Apple Watch to Promote Heart Month With Activity Challenge Next Week

Apple will be launching the newest activity challenge for Apple Watch wearers next week, with a focus on Heart Month. To complete the challenge, you’ll need to close your Apple Watch’s exercise ring for seven days in a row during one specific week: from February 8 to February 14, which fits with the heart theme and ends on Valentine’s Day.

Apple hasn’t detailed the rewards yet, but they’re likely to be the same as previous activity challenges: a colorful badge in the “Achievements” tab of the Activity app, and a matching sticker within Messages to send to friends and family. Apple Watch owners should start noticing the Heart Month challenge within their Activity app on Tuesday, February 6, two days ahead of when it begins.

The February challenge is coming on the heels of this year’s “Ring in the New Year” challenge, which tasked users with closing all three Activity rings for seven days in a row in January.

(Thanks, Clement!)

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Controller? What controller? You fly this drone with your facial expressions

Whether it’s first-person controls that place you in the virtual cockpit of your drone or experiments using brain control interfaces, engineers are exploring all kinds of ways of controlling unmanned aerial vehicles. Roboticists at British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University have stumbled upon an alternative control system, however — and it involves getting users to “throw” drones off on a set trajectory by pulling a series of funny faces.

The project’s official title is Ready-Aim-Fly. This describes the three separate phases required to achieve successful flight. In the “Ready” stage, the modified Parrot Bebop drone learns the user’s face by asking them to hold a neutral expression. You then have to program in a trigger face which is distinct from your neutral expression. The “Aim” phase involves the drone beginning to fly, while making sure that it keeps the user centered in its camera view. The user can then line up their desired trajectory and move away from the drone in order to increase how far it will fly — a bit like pulling the string back on a catapult. Finally, the “Fly” stage sees the drone perform its programmed trajectory.

It’s possible to use your expressions to make the drone travel in a straight line, or return to the user like a boomerang. In tests, the Ready-Aim-Fly system was used to dispatch the drone on flights of close to 150 feet outdoors. In all, the idea is pretty darn wacky, but we kind of love the concept of being able to harness recent breakthroughs in image recognition (and particularly facial recognition) in order to issue non-verbal commands to a robot.

“The demo is cute and small scale, but we are serious about this interface,” Richard Vaughan, one of the researchers on the project, told Digital Trends. “The important part is that the robot flies in a parabola, as if it was an object being thrown. People are really good at throwing things, so the interaction is easy to learn in one demonstration. The ability to place a drone in 3D from a quick interaction is new and powerful. With a little practice, one can send the robot over a building, or onto its roof, in a couple of seconds of aiming. The user carries no special equipment and doesn’t need their hands free. Since we did this work, we are now able to read facial expressions very accurately — using the same techniques as the iPhone X animated emojis — so we can send off the robot with a big smile.”

A paper describing the project, titled “Ready-Aim-Fly! Hands-Free Face-Based HRI for 3D Trajectory Control of UAVs,” was presented at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Canadian Conference on Computer and Robot Vision.

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Electric ‘flying taxi’ with ‘numerous propellers’ given boost by Toyota

At a private airfield somewhere between Monterey and Santa Barbara in California, you’ll find Joby Aviation’s electric “air taxi,” as JoeBen Bevirt likes to call it.

Bevirt founded Joby nine years ago to develop a short-hop aircraft system and is also the company’s CEO. With a slew of rivals currently clamoring to build their own flying car for personal transportation, competition is tough. But Joby is clearly doing something right as it’s just received $100 million in venture funding from several major outfits that include Toyota AI Ventures, Intel Capital, and JetBlue Technology Ventures.

A previous Joby Aviation design from 2014.

Bevirt is pretty secretive about the aircraft’s design (the Joby image above is from 2014), telling a recent visiting Bloomberg reporter not to spill the beans on the “physical specifics” of its working prototype. What we do know is that it’s an “exotic-looking white aircraft with numerous propellers,” suggesting a machine that’s part-plane and part-drone.

As you’d expect with such a vehicle, it’s capable of a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), with a flight speed twice that of a helicopter. And yes, this is much more than just a pretty prototype that likes to stay close to terra firma — Bloomberg witnessed a demonstration that took the aircraft on a 15-minute flight well beyond the airfield.

The final design is likely to be a five-seat aircraft capable of 150 miles of flight time on a single charge. It also aims to be 100 times quieter during takeoff and landing than conventional aircraft.

Joby Aviation is convinced the skies will one day be busy with small, short-hop aircraft, carrying people across cities in a matter of minutes — and at an affordable price.

“People waste billions of hours sitting on roads worldwide each year,” Bevirt said in a release on Thursday. “We envision a future where commuting by eVTOL is a safer, faster, and cost-competitive alternative to ground transportation.”

