You make 35,000 decisions a day, and Huawei wants AI to help out

Imagine an artificially-intelligent smartphone so clever that when we point the camera at a beautiful scene, it will guide us to the best spot to snap a picture, ensuring the lighting, composition, and colors are all perfect. It’s a feature that in theory is not too far away.

You’ll take an amazing picture, but it will likely be exactly the same as photos taken by every other person who stood there and asked their phone to do the same thing. The AI effectively turned us into automatons, sharing beautiful-but-identical cookie-cutter photos. Terrifying, right? Everybody panic! AI is a threat to our creativity and freedom of thought.

Don’t worry, this nightmare scenario is nonsense, and a great example of how artificial intelligence and its benefits are still misunderstood. At a recent event in London, Huawei gathered together experts on AI and human behavior to put our minds at rest about how the technology will help free us from mundane decisions, and actually encourage creativity further.

35,000 decisions a day

Huawei has a vested interest in making us understand the benefits of AI. Apart from what’s coming in the near future, AI is already a major part of the Huawei Mate 10 Pro smartphone, including the camera. Inside, the Neural Processing Unit (NPU) recognizes the environment — a sunny day, for example — and adjusts the camera’s settings accordingly. AI potentially guiding us to take the most aesthetically-pleasing photo would be an extension of this. Rather than halt our creativity, Huawei said it’s at this time our own creative ability would come into play, giving the resulting picture our own personal spin.

This is based on how AI will free our minds from mundane decisions, or from decisions we’re not equipped to make, and open us up to concentrate on what’s important to us at that time. Except, how many decisions do we make each day that AI could possibly help out with? Some guess a number in the hundreds, or perhaps the low thousands. Research from Huawei puts it at an astonishing 35,000 a day.

How many decisions do we make each day, that AI could help out with?

Most of these are unconscious decisions. We’re actually only aware of around one percent of them, and it’s the dull unconscious ones that AI can help out with. Huawei’s Global Brand Management Director David-Dohyung Kim gave Digital Trends an example.

“We make most of those unconscious decisions automatically,” Kim said. “Think of it like this: When you cross the road, you look to the right. We don’t think, we just do it. This is great at home, but potentially very dangerous if you’re visiting somewhere that drives on the opposite side of the road. That’s where artificial intelligence comes in. AI thinks, when our minds are being lazy.”

Unlock potential

By using its sensors and data, Kim explained, the NPU can make the jump from collecting and analyzing data, to eventually intelligently using that data to help us make decisions.

“AI needs to make our lives easier,” Huawei’s Chief Marketing Officer, Andrew Garrihy, added.  “We can forget things, because AI will remember for us, and then go on to make an even better decision when it does. It could unlock human potential.”

Behavioral science professor Paul Dolan gave some insight into how AI will complement our brains, and help us achieve that potential.

“The best way to make a decision is to do something else,” he said. “Your unconscious mind works in the background, and comes up with a solution. That’s what AI will do. AI is a copilot, it can make us aware of the decisions we’re making, and learn to make them better. Brains want to make life easy, and taking a break lets it wander.”

He provided a sports analogy to help understand further.

“We don’t think about many actions, in the same way a golfer doesn’t want to think about the unconscious part of hitting a golf ball,” he said. “When they do, that’s when it goes wrong.”

Implemented correctly, AI will take the pressure off the mind and a portion of its 35,000 daily decisions, so you’re hitting that golf ball more consistently, more often.

The concept of AI unlocking potential is a popular outlook, and it’s shared by many other major companies contemplating artificial intelligence, including Accenture, IBM, and UBS. But surely to unlock any potential, it means handing over a degree of control to an AI system, and isn’t that worrying?

Ask questions

Garrihy said AI “should be liberating, not frightening. Anything that frees us up to enjoy life more should be enticing.”

But AI’s capabilities will come from giving the technology control — the negative sides are associated with horror scenarios from movies like “The Terminator,” and people are concerned.  Tabitha Goldstaub, founder of AI market intelligence company CognitionX, has a clear idea of what needs to be done to keep AI in check.

“[AI] should be liberating, not frightening.”

