IKEA Unveils Minimalist ‘Eneby’ Line of Bluetooth Speakers

Swedish furniture seller IKEA has unveiled the first in a new line of minimalist Bluetooth speakers from the company.

Called Eneby, the Scandinavian-styled units come in 8-inch and 12-inch sizes, can be wall- or stand- mounted, and are made to fit in IKEA’s Kallax and Eket storage systems.

The plastic speakers come with a mesh polyester fabric front panel that can be removed to expose the drivers, and a knob on the front of the speaker controls power, bass, treble, or volume.

A 3.5mm auxiliary output around the back lets you attach a wired device, while the smaller 8-inch speaker also features a carry handle and an optional battery pack for portability.

Up to eight Bluetooth devices can be connected to a single Eneby speaker at a time, so there’s no need to disconnect one user to make way for another.

IKEA’s Eneby 8-inch speaker costs $49 and is available in white, gray, or black, while the 12-inch model costs $89 and comes in black or white.

The battery pack for the smaller speaker is sold separately for $20, and you can also buy black speaker stands for $10 each that fit both sizes.

Last year, IKEA brought to market its own Apple HomeKit-compatible smart Lighting range of products called Trådfri. The range includes LED bulbs, a remote dimmer switch puck, a gateway kit, a motion sensor kit, and dimming lights.

Tag: Ikea
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Zuckerberg apologizes for Facebook’s response to Myanmar conflict

Mark Zuckerberg has been accused of keeping too quiet on the many issues affecting Facebook recently, so Myanmar activists were surprised when they received a personal response from the chief exec following their open letter criticizing his approach to hate speech in their conflict-stricken country.

The activists, which represent six civil society organizations, condemned Facebook for the way it handled a chain letter that spread across the social network in September. The content warned Buddhists of an imminent attack from Muslims, while Muslims were told to prepare for violence from militant Buddhist groups. The civil society organizations said the messages caused widespread panic, and that such scaremongering was becoming increasingly prevalent on the platform.

In an interview last week, Zuckerberg used this incident as an example of Facebook’s effectiveness in tackling hate speech, claiming that its systems had detected and removed these messages. The activists, however, said they were forced to flag the content repeatedly, and Facebook only stepped in to help after its employees were bombarded with appeals from activists and residents in the country. Their letter to Zuckerberg condemned “an overreliance on third parties, a lack of a proper mechanism for emergency escalation, a reticence to engage local stakeholders around systemic solutions and a lack of transparency.”

In his personal reply, Zuckerberg apologized for “not being sufficiently clear about the important role” these organizations play. He said his “intention was to highlight how [Facebook] is building artificial intelligence to help better identify abusive, hateful or false content” before it’s flagged by users, and he added that Facebook has “added dozens more Burmese language reviewers” and has increased the number of people across the company on “Myanmar-related issues”.

However, his response has not reassured activists, which say Facebook has a history of pledging to do more to help quell violence in the country, but has not made good on its promises. Speaking to the New York Times, Jes Peterson, chief executive of Myanmar-based innovation lab Phandeeyar, said: “It’s great that he’s engaging personally with this, but the stuff he’s talking about is really not that much different from what they’ve been saying for the past few years.” He added that, “Dozens of content reviewers is not going to cut it.”

Activists in other developing nations have raised similar concerns about Facebook’s behaviour, with politicians and civil organizations in Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka calling for greater measures against the spread of misinformation. But it’s clear Facebook recognizes its duty to do more for its users. In an interview last month, head of Facebook’s News Feed Adam Mosseri admitted that he and other executives “lose some sleep” over the thought that Facebook incites real-world violence.

Source: New York Times

Google Home and Home Mini launch in India: Here’s what you need to know

Google Home and Home Mini make their long-awaited debut in India, and there’s a lot to et excited about.

At a media event in New Delhi, Google launched the Google Home and Google Home Mini for the Indian subcontinent. The Google Home will be available for ₹9,999, with the smaller Google Home Mini set to debut at ₹4,499.

The launch is a significant one for Google, as India is a market fraught with unique challenges. There are a gazillion local languages, and even though English is the default second language for most parts of the country, the sheer variety of dialects creates several problems when coming up with a one-size-fits-all virtual assistant.

Google Home comes with a whole host of features — you’ll be able to set reminders, hear the latest news, control your smart home gear, get weather and travel updates, listen to tunes on Gaana, Saavn, Play Music, and so much more. You can ask also Google Assistant to give you a rundown of your day’s schedule.

