2018 January | AIVAnet

Jan

After a month-long stay at the space station, Dragon capsule returns to Earth

A SpaceX Dragon capsule loaded with two tons of cargo splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Saturday. It was the second trip to outer space for the capsule, and the second time SpaceX had reused a Dragon for a supply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

The capsule showed a little wear and tear from the reentry, but all the cargo (including a bunch of mice) was retrieved successfully by SpaceX. The capsule was loaded with the results of various scientific experiments, including an attempt to 3D print optical fiber in space. The mice had been treated with various medications that may help alleviate muscle loss during extended stays in a weightless environment.

LIVE NOW: @SpaceX’s #Dragon cargo vehicle departs @Space_Station after almost a month on orbit. Watch: https://t.co/ZuxLDtzW9c pic.twitter.com/aI8T6Hwt9v

— NASA (@NASA) January 13, 2018

The Dragon capsule was launched from Cape Canaveral on December 15, and it marked the first time that both a Falcon 9 rocket and a Dragon capsule had been reused. The capsule had previously visited the ISS in 2015 for a resupply mission. This was the 13th mission for SpaceX under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract.

“Good splashdown of Dragon confirmed, completing the second resupply mission to and from the @Space_Station with a flight-proven commercial spacecraft,” SpaceX announced on Twitter.

Cargo missions using reusable rockets and capsules are now becoming routine for SpaceX. Elon Musk, the company founder, has said he wants to make the entire rocket, including the Falcon 9 upper stage, completely reusable by the end of this year.

At a teleconference with reporters in March, Musk said there’s no reason not to make the attempt. “We didn’t originally intend for Falcon 9 to have a reusable upper stage, but it might be fun to try like a Hail Mary. What’s the worst that could happen — it blows up?” he asked rhetorically. “It blows up anyway.”

“Rapid and complete reusability of rockets is really the key to opening up space and becoming a spacefaring civilization, a multiplanet species, and having the future be something that’s incredibly exciting and inspiring that we’ll all look forward to,” he added.

The next hurdle for SpaceX is a big one — the Falcon Heavy rocket, to be exact. The 27-engine behemoth will go through a test-fire this month, before a planned launch later this year. And Musk’s very own Tesla Roadster will go along for the ride.

Editors’ Recommendations

SpaceX launches both a reused rocket and capsule in successful ISS cargo mission
Elon Musk posts pics of huge Falcon Heavy rocket ahead of debut launch
Did SpaceX lose the classified Zuma payload during its latest launch?
Setback for SpaceX as its next-gen rocket explodes during testing
SpaceX could launch ‘world’s most powerful rocket’ by year’s end

Jan

FCC investigates Hawaii’s false missile alert

It’s not just state officials who are investigating Hawaii’s false alarm over a (thankfully non-existent) missile attack. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has confirmed that the regulator’s investigation into the error is “well underway.” While Pai shied away from making many definitive statements early on, he said that early findings suggested Hawaii didn’t have “reasonable safeguards or process controls” to prevent a mistaken alert.

Not surprisingly, Pai labeled the alarm as “absolutely unacceptable.” It wasn’t just that it triggered panic for the 38 minutes between the initial alert and the correction, according to the Chairman — it’s that this reduced confidence in the alert system and may have hurt its effectiveness in a real crisis.

At this point, there isn’t much debate as to what happened: an employee clicked the wrong box and sent a real alert by mistake, and there was no system in place to send an immediate correction. The FCC’s role at this point is mainly to push for and institute reforms in both Hawaii and across the US. It wants more protections to prevent accidental alerts and a means of correcting slip-ups as quickly as possible.

Source: FCC

Jan

Assistive hearing is the next big thing for wireless earbuds

The number of companies that sell true wireless earbuds has exploded in the last year. B&O, Bose, Sony and Samsung all joined the craze Bragi started back in 2014. Thanks to a bill signed into law last year, some hearing aids and assistive audio devices will be available over-the-counter without the need for a prescription. Headphone companies are also using their tech to help people with hearing problems, especially those suffering from tinnitus.

