With the Ace, kids are finally getting their own cheap Fitbit

When Fitbit said it was working on a “family” of devices for this year, it really wasn’t kidding. While Mom and Dad might choose to strap on a Versa, Fitbit now has a fitness tracker — the Fitbit Ace — meant exclusively for wee ones.

If it looks familiar, well, it should: Fitbit says it recycled the design language last seen in its Alta HR, and gave it a more durable, plasticky body to better suit the swaths of youngsters the company is going after. The experience of using the $100 Fitbit Ace remains largely unchanged, though, which means you strap one on your child and let them run off into the sunset. The built-in screen gives kids 8 and up a running tally of their step counts, not to mention the occasional reminder to get off the couch and maybe do something outside instead.

The real changes come in the way parents get to manage their children’s’ Fitbits. When the Ace officially launches later in Q2, parents can create family accounts that provide at-a-glance info on all connected Fitbits. From there, you could do more than just monitor how many steps junior is taking — you’ll also have the right of approval over incoming friend requests. Fitbit says the Ace’s data collection processes are designed to be COPPA-compliant so all that data pertaining to your child remains safe. Managing this data doesn’t just mean protecting it from outsiders — it also means only giving kids see the info they need to see. They’ll be able to check step counts, sure, but they’ll never see calories burned or body fat percentages.

With childhood obesity and diabetes rates continuing to rise, Fitbit clearly believes it has a responsibility to help more than just parents get in shape. It’s not alone on that front — Garmin tried the same with its Vivofit Jr., a children’s wearable that arguably offers a more fun, thoughtful experience for the little ones actually wearing it. The Ace, meanwhile, doesn’t seem like much more than last year’s Fitbit given a child-friendly body. That’s obviously not necessarily a bad thing, but here’s hoping Fitbit uses its software know-how to craft some feature kids can get into before the Ace launches this Spring.

Fitbit’s $200 Versa is a friendlier fitness smartwatch for the masses

Fitbit’s first true smartwatch, the Ionic, was an impressive attempt that lacked the polish needed to make it great. That’s often how it goes for first attempts, but Fitbit has learned a few key lessons and is trying to crack the smartwatch market once more. Its weapon of choice? The thoroughly leaked $200 Fitbit Versa, a wearable clearly designed to offer a little something for everyone. Fitbit’s focus on health still forms the core of the Versa experience, but after some hands-on time at an event in New York, I left with the impression the Versa could be the hit Fitbit really needs.

Part of building a smartwatch for everyone involves cooking up a design that’s palatable — or at least inoffensive — to lots of people. The Ionic’s angular, hexagonal design felt overtly gadget-y, so Fitbit adopted a rounder, kinder aesthetic in designing its latest wearable. The Versa’s body is an aluminum squircle that makes the watch look and feel quite a more approachable than the Ionic. As I looked around Fitbit’s spacious, rented exercise cavern, I was surprised by how great the Versa looked on the people around me — crafting a single unisex body can be tricky, but Fitbit’s choice of finishes and bands made that squircle look appropriately rad on just about everyone.

Oh, and it’s slim, too. At 11.2mm thick, the Versa is the thinnest smartwatch Fitbit has ever managed to make, and the company claims it’s the lightest all-metal smartwatch you’ll find in the US. It didn’t feel dramatically lighter than the Series 3 Apple Watch I brought along for comparison, but we’ll sort that out once it’s time for a full review.

A 1.34-inch square LCD sits in the middle of the Versa’s body, and with brightness topping out at 1,000 nits, it was remarkably easy to read even under harsh sunlight. You’ll find 4GB of storage inside, only 2.5GB of which is available for music storage (you know so that you can leave your phone at home during runs). To be clear, though, the Versa can’t do everything the Ionic can. There’s no built-in GPS here, for one, which helps explain why the Versa’s tiny 145mAh battery is rated for over four days of use on a single charge. And Fitbit Pay, the contactless payment service supported by around 40 banks around the world, is missing from the standard Versa. To use it, you’ll either have to shell out $30 extra for one of Fitbit’s special edition Versas, or buy a regular Versa from overseas where the feature is enabled by default. (Go figure.)

