Samsung’s replacement Note 7 units are starting to hit US stores

I’m writing this from a plane. As we boarded, the flight attendant asked that we not use or charge our “Samsung 7” phones on the plane. The wording was a little awkward, but she more or less got the point across. It’s been a rough few weeks for Samsung. What was supposed to be the company’s moment of triumph has proved to be one of the biggest consumer electronics headaches in recent memory.

After issuing a voluntary recall (the company is noticeably keen on leaning on the “v” word in all of its press material) thanks to a few dozen reported cases of issues with the Note 7’s battery, the first major replacement shipment is arriving here in the States. More than 500,000 of the handsets will be disseminated throughout carrier and retail stores, where impacted customers will be able to exchange their phones for the less volatile variety.

As previously noted, the new, safer version of the Note will feature a green version of the battery icon, versus the old gray-scale, indicating that the handset is one of the safe ones. Users who still haven’t ditched the old Note will be greeted with a less than subtle software message urging them to make the change,

Once installed, users will be prompted with a safety notice that urges owners to power down and exchange their recalled device. The notice will appear every time a user powers up or charges their device.

The new devices are set to arrive in stores by tomorrow.


For more latest tech news: MRs TechNews.

Source: TechCrunch

The Oculus Touch motion controllers will cost many moneys

Oculus is just months away from releasing the Touch controllers and we now have a better idea of just how much they’ll hurt your wallet.

A GAME store display revealed that the launch price of the controllers will be £190 in the U.K. That’s about $212 (RM877) in the U.S., which is a bit more than many Rift owners hoped for, though the U.S. price is more than likely to sit pretty at $199 (RM823).

Oculus Touch controllers to cost £190 in the UK. Crikey. pic.twitter.com/zg9JTNiCg8

— Nick Summers (@nisummers) September 20, 2016

Though this is the price many in the industry expected, it is still a bit disappointing that existing Rift owners are going to have to shell out nearly the price of a console to bring a functionality to the Rift that has already been waited on for so long. Worth noting is that this price also includes an additional camera sensor to improve tracking for the system.

Touch brings motion-tracked input controls to the Rift platform. It means the system is going to grow a lot more comparable to the experience users have on the HTC Vive. Now you’ll be able to interact with content in a way that hasn’t been possible with console controllers like the Xbox One controller that the Rift shipped with.

This is going to be a huge launch for Oculus. The company already has a healthy stockpile of titles ready for launch and is essentially treating this as a relaunch for the headset.

No official word on the timing of shipment; the only time frame from Oculus is Q4 of this year, but I’ve heard from people familiar with the matter that the Touch controllers may be shipping as early as late October.

I’ve reached out to Oculus and will update if I hear anything back.

For more latest tech news: MRs TechNews.

Source: TechCrunch

Allo brings Google’s smarts to messaging

Google first announced Allo and Duo, its new messaging and video chat apps, at its I/O developer conference earlier this year. Duo launched about a month ago and today it’s Allo’s turn.

With Allo, Google is combining everything it has learned from its previous messaging products with the company’s machine learning smarts. Indeed, Allo marks the first time you’ll be able to use the Google Assistant, the company’s more conversational version of Google Now that will also soon find its way into products like Google Home, Android Wear and others.

Given that Google already owns Hangouts, a messaging service that also includes video chat, the obvious question here is why the company would launch another one. As Google’s VP of communications products Nick Fox told me, the reason for this is that the company wants to position Hangouts as its productivity and enterprise service, while Allo and Duo are its consumer products.

“When we think about the enterprise case, it’s actually different from the user case,” he said. “We made a choice to have a different case for enterprise and one for consumers.” The team basically decided that in order to build the product it wanted, it had to make a set of core decisions (which included splitting video and text chat into two different apps) and start from scratch. One area in which you can see this new approach is that Duo and Allo are based around your friends’ phone numbers — not Google accounts.

As far as the core messaging experience in Allo goes, everything is pretty straightforward. The Allo feature that got the biggest applause at its unveiling was the ability to make text appear bigger or smaller (to shout or whisper) when you press and hold the send button and then drag up or down. I don’t think that’s Allo’s most exciting feature, but it does allow you to add a bit more personality to your chats.

Talking about personality: Where Apple went with lots of corporate partnerships with the likes of Disney and Nintendo, Google opted for working with independent artists for its stickers in Allo. There are currently just under 30 sticker packs in Allo. Themes range from a pack that features an alcoholic and moody sloth to ones that feature partying marshmallows, Otto the Octopus and Stella the Starfish and a very sad puppy. The style here is more often reminiscent of some of the edgier animated shows on Comedy Central. All of the packs are available for free.

You can, of course, also send images (and draw on them), share your location and dictate text.

All of that is table stakes, though — and Fox pretty much agrees with that, too. “Because messaging is already used by billions of people, people think messaging is a solved problem,” he told me. “But we don’t see it that way. We actually think we are on the cusp of a new generation of messaging apps. We think of it as smart messaging.”

What makes Allo different then is its integration with Google’s machine learning smarts and the Google Assistant.

I mostly think of Google Assistant as the conversational version of Google Now. While you could already have some basic back and forth with Google Now ever since it started understanding pronouns, the Google Assistant takes this to a new level.

There are two ways to work with the Google Assistant (which is officially still in preview) in Allo. You can simply chat with it directly, just like you would do with a friend. Or you can bring it into a conversation by typing @google and asking it a question.

When you first start chatting with the Google Assistant directly, it’ll politely introduce itself, ask if it can use your device’s location and then give you a few examples of what you can do. Like Google Now, it can tell you the weather, and it lets you set timers, alarms and reminders and ask general questions. You can also use it to see the latest news or specific news about a person or event (and subscribe to daily updates about them) or ask about nearby restaurants, flight delays and other standard queries you are likely familiar with from Google Now. You can also play a trivia game and, if you feel like you are in a confessional mode, you can tell the Assistant things about yourself, too.