He added that backing from “leaders in auto manufacturing, data intelligence, and transportation sectors” means his team is “now ready to build a commercial version of the aircraft.”

With its fresh funds, Joby is now working to expand its team to bring in more experts in areas such as structural engineering, electrical engineering, flight controls, and software.

Mindful of the competition, Bevirt prefers to keep his aircraft under wraps for now, but we’ll be sure to update with images once he finally decides to show off his flying taxi to the world.

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Sony CEO Kaz Hirai steps down, CFO Kenichiro Yoshida to take over

Kaz Hirai is transitioning to a chairman role, with current CFO Kenichiro Yoshida taking over as CEO.

After a six-year stint as the CEO, Kaz Hirai has announced that he is stepping down from the role. Starting April 1, Hirai will transition to a chairman role within the company. Sony’s chief financial officer Kenichiro Yoshida will be taking over as president and CEO from April 1.

Hirai was instrumental in turning Sony’s fortunes around by focusing on the imaging sensors, gaming, and entertainment units while selling off less successful businesses like the VAIO line. The move — along with a strategic acquisition of Toshiba’s component business — allowed Sony to rise to the top in the image sensor segment, with the company supplying camera sensors for a plethora of flagships.

According to Variety, Hirai’s decision to step down was because he was “worn down from the travel schedule he’s maintained during the past six years as CEO.” The executive is reportedly planning to spend more time with his family in California, but he could take an active role in Sony’s entertainment division as chairman.

In a statement, Hirai said:

As the company approaches a crucial juncture, when we will embark on a new mid-range plan, I consider this to be the ideal time to pass the baton of leadership to new management, for the future of Sony and also for myself to embark on a new chapter in my life.

My successor, Kenichiro Yoshida, has supported me closely since returning to Sony in December 2013 , contributing extensively beyond his remit as CFO and acting as valuable confidant and business partner, as we took on the challenge of transforming Sony together. Mr. Yoshida combines a deeply strategic mindset with a relentless determination to achieve defined targets, and the ability to take a global viewpoint.

Before his ascension to the helm, Hirai worked at Sony Computer Entertainment, where he was pivotal in launching the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 consoles. He eventually went on to become the CEO of SCE, and took over from Howard Stringer as Sony CEO in 2012.

For his part, Kenichiro Yoshida — who was appointed as Sony CFO back in 2013 — said he was looking to build on the foundations set by Hirai and take “reform measures” designed to achieve long-term growth:

I will aim to build on the business foundations established by Mr. Hirai, and execute further reform measures that enhance our competitiveness as a global enterprise, and enable us to realize long-term profit growth.

My first priority will be to finalize our next mid-range corporate plan starting in April, together with our immediate business plan for the fiscal year 2018, and then move ahead swiftly with implementation.

Apple sold the most smartphones over the holidays

Smartphone sales were so slow during the holiday season of 2017, that Apple overtook Samsung to capture the first place in the market, according to IDC and Strategy Analytics. This, despite the fact that iPhone sales dropped during the holidays — down 1.3 percent from the same period the year before — and that the iPhone X hasn’t been doing as well as Cupertino hoped for. Smartphone manufacturers apparently only shipped 403.5 million units during the holidays last year compared to 430.7 million units in 2016. Samsung, which usually sits at the top of the list, shipped 74.1 million phones in the last few months of 2017, down 4.4 percent from the year before.

IDC’s findings aren’t really surprising: in its fourth quarter report, Samsung revealed that its operating profit also fell during the period. Anthony Scarsella, mobile phone research manager at IDC, explained that people might have seen the Galaxy S8, the Note 8 and the iPhone X more “as a luxury than a necessity.” He added that “even though we have seen new full-screen displays, advanced biometrics, and improved artificial intelligence, the new and higher price points could be outweighing the benefits of having the latest and greatest device in hand.”

IDC said that by claiming the top spot from Samsung, Apple proved that “having numerous models at various price points bodes well for bringing smartphone owners to iOS.” Despite Cupertino’s victory, Samsung remains the top smartphone vendor overall for 2017. It shipped 317.3 million units, up 1.9 percent from 2016, and it believes the Galaxy S9 will successfully convince people (still unsure about forking out a considerable amount of money for a fancy bezel-less phone) to upgrade. Apple, which shipped 215.8 million units in 2017, has claimed the second spot, followed by Huawei (153.1 million), Oppo (111.8 million unit) and Xiaomi (92.4 million).

Source: IDC

UNICEF recruits gamers to mine cryptocurrency for Syrian kids

UNICEF has launched a new fund-raising project in the same vein as SETI@Home and Einstein@home, but with a cryptocurrency spin. In an effort to raise money for the children in war-torn Syria, the organization is asking gamers, eSports fans and anybody with powerful graphics cards in their computers for help in mining Ethereum. It’s calling the new project “Game Chaingers,” and joining it is as easy as going to its website, giving it a few details about your system so it can configure the mining software and installing that software to your PC.

