How to watch the World Series, with or without a cable subscription

Adam Glanzman / Contributor

The 2018 World Series is upon us, with the Boston Red Sox facing off against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The games all air live on Fox, but that’s far from the only way to watch. Whether you’re a hardcore baseball fan or you’re just looking to occasionally check in and see who’s in the lead, there are plenty of ways to watch the series, whether online, with cable, or without it, and we’ve listed them all here for you.

With an HD antenna

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

If you don’t want to subscribe to either a pay TV service or a streaming TV service, you can use an antenna to watch the game, provided you live in an area where you can get Fox over the air. If you live anywhere near your local Fox affiliate, you should be able to get by with most indoor antennas, and we’ve got a list of some of the best ones you can buy. If you’re further away from your affiliate, you might need to pull out the big guns. The Mohu Striker, for example, has a range of up to 75 miles, but needs to be mounted either outside or in your attic.

Using a live TV streaming service

Not a cable subscriber and don’t want to bother hooking up an antenna just to watch the game? Good news: You don’t have to. There are plenty of live TV streaming services that will let you watch the game, potentially for free, as long as they offer up your local Fox affiliate.

Sling TV might be your best bet if you’re looking to watch the game on the cheap, but be sure to check that it carries your local channels. PlayStation Vue, DirecTV Now, and Hulu with Live TV will all work as well. If you’re a year-round sports nut, particularly one with a love of soccer, FuboTV is another great option that provides plenty of local channels around the country. Some of these services, including PlayStation Vue and DirecTV Now, also act as TV Everywhere providers, meaning you may be able to watch the games using Fox Sports Go, with the streaming service as your TV provider login.

Finally, there’s YouTube TV. This service gets its own special shout-out, as it will be airing Fox’s World Series coverage, no matter whether it carries your local affiliate or not, meaning this might be your best bet if you can’t get your local channels via any of the methods listed above.

One thing to keep in mind is that most of these streaming services have a free trial period, which should let you watch at least most of the remaining games in the series for free. You might need to jump between two of them if the series goes the full seven games, but that can help you figure out which streaming service is best for you — in addition to getting you your free baseball fix.

With a cable subscription

If you’re a traditional pay-TV subscriber, whether it’s via cable or satellite, you’ve got a lot of options. Sure, you can just watch the games live on Fox or DVR them and watch them at your leisure, but that’s just the beginning of how you can watch with your subscription.

In addition to airing on Fox, the games will also be available to watch using Fox Sports Go, either via its website or its various apps. Apps are available for iOS and Android, and streaming devices like Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku are supported, as well as smart TVs on the Android TV platform. You can also watch on your Xbox One game console.

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A.I. can do almost anything now, but here’s 6 things machines still suck at

Predicting what A.I. and computers aren’t capable of is a fool’s errand. Throughout A.I.’s 60-year history, skeptics have attempted to single out tasks that they think machines will never be able to achieve. Such tasks have ranged from playing a game of chess to generating pieces of music to driving a car. In almost every instant, they have been proved wrong — sometimes profoundly so.

But as amazing as A.I. is here in 2018, there are still things that it is most assuredly not able to do. While some are more frivolous than others, they all showcase some part of machine intelligence that’s currently lacking. Here are six examples which highlight how much more there is to do.

Writing funny jokes

If you’re an A.I. researcher reading this, consider this one the (possibly) low-hanging fruit, tantalizingly within your reach. After all, writing a decent joke should be easy, right? Tell that to every attempt at creating joke-generating A.I.s so far.

Earlier this year, one intrepid coder trained a neural network on more than 43,000 jokes and asked it to invent new jokes. A representative, laughter-defying sample goes: “What do you get when you cross a cow with a rhino? A bungee with a dog.”

Whether a joke is funny or not is hugely subjective, but even the biggest bungee enthusiast is unlikely to find too much to chuckle about there. IBM’s Jeopardy!-playing A.I. showed that machines can be made to understand linguistic complexities such as multiple meanings to the same word. But so far not to purposely humorous effect.

So here’s a challenge: Get an A.I. to write and then deliver a 3-minute set list of comedic material that makes 50 percent of its (non-coder) human audience laugh. And no joke stealing allowed either. That means you should probably throw out your Carlos Mencia training data.

