Apple CEO Tim Cook on Tariffs: ‘We’re Hoping Calm Heads Prevail’

Apple CEO Tim Cook this afternoon spoke about the tariffs the United States has imposed on goods imported from China, and how Apple might be impacted.

Cook said that while Apple believes the trade agreements the United States has with other major economies are in need of modernization, the company does not think that tariffs are the right approach. “We’re sort of encouraging dialogue and so forth,” said Cook.

Apple CEO Tim Cook with Donald Trump at the Executive Tech Summit at Trump Tower in December 2016
In terms of the three tariffs that have already been put in place that impact steel, aluminum, and $50B worth of additional goods from China, none of Apple’s products have been directly impacted.

A fourth tariff on $200 billion in Chinese goods is out for public comment, and Apple says it is evaluating the tariff and will be sharing its views on it with the administration before the end of the comment period. The original Apple Watch has been named in the latest proposal, alongside devices that include the Fitbit charge and some Sonos speakers. Apple has already discontinued its original Apple Watch and newer Apple Watch models are not impacted.

Cook said that examining tariffs is a “tedious process” because there are factors to consider that include not only revenue, but also purchases being made through other companies unrelated to revenue, such as data centers. Apple plans to share its results at a later date.

According to Cook, the risk associated with a macroeconomic issue like an economic slowdown or currency fluctuation is difficult to quantify, and that’s not something Apple is trying to do. Cook said that Apple is “optimistic” that the tariff issue will get sorted out. “There’s an inescapability of mutuality between the United States and China,” said Cook. “Each country can only prosper if the other does… and the world needs the U.S. to and China to prosper.”

Cook said that while he can’t predict the future, he’s “optimistic” that the countries will get through this. “We’re hoping that calm heads prevail,” said Cook.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook ‘The Smartphone Market is Very Healthy’

During today’s earnings call covering the third fiscal quarter of 2018, Apple CEO Tim Cook was questioned about the health of the smartphone market and the impact the company’s choice to offer low-cost battery replacements might have on replacement cycles.

In response, Cook said that he believes the smartphone market is “very healthy. “It’s the best market to be in for someone in the business that we’re in,” said Cook. “Whether it grows one percent or two percent or five percent or six percent or 10 percent or shrinks one or two percent, it’s a great market because it’s just huge.”

iPhone revenue, Cook pointed out, was up 20 percent during the quarter compared to the third quarter of 2017, and Apple has seen mid-single digit growth averages on a weekly sales basis and double-digit growth on an ASP basis. Apple sold a total of 41.3 million iPhones during the quarter, bringing in revenue of nearly $30 billion. The iPhone X continued to be the most popular iPhone during the quarter.

Cook said that he does believe replacement cycles are lengthening, and he says the “major catalyst” for that has been the fact that subsidized plans have become a much smaller percentage of total sales around the world. Apple’s goal is to make great products to encourage customers to purchase new devices.

I think for us, the thing we always have to do is come out with a really great, innovative product. I think iPhone X shows that when you deliver that, there’s enough people out there that will like that, and it can be a really great business.

In a separate response given to a question about Apple’s focus on the home, Cook shared additional comments about the importance of smartphones. “The smartphone has become the repository that goes across the whole of your life, not something meant for a portion of it,” he said. He went on to explain that Apple is focused on a number of areas with its product lineup — home, work, the time between, health, and more. “We’re focused on all of those things.”

In terms of the battery replacement program that has seen Apple offering $29 iPhone battery replacements since the beginning of the year, Cook reiterated a statement he made back in February during an earlier earnings call. Apple, he said, has never done an internal analysis on how many people bought a battery compared to purchasing a new phone because it wasn’t a factor in the decision.

“It was never about that for us,” said Cook. “It was about doing something great for the user. Treat users and customers well and you have a good business over time. That’s how we look at that.”

Related Roundup: iPhone XTags: Tim Cook, iPhone SlowdownBuyer’s Guide: iPhone X (Caution)
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Huawei Surpasses Apple to Become #2 Worldwide Smartphone Vendor in Q2 2018

With 54.2 million smartphones shipped in the second calendar quarter of 2018, Chinese smartphone company Huawei has surpassed Apple to become the number two worldwide smartphone vendor, according to new data shared today by IDC.