Ideally, this results in a conversation with the Assistant, though you do hit upon its current limits pretty quickly. Too often, you ask it a question about a topic it doesn’t know about and all the Assistant returns is a link to a web site. At that point, the conversation simply ends.

The ideal conversation is basically: “Show me some nearby sushi restaurants.” “Here are the listings for sushi restaurants within 4 mi.” “Which ones are open now?” “Here are listings for Shogun Sushi within 10 mi.” “Give me directions to there.” And then you get directions. At every step, Allo presents you with a few tappable options, too.

For the most part then, chatting directly with the Assistant doesn’t always live up to its potential yet, though it’s easy to see how this will become more useful as it gets smarter over time.

Where the Assistant does come in handy, though, is in chats with other people. You can easily pull in a Google search for a restaurant when you are looking to go out as a group, for example, or want to give directions to somebody.

While support for the Google Assistant is probably the marquee feature of Allo, its use of smart replies — that is, the canned, pre-written responses you may already be familiar with from Google Inbox — is also very interesting. For the most part, these work really well. When you are chatting with the Assistant, this feature will often pull up useful follow-up questions, but even as you are just chatting with a friend, it’ll regularly pull up just the right response. In the worst-case scenario, that means you may end up having a conversation with a friend that’s really just two bots talking to each other, but ideally, the response you would’ve typed is there already and you can save yourself a few taps (which is especially useful when you are on the go).

Smart Replies even works for photos, so when your friends send you pictures of babies, you can save yourself from typing the obligatory “oh, he’s so cute!”

By default, all of the chats in Allo are encrypted using standard protocols. Allo does have an Incognito mode, too, though. Once you turn that on, chats are end-to-end encrypted and you also get the advantage of features like discreet notifications, which doesn’t show the message content in the standard mobile notifications, and message expiration, so your message auto-deletes after a set time that you can set from 5 seconds to a week.

The obvious question here is why Google didn’t turn these features on by default. Fox tells me that when the chat is end-to-end encrypted, features like smart replies and the Google Assistant simply can’t work because Google’s algorithms can’t see the content of the chats, either. For some people, that may just be what they want. “We think it’s important that users have the choice,” Fox told me.

And given that users do have a choice, chances are most of your friends won’t be on Allo just yet. For them, the app allows you to kick the message over to your SMS client to chat with them, but for Android users, Google is also introducing a new feature called “app preview messages.” With these, your friend still gets a notification and the ability to write an in-line response, just like you would do with a chat app you have installed on Android. The message will also include a link to download Allo, of course.

Google’s strategy around messaging has been rather confusing in the past. Hopefully, the focus on specialized apps will put an end to this for the time being, especially if Hangouts does indeed become its enterprise/productivity app. I understand Google’s reasoning for launching yet another set of apps, but, personally, I would have rather seen the company build these features like Google Assistant into the Hangouts app (and I assume it will actually do that in the future).

To be fair, the Assistant is still in preview; I’d like to see it get a bit smarter still, though. When it gets everything right, it’s a great user experience — but step outside of its comfort zone and you’re better off just doing a regular search in your browser. As Fox rightly noted, though, there is a reason it’s in preview right now. He also noted that part of that reason is that it’s meant to work together with Google Home and other Google apps that are either not on the market yet or don’t feature Assistant support yet. For now, Allo is the only app that features the Assistant, so some of the cross-service functionality remains limited.

Still, Allo is a competent messaging app that gets all its core features right. I can see myself switching to it from Hangouts for chatting with friends and family (though I do miss the fact that there’s no built-in voice-calling feature yet).

For more latest tech news: MRs TechNews.

Source: TechCrunch

Finally, a Bluetooth speaker that matches my axe and flannel

There’s no shortage of portable Bluetooth speakers out there, but lord are a lot of them ugly. What I need is something that will not look amiss sitting on a stump next to me while I hew a yew in my red plaid flannel. Wait, what’s this one?!

The Rock Out 2 is the latest from GoalZero, which is better known for its solar chargers and emergency batteries. It’s a collab with Woolrich, the familiar — well, to lumberjacks — outdoor clothing company that has made a specific black and red plaid its trademark pattern.

Don’t pretend you don’t know the name and possibly fear it. Wireless audio was the natural step for these venerable outdoors people.

You can expect the speaker to do all the usual tricks: It has two 3-watt drivers, a mic for taking calls “from your crew” while it’s synced to your phone and a headphone input, as well. It’s also weather-proof, suggesting it’ll handle a cloudbreak or roll in the duff just fine (but don’t take it swimming with you).

You can pick up the checked Rock Out 2 at GoalZero for $80 (RM322). 

Source: TechCrunch

WeVideo revamps its online video editor for HTML5

WeVideo has rebuilt its browser-based video editor using HTML5 instead of Flash.

For many of you, the whole debate about HTML5 versus Flash may seem like a weird flashback to 2010. But Flash is taking a while to die completely — Google Chrome, for example, continues to phase out Flash gradually.

CEO Krishna Menon said that in the case of WeVideo’s new editor (which launched quietly last week), the big challenge was building a sophisticated, responsive editor in HTML5. Menon and UX designer Diana Madrigal demonstrated it for me, hopping around a video timeline, making edits and playing the results without any noticeable lag.

“When you hit play, what’s happening here is three or four elements are all getting blended in real time and getting displayed at 30 frames per second,” Menon said — something that was “really pushing the technology.”

WeVideo says it has 14 million users, and while it already offers iOS and Android apps, Menon said the browser version is important for making the editor accessible on any and every device.

The new editor also features a new interface, including a redesigned timeline with standardized video tracks.

Source: TechCrunch

Dice snags $6M to win more fans for its frustration-free ticketing platform

London-based ticketing startup Dice, which sells mobile tickets without booking fees and with a current focus on millennials wanting to discover new bands to see live, has closed a $6 million Series A funding round.

The round was led by Evolution Equity Partners with participation from existing investors White Star Capital, Designer Fund and Kima Ventures, along with several music industry angel investors. It also added new investor Lumia Capital for the round.

