Google caters to the DIY crowd with an AI camera kit for Raspberry Pi

Google created its AIY Projects initiative — “artificial intelligence yourself” — to encourage developers and DIY enthusiasts to learn about artificial intelligence. The first project in the series, the ready-to-assemble Raspberry Pi-based AIY Voice Kit, was based on a project from MagPi magazine. Now Google has a second project ready for release this year: the AIY Vision Kit.

The camera kit comes with a cardboard shell, an AI-capable circuit board, a light-up arcade button, a tiny speaker, a lens kit with both macro and wide settings and various connection components, including a tripod mounting nut. You’ll need to supply your own Raspberry Pi Zero W, Raspberry Pi Camera, an SD card and a power supply. The VisionBonnet circuit board has an Intel Movidius MA2450 low-power vision processing unit, which can run neural network models right on the device. You’ll get software, too, which has three TensorFlow-based neural network models: one to recognize a thousand common objects, another that can recognize faces and expressions and a third that can detect people, cats and dogs. There’s also a Python API that can adjust the arcade button colors and speaker sounds.

With this Raspberry Pi-based camera, Google says you can create a device that can identify different plant and animal species, be notified when your dog shows up at the back door, see if you left your car in the driveway, watch your holiday guests react to your decorations or even trip an alarm when your little brother enters your room. Of course, these are just examples. Developers and hackers will surely find even more exciting things to do with this device.

Google isn’t the only company offering AI tools for developers to create solutions with. Amazon also just announced its own image recognition camera, too. Google’s more DIY-centric AIY Vision Kit is available for pre-order now via Micro Center for $45, and will be available for delivery and store pickup December 31st.

Source: Google

Wirecutter’s best deals: Save $70 on a Dell 27-inch monitor

This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter, reviews for the real world. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read their continuously updated list of deals here.

Skybell HD

Street price: $185; deal price: $130 w/ code SKYBELLCM17

Use code SKYBELLCM17 in the shopping cart to drop the price of our top smart doorbell cam to $130 — $55 off the usual price of around $185. This is the first notable discount we’ve seen for the SkyBell and the code works for both colors. Pick one up while this lasts as they’re likely to go fast.

The Skybell HD is our top pick in our guide to the best smart doorbell camera. Stacey Higginbotham wrote, “The SkyBell HD’s built-in motion-detection sensor proved more reliable than others we tested, and SkyBell has tweaked the model’s capabilities since our previous update to this guide—when motion is detected, the camera now saves a few seconds of video from before the motion occurred. This means that you can see more of the event that triggered the motion sensor, making it more useful than other doorbell cameras. (With some other cameras, it’s fairly common to catch the backside of a person who has triggered the doorbell as he or she walks away.) The week’s worth of free video storage means you can go on vacation and still have a record of what happened on your front porch—without having to pay for that record. Customizable LEDs, plus integration with popular connected-home products and ecosystems, such as Amazon Echo, SmartThings, Works with Nest, and IFTTT, means that SkyBell HD is more likely to work with other smart devices you may already have.”

Bodum Chambord French Press

Street price: $35; deal price: $26

While it’s a dollar more than we saw during Black Friday week, the Bodum Chambord is a nice value at $26 and is at one of the lower prices we’ve seen for it in the last few months. This french press, the 34-ounce size, rarely ever drops below $25, so if you’re willing to pay the extra buck, it’s still a good deal and a nice present for the coffee lover in your life.

The Bodum Chambord French Press is our runner-up pick in our guide to the best french press. Sabrina Imbler wrote, “Designed in the 1950s, the Bodum Chambord looks like the quintessential French press. It also brews good coffee, and its steel frame is more durable than the Bodum Brazil’s plastic body. Otherwise, it has the exact same beaker, internal plunger, and filtering screens as our top pick, the Brazil. In our testing, this press produced the same brew as the Brazil, retaining most of the tasting notes of the coffee and little of the grit of the grounds. We also found this model easy and smooth to plunge.

Imbler continued, “The Chambord is not our top pick because it does the same job as the Brazil for a higher price (sometimes twice as much). And though the metal exterior feels sturdier than the Brazil’s plastic, the Chambord’s glass beaker is just as fragile as that of any other glass press. But if you prefer the aesthetics of the Chambord, it might be worth paying the extra cash.”

Coway AirMega 300

Street price: $450; deal price: $367

At $367, this is the lowest price we’ve seen on our upgrade air purifier pick, perfect for bigger spaces or worse allergies. The street price of this purifier has dropped from a sky-high $550 down closer to $450 in the last year, but $367 is still a really nice price. Pick one up and be ready for spring allergies.

The Coway Airmega 300 is the upgrade pick in our guide to the best air purifier. Tim Heffernan and John Holecek wrote, “If you have severe allergies or other serious health issues related to airborne particles, or if you need to clean the air in a large space, we recommend the Coway Airmega 300. It’s HEPA-rated and designed to clear spaces of about 500 square feet at five complete air changes per hour (about 1.5 times the coverage of the Coway and the Winix at that level of air movement), or 1,250 square feet at two complete air changes. In our tests, the Airmega 300 and a slightly more powerful version, the 400, have consistently been at or near the top in terms of particulate reduction. Their unique twin filters permit very high airflow, allowing them to run on lower settings when the air is relatively clean or to rapidly filter very large volumes of air on the highest setting, as you might when allergens or pollution are elevated. But they are expensive; the 300 series costs about $1,200 (including the purchase price, electricity, and replacement filters) over five years—about double the cost of our pick.”

