Men’s health tech creates shame-free ways to get treatment

About 50 percent of men have erectile dysfunction. That’s not to say that half of all men around you at any given time have ED. The statistic is aggregated across age groups, with the condition being more prevalent in older men — 30 percent of men in their thirties, 40 percent in their forties and so on. But despite all the men it affects (not to mention their partners), ED isn’t something people talk about much. It remains a taboo subject — so much so that men even have trouble broaching it with doctors.

Roman is an online full-service medical portal that will diagnose and prescribe treatment for erectile dysfunction. The service, which launched this week, is available in New York, California, Pennsylvania and Florida. On Roman’s website, you answer a series of questions, have your information reviewed by one of the company’s licensed physicians and — if deemed appropriate by a doctor — get a prescription. You can choose to have your medication filled at a pharmacy of your choosing or by Roman, which ships pills in discreet packaging within 24 hours.

This is the first time in the US that you can go to one digital healthcare provider for each step of the process, from diagnosis and prescription to delivery and follow-ups. Parts of this process have existed online for years now, and in many forms. A company called Pager launched in New York City three years ago with the promise of bringing doctors to people in their homes. Basically, it facilitates house calls. Even then, though, that model still requires in-person contact with a medical professional. There’s also Heal, which offers a service similar to Pager’s, mostly in West Coast cities, while the now defunct Go2Nurse sent nurses to you.

Individual discreetly packaged pills at Roman’s New York City pharmacy.

Then there are telehealth services like Teladoc, MDLive and, more recently, Maven and Lemonaid Health, which let you talk to a doctor via web or video chat. None of these will fill your prescription or deliver your medicine to your home, though. Some startups are dabbling in drug and pill deliveries, but so far they specialize in birth control and personalized vitamins.

Roman’s all-in-one offering is unique on its own, and if expanded to cover more conditions, it could benefit many people. But Roman’s founders are focusing on ED for now. The company’s 26-year-old CEO, Zachariah Reitano, has experienced ED himself as a symptom of a heart condition he discovered when he was 17, and subsequently as a side effect of medication for that. The other two co-founders, Rob Schutz and Saman Rahmanian, have children of their own and want to “be around longer” for their kids, Reitano said.

Erectile dysfunction can act as a “check engine light,” according to Roman co-founder Zachariah Reitano.

“The strength of a man’s erection is a great indicator for his overall health,” Reitano told Engadget. ED often manifests in men who have diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity or depression. It can act as a “check engine light,” he added. Using that as a starting point, the company intends to eventually expand and address other men’s health issues, starting with what appear to be their users’ most common ailments.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen tech companies try to tackle sensitive men’s health issues. In fact, there’s recently been a spate of startups in the space. Earlier this year, Trak introduced its at-home sperm-testing kit, which spares men a potentially embarrassing visit to a fertility clinic. A competitor called Yo also launched around the same time, with a device that uses a smartphone camera to study the user’s sperm motility.

Like Roman, none of these are meant to completely replace doctors. Instead, they’re designed to help men take the first step toward better awareness of their health. In fact, Roman encourages users to go see their doctors by offering discounts if they go for a checkup and send in their results. Discounts will apply to subsequent visits or prescriptions, which you can have delivered to you monthly or quarterly. The company will even schedule blood tests and review your results for free, although the third-party screenings might cost you, depending on your insurance coverage.

Trak’s at-home sperm-testing kit.

Representatives for both Roman and Trak described the sense of shame that can plague men who have to confront issues related to fertility and sex as one of the reasons they created their products. “It’s so often associated with how ‘manly’ you are,” Reitano said of erectile dysfunction. According to him, there is a large proportion of men with ED who are too embarrassed to seek treatment. In some cases, he said, they receive prescriptions from their physicians and go to the pharmacy, but stop short of getting their medication.

Hiding behind a screen, which has enabled trolls and online bullies all over the internet, can also make it easier for these men to seek help. But they must do so carefully. According to the World Health Organization, more than 50 percent of drugs sold online are counterfeit, another pitfall for those looking for discreet treatments.

Of course, not all men find it difficult to talk to their physicians about such issues. But men are less likely than women to see a doctor for preventive care. In fact, according to 2014 CDC findings, men are half as likely as women to see a doctor over a two-year period.