“We need to ask questions,” Goldstaub said. “We should ask why it does things. That way, we hold companies and the AI accountable. We need the benefits it provides to be clearer, because AI needs to be trusted.”

She also warned against being scared of the technology. “We need to avoid the horrors of the [genetically-modified] crops, where the public becomes too fearful of technology, and innovation slows down.”

Huawei believes AI will become mainstream, in terms of mass awareness, during 2018. It has been driving discussion about using AI for some time. We recently talked to Huawei’s COO Wan Biao, who discussed what he called the “Know Me” stage of mobile artificial intelligence, where devices proactively understand our requirements. This is very much a stage in the process Huawei envisages here, where AI makes decisions simpler and easier.

At the moment, Huawei’s NPU, crucial for fast mobile AI functionality, is only found inside the Mate 10 Pro, an expensive flagship smartphone. For AI to work in the way Huawei plans, it needs to be in more devices. Garrihy said to “watch this space for more NPU devices, as the tech gets cheaper.” Huawei sub-brand Honor is also working towards the same goal, and has already announced the Honor View 10, a Kirin 970 and NPU-equipped phone available for a lower price.

Artificial intelligence that works with us and helps us make better unconscious decisions frees us up to do more of what we like. That’s exciting, and it’s a real-world benefit we can all appreciate. It’s much nicer than thinking AI is only interested in turning us into automatons or blowing up the planet.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Huawei Mate 10 Pro review
• Honor View 10: Everything you need to know
• Truly creative A.I. is just around the corner. Here’s why that’s a big deal
• Huawei P20 teased as company’s 2018 device plans are laid bare
• Huawei Mate 10 vs. Mate 10 Pro: Battle to be your new best mate

Twitter tease indicates HTC could reveal a 4K Vive VR headset at CES

What’s this? HTC is now teasing a New Year’s “resolution” on the official HTC Vive Twitter account just days before the company’s press conference on Monday, January 8. The teaser indicates that HTC may release an updated version of the Vive this year supporting 4K visuals, a significant boost from the 2,160 x 1,200 total resolution (2x 1,080 x 1,200) used in the current model.

Rumors of a 4K version of the HTC Vive isn’t anything new. Speculation once pointed to CES 2017 as the launch platform for the so-called Vive 2 sporting a 4K display and wireless connectivity. But HTC shot down that specific rumor just days prior to the show, stating that the company remained focused on expanding the ecosystem of the current headset. After all, the Vive was only eight months old at the time, thus releasing an updated version would be financial suicide.

At the time of its release, the HTC Vive, its two controllers, two base stations, and various accessories cost a hefty $799. Now that same kit costs $599 around 21 months later, thus HTC may very well be in a good position to launch a 4K model two years after the original Vive’s release. Even more, reducing the cost of the original Vive even further while selling the 4K model at $799 wouldn’t be a surprising move.

What is concerning is the hardware needed to run a 4K-based VR headset. For the current model, you need a PC that can handle rendering two screens with 1,080 x 1,200 resolutions each running at 90Hz. Here’s what you need at the very minimum to run that experience:

Processor:
Intel Core i5-4590 or better (2013)
AMD FX 8350 or better (2012)
Graphics:
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or better
AMD Radeon RX 480 or better
Memory:
4GB or more
Open video port:
1x HDMI 1.4 or newer, or
1x Display 1.2 or newer
Open USB ports:
1x USB-A 2.0 or newer
Operating system:
Windows 7 SP1
Windows 8.1
Windows 10

As the specifications show, the processors can date back a few years, and the memory requirement is what you typically find in any modern desktop or laptop. But most of the muscle needed to render VR relies on the graphics card requirement, which isn’t exactly at the bottom of the barrel for either Nvidia or AMD. Again, that list is for the current Vive model, and will only increase in cost as the resulting resolution increases in size.

That said, if the updated HTC Vive will support 4K visuals, you may see a combined resolution of 3,840 x 2,133, or two screens running at 1,920 x 2,133 at 90Hz. To support these resolutions without dropping frames and producing buckets of vomit, the minimum hardware requirements will need to be higher on the processor and graphics front, at the very least. The GeForce GTX 1070 might handle the load, but we could see the GTX 1080 serving as the official minimum GPU requirement.

