Snapchat brings live score filters to high school football
For its next geofilter trick, Snapchat is partnering with fellow Southern California startup ScoreStream to bring live scores from more than 5,000 weekly high school football games into your Snaps and Stories. As Mashable reports today, the scoreboard geofilters will show up just in time for back to school season when they launch on September 2nd.
The high school filters work more or less exaclty like the live score filters for NBA and professional sports that Snapchat debuted earlier this year, although Mashable points out that they’ll only be available for games at participating schools. Snapchat hasn’t released a list of those schools yet, but ScoreStream has a searchable database of available teams they work with as well as their own standalone app.
While the data comes from ScoreStream, the actual art will come from Snapchat itself and features ad space similar to how sponsored filters work. At launch, the scoreboard filters will be feature some prominent Gatorade branding.
“Dynamic Geofilters are a visual and timely way for sports fans to express the here and now of the game in their Snaps,” Snapchat’s Ben Schwerin said in a statement. “ScoreStream’s crowd-sourced content is far more local and personal than any other sports content currently available, and will fuel the high school spirit of our Snapchatters like never before.”
Source: Mashable
Apple patches three zero-day exploits after activist is hacked
Apple has rolled out a patch for three previously unknown zero-day exploits that were used to hack into the iPhone 6 of Ahmed Mansoor, an award-winning human rights activist based in the United Arab Emirates. Security company Lookout and internet watchdog group Citizen Lab investigated the attack on Mansoor’s iPhone and found it to be the product of NSO Group, a “cyber war” organization based in Israel that’s responsible for distributing a powerful, government-exclusive spyware product called Pegasus.
The hack took advantage of three zero-day exploits that allowed the attackers to jailbreak Mansoor’s iPhone and install spyware to track his movements, record his WhatsApp and Viber calls, log his messages and access his microphone and camera. Given the high cost of iPhone zero-days and the use of a government-specific spyware product, Citizen Lab believes the UAE is behind the hack. The UAE has previously targeted Mansoor.
“We are not aware of any previous instance of an iPhone remote jailbreak used in the wild as part of a targeted attack campaign, making this a rare find,” Citizen Lab writes.
Once Citizen Lab discovered the zero-days, it contacted Apple and says the company responded promptly. Apple released a software update today, iOS 9.3.5, that addresses the three flaws.
Source: Citizen Lab, Apple, Lookout
HTC breaks its promise to update the One A9 ‘within 15 days’
When HTC launched the One A9, it promised to roll out new versions of Android “within 15 days” of their release. Pretty sweet, right? Well, it would be — but that’s not happening with Android 7.0. In a tweet, HTC said the new software will be hitting the HTC 10 in the fourth quarter of 2016, followed by the unlocked One M9, the unlocked One A9 and their carrier counterparts. The timeline suggests that the company will be breaking its promise with the One A9 — Google released Nougat on August 22nd, meaning the phone would need to receive it by September 6th.
We reached out to HTC, and a spokesperson told us: “With the excitement around Android Nougat, we’re aligning engineering resources around our most popular flagship products where the most customers will benefit.” It’s a shame, because the One A9 is a decent little phone. Admittedly, it’s not a top-tier powerhouse like the HTC 10, but it’s still capable. Throw in a five-inch display (an increasingly rare smartphone spec) and a light, reserved take on Android, and you’ve got a solid if unadventurous device.
The move is a head-scratcher, because HTC is struggling to sell phones as it is. The least it can do is support the people who are still buying them.
Via: XDA Developers
Source: HTC (Twitter)
Your iPhone 6 could be falling victim to ‘touch disease’
If you’ve ever seen a flickering gray bar at the top of your iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus lately, you may be the victim of a very serious problem plaguing your mobile device.
It’s a massive issue that’s been making the rounds on a staggering number of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Pluses sent in for repair each month, each displaying the same symptoms: the gray bar at the top of the screen and a touchscreen that refuses to work properly, almost as if it’s frozen.
