Siri won’t be reading hidden notifications out loud for much longer

A fix is coming for a bug that led Siri to speak notifications out loud that were hidden behind the lock screen should someone ask about them. “We are aware of this issue and it will be addressed in an upcoming software update,” Apple confirmed to Engadget. It’s unclear when this will be, as the company could release a minor operating system patch (conceivably 11.2.7) before the next big update iOS 11.3, which is currently in beta.

Brazilian site MacMagazine originally reported the bug earlier this week, noting that asking Siri to read notifications out loud inadvertently includes those that are hidden (i.e. need authentication before they’re shared). SMS and iMessages are still kept private, The Verge reported, but Siri reads out hidden messages from third-party apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Gmail. Engadget tested this yesterday, and the bug performed as described.

Until an update fixes the issue, there are two currently viable workarounds that Apple recommends:
— Turn off lock screen notifications for sensitive apps (Go to the app in Settings > Notifications > Show on Lock Screen)
— Disable Siri whenever the device is locked (Settings > Siri & Search > Allow Siri When Locked)

Via: The Verge

Source: MacRumors

EA is teaching AI troops to play ‘Battlefield 1’

It’s been a couple of years since AI-controlled bots fragged each other in an epic Doom deathmatch. Now, EA’s Search for Extraordinary Experiences Division, or SEED, has taught self-learning AI agents to play Battlefield 1. Each character in the basic match uses a model based on neural-network training to learn how to play the game via trial and error. The AI-controlled troops in the game learned how to play after watching human players, then parallel training against other bots. The AI soldiers even learned how to pick up ammo or health when they’re running low, much like you or I do.

SEED’s technical director Magnus Nordin has been interested in self-learning gaming AI ever since DeepMind taught itself to play old Atari games back in 2015. Once he got to SEED, he and his team figured out the basics of a three-dimentional FPS to train a neural network, then worked with the Battlefield team (DICE) to integrate the AI agent into the official game’s environment.

Nordin noted that AI agents can hold their own against humans when they’re pitted against live players in a simple game mode that’s been restricted to handguns. The next step, says Nordin, will be training the network to deal with more complex strategies “like teamwork, knowing the map and being familiar with individual classes and equipment.” While the agents still get confused or stuck in behavior loops, EA sees promise here for the future of neural networks and machine learning in games.

Source: EA

CDs and vinyl are outselling digital music downloads

Digital music downloads began to outsell physical media since 2012. It took four more years for digital music revenue to surpass those from physical media as well. Then streaming happened, and last year generated more money in the US than all the other formats. Now, digital downloads are coming in dead last, with fewer sales than CDs, vinyl or other physical media, according to the latest annual report from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Even though shipments of physical media dropped 4 percent to $1.5 billion, digital download revenues fell 25 percent to $1.3 billion in 2017, putting CDs and vinyl back on top of non-streaming music formats. Streaming continues to rule the roost, however, accounting for almost two-thirds of the total US music industry revenues in 2017, which represents most of the growth in the sector. One promising new streaming category is the “limited tier” service, like Amazon’s unlimited Prime streaming to a single Echo speaker. This group, which also includes Pandora Plus, accounts for 14 percent of the whole subscription market, up from 11 percent the previous year.

Don’t let record execs tell you otherwise; they’re doing pretty well. The US music industry is going strong with revenues up $1.1 billion (wholesale) and $2 billion (retail) since 2015. Digital downloads brought in 15 percent of total music industry revenue, with physical media accounting for 17 percent. Records are still cool — the RIAA calls vinyl “a bright spot among physical formats,” with revenues from the format up 10 percent to $395 million.

Via: The Verge

Source: RIAA

GoPro licenses camera tech to other companies amid sales struggles

There’s no question that GoPro is hurting: sales are struggling, its drone plans are dead and it’s not clear that the company can survive purely on sales of action cameras like the Hero6. What’s it going to do? Offer its technology to other companies, apparently. GoPro has unveiled a licensing deal that lets Jabil use its camera lens and sensor tech for a wide range of products. The two aren’t specific about what this will involve, but Jabil sees uses in everything from law enforcement (think body cameras) through to videoconferencing and self-driving cars. Yes, the tech that documents your mountain bike trip could also drive you across town some day.

