New Bang & Olufsen Cool Modern Collection is bold as brass, see the stunning new look here
Bang & Olufsen has announced a new design theme for its entire high-end range of products, based on the Art Deco movement of the 1920s.
Its Cool Modern Collection adds a touch of brass-toned class to its range, with speakers, its latest TV and music systems all benefiting from a new colour scheme.
All of the products look similar to before, but now come with brass-coloured aluminium styling and, in some cases, darker textile colours.
The collection embraces the BeoVision 14 television, the BeoSound 35 wireless music system, BeoLab 18 speakers, and the BeoSound 1 and 2 wireless speaker systems. The latter two will be available from March 2017.
- Bang & Olufsen embraces 4K Ultra HD and Android TV with BeoVision 14
In addition, you can get Cool Modern Collection versions of the BeoLab 5, BeoLab 17, Beolab 19 and BeoLab 90 speakers. A brass-toned model of the BeoRemote One Bluetooth is available too.
You should check your local Bang & Olufsen retailer for prices and more information, although we’ve been informed that they will cost the same as the standard models. All of the collection (save for the BeoSound 1 and 2 systems) are on sale now.
Bang & Olufsen says that the collection will remain an option for all products permanently.
You can see all of the different products in their new design theme by flicking through our gallery above.
Google is now letting you see the entire world in VR from the comfort of your home
Google Earth already does a great job of showing us places around the world we never even knew existed. It can show 3D images and close ups of places, but it’s never quite the same as being there. Now the company has launched Google Earth VR, which will initially launch on the HTC Vive, to instantly transport you to the world’s most famous landmarks or wherever else you want to go within the world’s 196.9 million square miles.
The VR experience aims to immerse you in different places around the globe much better than if you were just viewing a computer screen. With the VR experience you should be able to get a real sense of just how big, or small, landmarks are.
- What is Daydream and when is it coming? Google’s Android VR platform explored
- HTC Vive review: An experience that’s out of this world
Google has also compiled some cinematic tours to show off the best the world has to offer and hand-picked destinations to quickly whisk you off to, including the Amazon River, Manhattan skyline, the Grand Canyon, Swiss Alps and more.
Google Earth VR is available to download from the Steam Store now for free and is only available for the HTC Vive. Google has said news regarding Earth VR launching on other platforms will be announced next year.
Google and India’s government will launch a toilet finder
Google has teamed up with India’s Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) to develop a toilet locator tool within Maps. The country has a pretty infamous toilet problem, with around 70 percent of households not having access to their own. According to Public Radio International, 60 percent of the 1.2 billion people in the nation still defecate and urinate in the open, leading to serious sanitation issues. Google and MoUD aim to tackle that dilemma by giving people the power to search for toilets within Maps by typing relevant words in English or in their native language, like “toilet,” “lavatory,” “swachhata” and “shulabh.” Maps will then show available toilets in the same way it shows hotels, restaurants and other establishments.
A MoUD official told International Business Times that they’re relying on people to let other users know of a particular location’s condition. “The system being put in place relies heavily on crowdsourcing, with people’s feedback helping fuel it,” he said. If a toilet isn’t clean or if it’s already closed, “he or she can give it a bad review or rating.” The tool will be available in Delhi before November ends and will show not just public toilets, but also those in malls, gas stations, hospitals and other places anyone can go to. MoUD wants to expand the program to cover other urban areas, but that could take a while: the ministry doesn’t have a concrete plan or timeline yet.
Via: The Verge
Source: International Business Times
Facebook halts WhatsApp data sharing across Europe
After coming under pressure from privacy regulators across Europe, WhatsApp is temporarily reversing its decision to share user data with parent company Facebook. The Financial Times reports that the company suspended its policy last week after having already caved in to watchdogs in the UK and Germany. Facebook and WhatsApp will now work with European representatives to address concerns over the use of the data and the need to make such a feature opt-in rather than requiring users to manually remove themselves from data harvesting.
In late October, The Article 29 Working Party, which is comprised of the privacy leaders from each of the EU’s 28 nations, warned WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum that it had “serious concerns” about changes to the messaging app’s terms of service. Users were told that phone numbers, profile names, photos, online status and other activities would be shared with its parent company to test new features that would help them interact with businesses, such as receiving fraud notifications from a bank or news of a cancelled flight from an airline.
