Amazon Prime yearly subscription increasing to $119 starting in May

Renewals after June 16 will jump to new price.

Amazon’s Q1 2018 earnings were just released, and the company once again beat estimates. But during the analyst call, it wasn’t all good news — at least for customers. Amazon says that it will be increasing the yearly subscription price of Amazon Prime in the U.S. to $119 from the current $99.

This new price will go into effect for new Prime sign-ups starting on May 11, just a couple weeks away, while those of us who already have Prime won’t be hit by the price increase unless our renewals come due on or after June 16. Amazon will send out emails to current subscribers with details prior to the change.

The month-to-month subscription option, which is $12.99/month ($156/year) after receiving a price bump earlier this year, will remain.

Amazon just boosted its (already massive) Prime revenue with a single move.

Amazon recently revealed that it has over 100 million paid Prime members worldwide — not all of whom pay the equivalent of $99/year, mind you — which is a hefty amount of recurring revenue that Amazon can rely on. Prime has increased in price a couple times since its launch (though the last annual increase was in 2014), and Amazon has regularly tinkered with other subscription options for its music service and Amazon Fresh grocery delivery. It has, of course, increased the value of Prime with new additions to the service as well — and Prime subscription growth doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

Most people with Prime are deeply invested in it at this point and will simply say “sure, what’s another $20?” — but from Amazon’s perspective, that’s a 20% boost in U.S. subscription revenue without having to grow its customer base. Sure the company is likely to lose a few Prime subscribers who are disgruntled with the increase, but that small loss will be more than covered by the aforementioned 20% increase from each remaining customer. A smart move, no doubt, even if it isn’t particularly customer-friendly.

Sign up for Amazon Prime

Axon opens ethics board to guide its use of AI in body cameras

Axon (formerly Taser) is keenly aware of the potential for Orwellian abuses of facial recognition, and it’s taking an unusual step to avoid creating that drama with its body cameras and other image recognition systems. The police- and military-focused company has created an AI ethics board that will convene twice per year (on top of regular interactions) to discuss the ramifications of upcoming products. As spokesperson Steve Tuttle explained to The Verge, this will ideally establish a set of “AI ethics principles” within police work where certain uses are off-limits.

The company isn’t developing any as-it-happens facial recognition systems at present, but CEO Rick Smith told the Washington Post that it’s in “active consideration.” He was aware of the possibility of “bias and misuse,” but thought that it would be “naive and counterproductive” to deny the technology to officers who’d otherwise have to commit suspects’ faces to memory.

Not that this is likely to satisfy critics. A coalition of civil rights groups have written an open letter to Axon urging it to ban all uses of facial recognition. The technology would “chill the constitutional freedoms of free speech and association” — for example, police could use it to identify and intimidate protesters. And when facial recognition has both gender and race biases along with the usual imperfect detection, there’s a possibility officers could use force against an innocent person.

Nonetheless, the very existence of the board is notable. Many companies will consider the ethical implications of AI when designing products, but they only occasionally create dedicated ethics groups. This won’t necessarily catch every questionable use of AI, but it may prevent Axon from enabling particularly egregious abuses that it has to correct after the fact.

Via: Washington Post, The Verge

Source: Axon, Leadership Conference

Apple’s iTunes software comes to the Windows Store

Nearly a year after it was originally announced and several months later than planned, iTunes is finally available via the Windows Store. While functionally it’s the same as installing from a regular download the way Windows users always have used the Apple software, its inclusion in the store means it will also work on PCs running Windows 10 S (soon to be S mode). It won’t use any less RAM or become any more suited for modern state of media management, but at least it’s there. Now, how about Google Chrome?

Via: Windows Central

Source: Microsoft, Windows Blog

Amazon raises Prime fee to $119 in the US

Amazon will increase the cost of Prime membership in the US from $99 a year to $119 a year. According to CFO Brian Olsavsky on the latest earnings call, the 20 percent price increases will take into effect on May 11th. Existing Prime members will see the new annual fee applied to their renewals starting June 16th.

It was just a week ago when CEO Jeff Bezos said that Amazon now has over 100 million paid Prime members worldwide. Prime is an Amazon service that combines free two-day and one-day shipping along with a Prime Video subscription as well as other perks like Whole Foods discounts and DVD exclusives.

“The value of Prime to customers has never been greater,” said Olsavsky. But, he says, it’s also expensive. “The cost is also high, as we pointed out especially with shipping options and digital benefits, we continue to see rises in costs.”

NFL renews deal with Amazon for ‘Thursday Night Football’ through 2019

A year ago, Amazon secured the rights to stream Thursday Night Football, reportedly beating the previous year’s online broadcast partner Twitter (along with Facebook and YouTube) with a $50 million bid. Today the NFL announced it’s renewed its deal with Amazon for both the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

As was the case with the previous agreement, only Amazon’s 100 million Prime members get access to 11 games in the season. But the TNF games will also be streamed on Twitch, and you won’t need a Prime membership to watch.