It’s this disparity that’s behind Roman’s decision to focus on men’s health for now. Not only does the company want to make it easier for men experiencing ED to seek treatment, but it also wants to encourage men to be more proactive about their healthcare and develop ongoing relationships with medical providers. Women’s health startups exist too, but for us, seeking help online tends to be more of a convenience than an avoidance mechanism.

With reports indicating that Amazon may be getting into the online pharmacy business, more questions arise. What about security? How safe is your information if these websites are breached? Roman is HIPAA compliant, and Reitano said the company is serious about safeguarding its users’ data. I don’t know how they’re going to do that — determined hackers will find a way to get what they want. But we’ve already given up so much personal information for one-click shopping and easy logins that perhaps the value of convenience and pride is worth the risk. For men privately suffering from these conditions, it may be a small price to pay.

Talk to Pikachu through your Amazon Echo or Google Home

Pikachu is virtually inescapable in the tech world, and that includes the smart speaker in your living room. The Pokémon Company has previewed Pikachu Talk, an app meant for Alexa- and Google Assistant-powered devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home. The name says it all, really: you can hold conversations with the iconic yellow critter. We wouldn’t expect deep discussions when Pikachu can only respond with variants of its name (“pika pika!” isn’t exactly My Dinner With Andre material), but it’s bound to be fun for at least a little while if you’re a Pokémon fan.

You may be waiting a while to try this. Pikachu Talk will be available in Japan before 2017 is out, but it’ll only reach additional areas sometime in 2018. In the meantime, you’ll just have to make do with Pikachu’s many, many other presences on consoles and phones.

Via: IT Media (translated), SoraNews24

Source: The Pokemon Company (PDF, translated)

CBS is suing someone for posting a ‘Gunsmoke’ screenshot online

CBS is suing a photographer for copyright infringement as a means of avoiding paying a copyright infringement claim the photographer filed against the TV network. Yes, you read that correctly. Jon Tannen posted a screenshot of the old show Gunsmoke to one of his social media accounts, according to Torrent Freak and when CBS caught wind, it filed a $150,000 lawsuit (PDF) citing:

“This copyright infringement action arises out of Defendant’s unauthorized use of Plaintiff’s valuable intellectual property. Tannen hypocritically engaged this act of infringement while simultaneously bringing suit against Plaintiff’s sister company, CBS Interactive Inc., claiming it had violated his own copyright.”

That was filed on October 27th. Tannen had filed a suit of his own in February when CBS Interactive allegedly reproduced and put two of his copyrighted photos of a high school football player on “public display” on 247Sports. The amount he asked for? “Up to $150,000 per work” in addition to court costs and attorney fees, according to court papers (PDF). He’s also seeking statutory damages for a second claim in the amount of a minimum $2,500 or up to $25,000 for each instance of false copyright management information and/or removal or alteration of his copyright.

Rather than giving Tannen credit for the photo, CBS apparently put the 247Sports watermark on it and credited itself. And as a way to get out of paying him, CBS is essentially patent trolling, saying that Tannen has “engaged in a pattern and practice of posting copyrighted images to the internet.” Here’s the thing: CBS can’t figure out what damages Tannen caused, and instead just wants statutory compensation of up to $150,000.

As Torrent Freak notes, photographers have been suing media companies for unauthorized use of their work for a bit now. These sorts of cases tend to be settled out of court for PR reasons, but for whatever reason CBS wanted to throw its weight around. Back in 2015, CBS and Paramount sued to keep a Star Trek fan film from happening.

Source: Torrent Freak (1), (2)

Homeland Security wants to scan your face at the border

Maybe Apple has the right idea when it comes to the future of identification, with Face ID built into the new iPhone X. The Department of Homeland Security wants to scan the faces of people entering or leaving the country, without needing to have anyone get out of their cars. The DHS’s Silicon Valley office is hosting an “industry day” on November 14th to find ways to do just that, even if folks are wearing sunglasses and hats or the driver is looking away from the cameras.

“To avoid having travelers in vehicles stop at border crossings, which could create significant traffic delays, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is working to implement a face biometric entry-exit system in a way that poses the least impact on travel and trade,” said the call for presentations. “This call is looking for innovative solutions to capture facial recognition quality photos from travelers in order to facilitate identity checks without requiring occupants to leave the vehicle.”

