NASA makes contact with satellite lost in space 13 years ago

Proving that things tend to turn up when you least expect them, NASA has just rediscovered a satellite it lost in space more than a decade ago. The Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) was launched in 2000 to create the first comprehensive images of atmospheric plasma. It completed its initial mission in 2002, but failed to make contact again on a routine pass by the Earth in 2005. Scientists hoped an eclipse in 2007 would kickstart a reboot, but when it didn’t the mission was declared over, and IMAGE was expected to spend the rest of its days floating peacefully through the universe. Earlier this month, however, an amateur astronomer spotted it in the skies.

It’s taken NASA a couple of weeks to confirm that the mysterious observation was indeed IMAGE, because the types of hardware and operating systems used in the satellite no longer exist. Other systems have been updated several versions beyond what they were at the time, requiring significant reverse-engineering. But after some tinkering, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland, successfully collected telemetry data from the satellite, confirming its ID. The team will now spend the coming weeks analyzing data from the satellite to learn more about the state of the spacecraft, and maybe a little about what it’s been up to all these years.

Source: NASA

South Korea will regulate, not ban, cryptocurrency trading

South Korea has no plans to ban cryptocurrency trading, according to government authorities. The announcement follows reports earlier this month that the country was considering shutting down trading because of tax evasion, which led to massive disruption on trading platforms around the world. However, the government does plan to tighten regulation and crack down on illegal practices within the area.

South Korea’s finance minister Kim Dong-yeon said, “Customs service has been closely looking at illegal foreign exchange trading using cryptocurrency as part of the government’s task force,” and noted that it has detected around 637.5 billion won ($596.02 million) worth of foreign exchange crimes, with cryptocurrency forming the bulk of that figure. In one instance, an illegal exchange agency took 1.7 billion won ($1.59 million) from residents in the form of “electric wallet” coins and transferred them to a partner agent abroad. The agent then cashed them out and distributed the balance among clients in that country.

Only licensed banks and brokers may offer foreign exchange services in South Korea, with companies and residents moving more than $3,000 out of the country needing to submit documents to authorities explaining the transfer. It’s not yet clear exactly how the government plans to tighten regulation, although it has now imposed new rules that stipulate only real-name bank accounts can be used for trading, which it hopes will help tackle money laundering and other crimes.

Heightened scrutiny around cryptocurrency regulation has seen values dive this month. Bitcoin has dropped 27.1 percent in January alone, putting it on track for its largest monthly decline since January 2015. The market was further shaken last week after hackers stole more than $500 million from Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck.

Source: Reuters

US appeals court says Tinder Plus pricing is discriminatory

They say all’s fair in love and war, but those that have used Tinder will probably disagree. And that includes Allan Candelore, a man suing the dating app over the pricing of its premium service, Tinder Plus. Candelore and his lawyers argue that charging $9.99 a month to users under 30, and $19.99 a month to those over 30, is age discrimination, and violates two California laws: the Unruh Civil Rights Act and the Unfair Competition Law.

Tinder co-founder Sean Rad said, “Our intent is to provide a discount for our younger users”, and while a lower court agreed with him, a California appeals court reversed the decision in a lengthy statement that suggested “some older consumers will be ‘more budget constrained’ and less willing to pay”. Then, in a “how do you do, fellow kids?” move, the court concluded its opinion on the previous ruling with “Accordingly, we swipe left, and reverse”. It’s not yet clear how this judgement will affect pricing in the future — we’ve reached out to Tinder for comment.

Via: Techcrunch

Source: Court of Appeal of the State of California [PDF]

Apple Still Expected to Allow iPhone and iPad Apps to Run on Macs Later This Year

While multiple reports suggest Apple has decided to place a greater focus on improving the performance and security of iOS and macOS, which will delay some new features until next year, it appears the company still aims to introduce the ability for Macs to run iPhone and iPad apps later this year.

