Nokia is selling its Health business back to the former owner

Nokia has has entered negotiations to sell its Digital Health business to its original owner, Withings co-founder Éric Carreel. The move is part of the company’s plan to exit the consumer market and “focus on becoming a business-to-business and licensing company,” it said. The company paid $191 million for Withings back in 2016, but recently announced that it had written off $175 million in goodwill, and would do a strategic review of its wearable businesses.

Nokia originally bought Withings to take on Apple’s HealthKit, in what seemed at the time like a lucrative consumer market that could crossover to the business-oriented health industry. Nokia’s idea was to collect key health data like heartrate, blood pressure and weight from users and use it for its own medical business, WellCare.

Once it had purchased the French company, Nokia re-branded all the products, despite the fact that Withings did have some cachet in the digital health wearable business. Nokia effectively handed control of its health business to Withings. “We’re paying for the company, but in reality it’s Withings that’s going to be running the entire digital health business at Nokia,” Nokia President Ramzi Haidamus told Engadget at the time.

Nokia’s rebranded Withings digital health products

However, activity trackers and other health-related wearables have been tanking in the consumer market unless your company name is “Apple.” Fitbit, for one, has recorded four consecutive losses, despite having sold some 70 million devices to date.

It’s not clear if Nokia sought other buyers before it decided to enter negotiations with Carreel, but TechCrunch reports that Google’s Nest and Samsung looked at the company before today’s deal. A spokesperson for Carreel and Nokia told Engadget that the parties won’t comment about the price or any other terms of the deal, for now.

Haidamus was Nokia’s CEO when it purchased Withings, but he left the company just weeks after the deal concluded. “Given that progress, now is the right time for me to explore new opportunities to pursue my passion for building and transforming businesses,” he said at the time.

No deal has been finalized, and the sale is subject to certain terms and conditions, but Nokia said it expects to conclude the proceedings in late Q2 of 2018. Nokia’s Digital Health business consists of smartwatches, scales, and digital health devices, most of which (like the Activité) were originally developed by Withings.

Nokia said previously that up to 425 people might be laid off from its Digital Health business. Prior to Nokia’s purchase, Withings employed around 200 people, mostly in France, but also in the US, the UK and Hong Kong.

Source: Nokia

The Morning After: Facebook F8 Day 1

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

We’re getting ready for the second day of Facebook’s F8 event, but you can catch up with all the day-one announcements before the second keynote speech starts at noon ET. Oh, and there was a big Fortnite update.

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Tell us exactly what you think by emailing us atthemorningafter(at)engadget.com.

And group video calls in WhatsApp.Facebook F8 Day 1

The first day of Facebook’s F8 event is in the books, and it might be easier to list what the company didn’t announce (like a smart speaker). Mark Zuckerberg revealed its new GDPR-ready Clear History feature, which makes it easier to find out what the company knows about your browsing habits, and if you choose, unlink that from your personal account. Other highlights included the Oculus Go launch, and Facebook’s plan for a dating feature that peeks through groups and events you follow for likely candidates. How could that ever go wrong?

The comet has landed.‘Fortnite’ update delivers destruction, new areas and meme emotes

In Fortnite v4.0, a comet struck, destroying certain areas of the game’s familiar map as new additions, like a drive-in movie theater, help mix things up. Naturally, there are also new DC-inspired superhero skins and an Orange Justice emote, while the crossbow has been removed.

What’s the opposite of a meet-cute?Sprint and T-Mobile: a coalition of also-rans

Pending regulatory approval, the two smallest national carriers are finally getting together. Cherlynn Low tells the tale of a union that’s been years in the making.

Cheap and easy VR for everyone.Oculus Go review

Compared to other headsets, the Oculus Go isn’t incredibly powerful, but it is cheap and easy to use, since it doesn’t require a PC or drop-in phone to work. For a hair under $200, average customers can dive into VR with Netflix, games and more.

SNES and NES.iam8bit and Capcom are re-releasing two ‘Mega Man’ classics on cartridge

Mega Man 2 and Mega Man X are coming back in playable cartridge form this September.

