Acer’s latest convertible Chromebook is bigger and beefier
In May, Google announced that it would be bringing Android apps to Chrome OS, finally marrying the two operating systems in a way that makes Chromebooks that much more useful (A million-plus more apps!) All of a sudden, convertible Chromebooks sound way more appealing. Acer must’ve thought so too, because it unveiled the Chromebook R13 just a few days ago at IFA. Just like its R11 predecessor, the R13 has a 360-degree hinge that lets it seamlessly transition from Chromebook to Android-esque tablet in no time flat.
As the name suggests, the R13 has a 13.3-inch display. Acer was keen to point out that this is the first ever convertible Chromebook at this size, which is certainly of note if you’re a fan of larger screens. It’s a pretty nice display too, with a full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution plus it’s an LED-lit IPS LCD. Measuring 12.83 by 8.98 by 0.61 inches and weighing in at 3.28 pounds, it won’t weigh down your backpack. That said, when it was flipped over into tablet mode, I had a slight problem holding it due to its weight. This is definitely a tablet that you’d rest on your lap rather than grip it one-handed.
Speaking of tablet mode, I thought the display hinge felt pretty solid as I was turning it around. It was sturdy enough so that I could hold the R13 in a variety of positions; standard laptop mode, tent mode, presentation mode and of course as a flat tablet. I thought the touchscreen felt pretty responsive too, though I didn’t have the opportunity to run too many apps on the demo unit at the Acer booth. What I especially enjoyed was the keyboard. The keys have a nice shallow clickiness, which I feel results in super fast travel. I felt like I could touch type pretty fast on this if I wanted to.
As for internals, the R13 has a MediaTek M8173C CorePilot quad-core processor, a HD webcam on the front for those webchats, plus a USB Type-C port on the side. It also has USB 3.0, HDMI, Bluetooth 4.0 and the usual microphone and headset jacks. Storage-wise, it’ll come in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB varieties. Prices start at $399 and it’ll be available starting this October. Which is around when the Play Store should arrive on Chromebooks. Great timing, right?
We’re live all week from Berlin, Germany, for IFA 2016. Click here to catch up on all the news from the show.
IFA 2016 day one: Battle-worn BB-8 and Acer’s new Chromebook
Even though we’ve been in Berlin for a few days, Friday was actually the first official day of IFA 2016. And, as expected, there’s a lot to see on the show floor. Yesterday, we checked out Sphero’s “Battle-worn” BB-8 and its companion Force Band, a wearable that lets you control the droid with hand gestures. We also took a look at Acer’s new Chromebook R13, a sleek $400 laptop, as well as Withings’ first smartwatch with a heart rate monitor. Much more to come from the event, but for now enjoy our recap of day one.
We’re live all week from Berlin, Germany, for IFA 2016. Click here to catch up on all the news from the show.
Google’s Project Muze creates unwearable fashion pieces
Google shouldn’t enter the fashion business any time soon, if the partnership between Berlin-based Zalando and Google is any indication.
Project Muze, a machine learning-based endeavor that utilizes Google’s Tensor Flow system, is essentially a virtual fashion designer.
Drawing from a neural network trained on various design preferences like color, style and texture of over 600 fashion trendsetters and Google Fashion Trend Report information, Project Muze can create various fashion ensembles simply by asking users a few questions about their interests.
Tapping into users’ music interests, moods, favorite art style and gender allows Project Muze to draft some rather, shall we say, unique fashions that are generated in real-time. To be frank, they’re less-than-stellar. For a machine learning system with so many different possibilities, it ends up creating frustratingly samey designs that would probably look ridiculous even on a runway.
There are some that look as though they came from some futuristic space-disco as seen in the gallery below, but then others, especially one designated for men, combine ridiculous manta ray ponchos and wild designs in ways that just wouldn’t be flattering. But hey, maybe it’s some wild new fashion trend!
Make sure you share your most egregious fashion creations from Project Muze with us. It’s free to play around with, though you probably won’t be building an empire around these pieces or anything.
Via: TechCrunch
Google officially ends its Project Ara modular phone initiative
Google has shut down its modular smartphone initiative, Project Ara, a spokesperson confirmed to VentureBeat today. This follows an earlier report from Reuters that claimed Google was finished with Project Ara. We’ve reached out to Google for confirmation and will update this article as the company responds.