According to the CDC, around 50 million Americans suffer from some degree of tinnitus or ringing in their ears. The organization further explains that about 20 million of those people have a chronic issue, while around 2 million suffer from debilitating tinnitus — and that’s just in the US. The Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017 that was signed into law last August aims not just to make hearing aids more accessible, but to give people with mild-to-moderate hearing loss more options besides having to get a doctor’s prescription. It allows millions to manage their own health care. As part of that law, the FDA will create a new category of hearing aid, mostly to make sure a manufacturer’s claims meet the standards expected for medical devices.

Accessibility is one big part of what will change under the new law, but it will also go a long way to reducing the stigma surrounding hearing loss. Doppler Labs’ KR Liu told Engadget in an interview this week that more and more companies are interested in accessible tech, most specifically adding features or products to help people hear better.

Over 50 million Americans have hearing loss, yet fewer than 15 percent will go get hearing aids mostly because of cost and stigma,” she explained. “[This legislation] will allow technology companies to sell devices over-the-counter devices to consumers with hearing loss.”

Liu also worked closely with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) to pass the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act with almost unanimous bipartisan support. “Today, if you want to do that, it’s a highly regulated medical device,” she continued. “You still need guidance from the FDA, but it allows the technology industry to sell to this community, which will drive prices down and also bring the conversation around hearing to be more socially acceptable.”

SONY DSC

The Bragi Dash

Being able to run down to the store and pick up one of these new hearing aids will be tremendously helpful to those with hearing loss, but true-wireless earbud maker Bragi is going one step further. At CES 2018, the company announced Project Ears: an initiative with Mimi Hearing Technologies that will add personalized hearing enhancement to its line of Dash earbuds. The idea started with an early Bragi customer who modified the Dash to help with tinnitus. Although Project Ears will certainly help those suffering from that chronic ringing, it will also assist those with hearing loss.

Bragi founder and CEO Nikolaj Hviid told me that the move is all about the next step in wearable computing. “It’s about extending what the Dash can do,” he explained. “Physically it’s the same — from a hardware perspective.” Through software tweaks, the company can make its products perform two functions and further extend what Bragi refers to as “wearable computing.”

Like much of what Bragi does already with this audio gear, Project Ears will be customized to each person. Thanks to Mimi’s customized hearing maps, the earbuds will offer a hearing solution to each individual based on the results of a hearing test. In fact, there’s already a so-called Earprint test from the collaboration — what’s better known as a pure tone threshold test, if you want to get technical.

“No two people hear the same, much like glasses,” Hviid said. “Project Ears is the concept of glasses for the ears, predominantly focusing on the people who have tinnitus. We thought we could modify our software so that these people could be helped.”

There are some sacrifices that have to be made. Not all of Bragi’s tracking features and embedded storage will be available on these new devices, though the hardware will be exactly the same. “Initially we made the choice to take a lot of the features out,” Hviid continued. “It’s a very sophisticated product, but it needs to be simple.”

Nuheara’s IQBuds Boost

Bragi isn’t the only firm trying to help people hear better. A number of companies at CES, including Nuheara, offer devices that can help with hearing issues or just help you understand someone in the chaos of a noisy office, construction site or other hectic environments. In Nuheara’s case, the company is on version 2.0 of its true wireless earbuds that offer assistive audio. The first, called IQBuds, was announced at CES last year and the follow-up IQBuds Boost made their debut earlier this week. Like Bragi plans with Project Ears, Nuheara offers a solution that’s catered to an individual’s hearing profile. The company’s software, known as Ear ID, can calibrate the wearable devices so they work best for you — again, much like Bragi plans to do with its assistive-audio solution.

Though a number of companies have followed Bragi’s lead with true wireless devices of their own, it will take some work for them to offer assisted audio or sound amplification. As Hviid explained in an interview with Engadget, Bragi believes the tech in the Dash and Dash Pro is much more powerful than just wireless earbuds. There are sensors and other tech that enable the gesture control and other features that make Bragi’s products unique. It’s not a matter of just adding sound amplification to an existing product line and calling it a day: Bragi also plans to earn FDA approval for its assistive hearing devices.

“We were part of creating a space that became very popular, but the space for us is not just true wireless headphones,” Hviid said. “What we’re making is computers for the body and the ears, and you’ll see us expand that by creating computers that enable and protect you.”

