Android 7.1.1 is rolling out now
Google’s excellent Pixel phones launched with Android 7.1, a minor update to Nougat that nevertheless included a few handy features. Now, Google has announced that Android 7.1.1 has started rolling out to other Android phones and provide a lot of those features to more users. Specifically, the Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Pixel, Pixel XL, Nexus Player, Pixel C and General Mobile 4G (Android One) will all start getting the latest version of Android soon.
As for what you can find from a feature perspective, Google has added support for its “image keyboard” that lets you easily find and send pictures and GIFs without leaving your messaging app of choice. Google says it’ll work inside of Hangouts, Allo, and the default Messaging app. Ironically enough, the feature has been available in the Gboard iOS keyboard that Google launched in the spring, but it’s good to see it coming to more Android phones now.
Android 7.1.1 also includes Google’s latest set of more diverse emoji, specifically focused on showing a “wider range of professions” for women. And it also contains the excellent app shortcut feature that originally launched on the Pixel — if you press and hold on an app’s icon, a sub-menu of shortcuts will show up. You’ll be able to quickly send a message to a specific contact or navigate to a saved location using these shortcuts, for example. They’re very much like the “force touch” shortcuts found on the iPhone, but that doesn’t make them any less useful.
As usual with Android rollouts, this won’t hit all phones at once. Google says it’ll become available “over the next several weeks.” But if you don’t want to wait, you can enroll your device in the Android Beta preview program and receive the update much quicker.
Source: Google
Google and Elon Musk open their AI platforms to researchers
Artificial intelligence got a big push today as both Google and OpenAI announced plans to open-source their deep learning code. Elon Musk’s OpenAI released Universe, a software platform that “lets us train a single [AI] agent on any task a human can complete with a computer.” At the same time, Google parent Alphabet is putting its entire DeepMind Lab training environment codebase on GitHub, helping anyone train their own AI systems.
DeepMind first burrowed into the public consciousness by defeating a world champion at the notoriously difficult game Go. However, to advance deep learning further, Alphabet says that such AI “agents” require highly detailed environments to serve as laboratories for AI research. The company is now open-sourcing that environment, called DeepMind Lab, to any programmers that want to use it.
“DeepMind Lab is a fully 3D game-like platform tailored for agent-based AI research,” Alphabet said in a blog. The agent floats around the environment, levitating and moving via thrusters, with a virtual camera that can track around its “body.” Google describes some of the chores it can do:
Example tasks include collecting fruit, navigating in mazes, traversing dangerous passages while avoiding falling off cliffs, bouncing through space using launch pads to move between platforms, playing laser tag, and quickly learning and remembering random procedurally generated environments.
The first-person 3D environment, Alphabet explains, should make for smarter AI. “If you or I had grown up in a world that looked like Space Invaders or Pac-Man, it doesn’t seem likely we would have achieved much general intelligence.”
An example of a the kind of decision-making is shown in the video below, where an agent foregoes tasty apples in favor of a bitter lemon, in order to get the ultimate reward (melon). (As a more specific example, Alphabet recently announced a partnership with Activision Blizzard, letting AI researchers attempt to build an AI agent that can master Starcraft II.)
It’s not likely coincidental that OpenAI, spearheaded by Elon Musk, happens to be releasing a very similar platform called Universe at the same time. Like DeepMind Lab, the idea is to give researchers a way to test and train their agents. OpenAI’s aim is pretty ambitious — the release consists of “a thousand environments including Flash games, browser tasks and games like slither.io and GTA V.” In its blog, the group expresses its aim:
Our goal is to develop a single AI agent that can flexibly apply its past experience on Universe environments to quickly master unfamiliar, difficult environments, which would be a major step towards general intelligence.
OpenAI says that deep learning systems are too specialized: “[DeepMind’s] AlphaGo can easily defeat you at Go, but you can’t explain the rules of a different board game to it and expect it to play with you.” As such, it’s using Universe to allow AI to run a lot of different types of tasks, “so they can develop world knowledge and problem solving strategies that can be efficiently reused in a new task.”
A single Python script can drive 20 different 1,024 x 768 environments at 60 fps simultaneously. In the first Universe release, those environments include Atari 2600 games, Flash games and Browser tasks like searching for a flight. Since the agent uses a virtual mouse, keyboard and screen like a human, it can do anything we can on a computer, and the plan is to eventually run them through more complex games and tasks.
An OpenAI “agent” plays “Dusk Drive”
OpenAI has already received permission from EA, Microsoft Studios, Valve and other companies to freely access games like Wing Commander III, Portal and Rimworld for learning. It’s reaching out to other companies, researchers and users, seeking “permission on your games, training agents across Universe tasks, (soon) integrating new games, or (soon) playing the games.
