Google Assistant is now built into the Nest Cam IQ indoor camera

Nest Aware is also getting a new $5/month plan.

The Nest Cam IQ is one of the best indoor security cameras money can buy, and thanks to the company’s recent merging with Google’s hardware team, is getting even smarter.

A new software update is on its way to the indoor Nest Cam IQ, and it adds Google Assistant to the gadget. Just like the Google Home, this means you can now use voice commands to ask the Nest Cam IQ about the weather, set timers, check on the traffic to work, and more by first saying “Ok, Google” and then whatever you’d like to say.

Nest Aware can now tell the difference between people and things.

The Cam IQ will get the Google Assistant via an update to the Nest app, and while it’s currently the only product in Nest’s lineup to support this feature, it’s expected to expand to more Nest hardware as time goes on.

In addition to this, Nest’s Aware service is seeing a few upgrades. Alerts for your activity zones will now be able to distinguish between people and things, and if you have either the indoor or outdoor Cam IQ, Nest Aware will detect familiar faces in duplicate photos and merge them together in your photo library.

Lastly, Nest Aware is getting its cheapest subscription plan to-date. You can now sign up for Nest Aware for just $5/month to get 5-days of backed-up footage, and this will be joining the $10/month and $30/month plans that offer 10-days and 30-days of backups, respectively.

Nest co-founder Matt Rogers is leaving the company after nine years

Oliv. Magnetic Mounts review: Refined design

These magnetic and modular car mounts are a cut above the competition.

I’ve had a growing number of car mounting systems come across my desk for testing purposes, so I’ve developed a keen eye for determining which are worth writing about and which bring nothing new to the space. When considering a new car mount, my three main considerations are: ease of installation, ease of use, and multi-use scenarios.

ProClip sent me a couple of its new Oliv. Magnetic Mounts for consideration — the Oliv. Magnetic Button Mount ($29.99) and Oliv. Magnetic Suction Cup Mount ($39.99). The magnets used here are strong enough to hold your device securely yet safe to use with your devices. They won’t wipe your credit cards or affect the compass tech in your phone.

One of the more interesting parts of the design here is how modular each mount is. For the magnetic button mount, you only adhere a minimalist disc to your dash which you can use to directly mount your phone, or add in the included swivel mount so you can position your phone exactly the way you want. Oliv. also offers a vent mount if you don’t want to stick something to your dash.

But it’s the suction mount that really stole my attention — it’s by far the easiest suction mount I’ve ever used. Simply place it onto a smooth surface and twist the textured ring around the base and voila! The mount is secured. Want to move it or re-adjust it? Simply twist it the other way and it pops right off. No adhesives and no weird clips. It works elegantly.

And while the packaging showcases the mount as a windshield accessory, you could also use this for mounting your phone anywhere in your home or office — use it as a desktop stand for your phone, or stick it on your kitchen counter while you cook. I love it because its so easy to relocate without much fuss or mess.

The elephant in the room, as is the case with all of these magnetic mounting systems, is the requirement of sticking a little metal plate onto the back of your phone. It’s understandable that not too many people love that look. The Oliv backplate is a bit bulkier than other options I’ve looked at, too, meaning you won’t be able to slip it behind a case. My recommendation would be to instead slap it onto the back of a case, so you’re not adhering it straight to the back of your phone (although the plates it won’t stick to a silicone case). Each mount includes two metal plates, with two-packs available for $8 if you share your car with multiple people.

Included in the documentation is a list of other mounting options that will flesh out the Oliv magnetic ecosystem, including a bike mount clip that uses the same magnets. The bike mount is not currently listed on the Oliv site, but would be a compelling reason to buy into this mounting system and justify adding the metal plate to the back of your phone.

Car mounts are designed to keep your phone out of your hands while you’re behind the wheel. Be sure to check your local laws regarding car mounts and whether windshield mounts are banned by state laws before buying and always keep your eyes focused on the road ahead.

See at Oliv.

Facebook signs European licensing deal for music you share

Facebook has dealt with some criticism over the unpaid use of licensed music in videos on the company’s various platforms like Instagram. Back in September of last year, it was reported that the social network was paying out “hundreds of millions of dollars” to labels to clear songs for this kind of use. The company also made deals with Sony and Universal to let you use the publishers’ respective catalogs within uploaded videos. Now, according to a report at TechCrunch, Facebook signed a deal with licensing group ICE Services to allow around 31 million musical works from the UK, Sweden and Germany to grace the home movies you share on Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and Oculus.