In the call for proposals, DHS says that photos taken with such a system “will be used to validate the identities of the occupants and document their entry or exit from the United States.” The paper also said that photos must be packaged and transmitted to “compare against DHS holdings to validate occupants’ identities and document entry/exit.” Which sounds a lot like a database of people leaving and entering the country — a requirement that privacy-minded individuals and advocacy groups will likely take issue with. As noted by Gizmodo, DHS has a clause in the request for proposals that asks for “innovative approaches that allow for anonymization of U.S. citizen traveler data who are not ‘in-scope’ for biometric exit and privacy controls that limit the collection of such information.”

Via: Gizmodo

Source: FedBizOpps

iPhone X Shipping Estimates Improve to 3-4 Weeks in Several Countries

iPhone X shipping estimates have improved to 3 to 4 weeks in many countries around the world, including the UK, Australia, Japan, China, and more.

In fact, shipping estimates are better in what appears to be all first wave launch countries in Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East.

At three to four weeks, customers in those countries who place an order today will be able to get their hands on an iPhone X right around the beginning of December. Customers who have already placed an order should also see their arrival times improve, and MacRumors readers are already reporting decreased wait times.

The new shipping estimates are an improvement from the 5 to 6 week estimates we saw just after pre-orders sold out. Estimates have not yet improved in North America, so we’re still seeing 5 to 6 week wait times in the United States, but the better shipping estimates should soon expand to all launch countries.

Apple’s iPhone X is on the verge of launching, and the first orders will arrive to customers in New Zealand and Australia in just a few hours. Apple Stores will be opening at 8:00 a.m. local time across the globe for in-store sales.

Related Roundup: iPhone XBuyer’s Guide: iPhone X (Buy Now)
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Prime Real Estate: The Fight for Space in the iPhone X

As the launch of Apple’s iPhone X approaches tomorrow, eager users are set to enjoy battery life normally reserved for Apple’s Plus-size form factors in a phone more closely resembling a non-Plus variant in its dimensions. The reason for this advancement is not an energy density development, but rather a smaller printed circuit board (PCB) inside the iPhone X, according to a February report from KGI Securities.

深圳的朋友拆了，還真的兩個電池 pic.twitter.com/7wzrBLVsFy

— Anson Chen ☂ (@AnsonChen) November 2, 2017

This smaller PCB is thanks to a technology referred to as substrate-like PCBs, or SLP. Depictions from the report show a PCB with more layers than a traditional iPhone PCB thanks to application processor and RF signal-chain dedicated PCBs married via an interposer, creating a layer stackup nearly twice that of a conventional iPhone PCB.

However, this doesn’t come close to telling the whole story. While a new PCB stackup may offer some more flexibility in component placement, it’s important to remember that the opposite side of the board from the A11 isn’t empty in an iPhone 8. There are plenty of components there too — the NFC chip, display drivers, Wi-Fi combo chips, and power management ICs have all often found their homes directly opposite the workhorse application processor.

After all, 4.7-inch iPhones and their 5.5-inch “Plus” siblings have similarly sized PCBs, with battery capacity suffering as a direct result in the smaller phones. Herein lies the real problem in trying to improve battery life in these smaller form factors.
iPhone 8 Plus PCB rear side, courtesy of iFixit

Reducing Component Footprint

To make the iPhone X PCB smaller, Apple had to devise a way to make the components on the PCBs occupy a smaller aggregate footprint. A quick glance at the above PCB shows that the board is densely populated with ICs and passive components. A natural first question is to ask if components can simply be eliminated.

A great candidate for simplification would be the RF chain. Indeed, previous iPhones have seen up to four variants for different carriers around the globe as they featured switches, filters, and amplifiers focused on the specific bands needed for these region-specific carriers. The number of variants has dwindled over the years to the current number of two and have been distilled into one model that has CDMA network capability and one that doesn’t.

By supporting fewer bands per model across more models, Apple could reduce the overall size of the RF chain and save board space. A glance at the iPhone X tech spec page will show you that’s not what Apple has done, as it supports the same exact bands as the iPhone 8 models across two versions.

Thus we have to look elsewhere than the RF chain for component reduction. Another way to reduce component size would be to press IC suppliers to shrink their own packages. The best example of this may be the original MacBook Air, where Intel provided a smaller package for the CPU to help Apple hit its at-the-time tiny form factor.

