Apple Shares Latest Transparency Report Outlining Government Data Requests From July 1 to December 31, 2017

Apple today released its latest transparency report outlining government data requests for the second half of 2017, covering the dates between July 1 and December 31 [PDF].

Apple’s transparency reports are designed to provide customers with information on how many data-related requests it has received from law enforcement officials both in the United States and globally.

In the United States, Apple received 4,450 requests for 15,168 devices and provided data 80 percent of the time (in 3,548 cases). Worldwide, Apple received a total of 29,718 requests covering 309,362 devices and provided data 79 percent of the time (in 23,445 cases).

Apple received a similar number of requests in the United States and worldwide from July to December 2016, but the number of devices included in the total number of requests has doubled. Last year, Apple received 30,184 total requests covering 151,105 devices and complied with 72 percent of those requests.

Data requests cover a wide range of circumstances, from instances where law enforcement agencies are working on behalf of customers who have asked for help locating lost or stolen devices to issues with credit card fraud to criminal investigations.

In the United States, requests Apple receives can include subpoenas, court orders, search warrants, pen register/trap and trace orders, or wiretap orders.

While Apple attempts to be as transparent as possible in these reports, the government does not allow the company to release specific details on the number of National Security requests received, instead requiring a number range to be provided to customers. Apple uses the narrowest range permissible by law.

In the latest report, Apple says it received between 16,000 and 16,249 National Security Orders and provided data for 8,000 to 8,249 accounts. Apple did not report any declassified National Security letters. The number of National Security Orders Apple receives continues to grow and has more than doubled since the July-December 2016 report. Apple received a similar number of requests during the first half of 2017.

In addition to the total number of device requests and National Security Orders, Apple also shares information on a range of other categories like financial identifier requests, government account requests, account preservation requests, emergency requests, and more, all of which can be viewed directly in the transparency report.

Apple says that starting with its next report covering the second half of 2018, it will include details on when a government asks for an app to be removed from the App Store.

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Documents show Apple knew the iPhone 6 range would bend

According to Apple’s test data, the Cupertino giant knew that the iPhone 6 range would be more susceptible to physical bending than previous iPhone generations.

The document states that Apple’s internal testing found that, compared to the iPhone 5S, the iPhone 6 was 3.3 times more likely to bend, while the iPhone 6 Plus was a whopping 7.2 times more likely to bend than Apple’s previous smaller phones. Since the majority of the “Bendgate” controversy centered on the iPhone 6 Plus in particular, it would seem this testing was accurate.

The information comes courtesy as a part of an ongoing class action lawsuit against Apple, which claims the company wilfully misled consumers by selling the iPhone 6 range despite knowing of engineering flaws. The class action suit against Apple, filed in California, holds that Apple was aware of the flaw, known as “touch disease,” and by continuing to sell the iPhones, breached consumer trust by wilfully selling a flawed product. While the majority of the information heard in this case is currently sealed, U.S. District Court judge Lucy Koh saw fit to release certain segments of the of the information to the public.

Credit | Mashable

According to most third-party repairers, “touch disease,” where the iPhone’s touchscreen loses consistency and eventually completely fails, was a result of the iPhone 6’s bend — though Apple has always denied the flaw was inherent, and refused to repair affected units for free. According to further information released by Koh, in May 2016 Apple quietly began reinforcing the faulty part of the logic board commonly associated with the touch disease flaw. Despite this, Apple has always maintained that issues with the touchscreen generally came about on devices “after being dropped multiple times on a hard surface and then incurring further stress on the device.”

In many ways, this lawsuit comes as a result of the iPhone 6 range’s infamous bend, known as “Bendgate.” That flaw led to users complaining that their new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus units were bending after spending time in their pockets. The issue continued to escalate, with competitors and other companies poking fun at Apple for the controversy, until Apple agreed to replace affected units.

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Pornhub now provides a free virtual private network to hide your online habits

Update: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified an actress in VPNhub’s videos as a spokesperson for Progressive. We have corrected the article to remove the mistake.

The internet just landed another virtual private network (VPN) service to keep you anonymous online. Called VPNhub, it went live on Thursday, May 24 from the biggest adult entertainment site you can currently troll: Pornhub. It wasn’t developed to specifically flip through the site’s naughtiness undetected, but to serve as a free, unlimited service no matter where your desires take you across the world wide web. 

What is a VPN? It’s a service that masks your individual IP address and creates an encrypted data tunnel, making you untraceable. They’re especially handy when you’re connected to a public network, or a business that needs to transmit sensitive data to a remote branch location. They’re even used to access content from other countries that may be unobtainable in your region. 

