Apple shrugs off Fitbit and Garmin to remain king of smartwatches

According to the latest report by research firm Canalys, Apple claimed a majority of smartwatch shipments for the second quarter of 2018. Of the 10 million units shipped during the quarter, the company shipped about 3.5 million Apple Watches.

In comparison to the same quarter last year, Apple increased the number of smartwatches it shipped by 30 percent. But while shipment has grown, the report notes the company’s market share has done the opposite. The report states that Apple’s share of the smartwatch market fell to 34 percent from 43 percent since the first quarter of 2018.

Canalys associates the nine percent decrease in market share with Fitbit and Garmin’s increase in sales during the quarter.

“Apple faces a growing threat from competitors, which have started to pass the million quarterly mark,” Canalys Research Analyst Vincent Thielke said. “Vendors are trying to differentiate their products with advanced heart-rate metrics, smart coaching, and mapping, and consumers now have a much wider range of smartwatches to choose from than they did a year ago.”

Thielke also mentions Samsung and Google as additional competition Apple should watch out for. Both companies are rumored to launch their own smartwatches within the near future — Samsung’s Galaxy Watch and the Google Pixel Watch.

Meanwhile, in Asia (excluding China) the cellular-connect Apple Watch Series 3 took the title for the best-shipping smartwatch for this 2018’s second quarter. Apple Watch shipments exceeded 250,000 units with the LTE version accounting for about 60 percent of the shipments.

It was also just last month that the International Data Corporation released its report on the wearables’ market. Out of the top five wearable companies in the first quarter, Apple also took the top spot. The company’s shipments grew 13.5 percent over the previous year, following the release of the Series 3 smartwatch.

Apple is already only a few months away from its Fall hardware event, where it will most likely unveil its next-generation smartwatch — The Apple Watch Series 4. While the company has been keeping any details under wraps, rumors have been surfacing across the internet. According to some, we could see a bigger battery and improved health tracking in WatchOS 5.

In 2017, Apple submitted a patent in late 2017 for a “sunscreen detector” that can be used with a “mobile and/or wearable device,” that monitors sun exposure and can then notify users to apply sunscreen. While we don’t know if this feature will ever be released, or whether it’s going to part of the next Apple Watch, it could be what distinguishes it from other competitors if it’s added to the device.

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6 amazing examples of game-changing technology for the blind community

In the United States there are roughly 8.4 million people with some form of visual impairment. In the entire world, that figure increases to 253 million, a population size greater than that of Brazil. Can technology help them?

Having previously looked at some of the amazing accessibility tools available to the deaf community, here are six of the amazing breakthroughs aimed at helping those with visual impairments. Regardless of whatever else may be happening, this is a reminder of why we’re glad to be alive in 2018:

The power of augmented reality

When people talk about the possibilities of augmented reality (AR) tech they unfortunately tend to gravitate way too quickly to retail apps and games. Helping people who are legally blind or have impaired vision could be significantly more life-changing, however.

With this in mind, researchers at the U.K.’s University of Oxford are developing smart glasses that can pick up on specific weaknesses in a person’s eyesight and enhance just those details. The OxSight glasses use a combination of computer vision algorithms and cameras to exaggerate certain details in an image, such as increasing image contrast or highlighting specific features.

The Android-powered glasses aren’t out yet, but the project creators claim the final versions will look just like regular sunglasses, so shouldn’t make users stand out from the crowd.

Braille translation

We take it for granted that machine translation tools can translate, say, German into English. But what about translating into Braille, the tactile writing system developed for people with visual impairments? That’s something MIT’s “Team Tactile” have been working on with a device designed to carry out real-time translation of “regular” text into Braille.

The gadget features a scanning mechanism which lets users take an image of a picture to be translated. Optical character recognition (OCR) tech is then used to extract the text, before the lines of translated text appear on a physical display, which features pins that move up and down to form the Braille characters.

The team aims to have a final prototype ready for manufacturing in the next couple of years.