During the quarter, which includes data from April to June, Apple shipped 41.3 million iPhones worldwide, a number that it shared earlier today with its earnings release for its third fiscal quarter. In the year-ago quarter, Apple shipped 41 million iPhones, marking just a small increase in shipments this year.

According to IDC, Apple’s share of the smartphone market for the quarter was 12.1 percent, compared to Huawei’s 15.8 percent. Huawei saw 41 percent year-over-year growth in market share with an increase of 15.7 million smartphones shipped in Q2 2018 compared to Q2 2017.

Samsung continues to be the number one smartphone vendor with 71.5 million smartphones shipped and 20.9 percent of the market, with Xiaomi and OPPO trailing after Apple and Huawei with 31.9 and 29.4 million smartphones shipped, respectively. Canalys, Strategy Analytics, and IHS Market have also published data agreeing with IDC’s assessment of the smartphone market.

In total, IDC says there were 342 million smartphones shipped during the second quarter of 2018, a 1.8 percent decline from the 348.2 million smartphones shipped during the second quarter of 2017.

While Apple’s iPhone shipments were largely stagnant year-over-year, the higher average selling price it achieved with the iPhone X resulted in an impressive 20 percent increase in revenue and iPhone earnings of nearly $30 billion.

IDC’s numbers look only at total number of smartphones shipped, with Huawei seeing major growth in the $600 to $800 segment thanks to the P20 and P20 Pro series.

We are likely to see shifts in these smartphone vendor rankings over the course of the next few quarters as this is Apple’s weakest quarter. At this point, Apple’s flagship iPhones are several months old, which always results in a slowdown in sales. After new devices are released in the fall, Apple will see much stronger shipment numbers during the fiscal fourth quarter of 2018 and first fiscal quarter of 2019.

Apple dropped to the third spot for the first time despite its second quarter growth. Apple shipped 41.3 million iPhones, representing modest growth of 0.7% over the 41.0 million units shipped last year. The iPhone continued to perform well at the high end as the iPhone X remains a top seller in many markets. Apple will look to regain control of the market this fall with the expected launch of three next generations of iPhone models. The new models are rumored to bring different screens sizes, price points, increased performance, and new features to the table when they arrive next quarter.

Rumors suggest Apple plans to better compete in the mid-priced smartphone market in late 2018 and 2019 with a lower-priced 6.1-inch feature-rich iPhone that offers Face ID, an edge-to-edge display, and the same fast processor as the company’s more expensive OLED models.

Tags: Samsung, IDC, Huawei
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Bose Sleepbuds review — Everything you need to know

This article previously appeared on our sister site, SoundGuys.com

If you’ve got tinnitus, getting to sleep never really gets easier with time. While we’d all like to envision ourselves as the protagonist of Baby Driver, those afflicted with tinnitus or a noisy sleep environment are generally tired wrecks during the day. That’s where the Bose Sleepbuds come in.

What are the Bose Sleepbuds?

In short, this product is designed people who just can’t get to sleep without some added noise help. Bose created a set of truly wireless earbuds to drown out the air conditioner, tinnitus, or really any unwanted noise around you. Earplugs alone aren’t up to the task if you have tinnitus, so this is a one-size-fits-all solution for insomniacs out there.

The batteries may take forever to charge, but they also last longer than any truly wireless earbuds on the market.

Unlike other truly wireless earbuds, these aren’t built to listen to music as you sleep, no: they only work with the Bose Sleep app. There, you can choose between a number of ambient recordings for you to zonk out to. Basically, it’s a white noise machine that won’t annoy your partner (or downstairs neighbors).

While I would have preferred some sort of noise-cancelling or more effective isolation, I understand why this was impossible. Basically, it’s all about comfort: having little earbuds jammed deep in your ear canal can be distractingly uncomfortable, so Bose elected to not risk poking your sensitive ear bits with a large nozzle. These buds sit just outside your ear canal, held in place by a helix fin so they don’t fall out if you toss and turn.

How do the Bose Sleepbuds work?

Billed as a set of noise-masking earbuds, the Bose Sleepbuds do not offer any noise cancellation or much isolation. Instead, they play ambient sound recordings — from a campfire to a rainy day — to drown out the world around you. Normally this can be a very risky thing to do, but this particular product manages its output well, as I’ll outline below. It will not damage your hearing due to noise exposure on its own.