Chris Velazco/Engadget

Fitbit has been coy about the processor and RAM tucked away in the Versa, but it certainly feels snappier than the Ionic did right out of the box. Swiping through the list of preloaded apps and dismissing notifications was smooth and drama-free, thanks largely to underlying updates made to Fitbit OS. Thankfully, there’s more going on here than just foundational changes — Fitbit also worked on ways to make the Versa feel more like a traditional smartwatch.

Consider notifications: on the Ionic, there was no way to respond to the notifications flowing onto your wrist. With the Versa, however, you’ll finally be able to fire back with canned and customized responses… as long as you have an Android phone. (Fitbit hasn’t ruled out iOS support for the feature, but lament its rival’s “closed” ecosystem.) A relatively new partnership with French streaming service Deezer makes it easier to load up the Versa with custom playlists, too, and a steadily growing selection of apps means the Versa can be much more than just a fitness tracker.

Chris Velazco/Engadget

For the record though, it’s an excellent fitness tracker — just like the Ionic before it. The usual slew of sensors tracked my morning’s activity as well as my Apple Watch did, though I sadly couldn’t jump into a pool to see how well the swim tracking worked. Still, crucial stats were easier to take in from the watch’s redesigned dashboard, and Fitbit has added (and planned) a handful of clever updates to make the Versa a more thoughtful kind of workout buddy.

I was a big fan of the guided workouts that debuted on the Ionic, for example, but they always felt pretty static — they never got more intense as I slowly improved my health. The Versa’s new Coach app changes that: it solicits feedback about a workout after you’ve made it so it can upgrade those on-device exercise routines over time. Later in the year, the Versa will also gain the ability to deliver more personalized suggestions, data summaries and reminders too.

Chris Velazco/Engadget

One of the Versa’s most important features will be available right out of the box, though. In a bid to give women a more complete picture of their health, the Versa lets users who identify as women log the intricacies of their menstrual cycle. By logging the state of their flow and the symptoms involved as they occur, Fitbit’s health model can offer a countdown to a user’s next period, not to mention crucial information and context to healthcare providers.

All told, the Versa takes most of what made the Ionic impressive, gave it a few coats of much-needed polish and squeezed it into a body most people wouldn’t think twice about wearing. That’s a pretty powerful step on its own, but Fitbit’s growing commitment to thoughtfully using the data we offer to it might be the advantage Fitbit so strongly needs. We’ll find out soon enough — the Fitbit Versa goes on sale this April.

SteelSeries’ Arctis Pro is a high-res headset for discerning gamers

High-fidelity audio is typically meant for the most extreme music geeks — people who have expensive DACs (digital-to-analog converters), huge speakers and crazy headphones. You’ve probably seen (and rolled your eyes at) those folks extolling the virtues of 24-bit audio on message boards and comment sections around the web. With its latest gaming headphones, the Arctis Pro line, SteelSeries is hoping to aiming to make that high-end audio experience something everyone can enjoy.

If you’ve seen SteelSeries’ previous Arctis gaming lineup, the new headphones will look pretty familiar. They share the same basic design: clean lines, comfortable fabric-covered cups, and a sturdy steel headband that’s joined together with a soft strap that adjusts the fit to your head. The headsets also feature new driver designs capable of producing sound up to 40kHz (a questionable upgrade, since human hearing typically tops out at 20kHz). Just like before, they also have retractable microphones with noise-cancellation on the left can.

The star of the show is the wired Arctis Pro PC and PlayStation 4 headset ($250), which plugs into the “GameDAC” breakout box. That’s powered by an ESS Sabre 9018 chip, a DAC you’d typically find in music enthusiast gear, with support for 96kHz/24-bit audio. (CDs, in comparison, deliver 44.1kHz/16-bit quality.) Basically, it means the GameDAC can produce higher quality sound than what you’d find on most PCs. It’s perfectly geared towards things like Tidal’s Hi-Fi and Masters features, which lets you stream lossless and high-resolution 24-bit music files for $20 a month. Niche sites like HDTracks have also been trying to push high-res music for years, but the cost and complexity of hearing those files makes it hard to compete against streaming services. SteelSeries

Engadget

The GameDAC features a simple monochrome OLED screen, a large volume and control dial, and a button up front for enabling and disabling DTS:X virtual surround sound. Around the back, there’s an optical connection for the PS4, a USB port to plug into your computer, a line-out connection to power nearby speakers, and an auxiliary jack for your phone. The Arctis Pro connects to the USB port on the left side of the GameDAC. The box has an understated oval design, and SteelSeries wildly angled the screen up a bit to make it easier to see.