Similar to last year’s agreement, Amazon will stream Thursday Night Football, while Fox Sports will broadcast games between weeks 4 to 15 of the season and simulcast on NFL Network. The latter will air two exclusive games that won’t appear on Amazon or Fox channels, including the first one of the year on September 13th. Kickoff time is slated for 8:20PM ET for all games.

Students make hippotherapy more accessible with robotic horse

Mechanical engineering students at Rice University have designed a robotic horse that can mimic the movements of the real thing. The device, dubbed Stewie, is geared towards individuals requiring equine-assisted therapy, also known as hippotherapy, who may not be able to travel to or afford a facility that offers it. Hippotherapy is believed to be able to help patients develop coordination, balance and posture while also fostering a relaxed state during which other beneficial therapies can be administered. And Stewie could provide a way for more people to benefit from hippotherapy.

The students have been working on the project for a while and they collected accelerometer data from real horses at a ranch in Texas. That data was used to develop code that can control the six degrees of motion freedom that Stewie has and different programs can offer different types of gait, meaning therapists could choose which horse-riding simulations are best for each individual patient.

Though the students will be graduating soon, they want to make sure Stewie lives on, so they’ve been sure to use materials anyone can find and will make their code and schematics open source. They’ll be available for free online so anyone can replicate or build upon their designs. You can check out Stewie in the video above.

Source: Rice University

Apple’s iTunes App Now Available Through Microsoft’s Windows 10 Store

iTunes, Apple’s software for downloading, purchasing, and managing content on iOS devices and playing Apple content on Macs and PCs, is now available for download through Microsoft’s Windows 10 Store.

Microsoft first announced plans to bring the iTunes app to the Windows 10 Store in May 2017, and said at the time that the app would be available by the end of 2017. In December, though, an Apple spokesperson said that the two companies would not hit that deadline.

“We have been working with Microsoft to deliver the full iTunes experience to our customers and we need a little more time to get it right,” Apple said.

iTunes has been available on the Windows platform for many years as a standalone download for most Windows users, but its addition to the Windows Store will make it easier for Windows users to find the software. Windows 10 S users have not been able to download the iTunes software as the mode only supports software downloaded from the Microsoft Store, so this will be a welcome addition for those Microsoft customers.

The addition of iTunes to the Windows Store is a win for Microsoft, as iTunes is reportedly one of the apps that Windows users search for most often.

Tags: Microsoft, Windows 10, iTunes
Discuss this article in our forums

Sprint and T-Mobile Aiming to Reach Merger Deal Next Week

Earlier this month, reports suggested Sprint and T-Mobile had once again resumed merger talks, and now it appears the two U.S. carriers may be close to inking a deal.

According to Reuters, Sprint and T-Mobile have “made progress” negotiating merger terms and are aiming to complete deal talks as soon as next week.

T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom and Sprint parent company SoftBank are said to be discussing an agreement that would “dictate how they exercise voting control over the combined company.”

This could allow Deutsche Telekom to consolidate the combined company on its books, even if it does not have a majority stake in the combined company, one of the sources added. Deutsche Telekom owns more than 63 percent of T-mobile, while SoftBank owns 84.7 percent of Sprint.

Previous merger talks between Sprint and T-Mobile failed after the two companies were unable to reach “mutually agreeable terms.” Sprint parent company SoftBank was said to be unsatisfied with the deal because of ownership terms, with SoftBank concerned about losing control of the combined company after Deutsche Telekom requested a controlling stake.

If T-Mobile and Sprint are able to establish a satisfactory deal, the combined company would have more than 100 million customers.

Sources that spoke to Reuters said there is “no certainty” a deal will be reached, given the dissolution of the previous merger talks.

Tags: Sprint, T-Mobile
Discuss this article in our forums

Meizu M6 Note review: Good, but nothing special

The Meizu M6 Note may not be the most exciting smartphone, but it’s not bad. I’ve had it for the past week, giving me plenty of time to put it through it’s paces. The M6 Note is a mid-range smartphone (at best). It’s affordable, has some very appealing features, and is made by one of the most popular and reputable Chinese OEMs. With dual cameras, a large battery, a metal design, and Meizu’s signature FlymeOS, is the M6 Note a budget phone worth buying? That’s what we aim to find out in this Meizu M6 Note review.

Design

The M6 Note feels like a high-quality smartphone.