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

Jan

Japan’s latest sensation is a cryptocurrency pop group

If you’re starting a pop group in Japan, where giant rosters and virtual superstars are par for the course, how do you stand out? By tying yourself to something trendy — and in 2018, that means cryptocurrency. Meet Kasotsuka Shojo (Virtual Currency Girls), a J-pop group where each of the eight girls represents one of the larger digital monetary formats. Yes, you’re supposed to cheer for bitcoin or swoon over ethereum (what, no litecoin?). The group played its first concert on January 12th, and naturally you had to pay in cryptocurrency to be one of the few members of the general public to get in.

The group’s first single, “The Moon and Virtual Currencies and Me,” warns listeners about the perils of fraud and extols the virtues of good online security.

And yes, there’s a reason for the exceptionally timely theme. Katsosuka Shojo is promoting the idea that cryptocurrency isn’t a “tool of speculation,” but rather a means of creating a “wonderful future.” It helps that Japan is one of bitcoin’s biggest markets, with legal recognition and one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges. There really is an audience for this, then.

The real question: how long will this last? If you think regular pop groups don’t last long, imagine a band whose fate is intertwined with something as volatile as cryptocurrency. It could find a following… or it fizzle out the moment virtual cash becomes passé.

Via: Quartz, The Verge

Source: Cinderella Academy (translated)

Jan

From the Editor’s Desk: Post-CES hot-takes

vegas-skyline-2017.jpg?itok=uMqN8KB8

So long, CES 2018. You were kinda weird.

As we come crashing out of CES week and into 2018 proper, it’s time to reflect on a big (and slightly weird) week in tech.

It’s a working weekend, so I’ll just touch on a few of the show’s major highlights for Android and Google followers. I could go way longer on a lot of these, so consider this assembly of CES hot-takes to be my initial, largely unfiltered thoughts on the show.

Here goes…

Huawei’s U.S. plans crumble

At a pre-CES Huawei briefing for journalists ahead of its big press conference, it was obvious that something was up. Instead of the highly anticipated carrier partnership, the U.S. team presented a slightly confusing message for the Mate 10 Pro framed around millennials, Gen-Z and unlocked sales via the likes of Best Buy and Newegg.

Shortly thereafter, we found out precisely why: Huawei had negotiated a deal with AT&T, but this had been torpedoed at the last minute, reportedly due to “political pressure.” This was not the CES Huawei wanted, and with hindsight, you could feel it in the atmosphere of that initial briefing. The deep-sixing of the AT&T deal, apparently at the eleventh hour, sends the message that Huawei could try, over years, to pen another deal with another of the big four, only to have the rug pulled out from under it just days before the announcement.

It’s unclear where Huawei’s U.S. ambitions go from here, the company essentially having to prove a negative now in terms of alleged ties to the Chinese government. At best, it’s a multi-year setback. At worst, it’s the end of Huawei’s chances of carving out a significant U.S. market presence.

But hey, at least the Honor View 10 is coming to the U.S.! With similar specs, a lower price tag and less software weirdness than the Mate 10 Pro (not to mention a focus on direct online sales by design, not necessity), the View 10 has every chance of being moderately successful in the U.S. market.

Hey Google

Google Assistant was everywhere at CES 2018, much as Amazon’s Alexa was twelve months earlier. The new class of Assistant devices with screens were the most interesting Googley gadgets at the show, demonstrating how a dedicated screen could streamline what is sometimes a clunky voice-only experience.

It’s early days for this on-screen experience, though, which isn’t due to debut on anything until the summer. (Expect to see much more on Assistant displays at Google’s I/O developer conference in late spring.) Google’s CES presence in itself is noteworthy. The company carved out a sizeable outdoor space for demos of Android Auto, “Made by Google” hardware and of course Assistant.

And the new “Hey Google” activation phrase was everywhere, including a prominent spot on Las Vegas monorail trails. “Hey Google” replaces the more awkward “OK Google”, with one fewer syllable and a more natural, conversational tone. Will it make normal people any more willing to talk directly to Google as opposed to the more personable Alexa? We’ll see.

#CESBlackout

Following a day of heavy rainfall that actually closed some outdoor booths, including Google’s, the day before, the lights went out for a couple of hours in two of the main CES halls at the Las Vegas convention center. (Surprise – turns out a city in the middle of a desert doesn’t have great drainage.)