Indoor mapping technology

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have created an app for Microsoft’s mixed reality HoloLens device which can guide individuals through a complex building with a combination of 360-degree sound and real-time room/object mapping.

This could be used to either guide individuals to specific objects or to help them follow a pre-set path by calling out the words “follow me” from the direction they need to head in.

“Our design principle is to give sounds to all relevant objects in the environment,” a paper written by the creators states. “Each object in the scene can talk to the user with a voice that comes from the object’s location. The voice’s pitch increases as the object gets closer. The user actively selects which objects speak through several modes of control.”

An easier Braille substitute

Braille is brilliant for those able to read it, but doing so can be pretty darn tough. But there’s good news: A simpler alternative hit Kickstarter earlier this year, promising a new font which can be learned in hours instead of months. ELIA Frames, as it’s called, can be installed on a computer like a regular font, and then put onto paper using a special printer that’s capable of tactile printing. Current shipping plans are for later this year.

“We customized the standard alphabet for tactile reading,” creator Andrew Chepaitis Digital Trends. “It is raised print, optimized for a specific use case. We set about applying best practices from the field of human factors design to the standard alphabet. But standard alphabet letters weren’t made for tactile reading, so we pushed the basic elements of each letter to the edges of a given space by using a frame. We then added the core elements of the letters to the interior of the frame, and iteratively tested letter designs to identify what is easiest to feel.”

An obstacle-aware wearable

Guidesense

If you don’t want to wear an intrusive Hololens headset, you might want to try the wearable device developed by researchers at VTT Technical Research Center of Finland.

Called Guidesense, it’s a box-shaped device that’s worn like a heart rate monitor. Thanks to millimeter wave radar sensors, the device is able to detect obstacles — even including thin overhanging branches — in the path of the wearer, and then relay this information in the form of haptic and audio feedback. In tests, 92 percent of subjects said Guidesense helped them better perceive their environment, while 80 percent felt more confident moving around on their own.

Bionic eyes and 3D bioprinting

All of the options on this list do a great job of presenting technology which could help a person work around their visual impairment. But what if it was possible to actually use technology to restore a person’s eyesight for real? That idea is, in fact, getting closer to reality.

For instance, earlier this year, researchers at the U.K.’s Newcastle University mixed stem cells with algae molecules to create a bio-ink, with which they 3D-printed an artificial cornea. In another piece of research, the company VisionCare has developed an Implantable Miniature Telescope, which can replace the eyeball’s regular lens and restore parts of patients’ vision.

While both of these technologies are still early in their life cycles, they hint that the next major wave of tech for people with visual impairments may be even more transformative than the current options.

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These amazing future transport technologies promise to supercharge your commute

You can keep your Teslas, your McLarens, and your Aston Martins (we’ll take them if you’re dead set on getting rid of them, of course!). Here in 2018, the ambition, scale, and adrenalin-pumping excitement of the most cutting-edge transport options put even the most drool-worthy vehicles to shame.

Without further ado, here are some of the amazing modes of transportation we have to look forward to. Bored of waiting for public transport? Don’t worry: your commute to the office is about to get a whole lot cooler.

Self-driving cars

It’s a testament to just how quickly things are moving in the world of transport that we had to stop and consider whether or not to even include self-driving cars on this list. Far from science fiction, these autonomous vehicles are now being developed by dozens of companies around the world, and have completed thousands of miles of test drives all over the planet.

The tech is still developing, but chances are the stats will show you’re actually safer in a car driven by a computer than one driven by a person. Our next big question: Will kids born today even bother getting their driver’s license at all?

Flying jet suit

If there’s a person out there who’s never wished to jet around like a real-life superhero in their own jet-powered Iron Man-style suit… frankly, we don’t care to meet them. Thankfully, all of us in the other pro-jet suit camp are finally getting what we dreamed of, courtesy of British inventor Richard Browning’s amazing jet-propelled suit.

