According to job listings on LinkedIn, Google appears to be working on an augmented reality device and operating system to pair with it. Ars Technica reports: On LinkedIn, operating system engineering director Mark Lucovsky announced that he has joined Google. He previously headed up mixed reality operating system work for Meta, and before that he was one of the key architects of Windows NT at Microsoft. "My role is to lead the Operating System team for Augmented Reality at Google," he wrote. He also posted a link to some job listings at Google that give the impression Google is getting just as serious about AR as Apple or Meta.

As 9to5Google discovered, one of the listings ("Senior Software Developer, Embedded, Augmented Reality OS") described Google's objective in clear terms: "Our team is building the software components that control and manage the hardware on our Augmented Reality (AR) products. These are the software components that run on the AR devices and are the closest to the hardware. As Google adds products to the AR portfolio, the OS Foundations team is the very first software team to work with new hardware." Other job listings say new hires will be working on an "innovative AR device." And one specifies that Google is "focused on making immersive computing accessible to billions of people through mobile devices." The roles are largely in the United States, but some are located in Waterloo, Ontario -- the HQ of Canadian smart glasses maker North, which Google acquired in 2020.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Record: A recently discovered FBI training document shows that US law enforcement can gain limited access to the content of encrypted messages from secure messaging services like iMessage, Line, and WhatsApp, but not to messages sent via Signal, Telegram, Threema, Viber, WeChat, or Wickr. The document, obtained earlier this month following a FOIA request filed by Property of the People, a US nonprofit dedicated to government transparency, appears to contain training advice for what kind of data agents can obtain from the operators of encrypted messaging services and the legal processes they have to go through.

Dated to January 7, 2021, the document doesn't include any new information but does a good job at providing an up-to-date summary of what type of information the FBI can currently obtain from each of the listed services. [...] While the document confirms that the FBI can't gain access to encrypted messages sent through some services, the other type of information they can glean from providers might still help authorities in other aspects of their investigations. The content of the document, which may be hard to read due to some font rendering issues, is also available in the table [embedded in the article]. Of note, the table above does not include details about Keybase, a recent end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) service that has been gaining in popularity. The service was acquired by video conferencing software maker Zoom in May 2020.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Conversation: On October 23, 2001, Apple released the iPod -- a portable media player that promised to overshadow the clunky design and low storage capacity of MP3 players introduced in the mid-1990s. The iPod boasted the ability to "hold 1,000 songs in your pocket". Its personalized listening format revolutionized the way we consume music. And with more than 400 million units sold since its release, there's no doubt it was a success. Yet, two decades later, the digital music landscape continues to rapidly evolve.

The iPod expanded listening beyond the constraints of the home stereo system, allowing the user to plug into not only their headphones, but also their car radio, their computer at work, or their hi-fi system at home. It made it easier to entwine these disparate spaces into a single personalized soundtrack throughout the day. [...] The rise of touchscreen smartphones ultimately led to the iPod's downfall. Interestingly, the music app on the original iPhone was called "iPod." The iPod's functions were essentially reappropriated and absorbed into the iPhone. The iPhone was a flexible and multifunctional device: an iPod, a phone and an internet communicator all in one -- a computer in your pocket. And by making the development tools for their products freely available, Apple and Google allowed third-party developers to create apps for their new platforms in the thousands.

As of this year, mobile devices are responsible for 54.8% of web traffic worldwide. And while music piracy still exists, its influence has been significantly reduced by the arrival of streaming services such as Spotify and YouTube. These platforms have had a profound effect on how we engage with music as active and passive listeners. Spotify supports an online community-based approach to music sharing, with curated playlists. [...] As of February this year, more than 60,000 tracks were being uploaded to Spotify each day. The experience of listening to music will become increasingly immersive with time, and we'll only find more ways to seamlessly integrate it into our lives.

According to new job listings, Google is looking to expand the Fuchsia operating system from its current home on the Nest Hub to âoeadditional smart devices and other form factors." 9to5Google reports: The first listing, for "Staff Software Engineer, Fuchsia Devices," celebrates Fuchsia's recent milestone and points clearly to Google wanting Fuchsia to run on more "real world products" than just smart displays: "In 2021 we shipped Fuchsia to millions of Google smart displays, now it's time to expand to additional smart devices and other form factors. Come join us and work on the next-generation Google operating system! Although the first uses of Fuchsia are smart displays, we are working on expanding to additional form factors and use cases. The Fuchsia Devices team is responsible for making sure we can successfully apply the Fuchsia platform to real world products that make a difference to Google and our users."

So what types of devices should we expect Fuchsia to come to next? Well for one, we may look at the plural phrasing of "first uses of Fuchsia are smart displays," which suggests the Nest Hub Max and Nest Hub (2nd Gen) may be getting their chance to switch to Fuchsia soon. Of course, Google has made it abundantly clear here that smart displays are just the beginning. In another listing, for "Engineering Manager, Fuchsia Devices," the company explains that the Fuchsia Devices team is aiming to "[expand] the reach of Nest/Assistant to new form factors" through "real consumer devices." [From the listing:] "The Fuchsia Devices Smart Products team is part of the larger Fuchsia organization and is responsible for productionizing various types of Fuchsia Devices. Our team delivers real consumer devices to end users and enables you to have a large impact at Google by expanding the reach of Nest/Assistant to new form factors."

This could suggest entirely new device categories for Google's Nest lineup, powered by Fuchsia. In another section, we get some hints at what those proposed devices would be capable of: "Chromecast, Video Conferencing and Machine Learning are core parts of many of the upcoming smart products." It's important to note that "Chromecast" here is probably not referring to the lineup of Chromecast hardware for TVs switching to Fuchsia. Instead, it's more likely referring to how Google's speakers and displays can receive a "Cast" from your phone. This is somewhat clarified in the job listing's responsibilities section, which lists a handful of features that squarely line up with features of the camera-equipped Nest Hub Max, including "Face Match." The Nest Hub Max's store listing also references "Chromecast built-in" as a feature: "Plan, scope, and execute of features like Video Casting, Actions on Google, Video Calling, Face Match, and on device ML."

It also looks like Made by Google devices may soon not be the only ones shipping with Fuchsia. According to another listing, Google is looking for someone on Fuchsia's "platform graphics and media" team to, among other things, "influence hardware decisions made by partners." [From the listing:] "As a Staff Software Engineer on the Fuchsia team, you'll drive the technical direction for Graphics and Media and ensure that Fuchsia is bringing maximum value to partners and Fuchsia-based products. You also will influence hardware decisions made by partners to improve Fuchsia and Google's ability to deliver efficient software solutions for critical Graphics and Media workloads." Fuchsia debuted on the first-generation Nest Hub earlier this year.

New submitter thegreatnick writes: The next generation of Fairphone -- an attempt to make an ethical smartphone -- has been announced with the Fairphone 4. The base specs include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G SoC, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage (upgradeable to 8GB and 256GB). On the front, you'll get a 6.3-inch, 2340x1080 LCD display with slimmer bezels (compared to the Fairphone 3 design) and a teardrop notch for the 25-megapixel front camera. The 3,905mAh battery is Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.1 compatible, so if you have a compatible USB-C charger (not included in the box to reduce waste) you can take the battery from 0-50% in 30 minutes. The phone ships with Android 11 and has a side-mounted fingerprint reader in the power button, a MicroSD slot, and the option for dual-SIM usage via one physical nanoSIM and an eSIM.

Continuing Fairphone's progress in making a "fair" supply chain -- both ethically-clean raw materials and paying workers a fair wage -- it also describes the 4 as "e-waste neutral." This is a neat way of summing up the idea that the company will recycle one device for every Fairphone 4 it sells. In addition, Fairphone can boast that it now uses 70% "fair" materials inside the handset, including FairTrade Gold and Silver, aluminum from ASI-certified vendors, and a backplate made from 100% post-consumer recycled polycarbonate. In an upgrade to previous models, the Fairphone 4 has dual cameras, though it loses the headphone jack. The company says this was to achieve an IP54 waterproof rating (light splashes) -- a first for the Fairphone brand. It's also been announced that it will come with an industry-leading 5-year warranty and aims to get 6 years of software updates for the phone.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Amazon's Kindle e-readers get new software updates regularly, and they're mostly of the nondescript, invisible "performance improvements and bug fixes" variety. But the most recent operating system update (version 5.13.7) is rolling out now, and it refreshes the device's user interface for the first time since 2016 or so. Amazon says that redesigns for the Home and Library screens, which are mostly untouched in the current Kindle update, will be coming "later this year." The software update that enables the new interface began rolling out in August, but because Kindles only install updates automatically when they're charging and connected to Wi-Fi, it will be a few weeks or months before all supported Kindles will have a chance to grab the update (mine only installed it over this past weekend).