According to IFixIt and Forbes, the issue is widespread enough to warrant several pages of complaints via the Apple support forums. The problem is, both the repair techs who continually see the issues coming in and the customers taking to the internet to make their concerns known aren’t seeing much done about it.
While there are some fixes by way of twisting the phone a bit or putting pressure on the screen, these are only temporary band-aids for a much larger problem. The malady may go away for a short time, but then return with a vengeance, eventually losing touchscreen functionality altogether.
Weirdly enough, replacing the touchscreen isn’t a proper fix. The gray bar will creep onto the new screen even when it’s been swapped out, because it’s not exactly a problem with the screen. It’s a problem with the Touch IC chips on the board inside the phone. They must be replaced for the problem to completely go away, and Apple’s Geniuses aren’t able to open up phones to go inside and replace them. Hence, the quandary. Instead, people are turning to smaller, third-party repair shops who are “unauthorized” to fix the issue.
Repair shops have been trying out various fixes to ward off the problem so that it doesn’t return. According to Jessa Jones, microsoldering specialist via IFixIt.org, placing a metal shield soldered over the sticker shield on the problem iPhones seems to fix the issue indefinitely, offering an “internal reinforcement,” a “futureproof shield,” as she calls it.
Unfortunately, since these kinds of fixes aren’t endorsed or OKed by Apple, Jessa and her colleagues have actually been banned from posting on the Apple Support Communities for offering their own views on resolving the problems that so many iPhone owners are experiencing. Apple is fine with having customers purchase new phones, but it doesn’t seem to want to include repair specialists who are finding success when it comes to actually fixing the issue.
It’s estimated, according to New York board repair specialist Louis Rossmann, that this “touch disease” malady could very well turn into a class action lawsuit at some point if customers make a big enough stink. And from the way things are going, it looks like that could be a very real possibility in the future.
Via: Forbes, IFixIt
Apple patents a way to collect iPhone thieves’ fingerprints
Apple’s done a lot to curb iPhone theft via the “Find my iPhone” feature and encryption that locks out users if an incorrect code or fingerprint is used too often. However, it’s thinking about getting more proactive, judging by a new patent. It claims a method of “capturing biometric information for identifying unauthorized users,” including fingerprints, video or audio. The information could be stored or send to a server, where police could presumably use it to figure out who nabbed your device.
The system is pretty simple. The Touch ID sensor, front camera and microphone are already there, they simply need to be switched on without alerting the bad guy. In one scheme, the system could capture biometric data after a single failed passcode attempt; in another, it would only store it after a pre-determined number of failed attempts. On top of storing video, audio and fingerprint data, it could save and transmit “forensic” info like a GPS location. (The patent doesn’t specifically mention the iPhone or iPad, but those are Apple’s only devices with fingerprint sensors.)
Such a feature might be on shaky legal ground, however. Apple, maybe more than any company, understands the downsides of storing data without notifying users. And while it’s fun to speculate about patents, the tech rarely makes it into actual products. Still, Apple can already track thieves, and such a scheme would let you nab them without having to traipse around the world.
Via: Apple Insider
Source: USPTO
Facebook opens its advanced AI vision tech to everyone
Over the past two years, Facebook’s artificial intelligence research team (also known as FAIR) has been hard at work figuring out how to make computer vision as good as human vision. The crew has made a lot of progress so far (Facebook has already incorporated some of that tech for the benefit of its blind users), but there’s still room for improvement. In a post published today, Facebook details not only its latest computer-vision findings but also announces that it’s open-sourcing them to the public so that everyone can pitch in to develop the tech. And as FAIR tells us, improved computer vision will not only make image recognition easier but could also lead to applications in augmented reality.