Not surprisingly, the GameDAC is your main way to control the Arctis Pro. From the home screen, you can control the volume levels of your audio and chat mixes. You can also jump between different input modes: standard PC gaming (which is limited to 48kHz/16-bit audio, like most devices); high-res music listening; and PlayStation 4 games. Additionally, you can tweak equalizer and RGB light settings from the GameDAC. If you need to customize things even more, you can also use SteelSeries’ PC software.

If you’re strictly anti-cable, though, there’s also the $330 Arctis Pro Wireless for PCs and the PS4. It also comes with a breakout box, just like the company’s Siberia 800 headset, but it doesn’t offer the same high-fidelity audio as the wired Arctis Pro. Instead, it features lossless, low-latency sound over the 2.4Ghz spectrum. That’s better than just relying on Bluetooth, which compresses sound and loses detail in the process. Don’t count out that wireless tech entirely, though — the Arctis Pro Wireless also supports a simultaneous Bluetooth connection along with its lossless receiver, allowing you to pipe in your Discord chat food, or music from your phone. It comes with two battery packs which each hold 10 hours of juice — one sits in the headphones, while the other charges in the wireless receiver. Swapping them takes only a few seconds.

Engadget

After a week of testing, I found a lot to love from both headsets. They’re light and comfortable to wear for hours on end. And, most importantly, they both sound excellent. They were perfect for the dynamic audio design in Nier: Automota and Overwatch — explosions and firing weapons all left an impact, and I couldn’t hear any distortion once the action heated up. Other players had no trouble hearing me through the microphone, even while a loud TV was playing in the same room. On the PlayStation 4, the Arctis Pro Wireless sounded significantly better than plugging headphones into the Dual Shock controller. Both headsets also excelled at making music feel alive and vibrant, from Janelle Monae to high-resolution classical music on Tidal. You could hear plenty of detail and nuance across different genres, something that other bass-heavy gaming headsets often have trouble with.

But. I honestly didn’t hear a huge difference between the Arctis Pro in Hi-Res mode and the lower quality wireless version. And yes, just to confirm, I was listening to 24-bit music from HDTracks and Tidal Hi-Fi. If I concentrated in a perfectly quiet environment, I could make out a tad more clarity from the wired headset, but it wasn’t anything revelatory. I’m not too surprised, though. I’ve been dabbling in the world of high-resolution audio for years, and while I’ve heard some great recordings (Michael Jackson’s Thriller sounds amazing in 96kHz/24-bit), I still prefer the flexibility of streaming music and my compressed (but still very high quality) library.

Engadget

While I’m still not entirely sold on high-resolution audio, SteelSeries deserves credit for delivering another set of tremendous gaming headphones. No matter if you go for the wired or wireless options, you’ll have a fantastic audio experience. And if they’re too pricey for you, the company’s existing lineup remain great options, starting with the $80 Arctis 3.

Facebook Watch Platform to Launch Dedicated News Section

Facebook is set to launch a news section for its Watch platform and is testing different video partnerships with around 10 publishers, according to a report by Axios today.

Launched back in August, Watch is a section of Facebook in the U.S. for mobile and desktop that’s designed to showcase TV shows exclusive to the social network. Along with serving as a platform for end users to watch shows, Watch is also meant to help creators and publishers find an audience for their content, build a community, and earn money.

The additional section would be the first standalone news product for national news in Watch. Previously news has been hosted on the platform mixed in with other publisher content through delivery mechanisms such as Instant Articles and Facebook Live.

Facebook is said to be testing a daily video feature for the upcoming news section that includes content from both “legacy and digital-first news publishers” and would run for at least a year, according to Axios’ sources. Hosted content would be a minimum of three minutes, and Facebook plans to launch the feature this summer to test what works best.

Aside from Facebook’s monetization goals, creating a news product that’s native to the platform is part of an effort to promote content from vetted publishers, following last year’s outbreak of “fake news” on the social network. Accusations that Facebook did little to halt the spread of misinformation on its platform hit the company’s reputation among both users and publishers in 2017, and it has since been testing ways to guide readers to more credible sources of news.

