Baidu debuts its Apollo 2.0 autonomous driving platform

Baidu already bills itself as “the Google of China” and like the Mountain View-based search giant, Baidu is working feverishly to develop autonomous driving technologies. At CES 2018 on Monday, Baidu unveiled the fruits of its (and more than 90 industry partners) labor: the Apollo 2.0 platform.

Building on the success of the original Apollo platform, the newly updated system boasts added security and more robust positioning, control and cloud simulation capabilities. The latest build of Apollo is also the first time that all four of the platform’s primary modules — cloud services, software, reference hardware and vehicle platforms — have been leveraged to work together. Through these, Apollo 2.0 is now capable of autonomously guiding a vehicle through basic urban environments, even at night.

Baidu has committed to further developing the platform throughout 2018. The NVIDIA, Intel, NXP and Renesas computing platforms will be fully supported. The company is also working to create more cost effective sensors as well integrate Apollo into a wider variety of vehicles including minibuses, SUVs and pickups.

These added functions will enable Baidu to integrate the Apollo platform into a wider variety of applications from private passenger vehicles to public transportation and ridesharing services. The company also announced that it has partnered with Access Services, a public paratransit provider, and will launch a pilot program in Los Angeles giving disabled folks and senior citizens autonomous car rides by the end of the year. Baidu also plans to begin mass-producing driverless buses, thanks to its partnership with Chinese bus maker King Long, by this August and start rolling out Level 3 autonomous vehicles, with help from Chery Automotive, by 2020.

FCC chairman wants mobile alerts to be more locally targeted

Today, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed a few changes to the Wireless Emergency Alert system aimed at making it more useful and functional for local officials. While the details of the proposal won’t be released until tomorrow, Pai noted a major change is a requirement for wireless carriers participating in the alert program to more precisely target alerts to a particular area rather than distribute them widely. “Emergency officials across America have told the FCC how important it is to better pinpoint these alerts to impacted communities,” Pai said. “This would encourage more local officials to use these alerts during emergencies as well as lead Americans to take more seriously the alerts they receive on their mobile devices.”

Last month, the FCC voted in favor of a proposal to add a Blue Alert to the US Emergency Alert System, which would let nearby residents know about ongoing threats to law enforcement.

The new proposal is currently scheduled to be considered by the FCC commissioners during the agency’s January 30th open meeting. You’ll be able to check out a draft of the proposal here.

Source: FCC

Samsung to bring SmartThings control to its Gear smartwatches

During its CES press conference today, Samsung announced that this year, it will bring the SmartThings app to its Gear S3 and Gear Sport smartwatches. The company’s presentation was very focused on how it will bring all of its connected devices together to create a seamless ecosystem with simple user controls, and adding the SmartThings app to its latest smartwatch models will be a nice step in that direction.

With the SmartThings app right on your Samsung smartwatch, you’ll be able to control other connected smart devices such as your lights and thermostats, from your wrist, giving you simple control over your environment. Samsung didn’t give any details on when its watches will get the app, but it should happen sometime this year.

Companies have often promised to give consumers a more seamless experience when navigating between different smart devices and so far those promises haven’t been fully delivered on. But Samsung and others have doubled down on those promises at CES this year, so maybe we’ll actually get to experience these simplified experiences in the not too distant future.

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

Samsung is the latest to try modernizing the whiteboard

Samsung isn’t just limiting its CES launches to your home — it wants to spruce up your meetings, too. It’s releasing a Flip digital whiteboard (or “interactive digital flip chart” in Samsung speak) that can take on collaborative screens like the Google Jamboard. The 55-inch 4K display lets up to four people draw or add content at once, whether they’re using their fingers or a dual-sided pen. And as the name suggests, you’re not locked to a landscape view. You can flip the display vertical if you’re writing a list or just don’t have room for a wide screen, and it can be wall-mounted if it’s going to be a permanent fixture.

You can connect devices either wirelessly or through USB, and share your screen if you want to see what’s on someone’s PC or phone. Want to see it in your office? Samsung hasn’t disclosed pricing just yet, but the Flip will be available in both Europe and the US later in January. It’s certainly not the first digital whiteboard and is arguably targeting a tough-to-crack market — you have to really want to move past old-school markers. Samsung does have plenty of experience with connected devices and big screens, though, so it might have an edge.