Mark Gurman and Ina Fried, reporting for Bloomberg News and Axios respectively, both claim the framework for combined apps remains on Apple’s software roadmap for 2018, despite some planned iOS 12 features likely being pushed back to 2019, including a new home screen with a redesigned grid of app icons.

Apple’s software engineering chief Craig Federighi reportedly revealed the plans during a meeting with employees earlier this month.

Last month, Gurman reported that developers will be able to design a single third-party app that works with both a touchscreen, and a mouse or trackpad, depending on whether it’s running on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Apple would presumably also streamline its own apps on the desktop and mobile.

The report didn’t explain how all of this will work, but Apple could be planning to release a new SDK with new APIs that enable true cross-platform functionality. Right now, Apple’s UIKit and AppKit frameworks provide the required infrastructure for iOS and macOS app user interfaces respectively.

It’s worth noting that Apple already has a private framework called UXKit, used for the Photos app on Mac. In 2015, Jason Snell said UXKit “sits above the Mac’s familiar AppKit frameworks and strongly resembles UIKit on iOS.”

Apple tentatively plans to begin rolling out the change in iOS 12 and macOS 10.14, so there will likely be an announcement at WWDC 2018 around June. Following a few months of beta testing, major new versions of iOS and macOS are typically publicly released in September and October respectively.

The project is reportedly codenamed “Marzipan” within Apple. Gurman speculated that universal apps would make it easier for Apple to one day create a single operating system for all of its devices, should it ever go down that avenue. At the very least, it could bring some renewed attention to Mac apps.

Apple would be following in the footsteps of Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform, aimed at helping developers create universal apps that run across Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile, the latter of which is being phased out.

Discuss this article in our forums

Nintendo Details Jump in Smartphone Game Profits Following ‘Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp’ Launch

Nintendo recently reported earnings for its fiscal third quarter of 2017, including data related to the company’s two-year-old smartphone game business. In the report, Nintendo confirmed that its smart device and intellectual property related earnings increased from 10.6 billion yen (about $98 million) in the nine months ended December 31, 2016 to 29.1 billion yen (about $267 million) in the same period in 2017.

While this includes income from Nintendo’s smartphone games as well as royalty income, Bloomberg reported that Nintendo’s smartphone game profits specifically grew from 8.8 billion yen in the year-ago quarter to 11.2 billion yen this fiscal quarter. The only smartphone game that launched this fiscal quarter for Nintendo was Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which is said to have generated $17 million globally and reached a download number of 22 million since its launch in November. The other major smartphone game to debut from Nintendo in 2017 was Fire Emblem Heroes.

Nintendo said it plans to get its players to continue returning to and enjoying previously released iOS and Android games through ongoing updates, not including the recently confirmed imminent shut down of its first iOS app Miitomo.

In our smart-device business, consumers not only continued to enjoy Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes, which became available for download during the previous fiscal year, but also had fun with Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, released globally during October and November. Smart devices and IP related income were up to 29.1 billion yen (172% increase on a year-on-year basis).

In our smart-device business, we will focus on operations that encourage more consumers to continue to enjoy playing the applications that they have downloaded

Although Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp are free-to-download apps, they’re believed to net Nintendo more of a profit in the long run thanks to players who become enticed to spend money on in-app purchases. Alternatively, Super Mario Run is a free-to-start app where users can play a few levels and then must spend $9.99 to gain access to the full game.

At one point, Nintendo described the freemium model of Fire Emblem Heroes as an “outlier” in its overall smartphone game plan and that it prefers Super Mario Run’s pay-once structure, but so far that’s been the only app to go that route. Additionally, the company’s previous earnings report mentioned Super Mario Run had yet to reach an “acceptable profit point” around 10 months after launch.

Otherwise, Nintendo’s earnings report detailed a huge success for the company’s Switch console, selling 12.13 million units from April to December 2017 and now totaling 14.86 million units sold to date. Upon this report, Nintendo increased its operating profit outlook from 120 billion yen to 160 billion yen for the year ending March 2018, and bumped up the Switch sales forecast from the already-surpassed 14 million units to 15 million units for the same period.