This is all speculation, of course. We managed to run the Vive using an old GeForce GTX 960 card with decent results. But no matter how you look at the tease, 4K VR experiences won’t come cheap.

Editors’ Recommendations

• You can’t beat HTC’s new bundle packing Vive, the GTX 1070, and ‘Fallout 4 VR’
• Screenshots don’t quite do VR justice, but here’s how to do it on the HTC Vive
• HTC’s stand-alone Vive Focus killed off its Daydream headset in the U.S.
• Make VR wire-free! HTC Vive Focus joins the stand-alone party
• HTC Vive Tracker Review

HTC Edge Launcher can now be triggered from the lock screen

HTC’s making your squeezes more productive.

After launching Edge Sense on the U11, HTC followed this up with Edge Launcher on the U11+. Edge Launcher allows you to squeeze the sides of your U11 handset to get a calendar and array of apps, contacts, and quick settings right at your fingertips, and it’s a nice alternative to squeezing your phone for one particular application.

HTC recently updated its Edge Launcher app on the Play Store, and there are a couple big improvements that make Edge Launcher even more useful.

For starters, Edge Launcher can now be triggered from the lock screen. You’ve previously had to unlock your phone before you could use Edge Launcher, but now you can squeeze at any time to bring it up.

Along with this, HTC has also added new shortcuts for Battery Saver, Auto Rotate, and Wi-Fi Hotspot, in addition to now letting you customize the order of which these appear on Edge Launcher.

This new version of Edge Launcher is available on the Play Store now, and you can grab it by tapping the button at the top of this article.

HTC U11

• HTC U11 review
• HTC U11 specs
• Manufacturing the U11: Behind the scenes
• Join our U11 forums
• HTC U11 vs Galaxy S8
• HTC U11 vs LG G6

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Android 8.1 causing swipe issues on Pixel and Nexus devices

Swiping woes.

Android 8.1 was a pretty minor update when it was released in early December, and while it added nice touches such as enabling the Pixel Visual Core and a new security patch, it also introduced a new bug that doesn’t appear to have been fixed since it was discovered nearly a month ago.

On December 7, a thread was started on Google’s support site titled “Android 8.1 Issues” with a user reporting that swiping up on the lock screen to enter their pin often doesn’t work and requires them to swipe multiple times before it goes all the way up. Shortly after this, many other users responded with similar issues.

In addition to it being difficult to swipe up on the lock screen to go home or enter a PIN/password, it’s also reported that it can often take multiple tries to swipe away a notification that’s on the lock screen. This is something that I’ve been noticing on my Pixel 2, and I can confirm that it is extremely annoying to sometimes have to swipe three or four times just to dismiss a notification.

Along with issues on the lock screen, users have also noticed problems when trying to answer or decline phone calls. This is again something I’ve run into on the Pixel 2, and more times than not it requires multiple tries before the gesture is actually completed.

Based on Google’s support site and Reddit, this is an issue that seems to be affecting both Pixel and Nexus devices running Android 8.1. We reached out to Google to see what’s going on, but have so far only heard that the company is “looking into this.” When we get a more detailed response, we’ll be sure to let you know.

In the meantime, have you noticed any of these issues on your Pixel or Nexus phone?

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

• Pixel 2 FAQ: Everything you need to know!
• Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL review: The new standard
• Google Pixel 2 specs
• Google Pixel 2 vs. Pixel 2 XL: What’s the difference?
• Join our Pixel 2 forums

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Google would like you to stop stealing its bikes

Poor bicycles 🚲

Google’s got a lot on its plate at any given time. The company is in charge of the Android mobile operating system, has to put out fires with rambunctious YouTubers, and according to an article from The Wall Street Journal, is constantly on the hunt for missing bicycles.

At its Mountain View campus, Google has around 1,100 multicolored bikes for its employees to ride around to get back and forth building to building throughout the day. The bikes have a yellow frame, blue wheels, green fenders, and red baskets. They’re cuter than they have a right to be, and although they’re intended for use only by Google employees, Mountain View locals apparently steal them all the time.

