Snapchat Plans Radical Overhaul to Make Social Platform Easier to Understand

Longtime Snapchat users should prepare themselves for a radical overhaul of the way the mobile app works, based on comments made by Snap CEO Evan Spiegel in his earnings letter to investors on Tuesday.

With the company falling short of lowered projections for growth, Snap put much of the blame on the fact that the social platform is simply a mystery to outsiders. “One thing we have heard over the years is that Snapchat is difficult to understand or hard to use,” wrote Spiegel. “Our team has been working on responding to this feedback.”

Few details were provided on the planned redesign, but Snapchat said it was working on an algorithm to show people a more personalized version of the stories they might want to see.

“We are developing a new solution that provides each of our 178 million daily active users with their own Stories experience,” wrote Spiegel, “leveraging the tremendous benefits of machine learning without compromising the editorial integrity of the Stories platform that we have worked so hard to build.”

Spiegel said that the changes would make it easier for users to see content from people who aren’t their friends, but that private conversations between close friends would remain a bulwark of the app.

The esoteric nature of the social platform has apparently moved Snap to make these drastic changes, but the danger is that it could alienate existing users. However, Spiegel said the company was willing to bear the consequences.

“There is a strong likelihood that the redesign of our application will be disruptive to our business in the short term, and we don’t yet know how the behavior of our community will change when they begin to use our updated application,” Spiegel said in his prepared remarks to investors. “We’re willing to take that risk for what we believe are substantial long-term benefits to our business.”

Snap’s third quarter revenue was $207.9 million, not the $235.5 million analysts had predicted. Shares fell as much as 22 percent in extended trading as a result, before recovering slightly to trade down 17 percent.

Sales estimates for Snap have been dropping since its March initial public offering, with the company apparently unable to clearly explain to advertisers how Snapchat works, despite providing investors with detailed instructions during its initial PO. The lack of a news feed and no ability to share, like, or comment on posts has also proved a stumbling block.

Against this backdrop, Facebook’s habit of copying Snapchat features and building them into its own apps has only weakened the uniqueness of Snap’s offering in the social media landscape – a key factor of the company’s business model. It remains to be seen exactly what a redesign will mean for Snapchat and its users, and no timeline for the rollout has been made public.

Tags: Snapchat, Snap
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Warby Parker App Uses iPhone X TrueDepth Camera to Find Your Ideal Specs

Spectacles company Warby Parker recently updated its mobile app to include a novel implementation of Apple’s face recognition technology exclusive to the iPhone X.

The glasses app uses the smartphone’s front-facing TrueDepth camera to map the user’s face and create an ideal fit for a new set of frames.

Warby Parker using the iPhone X TrueDepth camera is super super smart: pic.twitter.com/LgHpO8hfUx

— Joanna Stern (@JoannaStern) November 7, 2017

Apple’s Face ID authentication works by projecting 30,000 dots on the surface of a person’s face, accurately mapping its curvature and unique features.

The camera’s sensors also capture the data in three dimensions, and it’s this technology in particular that the glasses app uses to recommend to the user a series of frames that it thinks will fit their facial structure.

The only failing of the app is that it doesn’t (yet) place the spectacles on the user’s face, Snapchat-style, to let the customer see what they look like wearing them.

Apple’s ARKit augmented reality framework would seem to be the obvious solution to this lack. We’ve reached out to Warby Parker to ask if they have any plans to make use of it, and will update this article if we hear back.

(Via Mashable.)

Related Roundup: iPhone XBuyer’s Guide: iPhone X (Buy Now)
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Twitterrific for Mac 5.2 Brings Experimental Twitter Poll Detection Feature

Twitterrific for Mac received a new update on Tuesday, adding a host of new features and improvements including the ability to quickly search for a user, restoration of Searches and Lists between launches, improved syncing of the reading position, and a unique experimental feature – Twitter poll detection.

According to the developer’s notes, Twitterrific now attempts to automatically detect when a tweet in the user’s feed contains a poll and displays a new status button at the bottom of the tweet to indicate this.

Clicking the button opens the poll in an integrated mini-browser that users can then use to submit their vote. Like the app’s other popover windows, the poll can be detached from the main timeline to let users keep up to speed with incoming results.