Very tiny and unobtrusive, the Sleepbuds sit just outside the ear canal, though they do act as a physical barrier to it.

When people talk about a sound “drowning out” another, they’re really referring to a phenomenon called auditory masking, where your brain (and ears) will prevent you from perceiving quieter sounds with similar notes. If there’s a louder sound (a masker), you won’t hear the quieter sounds you’d normally get annoyed by.

As you can imagine, this is the least-preferable method of dealing with unwanted noise, as it’s most likely to damage your hearing. However, there’s no issue if the total sound pressure level (SPL) that reaches your eardrum remains under 80dB. Considering the ear tips physically block some sound already, the Bose Sleepbuds aren’t as dangerous to your long-term hearing health as you might expect.

Do the Bose Sleepbuds work well?

While it’s hard to objectively assess new product categories as they arise, the Bose Sleepbuds weren’t actually all that challenging to pin down. Considering their entire purpose is to drown out sound, there’s only a few things we need to figure out:

Can they mask normal apartment sounds?
Are they safe to use?
How long is the battery capable of lasting?

With this in mind, I tested these using an air conditioner at full blast and a test head over some time. For the most part, this product works as advertised — with little else to discuss. The Sleepbuds mask out enough normal sounds to work as intended. If for whatever reason you’re unable to block out the noise around you, that’s a serious problem. This product is designed to be safe to use, and if the sound levels around you are so high they can’t be used effectively, you’re likely already in danger of hearing loss without them.

It may seem a little useless to point out, but the Sleepbuds can only drown out so much noise. While that may annoy you, it’s for the best — otherwise they’d be unsafe to use.

Are the Bose Sleepbuds safe to use?

More or less.

Zero low-end attenuation means lots of sound will reach your ear… just not high-pitched noise.

The Bose Sleepbuds do a fairly commendable job blocking out high-frequency sound, but they do almost nothing to physically isolate you from the low hum of the air conditioner, airplane, or that damn truck idling outside your window (thanks, road crew). However they block out super high notes and sounds surprisingly well, even though it’s tough to get a good seal. This product definitely leans on drowning out low-frequency sounds with its loudness.

If you do nothing but increase the force applied to your ears, you risk damaging your hearing by something called noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). While my testing revealed a higher peak SPL than what Bose advertises, I also pushed the limits of this product to see how bad the noise situation could be. Even when putting the test fixture next to a loud air conditioner, the simulated ear drums never saw a sound pressure level over 80dB.

Even if you don’t have tinnitus, these work well enough if you have an air conditioner at full blast.

However, the Sleepbuds on their own cannot damage your hearing. I measured their peak dBSPL at roughly 74dB, which is solidly shy of the level needed to cause hearing damage at an exposure of eight hours. Considering it would take decades of exposure for more than eight hours every day for that level to cause hearing damage, it’s safe to say this product is unlikely to harm you. It’s not impossible, just extremely unlikely.

How long does the battery last?

Because this product relies on being used for an entire night, Bose eschewed ANC and modern lithium batteries in favor of noise-masking and silver-zinc batteries. By reducing power requirements and opting for a lower-output cell, the Sleepbuds last a whole lot longer than most truly-wireless earbuds. Even if you blast them at full volume, they should last you most of the night.

At max volume, the Bose Sleepbuds last 15 hours and 2 minutes

The Sleepbuds are charged and stored in a battery case (like most truly wireless options) with a brushed metal exterior. When charging, the buds are held in place magnetically, and should be good to go after 8 hours. That’s a super long charging time, but remember you get a super long battery life as well. As long as you put the buds back in the case when you wake up, they should be ready early enough for a post-work nap if you need it.

At max volume, the Bose Sleepbuds last 15 hours and 2 minutes before one channel disconnects from the other. I didn’t even bother testing at 50 percent because nobody needs to sleep that long (and I love sleeping late). If you keep the volume under the recommended limit, you could probably squeeze a couple days out of these. Due to the nature of the product itself, we don’t expect anyone to use it at minimum volume. You need volume to drown out noise, right?

Should you buy the Bose Sleepbuds?

At the end of the day, this is an expensive, specialized product. It does exactly what it’s supposed to do, but I imagine there’s a competing solution for a little less money. Then again, it’s hard to put a price on good sleep. If you don’t have tinnitus, ear plugs can be uncomfortable and they hurt when you toss and turn at night. Additionally, regular foam earplugs generally don’t isolate much more than 10dB.