“VPNhub makes it impossible for ISPs to throttle user’s usage, as they navigate the internet without having to deal with local networks or geographic limitations,” the company says. “Furthermore, VPNhub provides users with an extra layer of security, transmitting sensitive data under its cloak of anonymity, rendering it inaccessible to hackers, government entities, and prying eyes.” 

The service conveniently arrives as the government continues its tug-of-war over net neutrality. If the rules are ultimately eradicated as scheduled, many fear that internet service providers will be free to filter content, create “fast lanes” that will drive up end-user cost, and throttle bandwidth at will. Service providers reassure us that nothing will radically change regarding internet regulation, but if they do change their minds, the use of VPNs may turn out to be an effective consumer response. 

Of course, using VPNhub will enable Pornhub lurkers to get their eyeful without fear of their browser history or internet actions falling into the wrong hands. The popular adult site has you covered on any device, too, supporting the iOS, Android, Windows 10 and MacOS platforms. But there’s a catch. 

While VPNhub is essentially a free service, Pornhub offers a “premium” subscription as well. This paid model removes all advertisements, includes 24/7 technical support, increases the speed of your data tunnel, and provides a longer list of supported countries. But whether you use the free or premium subscription, VPNhub does not support the following countries: Burma/Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. 

VPNhub is part of Pornhub’s effort to protect customer privacy. The company moved to HTTPS connectivity in 2017, which provides a secure connection between the site and the end user. It also launched a bug bounty program that rewards researchers for finding holes in the site’s security. Pornhub also plans to accept Verge cryptocurrency for anonymous payments. 

“With 90 million visitors a day, the vast majority of whom are using devices on the go, it’s especially important that we continue to ensure the privacy of our users and maintain their confidentiality,” says Pornhub VP Corey Price. 

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Pornhub now provides a free virtual private network to hide your online habits

Update: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified an actress in VPNhub’s videos as a spokesperson for Progressive. We have corrected the article to remove the mistake.

The internet just landed another virtual private network (VPN) service to keep you anonymous online. Called VPNhub, it went live on Thursday, May 24 from the biggest adult entertainment site you can currently troll: Pornhub. It wasn’t developed to specifically flip through the site’s naughtiness undetected, but to serve as a free, unlimited service no matter where your desires take you across the world wide web. 

What is a VPN? It’s a service that masks your individual IP address and creates an encrypted data tunnel, making you untraceable. They’re especially handy when you’re connected to a public network, or a business that needs to transmit sensitive data to a remote branch location. They’re even used to access content from other countries that may be unobtainable in your region. 

“VPNhub makes it impossible for ISPs to throttle user’s usage, as they navigate the internet without having to deal with local networks or geographic limitations,” the company says. “Furthermore, VPNhub provides users with an extra layer of security, transmitting sensitive data under its cloak of anonymity, rendering it inaccessible to hackers, government entities, and prying eyes.” 

The service conveniently arrives as the government continues its tug-of-war over net neutrality. If the rules are ultimately eradicated as scheduled, many fear that internet service providers will be free to filter content, create “fast lanes” that will drive up end-user cost, and throttle bandwidth at will. Service providers reassure us that nothing will radically change regarding internet regulation, but if they do change their minds, the use of VPNs may turn out to be an effective consumer response. 

Of course, using VPNhub will enable Pornhub lurkers to get their eyeful without fear of their browser history or internet actions falling into the wrong hands. The popular adult site has you covered on any device, too, supporting the iOS, Android, Windows 10 and MacOS platforms. But there’s a catch. 

While VPNhub is essentially a free service, Pornhub offers a “premium” subscription as well. This paid model removes all advertisements, includes 24/7 technical support, increases the speed of your data tunnel, and provides a longer list of supported countries. But whether you use the free or premium subscription, VPNhub does not support the following countries: Burma/Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. 

VPNhub is part of Pornhub’s effort to protect customer privacy. The company moved to HTTPS connectivity in 2017, which provides a secure connection between the site and the end user. It also launched a bug bounty program that rewards researchers for finding holes in the site’s security. Pornhub also plans to accept Verge cryptocurrency for anonymous payments. 

“With 90 million visitors a day, the vast majority of whom are using devices on the go, it’s especially important that we continue to ensure the privacy of our users and maintain their confidentiality,” says Pornhub VP Corey Price. 