Writing good novels

The rise of companies like Narrative Science and the use of algorithms for sports reporting shows that writing is not out of reach for today’s computers. But we don’t expect to see a machine write a novel yet, regardless of whether that’s chart-topping popular genre fiction or highfalutin literary fiction.

It’s about venturing into problem-solving tasks, and deciding which pieces of information are relevant.

Writing either one requires not just generating text to reveal fragmentary scraps of information, such as the score in a local football game. It means composing a narrative (or willfully subverting that idea) which resonates with readers, and then figuring out the best way to tell it.

There are some fascinating demonstrations of A.I. used to write prose. There are some very silly ones as well. But we’re not holding our breath for either a computational Jane Austen or J.K. Rowling any time soon. If ever.

Formulating creative strategies

On one level, this simply isn’t true. As Google DeepMind’s game-playing A.I. demonstrated, when it comes to things like playing Atari video games, intelligent agents versed in reinforcement learning can indeed formulate optimal strategies. I’m also of the belief that creativity isn’t an untouchable area for artificial intelligence.

What I’m talking about here, however, is the ability to formulate the kind of creative strategies that, for instance, define a great lawyer’s ability to form unique arguments or a top CEO to lead his or her company in bold new directions.

This isn’t just about analyzing data; it’s about venturing into unstructured problem-solving tasks, and deciding which pieces of information are relevant and which can be safely ignored.

Excelling at these tasks also frequently requires the ability to…

Being human

Tough goal, right? No, we don’t mean this literally: If a machine needed to literally be a human to be considered intelligent then it would never happen. Instead, this refers to traits like compassion and an ability to tap into the things which drive us as human beings.

Machines are getting very good at identifying individual users’ emotional states through things like facial expressions and vocal patterns. They can then use this insight to modify how they interact with us, such as recommending us certain playlists when we feel sad or happy.

S3studio/Getty Images

But as good as computers might be getting at identifying diseases like cancer, would you choose one, instead of a human doctor, to tell you that you are dying of a terminal illness? On the lighter side, books and movies like Moneyball show us how data analytics can pick out winning sport teams. But could an A.I. be a top level sports coach? These are important human roles, and they’re ones that are going to remain human for the foreseeable future.

If machines can’t adopt these skills, it’s going to limit the scope of what they can achieve in the workplace. (On the plus side, maybe that throws a lifeline to humans!)

Making a cup of coffee

Bear with us for a second here. Yes, there are plenty of smart coffee machines out there, but that’s not what we’re referring to. The Coffee Test was put forward by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak as a measure of multiple aspects of machine intelligence and robot dexterity. The test Wozniak describes involves a machine entering a random American home, finding the coffee machine, adding water, finding a mug, and brewing a coffee by pushing the correct buttons.

Will we ever see a team of robots beat a human soccer team?

What I like about this test is how measurable it is. Other attempts to quantify an Artificial General Intelligence focus either on philosophical abstractions (the Turing Test) or have already arguably been reached (Nils John Nilsson’s proposal of an Employment Test). Wozniak’s test requires high performance in areas like image recognition, but it also needs a generalized, multi-purpose intelligence. So far, this hasn’t been achieved — yet.

Beating human sports teams

Consider this a bonus one. That’s because, like making a cup of coffee, it’s not just about about A.I., but also its related field of robotics: the hardware yang to software’s yin.

In the same way that A.I. must be generalized if it’s ever going to be considered intelligent, then robots must also be multi-purpose if they’re going to fully live up to their potential. We’re starting to see this with the likes of Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot, which is as happy performing backflips as it is jogging or carrying out a bit of parkour.

But while A.I. has performed intellectual feats like defeating grandmasters at chess or winning games of Go against the best players in the world, the same hasn’t proven true for robots. Will we ever see a team of robots beat a human soccer team? Considering the speed and myriad skills that game entails, it seems a long way away.

Are we wrong?