Naturally, the licensing isn’t expected to allow competing action cameras.

The pact isn’t a complete surprise when GoPro had already worked with Jabil on cameras from the Hero4 onward. However, it’s still a rare step for a company well-known for keeping its secrets close to the vest. There’s no certainty that GoPro will score many more deals like this, but it’s entirely possible that the company could rely on licensing agreements like these to shore up its bottom line. It wouldn’t have to depend quite so much on its own camera sales (which fluctuate wildly based on new releases and holidays) to survive.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: GoPro

Trump’s Chinese tariffs could have a big impact on the tech industry

Trump has shouted about weaponizing trade since the campaign trail, but this year he’s put it to action, committing to solar tariffs back in January that endangered US jobs. This afternoon, Donald Trump signed an executive memorandum to enact tariffs on up to $60 billion worth of imports from China, including products in the tech sector. It is “the first of many” actions, Trump reportedly said as he signed it. China immediately fired back by claiming it would retaliate and “defend its legitimate rights and interests” if the US imposes those restrictions, according to a Ministry of Commerce statement.

The Trump administration alleged that the trade actions are intended to penalize China for stealing American companies’ intellectual property, among other practices. The tariffs and other measures primarily target particular tech products where China has an advantage over US items, including aeronautics, modern rail, new energy vehicles and high-tech products, according to CNBC. A US trade representative who investigated China’s possibly unfair trade practices will post a list of those products in 15 days, after which comes a 30-day public comment period.

Depending on how the first wave of tariffs goes, Trump may consider more actions against China in two weeks. For its part, China has said over and over that it doesn’t want a trade war. “It’s unrealistic and unreasonable to demand complete equality in trade,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters today, according to CNN. “We hope that both sides can sit down and talk calmly.”

Source: CNN, CNBC

Wirecutter’s best deals: The UE Roll 2 Bluetooth speaker drops to $50

This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read their continuously updated list of deals here.

Amazon Echo Spot

Street Price: $130; Deal Price: $104

At $104, this is a new low price for the Echo Spot, our clock radio Echo pick in our guide to Amazon Echo speakers. This Alexa-powered speaker that features a screen is one of the newer additions to Amazon’s line and we haven’t seen a ton of deals for it to this point. The Echo Spot is It’s usually $130, so grab one at this price while you can.

The Amazon Echo Spot is our clock radio pick in our guide to Amazon’s line of Alexa-enabled speakers. Grant Clauser wrote, “Like the Echo Show, the Echo Spot’s defining features are a built-in camera and an LCD screen that can display a clock, song lyrics, or videos or allow video chats with other Spots, Shows, or the Alexa smartphone app. The Spot is about the size of a softball, and the screen is only 2.5 inches wide, making it perfect for a bedside clock (it includes six clock faces), but too small to watch anything longer than a film trailer.”

STM Prime Laptop Backpack

Street Price: $80; Deal Price: $64 w/ code PRETTYDAY

Apply code PRETTYDAY in cart to drop the price of this backpack to $64, only a dollar higher than the low we’ve posted for the STM Prime previously. This backpack typically goes for $80, so it’s a nice discount. The Black, Frost Grey, and Steel colors are all eligible for the deal.

The STM Prime Laptop backpack is our smaller laptops pick in our guide to our favorite laptop backpacks. Dan Frakes wrote, “Not everyone wants to lug their entire office around—or wants a backpack big enough to let them. If you prefer to travel light, or if you’re looking for a bag that better fits someone of smaller stature, STM’s Prime holds a 13-inch laptop and the essentials (and a bit more when you need it) in a compact, lightweight backpack that’s comfortable and protective while still managing to keep everything organized.”

Nintendo Switch Pro Controller

Street Price: $70; Deal Price: $59

At $59, this is a nice drop on the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller. Deals on this controller are still comparatively rare, and while we’ve seen them increase in frequency this year, this is the second lowest price we’ve seen for this controller. For this long-term Switch gaming with larger hands, this controller is a borderline necessity, so grab one while it’s cheap.