Google Home seamlessly integrates with all of Google’s services.

As for the device itself, the Google Home looks less like a tech product and more like decor. If anything, it looks like an air freshener. It has a fabric base, and four LEDs up top whenever Assistant is activated. It also has controls at the top for music playback and adjusting the volume.

I’ve been using the Google Home for over a year and a half now, and I’m still discovering new features to this day. It’s astonishing how well the product integrates with Google’s services — if you’re tied into the Google ecosystem, the Google Home has plenty to offer.

I’m particularly interested in the fact that the speaker is now officially available in India, as it paves the way for integrations with a flurry of local services. There are a few features that are not debuting at launch — like hands-free calling — but Google says it will be making its way to the device shortly.

And on the subject of features, Google will roll out Hindi compatibility sometime later this year. Google Assistant in Hindi rolled out officially a few weeks ago, and it’ll be heading to the Google Home and Home Mini at a later date.

The Google Home and Home Mini will be exclusive to Flipkart, with sales kicking off from later today. You’ll be able to pick up the Google Home for ₹9,999, and the Home Mini for ₹4,499.

I was looking forward to seeing the Google Home Max, but Google says that its oversized speaker isn’t launching in the market just yet. Google sells metal bases for the Google Home in the U.S., but they’re not coming to India either.

Who’s picking up a Google Home or Home Mini?

See at Flipkart

PayPal to launch debit cards and traditional banking services

PayPal is apparently rolling out a number of traditional banking features, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The digital payment giant is offering users debit cards they can use to withdraw from ATMs, the ability to instantly deposit a check to their account by taking a photo of it and the option to have their employers direct-deposit their earnings to their account, among other products. PayPal, which has been testing those offerings over the past months, has teamed up with small banks to make all those possible. A Delaware bank will issue debit cards for the company, another bank in Georgia is in charge of depositing money to accounts of users who upload photos of their checks, while a bank in Utah will provide money for personal and small business loans.

This is far from the first time the company is offering its users physical cards they can use to withdraw money: there’s the PayPal Cash card and the PayPal prepaid MasterCard linked to users’ accounts. In fact, according to TechCrunch, the payment titan is offering these services to existing prepaid card holders. If its records say you load cash to your card from retail locations or use PayPal in a way someone with no bank account does, then you can expect to hear from the company sometime in the near future.

You probably won’t be interested in these new features if you already have a bank account, after all, even if they don’t have monthly fees or require a minimum balance. PayPal COO Bill Ready told WSJ and TechCrunch that the company is targeting the “unbanked,” who tend to spend a considerable sum paying off interests and fees from lenders. “For folks who don’t have bank accounts,” he said, “for folks who don’t have credit and debit cards, we want to give them something so they’re not turning to prepaid cards, check cashiers and payday lenders.”

Via: TechCrunch

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Google is opening up VR180 to hardware-makers and developers

For Google’s VR180 to become successful, manufacturers and developers have to be onboard, creating devices and churning out videos and apps that use the format. That’s why the tech giant is now opening it up to hardware-makers and devs by publishing the remaining details on how they can start engaging with the format and offer VR180 products. When Google-owned platform YouTube introduced VR180 last year, it introduced the format as a way for creators to shoot immersive photos and videos for VR headsets that still have a normal perspective when viewed on a phone or PC.

Here’s Google’s summary on the info it released to the public:

“For VR180 video, we simply extended the Spherical Video Metadata V2 standard. Spherical V2 supports the mesh-based projection needed to allow consumer cameras to output raw fisheye footage. We then created the Camera Motion Metadata Track so that you’re able to stabilize the video according to the camera motion after video capture. This results in a more comfortable VR experience for viewers. The photos that are generated by the cameras are written in the existing VR Photo Format pioneered by Cardboard Camera.”

The company also said that it’s publishing tools that “help with writing appropriately formatted VR180 photos and videos and playing it back” in the coming months. Google believes the format can lead to some pretty affordable devices that can take VR videos. It can also make creating virtual reality content much easier, since the company has designed it to work with point-and-shoot type cameras — all you have to do is capture what’s in front of you, and the camera will make sure you come up with something immersive and life-like. In fact, Lenovo is releasing its first point-and-shoot VR180 camera on May 4th, and Yi Technology is also expected to launch one of its own. Google publishing this info, however, likely means we can expect more options in the future.

