Elgato Shifting to Focus ‘Exclusively’ on Line of Eve HomeKit Devices

Elgato Systems today announced that it will shift its focus “exclusively” to its line of HomeKit-connected Eve devices, in the process rebranding itself to “Eve Systems.” At the same time, it confirmed plans to sell its streaming accessory division Elgato Gaming to peripheral company Corsair to continue life as a separate brand.

Under its new name, the company said that Eve Systems will offer a “constantly expanding ecosystem” of accessories that are designed exclusively for HomeKit. It also told users to look out for the next line of product announcements coming to IFA Berlin in a few months, running from August 31 through September 5.

In the announcement, Elgato founder and CEO of Eve Systems Markus Fest explained that the Eve product line will benefit from a “focused team and a dedicated organization” thanks to the gaming division’s sale.

“Today, the Gaming space is more dynamic and exciting than ever, and we sought a larger partner to help us capitalize on the phenomenal opportunities ahead” said Markus Fest, Elgato’s founder and now CEO of Eve Systems.

“Our gaming business has been wildly successful, and that success is inextricably linked to the Elgato brand. The brand has been with us for almost twenty years and we are obviously a little sad to see it go, but Corsair is a fantastic company and will be a great new home for Elgato. At the same time our Eve product line will benefit from a focused team and a dedicated organization. This move will further strengthen both product families.”

For products that don’t fall under the Eve or Gaming categories — like Elgato’s thunderbolt docks — the company confirmed that anything that is not an Eve device will also be joining Elgato Gaming under Corsair.

The most recent HomeKit product announcements from the company came with the Eve Aqua and Eve Flare. Eve Aqua connects to your outdoor water system so you can control your sprinklers or other irrigation system through the Home app or Siri. For European users, the Eve Flare lamp is a portable LED lamp that offers six hours of illumination on one charge.

Otheriwse, the company sells numerous Eve devices on Apple.com, including the Elgato Eve Degree Connected Weather Station, Light Switch, Wireless Motion Sensor, Room Sensor, Energy Smart Plug, Button, and more.

Tag: Elgato
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Facebook Testing Ability to Snooze Keywords for 30 Days

Facebook has confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s testing an ability for its users to “snooze” certain keywords in their News Feed and groups for 30 days. The text-based snooze follows an update from late last year that introduced a way for users to snooze people, pages, and groups for 30 days.

In order to start snoozing keywords, users will first have to come across a post that includes the keyword they want to avoid, as there’s no dedicated section to enter keywords into. Facebook has said that a “preemptive snooze option” is being looked into and could be added in the next few weeks.

Image via TechCrunch
For now, once a post is spotted users will find a new “Snooze keywords in this post” option in the ellipsis drop-down menu. From there, Facebook will generate a list of nouns gathered from the post that are available to snooze for one month. TechCrunch gave one example of how this might work for avoiding spoilers in the World Cup:

Tapping that reveals a list of nouns from the post you might want to nix, without common words like “the” in the way. So if you used the feature on a post that said “England won its World Cup game against Tunisia! Yes!”, the feature would pull out “World Cup”, “England”, and “Tunisia”. Select all that you want to snooze, and posts containing them will be hidden for a month. Currently, the feature only works on text, not images, and won’t suggest synonyms you might want to snooze as well.

Ads won’t be affected by snoozed keywords, so if you snooze something related to a movie the feature will only hide posts by friends and groups, but not ad posts encouraging Facebook users to visit the film’s page or buy tickets.

In regards to the 30-day limit, Facebook mentioned that it is open to expanding the snooze feature if it hears from people “that they want more or less time,” but didn’t confirm an unlimited ability to snooze keywords. In comparison, Twitter and many related third-party clients offer the ability for users to mute keywords, users, hashtags, and more for as long as they want.

For Facebook’s keyword snooze feature, a “small percentage of users” will see the update today ahead of a wider rollout in the coming weeks.