The feature is labeled “experimental” because Twitter doesn’t make an API available for third party apps to recognize polls in user feeds, so Twitterrific has to look for specific markers that give clues a tweet might be a poll. These markers include hashtags like #poll, the graph showing incoming results, and the ballot box emoji.

The app also looks for specifically structured questions to identify polls, according to the developers, and if any of these factors are positive, the poll status button is displayed. As it is, polls can only be created through official Twitter channels, but tagging said tweets with #poll will help let other Twitterrific users know they can take part.

Twitterrific 5.2 for Mac is available as a free update on the Mac App Store [Direct Link]. The app is $19.99 for new users.

Tag: Twitterrific
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Apple Reportedly Working on Augmented Reality Headset With Custom ‘rOS’ Operating System

Apple is ramping up development of an augmented reality headset that will have its own display and run on a new chip and operating system, according to well-connected Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman.

A fanciful mockup of digital glasses via TechAcute
Apple aims to have technology ready for the headset by 2019, and could ship a product as early as 2020, the report claims. But the development timeline is said to be “very aggressive” and could still change.

The headset’s custom operating system, based on iOS, is reportedly dubbed “rOS” for “reality operating system.”

Just as tvOS powers the Apple TV, macOS runs on Macs and watchOS runs on Apple Watches, “rOS” will power Apple’s AR headset. Geoff Stahl, formerly a software manager for games and graphics at Apple, is one of the directors of the “rOS” software group.

Apple hasn’t finalized how users will control the headset and launch apps, but it is investigating touchscreens, Siri voice activation, and head gestures as it creates prototypes, according to the report.

Engineers are prototyping a range of applications, from mapping and texting to more advanced features including virtual meeting rooms and 360-degree video playback. The company has discussed pairing the headset with its own version of the App Store, where users would be able to download content, just as they do with the iPhone, Watch, Apple TV and Mac.

Apple software engineers are said to be using HTC Vive headsets, while working on a device similar to an Oculus Gear VR headset that uses an iPhone’s display and other hardware, both for internal testing purposes only.

An augmented reality headset is one of several hardware and software projects that a team of Apple software engineers are supposedly working on under the umbrella code name of “T288” in Cupertino and Sunnyvale.

The same team was behind ARKit, which provides developers with tools to create augmented reality apps for iPhones and iPads.

Gurman previously reported that Apple was considering a pair of smart glasses that would connect wirelessly to an iPhone, much like the Apple Watch, and display “images and other information” to the wearer.

The Financial Times has also reported about Apple experimenting with “several different kinds” of wearable augmented reality prototypes, as it tries to figure out the “most compelling application” for a headset.

Apple CEO Tim Cook alluded to any headset being at least a few years away during a recent interview about augmented reality.

“Today I can tell you that the technology itself doesn’t exist to do that in a quality way,” Cook said. “We don’t give a rats about being first, we want to be best in creating people’s experiences. Something that you would see out in the market any time soon would not be something that any of us would be satisfied with.”

Related Roundup: Apple VR ProjectTag: bloomberg.com
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Honor 9i review

Honor has launched some pretty good phones in the last year or so. Slowly but surely it’s been establishing a foothold in markets like India. The company has also not shied away from adopting, or even being early on, trends like dual cameras.

With the Honor 9i, the company is now delivering on this year’s new trends. Like most other 2017 releases, the 9i has a taller display with an  18:9 aspect ratio. It combines that with dual cameras on both the front and back — a rare combination that works for both photography enthusiasts as well as selfie lovers.

The Honor 9i aims to offer more for less, and the list of features, as well as the specifications sheet, is not off the mark. But does it succeed in doing so and manage to bring together a compelling device? You’ll find out in our Honor 9i review.

Design

While Honor prefers to talk more about the camera setup and the display on the Honor 9i, I think the design is one of the highlights of the smartphone. As has been the case with most recent Honor devices – exceptional design makes this phone stand out from the crowd.

The metal unibody design of the Honor 9i looks premium and its solid construction inspires confidence in the build quality. The quality of materials is top notch as well.

The camera module on the back protrudes a little but has a metal rim around it to protect from scratches. This is actually an aberration for Honor/Huawei devices, which have been promoted with a ‘flat-back dual camera’ as a marketing pitch in the past. Many of those were in higher price segments, though.