In another Watch development, last week Facebook and Major League Baseball announced a content agreement to stream 25 weekly MLB games on the social network starting in 2018. The games will be distributed over Facebook Watch as part of the MLB Live show Page, and the deal marks MLB’s first digital-only distribution agreement, which was unanimously approved by 30 Major League Clubs.

Tag: Facebook
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How to Grab Screenshots and Video From Apple TV Using Your Mac

Apple doesn’t go out of its way to advertise the fact, but it’s perfectly possible to connect a Mac to a fourth-generation Apple TV or later and grab screenshots and video output from the set-top box. In this article, we’ll show you how it’s done.

Note that this method can’t be used to record DRM-protected content off the likes of Netflix or iTunes, but it will let you capture your driving skills in Asphalt 8: Airborne, for instance, just as it will allow you to take screenshots for use in troubleshooting, training, blogging, or any other purpose.

The way to connect a Mac to an Apple TV used to depend on the presence of a USB-C port on the rear of the fourth-generation set-top box to establish a wired connection. But since there’s no such port on the latest fifth-generation Apple TV 4K, that’s no longer an option for a growing number of users.

However, thanks to macOS High Sierra and tvOS 11, it’s now possible to connect your Mac wirelessly to a fourth- or fifth-generation Apple TV on the same Wi-Fi network, and you don’t have to download Xcode or any other additional software to do so. Simply follow the steps below, and you should be capturing video and taking screenshots in no time.

How to Grab Images and Video From Apple TV on a Mac

Turn on your Apple TV and your HDMI-connected display.

On Apple TV, open Settings and select Network.

Under Connection, make a note of the Wi-Fi network.

Now click the Wi-Fi menu bar icon over on your Mac to make sure it’s connected to the same network.

On Mac, launch QuickTime Player from the Applications folder.

In the QuickTime menu bar, click File -> New Movie Recording to open a new recording window.

Click the small down arrow to the right of the red record button.

In the dropdown menu, select Apple TV under both the Camera and Microphone sections.

A screen sharing permissions prompt will appear on your Apple TV display. Use your Siri Remote to select Allow.

To begin recording video, simply click the red record button.

To take a screenshot of the Apple TV output from your desktop, press the keyboard shortcut Command-Shift-4 and hover the cursor crosshair over the QuickTime Movie Recording window.

Press the spacebar. The crosshair will turn into a camera and the QuickTime window will take on a transparent blue cast to indicate it’s selected.

Wait a moment for the QuickTime interface overlay and title bar to disappear, and then click to take your Apple TV screenshot. It will be automatically saved to your desktop by default.

Note: If you want to try the traditional method of taking Apple TV screenshots, you need to download Apple’s Xcode developer utility from the Mac App Store. Bear in mind that it’s a hefty 5.5GB download, and you might run into connection issues if you’re running a beta version of tvOS.

After installing Xcode 9.2, launch the utility and select Window -> Devices and Simulators from the menu bar, and you should see the screenshot button in the Devices tab once you’ve successfully connected to Apple TV.

Related Roundups: Apple TV, iOS 11, macOS High SierraBuyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Buy Now)
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Movies Anywhere Expands Digital Retailer Support With New Partner FandangoNOW

Last October, Disney announced that its “Disney Movies Anywhere” service would be expanding to become simply “Movies Anywhere,” allowing customers to collect all of their digital films into one centralized location. Previously, the digital retailers supporting the service were iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, VUDU, and Google Play, but today the latest retailer has joined: FandangoNOW.

FandangoNOW is the ticketing service company’s video on-demand service, and now users who stream and purchase films on FandangoNOW will see their content piped to Movies Anywhere. This means that when using the Movies Anywhere app and website, FandangoNOW customers can access eligible digital movies from studios including Sony Pictures Entertainment, Walt Disney Studios (encompassing Disney, Pixar, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm), Twentieth Century Fox Film, Universal Pictures (including DreamWorks and Illumination Entertainment), and Warner Bros.