#cesblackout Tweets

This led to a moderately chaotic day two for CES, which included security personnel at the North Hall having to deal with many a besuited wanker trying to barge their way in through side exit when the halls were on lockdown. (Maybe don’t do that when you’re representing your company, and wearing an oversized badge bearing both your name and theirs.)

Weird stuff you’ll never be able to buy

Just as the Razer Phone was a good idea done badly, Razer’s Project Linda — which plugs the handset into a vaguely Razer Blade-shaped laptop dock — is a terrible idea done incredibly well.

By its own admission, Razer doesn’t know if it’ll ever sell Project Linda. But at least weird and wonderful gadgets like this help to keep CES interesting.

The Galaxy S9 is happening

Samsung’s CES presser was full of things like Knox on your fridge and Bixby in your car big ecosystem plays as the company looks to carve itself out a bigger slice of the IoT pie.

While it wasn’t at CES proper, an interview with Samsung mobile boss DJ Koh did confirm that the Galaxy S9 would land at Mobile World Congress in February, a month earlier than the S8 last year. And with that, the company effectively steamroller every other phone at that show. For all intents and purposes, MWC is now the Galaxy S9 show, even if the phone itself turns out to be a largely iterative update on last year’s models.

Pretty pictures

Huawei invited me and Michael Fisher (aka MrMobile) on a chopper tour of the Grand Canyon to test out the camera of the Mate 10 Pro. The Mate’s camera impressed us a few months back, and it’s only gotten better with a couple of updates that have landed since then. You’ll find a gallery of some of the best pics over here on Google Photos.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back with more pre-MWC thoughts in a few weeks!

-Alex

Jan

After Math: CES 2018 by the numbers

After a week in the desert, CES 2018 has finally come to a close. Booths were trod, products were demoed and the conference was visited by only one of the biblical plagues. Puffco debuted one of the only cannabis gadgets seen at CES in recent memory, a gaming robot beat virtually every human who challenged it in Scrabble, and Toyota’s “E-Palette” mobility concept turned all of the heads. Numbers, because how else will you tally votes for the Best of CES awards?

20 seconds: That’s how long it takes for the Puffco Peak concentrate vaporizer to fully heat up — a fraction of the time it takes e-nails to do the same and far less flammable than the butane torch method.

5 years: That’s how long we’ll have to wait for regulators to work their magic before hopping into Volocopter’s 18-rotor autonomous sky taxi. Just make sure wherever you’re flying to is within the 30-minute range limit.

$120: That’s how much you’re going to pay for the Vortx gaming accessory if you want to have air puffed into your face during your next Overwatch session.

82: That’s the age of first-time CES exhibitor Carol Staninger, who’s here to help save the lives of children by alerting an adult when said ankle biters are left unattended in hot cars.

112–81: That was the final score in a friendly match between Engadget managing editor Terrence O’Brien and ITRI’s Scrabble-playing AI. The AI won handily, despite its hands actually being manipulators.

2 hours: That’s how long the Las Vegas Convention Center was thrust into darkness on Wednesday. Oh, the sweet, sweet irony of the world’s largest electronics expo losing electricity for hours on end.

3: That’s how many Best of CES awards the Toyota e-Palette mobility concept took home: Best Transportation Tech, Best Innovation and the coveted Best of the Best of CES award. Fingers crossed it actually makes it out of testing and onto our roadways.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

Jan

The best freezer

By Tyler Wells Lynch

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 the full article here.

After more than 40 hours of research, including interviews with two butchers, an engineer, and a bunch of hunters, we think the Frigidaire FFFH20F2QW is the best freezer for most people.

How we picked

Most freezers do an admirable job of accomplishing the basic task of keeping things frozen, but they aren’t all created equal. The best freezers are those with an upright configuration, with a capacity of at least 15 cubic feet and a cost per cubic foot of less than $45. They come from reputable companies with reputations for long-term reliability, and they include these five key features:

Storage baskets and shelves that you can move around
Bright interior lighting
Adjustable leveling legs
Power-on indicator light
Safety lock

We leaned toward upright freezers over chest freezers because they offer more storage space in a smaller footprint and are easier to organize. Most uprights are “frost-free,” which means the temperature periodically rises to melt frost buildup. This eliminates the need for a painstaking manual defrost, but increases the risk of freezer burn. We have recommendations for both frost-free and manual-defrost designs.

