FilmStruck’s alternative streaming service is coming to the UK

A movie streaming service backed by Warner Bros. and Turner is launching in the UK in the “coming weeks,” the pair have announced. FilmStruck has been lighting up screens in the US since late 2016, and will arrive across the pond with a slightly different name: FilmStruck Curzon. Underpinned primarily by the substantial archives of Warner Bros. and the Criterion Collection, the service will span “mainstream, cult, independent, classics, art house, foreign and documentary film.” As well as providing logistical support, Curzon will have its own curated corner on the service that’ll feature some content provided by its movie distribution arm, Artificial Eye.

Curzon is still something of a double agent, though. In a way, its own indie, art house and foreign film streaming service Curzon Home Cinema is a FilmStruck competitor. Curzon actually operates two such services if you count the pared-down version you get as a free perk for being a member of Curzon’s cinema chain. I’m told all can coexist happily, though. Where Curzon Home Cinema acts as a way to get see the films currently showing in theatres from the comfort of your couch, FilmStruck “is a much wider and extensive SVOD service.” There’s more to partnership, too, since Curzon will be involved in the spread of FilmStruck to other new markets over the next few years.

There’s no firm launch date for the service as yet, and we’re not sure how pricing will look. In the US, plans range from $7 to $11 per month, so we’re probably talking roughly the same price as a Netflix subscription. The real question is whether we need yet another streaming service, especially when Curzon, Flix Premiere, MUBI and BFI Player seem to have most movie niches covered already. Then again, the more places you can go to escape the constant superhero and reboot churn, the better.

Source: Turner / Warner Bros.

3D printers could let you produce your own drugs

You might imagine that drug production only happens at gigantic pharma corporations with millions of dollars worth of equipment. However, researchers at the University of Glasgow have unveiled a new process of building “reactionware,” or small reactors that can produce drugs, using a $2,000 off-the-shelf 3D printer, Science reports. The new process makes it possible for anyone to fabricate drugs, allowing doctors in developing nations to quickly produce medicines to curtail outbreaks, or even let you produce your own ibuprofen at home.

The process sounds fairly simple when you describe it, but it took the researchers nearly six years to get to this point. Using the 3D printer, the team built various water-bottle sized vessels that can carry out four different chemical reactions in 12 steps, including filter and evaporation. These essentially become miniature reaction factories, allowing pharmacists or doctors to create specific drugs by adding solvents and reagents at specific times in the process.

The chemicals themselves could kept in “self-contained cartridges, requiring limited user interaction to produce the desired products on demand,” the paper notes (paywall). A big part of the scheme are the recipes that break down the fabrication into a step-by-step workflow that anyone can follow.

Using the technique, the researchers created the muscle relaxant baclofen, and also produced anticonvulsant and ulcer drugs using different reactionware. The process could be extended to produce many other different types of medicine.

It’s certainly possible to purchase reactionware vessels, the researchers note, and fabricate the drugs in much the same way. However, ordering and shipping such products could take precious time in remote or poor regions in case of outbreaks or other medical emergencies. And it would be completely impossible on the ISS or NASA missions to Mars, for instance. Using a 3D printer would allow medical personnel to roll their own reactors, and as long as they had the necessary chemicals, they could make a wide variety of drugs themselves.

There are still a lot of things to work out, like regulations and the potential for abuse of such devices to make illegal drugs, but other researchers are pretty enthused about the ideas. “It could become a milestone paper, a really seminal paper,” Nobel laureate chemist Fraser Stoddart (who was not involved in the research) told Science. “This is one of those articles that has to make [people] sit up and take notice.”

Via: Motherboard

Source: Science

Pepper the robot fired from grocery store for not being up to the job

Robots may already be taking our jobs in some industries, but humans offering customer service on the shop floor look as if they’re safe for a while yet.

The judgment comes after witnessing a recent trial of a Pepper robot in a Scottish grocery store.

Filmed by the BBC for a documentary on the latest innovations in robotics, Pepper, a humanoid robot created by Japanese telecoms giant SoftBank, was put to work in Margiotta Food & Wine in Edinburgh for a whole week, helping customers with inquiries while at the same time attempting to offer some light entertainment.

Pepper, for the uninitiated, launched in Japan in 2015 and is being marketed as an assistant for businesses as well as a companion for families and those living alone. Standing 120-cm tall, the robot can understand speech and respond with his own voice, and also communicate via a torso-based tablet. A set of wheels allows it to move around, though admittedly stairs prove a bit of a challenge. For the grocery store trial, Pepper had a chatbot created by a local university so he could have relevant exchanges with customers.