With the Series A, which closed in June but is being announced now, Dice has raised $10 million to date — topping up to its initial $1.6M in seed funding in the interim. It’s grown to 42 employees over that time, including a music and data science team focused on building machine learning algorithms to help users figure out what their next big night out should be via a shortlist of recommended gigs shown below each listed event.

Handily its investor roster includes DeepMind co-founders Mustafa Suleyman and Demis Hassabis — a connect that Dice CEO and co-founder Phil Hutcheon tells TechCrunch has been very helpful as it develops its recommendation algorithms. It’s also aiming to make its data work for promoters to help them figure out when and where to put on a gig, and even what to charge. So it’s aiming to serve both sides of the music industry: fans and artists.

The app includes a waitlist feature where fans who miss out on buying a ticket in the primary sale can add their name to be notified if another Dice user subsequently wants to return tickets to resell via the app (at the same price). This then generates demand data that Dice can use to help promoters and artists run more successful events in future.

Machine learning’s a big part of our future as we expand and go into new territories.

“Machine learning’s a big part of our future as we expand and go into new territories — to help understand new things,” says Hutcheon. “Because it’s easy to know your own city but when you go into new cities and especially as you expand and scale what are the right venues for this type of artist to play at? Does their audience go to this venue or that venue? What’s the best price to get someone to attend the concert? What was the waiting list like for that artists?

“The weather? The time of the year? What else is on that night? All these things factor in to the success of an event. And one of the things that we’ve been trying to teach promoters is that it’s probably not a good business model to have every concert available go on sale at nine o’clock on a Friday. Maybe stagger it through the week. It’s okay for it not to sell out in five minutes — it will sell out, but it might just take a little bit longer… As long as each venue is full on the night, that’s fine. That’s our objective.”

We last covered Dice almost two years ago when it launched its iOS and Android apps in its first city, London. Since May this year it’s been live nationwide in the U.K., and Hutcheon says it’s now selling 35 per cent of its tickets outside London.

“We joke around that Netflix is our competitor because they’re trying to keep people in — and we’re trying to get people out,” he says, while conceding that a more traditional rival would be a ticketing giant like Ticketmaster. Although Dice is intentionally far more selective in what it sells.

Dice claims its app is on the phones of close to half (40 per cent) of the millennials in London at this point, although Hutcheon won’t break out active users yet.

He will say that over 700 artists have sold tickets on Dice thus far (it never sources tickets via secondary routes — and is vocally anti-tout, including building its own tech aimed at spotting and preventing touts from buying up tickets; a mission helped by Dice tickets being tied to the mobile device they are bought on).

He also says they have signed up all the venues they want to work with thus far — emphasizing that Dice remains an intentionally curated gigs experience, so they only put events on the app which they personally rate and think their primary audience of up to 33-year-olds will also enjoy.

The team is particularly pleased about snagging a partnership with Apple that will see Dice offering tickets for acts performing at the Apple Music Festival in London this year — through a series of in-app competitions. Another bit of news it’s announcing today.

The Dice pitch from the get-go has been about building a fan-focused, trusted events brand — using seasoned gig goers to power expert curation to give its users the confidence to spend money to go out. It has evolved from an initial human-only in-app gig curation to a blend of human and algorithmic recommendation to try to crack the new (live) music discovery problem at scale.

Nor do they just have new/up-and-coming artists on Dice. Some very big and mainstream artists, playing in massive stadium venues, have also allocated tickets for sale on Dice — including Justin Bieber, Adele and Taylor Swift. But then not all millennials are going to want to go and see a lesser known grime artist play in a basement in Hackney Wick. Some of these kids even want to go see Mumford & Sons — another mainstream artist Dice has sold tickets for via the app… So there’s an inevitable element of variety needed to cater to users’ music tastes.

At the last count, Hutcheon says the app had around 1,400 UK gigs on it. “All really, really good”, he asserts. “Everything on Dice is good. We’re creating this universe where we have quality on there.” While at the same time trying, with the recommendation features, to account for variety of taste — and how taste can fluctuate within the same person. So, in other words, just because you went to see that one grime artist that one time doesn’t mean you only want to see grime artists all the time…

“We’ve taken our time to do discovery because we want to see what works,” he tells TechCrunch. “And it’s pretty amazing how accurate it is. The next release of discovery on Dice… will have [a user’s] top ten artists to check out over the next month, based on your behavior within Dice.”

Why the focus on millennials? Because they’re going out more, of course. And the occasional high profile Taylor Swift gig aside, Hutcheon says Dice’s “sweet spot is identifying new artists, building those new artists up and getting them to larger venues” — which typically means selling cheaper tickers. (Which in turn means its youthful users can afford to go out more often and therefore use the app more. So, in short, Dice gets to roll more.)

“You want people who use Dice multiple times a month — not just goes to one Bruce Springsteen concert a year and that’s it,” he adds. “That’s what we really focus on. How do fans discover the new artists and get to the concert, know about them, and then discover the next one?”

Dice is grossing “eight figures” in ticket sale transactions at this point, according to Hutcheon — which he describes as “pretty good” going for just two years in. Although it’s not actively monetizing yet — beyond a few sponsored gigs with brands like Red Bull.

“We know how we want to monetize but we’re still building the product and still growing,” he says, adding: “We just need to get a bit bigger.”

The new funding will be going towards more product dev work — with a fully fledged launch of its discovery recommendation feature due soon (a rough-cut MVP version is live now), likely next month; and work ongoing for a feature that will allow users to transfer a ticket to a friend through the app (while preserving Dice’s anti-tout features).

It’s also eyeing international expansion — with Dublin set to be its first city launch outside the UK. A U.S. launch is on the cards too, slated for the end of this year or early next, though Hutcheon talks excitedly about Dice’s potential in various European cities too. A big part of his job is making the decisions about where to focus, he says, adding: “There’s still a bunch of things we need to build — which will hopefully be finished by the end of October. And that’s when our focus is outside of the UK.”