If sleep-assisting earbuds become a product category, Bose’s Sleepbuds are currently the gold standard.

Apple’s Wearable Category Sees 60% Growth Year-Over-Year, With Revenue Exceeding $10B Over Last Four Quarters

Apple’s “Other Products” category, which includes AirPods, Apple TV, Apple Watch, iPod touch, HomePod, Beats products, and Apple-branded and third-party accessories brought in $3.74 billion in revenue during the third quarter of 2018, up an impressive 37 percent percent compared to the year-ago quarter.

Apple does not break down the specific sales numbers of products in the “Other” category, which makes it difficult to determine specific sales numbers for products like the HomePod, AirPods, and the Apple Watch, but Apple CEO Tim Cook this afternoon provided some insight into Apple’s wearable business.

Revenue from wearables, which includes the Apple Watch and AirPods, saw 60 percent growth year over year, according to Cook. Wearables revenue also exceeded $10 billion over the course of the last four quarters.

Apple Watch had a record-breaking June quarter with revenue growth in the mid 40 percent range. The Apple Watch’s record-breaking June quarter comes just weeks ahead of when Apple is expected to introduce a whole new model, with a larger display, better heart rate tracking, and other improved features as outlined in our Apple Watch roundup.

Cook didn’t go into details on the AirPods, but he said Apple is “thrilled” to see so many customers using AirPods. “It reminds me of the early days of the iPod,” he said. “When I saw those white earbuds everywhere I went.”

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 4, watchOS 5, AirPodsTag: earningsBuyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Caution), AirPods (Caution)
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Apple Pay Coming to Germany, Also Set to Launch at CVS and 711 Later This Year

During today’s earnings call for the third quarter of 2018, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Apple plans to bring Apple Pay to Germany later this year.

Apple Pay support in Germany has been rumored for some time now as Apple has been working to establish deals over fees and other factors with German banks.

Apple did not provide details on exactly when Apple Pay will launch in Germany, but it could come potentially with the debut of iOS 12 in September.

In addition to announcing Apple Pay’s upcoming German launch, Cook also said that Apple Pay will be rolling out at CVS drug stores and 711 convenience stores in the United States later in the year.

There were upwards of 1 billion Apple Pay transactions in the third quarter of 2018, triple the amount from the year ago with growth accelerating from the March quarter. Cook said that in Q3 2018, there were more Apple Pay transactions than Square transactions, and more mobile transactions than PayPal.

Apple Pay is now available in more than 20 countries, including United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, France, Russia, China, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Taiwan, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, UAE, Brazil, Ukraine, Norway, and Poland.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
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Nvidia confirms its preshow Gamescom event, promises ‘spectacular surprises’

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Nvidia now confirms previous rumors that the company will host a special event just before the Gamescom gaming convention in Germany. Called the GeForce Gaming Celebration, the event will be held off-site on August 20 at a location the company is currently keeping secret. Anyone in the Cologne, Germany area can attend the event by registering here.

“There’s limited space, so make sure you arrive early. Can’t make it in person? Don’t worry, it will be livestreamed,” the company says. “The event will be loaded with new, exclusive, hands-on demos of the hottest upcoming games, stage presentations from the world’s biggest game developers, and some spectacular surprises.”

One of the “spectacular surprises” is expected to be the GeForce GTX 1180 add-in graphics card, and possibly even the GTX 1170 and the GTX 1160. They’re the company’s highly-anticipated next-generation graphics cards based on its new “Turing” design, ignoring the company’s “Volta” design currently used in graphics cards for the professional market.

Rumors of the event surfaced in early July as Nvidia quietly distributed invitations to the press. These invitations were presumed to be the typical all-expenses-paid trips to the then-secret event in Germany, meaning Nvidia likely has more to show than just hands-on demos and game developer presentations. Nvidia will supposedly use this event to introduce its new GTX 11 Series followed by a retail release starting in August.

An alleged leaked email from one of Nvidia’s hardware partners surfaced last week that gave a look into the release schedule for Nvidia’s new graphics cards. Sent to a retailer, the email said the GTX 1180 would arrive on August 30 followed by the GTX 1170 and GTX 1180+ on September 30. Rounding out the 2018 schedule would be the GTX 1160 on October 30.

