Tech news in brief

Cybersecurity specialist Linuz Henze has discovered a major security breach in the Keychain Access application on macOS Mojave, which is specifically responsible for protecting all your login credentials and sensitive information (passwords, certificates, secure notes, etc.). This flaw allows access to all passwords without requiring an administrator password, which is alarming. In addition, the expert explains that he has no intention of revealing the details of the flaw to Apple, as a means of expressing his displeasure that there is no “bug bounty” — a reward program for those who discover a vulnerability — for macOS, while one exists for iOS. He also encourages other researchers to publicize the security issues they discover in order to put pressure on Apple to offer a suitable bug bounty for macOS. “Finding vulnerabilities like this one takes time, and I just think that paying researchers is the right thing to do because we’re helping Apple to make their product more secure,” he contends.

Google has released a Chrome extension called Password Checkup. Its role is to check passwords, both those stored in the password manager and those you enter manually, to ensure that they are not associated with hacked accounts. It operates through a Google database that stores data from more than 4 billion compromised accounts, allowing it to detect whether the identifiers you use are in this database. If so, it alerts you. If you’re not comfortable with your account credentials going through a third party, Google wants to reassure you: Password Checkup uses a combination of anonymization and cryptography to protect the exchange, with a technique called “blinding,” which creates a secret search index. The identifiers are anonymized with an Argon2 hash function to create a search key, and encrypted through elliptic-curve cryptography.

When you think of computers or accessories by Razer, black immediately comes to mind--not pink. But this is a special, limited-series operation for Valentine’s. The company will not charge the notorious “pink tax”: the price is the same as for the non-gendered variant. The Razer Blade Stealth Rose Quartz will cost US$ 1,600. For this price, you have an 8th generation Intel Core i7-8565U processor, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB PCIe SSD, an Nvidia MX 150 GPU and a Full HD (1920 x 1080) 13.3 inch display. These pink Razer products will be available in the United States, China and ... Canada!

iRobot, the maker of the Roomba vacuum, announced Terra, its first autonomous lawnmower. While most autonomous lawnmowers require buried wires in order to define the boundaries of the area to be mowed, the Terra only requires wireless beacons around the perimeter of the lawn, which is much simpler and more adaptable. Someone will have to guide the mower once around the lawn using a mobile application, to teach it where to go and what to avoid (typically, a flower bed). The battery life lasts one hour and a full recharge takes two hours. If the battery drains midway, Terra will return to its charger and resume later where it left off. Naturally, the robot is impervious to bad weather and impact. iRobot says Terra will first launch in Germany this year. The price hasn’t been announced yet, but Terra's comparable devices range from US$ 1,000 to US$ 3,000.

Samsung has announced the arrival of a eUFS storage chip (embedded Universal Flash Storage) for phones, with a capacity of one terabyte, which is a worldwide first. This new chip is the same size as the previous one, which was 512 GB, and offers up to 1,000 megabytes per second in read speed, which is ten times faster than a typical microSD card. The first phone to offer such a storage capacity will probably be the Galaxy S10 whose release is imminent.

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a new technology for 3D printing that is 100 times faster than conventional additive printing. If you’ve ever stood around a 3D printer watching it build your object at an agonizingly slow pace, you’ll be bowled over by the video below. The technology solidifies liquid resin using lights of two different wavelengths (365 and 458 nm) to control where the resin hardens and where it stays fluid. The key to success is the chemistry of the methacrylate resin. A photoactivator hardens the resin wherever one of the lights shines while a photoinhibitor, which responds to the different wavelength from the other light, prevents curing.

Since Apple killed off the audio jack, smart phones have steadily been evolving towards a portless future. Audio jacks are becoming extinct, and the “Home” button now seems to be at risk. Chinese company Meizu has taken the trend to its natural endpoint with Meizu Zero, a radical new telephone with no ports or buttons, proudly touted as “the world’s first holeless phone”. That may be stretching it a little, since it does have some (very discreet) holes on the bottom for the mic. This elegant, solid ceramic device with a 6-inch AMOLED display points the way to the future. Not surprisingly for a quasi-holeless device, the Zero is rated IP68. No price or release date has been announced, but with the Mobile World Congress on February 25th in Barcelona, more information is sure to be forthcoming.

Nostalgia seems to be a lucrative niche in technology gadgets ... The legendary 2004 Motorola Razr will be making a comeback as a smart phone, for the price of ... hang tight ... USD 1,500. Motorola Mobility, which Lenovo bought out from Google in 2014, is determined to leverage the brand’s legacy. According to the Wall Street Journal, this phone could be released next month and would be exclusive to Verizon. We have already seen resurrections of old designs as with the Nokia 3310, but never in a price range that would place the new Razr in direct competition with the high end of the market.

In a year from now, on January 14, 2020, Microsoft will no longer offer any technical support or security updates for Windows 7. Launched in 2009, Windows 7 came with regular support until January 2015, the year Windows 10 appeared. Since then, the operating system got along with “extended support”, which only remedied security vulnerabilities. According to NetMarketShare, as of the last quarter of 2018, Windows 7 is still installed on 44.2% of PCs, roughly the same figure as Windows 10 (44.4%). This suggests that many PCs will be exposed to security risks next year. Almost 5% of PCs still run on Windows XP ...

All Lovot wants is to be loved. And to this end, Kaname Hayashi, a former developer of the humanoid robot Pepper, made the robot irresistible, like a hybrid between a stuffed penguin and a teletubby baby with large dreamy eyes. It doesn’t even speak, it just makes cute cooing sounds. Its only purpose is to elicit affection. You can’t use it to place an order on Amazon with Alexa. It doesn’t monitor your home. “This robot won’t do any of your work. In fact, it might just get in the way,” Hayashi told Bloomberg. “Everything about this robot is designed to create attachment.”

Designed by a French company, the connected sofa that we were all waiting for, that vibrates, lights up, activates Alexa, and recharges your phone, was presented at the latest CES in Las Vegas. The Smart Sofa uses several technologies, including Bluetooth, WiFi and Android OS. The sensory and immersive system is recessed under the couch and includes a vibrating seat, adjustable lighting with LED lamps, two speakers, a subwoofer and an amplifier. Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa smart assistants are integrated into the armrest, which also contains the Qi wireless phone charger. The price of the Smart Sofa starts at 2,340 USD for a loveseat, 3,050 USD for a three-seater and 3,500 USD for a four-seater.
 

Some people like to have more than one keyboard, for example if you need to write in two different languages. You may also want to customize your keyboard to suit your particular needs. At the CES in Las Vegas, a French company presented an elegant solution: on the Nemeio mechanical keyboard, each of the 81 keys is equipped with an electronic ink display, which makes it completely customizable. On the fly, you can switch from a qwerty keyboard to a Japanese or an Arabic keyboard. You can also map your favorite software feature to any key. Because you can adjust the keys’ display size and contrast, this keyboard is also a welcome aid for the seeing-impaired.

Apple confirmed for the editors of The Verge that some of its iPad Pros, 2018 vintage, come with a slight curvature to the aluminum chassis. But nothing to worry about, according to the company: this is a “side effect of the manufacturing process” and should not worsen over time or negatively affect the performance of the iPad in any way. In other words, Apple does not consider this curvature a defect. However, customers whose iPad does not sit stable on a flat surface find that it is indeed a very real manufacturing defect, and an unacceptable one for a product of this price. Because this curvature does not affect all devices, we cannot really agree on standards ... Chris Welch aptly notes: “Even if only cosmetic, the issue is out of character for Apple, which has rooted its reputation in manufacturing devices with best-in-industry fit and finish.”

Nvidia researchers have created an artificial intelligence capable of generating realistic portraits of imaginary individuals through a generative antagonist network (GAN). Such systems have been generating human faces for a while now, but never with this kind of result. The researchers tested the same model on a slew of cat photos, but strangely, kitties seem more resistant to random generation. The researchers note in their paper: “Cats continue to be a difficult dataset due to the high intrinsic variation in poses, zoom levels, and backgrounds.” In short, it takes a certain spatial uniformity for the GAN to shine.

At its re:Invent 2018 event, Amazon Web Services introduced several new features, including its hybrid cloud offering, Outposts, which allows businesses to have a piece of AWS’s cloud in-house, in a shared space, or in a data center of their choice. Like the Snowball and Snowmobile, this is a “physical” service: Amazon sends you racks of servers that you rent. This solution makes it possible to use the same tools, hardware and functionalities as on Amazon’s cloud. It streamlines the management of a hybrid cloud for companies that want to keep storage and computing power on site. AWS Outposts come in two flavors to suit the control tools and APIs needed: VMware Cloud and native AWS.