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

Source: Samsung Newsroom

Hyundai unveils its next generation fuel-cell vehicle

While electric cars and hybrids dominate the alternative vehicle headlines, automakers continue to hedge their bets with fuel cell vehicles. At CES, Hyundai unveiled its next offering, the Nexo fuel-cell SUV with a 350 mile range and a 55 MPGe rating. The new SUV will start arriving in California dealerships later this year.

Currently Hyundai leases fuel cell Tucson SUVs to its customers in areas with enough infrastructure to refuel the water-spouting vehicles. The next gen FCEV (no actual name yet) is more efficient, can handle extreme heat and cold better, uses EV and hybrid components, and has its own dedicated platform instead of being shoved into something like the Tucson.

In addition to just emitting water, the interior of the car is made out of bio plasctics, bamboo and other environmentally friendly materials. Hyundai calls it its more eco-friendly vehicle.

Hyundai’s Vice chairman and leader of R&D Woongchul Yang, announced that in a month the automaker will demonstrate a level 4 version of the Nexo in dense urban traffic. The automaker aleady has a level 4 EV Ioniq its been testing on public roads. It looks like going forward, any autonomous research the automaker does will be on an electrified platform.

Regardless of where the self-driving tech is placed, fuel cell powered electric vehicles do have one advantage over EVs; they can be refueled in about five minutes just like a gas-powered car. The issue is that the infrastructure to refuel one of these vehicles is lacking nationwide. There are hydrogen stations in large urban areas like San Francisco and Los Angeles with stations coming online in New England.

Meanwhile, EVs can be recharged via dedicated stations or at your home or office. Of course, that usually takes hours instead of minutes.

So automakers like Hyundai make sure that if a wide-scale fuel-cell infrastructure does materialize they’re ready. It doesn’t hurt that Hyundai made sure to make theirs an SUV considering that segment continues to grow while car sales have flattened. Sure be ready for the future, but also make sure people actually want the car.

Developing.

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

Tougher WiFi security will keep you safe at the coffee shop

WiFi security hasn’t changed much since WPA2 came to be in 2004, and that’s becoming increasingly apparent when public hotspots are frequently risky and glaring exploits are all too common. It’s about to get a long-due upgrade, though: the Wi-Fi Alliance plans to roll out a WPA3 standard that addresses a number of weak points. For many, the highlight will be individualized data encryption. Even if you’re on an open public network, you won’t have to worry quite so much about someone snooping on your data.

You’ll also see safeguards even when people have terrible passwords, and a simplified security process for devices that have either a tiny display or none at all (say, wearable devices or smart home gadgets). And companies or governments that need stricter security will have access to a 192-bit security suite.

WPA3 should arrive sometime in 2018, and comes on the back of other improvements like more thorough testing to catch potential vulnerabilities before they require emergency patches. These initiatives aren’t going to guarantee airtight security when you’re at the coffee shop, but they could at least eliminate some of WiFi’s more worrying flaws.

Source: Wi-Fi Alliance

Oculus taps Xiaomi to make its first standalone VR headset

Hugo Barra, head of VR at Facebook, has just announced at Qualcomm’s CES press conference that Oculus has partnered with Xiaomi to make its first Oculus Go headset. It’ll also make a second Oculus Go headset especially for the Chinese market called the Mi VR Standalone. Both headsets will be built on the Qualcomm Snapdragon mobile VR platform, and will ship with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset.

The Mi VR Standalone looks very similar to the Go, and shares the same core features. It also supports the Oculus Mobile SDK and existing Oculus developers should be able to port content over to the Mi headset relatively seamlessly. According to Xiaomi, it’s already working with Oculus developers to localize existing content and bring it to the Mi VR Store in China.

The Oculus Go, if you don’t recall, is a $199 VR headset announced by Facebook and Oculus last year. That makes it one of the cheapest VR solutions on the market, as it doesn’t require a phone or a PC. There’s no word yet on when it’ll be released, but as the FCC filing for the Oculus Go just popped up a few days ago, it’ll probably be very soon.

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

Source: Oculus

NextVR lets you peek around players while watching VR sports

Watching concerts and sports in VR is great up until someone blocks the camera’s view. Unlike in real life, you can’t really poke your head around… or can you? NextVR wants to make that happen — it’s introducing six-degrees-of-freedom movement to on-demand VR videos. If a player or ref is getting in the way of a sweet play, you can just lean over to see what you’re missing. The feature is coming sometime in 2018, and there are promises of 6DOF movement for live videos sometime after that.