According to the email, Nvidia and its hardware partners delayed the GTX 11 Series launch due to the current flood of GTX 10 Series cards. That’s a different outlook compared to July 2017 when cards were hard to find — or severely inflated in price — due to the cryptocurrency mining craze. Manufacturers cranked out additional cards to compensate, but now the market is flooded due to the dramatic drop in digital coin mining.

“We have an overstock of 10xx GPUs and we’re in the middle of transitioning our manufacturing over from the 10xx to the 11xx series in preparation for releasing the new cards,” the letter states.” However, because we and other partners and manufacturers have an abundance of unfinished or unsold 10xx GPUs, Nvidia decided to have us delay the release of the 11xx cards.”

That said, Gamescom is the perfect time to reveal new cards and liquidate the current stock with crazy Gamescom-themed discounts. According to Nvidia, the event “will be filled with awesome new PC games running on the latest GeForce hardware” along with “some spectacular surprises.” If you’re in the area and want to attend, register now due to the event’s limited space. First-come, first-served, Nvidia warns.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Cryptocurrency may be why you still don’t have Nvidia GTX 11 Series graphics
• Email shows Nvidia’s GTX 11 Series will start being released in late August
• Nvidia’s GTX 11 Series may get people ready for the next generation of VR
• What is G-Sync? If you’re a gaming fan, you’ll want to know
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 11 Series’ arrival is uncertain after Computex remark

Google Clock is getting music streaming support — here’s how to enable it

Waking up can be a real pain in the butt, however, Google is making it a little easier with the Google Clock app. Now, the Clock app supports Spotify, meaning you can wake up to your favorite tunes.

An update to the Clock app is rolling out this week and essentially adds a Spotify tab to the alarm sound options in the Clock app. Unsurprisingly, Spotify won’t be the only music streaming service to support the new feature — while it is strange YouTube Music integration isn’t there by default, Google has promised in some reports that it will be coming soon.

Interested in choosing a song from your music library for use with the Google Clock app? Follow the steps below to enable the feature.

Make sure you have Spotify on your Android phone running Android 5.0 Lollipop or later. Also, check to make sure you have the latest version of the Clock app.
Under your alarm, press the ringer button to choose a sound.
Tap on the Spotify tab.
Choose a song from your Spotify library. The first time, you may need to log in to your Spotify account in the Clock app.

Thankfully, the new feature is available to both Free an Premium Spotify subscribers, so if you don’t want to you won’t have to shell out any cash to choose your wake-up music. The app will also give users the option to keep listening to their music after turning off the alarm.

It’s certainly a welcome new feature. Other alarm apps, and the Clock app on Apple’s iPhone, have allowed users to choose their favorite music to wake up to for some time now. Google is a little late to the game in that respect — though it’s always better late than never.

If you don’t see the new feature yet, don’t worry — it’s rolling out globally this week, so it may take a few days to get to you. Eventually, it will be available to all Android devices running Android 5.0 Lollipop or later, so as long as you have a relatively recent phone, you should be able to make use of the new feature.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Spotify vs. Pandora: Which music streaming service is better for you?
• Deezer’s lossless audio for Google Home has finally arrived in the U.S.
• Apple Music vs. Spotify: Which service is the streaming king?
• Rise and shine with the best alarm clocks to kick-start your day
• The best alarm clock apps for Android and iOS

SamSam ransomware has generated $5.9 million from victims since 2015

Security firm Sophos reports that the SamSam ransomware has done more financial damage than previously believed, generating $5.9 million from victims since it originally appeared in December 2015. Sophos says hackers use SamSam in attacks about once per day, but the typical web surfer will likely never experience the devastation given SamSam’s target audience.

The sole task of ransomware is to hold a PC hostage by encrypting its data. For a fee, hackers will release that data. Ransomware is typically used in untargeted email spam campaigns where recipients click on an attachment or link that installs the ransomware on their PC. These campaigns typically don’t target specific people but flood the inboxes of hundreds of thousands of individuals.

According to Sophos, SamSam is different. It’s not used in a widespread spam campaign looking to hook potential victims. Instead, a single hacker or a team of individuals breaks into a network, scans the network, and then manually runs the ransomware. They are tailored attacks to maximize the damage and generate high-dollar ransoms.