With the core tech of the ticketing platform built, Hutcheon reckons launching into new locations can happen quickly — a case of getting people on the ground to scope out the music scene and determine the right sorts of venues/gigs for the audience. Dice employs a team of A&R scouts to go to gigs and find new bands that put on a good live show. (That’s actual humans going to gigs to find the next cool live band; robot scouts most definitely aren’t on the roadmap, he laughs.)

“It may not need to be a choice between the US and Europe; we may be able to do everything at once,” he adds. “What we’ve seen when we’ve launched outside of London is it’s not too much work on the ground… Because we’ve built an end-to-end solution from buying the tickets, automatically paying promotors, having discovery promote the events themselves.

“For outside of London we have two people looking after the whole of the UK and that’s it… So for me it’s just making sure that when we do go into a territory that we have a long term plan. That we don’t just turn up and then six months later retreat.”

Ultimately, for all its music passion and pedigree, the team is also looking beyond gigs — with the core ticketing platform clearly applicable to other verticals. And, along with international expansion, launching into additional verticals is one way to grow usage without having to compromise a ‘curated for quality’ mission.

Getting big enough to see a path to monetizing without losing the inherent selectiveness of its brand promise looks like it’s lining up to be Dice’s post-Series A challenge.

Hutcheon cites theatre and sports as two other verticals on its radar for 2017, although whether any apps it launches for those segments would also be Dice-branded or called something entirely different is yet to be determined.

“We are concentrating on music right now but I think this time next year we would be in different verticals like sports and theatre,” he says. “Music is something that we’re super passionate about, and will always be in our hearts, but the technology side it is a lot of people spending a lot of time solving complex things — and it can address issues in different arenas.”

“Maybe you could pre-order your Tesla on Dice,” he adds. “If you think about it, there’s so many people trying to buy something at the same time — and being able to handle that traffic, and let people know if they haven’t got the ticket immediately that they’re on the waiting list.

“The worst thing is to go on sale at nine o’clock and then be stuck in a queue for 35 minutes or hours… And then at the end of it being told ‘oh sorry, we couldn’t get you a ticket’. So we’ve built it in a way that within a few minutes you’ll know if you haven’t got a ticket. And we’ll put you onto a waiting list, and when someone can’t make it it’s your best chance to get a ticket.”

So from tickets — to potential Tesla buyers… But if you’ve solved the problem of serving surge demand with a frustration-free mobile sales experience then your tech has the potential to scale beyond selling £5 tickets for Toyboy & Robin at The Nest. Or even £55 for Taylor Swift in Hyde Park.

Or at least, that’s what Dice is gambling on.

Source: TechCrunch

Truecaller lands pre-install deal with Huawei as it crosses 90M monthly users

Truecaller has landed a partnership with Huawei which will see its caller ID and smart phone book app pre-loaded on the fast-growing Chinese company’s overseas smartphones.

The deal represents the most significant tie-up to date for Stockholm-based Truecaller, which offers social features inside the caller app and uses a crowdsourced directory to help identify spam calls. The deal will initially apply to the Honor 8, Huawei’s latest flagship, when it launches next month, but a Truecaller representative told TechCrunch that the app will be pre-bundled on future Huawei phones sold across the U.S., Middle East, North Africa, South East Asia and India.

The companies confirmed that there is no financial element to this deal, rather it is a strategic deal to help both sides to grow.

Huawei shipped 100 million devices last year, a figure that was up 33 percent on 2014, with some 40 million of that number sold overseas. The company is looking to integrate third-party apps to go beyond stock Google services and make its devices standard apart from the crowded field of Android smartphones.

“As we were planning the launch of our flagship device Honor 8, we were looking for partners who can truly redefine the user experience, Truecaller was an obvious choice to help improve the native calling functions. They provide an indispensable service for millions of users each day. We are joining hands to ensure that respective brands get the best of both worlds,” George Zhao, president of Huawei’s Honor business, said in a statement.

That’s not quite all for today, though.

Truecaller migrated its standalone social calling app — Truedialler — into its main app in March, and the company revealed today that its users are now making more than 500 million calls per month. The average duration of each call is around 100 seconds, the company added. That’s pretty impressive when you consider that WhatsApp reached 100 million calls within its app per day earlier this year — yet it counts more than a billion active users.

Truecaller told TechCrunch only that it has seen more than 250 million downloads to date, with India its biggest market accounting for 130 million of those. However, a source close to the company revealed that it recently passed 90 million monthly active users and is closing down on 100 million. To date, the company has never publicly revealed its monthly active user count, and it declined to comment on our figure.

Back in 2015, we reported that Truecaller was in talks to raise $100 million at a valuation of over $1 billion. That funding never materialized, and speaking to TechCrunch earlier this year, CEO Alan Mamedi said the company doesn’t need capital it began to monetize via targeted advertising.

“We don’t need external funding, we’re actually making money right now,” the Truecaller CEO told us. “We’re in a really good position… we’re still a small company and I’d say we’re a very efficient company… Raising funds takes so much focus from your core business. Success has lately been seen as how much money you raise, I don’t see that as a healthy perspective. We’re focused on our product and bringing the best experience to our users.”

Source: TechCrunch

WhatsApp to share user data with Facebook for ad targeting — here’s how to opt out

Facebook-owned messaging giant WhatsApp has announced a big change to its privacy policy which, once a user accepts its new T&Cs, will see it start to share some user data with its parent company — including for ad-targeting purposes on the latter service.

“[B]y coordinating more with Facebook, we’ll be able to do things like track basic metrics about how often people use our services and better fight spam on WhatsApp,” WhatsApp writes in a blog on the change today.

“Facebook can offer better friend suggestions and show you more relevant ads if you have an account with them. For example, you might see an ad from a company you already work with, rather than one from someone you’ve never heard of.”

WhatsApp will also be sharing the data with the “Facebook family of companies” — so presumably its user data could also be fed to VR firm Oculus Rift, another Fb acquisition, and photo-sharing network Instagram.

WhatsApp data that will be shared under the new T&Cs includes the phone number a user used to verify their account, and the last time they used the service.

Two pieces of data which — on a creepiness scale of ‘personal intel you’d rather not hand over to a data-mining tech giant’ — are both right up there.

