Apple Confirms HomePod’s Supported Audio Sources in Tech Specs

Apple today updated its HomePod tech specs page with a new Audio Sources section that lists all of the ways in which the speaker can stream audio, setting the record straight on some conflicting information.

• Apple Music: HomePod users can ask Siri to play any of over 45 million songs available on Apple Music. A subscription is required.

• iTunes Music: HomePod users can ask Siri to play any songs, albums, or audiobooks purchased from the iTunes Store.

• iCloud Music Library: HomePod users can ask Siri to play any songs uploaded to a user’s iCloud Music Library, including songs imported from other sources such as CDs, with an Apple Music or iTunes Match subscription.

• Beats 1: HomePod users can ask Siri to play Apple’s official radio station.

• Podcasts: HomePod users can ask Siri to play any podcast episodes from the iTunes podcast directory.

• AirPlay: HomePod users can use AirPlay to play other audio from an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, and Mac. AirPlay 2, coming later this year, is only required to stream audio from these sources to multiple HomePods.
Earlier this week, iMore’s Serenity Caldwell put together a useful breakdown with more detailed information about how the HomePod works with Apple Music, iTunes Match, iCloud Music Library, AirPlay, and more.

HomePod orders began last week ahead of the speaker’s official launch on February 9 in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.

Related Roundup: HomePodTags: AirPlay, Podcasts, iTunes Match, Beats 1, iCloud Music Library
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Gawker’s journalism will be preserved online

When a billionaire bankrolls lawsuits to shut down a news outlet that they don’t like, it’s a pretty big deal for how we treat journalism. It’s why the Freedom of the Press Foundation has announced that it will launch an online archive for news sites, starting with Gawker. The project, in partnership with the Internet Archive, has crawled every page of the disputed site, as well as others like the L.A. Weekly, for preservation.

Parker Higgins, the foundation’s director of special projects, explains that certain news outlets are at risk for what he calls the “billionaire problem.” This is where members of the super rich can use their financial muscle to censor politically or personally inconvenient material. Gawker, famously, earned the ire of one prominent venture capitalist after broadcasting details of their sexuality without consent.

Univision purchased the Gizmodo Media Group, which contained the other sites in Gawker’s stable, but the main site itself is up for auction. Reported buyers include at least one individual who feels they were initially wronged by the outlet, and it’s likely that other rich dudes with a grudge have also made bids.

Similarly, the L.A. Weekly, which was bought by an initially-secret consortium and laid off the bulk of its workforce, removed at least one news story about the purchase. Thankfully, the reports remain publicly available on Archive It’s Threatened Outlets section, part of the new collection. In addition, L.A. Weekly staffers have found older articles being republished with fresh dates, verifiable using the archive.

Other sites have also suffered the “billionaire problem,” like when Joe Ricketts, owner of DNAinfo, shut down Gothamist and its sister publications after its staff voted to unionize. Similarly, the Toast will soon be expunged from the internet for as-yet undisclosed reasons.

The foundation’s preservation of the Gawker archives will, it’s hoped, reduce the temptation for other wealthy folks to suppress online reporting. After all, it’s much harder to scrub inconvenient truths from the internet if they’re being duplicated in a public archive.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Freedom of the Press Foundation

Apple Pulls Telegram Messenger From App Store for ‘Inappropriate Content’

Apple has pulled popular encrypted messenger app Telegram from the App Store, following reports of “inappropriate content” hosted on the platform that violated Apple’s developer guidelines for iOS apps.

Users first noted Telegram’s absence late on Wednesday via Reddit, after App Store searches for the app began returning results for Viber, Skype, and Messenger instead. Both the original app and experimental offshoot Telegram X still don’t appear on the App Store at the time of writing.

The exact reason for the apps’ removal isn’t yet clear, but Telegram founder Pavel Durov responded to a tweet on Thursday by explaining that the company was alerted by Apple to “inappropriate content” made available to users of both apps, which led to them being pulled.