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How to disable background playback on YouTube Premium

Playing videos on YouTube without the screen on is a great feature, but it’s not one we all want turned on all the time.

Background playback is quite possibly the best part of YouTube Premium. Being able to start a fun playlist or a long discussion panel, turn off the screen, and listen while you keep going about your day is indispensable, but there are times where it can get annoying. For instance, you tap a Reddit link and it automatically opens the video in YouTube, and you hit the back button to go back to Reddit, but the video keeps playing in the background.

Whether you want background playback to happen some of the time or none of the time, here’s how to turn it off.

• How to disable background playback
• How to disable picture-in-picture

How to disable background playback

Open YouTube.
Tap your avatar in the top right corner.

Tap Settings.

Tap Background & downloads.
Tap Playback.

Tap Off to completely disable background playback.

• To disable background playback when not using headphones or Bluetooth speakers, tap Headphones or external speakers.

If you want to come back and re-enable background playback later on, you can come back to this same setting and set it back to On. There is still one type of background playback that lives outside the Background & downloads section: picture-in-picture

How to disable picture-in-picture

Picture-in-picture is a type of background playback that keeps a tiny playback window floating atop your screen while you use other apps. If you prefer to not have to close this floating playback window every time you exit YouTube from a video playback screen, you can turn off picture-in-picture easily in YouTube’s settings.

Open YouTube.
Tap your avatar in the top right corner.

Tap Settings.

Tap General.

Tap Picture-in-picture to toggle it off.

Play your way

You can keep YouTube Premium’s picture-in-picture turned on while keeping regular background playback turned off, or you can turn off picture-in-picture while still keeping background playback turned on. Or you can turn them both off and only see YouTube the way God intended: with your eyes glued to the video.

The choice is yours.

Read more: YouTube Premium is Google’s streaming future

Casper’s one-day sale offers 20% off multiple sizes of its popular mattresses

The bed comes in a box, which is so cool.

As part of its Gold Box deals of the day, Amazon has 20% off Casper’s popular mattresses, bringing the prices down to as low as $476. In addition to discounts on just the mattress, this sale also has bundles which include the comfortable Casper Sheet sets in a variety of colors. The mattresses ship in a box, and Casper recommends opening the box and letting the mattress settle for 72 hours before using it for the best results.

• Twin mattress – $476 (Was $595)
• Twin XL mattress – $516 (Was $645)
• Full mattress – $716 (Was $895)
• Queen mattress – $796 (Was $995)
• King mattress – $956 (Was $1,195)
• California King mattress – $956 (Was $1,195)

Casper is so sure that you’ll love this mattress that the company backs it with a 100 Night Trial period. If you don’t end up liking it during that time, you can call up and schedule for it to be picked up and your money will then be refunded. Remember, these discounts are only good for today, so you’ll want to get your order in before it’s too late.

See at Amazon

Deal: Huge discounts on the Pixel 2 or Pixel 2 XL from Verizon

Get in on this.

For a limited time, Verizon is offering up a brand-new Pixel 2 or Pixel 2 XL at $200 off (with monthly payments). Plus, if you trade in an eligible device, you can get up to an additional 50% off!

This online-only offer will get you a Pixel 2 or 2 XL and $200 off after $8.33 monthly credits applied over 24 months (with a new monthly device payment activation). You’ll also get up to 50% off with eligible trade-in applied over 24 months — that’s up to a $424.99 trade-in credit when buying the Google Pixel 2 XL!

When you consider the Pixel 2 is still one of the best Android phones you can buy today, this is one heck of a deal on an amazing phone.

See at Verizon

5 changes that would make the Galaxy S9’s software dramatically better

Samsung’s made strides, but there are a few final things that make the GS9 frustrating to use.

I quite like my Galaxy S9+. The overall experience of using this high-end phone is great, but as I’ve said many times I’m not a huge fan of the software overall. To put it concisely, I use the Galaxy S9+ despite its software rather than because of it. That’s the opposite of my feelings toward phones like the Google Pixel 2 XL and OnePlus 6, which have software that draws me in and rarely frustrates.

