Hulu Drops Price of Commercial Free Plan for Apple Subscribers From $13.99 to $11.99

Customers who signed up for a “No Commercials” Hulu streaming plan via an iOS device or Apple TV have been paying $13.99, a $2 premium over the cost of the subscription plan if purchased via the web.

Starting this week, Hulu has dropped the $13.99 subscription price to $11.99, so customers who subscribe via an Apple device using iTunes billing will now pay the same price as other Hulu customers.

Hulu informed subscribers about the change through emails that went out yesterday. Beyond the emails, Hulu offered no explanation for the sudden price drop, which was originally in place because of the cut Apple takes from all App Store purchases, including subscriptions.

Prior to 2016, Apple took a 30 percent cut of all transactions, but in late 2016, Apple cut that in half for video subscription apps. Apple now takes a 15 percent cut of subscription fees for subscriptions for apps like Netflix and Hulu that are purchased via the App Store.

Hulu’s App Store description continues to list $13.99 as the price for the No Commercials plan, but when you sign up in app, it’s providing the new $11.99 price tag.

Hulu’s Limited Commercial plan continues to be priced at $7.99 on Apple devices. $7.99 is the standard price on the Hulu website as well, but at the current time, Hulu is offering a promotion that drops the price to $5.99. That promotion is not available in the Hulu apps for Apple TV and iOS.

Tag: Hulu
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Facebook and Microsoft to receive Helen Keller Achievement Awards

Facebook and Microsoft have been named among the honorees set to receive Helen Keller Achievement Awards at a gala scheduled for April 4. Both companies are being recognized for their efforts to provide products and services that are accessible and inclusive.

Since 1994, the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) has been issuing awards in memory of Helen Keller, who was the organization’s lead ambassador for more than 40 years. The likes of Apple, Google, and Netflix have all been given the honor in the past, according to the AFB website.

Facebook has been chosen for its inclusivity initiative, which makes the social media platform welcoming to people with disabilities. One feature that the AFB has spotlighted in particular is Automatic Alternative Text, which generates image descriptions so that partially sighted and blind people can be updated on the contents of photographs uploaded by their friends. The company is also being lauded for its commitment accessibility options and assistive technologies.

Meanwhile, Microsoft was picked as a result of a wide range of projects from across the Windows ecosystem and beyond. Examples given by the AFB include the Seeing AI app, which uses artificial intelligence to provide a narration of the user’s environment, and Eye Control for Windows 10,  which allows people with mobility issues like those caused by Lou Gehrig’s disease to interact with their computer using eye movements alone.

The company has also made a wide range of options available across the Office suite, like the optical character recognition supplied by Office Lens. Even the Xbox One gets a mention, thanks to features like Copilot and the accessibility API offered to developers.

The majority of users will never need to call upon the functionality described in this article – but the people who do rely upon it for a positive experience. The Helen Keller Achievement Awards demonstrate the importance of accessibility to products and services that are intended for a mass audience.

Of course, it’s relatively easy for a company the size of Microsoft or Facebook to dedicate time and resources to developing these options. Hopefully, shining a light on the work that they’re doing will convince others to follow their lead.

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Pitta is a palm-sized drone that moonlights as an action cam and security system

Are you looking for one last kickass Kickstarter project to get involved in before the holidays? If so, you should totally check out Pitta. A combination action cam and camera drone that resembles a high-tech version of the “golden snitch” from Harry Potter, Pitta boasts a nifty modular design that gives it several interesting uses. Whether you want to mount it on your bike like a GoPro or take to the skies, Pitta is a complete system packaged into a single device, with a modular snap-and-twist-to-lock design that lets you easily switch between modes.

“It all really started from a personal frustration,” J.B. Hwang, co-founder of manufacturer Eyedea, Inc., told Digital Trends. “I was a fairly heavy GoPro user, and action cameras with mounts and rigs were something I always carried with me. Naturally, I wanted more diversified clips and started to get my hands on drones. When I tried out a handful of drones, the operation process was not friendly to first-time pilots. Even after I got the basic sense of controlling a drone, I wasn’t able to capture the footage that I desired. All I really wanted was an easy-to-fly drone that would not require hours of training.”

This insight let Hwang to start developing the combination drone and action cam, which meant he didn’t have to “carry a hundred things with him all the time.”