Because we weren’t able to test the freezers physically, we devoted dozens of hours to researching, spreadsheeting, and reading about 60 different freezers. We disqualified any models that lacked a power-on light, a safety lock, and an interior light. We also cut models that didn’t have at least 100 reviews and an average rating of 4½ stars out of five. Finally, we considered other editorial reviews, warranties, price, consumption, and availability to winnow the list to just four models.

The best freezer: Frigidaire FFFH20F2QW

Photo: Frigidaire

The Frigidaire FFFH20F2QW is the best upright freezer for most people. It offers 20 cubic feet of storage space in a modest footprint, and has a lower cost-per-cubic-foot price than any other freezer of its size and type. It’s even more energy-efficient than our top pick, drawing only 480 kilowatt-hours of energy per year. That amount of power will add about $61 to your annual energy bill. The FFFH20F2QW is a frost-free machine that has all five of the most important features we think any freezer should have.

We’re confident in the FFFH20F2QW’s long-term performance, mostly because of Frigidaire’s reputation. According to Yale Appliance and Lighting, just 8.3 percent of the 5,657 Frigidaire products it sold in 2016 required service. The FFFH20F2QW also has solid reviews from professional testers like Consumer Reports and customers on the Home Depot and Best Buy websites.

Runner-up: Frigidaire FFFU17M1QW

Photo: Frigidaire

If you’re looking for something slightly smaller or slightly cheaper, or if you simply prefer a manual-defrost system, we recommend the Frigidaire FFFU17M1QW. At 17.4 cubic feet, it’s still quite a large freezer, and its cost per cubic foot is among the lowest we’ve seen in the mid- to large-size category. Like our top pick, it has all five of the most important features you should expect in an upright freezer. The FFFU17M1QW draws an estimated 362 kilowatt-hours per year, enough to add about $50 to your annual energy bill.

The FFFU17M1QW is really just a scaled-down version of our top pick, with manual defrost instead of a frost-free design. That means a lower risk of freezer burn and spoiled food, but you’ll need to defrost your freezer whenever the ice reaches a quarter-inch in thickness. It’s the highest-rated manual-defrost upright freezer in current Consumer Reports rankings, and it maintains glowing customers reviews too.

Budget pick: Maytag MZF34X16DW

Photo: Maytag

Among mid- to large-size upright freezers, the Maytag MZF34X16DW is the best pick for the price. A 15.7-cubic-foot frost-free machine, it has top ratings for its temperature performance and energy efficiency, and its price is notably less than our top pick’s. In terms of price relative to capacity, no freezer matched the value of the MZF34X16DW: Its cost per cubic foot was the lowest among all the upright freezers we researched. You can expect it to cost you a little over $40 a year to run continuously.

This freezer lacks a few important features found in our other picks, like a power-on light, safety lock, and adjustable leveling legs. But we still think it’s a good value for more budget-conscious folks.

The MZF34X16DW has solid reviews among owners and professional testers, due in no small part to Maytag’s reputation for long-term reliability. It’s currently Maytag’s top-selling upright freezer. It also has one of the most comprehensive warranties we’ve seen: a one-year limited warranty and a 10-year warranty on the compressor.

The best chest freezer: GE FCM11PHWW

Photo: GE

For a chest freezer, we recommend the GE FCM11PHWW, which strikes the right balance of price, performance, features, reliability, and required floor space, despite being much smaller than our other picks at only 10.6 cubic feet. We considered larger chest freezers, but found they were difficult to organize and took up far too much floor space. If you need a larger capacity, we think you’re better off with an upright freezer.

This GE costs roughly half the price of our top pick, and it is one of the most popular, top-reviewed freezers you can get. It offers three storage baskets and was one of the only chest freezers we saw with adjustable leveling legs. It’s backed by one of the best freezer warranties available: the standard one-year limited, and an additional 10-year warranty on the compressor.

Consumer Reports currently ranks the FCM11PHWW as the top overall freezer—chest or upright. It draws only 218 kilowatt-hours per year, so as CR estimates, it will cost just $30 a year to operate, less than any other freezer in this guide. Customer reviews for the FCM11PHWW are glowing, averaging out to higher than those of any other freezer we looked at.