Initial reactions to Pepper, or “Fabio” as the staff at Margiotta decide to call him, appear to be largely positive. “He’s just superb,” says one shop worker with a look of utter glee on his face, while the shoppers seem both amused and curious about the latest addition to the team. At least they didn’t beat him up like this customer did in another store a few years ago.

Soon, however, it becomes apparent that Fabio is rather limited in the way he can help customers, and his answers don’t seem that helpful. For example, when a woman asks where she can find the milk, Fabio says only that it’s “in the fridge section,” without explaining where the fridge section is, and without taking her there. The same happens when he’s asked about wine, answering, “It’s in the alcohol section.” Thanks, Fabio.

Other customers get no response at all from the robot helper, though this is put down to the store’s ambient noise causing a problem for his built-in microphones, indicating that Pepper’s sensors need improving if it’s to function effectively in noisy surroundings.

Cow joke

The owner of the store, Franco Margiotta, decides to try out Fabio for himself, asking where the steaks are (of course, they’re in the fridge). Having delivered his rather unhelpful answer, Fabio sees a chance to impress his boss by delivering a meat-related joke, asking: “What’s it called when one cow spies on another cow?” Franco has no idea.

“A steak out,” says Fabio. Franco laughs more than you might expect at this, but it’s probably the first time he’s ever heard a robot tell a joke, so how could you not be bowled over?

The final task for Fabio involves offering samples of pulled pork to customers, but it soon becomes apparent that shoppers are very adept at completely ignoring the robot, as well as the pulled pork. “It’s just a walking sign,” says Franco’s daughter, Luisa.

A member of staff in another part of the store offers the same sample, and has far more success engaging with shoppers and getting them to try the food. The human has clearly beaten the robot in this particular task.

Bad news

“Unfortunately, Fabio didn’t perform as well as we’d hoped,” Luisa says, and with that, it was time to fire Fabio for his underwhelming performance.

“Regarding that contract, I don’t think you need to sign it just yet,” Franco tells Fabio, to which he responds rather endearingly, “Are you angry?”

Luisa admits, however, that she’s going to miss Fabio. “At the moment, we’re not looking for a robot to replace a human’s job, but I’m going to miss him. I’m going to come into the shop looking for him and he’s not going to be there.”

Perhaps Pepper isn’t quite ready for the shop floor, though a number of companies and organizations are still trying the robot to see how it might fit with their business. And as the technology improves, Pepper and robots like it will inevitably find a growing role in our lives.

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Too smart to be scammed? Try this online test to see if you can be tricked

Think you can spot an online scam?

We often hear stories of cybercriminals tricking people into giving up their bank details or other personal information, but it seems that most of us think we’ll never be a victim ourselves.

Eighty percent of 2,300 people in a recent survey said they believe they can always spot bogus emails or similar fraud attempts, but an actual test to see how good we are at identifying scams showed that just 9 percent of 63,000 people passed with flying colors. Meaning that 91 percent of us could do with some extra training.

The data comes from Take Five, a U.K. campaign with government backing that offers advice to help people protect themselves from financial fraud. Today sees the launch of Take Five To Stop Fraud Week, a nationwide multimedia push to get the word out so people can more confidently identify and deal with scam correspondence.

“Many people may already know the dos and don’ts of financial fraud — that no one should ever contact them out of the blue to ask for their PIN or full password, or ever make them feel pressured into moving money to another account,” Take Five says. “The trouble is, in the heat of the moment, it’s easy to forget this.”

The campaign, which suggests you “take five minutes and listen to your instincts” when you come across a suspicious message, is offering its “too smart to be scammed” test for anyone to try. You can take it here.

One of the questions goes like this:

“You’re having some new radiators fitted and you get this email (below) from your plumber to notify you of some changes to their bank details before you send their fee. Do you transfer the money?”

The email:
Dear xxxx, We need the funds up front before starting our job at your property. Please arrange for a bank transfer to the details below as soon as possible. Account number: 85892250, sort code: 15-02-19
Kind regards, xxxx

Fraudulent? You’d better believe it. This kind of scam is becoming increasingly common, with the sender either having knowledge of the work being done, or simply chancing it via spam. Take Five’s advice? Always double-check with the person you’re sending money to by calling them to make sure the email really came from them and that the details are correct. “Always call them using a number that you trust — such as the one on their official website.”

If you’d like to know more about how you can sharpen up your detection skills, Take Five’s website offers plenty of useful advice. You can check it out here.

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Too smart to be scammed? Try this online test to see if you can be tricked

Think you can spot an online scam?

We often hear stories of cybercriminals tricking people into giving up their bank details or other personal information, but it seems that most of us think we’ll never be a victim ourselves.