You can read the full WhatsApp privacy policy here.

There is an option to opt out of some of the data sharing (specifically for ad and product purposes) — see lower down this post for more details — although most users will just tap ‘I agree’ to WhatsApp’s new T&Cs without reading them and realizing what they are agreeing to.

This is why, as we’ve said before, T&Cs suck. And why user consent to a massive privacy shift like this should certainly not default opt people in.

Privacy vs data

This is undoubtedly a huge step-change for a service that has typically prided itself on championing user privacy, including completing a rollout of end-to-end encryption across its entire service earlier this year, and continuing to fight requests from authorities to hand over user data.

But once WhatsApp agreed to be acquired by data-mining social network giant Facebook, back in February 2014, the writing was arguably on the wall for any pro-privacy stance.

Facebook is in the business of monetizing usage via interest-based advertising fed by harvesting the personal data of its users. WhatsApp’s original business model, of charging users a small yearly subscription fee for an ad-free messaging service, was discontinued after Facebook took over ownership of the service.

The annual $1 fee was ditched in January this year, but WhatsApp still does not have a replacement business model — given its anti-ads stance (although it is laying the groundwork to open up business accounts).

At the time of the acquisition Facebook said it would be keeping the messaging giant independent, despite some obvious overlap with its own Facebook Messenger app.

While WhatsApp founder Jan Koum claimed there would be no changes. “Here’s what will change for you, our users: nothing. WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently,” he wrote at the time, adding: “There would have been no partnership between our two companies if we had to compromise on the core principles that will always define our company, our vision and our product.”

Fast forward a couple of years and one core principle — privacy — is now being, if not entirely compromised, at least loosened — given that Facebook will now be able to link users of its own social services with WhatsApp users. It will also be able to track relative usage of its services vs activity on the messaging app, as WhatsApp feeds it engagement intel via the ‘last used’ signal.

It’s not clear from the WhatsApp blog post if other user data will be shared with Facebook. The wording suggests this is entirely possible, although if a user has updated to the latest version of the app, which end-to-end encrypts all content, then their messaging content at least cannot be shared, so long as the person they are messaging has also updated.

WhatsApp also makes this point in its blog post, noting: “When your messages are end-to-end encrypted, only the people you are messaging with can read them — not WhatsApp, Facebook, or anyone else.”

But that’s kind of missing the point about letting Facebook triangulate users across two massive services, with over a billion active users apiece. It remains to be seen whether that collapsing of boundaries between two distinct services will catch the attention of data protection regulators in Europe, which has more stringent privacy rules, and where Facebook has already faced multiple data protection related investigations and legal actions — and continues to do so.

We’ve asked WhatsApp for a comprehensive list of everything it intends to share with Facebook, and for a comprehensive list of everything Facebook intends to do with the data it will be receiving on WhatsApp users and their usage of the service — and will update this post with any response.

As well as phone number and last seen data, TechCrunch understands Facebook will also be fed intel on a WhatApp user’s operating system, mobile country code, mobile carrier code, screen resolution and device identifier. All of which open up plentiful tracking/ad-targeting possibilities.

But this looks very much like Facebook trying to ‘fill in’ missing mobile phone number data via the more comprehensive WhatsApp address book — given that the latter requires users to supply a number to verify an account, whereas it is possible to use Facebook without supplying your mobile number (albeit, Facebook might well have grabbed your digits via your friends uploading their contacts’ books to the service anyway… And the service periodically nags those who haven’t to add a mobile number…).

WhatsApp says the data is being shared to “coordinate more and improve experiences across our services and those of Facebook and the Facebook family” — going on to cite the following three specific examples:

• We will be able to more accurately count unique users
• We can better fight spam and abuse
• If you are a Facebook user, you might see better friend suggestions and more relevant ads on Facebook

In WhatsApp’s privacy policy it fleshes this out a little more, including noting potential marketing and ad-targeting use-cases for sharing its user data with Facebook — writing (emphasis mine):

We joined the Facebook family of companies in 2014. As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies. We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them, to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and marketour Services and their offerings. This includes helping improve infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our Services or theirs are used, securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities. Facebook and the other companies in the Facebook family also may use information from us to improve your experiences within their services such as making product suggestions (for example, of friends or connections, or of interesting content) and showing relevant offers and ads. However, your WhatsApp messages will not be shared onto Facebook for others to see. In fact, Facebook will not use your WhatsApp messages for any purpose other than to assist us in operating and providing our Services.

Learn more about the Facebook family of companies and their privacy practices by reviewing their privacy policies.

One such marketing use-case for Facebook to make use of the WhatsApp phone number data is for its Custom Audiences ad offering, whereby businesses using its platform can target ads based on an existing customer contact list they have.

So any WhatsApp users that have given a business the same mobile phone number they use for the app can be served targeted ads by that same business via Facebook.

While a Facebook product use-case for the phone number data is to expand the friend recommendations it can send — by it being able to identify more networks of friends, based on linking more people to mobile numbers.

Partial opt-out

Opting out of the data-sharing entirely does not seem to be possible, but WhatsApp is offering a partial opt out — specifically for Facebook ad targeting and product-related purposes.

However it notes that data will still be shared “for other purposes such as improving infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our services or theirs are used, securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities”.

So there is no way to totally opt out, short of short of stopping using WhatsApp.

A WhatsApp spokesperson declined to comment on why it is not offering users a complete opt out of data-sharing with Facebook, but in a statement the spokesperson said: “We understand people with WhatsApp accounts might want to opt out of sharing their account information to improve their Facebook experiences. They have an additional 30 days to opt out after accepting the new terms so they have time to consider their choices.”

How to opt out of sharing data for Facebook ad targeting

WhatsApp details two ways to opt out of sharing data for Facebook ad targeting on its blog here.