To run an online game, you need a suite of services that goes beyond the functionality of a game engine like Unreal. Epic Games has developed and intensively field-tested such a suite of services with Fortnite, its worldwide hit that brings together more than 200 million players on 7 platforms. The company has announced that in 2019, it will make the various development tools of this suite available free of charge. This will start with a C SDK encapsulating online services, together with Unreal Engine and Unity integrations. This SDK will work with all gaming engines (not just Unreal Engine) and will support multiple login methods (Facebook, Google, Xbox Live, PSN, Nintendo and Epic accounts). It will offer basic multiplatform features (PC, Mac, iOS, Android, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch) to persistently recognize players across multiple sessions and devices, identify friends, and manage free and paid item entitlements. Subsequently, multiplatform voice communication functions, matchmaking and cross-platform games, cloud storage of game data, etc., will be available. It’s not clear why Epic has embarked on this adventure, but developers will quickly appreciate the value of these services.

Many key players in consumer electronics are trying to anticipate the effects of the trade war between the United States and China. In order to avoid taxation on its Chinese-made cameras upon entry into the United States, GoPro announced that it would move camera production for its main market, the United States, out of China. Cameras for other markets, however, will continue to be produced in China. Brian McGee, Vice-President of GoPro, said the move shouldn’t be too expensive because the company owns the production tools. According to a survey conducted in Shanghai by the US Chamber of Commerce in China, one-third of the 430 companies polled are considering outsourcing components or assembling outside the country due to pressure from US tariffs.

Microsoft will replace its current Edge browser, which uses its own EdgeHTML rendering engine, and Chakra JavaScript engine, with a new browser based on Chromium (a Blink rendering engine and V8 JavaScript engine). For now, the new browser’s code name is Anaheim, after a town in L.A.’s suburbs.

A startup in San Francisco purchased the rights for the Palm trademark from TCL last year to launch a mini Android phone named Palm Phone, which bears no relation to the old products associated with the brand that went under in 2010. The device is only available through Verizon as an add-on to a current phone, sharing the same number as the main phone. This gadget proves useful when you don’t want to haul a heavy, bulky phone--when you’re out playing sports, for example. Though it really is tiny (50 x 97 millimeters, and 7.4 mm thin), it runs a full version of Android 8.1 and all the apps from the Google Play Store. Obviously, it has a very small 3.3-inch LCD display. With a Snapdragon 435 processor paired to 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, the device’s performance is on the low end. It was never meant for intensive use. Early market tests seem to point to battery life issues. Reviews are mixed. The Verge finds it clever and entertaining, while Ars Technica calls it utterly sub-par.

DJI introduced a new mini camera mounted on a gimbal called The Osmo Pocket. It’s 12.2 cm tall and weighs just 116 g, which means it’s so portable that you wouldn’t think twice about bringing it along. Its small size has no bearing on its functionality: a 1/2.3-inch sensor records 4K video up to 60fps at 100Mbps. The 80-degree field of view is like a focal length of around 28 mm in 35 mm format equivalent. This means that the videos don’t have the GoPro feel that you’d find in the wide-angle action cams. The handle houses a battery with a life of up to two hours and a small touch screen to change the settings, including several tracking modes. A smartphone can attach to a connector on the side of the Osmo Pocket, either directly (Lightning or USB-C) or via WiFi with an optional module, to set up a larger screen and a wider range of settings.

Samsung just revealed its new solid state drive (SSD) lineup that comes in three flavors and doesn’t break the bank: 1, 2 and 4 TB. The 2.5-inch form with SATA interface fits into most laptops and desktops. On the performance front, the sequential read and write speeds are up to 550 and 520 MB per second, respectively. The 860 QVO drives will be available worldwide in December, with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of US$ 150 for the 1TB option. They’re not quite as fast as the 860 Pro series, but you’re spending half as much. (The 1TB 860 Pro costs $300.)

A trio at Osaka University has been working on an android head-and-face since 2011. They’re making progress. By deforming 116 micropoints of its facial anatomy, they can raise its eyelids, pucker a lip, or release all features of the face. It explores more nuanced expressions, ranging from quizzical, to thoughtful, to pondering, to sly, to relaxed and alert. It doesn’t utter a sound, so watching it is oddly meditative. If all children were this quiet, I might have one. Until then, a robot head will do.

In an interview with Axios on HBO, Tim Cook defended Apple’s decision to use Google as the default search engine. This decision doesn’t jibe with the company’s strong rhetoric on the protection of personal data and private life, considering that Google’s business model is to make money using users’ data to target ads. “I think their search engine is the best. Look at what we’ve done with the controls we’ve built in. We have private web browsing. We have an intelligent tracker prevention. What we’ve tried to do is come up with ways to help our users through the course of their day. It’s not a perfect thing. I’d be the very first person to say that. But it goes a long way to helping.”

KOSEN are schools in Japan that teach technology. They offer a 5-year engineering program for 15-year-olds graduating from high school. Teams of students representing various KOSEN schools throughout the country compete on a given theme at an annual robotics meet, the KOSEN Robocon. This year, the challenge was throwing a bottle, riffing off the popular bottle-flip internet challenge. You have to hand it to the students for their creative achievements.

Microsoft launched a preview of PlayFab Multiplayer Servers, a new Azure-based service that gives game developers tools that ease many things that are normally a tedious aspect of multiplayer game development: managing players’ identities and profiles, matchmaking (pairing similarly skilled players — based on the same algorithms as Xbox Live), rankings, statistics, etc. The service also offers dynamic cloud-based infrastructure: you can assign a number of servers by geographical area and set limits to stop things from getting too expensive. Earlier this year, Microsoft bought PlayFab, a Seattle-based company developing cloud-based tools to support game developers, which at the time were AWS-based.

HTTP, aka Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the foundation of the World Wide Web, will abandon its TCP data transport layer. Since the TCP/IP Model has been fundamental to the Internet since its inception, the change is significant. In its next version, called HTTP/3, the hypertext transfer protocol will use QUIC as a transport layer, a protocol based on UDP created by Google and released in 2013. TCP is a very reliable protocol that ensures perfect data-packet transmission between servers and clients. The flipside is the substantial back-and-forth between the client and the server to make sure that the data is correctly transmitted—a task that weighs down the server and slows transmission speeds. UDP is a communication protocol defined in 1980 that is simpler and lighter than TCP, but also less reliable (no handshaking or error correction among other things). Google’s QUIC enhances UDP with new functions to improve its performance and reliability, without the TCP’s constraints.

In 2017, Samsung said it would launch a foldable Galaxy Note in 2018, while cautioning that there were still “challenges to overcome”. The challenges must be stubborn, since no folding phone looks to be launched this year. However, on Wednesday, at the Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco, Justin Denison, Senior Vice-President of Mobile Product Marketing, unveiled a prototype of the future device. Called Infinity Flex Display, the device is both a smartphone and a tablet: the flexible, OLED 7-inch display (1536 x 2152 pixels) folds over itself like a book with no central hinge or crease and, when closed, sports a second, smartphone-like, 4.6-inch cover display (840 x 1960) on the outside. The screens work together seamlessly: an application opened on the cover display displays on the large screen when the Infinity Flex Display is folded out. That’s all we know for the time being; the price and the launch date haven’t been announced.

Yongnuo, a Hong Kong photographic equipment manufacturer, unveiled a mirrorless camera that runs on Android 7.1 and is EF-compatible, which means you can use it with any high-end Canon lense. Temporarily called “YN450”, the device offers a 16-megapixel Four Thirds sensor that can shoot 4K video at 30 fps. The back of the device is nearly entirely covered with a 5-inch touchscreen display. Yongnuo has launched a naming contest for the YN450, which looks like a big lens bolted onto a smartphone. The date of availability and price have not been announced.

The European Union has launched the iBorderCtrl project to further monitor third-country nationals who want to cross the borders of the Schengen area. Users will interact with a digital border guard that will direct them to enter their passports and visas for digitization and ask them the usual questions. Using AI, the system will analyse the user’s microexpressions to determine whether they’re lying. iBorderCtrl will evaluate the risk that the traveler poses and will decide whether to issue them a QR code that will let them pass through. A six-month trial will soon take place at four border crossing points in Hungary, Greece and Latvia. For the first subjects in this experiment, it’s likely that the experience will be as--if not more--stressful than it was when dealing with a human border guard.