We were alerted by Apple that inappropriate content was made available to our users and both apps were taken off the App Store. Once we have protections in place we expect the apps to be back on the App Store.

— Pavel Durov (@durov) February 1, 2018

Apple’s review guidelines include a section on user safety that prohibits “upsetting or offensive content”, while a sub-section covering user-generated content requires that the relevant apps include:

• A method for filtering objectionable material from being posted to the app
• A mechanism to report offensive content and timely responses to concerns
• The ability to block abusive users from the service
• Published contact information so users can easily reach you

Apps with user-generated content or services that end up being used primarily for pornographic content, objectification of real people (e.g. “hot-or-not” voting), making physical threats, or bullying do not belong on the App Store and may be removed without notice.

We’ll update this post if we hear more details on the situation.

Tag: Telegram
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UK group planning complex 200-mile autonomous car trial

As the UK attempts to position itself at the forefront of autonomous driving, the government — with help from startups and universities — has embarked on a number of trials in order to rack up the necessary miles on the road. This normally involves putting a self-driving through the small patches of the best and worst British highways have to have offer, providing car makers with the data they need to manufacture a safe autonomous vehicle and pave the way for updated laws and regulations in order to govern them.

The new HumanDrive initiative, announced today, is another of those driverless trials, but this one wants to be a little more thorough than those that have come before it. A self-driving car will embark on the “most complex autonomously controlled journey” ever attempted in the UK, taking in country roads, A-roads, motorways, high-speed roundabouts and various driving scenarios that are mostly unique to British roads. Overall, the vehicle will travel over 200 miles performing its duties.

The project is being led by Nissan’s European Technical Centre, with help from a wide variety of companies and organisations, including Hitachi, Transport Systems Catapult (which led the first UK driverless trial in 2016), Cranfield University, University of Leeds, HORIBA MIRA, Atkins, Aimsun Ltd, SBD Automotive and Highways England.

Various companies — including Nissan — are already testing autonomous vehicles in the UK, but HumanDrive wants its car to drive more like a human, providing a “an enhanced experience” for the people inside the car. By law, self-driving vehicles require a human rider in the driving seat, just in case something was to go wrong.

“The artificial driver model (controlling perception and decision making) will pilot the vehicle, and will be developed using the latest artificial intelligence technologies,” said Catapult Transport Systems in a statement. “Before being introduced to UK roads, the system will be developed and subjected to robust testing using a range of facilities, including simulation, hardware in the loop, private test track and small sections of public roads.”

Via: BBC News

Source: Transport Systems Catapult

Waymo drove 2 million autonomous miles in 2017

Waymo’s vehicles drove 2 million miles in self-driving mode across 25 cities in 2017, putting its total autonomous miles to 4 million. It accelerated its testing to prepare for its ride-hailing fleet’s launch this year, allowing it to “gather as much data as possible in order to improve [its] technology.” According to its annual report submitted to the government of California, Waymo drove 352,545 of those miles in The Golden State from December 2016 to November 2017. Within that period, the company reported a total of 63 disengagements (instances wherein the human test driver had to step in), which means its vehicles drove an average of 5,595 miles for every disengagement.

While its disengagement rate only fell 0.02 points from 0.20 to 0.18 over the twelve-month period, all these numbers indicate that Waymo is still ahead of its peers. It’s done the most extensive testing among all the companies with California permits, and as The Atlantic noted, only GM’s Cruise division comes close when it comes to autonomous mileage. Cruise vehicles racked up 125,000 miles on San Francisco’s streets without the help of a human driver and reported a yearly average of 1,254 miles per disengagement. We’re guessing GM also has plans to expand its testing efforts this year, considering it’s aiming to start selling cars without steering wheels in 2019.

Among all the causes of disengagement Waymo mentioned, “unwanted maneuver of the vehicle” topped the list with 19 instances, followed by “perception discrepancy” with 16. It’s worth noting, however, that most of those instances happened in the earlier part of the 12-month period, suggesting that the company’s technology improved tremendously in the second half of 2017.

