Self-driving startup Wayve, which considers sophisticated sensor tech like lidar unnecessary for safe autonomous driving systems, raises $20M Series A — Wayve, a U.K.-based startup that's developing artificial intelligence (AI) that teaches cars to drive autonomously using reinforcement learning …
Line and SoftBank's Yahoo Japan announce merger plan, aim to sign a deal by December 2019, and integrate the businesses by October 2020 — SoftBank and Naver's venture to be Japan's largest online player — TOKYO — The operators of Yahoo sites in Japan and the Line chat app jointly announced …
Sources: ByteDance is in talks with record companies to launch a music streaming service as soon as next month, would debut it initially in Brazil, India, more — The Chinese company behind the popular video app TikTok is set to go head-to-head with the likes of Spotify and Apple …
Intel unveils plans for a 7nm Xe GPU, codenamed Ponte Vecchio, meant to rival Nvidia in handling datacenter AI workloads, but fails to give a release window — The upcoming data center GPU, in combination with its new oneAPI programming interface, will give Intel more ammunition to compete …
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Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, trapping much more heat. Point-source methane emitters are typically small—usually less than 10 meters in diameter—but they emit plumes of highly concentrated methane. So if we want to reduce the amount of methane we’re spouting into the air (which we obviously should, although we’re not), they’d be great potential targets. If only we could identify them.
To map such point emissions, scientists in California flew over the state with an airborne imaging spectrometer, using it to measure methane emissions. They focused on a long list of potential sources: oil and gas production, processing, transmission, storage, and distribution equipment; refineries; dairy-manure management sites; landfills and composting facilities; wastewater-treatment plants; gas-fired power plants; and liquified and compressed natural gas facilities.
Most facilities, especially the dairies and the oil fields, were in the San Joaquin Valley. The researchers ended up measuring emissions from 564 distinct sources at 250 different facilities. These point emitters had not really been examined before, because they often only belch out their methane intermittently or in a somewhat sporadic manner. To catch them in the act, the researchers repeated the flyovers five times between August 2016 and October 2018.
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The Pixel 4 XL. [credit: Ron Amadeo ]
The Pixel 4 arrived on the market as one of the most leaked, most talked about smartphones of 2019. This year, Google seems like it is really trying to find something unique to offer, with new features like the Google-developed "Motion Sense" radar gesture system, face unlock, a 90Hz display, the next-gen Google Assistant, and a new astrophotography mode.
At the prices Google is asking, though, the Pixel 4 is hard to recommend. The company saddled the phone with an ultra-premium price tag, but the Pixel 4 can't compete with ultra-premium phones. The phone falls down on a lot of the basics, like battery life, storage speed, design, and more. The new additions like face unlock and Motion Sense just don't work well. It seems like Google just cut too many corners this year.
The strongest feature of the Pixel line—the camera—hasn't really gotten better, either. The camera sensor is the same as last year, and the big new software feature, astrophotography mode, is also available on older Pixel devices and the much cheaper Pixel 3a.
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A fake ad blocker available outside of Google Play is bombarding Android users with ads, many of them vulgar, and to make matters worse, the cleverly hidden adware is hard to uninstall.
As documented by antimalware provider Malwarebytes, Ads Blocker, as the app is called, employs several tricks to surreptitiously and constantly bombard users with ads. The first is to simply ask for usage rights to display over other apps. Next, it makes a connection request to "set up a VPN connection that allows it to monitor network traffic." Finally, it seeks permission to add a widget to the homescreen.
In fact, approving the the VPN connection—a standard requirement for some legitimate ad blockers—allows Ads Blocker to run in the background at all times. Combined with the permission to display over other apps, the app is free to plaster ads in a variety of aggressive and annoying ways. It displays full-page ads across the screen. It delivers ads in the default browser. It includes ads in notifications. And it places ads in the homescreen widget.
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Microsoft rose to dominance during the '80s and '90s thanks to the success of its Windows operating system running on Intel’s processors, a cosy relationship nicknamed “Wintel”.
Now Microsoft hopes that another another hardware–software combo will help it recapture that success—and catch rivals Amazon and Google in the race to provide cutting-edge artificial intelligence through the cloud.