If a supplier were to do this, it would certainly make sense to include it in the iPhone 8 or 8 Plus as well, so there would be expected to be some sort of cost or volume pressure on the component preventing it from being more pervasive. An example might be a package that includes an interposer, which are expensive interconnect structures that allow multiple high-density pinout devices to be housed within the same package. This is the very same concept that is said to be used to mate the RF and main digital boards within the iPhone X.

The concept of moving multiple components into the same package is not new. Most of Apple’s A-series chips have stacked DRAM inside of them, and Apple has made efforts to reduce package size with TSMC’s InFO packaging. The Apple Watch employs an even more integrated approach with its System-in-Package (SiP) solution, including a variety of active and passive components within the same lidded enclosure. This is the direction of mobile devices in general.

Deciding whether to house components on a multi-layered PCB or push the level of integration to on-package, or even on-die, is a careful weighing of cost, space savings, and performance impacts. Moving things on-package generally improves performance as signal routes become shorter and require less power to run, but at the expense of things like more complex packaging and substrate solutions.

Putting circuits on-die provides the ultimate performance benefit, but increases die size, which can affect component yield and ultimately cost. The key with a lot of these concepts is understanding that SLP in itself doesn’t really help.

Substrate-like PCBs

When component manufacturers refer to new PCB technology as substrate-like PCBs, they are referring to the interconnect density afforded by the substrates found within IC packages. Pushing feature sizes down to as little as 15 microns, these new PCB types help to get interconnect density to rival IC packages. This is really helpful for high-density routing like memory or PCI busses. Squeezing more routes in on a layer, along with smaller via features also similar to package substrates, will ultimately help to use fewer layers to route a PCB.

Substrate-like PCB with microvias
An iPhone X’s memory is, however, already integrated into the package, and it doesn’t have wide, high-speed data interfaces like you’d find in a traditional desktop platform. Thus, this is likely not the main innovation directly benefitting the iPhone X. The interposer between boards is likely helping out here.

The interposer will allow the digital and RF boards to essentially be designed separately, before being interconnected by the interposer that sits in between them. This type of multiple step approach is common in PCBs, as they often start with non-conductive cores which are then built up with successive metal and dielectric layers, letting the fabrication house add small vias layer by layer for a complex PCB. The interposer extends this concept by integrating an ever tighter interconnect pitch, normally reserved for device packages, and greatly inflating cost.

Circuit boundaries on an iPhone 8 Plus PCB
This separate PCB approach will help Apple achieve better isolation between its digital and RF circuit sections. Indeed, close inspection of an iPhone PCB will show dashed-looking lines separating circuit types from each other. The above image shows the audio and RF sections separated on an iPhone 8 Plus PCB.

Separating these components is important, as interference from neighboring components can cause things like decreased dynamic range in analog and RF circuits, or compromised signal integrity in digital circuits. As a consumer device, radiated signals are also a concern. Apple made efforts to increase self-compatibility and standards compliance when it patented and subsequently introduced and improved sputtered coatings for chips found in its mobile devices.

All of these steps help Apple to place components closer together, and it offers more freedom in where to place them in proximity to each other. However, the board space is still largely consumed. Aggressive efforts may claim perhaps up to 10 percent of the board space back, but more is needed to significantly cut down PCB size. Apple’s engineers need to exploit more than just the X and Y dimensions.

3D Techniques

To truly make advances in the space needed to house all the components in the iPhone, the height of the PCBs must be leveraged as well. 3D and 2.5D IC techniques such as chip stacking, through-silicon vias, interposers and other techniques have gotten a lot of exposure in recent years for device packaging, but they can also apply to PCBs to some extent. PCB vendors have been embedding simple passive components such as resistors, capacitors, and inductors in PCBs for years.

These features were first intrinsic to the process, whether through resistor films, printed winding traces, or using the PCB dielectric as the foundation for a capacitor formed across layers. Embedded physical components are now rising in prominence, with vendors even planning for embedded active components in the not too distant future.

Embedded and formed wafer level components
Though it has gone somewhat unnoticed, Apple has already been employing this technique with its A-series application processors. Several years ago, leaked packaged parts began to show curious voids on the underside where the normal interconnect array would be expected. These voids are likely spaces for passive filtering components to nestle inside the package.

Apple A11 chip with embedded components
This achieves two things. First, it decreases the amount of board space needed to seat all components. Second, it often carries a performance advantage because proximity to the metal inside the device is one of the key performance drivers of active devices such as this.