You find cats irresistible, but the hair, the scratched furniture, the soiled litter, and the smell of cod liver cat food aren’t your thing? Here’s a solution: a cat robot that eats nothing but electricity. Nybble is a feline robot with a structure made of thin layers of laser-cut plywood. A custom Arduino-compatible microcontroller with an ATmega328P chip controls its movements. An optional Raspberry Pi can be mounted on top of Nybble's back, to help Nybble with perception and decision. You can program it in your favorite language, and direct Nybble to walk around simply by sending short commands, such as "walk" or "turn left"! Petoi Nybble, developed by Rongzhong Li, is an Indiegogo project that’s already raised US$77,000 on a goal of 50,000. The first shipments are expected April 2019. Nybble builds on the previous version, OpenCat. Meow.

Last June, we reported that Apple was working on iOS 12 so that law enforcement would find it much harder to hack locked iPhones. A favourite among police forces, the GrayKey device, which connects to the Lightning port to unlock iPhones, was in the Apple engineers’ cross-hairs. It seems they’ve succeeded. According to Forbes magazine, Graykey can no longer get past the iOS 12 wall. The GrayKey device can only do what’s called a “partial extraction”: unencrypted files and some metadata, such as file sizes and folder structures. “Give it time and I am sure a ‘workaround’ will be developed … and then the cycle will repeat. Someone is always building a better mousetrap, whether it’s Apple or someone trying to defeat device security,” confided John Sherwin, police officer in Rochester, who went on to confirm that iOS 12 was preventing GrayKey from unlocking iPhones.

As soon as it appeared in 1997, Winamp was the most popular free MP3 player on Windows and also the most downloaded freeware. Its creator, Nullsoft, was bought by AOL in 1999 for around 100 million. Since then, Winamp has been in a slow tailspin, primarily due to bad management decisions and a culture shock between AOL bureaucrats and the libertarian techno geeks at Nullsoft. Apple’s launch of the iPod digital media player in 2001 didn’t help much. Version 3 in 2002 was the next nail in the coffin because most users preferred the previous versions. Winamp could have disappeared in 2005 following the exit of its creators, but for more-or-less obvious reasons, AOL kept the software alive for years. It even adapted the software to Android (2010) and more surprisingly, to MacOS (2011). In November 2013, lacking satisfactory revenues and unable to find a buyer even after discounting it to 5 million, AOL dropped the axe. Winamp’s site was unplugged the following month and the software is done for. And finally, the software was sold in 2014 to Radionomy, a Belgian company that runs an online service where users can create their own streaming radio station. Until last month, there was no further news of Winamp, but an update to the desktop player leaked last month, bringing it from version 5.666 (the last version dating back to 2013) to 5.8. This version solves compatibility problems with Windows 10 and eliminates the paid options — news that will be enthusiastically received by the community who remained loyal to the old software.

Mochibot is a strange and remarkable robot made of 32 individually actuated telescoping legs, developed by a team of researchers from the Keiō and Tokyo universities. Its shape—which looks like a sphere when it’s at rest—is based on a rhombic triacontahedron, which is a polyhedron with 32 vertices and 30 faces made of rhombuses (or rhombi). Each leg has three sections to extend it from 25 to 50 cm. The autonomy of each leg’s length enables the robot to keep its balance, to move smoothly and continuously in any direction, and to better deal with varied terrain. It looks like a big sea urchin moving in fast forward. Its motion is so complex that it’s taken machine-learning to figure out the algorithms. Mochibot weighs 10 kilograms, including the batteries.

Google just unveiled its third-generation Pixel 3 and 3 XL smartphones. The exterior design has evolved since the previous generation. Though the dimensions are the same, the aluminum back has been replaced by a glass panel and a big notch now features on the front face. As can be expected, the technical specs have more punch. Last year’s Snapdragon 835 processor has given way to the new 845 version. The screen and camera quality are improved. A wide-angle selfie-mode camera makes it a lot easier to take group shots. Both devices are now compatible with the Qi-standard wireless charger. The Pixel 3 runs Android 9 Pie. The whole point of a Google phone is to have the latest and greatest Android version. It comes in 3 colors (white, black, pale pink). Pixel 3 (64 GB) is offered at 800 USD and 3 XL (64 GB) at 900 USD, now available for preorder. You can add a storage capacity of up to 128 GB to either device for an extra 100 USD.

A group of health researchers in India have tried to tally the death toll from selfie taking, counting 259 deaths worldwide from October 2011 to November 2017. This probably underestimates the casualties, as the researchers went only from news reports. The top three causes of death were, in order, drowning (carried away by riptides, falling off a boat, slipping off a shore or a bridge, etc), transportation related (mostly being hit by trains), and falling off of things, such as a cliff edge or a balcony. Unsurprisingly, the death rate increased over the reference period, with just a few reports in the first few years, and nearly 100 each in 2016 and 2017. As is the case for most accidental deaths, men were overrepresented, accounting for 72.5% of the fatalities. The mean death-by-selfie age was 23 years old, and the vast majority of deaths befell those aged 10 to 29. The US stands out by its number of selfie fatalities involving firearms. Handling a loaded gun while loading a photo to Instagram—not a good idea.

The WiFi Alliance consortium has revised its naming conventions for Wi-Fi standards to make them easier to tell apart. Until now, the versions had convoluted names such as 802.11ac or 802.11g, which were difficult to memorize. Going forward, we’ll have a simpler, more intuitive version number, which will make it easier to tell that Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac, the current version) is more powerful and recent than Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n, the older standard dating back to 2009). The upcoming standard (802.11ax) will be rebranded Wi-Fi 6. Consumers will encounter these new naming conventions starting with the Wi-Fi 6 compatible routers being released over the next year.

A recent report revealed that the voting machines used in 26 American States as well as in the District of Columbia have a serious security flaw. Election Systems & Software’s Model 650’s update procedures pose a security risk that had been identified in a report commissioned by Ohio’s secretary of State back in… 2007. While Election Systems & Software stopped manufacturing the Model 650 in 2008, the technically obsolete machines are still widely used today in the United States. Researchers have also discovered other security flaws on the Model 650, as well as flaws on many other current models of voting machines. For example, another machine, currently used in 18 States, can be hacked in just two minutes, while it takes about six minutes to vote. Democracy should worry. Prominent experts are urging state and local officials to employ paper ballots and post-election audits in order to mitigate against cybersecurity threat.

Tomorrow, in New York, Amazon will open a new store that only sells the most popular products on its on-line platform. Called Amazon 4-star, the store sells electronics, kitchen and home items, toys, books and games that have garnered a 4-star rating or higher, or are best-sellers. Prime member get to pay the lower, on-line price in-store. Digital price tags display the average star rating, total number of reviews, the Prime price and the list price. And of course, you’ll find a table dedicated to Amazon Echo and Fire TV devices. Amazon 4-star seems to us to be an expanded version of the Amazon Books store concept, a chain of 15 analog stores that only sell Amazon’s digital best-sellers. It is unclear, however, whether Amazon 4-star stores will also replicate and multiply.

Amazon announced the impending release of its first kitchen appliance: a microwave oven that is compatible with the Alexa system. Moreover, it will include Dash Replenishment Services, which means it can automatically order popcorn from Amazon. With its compact size (44cm wide, 36cm tall and 25.5cm deep) and a rated power of 700W, AmazonBasics Microwave is available for preorder with a price tag of US$60, but currently only in the US with a mid-November delivery. You’ll need an Alexa-powered speaker near the microwave so you can give commands like, “Alexa, reheat some rice” or “Alexa, defrost the peas”. The appliance still features a traditional control panel for the days when you’ve lost your voice.

Following in the footsteps of the successful NES Classic Edition and Super NES Classic, Sony is emulating the Nintendo strategy to bring back an older console as a miniature gaming device and calling it “Classic”: nearly 25 years after its initial appearance, Sony announced the upcoming release of the PlayStation Classic. The new console comes with two PS1 controllers and 20 games including: Jumping Flash, Wild Arms, Final Fantasy VII, Tekken 3, and Ridge Racer Type 4. BestBuy is taking early orders going for CA$130, for delivery on December 3.

Flying insects like bees, dragonflies, and fruit flies can perform impressive aerodynamic feats, particularly when seeking to escape predators or the movements of an annoyed human. Now Dutch scientists have built a flying robot capable of executing similar manoeuvers – despite being much larger than the average insects – that could shed light on how these creatures achieve those feats. The scientists described their work in a new paper in Science.