Editors’ Recommendations

• With this browser, ads can’t steal your attention — they have to pay you for it
• Your ISP can peep on your browsing, so Cloudflare is pulling down the shade
• Facebook’s Express Wi-Fi offers internet service to developing countries
• Want to hide your Pornhub browsing? Use digital currency to make payments
• Web trackers aren’t just spying on you; they’re slowing you down

Apple rejection means you can’t play Steam games on your iPhone after all

The Steam Link application that makes it possible for mobile gamers to stream their PC games to their tablet, smartphone, or connected TV, will remain an Android exclusive for now, as Apple has rejected its release on the App Store. Valve claims that Apple did initially approve the application, but has since rejected it, claiming that “business conflicts” meant it did not comply with app guidelines.

Not to be confused with the Steam Link streaming hub that Valve released in 2015, the Steam Link app was designed to offer a similar functionality, but for Android and iOS devices. While it is available on the Google Play store in beta form, it’s nowhere to be found on Apple’s App Store, because despite an earlier approval, it’s been rejected. Valve appealed the ruling, but it was rejected once again.

“On Monday, May 7th, Apple approved the Steam Link app for release,” Valve said in a statement. “On Wednesday, May 9, Valve released news of the app. The following morning, Apple revoked its approval citing business conflicts with app guidelines that had allegedly not been realized by the original review team.”

This was a surprise to Valve, as Apple already has several streaming applications on the App Store, including LogMeIn and GoToMyPC, as Ars Technica points out. It went on to explain to Apple in an appeal that the app does not allow any sort of direct purchases, but is merely designed as a way to stream games over the local network from a connected Windows PC.

“Ultimately, that appeal was denied leaving the Steam Link app for iOS blocked from release,” Valve said. “The team here spent many hours on this project and the approval process, so we’re clearly disappointed. But we hope Apple will reconsider in the future.”

It’s possible that Apple didn’t like the idea of iOS users having access to so many Steam games through its own hardware, potentially diverting sales away from the App Store, where almost half of all revenue is derived from game purchases.

Apple has made no official statement on why it may have rejected the Steam Link app, or whether it will reconsider its inclusion on the App Store in the future. For now, it seems, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV users will be without the ability to stream Steam games to their respective devices.

In the meantime, here’s a list of the best games that you can play on iOS.

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Apple rejection means you can’t play Steam games on your iPhone after all

The Steam Link application that makes it possible for mobile gamers to stream their PC games to their tablet, smartphone, or connected TV, will remain an Android exclusive for now, as Apple has rejected its release on the App Store. Valve claims that Apple did initially approve the application, but has since rejected it, claiming that “business conflicts” meant it did not comply with app guidelines.

Not to be confused with the Steam Link streaming hub that Valve released in 2015, the Steam Link app was designed to offer a similar functionality, but for Android and iOS devices. While it is available on the Google Play store in beta form, it’s nowhere to be found on Apple’s App Store, because despite an earlier approval, it’s been rejected. Valve appealed the ruling, but it was rejected once again.

“On Monday, May 7th, Apple approved the Steam Link app for release,” Valve said in a statement. “On Wednesday, May 9, Valve released news of the app. The following morning, Apple revoked its approval citing business conflicts with app guidelines that had allegedly not been realized by the original review team.”

This was a surprise to Valve, as Apple already has several streaming applications on the App Store, including LogMeIn and GoToMyPC, as Ars Technica points out. It went on to explain to Apple in an appeal that the app does not allow any sort of direct purchases, but is merely designed as a way to stream games over the local network from a connected Windows PC.

“Ultimately, that appeal was denied leaving the Steam Link app for iOS blocked from release,” Valve said. “The team here spent many hours on this project and the approval process, so we’re clearly disappointed. But we hope Apple will reconsider in the future.”

It’s possible that Apple didn’t like the idea of iOS users having access to so many Steam games through its own hardware, potentially diverting sales away from the App Store, where almost half of all revenue is derived from game purchases.

Apple has made no official statement on why it may have rejected the Steam Link app, or whether it will reconsider its inclusion on the App Store in the future. For now, it seems, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV users will be without the ability to stream Steam games to their respective devices.

In the meantime, here’s a list of the best games that you can play on iOS.