It’s not often that I reach the end of an article and think, “Boy, I really hope I’m wrong about this one.” In this case, however, I really mean it. These are not, in my view, universal truths that can never change. The extraordinary progress of A.I. shows us how rapidly things are moving. More to the point, much of this progress has specifically been a response to statements like “a computer will never do X.”

If you think there is evidence for one or more of these statements to be untrue, let me know. Because, as we move forward in A.I. research, these are some of the hurdles that will need to be dealt with. Especially as we begin working with A.I. and robots in the workplace on a regular basis.

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A.I. can do almost anything now, but here’s 6 things machines still suck at

Predicting what A.I. and computers aren’t capable of is a fool’s errand. Throughout A.I.’s 60-year history, skeptics have attempted to single out tasks that they think machines will never be able to achieve. Such tasks have ranged from playing a game of chess to generating pieces of music to driving a car. In almost every instant, they have been proved wrong — sometimes profoundly so.

But as amazing as A.I. is here in 2018, there are still things that it is most assuredly not able to do. While some are more frivolous than others, they all showcase some part of machine intelligence that’s currently lacking. Here are six examples which highlight how much more there is to do.

Writing funny jokes

If you’re an A.I. researcher reading this, consider this one the (possibly) low-hanging fruit, tantalizingly within your reach. After all, writing a decent joke should be easy, right? Tell that to every attempt at creating joke-generating A.I.s so far.

Earlier this year, one intrepid coder trained a neural network on more than 43,000 jokes and asked it to invent new jokes. A representative, laughter-defying sample goes: “What do you get when you cross a cow with a rhino? A bungee with a dog.”

Whether a joke is funny or not is hugely subjective, but even the biggest bungee enthusiast is unlikely to find too much to chuckle about there. IBM’s Jeopardy!-playing A.I. showed that machines can be made to understand linguistic complexities such as multiple meanings to the same word. But so far not to purposely humorous effect.

So here’s a challenge: Get an A.I. to write and then deliver a 3-minute set list of comedic material that makes 50 percent of its (non-coder) human audience laugh. And no joke stealing allowed either. That means you should probably throw out your Carlos Mencia training data.

Writing good novels

The rise of companies like Narrative Science and the use of algorithms for sports reporting shows that writing is not out of reach for today’s computers. But we don’t expect to see a machine write a novel yet, regardless of whether that’s chart-topping popular genre fiction or highfalutin literary fiction.

It’s about venturing into problem-solving tasks, and deciding which pieces of information are relevant.

Writing either one requires not just generating text to reveal fragmentary scraps of information, such as the score in a local football game. It means composing a narrative (or willfully subverting that idea) which resonates with readers, and then figuring out the best way to tell it.

There are some fascinating demonstrations of A.I. used to write prose. There are some very silly ones as well. But we’re not holding our breath for either a computational Jane Austen or J.K. Rowling any time soon. If ever.

Formulating creative strategies

On one level, this simply isn’t true. As Google DeepMind’s game-playing A.I. demonstrated, when it comes to things like playing Atari video games, intelligent agents versed in reinforcement learning can indeed formulate optimal strategies. I’m also of the belief that creativity isn’t an untouchable area for artificial intelligence.

What I’m talking about here, however, is the ability to formulate the kind of creative strategies that, for instance, define a great lawyer’s ability to form unique arguments or a top CEO to lead his or her company in bold new directions.

This isn’t just about analyzing data; it’s about venturing into unstructured problem-solving tasks, and deciding which pieces of information are relevant and which can be safely ignored.

Excelling at these tasks also frequently requires the ability to…

Being human

Tough goal, right? No, we don’t mean this literally: If a machine needed to literally be a human to be considered intelligent then it would never happen. Instead, this refers to traits like compassion and an ability to tap into the things which drive us as human beings.

Machines are getting very good at identifying individual users’ emotional states through things like facial expressions and vocal patterns. They can then use this insight to modify how they interact with us, such as recommending us certain playlists when we feel sad or happy.

S3studio/Getty Images

But as good as computers might be getting at identifying diseases like cancer, would you choose one, instead of a human doctor, to tell you that you are dying of a terminal illness? On the lighter side, books and movies like Moneyball show us how data analytics can pick out winning sport teams. But could an A.I. be a top level sports coach? These are important human roles, and they’re ones that are going to remain human for the foreseeable future.