Source: Google

LG’s flagship G7 will launch in May

LG’s artificial intelligence technology, ThinQ, first made its way to the Korean company’s phones as part of the V30S. Now, the brand has confirmed that ThinQ is also coming to LG’s flagship G-series, specifically the G7 that’s debuting in New York on May 2nd and Seoul on May 3rd. According to the company’s announcement, the G7 ThinQ’s ‘Empathic AI’ — that’s how LG describes its artificial intelligence, which it says is capable of human-like thinking to a certain extent — is better than its predecessor’s. We’ll have to wait for the device’s official launch to know how exactly it’s better than the V30’s, though.

LG didn’t expound on the new phone’s features, but Israeli news site YNET got the chance to play with it a bit when it showed up in Barcelona during MWC. Android Headlines also got its hands on what it says is a press render (above), where you can see its iPhone X-like notch. The photo shows a phone with a dual rear camera setup and five available colors apparently called “Aurora Black,” “Platinum Grey,” “Moroccan Blue,” “Moroccan Blue (Matte)” and “Raspberry Rose.” According to previous leaks, the phone is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 and featurse a f/1.5 aperture for enhanced low-light photography, 6GB of RAM and 64GB of built-in storage. We’ll know for sure whether those details are legit when the phone launches in a few weeks.

Source: LG

Here are our first Nokia 7 Plus photo samples

The Nokia 7 Plus has an impressive dual camera setup.

The Nokia 7 Plus made its debut in India last week, and the phone is set to go on sale in the UK early next month. There’s considerable interest in the phone as it is the first bearing the Nokia name to feature an 18:9 display. It is powered by the Snapdragon 660 — which is just as fast as flagship chipsets from just a few years ago — and comes with Android One, meaning it will be one of the first devices to receive new platform and security updates.

Then there’s the dual camera setup at the back, which sees a 12MP camera joined by a secondary 13MP telephoto lens. Like erstwhile Nokias, both cameras feature Carl Zeiss optics; and HMD has introduced a pro mode as well. I’ve been using the Nokia 7 Plus for just over five days now, and here’s a quick preview of what you can expect from the cameras.

If you’re interested, you can download the full-size photos from here.

Daylight photos

The 12MP primary camera with the f/1.75 lens takes fantastic photos in daylight scenarios. The resulting images are full of detail, colors are accurate, and the dynamic range is wide enough that you can just rely on the auto mode.

Daylight shots from the Nokia 7 Plus are fantastic.

The secondary telephoto lens does a decent job as well when it comes to preserving detail at 2x zoom. HDR auto works reliably well, and you don’t see any lag when taking photos with HDR.

Like last year’s Nokia 8, the Nokia 7 Plus has a Bothie mode that captures images from both the front and back cameras simultaneously — I didn’t end up using the feature nearly as much, but it’s there if you want it.

Low-light photos

Low-light shots taken from the Nokia 7 Plus are decent for the most part, and the main issue with the phone seems to be reliably focusing on a subject in certain scenarios. The camera failed to accurately focus in on a particular subject at times, leading to photos with washed out details. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case often, and in a majority of situations, you’ll end up with a passable shot.

You get decent low-light shots, but it struggles in a few scenarios.

Like most phones with dual cameras, the Nokia 7 Plus has portrait mode that lets you blur out the background of an image, but the feature was finicky at best. I couldn’t get it to reliably work in most shooting scenarios, and the resulting blur effect left a lot to be desired. More often than not, the primary camera by itself did a better job of creating a bokeh effect, as you can see from the first image in the gallery.

A lot of it has to do with edge detection — with the image processing algorithm smoothing out the edges far too much, leading to an uneven blur effect. HMD Global should hopefully be able to fix the issue in upcoming software builds.

More to come

Overall, the Nokia 7 Plus takes great photos for its price point, and it gives the likes of the Moto X4 a run for their money. I’m just getting started with the phone, and will go into much more detail in my review, so stay tuned.

Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S review: A great alternative to the notch

The Mi Mix 2S runs the fastest chip available today and offers a new powerful new dual camera setup.

Xiaomi unveiled its first bezel-less phone back in 2016 with the Mi Mix, introducing a radical design that saw the front camera module moved to the bottom bar, with three sides of the display featuring ultra-thin bezels. The Chinese manufacturer refined that design with last year’s Mi Mix 2, sticking to a similar design aesthetic but decreasing the screen size to a more manageable 5.99 inches (from 6.44 inches).

Xiaomi also got rid of the piezoelectric driver that was used in the first-gen Mi Mix, instead rolling out a regular earpiece that doubled up as a secondary speaker.