It’s definitely a nifty idea, and it promises some impressive capabilities, including the ability to shoot 4K 30fps video and 13-megapixel stills. The drone component can be controlled from your smartphone, although it also promises to automatically follow moving targets, orbit a stationary target, and land autonomously. When do you don’t want it to be a drone, simply snap on the action cam mount to attach it to your bike, — or even use it as a home Wi-Fi home security camera that  live-streams to your device.

“We have secured and locked in on most of the suppliers and are finalizing designs,” Hwang said. “It will be over by the time the Kickstarter campaign wraps, so that we move right on to the production phase.”

If you would like to get your hands on a Pitta transformative autonomous 4K selfie drone, you can place a pre-order on Kickstarter right now. Prices start at $269, with shipping set for April 2018.

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Luxturna becomes first gene therapy approved to treat an inherited disease

Biomedicine just took a giant step forward in the U.S. This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Luxturna, a form of gene therapy that seeks to treat retinal dystrophy, a rare eye condition affecting cells in the retina. This marks the first time the FDA has approved gene therapy for an inherited disease.

Specifically, Luxturna is a genetically modified virus that carries a healthy gene into a patient’s eye. Tests have shown “dramatic results,” per an NPR report, with treated patients able to see far more effectively than before. Consequently, many of those who received Luxturna treatment were able to perform certain tasks for the first time — patients could read, play sports, ride bikes, and go outside on their own thanks to their significantly improved vision.

“Today’s approval marks another first in the field of gene therapy — both in how the therapy works and in expanding the use of gene therapy beyond the treatment of cancer to the treatment of vision loss — and this milestone reinforces the potential of this breakthrough approach in treating a wide range of challenging diseases,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb in a statement.

This has been a good year as a whole for gene therapy — in August, Kymriah became the first gene-therapy drug approved to treat leukemia, while Yescarta received FDA approval to treat lymphoma in October.

“The culmination of decades of research has resulted in three gene therapy approvals this year for patients with serious and rare diseases,” Gottlieb added. “I believe gene therapy will become a mainstay in treating, and maybe curing, many of our most devastating and intractable illnesses.”

While gene therapy could indeed be a long-awaited cure to many of these diseases, these treatments might also come with some pretty serious price tags. As NPR noted, the first gene therapy product costs a whopping $475,000, and Luxturna maker Spark Therapeutics has yet to reveal how much it will charge. But speculation suggests it could cost $1 million per patient.

“I think the price tag will be enormous — 20 or 30 times the annual wages of the typical American,” Dr. Peter Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, told NPR. “For rare conditions like this, the question we need to ask ourselves is exactly how much wealth should be transferred from society to the investors in these companies. Without addressing that we are just letting the investors decide how much they can take.”

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Eric Schmidt leaving Executive Chairman role, becoming ‘technical advisor’ at Alphabet

January will bring a big change at the highest ranks of Alphabet.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is stepping down from his position as Executive Chairman of the Board at Google’s parent company Alphabet. He will remain at the company in a new position as a “technical advisor,” and remain on the Board of Directors in a typical member capacity, building on his 17 years at the company thus far.

Google co-founder and current Alphabet CEO Larry Page made the following statement on Schmidt’s move:

Since 2001, Eric has provided us with business and engineering expertise and a clear vision about the future of technology. Continuing his 17 years of service to the company, he’ll now be helping us as a technical advisor on science and technology issues. I’m incredibly excited about the progress our companies are making, and about the strong leaders who are driving that innovation.

In the company’s announcement of the change, Schmidt said the time was right for him to make a move away from the Executive Chairman role and into a more general advisory position, as he sees Alphabet’s structure working very well under the leadership of Larry Page, Sergey Brin and current Google CEO Sundar Pichai. With this less-defined position at the company, Schmidt plans to spend even more time on “science and technology issues, and philanthropy.”

The change in Schmidt’s position will be finalized in January, when the Alphabet Board next meets. The Board is also expected to appoint a new non-executive chairman.

DHS’s facial scanning program may be inaccurate and illegal

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) doesn’t have a great track record with its own technology. DHS staff have been locked out of their own networks, first responder apps have been plagued by security issues and the federal employees were able to steal data from the agency. Now a new report calls DHS’s pilot facial recognition program into question, too, saying that it makes frequent errors and may even not be legal.

