The Morning After: Thursday, November 16th 2017

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

It will be a busy Thursday for Elon Musk, as this evening SpaceX sends a “secret” payload skyward, and we’re expecting to see Tesla’s electric semi-truck. For everyone else, well, there’s a new look for Google Maps and Amazon apparently won’t launch a cable TV competitor.

That’s different.Teenage Engineering teams up with Baidu to create strange new speakers

One way to separate from the increasingly crowded smart speaker market is to do something different, and Teenage Engineering has managed that with its new “R” and “H.” They offer voice control, just like options from Google and Amazon, but in odd designs, and, in the case of the R prototype, a motorized pivot arm that makes its display face you when you’re talking to it, or dance to music.

Still the champ.Google Maps’ new look adapts to how you travel

A new look for Google Maps will roll out over the next few weeks. It’s intended to adjust based on the method of travel you’re planning to use (public transportation, driving, walking) and show relevant information for whichever one you choose. It’s your choice: get used to the new icons and color coding now, or wait until it pops up on your phone when you’re lost and looking for directions.

Shhhh.SpaceX is launching a secret mission called ‘Zuma’

On November 16th, between 8 PM and 10 PM Eastern, SpaceX is sending a secret payload called “Zuma” beyond our atmosphere. What’s on it? Your guess is as good as ours. Whatever it is, it needs to be in low Earth orbit by the end of the month, and it was commissioned by defense technology company Northrop Grumman for the US government.

But ‘Lord of the Rings’ is happening.Amazon has reportedly nixed plans for its own live TV service

Don’t expect a new skinny bundle here.

EV, PHEV or FCEV?What you need to know before buying an electric car

If you’re thinking your next car should be powered by electrons, then Roberto Baldwin is here to help set you on the path to a glorious gas-free (or at least reduced-gas) future.

Give up those blue checks.Twitter tries to fix verification

Twitter claims its blue Verified checks were never intended to serve as an endorsement of the people who have them, but is recognizing their meaning extends beyond simple identity validation. As such, the company rolled out new rules for the tag, which mean certain well-known individuals tied to Nazism and white supremacy have had their checkmarks removed.

It’s not a game.Pixar makes its VR debut with ‘Coco’

Coco VR is a “social adventure” available for Oculus Rift that puts users inside the world of Pixar’s upcoming movie.

But wait, there’s more…

• Scientists make first attempt at editing genes inside the body
• Denver will test its own Hyperloop-inspired transport system with Arrivo
• Google adds salary info to its job search tool
• Scientists issue a dire warning about climate change (again)
• Nintendo Switch homebrew is possible, but there’s a catch

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Hollywood strikes back against illegal streaming Kodi addons

An anti-piracy alliance supported by many major US and UK movie studios, broadcasters and content providers has dealt a blow to the third-party Kodi addon scene after it successfully forced a number of popular piracy-linked streaming tools offline. In what appears to be a coordinated crackdown, developers including jsergio123 and The_Alpha, who are responsible for the development and hosting of addons like urlresolver, metahandler, Bennu, DeathStreams and Sportie, confirmed that they will no longer maintain their Kodi creations and have immediately shut them down.

The action comes after The_Alpha reportedly received a hand delivered letter to their UK home: “This letter is addressed to you by companies of the six-major United States film studios represented by the Motion Picture Association (MPA), namely Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Paramount Pictures Corporation, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Universal City Studios LLLP and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Netflix, Inc. and Amazon Studios LLC (represented by MPA via the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE)), Sky UK Limited, and The Football Association Premier League Limited,” the opening paragraph reads.

The letter identifies the developer as the creator of third-party software that provides “unlawful access to protected copyright works, including works owned by, or exclusively licensed to, the Content Companies” and notes their additional involvement in the upkeep of the Colossus repository, an online collection of various streaming Kodi addons. With Colossus gone, a popular TV show and movie streaming tool called Covenant is also currently unavailable. It’s scared a number of related addon developers, with Ares Wizard, another popular host, reportedly deciding to throw in the towel.

The crackdown suggests the MPA/MPAA-led Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has a thorough understanding of how owners of so-called “Kodi boxes” are able to stream TV shows and films illegally. While Colossus merely hosts the tools, urlresolver and metahandler did much of the heavy lifting for streamers. Their job was to scrape video hosting sites for relevant streaming links and serve them up for tools like Covenant inside Kodi. Streamers will find it very difficult to find working video streams of their favorite content without them, but they could reappear via a new host in the future.

Sorry to say but I am stopping all development of the urlresolver, metahandler, and my other addons. I am not responsible for covenant and bennu but colossus has agreed to delete the repo too.

— jsergio123 (@jsergio123) November 15, 2017

As pre-loaded Kodi boxes have surged in popularity in the past year, many of the most popular piracy-linked addons have targeted by rightsholders. In June, US satellite broadcaster Dish Network issued a lawsuit that targeted the TVAddons repository and forced streaming tools ZemTV and Phoenix offline.

The action will be bad news for Kodi, the the company behind the popular media center. Despite attempts to distance itself from piracy, it often finds itself implicated in news reports that focus on actions taken against infringing third-party addons.

Via: TorrentFreak, TVAddons

FDA approves an electrical device to help ease opioid withdrawal

Amid an epidemic of opioid addiction, doctors are looking for ways to help people wean themselves off of the drugs, but withdrawal symptoms are a major hurdle. Innovative Health Solutions says its NSS-2 Bridge is a “percutaneous nerve field stimulator (PNFS) device system” that sends electrical pulses to certain cranial nerves, treating symptoms including sweating, tremors, sweating, stomach upset, joint pain and anxiety. Yesterday the FDA cleared it for marketing, making this the first device approved for use in this way.

Like the DEKA Arm System, this device was reviewed through the agency’s de novo pathway that fast-tracks “some low- to moderate-risk devices.” Prior to approval, the FDA reviewed a clinical study of 73 patients where all of them showed at least a 31 percent drop in their clinical opiate withdrawal scale (COWS) score within 30 minutes of use.

Source: FDA, Innovative Health Solutions

Google Maps Updated With New Look to Make Finding Places Easier

An announced update to Google Maps on Thursday brought a partial redesign that aims to make it quicker and easier for users to find places depending on their usage.

As part of the change, Google Maps will now only highlight points of interest that might be relevant depending on what kind of map is selected (driving, navigation, transit, and so on). For example, gas stations will now show up on the navigation map, while train stations will be prominently displayed when viewing the transit map.

Google has also updated the color scheme and added new icons to help users quickly identify exactly what kind of point of interest they’re looking at. Places like a cafe, church, museum or hospital now have a designated color and icon, making it easier to find that type of destination on the map.

Google says it will rolling out the changes to all of its products that incorporate Google Maps, including Assistant, Search, and Earth. The new style will also eventually appear in the apps, websites and experiences offered by companies that use Google Maps APIs, in order to provide a consistent experience. 

Google Maps can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Tag: Google Maps
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Feral Releases DiRT Rally for macOS

Feral Interactive released DiRT Rally for macOS today, bringing the acclaimed rally simulation game to Mac for the first time. Developed and published by Codemasters for Windows and consoles, DiRT Rally has been praised for its realistic handling and pure focus on rally driving.

DiRT Rally is the most authentic rally game ever made, with a highly sophisticated handling model that perfectly captures the exhilaration of driving cars at the edge of control while tearing along treacherous, undulating tracks at breakneck speed. Its high-risk, high-reward gameplay challenges players to learn and master three different disciplines: the point-to-point races of Rally, the tight circuits of Rallycross, and the legendary slopes of Hillclimb.

Feral says the game is “driven by detail”, with players able to tweak the brake bias and gear ratios of their cars to adapt to every combination of road surface and weather condition. The title is also said to have been “meticulously crafted” for macOS using the full power of Metal 2, Apple’s latest graphics API.

The minimum system requirements are: Mac OS X 10.13, Intel Core i3 1.80GHz processor, 8GB of RAM, 48GB of disk space, a 1GB Nvidia 650, 2GB AMD Radeon R9 290M, or 1GB Intel HD4000 graphics card, and a keyboard (a driving wheel or gamepad is recommended).

DiRT Rally for macOS is available from the Feral Store and Steam for $59.99/£39.99/€54.99, with its debut on the Mac App Store to follow soon.

Tag: Feral
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Deezer’s New Desktop App for macOS Lets Subscribers Stream Lossless Audio

Music streaming service Deezer released a desktop macOS app on Wednesday that offers high-definition lossless audio playback in the popular FLAC format.

The app not only eliminates the hassle and additional step of opening up a new browser but desktop users with Premium+ account, who download the new app before January 2018, will be able to hear all their music in high-definition audio by selecting this option under sound settings.