Editors’ Recommendations

• You can soon stream your Steam PC games to Android, iPhone, Apple TV
• Steam Machines quietly disappear from Valve’s home page
• Gabe Newell says Valve currently has multiple games in development
• From DIY to AAA, here’s how to take a passport photo in five different ways
• Free Pluto VR chat and messaging app for gamers enters Early Access on Steam

Vacation and chill: The best virtual destinations to ‘visit’ this Memorial Day

Memorial Day is quickly approaching, which means an obscene amount of people will be leaving their homes to go on vacation. Though it may seem like a good idea to go on a road trip or stay in a luxurious Airbnb, the fact is traveling is expensive, plus there is no guarantee that you’ll have a good time. You might miss your flight, lose your passport, forget to pack underwear — really, anything could go wrong. But, what if you could see the world without changing out of your sweats?

Virtual reality lets you explore places you’ve never even dreamed of right from your bedroom. No costs or long lines, just a pure, uninterrupted experience. The world is your virtual oyster, but where do you even start? Well, we’ve put together some of the most exotic and otherworldly locales to visit in VR. Pop some popcorn, put on your favorite VR headset — or one of ours — and start exploring.

Cut the lines at Disneyland Park

Skip the long lines, screaming children, and overpriced Mickey ears for a quiet evening exploring Disneyland in the comfort of your own home. Google Earth VR navigates you pass the hordes of people, allowing you to get the full experience of the Magic Kingdom in less time than it would take to wait in line for tickets.

Available via:

Oculus Steam

Take a dive into the Caribbean Sea

Captain Salty / Dronestagram

Don’t waste your time getting “swimsuit ready” when you can just take a dip in the virtual ocean. Ascape VR can instantly transport you to the Cayman Islands, where you can dive with sharks or wade in the water amid stunning beach views.

Available via:

Google Apple

Hike to Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu receives more than a million visitors annually — and now you can explore the mystical ruins too, with Jaunt VR. You don’t have to camp or hike and, more importantly, you won’t be spit on by an alpaca when you’re ascending the Salkantay trail.

Available via:

Google Apple Steam

Forage the final frontier

Nix the space suits and the freeze-dried strawberries for a virtual tour of the International Space Station (ISS). With Google Earth VR, you can see our planet from within the Cupola Observational Module, a six-window observatory that towers above the stratosphere and houses the robotic workstation that controls the space station’s remote manipulator arm. Google Street View also lets you further explore the ISS, including the Columbus Research Laboratory. It’s mostly filled with white wires and computers, sure, but you’re in space, so it’s somehow cooler.

Available via:

Steam

Ride a gondola through Venice

There is no better way to see Venice then riding through on a gondola, or for our sake, a virtual gondola. Explor VR lets you float along the Canal Grande and pass under the oldest bridge in Venice, the Rialto. With a city that is slowly sinking, seeing its historical monuments and bright colored buildings, even from afar, is well worth it.

Available via:

Apple

Swim with elephants in South Africa

Alberto Ghizzi Panizza/Getty Images

While your friends are getting sunburned in Cancún, you will be virtually swimming with elephants. With Discovery VR, you can get up close and personal with one of the smartest species of the animal kingdom. Not only will this app land you front-row seats to exotic animal behavior, but the company has recently partnered with Racing Extinction, allowing you to get a closer look at various endangered species and those on the brink of extinction.

Available via:

Discovery

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Vacation and chill: The best virtual destinations to ‘visit’ this Memorial Day

Memorial Day is quickly approaching, which means an obscene amount of people will be leaving their homes to go on vacation. Though it may seem like a good idea to go on a road trip or stay in a luxurious Airbnb, the fact is traveling is expensive, plus there is no guarantee that you’ll have a good time. You might miss your flight, lose your passport, forget to pack underwear — really, anything could go wrong. But, what if you could see the world without changing out of your sweats?

Virtual reality lets you explore places you’ve never even dreamed of right from your bedroom. No costs or long lines, just a pure, uninterrupted experience. The world is your virtual oyster, but where do you even start? Well, we’ve put together some of the most exotic and otherworldly locales to visit in VR. Pop some popcorn, put on your favorite VR headset — or one of ours — and start exploring.

Cut the lines at Disneyland Park

Skip the long lines, screaming children, and overpriced Mickey ears for a quiet evening exploring Disneyland in the comfort of your own home. Google Earth VR navigates you pass the hordes of people, allowing you to get the full experience of the Magic Kingdom in less time than it would take to wait in line for tickets.

Available via:

Oculus Steam

Take a dive into the Caribbean Sea

Captain Salty / Dronestagram

Don’t waste your time getting “swimsuit ready” when you can just take a dip in the virtual ocean. Ascape VR can instantly transport you to the Cayman Islands, where you can dive with sharks or wade in the water amid stunning beach views.