Microsoft hopes to extend the popularity of its Azure cloud platform with a new kind of computer chip designed for the age of AI. Starting today, Microsoft is providing Azure customers with access to chips made by the British startup Graphcore.
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Profile of Mixhalo, a live-music app being offered by bands like Aerosmith as a VIP experience, to let fans hear the music at live shows as the band intended — Think back to the first time you saw a high-definition TV program. — After a lifetime of looking at standard-definition shows …
Iran, one of the countries most strongly identified with the rise cyber terrorism and malicious hacking, appears now to be using an iron fist to turn on its own. The country has reportedly shut down nearly all internet access in the country in retaliation to escalating protests that were originally ignited by a rise in fuel prices, according to readings taken by NetBlocks, an NGO that monitors cybersecurity and internet governance around the world.
Confirmed: #Iran is now in the midst of a near-total national internet shutdown; realtime network data show connectivity at 7% of ordinary levels after twelve hours of progressive network disconnections as public protests continue #IranProtests
https://t.co/1Al0DT8an1 pic.twitter.com/u6bVsfvOOm
— NetBlocks.org (@netblocks) November 16, 2019
The last reports of outages came from yesterday (Saturday) evening, so we have contacted NetBlocks to get a more updated picture.
So far, the picture looks pretty bleak. Babak Taghvaee, a defense analyst and historian who is not based in Iran who has been posting some videos of the protest skirmishes, confirms to me that his own internet communication lines with contacts have also been broken, with phones still working, albeit with monitoring from the State.
“Internet is completely shut-down and I can’t communicate [with] anyone,” he said. “People just can call abroad (just certain countries) using telephone which is being monitored.”
Currently, using Twitter as one marker, it seems that there are at least some people sending out media and messages from the country, specifically related to the protests, although without specific “messaging” against the government attached to them. This one comes from Tehran, above one of the country’s main highways, showing how traffic has backed up due to streets getting closed down:
And here is another with video from the ground, showing people and police swarming.
And of course the government is still Tweeting, too:
The protests arose in response to a decision by the state to raise the price of gas in the country by 50%.
As this AP article points out, Iran has some of the cheapest gas in the world — in part because it has one of the world’s biggest crude oil reserves — and so residents in the country see cheap gas as a “birthright.”
Many use their cars not just to get around themselves but to provide informal taxi services to others, so — regardless your opinion on whether using fossil fuels is something to be defended or not — hiking up the prices cuts right to ordinary people’s daily lives, and has served as the spark for protest in the country over bigger frustrations with the government and economy, as Iran continues to struggle under the weight of US sanctions.
Clamping down on internet access as a way of trying to contain not just protesters’ communication with each other, but also the outside world, is not an unprecedented move; it is part and parcel of how un-democratic regimes control their people and situations. Alarmingly, its use seems to be growing.
Pakistan in September cut off internet access in specific regions response to protests over conflicts with India. And Russia — which has now approved a bill to be able to shut down internet access should it decide to — is now going to start running a series of drills to ensure its blocks work when they are being used in live responses.
We’ll update this post as we learn more.
Nokia is known to keep its promises of rolling out the latest software updates on time for its devices. All smartphones by the company are a part of the Android One program, which means they get two major Android versions and three years of security patches. As per a new report, the smartphone maker is now pushing out an update to its handsets, which enables Ambient mode in Google Assistant. This feature debuted with a handful of devices including the Nokia 6.2 and Nokia 7.2 smartphones. As per an NPU report, the company is enabling the option on Nokia 6.1, Nokia 6.1 Plus, Nokia 7.1, Nokia 8.1, Nokia 9 PureView and even Nokia 3, Nokia 3.2, and Nokia 4.2.
It seems to be a server-side feature since one can check if it is available on a device from the Google Assistant settings. To check, you need to go to Settings and access Account Services in the Google option. Here, under Search, navigate to Assistant & Voice. Tap on Google Assistant, then Assistant and scroll down to Assistant device to find the option ‘Phone’. The option, if enabled for your device, will be listed here.