Tags: Nintendo, Fire Emblem, Super Mario Run, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
Discuss this article in our forums

How to prepare your Android phone for a factory reset

Make sure you back up all the data on your phone before undertaking a factory reset.

The extensibility of Android means we have a wide variety of options when it comes to choosing a phone. From the Pixels to the Samsung Experience UI on the Galaxy Note 8, the uncluttered software experience with OnePlus 5T or the heavily skinned MIUI 9 on the Mi Mix 2, you can get a phone tailored to your preferences.

With such a diverse set of user experiences available, it’s not uncommon to see gremlins pop up along the way. More often than not, you can find fixes for problems commonly affecting your phone, but if you’re unable to find a solution, then it doesn’t hurt to try a hard reset. A factory reset also comes in handy if you’re looking to sell your device.

But before you do, you should make sure the data on your device is backed up so you don’t lose precious photos or documents. There are apps that let you take entire backups of your phone, including the app data, but most of them require your device to be rooted.

Seeing as how there’s not that much incentive to root anymore coupled with the fact that services like Samsung Pay and Netflix don’t run on rooted devices, I’m going to list options that don’t require you to root your phone. With that out of the way, let’s get started.

Use Google Photos to back up your photos

There are plenty of options available if you’re looking to store your photos in the cloud, but Google Photos is the best of the lot. Photos is pre-installed on most Android phones, and lets you easily back up your photos and videos to the cloud. It also has its own Assistant, which automatically creates collages, short highlight clips, and much more.

You get unlimited storage space for your photos as long as you choose the “high quality” setting, which compresses photos to save space. Google’s compression algorithm is astonishingly good at preserving the detail in the photos while drastically reducing the file size. You’re not going to notice any difference in image quality when compared to the full-size photo, even at 100% zoom. The high quality setting should be more than adequate to most, and you can’t beat unlimited storage space.

Google’s compression algorithm is fantastic, and you get unlimited storage space.

Google Photos’ high quality setting saves the files in their original resolution up to 16MP. Any photos that are larger will be resized to 16MP. Same goes for videos as well — any 4K video will be resized to “high-definition 1080p”, and Full HD footage or lower will look near-identical while taking up a fraction of the space.

Of course, if you’re shooting 4K video or have a phone with a 19MP shooter (like the Sony Xperia XZ1) and are looking to preserve videos and photos in their native resolution, you can choose the “original quality” setting in Photos. Photos and videos saved under this setting will get counted toward your Drive storage quota. You usually get 15GB of free storage, and you’ll have to purchase additional storage, with the 100GB plan available for just $1.99 a month.

If you have a Pixel, you get unlimited photo and video backups. First-gen Pixel owners get unlimited photo backups for life, and those using the Pixel 2 will be able to upload at original quality until 2020.

Photos is one of the best Google services around, and if you haven’t done so already, you should set it up today.

Google Photos: Everything you need to know

Get your music in the cloud

If you haven’t already switched to a streaming service like Spotify or Play Music, now’s the time to do so. You’ll be able to access a catalog of over 35 million songs for $9.99 a month, and you can download the tracks for listening even when you’re offline. Both services also come with a family plan that can be split among six people for $14.99 a month.

If you have a sizeable music collection, Play Music lets you upload 50,000 songs to the cloud (100,000 if you’re using a Samsung phone), allowing you to stream tunes from your own library on the go. You’ll need to use a computer to upload the songs to Play Music (you can use Google’s Music Manager software), but once they’re on the service, you will be able to stream them on your device without having to worry about taking up storage.

How to upload and download music on Google Play Music

The one downside with Play Music is that it doesn’t support FLAC files, so you won’t be able to upload your lossless media to the cloud. If you have a vast library of hi-res audio content, then your best bet is to create your own media server. I moved my media library to my Synology NAS (network attached storage) several years ago, and I use the company’s DS audio app to stream songs on my phone.