The new update is available on most Kindles released in or after 2015, including the 7th- and 10th-generation Kindle Paperwhite, the 8th-, 9th-, and 10th-generation Kindle Oasis, and the 8th- and 10th-generation standard Kindle. Older "7th-generation" Kindle devices like 2014's Kindle Voyage don't appear to be supported. [...] The new update doesn't fix Amazon's confusing Kindle naming scheme, which groups different devices into "generations" that are numbered based roughly on when they were released, not on what generation of product they actually are; the "10th-generation" Paperwhite is actually only the fourth Paperwhite Amazon has released. But you now can head into the Device Info screen and see which Kindle you're using instead of having to guess.

LG will reportedly start selling iPhones and iPads in its South Korean stores this August -- mere months after the company quit making Android devices. Android Authority reports: According to MacRumors, the Herald Economic Daily claims LG has struck a deal with Apple to sell the iPhone and iPad in 400 stores across South Korea starting in August. LG may have to overcome some hurdles to make this happen. The company reportedly signed a "win-win" agreement with the country's National Mobile Communication Distribution Association that bars it from selling a direct competitor's phones in its stores. That deal was made in 2018, however, or well before LG signaled that it would quit making phones and tablets. LG is supposedly planning to renegotiate the agreement once it officially sells the iPhone and iPad in its shops. The deal unsurprisingly wouldn't include Macs, as systems like the MacBook Air compete directly with the Gram series and other LG computers where the iPhone and iPad are relatively safe.

Amazon has won U.S. permission to use radar to monitor consumers' sleep habits. Bloomberg reports: The Federal Communications Commission on Friday granted Amazon approval to use a radar sensor to sense motion and "enable contactless sleep tracing functionalities." Amazon on June 22 asked the FCC, which regulates airwave uses, for permission to market a device that uses radar. The technology captures movement in three dimensions, enabling a user to control its features through simple gestures and movements, the company said in a filing. The capability, according to Amazon, could help people with "with mobility, speech, or tactile impairments," and it could monitor sleep with a high degree of precision.

"The use of Radar Sensors in sleep tracking could improve awareness and management of sleep hygiene, which in turn could produce significant health benefits for many Americans," Amazon said in its filing. "Radar Sensors will allow consumers to recognize potential sleep issues." Amazon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The company didn't fully describe the device in its filing, but did say it would not be a mobile device. The FCC earlier granted similar permission to Google for radar to enable touchless control of Pixel smartphones, the agency said in its letter approving Amazon's request.

Popular benchmark site Geekbench has removed OnePlus 9 benchmarks from its charts due to allegations that the company designed Oxygen OS optimization tools in such a way that they could be viewed as cheating. Android Authority reports: Yesterday, AnandTech posted some information about "weird behavior" it spotted with the OnePlus 9 Pro. According to the team's research, Oxygen OS apparently limits the performance of some popular Android apps -- but none of those apps are benchmark suites. Geekbench, one of the more popular benchmarking sites, took these allegations seriously. After conducting its own investigation, Geekbench recently announced that it has removed all OnePlus 9 benchmarks from its charts. Geekbench, one of the more popular benchmarking sites, took these allegations seriously. After conducting its own investigation, Geekbench recently announced that it has removed all OnePlus 9 benchmarks from its charts. Geekbench called Oxygen OS's behavior a form of "benchmark manipulation." OnePlus has yet to issue a statement on the matter. In some of our own testing, we found that AnandTech's data is on the mark. We found that the OnePlus 9 series limits the performance of Google Chrome while older OnePlus phones do not. OnePlus issued a statement to Android Authority addressing the matter: "Our top priority is always delivering a great user experience with our products, based in part on acting quickly on important user feedback. Following the launch of the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro in March, some users told us about some areas where we could improve the devices' battery life and heat management. As a result of this feedback, our R&D team has been working over the past few months to optimize the devices' performance when using many of the most popular apps, including Chrome, by matching the app's processor requirements with the most appropriate power. This has helped to provide a smooth experience while reducing power consumption. While this may impact the devices' performance in some benchmarking apps, our focus as always is to do what we can to improve the performance of the device for our users."

This is reminiscent of when the company was caught pushing the OnePlus 5's performance capabilities when the OS detected a benchmark app. This resulted in artificially inflated scores that users would not see during real-world usage.

TechSee, which describes itself as an "intelligent visual assistance" company, today announced the launch of Eve Cortex, a platform that teaches itself to recognize thousands of products, models, parts, and components by ingesting only a handful of data points. VentureBeat reports: TechSee claims that by leveraging a combination of AI and synthetic data, Cortex can train itself in a matter of hours, providing end users with step-by-step visual guidance via an augmented reality (AR) overlay. TechSee was founded in 2014 by Eitan Cohen, Amir Yoffe, and Gabby Sarusi. Cohen conceptualized the idea after struggling to walk his parents through an issue they were having with their cable service. The company's cross-platform apps employ computer vision to recognize products and issues and streamline warranty registration. Customer agents can see what customers see through their smartphone cameras and visually guide them to resolutions, using either live video or photos.

Cortex builds on TechSee's existing technologies to enable enterprises to custom-build their own visual self-service flows, without coding. With Cortex, companies can design journeys for product unboxing, billing, contracting, troubleshooting, warranty claims, product registration, technical repair, and more. Cortex can walk users through the unboxing of various consumer electronics, from security cameras to thermostats, and capture information for upselling while explaining invoices by reading water, gas, and electrical meters. Insurance policyholders can use Cortex to document damage to insured property or identify items they want to insure for virtual underwriting. Moreover, Cortex can certify that an on-site field technician has made a successful repair by examining work through the technician's smartphone or tablet camera or AR glasses.

One of the ways that Cortex learns to recognize products is by ingesting a company's existing contact center knowledge base. For every device, each article describing visual symptoms and issues, both from customers and field technicians, is extracted and normalized. Then, a computer vision model is trained on synthetic visual data gathered in the lab as well as other visual resources and images supplied by customers, enabling Cortex to analyze, time, and measure the success of each step of every resolution, shortening and optimizing them over time. According to Cohen, companies including Vodafone, Telus, Orange, and Hippo have already tapped Cortex to create new customer experiences. Moreover, tens of thousands of field service technicians in the U.S. are using the platform to install fiber optic boxes.

WhatsApp will soon let you use the popular instant messaging app simultaneously on multiple devices, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said. The instant messaging app, used by more than 2 billion users, also plans to add more options to its disappearing messages feature, top executives said. TechCrunch reports: Zuckerberg confirmed to news outlet WaBetaInfo that multi-device support will be arriving on the instant messaging service "soon." WhatsApp head Will Cathcart said users will be able to connect up to four devices to one account. The messaging firm is also working to introduce a dedicated WhatsApp app for the iPad, he said. The instant messaging service, which last year introduced the ability to set a seven-day timer on messages (disappearing mode), is now planning to expand this feature to let users share pictures and videos that can only be viewed once. WhatsApp users will also get an option to enforce disappearing mode across the app for all new chats. Zuckerberg and Cathcart told the news outlet -- and it's indeed the two of them talking -- that these features will be available to users in public beta "in the next month or two."

Samsung is killing the first-generation SmartThings Hub at the end of the month, kicking off phase two of its plan to shut down the SmartThings ecosystem and force users over to in-house Samsung infrastructure. "Phase one was in October, when Samsung killed the Classic SmartThings app and replaced it with a byzantine disaster of an app that it developed in house," writes Ars Technica's Ron Amadeo. "Phase three will see the shutdown of the SmartThings Groovy IDE, an excellent feature that lets members of the community develop SmartThings device handlers and complicated automation apps." From the report: The SmartThings Hub is basically a Wi-Fi access point -- but for your smart home stuff instead of your phones and laptops. Instead of Wi-Fi, SmartThings is the access point for a Zigbee and Z-Wave network, two ultra low-power mesh networks used by smart home devices. [...] The Hub connects your smart home network to the Internet, giving you access to a control app and connecting to other services like your favorite voice assistant. You might think that killing the old Hub could be a ploy to sell more hardware, but Samsung -- a hardware company -- is actually no longer interested in making SmartThings hardware. The company passed manufacturing for the latest "SmartThings Hub (v3)" to German Internet-of-things company Aeotec. The new Hub is normally $125, but Samsung is offering existing users a dirt-cheat $35 upgrade price.

