Project Loon delivers internet to 100,000 people in Puerto Rico

The FCC granted Alphabet’s Project Loon, which delivers internet via balloons, an experimental license last month to help get Puerto Ricans online after Hurricane Maria decimated the island’s infrastructure. While the team cautiously tweeted that it would ‘explore of it was possible to help,’ Project Loon announced today that it has worked with AT&T and T-Mobile to successfully deliver basic internet to over 100,000 Puerto Ricans to the internet.

Since turning on service, #ProjectLoon has delivered basic internet connectivity to more than 100K people in Puerto Rico. https://t.co/s0zmFB9dRy

— The Team at X (@Theteamatx) November 9, 2017

It’s not a total success, which isn’t to be expected after Puerto Ricans’ communications infrastructure suffered so much damage. But the team was able to work with AT&T and T-Mobile to get “communication and internet activities like sending text messages and accessing information online for some people with LTE enabled phones,” head of Project Loon Alastair Westgarth wrote in a blog post. The team launched their balloons from Nevada and used machine learning algorithms to direct them over Puerto Rico, where they’ve been relaying internet from working ground networks over to users in unconnected areas.

In the post, Westgarth noted that Project Loon has never fired up internet from scratch this rapidly, and will improve their ability to keep balloons in place (and deliver sustained connectivity) as they become familiar with the air currents. They owed a lot to all manner of collaborators, from the mobile carriers to Pan-American and Puerto Rican governments’ aviation authorities to local communications companies.

“In times of crisis, being able to communicate with loved ones, emergency services and critical information is key,” Westgarth said in a statement provided to Engadget. “We hope that the connectivity Project Loon has provided over the last few weeks has been helpful, and would like to thank AT&T, T-Mobile, and our government partners who made these efforts possible.”

Source: Project Loon blog

A new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy us coming from ‘The Last Jedi’ director

The Last Jedi helmer Rian Johnson has signed on to write and direct a new trilogy within the Star Wars universe, Disney announced today. There aren’t any details to share about the new project yet, but the company explicitly noted that it’ll feature new characters and be completely separate from the Skywalker saga. If anything, the new spin-off trilogy is a sign that the company was pleased with his work on The Last Jedi, which hits theaters on December 5th.

“We all loved working with Rian on The Last Jedi,” Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, said in a statement. “He’s a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy.”

Source: Disney

Texas shooter’s iPhone creates latest wrinkle in Apple/FBI encryption battle

Apple is striking back after the FBI said earlier this week that it was unable to access Texas shooter Devin Patrick Kelley’s iPhone.

During a press conference on Tuesday, FBI special agent Christopher Combs expressed dismay over the agency’s inability to unlock Kelley’s phone after a shooting in Sutherland Springs on Sunday that left 26 people dead.

“It highlights an issue that you’ve all heard about before, with the advance of the technology and the phones and the encryptions [sic], law enforcement, whether that’s at the state, local or federal level, is increasingly not able to get into these phones,” Cooper said, without referring directly to Apple.

On Wednesday, November 8, Apple responded to the FBI’s criticism stating that it actually reached out to assist the FBI shortly after Tuesday’s press conference. In a statement provided to BuzzFeed, Apple said neither local, state, nor federal officials reached out to the company before the press conference. It also offered to expedite any requests from officials.

Apple's statement on the phone used by the Texas church gunman is quite something pic.twitter.com/RVwk13tM6U

— John Paczkowski (@JohnPaczkowski) November 8, 2017

The timing of both the FBI’s statement, as well as Apple’s response, is crucial to the investigation. Had the FBI had contacted the iPhone maker within the first 48 hours of the shooting, they could have possibly used the phone’s Touch ID technology to unlock the phone. After 48 hours, however, Touch ID can no longer be used to unlock the phone.

After reaching out to the FBI on Tuesday to see if it needed help unlocking Kelley’s phone, an official with the agency responded stating the agency was not asking for any assistance. According to a story in the Washington Post, investigators decided instead to send the phone to its Quantico, Virginia, headquarters to attempt to find a different way to access data, a decision that could take weeks.

While 80 percent of iPhone users rely on the Touch ID feature to unlock their phones, it’s unknown if Kelley used the feature. Even without Touch ID, other options exist for accessing the shooter’s data. Apple provides encrypted iCloud storage data and decryption keys to law enforcement officials with a court order.

The Texas shooting is just the latest in a series of battles between Apple and law enforcement agencies. In 2016 the FBI took Apple to court in an attempt to force the company to unlock San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook’s iPhone. After a protracted legal battle, the FBI eventually dropped the case after it was able to unlock the phone with third-party software.

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Award-winning device catches skin cancer early by monitoring temperature of moles

This year, close to 10,000 Americans will die of melanoma, a type of cancer that’s usually found in the skin. That’s bad news, but what makes it worse is the fact that, provided it’s diagnosed and treated early, melanomas are usually curable. Unfortunately, many people leave wait too long to do anything about it.

There may be a solution on the horizon, however. Engineering undergrads at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, have developed a noninvasive diagnostic tool which uses thermistors to monitor the heat emissions of cancerous cells in real time. This can help reveal whether a suspect lesion or mole is dangerous long before it presents visually. And they’ve been rewarded with the top prize in the international James Dyson Award (JDA) for their efforts.

“The sKan is a low cost, handheld device for diagnosing melanoma,” team member Rotimi Fadiya told Digital Trends. “In a sense, it is a spatial thermometer. We know that when our skin is cooled, it takes some time for it to recover back to normal temperature. Research shows that cancerous tissue recovers more rapidly than healthy tissue. Using this insight, we created a device that can accurately track the thermal recovery of a lesion and the surrounding skin, to cost effectively and quickly identify melanoma.”

As part of the prize, the team will receive close to $40,000 to develop its idea. They hope to create a finished product that can be manufactured for less than $1,000, thereby making it an affordable diagnostic system for doctors. Their hope is that one day the sKan will be used by physicians to provide a second opinion, and by the average individual in the comfort of his or her own home to promote early detection.

“The next step is to undergo preclinical testing, hopefully using the sKan on patients with melanoma to detect any areas that still need improvement,” Fadiya continued. “We also have several technical improvements to make on the device that are only made possible because of the funding received from the James Dyson Award. Our future plans are to develop the sKan to a level of performance where it can receive the necessary regulatory approval, such as (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) or Health Canada. From there, we hope that it will become a tool family physicians use, alongside their visual inspection, to better detect melanoma.”

While this is far from the only innovative approach to catching melanomas that we’ve covered, it’s certainly among the most exciting — and potentially lifesaving.

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Secret agent fish? Robot infiltrates aquatic schools, influences their behavior

Robots may be getting more realistic but most of us can still discern a human from a humanoid. Fish, on the other hand, seem easier to fool.

Researchers at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have developed an aquatic robot that can infiltrate schools of zebrafish, going so far as to influence their activities. By designing robots to integrate with animal communities, the roboticists hope to unravel these animals’ behavioral and social structures by learning more about how they communicate.

“We wanted to study how a robotic agent can be inserted in a fish shoal, and, when inserted, how this robotic agent could learn how the fish interact, communicate, and take decisions,” Frank Bonnet, an EPFL postdoctoral researcher who worked on the project, told Digital Trends.

The robot has two parts — a magnetic fish and a motor, which is positioned underneath the aquarium and helps propel the robot through the water.

To infiltrate the school, the EPFL team identified characteristics that real fish use to distinguish themselves and designed the robot accordingly. These included physical traits (such as shape, color, and markings) and behavioral traits (including acceleration speeds, size of schools, and how the fish move their tails in transit). Taking the project one step further, the researchers designed the robot to learn and adapt from the behavior of the real fish.

“In somes studies, we compared groups composed of only fish with groups composed of fish and robots,” Bonnet said. “We could show that the two are behaving similarly, which shows that the robots are able to act like fish, and integrate groups of fish. We also used other setups, such as a ring-shaped setup, to show that the robotic agents can influence on the swimming direction preference of the fish.”

EPFL researchers have previously done similar work on cockroach communities, which are willing to accept practically anything that emits specific cockroach pheromones. Fish posed a much more difficult task, but Bonnet already sees how the work will shed light on the nuances of their societies.

“We could already learn which features are relevant for the fish for social integration,” he said. “We can also learn the hierarchy in fish societies, if for instance there are some leaders, and what are the important aspects to become a leader in fish groups, and how the fish are collectively taking decisions.”

A paper detailing the research was recently published in the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics.

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A leak suggests the next Dell XPS 15 will sport a 5K display

Details of the next-iteration of Dell’s XPS 15 laptop may have been leaked through the official website. Although the listings are no longer active, a customer claims to have confirmed the refresh with a Dell representative. If the rumored specifications turn out to be true, the next-generation Dell XPS 15 will sport an eighth-generation Intel processor, up to a 5K display, and the option of an Nvidia GTX 1060 graphics chip.

We considered the Dell XPS 15 as one of, if not the best, big screen laptop for years now. Although we can’t guarantee the next version will be better than the MacBook Pro, it does mean we’re excited to get a closer look at it. That excitement should be tempered with a leak like this though, as we don’t know how accurate these specifications are.

That said, they do look promising. As expected, the new XPS 15 is said to utilize the eighth-generation Intel processors, which should mean big improvements to power efficiency at higher resolutions. Considering this laptop is slated to come with a QuadHD or 5K display, that’s good news. Redditor Camelcase47 claims that 1080P will also be an option for those who want to save some money on their purchase.

Although the leaked specifications don’t make it clear what the standard graphical chip option will be with the new laptop, we have been told that an Nvidia GTX 1060 will be an optional upgrade. Whether that’s a true 1060 or a restrained version to keep thermals in check, remains to be seen. If true, though, it suggests that the XPS 15 could be a pretty capable gaming laptop too — though detail levels may need to be constrained on the higher resolution displays.

In terms of connectivity, the new laptop is said to sport an additional USB Type-C port, though otherwise, the layout remains unchanged. That would mean a pair of USB 3.0 Thunderbolt 3 ports, a USB 3.1 Type-A connector, VGA and HDMI outputs, and a Gigabit Ethernet port with Dell’s separate adaptor. There should also be support for the latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi through the Killer network interface.

Pricing for the top-of-the-line model is said to be around $3,000.

All of this information comes from the lone Redditor who claims to have seen it all on a live Dell page, though there is no screenshot to back up these claims. There are some remnants of the leaked page on the site, such as a reference to a “Quad HD” display, which isn’t an available option on existing models.

The XPS 15 refresh is rumored to be happening in January.

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Viewers control how the story unfolds in Steven Soderbergh’s app-based ‘Mosaic’

Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh’s long-standing secret project has finally been revealed, and its promise of providing “a new storytelling experience” certainly has some merit, given the unique way that Mosaic will be coming to audiences.

HBO posted a new trailer for the murder-mystery miniseries that offers a preview of not just the story Mosaic will tell, but the interactive way audiences are able to experience it via an app for iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV. (An Android version is reportedly coming soon.) As the story unfolds, viewers are periodically given the chance to choose which character’s perspective to follow or make other decisions that affect how the story is delivered.

While Soderbergh reportedly cringes at the comparison to a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book (according to Wired), it’s an easy comparison to make (and a storytelling strategy that Netflix has also explored). The project does appear to have some outside-the-box thinking behind it.

According to HBO, experiencing Mosaic via the app allows viewers to “choose what point of view from which to follow the story and to, in effect, build their own experience from the material Soderbergh and [writer Ed] Solomon created. The choices one makes build upon one another, enabling multiple tellings of the story from different perspectives and, sometimes, with different conclusions.”

The series stars Academy Award nominee Sharon Stone (Casino, Basic Instinct) as a children’s book author whose body is discovered in Park City, Utah. The mystery of who killed her is the central premise of Mosaic, and in order to figure out the killer’s identity, audiences must navigate through the points of view of a cast of characters played by Garrett Hedlund, Frederick Weller, Beau Bridges, Paul Reubens, Jennifer Ferrin, Devin Ratray, Michael Cerveris, James Ransone, Jeremy Bobb, and Maya Kazan.

Each “episode” of the series varies in length, allowing viewers to digest the mystery in short bursts or extended binges, with opportunities to change the current perspective on events or explore the story from a different angle.

Although the series is free to download now via the app, HBO will broadcast Mosaic as a six-part series in January 2018. The network is hoping that audiences will enjoy blazing their own trail (or trails, with multiple viewings) through the story and then tune in to see Soderbergh’s own vision for the narrative play out.

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Why is Intel into GPUs now? It was about to get stomped

Computer geeks woke this morning to shocking news.

Raja Koduri, former head of AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group, has joined Intel as Chief Architect. He will lead his new employer’s efforts to build discrete graphics hardware for “a broad range of computing segments.”

This will feel like a stab in heart for AMD’s fans. Raja was loved for his confident yet easy-going demeanor, and he’d become the unofficial face of the company’s underdog image. His resignation was bad enough — to have him join Intel a day later was the worst possible outcome.

It’d be easy to overstate such drama, but in this case the fuss is warranted. Intel has never been competitive in graphics hardware, and this hire is the company’s strongest attempt yet.

Why now?

The timing of this move may seem strange, if only because it’s been ages since Intel was serious about graphics. Its last major push began around the debut of the modern Core processor line. For a time, Intel HD graphics seemed to make decent progress — at least enough to be usable. That didn’t last long. Today, Intel’s integrated graphics are well behind entry-level hardware from AMD and Nvidia.

Without excellent graphics, Intel can’t present a package as complete as its competitors.

Intel’s “latest” graphics, in the eighth-generation processors, underscore this. Though called Intel UHD 620 — which sounds like an upgrade over the previous Intel HD 620 — the hardware makes no strides over its predecessor. In 3DMark Fire Strike, a common benchmark, UHD 620 is lucky to exceed a score of 900 while the Nvidia GTX 1050 by comparison scores around 5,400. That’s a big gap, and if you’re saddled with a laptop that lacks graphics from AMD or Nvidia, you already notice it.

This isn’t just about laptops, though. Intel’s press release suggests the company wants to build graphics hardware for a variety of systems and there’s a lot of reasons why Intel might want to. Gamers have proven a loyal group with deep pockets, buying expensive graphics cards even while PC sales have slipped year after year. And then there’s the enterprise world, where Nvidia is currently cleaning house with its high-end solutions that are powering data centers, self-driving cars, and research projects.

The real threat is Apple and Qualcomm

I’m sure Intel would love to see gamers, data centers, and universities buying its own high-end graphics at $500 a pop. That, however, is only part of Intel’s goal. Intel’s decision is more influenced by an impending war over the heart and soul of computers.

Since the mid-90s, virtually all home PCs have been sold with Windows running on Intel processors. The term “Wintel” has fallen out of fashion, but that hasn’t changed the reality. Intel Inside has been synonymous with the PC for 25 years, particularly among laptops and 2-in-1s. Most people don’t even think about it — and end up with a “Wintel” machine by default.

That dominance is no longer guaranteed. Apple and Qualcomm have major strides in computing performance over the past decade. Though Intel still has the technical edge, everyday PC use isn’t demanding enough to make it obvious. What is obvious, though, is how badly these competitors thrash Intel’s graphics. While iPads and smartphones can display rich 3D graphics, Intel’s hardware struggles to run new games at their lowest settings.

2018 will be the year this threat becomes real. Qualcomm and Microsoft have partnered to produce Windows 10 laptops that are compatible with all current Windows software, and the first products look set to appear at CES 2018 — and perhaps earlier. Shoppers buying next year might leave with an inexpensive, LTE-capable 2-in-1 powered by Qualcomm. It’s not hard to imagine how an inexpensive, thin, long-lasting, always-connected computer could damage Intel.

Intel is aware of this. In fact, it’s already threatened to sue Qualcomm and Microsoft over the issue, claiming the x86 emulation used to accomplish it is infringement on Intel’s patents.

Apple, meanwhile, has the iPad Pro. While not as direct an alternative to Intel’s laptops, Apple clearly wants people to buy an iPad instead of a traditional PC, and its hardware is now powerful enough to make that a convincing choice. The iPad Pro is still missing a few pieces of the puzzle — the keyboard isn’t great, for example — but a few generations might iron out those issues. Think about it: If you could buy an iPad with a good keyboard for $600 to $800 bucks, why wouldn’t you? The iPad will be more versatile and portable than any Intel-powered 2-in-1.

And — of course — it will deliver eye-candy Intel HD can’t hope to match.

Good news, or bad news?

That’s why Intel needs better graphics hardware. Without excellent graphics, Intel can’t present a package as complete as its competitors. Companies like Dell and Samsung want a single chip that can do everything. Pairing Intel hardware with a separate graphics chip isn’t ideal. The Intel-AMD partnership, announced just a few days ago, is just a band-aid over a wound that needs deeper attention.

Raja Koduri can mend that wound, but it will take time. You shouldn’t expect to see Intel-branded graphics cards on store shelves next year. I’d guess we won’t see real progress until the latter half of 2019, and that could easily slip into 2020, or even later.

The timeline is important, because Intel’s peers are quick. As mentioned, you’ll see Qualcomm-powered laptops in stores next year. By late 2019, Apple will have blitzed through two iPad hardware cycles, and Qualcomm may be ready to introduce its third generation of laptop hardware.

It’s impossible to say if Intel’s new effort will be competitive, but whatever the result, there’s undoubtedly a new war over the PC’s future. All the big names in tech will be involved, and the result, whatever it is, will be visible in the next computer you buy.

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For those long trips, Amazon FreeTime lets you watch videos without Wi-Fi

Planning on keeping your child busy with a Fire tablet during those long trips for the holidays? It’s about to get much easier with Amazon FreeTime’s latest feature — Offline Mode. Families will now be able to download and watch FreeTime Unlimited videos even when you’re disconnected from Wi-Fi.

With Amazon Freetime, parents can set up a Kindle Fire profile specifically for their kids based on age and gender. They can also create time limits in order to keep from spending too much time on the devices.

The feature also allows parents to choose appropriate content for their children, which then appears in FreeTime for them to watch. You won’t have to worry about your kids racking up the bill either since any unapproved purchases or in-app payments are blocked through the subscription service.

A short time after Amazon released FreeTime, it introduced FreeTime Unlimited which expanded the amount of content. From Nickelodeon and PBS to Disney and DC Comics, the company added a range of media for kids to watch.

Using Offline Mode, kids will now be able to download and watch video content without an internet connection. The process is similar to the way you already download a book, game, or app to the tablet — by holding down the video title. To remove a downloaded video, another long-press of the title will get rid of it after you’re done.

Whenever you’re disconnected from Wi-Fi or if you’re in Airplane Mode, your device will automatically be in Offline Mode. You will be notified with a banner on the display that reads “Your Device is Offline” and only the downloaded content will appear in FreeTime. The full FreeTime Unlimited catalog will then return once you’re connected to Wi-Fi again.

Amazon is also adding a variety of new videos, books, apps, and games to FreeTime Unlimited. The list ranges from books such as The Hobbit and The Little Prince, to games like Angry Birds Space and Sonic Dash 2 and kids will now have even more options to choose from to keep them entertained for hours.

Offline Mode will be available to users via a free over-the-air software update which is rolling out this week. It will be delivered to both Fire tablets and Fire Kids Edition tablets.

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A redesigned Snapchat app is in the works

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

As a Millenial and technology enthusiast, I should have no issue using Snapchat. The app is made specifically with my age-group in mind, but even so, I still find using it to be a royal pain in the butt. Thankfully, a big redesign for Snapchat is (finally) in the works.

During the latest earnings call for Snap Inc., CEO Evan Spiegel announced that the company was working on a brand-new design for its application. The reason? A lot of people find it difficult to use. Shocker.

More specifically, Spiegel said –

One thing that we have heard over the years is that Snapchat is difficult to understand or hard to use, and our team has been working on responding to this feedback. As a result, we are currently redesigning our application to make it easier to use.

Speigel also addressed that the redesign would likely be “disruptive” for the company, at least in the short-term, but that it was a risk worth taking.

Snapchat initially started out as a basic platform for sending one-to-one disappearing messages, but since then, it’s added Stories, filters, the ability to send cash to your contacts, a map for seeing where your friends are at in real-time, original content, and so much more – all without really changing the interface so that these features can exist in a way that makes sense.

A redesign of Snapchat is long overdue, and while an ETA for the updated app has yet to be announced, it’s enough of a relief to know that something is actually in the works.

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