Up to 250 bikes are stolen from Google every week.

Google reportedly looses between 100 to 250 bikes every single week, and they’ve been found in people’s lawns, on the roof of a sports pub, and even in a commercial on TV for Garnier. A 68-year-old employee at Oracle who often rides the bikes says they’re “like a friendly gesture” for Mountain View residents, and even the city’s mayor has admitted to taking one on his way to see a movie following a meeting at the Google campus.

The Mountain View Police choose to not get involved with the missing bikes, so in an effort to take matters into its own hands, Google started placing GPS trackers on the bikes last year. After doing so, the company discovered that its bikes were being transported as far away as Mexico, Nevada during Burning Man, and even Alaska.

Google’s now started to test a system where employees can bypass locks on bikes with their smartphones, but it remains to be seen if something like this will be expanded to the entire fleet.

If you’ve got a bicycle in your life, be sure to hold it close to your heart tonight.

Because somewhere in Mountain View, hundreds are being stolen at any given time.

Google has fixed the infamous cheeseburger emoji with Android 8.1

CBS All Access is now available on Amazon video

CBS’ streaming service All Access is now available on Amazon Channels, giving Prime members easier access to the network’s online-only hits and backlog. Which is just in time to catch second half of the service’s flagship show, Star Trek: Discovery, which will start airing on January 7th.

Unfortunately, Amazon Prime users can only connect their higher-tier $10 commercial-free option to Amazon Channels, so those using their $6 limited ads option are out of luck. Which is a shame: CBS All Access may have the hottest sci-fi show out right now, but not much other exclusive programming (though more are on the way, including a new Twilight Zone). We believe the first half of Star Trek: Discovery made the service worth subscribing to despite how frustrating it is to use, so hopefully bringing it to Amazon Channels will make it easier on customers willing to foot the cost.

Source: CBS

The Golden Globes will stream live for the first time

You’ll have an extra way to watch Netflix handle its nine Golden Globe nominations this year. For the first time ever, the television awards show will be streamed live on NBC’s website, its app and other services like DirecTV Now, Hulu Live TV, Sling TV, Sony PlayStation Vue and YouTube TV. This is in addition to Facebook’s streaming of the red carpet activities before the ceremony.

Deadline notes that the live stream acknowledges a sea change in the way people consume television and other media. Many viewers haven’t ever had a cable subscription, preferring to pay for things like CBS All Access and HBO Now a la carte. The 75th annual Golden Globes will air and stream live on January 7th at 8 PM ET.

Source: Deadline

Don’t pirate or we’ll mess with your Nest, warns East Coast ISP

Internet slowdowns at home aren’t just annoying anymore. They can be hazardous to your health or dangerous if you’re in an area that freezes.

Internet service provider Armstrong Zoom has roughly a million subscribers in the Northeastern part of the U.S. and is keen to punish those it believes are using file-sharing services.

The ISP’s response to allegedly naughty customers is bandwidth throttling — which is when an ISP intentionally slows down your internet service based on what you’re doing online. In this case, when said ISP believes you’re doing something illegal.

As part of its throttling routine, Armstrong Zoom’s warning letter openly threatens its suspected file-sharing customers about its ability to use or control their webcams and connected thermostats.

The East Coast company stated: “Please be advised that this may affect other services which you may have connected to your internet service, such as the ability to control your thermostat remotely or video monitoring services.”

The Night King will be pleased

It’s disturbing news for those facing the severe East Coast weather this weekend. Even more so in light of the fact that file-sharing notices are routinely used on innocent people.

Armstrong Zoom delivers its internet service to states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland. This weekend, brutally cold temperatures are expected to follow in the wake of the powerful storm associated with the “bomb cyclone” that hit Maryland.

All US states served by Armstrong Zoom will be experiencing temperatures around or under freezing over the weekend and into the near future. Bandwidth throttling for customers in those areas who have connected thermostats could mean the difference between sickness and health, or even life and death. Seems like an extreme punishment for any allegedly downloaded Game of Thrones cam rips.

