Apple Podcasts Tops 555,000 Different Active Shows

Apple’s Podcasts service now hosts more than 18.5 million episodes across 555,000 different “active” shows, according to a report from TechCrunch.

The podcast stats, which appears to have been sent directly to TechCrunch by Apple, include other data as well. Apple’s hosted podcasts come in more than 100 languages, from 155 countries.

The podcast total is up from 525,000 back in April, and a total of fifty billion episodes have been streamed or downloaded since Podcasts launched back in 2005 (when the service had a mere 3,000 shows).

Last year, some 13.7 billion episodes were consumed, up from 10 billion in 2016. The Stuff You Should Know podcast is the most consumed, passing 500 million downloads.

TechCrunch also reports that Apple will be tightening up the rules around what podcasts can access the Podcasts Analytics service it offers, mainly around things like including Cover Art on shows and adding metadata like publication date.

Yesterday, Apple announced that a Podcasts app would be added to the Apple Watch with watchOS 5, expanding the universe of Apple devices which can consume podcasts.

Tag: Podcasts
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This bird-inspired morphing drone can slim down to fit through tight spaces

The big tradeoff with quadcopter drones is that in order to make them as stable as possible, their fixed design makes it difficult for them to fit through tight spaces. This doesn’t matter so much when they’re out in the open. However, if quadcopters are going to be relied on for inspection tasks in cluttered indoor environments or used for search and rescue missions that is a pretty big compromise to make.

That is where a new drone designed by researchers at France’s Étienne Jules Marey Institute of Movement Sciences comes into play. Their Quad-Morphing drone is able to rotate its arms to allow it to reduce its wingspan by 48 percent, and fly through some impressively small gaps as a result. To do so, it borrows from a movement more often seen in the bird world.

“Our inspiration comes from studies on budgerigar and also from a BBC movie on birds of prey able to morph their wings,” Stéphane Viollet, France’s National Center for Scientific Research research director and head of the Biorobotics research group, told Digital Trends.

CNRS

Using this model, the team set about developing its innovative drone. During normal flight, the drone’s two horizontal arms, with upward-facing propellers at each end, sits perpendicular to the drone’s central axis. That is the basic form of a typical quadcopter. However, in the event that the drone needs to maneuver through a tight gap a series of wires rotate the arms so that they are instead parallel to the drone’s central axis.

In order to work out when this action should be performed, the drone relies on cameras to determine how large a gap is and whether the drone will need to rotate its arms to travel through it. At present, it uses an array of 17 stationary cameras and an onboard high-speed camera, although this setup would not necessarily work outside of test conditions due to the challenge of installing the stationary cameras.

Nonetheless, if the researchers are able to further develop this project so that it can do all of this using onboard cameras we can totally see how this would be an impressive addition to a quadcopter drone’s everyday capabilities.

A paper describing the work, “Agile Robotic Fliers: A Morphing-Based Approach,” was recently published in the journal Soft Robotics.

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iPhone notifications are no longer a nuisance with iOS 12

While Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference is usually a pretty flashy affair where the tech giant shows all of its latest software, this year’s event was a little more subdued. Instead of adding tons of new software features this year, Apple opted to focus on feature and performance improvements to make the overall user experience better.

One of the most exciting feature updates you find on iOS 12 is rather basic. Apple has completely changed the way the iPhone and iPad manage Notification updates. The messy clutter of cards that once filled your Notification Center screen has been replaced by something much more refined and easy to use. That’s right, Apple has finally embraced group notifications in iOS 12.

Reading and deleting notifications

• 1.
  Notifications in iOS 12
• 2.
  Notifications in iOS 11

While Notifications continue to appear as individual cards in iOS 12, they’re not categorized and stacked by app. For example, if you have a dozen Twitter notifications, instead of seeing each notification individually as you would on iOS 11, you’ll now see a stack of them with the most recent sitting on top. If you want to review all of your notifications, just tap on the top card.

Deleting notifications is also much quicker on iOS 12. Instead of closing each notification individually, you can now opt to delete all notifications for a specific app. And if you still find the number of notifications overwhelming, iOS 12 allows you to delete every notification in the Notification Center with a single tap.

Managing notifications

iOS 12 is doing more than simply changing the way you read and delete notifications, however. You now have several quick and simple ways to manage notifications directly from the Notification Center.