The amazing flying suit recently went on sale at high-end U.K. department store Selfridges. You don’t need a license to operate it, and learning reportedly takes just a few minutes, thanks to an intuitive design that creator Browning told Digital Trends, “taps into an innate human balancing ability in a really uncanny way.”

Unfortunately for most of us, it’s pretty darn expensive — with the initial versions selling for $446,000. We guess that one person who never fancied his own Iron Man suit may get the last laugh here, after all. At least, until the price comes down!

Flying cars

What self-respecting look at the travel options of the future could ignore the humble flying car? Promised to us since the days of The Jetsons, the failure of this technology to come to pass has long been a crushing disappointment. After all, who wouldn’t trade the cesspool of social media for their very own airborne automobile?

Fortunately, flying cars finally appear to be on the way here in 2018. Case in point: Californian startup Opener’s BlackFly vehicle, hailed as the “world’s first ultralight all-electric fixed-wing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft.” Then there’s German aviation startup Lilium Aviation’s own two-seater VTOL vehicle, the human-sized CityAirbus quadcopter, the Kitty Hawk Cora that’s backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, and more.

With interest in flying cars at an all time high, the dark days of  riding the boring, old-fashioned bus to work may finally be coming to an end!

Elon’s city-to-city rocket system

It’s 7 o’clock in the morning, you’re still in Portland, and you need to be in Sydney, Australia in two hours’ time for a crucial work meeting. Do you throw your hands in the air in horror, and start dashing off a new CV to other potential employers? Of course not: You simply hop on your local intercity rocket, capable of getting you to any other point on the planet in less than an hour.

The scheme was first laid out by Elon Musk, whose vision of “point-to-point” Earthbound travel includes SpaceX’s reusable BFRs (Big F’ing Rockets) and launchpads in all major cities. Proposed routes for the city-to-city rocket system could include New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes, Hong Kong to Singapore in 22 minutes, London to Dubai or New York in 29 minutes, and Los Angeles to Toronto in 24 minutes.

It’s not up and running just yet, however, so here in 2018 you’d still miss your Sydney, Australia meeting, unfortunately. We guess that’s what Skype is for!

Hyperloop

WARR Hyperloop

Don’t like the idea of being briefly shot into space as part of your morning commute as with the above concept? Concerned about putting your life in the hands of a rocketry system before you’ve even had your first coffee of the day. No problem: The underground Hyperloop system promises to transport commuters in a kind of a futuristic subway system by firing them at speeds of up to 760 mph.

Having been first suggested by (who else?) Elon Musk, the idea has since been picked up by other researchers from around the world. At the most recent SpaceX pod contest, Germany’s WARR Hyperloop picked up the record for fastest self-propelled pod ride with a design capable of traveling at 290 mph.

We’re still years away from this system being implemented, but the technology is advancing astonishingly quickly. Pretty soon, journeys like Los Angeles to San Francisco could be reduced to a mere half hour, as opposed to six hours by regular car. Or you could just get a job that’s a bit closer to home. But where’s the fun in that?

Telepresence robots

A telepresence robot made by the company VGo. VGO

Let’s face it: Here in 2018, who’s really “there” and “present” at all? If we’re hanging out with buddies, we’re looking on Facebook to see what are other friends are doing. If we’re in a long meeting at work, we’re trawling LinkedIn for more exciting job opportunities. If we’re standing at the alter, waiting for our spouse-to-be to arrive, we’re furtively checking the Tinder app on our wearable in case there’s a last-minute better option.

With that kind of connectivity, it’s no surprise to hear about the rise of so-called “telepresence” devices. These robots combine Skype or FaceTime-style video call capabilities with actual movement, which is carried out by a robot. Whether it’s performing a site visit or allowing a sick kid to attend school, telepresence robots have a valuable role to perform.

Even though, given the option, we’d totally prefer a flying car!