For users who have to buy a new hub, migrating between hubs in the SmartThings ecosystem is a nightmare. Samsung doesn't provide any kind of migration program, so you have to unpair every single individual smart device from your old hub to pair it to the new one. This means you'll need to perform some kind of task on every light switch, bulb, outlet, and sensor, and you'll have to do the same for any other smart thing you've bought over the years. Doing this on each device is a hassle that usually involves finding the manual to look up the secret "exclusion" input, which is often some arcane Konami code. Picture holding the top button on a paddle light for seven seconds until a status light starts blinking and then opening up the SmartThings app to unpair it. Samsung is also killing the "SmartThings Link for Nvidia Shield" dongle, which let users turn Android TV devices into SmartThings Hubs.

Back in January, researchers warned that the iPhone 12 lineup and MagSafe accessories could potentially deactivate implanted medical devices. Now, the American Heart Association has released a study that corroborates these findings on a larger scale, noting that several devices from three major companies were "found to have magnetic susceptibility." Gizmodo reports: The initial study published in HeartRhythm was done on a single patient with a Medtronic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). It was an important finding in terms of awareness, but raised questions as to whether this would impact ICDs from all device makers if the iPhone 12 lineup posed a greater risk than other magnetized devices, and what the impact on pacemakers might be. The AHA's study offers a few preliminary insights into what those answers might be. In the study, researchers observed the impact of an iPhone 12 Pro Max on both ICDs and pacemakers from multiple device makers, as well as conducted both in vivo and ex vivo tests. In vivo refers to tests done on actual patients with an implanted medical device, while the ex vivo tests were done on 11 unboxed devices. The devices tested came from Medtronic, Abbot, and Boston Scientific. (You can see exactly which ICDs and pacemakers were tested in the study itself.)

In 100% of the three in vivo tests, the iPhone 12 Pro Max triggered the devices' magnet reversion mode. That said, the Boston Scientific pacemaker was found to be less susceptible as it only triggered a temporary response. In ex vivo testing, magnetic interference was detected in 8 out of 11 devices, or 72.7%. There are a few things to note here. How seriously a device is impacted may depend on the sensors or components used. The study notes that magnetic interference can occur when medical devices are exposed to magnetic fields as little as 10G. According to the researchers, the iPhone 12 Pro Max has a magnetic field strength of over 50G. However, the ex vivo devices tested didn't respond uniformly. Some were only temporarily disrupted, others had sustained asynchronous pacing, and three weren't impacted at all. The researchers suggest that in the case of a Boston Scientific Accolade MRI pacemaker, the device may not have been affected because it requires a magnet stronger than 70G. After the HeartRhythm study was published, Apple issued additional guidance urging consumers with implanted medical devices to keep iPhone 12 devices more than 6 inches away, or more than 12 inches if wirelessly charging. It also recommended those people consult with both their physician and device manufacturer.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Today, with the expansion of its Galaxy Upcycling at Home service (which is still in beta), users in the U.S., U.K., and South Korea will get access to an experimental feature in the SmartThings app designed to give an old Galaxy handset new life as a useful smart home accessory. By using the app to reconfigure the device's battery usage and optimization, Samsung says even older devices will still be able to deliver good longevity, while the phone's usual assortment of wireless connectivity features makes it easy to pair the phone with other devices in your home.

In the SmartThings app, Samsung provides a range of functions that an old smartphone can perform, including serving as a light sensor that can automatically turn on your smart lights or even your TV when it gets dark. Alternatively, you can also convert an old Galaxy phone into a sound sensor, with the phone using AI to detect common household noises like a barking dog, crying baby, or a knock on the door. In this way, you can also repurpose an old Samsung phone as a baby monitor of sorts [...]. And of course, even without much fiddling, upcycled Samsung phones can also be used as universal remotes, providing an easy way to control your streaming video box, play music on your smart speakers, control your lights, and more.

The OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro are OnePlus' newest smartphones powered by Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 888 chipset. The flagship device is the OnePlus 9 Pro, featuring a 120Hz LPTO curved display, 8GB of RAM, 128GB storage, Hasselblad-branded cameras, and a starting price of $969. If that price is too much to stomach, the OnePlus 9 features slightly lower-end specs and a more affordable $729 starting price. The Verge has already called the OnePlus 9 Pro "the best Android alternative to Samsung." From the report: OnePlus spent much of its announcement talking about the cameras on the new phones, which have been developed in partnership with Hasselblad. OnePlus says the colors have been tuned to look more natural and that the ultrawide sensor on the 9 Pro and 9 is one of the biggest to ever ship on a smartphone. The ultrawide uses a 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 sensor that's 1/1.56" in size with an aperture of f/2.2. Meanwhile, the 9 Pro's main Sony IMX789 sensor has a resolution of 48 megapixels and is 1/1.43" in size. (The regular 9 has a Sony IMX689 sensor, but it has the same resolution of 48 megapixels.) Both have a 2-megapixel monochrome sensor and 16-megapixel selfie camera, but only the 9 Pro has an 8-megapixel telephoto.

As previously announced, the 9 Pro has a 1440p 120Hz curved display that makes use of LPTO technology to adjust its refresh rate between 1 and 120Hz based on the content being displayed on-screen, reducing power consumption by "up to 50 percent." OnePlus also claims it should feel more responsive to use in games that support its Hyper Touch technology. The screen has a maximum brightness of 1300 nits and supports HDR10+. Meanwhile, the OnePlus 9 has a flat rather than curved display. It's not LTPO, it's slightly less bright at 1,100 nits, and it's also lower resolution at 1080p. It's still got a refresh rate of 120Hz, however. Additionally, both phones support Warp Charge 65T, which OnePlus claims should be able to charge the phones' 4,500mAh batteries to 100 percent in under half an hour. The 9 Pro and 9 can also charge wirelessly at up to 50W and 15W, respectively. Both phones will go on sale on April 2nd, with preorders starting March 26th.

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: The most advanced mind-controlled devices being tested in humans rely on tiny wires inserted into the brain. Now researchers have paved the way for a less invasive option. They've used ultrasound imaging to predict a monkey's intended eye or hand movements -- information that could generate commands for a robotic arm or computer cursor. If the approach can be improved, it may offer people who are paralyzed a new means of controlling prostheses without equipment that penetrates the brain.

A key next step will be to use the computer predictions in real time to guide a robot hand or a cursor. But ultrasound could still guide a robotic arm, as long as a computer could quickly direct the arm's fine motor movements from the user's cue. The team foresees many future improvements to the technique. "The technology is absolutely not at its full potential yet." The study has been published in the journal Neuron.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum, written by Stacey Higginbotham: The IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020 has given the nation an excellent framework that will influence IoT security across the world. So, what's to like about the law? Two things, as it turns out. First, the law isn't focused on securing individual devices by dictating password requirements or encryption standards, both of which will need to evolve. Instead, it relies on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to set many of the requirements that government agencies have to follow when purchasing connected devices. These policies see overall security as the sum of several parts, requiring specific prescriptions for device, cloud, and communication security.

NIST's initial rules include today's best practices, such as having an over-the-air device update program, unique IDs for each device so it can be identified on a network, and a way for authorized users to change features related to access and security. The recommendations also include logging the actions taken by an IoT device or its related app, and clearly communicating the specifics of a device's security to the user. The other reason to like the law is that it remains adaptive and flexible by requiring NIST to assess the best practices for cybersecurity for connected devices every five years. Hacks, by their nature, are also adaptive and flexible, and so preventing them needs equally adaptable legislation. That means buying IoT devices that can receive over-the-air software updates, for example, to patch up any newly discovered exploits."Unfortunately, the law isn't airtight," writes Higginbotham. She worries that the waiver process for devices needed for national security or research could be abused. There's also a loophole that exempts devices that are secured using "alternative and effective methods." The law doesn't clarify what agency evaluates the efficacy of these alternative methods or how that evaluation is made.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Hackaday: Probably the best known brand of cutter comes from Cricut, and that company has dropped a bombshell in the form of an update to the web-based design software that leaves their now very annoyed users with a monthly upload limit of 20 new designs unless they sign up for a Cricut Access Plan that costs $9.99 on monthly payments. Worse still, a screenshot is circulating online purporting to be from a communication with a Cricut employee attempting to clarify matters, in which it is suggested that machines sold as second-hand will be bricked by the company.