Firstly if you haven’t already agreed to the new T&Cs you can opt out before agreeing to the new terms by tapping to read the full terms of service and privacy policy — and scrolling to a control at the bottom of the document — where there’s a check-box option for sharing the data which you then untick before hitting agree…

If you’ve already accepted the new T&Cs without unchecking the box to share your information with Facebook WhatsApp is also offering a thirty-day window to make the same choice — via the settings page in the app.

To exercise your opt out in this scenario you need to go to Settings > Account >Share my account info in the app and uncheck the box/toggle the control displayed there. And do so within the thirty-day window. Presumably, after that, even this partial opt out will expire.

Source: TechCrunch

Beakor is the little black box for bikes, plus a whole lot more

If there’s no video, it didn’t happen. No surprise that cameras are being incorporated into gadgets for every sport, and cycling is no exception. The new cycling light-camera combo Beakor is a perfect example: a live review is just one of its plethora of features.

The creator of the new cycling safety device, Ludovic Kessas, explained that as a bike commuter he’d been looking for the on-and-off bike security that Beakor offers. He told Digital Trends, “Beakor is really the fruit of my own experience.”

When he was training for an Ironman, he realized safety and security for cyclists still has a ways to go. “I was cycling on small roads in south of France where I was alone and could be hit by a car. I was wondering if it happened, how people or emergency would be alerted,” if the person that hit him didn’t stop. So in addition to the cameras catching the culprit, the Accident Alert System automatically texts or emails emergency contacts if the rider goes down.

For the majority of rides — when the rider will remain upright — the front and rear Beakor HD cameras will record automatically or can be controlled via the Beakor app. The arrows to either side of the cameras are remote-controlled turning indicators complimented by a headlight or an accelerometer-based brake light.

Turning indicators and brake lights are becoming more common in electronic biking accessories, but Beakor also projects a laser turning arrow on the ground and an image of a bike on the pavement ahead, akin to the Blaze Laserlight.

The focus on signals is driven by the fact that most accidents happen at intersections. “We love riding bikes,” Kessas said, “but why should we put our life in danger when technology can help us?”

Anti-theft is covered too, with a tilt sensor that detects if the bike is just being moved a bit — say, as someone else locks up nearby — to cut down on false alarms.

Of course Beakor’s app has modern features, including like video sharing, live cast, and automatic looping. With the app tracking stats and displaying speed, distance, elevation, and even temperature, it’s easy to review metrics like how far and how fast you traveled. Data shares easily to Strava and Runkeeper.

To get the same capabilities using common gear, that would mean loading a bike with a Garmin handlebar device to track stats and routes, a headlight, taillight, and a pair of GoPros — at that point your bars begin to look like R2D2’s chest after he’s gotten a nasty shock. Beakor is all that, plus the accident and theft alerts, turning signals andthe laser projections. Even if a rider had lights with built in cameras, a Beakor setup is still less gear to carry, and with the alerts, lasers, and turn signals, it does far more.

The Beakor camlights charge via Micro USB and last about five hours. That’s more than long enough for the average commute, but you’d need to charge them up mid-ride if planning to be out all day or night.

Keep an eye out for the Beakor Kickstarter campaign set to launch September 1. The devices are projected to ship in February 2017.

Source: Digital Trends 

This could be Mozilla’s next logo

Mozilla, the open web pioneer, is staying true to its collaborative and open roots by performing a brand redesign right out in public. The company has published its shortlist of new logo proposals, which it will now consider, refine, and whittle down to create its next brand identity. Among them is the above, seemingly abstract, structure that actually spells out Mozilla’s name in its multicolored isometric shapes.

There’s another quirky design that incorporates various colors and shapes to spell out "Mozilla":

And then there are few more staid and predictable variants:

The unifying feature of all of the redesign concepts is that they’re carefully thought through. And even where you might say their appearance is too retro or ugly, there’s an evident purpose and message to each logo. There are also lots of pictures of how each logo can be applied across stationery, mugs, T-shirts, and the like, so click over to Mozilla’s site to get an eyeful.

Source: The Verge

Delphi and Mobileye are teaming up to build a self-driving system by 2019

Delphi and Mobileye, two leading auto-parts suppliers, announced today that they are forming a partnership to develop a near-complete autonomous driving system by 2019. The plan is to create a mass-market, off-the-shelf system that can be plugged into a variety of vehicle types, from smaller cars to SUVs. The companies say they will debut their new product at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2017, with fleet testing to soon follow.

"Almost daily, we all see stories about how the trend in vehicle automation is driving rapid change in the automotive industry," Kevin Clark, president of Delphi, said in a call with reporters Tuesday morning. "This trend is being driven by several factors, including regulators wanting fewer injuries and fatalities, city planners who want reduced congestion and reduced need for parking, and commuters want less traffic and the ability to more productively use their time during their commute."

He added, "Autonomous vehicles are the key to addressing these challenges. They’re the quote-unquote promised land."

"THEY’RE THE QUOTE-UNQUOTE PROMISED LAND."

The companies say their Central Sensing Localization and Planning (CSLP) self-driving system will be Level 4 autonomous as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers. That would mean the automated system can control the vehicle in all but a few environments such as severe weather, but only in approved areas. However, when the system is active, a driver would not be required to pay attention to the road.

Mobileye Chairman and chief technology officer Amnon Shashua said the CSLP system would be radar- and camera-centric, with LIDAR operating as a redundant sensor. This will help keep the cost of the system down, he said, adding that in the end it would probably end up costing only a few thousand dollars.

Mobileye and Delphi say the CSLP system will be ready for production by 2019, a few years before other major players in the automotive world say they will be ready to roll out their own self-driving cars. Ford said last week that it will build a fully autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals by 2021. Apple has hinted that its electric car, which may or may not be autonomous, will be ready by 2019. Uber recently announced it would be testing its self-driving technology in Pittsburgh within a few weeks.

Both Mobileye and Delphi insist their partnership won’t conflict with other relationships they have with both car and technology companies. Earlier this month, Delphi announced that it will provide a fleet of self-driving cars to the city-state of Singapore for a mobility-on-demand program. Last July, BMW announced it was teaming up with Mobileye and Intel to bring a fully autonomous vehicle to the road by 2021. Mobileye’s sensors are also used by GM and Volkswagen. Shashua said this partnership with Delphi is not "contradictory, it’s actually complimentary" to its preexisting relationship with BMW and Intel.