Sphero unveiled the Bolt, its new and improved version of the spherical educational robot Spark+ from 2016. Its trademark see-through shell displays several innovations, like an 8x8 LED diode matrix making a screen that can display a smiling emoticon when a task is successfully completed. The Bolt also has four infrared sensors to communicate and interact with other Bolts within 5 metres, as well as an improved battery providing two hours of heavy use before recharging. Like its predecessor, this rolling robot is controlled through the SpheroEDU mobile application, and is designed to introduce kids to robotics and programing. The Bolt is now available on Sphero’s Web site for US$150, and should soon be available in stores.

Qualcomm has released a new processor for smartwatches and other wearables, the Snapdragon Wear 3100, intended to extend battery life, enhance always-on displays, and offer greater versatility. This new development was highly anticipated by the industry, which had been waiting for a new chip for two and a half years. The main innovation in this chip is the addition of a new, low-power co-processor that handles most tasks when the watch isn’t actually being interacted with, providing for a significant improvement in battery life. This co-processor will power a watch’s sensors and ambient display, while using up to 20 times less energy than the main processor. Another interesting feature is that when the battery gets low (charge less than 20%), the processor stops WearOS, allowing the watch to just give time for at least another week. The new processor will be found in Fossil, Louis Vuitton and Montblanc watches before the end of the year.

It looks like the Cambridge Analytica debacle just won’t quit. A few months back, it was revealed that the former consulting firm had collected data on millions of Facebook users without their consent. Now, a recent survey shows that in the past 12 months, 74% of Facebook-using adults have adjusted their privacy settings, taken a break from checking the platform for a period of several weeks or more, or deleted the Facebook app from their cellphone. Worse yet for Facebook, the percentage of younger users (those ages 18 to 29) who say they have deleted the Facebook app from their phone in the past year is 44%, nearly four times the share of users aged 65 and older (12%). No surprise, then, that Facebook stock now sits at US$167.20, a new low since July 26, when its value tumbled overnight from US$217.50 to US$175. Not Mark’s best year.

For its tenth anniversary, Google’s Web browser, which dominates the market, has been given a new, minimalist look. Chrome’s new user interface, available on all Chrome-supported platforms, follows Google’s Material Design 2 system, for a more modern, elegant look, with rounded corners and subtle animation, new icons and a new color palette. Also improved are Chrome’s functionalities, such as an updated password manager that can automatically generate strong passwords, and an improved autofill feature for forms.

Lenovo has unveiled its second-generation Yoga Book, following up on the first version in August of 2016. The concept is original: the Yoga Book opens like a book, with a touchscreen on the left-hand side (LCD IPS, 10.8 inches, 2560 x 1600) and, on the right-hand side, a touch-sensitive electronic paper display (E-Ink, 10.8 inches, 1920 x 1080). On this surface, you can jot down notes or draw with the Wacom Active Pen. Flip the machine and raise the screen to turn the electronic paper surface into an electronic keyboard with haptic visual and audio feedback: you now have a tiny portable computer that runs Windows 10. The Yoga Book is essentially a hybrid between a tablet and a portable PC. Fun feature: knock on the cover twice and it opens. Battery life is up to 8 hours. The Yoga Book C930 will ship in October for US$1,000 (or rather, US$999.99…), i.e. twice the price of the first generation.

Last November, we celebrated the resurrection of Sony’s dog robot, Aibo, which was killed a dozen years ago. But the new Aibo ERS-1000 was unfortunately only available in Japan at the time. Now, there’s a new development: after selling 20,000 units in Japan, Sony has announced that it will now be selling these puppies in the U.S. At an event at their American headquarters in New York, Sony said that the limited edition will be available to preorder as early as next month, with deliveries slated for the Holidays. The US$2,900 price tag may seem expensive, but it includes accessories like dog toys, as well as other advantages: no need to walk the dog, or buy chow. The new Aibo uses deep learning algorithms to learn its environment; with time and experience, it develops its own personality, which is shaped by its owner. Each puppy’s evolving personality is stored on Sony’s cloud, making it transferable from one unit to another, in case of an unfortunate incident or accident. That’s a bargain for doggy immortality!

Starting this week, residents of Scottsdale, Arizona, can get their groceries delivered by a self-driving vehicle. This on-the-ground experiment is the result of a partnership between autonomous vehicle builder Nuro, and Kroger, the U.S.’s largest retail chain, owner of the Fry’s banner in Arizona. Kroger says that deliveries will have a flat $5.95 delivery fee, and customers can schedule same-day or next-day deliveries. Initially, the deliveries will be made by Nuro's fleet of modified Toyota Priuses with a safety driver behind the wheel. But more interestingly, this fall, Kroger expects to start using Nuro's R1 model, which doesn't even have a driver’s seat. That’ll be one to watch!

Google Chrome is slowly but surely taking over the world of desktop browsers. According to analytics vendor Net Applications, which keeps statistics on tens of thousands of websites all over the world, its main rivals have lost yet more ground over the last 12 months: Internet Explorer went from a market share of 13% to 11%, Microsoft Edge dropped to 4.2% in July from a high of 4.7% in January, and Mozilla Firefox dipped under 10%, down from 15% two years ago. Apple Safari sits neck-and-neck with Microsoft Edge, at around 4.3% during the first semester of 2017. Secure browsers, like Opera or the very interesting Vivaldi, have managed to hang on to their market share since 2016, at around 7%. Google Chrome owns almost two-thirds of the market, sitting at 65%. Net Applications says that on the mobile front, Android dominates, with 63% of the market for Chrome and 27% for Safari.

On Thursday, in New York, Samsung unveiled 3 new products: the new Note 9 phone, a smart speaker called Galaxy Home, and the new Galaxy Watch. The Note 9, which will be available as of August 24, looks an awful like its predecessors, but is more powerful, with a 4,000mAh battery. The phone comes with a new S Pen stylus that works with Bluetooth Low Energy, meaning that it can be used as a remote for the camera, for example. The Galaxy Home comes with Bixby and has eight microphones, six speakers and a subwoofer. Samsung hasn’t given any details as to release date or price, but an announcement is expected in November. Finally, Samsung parted with the Gear brand for its smartwatch, which will henceforth be called the Galaxy Watch. The device will be waterproof for swimming and offer LTE connectivity, a high-resolution AMOLED touch display and Gorilla DX+ glass. The company says that the watch will be able to last several days without charging. The Galaxy watch will come in three colours and two sizes, 42mm and 46mm, for US$330 and US$350 respectively.

After raising some 2.3 billion dollars and working draped in secret for 8 years, the mysterious startup Magic Leap is finally releasing a product, the augmented reality headset Magic Leap One, for US$2,295. This headset is relatively light (415g) because the Nvidia Tegra X2 chipset micro-PC is offloaded on a CD-sized saucer worn on the belt. The battery has 3 hours of use time. Though this AR headset is undeniably superior, early testers say it is far from revolutionary, and even disappointing in light of the marketing hype that had geeks drooling (remember the video of a whale breaching from the floor of a gym?). Furthermore, the Magic Leap One unfortunately has the same flaw as the Microsoft HoloLens, i.e. the field of view is just 50° diagonally, compared to 110° for VR headsets.

The Naked 3D Scanner is a mirror that creates a 3D clone of your body. The integrated computer scans your body to produce some 4GB of data, compresses it down to a 4MB 3D model, then sends it to a mobile application that lets you see the changes in your body over time, which can be motivating for those who are reaching for physical goals like weight loss, sports prowess, or body building. But the goal isn’t just to provide you with a deluge of fitness-related information; in the long term, the company hopes to help you buy clothes, aid in the production of furniture tailored to your body, and even provide a perfectly lifelike avatar for video games. The mirror sells for US$1,400.

The worldwide tablet market has been declining for the last 4 years, and the second quarter of 2018 did nothing to reverse the trend. In fact, only Apple and Huawei were able to post modest growth, according to IDC’s latest report. The number of worldwide shipments was 33 million units over the last quarter, 5 million less than in the same quarter last year. In just one year, Amazon Fire lost one-third of its market share and Samsung sales have plummeted by 16%. And the only two companies that showed any growth had nothing to brag about, with Huawei posting a modest 7.7% increase and Apple just 0.1%, for its iPad. However, Apple ranks first in shipment volume, with 11.5 million units in just one quarter, which is 35% of total tablet shipments.

