Trump’s science and tech report focuses on deregulation

Today, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a report on what it considers to be the Trump administration’s achievements in advancing science and tech over the past year. “The Trump administration is committed to advancing technological development and conducting research and development to ensure national security, grow the economy, create well-paying jobs and improve the lives of Americans across this great nation,” says the report. “Over the past year, OSTP has led coordinated administration efforts to promote emerging technologies, empower Americans to innovate and defend American technologies abroad.”

It then goes on to highlight efforts the administration has made to encourage innovation in fields like AI, medicine, biotechnology, connectivity, cybersecurity, energy, national security, scientific discovery, the opioid epidemic, space exploration and STEM. However, throughout the report, there are very few cases where actual action has been taken. Instead, it more often details changes to policy, convening of councils or advisory boards and commissioning of reports — all of which amounts to a lot of talk and hardly any action.

The OSTP report mentions formations of the American Technology Council, the Office of American Innovation and the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis as well as the revival of the National Space Council. It also mentions summits and meetings that members of the administration took part in including the American Leadership in Emerging Technology Summit, the G7 Information and Communications Technology Ministerial and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders’ Meeting. Also sprinkled throughout the report are various executive orders aimed at reviewing and ultimately gutting previous policies as well as a handful of reports that have been produced but as of yet not followed up on. When you take away all of the meetings, empty orders and stagnant reports, you’re left with a list of accomplishments that are largely limited to tests of drone deregulation, a call for more money to be dedicated to promoting STEM education, Nobel prize winners whose work was completed well before Trump entered office and a bump in NASA’s proposed budget.

However, that’s not to say that the Trump administration hasn’t had an impact on science and technology or that no action has been taken. It’s just that the efforts that will likely have the most lasting effects on technological innovation and scientific discovery weren’t included in the OSTP’s report. Many of them are, however, very much worth mentioning.

For example, the report notes that Trump’s proposed 2018 budget includes a 2 percent increase in NASA funding compared to 2017. What it doesn’t mention are the massive cuts to various other science-focused agencies. The proposed budget suggests ending a handful of satellite programs, including the upcoming PACE mission, reducing NOAA and US Geological Survey budgets by 20 percent each, cutting the EPA’s Office of Science and Technology budget by over a third and no increase to National Science Foundation or Department of Energy science program funding.

Additionally, the report touts Trump’s opioid epidemic advisory board and his declaration of a national public health emergency, but it doesn’t mention that no money has been allocated towards recovery and prevention efforts. Similarly, the OSTP applauds two executive orders signed by the president that are largely geared towards removing some red tape involved in deploying broadband, but again, those do not come with any additional funding to close the rural broadband gap even though Trump has claimed that’s a goal of his presidency.

Other actions taken by Trump and his administration since his inauguration include appointing a climate change denier to helm the EPA, rolling back Obama-era climate change policies, pulling climate science information from the EPA website, withdrawing the US from the Paris climate change agreement, telling staff to stop directly referring to climate change, dissolved his manufacturing council, withdrawal of the Clean Power Plan, removing climate change from the national security strategy, instituting solar cell tariffs and planning to defund the ISS. During his first year in office, Trump has been met with multiple mass advisory council resignations over his actions and has also been asked by Congressional committees to stop relying on fake science when considering national policy.

Clearly, there are a lot of omissions in the OSTP’s report. And the OSTP isn’t even particularly clear about itself. It notes at the very beginning of the report that it has “over 50 staff members,” but that’s far less than over 100-strong staff the office had during the Obama years and Trump still hasn’t appointed a director to oversee the agency.

Taking together all of Trump’s actions in regards to science and technology, his administration can’t possibly be seen as an empowerer of innovation or advancement. Instead, Trump’s legacy is so far set to be almost entirely about deregulation, a complete and utter dismissal of climate science and a lot of rhetoric.

Source: White House (1), (2)

Sri Lanka cuts off access to social networks to curb violence

In an effort to curb extremist violence in Sri Lanka, government officials have ordered some social networks to shut down. ABC News’ anonymous source says that the blockage affects Facebook, Instagram, Viber and WhatsApp, specifically. In capital Colombo, some are blocked wholesale while others have apparently been slowed down considerably. Officials are using traditional means to counter the attacks, like instituting a curfew.

In the past, Turkey has done similar, censoring tweets and condemning social media as “the worst menace to society.” Late last year, Congo ordered cuts to the internet and SMS to slow down protesters. And less than a day after that instance, Iranian officials blocked mobile access to Instagram and Telegram. For those keeping track at home, this is what it looks like when free speech is being squashed by the government.