But wait, there’s more…

• HBO renews ‘Westworld’ for season three
• Nintendo faces Switch patent infringement investigation in the US
• Apple faces camera patent lawsuit over iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X
• The Big Picture: Projection is the ideal medium for Gustav Klimt’s electric art
• Snap’s redesign slowed down user growth
• Bluesmart shuts down following smart-luggage battery ban
• Netflix’s re-edit of ‘Arrested Development’ season four arrives May 4th

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Gibson files for bankruptcy to ditch electronics, focus on guitars

Yesterday Gibson Brands filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Known for its famous guitars, the company is in a similar situation to Toys ‘R’ Us, owing as much as $500 million to creditors including private equity firms like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Silver Point Capital and Melody Capital Partners. It took on significant debt — which is about to mature — to finance a series of acquisitions to build up a Gibson Innovations electronics business that it’s now in the process of separating from. Other than buying a stake in TEAC, Bloomberg reports it bought Philips line of headphones and speakers, and until recently had close business ties with Onkyo.

According to the press release “The Company’s Gibson Innovations business, which is largely outside of the U.S. and independent of the Musical Instruments business, will be wound down.” While the headphones are likely done, other elements like its Gibson and Epiphone guitars, as well as KRK and Cerwin Vega studio monitors and loudspeakers will continue on. Hopefully, that includes its digital recorder-embued guitar cable.

Source: Bloomberg, PRNewswire

Nokia to Sell Digital Health Division Back to Withings Co-Founder

Nokia has revealed plans to sell its digital health business back to the co-founder of Withings, the French health tracking company Nokia bought in 2016.

Finland-based Nokia originally acquired Withings for $192 million in an effort to re-establish a presence in the consumer electronics market, rebranding Withings’ iOS-compatible smart connected home products as well as a range of health and fitness wearables.

However, it looks as if the acquisition simply didn’t pay off for the erstwhile mobile phone powerhouse. In 2017, the digital health division earned just $62.4 million in revenue, but the rest of the company posted sales of $27.9 billion. Now Nokia is handing back the business to Withings’ co-founder, Éric Carreel. The sale will likely be at a significant loss, although the Nokia press release didn’t mention figures:

Nokia announced a review of strategic options for the Digital Health business in February 2018. The planned sale is part of Nokia’s honed focus on becoming a business-to-business and licensing company. The transaction is subject to terms agreed in the negotiations and completion of the information consultation with the Works Council of Nokia Technologies (France) SA., with the deal expected to close in late Q2 2018.

The announcement follows recent reports of layoffs from the company, as well as a leaked memo that revealed the digital health division was in a bad way with little prospect of turning things around. Then in October, Nokia announced a $164 million write-down of the division’s assets. Google and Samsung were reportedly looking into taking the ailing health business off Nokia’s hands, but today’s announcement suggests nothing substantial came of the negotiations.

Tags: Withings, Nokia
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Facebook’s Free Basics quietly pulled from Myanmar, other markets

Facebook’s controversial Free Basics service quietly disappeared from several markets over the past few months, according to The Outline. One of those countries is Myanmar, where it was accused of supporting ethnic cleansing and where it became the target of criticisms for the way it handled a chain letter that caused widespread panic. The letter warned Buddhists that Rohingya Muslims were going to attack them, while Rohingya Muslims were told to be prepared for violence from militant Buddhist groups. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg used the incident as an example of the social network’s effectiveness in tackling hate speech to the consternation of Myanmar activists who said they had to repeatedly flag the letter to get the company to act on it.

The social network has confirmed to TechCrunch that Free Basics ended in Myanmar in September 2017, which was also when reports came out that it was censoring information related to ethnic cleansing. A spokesperson told the publication, however, that its shutdown was a result of a broader regulatory effort. Myanmar’s government and the state-owned telecom (Myanma Posts and Telecommunications) that Facebook teamed up with to provide free access to the social network apparently worked together to cut off access to all free services.

Myanmar isn’t the country that recently lost access to Free Basics, though. The Outline says it’s also no longer available in Bolivia, Papua New Guinea, Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Congo, Anguilla, El Salvador, Saint Lucia and other Latin American markets. Facebook told TechCrunch that Free Basics shut down in those locations due to commercial reasons and not due to anything the company did.

It’s worth noting, however, that the service itself is pretty problematic. Since Facebook rolled it out in developing nations, where mobile internet isn’t always available and affordable, it has become the internet itself for a lot of people. Problem is, fake news is abundant on the website. As a result, it plays a major role in the spread of misinformation in many places around the globe, which is something it’s trying to combat with new features. As TC noted, though, Facebook continues to expand the service’s reach despite its issues, launching it in Sudan, Cote d’Ivoire and Cameroon in recent months.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: The Outline

EPA faces lawsuit from 17 states over reversing car emissions rules

The EPA under Scott Pruitt may have dreams of undoing Obama-era car efficiency targets, but it’s not going to go unopposed. A group of 17 states, including California and New York, is suing the EPA in DC over its bid to drop clean car emissions standards for model years between 2022 and 2025. The lawsuit accuses the EPA of violating the Clean Air Act, failing to follow its own rules and acting “arbitrarily and capriciously” without evidence to support its decision.