Eighty percent of 2,300 people in a recent survey said they believe they can always spot bogus emails or similar fraud attempts, but an actual test to see how good we are at identifying scams showed that just 9 percent of 63,000 people passed with flying colors. Meaning that 91 percent of us could do with some extra training.

The data comes from Take Five, a U.K. campaign with government backing that offers advice to help people protect themselves from financial fraud. Today sees the launch of Take Five To Stop Fraud Week, a nationwide multimedia push to get the word out so people can more confidently identify and deal with scam correspondence.

“Many people may already know the dos and don’ts of financial fraud — that no one should ever contact them out of the blue to ask for their PIN or full password, or ever make them feel pressured into moving money to another account,” Take Five says. “The trouble is, in the heat of the moment, it’s easy to forget this.”

The campaign, which suggests you “take five minutes and listen to your instincts” when you come across a suspicious message, is offering its “too smart to be scammed” test for anyone to try. You can take it here.

One of the questions goes like this:

“You’re having some new radiators fitted and you get this email (below) from your plumber to notify you of some changes to their bank details before you send their fee. Do you transfer the money?”

The email:
Dear xxxx, We need the funds up front before starting our job at your property. Please arrange for a bank transfer to the details below as soon as possible. Account number: 85892250, sort code: 15-02-19
Kind regards, xxxx

Fraudulent? You’d better believe it. This kind of scam is becoming increasingly common, with the sender either having knowledge of the work being done, or simply chancing it via spam. Take Five’s advice? Always double-check with the person you’re sending money to by calling them to make sure the email really came from them and that the details are correct. “Always call them using a number that you trust — such as the one on their official website.”

If you’d like to know more about how you can sharpen up your detection skills, Take Five’s website offers plenty of useful advice. You can check it out here.

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Sphero cuts jobs and refocuses on education

Sphero was supposed to have a banner holiday with a slew of toys themed around Star Wars, Cars 3 and Spider-Man on top of its own self-branded creations. However, things turned out very differently. The company has confirmed to TechCrunch that it recently laid off 45 workers and is restructuring around education. Holiday sales weren’t terrible, Sphero said, but they weren’t “exactly what we had expected” — the education space is one of those areas that “continues to shine.” Most of the layoffs affected Sphero’s home in Colorado, although people in Hong Kong and the UK were also affected.

The company hasn’t said how much this will affect the roadmap for its toys, although it’s difficult to see the firm giving up its lucrative connection to Disney. The education shift is intended to play on Sphero’s strong points, as it believes it’s at its best when it can “100-percent own” the creation of a product.

This isn’t a calamity for Sphero. However, it shows that success is far from certain, even when you combine clever remote control technology with some of the most coveted licenses in the toy world. Education may be a safer bet simply because it’s more predictable, and isn’t as prone to the whims of gift-givers.

Source: TechCrunch

Apple may be close to launching its HomePod speaker

Apple’s HomePod has been sitting in limbo for the better part of a year, but a few new clues suggest that it’s on the cusp of launching — and hint at what it can do. To begin with, the HomePod recently received FCC approval. The filing itself doesn’t reveal anything shocking about the device (surprise, it’s a wireless speaker), but it clears a key hurdle and suggests the hardware, at least, is ready to go. And crucially, a recent iOS release both supports the possibility of an upcoming release and hints at what the HomePod can do.

iHelp BR’s Filipe Esposito has noticed that the latest iOS 11.2.5 beta includes icons for a variety of scene icons, some of which explicitly reference Siri being turned off on at least one speaker. In other words, you could prevent Siri from accidentally interrupting your study session. Esposito also believes that lines of code might reference support for multiple voices, although that’s less than certain. It would make sense when the HomePod may have to be shared by an entire household, especially when Amazon and Google already offer the feature, but Apple hasn’t supported multiple users on devices beyond the Mac.

Neither clue guarantees that a HomePod release is right around the corner. It likely depends on a finished release of iOS 11.2.5 or later, and that’s not including the usual challenges with producing enough units to satisfy initial demand. However, these tidbits suggest the wait might be measured in weeks rather than months.

According to the Home app assets, users with HomePod will be able to create “scenes” that disable Siri temporarily. It will probably be very useful for parties. pic.twitter.com/k2gPc50Kmr

— Filipe Espósito  (@filipekids) January 21, 2018

Via: AppleInsider, 9to5Mac

Source: FCC, Filipe Esposito (Twitter)

HomePod May Support Multiple User Accounts and HomeKit Scenes That Mute Siri

Several new icons unearthed in the latest build of iOS 11.2.5 and shared on Twitter appear to reveal additional functionality included in Apple’s upcoming HomePod smart speaker. On Sunday, Filipe Espósito found an image hidden amongst Apple’s Home app assets that includes icons which suggest it will be possible to create custom scenes that mute the HomePod speaker’s “Hey, Siri” function.

