Microsoft Mixer lets viewers buy games straight from livestreams

A few weeks ago, Microsoft outlined new plans for its Mixer streaming service, including Direct Purchases. The feature would enable viewers to buy whatever game (or DLC) they’re watching direct from the company’s store, which would then give streamers a cut of the revenue. Today, that goes live, making it easier for players to get content — and ensure they’re buying straight from Microsoft.

Direct Purchases should indeed make it easier to acquire the content users are watching — just click on the stream and a window will pop up to buy the matching game or DLC, no switching to a separate storefront necessary. Nor do you need to fiddle with codes or tokens; Once bought, content sits in a user’s Windows 10 or Xbox library, waiting to be downloaded.

Buying directly from a streamer gives them a 5 percent cut of the purchase price, which is a nice feedback loop for viewers to give back to their favorite channels. And it makes things easier on the broadcaster’s end: Aside from choosing what version (base, collector’s edition, etc) or extra content (DLC, cosmetic packs, etc) they want the in-stream shop window to promote, content creators don’t have to remember to drop the right links in the video description or mention them mid-stream.

Obviously, Microsoft makes out by funneling viewers toward their own shop, but at least it’s a convenience for consumers. Plus, Direct Purchase is available for all 5,000-plus games in the Microsoft Store,including Xbox, Windows 10 & Xbox Play Anywhere games and DLC. Streamers have to activate the feature for each stream, but there are plenty of incentives (including promotional options) that should make it a no-brainer to switch it on.

Source: Microsoft

Mattel and Tynker will use Barbie to teach kids to code

A couple of years back, Mattel and Tynker partnered up to produce programming lessons based on Hot Wheels and Monster High. Now the two companies are expanding their partnership to launch seven new Barbie-themed coding lessons this coming summer. The curriculum, aimed at teaching girls about computer programming, will also expose them to them potential careers like becoming a veterinarian, astronaut or robotics engineer. The larger goal is to introduce coding to 10 million kids by 2020.

The Barbie programming curriculum has been designed for beginners grades K and up. It puts learners in career roles alongside Barbie as it introduces concepts gradually. It’s not all just Barbie, of course, with a few different initiatives coming in 2018, including a Mattel code-a-thon and teacher outreach program as well as involvement in the Hour of Code in December. “For close to 75 years, Mattel has taken a visionary approach to advancing play for kids around the world, most recently promoting computer programming and other STEM skills alongside iconic brands like Barbie, Hot Wheels and Monster High,” said Tynker’s Krishna Vedati in a statement. “We are very excited by this expanded partnership and the ambitious — but achievable — goal of teaching 10 million kids to learn to code by 2020 using Mattel brands.”

Source: Mattel

Judge rejects AT&T request for White House records on Time Warner merger

After the Department of Justice filed suit last November to block AT&T’s intended $85 billion merger with Time Warner, the telecom giant wanted to find out how much the White House was involved. The company had good reason to wonder how much direction the DOJ may or may not have taken from the Trump Administration given how much the President had publicly opposed the merger during his 2016 campaign. But today, a federal judge denied AT&T’s request for any communications records between the DOJ and the White House.

AT&T might have wanted the records to see if there was evidence that President Trump discussed the proposed merger with government lawyers, according to a Reuters report. From there, the telecom may have argued that politics played a role in the DOJ’s decision to block the merger.

The DOJ sued to block the merger out of antitrust concerns. While AT&T planned to dodge regulatory scrutiny by selling off some of Time Warner’s FCC licenses, and eventually plotted more drastic measures to dump other assets like CNN that appeared to jeopardize the merger. But the DOJ went ahead with a suit that argued the combined companies’ media properties would mean higher prices for rival television and online content companies.

Source: Reuters (CNBC)

Robots that pick up and sort objects may improve warehouse efficiency

Sorting and organizing may not always be the most difficult tasks, but they can certainly get tedious. And while they may seem like prime examples of something we might like robots to do for us, picking up, recognizing and sorting objects is actually a pretty difficult thing to teach a machine. But researchers at MIT and Princeton have developed a robot that can do just that and in the future, it could be used for things like warehouse sorting or cleaning up a disaster area.

The team first trained the robot how to determine the best way to grip an object. They showed it bins of various items and then demonstrated which of four main grasping behaviors — suction onto it vertically, suction onto it from the side, grip vertically and grip vertically while also using a flexible tool to coax objects away from a wall — was the best option for a particular object. They did this over and over again, labeling which attempts were successes and which were not and eventually they plugged all of the information in a deep neural network. That allowed the robot to approach new objects with a strategy based on what it learned from its previous attempts.

Once the object is gripped and lifted out of the bin, the robot then has to figure out what it is. In their setup, the researchers have a set of cameras that take pictures of the object from all sorts of angles and those images can then be compared to a library of other images the robot has access to. Once it finds a close match, the robot then moves the object to another bin, based on what the item is.

At the Amazon Robotics Challenge last July, the robot was able to successfully grasp objects 75 percent of the time (though only 54 percent of the time when using its suction grip) and it correctly classified each novel item it was presented with. The team is now working to improve the design and plans to present a paper on their work at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in May.

“This can be applied to warehouse sorting, but also may be used to pick things from your kitchen cabinet or clear debris after an accident,” Alberto Rodriguez, a researcher on the project, said in a statement. “There are many situations where picking technologies could have an impact.” You can see the robot in action in the video below.