We’ve reached out to the affected companies for more information and will update this post should it arrive.

Source: ABC News

Chinese Report Says $150-$200 HomePod and $799-$899 MacBook Air to Launch This Year

Apple will launch lower-priced versions of four products this year, including an iPad, iPhone, MacBook Air, and HomePod, according to a translated report from Taiwan’s Economic Daily News via Japanese blog Mac Otakara.

We’ve already heard rumors about more affordable iPad, iPhone, and MacBook Air models, but this is the first word of a supposedly lower-priced HomePod being on Apple’s roadmap. The speaker is forecast to launch in the second half of 2018 for between $150 and $200 in the United States.

At $349, the current HomePod is considerably more expensive than the Amazon Echo and Google Home for $99 and $129 or less respectively. But the HomePod also has significantly better sound quality than its smart assistant rivals, in line with Apple positioning it as a high-quality speaker first and foremost.

A lower-priced HomePod would certainly be more competitive with the Echo and Google Home, but it’s unclear if that would come at the expense of audio quality. One possibility is that Apple will release a smaller HomePod mini that still delivers premium sound relative to other portable speakers in that category.

Here’s the full breakdown of the Economic Daily News report, based on what we could gather from a translated version:

• 9.7-inch iPad for $259: This lines up with a DigiTimes supply chain report from last December that said Apple is considering releasing a cheaper 9.7-inch iPad for $259 in the second quarter of 2018. The current 9.7-inch iPad was released in March 2017 for $349.
• 6.1-inch iPhone for $649 to $749: This lines up with a prediction from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who expects Apple to launch a mid-range 6.1-inch iPhone with Face ID, but with some design compromises like an LCD rather than OLED display to achieve the lower price point.
• MacBook Air for $799 to $899: This lines up with another prediction from Kuo, who said Apple will launch a more affordable MacBook Air in the second quarter of 2018. The estimated price range comes from WitsView researcher Yubin Qiu. The current MacBook Air starts at $999.
• HomePod for $150 to $200: Today’s report cites industry sources who expect a more affordable HomePod to launch in the second half of 2018. It’s hard to decipher details from the loosely translated report, but Mac Otakara’s coverage seems to suggest it will be a smaller speaker.

It’s worth noting that these prices are estimates, as it’s hard to envision Apple sharing pricing information with its supply chain partners.

Of the four products, the new iPad and MacBook Air are most likely to debut first. Apple is rumored to unveil new devices later this month, but it’s unclear if the announcements will be made via press release or at a media event. If there is a keynote planned, invites would certainly have to go out soon.

The new 6.1-inch iPhone should debut in September alongside a new iPhone X and so-called iPhone X Plus, and the lower-priced HomePod could certainly be introduced at the same event. The current HomePod launched in early February.

Related Roundups: MacBook Air, HomePodTag: udn.comBuyer’s Guide: MacBook Air (Caution), HomePod (Buy Now)
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iPad Pro With Face ID Will ‘Likely’ Debut at WWDC 2018 in Early June

Apple’s rumored iPad Pro with Face ID will likely be released in the second quarter of 2018, according to Rosenblatt Securities analyst Jun Zhang.

iPad Pro with Face ID mockups via Ben Geskin and Carlos Guerra
If accurate, the timeframe suggests Apple will unveil the new iPad Pro models at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, which will likely take place June 4-8 at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California. Apple similarly unveiled its current iPad Pro lineup at WWDC last year.

Zhang expects the revamped iPad Pro to have slimmer bezels and no home button, in line with the iPhone X. The revamped design will likely be featured on both the 10.5-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro, although his research note didn’t specify.

Apple’s plans to release an iPad Pro with Face ID were first revealed by KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who said the refresh would occur in 2018. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman was a bit more specific, noting the iPad Pro with Face ID would debut “a little more than a year” after the current models.

The 10.5-inch iPad Pro and second-generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro launched in June 2017, so it’s not entirely clear if “a little more than a year” meant WWDC 2018 or Apple’s annual September event where it introduces new iPhones.

The new iPad Pro models will likely retain LCDs instead of OLED displays due to supply, cost, and technological constraints. It’s unclear if the tablets will have a notch for the TrueDepth sensor housing, or if the device will have uniformly slim bezels on all four sides with enough room for the components.

A supply chain report out of China recently claimed the new iPad Pro models will be faster thanks to an octa-core A11X Bionic chip with three high-performance “Monsoon” cores and five energy-efficient “Mistral” cores.