Game Chaingers uses your graphics card’s power to mine for cryptocurrency, which then goes straight to UNICEF’s account. Of course, the more participants there are, the more coins it can mine — if the hundreds of millions of gamers around the world help out, the organization can raise a considerable amount. UNICEF says it created the project out of a need to find new donors, since most of its benefactors are already over 50. By asking to borrow PCs’ processing power instead of straight-out appealing for cash, even those who wouldn’t usually give to charities could contribute.

When we asked the UN organization for children’s rights whether running the program will cause your PC to consume more electricity than usual, a spokesperson told us that it won’t. Your computer will still use the the same amount of electricity that it usually does, since it’s not exactly the same as mining for bitcoins on your own. UNICEF will only borrow part of your processing power and only asks “for a punctual and brief participation.” So, if the only thing keeping you from installing the software is its energy use and/or environmental impact, then it sounds like you’ve got nothing to worry about.

Source: Game Chaingers

Netflix is getting crushed in India, and it’s all because of Amazon and Hotstar

Netflix hasn’t altered its pricing structure for the Indian market, and it’s losing ground as a result.

Just over two years ago, Netflix announced that it would be vastly expanding its service globally, becoming available in 130 new markets. India was one of those markets, and with the service available in the country for well over 24 months, it’s time to see what has worked (and what hasn’t).

At the time, Netflix was the first major paid video streaming service to make its debut in India. There were local streaming platforms, but none had Netflix’s scale nor content library. Netflix’s basic tier — which allowed for 480p streaming on one device — cost ₹500 ($7.80) a month, with the two-screen HD plan costing ₹650 ($10) and the 4K package coming in at ₹800 ($12.50) a month.

Two years on, the pricing has remained the same, but what has changed is the arrival of Amazon Prime Video and local streaming service Hotstar. Both platforms have managed to make significant inroads in the country through a combination of aggressive pricing and strong content libraries.

Hotstar, for instance, has the digital rights to HBO shows in the country, and streams Game of Thrones episodes the same day they air in the U.S. That’s obviously a huge pull, as is the fact that Hotstar has exclusive rights to stream cricket and football games in the country.

Then there’s the issue of pricing: the base tier of Hotstar is free (albeit with ads), and there’s a single premium tier that costs ₹199 a month ($3). For that price, you get access to over 40 HBO shows, which in itself is a pretty great deal. The service serves over 200 U.S.-based shows in total, not to mention a dizzying array of regional programming.

Netflix costs three times as much as Hotstar and eight times as much as Prime Video.

As for Amazon, the retailer has invested over $2 billion in India over the last two years as it seeks to overthrow homegrown Flipkart. One way to attract customers is with deep discounts, and no one does it better than the Seattle-based company. Amazon continually holds sales events where it significantly marks down hundreds of thousands of products, and its Prime membership in India is the best bargain you’ll find on an e-commerce site.

While a yearly subscription to Prime is $99 in the U.S., it costs just ₹999 ($15.60) in India. That’s the new price, after Amazon doubled it at the end of last year. For the first two years, Prime cost just ₹499 ($7.50) in the country, an unbelievable offer considering what the retailer gave away with the subscription.

A Prime subscription in India doesn’t have all the benefits as its U.S. equivalent — Prime Reading isn’t available here — but you do get free one-day delivery on hundreds of thousands of items, access to deals ahead of everyone else, and unlimited streaming with Prime Video. To put things into context, a yearly Prime subscription costs about the same as two months’ worth of Netflix, and you get much more value for your money.

In a country where piracy is seen as a right, competitive pricing is the only way to get customers to switch over to legitimate streaming services. That sentiment is shared not only by Amazon and Hotstar, but also by Google and Apple. Play Music All Access launched in India last year, and the music subscription service costs just ₹99 ($1.50) per month. Similarly, Apple Music costs ₹120 ($1.90) a month in the country.

Although it costs significantly more than other streaming services, pricing isn’t my main problem with Netflix in India. In the U.S., Netflix offers a wide selection of TV shows that includes Friends, The West Wing, The X-Files, Lost, Twin Peaks, and several others. Netflix India doesn’t have any of those, and its movie catalog is also similarly diminished.

Netflix’s main problem in India is its vastly diminished content library.

Even big-ticket shows like How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory — which draw huge audiences on cable — are unavailable for streaming on the platform. With Hotstar offering cricket and football matches along with a wider selection of regional content as well as more U.S.-based TV shows for a third of the cost, Netflix is facing a gargantuan challenge in India.