Samsung launched its nifty Tab S4, the successor to last year’s S3. The S4 works in both classic touchscreen tablet and desktop modes thanks to Dex software that allows you to connect it to a keyboard, a mouse and a monitor, while offering an adapted interface. The S4 has a 10.5-inch, 2560x1600, 16:10 Super AMOLED display. It runs on Android 8.1 Oreo and a next-generation Snapdragon 835 processor, and includes 4GB of RAM and two 13 megapixel cameras, front and back. Battery life is claimed to be 16 hours (7,300mAh). LTE-connected models should be available soon. The Tab S4 will be for sale as of August 10 for US$650 (64GB) or US$750 (256GB). An S Pen is included. Hopefully, this tablet will reverse Samsung’s dwindling tablet sales.

Windows 10’s next semi-annual update will use machine learning models to make update-related reboots less annoying for users. Currently, Windows can detect whether you’re working or not (inactive mouse and keyboard, no video streaming, etc.) and save reboots for inactive periods. However, at the moment, it can’t tell if you’ll be gone for moments or for hours, i.e. whether you’ve run out for a cup of coffee or left for home and bed. Thanks to a new predictive system, Windows will try to distinguish between these two scenarios and avoid rebooting if it thinks you’ll be back soon.

Sony has introduced a new 48-megapixel sensor for smartphones. Current phones are usually equipped with 12 megapixel cameras (Apple, Samsung Galaxy), sometimes 20 megapixel. Sony’s IMX586 sensor is 6.4 x 4.8 mm with a pixel size of 0.8 micrometres. In low light, pixels are combined in arrays of 4 thanks to a Bayer filter, for a 12 megapixel resolution. In bright light, the image signal processor makes full use of the sensor’s pixel count to capture high-resolution images, or the abundance of captured image data for high-quality digital zooming. Expected to launch in September, it will probably come standard on the next generation of high-end phones.

Dale Sande and Kianosh Pourian, from Spiria Boston, recorded an hour-long podcast for the Internet show Shop Talk. Of course, it’s all about their passion and specialty: the Internet of Things. If you’re interested and want to know more, go listen to it!

Researchers have put together a kit that masquerades as a GPS satellite in order to lure receptors into sending drivers in the wrong direction. The team, made up of researchers from Microsoft and Virginia Tech in the U.S. and China’s University of Electronic Sciences and Technology, explained in an article published this month that by sending packets of fake satellite data, they could deceive smartphones and onboard GPS systems, remotely changing routes with a 95% rate of accuracy. The device is based on the Raspberry Pi and is made up of just US$223’s worth of components. “According to our calculations, the effective spoofing range is 40 to 50 meters”, wrote the researchers. Should we be worried?

To celebrate the Infobar phone’s 15th birthday, Japanese company KDDI will be launching a third iteration of the handset in October, and it’s fair to say that third time pays for all. Of course, it’s still an Android phone with bare-bones capabilities (a “feature phone”), but its gorgeous design, by Naoto Fukasawa, makes it unique. Infobar XV will come in three colours: classic Nishikigoi (think koi carp, i.e. red and blue), Nasukon (blue) and Cherry Berry (red). It can launch preset applications, but doesn’t provide access to the Play Store. It measures 48mm x 138mm x 14mm, its weight hasn’t been specified, and it has a 3.1-inch 800 x 480 WVGA liquid cristal screen with about 8 million pixels. It also has a rear 8 MP camera, a 1,500 mAh battery, extendable microSDHC storage (up to 32 GB), LTE and Wi-Fi. Unfortunately for us, this phone will only be available in Japan. Its price is as yet unknown.

Big Clapper is a one-meter tall robot that looks like a stand-mounted tomato with hands coming out of its top. The robot’s main goal in life is to clap its hands in various modes: one clap, three claps, continuous clapping, on-demand claps, clapping to music, clapping and talking. Its eyes are designed to make it seem like it’s always looking at you, which adds a layer of weirdness. Big Clapper started life as an art project by Japanese designer Masato Takahashi, and is now on Kickstarter to raise funds for a larger production run. If you need a cheering squad in your life, you can have it now for US$4,500.

Microsoft launched the Surface Go, a new entry-level tablet which is basically a smaller version of the Surface Pro, at a wallet-friendly price of US$400 (US$500 with the Type Cover keyboard). It features a 10-inch touchscreen with a 1800 x 1200 pixel resolution (217 ppi), an Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y processor with either 4 GB or 8GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC storage or a 128GB SSD. Measuring 24.5 x 17.5 cm, it weighs 520 g and has a battery life of about 9 hours. The Go comes with Windows 10 with S mode enabled, so it only provides access to the Edge browser and to Microsoft Store applications. As with other devices that come with S mode, owners will be able to upgrade to the full version of Windows 10 for free. The Surface Go is available for pre-order and will ship in August.

There’s competition for Boston Dynamics’ SpotMini…Today, MIT presented the Cheetah 3, a 40kg, four-legged robot similar to SpotMini. The major difference between the two robots is that the Cheetah 3 has no cameras to steer itself; it’s blind. It doesn’t even have environmental sensors, something that’s pretty much standard among its contemporaries. That said, it can still take care of itself quite well, thank you very much – it can climb stairs and hop onto a table. Its secret is a group of sensors that can detect contacts. Powerful algorithms are used to give the bot a way to map out surfaces as well as obstacles. You could, in a sense, call it a “sensory” kind of robot. The Cheetah 3 was mainly designed to explore hostile environments that are hard or impossible for humans to access. If you wonder about the usefulness of a sightless robot, think of the sighted robot that that was sent into Fukushima’s central reactor in 2017: it had to abort its mission after only two hours because its camera was roasted by radiation of 650 Sv/h.

The BASIC Engine is an open-source single-board nanocomputer the size of a Raspberry Pi, with functions based on PCs from the late 80s and early 90s, that will tickle those who yearn for that time and all things retro. It connects to a monitor or a PAL/NTSC television screen with an RCA cable (forget about HDMI), and displays 508x240 pixels with a 256 colour palette. The BASIC Engine has connections for a PS/2 keyboard and a PlayStation controller. In terms of software, of note is the BASIC interpreter with a Commodore-type editor and an Infocom Z-Code interpreter. You can create fantastic old-school animations using sprites (up to 32 sprites with 32x32 pixels), and there’s about 63 KB worth of memory for programs. In terms of sound power, there’s a 5-bit digital audio, and a wavetable synthesizer based on SoundFont.

Tesla announced that in the second quarter, it produced 53,339 vehicles, an increase of 55% over the first quarter. For the first time, production of Model 3s edged higher than the combined totals of the S and X models (28,578 vs. 24,761); the company’s production numbers for the Model 3 are three times higher than in the first quarter. In addition, Tesla finally hit the 5,000-unit mark, with 5,031 cars rolling off assembly lines on the last week of June (last July, Elon Musk had predicted Tesla would produce 5,000 Model 3s per week by December). The company hopes to increase production to 6,000 per week by the end of August. To compare, Ford produces about 12,000 vehicles a day. Reservations for the Model 3 at the end of June were still about 420,000, even though 28,386 have been delivered to date.

Several companies, like Nuro, are working on autonomous delivery vehicles. But Robomart is turning the idea on its head by bringing the entire grocery store to your doorstep. In the promo video, the autonomous vehicle is equipped with shelves stocking fresh produce, but other types of products could easily be swapped out. With a press of a button on the dedicated app, consumers can summon the nearest Robomart, which travels to their home at a top speed of 40 km/h, or 25 mi/h. Then, the consumer can simply unlock the doors, pick the items they want, and close them again for the Robomart to trundle on to the next shopper. The mobile app keeps track of what items were picked, and bills the customer electronically. Ars Technica’s writer comments on how the rise of autonomous vehicle technology creates space for experimentation with new business models. Regardless of whether this one will work, it is in any case fascinating.

Cemtrex has taken the idea of an all-in-one office desk to a whole new level. Its sleek SmartDesk features three 24-inch IPS touchscreen displays, a proprietary gesture recognition system which allows you to turn pages with a wave of the hand, a Windows Intel Core i7 PC, and a built-in keyboard and trackpad. The desk’s surface is also a scanner, allowing you to lay documents right on the desk to scan them with click. Also built into the surface is a wireless phone charger and a sliding drawer housing wireless earbuds to make calls and send SMS texts without touching a phone. Finally, the SmartDesk is vertically adjustable so you can work sitting or standing. We love everything about it, except maybe that it only comes with Windows and costs US$4,000.