"A PROJECT OF THIS SCALE REQUIRES AS MUCH INNOVATION AS POSSIBLE."

"A project of this scale requires as much innovation as possible," Shashua said. "Therefore creating multiple attempts to create this technology is a good thing."

However, one partnership that won’t be going forward is the one between Mobileye and Tesla, which previously had been using the Israeli company’s technology to recognize images for its semi-autonomous Autopilot system. That break came after the two companies expressed disagreement over what caused a fatal accident in May involving a Tesla driver using Autopilot.

On Tuesday, Shashua confirmed that Mobileye had completely severed ties with Tesla. "We’re not changing our mind."

Source: The Verge

Apple said to have a curved iPhone in 2017, just like Samsung

Apple will reportedly release a trio of new iPhones next year, including one premium model with a curved display similar to those used in Samsung devices. That's according to a report from the Nikkei Asian Review, which quotes a source "familiar with Apple's plans." The anonymous tipster told the publication: "There will be a 4.7-inch model, another that will be 5.5-inches, and a premium handset that will be either 5.5-inches or larger equipped with a screen bent on the two sides."

This description is pretty vague, and could mean an iPhone with the more noticeable curves of the Galaxy S7 Edge, or the subtler lines of the Galaxy Note 7. Nikkei also quotes an analyst claiming that Samsung will be a supplier for these new displays. The publication notes that the premium iPhone will also use OLED for its screen — something that's been previously rumored (as well as the curved display), with earlier sources suggesting that a 5.8-inch OLED display is being prepared for the device.

Nikkei notes that it was previously expecting a "premium" 5.5-inch model to be released this year as well, but says that the device was scrapped by Apple, and that the company will instead be releasing a regular 5.5-inch "iPhone 7 Plus" and a 4.7-inch "iPhone 7." It's worth noting that Nikkei's source doesn't mention the fate of the (4-inch) iPhone SE in 2017.

Apple is set to unveil new iPhones early next month. Nikkei’s source backs previous reports from Bloomberg and others that the 5.5-inch model will come with a dual-camera system while the 4.7-inch model will use a single lens. We’re expecting the phones to resemble the iPhone 6 and 6S designs, only with less pronounced antenna lines, the removal of the headphone jack, and a pressure-sensitive home button.

Source: The Verge

iPrice Introduce new Price Comparison Feature!

iPrice Group, Southeast Asia’s largest meta-shopping engine, announced the debut of their price comparison feature that not only allows online shoppers to make the cheapest purchases but also saves 80% of their online shopping time.

The unprecedented advancement was made possible by two layers of information dividers that delivers critical purchase information to capture the short attention span of an online shopper.

The product variants float-up expedite the segregation of the products by its variants; colors, sizes, memory spaces and more to eradicate all possibilities of ambiguity for an intended purchase.

In addition, the exact number of offers and the price range are made known within the same interface for transparency purposes. This shortens the browsing and filtering time for the product and shoppers are guaranteed the exact product, including the preferred color, size, memory space (and more) during the process of price comparison.

The bite-size price comparison banner captures all additional costs (shipping, delivery), validates delivery time and lays out all payment options available within one banner to streamline comparison.

The high level of transparency renders massive cost and time savings, as shoppers now do not need to spend extra time on each merchant’s website to capture miscellaneous information or costs that can affect their final purchase decision.

“The development of our new price comparison feature is a next step to our commitment to bring about a greater level of transparency, convenience and trust to the e-commerce market in Southeast Asia,” enthused David Chmelar, Co-Founder & CEO of iPrice Group.

“Through several months of research and technical developments, we are able to leverage technology to amalgamate product offerings and partners that have made us the largest e-commerce host in the region. With our latest price comparison feature, we look forward to becoming the product discovery platform of choice for the hundreds of millions of online shoppers in the seven countries that we exist in.”

Logon to iprice.my now and start your online shopping today!

Source: MDROID

Report assesses UK’s ISP-level blocks of piracy sites as effective, but glosses over risks

A study from Carnegie Mellon University and subsequent analysis by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation indicate that the U.K.’s blockage of more than 50 websites was indeed effective at reducing piracy, but neither addresses the fundamental problems with the approach.

April saw the publication of “Website Blocking Revisited: The effect of the UK November 2014 Blocks on Consumer Behavior,” a follow-up study to an earlier paper; both attempt to quantify how, if at all, these blocks affected traffic at both piratical and legal media services.

Now, it’s worth keeping in mind that two of the authors run the Initiative for Digital Entertainment Analytics, which specializes in this type of research — and in CMU’s own words, was “made possible through an unrestricted gift from the Motion Picture Association of America.” I really don’t mean to suggest any conspiracy — corporate sponsors enable all kinds of important basic research — but it’s important to know that the house this paper issues from is at least nominally associated with one side of the ongoing debate.

At any rate, the study concludes that the blocks are successful, though seemed to deter mainly casual pirates, creating a small but meaningful increase in the use of legal alternatives. Being an academic paper with a fixed purpose, however, it doesn’t ascend to the higher-level issues brought up by the practice — nor does it need to, those things being outside the scope of the research.

But the ITIF decided to take the baton and run with it, using the CMU paper as the primary source in a second report entitled “How Website Blocking Is Curbing Digital Piracy Without ‘Breaking the Internet’.”

It accurately describes the effectiveness of the blocks, but praises the idea while neglecting to seriously address the issues that attend this type of manipulation of the web.

The concerns of “copyright minimalists” and “internet exceptionalists” are mentioned, but dismissed.

For these groups, the Internet is first and foremost about individual freedom, not about collective responsibility. Their view is that the Internet’s chief function is to liberate individuals from control by, or dependence on, government and corporations. They see the Internet as a special place not anchored to physical geography that stands above and beyond the reach of rules that govern the offline world.