It’s a literally chilling thought and an entirely new problem under the gun of a regime absent of net-neutrality rules. All is connected and everything is affected. It won’t just be a slow Netflix connection that disrupts your online life.

If your ISP decides to throttle you, that means thermostats, cameras, lighting, speakers, alarm systems, refrigerators and everything you need to have a strong and reliable internet connection for will no longer be, well, reliable. With thermostats particularly, it’s important to learn how this might affect which one you have, specific to its generation; especially if you need to know how (or if) you can manually control it.

If an Armstrong Zoom customer is accused of illegal downloading, they have no recourse against being throttled. Request for comment from Armstrong Zoom was not returned by time of publication.

Customers who need their full service restored — to regain control over their thermostats — are forced to read an educational article about copyright infringement, answer questions about it and then sign an agreement stating they’ve done so.

For those in the path of this weekend’s killer icy blast raging into New England, especially pets and elderly, this is all very bad news, indeed.

Tell gran to buy the bundled thermostat package

That boneheaded net-neutrality repeal, then, could have much further reaching, and potentially deadly consequences.

Before December 14th, your ISP was not allowed to block or throttle any otherwise legal content or slow your speeds based on the types of traffic or application you’re using. However, it can in instances when there’s an ISP contract clause (or a “Fair Usage Policy”) stating that if a user breaks the data limit within a month, their connection would be throttled next month.

The rationale behind a “data cap” is that ISPs say it prevents overuse of a network by a small number of users. Legal things that require higher-bandwidth usage, which might be noticed by an ISP, include streaming, downloading and gaming.

But on December 14th any rationale for throttling (or not) went out the window. Thanks to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), ISP’s became free to restrict without reason and make bandwidth deals with whomever it chooses to favor.

That’s because the FCC voted to repeal net-neutrality rules that had previously prevented ISPs like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon from throttling consumer bandwidth as they please.

We’ll never know if the FCC was thinking about grandma freezing to death in Maryland when her connected thermostat fails under ISP throttling. But either way, there’s a special place in hell for those who voted to repeal net neutrality, we can be sure. If gran survives this winter, maybe teach her how to do a speed test to see if she’s being throttled.

Let’s just hope this isn’t the year anti-piracy measures become lethal.

Images: Bloomberg/Getty Images (Thermostat); Getty Images (Laptop)

Intel faces multiple lawsuits over chip security vulnerabilities

Intel is already facing multiple lawsuits over the chip security flaws revealed earlier this week. Gizmodo reports that three have been filed so far — in California, Oregon and Indiana. All three are class action complaints and note Intel’s delay in disclosing the vulnerabilities — it knew about them for months — as well as reduced performance caused by subsequent security patches. The Register reported that PC slow downs could amount to as much as five to 30 percent, but Intel has said that its solution’s impacts are “highly workload-dependent” and won’t be noticed much by the typical user.

It’s still early — the flaws were only officially revealed on Wednesday — so Intel could be facing more lawsuits going forward. In the week following Apple’s reveal that it intentionally slows older iPhone models to prevent sudden shutdowns, it was hit with a number of lawsuits in multiple countries.

Intel says 90 percent of affected chips should be patched by the end of the week while companies like Microsoft, Google and Apple are also releasing updates to mitigate the effects of the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities.

Via: The Verge

Net neutrality suit gains support from tech’s biggest companies

Just one day after Ajit Pai’s FCC released the text of its order to gut net neutrality, a lobbying group that represents the largest tech companies in the world has decided to take legal action. The Internet Association represents companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Twitter and other heavy hitters. It will join an existing lawsuit as an intervening party, which lets the group file arguments against the FCC.

“The final version of Chairman Pai’s rule, as expected, dismantles popular net neutrality protections for consumers,” said the group’s CEO Michael Beckerman in a statement. This rule defies the will of a bipartisan majority of Americans and fails to preserve a free and open internet. IA intends to act as an intervenor in judicial action against this order and, along with our member companies, will continue our push to restore strong, enforceable net neutrality protections through a legislative solution.”

This won’t be happening very soon, unfortunately. As Recode notes, any lawsuit must wait until the order is published in the Federal Register.

Via: Recode

Source: Internet Association