evidence of a state-sponsored attack, not that it points to any one country. Equifax’s security consulting partner, Mandiant, wrote as recently as September 19th that it couldn’t identify the culprits or where they came from.

As it is, Equifax may have been its own worst enemy in the early days of the breach. The company had hired Mandiant to look into earlier security issues, but there was a he-said-she-said fight over Equifax’s security in the weeks surrounding the hack. Equifax reportedly thought Mandiant had sent rookies to look into the vulnerabilities of its systems, while Mandiant decried what it saw as unpatched systems and sloppy policies. An Equifax spokesperson told Bloomberg that it has had a “professional, highly valuable relationship” with Mandiant and isn’t commenting on its ally’s investigation, but the scoop suggests that the squabble may have hurt the chances of a timely fix for the flaw that compromised 143 million Americans.

Whatever contributed to the incident, there are significant ramifications if there’s a foreign power involved. If it’s China, it’d be a huge violation of the US-China agreement that was supposed to put an end to hacking campaigns. Many didn’t expect either side to fully honor the pact, but this would be an overt violation. And if it’s another known country with state-sponsored hacking, like North Korea or Russia? That wouldn’t be any better, as it would exacerbate already high tensions. No matter who’s behind this, things could get very thorny very quickly.

Source: Bloomberg

YouTube Live playthroughs are now a no-no for Nintendo Creators

Nintendo has updated its Creators Program’s rules to add a new entry: members can no longer broadcast on YouTube Live. The gaming titan has long been extra protective of its properties and regularly issues takedown notices for videos that use its games. It launched the initiative in 2015 as a sort of a compromise with YouTubers who feature its IPs. The program gives streamers a way to get part of their Nintendo videos’ ad revenue, but it looks like the company doesn’t want people earning money for livestreaming their playthroughs.

A lot of fans are obviously unhappy about the change, especially since streamers have to be part of YouTube’s Partner Program to be eligible for Nintendo’s. That means they first have to rack up at least 10,000 public views and get approved for YouTube’s partnership before they can even apply for the developer’s. To be clear, program members can still post “Let’s Play” type videos with commentaries. However, if they want to broadcast live, they can only choose between two options.

They can either livestream on a channel not affiliated with the program or pull their channel out of the initiative entirely. If they opt for the latter, they can then register any of their work that contains a Nintendo IP on a per video basis. Unfortunately, they’ll only get 60 percent of the ad revenue if they opt to register each video separately, whereas member channels get 70 percent.

Via: Gamasutra

Source: Nintendo Creators Program

‘AlphaGo’ doc on Google AI trouncing Go champion returns to NYC for screenings

Why it matters to you

AlphaGo’s victory will either increase your anxiety about AI or further push the idea that the tech will benefit humanity.

AlphaGo, a new documentary about a Google AI triumphing over Go champion Lee Sedol first premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April. It returned to NYC for public screenings on Friday, and will show in Los Angeles next month.

Go is a Chinese board game dating back 2,500 years. The game’s rules are simple are fairly simple, with the objective being to capture more territory than your opponent. However, Go is a prime example of a game that is easy to learn, but difficult to master. The documentary boasts that Go offers more board combinations than there are atoms in the universe.

The game’s complexity meant that computer scientists and Go champions alike believed that AI would not be able to master the game for at least another decade. The Google-owned DeepMind company set out to test that theory by creating an AI that could compete with the world’s best Go players. The company spent several years developing the AlphaGo program, teaching it more than 30 million moves from actual games of Go. From there, the program used machine learning to play against itself, testing strategies and developing new moves. This process was crucial to ensuring the program could keep up with professional players, as the game contains so many possibilities.

Despite the program’s victory over European Go champion Fan Hui, both AlphaGo’s creators and Sedol were skeptical of its chances against a world champion. Sedol went into the game expecting to triumph over the AI. His confidence was warranted, considering Sedol has been playing professionally since the age of 12 and has 18 world championships under his belt.

Even the program’s creators were unsure of their creation’s chances. The documentary shows them nervously watching AI’s five rounds against Lee Sedol.

The program’s victory has raised new questions concerning the role of computers and AI in our daily lives as some fear that such technology might one day make humans increasingly obsolete. Of course, such fears are hardly new. There were similar comments when IBM’s Deep Blue program defeated Russian chess master Garry Kasparov.