The company’s other breakthrough, meanwhile, doesn’t require a headset at all. It’s preparing augmented reality support (shown below) that brings its digital content to your own physical spaces through your phone. Support won’t arrive until mid-2018, but this promises to make NextVR’s tech considerably more accessible when few people have headsets.

And if you are an early adopter, there’s one more thing: NextVR is promising higher-resolution content to take advantage of more advanced VR headsets. You’ll see the first wave of upgraded material sometime in early 2018.

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

Source: NextVR

Qualcomm has a fix for wireless earbuds’ biggest problems

While wireless earbuds have come a long way over the past two years, even great ones have issues. They haven’t made the leaps in battery life that other wireless headphones have, and given their diminutive size, they’re still plagued with wireless reception issues. Qualcomm believes it has a solution with its next wireless earbud chipset, the QCC5100, which will deliver nearly three times the battery life of previous devices, Gizmodo reports. And, perhaps most importantly, it has more wireless transmit power, which means it shouldn’t cut out as much when it encounters interference.

Additionally, Qualcomm says the new chipset also has twice the processing of its predecessor, which powers earbuds like Jabra’s Sport Elite. That could allow manufacturers to develop even better noise canceling, integrate smart assistants, and it opens the door for even more smart features. Just think of a version of Google’s Pixel Bud’s with fast translation that actually works. While its unclear when we’ll actually see the QCC5100 in new earbuds, Qualcomm, naturally, says it’s in talks with major companies.

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

Via: Gizmodo

Source: Qualcomm

Zano drone returns after multi-million dollar crowdfunding failure

You might not know many micro-drones by name, but there’s a chance you know Zano. Unfortunately, that’s because it was one of the more controversial Kickstarter failures of recent times. Zano raised over $3 million in late 2014, before being shown at CES 2015. The promise was simple, a palm-sized drone with the self-flying and photography smarts of something much bigger (and much more expensive).

The problem is, just 12 months later, the product was already delayed, the company had spent all its funding and the creditors moved in to liquidate the assets, leaving thousands of backers high and dry. What’s worse, is that those lucky few that did receive their Zano were left with a fancy paperweight. The drone was designed to connect back to a server each time you switched it on for updates. Sadly that computer was no longer there, grounding the Zano forever. But there’s a flicker of hope.

At this year’s Drone Rodeo (a satellite event at CES), a small table had something familiar on it: a Zano. Behind the table, a banner exclaiming “Will it fly again?” Behind that table was Vernon Kerswell, a prominent character in the nano-drone world, who already has an established brand of quadcopters called, simply, Micro Drone (his company is Extreme Fliers). He explained to me that they purchased Zano’s assets and IP during the liquidation and wanted to revive it.

The question, then, is why would anyone, let alone someone already involved with a successful product want to associate themselves with the poisoned name of Zano. Kerswell, it turns out, just loved the promise that Zano offered and wants to try an make it a reality, even after all this time. “I think that it’s a positive if Extreme Fliers engineers can make Zano work, then that’s a good thing for us.” He told Engadget.

Kerswell’s enthusiasm is infectious, but he’s not naive. Beside the drones on the table was a stack of fliers that explain how Zano “spectacularly failed.” And that his group of passionate tinkerers has been writing code for Zano for the last 12 months. The flier then explains the team’s intention to make it open source, calling the project the “Raspberry Pi for drones.”

I asked Kerswell if he intended to productize Zano, to which his response was a little more pragmatic. He told me that it’s a challenge for their team, and the big question is can they get it working. On a slightly more optimistic note, he suggested that through his other endeavors with Micro Drone and Extreme Fliers, it is possible that they could manufacture a small run, maybe 1,000 which he would first offer to backers of the original at a discounted rate. He’s not sure if that will happen yet, but that’s not the only way to revive things.

If all goes according to plan, Kerswell told me that they could have a software release in the next six months that would revive all the Zanos that were grounded due to the server they relied upon for updates being switched off. This, at least, would revive the handful of drones that managed to crawl off the production line. Kerswell has no connection to the original company, nor the debts it accrued, but hopes he can still help supporters get more life out of their Zano (or, at least restore some faith in its potential).

Ultimately, Kerswell would like to see Zano grow into the drone that it always intended to be. He sees it as something that would appeal to the hacking/coding community to develop and test innovative new features for. Something experimental and modifiable, rather than the out-of-the-box smart-selfie drone it nearly became. The big question is whether Kerswell can answer his own question: Will Zano fly again?

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