WhatsApp maintained that messages would be secured by end-to-end encryption and would be unreadable by Facebook and WhatsApp staff, but privacy experts continued to press the two companies. Last week, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) — then eight weeks into its own probe — confirmed that Facebook had paused data collection from UK WhatsApp users. That’s now expanded to users across Europe.
“We hope to continue our detailed conversations with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office and other data protection officials, Facebook said in a statement shared with the Financial Times. “We remain open to working collaboratively to address their questions.”
Via: The Verge
Source: Financial Times
National Express coaches are getting on-board entertainment
Long-haul flights have offered seat-back TVs to distract weary passengers for some time, and it’s looking like it won’t be too long before every transport option has its own form of on-board entertainment. Following the arrival of Virgin Trains’ entertainment app earlier this year, National Express has announced a similar service called VUER — short for View, Unwind, Enjoy and Relax (sigh) — for its coaches. Launching at the end of November, the VUER app for Android and iOS will give passengers complimentary access to TV shows, magazines, news and weather via free on-board WiFi.
Initially coming to nearly 300 coaches on popular routes with over 100 hours of launch content, the entertainment service will reach National Express’ entire fleet by next summer. Live journey updates and films will also become available within the VUER app early next year. National Express is promising there will be something for adults and kids alike, hopefully keeping the little ones quiet on those long and boring cross-county trips.
Via: Gizmodo
Facebook Halts Collection of WhatsApp User Data Across Europe
Facebook has temporarily halted the collection of WhatsApp user data across Europe after pressure from privacy watchdogs, according to the Financial Times. The move follows news last week that the social media company, which owns the popular chat platform, agreed to pause data collection in the U.K. while a government probe there inquired into WhatsApp’s privacy policy.
The Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s office, which acts as Facebook’s European regulatory body, confirmed to FT that the company had suspended European data collection since last week.
The change in data gathering means that WhatsApp users across Europe will no longer have select information shared with Facebook, including the phone number a user verifies during the registration process and the last time a user accessed the service.
Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014, but only began collecting data from users of the chat service in August this year. In September, German authorities ordered a halt to the practice in the country after ruling that it was an infringement of national data protection law.
Last month, pan-European privacy watchdogs signed an open letter to WhatsApp saying they had serious concerns over the privacy policy change, and urged Facebook to pause data collection until appropriate legal protections could be assured.
Tags: Facebook, WhatsApp
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‘FIFA’ hackers guilty of ‘mining’ $16 million from EA
We tend to think of ‘wire fraud’ as a white collar crime perpetrated against a banking institution, but in a world with virtual currencies and online marketplace, the reality can be a bit more complex. Take the case of Anthony Clark, a 24-year-old man from Whittier, CA, who was found guilty of a conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He didn’t defraud a major US bank — he and three others mined $16 million worth of FIFA Coins from EA Sports’ popular series of soccer games.
This isn’t the first time there have been legal charges surrounding the EA games’ digital currency — earlier this year some popular YouTube streamers got in trouble for violating the UK Gambling Act by creating online lotteries with FIFA Coins. Compared to this hacker group’s efforts, however, that was almost nothing: According to the Justice Department, Clark and his team created software that tricked EA’s servers into thinking their accounts had played thousands of FIFA Soccer matches in seconds, causing the game’s normally small FIFA Coin payouts to be multiplied exponentially. Over time, the group sold these ill-gotten winnings on secondary coin markets for millions.
The feds closed in on Clark and the rest last year, seizing money, cars and a house, before things ended this week when a jury convicted Clark on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The rest of the group pleaded guilty earlier, and all four are currently awaiting sentencing. Check out the Justice Department’s official statement for more details.
Source: Department of Justice
Spray-on conductive concrete will shield us from EMP attacks
While the threat of an EMP attack knocking out electronics and sending the world into an apocalyptic spiral seems far off, it’s good to know that someone is working to protect us from it anyway. University of Nebraska engineers Christopher Tuan and Lim Nguyen have successfully created a cost-effective concrete mix that acts as a shield against “intense pulses of electromagnetic energy” and protects any electronic devices inside.