Moreover, the states contend these tougher standards are supposed to save both the planet and your bank account, cutting 1.8 billion metric tons of CO2 pollution and saving $1,650 per vehicle.

The lawsuit was virtually expected. Pruitt and the Trump administration have made their objections clear ever since taking office, and automakers have complained that the eco-friendly guidelines would raise costs and affect jobs. In particular, the Pruitt-era EPA has bristled over the Clean Air Act waiver that lets California set its own standards — as 12 states follow California’s lead, it can effectively thwart attempts to undermine existing guidelines. California finalized its own new standards in March 2017 knowing this would likely conflict with the EPA’s plans, so it was really just a matter of time before the EPA tried a rollback and prompted a lawsuit.

There’s no certainty that the lawsuit will succeed, but there’s a real chance it will slow down the EPA’s efforts. And that, in many ways, is the immediate goal. This could buy time for the participating states and would force car makers to develop their lineups on the assumption the tougher standards will remain intact for a while.

Via: Bloomberg, Electrek

Source: California AG, New York AG

‘Pac-Man’ on Amazon Alexa isn’t at all like ‘Pac-Man’

Pac-Man might never have left the public eye, but with Wreck-it Ralph, Pixels and Ready Player One, the iconic elder statesman of gaming is now in front of people that may have never touched an arcade joystick. To that extent, Pac-Man’s latest ‘game’ makes sense — it’s arriving on Amazon’s Alexa as a skill today.

Pac-Man Stories is more bed-time tale than arcade throwback, and will encompass several stories aimed at the family. ‘Pac-Man and the Ghastly Garbage’ is the first title, and as Lee Kirton, Chief Pac-Man Officer (real title), explained to me, it’s a “choose your own adventure” kind of experience. It’ll combine moral decisions, interactions with characters and lightweight, kid-friendly puzzles. There’s an educational tone to it all, but when most kids have a blank slate with regards to Pac-Man, why not?

“It is a story, but also a game. You’ll earn Power Pellets depending on the choices and decisions you make,” explained Kirton. I tested it out earlier this week, and it sounds like a kids’ audiobook, albeit peppered with occasional Pac-Man melodies and chip loops. Fortunately, the audio interface is pretty slick and it’s easy to figure out what you need to say to the speaker.

It’s smartly tailored to appear like you can say anything to some characters in the game, even if there are only a handful of genuine answers that will move the story along. (For example: you press an intercom and are allowed to say, well, whatever you want. Alas, the doorman can’t hear you. Cue sad trumpet noise.)

Alexa is reliably sensitive to what you say, and cartoon character-esque voices are inoffensive and appropriate: Bandai Namco has put some effort into this at least — even if it’s not really a Pac-Man game, pellets or no pellets.

Bandai Namco

According to Kirton, the stories will each be “unique in their own way” while featuring new real-world characters and other famous characters — hopefully that kids will recognize. Bandai Namco insists that “over 90 percent” of the population still recognize Pac-Man, and this project is aimed at maintaining that familiarity.

It’s the first launch for Bandai Namco’s Europe-based innovation department, and reaching people beyond another re-released arcade game is key. Kirton added: “All our stories will focus on something important that affects the world. Our aim is simply to provide a fun experience that is different to any other experience and on a platform we like a lot — Amazon Echo.”

The challenge will be figuring out what new fans are looking for when it comes to Pac-Man. Given how much gaming has evolved, the big yellow guy has at least gone in a different direction. The Alexa skill is English-only for now, and launches in the US, UK and Ireland today. More stories will roll out this summer.

How to Snap Back to Your Search Results When Browsing in a Safari Tab

Say you want to look up a topic online, so you type a search word or phrase into Safari’s address bar. The first link in the returned results looks promising, so you click it. On the site you’re sent to, you see another link about a related topic, so you click that, too.

Moments later another link grabs your attention, and you check it out. Soon you’re distracted by some other tangential subject, and before you know it you’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of clicks and links without finding out much about what you were actually looking for in the first place.

If that sounds familiar, Safari SnapBack can help you. It’s a long-standing feature of Apple’s desktop web browser that’s often overlooked, but saves having to tediously click the previous page button multiple times to return to your original search results, or start rooting through your web history to locate where your latest online meander began.

