Prisma the 10-minute cold brew coffeemaker hits Indiegogo

Prisma, a machine that can make cold brew coffee in just under 10 minutes instead of 12 frickin’ hours, is now on Indiegogo in a bid to raise $150,000. That means you can get one coffeemaker as a perk when you back the project for at least $279. Still expensive for most people who don’t mind any kind of coffee, but for connoisseurs and enthusiasts, that’s $20 off the company’s suggested retail price. We tested Prisma in April back when it was still a prototype called Pique, and it made 750 ml of coffee within only seven minutes. Engadget senior editor Nicole Lee thought the coffee it made was delicious with “hardly any bitter notes.”
The device’s creators planned to get most of their funding from Indiegogo from the very start. While the campaign’s launch was delayed for a month, the coffeemaker’s estimated shipping date is still September 2017.

Source: Indiegogo

Apple Music Streaming Service Launches in Israel

Apple Music started rolling out across Israel today, over a year after the streaming service was launched in 110 countries simultaneously. The splash screen for a three-month free trial began appearing on Macs and iOS devices for a number of users in the country this morning.

Once the free trial is up, Apple’s individual plan starts at 19.90 ILS ($5.21) per month, with a family plan costing 29.90 ILS ($7.83), putting Apple Music at a similar price point as existing services in the country, such as Pelephone Musix.

Rumors that Apple Music was coming to Israel first appeared in November last year, although initially it was thought the service was debuting in the first quarter of 2016.

In June, it was reported that Apple was gearing up to launch the service in Korea next, although the company still has some strict copyright law hurdles to overcome in the country.

Apple’s streaming music service is an evolution of the Beats Music service it acquired in 2014, and has steadily gained listeners over the past 12 months, reaching over 15 million paying subscribers as of WWDC 2016 in June.

Currently it is available in over 100 territories including Africa, the Middle East, India, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States, and Canada.

With iOS 10, Apple is revamping the design and UX of the Apple Music app, aiming to give its content and features a more logical organization, introducing a new section for downloaded music, and making the Connect aspect of the service less prominent.

(Thanks, Jozz!)

Tags: Israel, Apple Music
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Mozilla Announces Firefox 48 for Desktop With Multi-Process Support

Mozilla announced the release of Firefox 48 for desktop yesterday, introducing a long-awaited multi-process feature to the browser along with a handful of interface tweaks.

Firefox 48 is the first version of the browser to include Electrolysis (or e10s), a multi-process feature Mozilla developers have been working on for over seven years.

Multi-process Firefox separates web content and UI processes, so that when a web page is consuming a large amount of processing power, other open tabs, buttons, and menus don’t become unresponsive. Mozilla says it will be activating the feature behind the scenes in a staggered rollout for Firefox 48 users over the next few weeks.

While Safari and Chrome browsers have offered a similar feature for some time, this version of Firefox is also running Mozilla’s Rust language, which is designed to offer performance comparable to C++, but without the latter’s susceptibility to security flaws. Firefox 48 also blocks Adobe Flash Player by default, as the big online media companies like YouTube increasingly switch to HTML5.

Elsewhere, Mozilla has improved the Awesome Bar, which now offers more relevant search suggestions, while the Discovery Pane has been redesigned to make it easier to read. In addition, Reading Lists have been merged into Bookmarks and Synced tabs have been relocated to the History Panel.

Lastly, version 48 also ships security improvements that enhance download protection in Firefox, such as flagging uncommon downloads that appear to mimic popular installation packages for malicious purposes.

Firefox 48 is a free download for the Mac. [Direct link]

Tag: Firefox
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Galaxy S7 edge is the top-selling Android phone so far this year

Samsung managing to sell a boatload of phones shouldn’t come as any surprise, but the company outdid itself in the first half of 2016. According to Strategy Analytics, the Galaxy S7 edge topped shipment charts with 13.3 million units. The Galaxy S7 was third overall with 11.8 million shipments.

Samsung crowded out the top three spots, with the entry-level Galaxy J2 2016 coming in at second place with 13 million shipments. That number speaks volumes of Samsung’s marketing might, as the Galaxy J2 2016 is basically made up of recycled hardware from 2012. Retailing for the equivalent of $150 in countries like India and China, the Galaxy J2 2016 offers a 5-inch 720p display, a Spreadtrum SC8830 SoC (with Cortex A7 cores!), 1.5GB RAM, paltry 8GB of storage, microSD slot, and a 2600mAh battery. Aggressive marketing combined with availability in tier 2 and tier 3 cities allowed Samsung to outdo much better alternatives from the likes of Lenovo, Xiaomi, Huawei, and others.

Anyway, the uptick in sales allowed Samsung to record $7.22 billion in profit, its highest in nearly two years. And it looks like the Galaxy Note 7 will continue the momentum heading into the latter half of the year.

Xiaomi will unveil its Daydream-ready VR headset on Aug. 4

Xiaomi is all set to unveil its first VR headset with Daydream support tomorrow, August 4, in China. The headset uses a phone’s display to drive the experience, similar to that of the Gear VR.

A leaked image of the headset doesn’t reveal much, but with the launch imminent, we’ll know more tomorrow. As for a Daydream-ready phone that can drive the headset, Xiaomi will likely announce new hardware later this year.