So I’m going to nitpick for a little bit, and point out the handful of things I’d love to see change in Samsung’s software simply for my personal edification. The Galaxy S9’s software is finished and isn’t going to change dramatically, but hey maybe we’ll see some of these changes come to the Galaxy Note 9 or the GS9’s successor next year.

Make Samsung apps optional during setup

In an alternate universe where Google didn’t operate the Play Store or make a whole host of extremely popular apps, Samsung’s suite of pre-loaded apps would make a ton of sense. But the reality is Samsung’s apps are completely duplicative with Google’s, and they just constantly get in the way — and it’d sure make things simpler if Samsung just let you pick and choose which ones to use when you first set up the phone.

Some people prefer Samsung’s apps, but those who don’t should have a choice.

To be clear, I’m not asking for Samsung to go full-on Motorola or OnePlus and just move to only using Google’s apps rather than its own. I simply want the option during setup to choose which ones I want. I know a lot of people like Samsung’s Gallery, Email and Messages apps, but I don’t — and I think everyone should have the choice. Of course you can set your default apps and hide the ones you don’t want from your launcher, but why should we have to go through that hassle?

Yes I understand that Google requires that Samsung load many of its apps as a condition of having the Play Store, and that’s rather unfair to Samsung. But it’s the world that every Android manufacturer plays in, and I would love to see Samsung make a consumer-friendly move and let us make the choice as to whether we want its apps or not.

The notification shade should respect media apps

One of the most egregious examples of Samsung’s software being designed in a vacuum is its notification shade. Despite having guidelines to help integrate, the Galaxy S9’s notification shade has no idea how to gracefully handle app-defined non-standard notification colors, leading to jarring (and frankly broken looking) visuals. The entire shade is white, with these multi-color notifications coming through in a complete contrast — making it worse is the persistent bar at the bottom of the notification shade for managing notification settings.

Multi-colored notifications from media apps clash hard with the white aesthetic in a way that makes me wonder if anyone at Samsung listens to music or podcasts with third-party apps. There are ways that you can integrate these multi-colored notifications in a smooth way, and it looks like it hasn’t even made an attempt.

Fix your dang keyboard

Despite its massive engineering resources, Samsung somehow continues to ship one of the worst virtual keyboards in the industry. Yes you can replace it, as I do with every Samsung phone I use. But the people who don’t know (or care) to replace their keyboard end up using this subpar experience.

I’m not sure what it is, but Samsung’s auto correction system is just horrible. It randomly inserts punctuation and corrects words to form incoherent sentences with no regards to the structure of the words around it. I don’t quite understand how it could be this bad, especially given there are many companies that would happily license (or outright sel) to Samsung to improve things.

Best keyboard apps for Android

Overhaul the lock screen and always-on display

Being an early pioneer of OLED displays, Samsung had a big differentiator on its hand when it introduced its always-on display. But it’s 2018, and every single company has some sort of ambient display now — the core concept of Samsung’s hasn’t changed since it was introduced.

Samsung was an early pioneer of always-on displays, but it’s fallen behind now.

Always-on display is pretty useful, but only in a very limited set of conditions. It shows you various different clock styles, along with the date and a couple other small bits of information … and that’s it. There’s no integration with the lock screen or notifications, so any interaction with the always-on display is different from what you’d experience by turning on the screen first. Yes you can add music controls and calendar “widgets” to the always-on display, but these are different from the lock screen ones. Baffling.

The always-on display shows icons for notifications, and that’s it. Why? Who knows. Every other manufacturer lets you glance at the screen and get a better view of details about the notifications right alongside the clock and date information Samsung provides. Samsung knows you want to see the notification details on the lock screen itself, why not show a greyscale version on the always-on display also?