You can find it in Safari’s menu bar, under History -> Search Results SnapBack, or even better, use its Command-Option-S keyboard shortcut. As the name suggests, SnapBack instantly takes you back to your original search results, although the function’s availability depends on a couple of conditions.

First, SnapBack only works if your wayward browsing occurred in the same tab that you used to initiate the search, so if a link you clicked on opened a new tab and you continued browsing in that, the SnapBack menu option will be grayed out. Second, the search needs to be performed from Safari’s address bar or from the website of the search engine that Safari is set to use.

To change the browser’s default search engine, select Safari -> Preferences… from the menu bar, click the Search tab, and choose one from the Search engine: dropdown menu. Your options are Google, Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. Next time you use the search engine you select and get lost in myriad clicks, SnapBack will be available to help get you back on track.

Tags: Safari, SnapBack
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8 Amazing accessories that could make virtual reality even more immersive

Virtual reality headsets can be pretty darn amazing, with the ability to transport us into other settings, locations and even lived experiences in a way that’s simply not possible in other mediums.

But while modern VR headsets are impressive, today’s handheld VR controllers are only passable when it comes to letting us interact with the virtual world. Unless you’re a 1980s action hero, chances are that you need a bit more that not every interaction you have is conducted by squeezing a pair of triggers.

Fortunately, some other more nuanced alternatives are out there — and they promise to make VR experiences as immersive as we’ve always dreamed they can be. Here are some of the most intriguing examples:

VR gets even more gripping

What we like about this project, created by researchers in the Shape Lab at Stanford University, is that it’s an affordable example of how relatively simple controllers can be used to mimic sensations like grasping an object without the need for bulky electric motors.

Called Wolverine, the mobile wearable haptic device resembles the famous X-Men character’s iconic claws. Using this design, it’s possibly to simulate a wide variety of objects a user might grasp in virtual reality by rendering a force directly between the thumb and three fingers.

Using low-power, brake-based locking sliders, the Wolverine can stretch, lock or relax these to give the effect of virtual objects with a wide range of dimensions. Our only question: Where do we buy one?

Haptic gloves

HaptX

Want to go one step further in our interactions with the virtual world? Do you want to do it while looking like a street mime or fancy butler? If so, you may be interested in a pair of white haptic gloves that the Facebook-owned Oculus VR is reportedly working on.

While they’ve not yet been made public, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has referenced said gloves in a Facebook post, and they were recently described in a pair of patent filings made by Oculus. “The haptic feedback mechanism includes a composite extendible ribbon coupled to a glove digit of a glove body,” one of the patents reads.

The gloves feature internal “tendons” which tense and relax to simulate a sense of touch in VR. This mechanism will control the amount of movement you’re able to make, thereby offering resistance. Of course, it is possible to go even further…

Full body haptic suits

Resembling the kind of skin-tight costume you’d typically find in a Marvel movie, full body haptic suits have a simple advantage over tech like haptic gloves: they cover more of your body.

At this year’s CES 2018, Digital Trends spoke with the maker of Teslasuit, an upcoming “electro-tactile haptic feedback system” that works by stimulating your nerves with electricity. This creates sensations to can replicate anything from a soft caress to a harder impact.

Sure, having to dress in a full Starlight Express-style bodysuit to experience immersive VR means it’s probably only going to appeal to the most dedicated folks out there. But if it can take our gaming experience to the next level, it’ll surely be worth it!

Brain zapping

Are you a bit squeamish about the idea of having your nerves zapped with electricity to simulate different sensations? Then you probably won’t be a fan of the brain-zapping experiment carried out by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

They’ve updated the so-called “rubber hand illusion” for the VR age by showing how the mind can be made to feel ownership and agency over a virtual hand when a person’s real hand is touched at the same time as an artificial one. This is done by stimulating the brain using a safe, noninvasive process called transcranial magnetic stimulation.

“We showed that in healthy volunteers it is possible to induce the illusory feeling that a virtual hand belongs to them and that they can control it,” researcher Michela Bassolino told Digital Trends. In an experiment, the effect worked on 80 percent of participants.

Specialized haptic controllers

Particularly when you’re dealing with specific-purpose VR scenarios, it’s possible to develop specialized controllers for realistically simulating experiences.

Earlier this year, we tried out a VR scenario developed by the London-based company Fundamental VR, which is busy making VR training tools for the next generation of surgeons.

In Fundamental’s demo, we carried out a sleeve gastrectomy, a weight-loss procedure in which surgeons must lift, cut and suture the stomach. Carrying it out using a dedicated controller allows the experience to be faithfully recreated in a way that could be useful for teaching.