The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller is a staff pick and one of our favorite accessories for the Nintendo Switch in our upcoming guide on Switch accessories. More like a traditional gaming controller than the Joy-Cons, it’s a major improvement for extended gameplay sessions or if your hands are too big and get cramped while trying to play with the small Joy-Con controllers. Adam Burakowski said, “While a bit expensive, the Pro controller is worth it for how much it upgrades your gameplay experience over the included Joy-Cons.”

UE Roll 2 Bluetooth Speaker

Street Price: $75; Deal Price: $50

If you’re looking for a rugged waterproof speaker for your adventures, the UE Roll 2 is a great choice. At $50 for Dell members (free to join), this matches the typical low we see for this Bluetooth speaker. Outside of one outlier deal that briefly took it to $45 last year, we’ve never seen it lower than $50 and it’s often still over $70, so this is still an excellent deal for it.

The UE Roll 2 is our top pick in our guide to the best portable Bluetooth speaker. Brent Butterworth wrote, “Two and a half years after the introduction of the original (and barely different) UE Roll, the UE Roll 2 remains the Bluetooth speaker we use more than any other, and the one we’d buy if we could own only one. The Roll 2 sounds full, with smooth reproduction of everything from bass notes to cymbals, and it plays loud enough to fill a hotel room or a spot at the beach with sound. It’s so watertight it will survive being dunked 1 meter underwater for 30 minutes. The 10½-hour tested battery life and 60-foot range are remarkable for a speaker of this size. More than two years of worldwide traveling with the Roll 2 and the original Roll have only confirmed our love for this design. The only real downside is that it lacks a speakerphone function.”

Because great deals don’t just happen on Thursday, sign up for our daily deals email and we’ll send you the best deals we find every weekday. Also, deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go here.

Venmo temporarily halts instant money transfers

Did you need a friend to pay you back on Venmo as soon as humanly possible? You might have to twiddle your thumbs for a little while. Venmo has temporarily pulled its instant transfer feature in order to make a “few changes” to the service. You can still use regular bank transfers, but that won’t help much if you need that money to pay a bill.

Venmo didn’t go into detail when asked about the pause, but said it was done to handle “technical issues.” Some users should already see it coming back.

This isn’t the first hiccup with the service. The Verge noted that Venmo took the feature down in February due to a “brief disruption.” It’s not a good look for Venmo to freeze one of its most valuable features, however, and the removal comes when PayPal, Square and Zelle all have their own instant money transfer options. Venmo risks ceding ground if its immediate payments aren’t as reliable as those of its rivals.

We’re making a few changes to our instant transfer feature, and it is currently unavailable. Our priority is to ensure we’re giving you the best experience, and we’re sorry for any inconvenience. Our standard bank transfer option is still available in the meantime.

— VenmoSupport (@VenmoSupport) March 21, 2018

Via: The Verge

Source: Venmo Support (Twitter)

Tidal now streams music to both Amazon Fire TV and Android Auto

When last we heard in December, Norwegian publication Dagens Næringsliv reported that music streaming service Tidal had enough cash to last about six months. But the company is evidently still around and has more to announce: Tidal now has a new app for Amazon’s Fire TV products and is compatible with Android Auto.

Both are useful additions for hearing your tunes on the road or at home. Android Auto is picking up steam, with a couple new head units appearing at CES this year that support the platform. The app for Amazon Fire TV and Fire Stick lets users play music on a customized interface suited for large screens.

As for its longevity, the company told Engadget back in December that they will break even soon and achieve profitability in mid-2018.

Source: Tidal (Twitter)

Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook spoke too slowly about Cambridge Analytica

A day after Mark Zuckerberg’s media tour, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg did her part in front of cameras to apologize and also make a muted reference to possible regulation. Speaking to CNBC the exec said “It’s not a question of if regulation, it’s a question of what type” and said that if she could do the last week over again, she’d have spoken publicly sooner on the company’s dealings with Cambridge Analytica. Like Zuckerberg, there isn’t much new in her comments, as Sandberg reiterated that Facebook changed the data privacy policies in question years ago, “but that wasn’t enough.”