I like that Samsung has put a lot of thought into the design of the always-on display, and it definitely wins in the customization department, but the functionality portion of the equation isn’t anywhere near the competition. This needs a redo.

Push out security updates, please

It’s hard to pick on this one in particular because it’s both something you can’t actually see and something that isn’t actually wrong with the current software on the phone. But Samsung continues to have a borderline abysmal record of consistently updating its phones to the latest security patches, even for the latest high-end models.

People buying an $800 phone shouldn’t have to worry about updates for a while.

Perhaps the most frustrating part about this whole situation is that it varies wildly between regions and even specific carriers. Some have received a few security updates since launch and are just a month behind, while others haven’t received a single update. Considering Samsung isn’t interested in pushing large bugfix and feature improvements regularly, in which it would make sense to maybe roll up a couple security updates together with them, it must improve the cadence of security updates to its phones.

You can argue that the average consumer doesn’t care about security updates, and I’d agree with you. But I’d also say these are the people who will benefit most from having inherently more secure software to save them from unknown security holes they may be walkaing into.

So that’s my list of changes I’d like to see on the Galaxy S9 — do you have any of the same complaints? Or maybe different ones?

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+

• Galaxy S9 and S9+: Everything you need to know!
• Galaxy S9 review: A great phone for the masses
• Complete Galaxy S9 and S9+ specs
• Galaxy S9 vs. Galaxy S8: Should you upgrade?
• Join our Galaxy S9 forums

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Vivo Unveils 3D Sensing Technology With 10 Times as Many Data Points as Apple’s Face ID

Chinese mobile phone maker Vivo has today unveiled new 3D sensing technology which it says has 10 times the accuracy of the Face ID authentication system in Apple’s iPhone X.

Vivo says its Time of Flight (TOF) system uses 300,000 data points to map the user’s face in three dimensions, compared to the 30,000 points of infrared light used in Apple’s facial mapping technology.

The TOF system works by detecting the time it takes for emitted pulse light to return to the sensor, which allows it to accurately map objects at up to three meters in front of it, according to Vivo. The company said the tech would enable “new opportunities in facial, gesture and motion recognition, 3D photography and AR, expanding the capabilities of the next generation of smart devices.”

“From last year’s debut of In-Display Fingerprint Scanning Technology, the recent launch of the truly bezel-less Vivo NEX, to our ground-breaking TOF 3D Sensing technology, we continue to forge ahead and evolve towards the truly intelligent future by opening new ways for the AI to help the consumer,” said Alex Feng, Senior Vice President of Vivo. “By combining TOF 3D Sensing Technology with AI, we will continue to explore new possibilities for a better future.”

Vivo demonstrated the 3D sensing technology at the Mobile World Congress in Shanghai, a stage it has used in the past to make similar big reveals. Last year Vivo used the platform to unveil its screen-embedded fingerprint sensor technology, at a time when Apple was thought to be struggling to achieve the same result. Of course, it later emerged that Apple was leaving fingerprint recognition systems behind.

Vivo says its latest 3D sensing tech is “no mere proof of concept”, but it will be a while before it makes it into a commercial smartphone. Whether the increased number of data points automatically translates in practice to better security and accuracy remains to be seen.

Related Roundup: iPhone XBuyer’s Guide: iPhone X (Neutral)
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Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon chips will power next-gen budget phones

Qualcomm may have just launched the new Snapdragon 700 series a few months ago, but that doesn’t mean it’s slowing down in the release of budget and mid-range chipsets. In fact, the company has unveiled the new Snapdragon 632, Snapdragon 439, and Snapdragon 429 chipsets, aimed at bringing more power and smarter features to budget handsets.

Here is a rundown of the new chips and the features they have on offer.