To recall, Ambient Mode for Google Assistant is a new way that Google is trying to integrate its smart assistant in some devices. The option turns on when a device is plugged in and brings forth a UI that turns your device into a smart display. In this mode, a smartphone will display notifications and information from apps like calendar and reminder. One can also control music and their smart home devices. The Ambient Mode was announced for Lenovo Smart Tab M8 HD and Lenovo Yoga Smart Tab tablets when they are docked for charging. Currently, only Nokia handsets are getting the feature, however, we can expect phones from other brands to also receive it.
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Apple has quietly sent out a firmware update for its recently launched AirPods Pro wireless earbuds. This update, being the very first for the pair since the late October launch, could include either a hotfix for a bug the company has detected or an enhancement in wireless connectivity. According to MacRumors, the firmware update is labelled ‘2B588’ and will automatically be installed to replace the release version ‘2B584’ when the AirPods Pro are connected to an iOS device.
To see if your pair of AirPods Pro has received the firmware update, open the iOS device that is paired to the earbuds and visit Settings > General > About. Scroll down the list and tap ‘AirPods Pro’. If you see ‘2B588’ listed under Firmware Version, it means you’re good to go. If you’re still on the older version, wait for a few days to receive it as Apple may not have sent the update out to all regions yet. Sadly, there’s no way to trigger the update process manually.
Apple launched the AirPods Pro late last month at a price of Rs 24,900. They’re more sophisticated and expensive than the second-generation AirPods the Cupertino-based company launched some eight months ago. The AirPods Pro are the first earbuds from Apple to feature an active noise cancellation feature. Available only in a white colour at the moment, they’re designed to sit deeper in the user’s ears (like typical in-ear headphones do) than the previous models.
According to Apple, the AirPods Pro come with soft, flexible silicone ear tips in three different sizes (small, medium, large). What’s more, the earbuds are IPX4-rated for sweat- and water-resistance. The AirPods Pro are powered by the same 10-core Apple H1 chip that does duty on the AirPods 2 (for both sound and Siri). The pair also comes with features such as Adaptive EQ (for automatically tuned audio enhancement) and Transparency mode (for easy conversation with people around the user when the active noise cancellation feature is enabled).
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New research shows that thousands of ships in Shanghai, the world's busiest port, are falling victim to spoofing of GPS systems that has left experts baffled — A sophisticated new electronic warfare system is being used at the world's busiest port. But is it sand thieves or the Chinese state behind it?
If you’re a loyal user of the Microsoft Cortana app on Android or iOS, brace yourself for some bad news. Microsoft has confirmed that it intends to pull the plug on the Cortana mobile app by the end of January 2020 in certain regions, including India, Australia, Canada, and the UK. Cortana will also cease to exist on the Microsoft Launcher for Android. Microsoft says that its virtual assistant service will eventually find itself in future Microsoft Office products even if the dedicated mobile app is discontinued.
“After January 31st, 2020, the Cortana mobile app on your phone will no longer be supported and there will be an updated version of Microsoft Launcher with Cortana removed,” writes Microsoft in a support page applicable to users in Australia, Canada, and the UK. According to a confirmation received by The Verge, this will apply to users in India, China, Spain, Germany, and Mexico as well. Users in the US, however, may continue to see the app on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
Microsoft says that any reminders, tasks, or lists created in the Cortana mobile app will continue to exist in the Microsoft To Do app, which you can find here. This data can also be accessed through Cortana on Windows 10. Microsoft first announced that it would launch a dedicated Cortana app on Android and iOS back in May 2015. Though the official app release happened in December that year, the APK file for Android was leaked shortly after the announcement.
In its support page, Microsoft mentions that it’s discontinuing the Cortana mobile app to make way for a deeper integration of its virtual assistant in its popular Office suite of productivity applications. Though we don’t know when this will happen or what the finished product will look like, we can expect Cortana in Microsoft Office to work like a redesigned Clippit, except through voice commands from the user instead of mouse clicks.
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Julian E. Barnes / New York Times : A look at the CIA's AI use, including a chatbot that lets analysts talk to virtual versions of fo...