The easiest way to manage notifications in iOS 12 is simply by long-tapping on the card in question and tapping the three-dot menu icon. From here you’ll see three options: You can either have notifications quietly bypass the lock screen and appear only in the Notifications Center, or you can turn off notifications for a particular app altogether. On the same screen, there’s also an option to open the Settings menu to make changes to notifications for multiple apps.

But you may not need to make any adjustments to your notifications at all since Siri now can now provide contextual recommendations based on how you use your phone. For example, Siri may recommend turning off notifications for rarely used apps, or suggest apps that send frequent notifications be directly to the lock screen.

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These are the best Honor 10 cases to make sure your phone survives

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

If you’re a fan of powerful, capable phones that look great but don’t leave a gaping hole in your pocket, then it’s fair to say you might have picked up the Honor 10. With the Kirin 970‘s raw power, a brilliant camera, and the stunning good looks that Honor is known for, the Honor 10 is a fantastic choice for your daily driver.

But the Honor 10 isn’t going to last long if it’s dropped on a hard surface. Being made from glass, it’s prone to shattering, which will ruin that gorgeous look — so it’s worth taking steps to make sure your phone is protected to some degree. That is why we put together a list of the best cases that you can buy to make sure that your Honor 10 survives.

Kugi Clear Gel Case ($8/£7)

A phone as good looking as the Honor 10 deserves to be seen — but it also deserves to be protected. The easiest way to meet both of these requirements is with a clear thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) case. This case from Kugi is made from completely transparent TPU that ensures the Honor 10’s shimmer shows through, while still providing decent protection. TPU is a soft material, so it’s great for absorbing shocks from falls and drops, and while it might not be as good at protecting your phone as a larger, bulkier case, it will still do a good job while allowing your phone to be seen. It also has a raised bezel to stop the phone from resting on surfaces, and Kugi has treated the case to stop it from yellowing as it ages.

Buy it now from:

Amazon

T-Zero Shock Absorbing Grip Case ($10/£7)

The Honor 10 may be beautiful, but it’s also slippery, and that glass body will slide right out of your hand if you’re not careful. This case from T-Zero is a great way to lessen the chances of your phone making a break for freedom. It’s made from TPU, and the soft material helps your fingers to find a keen grip, while also adding a good amount of protection and shock-absorption. The leather panel on the back of the case isn’t leather at all — it’s just textured TPU — but it still adds some great visual style, as well as additional grip. Grip is taken even further with the series of cuts down either side of the case, while molded button covers and a raised edge help to boost the protective qualities even further.

Buy it now from:

Amazon

EasyAcc PU Leather Wallet Case ($14/£10)

There is nothing quite like a leather wallet case for imparting a quiet, executive style to your phone. This case from EasyAcc may not be made from real leather — not at this price point — but the PU leather it’s made from passes well enough for real leather, is durable and easy to maintain, and looks at home everywhere from the boardroom to the kitchen. Your Honor 10 is held in place with an inner TPU case, while the soft lining of the inside of the wallet has extra slots for holding payment cards or spare cash. Best of all, the case can easily be folded into a horizontal stand, making it perfect for watching videos on a trip, or simply using your phone as an alarm clock.

Buy it now from:

Amazon

Spigen Rugged Armor ($20/£10)

Spigen is one of the biggest names in phone accessories, and one of the most trusted too. The Rugged Armor is one of Spigen’s mainstays, and it’s easy to see why once you get your hands on it. It’s made from TPU, but it’s a slightly thicker and tougher TPU than you’d find on a less rugged case. That means it’s that bit tougher against direct attacks, while also retaining that shock resistance that TPU is well known for in the case community. There are two panels at either end that mimic carbon fiber, and give off a sci-fi aesthetic, and air cushions at the case’s corners and the inner spiderweb pattern help to disperse the energy from drops and similar bumps.

Buy it now from:

Spigen Amazon

Official Honor Smart View Flip Case ($28/£25)

Where better to get your case than from the very same company that made your phone? This case from Honor is made from hard polycarbonate (PC) which has the benefit of being both tough and light. It’s not soft, like TPU, so you won’t get as much shock resistance, but the Smart View case does also comes with a flip wallet cover that protects your display when the phone isn’t in use. The real magic comes when the case is covering the phone though — the phone reacts to the case, and displays information you need through the Smart View window. It shows the time, weather, and your notifications — all without needing to open your case. It might not be as rugged and protective as some other cases, but it’s packing utility, and we know you’re bound to love it.