Now in its third iteration, the Mi Mix 2S features the same design as its predecessor, with the phone introducing a new dual camera setup, Snapdragon 845, increased storage options, and an Oreo-based build of MIUI. Xiaomi is traditionally known to launch a flagship in its Mi series around this time of the year, but it looks like the Mi 7 will feature a radical overhaul from its predecessor, key among them being an 18:9 panel with an in-display fingerprint sensor.

In that context, it makes sense for Xiaomi to roll out a mid-cycle refresh of the Mi Mix 2. The individual changes may not seem all that significant, but cumulatively they lead to a device that’s the best Xiaomi has produced thus far. This is the Mi Mix 2S.

Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S What you’ll love

The Mi Mix 2S shares a lot of commonalities with its predecessor, including the 5.99-inch Full HD+ (2160×1080) display backed by Gorilla Glass 4. Like last year, three sides of the panel feature razor-thin bezels, with a bulk of the sensors crammed into the bottom bar. The rest of the design is identical — you get a ceramic back with an aluminum mid-frame — but the curves at the back are more pronounced, leading to better in-hand feel.

The thin bezels up front make the overall experience that much more immersive, and the screen itself is one of the best in this category. Like its predecessor, the Mi Mix 2S lets you adjust the font size along with the color temperature, and there’s a blue light filter that can be configured to kick in according to a particular schedule.

The Snapdragon 835 in the Mi Mix 2 wasn’t necessarily short on power, but the Snapdragon 845 builds on that — this is the fastest chipset in the world today. Apps load instantaneously, and I never saw a slowdown even when playing visually-demanding titles. Xiaomi is also rolling out increased storage options, with the Mi Mix 2S coming with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The phone is available with 6GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of storage as well.

The major new addition to MIUI 9.5 is user interface gestures — which transform the way you use your phone. Gestures are the way forward as screens get taller, and for better or worse Android manufacturers are emulating what Apple has done on the iPhone X. We’ve seen that last year with OnePlus, and now Xiaomi is following suit.

Like the iPhone X, you’ll be able to swipe up from the bottom of the display to go to the home screen, swipe from the bottom and pause to access the multitasking pane, and swipe from either edge to go back within an app. It takes a few days to get acclimated to the gestures, but they do offer a more natural way of interacting with the phone, and you get extra screen real estate.

The interface itself hasn’t received a major cosmetic update, but thankfully the multitasking pane has been updated and finally looks like a part of the UI. You’re not going to see a lot of changes from previous versions of MIUI, but the interface doesn’t feel as bloated as before.

In fact, after using the phone for two weeks, I can confidently say that this is the most stable MIUI experience I’ve had in several years. The sheer number of features that have been added to MIUI over the last four years made it feel bloated, and although MIUI 7 introduced a fresh coat of paint, the UI didn’t feel cohesive. Xiaomi tackled that issue with MIUI 9, focusing on optimizing the interface and making it faster, and MIUI 9.5 is a huge step forward.

The new gesture-based navigation transforms the way you use MIUI.

The interface itself still offers enough customization options that it’ll take you a better part of an afternoon to set up the device to your liking. Xiaomi was one of the first manufacturers to offer a dual apps feature — which lets you run two instances of an app simultaneously — and with MIUI 9 the company is making the global version of the ROM much more enticing for a wider audience.

The key upgrade with the Mi Mix 2S is the camera, with the phone now featuring a dual camera setup at the back which sees two 12MP sensors positioned vertically. The primary 12MP sensor has an f/1.8 lens and 1.4 micron pixels, and the secondary telephoto 12MP camera comes with an f/2.4 lens and 1.0 micron pixels. The larger pixels and improved software processing algorithms lead to much better photos, and the Mi Mix 2S particularly shines when it comes to low-light shots.

The interface is largely unchanged from previous years, but there’s a new AI feature that automatically sets up the ideal shooting mode for a particular shot. The AI-assisted feature is similar to what we’ve seen from the likes of Huawei, and it works by gauging the lighting conditions and the subject to offer the optimal shooting mode. It works seamlessly, and you see a tangible difference with the feature, once again in low-light conditions.

Xiaomi’s phones offer class-leading battery life, and that’s true for the Mi Mix 2S as well. Although the phone has the same 3400mAh battery as its predecessor, it manages to deliver two days’ worth of use consistently. It’s particularly great if you connect to cellular data networks primarily, as the idle battery drain is almost negligible.

