LeEco has grown so fast it’s running out of cash
Chinese technology company LeEco is still a relatively new name in the west, but in China, the company is one of the most dominant players in smartphones, TVs, movies and e-commerce. With help from Faraday Future, the electronics giant has moved into the automotive industry, but its fast expansion has come at a cost. In a company-wide letter, LeEco co-founder Jia Yueting admitted that the company is running out of cash.
In a letter obtained by Bloomberg, Jia said: “We blindly sped ahead, and our cash demand ballooned. We got over-extended in our global strategy. At the same time, our capital and resources were in fact limited.” Reuters also received a copy of the same letter, which read: “We are starting to see signs of big company disease, such as low individual performance and organizational redundancies.”
Jia, who has an estimated net worth of around $6 billion, has attempted to lead by example by slashing his yearly salary to one yuan (15 cents), but his announcement isn’t too surprising. In July, the company confirmed the $2 billion acquisition of US TV maker Vizio and pledged to spend a further $1.8 billion building a EV factory capable of outputting 400,000 electric cars per year. Add to that plans to dominate the US market with cheap phones, TVs, bikes and cars, and you can see why LeEco may have overextended itself.
In attempt to cushion the blow, LeEco will immediately put cost-cutting measures into place and pass on extra costs to consumers by reducing the subsidies it places on its products. The plan also includes refocusing on its existing businesses — basically phones, TVs and car production (which it’s already spent $10 billion on) — so it can recoup the cash it needs to properly explore new markets.
Via: Bloomberg, Reuters
Sennheiser’s HD 6XX headphones offer audiophile audio for $200
Sennheiser’s HD 650 were popular over-ear headphones among audiophiles before they were discontinued a few years ago. At $500, the audio gear was priced just out of reach for people who were curious about high-end headphones, but didn’t have a ton of extra cash to commit to the cause. However, they were widely regarded as some of the best headphones under $1,000. Thanks to a collaboration with online retailer Massdrop, Sennheiser has revived the HD 650 with the new $200 HD 6XX.
With the HD 6XX, Sennheiser kept the same audio quality from the HD 650 and made mostly cosmetic changes. For starters, the HD 6XX headphones are blue instead of gray and they come with a shorter 6-foot cable. This new model also uses an 1/8 in. plug rather than a 1/4 in. Don’t worry, there’s a 1/4-inch adapter should you need it. That’s really about it in terms of changes and you can expect the same stellar audio quality that those open-back headphones served up a few years ago. In fact, the folks over at Head-Fi ran a number of tests on both models to make sure. The HD 6XX displayed nearly identical performance to the HD 650 in terms of frequency response and total harmonic distortion.
I’ve been using the HD 6XX for a few days and I can attest to the remarkable audio quality. The tone is warm and the sound is extremely clear, offering high enough resolution to pick out subtle parts of songs that regular ol’ earbuds and everyday headphones gloss over. Through a range of genres including bluegrass, hip-hop, metal and more, these headphones handle highs, mids and lows with ease and you can crank the volume way up without having to worry about any distortion. There’s a good amount of bass here, but it blends in with the overall sound nicely. It’s by no means overpowering and sounds more natural than a lot of headphones available today. With the open-back design, you’ll want to use these at home or in a private office as they won’t block out outside noise and the people around you will be able to hear whatever you’re listening to.
The HD 6XX is also really comfortable to wear. Soft earpads and a headband that doesn’t pinch in on your head make long listening sessions enjoyable rather than an endurance test. If you find yourself needing to tune out the work for a while, you’ll be able to comfortably do so with these headphones and your audio setup.
While you can use the HD 6XX on its own, the headphones perform best when paired with an amp, high-res audio player or some other audiophile-grade gear. I’ve been using them with the Apogee Groove: a combination headphone amp and DAC (digital-to-analog converter). The $300 USB accessory helps these new Sennheiser headphones really shine, offering a boost to the volume so that you can hear all the grit and nuance in the Led Zepplin BBC Sessions or Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. With the lower price, you could pick up the HD 6XX and the Groove for the same total investment as the original HD 650.
So, what’s Massdrop? The site specializes in getting members gear at a discounted price. Products are selected from a range of categories to gauge interest. If enough people indicate that they might purchase an item, the folks at Massdrop schedule a “drop” so that members can purchase it. Due to the popularity of the HD 650, there has been plenty of interest in the HD 6XX. After a certain number of people buy a product, the price drops so you know you’re getting a good deal. In the case of the HD 6XX, pricing starts at $250 and when it hits 50 units sold, the $50 discount kicks in.