For what it’s worth, Netflix’s original programming is available in its entirety in the country. Shows like Stranger Things, BoJack Horseman, and House of Cards are clear favorites, but it’s a tough sell to convince Indian users to pony up solely based on the strengths of the service’s original content.

Netflix’s barrier to entry is too high for most Indians, and it’s unlikely it will ever gain mainstream acceptance. To drive home the point even further, we’ll need to look at cellular data availability. The arrival of Jio has revolutionized the way Indians consume data, with the carrier essentially giving away unlimited data for the first year of its existence. As such, India has some of the most affordable 4G plans in the world.

Airtel is the largest carrier with over 300 million subscribers, and its unlimited 4G plan — with unlimited calls, texts, and 1.4GB of 4G data per day — costs ₹509 ($8) for three months. That’s about the same as a monthly subscription to Netflix.

It’s obviously early days for streaming services in India, and with initiatives like Android Go set to bring down the cost of smartphone ownership, there’s huge potential in this segment in the coming years. For Netflix to even have a chance against Prime Video and Hostar, it needs to rethink its India strategy, and do it fast.

Coord feeds real-time transportation info into navigation apps

Google Maps might plot the fastest route to your destination, but sometimes the service doesn’t seem know about accidents or rerouted public transit. Coord wants to fix that by supplying current navigation information for companies to plug into their other apps and services using an API.

That doesn’t just mean traffic data. Ever notice some navigation apps giving you limited options — or suspiciously supplying only one ride-hailing service? Coord bundles in multiple transportation options, which will soon include those that haven’t made it into mainstream apps, like bike-sharing and car-sharing. It can also provide data to help services book transportation methods within their app.

But it also includes less common data about the city — for example, identifying legal pick-up and drop-off zones for ride-sharing drivers or provide time-sensitive toll and parking information. Ideally, a service will plug into Coord’s data hose and provide an end-to-end navigation projection that lets users sift through options and see a cost estimate for the entire trip.

Someday, services will be able to plug in to smart cities like those Google’s Sidewalk Labs wants to build. But for now, Coord could give platforms small and large holistic understanding of transit between and within urban areas.

Source: Coord

Sony CEO Kaz Hirai will step aside on April 1st

We’re only a few hours away from Sony’s latest quarterly earnings report, but Sony has announced that CEO Kaz Hirai will be replaced as of April 1st. While CFO Kenichiro Yoshida is named as his replacement, Hirai will become Chairman, just as Howard Stringer did when Hirai replaced him in 2012. Hirai will retire as CEO with Sony in a much better state than when he took over, after turning its businesses around under his One Sony strategy.

Over the last few years, Sony has cut costs repeatedly, selling its Vaio PC operation, revamping the way it makes and sells TVs and refocusing its mobile business. One incident that marred Hirai’s tenure as chief was the 2014 hacking of Sony Pictures — its leader Michael Lynton left about a year ago and the studio is leading in the box office so far for 2018 with Jumanji. When it reports earnings it will likely show huge profits based on the PS4 and the smartphone camera components it sells.

Yoshida has proven himself as a key player in the turnaround since rejoining Sony in 2013, prioritizing the PlayStation business that has been a visible sign of the company’s resurgence. This change comes just after Hirai’s successor at PlayStation, Andrew House, also departed the company late last year. Under Yoshida’s leadership, Sony will announce a new plan for the future and new management structure on April 1st.

In a statement, Hirai said “As the company approaches a crucial juncture, when we will embark on a new mid-range plan, I consider this to be the ideal time to pass the baton of leadership to new management, for the future of Sony and also for myself to embark on a new chapter in my life.” According to Yoshida, “My first priority will be to finalize our next mid-range corporate plan starting in April, together with our immediate business plan for the fiscal year 2018, and then move ahead swiftly with implementation.”

Source: Nikkei, Sony

Airbus’ drone taxi takes to the skies for the first time

When Airbus first announced its plans to develop a self-flying taxi, it sounded like a fever dream of a sci-fi fan. Now, the aerospace giant has proven that it wasn’t joking: Airbus’ Vahana team have successfully flown their autonomous air taxi dubbed “Alpha One” for the first time. Sure, it only reached an altitude of 16 feet and remained in the air for 53 seconds before descending, but it did so while fully self-piloted. The team conducted another test flight the day after, and by the sound of things, that one also went well.

Airbus created the project to “democratize personal flight” by leveraging all the latest technologies, including machine vision and electric propulsion. Based on that vision, the Vahana team created Alpha One as a single-passenger electric vertical-take-off-and-landing (VTOL) self-piloted vehicle. The company’s ultimate goal is to build an autonomous passenger drone network, similar to the ride-hailing fleet of self-driving cars Waymo is preparing to launch this year, but way more ambitious. Before that happens, though, Airbus has to develop its technology further and to perform loads more flight tests until it can transition to forward flight.

Source: Vahana