This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

Note from Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

Jan

Nissan shares its vision for our autonomous EV future at CES

Not surprisingly, autonomy and electrification dominated transportation news at CES 2018. Toyota introduced its e-Palette concept mobility solution (which proceeded to dominate Engadget’s Best of CES awards), while Silicon Valley startup Robomart unveiled plans to bring produce shopping to your front door. Automakers also announced a slew of upcoming self-driving technologies, ranging from Alexa integration and automated emergency brakes to Level 5 personal transport pods that do away with the steering wheel altogether.

But even among the most adventurous concepts floated at this year’s trade show, Nissan’s vision for the future stands out. One in which driver and vehicle could someday work in perfect harmony, thanks to a brain machine interface that instantly translates your thoughts into the vehicle’s actions. It’s one of a number of ideas the company is pursuing, Alfonso Albaisa, Nissan’s global head of design, explained to Engadget as we walked around an IMx concept vehicle mock-up at the Nissan booth.

The IMx, much like Byton’s recently unveiled Concept SUV, is packed with sensors and ringed with cameras — everything you’d expect an autonomous vehicle to come equipped with. But it’s what Nissan does with that data that’s novel.

“If someone walks on the other side, you can see them walking through the wood [and LED-screen paneling on the interior of the passenger side door],” Albaisa explained. “Because what happens, especially on an SUV, is the visibility around the car below is not so good. So if a child or something is walking, you don’t see them.” But with this system, the driver can monitor the sides and rear of the vehicle in real time, without having to adjust the side-view mirrors. That’s a good thing, given that the IMx forgoes its exterior mirrors in favor of cameras. Unfortunately, neither Nissan’s nor Byton’s vehicles will be going mirrorless anytime soon, due to federal NTSB regulations.

Albaisa sees electric-vehicle and autonomous-navigation technologies as intrinsically linked. “The EV has inspired everyone to bring other innovations,” he said. “Because autonomous driving and EV, they’re kind of related in the sense that the issue of drive-by-wire, ship-by-wire, it’s usually linked. And to ensure that autonomous EVs operate safely, “you need those kind of intelligent controls systems,” Albaisa said.

The spread of EV technology will have a number of impacts on the design of tomorrow’s vehicles, often in ways that the public might not initially appreciate. “The fact that the floor [of the IMx] is completely flat is a major deal for the people in the car companies,” Albaisa said. “Because usually you have to deal with exhaust, with transmissions, and drivetrains. We don’t have any of that in the future. So you’re able to have this completely open space” in the vehicle’s interior that opens up a slew of unconventional configurations, with seats that rotate or recline completely flat.

“Also, the EV models are getting smaller and smaller,” Albaisa continued. “Eventually [the electric engines are] going to jump into the wheels. This is the next big thing… it is going to then free up most of the [vehicle’s interior] volume.”

While Albaisa credits the interplay between his team and Nissan’s engineering department with continually generating new ideas, he doesn’t limit his inspiration to the automotive industry. Narration has emerged as a potent ideal in Albaisa’s designs. “One of the things that I do now is hire filmmakers,” he said, because of their ability to tell stories.

The problem Albaisa hopes to address here is how to help drivers make sense of the myriad disconnected pieces of information generated during an autonomous car ride. “There’s a bunch of information that’s not related,” he lamented. “There’s the speed of technical issues within the car, there’s also where the car is going, all of the data from the cloud, all the apps, the curiosities of the customer, not related.” Albaisa argues that the storytelling skills that filmmakers possess could help the drivers of tomorrow to more easily and seamlessly understand what is happening in the car around them.

For example, he points to the distracted-driving issue as a way in which seamless transitions might make driving safer in the future. “People are expecting to be able to access Instagram and Facebook while they’re driving. That’s the definition of distraction,” he said. Car companies must make it so that drivers can access the information they want — whether on a central display cluster or otherwise — without losing focus on the road and without irritating the vehicle’s occupants.

Autonomous navigation can be applied in this situation, enabling drivers to safely take a break from actively driving, get their social media fix and then retake command of the vehicle. Unfortunately, “the customer doesn’t understand why you need to transition,” he said; they simply expect things to work.

The other major obstacle facing Albaisa’s team is one of weight. Take the vehicle’s wheels, for example, which are among the heavier components in a modern car. Nissan engineers are currently exploring new materials such as composite plastics and thinner, lighter designs that offer the same structural integrity and performance as a standard alloy rim but at a fraction of the weight.