Yet, in reality and for most of the rest of us, the Internet is no different than the offline world, where people have rights and responsibilities and where laws against certain behaviors exist. There is no logical reason why a crime in the physical world is not a crime in the digital world.

While it is indeed unrealistic to think of the internet and web as some kind of elevated place unconnected with the vagaries of the physical realm, that is a disingenuous way to frame the perspective of those who espouse the view that the online world should be regulated differently.

There are fundamental differences to activity online: global accessibility, infinite reproduction of goods, anonymity and pseudonymity and so on. These make for a unique environment that requires unique approaches in order to establish the rule of law — or even define it.

Certainly it is simpler to attempt to apply existing laws to internet institutions; it was simpler to do that with business models, too, and companies have learned since the early days of the web that the old methods need to be rethought and at the very least hybridized with more forward-thinking ones that acknowledge the realities of the online world.

Shortly afterwards comes this reassuring passage:

Some opponents of website blocking have seized upon reports of governments misusing intellectual property enforcement measures for unrelated means, such as the Russian police raid on advocacy groups and opposition newspapers in the name of searching for pirated software. However, such cases are rare and would not stand up to the type of scrutiny that is involved in the hundreds of cases where website blocking has been used to fight online piracy in recent years. Online intellectual property enforcement is far from alone in being a public policy that could be misused in order to pursue unrelated and illegitimate objectives. In each case, what matters is the actual intent and the integrity of the process involved in administrating these policies.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Sure, these tools/policies/laws could be abused, but don’t worry about that. There’s loads of oversight, and the people in charge of the work are trustworthy public servants.

I don’t think anyone out there takes this kind of promise seriously after the many, varied and repeated abuses perpetrated by everyone from ISPs to copyright holders to government agencies — to say nothing of those done by overreaching police, which is another story with a similar beginning. What trust we did give has been squandered, and we have no reason to believe we should offer it again.

Fighting piracy is a worthwhile pursuit, and it is being approached by multiple angles and parties. Substantive regulation that strengthens the ability of copyright holders to take down infringing material quickly and easily is something few people will oppose. But the legitimizing of tools to block arbitrary web addresses or snoop on and redirect ordinary traffic, however effective or ostensibly well-administrated they are, simply is not something anyone who supports a free and open web can allow.

Source: TechCrunch

Samsung might start selling refurbished phone next year

Used devices are among the easiest way to save money for a primary device. After a few months of your purchase will be devalued by about 30%.

Samsung is reported to be introducing a program to sell their used devices that already applies to users in the United States and South Korea.

Through this program as the flagship device Galaxy S7 Edge sold to consumers at a price more affordable which are about 50% off from the regular price.

The device will be repaired and returned for sale as part of the update package for those who have contracts with the main device with the older generation flagship.

With the introduction of this program, Samsung will be able to increase their sales and increase profits. What have they done this is nothing new.

Apple also has been practising such resale program of used device in other markets as well. In fact, they even planned to sell used devices in India earlier but got rejected due to mass opposition by other manufacturers.

Source

Honor 8 to offer two variants in Malaysia, Price LEAKED!

We have just received a reliable information revealing that Honor 8 will be available in two variants for the Malaysian market.

Under the hood, it is powered by Huawei customised processor, Kirin 950 which is a high-end processor designed by Huawei to seek for top notch performance.

It comes with a metallic frame and a 2.5D glass laid on either side of the device. The device runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box with the latest EMUI 4.1 overlaid.

Honor 8 comes with a 5.2-inches 1080p Full HD LTPS display, it has 423ppi and may provide a stunning pictures and view angle.

It also comes with 4GB RAM/32GB ROM and 4GB RAM/64GB ROM version to choose. With huge amount of storage provide, Honor 8 is still support for MicroSD card expansion up to 128GB.

Coming to the camera department, it features dual 12MP sensor with 6P lens and f/2.2 aperture on the rear, just like Huawei P9 & P9 Plus without co-engineering from Leica. On the front is an 8MP selfie camera with an aperture of f/2.4. It is backed by a 3,000mAh size battery and supports 4th-gen power saving technology. With the provided 9V2A power adapter, it also supports fast charging. It measures 145.5 x 71.0 x 7.45 mm and weighs 153 grams.

On the back, there is also a round fingerprint sensor just like previous Huawei and Honor phones design.

Sources revealed that there will be a standard version and a premium model available for the Honor 8. The 32GB ROM variant will be expected to be priced at RM1,699, while the 64GB ROM model will cost RM1,899.

Source: MDROID

RICOH introduces new Workstyle Innovation

(From L-R): Winnie Lim, Senior Marketing Manager at RICOH Malaysia; and Nick Tan, General Manager of Marketing at RICOH Malaysia.

RICOH Malaysia Sdn Bhd today introduced the future of office automation, a new workstyle that combines intelligent devices, mobility, business processes, the cloud, a connected office, and autonomous support.

RICOH PJWX 4152N Ultra Throw Projector.

“With the high usage of smart and mobile devices permeating the workplace, we want to enable businesses the right access to their information with lesser time consumption. Soon, businesses will realize that the only tool they will ever need is in the palm of their hands. We are positive that the new workstyle will increase productivity and enhance efficiency in an office by providing the right infrastructure to operate their business,” said Nick Tan, General Manager of Marketing at RICOH Malaysia.

RICOH IWB D5510 Interactive Whiteboard.

In her presentation, Winnie Lim, Senior Marketing manager of RICOH Malaysia demonstrated the new Workstyle Innovation with the RICOH Interactive Whiteboard, Multi Function Printer, Ultra Short Throw Projector, and at the heart of it all, the RICOH Smart Device Connector App.

RICOH MP 305 and MP C2004 Multi Function Printers.

By using the app as a hub to access to data, operations, and functions, one can scan a document into their smart device, present it onto the projector or whiteboard, and have it printed remotely. In this ‘Connected Office’, the smart device is all one needs to get things done and the workspace itself functions as a facility to facilitate certain requirements and tasks.

RICOH Smart Device Connector app is available now for free on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Source: Hardwarezone