The deal doesn’t cover WhatsApp, as the licensing company thinks of it as a simple one-to-one app. “We understand that WhatsApp is currently used as a pure communication tool akin to private email / messaging,” a spokesperson for ICE told TechCrunch. “This will be kept under review.” According to ICE, this is the first multi-territorial license Facebook has signed with a licensing group like this, which works with rights holder groups like PRS (UK), STIM (Sweden) and GEMA (Germany). The deal will cover 160 territories and ensure that 290,000 rights holders get paid for their work, and will offer access to cleared music for video creators via a catalogue like the already-existing Sound Collection.

Source: TechCrunch

Volvo adds the V60 wagon to its car subscription service

If you’re interested in a car subscription from Volvo, but you’re not a fan of SUVs, the Swedish automaker just announced that its new V60 wagon will be available with the service called Car by Volvo.

Care by Volvo is a bit like a lease but also includes insurance, maintenance like oil changes, wear and tear items like wiper blades and tires and roadside assistance. It’s currently available on the automaker’s small XC40 SUV starting at $600 a month.

There’s no word on what the subscription rate for the V60 will be at this time. But like the rest of the current Volvo lineup, it includes the Sensus infotainment system, Pilot Assist semi-autonomous driving, and a host of safety features (Run-off Road Mitigation, Oncoming Lane Mitigation, Cross Traffic Alert) because it’s Volvo.

When it lands in the United States next year, The V60 will be available with two configurations. The T5 front wheel drive version will push out 250 horsepower while the T6 with all-wheel drive will be available with 316 horsepower. There will also be two plug-in hybrids available.

The wagon is such an integral part of the Volvo DNA, that when people think about the brand, they immediately picture the 200 Series wagons. This is the evolution of that car and frankly, for a station wagon, it’s stunning.

Source: Volvo

Netflix orders animated series from team behind ‘Bojack Horseman’

Netflix is getting another animated series from the team behind Bojack Horseman. Called Tuca & Bertie, it centers on two 30-year-old birds — Bertie, an anxious songbird, and Tuca, a more carefree toucan. The two are friends, living in the same apartment complex. Bertie hasn’t been cast yet, but Tuca will be voiced by Tiffany Haddish. Bojack Horseman producer Lisa Hanawalt created the series and it will be produced by Bojack creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg and Bojack producers Noel Bright and Steven A. Cohen.

Haddish has been on a number of shows including The Carmichael Show and Real Husbands of Hollywood but her breakout performance in last year’s box-office hit Girls Trip has made her a household name. Last year, she also hosted Saturday Night Live, published her first book and released a stand-up special on Showtime. Among her upcoming projects is a comedy called The Oath that also stars Ike Barinholtz, John Cho and Carrie Brownstein, a drama called The Kitchen where Haddish will star opposite Melissa McCarthy, a Kevin Hart film called Night School and a TV series starring tracy Morgan called The Last OG.

Tuca & Bertie joins Netflix’s other animated series F is for Family, Castlevania, Big Mouth and Bojack Horseman. The first season will be 10 episodes long.

Via: The Hollywood Reporter

Source: Netflix

PlayStation profiles are now available on the web

PlayStation is putting your user profile on the web. Head over to the PlayStation website today and you’ll find a new tab in the upper right corner that says “My PlayStation.” Click it and you’ll see what looks like a classic Facebook profile page. Your photo is in the upper left, along with your trophy collection, friends list and who’s online. You can also compare your trophy progress/collection against friends. Basically, it takes a lot of the functionality you’d need to turn your PS4 on or open a mobile app to get and puts it in your browser. There’s a lot of empty white space, but compared to Xbox.com’s overwhelmingly cluttered dashboard — the US PS Blog isn’t much better — the minimalism is appreciated. It feels a little too barren at this point, though.

There are still a few kinks. For example, your custom header image mirrors that of what’s on your PS4 profile. So, if you haven’t set one, it’ll stay the default blue. More than that, it looks like the only way to set a header image is from your console — not the web. Also, under the “edit profile” tab, there wasn’t a way to save any changes I made, like adding my middle initial to my name. It’d be nice to see what PS4 communities you’re a part of reflected on the web as well. It’s still early days and Sony promises to keep adding features, so these niggles could be ironed out soon.

Source: PlayStation Blog (US)

Netflix’s ‘Lost in Space’ reboot premieres April 13th

Netflix’s Lost in Space remake has been a long, long time in coming (word broke of it back in 2015), but it’s finally here… almost. The streaming service has revealed that the sci-fi show will debut on April 13th, 2018, and has offered a teaser trailer to whet your appetite. Not surprisingly, this promises to be a thoroughly modern retelling of the Robinsons’ wayward mission. It appears to take a more serious tone, and reflects much of what we’ve learned about space in the roughly 50 years since the original TV series. The family is out to colonize Alpha Centauri, for starters.

There are still plenty of secrets, such as what happens in the wake of the inevitable disaster. And yes, you hear an iconic line from the series — though not the machine speaking it. The only certainty is that they’ll have to face unknown threats (both from the planet and fellow humans), and that it’s not going to be a cakewalk.