Dell U2715H 27-inch Monitor

Street price: $470; deal price: $400

Since the street price has been steadily climbing over the past few months since this monitor has been discontinued, we’ve seen few worthwhile deals. This deal drops the U2715H $300 below the street price it’s been at for November, and a solid $70 drop from the normal average street price. It’s hard to say how long this deal will last, but it probably won’t stick around.

The Dell U2715H is our previous pick in our guide to the best 27-inch monitor. David Murphy and John Higgins wrote, “Our previous pick, the Dell UltraSharp U2715H, is very close in quality and features to our pick and runner-up. It has two HDMI inputs as opposed to one and the USB ports are all on the back like on our pick, but its contrast ratio is a little worse than the U2717D. If you can find it for less than either of our picks, it’s still a good monitor, but it’s been discontinued, so it’s unclear how long you’ll be able to find one.”

Because great deals don’t just happen on Thursday, sign up for our daily deals email and we’ll send you the best deals we find every weekday. Also, deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go to thewirecutter.com.

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch has been pushed to next year

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket has been gearing up for its inaugural launch for quite some time, but multiple delays keep pushing that event later and later. The SpaceX team had most recently been shooting for a launch before the end of this year, but according to reports from Aviation Week and confirmed to us by SpaceX, Falcon Heavy probably won’t see a launch before next year.

In an email to Aviation Week, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said, “We wanted to fly Heavy this year. We should be able to static fire this year and fly a couple of weeks right after that.” The static fire test will be the first time that all of Heavy’s 27 Merlin engines will be fired at once. And if all goes well there, Falcon Heavy should be ready for launch within the first few weeks of 2018.

There have been multiple launch delays with Heavy, which Elon Musk has attributed to the development of such a large and powerful rocket being “way, way more difficult” than SpaceX expected. “Falcon Heavy requires the simultaneous ignition of 27 orbit-class engines,” Musk said at the ISS R&D conference in July. “There’s a lot that can go wrong there.” And because of that, Musk has been very clear about where everyone’s expectations should be going into Falcon Heavy’s first launch. “There’s a real good chance that it does not make it to orbit. I hope it gets far enough away from the launch pad that it does not cause pad damage – I would consider that a win,” he said.

Via: Aviation Week

Project Redspace imagines an office-car for megacity traffic

New York is huge. 8.5 million people live in the Big Apple according to 2016 census data. It seems impressive until you realize that there are 15 megacities in China that blow New York away with populations over 10 million. All those humans in one area means that traffic can be a challenge. One company think it has a commuter solution. A very boxy commuter solution.

Project Redspace’s REDS is an EV commuter vehicle that doubles as an office. The company says that a car spends 90 percent of its time sitting idle. So why not make it your mobile workspace? It achieves this with a chair that swivels 180-degrees and a fold down desk. If it also served Starbucks coffee, it would be the perfect workspace for travelers.

That car also has a modular offset seating solution with the chairs not directly behind each other for more leg room and those seats can be moved about the cabin. The doors slide like a minivan instead swinging out like a traditional car. Helpful for tight parking spaces. Meanwhile, the roof is a giant solar panel to help keep the EV charged up. It will also support wireless charging sort of like the BMW 530e.

While the idea is intriguing, the workspace/car will be far more intriguing once cars get to level 4 autonomy. But, it’s good to see new automakers thinking about how to evolve the interior of the vehicle before self-driving eventually becomes a reality.

According to the automaker, it will have these vehicles on the road in China in two years. It calls the car it’s showing off at the LA Auto Show an “alpha prototype.” So the final vehicle might not look as striking as the one on display in the convention center. As for US shores, there are no plans to bring it to our less-than-mega cities. Which kind of sucks if you really like boxes.

Source: Project Redspace

Privacy Advocates and Devs Raise Concerns About Third-Party App Access to TrueDepth Camera

Apple goes into great detail about the security of the Face ID facial recognition system built into the iPhone X in a security white paper and a support document, but relatively little has been said about the access that developers have to facial data captured by the TrueDepth camera, which has led privacy advocates and developers to express concerns about what apps can glean about you from your face.

A new piece from The Washington Post that includes commentary from both privacy experts and Apple itself explores the data third-party apps can access, echoing concerns previously brought up earlier this month.

Apps have no access to the facial map that Face ID uses to unlock your device, but developers are able to use the TrueDepth camera to scan a user’s face for the purpose of creating more realistic augmented reality apps. As described by Apple:

Using the TrueDepth camera, your app can detect the position, topology, and expression of the user’s face, all with high accuracy and in real time, making it easy to apply live selfie effects or use facial expressions to drive a 3D character.