Unlocking your car with your smartphone and doing away with a bulky key is no longer the stuff of dreams. A consortium of automobile and smartphone builders recently published specifications for a digital key that would work on all phones and all cars. The group, called the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC), includes Apple, LG and Samsung, as well as Volkswagen, Audi, General Motors and many other manufacturers. The CCC used existing technologies, like Near-Field Communication (NFC) and Trusted Service Manager (TSM) infrastructure, to build a universal digital key. The role of the organisation is to bring everyone together to develop a standard technology to work across all models of phones and cars.

In San Francisco, in front of a small assembly of reporters, IBM Research displayed a new AI machine dedicated to the art of debate and argument. Two humans took on the machine to debate various issues, while the audience graded the human and machine debaters. At one point, the computer pleaded eloquently in favour of government subsidies for space exploration, arguing that it will “expand our collective sense of humanity’s sense of place in the universe.” While the AI draws on a massive database of millions of articles from newspapers and scientific journals, it isn’t able to ascertain the quality and veracity of its sources, meaning that input must be curated to obtain quality output. During the debating session, Project Debater consistently got high marks for thoughtful arguments backed up with facts and quotes. It structured its points clearly and understood its opponents’ arguments accurately enough to rebut them point by point. We are already looking forward to this technology coming to a personal assistant near us: “Hey, Alexa, let’s debate central bank monetary policy.”

Things aren’t going so well at Tesla. On Tuesday, staff were told that the company would shed 4,100 jobs out of 46,000, or about 9% of its workforce. In mid-May, Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, had warned that the company would undertake a “thorough reorganization” and flatten its management structure. “To be clear, Tesla will still continue to hire outstanding talent in critical roles as we move forward and there is still a significant need for additional production personnel,” Musk said in a letter to employees on Tuesday. “I also want to emphasize that we are making this hard decision now so that we never have to do this again.” He later added in a Tweet that the cuts were “difficult, but necessary”. At the same time, Alison Griswold, a reporter for Quartz, noted that the number of job offers at Tesla has plummeted, from 3,214 on May 10 to 1,985 on June 12, with 64 openings taken down over just two days, on June 10 and 11. Given all of this, one wonders whether the company will meet its latest production goals for the Model 3. In any case, one quarter of its American clients who had preordered a Model 3 have given up and asked for their $1,000 deposit back.

The United States is back in supercomputer pole position since last week’s announcement, by the US Department of Energy and IBM, of the Summit, the world’s newest most powerful computer, lapping China’s Sunway TaihuLight. With a peak performance of 200 petaflops, the IBM AC922 uses 4,608 compute servers, each containing two 22 core IBM Power9 processors and six Nvidia Tesla V100 units. The servers are connected by 300 km of fibre optics, are water-cooled and can store 250 petabytes of data. Taking up 520m2 (5,600ft2) of floor space and weighing over 340 tonnes, Summit is a massive system optimized for AI applications. Even so, it is relatively energy smart, requiring just 13 megawatts of power, compared to TaihuLight’s 15 megawatts.

Google announced a new beta version of Android P which includes updates of existing emojis as well as 157 new emojis, like a skateboard and a lobster. Observant observers observed that the green salad emoji no longer includes a slice of hard-boiled egg; designer Jennifer Daniel, who works on user interfaces at Google, explained on Twitter: “There’s big talk about inclusion and diversity at Google so if you need any evidence of Google is making this priority may I direct your attention to the salad emoji — we’ve removed the egg in Android P beta 2, making this a more inclusive vegan salad.”

Security researcher Troy Mursch has found that over 115,000 Drupal Web sites — including those of large universities, government organisations and media companies — are wide open to hacker takeovers because they haven’t installed critical security patches released 10 weeks ago. Another researcher, Jerôme Segura, indicated that many of these sites are already compromised and being used to surreptitiously mine cryptocurrencies or spread malware to unsuspecting visitors. Drupal is one of the most popular content management systems around, along with WordPress and Joomla.

Microsoft has reached an agreement worth 7.5 billion dollars with GitHub, the source code repository and collaborative software development platform. The all-stock deal should close by the end of the year, subject to regulatory approval in the US and the EU. Since its inception in 2008, GitHub has become an open source place, with countless software projects using GitHub repositories as a place to publish their code, including Microsoft projects like the editor Visual Studio Code and the .NET runtime. In total, 28 million developers use GitHub, depositing in 85 million sets of code. Microsoft says it will retain GitHub’s status as an open platform for all open source projects, keeping it agnostic toward programming languages and development tools. The announcement, while generally favorably received, did leave some developers skeptical, raising suspicion about Microsoft and its motives. Indeed, some open-source developers worry about the future of the platform, recalling Steve Ballmer’s comparison of Linux to cancer. Some of them still believe Microsoft to be the Devil itself, even though the company has changed considerably since Satya Nadella’s takeover in 2014.

Yesterday, Asus announced a new motherboard called H370 Mining Master. As its name suggests, it was developed specifically for mining cryptocurrencies. In fact, the motherboard sports a whopping 20 PCIe-over-USB ports supporting as many graphics cards! The arrival of cryptocurrency mining has radically changed the PC industry, not just by hiking the price of GPUs (to gamers’ dismay), but also by spurring hardware companies to develop mining-specific equipment. The motherboard should be available in the U.S. by the third quarter of 2018. Its price is as yet unknown.

After a long-drawn-out, seven-year battle in the courts, which included a retrial, Samsung has had to pay Apple US$539 million in damages for patent infringement. Samsung was found to have copied two utility and three design features of the ever-popular iPhone; the retrial was necessary to decide the amount of damages owing. Apple originally sought US$2.5 billion, while Samsung thought it should only have to fork over US$28 million. Apple has said that the case “has always been about more than money.” This may be true, but it’s still a lot of money…

VPN Filter, a sophisticated malware, uses known vulnerabilities to infect routers made by Linksys, MikroTik, Netgear, QNAP and TP-Link. Once installed, the malware uses a central infrastructure to install specialized plug-ins on the router. One plug-in allows hackers to listen to their victims’ Internet traffic to steal their Web identifiers; another one targets a protocol used in industrial control networks, such as in the power grid. A third plug-in allows attackers to paralyze any or all infected hardware. Together, all of the infected units in dozens of countries make up a 500,000-router strong botnet controlled by a Russian hacker group called Sofacy. However, the FBI has likely dealt a fatal blow to the botnet by erasing Photobucket photos whose metadata was being used by VPN Filter, and by seizing the domain name of a backup infrastructure after a federal court judge ordered the transfer of the name by domain registrar Verisign.

British on-line grocery store Ocado has developed an impressive robotic grocery order assembly platform. Videos of its Andover, Hampshire warehouse are mesmerizing: a swarm of 600 robots, coordinated through artificial intelligence, swish back and forth on a rail grid suspended above stacked product bins (bins can be stacked 21 high). This grid covers an area larger than a football field. The robots can transport dozens of kilos of product at a top speed of 4 m/s (14.4 km/h) with just 5 mm of separation between them. They receive instructions through 4G technology. The position of each product bin is determined by algorithms so that products that are often ordered together, are placed together; for example, canned soup and disposable razors. A 50-product order takes about 5 minutes to assemble. Eventually, the Andover facility will have 1,100 robots. Ocado has sold the technology to several supermarket chains, like French Casino last November, Canadian Sobeys in January, and more recently, ICA in Sweden and Kroger in the US.

BigRep is a German 3D printing company able to print objects of up to one meter per side on its proprietary large-scale 3D printer, BigRep One. Marco Mattia Cristofori, a designer at BigRep, has developed and printed a honeycomb bicycle tire with no inner tube, making flat tires a thing of the past. The tires are made out of PRO Flex, a flexible thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), also developed by BigRep. “The main goal of the design was to inspire and explore the endless possibilities of large scale 3D printing,” explained Maik Dobberack, Communications Director at BigRep. Unfortunately, the tires are just an “in-house industrial application design” and not intended for large-scale industrial production for the foreseeable future. This isn’t BigRep’s first foray in the cycling world: it has already printed a bicycle frame in collaboration with engineers from Aalborg University (Denmark).

Today, Boston Dynamics released two YouTube videos showing the progress made by its Atlas and SpotMini robots. SpotMini’s is more interesting: you see the four-legged bot cruising around autonomously on a designated route across an office and a laboratory. Prior to the test, the robot is manually driven over the space so it can create a space map using visual data from the cameras mounted on its front, back and sides. During the autonomous run, SpotMini uses its camera data to locate itself on the map and to discern and avoid obstacles. Once the user hits “GO” at the start of the video, the robot is left to fend for itself. The total time for this jaunt is a bit over six minutes (the QR codes visible in the video are used to measure performance, not for navigation).