Buy it now from:

Mobile Fun

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InMotion’s new Hovershoes X1 are like motorized, self-balancing rollerblades

There are plenty of good hoverboards around, but Chinese company InMotion has come up with an innovative twist on the concept: Hovershoes. If hoverboards are essentially motorized self-balancing skateboards, then InMotion’s Hovershoes X1 are motorized self-balancing rollerblades — or small hoverboards for each foot. These shoes don’t have to communicate with each other and operate entirely on their own. This opens up a whole host of creative movements, as seen in the video above.

“Have you ever seen a hoverboard and thought to yourself, ‘Hmm, what would happen if I chopped this in half with an ax?’” Jeffrey Will, experience manager at InMotion, asked Digital Trends. “The concept of Hovershoes is essentially like separating both sides of a hoverboard so that each side operates independently. Technically, each ‘shoe’ is a single wheeled device, not unlike a tiny version of an electric unicycle with 3.5 inch roller style wheels with a platform on top.”

On a regular hoverboard, the only way to steer is by making the whole device spin by accelerating one side of the board faster than the other. This is also the source of many hoverboard-related tumbles, due to the fact that applying too much pressure on either side while moving causes the machine to spin and eject its rider. The separated Hovershoes concept, meanwhile, means that riders can accelerate using either foot without fear of wiping out. This makes riding more fun, but also safer.

“To ride Hovershoes X1, each unit is powered on with a power button on its side,” Will said. “To activate the motors for self-balancing, each unit has a pressure-sensitive pad to detect the presence of a rider’s foot. Once activated, it’s just a matter of hopping on. Hovershoes X1 are safe, easy to learn, and easy to master because riders can control their stance without their feet being locked into a fixed position.”

After receiving a couple of prototypes of the shoes in the company’s San Diego office, they have quickly become a big hit with staff, Will said. While he’s certainly got a bit of a vested interest in saying that, we nonetheless can’t wait to try these for ourselves. If you’re interested in getting your hands on a pair, pre-orders for the Hovershoes X1 are available now on the company’s website. Shipment to customers in the U.S. will hopefully take place by the end of July.

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Someone hacked MyHeritage and never used 92 million members’ data

DNA testing service MyHeritage said that a third-party security researcher discovered a file on a private server outside MyHeritage’s network that contained email addresses and hashed passwords of everyone who signed up for the service before and on the day of the breach: October 26, 2017. After receiving said file, the company’s Information Security Team verified the content and began an investigation into how someone obtained the information of more than 92 million individuals. 

“MyHeritage does not store user passwords, but rather a one-way hash of each password, in which the hash key differs for each customer,” the company says. “This means that anyone gaining access to the hashed passwords does not have the actual passwords.” 

That could be why MyHeritage didn’t find any unusual activity associated with the compromised accounts after the October 2017 breach. The file containing the data simply sat on the external web server untouched by whoever retrieved the data from MyHeritage’s database. With only the email addresses on hand, the perpetrator(s) likely couldn’t break into any accounts. 

According to MyHeritage, no other information could be obtained by the individual or party responsible for the breach. All payment information resides on third-party services such as PayPal and BlueSnap while family trees and DNA data are stored on a completely separate network and database. So far, there is no evidence that the hacker(s) infiltrated those systems too. 

In addition to forming an internal Information Security Incident Response Team to investigate the breach, MyHeritage also turned to an independent cybersecurity firm for help in determining the extent of the breach, and how to better increase network security to prevent a similar incident in the future. 

Meanwhile, the company plans to expedite development of its upcoming two-factor authentication service. That is an additional security component requiring a second form of identity verification outside the username and password, such as a smartphone for codes sent via SMS messages, fingerprint scanners, facial recognition, or specific apps. The company didn’t say when its two-factor authentication service will go live. 

Despite the hashed passwords found in the leaked data, registered MyHeritage customers are urged to change their passwords as explained here. No other actions are required outside taking advantage of the two-factor service when it eventually goes live.  

“As always, your privacy and the security of your data are our highest priority,” the company says. “We continually assess our procedures and policies and seek new ways to improve our approach to security. We understand the importance of our role as custodians of your information and work every day to earn your trust.” 