Unlike Xiaomi’s budget phones, its flagships offer Quick Charge 3.0, and with the Mi Mix 2S, the company is also introducing wireless charging. The Mi Mix 2S features the Qi wireless charging protocol, and I didn’t have any issues charging the phone on Samsung’s fast wireless charging mat.

Xiaomi also rolled out a $15 charging mat for the phone, but I wasn’t able to get my hands on it. Xiaomi has always been about lowering the barrier for entry for new technologies, and it’ll be interesting to see what its wireless charger has to offer.

Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S What you won’t

As good as the Mi Mix 2S is, there are a few drawbacks. Starting last year, Xiaomi decided to get rid of the 3.5mm jack on its flagships, and as a result the Mi Mix 2 and now the Mi Mix 2S do not feature the analog connector. And although Xiaomi makes a decent $35 pair of USB-C earbuds, they’re not included in the box — all you get is a 3.5mm to USB-C dongle.

Xiaomi’s decision to not follow the rest of the pack and include a notch at the top of the display is commendable, but the downside is that the front camera is positioned at the bottom. It doesn’t affect me nearly as much as I don’t use the front camera, but you’ll ideally have essentially turn the phone upside down whenever you want to take a selfie.

For me, the tradeoff is worth it — by moving the camera to the bottom bar, Xiaomi is able to offer an immersive screen that looks stunning.

The main issue with the Mi Mix 2S is availability — for now, the phone is limited to China, and while it is likely to make its debut in other Asian markets, there’s no clear timeline for the same.

Should you buy it? Yes, if you can

The Mi Mix 2S starts off at $540 in China, and it’s likely the phone will debut at around the same price point in India and other Asian markets. Right now, the only way to get your hands on the Mi Mix 2S is via a reseller site like Gearbest or Honorbuy, where it starts off at $650. Accounting for customs, you’re looking at spending north of $700, and that makes the phone a non-starter in Western markets.

For that price, you’re better off picking up the Galaxy S9+ or the Pixel 2 XL. Both offer higher-res screens, better cameras, and you won’t lose out on after-sales service should your device run into any issues.

The Mi Mix 2S is the ideal alternative if you’re not sold on the notch.

Xiaomi hasn’t revealed when it will bring the Mi Mix 2S to India, but if the phone launches at around the ₹36,999 price point as its predecessor, it will be one of the best devices in this category. OnePlus is set to roll out its upcoming flagship, which we’ll likely see over the course of the next month considering the OnePlus 5T is sold out.

OnePlus dominated this segment in India last year, but the Mi Mix 2S has the ingredients to mount an effective challenge this time around. More importantly, the phone is an alternative to those that aren’t sold on the idea of a notch yet, and that may turn out to be the key differentiator for potential customers.

See at Gearbest

Instagram tests its counterpart to Snapchat’s friend codes

Instagram’s tendency to shadow Snapchat features now extends to the way you find new people to follow. The company has confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s testing Nametags, a not-too-subtle riff on Snapcodes. As reader Genady Okrain discovered, the feature lets you create a custom tag using emoji patterns (which can be based on augmented reality selfies) for future sharing. You can’t actually scan or share them right now, but there isn’t much mystery as to how they’ll work — you’d point your phone camera at a Nametag to add someone without typing their name or waiting for a request.

Like other experiments, there’s no certainty that this will become widely available. With that said, this seems more likely to ship than most. If Instagram is going to continue usurping Snapchat’s dominance, it needs to capture more of the cultural zeitgeist — and that means replacing (or at least, supplementing) the Snapcodes you see on Twitter avatars and posters with Nametags. They’ll make it easier for you to add contacts, but they may also have you thinking twice about loading Snapchat just for the sake of following a superstar.

Source: TechCrunch

‘Westworld’ creators have an unusual approach to S2 spoilers

During a Reddit AMA with Westworld show creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, Nolan made an unexpected announcement — instead of making fans cry, they’d spoil their own show. Usually, for a mysterious show like this the fan community spends all season trying to connect threads and predict the plot’s resolution without any real idea of what’s happening (unless there’s a leak). But maybe there’s a way to skip all that, and experience the show like Game of Thrones where many people read the books first. The deal was to do it, without saying goodbye, if Nolan’s comment received 1,000 upvotes, which it did, and you can view the video after the break.

We’d tell you what’s in it, but that would be a spoiler, and we’d never hurt you.

Comment from discussion We are Westworld Co-Creators/Executive Producers/Directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Ask Us Anything!.

Source: r/Westworld, YouTube