Via: MIT

Archos’ electric scooter taps Android for directions

It’s not just bicycle makers hoping Android will improve your two-wheeled transportation. Archos has unveiled a Citee Connect electric scooter with a 5-inch Android computer in between the handlebars. The hardware won’t rival your phone (it an uses unnamed quad-core chip, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage), but it does have 3G built-in for directions and other tasks that might be handy while you commute around town. There’s also a dedicated mobile app that can control the scooter’s built-in reel lock.

As for the scooter itself? The 250W motor is enough for a 15.5-mile range and a 15.5MPH top speed. Neither is particularly mind-blowing, but they’re enough for downtown travel. It’ll take you 2 to 3 hours to charge between rides.

The Citee Connect arrives in the summer for €500 ($617). Archos hasn’t said whether or not its scooter will be available outside of Europe, but we wouldn’t count on it. The company is relatively new to scooters (it entered the space in January 2017 after years of focusing on mobile devices), and it’s clearly catering to densely packed European cities where a scooter may be all you need.

Via: The Verge

Source: Archos (PDF)

Smart Speaker Showdown: HomePod vs. Google Home vs. Sonos One

Apple’s new HomePod is late to the smart speaker market, which is already crowded with speakers from companies like Amazon, Google, and Sonos. The latter two companies, Google and Sonos, have released speakers with high-quality sound and robust voice assistants, giving the HomePod some serious competition.

We decided to pit Apple’s $349 HomePod against both the $399 Google Home Max, which comes with Google Assistant, and the $199 Alexa-powered Sonos One to see how the HomePod measures up.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
To compare the three speakers, we focused on design, sound quality, and the overall performance of Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant.

When it comes to design — and this is certainly subjective — we preferred the look of the HomePod with its fabric-wrapped body and small but solid form factor. The Sonos One looks a little more dated with its squarer body and standard speaker mesh, while the Google Home Max has a much larger footprint that’s going to take up more space.

Apple’s HomePod
All three offer touch-based controls at the top of the device, but the Google Home Max has one design edge – a USB-C port and a 3.5mm audio jack for connecting external music sources. The Sonos One has a single Ethernet port, while the HomePod has no ports.

Though we liked the HomePod’s design, Siri, as you might expect, did not perform as well as Alexa on Sonos One or Google Assistant on Google Home Max.

Google Home Max
On questions like “Is Pluto a planet?” or “What’s the fastest car?” both Alexa and Google Assistant were able to provide satisfactory answers, while Siri said those weren’t questions that could be answered on HomePod.

Siri was not able to sing happy birthday, create a calendar event, or even provide the release date of the HomePod itself, directing users to Apple.com for more information, while the other smart assistants were able to do these things.

Apple execs have said in the past that Siri was not engineered to be Trivial Pursuit, but it would be nice if Siri had a more competitive feature set.

Though only briefly touched on in the video, Siri does, in fact, do well with HomeKit commands and controlling music playback on the HomePod through an accompanying Apple Music subscription.

Sonos One
Sound quality is a controversial topic because there’s a heavy amount of personal preference involved when judging these three speakers. We thought the HomePod sounded the best, with the Google Home Max at a close second, followed by the Sonos One.

The Google Home Max gets the loudest, but sound becomes somewhat distorted at the highest volumes, while the Sonos One offers robust sound that’s not quite as good at a lower price point. HomePod does have one major benefit: a fantastic microphone that picks up Siri commands even when you’re across the room.

All three of these speakers offer great sound, and if you’re attempting to pick one based on reviews, make sure to read several. We thought the HomePod sounded best, but other sources, like Consumer Reports and Yahoo’s David Pogue found that the Google Home Max and the Sonos One sounded better than the HomePod.

So which speaker is better? The answer to that question depends on the other products you own. If you’re an Apple Music subscriber with a HomeKit setup, the HomePod is going to work great. It only works natively with Apple Music, iTunes Match, and iTunes purchases, so if you have a Spotify subscription, for example, support isn’t as robust.

For that reason, if you’re not locked into Apple’s ecosystem already, or if you have Apple devices but subscribe to Spotify, HomePod probably isn’t the best choice for you.

Related Roundup: HomePodTags: Siri, Google, Sonos, Google Assistant, Google Home, AlexaBuyer’s Guide: HomePod (Buy Now)
Discuss this article in our forums

AirPlay 2 Features Removed From iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3

Early AirPlay 2 functionality, which was present in initial iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3 betas, has been removed from the third beta that was provided to developers this morning.

With the first betas of iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3, when you installed these updates on an iOS device and two or more fourth or fifth-generation Apple TVs, AirPlay 2 could be used to stream music to multiple devices at the same time.

As an example, with two Apple TVs running tvOS 11.3 set up in different rooms of the house, you could use an iPhone to play the same song on both through AirPlay 2’s multi-room audio feature.

Installing tvOS 11.3 also added the Apple TV to your HomeKit setup, with the Apple TV present in the Home app.

As noted by iDownloadBlog, all of these features are now missing in iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3 beta 3. There are no options to play audio to multiple sources and the Apple TV has been removed from the Home app.

The AirPlay 2 feature was buggy and not fully functional, which may be why it’s been removed. It is not clear at this time if Apple plans to re-introduce the AirPlay 2 functionality in later iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3 betas.

AirPlay 2 was first announced as part of iOS 11 in June, but it did not show up in the launch version of the new operating system. When officially released, AirPlay 2 will allow HomePod, Apple TV, and supported third-party speakers to work together.

Once AirPlay 2-compatible products are widely available, you will be able to use AirPlay 2 to control all of the different speakers and devices throughout your home, for a full multi-room audio experience.

This kind of multi-room audio support was a main feature advertised for the HomePod, but Apple opted to ship the speaker without it.

Related Roundups: Apple TV, iOS 11Buyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Buy Now)
Discuss this article in our forums