We'd like to think that given the reaction from their online community the subscription plan will backfire, but unlike the world of 3D printing their market is not necessarily an online-savvy one. A crafter who buys a Cricut from a bricks-and-mortar warehouse store and uses it with Cricut cartridges may not balk at being required to pay rent to use hardware that's already paid for in the same way a member of our community with a 3D printer would. After all, Cricut have always tried to make their software a walled garden. However if the stories about second-hand models being bricked turn out to bear fruit that might be a different matter. UPDATE 3/18/21: Cricut has decided to reverse its decision and allow every member to upload an unlimited number of images and patterns for free.

"Right now, every member can upload an unlimited number of images and patterns to Design Space for free, and we have no intention to change this policy," a Cricut spokesperson told us in an email. "This is true whether you're a current Cricut member or are thinking about joining the Cricut family before or after December 31, 2021."

They addressed these changes in a letter to the Cricut community, which you can read here.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple will soon be making a significant change to its serial number format for future products that will see some key information stripped out. In an internal AppleCare email this week, obtained by MacRumors, Apple said the new serial number format will consist of a randomized alphanumeric string of 8-14 characters that will no longer include manufacturing information or a configuration code. Apple said the serial number format transition is scheduled for "early 2021," and confirmed that IMEI numbers will not be affected by this change.

Any currently shipping Apple products will continue to use the current serial number format, while future products will use the new format, according to Apple. The new serial numbers will initially be 10 characters, the company indicated. Apple's current serial number format has long allowed both customers and service providers to determine the date and location that a product was manufactured, with the first three characters representing the manufacturing location and the following two indicating the year and week of manufacture. The last four characters currently serve as a "configuration code," revealing a device's model, color, and storage capacity. Apple initially planned to transition to the new serial number format in late 2020, but delayed. Apple hasn't explained the reasons for the change, but the new format will effectively make it impossible to view details about when and where a device is manufactured.

In December, Ars reported that as many as 3 million people had been infected by Chrome and Edge browser extensions that stole personal data and redirected users to ad or phishing sites. Now, the researchers who discovered the scam have revealed the lengths the extension developers took to hide their nefarious deeds. Ars Technica reports: Researchers from Prague-based Avast said on Wednesday that the extension developers employed a novel way to hide malicious traffic sent between infected devices and the command and control servers they connected to. Specifically, the extensions funneled commands into the cache-control headers of traffic that was camouflaged to appear as data related to Google analytics, which websites use to measure visitor interactions. Referring to the campaign as CacheFlow, Avast researchers wrote: "CacheFlow was notable in particular for the way that the malicious extensions would try to hide their command and control traffic in a covert channel using the Cache-Control HTTP header of their analytics requests. We believe this is a new technique. In addition, it appears to us that the Google Analytics-style traffic was added not just to hide the malicious commands, but that the extension authors were also interested in the analytics requests themselves. We believe they tried to solve two problems, command and control and getting analytics information, with one solution."

The extensions, Avast explained, sent what appeared to be standard Google analytics requests to https://stats.script-protection[.]com/__utm.gif. The attacker server would then respond with a specially formed Cache-Control header, which the client would then decrypt, parse, and execute. Avoiding infecting users who were likely to be Web developers or researchers. The developers did this by examining the extensions the users already had installed and checking if the user accessed locally hosted websites. Additionally, in the event that an extension detected that the browser developer tools were opened, it would quickly deactivate its malicious functionality. Waiting three days after infection to activate malicious functionality. Checking every Google search query a user made. In the event a query inquired about a server the extensions used for command and control, the extensions would immediately cease their malicious activity.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Amazon is enabling a new feature today that allows Alexa to proactively complete tasks around the house, such as turning off lights, based on your habits and frequent requests. Alexa has been able to sense these habits and ask about them since 2018 -- the company calls them "hunches" -- but before this update, Alexa would ask permission before acting on something like lowering the thermostat before you went to bed. If the new proactive hunches are enabled, though, Alexa will skip asking for permission for a task and just do it.

While proactive hunches seem like they could make Alexa a lot more useful, having granular controls over what Alexa can automatically act on will be important. An Amazon support article seems to suggest you can select what types of hunches Alexa can complete on its own, but we've reached out to Amazon for more information on how much you can customize proactive hunches. In addition, Amazon is rolling out its Guard Plus security subscription service. "The service can alert you if Alexa picks up on certain types of sounds in your home and offers access to human agents who can call emergency services on your behalf, similar to ADT," reports The Verge. It'll cost $4.99 per month.

The company is also rolling out an energy dashboard via the Alexa app that can monitor and estimate how much power compatible devices connected to Alexa use if their manufacturers support it.

At CES 2021 today, LG unveiled the LG Rollable, a smartphone that has what the company calls a "unique resizable screen" that transforms from a phone into a small tablet. The screen slides in and out of place to extend its surface area. The Verge reports: It's merely a concept right now, as part of LG's "Explorer Project" experiments, and we still don't know exactly what technology LG is using or the size of the expandable display. LG has previously used its Explorer Project to introduce its LG Wing smartphone, with a wild rotating design and two OLED displays. It's still not clear whether LG's Rollable phone will ever make it to market, but the company has now branded this experiment so it seems more likely we'll see an LG Rollable in the future.

Dell is launching three new monitors next month, and all of them come with a dedicated Microsoft Teams button. The Verge reports: Dell claims it has created the "world's first video conferencing monitors certified for Microsoft Teams," after Microsoft started certifying displays, webcams, and headsets last year. Three monitors will be available next month, all offering quick access to Microsoft Teams. The button will let Microsoft Teams users quickly launch the app to make and receive video calls. Hands-free commands will also be supported through Cortana and the built-in microphone.

The Teams button is the main surprise with these displays, but Dell's trio of videoconferencing monitors also have some useful specs designed for an era where remote work and video calling is key. Each includes a 5-megapixel pop-up infrared camera, which supports facial recognition with Windows Hello. Dell also bundles a noise-canceling microphone and dual 5-watt integrated speakers. There's even a built-in mode to reduce blue light emissions. Dell is launching a 24-inch (FHD) version for $519.99, a 27-inch (QHD) model for $719.99, and a curved 34-inch (WQHD) variant for $1,149.99. All three will launch on February 16th. In other Dell-related news, the company has announced new versions of its Latitude laptops with Intel's new 11th Gen vPro chips and new features like an automated, integrated webcam shutter to physically block your camera when it's not in use.

The world stocked up on laptop and desktop computers in 2020 at a level not seen since the iPhone debuted in 2007, and manufacturers still are months away from fulfilling outstanding orders, hardware industry executives and analysts said. Reuters reports: Remote learning and working has upturned the computer market during the coronavirus pandemic, zapping sales of smartphones while boosting interest in bigger devices, which had become afterthoughts to iPhones and Androids over the last decade. "The whole supply chain has been strained like never before," said Gregg Prendergast, Pan-America president at hardware maker Acer Inc.

Annual global shipments of PCs, the industry's collective term for laptops and desktops, topped out at about 300 million in 2008 and recently were sinking toward 250 million. Few expected a resurgence. But some analysts now expect 2020 will close at about 300 million shipments, up roughly 15% from a year ago. Tablets are experiencing even faster growth. By the end of 2021, installed PCs and tablets will reach 1.77 billion, up from 1.64 billion in 2019, according to research company Canalys. The virus pressed families into expanding from one PC for the house to one for each student, video gamer or homebound worker. Earlier this month, Sam Burd, president at Dell, said the industry "renaissance" would soon bring devices with AI software to simplify tasks like logging on and switching off cameras. Compared to last year, Dell's online orders from consumers surged 62% in the third quarter.

Joe2020 writes: Famous developer Hector Martin who put Linux on the PS4 now wants to port Linux to the new Apple M1, and he wants to do it with the help of crowdfunding by making it his full-time job. One can find his official pledge for support here. "Since these devices are brand new and bespoke silicon, porting Linux to run on them is a huge undertaking. Well beyond a hobby project, it is a full-time job," the developer explains.

