Yahoo brings all its bots together in one app
Yahoo has quietly introduced a new app called Yahoo Bots, as recently spotted by VentureBeat. The application, available for iOS and Android, acts as a hub to connect you with all of the company’s virtual assistants. You’ll find bots that provide information from Yahoo News, Yahoo Weather and Yahoo Finance, and more could be added in the future. Meanwhile, Blitz helps Fantasy Football players research their team and manage it, as well as get real-time stats, player news and personalized roster recommendations. If you want to check it out, Yahoo Bots is a free download from the App Store or Google Play.
Via: VentureBeat
Source: App Store, Google Play
Craig Federighi Says Touch Bar on New MacBook Pro Has ‘So Much Potential’ For Developers
YouTube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee has shared an exclusive interview with Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi. The pair chatted about the new MacBook Pro and its customizable Touch Bar, which Federighi said is “going to be great” and has “so much potential” for developers.
Touch Bar is a Multi-Touch strip of glass that replaces the standard row of function keys on the new MacBook Pros, providing users with system-level and app-specific controls that contextually change. For example, when a user types text in a document, the Touch Bar might include controls for adjusting the font face and size.
MacBook Pro users can interact with the Touch Bar using gestures. Tapping activates a control, such as a button, or selects an item, such as an emoji. Touching and holding initiates a secondary action on a control, such as a button. Panning moves an element, such as a slider of photos or emojis, from side-to-side.
The questions and answers below were edited slightly for clarity and brevity.
“Why now? Why 2016 for us to arrive at the Touch Bar?”
A lot of it came together in terms of the technology being just right to really pull this off in this kind of form factor — such as Touch ID and the quality of the display. We wanted it to feel just completely native to the keyboard and completely real — and be so responsive. We were able to take so much that we’ve learned in the hardware for iOS devices — and even so much of the security model of iOS, like for Touch ID — and incorporate some of our custom silicon to make it happen. A lot of things had to come together to make this possible. It’s exciting to finally have it out.
“Similar to Touch ID in the iPhone, Touch Bar will get better with time, right? What are you most looking forward to seeing, maybe in a year from now, when we have these and developers get their hands on it? What kind of stuff should we expect to see?”
What’s been really awesome is that we’ve brought some developers in over the past month — and we just showed a small subset of the ones that had come in and already started doing work — and they have a lot of great ideas. Look at djay Pro. It’s so exciting when we develop a product and we have a vision of what we can do with it with our apps. We know inherently this is a device with so much potential because it’s just a versatile Multi-Touch display. When you get it in the hands of these developers and it’s like, “we didn’t think of that, but that’s just awesome.”
I’m really excited about what we’ve seen so far. I think, of course, a lot of people will do buttons and sliders, but I think there will be this next wave where people say, “hey, this is like custom hardware.” You can create the control that supports the best mechanic for whatever it is you want to do in your app, whether that’s a game doing something really novel or music, which is so awesome for those kind of real-time capabilities. It’s going to be great, but I’m really excited about how fast it’s already happening. I think day one, you get one of these, and it’s going to be great.
Apple’s newly published design guidelines refer to the Touch Bar as an extension of the keyboard and trackpad, not the display. Apple does not want developers to include display alerts, messages, scrolling content, or static content in their Touch Bar extensions, but rather controls that resemble the appearance of the physical keyboard keys in terms of size and color.
Although technically it’s a screen, the Touch Bar functions as an input device, not a secondary display. The user may glance at the Touch Bar to locate or use a control, but their primary focus is the main screen. The Touch Bar shouldn’t display alerts, messages, scrolling content, static content, or anything else that commands the user’s attention or distracts from their work on the main screen.
The guidelines also tell developers not to include functions solely in the Touch Bar to ensure backwards compatibility with older Macs. There must always be a way to perform tasks using the keyboard or trackpad. Apple also tells developers not to use Touch Bar for well-known keyboard shortcuts such as find, select all, deselect, copy, cut, paste, undo, redo, new, save, close, print, and quit.
Tags: Craig Federighi, Touch Bar, MKBHD
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Catch the first glimpse of Faraday Future’s production EV
Faraday Future has yet to unveil its competitor to Tesla’s line of commercial electric vehicles, but it seems we’re getting closer. A video posted today teases the company’s production vehicle as it sails down the desert turns at Willow Springs. “Can’t hear the engine?” the video asks. “You’re not supposed to.” And that’s about it.
Faraday Future doesn’t offer any details about the vehicle, though we do know the company is gearing up for a big reveal at CES 2017 in January.
On top of its EV, Faraday Future has the FFZero1, a concept race car packed with future-centric upgrades like a smartphone in the steering wheel and a port in the headrest that pumps air and water into the driver’s crash helmet. Clearly, the FFZero1 is not designed for trips to the grocery store. That’s where the production car comes in.