The best part about a Synology NAS is its robust operating system (DiskStation Manager) and its slew of apps for everything from photo storage to note-taking, video streaming, and more. You can pick up a two-bay Synology NAS for as low as $169, load it up with a 6TB WD Red hard drive, and you’re good to go. I set up my first Synology media server over three years ago, and it’s working flawlessly.

Of course, you’re looking at a minimum of $300 to get started with your media server, so you’ll have to factor that into the equation. If you are particular about listening to lossless media but aren’t too keen on setting up a NAS, you can always subscribe to Tidal. The hi-res streaming service costs $19.99 a month, and while the catalog isn’t as extensive as that of Spotify or Play Music, you do get 16-bit audio.

Spotify or Google Play Music should be more than sufficient for most people, and there’s Tidal for those looking to stream hi-res audio on the go. If you want fine-grained control over your media, you can always set up your own cloud server.

• Google Play Music: Everything you need to know
• How to get started with Spotify

Use Google Drive for documents and everything else

Cloud storage services are a dime a dozen, and Drive is one of the best options around. It comes pre-installed on all Android phones, has tons of sharing options, and comes with a minimalist interface that’s easy to understand. Drive is particularly handy for documents as it has a built-in PDF viewer.

You get 15GB of storage space for free, and if you need more, you can get 100GB of storage for $1.99 a month. The same storage is used for Photos as well as Drive, so if you’re looking to store full-resolution photos and videos, you should take that into consideration as well.

Google Drive: Everything you need to know

Switch to a better text messaging client

I switch phones once every two weeks on average, and while my photo and music needs are catered to by Google Photos and Synology, I haven’t found a suitable text messaging app. I use Android Messages for its simplicity, but it’s sorely lacking in features and doesn’t back up your texts to the cloud.

Thankfully, I discovered Microsoft’s SMS Organizer earlier this week, and it has everything I’m looking for in a messaging app. There’s an option to back up texts to Google Drive (you can choose the frequency), it automatically sorts texts into various categories — personal, promotional, and transactional — and it parses the texts to surface bill reminders at the top. Oh, and there’s even a dark theme.

There are other SMS apps out there that perform a similar function, so if you’re wary of Redmond seeing your data, hit up the guide below:

How to back up and restore text messages on Android

Back up your launcher

If you’re using a launcher, you should consider backing up its data so you can pick up from where you left off when switching to a new device. Most launchers come with an option to back up and restore settings, so if you’ve set up your launcher just so and don’t want to go through the entire process again when moving to a new phone, you should consider backing up the data.

How to back up your Android launcher

Your phone has a default backup option that saves apps that are currently installed and device settings. You’ll be able to back up much more information if you’re using a Pixel or a Samsung phone — including call logs, contacts, calendar, backgrounds, and home screen settings. You can toggle the option by diving into Settings -> System -> Backup.

Your turn

With a bevy of options available for backing up everything from photos to documents, texts, music, and more, it’s incredibly convenient to get all your data on the cloud. What services do you rely on for backing up your data? Let us know in the comments below.

Android Oreo

• Android Oreo review!
• Everything new in Android Oreo
• How to get Android Oreo on your Pixel or Nexus
• Oreo will make you love notifications again
• Will my phone get Android Oreo?
• Join the Discussion

What’s your favorite app for offline music listening?

All your music, no Internet connection required.

As great as music streaming apps can be, constantly streaming your favorite songs without being connected to Wi-Fi can quickly eat up your monthly data allotment if you aren’t subscribed to an unlimited plan. Plus, even if you do have unlimited data to burn through each month, accessing your library of songs can be impossible if you run into an area with poor cell coverage.