If machines can’t adopt these skills, it’s going to limit the scope of what they can achieve in the workplace. (On the plus side, maybe that throws a lifeline to humans!)

Making a cup of coffee

Bear with us for a second here. Yes, there are plenty of smart coffee machines out there, but that’s not what we’re referring to. The Coffee Test was put forward by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak as a measure of multiple aspects of machine intelligence and robot dexterity. The test Wozniak describes involves a machine entering a random American home, finding the coffee machine, adding water, finding a mug, and brewing a coffee by pushing the correct buttons.

Will we ever see a team of robots beat a human soccer team?

What I like about this test is how measurable it is. Other attempts to quantify an Artificial General Intelligence focus either on philosophical abstractions (the Turing Test) or have already arguably been reached (Nils John Nilsson’s proposal of an Employment Test). Wozniak’s test requires high performance in areas like image recognition, but it also needs a generalized, multi-purpose intelligence. So far, this hasn’t been achieved — yet.

Beating human sports teams

Consider this a bonus one. That’s because, like making a cup of coffee, it’s not just about about A.I., but also its related field of robotics: the hardware yang to software’s yin.

In the same way that A.I. must be generalized if it’s ever going to be considered intelligent, then robots must also be multi-purpose if they’re going to fully live up to their potential. We’re starting to see this with the likes of Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot, which is as happy performing backflips as it is jogging or carrying out a bit of parkour.

But while A.I. has performed intellectual feats like defeating grandmasters at chess or winning games of Go against the best players in the world, the same hasn’t proven true for robots. Will we ever see a team of robots beat a human soccer team? Considering the speed and myriad skills that game entails, it seems a long way away.

Are we wrong?

It’s not often that I reach the end of an article and think, “Boy, I really hope I’m wrong about this one.” In this case, however, I really mean it. These are not, in my view, universal truths that can never change. The extraordinary progress of A.I. shows us how rapidly things are moving. More to the point, much of this progress has specifically been a response to statements like “a computer will never do X.”

If you think there is evidence for one or more of these statements to be untrue, let me know. Because, as we move forward in A.I. research, these are some of the hurdles that will need to be dealt with. Especially as we begin working with A.I. and robots in the workplace on a regular basis.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Moxi the ‘friendly’ hospital robot wants to help nurses, not replace them
• Robots are going to steal 75 million jobs by 2025 — but there’s no need to panic
• OpenAI bots bring the pain to professional ‘Dota 2’ players
• Teaching machines to see illusions may help computer vision get smarter
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A Day With the iPhone XR: Unboxing and First Impressions

The iPhone XR is set to launch on Friday, October 26, and ahead of its release date, we were able to get our hands on a review unit from Apple.

We spent the day with the iPhone XR in New York City, checking out its feature set and doing a quick comparison with the higher-priced iPhone XS for all of our readers who are thinking of picking up Apple’s most affordable flagship smartphone later this week.

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The iPhone XR in our video is the black version, which looks fantastic with the glass body and matching aluminum frame, but it’s worth noting the XR comes in several colors that are a bit more fun: white, yellow, coral, blue, and PRODUCT(RED).

Apple’s iPhone XS features a higher-end sturdier stainless steel frame instead of the lower-cost aluminum frame in the XR, but the XR doesn’t feel cheap. It’s a premium device, just like the iPhone 8 and other older aluminum iPhones.

Size wise, at 6.1-inches, the iPhone XR is a little bit bigger than the iPhone XS (5.8 inches) and a little bit smaller than the iPhone XS Max (6.5 inches), which makes it the perfect size for those who want a middle ground between the two XS options.

iPhone XR in the center
Like the iPhone XS, the iPhone XR features an edge-to-edge display with no Home button so there’s plenty of screen real estate, but the bezels at the sides, top, and bottom are noticeably thicker, which is one downside.