Available via:

Google Apple

Hike to Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu receives more than a million visitors annually — and now you can explore the mystical ruins too, with Jaunt VR. You don’t have to camp or hike and, more importantly, you won’t be spit on by an alpaca when you’re ascending the Salkantay trail.

Available via:

Google Apple Steam

Forage the final frontier

Nix the space suits and the freeze-dried strawberries for a virtual tour of the International Space Station (ISS). With Google Earth VR, you can see our planet from within the Cupola Observational Module, a six-window observatory that towers above the stratosphere and houses the robotic workstation that controls the space station’s remote manipulator arm. Google Street View also lets you further explore the ISS, including the Columbus Research Laboratory. It’s mostly filled with white wires and computers, sure, but you’re in space, so it’s somehow cooler.

Available via:

Steam

Ride a gondola through Venice

There is no better way to see Venice then riding through on a gondola, or for our sake, a virtual gondola. Explor VR lets you float along the Canal Grande and pass under the oldest bridge in Venice, the Rialto. With a city that is slowly sinking, seeing its historical monuments and bright colored buildings, even from afar, is well worth it.

Available via:

Apple

Swim with elephants in South Africa

Alberto Ghizzi Panizza/Getty Images

While your friends are getting sunburned in Cancún, you will be virtually swimming with elephants. With Discovery VR, you can get up close and personal with one of the smartest species of the animal kingdom. Not only will this app land you front-row seats to exotic animal behavior, but the company has recently partnered with Racing Extinction, allowing you to get a closer look at various endangered species and those on the brink of extinction.

Available via:

Discovery

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Fussy, hungry, or in pain? This app accurately translates your baby’s cries

Speech recognition and machine translation tools are two of the most useful everyday applications of artificial intelligence as it exists today. Both of them allow our words to be understood by a machine and turned into actionable commands, used either to control devices like the Google Home smart speaker or to have a conversation with someone who speaks a different language to us. Could similar machine learning A.I. technology also be used to help decipher a baby’s cries, and in the process shed some light on exactly what it is that they are attempting to communicate?

The makers of a new free Android and iOS app called Chatterbaby certainly believe that it can. Developed by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, the app is based on an algorithm that’s able to work out exactly what each baby cry means and relay this information to parents. According to its creators, it can do this with astonishing accuracy; far more, in fact, than the guesswork with which most first-time parents react to their baby’s crying.

“I have four children; this project came about after I realized that number three had cries that sounded remarkably similar to my first two babies,” Ariana Anderson, assistant professor and lead in the UCLA research, told Digital Trends. “Since I am a statistician, I see patterns everywhere. I wanted to test whether the vocal patterns I could hear in my own children were present in other children as well. We decided to put this algorithm into our free Chatterbaby app not just to help parents of babies now, but to help them later as well when their children are older.”

To create the Chatterbaby app, Anderson and fellow researchers started by uploading 2,000 audio samples of infant cries. They then used A.I. algorithms to try and discover (and therefore explain) the difference between pain-induced cries, hunger-induced cries, and fussiness-induced cries.

“The training was done by extracting many acoustic features from our database of pre-labeled cries,” Anderson continued. “Pain cries were taken during vaccinations and ear-piercings. We labeled other cries using the parent-nomination and a ‘mom-panel’ consisting of veteran mothers who had at least two children. Only cries that had three unanimous ratings were used to train our algorithm, which changes and improves regularly. We used the acoustic features to train a machine learning algorithm to predict the most likely cry reason. Within our sample, the algorithm was about 90 percent accurate to flag pain, and over 70 percent accurate overall.”

Anderson does, however, note that parents should still use their best judgement, “and remember that their brain and their instincts are far more powerful than any artificial intelligence algorithm.”

While the Chatterbaby app could be useful for many parents — especially the aforementioned first-time parents — Chatterbaby could prove particularly helpful in certain scenarios. For example, it could be handy in situations in which one or both parents are deaf or hard of hearing, providing notification when their eyes are otherwise occupied.

It may also turn out to be a powerful tool in diagnosing autism at a younger age. At present, autism is diagnosed later in childhood, often around the age of three. Finding ways of predicting autism as soon as possible is something a number of researchers have been working toward, since this could allow for earlier intervention to take place. Anderson suggested that one way of picking up an early cue regarding autism may be found in listening for unusual vocal patterns in infants.

Previous studies have shown promising results in detecting abnormal vocal patterns with at-risk children, but these sample sizes are small. In an attempt to add more data to the pile, Chatterbaby offers a voluntary study which parents can enter into. Right now, it’s still at an early stage, but long term it could provide valuable insights that allow an earlier diagnosis.

