Twitter missed its Russia election interference deadline

Over the course of 2017, evidence emerged that Russian actors posted advertisements and content on US-facing sites leading up to the 2016 election to influence public opinion. As part of their investigations, the Senate Intelligence Committee sent Facebook, Google and Twitter written questions to answer by yesterday. The former two complied but Twitter missed the deadline, the committee’s top Democrat Senator Mark Warner told Axios.

Lawyers from Facebook, Google and Twitter appeared before the committee in November to answer questions, after which the panel wrote down a list of further inquiries. Facebook and Google supplied ‘voluminous amounts of information,’ Warner said, but he wasn’t pleased that Twitter blew the deadline.

“They need to understand when they bring in their senior executives and testify before Congress, when Congress then has follow-up written questions, we expect them to answer those questions,” Warner told Axios. “So if it’s a day or two, fine, but if this is one more attempt for them to kind of punt on their responsibility that will not go down well with the committee.”

Twitter provided a statement to Axios in response:

“We are continuing to work closely with committee investigators to provide detailed, thorough answers to their questions. As our review is ongoing, we want to ensure we are providing Congress with the most complete, accurate answers possible. We look forward to finalizing our responses soon,” a Twitter spokesperson said.

Facebook grabbed headlines when it admitted that 126 million US users were exposed to Russian advertisements, but Twitter soon followed with its own confessions. The latter announced in September that hundreds of accounts on its platform were Russia-backed bots. A month later, the service blocked ads from a pair of Russian media agencies. But as more evidence emerged, the Senate demanded Facebook and Twitter hand over information and, in the latter’s case, direct messages from Julian Assange.

Source: Axios

Huawei’s new hybrid routers blend mesh and powerline connectivity

Huawei believes it has found the solution to two of the most common frustrations with WiFi routers — blind spots and slower speeds at further distances. The company’s new WiFi Q2 routers blend a conventional mesh system with power-line communication to extend coverage using your house’s electrical wiring. Pricing and availability haven’t been announced yet; confusingly, the “Q2” in the router’s name does not refer to when it goes on sale — but Huawei said the WiFi Q2 will launch globally.

In addition to using PLC, the WiFi Q2 will also default to 5GHz bands and feature a dedicated channel for IoT connections. The system will identify connected devices and assign them to the reserved band so heavy-traffic devices like your laptop and phone won’t have to fight with your smart speaker or lights.

According to Huawei, the WiFi Q2 will also be easy to set up. Setting up the base router will require some configuration after plugging in, but you should be able to place your satellites wherever you wish without having to check on an app whether you are within range to drop your extender. The company is calling this a “real plug-and-play” solution. Since we haven’t tested this, we can’t tell if it will work, but it sounds like a nice convenience if effective.

The WiFi Q2 mesh system can support up to 16 hot spots, and Huawei said that switching between satellite takes less than 100 milliseconds so you shouldn’t notice a drop off in your connection even as you roam your large estate. You should also expect gigabit speeds (depending on your service), thanks to the 1,867Mbps backhaul. The PLC will support up to 1 Gbps speeds.

When it does launch, the WiFi Q2 will be available in three bundles — a premium set with three AC1200 modules that have the hybrid functionality, a regular three-pack with AC1200 modules that aren’t hybrid, as well as a basic kit with just one base and one satellite (both AC1200) units.

We’ve seen some curious new routers show up here at CES 2018, with ASUS’s AiMesh system that creates a mesh network with routers you already own, the Lyra Voice Alexa speaker-router combo as well as the something that looks like a wonky iron. Routers and networking aren’t usually exciting categories, but this year it sure seems like companies are trying to spice things up a little. Let’s just hope that this leads to actually better WiFi in our homes soon.

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

Huawei’s Mate 10 Pro and its Porsche Design variant are coming to the US

Huawei’s deal to sell its Mate 10 Pro through a US carrier has fallen apart, but you’ll still be able to get one around these parts. The company confirmed today that it will sell the Mate 10 Pro for $799 unlocked through Best Buy, Amazon, Microsoft, Newegg and B&H starting on February 18th. If you’re really itching to nab one of Huawei’s flagships, you’ll be able to pre-order one on February 4th.