The report, authored by three lawyers at the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, says that the pilot is currently at nine US airports to scan the faces of travelers leaving the country. The face scans are then compared to DHS’s biometric database to their identity, ostensibly to prevent anyone from being impersonated. According to the report, the system could cost up to one billion dollars, though it also states that Congress nor DHS have not justified the need for such a program. In fact, the authors say that the DHS itself has questioned the value such a “biometric air exit” system would actually provide for the cost.

Further, the report notes that Congress has not clearly authorized the collection of biometrics from US citizens via facial recognition technology. “DHS should not be scanning the faces of Americans as they depart on international flights—but DHS is doing it anyway,” wrote the authors. “DHS also is failing to comply with a federal law requiring it to conduct a rulemaking process to implement the airport face scanning program—a process that DHS has not even started.”

As for accuracy, the report asserts that the system rejects as many as 1 in 25 travelers scanned, too, even when they have valid ID and travel documents. Ultimately, though, privacy concerns are massive here – what the report’s authors call “a serious escalation of biometric scanning of Americans” with “no codified rules that constrain it.” The report’s authors recommend that the DHS stop scanning travelers’ faces until it has gotten clear authorization from Congress, guarantee privacy of those it does scan, and prove that this technology works as advertised.

Via: The Verge

Source: Georgetown Law

South Korea fittingly equips high-speed train with high-speed LTE

The Winter Olympics are in South Korea in 2018, which is the perfect excuse to refine old technologies and show off new ones in advance of the huge crowds that will descend on the country early next year. Today, Samsung announced that, in partnership with the Korean telecom company KT, the world’s first LTE-R network on a high-speed train is live.

The new Wonju-Gangneung high-speed train can travel up to 155 miles per hour and is 75 miles long. It was clearly built with the crowds of the Winter Olympics in mind, as the press release states that the train “will provide the public faster, easier access to the largest winter sports facilities in Korea, including PyeongChang.” LTE-R will operate across the line’s seven stations, and works with older technologies, such as the Trunked Radio System, VHF systems, and the public safety network (PS-LTE).

LTE-R, or LTE-Railway, is a wireless communication system to connect those operating and working on trains with those on the ground. It allows for fast, reliable communication and signaling, overcoming the challenges of using an LTE network at high speeds. It includes features such as Mission-Critical Push-to-talk, or MCPTT, and a dedicated core network to operate the service.

Samsung is the supplier for five different LTE-R projects in South Korea. The technology is already in place on the Busan Metro line, which was launched in April 2017. This is the first application of the technology to a high-speed train line.

Source: Samsung

Senate bill would help guard against election hacks

American election security is a mess. Many voting systems are vulnerable, but replacing machines is expensive — and then there’s the lack of coordination between different levels of government. The country needs a lot of help if it’s going to prevent a repeat of Russia’s 2016 interference, let alone full-fledged tampering. Some new legislation might sort things out, however. A bipartisan group of senators has introduced the Secure Elections Act, a bill that would support state election systems with resources and expertise that could help fend off hacking attempts.

The measure would form an independent, open panel that would produce a set of voluntary security guidelines. States could then get approval for block grants (out of a $386 million pool in 2018) to meet those guidelines and replace outdated voting tech. The federal government would have to “promptly” share security threats with state, county and city officials, while those same officials would get the clearances they need to act on information. To spur efforts to find security flaws, there would be a federal bug bounty that would reward researchers who discover and report vulnerabilities.

The act would theoretically harmonize defenses without stepping on the toes of states determined to run their own elections. It faces a few hurdles, though, and not just the need to survive votes in the Senate and (with a corresponding bill) House of Representatives. Previous bills like the SAVE Act haven’t made much headway. And the voluntary guidelines are just that — a state doesn’t have to heed the advice. There are also questions as to whether or not the total pool size and block grants would be enough to bolster security as much as necessary. All the same, giving states some incentive to upgrade their safeguards would be an important start.

Via: The Hill, Gizmodo

Source: Senator Lankford

Apple Being Sued for ‘Purposefully Slowing Down Older iPhone Models’

Apple yesterday confirmed that it has implemented power management features in older iPhones to improve performance and prevent unexpected shutdowns as the battery in the devices starts to degrade, and this admission has now led to a class action lawsuit, which was first noticed by TMZ.