Electric performance; a first look at our prototype in action. Keep up with the latest Faraday Future developments: https://t.co/cP1opOqrRn pic.twitter.com/e0ABjEgBem
— Faraday Future (@FaradayFuture) October 27, 2016
The teaser video comes at an opportune moment for Faraday Future, as this week the company’s financial stability was thrown into question. The Los Angeles Times reported that Faraday Future owes the company building its Las Vegas car factory $21 million, with an additional $25 million due in October and $12 million in November. Plus, it owes Nevada state a $75 million performance bond. Faraday Future has yet to comment on the reported financial issues.
Intel Capital doubles down on its Diversity Fund investment
Intel has been an industry leader when it comes to diversity initiatives – both internally and through its investment arm. Last year, Intel Capital announced a $125 million Diversity Fund aimed at boosting women- and minority-led startups. This year, the chipmaker is doubling down on its investment with another $125 million over the next five years, while also broadening the fund’s scope to include LGBTQ founders, veterans and entrepreneurs living with disabilities.
According to Intel, the fund led by Trina Van Pelt and Christine Herron is “the largest of its kind by a significant margin” and it provides access to the company’s business development programs and extensive technology expertise in addition to the capital itself. Staying true to the company’s goal of promoting diversity both inside and out, Intel Capital has also directed all of its investors to not only seek out startups with diverse teams, but also to encourage more inclusive hiring practices in their existing portfolio companies. Intel also notes that more than 60 percent of the new startups in it’s Education Accelerator program are led by women and minorities.
Source: Intel Newsroom
Search for classic GIFs in the Internet Archive’s new collection
To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the Internet Archive has created a special treat for its visitors: an utterly enormous number of GIFs culled from the original social network, GeoCities. Fittingly, the new collection is dubbed the Geocities Animated Gif Search Engine or GifCities for short. It features a whopping 4,500,000 animated GIFs from the classic internet era of the mid ’90s. Even though Yahoo shut down the service in 2009, each of these GIFs links back to its originating page via the Wayback Machine — just as with the National Archive’s collection.
Via: Boing Boing
Source: GifCities
The Nintendo Switch reportedly has a multitouch screen
We have plenty of questions about the Nintendo Switch, but one of the most pressing is: Does it have a touchscreen? During the three-minute teaser, no-one ever swipes, taps or prods the main unit, leading to speculation about its capabilities. Well, according to Eurogamer, the hardware does indeed support grubby fingers. The Switch is reportedly rocking a 6.2-inch, 720p capacitive multitouch display — a first for the company, which has relied on basic resistive touchscreens until now. What’s unclear is that how will affect the Switch’s docked mode, which covers the display entirely. Lots of alternate control schemes? Possibly.
Nintendo isn’t offering clarification on a potential touchscreen just yet. A spokesperson provided the following statement to Engadget: “We have nothing to announce on this topic. We will make additional announcements about the Nintendo Switch hardware later, before the launch of the product.”
It makes sense, however, for Nintendo to keep some of these finer details to itself. The Switch is an ambitious piece of hardware — for its initial unveiling, it was wise of the company to focus on its portability and removable JoyCon controllers. Nintendo wanted to sell the overall concept, and how it might fit into your life, rather than explain every single component choice. For now, that’s okay. As for the touchscreen — we should get more details in January, when the house of Mario takes another stab at selling the world on its new, console-meets-portable dream.
Jessica Conditt contributed to this report.
Via: The Verge
Source: Eurogamer
LG’s latest 5K screen is Apple’s new flagship display
If you’re eyeballing Apple’s new MacBook Pro line, but you need even more screen real estate than 15 inches of Retina display — LG has already got you covered. Taking the place of Apple’s own, discontinued Thunderbolt Display, the LG 27-inch UltraFine 5K and 21.5-inch UltraFine 4K displays are stepping up as the new go-to companions for the MacBook Pro’s sharp new screen and limited port variety.
The biggest selling point for both models is the ability to charge your new MagSafe-less laptop over the same Thunderbolt 3 connection that delivers video, audio and data. That, plus the three USB-C ports on the back led Phil Schiller to describe them as “the ultimate docking station” during today’s presentation. Both models also bring an additional FaceTime-ready camera and microphone setup with built-in speakers. At the pixel level, the 27-incher brings 5120 x 2880 resolution with 218 ppi, while the smaller model has 4096 x 2304 4K resolution with 219 ppi. One Thunderbolt 3 advantage: you can adjust settings like screen brightness and speaker volume without the need for a separate cable or dedicated buttons on the monitor itself.
The larger model will run you $1,299.95 and the smaller is selling for $699.95. Only the smaller model is available for pre-order today, but it should ship in late November, with its big sibling coming sometime in December.