Once a FandangoNOW account is connected to Movies Anywhere, users can watch their redeemed digital films on multiple supported devices with Movies Anywhere apps, including iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, Amazon Fire devices, Android and Android TV, Chromecast, Roku, and on Mac and PC. According to Fandango CMO Adam Rockmore, a major advantage of FandangoNOW is having “one of the industry’s largest collections of 4K Ultra HD movies,” but as of yet the service doesn’t have an app for Apple TV.

“At Fandango, we aim to deliver the best movie experience anytime and anywhere, throughout a movie’s entire life cycle — from theatrical to home entertainment and beyond,” said Fandango CMO, Adam Rockmore. “Since FandangoNOW’s launch in 2016, we’ve been hyper-focused on innovation, including building one of the industry’s largest collections of 4K Ultra HD movies and broadening our distribution on a wide variety of connected devices. Now, through our new relationship with Movies Anywhere, FandangoNOW customers will gain simple, streamlined access to their digital movies from Hollywood’s major film studios.”

Since its launch late last year, Disney stated that Movies Anywhere now provides access to a library of nearly 7,500 digital movies, and it has been used to store over 100 million movies to date. In addition to purchases made on connected digital retailers’ stores, Movies Anywhere lets customers redeem digital codes that they find included in physical Blu-ray and DVD disc cases.

In celebration of the launch, FandangoNOW is offering two free films — Ghostbusters (2017) and Ice Age — when FandangoNOW is the first account a user connects to Movies Anywhere. This is part of Movie Anywhere’s “5 Movies on Us” promotion, where the fist digital retailer linked nets you the previously mentioned films, and the second retailer linked provides you with an additional three free films: Big Hero 6, The LEGO Movie, and Jason Bourne.

Disney is also using the announcement as a promotion for today’s digital release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, adding in a few new Star Wars themed profile picture options to the service. On the iTunes store on Apple TV, Disney is still the only major Hollywood studio not supporting 4K. It’s believed that price is the reason behind the lack of support, because Apple is adamant about keeping 4K films equal to HD prices at $19.99, while Disney sells its films in 4K on apps like VUDU at a higher price of $24.99.

Tags: Disney, Fandango, Movies Anywhere
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Chinese Report Expects 11-Inch iPad Pro at WWDC, No New iPhones Until Second Half of 2018

Apple is planning to release a new iPad Pro with a display that measures about 11 inches, according to Taiwan’s Economic Daily News.

iPad Pro with slimmer bezels rendered by Benjamin Geskin
We’ve already heard rumors about a 10.5-inch iPad Pro with slimmer bezels and no home button, so Apple could include a slightly larger 11-inch display without increasing the physical size of the tablet itself. This would mirror the iPhone X, which has a 5.8-inch screen, but is smaller than an iPhone 8 Plus.

Details are hard to gather from a loose translation of the Chinese report, which says the 11-inch iPad Pro and an updated 12.9-inch iPad Pro are likely to be released at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June, echoing an earlier prediction from Rosenblatt Securities analyst Jun Zhang.

Both new iPad Pro models are expected to feature Face ID and faster eight-core Apple A11X processors. It’s unclear if the tablets will have notches for the TrueDepth system, or a slimmer, uniform top bezel that still has enough room to house the camera and sensor technology that powers the facial recognition.

The report, citing a source, adds that Apple has no new iPhone models planned for the first half of 2018, dampening hopes for an iPhone SE refresh. The first new models of the year will likely be the so-called iPhone X2, iPhone X2 Plus, and a 6.1-inch aluminum iPhone with Face ID in September.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo had already cast doubt on rumors about a second-generation iPhone SE launching in the first half of 2018. He said Apple was likely to focus its development resources on the trio of iPhone X-like models expected to launch in the second half of the year.

The current iPhone SE looks much like the iPhone 5s, including a smaller four-inch display, preferred by a subset of customers. The device is powered by Apple’s A9 chip, like the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, and it has 2GB of RAM, a 12-megapixel rear camera, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and Touch ID.

Apple hasn’t fully refreshed the iPhone SE since it launched in March 2016, but it did double its available storage capacities to 64GB and 128GB last March. It also dropped the device’s starting price to $349 last September.