"The goal is to bring Linux support on Apple Silicon macs to the point where it is not merely a tech demo, but is actually an OS you would want to use on a daily driver device. To do this, there is a huge amount of work to be done. Running Linux on things is easy, but making it work well is hard. Drivers need to be written for all devices. The driver for the completely custom Apple GPU is the most complicated component, which is necessary to have a good desktop experience. Power management needs to work well too, for your battery life to be reasonable," the dev explains. Martin says he hopes to have enough donations to purchase the new Apple Silicon-powered devices and hire other people to help with the job.

Slashdot reader NoMoreACs also shared the news via Mac Rumors.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The owners and operators of more than half a million diesel pickup trucks have been illegally disabling their vehicles' emissions control technology over the past decade, allowing excess emissions equivalent to 9 million extra trucks on the road, a new federal report has concluded. The practice, described in a report by the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Civil Enforcement, has echoes of the Volkswagen scandal of 2015, when the automaker was found to have illegally installed devices in millions of diesel passenger cars worldwide -- including about half a million in the United States -- designed to trick emissions control monitors. But in this case no single corporation is behind the subterfuge; it is the truck owners themselves who are installing illegal devices, which are typically manufactured by small companies. That makes it much more difficult to measure the full scale of the problem, which is believed to affect many more vehicles than the 500,000 or so estimated in the report.

The E.P.A. focused just on devices installed in heavy pickup trucks, such as the Chevrolet Silverado and the Dodge Ram 2500, about 15 percent of which appear to have defeat devices installed. But such devices -- commercially available and marketed as a way to improve vehicle performance -- almost certainly have been installed in millions of other vehicles. The report found "significant amounts of excess air pollution caused by tampering" with diesel pickup truck emissions controls. The technology is essentially an at-home version of the factory-installed "defeat devices" embedded into hundreds of thousands of vehicles in the United States byVolkswagen, which was forced to pay $14.7 billion in the U.S. to settle claims stemming from the scandal. The report said "diesel tuners" will allow the trucks to release more than 570,000 tons of nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant linked to heart and lung disease and premature death, over the lifetime of the vehicles. That is more than ten times the excess nitrogen oxide emissions attributed to the factory-altered Volkswagens sold domestically. The report also found that the altered pickup trucks will emit about 5,000 excess tons of industrial soot, also known as particulate matter, which is linked to respiratory diseases and higher death rates for Covid-19 patients.

According to a new study published in the journal Computers In Human Behavior, smartphone users initiate 89% of the interactions, with only 11% initiated by a notification. "This is at odds with previous academic literature and news reports which commonly claim that smartphone notifications are ruining your life, ruining productivity, and so on," reports PsychNewsDaily. From the report: "The perceived disruptiveness of smartphones is not mainly driven by external notifications," the study's authors write, "but by an urge of the user to interact with their phone that seems to occur in an almost automatic manner, just as a smoker would light a cigarette." [...] The researchers explain that many users felt compelled to check their phones even when they had switched off notifications. "Seeing this has made me realize that I don't even remember picking it up," one of the subjects said in a subsequent interview with the study's authors. The study also found that the average duration of a smartphone interaction was 64 seconds. About 50% of the interactions were 23 seconds or less.

The most common activity users engaged in when using their phones was checking WhatsApp, which accounted for 22% of interactions. [...] The second most common interaction, at 17% of the total, was a "lock screen check," which means briefly unlocking the phone to check for new notifications. In third place was interacting with Instagram (16%). Facebook and Facebook messenger together accounted for 13% of the interactions, e-mail for 6%, web browsing 4%, music 3%, Snapchat 2%, and photos 2%. Phone calls -- these devices are phones, after all -- only comprised about 1% of the interactions.

The participants generally considered e-mail notifications the most important. Likewise, they largely considered group chats a "source of distress," and found most group-chat messages unimportant. Smartphone interactions were longer when users were alone versus with others, and were also longer at home versus at work. Likewise, these interactions were shorter when participants received notifications, compared to when they "self-disrupt." This indicates that smartphone use is more purposeful when users receive notifications, and more "distraction-seeking" when they check their phones themselves. The researchers also found that the scrolling features on apps like Instagram and Facebook led to the longest interactions.

Apple and Microsoft are working on adding support for the Xbox Series X controller to Apple devices, according to an Apple Support page spotted by a Reddit user. MacRumors reports: The support page states that Apple devices only support the Xbox Wireless Controller with Bluetooth, Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, Xbox Adaptive Controller, PlayStation DualShock 4 Wireless Controller, and various other MFi Bluetooth controllers. However, small print on the page states: "Microsoft and Apple are working together to bring compatibility for the Xbox Series X controller to customers in a future update." There is no mention of the Sony PlayStation 5 DualSense Controller or the Amazon Luna Controller on the Apple Support page, but MacRumors has spotted code mentioning the controllers in the iOS and iPadOS 14.3 betas.

In a Wall Street Journal article comparing Apple's HomePod Mini against the competition, a Google spokesperson hinted that the company is working on integrating its Chromecast streaming devices and Nest Audio speakers. The Verge reports: Being able to combine a streaming platform with a smart phone speaker makes a lot of sense for these companies. After all, customers already have all the hardware in their living room -- why not repurpose those speakers to improve the sound of your Netflix movies? Plus, there's the added bonus of inciting customers to stay within a company's ecosystem. You're more likely to buy a HomePod mini if it works with the Apple TV you already have. The ability to link smart speakers to streaming boxes is also something that both Apple and Amazon already offer.

Google's plans are extremely vague for now -- The Wall Street Journal makes no mention of which devices the company is looking to link together, when the feature will arrive, or what sort of use cases it's looking to achieve. But with Google increasingly looking to push users toward its smart home devices, making them all work better together just makes good sense.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Mac Rumors: Earlier this week, Japanese publication Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun reported that Sony will supply Apple with OLED microdisplays for its widely rumored AR/VR glasses, as spotted by Mac Otakara. The report has since been corroborated by display industry analyst Ross Young, who said multiple sources have informed him that Apple is indeed planning to use Sony's microdisplay technology for its head-mounted accessory. According to FRAMOS, a supplier of embedded vision technologies, Sony's OLED microdisplays are small, cutting-edge displays with an ultra-fast response rate, ultra-high contrast, a wide color gamut for precise color reproduction, high luminance, low reflectance, and other benefits that would be ideal for Apple's glasses. Sony's microdisplays also have integrated drivers for a thin and light design, and power-saving modes are available for longer battery life.

Young said the glasses will use a 0.5-inch display with a 1,280x960 resolution, and these specs appear to correspond with Sony's ECX337A component. According to Sony's website, this microdisplay in particular has a max brightness of 1,000 nits, an ultra-high contrast of 100,000:1, and an ultra-fast response rate of 0.01 ms or less. The high contrast provided by Sony's microdisplays allows an additional information layer to appear seamlessly, and not as an overlay. "This information is simply added to the background for a 'real AR' experience," according to FRAMOS. According to the Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, Apple plans to release its AR/VR glasses in 2021, but analyst Ming-Chi Kuo does not expect a release until 2022 at the earliest. Young also believes that the glasses will be introduced in the first half of 2022.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: New circuits can get printed directly on human skin to help monitor vital signs, a new study finds. In the new study, researchers developed a way to sinter nanoparticles of silver at room temperature. The key behind this advance is a so-called a sintering aid layer, consisting of a biodegradable polymer paste and additives such as titanium dioxide or calcium carbonate. Positive electrical charges in the sintering aid layer neutralized the negative electrical charges the silver nanoparticles could accumulate from other compounds in their ink. This meant it took less energy for the silver nanoparticles printed on top of the sintering aid layer to come together, says study senior author Huanyu Cheng, a mechanical engineer at Pennsylvania State University.

The sintering aid layer also created a smooth base for circuits printed on top of it. This in turn improved the performance of these circuits in the face of bending, folding, twisting and wrinkling. In experiments, the scientists placed the silver nanoparticle circuit designs and the sintering aid layer onto a wooden stamp, which they pressed onto the back of a human hand. They next used a hair dryer set to cool to evaporate the solvent in the ink. A hot shower could easily remove these circuits without damaging the underlying skin. After the circuits sintered, they could help the researchers measure body temperature, skin moisture, blood oxygen, heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure and bodily electrical signals such as electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) readings. The data from these sensors were comparable to or better than those measured using conventional commercial sensors that were simply stuck onto the skin, Cheng says. The findings have been published in the journal Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Google's Nest Secure alarm system, which was discussed on Slashdot for featuring an unlisted, disabled microphone, has been discontinued by Google, though it will continue functioning. Android Police reports: Google released the Nest Guard in 2017 as a simple security system with motion sensors and a keypad, but it never received an upgrade, even as other Nest devices were updated again and again. The product page for the Nest Guard on the Google Store was updated last week with a 'No longer available' message, possibly indicating it had been discontinued. Google later confirmed to Android Police that the Nest Guard will no longer be sold, but it will continue to work for people who have already bought it.