Jeep hackers return to take over your steering wheel

Last year, security researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek made headlines by remotely hacking a Jeep, killing the transmission and applying the brakes while Wired reporter Andy Greenberg was behind the wheel and driving in traffic. The hack led to a 1.4 million-vehicle recall for Fiat Chrysler and new jobs at Uber’s Advanced Technology Center for Miller and Valasek. Despite the cushy new gigs, the two of them apparently aren’t done hacking Jeep Cherokees for sport. In their latest exploit, the pair can gain even more control over a vehicle, but it would also be extremely difficult to pull off in a real-world setting.

Here’s the harrowing part first: Miller and Valasek can do more than just apply the brakes at low speed or cut the transmission this time around. Now they can turn on the parking brake, mess with the cruise control and hijack the auto-parking system to jerk the steering wheel a dangerous 180-degrees while the car is in motion. It looks about as frightening as it sounds:

Although it’s not hard to see how that would make for a very terrifying drive, there’s a big grain of salt that comes along with it: Miller and Valasek actually used the same model 2014 Jeep Cherokee as the original demonstration, but without the software patch applied. Or, as Wired put it, “imagine an alternate reality,” where a fix had never been made. Unlike before, the latest hack requires a physical connection plugging their laptop into the Jeep’s OBD-II diagnostic port under the dash. The team also had to update the Jeep with their own firmware to disable some of the car’s built-in safety checks before they could get much control. In other words: In order to get hacked, Jeep owners would first need to roll back their car’s firmware to an older version, invite someone to remove security features and then also let them ride shotgun with a computer. Or, as Engadget’s resident security expert Violet Blue wrote on Twitter, it’s sort of a non-threat.

Colleagues: If a hack requires ACTIVE, PERSISTENT, INFORMED CONSENT of the target, you don’t have a public danger story! You’ve been duped!

— Violet Blue ® (@violetblue) August 2, 2016

That said, The Verge points out that it may still be possible to exploit OBD-connected wireless dongles like the Metromile Tag, Automatic Link or other similar devices currently marketed by insurance companies. For Chrysler’s part, however, the company fired back in a statement to Wired: “While we admire their creativity, it appears that the researchers have not identified any new remote way to compromise a 2014 Jeep Cherokee or other FCA US vehicles.”

“It is highly unlikely that this exploit could be possible,” the statement continued, “if the vehicle software were still at the latest level.” Which is to say: don’t forget to keep your car’s firmware up to date.

Vevo will now feature the three biggest music labels’ videos

Vevo has always had access to Sony Music’s and Universal Music’s videos — it was, after all, a collaboration between the two companies. Now, thanks to a licensing deal it hashed out with the Warner Music Group, it can finally publish videos from all three major labels. It took a year of talks to close the deal, but now that both parties have signed on the dotted line, the platform can showcase premium videos from Warner’s roster of artists, which include Bruno Mars, Charli XCX and Ed Sheeran.

According to Variety, the platform’s agreement with Warner is quite unique. Unlike Sony and Universal, which publishes videos under Vevo’s YouTube channel and Facebook page, Warner will still control its videos’ distribution outside the company’s website. Vevo, by the way, plans to launch a video subscription service sometime in the future. Now that it’s got all three labels on board, the service will likely be able to feature a bigger variety of artists.

Marshmallow is now on 15.2% of all active Android devices

Google has posted the latest Android version distribution numbers, showing yet another small bump up for Marshmallow. Specifically, Google calculates that 15.2% of active Android devices were running Marshmallow during a 7-day period ending on August 2. That compares to 13.3% of active Android devices from the previous month.

Android 5.x Lollipop went up slightly from 35.1% in July to 35.5% this month. Android 4.4 KitKat dropped from 30.1% in July to 29.2% in August. Jelly Bean came in at 16.7% with these new numbers, down from 17.8% in July, and Ice Cream Sandwich went down from 1.7% to 1.6%. Gingerbread also declined from 1.9% to 1.7%. Froyo is still sticking around with its tiny 0.1% share.

Samsung is partnering with major banks to use the Note 7’s iris scanner for their apps

The brand new Galaxy Note 7 has a built-in iris scanner for another level of security, and alongside it Samsung is expanding its Samsung Pass initiative in partnership with major banks to let you access financial apps by scanning your irises. Just as it did with its fingerprint scanners before Marshmallow was released, Samsung is working with companies individually to have their apps written to use the iris scanner as a security mechanism.

At its event Samsung announced that Bank of America, Citi, US Bank, KEB Hana Bank, Shinhan Bank and Woori Bank were all exploring integration with the iris scanner, but hadn’t committed to anything further than that. If implemented, you’d be able to log into these banking apps by simply looking at your Note 7 for a few seconds. Samsung is touting the iris scanner as a very secure way for logging in, and experts routinely refer to it as at least having the possibility of being more secure than a fingerprint.

More: What you need to know about the Galaxy Note 7’s iris scanner

With the ubiquity of fingerprint sensors and easily-accessible fingerprint APIs in Marshmallow we’ve seen a rush of apps — especially those from banks — update to support them, but with this Samsung-specific implementation of the iris scanner it’s hard to see it taking off as quickly. Whether third-party apps start to support the iris scanner or not you’ll still be able to use it for Samsung’s own apps and system-level functions, which should spur customers to give it a try.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7

• Samsung Galaxy Note 7 hands-on preview
• The latest Galaxy Note 7 news!
• Here are all four Note 7 colors
• Complete Galaxy Note 7 specs
• The Galaxy Note 7 uses USB-C
• Join the Note 7 discussion in the forums!