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Lenovo Smart Display review: Single-handedly selling MrMobile on Google Home

I didn’t get the name “MrMobile” by covering a lot of home tech, folks – but when Lenovo revealed back at CES that it was working with Google to graft a display onto a Google Home, I decided that was something worth crossing categories for. Now, after a week of using the Lenovo Smart Display both at work and home, I’m here to tell you that my hunch was correct: this thing has almost single-handedly reinvigorated my enthusiasm for the category (Sorry, Jibo.)

Not that the Lenovo Smart Display is flawless; as an early product just hitting store shelves today, there are a few holes in its functionality. Most notably, you can’t cast to it from your phone yet; there’s no Netflix integration; and the lack of an onboard battery means that moving it from room to room requires a reboot unless you connect it to the mother of all extension cords. But two of those problems are fixable with future updates – and it’s already proven more useful to me in one week than any of my lesser Google Homes (Googles Home?) have in the past year.

Come see why! Join me for the MrMobile Lenovo Smart Display review, and then hit up the rest of the in-depth coverage right here on AC.

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Apple Shows Off Photos of New Piazza Liberty Store in Milan

Apple’s newest flagship Apple Store, Piazza Liberty, opened in Milan, Italy today and to celebrate the occasion, Apple shared some images of the new location.

Piazza Liberty is the first Italian Apple Store to feature the updated Apple Store layout with areas that include Genius Grove, The Forum, and The Avenue, aka parts of the store dedicated to activities like support, classes, and shopping.

This new flagship location features a huge fountain with water cascading over glass walls that customers walk through to enter the store.

Piazza Liberty includes a public plaza where visitors to the store gathered ahead of its unveiling, and Apple plans to host Today at Apple sessions and performances all weekend at the new location. Milanese artist L I M was on hand to perform during the store’s launch.

Customers who visited the store early received free tote bags and artist books, and Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts was on hand to greet guests. Ahead of the store’s opening, Apple worked with 21 local artists to celebrate the creative community of Milan.

What a night in Milan! Thank you to our talented team and the thousands of customers who celebrated with us at #ApplePiazzaLiberty. pic.twitter.com/sWh9Ti950e

— Angela Ahrendts (@AngelaAhrendts) July 26, 2018

The store is home to 230 new Apple retail employees, many of whom Apple says came to Milan from Apple stores around the world. Counting the new store in Milan, Apple now has 17 retail locations across Italy.

Related Roundup: Apple Stores
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Apple Store App for iOS Gains Voice Search

The Apple Store app for iOS devices was today updated to version 5.1, introducing improvements for the search feature.

The new version of the app features a redesigned look for the search section, with both search suggestions and support for voice-based searches. You can tap on the microphone icon located in the search bar to conduct a search using speech rather than text.

Old search interface on left, new search interface on right
Some of the new search suggestions include options like “Stores near me,” “Cases compatible with this device,” “Sessions near me,” “iPhone upgrade information,” and more. Aside from the new search interface, the app is otherwise unchanged and uses the same design.

What’s New Search has been updated with an enhanced design. And it’s now powered with speech recognition technology for better search results.

The Apple Store app can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Discuss this article in our forums

How to clean a microwave

Microwaves are nearly ubiquitous in American households. That’s because they’re so convenient; you can use it for everything from steaming broccoli to reheating leftovers (which is probably what most people use it for).

But when it comes to using a microwave, there’s nothing worse than heating up a piece of pizza and tasting this morning’s oatmeal or last night’s chicken and rice. You’ve probably had that experience at some point, and it can downgrade the eating experience. If you open the door of your microwave and smell pork roast from two days ago, it’s time to give that appliance a nice and thorough clean. A paper towel with warm water isn’t going to cut it this time.

The inside of your microwave should be sparkling, and if it isn’t, don’t worry: The process is incredibly easy and will only take about five minutes. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to get your appliance sparkling white in no time at all.

And while you’re on a cleaning kick, you can also check out our posts on how to clean a dishwasher and how to clean a washing machine.