The iPhone XR uses the exact same TrueDepth camera system with Face ID that’s in the iPhone XS, which means there’s still a notch at the top. Overall, though, the visible display is much larger than what you get with the iPhone 8 and it’s almost the same as the XS and XS Max.

iPhone XR on left, iPhone XS Max on right
One of the most notable differences between the XR and the XS is the XR’s “Liquid Retina” LCD display compared the OLED display of the XS. If you have both phones side by side, you’re going to notice the lower 1792 x 828 resolution, but on its own, the XR’s display is perfectly adequate. Basically, it looks totally fine for an LCD display, and, in fact, better than previous Apple LCDs.

There is no 3D Touch in the iPhone XR due to the technicalities associated with implementing an edge-to-edge LCD display, and Apple has replaced it with a Haptic Touch feature. Haptic Touch provides haptic feedback when long pressing on buttons like the camera or the flashlight, but it is in no way as fleshed out as 3D Touch and can’t be used in as many places.

For frequent 3D Touch users, there’s good news — Apple plans to make Haptic Touch work with more gestures in the future.

At the back of the XR, there’s a single-lens camera which is available in lieu of the dual-lens camera system in the iPhone XR. It features a single wide-angle camera lens, but it can still do much of what the dual-lens camera in the XS can do thanks to some software magic.

The iPhone XR’s camera works with Smart HDR, Portrait Mode, and Depth Control, but there are some differences to be aware of. With Portrait Mode, some of the low light photos can look even better than with the iPhone XR because it’s using the larger f/1.8 aperture wide-angle lens to capture the image instead of the smaller f/2.4 telephoto lens like the iPhone XS, which lets in more light.

That means Portrait Mode photos in lower lighting on the XR are potentially going to look better than those on the XS, but there’s one major caveat – you can only take Portrait Mode photos of people on the XR.

Because there’s no multiple camera system to use to calculate depth between the background and foreground for blurring purposes, Apple uses a person’s face to determine what to blur and what to keep sharp. That means no rear-facing iPhone XR Portrait Mode images of pets, flowers, food, etc. You’ll also get fewer Portrait Lighting options.

Smart HDR is similar between the two cameras, though the feature is a bit more hit or miss when it comes to the handling of highlights and complex lighting situations.

As for the front-facing camera, since it’s exactly the same as the camera in the iPhone XS, you can do all of the same things and you have full access to Memoji and Animoji.

Inside, the iPhone XR is using the same A12 Bionic chip as the iPhone XS, which means it’s just as fast. And since that chip isn’t driving an OLED display, the XR gets way more battery life. In fact, the iPhone XR has the highest battery life of any of the three new flagship iPhones, XS Max included. One thing to note, though: the iPhone XR has 3GB RAM, while the XS has 4GB for the OLED display.

There are a few other differences to be aware of between the XS and the XR: the XR has a slower LTE Advanced connection instead of a Gigabit LTE connection like the iPhone XS, it has an IP67 water resistance rating instead of IP68, and it maxes out at 256GB of storage.

All in all, the LCD display, the aluminum frame, Haptic Touch, and the single-lens camera are the major differentiators between the two devices, and we don’t feel like the iPhone XR’s shortcomings are going to be a big deal for most consumers.

With the super fast A12 chip, Face ID, edge-to-edge display, glass body for wireless charging, the color options, the lower price tag, the XR is a great smartphone that’s going to be an ideal choice for many people.

The question isn’t whether the iPhone XR is as good as the iPhone XS — it’s whether the iPhone XS’s OLED display and camera features are worth the extra $250 over the XR. Pricing on the iPhone XR, by the way, starts at $749, while the XS is priced starting at $999 and the XS Max is priced starting at $1,099.

Do you have an iPhone XR coming on Friday? Why did you choose it over the XS? Let us know in the comments.

We’re going to have in-depth iPhone XR coverage coming next week, including a deep dive into the iPhone XR camera compared to the iPhone XS camera, so make sure to stay tuned to MacRumors for more.

Related Roundup: iPhone XRBuyer’s Guide: iPhone XR (Buy Now)
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Apple Updates Events App for Apple TV Ahead of October 30th Keynote

Apple today updated its Events app for the fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV in preparation for the October 30th event that’s expected to see the debut of new iPad Pro models and several new Macs.

The updated Events app can be downloaded from the tvOS App Store, and it features artwork from the media invites that were sent out last week.