The DeepMind Lab repository will go live on GitHub later this week (look for the link here) and OpenAI’s Universe is now available. Both companies say they want to keep their AI systems open, but reading between the lines, they have selfish reasons for doing so. AI has now progressed to the point that a lot more learning data is needed, so normally insular tech companies are now forced to collaborate with the outside world.
Via: Bloomberg
Source: DeepMind Lab, OpenAI
Google’s Trusted Contacts app lets people know you’re safe
In the event of an emergency, it’s not always easy to notify people that you are safe. Google knows that, so it’s created Trusted Contacts, a new app that can automatically share your status and location with friends or loved ones. It’s available today on Android and will soon be available on iOS devices.
The idea is simple: you select specific people in your address book as “trusted contacts,” friends or family members who you would feel confident knowing your phone’s activity status. When they open the app, they’ll be able to see if you’re “active,” basically that your phone is connected and moving, whether you were active in the past hour or whether your device has a low battery, is completely out of juice or has no connectivity.
Trusted contacts can also ask for your location if they feel you might be in danger. The app offers a five-minute window for you to approve or deny the request but should it not receive a response, it will share your position in order to “make sure that someone you trust will know how to find you if you really are in trouble.”
If you’re walking home late at night and would feel safer knowing that someone knew exactly where you are, Trusted Contacts can help there too. Instead of waiting for someone to request your whereabouts, you can proactively share your location with a friend or loved one and include a short status explaining what it is you’re doing. Once you arrive at your destination, hit the banner top of the screen or from the lockscreen and it’ll stop broadcasting.
Google says that while trusted contacts won’t need a Google account to see shared locations, they may need to sign in with one to request them. The app’s settings can also be tweaked at any time, allowing users to decide who they do and don’t want seeing their activity without having to re-add them at a later date.
Via: Google Blog
Source: Trusted Contacts (Play Store), Trusted Contacts Dashboard
Android Pay helps Brits keep track of their Tube spending
It might have been late to the party, but Google is determined to make Android Pay the de facto payment solution for non-iPhone users in the UK. An update going out “this week” will add some deeper integrations with Transport for London (TfL), including incomplete journey notifications — so you’ll know when you forgot to tap out — and daily travel summaries, complete with station names and bus numbers. Together, they should help you track your spending habits and spot when something strange has occurred, warranting further investigation and possibly a refund from TfL.
Android Pay is also being baked into the UK Uber app. As an extra incentive, Google is offering a £5 discount if you use its service to pay for rides this Christmas. The deal is valid for 10 journeys and expires on December 31st, so you’ll need to act fast if you want to save some money on travel. Finally, Google is pushing a Christmas promotion called “shop, tap, reward” which gives you a virtual cracker after every purchase. Pull them apart and you might win one of 100,000 gift cards. A shallow ploy to earn your patronage and long-term adoption? Absolutely, but hey — there’s nothing to stop you from abandoning the app once the festivities are over.
Source: Google (Blog Post)
EU to tech industry: Remove hate speech faster or we’ll make you
Despite agreeing to crack down on the spread of hate speech across their networks earlier this year, four of the world’s biggest technology companies aren’t delivering on their promises, Reuters reports. A review conducted by EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova found that Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft failed to flag and remove offensive content within 24 hours, with less than half of cases being responded to in that timeframe. If they don’t improve their response times, new legislation could be introduced to force them to do so.
“In practice the companies take longer and do not yet achieve this goal. They only reviewed 40 percent of the recorded cases in less than 24 hours,” a Commission official told Reuters. “After 48 hours the figure is more than 80 percent. This shows that the target can realistically be achieved, but this will need much stronger efforts by the IT companies.”
In May, Facebook, Twitter, Google (specifically YouTube) and Microsoft signed a voluntary code of conduct that would standardize the way users report hate speech and allow law enforcement agencies to act swiftly on harmful content. This included the removal of such content within 24 hours. They also committed to support educational programs and promote “independent counter-narratives” to hateful messages.
According to the Financial Times, the report found that (unsurprisingly) Twitter was slowest to respond while YouTube was fastest. Jourová didn’t single out Twitter, though, choosing to direct her ire at all of the companies involved: “If Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft want to convince me and the ministers that the non-legislative approach can work, they will have to act quickly and make a strong effort in the coming months,” she told the paper on Sunday.
Justice ministers will meet in Brussels to discuss the report on Thursday. Also on the agenda will be a discussion on how the companies are tackling “terrorist propaganda” and what evidence they can provide to help make convictions.