Apple has announced a new version of its HomePod smart speaker, the $99 HomePod mini -- a smaller version of the speaker that shrinks down the original model into a more compact size. The Verge reports: Like the full-size HomePod, the HomePod mini still features a mesh fabric exterior in both black and white colors, along with a small display on top to show the Siri waveform and volume controls. The new model is more of a short, spherical shape, however, instead of the oblong design of the original. The HomePod mini features one main driver, two passive radiators, and an "acoustic waveguide" on the bottom. The new HomePod mini also features an Apple S5 chip, which Apple says allows for "computational audio" processing to adjust how your music sounds 180 times per second. Multiple HomePod mini speakers can play music in sync and "intelligently" create stereo pairing when placed in the same room. Apple is also using the U1 chips that it debuted in last year's iPhones to create a better Handoff experience later this year. Apple said third-party support is coming later this year for Pandora, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio.

There's also a new "Intercom" feature that allows for customers with multiple HomePod devices in different rooms to communicate throughout the house. "Intercom messages will also appear on connected iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches (although they won't immediately play out loud like they do on the HomePod mini)," adds The Verge. Preorders for the HomePod Mini start on November 6th and shipping begins on November 16th.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: When technologists talk about the "Internet of Things" (IoT), they often gloss over the fact that all these interconnected things need batteries and electronics to carry out the job of collecting and processing data while they're communicating to one another. This job is made even more challenging when you consider that many of the objects we would like to connect are made from plastic and do not have electronics embedded into them. Now researchers at the University of Washington have devised a way of using 3D printed plastic to create objects that communicate with smartphone or other Wi-Fi devices without the need for batteries or electronics.

This research builds on previous work at the University of Washington dating back to 2014 in which another research team employed battery-less chips that transmit their bits by either reflecting or not reflecting a Wi-Fi router's signals. With this kind of backscattering, a device communicates by modulating its reflection of the Wi-Fi signal in the space. [...] In this latest research, the University of Washington team has been able to leverage this Wi-Fi backscatter technology to 3D geometry and create easy to print wireless devices using commodity 3D printers. To achieve this, the researchers have built non-electronic and printable analogues for each of these electronic components using plastic filaments and integrated them into a single computational design. The researchers are making their CAD models available to 3D printing enthusiasts so that they can create their own IoT objects. The designs include a battery-free slider that controls music volume, a button that automatically orders more cornflakes from an e-commerce website and a water sensor that sends an alarm to your phone when it detects a leak. The researchers "have leveraged mechanical motion to provide the power for their objects," reports Spectrum. "To ensure that the plastic objects can reflect Wi-Fi signals, the researchers employ composite plastic filament materials with conductive properties. These take the form of plastic with copper and graphene filings."

"Once the reflective material was created, the next challenge for the researchers was to communicate the collected data. The researchers ingeniously translated the 0 and 1 bits of traditional electronics by encoding these bits as 3D printed plastic gears. A 0 and 1 bit are encoded with the presence and absence of tooth on the gear, respectively. These gears reflect the WiFi signal differently depending on whether they are transmitting a 1 bit or a 0 bit."

According to Taiwanese publication DigiTimes, Qualcomm is planning to launch new premium smartphones under its own brand name. It's reportedly partnering with ASUS to manufacture and distribute the devices globally. HotHardware reports: It would appear that Qualcomm's intent is to showcase ultra-premium experiences for Snapdragon Android phones in the market. This would in effect be a "super phone" of sorts that is designed by and powered by Qualcomm, but manufactured by ASUS. It would likely be a high-end, Snapdragon 875 flagship smartphone with all the bells and whistles that would compete with the best that other Android OEMs have to offer (we'd expect a stock Android experience as well). The most obvious comparison would be Microsoft's Surface line of premium hardware used to showcase new ideas and form factors.

ASUS is already a known quantity in the Android smartphone market, and produces its own line of gaming smartphones like the lightning-fast ROG Phone 3, which is powered by Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 865+ SoC. However, ASUS would also be producing a device that would be directly competing against its own high-end offerings. It would seemingly make sense for Qualcomm to announce this new partnership and gaming smartphone brand at the upcoming Snapdragon Tech Summit, which will be held virtually December 1st through December 2nd. At that time, Qualcomm is expected to launch its Snapdragon 875 flagship SoC along with a new generation of Snapdragon 700 Series mid-range SoCs.

"In previous years, [Google] launched Call Screen to vet your incoming calls, Duplex for restaurant reservations, and just this month, a feature called Verified Calls that will tell you who is calling and why," reports TechCrunch. Today, Google introduced a feature called "Hold For Me," which will make the Google Assistant stay on the line for you when you're placed on hold, then alert you when someone picks up. From the report: In the short demo of "Hold for Me," Google showed how a Pixel device owner is able to activate the new feature after they've been placed on hold. This is done by tapping a new button that appears on the phone screen above the buttons for muting the call, turning on speakerphone, and the other in-call phone controls. Once activated, you're alerted with a message that says "Don't hand up," where you're advised that Google Assistant is listening to the call for you, so you can do other things.

A button is also available on this screen that lets you tap to return to the call at any time, and below that an on-screen message says "music playing" to indicate if the Google Assistant is still hearing the hold music. You can also choose to press the red hang up button to end the call from this screen. When a person comes on the line, the device will alert you it's time to return to the call. Google says the new feature will come to its new Pixel 5 devices, which will soon be followed by its older-generation Pixel phones via the next "Pixel feature drop" roll out.

Last year at its Accelerate 2019 event in Orlando, Lenovo teased "the world's first foldable PC." They didn't unveil the name, price tag, or ship date -- just that it would be part of Lenovo's flagship ThinkPad X1 line and that it would arrive in 2020. Today, the company formally unveiled the device it's calling the ThinkPad X1 Fold, which is available for preorder now, starting at $2,499. The Verge reports: The idea is that you can use the Fold like a large tablet when it's fully unfolded (or divide the screen into two adjacent displays). You can prop the Fold up horizontally to use it like a full 13-inch notebook, with an optional detachable keyboard and easel stand. You can fold the thing up 90 degrees, turn it vertically, and use it like a miniature laptop (a touchscreen keyboard pops up on the bottom half). You can turn it horizontally and use it like a book, with an optional stylus. Or you can fold the whole thing up, and easily carry it around without it taking up much space in your bag. In terms of other specs, the production Fold comes with Intel's Lakefield processors, two USB-C ports and a SIM-card slot, 8GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage, and a 50Wh battery. It weighs 2.2 pounds and can come with 5G support. Lenovo also announced a bunch of Linux ThinkPads and ThinkStation PCs.

Saad Bhamla, an undergraduate in Mumbai, India, has invented a do-it-yourself hearing aid made from inexpensive, easy-to-find parts. "At bulk rates, Bhamla says, it would cost just under $1 to make," reports Science Magazine. "But anyone with the freely available blueprints and a soldering iron can make their own for not much more -- maybe $15 or $20, Bhamla says." From the report: Inspired by his grandparents and a hearing-impaired colleague -- who is the first author on the new paper -- Bhamla and his team set out to develop a cheap hearing aid built with off-the-shelf parts. They soldered a microphone onto a small circuit board to capture nearby sound and added an amplifier and a frequency filter to specifically increase the volume of high-pitch sounds above 1000 hertz. Then they added a volume control, an on/off switch, and an audio jack for plugging in standard earphones, as well as a battery holder. The device, dubbed LoCHAid, is the size of a matchbox and can be worn like a necklace.

Next, Bhamla and his colleagues tested the device. They found that it boosted the volume of high-pitch sounds by 15 decibels while preserving volumes at lower pitches. It also filtered out interference and sudden, loud sounds like dog barks and car horns. Finally, tests with an artificial ear revealed that LoCHAid might improve speech recognition, by bringing conversations closer to the quality heard by healthy individuals. It complied with five out of six of the World Health Organization's preferred product recommendations for hearing aids, the researchers report today in PLOS ONE. There are some drawbacks. The device can't be fine-tuned for individual needs, and the researchers anticipate that LoCHAid's parts will wear out after about a year and a half. It's also bulky, though a smaller version is in development.