Source: Waymo

Bungie’s ‘Destiny 2’ roadmap is designed to win back players

Destiny 2 fans haven’t given Bungie an easy ride. After rolling out a free trial in November, the team has been besieged with gripes about the game’s XP system, the now-infamous Prometheus Lens, and, increasingly, the fact that players are running out of content. As Twitch metrics show, engagement has been on the decline for months. Now, in a bid to reignite fan excitement, Bungie has released a pretty comprehensive development roadmap.

Every feature in the roadmap “will be delivered to every player of Destiny 2,” writes game director Christopher Barrett. “Some of these delivery dates may change, but everything you see listed here is being worked on the by the team. While there are larger projects in development, these are the game enhancements you’ll find in your immediate future. If any of these deployments change, we’ll let you know.”

Some of these features have already been discussed by Bungie, others are new additions, such as a public chat function (although they may come to regret that), better rewards, private matches and a 6v6 Iron Banner mode, plus others. The Sandbox update is slated for 27 March — this is the team responsible for the way weapons and abilities work in the game, and one that has faced a lot of community griping in recent times. Tweaks here might help recover some of the lapsed player base, but with at least two months to go, that might not be soon enough.

Source: Bungie.net

Apple to Open New Retail Store in Vienna, Austria on February 24

Apple will open a retail store in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Saturday, February 24 according to a new webpage for the store published recently on Apple’s site.

The new three-story Vienna Apple Store is located on Kärntner Straße, a famous shopping street in central Vienna, and for the last several months, Apple has been renovating the location.

Kärntner Straße is near Stephansplatz, a square located at the center of Vienna that’s home to the Stephansdom cathedral, which is known as one of the tallest churches in the world. The street is home to dozens of well-known retailers, like H&M, Forever 21, Zara, and more.

Apple’s building is located on a corner and has been outfitted with modern-looking glass panels that replace the former metalwork that was in place. The Vienna location will adopt the new store layout that’s been rolling out around the world, with dedicated areas that include the Genius Grove, The Forum, and The Avenue, aka various parts of the store dedicated to support, classes, and shopping.

Rumors of a new Apple Store in Vienna first began circulating in August of 2016, when it was reported that Apple was close to inking a deal for a flagship retail property that was formerly occupied by fashion company Esprit. Apple began posting job listings for the store a year ago in February of 2017.

Ahead of the store’s opening on February 24 at 9:30 a.m. local time, Apple will allow customers to make Genius Bar appointments and sign up for Today at Apple classes.

(Thanks, Michael!)

Related Roundup: Apple Stores
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‘infltr’ Photo App Gains GIF Shooting Mode, New Editing Tools, and New Toolkit Manager

Award-winning photo editing app infltr received an update on Thursday that adds a number of notable features, including new editing tools and the ability to shoot animated GIFs.

The new GIF shooting mode appears beside the regular camera shutter button within the app, and joins infltr’s existing support for capturing Live Photos, depth photos, and raw photos.

After selecting GIF shooting mode, users can select the speed and duration of the GIF, and also choose whether it should loop forever or ping-pong back and forth.

Over on the editing front, the developers have added new tools including fade, save highlights, save shadows, highlights tint, and exposure.

The new selections join infltr’s more than 20 editing options, which include the ability to edit Live Photos and images with depth information. And on the same note, it’s now possible to manage, order and hide them, thanks to the new toolkit ordering screen introduced in version 2.13.

Also fresh in this update is a new button in Camera mode that sits next to the undo option and lets users quickly reset all applied adjustments.