Apple’s Events app, along with the Events section of Apple’s website, will be used to live stream the unveiling of the new products. This event is being held in New York City, which means it will start at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time rather than 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time.

The Events app on the Apple TV will list the start time relevant to your own location, listing 10:00 a.m. for people on the East Coast and 7:00 a.m. for people on the West Coast.

As noted by 9to5Mac, Apple has also listed several Today at Apple sessions to allow customers to sign up to watch the unveiling at a local Apple Store. These events are available in several stores in the UK, Dubai, and Toronto.

For those who are unable to watch Apple’s live stream, MacRumors will have live coverage of the event on MacRumors.com and on our MacRumorsLive Twitter account.
Discuss this article in our forums

The new thin-bezeled Chromebooks from Asus won’t empty your wallet

Computer hardware company Asus has launched three new Chromebooks, featuring narrow bezels, Intel quad-core CPUs and premium design. The three models come in 11.6-inch, 14-inch, and 15.6-inch sizes but remain affordable and stylish.

Priced at $229, the cheaper 11.6-inch Asus Chromebook C223 is for people who want a compact and lightweight device. The footprint is smaller than a sheet of A4 paper and the weight comes in at just 2.2 pounds. It also offers the Intel N3350 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. Connectivity onboard includes 2 USB 3.1 TypeA ports, 1 USB C port, a microSD card slot, and an audio jack.

The other two models — the Chromebook C423 and Chromebook C523 — are priced at $269 and feature an aluminum-finished lid for a premium look and feel. Both pack larger 14-inch and 15.6-inch displays, but with 1,366×768 HD resolution, and an 80 percent screen-to-body ratio. Touchscreen options are available and the connectivity includes two USB-A ports, two USB-C ports, a microSD slot, and an audio jack. The same Intel N3350 processor as the 11.6-inch model is powering these models.

Both the Chromebook C423 and Chromebook C523 come with a 180-degree lay-flat hinge for easy sharing of your screen with friends or colleagues. Asus puts each hinge through a 20,000-cycle open-and-close test to ensure long-term reliability.

Similar to competing Chromebooks, all three models should get to 10 hours of battery life on a single charge, ensuring that consumers can get work done on the move. The choice of an Intel quad-core processor should also make for speedy performance in popular Google and Android apps.

Other notable features on all three models include full-size, ergonomic keyboards with 1.4mm key travel. The Google Play store is also supported on all three models, allowing consumers to enjoy all their favorite Android apps.

Asus is not the first computer maker to go with a 15-inch Chromebook, but the slim bezels are a welcome change. Acer previously introduced a 15-inch Chromebook and we approved of its great battery life, zippy performance and awesome speaker placement. Lenovo also unveiled a 15-inch all aluminum Chromebook at IFA 2018, with an optional 4K display. Considering Google did not reveal a new Pixelbook at its last media event, these devices all hold up to look impressive.

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Powered brace proves restoring arm functionality is no longer out of reach

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Wearable technologies such as exosuits can enhance people’s baseline abilities by giving them the ability to walk further or lift more than they would ordinarily be able to. In some cases, this means helping non-disabled people to carry out tasks more efficiently. Where it’s more profound, however, is in helping people with disabilities to perform actions that might otherwise be impossible.

This is where a powered brace called the MyoPro myoelectric arm orthosis excels. Manufactured by the wearable medical robotics company Myomo, the device is billed as the only lightweight wearable device on the market that can help restore functionality in the arms and hands of individuals with neuromuscular disease or injury. That includes the effects of conditions such as strokes, brachial plexus injury, or cerebral palsy.

The noninvasive device works by reading faint nerve signals on the surface of the skin, and then using this information to activate small motors that move the prosthesis as required. The user is in full control of their own hand or arm at all times.

“MyoPro can help restore function to an arm paralyzed or weakened by any disease or injury — it is diagnosis agnostic,” Paul Gudonis, chairman and CEO of Myomo, told Digital Trends. “We estimate approximately 1 percent of the population is in this condition. Patients with their MyoPro brace enjoy getting back the ability to do everyday activities such as cutting food, getting dressed, holding a book, playing pool, and helping with chores around the house. MyoPro is suited for this because it is lightweight, wearable, easy to use, and its long-life swappable battery enables all-day use.”