During its annual developer conference, Google officially announced the launch of its Internet of Things platform. Like Android TV, Android Automotive or Wear OS, Android Things is a version of the Android operating system specifically designed to work on connected devices, which don’t really need a full user interface like you would for a smartphone or a laptop. You could say that Android Things is a super-light version of the OS. Google’s solution is unique as it comes with a centralized update mechanism, which is important as it guarantees the security of the connected device. With Android Things, Google, rather than the device developers, is responsible for sending the new updates. This ensures that each time a new Android security patch is released, it is automatically sent to Android Things devices (in contrast to the delays for Android phones, which are often considerable). Developers will be able to manage software updates for fleets of connected devices using an online interface dubbed Android Things Console. The downside of this system is that only Google-approved hardware platforms are able to use Android Things. For the 1.0 version, only NXP i.MX8M, Qualcomm SDA212, Qualcomm SDA624 and MediaTek MT8516 Systems on Models (SoMs) are supported. For prototyping only, the NXP i. MX7D and Raspberry Pi 3 Model B can be used. For each device, Google is offering three years of free updates. Its pricing model still isn’t clear, nor is it clear what exactly will happen after three years.

French website MacGeneration has developed a nifty graphic that plots iPhone, iPad and Mac sales from 2007 to today. It shows that sales of Apple phones from 2008 onwards exploded, but seem to have levelled off after 2016. Between 2017 and today, sales have stagnated, though at an astronomical level; still, there’s no more increase, as if the market has become saturated. For the iPad, the boom years were 2013-2015; since then it’s been a slow decline. What was unexpected was on the Mac side of things - sales have slowly been creeping up year over year. For Apple, the desktop end of the business seems to be quite stable. The journalist writes, “We also see that, since 2017, the three curves have levelled off. This means that Apple’s continued growth isn’t coming from these three products, but rather from accessories and services.”

On Tuesday, Facebook officially launched Oculus Go, the autonomous virtual reality headset that was first announced last October. Its $199 US price tag (for the 32 GB version) and its ease of use may well make it popular with the masses. You don’t need a high-end smart phone, like you do for the Samsung Gear VR, or a super powerful and expensive PC, like the Oculus Rift. You don’t even need any cables. You take it out of the box, turn it on, and step into virtual reality. It’s literally that easy. The Oculus Go features two 2 560 x 1 440 pixel LCD screens (a resolution of 538 dpi), 3 GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 821 processor. The graphics processor is the Adreno 530, integrated with the Snapdragon SoC. It all runs on Android 7.1.2 Nougat. Another important feature is its weight: the headset weighs 470g. The first tests reported on by the media are positive overall, and laud the image quality. You can buy the Oculus Go on www.oculus.com right now, and from Amazon and Best Buy in the near future.

Have you ever dreamt about a real-life Transformer? If so, your dreams have come true. A team of three Japanese robotics and design firms has unveiled the J-deite RIDE, a car that transforms into humanoid form. It has been in development since 2014 and was designed by famous mechanical designer Kunio Okawara; it stands four metres tall when in human/robot form. The robot is slower than a real Transformer, though, and takes a full minute to transform from the standing to the car version, and vice versa. It moves with wheels or by walking, but don’t expect it to win any races…it tops out at 100 metres an hour walking speed. Perhaps the coolest feature of this creature: it can do its transformations with two people sitting inside! Although still in the prototype phase, its creators hope to sell this technology to theme parks in the future. All aboard!

In 2016, Apple came up with the idea of replacing the handgun emoji with a green plastic water pistol. Now, the days are numbered for the lethal weapon across all platforms. Google has hopped on the bandwagon with its latest Android update, and in distinctive fashion, the water gun is orange. Since Samsung and Twitter have already followed in Apple’s footsteps, Microsoft and Facebook are left as the only outliers.

BBMW has unveiled a prototype motorcycle whose chassis and swingarm are entirely made by additive printing, using selective laser fusion. The company hasn’t yet released much information on this S1000RR Series motorcycle . The uber-futuristic and organic design of the chassis is unprecedented in the field and likely relies on topologic optimization, and shows the extent to which technology can influence design. BMW bought a HP Jet Fusion 3D printer in 2016, and has used 3D printing for several years to develop prototypes. Last year, the company introduced its i8 Roadster and Coupé vehicles, which will be available for sale sometime this year. These two vehicles feature 3D printed components in the commercial models, which is a first for the company. BMW has also announced a €10 million investment for a new additive manufacturing facility that’s set to open in Oberschleissheim, north of Munich, in 2019.

To mark Earth Day, Apple has introduced Daisy, a new robot that disassembles old iPhones, making it easier to re-use and recycle their parts. Housed in an Apple factory in Austin, Texas, Daisy replaces her predecessor Liam, and uses certain components from the old machine. The robot is able to take apart nine different versions of the iPhone, and can process up to 200 iPhones per hour, in contrast with Liam, who was limited to just the iPhone 6.

Microsoft has introduced Azure Sphere, a new solution to create connected objects. It’s made up of three main components: microcontrollers (MCUs) which integrate Microsoft security technology (Pluton sub-system), Azure Sphere Security Service, a dedicated cloud service, and Azure Sphere OS which, interestingly, is based on the Linux kernel, a significant first for the Redmond group. Security is a big problem for IoT solutions, meaning that Microsoft’s proposal may appeal to developers of connected objects. The microcontrollers are custom designed by Microsoft Research and approved manufacturers don’t have to pay any royalties. The first Azure Sphere chip, the MediaTek MT3620, will be available soon.

A phone manufacturer that innovates in the realm of design and that doesn’t jump on the Apple bandwagon with notches everywhere, is deserving of notice. This being the case, on a prototype of a Doogee phone, you’ll notice the screen slides down to reveal the cameras and the speakerphone. Thanks to this clever design, the OLED screen covers a full 97% of the available surface on the front face, leaving the border on the four sides just one millimetre wide. This solution seems much more elegant than the one proffered by Vivo, with its retractable camera on the Apex FullView. With its two “layers,” the Doogee Mix 4 is a bit thicker than most other high-end phones, at 11 mm versus 8 to 9 mm, but it has the advantage of being shorter while still offering a 6-inch screen. No confirmation yet on when the Mix 4 will be available for sale. Videoblogger Arun Maini notes that based on Doogee’s historical release schedule, it’s likely that the Mix 4 will be available in December, i.e. six months after the release of the Mix 3, in June.

The cat and mouse game between municipalities and recipients of parking tickets has heated up. Meet the lawyer bots who will challenge parking tickets on your behalf, and who could end up costing cities big bucks. DoNotPay, for example is a free online bot service that streamlines the way you contest parking tickets. It’s led to more people contesting unfair tickets, but has also opened the door to potential abuse of the system, leading to possible revenue loss for municipalities. It guides users through a series of questions, to determine for example if the ticket has incorrect details, and generates a legal letter to be submitted to the city. Some lawyer bots, like WinIt, collect a fee, but only if the appeals are successful. In the U.K. and the U.S., DoNotPay has led to the dismissal of over 450,000 parking tickets – or $13 million in fines.

In North America, like in Asia, more and more youth between the ages of 18 and 35 live alone. In Korea, this phenomenon is particularly widespread, and researchers are trying to find ways to minimize the sense of isolation. Last month, during the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interactions, Korean roboticists presented a robot called Fribo, which was developed to allow young adults who live on their own to maintain daily contact with their friends, and doing so by listening to what’s happening in your life and those of your friends. In fact, Fribo works by listening to the daily sounds of your life. The robot’s voice recognition is minimal (and it doesn’t record voices) so it’s more private than something like Alexa. It’s also more intelligent in many respects, with the ability to understand what’s going on in its environment simply by analyzing noise. Fribo can recognize noises like the sound of a vacuum cleaner running, a microwave, a washing machine, the sound of a fridge door opening and closing, the sound of doors, etc. With time and some help, it’s able to learn the meaning of new sounds. The robot also has an ultrasound sensor so it can detect if you’re in the room or not, as well as temperature, humidity and ambient light sensors. When a Fribo hears a noise in your house that it recognizes, it sends a message to your friends’ Fribos, for example: “Oh, someone just opened the fridge door. I wonder what your friend is going to eat.” Though the concept appears strange (OK, its frankly bizarre), the first tests have been conclusive. For example, one young woman said, “Fribo helped break the silence and emptiness I felt at home after work. It’s different from the TV because it gives information about my friends’ activities. The robot seems like a living creature.” The study was conducted in Korea, however, and researchers noted they weren’t sure that Fribo would work as well in other cultural contexts.