Snapdragon 632

The Snapdragon 632 may be the newest addition to the 600-series lineup, but it’s not quite the most powerful. It joins the likes of the Snapdragon 636 and offers features like eight Qualcomm Kryo 250 CPUs and an Adreno 506 GPU. It supports displays with up to a Full HD+ resolution, as well as up to a 24-megapixel single lens, or a 13-megapixel dual-lens camera. Like many of Qualcomm’s other chipsets, the eight CPUs aren’t all functioning in the same way — instead, the chipset features four “performance” cores, and four “efficiency” cores, which kick in for lower-power tasks, ultimately saving battery.

According to Qualcomm, the chipset should offer several performance boosts over the previous generation Snapdragon 626. For starters, it boasts up to a 40 percent CPU performance boost over the last chip, as well as up to a 10 percent GPU performance boost.

There aren’t any phones with the new chip yet, but phones with the previous generation Snapdragon 626 include the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S5 Pro, Moto Z2 Play, and more. Phones of a similar tier will likely adopt the Snapdragon 632 in the future.

Snapdragon 439

The Snapdragon 439 is set to be an excellent option for manufacturers building ultra-budget handsets. The chip replaces the Snapdragon 430 and brings with it a number of great features. Like the Snapdragon 632, the chipset offers eight CPUs, with four performance cores and four efficiency cores — though the CPUs here are Cortex A53 CPUs rather than the Kryo 250 CPUs in the Snapdragon 632. According to Qualcomm, the CPUs offer a performance boost of up to 25 percent over the Snapdragon 430. The GPU on the chip is the Adreno 505, which boasts up to a 20 percent boost over the Snapdragon 430. As far as camera support goes, the Snapdragon 439 supports up to a 21-megapixel single lens, or an 8-megapixel dual sensor.

Phones that used the previous generation Snapdragon 430 include the Moto G5, Nokia 6, and more — so similarly priced phones will likely adopt the Snapdragon 439.

Snapdragon 429

The Snapdragon 429 is the second new chipset in the 400 series, and its aimed at even cheaper phones than the Snapdragon 439. Instead of the eight CPUs found in the Snapdragon 439 and Snapdragon 620, the Snapdragon 429 features four Cortex A53 CPUs, and Qualcomm says this will give the chipset up to a 25 percent performance boost compared to the Snapdragon 425. The chipset also features an Adreno 504 GPU, which delivers up to a whopping 50 percent GPU performance boost over the Snapdragon 425. The chipset supports up to a 16-megapixel single sensor, or an 8-megapixel dual sensor.

Phones that feature the now-outdated Snapdragon 425 include the Xiaomi Redmi 5A and Samsung Galaxy J2.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Qualcomm targets ‘premium midrange’ phones with the Snapdragon 710
• High-end Always Connected Windows 10 PCs may pack Snapdragon 1000 in 2018
• Moto Z3 Play: Everything you need to know about Motorola’s modular phone
• Samsung may be developing a Snapdragon 850-powered Windows 2-in-1
• LG V35 ThinQ: Here’s everything you need to know about LG’s newest flagship

Pepper the robot is now working at a bank in New York City

Mark Von Holden/AP Images for HSBC

The robot takeover of retail banking has begun.

It’s starting at HSBC’s main branch on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and involves a friendly robot called Pepper.

For those not in the know, Pepper is the work of Japanese telecoms giant SoftBank and French robotics firm Aldebaran SAS. The 120-cm-tall robot recognizes faces and emotions, and can respond through voice or by showing messages on its torso-based tablet. It can also be programmed with data according to its workplace, enabling it to provide specific experiences for those who interact with it.

Rather than overhaul retail banking overnight, HSBC says Pepper will provide customers with a glimpse of the “branch of the future.” That’s because the robot isn’t yet advanced enough to perform complex tasks.

So, at the bank, Pepper will perform a variety of rudimentary tasks, such as providing visitors with information about HSBC’s financial products and services, educating customers on technologies such as HSBC’s mobile banking app, and explaining options for customer support. It’ll also ask visitors questions before directing them toward the appropriate staff member who can offer more specific assistance.