“By inviting people into our research study with the Chatterbaby cry translator, we can them follow them for six years and provide free screenings for autism which they can do from their own home,” Anderson continued. “If their children are higher risk, they can then go to their doctor for a full evaluation. We want to bring the lab to the participant, instead of the participant to the lab. By offering a free service in our app that is of high-value to new parents, we believe we can connect with parents and improve our ability to identify risk factors for autism. We believe that a baby’s voice can be one of many risk factors to improve our understanding of autism.”

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• Brain scans and A.I. confirm that dogs are great at recognizing our emotions
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• What is a hard drive?

Fussy, hungry, or in pain? This app accurately translates your baby’s cries

Speech recognition and machine translation tools are two of the most useful everyday applications of artificial intelligence as it exists today. Both of them allow our words to be understood by a machine and turned into actionable commands, used either to control devices like the Google Home smart speaker or to have a conversation with someone who speaks a different language to us. Could similar machine learning A.I. technology also be used to help decipher a baby’s cries, and in the process shed some light on exactly what it is that they are attempting to communicate?

The makers of a new free Android and iOS app called Chatterbaby certainly believe that it can. Developed by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, the app is based on an algorithm that’s able to work out exactly what each baby cry means and relay this information to parents. According to its creators, it can do this with astonishing accuracy; far more, in fact, than the guesswork with which most first-time parents react to their baby’s crying.

“I have four children; this project came about after I realized that number three had cries that sounded remarkably similar to my first two babies,” Ariana Anderson, assistant professor and lead in the UCLA research, told Digital Trends. “Since I am a statistician, I see patterns everywhere. I wanted to test whether the vocal patterns I could hear in my own children were present in other children as well. We decided to put this algorithm into our free Chatterbaby app not just to help parents of babies now, but to help them later as well when their children are older.”

To create the Chatterbaby app, Anderson and fellow researchers started by uploading 2,000 audio samples of infant cries. They then used A.I. algorithms to try and discover (and therefore explain) the difference between pain-induced cries, hunger-induced cries, and fussiness-induced cries.

“The training was done by extracting many acoustic features from our database of pre-labeled cries,” Anderson continued. “Pain cries were taken during vaccinations and ear-piercings. We labeled other cries using the parent-nomination and a ‘mom-panel’ consisting of veteran mothers who had at least two children. Only cries that had three unanimous ratings were used to train our algorithm, which changes and improves regularly. We used the acoustic features to train a machine learning algorithm to predict the most likely cry reason. Within our sample, the algorithm was about 90 percent accurate to flag pain, and over 70 percent accurate overall.”

Anderson does, however, note that parents should still use their best judgement, “and remember that their brain and their instincts are far more powerful than any artificial intelligence algorithm.”

While the Chatterbaby app could be useful for many parents — especially the aforementioned first-time parents — Chatterbaby could prove particularly helpful in certain scenarios. For example, it could be handy in situations in which one or both parents are deaf or hard of hearing, providing notification when their eyes are otherwise occupied.

It may also turn out to be a powerful tool in diagnosing autism at a younger age. At present, autism is diagnosed later in childhood, often around the age of three. Finding ways of predicting autism as soon as possible is something a number of researchers have been working toward, since this could allow for earlier intervention to take place. Anderson suggested that one way of picking up an early cue regarding autism may be found in listening for unusual vocal patterns in infants.

Previous studies have shown promising results in detecting abnormal vocal patterns with at-risk children, but these sample sizes are small. In an attempt to add more data to the pile, Chatterbaby offers a voluntary study which parents can enter into. Right now, it’s still at an early stage, but long term it could provide valuable insights that allow an earlier diagnosis.

“By inviting people into our research study with the Chatterbaby cry translator, we can them follow them for six years and provide free screenings for autism which they can do from their own home,” Anderson continued. “If their children are higher risk, they can then go to their doctor for a full evaluation. We want to bring the lab to the participant, instead of the participant to the lab. By offering a free service in our app that is of high-value to new parents, we believe we can connect with parents and improve our ability to identify risk factors for autism. We believe that a baby’s voice can be one of many risk factors to improve our understanding of autism.”

Editors’ Recommendations

• Brain scans and A.I. confirm that dogs are great at recognizing our emotions
• Mind-reading A.I. algorithm can work out what music is playing in your head
• Meet Explorest, the photo-scouting app curated by real photographers
• From vaping to drones, 8 tech trends we may look back on and cringe
• What is a hard drive?