Additionally, the app now saves in HEIC format instead of JPEG, and uses the H.265 video codec instead of H.264 whenever possible, bringing a 50 percent reduction in file size without a concomitant reduction in quality.

infltr costs $1.99 and can be downloaded for iPad and iPhone (with Apple Watch support) from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tags: photography, infltr
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SEC shuts down AriseBank initial coin offering after it made fraudulent claims

An initial coin offering for a cryptocurrency project known as AriseBank has been shut down by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

AriseBank is one component of a broad range of cryptocurrency services being offered by 29-year-old Jared Rice Jr. and 45-year-old Stanley Ford. The pair embarked upon the project in 2017, announcing an ICO toward the end of the year, according to Ars Technica.

The white paper detailing the cryptocurrency asserted that it would bring together the best aspects of capitalism and socialism. “It’s capitalism without the inequality and socialism without the lack of opportunity,” read the document.

There were claims that AriseBank had raised some $600 million in funding for the project, and even celebrity endorsements. However, in the wake of the SEC’s action against the company, it seems that the cryptocurrency has gone down in flames.

The SEC ruled that the AriseBank ICO is a securities offering in legal terms and as such, it should have been submitted to the commission ahead of time. It also said the company’s founders made at least two fraudulent claims while marketing the cryptocurrency.

AriseBank claimed to be collaborating with a financial technology company called Marqeta to facilitate payments using the Visa network. Marqeta has since denied any knowledge of such an agreement in a public statement.

The AriseBank team also professed to have acquired KFMC Bank Holding Company, an FDIC-insured bank, which would allow it to field banking products that other cryptocurrency firms could not. According to the SEC, KFMC is not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Now that cryptocurrency is beginning to hit the mainstream, government bodies are starting to pay closer attention. It remains to be seen what sort of effect this will have in the long term, but there are reasons to welcome this expanded oversight.

AriseBank seems to have been adopting some shady practices, and we’ve seen various other misdeeds pertaining to cryptocurrency in recent months — the wave of ‘malvertisements’ is one way people are abusing the technology. With the authorities taking more interest in its potential for illegal activity, we’ll perhaps see less activity of this kind.

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AMD wants to make it easier for you to buy its GPUs

If you’ve been planning to build a new PC or upgrade the one you already have, then the past several months have been both the best and the worst of times. Buying a new CPU is an exciting proposition, with both Intel and AMD offering some attractive options. Buying a new GPU is a different story, though — there are great options there as well, but actually getting your hands on one has been a challenge. AMD hopes to make things easier, however, by ramping up production.

The GPU problem, which involves not only constrained supply but also exorbitant pricing, stems from the cryptocurrency craze and the fact that today’s GPUs are the best engines for efficiently mining cryptocurrency. As Polygon reports, AMD wants to ramp up production of its leading GPUs to make it easier to buy one and, hopefully, more affordable as well.

According to AMD CEO and President Dr. Lisa Su, “The graphics channel is very low, and we’re certainly working to replenish that channel environment.” Su recognizes the impact of cryptocurrency mining on the availability of the company’s products while asserting that a good portion of its growth in GPU sales has derived from other buyers.

The challenge appears to be that while AMD can ramp up production of its own chips, it’s constrained by the availability of another very important component: graphics memory. AMD uses both GDDR5 and HBM2 memory in its graphics cards, and both types suffer from shortages. Su recognizes the impact that has as well, saying, “We continue to work through that with our memory partners.”

Nvidia has also taken efforts to resolve the GPU shortage. Its approach has been a bit different, with the company asking its retailers to take steps to make its GPUs more available to the general market. In a statement posted on Computerbase.de, Nvidia said, “All activities related to our GeForce product line are targeted at our main audience. To ensure that GeForce gamers continue to have good GeForce graphics card availability in the current situation, we recommend that our trading partners make the appropriate arrangements to meet gamers’ needs as usual.”

It’s been a good few months for AMD, with its new Ryzen CPUs based on the Zen architecture receiving a warm reception in the market due to their great price-performance ratios. And AMD’s new Vega GPUs are also grabbing some attention for their own performance gains. Now, AMD just hopes it get more of them produced so that gamers and other PC buyers can actually buy them.

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