Many aspects of the Meizu M6 Note are pretty run of the mill. It get’s the job done. The M6 Note doesn’t do much wrong, nor does it do a whole lot to stand out from the crowd either. The phone is well designed but it’s nothing we haven’t seen from other manufacturers before. The M6 Note is solidly constructed, with an all-metal body that gives it a very high quality feel. The metal is smooth to the touch, making for very little grip. The flat sides of the phone make it easier to hold, though. Chamfered edges run along the perimeter of the front and rear, which adds extra flair to the overall aesthetics. The corners are also nicely rounded, which makes the phone more comfortable to hold.

By today’s smartphone standards the Meizu M6 Note would be considered average in size. It’s not overly large, making it fairly easy to use in one hand. The side mounted power and volume keys are well placed and comfortable to reach. It’s a well constructed, if unremarkable phone that exudes the premium look and feel of a flagship.

Display

At first glance, the M6 Note’s 5.5-inch 1080p display probably won’t grab your attention. It’s surrounded by thick bezels, especially on the top and bottom, and has a 16:9 aspect ratio, which gives it a very outdated look for 2018. The screen itself is of good quality. At 5.5 inches it isn’t the largest display, but it still feels comfortable for browsing the web, typing, and enjoying content such as movies and games.

The IPS panel of the M6 Note is not as vibrant or contrasty as an OLED display, but it still has great color reproduction and excellent viewing angles. The screen also fared surprisingly well outdoors, as I could comfortably see the screen in direct sunlight when set to max brightness. The 1080p resolution is a step down from the QHD panels on the market, but on a 5.5-inch display 1080p resolution is still more than enough to produce a sharp looking panel.

Performance

The Snapdragon 625 isn’t the most powerful SoC out there, but it’s extremely battery efficient.

The Meizu M6 Note comes with Qualcomm’s mid-range Snapdragon 625 SoC, backed by 3 or 4GB of RAM, depending on the storage option. The M6 Note isn’t a benchmarking beast, but it was a solid performer. In most circumstances, such as general navigation and launching applications, the M6 Note is smooth and quick to respond. Unfortunately, the phone didn’t feel that way with every task. Apps like Snapchat felt sluggish and I noticed the occasional random freeze when playing a fairly simple tower defense game like Clash Royale. Games generally ran well, with smooth gameplay the majority of the time.The freezing issue could also be software related, as I’ve never run into it with other Snapdragon 625 devices before.

The Snapdragon 625 is not as powerful as Qualcomm’s top tier SoCs, but it is extremely battery efficient. The battery sipping properties, paired with the M6 Note’s massive 4,000mAh battery, resulted in excellent battery life during my testing. I was able to consistently hit a minimum screen on time of 5.5 hours every day and I always made it comfortably into the late hours of the night on a single charge. The Meizu M6 Note comes with battery-saving modes that reduce performance and disable features like Bluetooth and GPS to extend battery life. It’s a handy feature to have if you’re low on battery and won’t able to get to a charger. I never felt the need to use it.

Hardware

Like many other aspects of the M6 Note, the hardware features are very standard and somewhat underwhelming. Internal storage starts at 16GB and can be bumped up to 32 or 64GB, with the option to expand that storage further via microSD. There’s a physical clicking home button on the front that also doubles as the fingerprint sensor. The sensor is quick to unlock and I never ran into any issues with it reading my fingerprint. The device has a 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom, which many users will appreciate. There’s also a single speaker on the bottom that was louder than I expected. It sounds decent, as far as single speakers on smartphones are concerned.

One of the stranger features of the Meizu M6 Note is that is uses the outdated MicroUSB port instead of USB Type-C. While MicroUSB is still a perfectly fine port, it would have been nice to see USB Type-C as it’s more up to date and the reversible nature makes it more user friendly.

Camera

Meizu does a much better job of keeping up with the modern smartphone in the camera department. The M6 Note comes has dual rear cameras — a 12MP primary shooter and a 5MP secondary sensor. In the M6 Note’s case, only the primary sensor is for taking photos while the secondary sensor is only used for capturing depth information.

The secondary sensor can be taken advantage of by enabling the dual lens blur effect from within the camera app. This allows for greater separation between the subject and the background by blurring out the background while keeping only the subject in focus, creating a bokeh effect. It’s a more dramatic effect that gives your photos that DSLR-like look. The results can be very convincing, provided there’s enough distance between the main subject of focus and the background. The amount of blur unfortunately can’t be tweaked, but you can adjust the point of focus after the fact to put emphasis on any part of the photo. The results start to look more artificial as you deviate from the original focus point.

The camera’s biggest weakness is it’s lack of dynamic range, which always seems to be the case with midrange smartphones. In good lighting color reproduction and sharpness are more than adequate, producing an appealing image. Detail is lacking in shadowy areas or bright highlights. HDR drastically improves this while still maintaining a natural looking image, so I would recommend keeping it on at all times. The camera does not feature an HDR auto mode.