There’s no word on potential pricing yet, but the new iPad Pro lineup will likely cost more than the current 10.5-inch and 12.9-inch models, which start at $649 and $799 respectively in the United States. Since the new models won’t have OLED displays, however, the price increase might not be substantial.

Apple is also rumored to release a new 9.7-inch iPad for $259 in March, while the fate of the iPad mini remains uncertain.

Related Roundup: iPad ProTag: Rosenblatt SecuritiesBuyer’s Guide: 10.5″ iPad Pro (Neutral), 12.9″ iPad Pro (Neutral)
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Smart Speaker Survey States iPhone Owners 22 Percent More Likely to Buy Speakers, Favor Amazon Over Google

In January, Voicebot.ai surveyed 1,057 Americans over the age of 18 regarding their ownership or interest in smart speakers, and today the researchers have published their final report with the results. While the data precedes Apple’s entry into the market with HomePod in February, it does include a few points of data regarding iPhone/iOS users and their interest in smart speakers, prevalent long before rumblings about Apple’s HomePod began.

Specifically, the Smart Speaker Consumer Adoption Report states that iPhone owners are 22 percent more likely to own a smart speaker compared to non-Apple smartphone owners. Of the smart speakers on the market besides HomePod, iPhone users are 30 percent less likely to own a Google Home and favor devices like Amazon Echo.

Graphs via Voicebot.ai
In fact, Voicebot.ai argued that Apple and Amazon are likely companions in “multi-manufacturer households,” where HomePod is purchased as a “luxury item for music listening” and Echo is used for more “utilitarian tasks.”

iOS users are attractive consumers and far more likely to own a smart speaker overall, but far less likely to own a Google device. However, the data also suggests that Google is at less risk of losing share to Apple HomePod than Amazon. Apple and Amazon may be the focus of multi-manufacturer households where HomePod is a luxury item for music listening in living spaces while Echo products get placed in the kitchen and bedrooms for utilitarian tasks.

In addition, iPhone owners are a good fit for Amazon because they are far more likely to have made a purchase by voice and more likely the 30,000 Alexa skills offered to Echo users. The favoritism shown by Apple owners to Alexa devices may also appeal to developers. Historically, iPhone app users have been far more valuable to developers on a revenue basis than Android users.

The report has many other interesting tidbits of information, stating that about 19.7 percent of adults in the United States use smart speakers, while 47.3 million have access to one of these devices. This means that they live in a home with a smart speaker, but may not be the primary owner — a necessary distinction for the survey as smart speakers are “communal devices” used by entire households, unlike a smartphone with one user.

Many consumers own an average of 1.8 smart speakers, most place them in their living room (45.9 percent of owners) or kitchen (41.4 percent), and Amazon remains the dominant player in the market with a 3.5 times larger install base than Google. All of this growth surprised many analysts, particularly compared to growth rates of other product categories.

How does the march to nearly 50 million smart speaker consumers in 3 years compared to growth rates of other communications channels? Television took 13 years, the internet four years, and Facebook just two years. Smart speakers are devices but are growing almost as quickly as social media apps.”

Among the most popular use cases, questions, music, and weather commands remain at the top. In total, the researchers said that this data provides the best indication that smart speakers are “being incorporated into everyday lives of consumers,” with 63 percent using them daily and 77 percent at least weekly.

For those who don’t own a smart speaker, 37.9 percent stated disinterest as their reason, 21.2 percent said they get enough similar features from their smartphone, 16 percent referenced privacy concerns, 11.8 percent said they plan to purchase soon, 8.8 percent claimed they were too expensive, and 4.2 referenced other reasons. For future owners, 9.8 percent expect to make a purchase in 2018, 26 percent of which said they will be purchasing Apple’s HomePod.

Related Roundup: HomePodTags: Amazon Echo, Google HomeBuyer’s Guide: HomePod (Buy Now)
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Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 51 With Bug Fixes and Feature Improvements

Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced two years ago in March of 2016. Apple designed the Safari Technology Preview to test features that may be introduced into future release versions of Safari.

Safari Technology Preview release 51 includes bug fixes and feature improvements for Accessibility, Security, Loading, Service Workers, Rendering, Styles, and Web Inspector.

The Safari Technology Preview update is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store to anyone who has downloaded the browser. Full release notes for the update are available on the Safari Technology Preview website.

Apple’s aim with Safari Technology Preview is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development process. Safari Technology Preview can run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while designed for developers, it does not require a developer account to download.