If the regular Mate 10 Pro is a little too pedestrian, however, there’s always the new Porsche Design Mate 10 Pro. Huawei says it renewed its collaboration with the Porsche people because consumers demanded it, and unlike last year’s Porsched-up Mate 9, this all-black model is clad entirely in glass. We’re not completely sold on the new materials, though: it’s incredibly reflective, and it doesn’t feel as premium as you’d expect considering the phone will cost $1,225 when it launches alongside the regular Mate 10 Pro. At least the $400+ premium gets you some extra storage — the Porsche Design model packs 256GB of space, up from the 128GB available in the normal version.

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

Former Psion designers return with a fresh take on the PDA

Way back when, in the days before smartphones, folks had to use a PDA to get work done when they were out and about on the go. The form factor was typified by Psion, which died off at the turn of the millennium when it was clear other devices would take its place. But now the spirit of Psion lives on in a couple of its former engineers, which have developed the Gemini, a clamshell smartphone with a physical keyboard.

The Gemini comes packing a 5.99-inch FHD display and a 10-core MediaTek System-on-Chip paired with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. That figure is expandable with the built-in microSD card slot, which can push that figure past the 256GB mark. And in that regard, it’s pretty much a generic Android smartphone, albeit with the ability to dual-boot Linux and operate with a built-in keyboard.

On the other side of the clamshell is the 4,220mAh battery and the aforementioned keyboard, which is as cramped and tall as you remember from the Psion days. The travel is certainly luxurious for a device of this size, but the distance between the keycaps is a problem. It may be an issue that you grow to overcome with practice, but I’m not sure my meaty, wide fingers are going to get any smaller, no matter how much I wish they would.

Much like Samsung, and several other Android phones, the device can also work as a desktop, should you buy the additional accessories. Two USB-C ports on the phone can be connected to a USB and Ethernet hub and HDMI-out, enabling you to hook this up to a keyboard, mouse and external display.

There are two options, a WiFI-only edition that’s priced at $499, while a WiFi and 4G model will set you back $599. If you opt for the pricier model, you’ll actually have to close the clamshell and speak into one of the sides to talk. Thankfully, much like Alcatel’s latest phones, the devices are omnidirectional, with microphones and speakers situated at whichever end gets closest to your ear.

Its founders admit that the Gemini is a niche device, but it seems to have found some love on Indiegogo when it was crowdfunded last year. The outfit managed to raise $1.3 million and is expecting the first orders to sail out of the door in the near future. At a guess, there’s probably a whole generation of folks who miss the days of being able to organize their lives without having to tap their fingers onto glass.

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

Source: Indiegogo, Planet Computers

Taro’s camera stabilizer uses infrared for better tracking

If you want to capture any kind of sports on camera, it’s incredibly valuable to have a camera stabilizer that can track the subject’s movements for you. That’s why many sports videographers have sung the praises of the DJI Osmo gimbal stabilizer, which can do just that — you tap the person in a companion app, and the Osmo will follow the subject around for you. Except, it doesn’t work all of the time. If the person moves too fast or if there’s an obstruction, the Osmo will often just lose track. The Taro, however, aims to solve that with a series of new stabilizers that combines both infrared technology and artificial intelligence.

Simply called the Taro Tracking stabilizer, it works with the attachment of an infrared module (seen in the pictures here) atop the camera. Then, the athlete in question would strap on a wristband with an IR tag — she can wear it out in the open or under her clothes — and the module will immediately recognize it, and start following it around. And since it’s following the athlete based on this IR connection, it doesn’t matter if she skates behind a pillar or slides into the shadows — the camera will still follow her every move. A Taro spokesperson tells me that it’ll even track speeds of up to 50 mph.

At CES, the Taro team has released two different versions of its stabilizer. One is the T1, which is for smartphones and GoPros and the other is the Taro TX, which is for DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. The infrared module is called the Taro M1, which you can buy separately.

Speaking of price, the Taro T1, TX and M1 retail for around $359, $969 and $179 respectively. That said, if you pre-order them right now, the prices are only $199, $599 and $99 respectively. Shipping is slated for May of this year.

Peloton’s $4,000 treadmill comes with a 32-inch TV

There’s just something about spinning classes that inspires a level of cultish devotion in its followers, like the bond shared between the denizens of SoulCycle. Peloton is another such company, which launched a static bike that offered a live stream of classes from the company’s New York fitness studio. Now, years after its initial 2013 launch, the company is branching out into a very different form of fitness: the treadmill.