The lens is bright, with an f/1.9 aperture, but there is a huge drop off in image quality in low light. Colors become washed out, details are much softer, highlights are overblown, and there is significantly more noise. The results are mediocre at best. Optical image stabilization would have helped with this, if the camera had included it.

As with many Chinese smartphones, there’s a big emphasis on beauty mode which can be used to hide blemishes, soften your skin, enlarge your eyes, and thin out your face.

Selfies have become a very important part of Chinese culture, so the front the Meizu M6 Note comes equipped with a 16-megapixel sensor for high resolution images. As with many Chinese smartphones there’s a big emphasis on the beauty mode, which can be used to hide blemishes, soften your skin, enlarge your eyes, and thin out your face. I’ve never been a fan of beauty mode on any smartphone but it works well and is available in a smart and advanced mode. The smart mode lets the camera do all of the work, only giving you control over the intensity of how much it beautifies your face. The advanced mode is more granular and let’s you tweak individual settings, such as how thin you want your face to look or the size of your eyes, for the perfect selfie.

Software

The Meizu M6 Note runs Meizu’s custom FlymeOS software on top of Android 7.1.2 Nougat. Hopefully an update to Android Oreo will come, but for now we’ll have to wait and see. Like many other software skins from Chinese brands, FlymeOS does not have an app drawer, so all of your applications reside on your home screens, similar to iOS. There’s no built-in setting to add an app drawer back so you’ll have to download a third party launcher if you want that functionality. Aesthetically, FlymeOS’ default look has a very clean appearance, with flat minimalistic icons and a great balance of color. This can all be changed if you’re not a fan of how it looks out of the box via its theme engine. The theme engine offers a great selection of themes to customize the icons, wallpapers, and even the general UI elements, allowing you to tailor as much or as little of the OS as you like.

FlymeOS is a big departure from stock Android. The experience is easy to use and offers a nice amount of software tweaks that many people should find enjoyable.

FlymeOS also has an abundance of gesture controls for navigating the OS, waking the display, and opening specific applications of your choice by drawing letters on the screen. Meizu’s SmartTouch is another gesture-based feature, except it puts a virtual joystick on your display and gives you many of the same actions. There are plenty of options for interacting with the OS.

FlymeOS isn’t necessarily my cup of tea. It’s a big departure from stock Android. However, it’s easy to use and offers a nice amount of software tweaks many people should find enjoyable.

Specifications

Gallery

Pricing and final thoughts

Depending on where you buy it, the Meizu M6 Note costs around $200 unlocked. It’s tough to recommend for U.S. buyers, as it doesn’t support 4G LTE bands in the States. The Honor 7X would be a much better option. It has a more modern design, offers a similar feature set for the same price, and supports U.S. LTE bands.

For international markets, this mid-range smartphone should appeal to many, with its premium metal design, dual cameras, and long-lasting battery. It doesn’t necessarily stand out from the crowd, but if you just want a good, inexpensive smartphone with a few extra bells and whistles, the Meizu M6 Note fits the bill.

That’s it for our Meizu M6 Note review. What do you think of the M6 Note? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Apple discontinues its AirPort WiFi routers

The longstanding rumors of Apple exiting the WiFi router market were true: the company is officially discontinuing its AirPort and Time Capsule base stations. An Apple spokesperson told Engadget that the company would continue to provide hardware and software support (such as patching bugs and vulnerabilities), but the devices themselves will only be available “while supplies last.” The tech giant will post a series of knowledge base documents over the next few weeks to help guide customers wondering what to buy.

While Apple wasn’t specific about the reasons for discontinuing the AirPort range, it’s not hard to understand why: simply speaking, WiFi has become a commodity. Apple introduced its AirPort line in 1999, when any wireless networking was a luxury. Flash forward nearly two decades later and it’s a different story. WiFi routers are so commonplace that many internet providers give you a modem with the technology built in, and even the lowest-priced routers are adequate for most uses. High-end users, meanwhile, have an abundance of choices that includes both ridiculously fast conventional routers as well as mesh routers with greater coverage. Why buy an AirPort router unless you really value its software simplicity?

This isn’t to say that Apple will never, ever return to making routers. A spokesperson told Engadget that the company might revisit WiFi routers if it can make a meaningful contribution to the space, but that’s far from guaranteed. You don’t need an Apple router for media sharing, especially not in the era of connected speakers like the HomePod.

The decision is bittersweet for fans, regardless of what Apple does next. Its routers aren’t as vital as they used to be, and they haven’t been price-competitive for a while (the same $199 can easily buy a modem-and-router combo with faster wireless). At the same time, it’s sad to see Apple bow out of a market it helped create. Many users bought AirPorts precisely for their tight integration with the Apple ecosystem (including a design that doesn’t look like an alien spaceship), and that option is going away.