The metal unibody design of the Honor 9i looks premium and its solid construction inspires confidence in the build quality.

The phone’s matte finish and curved edges make it very comfortable to hold. The 18:9 aspect ratio display and slimmer bezels around it mean that the 5.9-inch display on the device is easy to grip in one hand. It’s roughly the same size as most smartphones in the market with a 5.5-inch display.

Like we’ve seen in a few other devices with taller stances, you might need to stretch your fingers to reach the volume rocker on the edge or the fingerprint sensor at the back. It really depends on how and where you hold the phone. If you’ve got small hands, you might need to shift your grip often to move around so you might want to consider a case if you’re at all clumsy.

For me, and many others, the first glance at the phone is more important than the specifications sheet and the Honor 9i fares well here, with an impressive aluminum chassis and stylish design.

Display

The Honor 9i is the company’s first smartphone with a Full HD+ (2,160 x 1,080) display with 18:9 aspect ratio. The IPS LCD also looks beautiful especially with little bezels around it. There’s a high 83 percent screen-to-body ratio – impressive for a smartphone at this price point.

The display is incredibly sharp, and the color saturation is pretty good. It’s not perfect because brightness is a tad disappointing outdoors which affects sunlight viewing. But the contrast ratio is impressive and viewing angles are great too.

The tall display on the Honor 9i is one of the defining features of the device, and the company does a good job here. It looks great at first glance, but I would’ve liked a little more vividness.

Performance

The Honor 9i is powered by the octa-core Kirin 659 SoC, and packs in 4 GB of RAM. The Kirin 659, which debuts in India with the Honor 9i, is made using the 16nm manufacturing process by HiSilicon, a Chinese semiconductor company fully owned by Huawei. The phone’s got 64 GB of internal storage, which can also be expanded up to 128 GB using a microSD card.

The performance of the Honor 9i is on par with the competition. For everyday tasks, the phone runs smoothly. Once you start gaming, the chinks in its armor start to appear though. There is occasional lag and random stuttering. It’s not too bad and a lot of casual users won’t notice it, but if gaming is a critical aspect of your phone usage, you’ll probably want to look elsewhere.

The phone doesn’t get hot in day-to-day activity although it does get warm when gaming for a while. It’s never too hot or uncomfortable, though.

The 3,340 mAh battery on the Honor 9i provides a day’s worth of battery life. It’s good enough, but nothing special. The battery drain is quite noticeable during processor-intensive tasks like gaming, so you might want to be careful on your way back from work in the evening. When you’re not pushing the processor though, the phone manages power well.

Overall, the performance on the Honor 9i is good enough, but not groundbreaking by any measure.

Hardware

The Honor 9i includes a hybrid tray which can take two nano-SIMs, or you can swap the second SIM for a microSD card. Most people don’t prefer a hybrid setup, but 64 GB would be good enough storage for most users and this isn’t a showstopper.

Unfortunately, the Honor 9i does not support fast charging, nor does it sport a Type-C port. Even for a smartphone in its price segment, microUSB looks dated.

Camera

The highlight of the Honor 9i is the dual camera setup at the back as well as on the front. There’s a 16 MP rear camera and a 13 MP front camera, both of which are paired with 2 MP secondary cameras to capture depth information. This allows you to take photos with a depth of field effect, or bokeh, as well as portraits. There’s an LED flash at the back and a soft selfie flash on the front.

The highlight of the Honor 9i is the dual camera setup at the back as well as on the front.

In good lighting conditions, the rear camera combination produces nice photos. The details are good and color saturation is perfect. While the f/2.2 aperture on the primary lens doesn’t look good on paper for low light, the photos come out just fine with quite a good color reproduction and not much noise.

That said, the camera on the back of the Honor 9i is inconsistent and often errs in color reproduction and sometimes the photos lack details.

The front camera fares better than most smartphones in this price range. The photos come out sharp, and with a good amount of detail.

The dual camera setup allows you to take bokeh images, and in most cases, the background and foreground separation by the 2 MP secondary camera is good – even in low light. However, the software-driven blurring is pretty obvious. The front camera too offers the ability to click selfies with a bokeh effect and surprisingly does a great job at it.