Bhamla notes that it needs to be clinically tested before his device can be sold as a "hearing aid" in the United States.

At Tesla's Battery Day Event today, the company unveiled plans to develop a "tabless" battery cell that will make their EV batteries five times more energy dense, six times more powerful, and enable a 16 percent range increase for the company's vehicles. These new "tabless" cells, which Tesla is calling 4860 cells, are "close to working" at the pilot plant level, Musk said. The Verge reports: The company will produce its new batteries in-house, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicts will help dramatically reduce costs and allow the company to sell electric vehicles for the same price as gasoline-powered ones. The battery is expected to lower Tesla's cost per kilowatt-hour, the unit of energy most commonly used to measure the capacity of the battery packs in modern electric vehicles. Many experts believe that lowering these costs would allow Tesla to dramatically lower the price of its cars, thereby making them far more accessible. Musk's announcement that Tesla will begin manufacturing its own batteries should help with the shortages the company has experienced in the past with Panasonic and its other suppliers.

With that said, Tesla won't stop purchasing those batteries anytime soon. "In the run-up to Battery Day, Musk tweeted that the company would continue to use batteries supplied by Panasonic, China's CATL, LG Chem, and others," notes The Verge. "Not only that, but Tesla would buy more batteries from its suppliers than normal."

On Wednesday, Acer and Walmart announced they were reviving the Gateway brand to sell affordable Windows 10 notebooks and laptop convertibles from $179 and up. PCMag reports: Gateway was once a major PC vendor in the US, especially during the 1990s when it famously sold computers packaged in cow spotted boxes. However, the company's fortunes began to falter in the 2000s, resulting in Taiwanese PC vendor Acer later buying it up. Acer has now decided to bring back Gateway, calling it a "beloved" brand in the US. And to market the products, the company has resurrected the cow spotted box logo.

According to Acer, the products are designed for everyday consumers, students and "creators," who pump out content or graphic designs. The hardware will also feature processors from either Intel or AMD, and come fitted with 1080p screens. In total, the Gateway PCs span nine different notebook models. At the low-end is the "11.6-inch Ultra Slim" laptop, which retails for $179, and contains 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. At the high-end, you can buy the "Gateway Creator Series 15.6-inch Performance Notebook," which has an Intel 10th Gen Core i5-10300H processor, an NVIDIA 2060 RTX graphics card, 256GB of SSD storage and 8GB of RAM.

According to Engadget, Motorola's brand-new Razr sports an improved design, support for 5G, and corrects many of the issues the first model was notorious for. Chris Velazco writes: Motorola was always clear that the Razr is a "design-first" device, and it went to great lengths to recreate the visual vibe that its classic flip phones ran with for its first foldable. To pack some much-needed extras into this new model, though, Motorola had to make some changes: The new Razr is a little chubbier, and a features a "chin" that's a bit less prominent than the original's. Personally, these changes are enough to make the Razr just a little less visually striking, but they're worth it when you consider what Motorola could pack in here as a result.

For one, Motorola squeezed a better camera into the Razr's top half. My biggest gripe with the original Razr's 16-megapixel rear shooter wasn't that it was bad, per se -- it just wasn't great compared to every other camera you'd find in a similarly priced phone. In response, Motorola chose a 48-megapixel camera for this new model, which should improve photo quality substantially. The somewhat pokey Snapdragon 710 found in the first Razr also is gone, replaced here by a more modern Snapdragon 765G and 8GB of RAM. As I said, we're not working with flagship power here, but the new Razr has everything it needs to run much more smoothly this time around.

By now, it might sound like Motorola has improved this new Razr on all fronts, and that's very nearly true. There are only a few things Motorola didn't change here, like its 6.2-inch flexible internal display. It's the exact same panel they used last time, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, I was still hoping a second-gen Razr screen would run at a resolution higher than 876 x 2,142. Maybe more curious is the fact that, in the United States anyway, Motorola just plans to call this phone the "Razr," and doesn't plan to differentiate it from the Verizon-only model it released earlier this year. "[I]t's still not a flagship phone, and at $1400 we're not sure it's a great deal either," Velazco says. "But for people who want an extremely pocket-friendly foldable that's also usable while closed, Motorola just might be on the right track."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: It's been months since HBO Max and Peacock officially launched, and still, neither streaming service currently appears on the Roku platform (or Amazon, for that matter). The companies have said discussions about support were ongoing, but now we know why they're still absent: Roku's support fees are expensive as hell. In a deep-dive report on Roku's ascent to dominance in the streaming space, Variety reported Thursday that the streaming platform and hardware brand is asking for 30% of ad inventory and 20% of subscription costs from third-party streaming services hoping to find a home on Roku. In other words, Roku is making Apple-level demands of its channel partners -- terms HBO Max and Peacock aren't willing to agree to, clearly. Another point of contention in the discussions appears to be support for standalone apps, as opposed to subscriptions sold through the Roku Channel.

Earlier today, Elon Musk demonstrated his startup Neuralink's brain link device working in a pig named Gertrude. While the science and the device itself were front-and-center at the presentation, the surgical robot the company debuted is equally as important because it's designed to handle the full surgical installation process. "That includes opening up the scalp, removing a portion of the skull, inserting the hundreds of 'thread' electrodes 6mm deep along with the accompanying chip, then closing the incision," reports CNET. TechCrunch takes a closer look at the robot: The rounded polycarbonate sci-fi design of the brain surgeon bot looks like something out of the Portal franchise, but it's actually the creation of Vancouver-based industrial design firm Woke Studio. To be clear, Musk's engineers and scientists have created the underlying technology, but Woke built the robot's look and user experience, as well as the behind-the-ear communication end piece that Neuralink has shown in prior presentations. Neuralink's bot features clean white (required for ensuring sterility, per Woke), arcing lines and smooth surfaces for a look that at once flags its advanced technical capabilities, but also contains some soothing and more approachable elements, which is wise considering what the machine is intended to do.

Woke says the Neuralink surgical robot can be separated into three main parts: The head, the body and base. The head of the robot is that helmet-like piece, which actually holds the head of the patient. It also includes a guide for the surgical needle, as well as embedded cameras and sensors to map the patent's brain. The intent of the design of this piece, which includes a mint-colored interior, is to give the robot "an anthroprmorphic characteristic" that helps distract from the invasive nature of the procedure. There are also single-use disposable bags that line the interior of the helmet for sterile operation. The Neuralink robot also has a "body," that humped rear assembly, which includes all the parts responsible for the motion of the robot as it sets up from the procedure. The third element is the base, which basically keeps the whole thing from tipping over, and apparently also contains the computing brains of the brain-bot itself.

Elon Musk has said that his secretive neurotech firm Neuralink will demonstrate a working "device," presumably a brain-machine interface, at 6PM ET on Friday. The Verge reports: Musk has spoken repeatedly about his belief that BMI devices are needed to help humans keep up with AI by supplementing our brainpower, but right now, his goal is much simpler: to create an implantable device that lets people control phones or computers with their mind. Musk initially announced the August 28th "progress update" back in July, and has now offered more details on what will be shown. He says the update will include the unveiling of a second-generation robot designed to attach the company's technology to the brain, and a demo of neurons "firing in real-time," though it's not clear exactly what is meant by this.

Even compared to Musk's other ventures like Tesla and SpaceX, Neuralink is ambitious. The company wants to connect to the brain using flexible electrodes thinner than a human hair that it calls "threads." Current BMI devices use stiff electrodes for this job, which can cause damage. But inserting flexible electrodes is a much more delicate and challenging task, hence the company's focus on building a "sewing machine" like robot to do the job. Eventually, Neuralink hopes to make the installation process for BMIs as non-invasive as Lasik eye surgery, even removing the need to use general anesthetic. Musk has previously spoken about the need for an automated Lasik-like process for BMIs to overcome the constraints and costs involved with needing to use highly trained neural surgeons. But this isn't ready to be shown off yet, according to Musk. "Still far from LASIK, but could get pretty close in a few years," Musk tweeted in response to a followup question about the event. Keep your eyes on the company's YouTube channel, where Neuralink will likely stream Friday's event.