The Peloton Tread is a swanky, $3,995 treadmill that comes packing a 32-inch HD touchscreen for watching classes, both live and on-demand. It’s better looking than most treadmills, too, and the speed / incline buttons have been replaced with chunky rubber knobs that offer far easier control. In addition, hit the center of each knob and you’ll be able to increase your speed and incline by one whole integer without fuss.

The belt itself is comprised of 59 aluminum slats coated in thick rubber that give the treadmill the feel of a springy dance hall floor. It’s surprisingly comfortable, and if you, like me, suffer from shin splints, then you’ll notice a lack of discomfort when your feet strike the surface. Everything else, as you would expect from a Peloton product, is luxurious and well-designed, a league above what you’d see in a regular gym.

Below the display is a 20 Watt sound bar, but if you’d rather work with headphones, you can connect your Bluetooth set to the system. Those preferring to stick with a wired option can also jack in with the 3.5mm port. Both the speaker and the belt drive itself are covered in a nylon blend fabric that make the device look a little less intimidating should you have it in your living room.

As well as that fairly sizable up-front cost, you’ll also be spending $39.95 a month to get access to the on-demand and live fitness classes that Peloton is famous for. It means that you’ll have to weigh up the pros and cons of subscribing to this over your own personal trainer, although if you’re having that dilemma, you’ve got more money than pretty much everyone else.

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

Source: Peloton

Razer’s fantastical concept projects inform its future

Razer’s Project Linda laptop dock might be grounded in reality, but that doesn’t mean the company is out of wild ideas for the future. It’s just that for this CES, Razer wanted to merge its lightweight Blade Stealth laptop with its recently released smartphone and see how people would react. “We still have the flexibility to do some of the more far-out stuff that everyone loves to see,” Marketing Director Kevin Sather reassured. He was talking about Project Christine, the subscription-based modular PC system from 2014. Or last year’s laptop with three displays, Project Valerie. While neither of those have come out — same goes for the showstopping Project Ariana projector — Razer doesn’t see them as a waste. In fact, they’re informing the company’s future.

Take Project Christine, for example, which would allow you to swap out a GPU as easily as you would a Keurig pod. It still hasn’t come out because third-party partners largely ignored the device. But Sather said that the Blade Stealth ultraportable and its Core graphics extender “borrowed heavily” from Project Christine’s DNA. “A lot of the R&D we did on how to dock and undock, and modular components in a PC ecosystem, was beneficial to us as we were working on the Razer Core with Intel, NVIDIA and AMD,” he said.

“Some concepts are more far out there,” Sather admitted. “Everything we show is technically feasible,” he added, but it’s more of a question of how much effort the company needs to put in to make something a reality, versus how much its customers might actually want it.

For example, the Project Fiona gaming tablet gained enough buzz at CES back in 2012 that a year later, the company traded the code name for Edge and the device — funky wand-like controllers and all — was available to purchase that March. Sather said that on occasion when CES rolls around, the company has a prototype that’s close to being an attainable product, but some aspect of it isn’t ready for retail. That’s when it becomes a project. In Project Linda’s case, what isn’t ready for prime time is the display and software.

In use, that means the screen isn’t a one-to-one replica of the Razer phone powering it; there’s no 120Hz refresh rate or HDR capabilities, and it isn’t a touchscreen. The custom software that marries the phone to Project Linda when the handset is docked, turning it into a touchpad, still needs some engineering work to improve the palm-rejection system and overall optimization as well. Both of those snags could feasibly be fixed in about a year, and the device could be ready to purchase. Why show it off early then?

“We could go and sit in a lab for six months by ourselves and keep iterating on it, but we think it would be a much better product with the community’s assistance,” Sather said. It’s a similar approach that automakers take to concept vehicles: Pack them with as much future tech as possible and see what actually works or gets people’s imaginations going. He mentioned that a lot of the feedback Razer gets is predictable, but it’s when people come up with ideas that the company hasn’t thought of that the team gets inspired.

Last year’s Project Valerie had an unexpected fan: the military. Razer originally envisioned it’d be a hit with people who’d purchased one of its Blade laptops, but the medical and defense industries took a shine to it too. Both communities have their own existing tri-monitor setups, but none could be thrown in a backpack — they have to be wheeled in on a cart or stuffed into the back of a Jeep. For now it’s back in the lab, cooking. “There’s no announcement to make on it officially, but it’s not dead by any means.”