HSBC promised Pepper will happily pose for selfies, too, and even tell jokes and do a little dance if a human member of staff isn’t immediately available.

It sounds like fun for visitors, but the main challenge for HSBC will be keeping customers engaged with Pepper once the novelty of seeing a robot staff member wears off. In its home country of Japan, most people don’t give poor Pepper a second glance when they spot it in a store, while a recent posting at a grocery store in Scotland showed that most shoppers simply ignored it, prompting the store owner to describe it as little more than “a walking sign.”

But as its technology improves, we can expect Pepper and robots like it to increase their skills and perform more useful tasks in a range of settings.

HSBC’s Pablo Sanchez, for one, certainly isn’t fazed by Pepper’s limitations, claiming the robot will offer visitors to the Fifth Avenue branch “an experience in retail banking like never before.”

He added: “We’re focused on developing the ‘branch of the future,’ and our use of Pepper will streamline branch operations and delight our customers, allowing bank staff to have deeper, more high-value customer engagements.”

Pepper has been showing up at a range of workplaces ever since its launch in 2015. Besides welcoming folks at department stores and airports, the friendly android has also been helping out at Pizza Hut and is even working as a Buddhist priest.

HSBC claims to be the first financial institution in the U.S. to bring robots to retail banking, and it hopes to introduce more Peppers to its branches nationwide in the coming months.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Pepper the robot’s latest gig is at the Smithsonian
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• Adidas AM4NYC runners are templates for shoe design in the future
• Amazon Home Assistants is a new service that offers house cleaning
• Say hi to Daisy, an Apple-made robot that recycles old iPhones

Facebook says it’s giving up on building its own internet drone

Facebook

Facebook is abandoning efforts to build its own internet drone.

The decision to end work on its Aquila aircraft comes after four years of development. The aim had been to use the solar-powered flying machine to bring internet connectivity to communities in remote parts of the world that don’t have any internet infrastructure.

But in a message posted this week, Facebook said that since it started working on the Aquila drone in 2014, a number of aerospace companies had begun developing high-altitude aircraft with similar aims in mind.

“Given these developments, we’ve decided not to design or build our own aircraft any longer,” Yael Maguire, a director of engineering at the social networking company, wrote in the post.

The company says that it’ll keep the Aquila project alive by collaborating with partners such as Airbus, and also continue working on other initiatives aimed at getting more people online.

High hopes

Facebook once had high hopes for its solar-powered drone. The plan was to deploy a fleet of them at high altitude for up to 90 days at a time while delivering tens of gigabits per second of bandwidth to communities below.

But designing the Aquila drone, which at 42 meters featured a wingspan wider than that of a Boeing 737, was clearly a huge challenge. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg made that abundantly clear in a blog post in the summer of 2016 in which he listed numerous hurdles that had to be overcome.

The team suffered a setback at the end of the same year when windy conditions during a test flight caused the aircraft to crash during a landing attempt, an incident that prompted engineers to review its design. It achieved a clean landing in 2017, but it’d taken six months to reach that point.

Abandoning work on the drone will result in the closure of a Facebook facility in Bridgwater, England. It’s not clear how many jobs will be lost or transferred as a result.

“Connectivity for everyone”

Maguire wrote that “connectivity for everyone, everywhere is one of the great challenges of our generation,” adding that Facebook has already connected nearly 100 million people as a result of its various efforts.

As the company now looks to aerospace firms to help it one day get an internet drone in the air, Maguire said Facebook is continuing to invest in developing next-generation, internet-related technologies “like Terragraph, working with partners on new infrastructure builds like our fiber project in Uganda, and supporting entrepreneurs in programs like Express Wi-Fi — all to help connect the four billion people who still do not have access to the internet.”

Facebook’s drone project had been competing to some extent with Google’s Project Loon, which uses enormous high-altitude balloons instead of pilotless aircraft to carry the necessary equipment for enabling internet connectivity.