The BionicWheelBot is a new octopod robot whose design is inspired by the gymnast spider cebrennus rechenbergi, an arthropod discovered a decade ago in the southern Morocco desert, with locomotion that’s adapted to the dunes. The machine is developed by German firm Festo, which has previously developed a bionic kangaroo and a robotic arm in the shape of an elephant trunk, and has made a foray into the insect world with robots in the shape of an ant and a butterfly. Fifteen motors housed the joints and body control the BionicWheelBot’s legs. Just like the gymnast spider, it can roll like a ball by retracting six of its legs while using the other two to push the ground on each rotation.

After starting with Ubuntu, Microsoft has added other Linux distributions that can be used with WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux): SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, openSUSE, Debian, Kali Linux. That’s great and all, but if Microsoft didn’t support your favourite distribution, you were out of luck…until today. Microsoft has released a MIT licence C++ utility that allows you to build your own Linux distribution installation package for WSL. The tool has two target audiences: distribution owners (so that they can create a package ready for the Microsoft Store), and developers (so they can create custom distributions and load them onto their development systems). Microsoft will continue to add new features to WSL. The next major Windows update, version 1803, will include limited support for background tasks and better filesystem interoperability between the Windows sides and Linux sides.

IBM has unveiled the world’s smallest computer — a device the size of a grain of salt. Presented at the Think 2018 conference in Las Vegas, the chip measures only 1x1mm, but has the processing power of an x86, i.e. that of the first IBM desktop computers from the 1990s, altogether respectable, given its size. This complete system on a chip (SoC) — with a processor, memory, a photovoltaic cell for power supply, a communication unit that uses an LED and a photo-detector to communicate with the outside world — was developed as an anti-fraud device. It could be built into price tags or product packaging, allowing data to be recorded during transit and stocking, and for example, it would show if the product was handled correctly in transit, all to improve supply chain security. It will cost less than 10 cents to make. Still in the prototype stage, these chips could also be used to authenticate products that were bought online, such as food, pharmaceuticals and luxury items to ensure they haven’t been altered.

Bloomberg has revealed that Apple has a secret manufacturing plant in Santa Clara, California, where it designs and creates its own screens using MicroLED technology. It’s likely doing this to sidestep Samsung and its OLED screens in future devices. It’s well known that the company wants to diversify its suppliers: Apple has spent billions of dollars to help LG ramp up its OLED production and rumour has it that LG screens will feature on the iPhone X’s successor. Remember that in 2014, Apple was already super interested in MicroLED technology, and bought LuxVue Technology, which was developing low-power ultra-bright MicroLED screens. Odds are good that the first Apple product to feature a MicroLED screen will be the Apple Watch.

Shelly is a South Korean robot-tortoise that was created to teach young children to respect robots. The idea is to reduce or eliminate aggressive behaviours during interactions with the creature. Shelly is a toy that’s fun to play with and that lights up when petted, but just like a real turtle, when hit, she withdraws and hides in her shell, and won’t come out until she’s decided that the environment is safe again. Shelly was made large enough that five to seven children under the age of 13 can interact with her at the same time. The top part, Shelly’s shell, is studded with LEDs and vibration sensors that can detect contact and impacts. Jason J. Choi of Naver Labs (Seoul), says a most interesting thing about the management of human-machine relationships: “Previous research has found that robots that rely on verbal warnings or escaping from abusive situations are not effective in restraining abusive behaviors. These kinds of reactions rather excite people’s curiosity and motivate them to abuse robots continuously. In our research, we showed that stopping attractive interaction is a better solution than somehow reacting to the abusive behavior.”

Now you too can own a replica of HAL-9000, the evil supercomputer from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is also a virtual assistant that can control your home. Employees from the now-defunct Master Replicas, which created a range of props from Star Wars and Star Trek, have created a new company that’s developed an interactive replica of HAL using Amazon’s smart assistant Alexa. The replica uses Amazon’s Echo technology to control your home, with a Fire HD tablet as its base. It can be your virtual assistant, giving you updates of the news and the weather and controlling smart devices in your home. Pre-orders will start in April, with shipping in August or September. The run will be limited to… 2001 units.

If you’re thinking of jumping into the cryptocurrency mining business, here’s an added bonus: you can heat your entire house by using a cryptocurrency mining rig with a wall-mounted radiator. Qarnot’s QC-1 “crypto heater” is one sleek-looking radiator, with a wooden top and matte-black finish, and is totally silent – no fans are needed for cooling down the rig, as the heat it generates is used to heat your house. The device has two Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 graphics cards, and can create about $120 of Ethereum per month (based on current prices). It costs about $3,570 and pre-orders are being taken now. The first rigs will be shipped before June 20th.

Google’s AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) technology enables websites to load quickly on mobile devices. Today, the company announced that it is working to do away with the shortcomings of this technology by creating a standard that everyone can use. The main criticism levelled at AMP is that it uses non-standard web technology, with pages that are housed on Google’s servers. These pages’ URL addresses link to Google, rather than to the original publishers of the content. “We are taking what we learned from AMP and are working on web standards that will allow instant loading for non-AMP web content”, wrote AMP project leader Malte Ubl in a post published on Thursday.

Google’s Chrome browser is now compiled with Clang on Windows. It replaces the Microsoft Visual C ++ compiler; the same compiler will be used by Google going forward for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android. No doubt this makes Chrome the first major software project to use Clang on Windows. For a long time, Chrome on macOS and Linux has been built using the Clang compiler and the LLVM toolchain. Using the same compiler everywhere makes multiplatform development much easier — you have the same bunch of bugs to fix on each platform — and Clang especially has diagnostic tools like ASan and UBSan, which Google has wanted to be able to use. Google has been heavily involved in the Clang project for several years, with the goal of achieving just such an outcome. Microsoft has worked to ensure that Windows headers and C ++ libraries work with Clang just as smoothly as with its own compiler, and by publishing documentation on the PDB format.

The new 4G LTE Light Phone 2 is simple and minimalist, radically design, equipped with a nice matte screen backlit with E-Ink, and weighs about 80 grams. The premise of this phone is to allow you to "reclaim your life", because without Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram, and Candy Crush, Saga or Tetris, you'll definitely have extra time on your hands to devote to pursuits other than staring at a screen, compulsively scrolling though photos and news of ever-decreasing interest.

Vulkan is the open graphics API that replaced OpenGL and is supported by all platforms, except iOS and macOS, as Apple uses its own Metal API. Game developers who want to create iOS or macOS versions have to use either Metal, which requires a lot of porting work, or OpenGL. Unfortunately, the version of OpenGL which is supported by Apple is becoming more and more obsolete, and has always been clunky. Without any help from Apple, Khronos, Valve, LunarG and Brenwill Workshop decided to step up to the plate and developed a toolbox that allows for on-the-fly conversions of Vulcan to Metal. This will definitely make the portage of many games into iOS or macOS much easier. Valve has already created a macOS/Vulkan version of its title Dota 2, and it's twice as fast as the original Mac version. Under Apache 2 license, use of the tool, named Molten VK, is free.

Sony’s Koov is a kit made up of over 300 pieces (see-through bricks, wheels, gears, sensors, motors, etc.) created to teach robotics and programming to youth ages 8–14. The kit comes with 23 plans for robots, but nothing prevents users from developing their own plans —on the contrary. At its core, Koov has a micro-controller based on the Arduino open source platform. Sony, however, has developed its own simplified programming language, dubbed Scratch, for these robots. Available through pre-order from Sony, at a cost of $520 USD, which seems a tad steep. Delivery is slated for the end of March.

Pixel phones generated a lot of buzz in the media, earning praise for their undeniable features, but the commercial success of the phones remains actually quite modest and has relegated Google to being a minor player in the market. According to Francisco Jeronimo, Research Director with IDC, Google doubled deliveries of the Pixels in 2017, shipping 3.9 million units. In the United States, its share of the market rose from 1.8% to 2.8%, which is definitely progress, but is still a marginal presence in the market. In contrast, Apple sold about 6 million iPhones each week in the last quarter of 2017. Google will likely have to beef up its worldwide distribution network, which currently is limited (the phones are only available for purchase in eight countries: Germany, Australia, Canada, Spain, the United States, