Google is reportedly working on an AirDrop-like file transfer app

Google has a history of working on apps and services for more rural, data-lacking locations around the globe, like its mobile wallet for users in India and a search-lite app for Indonesian folks. Now, according to a now-pulled app on Google Play reported by 9to5Google, the company is testing a new Files Go app. According to now-pulled Play Store images, the app is intended to transfer files wirelessly, even without an internet connection, much like Apple’s AirDrop tech.

The app seems fairly basic now, according to screenshots shared by 9to5Google. There’s a storage tab to show users how much space is available on their device, and a files tab that groups content into different types, like images, video, and audio. The app also includes options to clear app caches, delete apps that aren’t used often and remove spam or duplicate images, says the site. One screenshot hints that file transfers work via Bluetooth, though that’s not confirmed. We’ve reached out to Google for more details and will update this post when we hear back.

Source: 9to5Google

‘MLB: The Show 18’ arrives on PS4 March 27th

Sony’s MLB: The Show franchise has earned a reputation for hitting it out of the park with each annual edition — and introducing cool new features, like last year’s Retro Mode. Now we know when the next one will come out: MLB: The Show 18 launches on March 27th. And who else to grace its cover than the titan of teeing off, the Yankees’ Aaron Judge.

Listen, I’m no fan of the Pinstripe Pugs, but seeing Judge decimate this year’s Home Run Derby was a thing of beauty. You Canadians won’t have to see him grace your copies, however: Editions sold north of the US border will feature Toronto Blue Jays’ Marcus Stroman.

There are some standard in-game goodies if you pre-order, but doing so at GameStop or on the PS Store grants early access to play the game on March 23rd. And if you’re a serious fan of the Judge, you can pony up $100 for the ‘All Rise’ special edition at GameStop and EB Games, which includes a hat, spiffy metal case and a host of extras in the game. Sadly, it seems like Sony was serious about releasing the series on PS4 only, following MLB: The Show 17, which was the franchise’s first to forgo the PS3.

Source: PlayStation Blog

A drone you can’t crash? It’s finally here, thanks to AR and smart glasses

Do you want a drone, but are too worried about either breaking it or something around you? The good folks at drone company DJI, Epson, and Y Media Labs are here to help — courtesy of the world’s first augmented reality drone for smart glasses. The three companies announced in early November that they have teamed up to create an AR drone flight simulator app for the Epson Moverio BT-300 smart glasses, which allows you to rack up hours of drone flight without the need to actually shell out for a real drone — or extra home insurance.

“Drones are expensive,” Sheila Mikailli, marketing lead for Y Media Labs, told Digital Trends. “If you’ve just invested a thousand dollars on a new drone, the last thing you want to do is crash your brand-new toy. The simulator allows drone users to practice flying and polishing their skills in a safe environment. Unlike other drone apps controlled through your phone, this truly immersive experience allows users to get comfortable with how their drone actually flies because the physics are accurate and the simulator is controlled by the DJI drone controller, not through the phone.”

One of the nifty things about the app is that it’s not just a generic drone you’re flying, with cartoony flight dynamics and handling. Instead, it offers fully realized versions of real DJI drones, including the Mavic Pro, Phantom 4, Inspire 2 and Spark. There are a couple of mini-games thrown in as well, so you can practice your drone flying skills by flying around picking up powerups. Oh, and did we mention the possibility of multiplayer drone flying?

“We can see this expanding beyond a singular experience,” Mikailli continued. “Friends who have Epson’s Moverio BT-300FPV smart glasses can fly and race drones together all within the comfort of their living room.”

The simulator app will be released on the Moverio Apps Market later this year. In the meantime, if you want to try out the technology for yourself, you can head to any DJI store to give it a go for yourself.

While we certainly don’t see this replacing people’s desire for physical drones, as a practice tool or simply a bit of entertainment when it’s impractical to use a real drone, this could be a whole lot of fun.

Editors’ Recommendations

• DJI AeroScope is an invisible license plate that knows when drones go off limits
• With new owners and major changes, the Lily drone might fly after all
• DJI says most drones already have the hardware to support a safety system
• Wish you could fly? Here are the best drones on the market right now
• The top 10 most expensive drones that you (a civilian) can buy

It’s official: Twitter is rolling out 280-character tweets to everyone

Twitter is doubling its 140 character limit.

After Twitter announced it would be testing out a new feature — a doubled character limit — with a “small group” of people, the company is now rolling out the change to users across the world.

Can’t fit your Tweet into 140 characters? 🤔We’re trying something new with a small group, and increasing the character limit to 280! Excited about the possibilities? Read our blog to find out how it all adds up. 👇https://t.co/C6hjsB9nbL

— Twitter (@Twitter) September 26, 2017

The company said 140 characters don’t give users enough space for folks to express themselves. In a blog post, Twitter shared some of its product research regarding the 140 character limit. It seems nearly every language supported on Twitter — save for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean — runs up against that 140 mark time and time again.