Support for 16-bit FLAC is available to Premium+ subscribers, who currently pay $9.99 for the luxury. However, users who want to stream in the lossless format after January 2018 will have to subscribe to Deezer HiFi, which costs twice that at $19.99. (Deezer’s new pricing matches Tidal’s HiFi lossless subscription tier.)

The desktop Deezer app is currently still a beta, but it does include access to 43 million tracks as well as a working version of the Flow feature, which is similar to Apple Music’s personalized playlists. Flow recommends songs based on previously played tracks, as well as video interviews and performances.

Deezer subscribers can download the desktop app using this link.

Tag: Deezer Music
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People really will binge on Netflix anywhere these days

On trains and buses, at the office, and in public restrooms. Wait, restrooms? It seems that people will binge on Netflix anywhere these days.

Now that technology allows us to stream and download video to mobile devices more easily than ever, Netflix and similar services have well and truly left the living room to enjoy a new existence out in the wild.

Exactly a year after Netflix made it even easier to watch content on the go, research conducted by SurveyMonkey on behalf of the company has revealed that 67 percent of folks who use streaming services happily watch content when out and about.

“Be prepared that streaming Stranger Things while surrounded by strangers is making social norms go upside down,” Netflix said in response to its findings. “And catching someone snooping on your screen during a risqué scene or LOL’ing on a crowded train is the new normal.”

Ah yes, snooping. If you’re one of those who likes to spend your commute watching a show or movie, have you ever caught someone looking over your shoulder? According to the research, almost half (45 percent) of those watching on the go have caught a “backseat binger,” as Netflix calls them, snooping on their screen.

Only 18 percent have ever felt embarrassed about what they’ve been spotted watching, though whether that’s down to the content or the personality of the viewer is anyone’s guess. Risking having their sanity questioned, more than half of the survey’s 37,000 respondents admitted they’ve suddenly laughed out loud —in public — while watching video content on their phone, while 20 percent have cried.

But have you ever considered that watching content in public risks ruining a show or movie for others? Eleven percent of public bingers have apparently been hit with spoilers, suggesting they should really fire up their own smartphones rather than spend time looking at those of their fellow commuters.

While you might think that being glued to videos means blocking out the rest of the world, 27 percent of public bingers have had their viewing experience interrupted by a stranger who wanted to chat about what they’re watching. The survey declines, however, to mention what percent of bingers felt annoyed by having their viewing experience disrupted.

For some addicts, the bingeing doesn’t even stop when they get to work, with 37 percent admitting to having sneaked a peek when they should’ve been doing other things, while 12 percent admitted to hitting the play button in the restroom.

And as if you needed more proof of how streaming services are seemingly taking over our lives, most public bingers in the survey said “access to movies and TV shows” was more important than enjoying a bite to eat while traveling. Although they probably do both anyway.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Why binge watch when you can binge experience? TV is about to seem old-school
• Check out our list of the absolute best shows on Netflix right now
• What’s new on Netflix and what’s leaving in November 2017
• If you have a Gear VR headset, these are the apps and games you’ve got to try
• Stranger Things pixelated mobile game is a great intro to season 2

DJI’s limited-edition Mavic Pro will be hard to spot in winter weather

DJI’s Mavic Pro drone received rave reviews when it hit the market, with commentators praising its lengthy feature set and compact design.

Now we don’t believe for a moment that anyone out there has been looking at the Mavic and saying, “I love this quadcopter and all that it has to offer, but I’ve a real problem with its gray color scheme and that flash of gold on the side … I think I’ll pass.”

But if that is you, then this limited-edition Mavic Pro may be of interest.

Hoping to tempt impulsive holiday shoppers into parting with a large sum of money, the brand new, all-white Mavic Pro — called the Alpine White — is available exclusively at Apple.com and at Apple Stores “in most countries,” according to maker DJI.

That doesn’t sound particularly helpful if you take it out on a cloudy day or if there’s snow on the trees, but if you’ve a decent set of eyes and your hearing is still in order, you should have no trouble tracking your drone’s position from the ground. If in doubt, hit the return-to-home button and wait.

The Alpine White is offered as a “Holiday Combo” deal, so you’ll get a few other bits and pieces with it, namely a remote controller, two extra Intelligent Flight Batteries, two additional pairs of propellers, and an aircraft sleeve.