At present, MyoPro is being used by more than 700 adults in the U.S., Canada, and select European countries. According to Gudonis, the device is covered by the majority of insurance plans. It has found particularly widespread adoption among veterans who have been injured in combat or suffered injuries after their service. For instance, one U.S. Air Force veteran who suffered a brachial plexus injury was told that his arm would remain paralyzed until he received his MyoPro. It was also recently approved for adolescents, thereby opening the technology up to a whole new audience.

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Ring’s updates make its devices and app smarter and more efficient

Ring security systems are getting a slew of improvements, many via updates to the app that helps customers monitor activity around doorsteps, porches and other locations equipped with Ring doorbells and cameras.

Several of the features announced apply primarily to Ring customers who subscribe to a Ring Protect Plan, which enables storage of recording triggered by motion near a Ring doorbell or webcam. These innovations should make it easier to monitor a home and also make Ring devices more energy efficient.

Available now is a camera preview feature that provides recent images from all Ring devices on one screen. If you see something you wish to investigate further, you simply click on that image to get a dashboard view of the device that captured it.

A timeline feature, scheduled to begin rolling out in November, will allow customers to scroll through recordings on a color-coded timeline, which should help them figure out what happened where and when.

Ring also announced a suite of Smart Alert features designed to make alerts to Ring Connect subscribers more relevant and improve battery life of devices by using cloud-based video analysis to reduce recordings triggered by false alarms. The initial set of Smart Alert features, expected to appear in early 2019, include:

• Motion Verification: New to battery-powered Ring devices, this feature is specifically designed to reduce false alarms.
• Motion Stop: If activity is deemed unimportant, Ring devices will stop recording.
• Person Detection: Video analysis will be able to tell whether a person, animal or item is causing motion, and customers can choose to ignore motion instigators that don’t interest them.
• Motion Zones: Also new to battery-powered devices, this feature lets customers designate areas they wish to monitor closely.

Also in the works for 2019:

• Live Camera Previews: When a Ring device detects motion of concern, it will immediately begin streaming live images to the Ring app dashboard.
• Audible Announcements: Wired Ring devices will be able to issue voice alerts through their speaker, telling people they are being monitored.
• Timestamps: Ring Protect Plan subscribers will be able to put date and time on shared video recordings.
• Bulk downloads: Ring Protect Plan subscribers will be able to download all of their recordings from Ring.com with just a few clicks.

Ring also plans to offer Protect Plan subscribers the option of continuous recording from wired devices for an additional fee. All customers will have access, free of charge, to still images captured throughout the day during gaps between motion-triggered recordings.

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Everything we know about the 2018 Mac mini

It’s official: Apple’s second fall 2018 event has been confirmed for October 30 in Brooklyn, New York. Rumor suggest that Apple is going to talk about a new iPad Pro and MacBook, but there’s another device that could also get some attention: The Mac mini.

If you’re a little surprised at that, there’s good reason. It’s been several years since the Mac mini got an update, and Apple has rarely brought up the little desktop computer square, although Tim Cook did say a year ago that, “Our customers have found so many creative and interesting uses for Mac mini. While it is not time to share any details, we do plan for Mac mini to be an important part of our product line going forward.”

Reports now indicate that it’s finally time for an upgrade. Here’s what we know and suspect about a potential Mac mini reveal at the end of October.

A new processor

Some kind of processor upgrade is an obvious choice for the now outdated Mac mini, and rumors back in July indicated that the mini could receive a power boost this year.

But what new processors are we talking about? Well, four generations of Intel Core processors have come and gone since the Mac mini was updated last. The current model runs on dual-core Core i5 or Core i7 processors, so we’d expect Apple to update to something like the 8th-gen Core i5-8400 and Core i7-8700 processors — both of which are six-core CPUs. 9th-gen desktop chips have only begun to roll out from Intel, but the powerful K-series processors are out of the question.