There are essentially three sets of code that Facebook is putting on GitHub today. They’re called DeepMask, SharpMask and MultiPathNet: DeepMask figures out if there’s an object in the image, SharpMask delineates those objects and MultiPathNet attempts to identify what they are. Combined, they make up a visual-recognition system that Facebook says is able to understand images at the pixel level, a surprisingly complex task for machines.
“There’s a view that a lot of computer vision has progressed and a lot of things are solved,” says Piotr Dollar, a research scientist at Facebook. “The reality is we’re just starting to scratch the surface.” For example, he says, computer vision can currently tell you if an image has a dog or a person. But a photo is more than just the objects that are in it. Is the person tall or short? Is it a man or a woman? Is the person happy or sad? What is the person doing with the dog? These are questions that machines have a lot of difficulty answering.
In the blog post, he describes a photo of a man next to an old-fashioned camera. He’s standing in a grassy field with buildings in the background. But a machine sees none of this; to a machine, it’s just a bunch of pixels. It’s up to computer-vision technology like the one developed at FAIR to segment each object out. Considering that real-world objects come in so many shapes and sizes as well as the fact that photos are subject to varying backgrounds and lighting conditions, it’s easy to see why visual recognition is so complex.
The answer, Dollar writes, lies in deep convolutional neural networks that are “trained rather than designed.” The networks essentially learn from millions of annotated examples over time to identify the objects. “The first stage would be to look at different parts of the image that could be interesting,” he says. “The second step is to then say, ‘OK, that’s a sheep,’ or ‘that’s a dog.’
“Our whole goal is to get at all the pixels, to get at all the information in the image,” he says. “It’s still sort of a first step in the grand scheme of computer vision and having a visual recognition system that’s on par with the human visual system. We’re starting to move in that direction.”
By open-sourcing the project on GitHub, he hopes that the community will start working together to solve any problems with the algorithm. It’s a step that Facebook has taken before with other AI projects, like fasText (AI language processing) and Big Sur (the hardware that runs its AI programs). “As a company, we care more about using AI than owning AI,” says Larry Zitnick, a research manager at FAIR. “The faster AI moves forward, the better it is for Facebook.”
One of the reasons Facebook is so excited about computer vision is that visual content has exploded on the site in the past few years. Photos and videos practically rule News Feed. In a statement, Facebook said that computer vision could be used for anything from searching for images with just a few keywords (think Google Photos) to helping those with vision loss understand what’s in a photo.
There are also some interesting augmented reality possibilities. Computer vision could identify how many calories are in a photo of a sandwich, for example, or it could see if a runner has the proper form. Now imagine if this kind of information was accessible on Facebook. It could bring a whole new level of interaction to the photos and videos you already have. Ads could let you arrange furniture in a room or try on virtual clothes. “It’s critical to understand not just what’s in the image, but where it is,” says Zitnick about what it would take for augmented reality applications to take off.
Dollar brought up Pokémon Go as an example. Right now the cartoon monsters are mostly just floating in the middle of the capture scene. “Imagine if the creature can interact with the environment,” he says. “If it could hide behind objects, or jump on top of them.”
The next step would be to bring this computer-vision research into the realm of video, which is especially challenging because the objects are always moving. FAIR says that some progress has already been made: It’s able to figure out certain items in a video, like cats or food. If this identification could happen in real time, then it could theoretically be that much easier to surface the Live videos that are the most relevant to your interests.
Still, with so many possibilities, Zitnick says FAIR’s focus right now is on the underlying tech. “The fundamental goal here is to create the technologies that enable these different potential applications,” he says. Making the code open-source is a start.
New tourism app has IBM’s Watson guide you around Orlando
There’s plenty to do in Orlando, Florida besides infect yourself with Zika — what with Universal Studios, Disney World, the Epcot Center and SeaWorld. And a new app, backed by the supercomputing power of IBM’s Watson, will tell you how to get the most out of every one of your minutes in the Sunshine State.