The capacitors and inductors used to filter and bypass the power on the application processor serve to prevent voltage droop in changing current demand scenarios, as well as provide a bypass route to ground for high frequency noise. Placing it as close to the device as possible cuts down on unwanted parasitics which reduce these components’ effectiveness.

Passive filtering components for the A11 on an iPhone 8 Plus PCB
By extending this concept to PCBs, Apple can utilize any extra space within the PCB to house these components. Examination of the rear of an iPhone 8 Plus PCB shows there are numerous passive components sitting on the rear of the PCB behind the A11.

The more of these components that can be embedded within the board stackup, the more space efficiency the design can have. At an extreme, the PCB would have these components untouched, with an interposer (or perhaps multiple, interspersed with bonding material to match the boards) having a cutout in this area so that the digital and RF boards could be laminated together. This concept in itself presents technical challenges, and a gradual adoption rather than a momentous shift should be expected for embedded components.

What should be clear moving forward is that the internals of PCB stackups could prove to be just as interesting as their surfaces and the x-ray shots of component dies that we have come to expect. Perhaps we’ll get a glimpse at some of these concepts once the teardowns start rolling in.

Related Roundup: iPhone XBuyer’s Guide: iPhone X (Buy Now)
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Qualcomm Accuses Apple of Helping Intel Using Qualcomm Software

Qualcomm on Wednesday filed yet another lawsuit against Apple, this time accusing the company of breaching software licensing terms and using Qualcomm code to help Intel, reports Bloomberg.

According to Qualcomm, Apple breached a contract that dictates the use of software that’s designed to make Qualcomm chips work with other iPhone components. Qualcomm also believes Apple may have used its access to that software to help Intel with its own modem chip development.

Since 2016, Apple has been using LTE chips from both Intel and Qualcomm in an effort to diversify its supply chain and move some production away from Qualcomm. The iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 8, and 8 Plus all use a mix of Qualcomm and Intel chips.

In light of the ongoing legal battle with Qualcomm, Apple is said to be considering eliminating Qualcomm chips from its devices all together, instead adopting chips from Intel and possibly MediaTek. Rumors suggest Qualcomm has been withholding software from Apple that Apple needs to test prototype devices for next year, forcing Apple’s hand.

Qualcomm and Apple have been involved in an escalating legal fight since the beginning of the year after Apple sued Qualcomm for $1 billion. Apple has accused Qualcomm of charging unfair royalties for “technologies they have nothing to do with” and failing to pay for quarterly rebates.

Apple has since stopped paying royalties to Qualcomm until new licensing fees have been worked out, as have Apple suppliers, significantly impacting Qualcomm’s profits.

Qualcomm has since levied several lawsuits against Apple, accusing the company of patent infringement and asking both the United States and China to block imports and exports of some iPhone models.

Tags: lawsuit, Intel, Qualcomm, Patent lawsuits
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YouTube Kids App Gains New Look, Kid Profiles and Updated Parental Controls

Google is updating its YouTube Kids app for iOS devices today to introduce profiles and a dynamic app design that changes based on a child’s age.

With kid profiles, each child who uses the YouTube Kids app on an iOS device can have their own profile, which allows for the custom design feature. When entering a date of birth, the YouTube Kids app will adapt the look of the app to be age appropriate.

Younger children will see less text when using the app, while older children will see additional content on their home screens. Kids can also set their own secret passcodes for their profiles, which can be overridden by parents.

Along with kid profiles, YouTube Kids is gaining a new setup process with clearer parental controls that offer up more detailed information.

Today’s new profile feature is available in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, United States, and Zimbabwe.

The YouTube Kids app is designed to give children a way to watch kid-appropriate YouTube content while filtering out mature content that’s not suitable for younger audiences.

YouTube Kids can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Tag: YouTube
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Don’t lose your texts! Here’s how to save text messages in Android and iOS

Sending text messages — or iMessages, SMS, and MMS messages — is one of the main things people want their smartphones to do, even more so than making phone calls. For many, it’s the primary way they stay in touch with friends and family. We send dozens of messages in a day with silly jokes, important information, images, and videos. All of these messages can be easily forgotten over time, however, or lost because of a simple mistake. After all, many of us have accidentally deleted a text conversation and neglected to back up our smartphones or tablets before an upgrade.

The simplest way to preserve text messages is to save them, but doing so isn’t always as straightforward as it sounds. You can’t save a text as easily as an image, but it’s certainly doable — it’ll just take a few more steps that may be considered convenient. Lucky for you, we’re here to show how to save text messages in Android and iOS. You’ll be sharing texts in no time.

If you use iMessage check out our guide on how to use iMessage in iOS 10 and iOS 11 or head over to our picks for the 15 best iMessage apps.

How to save text messages in iOS

Before you begin saving text messages, there’s one thing you need to install, if you haven’t already: iTunes. Some people have been having an issue with Apple’s music and iOS-syncing program, but for this, you need to be able to make a backup of your iPhone or iPad in iTunes. Yes, you can make and save backups using iCloud, but it’ll be easier to get to your texts (and other data) in the future using iTunes. You can download the latest version from here.

Step 1: Making backups and saving texts using iTunes

Making an iOS backup will save most of the data stored on your device, including iMessages, SMS messages, and MMS messages. If you haven’t already, make a habit out of creating regular backups.

Begin by launching iTunes. Then, connect your iOS device to your computer.
In iTunes, select your iOS device by clicking the corresponding icon in the top-left corner of the window.
Go to the Summary tab — you should see a section labeled Backups on the right-hand side. Under Manually Back Up and Restore, choose Back Up Now. Once the backup process is done, the Latest Backups sections should be updated to show your most recent backup. Alternatively, you can go to Preferences > Devices (Mac) or Edit > Preferences > Devices (Windows) to confirm that the backup was successful.

Step 2: Accessing your backed up messages using iExplorer

Your messages are now saved, but that’s only the first part of the process. The more important part is being able to access them on your computer whenever you want. Enter iExplorer, a premium program for MacOS and Windows that can, among other things, sift through your iTunes backups and retrieve your various messages. It’s $40 for the basic version, but you can also use the demo version for a limited time.

Download iExplorer and follow the steps to install it. Mac users will need to be running OS X 10.9 or higher, while Windows users need Windows 7 or above. Afterward, launch iExplorer.
In iExplorer, find the section labeled Browse iTunes Backups in the left-hand column, and pick the backup you want to pull messages from. Within that backup, select Messages.
iExplorer will bring up your text messages, with a conversation list located on the left. Pick a conversation to see your messages on the right, including any images and videos attached to them. You can also sort the conversation list by name, date, and number of messages.
Once you’ve selected a conversation, you can export them as a PDF, TXT, or CSV file. You can also choose to only export the images or attachments.

Using just iExplorer

The aforementioned iExplorer can pull texts from an iTunes backup, yes, but the program can also pull texts directly from your iOS device. It’s perfect for those who want to avoid iTunes as much as possible.

Start by downloading and installing iExplorer. Afterward, launch the program and it should open on the Device Overview screen.
Next, connect your iPhone or iPad. In the left-hand column, click your device’s name. On the Device Overview screen on the right, click Data > Messages. Keep in mind that if you’ve never made a backup on your computer, you’ll only see an option to Load Backup Data. You need to make a backup within iExplorer first before it can access your messages, so click it to begin the process. Once done, continue to the next step.
iExplorer will load all of the messages currently on your iOS device. The left-hand column will have a conversation list, and clicking any of the conversations will bring them into view in the right-hand column. You can sort conversations by name, date, or number of messages, as well as filter conversations to show only images, videos, or attachments.
You can export entire conversations, including attached media and documents, using the export options below the open conversation. They can be exported as a PDF, TXT, or CSV file.

Are you wondering if there are other ways to backup your iPhone? You can try these six iTunes alternatives.

Editor’s Recommendations

• SMS to PC and back again: Here’s how to send a text message from a computer
• How to block text messages on iOS and Android
• This isn’t the end of printed photos, it’s the golden age
• Virtual assistant comparison: Cortana, Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, Bixby
• How much RAM do you need? It’s probably less than you think

Sit back, relax, and enjoy a ride through the history of self-driving cars

Why it matters to you

Self-driving cars are a dream a long time in the making. Here are the 8 landmark events which got us to the present day.

Seemingly within just a few years, autonomous cars have gone from science fiction fantasy to reality. But while it seems like this technology emerged virtually overnight, the path to self-driving vehicles has taken a whole lot longer than that.

While it’s not easy to compress the near-100 year history of the field into just eight milestones, we’ve done our best. While there are dozens of autonomous vehicle projects which didn’t make our list, here are the major stops on the road that you need to know about as self-driving cars get set to change the face of transport as we know it!

The driverless dream begins

It didn’t take long after the birth of the motorcar for inventors to start thinking about autonomous vehicles. In 1925, the inventor Francis Houdina demonstrates a radio-controlled car, which he drives through the streets of Manhattan without anyone at the steering wheel. According to the New York Times, the radio-controlled vehicle can start its engine, shift gears, and sound its horn, “as if a phantom hand were at the wheel.”

As an amusing aside, Houdina’s name sounded sufficiently like that of the famous escape artist and illusionist Harry Houdini that a lot of people thought this was Houdini’s latest trick. Houdini visited the Houdina Company and got into a physical altercation, during which he broke an electric chandelier.

John McCarthy’s robo-chauffeur

In 1969, John McCarthy — a.k.a. one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence — describes something similar to the modern autonomous vehicle in an essay titled “Computer-Controlled Cars.” McCarthy refers to an “automatic chauffeur,” capable of navigating a public road via a “television camera input that uses the same visual input available to the human driver.”

He writes that users should be able to enter a destination using a keyboard, which would prompt the car to immediately drive them there. Additional commands allow users to change destination, stop at a rest room or restaurant, slow down, or speed up in the case of an emergency. No such vehicle is built, but McCarthy’s essay lays out the mission for other researchers to work toward.

No Hands Across America

In the early 1990s, Carnegie Mellon researcher Dean Pomerleau writes a PhD thesis, describing how neural networks could allow a self-driving vehicle to take in raw images from the road and output steering controls in real time. Pomerleau isn’t the only researcher working on self-driving cars, but his use of neural nets proves way more efficient than alternative attempts to manually divide images into “road” and “non-road” categories.

In 1995, Pomerleau and fellow researcher Todd Jochem take their Navlab self-driving car system on the road. Their bare bones autonomous minivan (they have to control speed and braking) travels 2,797 miles coast-to-coast from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to San Diego, California in a journey the pair dubs “No Hands Across America.”

The Grand Challenge is too challenging

In 2002, DARPA announces its Grand Challenge, offering researchers from top research institutions a $1 million prize if they can build an autonomous vehicle able to navigate 142 miles through the Mojave Desert.

When the challenge kicks off in 2004, none of the 15 competitors are able to complete the course. The “winning” entry makes it less than eight miles in several hours, before catching fire. It’s a damaging blow to the goal of building real self-driving cars.

Parking gets smarter

While autonomous vehicles still seem way in the future in the decade of the 2000s, self-parking systems begin to emerge — demonstrating that sensors and autonomous road technologies are getting close to ready for real world scenarios.

Toyoto’s Japanese Prius hybrid vehicle offers automatic parallel parking assistance from 2003, while Lexus soon adds a similar system for its Lexus LS sedan, Ford incorporates Active Park Assist in 2009, and BMW follows one year later with its own parallel parking assistant.

Google searches for an answer

Starting in 2009, Google begins developing its self-driving car project, now called Waymo, in secret. The project is initially led by Sebastian Thrun, the former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View.

Within a few years, Google announces that its autonomous cars have collectively driven 300,000 miles under computer control without one single accident occurring. In 2014, it reveals a prototype of a driverless car without any steering wheel, gas pedal or brake pedal, thereby being 100 percent autonomous. By the end of last year, more than 2 million miles had been driven by Google’s autonomous car.

The big car manufacturers dive in

By 2013, major automotive companies including General Motors, Ford, Mercedes Benz, BMW, and others are all working on their own self-driving car technologies. Nissan commits to a launch date by announcing that it will release several driverless cars by the year 2020.

Other cars, such as the 2014 Mercedes S-Class, add semi-autonomous features such as self steering, the ability to stay within lanes, accident avoidance, and more. The likes of Tesla and Uber also begin actively exploring self-driving technology, while Apple is rumored to be doing so.

The first autonomous car fatality

Sadly, but inevitably, the first autonomous car fatality takes place. The incident occurs in Florida while a Tesla Model S is in self-driving Autopilot mode. The Tesla’s human occupant dies when the car hits an 18-wheel tractor-trailer, failing to brake in time after the trailer turns in front of it.

The death sparks renewed debate about self-driving cars and some of the technical and ethical issues surrounding them on the road. It’s a setback, but one which underlines the fact that — like it or not — autonomous cars are well and truly here.

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