As Espósito notes, the function could be useful in a house party scenario, for example, where the owner might want to control other smart devices like lights and motion sensors while disabling Siri responses for privacy reasons.

Apple has not yet mentioned if HomePod can support more than one user, but Espósito believes there are references that indicate the speaker will distinguish between different voices to service multiple accounts. He also notes that existing assets show support for combining two HomePods for stereo sound, or using two or more HomePods to simultaneously stream music using Apple’s AirPlay 2 wireless streaming protocol.

Apple originally announced the HomePod back in June 2017 at the Worldwide Developers Conference, where it demoed the speaker’s advanced spatial awareness which intelligently adjusts to the surroundings to deliver the best possible sound. The company initially planned to release the Siri-based speaker in December 2017, but in a subsequent statement said it was pushing back launch to a more non-specific “early 2018” timeframe.

Rumors suggest HomePod supplier Inventec has started shipping the HomePod to Apple, whose historical definition of “early” is January through April, so it’s still not entirely clear when it will launch. Supplies of the HomePod could also potentially be limited at launch, based on information shared from Inventec, and Apple has said the $349 speaker will initially only ship in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia.

Related Roundup: HomePodTag: HomeKit
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Apple Announces Partnership With Malala Fund to Support Girls’ Education

Apple and Malala Fund announced on Sunday that Apple will become the fund’s first Laureate partner. Led by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai, the fund champions the right of girls to a quality education and advocates equal opportunity around the world.

With support from Apple, the Malala Fund said it expects to double the number of grants awarded by its Gulmakai Network and extend funding programs to India and Latin America with the initial goal of extending secondary education opportunities to more than 100,000 girls.

Apple CEO Tim Cook with students in Beirut, Lebanon

“My dream is for every girl to choose her own future,” said Malala Yousafzai. “Through both their innovations and philanthropy, Apple has helped educate and empower people around the world. I am grateful that Apple knows the value of investing in girls and is joining Malala Fund in the fight to ensure all girls can learn and lead without fear.”

Apple will help Malala Fund scale its organization by assisting with technology, curriculum and research into policy changes needed to help girls everywhere attend school and complete their education. Apple CEO Tim Cook will also join the Malala Fund leadership council, according to the press release.

“We believe that education is a great equalizing force, and we share Malala Fund’s commitment to give every girl an opportunity to go to school,” said Tim Cook. “Malala is a courageous advocate for equality. She’s one of the most inspiring figures of our time, and we are honored to help her extend the important work she is doing to empower girls around the world.”

Since 2013, Malala Fund has worked with organizations, the private sector and governments around the world to enhance girls’ opportunities for education. The fund’s Gulmakai Network currently supports programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Turkey and Nigeria.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Discuss this article in our forums

T-Mobile is best mobile network in all categories but one, OpenSignal says

T-Mobile is on the way up. OpenSignal’s latest State of Mobile Networks report delves into struggles that the likes of Verizon have been having of late — and it seems as though T-Mobile is picking up a lot of the slack.

As previously reported, Verizon and AT&T’s data speeds took a bit of a hit when they first started offering unlimited data plans, though their speeds now seem to be recovering — even if only slightly. According to the report, T-Mobile, in the meantime, has established itself as the fastest and most responsive mobile network around. In fact, T-Mobile took all of OpenSignal’s awards except for one — 4G latency, which was won by AT&T, though T-Mobile came in a close second. T-Mobile even managed to set a personal record in the fourth quarter of 2017, hitting an average download high of 19.4 Mbps.

Interestingly enough, Sprint is also showing signs of life. OpenSignal’s report showed some pretty big gains by the company in both data speeds and LTE availability in the past year. That’s good news for Sprint, which has reportedly seen customers leave in droves over the past few years.

According to OpenSignal, 2018 could be a pretty unpredictable year for mobile networks. T-Mobile may be a dominant player right now, but competition is heating up, especially as we head into the deployment of 5G. Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile have all said that they’ll begin rollout of 5G networks toward the end of this year, and T-Mobile says that it’s targeting a full rollout by 2020.

As OpenSignal notes, however, Verizon has a history of making big moves under pressure. The company was the first to launch its LTE network, and in 2013, when its 4G network was under strain, it launched a major upgrade that reinstated its high speeds. The same thing seems to be happening now — and we’ll have to wait and see how Verizon responds.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher in 2018. The first 5G networks may still be years away, but the foundations of those 5G services will be built on the 4G infrastructure we use today. The more power the operators build into their LTE systems, the better prepared they’ll be to offer the next generation of mobile services,” said OpenSignal in its report.

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