While man vs. machine makes for a compelling angle and potential ramifications of AI should not be ignored, the story of AlphaGo is really a story of man vs. man. After all, the program is not some sentient intelligence, but, rather, a tool created by Google’s DeepMind team.

What is universal basic income? A beginner’s guide

Why it matters to you

Universal basic income is one of the fastest growing economic ideas around. Here’s everything (well, some of what) you need to know.

Next to animojis, The Handmaid’s Tale, and millennial abbreviations like “suh” and “TD” that make us feel terrifyingly old and out of touch, universal basic income is likely one of those things you’ve heard people talk about at some point in 2017.

If you’re too busy/lazy to crack a textbook, however, have no fear: we’re ready to fill you in on the massive economic proposal that’s exciting everyone from certain high-ranking government government officials to Elon Musk to that brooding guy/gal in your life who dresses in black and uses phrases like “late-stage capitalism” and “accelerationist critique” far more than seems healthy.

What’s this “universal basic income” I hear so much about?

Universal basic income is a proposed form of monetary social security that would be made available to every citizen or residence of a particular country. There are five essential characteristics inherent in the idea:

• It’s a sum of money paid at regular intervals
• It’s paid in cash money rather than, say, food stamps
• It’s paid to individuals
• It’s paid without any means testing
• It’s paid regardless of how willing (or unwilling) a person is to work.

The exact amount that you’d receive would like vary from country to country, but the figure people keep coming back to in the U.S. is around $10,000 per year. That’s not going to make you rich, but it also means you could meet your basic needs without having to be reliant on work. Not that you’d necessarily have to give that up…

Wait, so you can work as well?

Of course. That’s what we were referring to with the bit about a person’s willingness to work. This isn’t an unemployment benefit, although — should you wish to sit in your apartment and watch every single movie and TV show ever committed to Netflix — you’d be able to do that without starving. If, on the other hand, you were so inclined to work you’d be able to top up the amount of money you receive by adding a paycheck on top of it.

This means that, theoretically, you’d be able to turn down less rewarding jobs that you’d otherwise have to take in order to keep a roof over your head — and perhaps even become a bit more of an entrepreneurial risk-taker, since you’re supported by the safety net of basic income.

Is this a new idea?

Not really. The core ideas behind universal basic income date back centuries. For example, in Thomas More’s 1516 book Utopia there’s a discussion of a scheme to “provide everyone with some means of livelihood” since this proves a much more positive way of building society than simply punishing those who steal food to live by sentencing them to death. Others (such as More’s colleague Johannes Ludovicus Vives, mathematician and political activist Antoine Caritat, English philosopher John Stuart Mill, and more) built on the concept over the following centuries; each developing the idea even further.

More recently, the idea of basic income has had a resurgence in popularity as a possible means of addressing the massive wealth inequality in society.

So if it’s about money, why do people keep talking about robots?

Ah, yes, the robots. Never mentioned in Thomas More’s Utopia as a key element of universal basic income, the reason why robots and AI are now regularly part of the conversation is because of the threat that they pose to many people’s employment. The ratio of robots to workers is increasing dramatically around the world, and the cost of implementing those robots grows ever cheaper, while their skills increase.

According to one 2013 study, an estimated 47 percent of current U.S. jobs will be automated in the next 20 years. With mass unemployment looming, universal basic income could be a radical solution.

Well, that settles it for me then. Who could object to such a brilliant scheme?

Unsurprisingly, there are a few objections to this. The big one, naturally, is who would pay for it. The United States alone has around 250 million adults, all of whom would qualify for basic income. If everyone gets a tax free $10,000 (because it’s not really a basic income if the government takes some of it back in the form of tax) that’s $2.5 trillion per year. Proposals that might help cover this include things like slashing military funding, using carbon taxes, sovereign wealth funds, getting tech giants to help pay for it, and more.

Given the scale of this initiative, however, it would take some radical rejigging of the U.S. economy — and that’s before you even start to think about the folks who might drop out of their professions and stop contributing to the national GDP because they no longer need to work 40 hours a week in a job they dislike.

Can’t the 1 percenters pay?

Well, it’s not quite as straightforward as that. Firstly, $2.5 trillion a year is a lot more than even the likes of Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg have hidden under their mattresses. There are plenty of other questions it raises, too.