Los Angeles residents Stefan Bogdanovich and Dakota Speas, represented by Wilshire Law Firm, this morning filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California accusing Apple of slowing down their older iPhone models when new models come out.

Defendant breached the implied contracts it made with Plaintiffs and Class Members by purposefully slowing down older iPhone models when new models come out and by failing to properly disclose that at the time of that the parties entered into an agreement.

According to the lawsuit, Bogdanovich and Speas have owned the iPhone 7 and several older iPhone models and have noticed that their “older iPhone models slows (sic) down when new models come out.” The two say they did not consent to have Apple slow down their devices, nor were they able to “choose whether they preferred to have their iPhones slower than normal.”

They’re seeking both California and Nationwide class action certification, which would cover all persons residing in the United States who have owned iPhone models older than the iPhone 8.

Apple yesterday addressed speculation that it throttles the performance of older iPhones with degraded batteries, confirming that there are power management features in place to attempt to prolong the life of the iPhone and its battery. Apple implemented these features last year in iOS 10.2.1.

When an iPhone’s battery health starts to decline, the battery is not capable of supplying enough power to the iPhone in times of peak processor usage, which can lead to shutdowns, Apple says.

“Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices. Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.

Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We’ve now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.”

The lawsuit seemingly misrepresents Apple’s original statement and suggests the plaintiffs and their lawyers do not understand Apple’s explanation for how iPhone power management features work and why they were implemented, given the lawsuit’s suggestion that it’s tied to the release of new devices. As explained by Apple, when certain iPhone models hit a peak of processor power, a degraded battery is sometimes unable to provide enough juice, leading to a shutdown. Apple says it “smooths out” these peaks by limiting the power draw from the battery or by spreading power requests over several cycles.

Lithium-ion batteries degrade over time by nature, and this eventual wearing out addressed by the power management features is unrelated to the release of new iPhone models.

Apple does not deny that iPhones with older batteries can sometimes see slower performance, but power management is a feature that Apple says has been implemented to improve overall performance by preventing an iPhone from shutting down completely rather than a feature that’s been implemented to force users to upgrade by deliberately slowing devices.

As many people have suggested, Apple has done a poor job of explaining why it has implemented these power feature management and how the state of the battery ultimately affects iPhone performance. More transparent information about battery health should be provided, and customers should be better informed when their batteries start to degrade so they can choose whether or not to pay for a replacement. Apple may also need to relax its policies on when customers can pay for a battery replacement, as currently, a battery can’t be replaced unless in-store equipment registers it as near failing.

An iPhone’s battery is designed to retain 80 percent of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles. A defective battery that does not meet those parameters can be replaced for free for customers who have AppleCare+ or who have devices still under warranty.

For out of warranty customers, Apple offers a battery replacement service, which costs $79 plus $6.95 for shipping.

The lawsuit is demanding the replacement of the old iPhone and compensation for loss of use, loss of value, the purchase of new batteries, ascertainable losses in the form of the deprivation of the value of the iPhone, and overpayments because Plaintiffs and Class Members “did not receive what they paid for” when Apple interfered with the usage of their iPhones.

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Empire-builder ‘Civilization VI’ comes to the iPad for $30

Usually, playing Civilization on the go means playing one of the cut-down Revolution games. They’re fine, but they’re not the same thing. You won’t have to make that compromise from now on, however. Aspyr Media has released Civilization VI for the iPad — yes, the whole thing. If you can’t stand the thought of waiting to get home before advancing science or invading an empire, you just have to tuck an Apple tablet in your bag. That’s no mean feat given how visually and computationally intensive the turn-based strategy game can be.

Appropriately, Aspyr isn’t shy about treating this like it would a conventional computer game release, including stiff requirements and a high price price. You need a fairly recent tablet like the iPad Air 2, 2017 iPad or any iPad Pro just to run it. And while the game is free to play for the first 60 turns, you’re looking at spending $30 during the launch period ($60 after January 4th) to unlock the full experience. That it’s available at all is impressive, though — we’re now at the point where recent, complex PC titles can run on mobile tablets, not just simpler games from a studio’s back catalog.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: App Store