Click here to catch all the latest news from Apple’s “Hello again” event.
Source: LG Newsroom, Apple Store
The new 15″ MacBook Pro can push four 4K monitors at once
Thanks to that discrete Radeon graphics chip in the new 15-inch MacBook Pro, users can run nearly 43 million pixels worth of lag-free screen real estate from their laptop. Tucked into the tech specs for the new notebook is the clarification that Apple’s new top-of-the-line portable machine can power four displays with 4096 x 2304 4K resolution with zero lag at 60Hz and full color. If you’re in the market for a 5K flagship monitor, the new MacBooks can still power two of them alongside the built-in retina display as well.
As 9to5Mac points out, the little 13-inch sibling doesn’t have quite the same graphics horsepower due to its integrated Intel Iris GPU, but it can still run a single 5K monitor or two 4K monitors simultaneously with zero lag and no drop in resolution on the built-in screen.
Of course, that much resolution won’t come cheap — although 4K monitors are widely available at this point, your 5K options are still relatively limited. And a new laptop, plus a pair of LG’s successor to the 5K Apple Thunderbolt Display will cost a wallet-flattening $5,400 total.
Click here to catch all the latest news from Apple’s “Hello again” event.
Via: 9to5Mac
Source: Apple Tech Specs
MacBook Pro Shipping Estimates Slip to 3–4 Weeks for Models With Touch Bar
The new MacBook Pro has only been available for purchase for about six hours, but shipping estimates on the machine have already slipped from two to three weeks to three to four weeks, meaning orders placed now won’t deliver until late November or early December (November 25 to December 2).
Three to four week shipping estimates apply to all MacBook Pro models that have a Touch Bar and Touch ID support. At launch, those machines had shipping estimates of two to three weeks and delivery windows from November 17 to November 25. Supplies are likely to continue to dwindle as people place orders for the updated MacBook Pro models.
The new entry-level MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar continues to be available for delivery as soon as October 31 using the fastest shipping method. Apple Store pickup is not yet available for any of the MacBook Pro options, but the standard MacBook Pro should be in stores soon.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro with no Touch Bar is priced at $1,499, while 13-inch Touch Bar models start at $1,799. 15-inch models, which all include a Touch Bar, start at $2,399.
Apple is also continuing to sell 2015 MacBook Pro models, which are available at prices starting at $1,299.
Related Roundup: MacBook Pro
Buyer’s Guide: Retina MacBook Pro (Buy Now)
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AMD Details Radeon Pro Graphics in New 15-inch MacBook Pro Models
AMD has shared some technical details on the new Radeon Pro graphics cards included in the 15-inch MacBook Pro models, giving some insight into their performance and the differences between the three options.
The Radeon Pro 400 Series Graphics are built on AMD’s Polaris architecture and are fabricated using the 14nm FinFET process to achieve high performance without sacrificing power efficiency. They offer memory bandwidth of up to 80GB/s.
The Radeon Pro Graphics found in the MacBook Pro feature the latest Polaris architecture with 4th generation Graphics Core Next. Speed through your tasks with up to 16 compute units (1024 stream processors) and 1.86 Teraflops of horsepower. Radeon Pro Graphics on the MacBook accelerate workloads normally reserved for the main processor. It features versatile asynchronous compute, updated shader engines, enhanced memory compression and new geometry capabilities in a compact and efficient package.
The Radeon Pro 460, available as a $200 upgrade in the entry-level 15-inch MacBook Pro and a $100 upgrade in the higher-end 15-inch MacBook Pro, offers 1.86 Teraflops of horsepower and 16 compute units (1024 stream processors).
The Radon Pro 455, the default option in the higher-end 15-inch MacBook Pro, features 1.3 Teraflops of horsepower and 12 compute units (768 stream processors). The Radeon Pro 450, available in the entry-level 15-inch MacBook Pro as the default option, offers 1 Teraflop of horsepower and 10 compute units (640 stream processors).
According to AMD, the Radeon Pro graphics processors inside the MacBook Pro are thinner than a US penny with a Z-height of 1.5mm but still pack in 3 billion transistors. The Radeon Pro features “advanced power technology” to allow the MacBook Pro to stay cool and quiet even during demanding tasks.
On its MacBook Pro website, Apple says the 15-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 130 percent faster graphics performance (with the Radeon 460) and up to 2.5x more computing power per watt compared to the previous-generation 15-inch MacBook Pro.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro uses integrated graphics instead of discrete graphics, but Apple says the Iris Graphics 550 are up to 103 percent faster than the Iris Graphics 6100 in the previous-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Related Roundup: MacBook Pro
Buyer’s Guide: Retina MacBook Pro (Buy Now)
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