For example, would employers use it a subsidy to lower wages for certain oversubscribed jobs? Would it simply make products and services more expensive, in the same way that dual income households caused a rise in property prices? Would this be used as a replacement for all other welfare programs, and could this hurt instead of help people? It’s an intriguing idea in theory, but there’s a whole lot of small print that would have to be worked out — even if it was affordable.

Has anyone actually tried this idea?

A few key studies have been done. One 2012 study carried out in the Republic of Ireland worked out that basic income could be affordable if people were taxed 45 percent of their income. This would lead to overall income increases for the vast majority of people. If you’re talking about actual practical attempts at implementing this, there have been a number of pilot schemes around the world.

In Ontario, three communities have been selected for one such scheme, which will be trialled over the next three years. As part of the trial, 4,000 individuals between ages 18 to 64 will receive a minimum income of that meet certain criteria, and provide them with a minimum income despite their employment status of CA$16,989 ($13,685) or CA $24,027 ($19,361), minus 50 percent of their earnings from work. No-one has yet tried to roll this out on a grand scale, though.

Watch this space.

How to free up space on your iPhone

You used to get around 12GB of space on a 16GB iPhone, which simply isn’t enough for most people, so we were pleased when Apple bumped up the storage in the basic model of the iPhone 7 to 32GB. The company took things a step further with the introduction of the iPhone 8, which starts at 64GB. That’s a decent amount of room to grow into, but photos, music, and mysterious files can eat up all the space before you know it. That’s why, whatever model you have, it’s good to know how to free up space on your iPhone.

The first place to check when you’re running low on space is Settings > General > iPhone Storage. The bar at the top allows you to see how much storage is being used and what is using it at a glance. Different categories — including Apps, Mail, Photos, Messages, and Other — are color-coded.

Downsize your apps and games list

If you scroll down in Settings > General > iPhone Storage, you can see which apps and games are using the most space. The list is organized with the largest at the top, and listed beneath each entry is the last time you used it. If you click on an app, you’ll find a breakdown of the app size and the size of the documents and data associated with it.

Start by looking for apps that say Never Used and consider tapping them and selecting Delete App. It’s also worth looking for the Offload Unused Apps option at the top and tapping Enable to turn it on. This will automatically remove unused apps, but keep the documents and data associated with it, so if you reinstall an app later, you’ll retain everything you had before. You can also find this option in Settings > [Your Apple ID] > iTunes & App Store — simply scroll to the bottom to find the toggle.

If you’re looking for additional options, check out our guide on how to delete iPhone apps.

Limit the size of photos and videos

Photos and videos that you shot yourself are likely taking up a lot of space on your iPhone. It’s a shame not to take full advantage of your camera’s features, but you should turn some of them off if you’re worried about space.

Start with Live Photos, because each one is a three-second video, instead of a photo. Tap the three concentric, yellow circles located at the top of the screen in the Camera app. When Live Photos are turned off, the circles should be white. Photos are better with HDR on, but if you’re going to use the feature, then go to Settings > Camera and turn Keep Normal Photo off. Here, you can also toggle Auto HDR off, if you prefer.

You should avoid recording 4K or slow-motion video if you have limited space, because both will take up a lot of storage space compared to ordinary video. You can save space by reducing the resolution and frame rate in Settings > Camera > Record Video or Record Slo-mo.

Back up in the cloud

A better way to cope with storage-hungry photos and videos is to back them up in the cloud. Apple’s built-in solution is iCloud. You can manage it via Settings > [Your Apple ID] > iCloud, where you’ll find a breakdown of your storage space and a list of all the apps that are currently using iCloud for backup purposes. Tap Photos and make sure iCloud Photo Library is toggled on, then tick Optimize iPhone Storage, so that full-resolution versions are replaced by optimized ones when you’re running low on space. And don’t worry — the full-resolution version will be kept in iCloud and can always be downloaded later.

Thankfully, there are lots of different options beyond iCloud that will allow you to manually or automatically back up your photos and videos. We recommend Google Photos because it’s straightforward and free. You can also get some free storage space with Dropbox or OneDrive.

Consult our roundup of the best free cloud storage apps for more ideas.

Stream music and movies

Forget about downloading music, TV shows, or movies onto your iPhone. Use streaming services instead. Spotify and Netflix are our favorites, but there are loads of other to choose from. Apple Music and SoundCloud are great for music lovers, while Amazon Video, Hulu, and HBO Go make the perfect companion for those looking for movies or TV. If you use them when you’re out and about, just make sure that you keep an eye on your data usage.