The EMP-proof concrete has actually been adapted from Tuan and Nguyen’s previous — and slightly more pedestrian — breakthrough: self-warming concrete that can melt ice and snow with a safe, low-level electrical current. The pair was originally working on a way to build safer roads and bridges when they realized their new concrete could also block electromagnetic energy.
That microwave-blocking property comes from a key ingredient in the concrete mix called magnetite — an iron ore with magnetic properties that allow it to soak up radiation. Tuan and Nguyen also added in more carbon and metal elements than traditional concrete in order to boost the absorption even further. Compared to building expensive metal enclosures or faraday cages, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln says the new conductive concrete is much cheaper and easier to deploy, and a prototype structure built with the material exceeded the military’s own shielding requirements. As part of a licensing agreement with American Business Continuity Group, the University has even developed a commercially available, spray-on “shotcrete” version, so the material can easily be used to retrofit older buildings and potentially vulnerable infrastructure.
Source: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Apple’s OLED Suppliers Won’t Be Able to Meet Demand for 2017 iPhone
Apple’s four main OLED suppliers won’t be able to meet the production capacity necessary to match demand for the 2017 iPhone, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Supply constraints are expected to last until 2018.
OLED screens are more difficult to produce in mass quantities than LCD screens, which means Apple is “at the mercy” of suppliers who are willing to produce them in the necessary quantities. Bloomberg notes that the supply constraints may force Apple to either restrict OLED use to one version of the next iPhone or push adoption of the technology back.
While Apple and Samsung have an exclusive OLED deal for 2017, it doesn’t guarantee that the company will be able to meet Apple’s demand. For example, Samsung’s OLED supplies have already been constrained due to its own smartphones, like the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.
Apple’s OLED screen order is for displays larger than 5 inches, according to Bloomberg. The Cupertino company has ordered an initial round of 100 million units over the next year, but Samsung will only be able to provide a portion of that for the Holiday 2017 quarter. Apple may face troubles if Samsung can’t meet its demand.
If Samsung sees supply constraints in its ramp up of OLED panels for the fall 2017 iPhone launch, Apple may not have another major provider to fall back on. That’s why Apple usually has multiple suppliers for key components. For example, it has sourced LCD panels from all of the major Asia-based display makers. For next year, at least, it appears that OLED supply chain may be a single-company affair.
On Tuesday, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that he believes Apple will launch an all-new OLED iPhone alongside 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch LCD iPhones. While all three iPhones are likely to sport a new design with a glass back, the new OLED iPhone will have a curved edge-to-edge display. Kuo previously said the OLED iPhone would sport a 5.8-inch display with a bezel-free design.
Related Roundup: iPhone 8 (2017)
Tags: bloomberg.com, OLED
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‘Uncharted,’ ‘Firewatch’ dominate The Game Awards nominations
The Game Awards show has made it a point to recognize more than just the usual blockbuster hits, and it looks like that will remain true when the 2016 ceremony takes place on December 1st. Geoff Keighley’s outfit has unveiled its nominees for this year, and there’s a healthy mix of triple-A titles and indies. It won’t shock you to hear that big names like Battlefield 1, Doom, Overwatch, Titanfall 2 and Uncharted 4 are up for multiple awards, of course. However, smaller projects like Inside (up for game of the year), Hyper Light Drifter and Firewatch make up a large chunk of the selections.
Both Firewatch and Uncharted are particularly notable given how thoroughly they dominate the acting, art and storytelling nominations, in some cases picking up multiple nods in the same category. It’s not completely surprising. Both games not only have distinctive visual languages, but go out of their way to create nuanced characters that have lives beyond their immediate adventures.
The 2016 picks are also noteworthy for the sheer range of categories. There are nominees for the best VR game, eSports player, eSports title, fan-made content and trending gamer (think YouTubers like Jacksepticeye or Danny O’Dwyer). The show this year is as much a reflection of gaming’s zeitgeist as it is pure talent — we’re just wondering whether or not there will be any shocking upsets among the winners.
Source: The Game Awards
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