Thankfully, there are plenty of apps around that allow you to save your songs for offline use so you can listen to them without the need for Wi-Fi or mobile data. One of our forum users recently asked our community what their favorite apps were for listening to music offline, and these are a few of the responses.

msndrstood
01-28-2018 10:04 AM

“

Spotify let’s you make your own Playlists and then download them for offline listening.

Reply

gernerttl
01-28-2018 06:08 PM

“

I use Samsung Music.

I have a 256GB microSD card that I copied my entire music collection on to.

Reply

kirksucks
01-29-2018 01:13 PM

“

Download Power Amp and pay for premium. It’s a solid music player that’s stood the test of time. I believe it will find downloaded Google Music songs and play them as well. I can’t confirm since I havent used it in a while.

Reply

strikeIII
01-29-2018 03:58 PM

“

YouTube Music is also a nice app for offline music and you can even have the option to have the actual music videos available offline as well.

Reply

How about you – What’s your favorite app for offline music listening?

Join the conversation in the forums!

Google is using AI to predict flight delays

Flight delay alerts are helpful, but they usually depend on airlines notifying you in a timely fashion… and they’re not always quick on the draw. Google, however, is happy to fill that gap. It’s updating its Flights feature with not only explanations for delays, but predictions. Its machine learning system will use historic flight status info to forecast delays, and flags them when there’s at least an 80 percent confidence the prediction will come true. The company stresses that you should still show up on time (you don’t want to miss a flight due to pessimism), but this could give you a hint of trouble before you set foot in the airport.

The update could also be valuable if you’re thrifty — Google has started outlining the amenities for frugal fares on American, Delta and United flights. Check the details and you can avoid rude surprises if you’re expecting to choose your seat or stow luggage overhead. This won’t make that ultra-basic flight any more pleasant, but it could help you decide whether or not the savings are really worth the extra hassle.

Source: Google

The Morning After: Super Moon Xtreme Championship Edition

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

As we bid farewell to cold, frosty January and welcome slightly-less-cold February, we’re banging our heads against earnings season. Samsung and Nintendo both have good news for shareholders and fans, and there’s a special Super Blue Blood Moon lunar eclipse happening this morning — tune in live to see its peak at 8:29 AM ET.

Like everyone expected, but in half the time.Nintendo Switch sales have surpassed the Wii U

Nintendo had a stellar holiday quarter, shifting 7.23 million Switch consoles and bringing lifetime sales to 14.86 million already. In short, the company almost doubled its user-base in a single three-month period. The Wii U, for comparison, sold 13.56 million total — a paltry sum in comparison to the Wii’s 101.63 million units.

In light of these results, Nintendo has revised its forecast for the financial year: It expects to make 160 billion yen ($1.47 billion). That’s a 33.3 percent increase on its previous profit forecast — and it seems pretty viable. The company just has to keep the hit games coming.

AI-generated porn is just the beginning.Fake porn is the new fake news, and the internet isn’t ready

Ever since Facebook finally admitted to having a fake news problem, it’s been trying to fix it. It hired thousands of people to help block fake ads, pledged to work with third-party fact-checking organizations and is busy building algorithms to detect fake news. But even as it attempts to fight back against fraudulent ads and made-up facts, another potential fake-news threat looms on the horizon: artificially generated fake video.

Motherboard recently uncovered a disturbing new trend on Reddit, where users create AI-generated pornographic clips by transferring other people’s faces on to porn stars. The outlet first reported on the phenomenon a month ago when Reddit user deepfakes posted a video of Gal Gadot’s face swapped on to a porn star’s body (he’s since created more fake porn with other celebrities). The video was created with machine learning algorithms, easily accessible open-source libraries and images from Google, stock photos and YouTube videos. It’s a worrying new development.

It looks, smells and feels great, but…Azio’s Retro Classic keyboard is luxurious, but imperfect

Senior editor Daniel Cooper has an unusual love for ostentatious mechanical keyboards. The madder the design and the louder its keys, the more he wants it. So here’s Azio’s latest offering: The Retro Classic is a USB or Bluetooth-equipped input device styled to make a steampunk faint in admiration. So he had to have it.