The HD 6XX will be available for purchase at Massdrop at 9AM ET today. You’ll want to act quickly though as these headphones are limited to 5,000 units. If you’re hoping to snag a pair for the audio geek in your life for the holidays, you’ll have them in time for Christmas. They’re scheduled to ship December 15th. For more details on how to nab ’em, head on over to the product page on Massdrop.
Source: Massdrop
Amazon might launch a Prime housekeeping service
After years selling the products you need to keep your home tidy, Amazon may soon actually help you clean it. Two job postings, first spotted by The Seattle Times, show that the company is looking for “Home Assistants,” who work with customers to tidy people’s homes, do laundry, put groceries away and “assure that customers return to an errand-free home.”
The ads originally stated (they were originally posted on October 13th) that Amazon’s goal was to offer “timesaving assistance to Amazon Prime members,” suggesting that its new cleaning service would be offered as a Prime perk. However, the company has since updated its listings to remove any link to the subscription service.
Currently, the positions are open to people living in or around Seattle but it’s worth noting that Amazon is looking for dedicated employees, not independent contractors who will feed into the “gig economy.” It will offer applicants on-site training as well as Amazon stock, health insurance and flexible working hours.
While Amazon isn’t commenting on its job listings, the fact that the company is only looking for a small number of staff suggests it’s looking to trial the service to see if there’s demand. Even if it does become one of Amazon’s next Prime perks, it’ll probably take some time for Bezos and co. to amass a housekeeping army capable of keeping America’s (and possibly Europe’s) homes clean.
Via: Seattle Times
Source: Amazon Jobs
ICYMI: Mobility scooters that autonomously get around
Today on In Case You Missed It: MIT’s Computer Science and AI Lab have cooked up another autonomously driving vehicle, but this one is a disability scooter. In this newly posted video, you can watch as the scooter navigates around human obstacles when taking a person on the way to their destination. In other AI news, Google and Blizzard Entertainment are teaming up to use Deepmind to train the system to autonomously play Starcraft II.
If you, too, have a fondness for Big Mouth Billy Bass, the singing fish trophy, you need to see how one was hacked to be the voice of Alexa. It’s pretty terrifying. And if you haven’t yet played the New York Times’ Voter Suppression Trail, you’re missing out on both nostalgia and maybe sadness. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Facebook iOS App Will Soon Gain Prisma-Like Art Filters for Photos and Videos
In a lengthy blog post about Facebook’s ten-year plan to “accelerate innovation and power new experiences with AI,” chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer mentioned that one update coming to the company’s mobile apps will be a “style transfer” tool that turns normal photos and videos into works of art using “high efficiency neural networks,” all running directly on iOS and Android smartphones.
Facebook’s impending update will, according to Schroepfer, run entirely on the user’s smartphone and not be dependent on the content to be sent to servers, creating long load times and frustrating users. The CTO described this as the most demanding and “technically difficult” hurdle to clear in the process of adding the feature to the company’s mobile apps, but Schroepfer said the company has done just that, and the result is a deep learning platform called “Caffe2Go.”
Just three months ago we set out to do something nobody else had done before: ship AI-based style transfer running live, in real time, on mobile devices. This was a major engineering challenge, as we needed to design software that could run high-powered computing operations on a device with unique resource constraints in areas like power, memory and compute capability. The result is Caffe2Go, a new deep learning platform that can capture, analyze and process pixels in real time on a mobile device.
We found that by condensing the size of the AI model used to process images and videos by 100x, we’re able to run deep neural networks with high efficiency on both iOS and Android. This is all happening in the palm of your hand, so you can apply styles to videos as you’re taking them.
Schroepfer said that the alternative of sending the content to data centers to be analyzed and filtered was “not ideal for letting people share fun content in the moment.” In addition to basic image and video filtering capabilities, the new deep-learning platform will also feasibly be able to understand gesture controls when taking a selfie, for instance. In today’s blog post, an example is given of a user swiping right and left between various artistic filters for a selfie (all running live, in real-time) and even snapping a picture when the user smiles.
As a comparison, the update sounds largely similar to Prisma, an app that launched over the summer and impressed many with its ability to turn photos, and eventually videos, into stylized images. Originally, Prisma used a server-side combination of neural networks and artificial intelligence to apply the different filters to user photos, but an update also introduced offline image processing, meaning users could use some of the app’s filters to alter their images right from their smartphones.