“Perhaps most eye-catching though is new information about how it spreads,” the security firm reports. “Unlike WannaCry, which exploited a software vulnerability to copy itself to new machines, SamSam is actually deployed to computers on the victim’s network in the same way, and with the same tools, as legitimate software applications.”

Originally SamSam was believed to be used to solely attack healthcare, government, and educational organizations. But a deeper investigation reveals that companies in the private sector have actually taken the brunt of the attacks but are just unwilling to come forward to reveal their forced payments.

That said, businesses in the private sector account for 50 percent of the known attacks followed by healthcare (26 percent), government (13 percent), and education (11 percent) institutions.

A chart provided with the report shows that 74 percent of the victim organizations identified by Sophos reside within the United States. The United Kingdom trails with eight percent followed by Belgium, Canada, and Australia, while other countries such as Denmark, Estonia, the Netherlands, and India are one percent. There are other victims and countries Sophos has yet to identify.

The entire ransomware problem appears to stem from weak passwords. Hackers gain access to networks through the Remote Access Protocol that typically allows executives and workers to access the network remotely from a PC while at home or during a business trip. Hackers use software to guess these weak passwords and infiltrate the network.

But unlike WannaCry and NotPetya, hackers don’t unleash a worm that crawls through the network and infects every PC. Instead, they continually pound the network’s defenses until they get around the roadblocks and retrieve the access they want — or are booted from the network. From there, they move from PC to PC.

If the attack is successful, hackers wait to see if victims make payment through a website posted on the dark web. The ransoms have increased over time, Sophos claims, to around $50,000. Untargeted ransomware attacks such as spam campaigns typically only generate three-figure ransoms.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Hackers can purchase government login credentials for cheap on the dark web
• U.S. claims North Korea has been silently infiltrating networks since 2009
• Pay-n-pray cybersecurity isn’t working. What if we just paid when it works?
• The demand for hacking tools and malware is greater than the current supply
• Millions of health records may be at stake in ransomware attack

Judgmental A.I. mirror rates how trustworthy you are based on your looks

As the success of the iPhone X’s Face ID confirms, lots of us are thrilled to bits at the idea of a machine that can identify us based on our facial features. But how happy would you be if a computer used your facial features to start making judgments about your age, your gender, your race, your attractiveness, your trustworthiness, or even how kind you are?

Chances are that, somewhere down the line, you’d start to get a bit freaked out. Especially if the A.I. in question was using this information in a way that controlled the opportunities or options that are made available to you.

Exploring this tricky (and somewhat unsettling) side of artificial intelligence is a new project from researchers at the University of Melbourne in Australia. Taking the form of a smart biometric mirror, their device uses facial-recognition technology to analyze users’ faces, and then presents an assessment in the form of 14 different characteristics it has “learned” from what it’s seen.

“Initially, the system is quite secretive about what to expect,” Dr. Niels Wouters, one of the researchers who worked on the project, told Digital Trends. “Nothing more than, ‘hey, do you want to see what computers know about you?’ is what lures people in. But as they give consent to proceed and their photo is taken, it gradually shows how personal the feedback can get.”

As Wouters points out, problematic elements are present from the beginning, although not all users may immediately realize it. For example, the system only allows binary genders, and can recognize just five ethnicities — meaning that an Asian student might be recognized as Hispanic, or an Indigenous Australian as African. Later assessment such as a person’s level of responsibility or emotional stability will likely prompt a response from everyone who uses the device.

The idea is to show the dangers of biased data sets, and the way that problematic or discriminatory behavior can become encoded in machine learning systems. This is something that Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble did a great job of discussing in her recent book Algorithms of Oppression.

“[At present, the discussion surrounding these kind of issues in A.I.] is mostly led by ethicists, academics, and technologists,” Wouters continued. “But with an increasing number of A.I. deployments in society, people need to be made more aware of what A.I. is, what it can do, how it can go wrong, and whether it’s even the next logical step in evolution we want to embrace.”

With artificial intelligence increasingly used to make judgements about everything from whether we’ll make a good employee to our levels of aggression, devices such as the Biometric Mirror will only become more relevant

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• Dontnod’s upcoming mystery ‘Twin Mirrors’ should appeal to ‘Life is Strange’ fans
• Here’s how to mirror your smartphone or tablet onto your TV
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