Priced at $1,050, it’s $50 more than the regular Mavic Pro kit, though the contents are admittedly a little different. And it’s considerably cheaper than the $1,300 “Fly More” combo, which offers a bigger bundle of extras.

In August, DJI introduced a slightly enhanced version of the Mavic Pro called the Mavic Pro Platinum. The $1,100 machine is quieter than the original Mavic and flies for a few minutes longer on a single charge, but the Alpine White is based on the original Mavic, not the Platinum version.

To be absolutely clear, there are no new features or enhancements with the Alpine White compared to the original Mavic Pro. It doesn’t go faster, fly for longer, or have a better camera. But it is painted white.

In that case, the Alpine White offers 27 minutes of flight time and a top speed of 40 mph (65 kmh). Video is shot at 4K and stills at 12 megapixels. If you’re interested in the Alpine White or the Mavic Pro — essentially the same machine — take a moment to check out DT’s in-depth review.

Editors’ Recommendations

• DJI announces Mavic Pro Platinum and Phantom 4 Pro Obsidian drones
• A drone you can’t crash? It’s finally here, thanks to AR and smart glasses
• Wish you could fly? Here are the best drones on the market right now
• Spark owners, update your drone’s firmware or it will be grounded
• New DJI feature lets some drone pilots fly with more privacy

Nintendo Switch homebrew is possible, but there’s a catch

Resourceful hackers have long been rejuvenating Nintendo’s consoles past their sell-by dates. Armed with in-game exploits, the homebrew community persistently overcame updates to release unofficial emulators and apps for the Wii, Wii U, and 3DS. But, is Nintendo’s latest console as hackable as its predecessors? A bunch of enthusiasts have been tinkering away for months to solve that riddle, and they’ve now made a significant breakthrough. As the Wololo homebrew community notes, an update to the Pegaswitch toolkit allows for the Switch to be prepped for homebrew on firmware 3.0.0. using a copy of Pokken Tournament DX.

As always, there’s a (huge) caveat: considering how recent the Pegaswitch update is, there are no homebrew apps and games available as of yet. It all boils down to the devotion of developers, whether or not they support homebrew on 3.0.0. — the folks behind the RetroArch emulator claim they’re on board, which could prove a jumping off point for other modders. There’s also the chance that the exploit may cause the resale price of Pokken Tournament DX to balloon (as we’ve seen with past titles) if Switch homebrew catches on. But, if you’ve already auto-updated, none of the above applies to you anyway.

Nintendo, which has long been wary of hacks enabling piracy (even if they’re not capable of supporting bootlegs) will be hoping that Super Mario Odyssey is enough of a reason for you to forego homebrew, for now.

Via: Wololo

Source: Pegaswitch (Git Hub)

Honda’s connected cars will communicate over 5G

When it’s not busy making billion-dollar acquisitions to expand its robotics line-up, Japanese mobile carrier SoftBank is pursuing its other hobby: smart cars. Central to this endeavour is its partner, and fellow Japan native, Honda. Last year, the two announced plans to make cars emotive using cloud-based tech based on SoftBank’s Pepper robot (think Knight Rider’s KITT). The fruits of that colloboration are beginning to emerge, in the guise of the auto-maker’s AI-assisted NeuV and Sports EV concepts. With the clock ticking down to Honda’s 2025 deadline for driverless cars, the duo are moving on to the next phase in their connected cars project, which is all about 5G.

Along with rivals NTT Docomo and KDDI, SoftBank is already testing 5G in Japan, with a view to kick-starting services by 2020. Before then, the carrier will test how well Honda’s cars can communicate with one another over its 5G network. Starting in 2018, SoftBank will install 5G base stations at the auto-maker’s Takasu Proving Ground closed test course in Hokkaido, Japan. The 6.8 km circular course serves as a stomping ground for Honda’s smart cars, and soon they’ll be talking over wireless networks while speeding around.

All the while, the two firms will be monitoring outcomes in order to develop the vehicles’ on-board tech and antennas. In addition, the experiment will allow SoftBank to test its 5G signal in a rural setting — thus far its trials have been mainly limited to urban locations.

The bigger picture may encompass SoftBank’s ridesharing investments, which include Singapore’s Grab (which also counts Honda as a backer), India’s Ola, China’s Didi, and now Uber. We know that Uber is also testing driverless cars in select states in the US. And, smarter cars operating over faster wireless networks will only improve these services and, in turn, line SoftBank’s bursting pockets.

Source: Honda