Apple Pay finally becomes useful in Canada
Apple Pay technically launched in Canada back in November, but it might as well have been non-existent — you could only use a directly-issued American Express card, which isn’t all that common in the country. At last, though, things are opening up. Apple has announced that its tap-to-pay service is now available through a much, much wider range of providers. Right now, you can use it through heavyweights CIBC and RBC (both credit and debit cards) as well as smaller providers ATB (initially MasterCard-only) and Canadian Tire (MasterCard). The other big three (BMO, Scotiabank and TD) aren’t ready yet, but they’ve all committed to letting you pay with your iPhone or Apple Watch in the months ahead.
In some ways, mobile payments may have an easier time catching on in Canada than they do south of the border. The country has had tap-to-pay cards (and the terminals to match) for longer than the US — Apple Pay may be more likely to work at a store near you. There’s no mention of corresponding Canadian support for Android Pay, but it’s easy to see that coming when point-of-sale systems that support Apple Pay tend to support Google’s alternative.
Via: Globe and Mail, iMore
Source: Canada Newswire (1), (2), (3), (4)
Can Samsung make truly wireless earbuds go mainstream?
Images doing the rounds this week suggest Samsung could be the first of the big names to get into the “truly” wireless headphones game. Until now, the fast-growing category has been dominated by new players like Bragi and Earin. We’ve covered many of them, and much as we love the idea of cable-free listening, cutting the last wire comes at a cost. Usually, short battery life; but flaky connectivity and even sub-par audio can be challenges. Samsung’s not shy about having a go at something new, often with mixed results, so will the so called “Gear IconX” buds break that mould?
One thing’s for sure, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it looks like Samsung is about to flatter the hell out of Bragi’s Dash. The new images appear to confirm an earlier leak of the Gear IconX, and the similarities with the Dash are many. There’s the basic aesthetic resemblance, similar optical heart rate sensors, a battery/charging case and a lack of buttons (so touch controls). According to VentureBeat’s source, they’ll also be a standalone media player with 4GB of storage, be water and dust resistant and include activity tracking — just like the Dash. Let’s hope that the Gear IconX has some software tricks, or a competitive price point to make them interesting. Existing products retail for between $250 and $300, this could be Samsung’s easiest way to stand out.
Remember when smartwatches suddenly got the industry’s interest? Various companies had been making them for years, but around 2013 something — possibly rumours of an “iWatch” — stirred the water and suddenly everyone was making one. The original Galaxy Gear was one of the first in this generation to launch, and it did so with some pretty big pain points. Battery life was poor, software was lacking, and useful apps were few. Incidentally, Apple is rumoured to be working on truly wireless headphones of its own.
Image via VentureBeat
Bragi CEO, Nikolaj Hviid, once told me that his team had to overcome many technological obstacles to make all the sensors in the Dash fit in such a small space. I asked Hviid if Samsung tried to tap Bragi’s expertise for their own product — similar to its arrangement with Oculus for Gear VR. Hviid will only confirm that Bragi wasn’t involved in the Gear IconX. The products’ similarities are, I guess the official term is… coincidental? Hviid isn’t worried though. He welcomes the competition, and casually reminds me all those solutions Bragi had to invent mean it has a robust patent portfolio. “The largest in the hearables space.”
Regardless of features, price (and let’s hope not IP) the biggest problems Samsung needs to fix are the basics. Every truly wireless headset so far seems to have at least one achilles heel. Often it’s simply connecting to your phone outside while it’s in your pocket. It seems such a trivial thing, but the physics of Bluetooth and small wireless headphones seem to be a bad match. A second problem is connecting the buds to each other. To do this over Bluetooth, they must stick out of the ears so the signal reaches. We can’t be sure, but the images suggest this could be the case with the Gear IconX. Bragi, on the other hand uses NFMI to connect the two buds, which allows a “shorter” design.
One industry expert suggested to me (based on VentureBeat’s photos) the placement of the optical heart rate sensors on the Gear IconX might be too far back in the ear, exposing them to light and rendering them ineffective. There’s also the question of software and compatibility. Might these be Samsung-only like the Gear-line of watches? We’ll have to wait and see. There’s every chance the design has changed since the first round of leaks, and of course, the company has yet to make them official. Either way, we’re interested to see/hear whether Samsung can finally untangle the world of truly wireless headphones.