Sam Machkovech writes via Ars Technica: Our "Facebookening of Oculus" series continues today with the announcement of the Facebook Connect conference as a free, live-streamed event on September 16. You may remember years of "Oculus Connect" conferences, which focused on the company's efforts in virtual reality and other "mixed reality" mediums. That conference is dead. It's Facebook Connect now. In a Tuesday announcement, Facebook exec Andrew Bosworth cited the company's broader product portfolio as a reason to expand its conference's definition beyond Oculus. To back that claim up, however, he only cited two Facebook products: Spark AR, the camera-software toolset used to identify faces and add silly effects and filters, and Portal, the company's webcam-chat hardware platform. Having attended many Oculus Connect conferences, I can safely say neither of those product lines received much focus (and attending VR-interested developers didn't express interest in it either).

What's more, Facebook used the Tuesday announcement as an opportunity to rename its entire Oculus VR division: Facebook Reality Labs. That name may sound familiar, since it was given to a number of skunkworks teams working on experimental VR-like features and hardware (including years of focus on 3D spatial audio at its Seattle-area office). Facebook isn't shy about explaining why it is renaming everything: to collate and combine its disparate entities in order to "build the next computing platform to help people feel more present with each other, even when we're apart." That sure sounds like a bold admission of the so-called "Facebook operating system" that I keep hearing rumors about, with VR, mixed reality, and smartphone cameras at its core. Facebook has spent months hinting at mixed computing systems being combined in the workplace, which the company has conveniently summarized in a new Facebook Reality Labs post from today.

"Much like Facebook's recent corporate rebranding, our emphasis is on clarity -- visually identifying us as a part of Facebook while looking toward the future of the next computing platform that puts people at the center," Bosworth writes in today's announcement. But I would argue that this smushing of seemingly unrelated products -- VR headsets, webcam chat platforms, funny-face filters, and the smorgasbord of social media content that is an average Facebook feed -- only serves to obfuscate what Facebook is trying to sell to consumers. Previously, you could expect to purchase an Oculus headset, then buy, download, and install preferred VR software (or even attach it to more open sales platforms like SteamVR and Windows Mixed Reality). As we've recently learned, that kind of "whatever software you want" freedom may not be in the cards for Oculus hardware much longer, since Facebook will soon start mandating Facebook logins for all brand-new hardware -- and I've previously predicted that new hardware will be a centerpiece of the company's next major VR event (which we now know is happening on September 16).

The Register reports that Toshiba has transferred its remaining shares of Dynabook to Sharp, thus ending the company's time as a PC vendor. From the report: [...] As the 2000s rolled along Toshiba devices became bland in comparison to the always-impressive ThinkPad and the MacBook Air, while Dell and HP also improved. Toshiba also never really tried to capture consumers' imaginations, which didn't help growth. As the PC market contracted and Lenovo, Dell and HP came to dominate PC sales in the 2010s, Toshiba just became a less likely brand to put on a laptop shopping list.

By 2018 the company saw the writing on the wall and sold its PC business unit to Sharp for a pittance -- just $36 million changed hands - but retained a 19.9 percent share of the company with an option in Sharp's favor to buy that stock. Sharp quickly renamed the business to "Dynabook," a product name Toshiba had used in Japan, and set about releasing new models and reviving the brand. Which brings us to June 30th, 2020, when Sharp exercised its option to acquire the 19.9 percent of Dynabook shares it did not already own. On Tuesday, Toshiba transferred those shares and announced the transaction on Thursday.

In T-Mobile's Q2 2020 earnings call today, the company says that it has surpassed AT&T in total branded customer count to become the second biggest carrier in the U.S., trailing only Verizon. PhoneDog reports: In Q2 2020, [which is the first quarter that includes Sprint following the merger of the two carriers] T-Mobile added 1.245 million customers, giving it a total subscriber count of 98.3 million. To compare, AT&T finished Q2 2020 with 93 million postpaid and prepaid customers.

T-Mo also shared some good news regarding its 5G network today. The magenta carrier's 2.5GHz mid-band 5G is now live in Atlanta, Dallas, and Washington DC. That 2.5GHz 5G coverage is also live in parts of Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, and Philadelphia. T-Mo touts that its average download speeds on 2.5GHz 5G is around 300Mbps with peak speeds of 1Gbps.

Last month, Microsoft removed the option to purchase 12 months of Xbox Live Gold from the Microsoft Store, leading many to believe the company could be planning to phase out the service altogether with the launch of the Xbox Series X. When asked about the plans by The Verge, Microsoft said: "We have no plans to discontinue Xbox Live Gold at this time. It is an important part of gaming on Xbox today, and will continue to be in the future." The Verge's report also notes the company isn't planning to rename Xbox Live: Rumors of an Xbox Live rename appeared this week, after Microsoft announced changes to its services agreement. The software giant started referring to Xbox Live as the "Xbox online service," prompting some to assume Xbox Live was going away. "The update to 'Xbox online service' in the Microsoft Services Agreement refers to the underlying Xbox service that includes features like cross-saves and friend requests," says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. "This language update is intended to distinguish that underlying service, and the paid Xbox Live Gold subscription. There are no changes being made to the experience of the service or Xbox Live Gold."

While it's clear Xbox Live Gold isn't going away, Microsoft's statement doesn't mean the service won't be made free at some point in the future. Microsoft still requires Xbox One owners, and potentially Xbox Series X owners, to purchase an Xbox Live Gold subscription to play multiplayer games online. Windows 10 players of Xbox Live-enabled games do not require the same subscription, however. This split gets especially tricky for games like Halo Infinite, which Microsoft has promised will have a free-to-play multiplayer mode. If Microsoft does continue Xbox Live Gold as a paid service on Xbox consoles, then PC players will get totally free access to Halo Infinite and Xbox players will not.

At Microsoft's Ignite conference in late 2019, the company said it was planning to shut down its standalone Cortana mobile apps as it refocuses on business users. Microsoft today is following through with that plan, announcing that it will shut down the current Cortana iOS and Android apps, end Cortana support for the Harman Kardon Invoke smart speaker, and remove the original Cortana functionality from the first-generation Surface Headphones starting in 2021. The Verge reports: These changes are still a few months away, but it marks another big step for Microsoft in pivoting Cortana away from a Google Assistant or Alexa alternative to a more specialized, productivity-focused assistant -- changes the company has already started making on the Windows 10 version of Cortana earlier this year. (To that end, Microsoft also put a September 7th date on the already-announced sunsetting of third-party Cortana skills for Windows.) Instead, Microsoft will be focusing on its productivity features that repurpose Cortana as a part of the Microsoft 365 suite of software, citing the revamped Windows 10 functions and integrated Cortana features in the Outlook and Teams apps as replacements. It's not as full-featured as the original Cortana -- which offered additional functions like smart home controls and music integration -- but by offering a less broad set of features, Microsoft is hoping to create a product that better complements its existing software and competes less directly with established players like Google and Amazon.

Microsoft is also offering a consolation offer of a $50 gift card for Harman Kardon Invoke owners, who'll be most impacted by the removal of Cortana -- which effectively will turn the formerly smart device into a pricey Bluetooth speaker when the firmware update arrives next year. Owners of the original Surface Headphones (who will also see their Cortana experience removed) are also being offered a $25 gift card to make up for the missing service.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple agreed in 2016 to halve its App Store fee for Amazon as part of a deal to put the e-commerce giant's Prime Video app on Apple's mobile devices and TV set-top box. Eddy Cue, an Apple senior vice president, and Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos negotiated directly on the deal, according to emails released Wednesday as part of a congressional hearing on anticompetitive behavior. The companies agreed to a 15% revenue share for customers who signed up through the app and no revenue share for users who already subscribed via Amazon or elsewhere, the emails showed.

The deal, announced in December 2017, also allowed Amazon's video service to integrate with Apple's voice-activated digital assistant, Siri, and the iPhone maker's TV app, which launched in 2016. In addition, the agreement gave Apple a 15% cut of subscriptions to Amazon Prime partners like Showtime for users who signed up originally through Apple. Apple generally receives a 30% cut for the first year of an app's subscriptions made through the platform. That fee drops to 15% after the first year. The agreement with Amazon is similar to a program Apple announced earlier this year letting select developers avoid the 30% fee in exchange for integrating with certain features. Amazon is part of that program. The report also reveals that Apple once considered taking a 40 percent cut from some subscription apps, according to documents shared today by the House Judiciary Committee.