It wasn’t an accidental click as initially claimed.FCC: Officer behind Hawaii false missile alert thought it was real

The FCC has published the preliminary findings of its investigation into Hawaii’s false missile alert, and it suggests the story didn’t play out as you might have heard. The FCC said the officer fully intended to send the alert — after misinterpreting a mangled message. The midnight shift supervisor had apparently played a standard recording that included both the usual “exercise, exercise, exercise” language and the text from a real Emergency Alert System message, which includes “this is not a drill.” Although other officers saw this was a drill, the one who clicked the alert was convinced it was real.

For better or worse, policy still heavily impacts the energy industry.The state of solar installers after Trump’s tariff

Two days after President Donald Trump signed hefty tariffs on imported solar panels, a five-man team was hauling slabs of them up the outside of a brownstone in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park. The team from Brooklyn SolarWorks, an installation company with 21 full-time employees, finished the job around sunset. The contract cost about $27,000. But James Luria, a media consultant who has only owned the house for six months, expects to pay around $3,000 for the installation. “It was the obvious thing to do,” Luria said.

Among the reasons for the cut price: a 30 percent federal tax credit, 25 percent New York state credit, 20 percent off property tax in New York City and a net-metering policy that allows homes to sell their excess solar power back to the grid.

What scandal?Samsung sets record Q4 profits ahead of Galaxy S9 launch

Samsung’s head honcho was found guilty of bribery last year, and its vice-chairman stepped down due to an “unprecedented crisis,” but that didn’t affect the Korean conglomerate’s cashflow at all. In fact, the company did very well in the fourth quarter of 2017 and the year as a whole: It posted a $14 billion operating profit for the quarter and $50 billion for 2017, thanks mostly to its strong chip and display business. That dwarfs its $8 billion operating profit for the fourth quarter of 2016, though that year’s earnings were admittedly tainted by the Note 7 fiasco.

But wait, there’s more…

• EA delays ‘Anthem’ until 2019
• Mazda says next-gen gasoline engine as clean as an EV, well-to-wheels
• Get a glimpse of Netflix’s latest sci-fi movie, ‘Mute’
• Missouri wants to bring Hyperloop to the midwest
• Amazon gets into healthcare with Warren Buffet and JPMorgan

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Spotify is testing a Pandora-esque standalone Android app

Spotify apparently has plans to launch another music app — one that’s more like Pandora’s original service, or like a radio, if you will. The company has begun testing a playlist-based app called “Stations” for Android, and according to its Google Play listing, it plays music as soon as you launch it. You’ll have to “like” tracks in the app so it can create personalized stations for you, but like Spotify’s main app, Stations learns what music you prefer the more you listen. All you need to do to switch stations and automatically start playing other music is to scroll through your playlists.

The listing’s description reads:

“When you have access to all the music in the world, finding the right thing to play can feel like a challenge. With Stations, you can listen immediately, and switching stations is simple and seamless — no searching or typing needed. As you listen, it learns what you like and creates personalised stations that you’ll love.”

You don’t need to be a paying Spotify member to use the app, but TechCrunch says it has a built-in log-in button for the main application. Stations will probably serve ads, and the idea might be to convince users to sign up for Spotify Premium, which doesn’t have them. According to TC, Spotify is testing the app in Australia, but that it’s not compatible with a lot of Android devices.

While we can see the listing on Google Play on a browser, we can confirm that it’s not compatible with our Android devices, including a flagship phone (Galaxy S8). It’s not clear if it’s because of our location or if it’s because it’s really only just compatible with a very few devices — Variety said that it’s also not compatible with a Google Pixel. Unfortunately, that might mean it’s only available to very early testers or to Spotify’s own employees at this point. “We are always testing new products and experiences,” the company told TechCrunch, “but have no further news to share at this time.”

Source: Variety, Google Play