Via: SlashGear
Source: VentureBeat
Xiaomi’s Mi Max phone has a huge display and a big battery
Xiaomi’s next smartphone is a giant, dwarfing even its Mi Note and Mi Note Pro phablets in size. The new Mi Max comes with a 6.44-inch display and a beefy 4,850mAh battery — which is both welcome and necessary, given the number of pixels you’ll be pushing around every day. It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 or 652 processor, as well as 4GB or 3GB of RAM, and 32GB or 128GB of internal storage. The two chipset choices are intriguing — most flagships, such as the Galaxy S7, are using the Snapdragon 820, leaving the 652 to mid-range devices like the LG G5 SE.
The design is eloquent, if a little by the numbers. It has a smooth, metal body with two faint antenna lines and the Mi logo etched on the back. It’ll be available in silver, gold or dark grey — the standard color set for a smartphone these days — when it goes on sale in China next week.
The new phone also coincides with the launch of MIUI 8, the latest version of Xiaomi’s custom Android skin. It’s a clean, colorful take with a few new software additions, such as a reworked gallery app and calculator. MIUI 8 also introduces the ability to “split” a phone into two separate accounts, with a different passcode lock, home screen and apps. You can also “clone” apps which don’t provide intuitive account switching. That means you can set up two versions of the same app, both with a separate login, and bounce between them using the home screen or Xiaomi’s app switcher.
Xiaomi’s Mi Max comes with a fingerprint sensor for security and convenient unlocking. On the back, you’ll find a 16-megapixel camera, while the front is equipped with a 5-megapixel selfie snapper, complete with a wide-angle lens. None of this sounds too extraordinary until you consider the starting price: 1,499 RMB ($230). That’ll net you the lower-specced option with the Snapdragon 650, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. Spend 1,699 RMB ($261) instead and you’ll be upgraded to the Snapdragon 652 and 64GB of storage; the top option, which runs for 1,999 RMB ($307), ups the RAM to 4GB and the onboard storage to 128GB.
All three option are cheaper than what the Mi Note and Mi Note Pro sold for in 2015. Those devices are slightly smaller, however, with a 5.7-inch display and some specs that, even by today’s standards, are pretty competitive (they run on a Snapdragon 810, with the option of either 3GB or 4GB of RAM). The Mi Max, then, is likely to be a complimentary device, rather than a direct replacement. It will also sit alongside the Mi 5, Xiaomi’s new flagship announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
App study reveals one in three of us aren’t getting enough sleep
If you get less than seven hours’ of sleep a night, you’re among the one in three Americans who aren’t getting enough zzz’s. A team of researchers from the University of Michigan used the data they gathered from an anti-jetlag app they released a few years ago to study the roles society and biology play in our sleep schedules. They got some pretty interesting information out of the app: for instance, people in the Netherlands seem to get the highest average sleep (8 hours and 12 minutes), while folks in Japan and Singapore get the lowest (7 hours, 24 minutes).
The researchers found that those who get more sunlight each day typically go to bed early and get more sleep every night, which is something to keep in mind if you usually have a hard time getting a shut-eye. Women aged 30 to 60 tend to turn in earlier and wake up a bit later, ultimately getting 30 minutes more sleep. Middle-aged men, on the other hand, get the least amount of sleep.
There are many factors why so many people are sleep deprived, including work and kids. Whatever the reason is, the study shows that a lot of adults are building up a sleep debt, affecting not just their performance at work, but also their health.
As Olivia Walch, one of the paper’s authors, explains:
It doesn’t take that many days of not getting enough sleep before you’re functionally drunk. Researchers have figured out that being overly tired can have that effect. And what’s terrifying at the same time is that people think they’re performing tasks way better than they are. Your performance drops off but your perception of your performance doesn’t.
Source: University of Michigan
Viv, from Siri’s creators, is the virtual assistant of your dreams
Siri made the world aware of the potential of virtual assistants, but several years after its release, it’s still a bit basic. Siri can only do certain very specific tasks, and she doesn’t play well with third-party services. So for their next product, Viv, the people behind Siri aimed to build a much more capable virtual assistant. And at this point, it looks like they’ve succeeded, judging from a brief demonstration today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City.
“We’re going to use this technology to breathe life into the inanimate objects and devices of our life through conversation,” said Siri co-founder and CEO Dag Kittlaus. Viv (which means life in Latin) offers an experience akin to the AI in the film Her. When Kittlaus asked, “Will it be warmer than 70 degrees near the Golden Gate Bridge, after 5pm, the day after tomorrow?” Viv quickly retrieved the correct hourly forecast from the Weather Underground app. (And the answer is no, it won’t be that warm.)
When I asked the same question to Siri on my iPhone 6S, it pulled up the daily forecast from San Francisco for the next week, but it’s unclear if it actually gave me predicted temperatures after 6pm. It also couldn’t give me a direct yes or no answer. Viv doesn’t yet have a virtual voice, which is one of Siri’s iconic features, but Kittlaus says his team is working on one. But even without a vocal response, Viv’s ability to retrieve a very specific bit of data was impressive.
Viv still relies on Nuance’s technology for speech recognition, which also underpins Siri and plenty of other dictation solutions. But what makes it special is a combination of natural language technology (to determine your intent), and something called “dynamic program generation.” Kittlaus calls that a patent-pending “computer science breakthrough,” and basically, it describes Viv’s ability to create its own programming.
“When it understood the intent of the user, it generated this program,” he said, in front of a diagram showing what Viv did to answer the above question. “This is software that’s writing itself. This is an important aspect of scaling the assistant, because every other platform like it has a program manager who says, we’re going to do movies… or something else, and they’re going to lay out what happens. It’s hard coded. But that doesn’t scale.”
Most impressively, Viv put together its 44-step program in 10 milliseconds. Kittlaus also showed off how useful Viv can be for transactions. When he asked to send “20 bucks to Adam for drinks last night,” Venmo popped up with a transaction ready to his friend Adam, with the comments filled out. When he asked to send his mom flowers for her birthday, up popped Proflowers with a list of arrangements right within Viv’s app. He even managed to filter the results by asking “What about tulips?” and complete the transaction with the touch of a button.
Kittlaus also had Viv book an Uber for six people from his office to Madison Square Garden (it was a live demo, and he actually had to cancel the ride on stage), as well as book him a hotel room in Palm Springs during Labor Day weekend. It might sound like merely a slight leap ahead from Siri as I describe it, but seeing it in action brings to mind a wealth of possibilities.
This sort of seamless conversational computing is something both Facebook and Microsoft are after with their chat bots. The big difference with Viv is that it’s being positioned as a personalized assistant that will rein in the functions of other apps (and potentially their chatbots). It’s tough enough sifting through dozens of apps on your phone; imagine if you had to find and use dozens of chatbots manually.
The team wouldn’t make anyone available for a follow-up interview or demo, but we’ll certainly be keeping a close eye on them over the next few months. Because, really, who wouldn’t want an AI assistant of their own that actually works?
FCC wants to know why mobile security patches take so long
A number of critical security flaws have hit mobile devices in recent months, prompting device makers and service providers alike to issue timely patches. Sometimes those fixes take a while to reach affected handsets, and the FCC wants to know more about the process. Today, the commission announced that it’s looking into how updates are distributed when a security flaw is discovered. As part of the inquiry, the FCC’s Telecommunications Bureau head Job Wilkins asked both wireless carriers and eight phone and tablet manufacturers to provide details on how problems that plague consumer devices ultimately get fixed.
In its announcement, the FCC cites the so-called Stagefright vulnerability that affected around a billion Android devices worldwide. Google has released multiple patches to fix the security flaw, and those running a more recent version of the software with the latest updates are covered. However, there are a lot of aging Android devices in the wild running an older version of the OS, not all of which have received the patches needed to protect them against these vulnerabilities. Of course, Apple’s mobile gadgets running iOS face their own security issues as well, but due to Stagefright’s wide scope, it’s understandably garnered particular attention.
When updates are released from device makers, there’s sometimes a holdup on the part of the wireless companies. This is why the next version of Android may hit the latest Samsung phone on AT&T before it does on Verizon, for example. For that reason, the FCC seeks details about the process from both sides, especially when it comes to critical security updates. The commission notes that while companies have addressed issues when they’re discovered, there have been significant delays in the patches reaching the affected devices. And, perhaps more importantly, there are a number of phones and tablets that aren’t receiving these fixes at all.
This isn’t the first time government officials have looked into the recent rise in mobile security issues. Last month, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) called for an investigation into the SS7 bug that allowed security researchers to track location and record phone conversations without his knowledge. That particular flaw was first revealed in late 2014.
Source: FCC
New Moto X phones reportedly feature modular accessories
Rumor mountain is rumbling this week with news about the next phones under Motorola’s Moto X brand, and VentureBeat today says that the new devices will be modular, allowing users to swap out backplates with various capabilities. Yesterday, HellomotoHK posted images of new Moto X phones that appeared to show one phone with a metallic body and laser auto-focusing features. VentureBeat reports that there are actually two new Moto X phones, the Vertex and Vector Thin, and they both feature customizable, modular bodies.