The breach went unnoticed until 1 p.m. EST on June 4, 2018 when the security researcher contacted MyHeritage. That means the data sat unused on the external web server for around seven months, giving the hacker(s) plenty of time to infiltrate accounts and gather additional data. But all that effort to infiltrate MyHeritage produced a long list of over 92 million email addresses. 

“We are taking steps to inform relevant authorities as per the General Data Protection Regulation,” the Israel-based company states. 

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Homes in the Netherlands are concrete example of 3D printing’s potential

A small community of 3D-printed concrete houses is coming to the city of Eindhoven in the Netherlands. Dubbed Project Milestone, the construction project will include five homes built sustainably and energy-efficiently using some of the latest techniques in 3D-printing.

Designed for efficiency, the first house will feature floor space of just over 1,000 square feet and walls just under two-inches thick. After the first home is constructed, the others will be relatively elaborate, with multiple stories, patios, and balconies.

“These homes express the freedom of shapes,” Rudy van Gurp, a project manager at Van Wijnen, a construction company that is working on Project Milestone, told Digital Trends. “It is a high-end design to let the world know that everything is possible.”

Three-dimensional printing has been heralded as one of the most disruptive technologies of the 21st century, finding applications in the arts, in the hospital, and even in the kitchen. It also has the potential to become a key part of more sustainable construction, helping decrease material costs along the way.

“[Three-dimensional] printing is already sustainable by using less material … less waste, and less failure,” Van Gurp said. “As cement production is one of the main CO2 sources worldwide, it will be a great reduction of CO2 emission.”

Project Milestone will serve as a focal point of Bosrijk, branded as a sculpture garden in the Meerhoven district of Eindhoven. Last year, the city became home to the first 3D-printed concrete bridge.

The first house in Project Milestone will be printed offsite and assembled on location, serving as a sort of default example from which the other structures will take inspiration. The construction teams behind the project hope that by the fifth house, they’ll be able to print the structures entirely on-site.

Project Milestone is a collaboration between the engineers at the Technical University of Eindhoven, Van Wijnen, real estate manager Vesteda, materials firm Saint Gobain-Weber Beamix, and engineers Witteveen and Bos.

The first stage is scheduled to be completed in 2019, at which point the first residents of the 3D-printed concrete tiny home community will move in. Prices have not yet been determined.

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Connected CloudPets teddy bears blab on owners, leak 2 million voice recordings

Remember when the worst thing that could happen to your doll was it losing an eye? How times have changed.

In the latest toy scandal (yes, those are a thing now), a connected teddy bear leaked the voice recordings of more than 2 million children and parents, along with email addresses and password information associated with more than 800,000 accounts. As first reported by Troy Hunt in a blog post published in late February, Spiral Toys, the company behind the CloudPets line of stuffed animals, left a whole lot of user data vulnerable to attack. Now, those toys have been pulled from a number of retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, and Target.

Amazon began taking down CloudPets from its online marketplace after being contacted by Mozilla, which offered research that highlighted the potential dangers of the child’s toy.

“In a world where data leaks are becoming more routine and products like CloudPets still sit on store shelves, I’m increasingly worried about my kids’ privacy and security,” Ashley Boyd, Mozilla’s vice president of advocacy, said in a statement.

When it comes to CloudPets, it looks like that concern is well-placed. A few months ago, Hunt explained the vulnerability, writing in his blog post, “…in CloudPets’ case…data was stored in a MongoDB that was in a publicly facing network segment without any authentication required and had been indexed by Shodan (a popular search engine for finding connected things).” So what does that mean? In essence, customer data could be easily accessed by just about anyone, and accessed it was. Hunt noted that as per data from Shodan, between December 25 and January 8, customer data was looked into many times by many people, including by malicious parties who demanded ransom for the release of some of this data.

Worse still, it would appear that CloudPets was actually warned of this problem, with Hunt noting that a good samaritan had “tried to contact CloudPets three times to warn them about the exposure.” Unfortunately, the email address listed on the company’s support page bounced back, and subsequent attempts at contact went unanswered.

Sadly, Hunt said, this kind of willful ignorance seems to be rather commonplace, particularly in the realm of cybersecurity. “Time and time again, there are extensive delays or no response at all from the very people that should be the most interested in incidents like this,” he wrote. “If you run any sort of online service whatsoever, think about what’s involved in ensuring someone can report this sort of thing to you because this whole story could have had a very different outcome otherwise.”