Tag: Safari Technology Preview
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Meet the cannibalistic ‘cyberslug’ that just might make robots self-aware

When computational biologist Rhanor Gillette studies predatory behavior in animals, he doesn’t begin with lions, tigers, and bears. He focuses instead on a sea slug called Pleurobranchaea californica. Or, at least, a virtual version of one.

In a recent study published in the journal eNeuro, Gillette and his team from the University of Illinois showed that a computer-simulated sea slug, which they’ve named “Cyberslug,” can respond to stimuli much as its living counterparts do in the real world. This A.I. invertebrate reacts to food and other members of its species, according to the researchers, even displaying basic forms of self-awareness.

“We’ve designed Cyberslug to reproduce the relationships that we found in the brain of the real sea slug predator,” Gillette told Digital Trends.

In the simulation, the researchers track the Cyberslug’s “appetitive state,” or how full it is, to see how it responds to stimuli. When it meets a fellow slug it can either eat, mate, or flee, depending on its current disposition. In a low appetitive state, Cyberslug is satiated and steers away from potential food. But, when it’s appetitive state is high, “due to hunger, a good memory about it, and the tastiness of a stimulus … avoidance is simply switched to approach and attack,” Gillette said. “That is, the bot adds up sensation, motivation, and memory to make a cost-benefit decision of is this prey worth attacking?”

Gillette places this approach/avoidance decision-making at the heart of all behavior that deals with consuming or conserving resources. “So, like us, the bot and the animal make economic decisions not on the basis of simple information by itself, but on how the information makes it ‘feel.’”

In their virtual sea slug, Gillette and his team think they’ve reproduced a “primitive state of consciousness, where a simple animal’s experience is locked to immediate events, and its behavior is guided from moment to moment by reward learning and motivation.”

Cyberslug’s apparent self-awareness is still very primitive — it won’t be having an existential crisis any time soon. But Gillette and his colleagues hope that by further developing the model, they can find useful applications in fields like robotics and video games, granting machines and non-player characters more sophisticated behaviors and decision-making.

Moving forward, Gillette said his team will continue to empower Cyberslug to develop more complex levels of awareness, and to study its emergent traits. “We are now working to enhance the simple Cyberslug model for enhanced sociality and cognition with the aim of producing entities that may scheme for the future, and cooperate or deceive like the social mammals,” he said.

Let’s just hope Cyberslug remains in the simulation until it’s taught to play nice.

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Wireless battery banks, custom cases, and more cool phone accessories from MWC

While we went into this year’s Mobile World Congress assuming all of the focus would be on the Samsung Galaxy S9, we were in for a few surprises. First Nokia absolutely stole the show with not one, but five amazing new handsets. There was also a major focus on bringing 5G to market.  And we definitely can’t forget about the Asus Zenfone 5 and all the other iPhone clones we saw while roaming the halls.

But underneath all of the hubbub around new phones and 5G, we saw a number of awesome smartphone accessories hidden in the nooks and crannies of MWC’s overwhelming halls. Here are just a few of our favorite smartphone accessories.

Tronsmart

A manufacturer of hybrid smartphone accessories, Tronsmart introduced Digital Trends to its newest AirAmp Hybrid Wireless Charging Bank. In addition to wireless device charging at 5W, the AirAmp Hybrid Wireless Charging Bank features a 10,000mAh battery backup as well as 15W USB-C Quick Charge technology. With a rugged design and small form factor, the AirAmp Hybrid Wireless Charging Bank is easy to throw into a backpack or bag.

Purchase from:

Tronsmart

Andi Wireless Chargers

One of our absolute favorite accessories at this year’s MWC, the Andi line features different wireless chargers for every use scenario. In addition to being absolutely charming on their own, Andi features a line of smartphone cases that allow you to magnetically attach your device to any of its wireless chargers. Right now availability is limited to parts of Europe, but we sincerely hope to see this line in the U.S. in the near future.

Purchase From:

Andi

Kakao Friends Cutie Ring

While Popsockets continues to be our favorite smartphone grip, the Kakao Friends Cutie Ring is an adorable alternative. This playful accessory can be used as a smartphone grip as well as a stand for TV and YouTube streaming. Although the Kakao Friends Cutie Ring is a bit expensive at $20, it definitely has a wow factor your friends will be sure to love.