The Visit Orlando app is designed to help visitors figure out what they want to do while in the city. Users can ask the app virtually any question within reason and receive helpful travel and booking tips in reply. Want to eat somewhere with live music? Want to know where you can watch your kids torment a dude making minimum wage while dressed as a corporate mascot? All you have to do is ask the app. Users will also be able to order tickets to popular attractions, find interesting things to do in their immediate vicinity and play a variety of augmented reality games throughout the city.
Unicode’s next emoji update focuses on gender and jobs
The latest proposed updates to Unicode’s emoji rules add a handful of dual-gendered jobs and give basically every human emoji both male and female versions, Emojipedia reports. Those two ladies dancing in bunny ears? Now there’s a male version. The policeman’s face? Emoji 4.0 adds a female option. The beta of iOS 10 already showcases these changes, despite the fact that Emoji 4.0 is still in draft form for two more months, during which period the public can provide feedback to Unicode.
New emoji jobs include astronaut, cook, teacher, factory worker, firefighter, scientist, judge, pilot and artist, all with male and female options. Emoji 4.0 includes 16 new professions, which expands to 32 when accounting for both genders.
Emoji 4.0 also allows vendors like Apple, Microsoft and Google to implement a third, gender-neutral option, though this might be more difficult than a male or female swap. Unicode president Mark Davis told Emojipedia about the challenges of creating a non-gendered emoji, saying, “One of the things that designers have struggled with is what makes a form look neutral. They have a lot of difficulty coming up with a form that looks neither male nor female.”
The Emoji 4.0 draft also includes a rainbow flag, United Nations flag, and it recommends skin tone support for a lineup of existing emojis, including the women with bunny ears, people holding hands, golfer and family icons.
Emoji 4.0 should go live for vendors in November and show up on public systems in late 2016 or early 2017, according to Emojipedia.
Source: Emojipedia
Google adds even more 3D Touch support to its iOS app
The Google app on iOS has supported 3D Touch for awhile, but that’s going, ahem, deeper. Now you can deep press on the big G at the bottom of the screen to start a new search query from anywhere within the app. Doing the same on Search and Maps results will offer previews of web pages and maps, respectively, while an even firmer press will open the links or Map. If you don’t have an iOS device that supports the feature, long pressing will net you the same results. Beyond that, version 18’s patch notes are barren aside from word that there are more Doodles and games coming in the future.
Source: iTunes
Apple is reportedly developing a social video app
Deep in the bowels of Apple HQ, the company is reportedly developing a new video-editing and sharing application. According to Bloomberg, it’s similar to Snapchat, allowing iPhone users to quickly record video, apply filters and scribble messages on top with their finger. The app is being optimized for one-handed use, a source tells the site, with a workflow that you can plow through — from shooting to sharing — in under a minute.
Snapchat and Instagram are hugely popular, and Apple wants to accommodate this sort of casual sharing in its own software. Bloomberg says it’s being developed as a standalone app, but could end up as a feature in the existing camera application. The report has stressed, however, that the app may never see the light of day. Apple has killed projects before while they were still in development, and could do the same here if the app doesn’t meet its expectations. The team is said to be striving for a 2017 release, and any delays could also result in its cancellation.
Bloomberg’s report also mentions an improved “proactive assistance” feature which, separate to the new video app, would help people to stay in touch with their closest friends and family. The company is trying “to make sharing and connectivity with contacts a system-wide feature,” the publication writes, and would include “single panels” where you could review all of your texts and emails from a specific person. Its release is dependent on approval from Apple’s internal privacy team, however.
Apple’s challenge is to develop software that’s relevant and appealing to iPhone users. The company has long-struggled to build market-leading applications and services — it’s why most people stuff the pre-installed iOS apps into a folder (or, now, remove them from their device entirely.) Hardware is but one piece of the smartphone puzzle — to keep millions of people smitten with the iPhone, it needs to build compelling apps too.
Via: The Verge
Source: Bloomberg
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