Frigidaire Gallery Black Stainless Steel Microwave Jenny McGrath / Digital Trends

Step 1 – Fill a microwave-safe bowl with water and add either a drizzle of dish soap or a tablespoon of white vinegar, whichever you have handy.

Step 2 – Let it cook for about one to two minutes depending on how strong your microwave is. You want it to get nice and steamy but not boil over or spill out of the bowl. By microwaving first, you’re letting the steam do most of the heavy lifting for you.

Step 3 – Once the time is finished, keep the door closed for about three minutes, and let the steam heat up the bottom, sides, and roof of your microwave.

Step 4 – After the three minutes are up, carefully remove the bowl. You’ll probably need a pot holder or cloth to avoid burning yourself, as it’s going to be hot.

Step 5 – Wipe off all the sides with a paper towel or cloth, and clean the rotating plate just like you would a normal plate. If need be, you can run it through the dishwasher.

Step 6 – Enjoy your beautiful, clean microwave!

One thing to note: If you don’t have dish soap or vinegar, you can cut a lemon in half, put it in a bowl full of water, and cook it for five minutes. This option is the most natural, and the warm lemon makes your kitchen smell nice for a few hours.

Whenever your microwave is starting to smell a little funky, you’ll know how to give it a thorough clean in just a few minutes. And to prolong the amount of time in between deep cleans, try adjusting your microwave to a lower power setting, particularly when heating up foods that are prone to splattering.

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Astrobiologists think the moon might have hosted simple life-forms long ago

Colonization of the moon has been a long-time dream of science-fiction writers but, if it ever actually happens, we may turn out to not be the first life-forms to live there. At least, that is the theory laid out by researchers from Washington State University and the United Kingdom’s University of London. In a recently published paper, they make the case that, at some point in history, the moon’s atmospheric conditions were such that it could have been possible for life to, well, live.

“Based on [findings concerning] water being present in lunar rocks and magma, including the likely presence of a magnetic field, we [arrived] at the picture of an early moon — 3.5 billion years ago — which was a temporarily habitable planetary body with a significant atmosphere and liquid pools of water on its surface,” Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at Washington State, told Digital Trends.

There are two periods during the moon’s formation in which these lunar conditions would have been such that life could have existed, the researchers argue. While these were many, many, many millennia apart, though, we’re still talking about a long time ago in both instances. As noted, one was 3.5 billion years ago, during the moon’s peak volcanic activity, while the other occurred even longer ago — at 4 billion years. Considering that the first sexually reproducing organisms only appeared on Earth 1.1 billion years ago, that means that — even if this is correct — there was almost certainly no crossover between Earth and moon life.

The potential lunar life-forms, provided they existed, wouldn’t have been much to write home about either. (If home at the time had been anything more than a barren hellhole in which the oceans perpetually boiled away into scorching steam atmospheres.) “Life would only be on the microbial level similar to sulfur bacteria on Earth,” Schulze-Makuch continued.

Still, as Jeff Goldblum once said in Jurassic Park, “life, uh, finds a way.” Even if that life turns out to be extinct moon sulfur rather than the promised Little Gray Men!

The research paper, titled “Was There an Early Habitability Window for Earth’s Moon?”, was recently published in the journal Astrobiology.

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New crime-predicting algorithm borrows from Apollo space mission tech

From medical diagnoses to smart assistants, artificial intelligence is helping us move from being a reactive world to a proactive one. That means machines that can anticipate events before they take place and make sure that the right precautions are taken. The world of policing is no different.

In an effort to better manage police resources and gain an upper hand in the war on crime, researchers from Georgia Tech and the U.K.’s University of Surrey have developed a new predictive policing algorithm — and it owes a debt of gratitude to technology that’s been previously used in weather forecasting and even the Apollo space missions.

“In our paper, we wanted to address two issues: ‘When is such an approach able to predict crime and when it won’t?’ and ‘How do we quantify uncertainty in when a crime will occur?’” Dr. David Lloyd from the U.K. university’s Department of Mathematics told Digital Trends.