The Project Ariana tech sounds like it’s moving closer to retail as well. Sather said we could see “pieces” of the projector setup arrive as different products and that consumers will benefit from a lot of the behind-the-scenes tech “in the near future.” One aspect of the demo — Chroma integration for Philips Hue lighting — became publicly available today.

Sather said that despite its legacy for bringing hot rod-like concepts to CES every year, it doesn’t feel pressure to keep one-upping itself. If you’ll remember, its Android-based microconsole the Forge TV and the Blade Stealth both debuted in Las Vegas. This year, it also brought a 2.1 gaming speaker system to the show, in addition to a mouse pad that powers a wireless mouse.

“We don’t have a plan going into [CES] like, ‘This is crazy-concept year, this is close-to-reality year,’” Sather said. “We just go where the trends lead us, where the market leads us and what we think our customers want to see.”

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

Samsung knows exactly how to sell mobile VR to the public

Mobile VR has a reputation as being a sort of cheap and underwhelming experience. Samsung is rolling into CES trying its hardest to discourage that preconception. In the Grand Lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Center (right next to Engadget’s gorgeous stage) the company has the Samsung Galaxy Experience Zone. Here you can ski or snowboard down a virtual mountain, hurtle down a skeleton track or even fly through the air with dinosaurs. Each station was paired with additional paraphernalia to bring the experience to life like a lateral ski trainer or rows of flight-sim seats.

The most intense though, was clearly the dinosaur flight sim. It was the sort of simulator ride you’d typically see in a big amusement park. The Gear VR floods your vision with beautifully rendered dinos and Jurassic vistas, while the seat itself tilts, banks and — yes — even turns completely upside down. It is not recommended for those easily made nauseous by VR experiences (like yours truly). I spent half the ride with my eyes shut to keep from puking (and trying to ignore the pain of the harness crushing my bathing suit area). UK Bureau Chief Mat Smith seemed to enjoy it though (both the ride and my own suffering).

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

Microsoft says security fixes will noticeably slow older PCs

It’s been clear for a while that the fixes for the Meltdown and Spectre memory vulnerabilities would slow down PCs, but just how bad is the hit, really? Microsoft has run some benchmarks, and it’s unfortunately bad news if your system is less than fresh. While the patches for Meltdown and one variant of Spectre will have a “minimal performance impact,” fixing a second Spectre variant through low-level microcode imposes a tangible speed penalty — and it’s particularly bad on systems released around 2015 or earlier.

If you have a PC with a 6th-generation Intel Core processor or later, you should only see a hit in the “single-digit” percentage range. That’s small enough that you might not notice a thing. If you’re using a 4th-generation Core or older CPU, however, you’ll see “more significant slowdowns,” some of which could be noticeable. And that’s if you’re using Windows 10. Most Windows 7 or 8 users on similar hardware should notice the effect, while Windows Server is bound to take a more substantial performance blow due to its heavy dependence on I/O.

The newer parts aren’t as badly affected since Intel can limit the instructions it uses to disable branch speculation (used in the exploits to snoop on protected memory). Windows 10, meanwhile, is faster because it tosses out some legacy approaches to switching between user memory and kernel memory.

If you’re affected, you’ll most likely see the performance drop once Intel rolls out its patches in the days ahead. And there are a lot of affected users. PC shipments are still on the decline, and that’s due in no small part to people holding on to older computers. And recent usage share stats suggest that Windows 10 is present on just 27 percent of PCs, only some of which are relatively new. This won’t necessarily prompt a wave of upgrades (you don’t need a fast system if you’re only checking Facebook), but it’s bound to cause complaints from gamers and others who wring every ounce of speed from their systems.

Source: Microsoft Secure

Watch Intel’s CES 2018 keynote in under 10 minutes

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich held a blowout keynote to kick off CES last night, where we saw 100 mini-drones flying in unison, and a bonkers opening act with virtual instruments. The company revealed that it’s partnering with Ferrari to have AI drones analyze races, moving further into autonomous driving, and that it’s planning to patch all of its most recent chips against Spectre and Meltdown exploits by the end of the month. It also announced the launch of Intel Studios, a huge facility for capturing 360-degree video, and revealed that it has a powerful new quantum chip.

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