Delete old messages and attachments

You should sift through your messages and delete anything unimportant, especially if it has an attachment. If you don’t want to go through the hassle of doing this manually, then go into Settings > Messages and scroll down to Message History and tap Keep Messages. Afterward, set it to 30 Days. It’s even worth deleting old voicemails, call history, and unused contacts.

You’ll also find the option to Review Large Attachments in Settings > General > iPhone Storage, which allows you to go through them and get rid of any you don’t need .

Purge old files

If you have any old documents, videos, or other files on your iPhone that you can’t live without, it’s time to get rid of them. Remember to look inside specific apps. Check in iBooks, for example, and get rid of anything you’ve already read. Sometimes you can end up with duplicates or old files you’ve forgotten about if you use a photo-editing app or a document scanner.

Turn off automatic downloads

Look in Settings > [Your Apple ID] > iTunes & App Store and make sure that automatic downloads for Music, Apps, and Books & Audiobooks are turned off. If you have these turned on, then you’ll automatically download content that you bought on other devices that use the same Apple ID. We recommend leaving Updates toggled on because app updates can bring extra security and bug fixes that you don’t want to miss out on.

Clear browsing data

Your browsing history and website data builds up over time, but it’s easy to get rid of. Go to Settings > Safari, scroll down, and tap Clear History and Website Data. It probably won’t make a huge difference, but if you’ve never done it before, then it could clear a decent chunk of storage.

Restore your iPhone

If you’ve worked through all our space-saving tips on your iPhone and you’re still short of space, there’s one last thing you can try. Back up your iPhone, wipe it, and then restore the backup. This will often reduce the size of the mysterious “Other” category listed in your storage breakdown.

To do so, go to Settings > General > Reset and choose Erase All Content and Settings > Back Up Then Erase, or consult our guide on how to factory reset your iPhone.

These med students are learning how to dissect human bodies in virtual reality

Why it matters to you

From surgery to spaceflight, VR simulations can offer an unmatched learning experience.

For centuries, the practice of dissecting cadavers is how future doctors have learned about the anatomy of the human body. Medical students at the University of California San Francisco, however, are using virtual reality training as an optional component in their first-year curriculum, allowing them to explore the human body before ever setting foot in an actual lab.

Knowledge of anatomy is the foundation of all medical knowledge, and VR lets med students get a more complete understanding of the complex structures that make up our bodies.

Assistant Professor of Anatomy Derek Harmon, PhD, told Science Blog that he thinks it’s an important addition to the school’s curriculum. “Virtual reality is exciting for me as an anatomy instructor because it is going to help enhance the students’ understanding of the arrangement of the body,” he said. “Because the better they know the body, the better physicians they will end up being for the rest of their careers.”

Textbooks and actual dissections of cadavers are useful, but VR adds a whole new dimension to the instruction. Students can remove each layer individually, from the skin all the way down to bones. The VR interface allows them to better understand the interaction between muscles, organs, nerves, and blood vessels. “It’s a learning experience almost like putting a puzzle together,” Harmon said.

The VR simulation learning is part of UCSF’s Bridges Curriculum, a revolutionary new program at the School of Medicine that emphasizes new ways of looking at the interconnected nature of health care.

Surgeons have already broadcast actual operations in VR, and some can even prep for upcoming procedures by practicing every step in VR before they even enter operating room.

Kimberly Topp, a PhD and Professor of Physical Therapy and Anatomy at UCSF, says there are many more real-world medical experiences that VR can simulate, such as what a doctor might encounter in an emergency room. “It is hard to simulate a realistic trauma experience where nobody is going to get hurt,” she said. “This is a great way to get students more comfortable with the actual clinical environment that they are headed into.”

“People are really wowed when using virtual reality. That is how I think it is going to help students remember the anatomy that is so dense in their education,” she added.

On the other hand, for the rest of us who may not be up for the rigors of medical school, we can always buckle on an Oculus Rift headset and give Surgeon Simulator a try.

Security firm reports vulnerabilities within Apple firmware affecting Macs

Why it matters to you

Nearly 3,000 Mac computers were found to be vulnerable to firmware exploits.

A team of researchers at Duo Security revealed that there are some issues with Apple’s application of firmware updates, which has resulted in some users being left with out of date EFI firmware.