The new algorithm built on previous work carried out by researchers from the University of California and police forces in both the U.S. and U.K. Their 2015 research showed how a predictive policing algorithm could accurately predict between 1.4 and 2.2 times more urban crime than specialist crime analysts. By making recommendations about where to patrol, the algorithm led to a 7.4 percent reduction in crime. However, while effective, this approach has also been criticized due to concerns about possible racial profiling and the underreporting of crime.

“In trying to address these issues, we needed to develop a new algorithm which achieved what the first algorithm does, but also captures uncertainty in the data and model,” Lloyd said. “For data that varies continuously — such as wind speed or spaceship position — there is a well-known algorithm, the Kalman filter, that does precisely this and efficiently fits a model to the data while capturing uncertainty. This algorithm was used on the navigation of the Apollo space missions and also for weather forecasting, where you have to process data in real time to make accurate forecasts.”

The new algorithm has so far been demonstrated on a data set of more than 1,000 violent gang crimes in Los Angeles carried out between 1999 and 2002. Early conclusions suggest that the upgraded predictive tool could prove superior for coping with the constantly fluctuating world of real-time crime prediction.

“There are several predictive policing software companies, such as PredPol.com and Hunchlab,” Lloyd said. “We would hope that our algorithms could be used in similar software.”

A paper describing the work was recently published in the journal Computational Statistics & Data Analysis.

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Amazon’s facial ID incorrectly identifies Congress members as criminals

Amazon may want to go back to the drawing board for this one. A facial recognition tool the retail giant currently offers developers made quite the mistake in a test conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), The New York Times reports. Rather than identifying 28 members of Congress as members of the country’s legislative branch, the tool instead classified these individuals as police suspects. To make matters worse, a disproportionate number of African American and Latino Congress members were incorrectly identified, raising questions of how far racial profiling has embedded itself even in our machine learning software.

Both Representative John Lewis, D-Georgia, and Representative Bobby Rush, D-Illinois, are well-known civil rights leaders and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, but rather than being recognized as elected representatives, these two men (along with 26 others), were falsely flagged as criminals. These mistakes occurred when the ACLU took Amazon’s software to analyze images of all members of Congress against a database of 25,000 publicly accessible mugshots. This resulted in the 28 Congress members being incorrectly identified as lawbreakers, which represents a five percent error rate.

“This test confirms that facial recognition is flawed, biased and dangerous,” Jacob Snow, a technology and civil liberties lawyer with the ACLU of Northern California, told the New York Times.

In response to the test, Nina Lindsey, an Amazon Web Services spokeswoman, said that the ACLU used the face matching tool (called Amazon Rekognition) differently from Amazon’s recommendations. “It is worth noting that in real-world scenarios, Amazon Rekognition is almost exclusively used to help narrow the field and allow humans to expeditiously review and consider options using their judgment,” Lindsey said in a statement.

She further pointed out that the ACLU kept the tool’s “confidence threshold” at the default of 80 percent. This means that the group took into account any face matched as 80 percent similar to the police database — however, it’s worth pointing out that Amazon uses the same threshold in an example on its website, showing how employees’ faces can be matched with their ID badges. However, Lindsey said that in the case of police departments, Amazon recommends that a threshold of 95 percent similarity be implemented to avoid these sorts of mistakes.

Amazon has previously come under fire for selling Rekognition. In May, 24 civil liberties groups, led by the ACLU, penned a letter to Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos requesting that the software cease being sold to law enforcement agencies. The groups expressed concerns that the software could be used to surveil protestors, immigrants, or general members of the public, rather than just police suspects. Amazon employees, investors, and academics have since made similar demands of Amazon.

For the time being, however, that doesn’t seem to be in the cards for the web giant. As Amazon’s spokesperson said, “We remain excited about how image and video analysis can be a driver for good in the world.”

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