It’s too soon to say whether or not the show will live up to expectations. It does have some pedigree behind it, though. Parker Posey plays a crucial role as the troublesome Dr. Smith, while actors like Max Jenkins (Will Robinson) and Molly Parker (Maureen Robinson) have years of experience from shows like Sense8, Deadwood and House of Cards. It’s just a question of whether or not that talent coalesces into a solid whole.

Source: Netflix (YouTube)

Shadow virtualizes a high-end gaming PC on your desktop clunker

In the early days of computing, local storage and processing weren’t actually a thing. Instead, your individual computer acted as a terminal, pulling data from a central processing server. Well, the French startup Blade likes it that way and has released a similar system but with a 21st-century twist. Its cloud-computing system, dubbed Shadow, can impart the performance of a $2,000 high-end gaming rig onto any internet-connected device with a screen. And now the company is bringing Shadow to California.

The Shadow system has already found widespread adoption throughout France and most recently made its US debut at CES last month. The idea is relatively simple: instead of having to buy, maintain and upgrade your own hardware, you pay Blade a monthly subscription to use theirs. It’s a concept similar to what NVIDIA did with its GeForce NOW cloud service, Parsec or HP’s Omen PCs, save for the fact that those three are dedicated to gaming while Shadow enables users to run everything from Steam to Photoshop to a host of other business-related applications.

The company has partnered with Microsoft, NVIDIA, AMD and Equinix to create a remote Windows 10 PC that you can access over the internet. At the remote server farm, each of these systems boasts a dedicated NVIDIA graphics card capable of handling 1080p at 144Hz or 4K at 60Hz. For processing, the system relies on eight dedicated threads on an Intel Xeon processor (the equivalent of an Intel Core i7) as well as offering 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

Therefore, it doesn’t matter what hardware you’re using to access the service. Shadow can run on Macs, Chromebooks, Windows PCs, Android, iOS, and a variety of smart TV platforms. However, this does lead to a paradox. Sure, Shadow can deliver 4K quality video streams over the internet, but if you’re trying to watch it on an old 720p monitor, you’re going to be watching that stream in 720p.

Luckily, that doesn’t seem to apply to the rest of the capabilities. Since the Shadow system is, in essence, a remote desktop, it doesn’t matter how old, underpowered or decrepit the device is you’re running it on, just how good the screen is. In fact, at CES, Blade managed to run the Shadow service on Razer’s new phone, running full PC games (e.g., Battlefront II) on the device at 2K resolution and 120 Hz.

What’s also cool is that you’re able to switch back and forth between operating systems on the fly. Say you’re virtualizing the Shadow’s Windows 10 desktop on your Mac. Since the Windows 10 OS is running remotely (only using the Mac’s video driver to decode signal), it doesn’t take up any of the Mac’s other local resources. There is no slowdown in the macOS due to the Windows 10 desktop (and vice versa) and you can toggle between them instantly.

And if you don’t want to deal with your own hardware at all but still have a solid monitor, the company also offers a standalone Shadow device (think: a Roku-like box that streams computing capability instead of video), which can be hooked up to said monitor. Then all you need is a keyboard, a mouse, and a Steam account.

And a baller internet connection. That’s the other drawback of this system. In order to work, the Shadow needs a steady 15Mbps connection, preferably via ethernet. So if you’re like me and are hamstrung by slow internet speeds in your apartment complex, you simply can’t use this service. The company is working on expanding its capability to serve slower internet connections, but at this time does insist that you be running at 15 Mbps or higher. Unfortunately, the Shadow system does not yet support multi-monitor displays either, nor can it currently handle VR applications.

Then there’s the price. Shadow will cost you $35 a month with a year-long contract, $40 a month with a three-month commitment, or $50 to use it for a month with no strings attached. That’s a pretty hefty fee for the ability to remotely rent someone else’s computer.

Still, if the idea of ditching your PC for the cloud sounds like a win to you, it’s a service worth checking out. I was afforded early access to the service as part of my demo and used it to play a few rounds of Dragon Ball FighterZ on my MacBook Pro using a Bluetooth Xbox controller. I was blown away by both the visual quality (see gallery above) and the control’s responsiveness. It’s like I was playing it on my PS4 — crisp clean graphics, with zero lag, jittering or stuttering.

But big whoop, right? The 2018 MBP is a pretty beefy laptop anyway, what with its Retina display. So, I loaded the Shadow service on my older Nexus 6P and launched the game again. The results were the same (see below): crisp graphics, smooth animations, and zero lag. It honestly looked better than the last few episodes of Dragon Ball Super I’ve streamed from Crunchyroll.

Shadow launches on February 21st in California and will expand throughout the continental US by summer of 2018 as the company completes construction on seven server farms localized throughout the nation.

Twitter says most recent follower purge is about bots, not politics

A number of Twitter users are claiming the platform is purging itself of conservative viewpoints as some lost thousands of followers last night. Richard Spencer, writer Mark Pantano and Candace Owens of Turning Point USA were among those spreading the #TwitterLockOut hashtag campaign and claiming that only conservative accounts were being targeted.

Did anyone get a “heads up” up from @Twitter @TwitterSupport prior to them purging followers?

I’d give them benefit of doubt but they’ve been caught too many times censoring conservative accounts#TwitterLockOut https://t.co/Wi1q9KdAb7

— 🇺🇸MFLYNNJR🇺🇸 (@mflynnJR) February 21, 2018

I’ve lost close to 1,000 followers offer the past few hours.

Major purge underway.

— Richard 🐉 Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) February 21, 2018

Twitter is currently purging the followers on conservative accounts only. I just lost 3000 followers in one minute. Check out the trending hashtag to confirm that it is ONLY conservative accounts that are being affected.
Holding for an explanation…#twitterlockout

— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) February 21, 2018

The war on Conservatives is real.#TwitterLockOut

— Mark Pantano (@TheMarkPantano) February 21, 2018

However, others, including National March for Truth organizer Holly Figueroa O’Reilly and Republican political strategist Rick Wilson have said that the accounts being deleted were Russian bots and that conservative accounts weren’t the only ones losing followers over the purge.

#TwitterLockout demonstrates that @Jack has done more to push back against Russian digital interference than the US government run by Donald Trump

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) February 21, 2018

#MAGA, come on.
*People* aren’t being purged.
BOTS are being purged.
If your friend’s account says “temporarily restricted”, that just means they have to log in to prove they are a real person.
And it isn’t just happening to conservatives. 🙄🙄🙄#TwitterLockOut#WednesdayWisdom pic.twitter.com/ZTy1ysEvkN

— Holly Figueroa O’Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) February 21, 2018

A Twitter spokesperson has now weighed in saying, “Twitter’s tools are apolitical, and we enforce our rules without political bias. As part of our ongoing work in safety, we identify suspicious account behaviors that indicate automated activity or violations of our policies around having multiple accounts, or abuse. We also take action on any accounts we find that violate our terms of service, including asking account owners to confirm a phone number so we can confirm a human is behind it. That’s why some people may be experiencing suspensions or locks. This is part of our ongoing, comprehensive efforts to make Twitter safer and healthier for everyone.” The company also pointed to this page which details its enforcement actions.

Twitter removes swaths of fake accounts from time to time and last night’s deletions are nothing new. They’re also very unlikely to be a targeting of Twitter’s conservative base. Last month, Twitter appeared to delete thousands of accounts that followed celebrities and popular Twitter users following a New York Times report on Devumi and its selling of fake followers and artificial engagement. Some have speculated that yesterday’s account removals were related to Robert Mueller’s investigation of election meddling by Russian agents and the indictment of several Russian nationals allegedly involved in mass social media campaigns aimed at causing political strife in the US.

#TwitterLockOut was still a top trending topic on Twitter this morning and while some legitimate accounts appear to have been temporarily locked last night, verifying a phone number — a tactic used by many social networks to authenticate accounts — was all that was needed to unlock them.

Have recovered almost all the followers I lost during the #TwitterLockOut.

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) February 21, 2018

Update 2/21/18 1:02PM ET: This post has been updated with an expanded comment from Twitter.

Sling TV touts 2.2 million subscribers as cord cutting continues

With how popular cord-cutting is, you’d think more services would be keen to share their subscriber stats. Dish pulled back the curtain today and revealed that its Sling TV service has some 2.2 million folks paying for the service. That’s compared to just over 11 million Dish satellite customers. Those numbers don’t mean a ton on their own, but when you compare them to AT&T’s DirecTV Now numbers you can get a sense of where each are at. Last October, the telco reported that its streaming service had 787,000 subscribers. Of course, Sling TV has been around around a year longer, so that’s to be expected.

As far as the rest of Dish’s business goes, the company picked up an estimated 39,000 new subscribers in the fourth quarter — an increase of around 11,000 versus last year. Those gains couldn’t offset a slight decrease in annual revenue from subscribers ($14.26 billion versus $15.03 billion), or total revenue ($3.48 billion versus $3.75 billion).

All told, while Dish might be doing better with Sling TV than AT&T is with DirecTV Now, AT&T still leads the pack in terms of overall subscribers (25.1 million). But with a $1.2 billion profit thanks to tax benefits, Dish probably can breathe easy while it figures out how to boost those subscription numbers.

Source: Dish Network