Apps are able to see a full 3D face map along with a “live read-out” of 52 micro-movements in the eyelids, mouth, and other features. MeasureKit, a free app developed by Rinat Khanov, has a face mesh tool built in that displays the facial data the TrueDepth camera can capture along with a list of the facial expressions it tracks.

Apple has a privacy policy that’s been in place since before the iPhone X launched requiring apps that use the TrueDepth camera to have a privacy policy, secure user consent option, and a clear outline of what data is being collected and how it’s used, but The Washington Post’s Geoffrey Fowler worries about the future implications of the TrueDepth camera, where such facial data could perhaps be used to determine gender, race, sexuality, or track facial expressions to determine medical conditions like depression.

“We take privacy and security very seriously,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said. “This commitment is reflected in the strong protections we have built around Face ID data–protecting it with the Secure Enclave in iPhone X–as well as many other technical safeguards we have built into iOS.”

Khanov, the developer behind the aforementioned MeasureKit app, says Apple’s policies may not be enough. Khanov didn’t initially have a privacy policy in place in his app, and it was approved anyway. Apple said it was an oversight and asked Khanov to implement a privacy policy right away.

“There were no additional terms or contracts. The app review process is quite regular as well–or at least it appears to be, on our end,” Khanov said. When I noticed his app didn’t have a privacy policy, Khanov said Apple didn’t require it because he wasn’t taking face data off the phone.

As Fowler points out, apps that are using the TrueDepth camera are not currently providing enough information to customers. The popup to access the TrueDepth camera is the same generic popup that is required for the standard front and rear-facing cameras, and it does not mention that additional data is being collected.

Whether Apple will put stricter policies in place remains to be seen, as does how this kind of facial recognition data will be used in the future, but customers should be made aware of what’s being provided to app developers. For those concerned, it’s worth downloading the MeasureKit app or a similar app to see what’s potentially being collected when an app accesses the camera on your iPhone X.

Related Roundup: iPhone XBuyer’s Guide: iPhone X (Buy Now)
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Google Maps Updated With Support for iPhone X

Google today updated its Google Maps app with official support for the iPhone X, introducing an improved layout on Apple’s newest flagship phone.

The Google Maps app displays full screen on the iPhone X’s taller display, with a search bar located at the top of the app and directions and information provided at the bottom of the app. The layout of the app makes the menu button at the top left difficult to access with one hand, but it looks better than it did before.

Along with iPhone X support, the new app also includes unspecified bug fixes.

What’s New in Version 4.41
Thanks for using Google Maps! This release brings support for iPhone X in addition to bug fixes that improve our product to help you discover new places and navigate to them. Get the latest version for all of the available Google Maps features.

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

Tags: Google, Google Maps
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Taylor Swift’s ‘Reputation’ Rolling Out on Apple Music

After three weeks of retail and digital download exclusivity, Taylor Swift’s latest album — “Reputation” — has started rolling out on Apple Music and Spotify in Australia and other countries, where it is already December 1, suggesting it will come to the U.S., Europe, and other countries as December 1 rolls around.

Swift had previously debuted four singles from Reputation on Apple Music, including Look What You Made Me Do, …Ready For It?, Gorgeous, and Call It What You Want, but she kept the full 15-track album off of Apple Music and other services for the past three weeks.

Besides the previously-released singles, there were a few behind-the-scenes videos about the making of Reputation’s music videos that were exclusive to Apple Music released a few weeks ago. With the launch, all of this content will be streamable on Apple Music on December 1. In the United States, we can likely expect to see “Reputation” available on Apple Music starting at 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

UPDATE 📲 #reputation is NOW available for streaming on @Spotify in Australia and New Zealand and will be available in the US tonight at midnight (12am ET on December 1st) 🎶 https://t.co/MgKDbVdzwE pic.twitter.com/p8GGv7RpkY

— Taylor Swift Updates (@SimplySFans) November 30, 2017

Swift and Apple have had a somewhat rocky relationship, with the artist in 2015 penning an open letter to Apple Music about the service’s initial stance on refusing to pay royalties to artists during the three-month free trial period. Swift opposed this aspect of Apple Music, so she decided to keep her 2014 album “1989” off of Apple Music at the time.

Soon after the letter was publicized, Apple reversed course and began paying artists during this period of time when new subscribers are on the free trial of Apple Music. This eventually led to a closer relationship between Swift and Apple, with her music debuting on the service along with the launch of a series of Apple Music ads starring Swift that debuted throughout the spring of 2016.

Tags: Apple Music, Taylor Swift
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Nintendo Launches First Holiday Event in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp

Nintendo last week launched its newest iOS game, a mobile version of Animal Crossing called Pocket Camp, and it’s already being updated with new content in the form of a special holiday event.

Typical Animal Crossing games feature special events that take place on a regular basis, and it appears Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is no exception. The new Christmas-themed event will allow players to earn limited-time clothing items and craft holiday-themed furniture.

To get the holiday items, players need to fulfill timed goals and complete quests for visiting animals to earn candy canes, so the holiday gameplay is essentially identical to standard gameplay, but with the ability to earn special items.

It takes a lot of candy canes to unlock items, but Nintendo’s event will last from November 29 to December 25.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Tags: Nintendo, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
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