Here’s what the site reports: The phones’ backplates have a line of 16 dots near the bottom and these are not speaker ports — they’re connection pins. Motorola has designed six “Amps” (modules) that add new features to the phone, including stereo speakers, a battery pack, a camera grip with flash and optical zoom, a pico projector and a rugged cover with wide-angle lens attachment. The cameras on these two new phones jut out a fair bit, but they should lay flush once the modules are attached.
LG’s G5 smartphone recently launched with modular capabilities, but it requires removing the actual battery every time you want to add a new attachment. The Vertex and Vector Thin apparently circumvent this problem by attaching modules directly to the back of the phones, rather than inserting new tools into the phone’s base.
VentureBeat also reports the following specs for the new Moto X phones: Both have 5.5 inch AMOLED displays, while the Vertex has a full HD display and Vector Thin features Quad HD resolution. The Vector Thin will have 32GB of storage and either 3GB or 4GB RAM, while the Vertex will have 16GB of storage and 2GB RAM or 32GB of storage and 3GB RAM. The Vector Thin is also — appropriately — extra thin at just 5.2mm thick.
Motorola hasn’t yet confirmed these details, but the company is expected to announce its new phones at Lenovo Tech World on June 9th, Droid Life reports.
Source: VentureBeat
T-Mobile customers can roam in Cuba
As US-Cuban relations thaw, Western businesses have moved in and started paving the way for tourism. Sprint and Verizon made arrangements last fall with Empresa De Telecomunicaciones De Cuba, S.A. (ETECSA) last fall to get their vacationing customers can use text, data and voice within the country. T-Mobile just announced a similar deal with the government-owned Cuban telecommunications company for roaming privileges and cheaper calls into the island nation.
While the other Western telecoms beat it to the Communist nation, T-Mobile’s agreement also includes cheaper calls to Cuban landlines and wireless numbers under its Stateside International Talk option. They weren’t the first to get benefits, but at least Simple Choice customers won’t have to use burner phones or swap SIM cards during their Cuban vacations when the roaming deal kicks in this summer.
Source: Business Wire
Verizon’s Galaxy S7 can install apps on its own, but don’t panic
Verizon is notorious in some circles for loading its smartphones with bloatware, but its recent moves have some users more anxious than usual… if not necessarily for the best reasons. A recent update to the carrier’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge variants has installed Digital Turbine’s Ignite, an app that lets carriers install more apps in the background. This has surfaced before on earlier T-Mobile and Verizon phones, but owners on Reddit and elsewhere are understandably nervous that this suddenly gives Verizon carte blanche to install more unwanted apps. Are you going to wake up to find another unnecessary navigation app or media portal on your phone?
Well, not quite. We reached out to Verizon (yes, they’re our corporate overlords) for details, and it tells us that Ignite isn’t the bloatware apocalypse some are making it out to be. Much as on earlier devices, Ignite is there to make sure that you’re getting the most recent software loadout when you either set up a new phone or reset to factory defaults. You shouldn’t see bloatware apps popping up without warning, then. Also, a spokesman swears that it’s possible to completely uninstall (not just disable) new apps that do show up as a result. You can disable Ignite if you’re still worried.
The remarks aren’t going to completely allay fears that Ignite could let Verizon do something sneaky, whether or not it’s limited to factory-fresh devices. And of course, they don’t tackle the underlying complaints about the very existence of bloatware — why do we need so many redundant or pointless apps, Verizon? However, this does serve as a reminder that even the pushier carriers have their limits.
Via: SamMobile, The Verge
Source: Reddit
Creative pushes for US bans on several smartphone makers
Creative has a long history of wielding its patents against other tech companies (just ask Apple), but its latest effort might top them all. The US International Trade Commission is investigating Creative’s complaints that seven smartphone makers (BlackBerry, HTC, LG, Lenovo/Motorola, Samsung, Sony and ZTE) violate its patents. Allegedly, all of the companies are imitating Creative’s hierarchical menu system for media playback, much as the iPod supposedly duped Zen players a decade ago. If successful, the ITC dispute would ban the sale of at least some of these companies’ devices… and given the sheer scope of the complaint, you’d probably notice the absences on store shelves.
None of the companies involved have commented on how they’ll respond to the move. Also, it’ll be a while before there’s a conclusion — as with any other ITC case, the Commission will have to review any initial decision. However, Creative’s strategy is already fairly clear. It’s gambling that at least some of its targets will settle rather than risk seeing some of their most important products banned in the US. It’s not as though there’s a simple fix, either — the media interface that Creative describes is both very generic and near-ubiquitous, so avoiding it would require a major software redesign.
Via: Reuters
Source: US ITC
AIVAnet 