The spokesperson didn’t offer any details about the shut down, VentureBeat reports, though Reuters said it was “part of a broader push to streamline the company’s hardware efforts.” A modular design complicates the hardware production process, since Google would not only have to manufacture a bunch of smartphones, but all of the detachable cameras, battery packs, speakers and other accessories that would make each phone unique.
However, Project Ara may live on. Reuters says that Google may still license out Project Ara’s technology to other manufacturers.
Source: VentureBeat
Google’s Project Ara modular phone is reportedly suspended
Google’s big plans for Project Ara might never pan out. According to Reuters, the big G has decided to shelve its modular phone initiative. Earlier this year, the company said it will be releasing a developer phone with interchangeable components in the fourth quarter of 2016 ahead of a consumer version scheduled for 2017. Alas, that might no longer happen.
Mountain View is reportedly suspending Ara “as part of a broader push to streamline the company’s hardware efforts.” It’ll be tough releasing a consumer version of a phone with interchangeable components, after all, even though the latest prototype isn’t as customizable as Motorola originally envisioned. (To note, Google chose to keep Project Ara when it sold Motorola to Lenovo.) The company will have to manufacture not just the units themselves, but also the modular speakers and cameras that people can swap out.
Those same sources said Google’s modular phone dream might not be completely dead, though. The company could still license out Project Ara’s technology to other phonemakers, which could eventually and finally release a version we can buy.
Source: Reuters
Google rumors point to ‘Pixel’ phones, 4K Chromecast
The answer to the question of what Google will call its next Nexus phones may turn out to be not Nexus at all. Android Central first reported a name change last week, while tonight Android Police notes sources saying there will be two devices, one 5-inch phone called the Pixel and a 5.5-inch phone called the Pixel XL. More importantly, it also has a date (seconding a previous report by Droid-Life) for their debut: October 4th.
The rest of the rumor concerns other hardware, including an upgraded Chromecast ready for 4K video called the Chromecast Plus or Ultra, and a new Daydream VR headset that Google announced during I/O 2016. Finally, it’s also expecting the company to fully detail its Google Home efforts, although other details on prices or release dates are still unknown. Google has not yet commented on these reports or confirmed a date, but we’ll keep our calendars open all the same.
Source: Android Police
Tech’s biggest names are working to regulate AI research
Artificial intelligence is hitting its stride, already giving us machines that can drive themselves, talk to us, fight in our wars, perform our surgeries and beat humanity’s best in a game of Go or Jeopardy. Five companies at the forefront of the technology industry have been meeting to discuss these advancements in AI and figure out how to regulate even more powerful systems in the future, The New York Times reports.
Researchers from Facebook, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and IBM are looking at the practical consequences of AI, such as how it will impact transportation, jobs and welfare. The group doesn’t have a name or an official credo, but its general goal is to ensure AI research focuses on benefiting people, not harming them, the NYT says.
This isn’t a new battle cry for many AI scientists. In 2015, Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, the founders of Google DeepMind and dozens of other researchers signed an open letter calling for robust investigations into the impact of AI and ways to ensure it remains a benign tool at humanity’s disposal. The industry partnership is notable because it represents a renewed, active effort among disparate tech companies to address these same issues.
The companies are expected to announce the group in mid-September, though it could grow in the meantime: Google DeepMind has asked to participate separately from Alphabet, its parent company, the NYT reports.
One of the people involved in the industry partnership, Microsoft researcher Eric Horvitz, funded a paper issued by Stanford University on Thursday called the One Hundred Year Study, which discusses the realities of AI and the importance of investigating its impact now. It also calls for increased AI education at all levels of government and outlines how to publish a report on the state of the industry every five years for the next 100 years.
The NYT notes that people in the technology field are worried about regulators jumping in to police their work on AI.
“We’re not saying that there should be no regulation,” University of Texas at Austin computer scientist Peter Stone tells the NYT. “We’re saying that there is a right way and a wrong way.”
This summer, Engadget dove into the ways AI is poised to change jobs, war, criminal justice, history and our everyday lives. AI is the focus of much deserved attention in the technology industry because it is infinitely promising — even if we won’t be uploading our consciousness to the cloud any time soon.
Source: New York Times
YouTubers call out ad guidelines as a form of censorship
According to YouTube, the platform’s Advertiser-Friendly Content Guidelines are intended to protect brands and their advertisements from appearing alongside content those advertisers might find questionable. And for many of the platform’s creators, monetizing videos with advertisements can be a lucrative business. In the past 24 hours or so, however, an update to the way YouTube notifies creators that their videos have been stripped of ads has caused an uproar on social media, with some of the most popular names on the site claiming the removal of advertising is a form of censorship.