In the realm of pure speculation, one other possibility could be the Core i5-8305G and Core i7-8809G. These are the Intel/AMD hybrid units that include AMD Radeon RX Vega graphics onboard a quad-core, Intel processor. It’s an expensive chip made for miniaturized PCs like the Intel NUC. It would re-frame the Mac mini as a more capable gaming and content creation tool, which brings us to our next point.

Switching to a Pro model

Rumors and leaks have discussed the possibility that Apple will revamp the mini into a mini Pro model that is aimed primarily at professionals who want to keep their display and accessories but switch out for a higher-power model.

In this case, Apple would update not only the processor but also expand the storage options. A Mac mini Pro would also need to add more business-friendly features to the unit, which would presumably sell it at a higher price than the current $500 Mac mini. This theoretical mini Pro would fit in well with Apple’s other October focus, the iPad Pro, as two professional bookends for the event.

Since the mini has found a home in network setups and business data storage, it would make sense for many of these new features to focus on server and network management, allowing the mini to slot into many different data setups across a number of businesses.

SSD hard drive

This one is practically a shoe-in.

The current Mac mini shows its age with options for an HDD, SSD, or fusion drive combination. That was a more common offering a few years ago, but now the market has shifted more fully toward SSD options. We expect a new mini would launch with SSD-only storage, probably offered up to 2TB or more. It’s a simple, sensible move that many other Mac devices, including the iMac Pro and Mac Pro.

Updated ports

Let’s assume that Apple recognizes the mini’s new role in the office and is focusing more on Pro users. This makes it much more likely that the new model will come with additional ports, especially USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 and additional Ethernet ports. This would make it more useful for data management in business situations — and more versatile overall.

But is the mini still an entertainment device? Ultimately, what Apple decides will probably determine whether or not the HDMI port will stay. Entertainment has changed a lot in just the past four or five years, which leaves Apple in a bit of a tricky situation as to how to position the Mac mini.

If Apple decides that the mini is more at home with tasks in the workplace, it may remove the HDMI in favor of other “Pro” connections. But if the mini still has a future as an entertainment device — perhaps like a versatile cousin to Apple TV — then no doubt HDMI will stay. If this is the case, then Apple definitely needs to upgrade video support to 4K as well.

It’s also possible that Apple could cut back ports to only USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 to follow suit with its MacBook Pros.

Refreshed design

While we’ve heard a few rumblings about what a new Mac mini could be like, but very little involving its actual physical appearance. The Mac mini is known for being small, though the definition of small has changed rather quickly over the past few years. Compact PCs that can attach to the back of monitors or fit on your keychain are everywhere you look, and a new Mac mini would have to address the changing context with its size and design.

In terms of materials, that’s also up in the air. Interestingly, Apple has still been making new Mac minis, but only as limited releases. The company has been used purely recycled aluminum from iPhone cases to create Mac minis just for use inside Apple facilities. This doesn’t say much about what Apple may release in October, except that recycled materials could be a part of the plan, but it is an example of how Apple still uses the mini even in its own data architecture.

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Updates to the Ring app will make your home security even smarter

Improve your home security setup for free with all these future updates.

Ring is updating its official Always Home app with Smart Alerts and other new features to help make your home security that much better. If you’re running a Ring camera, like the cameras in the $199 Ring Alarm security system, then you will be excited to know the cameras are getting upgraded without you doing a thing.

Smart Alerts will use your Ring Protect Plan and cloud-based video analysis to deliver only the notifications that matter most to you. This will actually save power on any battery-powered cameras like the Ring Spotlight Cam and improve motion detection by reducing false alerts. The specific examples, which will start rolling out to the Ring app in early 2019, include Motion Verification to rule out false alerts, Motion Stop to halt cameras when the motion is unimportant, Person Detection so the motion detection won’t follow people when it doesn’t need to, and Motion Zones so they can focus on specific areas.

One of the other features includes Camera Previews, which will consolidate the recent images from all of your Ring cameras in one place. You’ll be able to look through the photos, tap the preview, and go to a live view right away. The Timeline feature will give you a look at Ring’s event history and let you know what happened and when.

The Ring app, which will eventually get all these updates and more, is available for free through Google Play, iTunes, and the Windows store.