Source: Reuters, Financial Times
All all-electric submarine, and more in the week that was
Are personal submarines the vehicles of the future? This week Ortega Submersible launched an all-electric sub that allows three divers to fly through the sea. In other transportation news, a Swiss pilot is testing the boundaries of solar flight by taking a sun-powered airplane to the edge of space. Public transportation is generally seen as safe and secure, but this week hackers broke into San Francisco’s Muni system and demanded a $70,000 ransom. A team of automakers is planning a fast-charging electric vehicle superhighway in Europe, and Copenhagen now officially has more bicycles than cars.
Nuclear waste is difficult to get rid of, but scientists just found a way to turn it into diamond batteries that last virtually forever. India just fired up the world’s largest solar plant, which produces enough electricity to power 150,000 homes. Energy-generating solar roadways are set to hit four continents next year. And Aarhaus, Denmark became the world’s first city to power its water treatment facility with sewage.
Human development is changing the face of the planet, and a new Google timelapse shows just how much havoc we’ve wrought in the last 32 years. Meanwhile, a team of scientists confirmed that a long-feared, catastrophic climate feedback loop is causing greenhouse gases to rise from the ground beneath our feet. In other science and technology news, scientists have found a way to make water freeze at boiling temperatures. Ukraine has built the world’s largest moveable metal structure, and this week they used it to seal Chernobyl’s critically damaged reactor number four. And a petal-shaped pod transportation station offers an elegant mobility solution for Dubai.
Why didn’t Google make Chromebooks a priority this holiday season?
Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, and the holiday shopping season is in full swing. As such, Google, Microsoft and Apple have all revealed their latest and greatest to get shoppers opening their wallets. Microsoft has the Surface Studio and refreshed Surface Book, not to mention the Xbox holiday lineup, while Apple goes into holiday battle with the new MacBook Pro and the iPhone 7.
Google is trying something different this year. The company has a full ecosystem of products made in-house for the first time: the Pixel smartphone, Google Home assistant and Daydream VR headset. All three products are important to Google’s strategy, but it feels to me like something’s missing: the humble Chromebook. Google’s more traditional computing platform has gone neglected this fall, and it’s especially surprising in light of a few big developments this year.
The first was a report from IDC claiming that Chromebooks outsold Macs in the first quarter of the year. Yes, that’s just one isolated data point, but it shows that there’s a market for Chromebooks, and that market is growing. The second development was Google’s announcement that Android apps would come to Chromebooks this year. That would solve two of the platform’s big weaknesses: the lack of traditional applications and the Chromebook’s limited offline capabilities.
But the rollout of Google Play on Chromebooks has been stilted at best. Only three models have full support as of today, more than six months after Google first announced the feature. There are a few more that can run Android apps if you use the developer version of Chrome OS, but ultimately this isn’t a selling point Google can use to drive interest in the platform. Indeed, the company doesn’t mention the feature at all on its Chromebook website or in its online store. Based on my experiences using Android on Chromebooks, that’s because the experience isn’t quite yet ready for prime time. There’s no sense in launching a half-baked feature, but I had assumed it would be ready to go by the end of this year.
It’s hard to see this as anything but a missed opportunity. Android is the most popular mobile OS by a wide margin, and being able to use the same apps on both your mobile phone and Chromebook would bring a nice layer of integration to the two platforms. But this non-launch means that consumers aren’t aware of this potentially important feature and developers have zero incentive to consider Chromebooks when building apps.
Google is dropping the ball from a hardware perspective as well. The Chromebook Pixel 2 was discontinued at the end of August with no replacement in site. Sure, that computer was never a practical buy, but similar to what the Nexus program did for phones, it provided manufacturers and developers inspiration when building their own Chromebooks. Other manufacturers have picked up the slack to some extent, but I’m surprised Google appears to have given up making its own Chrome OS hardware.
The hardware gulf shows up in Google’s online store too. Right now, you can only buy three different Chromebooks — all from Acer, two with 11-inch screens and large boat anchor with a 14-inch screen. It seems extremely strange that you cannot visit Google’s store and buy a Chromebook with the ever-popular 13-inch screen size.
One possible explanation for the apparent de-prioritization of Chromebooks at Google could be that the company is fully merging Chrome OS with Android, as various rumors have suggested over the years. The most recent rumor claims a merged Android / Chrome OS will power the next Pixel laptop planned to arrive sometime next year. That would certainly explain the silence, and an announcement of that magnitude would likely wait for the next I/O event in late spring. But that’s still another six months from now, not that the timeframe really matters if Google is moving on from Chrome OS.