But it’s not just wheels, mind you. “I don’t know how much people feel it, but for us in the companies, everything is in play,” he said. “Everything has to be thought about in a different way.”

Take an action as simple as opening the door, for example. The IMx doesn’t actually have any door handles. Instead, cameras mounted in the B-pillars will scan the driver’s face as he approaches, leverage facial-recognition algorithms to confirm his identity, then automatically pop the door open.

“You just have a solenoid lock that releases the door and just opens it a little bit using the hinge geometry. It’s cool, but also it’s a massive weight reduction,” Albaisa said, pointing out that such a design conforms to his ideals of seamlessness. The same is true for the interior, where, despite individual pieces being small and light, removing the various plastic bits in the cabin can add up to significant weight savings.

The trick moving forward, Albaisa believes, will be one of balancing cost and quality. “At the end of the day, the customer expects the car to be the same price,” he said. “We’ve actually started loading things that are, you know, screens — these are not free. And the computing power to operate screens and to operate apps is expensive.”

“So that’s the biggest challenge we have,” Albaisa concluded. “How do we do these things in a way that is affordable to people? Because it would be a shame if all of these technologies are only for the rich.”

Jan

Learn how to set up voicemail on an iPhone

Do you have a new iPhone? Then it’s time to set up your visual voicemail function! This is the feature that allows you to see all your voicemails without needing to call up a number first. You can organize, delete, and play your voicemails from this handy menu, but first you need to know how to set up voicemail on an iPhone.

Note: This process should work on most modern iPhones, including the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, although you may want to make sure that iOS is updated before you begin — do this via Settings > General > Software Update. If you haven’t set up basic voicemail through your carrier yet, skip down to our additional tip to get started and make sure everything is ready for visual voicemail.

Setting up voicemail on your iPhone

Pretty much every phone service provider in North America now supports visual voicemail. Apple has a full list of carriers and what they support if you want to check, but if you use any major carrier at all, you are probably covered. Here’s what to do:

Step 1: Go to the Phone app at the bottom of your iPhone home screen and select it. At the bottom of the phone window you will see the Voicemail icon in the right corner. Select it to open up your visual voicemail.

Step 2: The voicemail screen should show an empty space with a button to Set up now in the center of the screen. Select this: Now you have a choice. If you have used iPhone’s voicemail service in the past and have signed into it before, you can input your old password here to automatically access your old voicemails. If you have never used visual voicemail before, then you will have to create a password and re-enter it. When finished, select Done.

Step 3: Now your iPhone will bring up the Greeting screen. If you don’t care much about the greeting, you can select Default and then Done to skip this step. If you want to personalize your greeting, select, Record to record your greeting, and Play to repeat it back. When you’re happy with it, select Done.

Step 4: Your iPhone voicemail is now officially set up. However, you can also take a look here to learn more about how to move voicemails around Apple services. You can share voicemails with AirDrop, mail them to others, save them as an audio memo to save on space, and more. Check out your options and get comfortable using the voicemail system!

Additional tip: Setting up basic voicemail

You may want to set up and use basic voicemail on your phone until you are ready for visual voicemail. If you just switched carriers or this is your first carrier, you will probably need to set up basic voicemail directly with them. This is a good option if you’re still getting comfortable with your phone and want to use traditional voicemail until it’s time to set up the visual voicemail app.

Most of these setup procedures require dialing the right number and setting up your voicemail over the phone, but they all differ in small ways. Let’s go through by major carrier to see what they require.

AT&T: You can read AT&T’s specific instructions here. You will want to start by pressing the voicemail key or holding down the “1” key. You then set up a greeting and a password (it’s now a requirement) for your voicemail. AT&T also lets you upgrade your voicemail for more space, but this is not necessary to set up visual voicemail.

Verizon: Verizon’s setup is app-based and easy to do before you set up visual voicemail. Select the phone app, select Voicemail, and go to Set Up Now. This will walk you through choosing a password and a greeting on your iPhone.

T-Mobile: Similar to AT&T, T-Mobile wants to you press and hold down “1” key until it connects you with your voicemail. From here, set up your password and follow the instructions to record a greeting.

Sprint: If you have a Sprint phone, you have to press and hold “1” here, too. You can learn more about the process here.