The researchers analyzed 73,000 Mac devices and found that Apple’s security updating process was not working as the company intended. They found that a little over four percent of those computers were running with outdated Apple firmware, despite having received recent updates. Duo’s report didn’t give the exact cause of the problem, but simply noted that for “some reason” the EFI firmware was not being updated when the computers in question received security or OS updates.

Firmware is the software which runs underneath the OS and controls the computer when it is booting up. Security issues within firmware can be difficult to notice, which often makes it a target for more advanced hackers. Duo noted that average home users have little reason for concern, due to the fact that the complexity of firmware attacks usually relegates hackers to target enterprises and other valuable entities.

“If you’re a home user with a Mac that falls into one of the above categories as their personal computing device, then the sky isn’t falling for you, in our opinion,” Duo said. “Attacks against EFI have so far been part of the toolkit used by sophisticated adversaries who have specific high value targets in their sights.”

Duo did caution that enterprise users should take some extra precautions. In addition to ensuring that all their Macs ran the latest version of Mac OS, the security company advised phasing out, or at least isolating, those computers which were not eligible for the most recent security updates.

For its part, Apple has worked to improve its firmware and patch security vulnerabilities as they arise.

“We appreciate Duo’s work on this industry-wide issue and noting Apple’s leading approach to this challenge,” an Apple spokesperson told Gizmodo. “Apple continues to work diligently in the area of firmware security and we’re always exploring ways to make our systems even more secure. In order to provide a safer and more secure experience in this area, macOS High Sierra automatically validates Mac firmware weekly.”

An edible sensor could help you keep tabs on the freshness of your food

Why it matters to you

Monitoring the freshness of your food hasn’t always been the easiest task. But these biodegradable sensors could help.

Keeping tabs on the viability of your ingredients is obviously a top priority for chefs, both professional and amateur, and now you can both keep and eat said tabs. Researchers from ETH Zurich have developed biodegradable microsensors that might just “provide the vital link between food products and the Internet of Things.” The tiny sensors are not only incredibly thin, but also biocompatible and biodegradable, which means that you can, in fact, eat them.

As it stands, it’s somewhat difficult to continually test foodstuffs for freshness. After all, it doesn’t seem particularly efficient — or pleasant — to send an employee around the fish market, smelling every cut to ensure that it’s still fresh enough to be sold. But now, there’s a tech-forward solution. Thanks to this 16-micrometer-thick sensor (a human hair is 100 micrometers thick), food professionals (or you!) are able to check the temperature of the food from afar. This allows for constant and wireless monitoring of food temperatures, which is a key component to freshness, especially during transport.

The sensor itself is made of magnesium, which the team points out is “an important part of our diet,” and other parts of the sensor are composed of silicon and nitride, as well as a compostable polymer based on corn and potato starch. So really, you can eat the whole thing. Of course, you wouldn’t necessarily want to snack on a bag of them, but ingesting one of these things wouldn’t do you any harm.

Aside from being edible, the sensor is also incredibly malleable. You could bend, stretch, or even crumple it up, and it would still be capable of determining the temperature of your food.

According to Giovanni Salvatore, who led the research, producing biocompatible microsensors has historically been a rather time-consuming and expensive process. However, as technology becomes more advanced, many of the obstacles to the widespread proliferation of these tools could be rendered obsolete. “Once the price of biosensors falls enough, they could be used virtually anywhere,” Salvatore said in a release. Similarly, “Their use would not be limited to temperature measurement either: similar microsensors could be deployed to monitor pressure, gas build-up and UV exposure.”

Best HOTAS Controller for PlayStation VR

Is there a HOTAS controller I can use with PlayStation VR?

Hands On Throttle And Stick (HOTAS) controllers are extremely popular in the flight simulator community and are now gaining a lot of traction in the VR world. These controllers essentially give you a ton of control over your airplane or spaceship, and you can also look and feel like a boss while playing. HOTAS controllers will usually have a familiar joystick for one hand and a throttle for the other.

With rumors of War Thunder and Elite: Dangerous coming to PlayStation VR, and with a few VR games already supported, including EVE: Valkyrie and Starblood Arena, you might be tempted to set up a cockpit in your VR space. Here’s the best — and so far really the only — one you’ll want to get for PlayStation VR.

Read more at VRHeads!