In languages like Japanese, Korean, and Chinese you can convey about double the amount of information in one character as you can in many other languages, like English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French. … We see that a small percent of Tweets sent in Japanese have 140 characters (only 0.4%). But in English, a much higher percentage of Tweets have 140 characters (9%). … Our research shows us that the character limit is a major cause of frustration for people Tweeting in English, but it is not for those Tweeting in Japanese.

The company said it spent time collecting data and feedback from its test group before it making the change. The feature will be rolling out to all supported languages, except for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

How do you know when you’ve received the 280 character limit?

Once the switch is made (server-side), instead of the familiar 140-character counter you’ll see a circle with a progress indicator. Over time, the progress indicator will fill up, showing you about how much space you have left.

Instead of showing you exact character counts — which may challenge you to use as many characters as possible — the progress indicator is a subtler way to show you how many more characters you can fit in a tweet.

Thoughts?

Are you looking forward to having more characters to express your thoughts (and hot takes) on Twitter or do you wish they’d stuck with 140 characters? Give us a shout in the comments or — even better — over on Twitter!

VW taps Google’s quantum computers to help develop EV batteries

Quantum computing is all the rage lately, with companies large and small looking for ways to create the technology and then use it to solve a range of issues. Microsoft has a new coding language for quantum computers, Intel has created a test chip for the new tech and scientists are looking for ways to use corkscrew light beams for future practical quantum computing applications. Now Volkswagon and Google are teaming up for comprehensive research in the field, looking to use quantum computers and AI to create better EV batteries, something that Toyota is also pursuing.

The two companies also want to work on traffic optimization (a key development for an autonomous-automobile future) and new machine learning processes. The announcement was made at a 2017 Web Summit in Lisbon, and said that Volkswagen specialists in San Francisco and Munich will work with Google’s universal quantum computers.

“Quantum computing technology opens up new dimensions and represents the fast-track for future-oriented topics,” said Volkswagon’s CIO Martin Hofmann in a statement. “We at Volkswagen want to be among the first to use quantum computing for corporate processes as soon as this technology is commercially available. Thanks to our cooperation with Google, we have taken a major step towards this goal.”

Via: 9to5Google

Source: Volkswagen

Facebook’s revenge porn prevention test has users upload photos

The Australian government and Facebook have teamed up in the fight against revenge porn. As the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports, alongside Australia’s Office of the eSafety Commissioner, Facebook has launched a pilot program aimed at not just curtailing the spread of revenge porn once it begins, but preventing it altogether.

In April, Facebook announced that it had developed a set of tools that could help stop the spread of sensitive images once they were reported through its site. If the subject of those images told Facebook that the photos had been shared without their permission, Facebook’s image-recognition technology would then spot those images if someone attempted to share them again, essentially preventing them from being reposted to Facebook or Instagram or shared repeatedly through Messenger. Now, Facebook is using that technology for prevention in the hopes of stopping those images from being posted on Facebook-owned platforms in the first place.

Australia is the first country to test this new system and here’s how it works. If you were worried that someone may post intimate photos of you online, you would first let the Office of the eSafety Commissioner know. After filling out a report and answering a few of the office’s questions, the office would then notify Facebook of the report. Then, and here’s the part that might surprise you, you’d be asked to send the images in question to yourself through Facebook messenger. Facebook’s technology would then kick in and block any images it recognized as duplicates of the ones you sent yourself.

“They’re not storing the image, they’re storing the link and using artificial intelligence and other photo-matching technologies,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told the ABC. “So if somebody tried to upload that same image, which would have the same digital footprint or hash value, it will be prevented from being uploaded.”

Combating revenge porn has been a focus of Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, whose office just last month launched a national portal to help victims of revenge porn. And while Australia is the first to test Facebook’s program, the company has said it’s looking to test it in other countries as well. According to Mashable, the US, UK and Canada are the pilot program’s next stops.

How easy it will be for determined individuals to beat Facebook’s system will remain to be seen and while some might question how safe it is to deliberately upload their own intimate photos to Facebook Messenger, Grant is confident in the system’s security. “We have a great deal of comfort that they have chose the most secure route … we want to empower people to be able to protect themselves and take action, we don’t want to make them vulnerable,” she said.

Via: The Verge

Source: ABC

Renault’s self-driving car can avoid obstacles like pro drivers

The Renault Group announced today that its autonomous vehicle control system can avoid obstacles just as well as professional test drivers. The company said that in designing the system, it was actually inspired by these drivers’ abilities and used them as a sort of benchmark as to what level its technology should be performing.

“Despite popular belief, the reality is that human beings are pretty amazing drivers, with less than one fatality per 100,000,000 kilometers in most developed countries,” Simon Hougard, director of the Renault Open Innovation Lab, wrote in a Medium post. “Reaching and exceeding that benchmark is essential to improve safety and realize our dreams of autonomous cars, providing more productivity during our morning commutes and robo-vehicle services in city centers.”