For Facebook, the announcement follows a year of video-first announcements from the company, most recently embodied in CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to make the camera more prominent in the app. No specific timeline was given for a possible launch of the new features on Facebook’s mobile apps, but the company is clearly looking to lay the groundwork for its future, calling its new AI initiative, along with virtual reality, “new technologies that will shape the next decade.”
Tag: Facebook
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Sony’s ‘Concept for Android’ brings Nougat to the Xperia X
Sony offers a taste of Nougat with its Concept program.
Sony introduced the “Concept for Android” program last year, allowing select users to preview upcoming software features before they’re widely available. Since the program’s introduction, Sony has dialed back on overt customizations to conform to a Material Design core, instead providing differentiation in the form of services.
After seeing a lot of success with the Marshmallow Concept, Sony is now rolling out the Nougat-based Concept build to Xperia X owners in Europe.
Sony detailed the changes in a blog post, which include multi-window support, inline notification replies, and access to the inTouch community, through which users can provide feedback directly to Sony:
- A sneak-peek at some of the latest features that will be part of future Xperia products
- Android 7.0, Nougat, which includes new native features such as multi-window support and improved notifications
- Access to Sony’s inTouch community, providing direct access to our software engineers and a chance to influence development & coming releases
If you’re rocking an Xperia X in Europe (F5121), you can get started with the program by downloading the Concept Installer from the Play Store.
Moto M unveiled in China with metal body and 3050mAh battery
After a spate of leaks, the Moto M is now official in China. The specs are in line with what we’ve seen in the leaks, with the phone offering a 5.5-inch Full HD display with 2.5D curved glass, 2.2GHz octa-core MediaTek Helio P15 SoC with Mali T860MP2 GPU, 4GB of RAM, 32GB storage, microSD slot, 16MP camera with dual-tone flash and PDAF, 8MP front shooter, 4G with VoLTE, Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 4.1, NFC, USB-C, and a 3050mAh battery,
Essentially, the phone looks like a metal-clad variant of the moto G4 Plus with the fingerprint sensor moved to the back, and USB-C connectivity. The Moto M also has a nano coating that makes it resistant to the occasional splash, and Lenovo has bundled Dolby Atmos tech. On the software side of things, we’re treated to Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow.
The phone will go on sale starting November 11 in the country, retailing for ¥1,999 ($295). It will be sold in gold and silver color options, and as of now there’s no mention of global availability. Given its retail price, the Moto M slots in between the budget Moto G4 Plus and the mid-range Moto Z Play.
UK watchdog gets Facebook to temporarily stop collecting data from WhatsApp
Facebook “pauses” WhatsApp data collection in the UK.
WhatsApp announced back in August that it would start sharing data with Facebook to “better fight spam on WhatsApp” and offer “better friend suggestions and show you more relevant ads” on Facebook. Although the service offered a 30-day window to let users opt out of sharing data with the social network, it mentioned that it would collect anonymous information to help Facebook tackle spam and abuse.
As expected, the announcement drew a lot of ire from customers as well as government regulators, including the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office. After an eight-week probe into the company’s privacy policy, the information commissioner has found that WhatsApp didn’t get “valid consent” from its users when it comes to sharing data with Facebook. The watchdog’s intervention has led to Facebook agreeing to “pause” data collection from WhatsApp users in the UK:
I don’t think users have been given enough information about what Facebook plans to do with their information, and I don’t think WhatsApp has got valid consent from users to share the information. I also believe users should be given ongoing control over how their information is used, not just a 30 day window.
We’ve set out the law clearly to Facebook, and we’re pleased that they’ve agreed to pause using data from UK WhatsApp users for advertisements or product improvement purposes.
We have now asked Facebook and WhatsApp to sign an undertaking committing to better explaining to customers how their data will be used, and to giving users ongoing control over that information. We also want individuals to have the opportunity to be given an unambiguous choice before Facebook start using that information and to be given the opportunity to change that decision at any point in the future.
We think consumers deserve a greater level of information and protection, but so far Facebook and WhatsApp haven’t agreed. If Facebook starts using the data without valid consent, it may face enforcement action from my office.
The result could have a cascading effect in other regions as well, with 28 data protection authorities in the EU requesting WhatsApp to stop sharing data with Facebook. For its part, the social network is working with local regulators:
WhatsApp designed its privacy policy and terms update to give users a clear and simple explanation of how the service works, as well as choice over how their data is used. These updates comply with applicable law, and follow the latest guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office.