Depending on the application, other VR controllers can be created or honed to simulate a wide variety of different tasks.

Walking forever

Simulating sensations through haptic technology is all well and good, but immersive VR needs more than that. One example? The fact that giving users the ability to walk through expansive virtual worlds doesn’t work so well if there are walls in the way.

A possible solution is a multi-directional treadmill like the Virtuix Omni, which lets users move freely and at full speed in 360 degrees while still remaining stationary.

An intriguing alternative involves so-called “redirected walking,” in which a person’s brain is tricked into thinking that he or she is walking in a straight line when, in fact, they are walking in a large circle. The result is an infinite virtual corridor in a “play space” measuring just 16 feet by 22 feet.

A virtual sense of smell

Touch, sight and sound are all important, but smell is an essential part of creating a truly immersive experience, too. If you thought the olfactory department had been ignored by researchers, though… well, you probably don’t watch enough porn.

Last year, “live cams” business CamSoda announced a new product called OhRoma, which essentially takes the form of a gas mas loaded with fragrance canisters. While they had smell-o-vision pornography in mind (probably not our first choice of scent-driven VR, to be honest), it would have application in various other virtual reality domains. And while we’re covering scent…

A taste for VR

The final sense — taste — can also be simulated in VR. Researchers at the National University of Singapore have developed a programmable cocktail glass called the “Vocktail,” which is capable of tricking your senses into thinking that you’re drinking … well, just about anything you can imagine, really.

By using electrodes, placed around the rim, the glass can stimulate the tongue so that it tastes the liquid contained in it as salty, sweet or sour. Interestingly, it then uses scent to fine-tune these flavors, since the subtleties of our taste palette rely on smell to complete the experience.

So there you have it!

The ultimate immersive VR setup will have us dressed in a full body suit, walking in circles, wearing a gas mask, goggles and a set of chunky headphones.

Let’s just hope you don’t get all kitted up, only to hear the doorbell ring. Because this could be a little hard to explain!

Editors’ Recommendations

• Oculus wants to stretch your skin to see what it feels like to be human
• Noninvasive brain zapping can make your hands feel things in VR
• Oculus could be aiming to make VR a bit more real with these haptic gloves
• MADV Madventure 360 review
• Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 VR reference headset puts body tracking in mobile VR

RocketBody tracks your metabolism to tell you when to eat and work out

You can have the best fitness trackers in the world but, let’s face it, sometimes you get to the gym or plan to go for a run, only for your body to tell you that it would really rather be doing anything else instead! Finding a solution to this problem is the goal of a newly launched wearable device that’s just landed on Kickstarter. Called RocketBody, it’s advertised as an artificial intelligence personal fitness trainer and nutritionist — but one which will track your metabolic rate and tell you when the best time to do some training might be. To aid with that mission, it will also advise you when to eat to enable you to have the healthiest lifestyle possible.

RocketBody’s creators claim that it can accurately measure metabolic rate over time using medical-grade EKG. By doing this, it can work out when your body is at its highest performance capacity, something called “supercompensation.” It aggregates information including a user’s anthropometric data (the study of the measurements and proportions of the human body), their training goals, heart rate and variability, calories eaten and burned, and more. It then uses this to design a set of exercises and a nutrition plan to make sure that every workout is timed to coincide with your body being at its most ready.

“I used to be a professional athlete and was seriously injured 10 years ago, so the only thing I could care about was getting myself out of bed,” creator Timofei Lipsky told Digital Trends. “In 2015, after trying taking blood tests [and other investigations], I started using EKG as a source of data we needed to build a metabolic curve.”

To develop his technology, Lipsky teamed up with a Ph.D. scientist with expertise in biophysics and neural biology. “After a number of months, we succeeded in identifying super-compensation and extended the team with top-level hardware and software engineers to hack a wearable and a mobile app,” he continued.

As always, we offer our usual warnings about the risks in pledging money for crowdfunding campaigns. However, if you want to get involved you can check out more information about RocketBody’s campaign over on its Kickstarter page. Prices start at $99, with shipping set to hopefully take place in October.

Just in time for you to get a headstart on 2019’s fitness-related New Year’s resolution!

Editors’ Recommendations

• IronCloud hopes to be your fitness companion for any and all activities
• Aura fitness band rewards hard work with virtual coins to buy new sneakers
• Awesome Tech You Can’t Buy Yet: Tennis ball bots, eco-straws, smart swear jars
• Never get sunburned again with QSun, a wearable gizmo that tracks UV exposure
• Corey Calliet on training celebs, revenge bodies, and benching 515 pounds