Updated on June 5: Amazon, Walmart, and Target pulled CloudPets from stores. 

Apple reiterates why touchscreens won’t be coming to Macs anytime soon

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

While Apple announced that iOS apps will be coming to the Mac late next year, users hoping that Apple would release a MacOS-powered laptop, convertible, or tablet with a touchscreen shouldn’t hold their breath. The closest thing you’ll get to a touchscreen on Apple’s MacOS experience is the Touch Bar on the MacBook Pro, and that will be the case for the foreseeable future.

“We really feel that the ergonomics of using a Mac are that your hands are rested on a surface, and that lifting your arm up to poke a screen is a pretty fatiguing thing to do,” Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice president of software engineering, said in an interview with Wired.

Apple used the same justification in the past for reserving touchscreens for iPads, highlighting that MacOS is designed around the keyboard and mouse experience. However, when Federighi announced that iOS apps will be allowed to run on MacOS — provided that developers make some minimal adjustments to the code of the apps — consumers watching the WWDC keynote earlier this week were hopeful that Apple had softened its position. That appears not to be the case after examining the keynote message.

In bringing  iOS apps to MacOS Mojave, Federeghi said during his WWDC presentation that Apple has “adapted them to specific Mac behaviors, like use of trackpads and mouse, windows resizing, and the integration of copy and paste and drag and drop into the system services on the Mac.” There was no mention of adding touchscreen support to make iOS apps work better on a Mac. Rather, developers must tweak these iOS apps to account for the different input interactions on a Mac.

“iOS and MacOS devices are different,” Federighi said. “The user interfaces are different.” Apple’s position is starkly different than the approach that rivals Google and Microsoft are taking. As an adopter of the touchscreen on its Surface line of PCs, Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform, or UWP, apps work across multiple form factors — Xbox, PCs, laptops, and phones — and can be used with touch or manipulated with a keyboard and mouse. Similarly, Google’s Pixelbook also comes with a touchscreen, which comes in handy when running Android apps on Chrome OS.

And even though Google’s Android platform allows users to attach either a wired or wireless mouse to control the operating system, you cannot do the same with iOS, further highlighting the different approaches that Apple takes for its operating systems. On iOS, you can attach a keyboard, but you cannot use a mouse. This makes tasks like typing easier on an iPad Pro, but navigating iOS can still feel tiresome.

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U.S. Army algorithm tells you how much coffee to drink to remain alert

From selecting the news we read online to helping us find true love on dating websites, algorithms are capable of all kinds of amazing things. But now they might be poised to answer an age-old question that has long plagued humanity: Just how much coffee should you drink in a day in order to operate with maximum alertness? That’s the goal of a new automated optimization algorithm created by researchers working for the U.S. Army. Its purpose is to figure out how much coffee is needed keep people alert when suffering the effects of sleep loss.

“Eighty percent of the U.S. population consumes about two cups of coffee a day, and often more when we feel fatigued and desire an alertness jolt,” Dr. Jaques Reifman, lead researcher on the project, told Digital Trends. “The U.S. Army has developed algorithms that allows service members and the public at large to determine when and how much caffeine to consume so to optimize alertness at the desired times and duration. When we compared the optimization algorithm results against experimental studies, we found that the algorithm improved alertness and decreased caffeine use by as much as 65 percent.”

As noted, the algorithm was able to cut caffeine intake by up to 65 percent, while at the same time increasing alertness by up to 64 percent.

“While this is a dual-use technology, our focus is on improving alertness of our warfighters, who are often challenged with considerable sleep debt,” Reifman said. “Forty percent of [these servicemen and women] sleep less than five hours per night on a consistent basis. In the civilian side, the algorithm has wide applicability for shift workers in the transportation industry, medical caregivers, firefighters, students, [and others.]”

At present, there’s no word on when or if this algorithm will be incorporated into a consumer-facing caffeine strategy app. As major coffee lovers, we’d love to see it, though. After all, our Apple Watches tell us when to stand up and get some exercise. Who wouldn’t also want to be reminded by their wearable device or smartphone that they need to get up and fetch themselves a cup of joe to remain at peak performance?

A paper describing the work was recently published in the Journal of Sleep Research.

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