Leading the charge is 10-year veteran YouTuber Phillip DeFranco, whose channel has over 4.5 million subscribers alone. On Wednesday, DeFranco posted a video titled “YouTube Is Shutting Down My Channel and I’m Not Sure What To Do” claiming he’d received notifications that his most recent video was “Not advertiser-friendly.” According to DeFranco, about a dozen of his videos had their ads stripped away, followed by a few dozen more less than a day later. What alarmed DeFranco the most, however, was how the most recently stripped video didn’t appear to contain objectionable content at all — only a discussion of a potentially sensitive topic. DeFranco covered Chris Brown’s standoff with the police, among other topics, but he also believes his long-running tagline “‘sup you beautiful bastards?” may have gotten him flagged.
Other creators have chimed in on the #YouTubeIsOverParty hashtag, as well. Beauty vlogger Melanie Murphy noted one of her biggest-earning videos was stripped of its advertisements despite not having any offensive language or content. “I’m left with the assumption that the fact that acne is visible in the thumbnails…is off-putting to potential advertisers,” she explained to CNET. “If that’s the case, it’s very upsetting.”
Other YouTubers like MrRepzion and Luke Cutforth claim their videos have been stripped of advertisements because of their frank discussion of difficult mental health topics like suicide and depression, and that the “de-monetization” therefore stigmatizes such issues.
YouTube disabled ads on my DEPRESSION video cus advisers dont like it. Sorry depression isn’t fucking pretty enough… pic.twitter.com/YXs0YFGVAb
— luke cutforth✨ (@LukeIsNotSexy) August 31, 2016
While it is YouTube’s prerogative to run their platform however they wish (and for advertisers to have a say in where they do and do not want their ads to appear), DeFranco argues that preventing creators from monetizing their work is a form of censorship. By removing a creator’s revenue stream, his argument goes, YouTube has rendered that person’s business unsustainable and is essentially silencing their voice.
For its part, YouTube has issued a statement saying the policy is not new at all, only the notification system has changed. Whereas in the past a user would have to go into the individual video analytics to see whether a video had been de-monetized, users are now receiving notifications via email. Still, it is unclear if the de-monetization process happens via algorithm, like the platform’s copyright flagging system does, or whether there are humans reviewing the videos and removing the ads. There is, however, an appeals process by which users can have their videos reviewed and possibly get their revenue stream reinstated.
Via: CNET, Gizmodo
Source: CNET, Gizmodo
Google’s opening up its Early Access program to more devs
Google’s opening up its Early Access program today by allowing any developer to apply to let users beta test their apps.
The Early Access collection of apps had previously been restricted to 29 launch partners, later joined by more hand-picked companies. Now, anyone can fill out the form requesting inclusion, but that doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily be successful.
In essence, it’s a win-win for businesses and users: offering beta testing to the public gives developers early feedback before apps launch and people get to test out earlier than normal.
Apps need to be running in open beta to be eligible for testers to download. Google says it’s the ideal way to bridge the gap between getting friends and family feedback, and truly objective input from potential future users.
Since launching the pilot program at Google IO in June, Google says Early Access apps have been downloaded more than a million times.
Google AI builds a better cucumber farm
Artificial intelligence technology doesn’t just have to solve grand challenges. Sometimes, it can tackle decidedly everyday problems — like, say, improving a cucumber farm. Makoto Koike has built a cucumber sorter that uses Google’s TensorFlow machine learning technology to save his farmer parents a lot of work. The system uses a camera-equipped Raspberry Pi 3 to snap photos of the veggies and send the shots to a small TensorFlow neural network, where they’re identified as cucumbers. After that, it sends images to a larger network on a Linux server to classify the cucumbers by attributes like color, shape and size. An Arduino Micro uses that info to control the actual sorting, while a Windows PC trains the neural network with images.
It’s not a perfect system, at least right now. Koike estimates that it takes about 2-3 days to train the sorting AI, even using very low-resolution (80 x 80) pictures. And even the 7,000 photos Koike used for that training probably weren’t enough. While the sorter recognized 95 percent of test images, real-world sorting dipped to about 70 percent. Having said that, it’s not the immediate results that matter. The technology can get better, and it hints at a future where robotic farm equipment handles many mundane tasks that previously required a human’s watchful eye.
Source: Google Cloud Platform
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