We hope to continue our detailed conversations with the ICO and other data protection officials, and we remain open to working collaboratively to address their questions.
OK Google, give me a portable Google Home
Music makes me better.
I listen everywhere: the office, the car, the bedroom, the kitchen, the park, the store, the shower, you name it. And in my few short days with Google Home, I am coming to love the quality and more importantly the control I get while listening to music on it. There’s just one real problem: I need a Google Home that isn’t tethered to the wall.
It was wonderful, simply wonderful… until I was done toweling off.
Controlling music playback over Google Home while in the shower is nothing short of magic. Even with the fan and the shower on full blast, all but one of my commands was heard and acted on immediately. “Ok Google. Next.” “Ok Google. Softer.” “Ok Google. Skip 60 seconds ahead.” It was wonderful, simply wonderful… until I was done toweling off and needed to go to the bedroom to get dressed. Just as when I came in, I had to unplug my Google Home, plug it back in inside the bedroom, wait for it to boot up, then call up my playlist again and re-shuffle it.
We’ve already discussed the need for an answer to the Amazon Dot, but for my money, Google should be going after another Alexa product first: Amazon Tap. It’s a Bluetooth Speaker with Amazon Alexa built-in. We need one of these with Google Assistant, Google Cast, and that nostalgic click-wheel-like touchpad on top. While battery life with always-on listening could be a tossup, being able to temporarily extend Google Home’s functionality into another room without having to untether and retether to a power outlet could be a godsend.
Well, just use a Pixel…
Google Pixel is indeed a mobile option, but the voice commands available through Google Assistant on the Pixel are but a small fraction of those on Google Home, especially when it comes to media and home control. Even if Google Assistant was consistent on both devices, an $800 dollar phone is hardly a reasonable alternative to a $130 or $150 voice-activated speaker.
Let’s bring Google Home out onto the deck, or into the pillow fort with your kids, or into the bathroom for some shower show tunes. Home is more than where the power outlets are, and Google Home needs to be there, too.
Unless then, we’ll deal with having to plug it in. Those lights sure are pretty…
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- Google Home review
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Samsung openly apologises to European Note 7 owners, promises to do better
Samsung Europe has published an open and frank letter of apology to all European owners of the Galaxy Note 7, including those in the UK.
President and CEO of Samsung Electronics Europe, YH Eom, says that the company is still investigating every aspect of manufacturing for the Note 7, including the batteries, and will publicly release its findings in order to be “transparent”. He also claims that Samsung will learn from the process and seek to earn back consumer trust.
Production of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was ceased at the beginning of October after a troubled period in which many smartphones caught fire, exploded or failed in a way which, in some cases, caused harm to users and/or their surroundings. After a mass recall and replacement programme, it was discovered that some of the replacement phones were suffering the same fates.
- Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is dead, bereft of life, it has ceased to be… it is an ex-smartphone
Eom claims that Samsung is still working to ensure that all Galaxy Note 7’s in circulation are replaced with other handsets.
Here is his open apology letter in full:
“At Samsung, we innovate to deliver breakthrough technologies that enrich people’s lives. An important tenet of our mission is to offer best-in-class safety and quality. Recently, we fell short on this promise.
“Because we had not gone on general sale in Europe with the Note 7, there were a small number of affected customers here. For those customers who received the device during the pre-order phase, we recognise that we have not lived up to your expectations, or our own high standards. For this we are truly sorry.
“We take seriously our responsibility to address concerns about safety and quality. In collaboration with government agencies and industry partners around the world, we are taking proactive steps to do better. Here is an update of our actions.
“As you have heard – or experienced personally – we have stopped production of the Galaxy Note 7. We are working swiftly to ensure every Note 7 device is safely returned. For those directly affected, we appreciate your patience throughout the replacement process.
“Samsung is fully committed to identifying and addressing the source of the Note 7’s battery issue. We have already initiated investigations with independent third party experts to carefully revisit every aspect of the device, including the battery, hardware and software, and manufacturing processes. Once available, we will transparently share our findings.
“Samsung has a long heritage of innovation and we have shown that we can and will learn from our mistakes. While we are always looking to innovate and create the next generation of great consumer technology, safety will remain our top priority. We will invest to better serve your needs through enhanced customer care and quality assurance.
“On behalf of all our employees across Europe, we are truly sorry, and grateful for your ongoing support. We will listen to you, learn from this and act in a way that allows us to win back your trust.”
AIVAnet 