It’s too soon to know what Google’s plan is, but a Google spokesperson confirmed that the company “remains committed to Chrome OS and Chromebooks.” The spokesperson also said that Google is seeing great momentum for the platform, particularly in the education market. And given that nearly all Chromebooks are made by OEM partners, there’s logic to keeping this fall’s big launch event focused on the “Made by Google” products. But if the company isn’t giving up on Chromebooks, that makes the lack of new hardware this fall all the more strange.
That’s particularly true given that Google has been closing the gap with Apple, a company whose laptop situation is a bit out of whack right now. A Chromebook is clearly a different class of device than a MacBook Pro, but that’s beside the point. If Google isn’t giving customers good devices to buy and making big advances like Android apps a priority, Chromebooks will continue to have a hard time shaking the old “it’s only a browser” stigma.
Google Chrome now defaults to HTML5 for most sites
Google proposed making HTML5 the default over Flash in its Chrome browser back in May. With the latest release, Chrome 55, the company has nearly completed the transition. Chrome now defaults to HTML5 except when a site is Flash-only or if its one of the top 10 sites on the web. For every other website you visit, you’ll be asked to enable Flash the first time you go there.
HTML5 by default has been a long time coming for the browser. Two versions ago, Google began blocking Flash that was running “behind the scenes.” The continued change over to HTML5 should lead to faster load times, better security and improved overall performance. The update to version 55 also includes CSS automatic hyphenation that will help with the look of text blocks and line wrapping.
For Android users, the new version brings wider availability of a downloads feature that enables offline viewing of web pages, images and videos. The mobile update is said to be on its way soon, but Chrome 55 is rolling out now to Mac, Windows and Linux users on desktop.
Via: 9to5Google
Source: Google
‘OK Google’ is finally coming to Android Auto
The major selling point of Android Auto is that it brings smartphone-like apps and services to your vehicle. Google Maps, access to music and weather updates are now taken for granted, but it’s remained a mystery over why one of Android’s most useful hands-free commands — “OK Google” — has taken so long to come to the infotainment software. Luckily, the search giant has finally recognized the need for the feature and is in the process of rolling it out, albeit at a slow pace.
The feature was first spotted by Reddit user neo5468, who noticed that the latest versions of the Android Search and Auto apps enabled a new toggle for OK Google commands while driving. However, even if you have the new updates installed, Google appears to be limiting the expansion on an per account basis, so you may need to wait your turn.
It’s been more than six months since Google’s I/O conference, where it first shared that it would enable hotword support in Android Auto. The company also said at the time that it would integrate Waze, but that is also taking some time to surface.
Via: Android Police
Source: Reddit
YouTube Adds 4K Live Streaming Support to its Content Infrastructure
YouTube has announced it now supports 4K live streaming at 60 frames per second, enabling content creators to live broadcast both 360-degree and standard video in the high resolution standard.
Viewers with screens equipped to take advantage of the resolution shouldn’t have to wait long to tune in to regularly streamed 4K broadcasts. YouTube said the first event to be live streamed in 4K will be the Game Awards, which takes place today at 9pm EST (6pm PST).
For creators this means the ability to take advantage of an incredibly clear picture for recorded and now streaming video. It’s the kind of thing that can help to push their hardware (and their talent) to create the most beautiful or just plain crazy-looking images and videos possible. And with 360 4K live streams, the sky is (literally) the limit. Get ready for 360 concert and event streams that look sharper, cleaner, and brighter than ever before.
4K video uploading has been supported on YouTube since 2010, but the high resolution content has only gained steam more recently as the technology gradually approaches the mainstream. Today’s upgrade to the Google-owned service also potentially opens the door to 4K live streamed events like sports and concerts being included in YouTube’s forthcoming “Unplugged” web-based TV streaming service, which is close to being finalized.
Unplugged is said to include a “skinny bundle” of channels from the four major U.S. networks, along with a few popular cable channels priced at around $35 per month. YouTube has been in talks with major media companies like 21st Century Fox and Disney, and signed up CBS to be included in the subscription package in October.
Last month also saw Google debut the Chromecast Ultra, a 4K version of its popular streaming device. Set to be released this December, the Ultra can stream 4K content from YouTube, Netflix, and Vudu, and 4K movies from Google Play Movies.
The latest announcement offers another sign that Google is pulling ahead of Apple in the race to offer a high-resolution streaming television service. Apple’s plans to offer a TV package subscription service of any sort have stalled in recent years because of its “hard-nosed” negotiation tactics with content providers and an inability to allay fears about the interruption of traditional revenue streams.
As for 4K, the latest Apple TV does not support the UltraHD resolution and iTunes has yet to offer the content.
Related Roundups: Apple TV, tvOS 10
Tags: Google, YouTube, 4K
Buyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Caution)
Discuss this article in our forums
AIVAnet 