Related Roundups: iPad Pro, iPhone SETag: udn.comBuyer’s Guide: 10.5″ iPad Pro (Neutral), 12.9″ iPad Pro (Neutral), iPhone SE (Don’t Buy)
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The Morning After: Larry Page’s other flying car

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

We have more news from SXSW, including a quick recap of Elon Musk’s sold-out talk. Elsewhere, Larry Page showed off an autonomous flying machine that could be the backbone of Uber-in-the-sky and Philips is ready to take its Hue lighting system outdoors.

Take a break.Tesla temporarily paused Model 3 production in February

According to Bloomberg, Tesla shut down the Model 3 production line at its Fremont plant between February 20th and 24th. The company said its plans include pauses to “improve automation and systemically address bottlenecks.” Whatever, as long as it helps speed up manufacturing — a goal to build 5,000 cars per week has been pushed back to June.

Larry Page’s other flying car.Meet Cora, an electric, autonomous air taxi

Google co-founder Larry Page’s Kitty Hawk company is working on at least two aircraft projects, the Flyer and this one, Cora. It’s an all-electric vehicle capable of VTOL but flies with a single propellor like any other plane. It’s also autonomous. The plan is not to sell these, but to offer access, like a ridesharing service that picks up passengers on demand. The company is testing these in New Zealand now, but it didn’t announce when the service would be open for business.

Wait, you can do that?FCC accuses startup of launching satellites without permission

The FCC accused startup Swarm Technologies of launching four of its tiny SpaceBEE (Basic Electronic Elements) communication cubesats without obtaining the necessary approvals.

The best business laptop in the… uh, business.ThinkPad X1 Carbon review (2018)

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon has everything you’d want in a business ultraportable. You’ll just have to pay a bit extra to get the newest features like HDR.

But wait, there’s more…

• What’s on TV: ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi,’ ‘Burnout Paradise’
• Apple buys Texture, the ‘Netflix of magazine plans’
• SXSW 2018: Breaking down Elon Musk’s surprise, sold-out talk
• I built a vibrator at SXSW 2018
• ‘Slingshot’ malware attacks via routers
• Philips introduces its first outdoor Hue lights
• SXSW 2018: Eddy Cue explains Apple’s ‘quality over quantity’ video strategy

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Snapchat will feature creator-made AR Lenses in its carousel

Snapchat plans to give its AR Lens offerings a boost by feature submissions from its users. In late March, you’ll start seeing Lenses with their creators’ names underneath their titles mixed with Snapchat’s own and sponsored options. According to Mashable, Snapchat will feature some of the Lenses people created using the company’s Lens Studio tool. It’s unclear what qualities will make Snap choose a particular Lens — at the very least, it most likely has to look good and well-made — but interested creators will have to opt into Snap’s “Creator Boost” program if they want the company to consider their submissions.

Mashable says Lens Studio has received 30,000 submissions since its launch in December, so Snapchat will have a huge number of Lenses to choose from if most creators choose to opt in. They won’t get paid even if Snapchat chooses to highlight their creation, though — good thing the app has 187 million daily active users that’ll make that good ole “exposure as compensation” worth it.

Source: Mashable

Microsoft faces 238 complaints of gender discrimination

Microsoft has been accused of 238 cases of gender discrimination or sexual harassment by female employees working in US-based technical jobs, according to court filings made available this week. The complaints were made between 2010 and 2016, and include systemically denying pay rises or promotions to women working at the company. The plaintiff’s attorneys are pushing to proceed as a class action lawsuit, but a trial has not yet been scheduled.

Of course, Microsoft denies the claims, deeming just one of the 118 gender discrimination complaints as “founded”. The company says it spends more than $55 million a year to promote diversity and inclusion, and last year waived the requirement for pre-dispute arbitration agreements in sexual harassment claims, which means that in theory, victims may be more comfortable coming forward with complaints.

However, not only would this have had no bearing on the women behind the latest case, but somewhat contradicts the company’s previous stance on making complaints publicly available. Microsoft had argued that the number of women’s human resources complaints should be kept under wraps because publicizing the outcomes could dissuade others from reporting future issues.

US District Judge James Robart has yet to rule on the plaintiff’s request for class action status — if allowed, it could cover more than 8,000 women. Microsoft says that the plaintiffs have not identified practices “that impact enough employees” to warrant a class action, which begs the question, how many women do have to be affected for meaningful change to take place?

Source: Reuters