Purchase from:

Hey Eonni

Case Station Cases

Based in Virginia, Case Station offered some of the most interesting cases we saw at this year’s Mobile World Congress. Featuring licensed products, artists lines, and even custom cases, Case Station has a huge selection of smartphone cases that are sure to please anyone. In addition to cases for about 30 different smartphones, Case Station also offers an extensive line of Apple Watch straps as well.

Purchase from:

Case Station

Deconect Gloo

A stylish charging alternative for homes and businesses, Gloo allows you to charge multiple devices at once. In addition to charging, Gloo has a hefty battery backup that can provide additional charges for up to eight smartphones. Deconect also offers a 360-degree camera option for its Gloo bases that automatically upload images to Facebook.

More info:

Deconect

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Stanford’s laser tech could help self-driving cars see around blind corners

By many accounts, you may be safer in a car that is driven by artificial intelligence than one that is driven by a human. But driverless cars aren’t flawless, and they can’t make good assessments about things they can’t see. Imagine how much better they might be if they could see around corners, such as spotting the child who is running out in the street just around a particularly sharp turn in the road.

Fortunately, you may not have to imagine for too much longer. That is because researchers from Stanford University have created new imaging technology for identifying objects that are out of view.

“We [have] developed an imaging technique to see objects hidden from view by treating walls as diffuse mirrors,” Matthew O’Toole, a postdoctoral fellow in computational imaging at Stanford University, told Digital Trends. “Our system shares many similarities to Lidar, a technology used by autonomous cars to detect the 3D shape of pedestrians and cars on the road. Like Lidar, we estimate shape by sending pulses of light into an environment and measuring the time required for the light to return to a sensor. Unlike Lidar, we also capture the light that scatters off a visible wall and interacts with objects hidden from view. Our algorithm uses this information to infer the 3D shape of the hidden objects.”

L.A. Cicero

In addition to driverless cars, David Lindell, another researcher on the project, told us that a camera able to see around corners could be useful in search and rescue, medical imaging, and surveillance.

“To make ‘imaging around corners’ viable for real-world scenarios, we still need to shorten our procedure’s acquisition time,” O’Toole continued. “Our current prototype takes several minutes to collect enough photons to reconstruct images of objects hidden from sight. With better hardware such as a brighter laser, we believe this can be done within fractions of a second.”

Stanford isn’t the only top-flight institution to be working on this problem. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have also dedicated considerable time and effort to solving the same issue. However, their approach involves analyzing the way that lights reflect on the ground to predict what lurks around the corner. While neither solution yet exists in real-world autonomous vehicles, it can only be a matter of time before that changes.

A paper describing the Stanford research was recently published in the journal Nature.

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Taiga’s TS2 electric snowmobile can go from 0 to 60 in just 3 seconds

Taiga Motors

Okay, so winter is starting to recede into chilly memory, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to be awed by a cutting edge snowmobile, right? Created from scratch by Canadian startup Taiga Motors, the TS2 is an all-electric beast of a snow-riding behemoth, capable of reaching 60 miles-per-hour (100 kilometers-per-hour) from a standing start in just three seconds flat. Color us impressed!

The 10.2-foot-long TS2 boasts an operational weight that’s less than 500 pounds fully loaded. That puts it on the lighter end of the electric snowmobile spectrum. It’s available in both single and two-seater models, and features a PMAC motor which gives you around 250 Newton meters of torque and some 80 kW of power output. (Fortunately, being an electric vehicle it should be a whole lot quieter than those power stats make it sound.) As far as battery life goes, there’s a thermally controlled lithium-ion battery that will provide around 62 miles per charge, regardless of the chilly temperatures you’re riding in. Heck, there’s even an optional DC charger that enables you to reach around 80 percent battery capacity in just 20 minutes.

Since this is the closest thing in the snowmobile world to a Tesla, it’s no surprise that the tech side of the Taiga TS2 doesn’t disappoint. Like the Tesla, the TS2 snowmobile will constantly improve thanks to automatic software updates. There is also integrated GPS, app connectivity, and a high luminosity 7-inch digital dashboard that will help you map out your course and provide a good estimate of the distance remaining to your destination.

Perhaps best of all is the promise the TS2 offers of  being a low maintenance vehicle. With a rugged body that should be able to deal with just about any terrain, and no demand for fuel or oil, this should be an easy favorite among its intended audience.

If you want to be among those lucky early adopters, you can currently place a pre-order for the TS2 over on Taiga’s website. There are four different options available, across a range of specs. Prices start at $15,000 — although you’ll be waiting between 12 and 18 months for delivery. Something tells us it will totally be worth it.

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