The technology is a result of Renault’s collaboration with Stanford University Dynamic Design Lab Director Chris Gerdes, who’s also a former US Department of Transportation Chief Innovation Officer, and Renault says it will help with its goal to be one of the first companies to bring “mind off” technology to the public. At what speeds the system can maintain that accuracy isn’t quite clear, but a demo that TechCrunch was able to take part in was working at speeds below 30 mph. The avoidance capabilities were tested in Renault’s autonomous Zoe prototype — dubbed Callie — and you can check them out in the video below.

Successfully avoiding objects will be a necessary feature of any autonomous system and while the slew of companies working on bringing their own versions to the market are all tackling that problem, some have found some surprises during the process. For example, Volvo recently discovered that its self-driving cars get tripped up by kangaroos and their hopping.

Renault says it’s still working on the system but that it should be useful in the 15 Renault vehicles and 40 Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance vehicles with autonomous technology that it hopes to have on the market by 2022.

Source: Renault (1), (2)

Navya puts its self-driving shuttle tech in an autonomous taxi

Uber and Lyft have been racing to apply autonomous technology to their ridesharing platforms, but Navya might have beat them in the race for the first self-driving taxi. Today, the company announced its Autonom Cab vehicle, which is built to haul up to six people around cities without a driver.

The Autonom Cab is essentially a smaller, higher-speed version of Navya’s self-driving shuttles that have been roaming around the University of Michigan and will start plying Las Vegas’ roads tomorrow. While those drive at around 15 miles per hour, the Autonom Cab will zip around city streets at an average of 30 mph, carting people to and from their destinations. And just like the shuttles, the Cab doesn’t have a driving wheel or pedals, meaning it’s built to be level 5 autonomous and require no human input to move.

Navya’s just introducing a new vehicle, not a service; They’re leaving all the ridesharing infrastructure heavy lifting to companies that want to buy the Autonom Cab. But given the inroads Navya has already made in University of Michigan and Las Vegas, they could get their new self-driving taxi on more US streets.

Source: Business Wire

Israeli company claims Apple copied its dual-camera tech

Whatever you think of your dual-camera iPhone, there’s one company that’s less than thrilled. Israeli startup Corephotonics is suing Apple for allegedly infringing on patented technology with the cameras in the iPhone 7 Plus and 8 Plus (it’s likely none too pleased about the iPhone X, for that matter). Corephotonics says it pitched Apple about a potential alliance, only to be shot down and see Apple implement dual cameras on its own. The plaintiff company even claims that Apple boasted it could infringe on patents without fear. Apple’s negotiator said it would take “years and millions of dollars” before the iPhone maker would have to pay if it did infringe, according to Corephotonics’ version of events.

We’ve asked Apple for comment and will let you know if it can provide its take on the situation.

The case may be more complicated than it seems at first. Apple has its own dual camera patents, so it’s clearly been exploring the idea. Corephotonics may need to show that Apple couldn’t have developed the iPhone’s dual cameras independently. Also, it may have to demonstrate that negotiations played out as described. There have been more than a few lawsuits where plaintiffs swore they’d informed tech giants about patents — Corephotonics’ detailed account of this is uncommon, but the court will likely want more tangible proof.

The one certainty is that this isn’t a fly-by-night lawsuit. Corephotonics got into dual camera technology relatively early, and it has worked with big-name partners like Samsung Electro-Mechanics and OmniVision. Whatever the truth, Apple can’t brush this off.

Source: Reuters

Taylor Swift’s Upcoming Album Won’t Be Immediately Available on Apple Music and Other Streaming Services

Taylor Swift’s new album “reputation” will not be available on streaming music services like Apple Music for at least a week after it launches, reports Bloomberg.

Swift’s representatives began notifying streaming music services about the upcoming limitation this week. The album reportedly will not be available for streaming during the first week of sales, and companies are still negotiating to determine when exactly it might be made available.

“reputation” will be available for purchase in retail stores and online stores like iTunes starting on Friday, November 10. If there is a one week waiting period, it could become available on Apple Music starting on November 17.

Swift has been an outspoken streaming music critic, and back in 2015, she wrote a letter to Apple Music executives lambasting the service for initially refusing to pay royalties to artists during the three-month free trial period.

Apple changed its policies following her comments, leading to a closer relationship between Swift and the Apple Music team. For a time, Apple Music had exclusive rights to Swift’s music catalog after she refused to make her music available on Spotify because of its free ad-supported tier.

“I think there should be an inherent value placed on art,” she said at the time. Swift later reversed course and allowed her music on non-Apple Music services. With her refusal to release her new album on streaming music services at launch, Swift joins other artists like Adele who have made similar decisions. Adele’s “25” was not available on streaming services for months after it launched.

At the current time, several singles from the new album, including “Look What You Made Me Do,” “Gorgeous,” “Ready For It?” and “Call It What You Want.” The full 15-track album can be pre-ordered on iTunes for $13.99.

Tag: Apple Music
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