The beautification mode is quite strong and clears the skin completely, but it looks unnatural and photos are clearly not you.

Software

The Honor 9i runs the company’s proprietary skin EMUI 5.1 out of the box. Based on Android 7.0 Nougat, EMUI is quite a departure from stock Android or other Android skins but it doesn’t take much time to get used to. With EMUI 5 earlier this year, Huawei introduced the ability to choose between the default UI without an app drawer or pick one with an app drawer.

To make the user experience comfortable on a large display, EMUI offers a single-hand mode that shrinks the display down to one corner of the screen. A lot of apps aren’t ready for an 18:9 display yet and run with a black bar at the bottom, or you can scale them to fit the screen. For a lot of apps and games, it works out just fine.

EMUI is a very well-thought out and functional Android customization layer.

The phone comes with a lot of pre-loaded apps and tools that Huawei could’ve done without, like the Mirror or Torch app. Some of these cannot be uninstalled, only disabled.

EMUI is a very well-thought out and functional Android customization layer. Unlike its earlier iterations, it feels fluid and offers quite a few nifty features to improve the user experience. However, like with all software experiences, it is a matter of individual preference.

Specifications

Gallery

Pricing and final thoughts

The Honor 9i has a lot going for it, it but isn’t without a few shortcomings.

The Honor 9i strikes a nice balance between features and cost while going all-in on current trends. It’s got a full vision display with 18:9 aspect ratio, dual cameras, and a striking chassis.

It is not perfect though. The performance is good enough for the daily grind, but it could’ve been better. Same goes for battery life. The marquee feature – its dual cameras – are pretty good, but don’t take your breath away.

Yet, at ₹17,999 ($277) in India, the Honor 9i is a fine package and a good option on the table for a sub-₹20,000 smartphone. It offers enough bang for the buck and is one of the better-looking devices out there.

EPA approves ‘good guy’ mosquitoes to battle Zika

Soon, a startup called MosquitoMate will be releasing a plethora of mosquitoes across the US — not to start a bug-pocalypse, but to prevent it. The US Environmental Protection Agency has just approved the use of the startup’s mosquitoes as biopesticide against their Zika-, dengue- and other disease-carrying counterparts in 20 states and Washington DC. You see, MosquitoMate’s insects carry a common bacterium called Wolbachia pipientis that infects a wide range of invertebrates. By releasing them into the wild, they can spread bacteria to the wild population of Aedes albopictus or Asian tiger mosquitoes.

The company will raise their bugs in the lab, separate males and females and then release the males, which don’t bite, into treatment areas. When the bacteria-carrying males mate with wild females, their eggs don’t hatch, because Wolbachia prevents the paternal chromosome from forming properly. Since the species only lives 30 to 40 days in the wild, preventing them from reproducing can effectively wipe out local populations.

MosquitoMate only got permission to release what they’re calling the “Zap males” in 20 states and DC, because those are the places most similar in temperature and precipitation to Kentucky, New York and California where it held its tests. It plans to sell its “good guy bugs” to hotels, establishments and even homeowners through a summer-long subscription. While it’s unfortunate that most of the southeastern states are not included in the list, MosquitoMate is hoping to be able to release a different species all over the US.

Earlier this year, the startup unleashed 20,000 Wolbachia-carrying male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the Florida Keys as part of a trial. The fact that it was able to conduct tests in the Keys is promising enough, considering a UK firm called Oxitec failed to secure permission to test its genetically modified moquitoes in the area. Nevertheless, the EPA still has to approve MosquitoMate’s application to be able to use the species, a deadly vector of Zika, dengue and yellow fever, as a biopesticide nationwide.

Source: Nature

Fitbit tracker may help to improve your health — even if you don’t own one

Fitbit’s reputation for building reliable fitness trackers is solid enough that the government has decided to use 10,000 of them in its All of Us health research program run by the National Institute of Health (NIH).

All of Us is part of a wider, long-term research effort called the Precision Medicine Initiative, announced in 2015 by the then president Barack Obama. The aim is to gather anonymous lifestyle, biological, and environmental data from a million Americans to learn about how individual differences affect health, and to use the findings to develop better individualized care.

As part of the research, the NIH will hand out 10,000 Fitbit Charge 2 and Fitbit Alta HR devices to participants, which they’ll be asked to wear for a period of one year.

“The study will generate a data set that presents a unique opportunity to explore the relationship between health indicators such as physical activity, heart rate, and sleep in conjunction with other critical health outcomes that will be captured as part of All of Us,” Fitbit said in a release.

Adam Pellegrini, general manager of Fitbit Health Solutions, said that “as part of the global shift towards precision medicine, wearable data has the potential to inform highly personalized healthcare.”

So why were Fitbits chosen over other devices? Importantly, the Charge 2 and Alta HR track a combination of physical activity, sleep, and heart rate parameters, all useful data for the researchers. Ease of use and a decent battery life were also listed as factors behind their selection.

Fitbit devices are also already popular among health researchers; in fact, they’re the most commonly used tracker in this field. According to the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, 89 percent of trackers used in published biomedical research are made by Fitbit, as are 83 percent of devices used in clinical trials. In NIH-funded research the figure jumps to 95 percent.

Accuracy?

Clearly those working in the medical field are confident about the accuracy of Fitbit’s devices, an issue of understandable concern among anyone that decides to fork out for a fitness tracker. In 2016, a class-action lawsuit claimed that the PurePulse sensor that’s built into Fitbit’s trackers failed to accurately measure the heart rate. Subsequent tests by Consumer Reports, however, said Fitbit’s devices “passed our tests handily, accurately recording heart rates at everything from a leisurely walk up to a fast run.”

On its own site, Fitbit notes that accuracy is “affected by physiology, location of device, and different movements,” and offers tips on how to get accurate readouts.

Besides all of the data coming in from the 10,000 Fitbit participants, the All of Us study will gather a huge amount of other information from at least a million participants, which when analyzed together will help researchers learn more about the relationship between lifestyle behaviors and health outcomes, leading to more effective ways of preventing and treating disease.

Editors’ Recommendations

• If you are thinking about buying a Fitbit, these deals make it the perfect time
• Nokia Go review
• Fitbit Ionic review
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• Robotic exoskeleton can improve how kids with cerebral palsy walk

Video game voice actors gain bonus payments with new contract

Members of SAG-AFTRA have voted overwhelmingly to approve a new video game contact that grants performers bonus payments. The deal comes just over a month after the gaming industry’s voice talent agreed to suspend one of the longest strikes in US history. Launched against 11 major game publishers (including EA and WB Games) on October 21st 2016, the strike lasted 340 days in total. Now that the trade union’s board has given the proposal the thumbs up, the strike is officially over.

The notable feature in the three-year Interactive Media Video Game Agreement is a new bonus structure, which gives performers extra payments based on sessions worked. The bonus payments begin with an additional $75 and can add up to $2,100 after ten sessions.

In addition, the new transparency rules are seen as a way to enhance the bargaining power of voice actors. As part of the agreement, video game companies will have to disclose the code name of a project, its genre, whether the game is based on previously published intellectual property, and whether the performer is reprising a prior role.

Members must also be notified of unusual terminology in a game (including profanity or racial slurs), whether there will be sexual or violent content, and if vocal stunts will be required. But, SAG-AFTRA still hasn’t come to an agreement on the issue of vocal stress. The contract will come into effect on November 8th.

Source: SAG-AFTRA

Panasonic’s photo-centric Lumix G9 borrows from the GH5

The 10-bit, 4K GH5 video powerhouse is Panasonic’s most famous camera, and now it’s trying to bring that mojo to its new photography flagship. The Lumix G9 uses the GH5’s 20.3-megapixel sensor without a low-pass filter, and has a restyled, slimmed-down, dust-proof and splash-proof magnesium alloy body better suited to still than video photography. While it also does 4K at 60fps like GH5, its signature feature is an 80-megapixel photo mode, created by taking up to eight separate images.

“The G9 is a flagship camera with a very different body,” Panasonic’s Dan Unger told Engadget during a conference call. “It’s representing a new era for Lumix as an imaging brand. We’ve been known as a video camera manufacturer … but photography is the main focus for this system.” That body includes plenty of manual dials and knobs, making it easier to adjust the aperture, shutter speed and other settings.

Panasonic tuned the GH5’s sensor for the G9 for better AF speed and performance. As a result, the autofocus is as fast as 0.04 seconds under certain conditions, and Panasonic claims that “with its high-tracking performance … the Lumix G9 does not lose the target subject.” The system still uses Panasonic’s DFD contrast autofocus system, however, which some video users in particular have found to be finicky for continuous focus on the GH5.

The G9 can shoot in full, 20.3-megapixel burst mode at a stellar 60 fps in AF-S mode (fixed focus), and up to 20 fps in continuous AF-C using the electronic shutter. In those modes, you can capture up to 50 RAW or JPEG images, and if you need more, you can switch to the 6K/4K Photo mode for lower-resolution capture. Using the mechanical shutter, you can capture up to 9 fps with continuous AF for up to 600 JPEG, or 60 RAW files.

You’ll also get an improved 5-axis in-body stabilization that gives up to 6.5 extra stops of brightness, with 1/8,000th of a second mechanical shutter and up to 1/32,000th of a second electronic shutter. It packs an all-new, 3,680 dot electronic OLED viewfinder (EVF) with a big 0.83 times magnification and a 120 Hz maximum refresh. “No blackouts occur even in high-speed burst shooting,” Panasonic says.

As for the 80-megapixel “high resolution mode,” it gives you a 10,368 x 7,776 image by “marrying eight consecutively shot images while shifting the sensor,” says Panasonic. This works in RAW or JPEG mode, and is obviously intended for landscape, art, product or other types of still photography — not sports.

Specs aside, Unger said that the G9 offers “the highest picture quality in a Lumix camera to date, with the smoothest gradation of colors, and correct and natural skin tones.”

On the video front, the Panasonic G9 can do 4K at 60 fps, but unlike the GH5, it can’t do 10-bit video with up to a billion colors. Instead, it does 4:2:0 8-bit at a decent 150Mbps data rate. That should be fine for the photographers in its intended market, who will likely just use video from time to time. As always with such things, however, it’s annoying to think that Panasonic could probably enable the feature via hardware or software, but would cannibalize the GH5 if it did so.

Wrapping up the feature set is a 3.0-inch free-angle touchscreen LCD with 1080K dot resolution, dual SD memory card slots with UHS-II compatability, an autofocus joystick, and Bluetooth 4.2 and WiFi connectivity. Panasonic also introduced a lightweight, 200mm Elmarit f/2.8 Power OIS lens (35mm optical equivalent to 400mm) for $3,000 with a 1.4x teleconverter. An optional 2x teleconverter will cost $600.

That takes us to the price. Unlike the higher cost some had feared, the G9 will retail for a reasonable $1,700 (body only), quite a bit less than the $2,000 GH5. The camera, lens and all accessories including the $350 battery grip, will be available in early January of 2018.

Sky could sacrifice Sky News to ensure Fox merger

While the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigates the potential merger with Fox, Sky has warned that it may be forced to close down Sky News if it obstructs the approval of the deal. In a submission to the CMA last month, which was released this week, Sky told the regulator that it would “would likely be prompted to review” its position “in the event that the continued provision of Sky News in its current form unduly impeded merger and/or other corporate opportunities available in relation to Sky’s broader business”.

Sky warned it would be forced to consider the action if shareholders also vetoed the deal. “The CMA should not in its assessment simply assume the ‘continued provision of Sky News’ and its current contribution to plurality, “absent the Transaction,” it noted in its statement.

The competition watchdog is currently eight weeks into its 24 week investigation, which centres on whether the two companies would “operate against the specified public interests.” Broadcasting standards and media plurality (whether it presents different viewpoints during bulletins) are particular focuses.

Just this week, communications regulator Ofcom ruled that two Fox News shows, hosted separately by Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, had breached a number of broadcasting regulations before the channel was removed from UK screens in August. The breaches are a concern because should the deal be approved, the Murdochs’ would control the Times, Sunday Times, The Sun, Wall Street Journal and Sky News, putting them in control of much of the UK’s media.

Despite its size and influence, Sky News is a loss-making venture. The channel, which has been on the air for almost 30 years and reaches more than 107 million homes, continues to lose tens of millions each year. However, BBC News reports that it would likely prefer to sell the business before resorting to shutting it down.

Via: CNBC

Source: Competition and Markets Authority (PDF)