She also declined to promise that something like this couldn’t happen again, saying that “there will always be bad actors” along with everything else on the platform. From her viewpoint, Facebook does not “sell your data,” since it doesn’t tell advertisers who you are even though it lets them push targeted ads your way. All in all it feels like a very calculated appearance to try and manage an expected reaction that the company now feels includes inevitable regulation and ongoing scrutiny.

Source: CNBC

Quick Takes: The Comfort of Apple’s Ecosystem, Using a 2009 Mac Pro in 2018, and More

In addition to our standalone articles covering the latest Apple news and rumors at MacRumors, this Quick Takes column provides a bite-sized recap of other headlines about Apple and its competitors on weekdays.

Thursday, March 22

Highlights

Image Credit: MacStories
1. Erasing Complexity: The Comfort of Apple’s Ecosystem: MacStories editor-in-chief Federico Viticci explains how, after years of testing competing products and ecosystems, he has decided to fully embrace Apple’s ecosystem given the simplicity and integration of apps, services, and hardware.

It took me years to understand that the value I get from Apple’s ecosystem far outweighs its shortcomings. While not infallible, Apple still creates products that abstract complexity, are nice, and work well together. In hindsight, compulsively chasing the “best tech” was unhealthy and only distracting me from the real goal: finding technology that works well for me and helps me live a better, happier life.

2. Retro Review: 2009 Mac Pro in 2018: iMore’s Anthony Casella examines whether the 2009 Mac Pro, upgraded with dual Radeon RX 580 GPUs, is still a capable machine in 2018 compared to a 2014 iMac and entry-level iMac Pro, based on transcoding HD video, rendering video in Final Cut Pro, and gaming.

Image Credit: iMore
Casella notes that his article isn’t intended to be a scientific comparison, but rather more of a fun project to see if a nine-year-old workstation can still keep up in 2018, if someone were to have upgraded its components over the years instead of buying a whole new system. His answer is very much “yes.”

And yes I say that it can hang with the latest and greatest systems. In some areas, like with openCL computation, we made it insanely fast. Much faster than an iMac and an iMac Pro. It some areas it plays in the ball park like when transcoding videos. Others seem to show it’s age like when exporting Final Cut Pro videos but it does not show it’s age when using a FCP workflow like editing, transforming and scrubbing.

3. Samsung Galaxy Note 9 to adopt in-display fingerprint scanning: sources: “Samsung Display has prepared three or four solutions for Samsung Electronics to embed the fingerprint sensor inside of the main display, and both are seriously considering one of the solutions,” a source told The Korea Herald.

Samsung wouldn’t be the first smartphone maker to achieve the feat, as Chinese company Vivo released the X20 Plus UD with an in-display fingerprint scanner in January. The smartphone is the result of a collaboration between Vivo and Synaptics, which could also be working with Samsung for the Note 9.

Apple was widely rumored to embed Touch ID into the iPhone X’s display, but as it turned out, the company chose to ditch the fingerprint scanner entirely in favor of Touch ID. And with a trio of new iPhone models with Face ID expected to launch later this year, it doesn’t look like Touch ID has a long future.

Other Links

• The Loop Bash at WWDC 2018: The party will be held at The Ritz, a nightclub around the corner from the San Jose Convention Center, on June 4, 2018, from 8:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. Pacific Time. The Loop will make an announcement on how to RSVP for the party as WWDC draws closer.
• Meet Haben Girma, a blind-deaf rights lawyer changing tech and design: Mashable’s Kerry Flynn interviews disability rights lawyer Haben Girma, who is deaf and visually impaired, about the need for more commitment to accessibility in tech by businesses and entrepreneurs. There are a few quotes from Apple’s accessibility director Sarah Herrlinger.
• Clipboard API Improvements: Apple has added a new entry to its WebKit blog that provides a technical overview of recent improvements made to the Clipboard copy-and-paste API that enables web apps to more seamlessly integrate with native apps on macOS and iOS.

For more Apple news and rumors coverage, visit our Front Page, Mac Blog, and iOS Blog. Also visit our forums to join in the discussion.

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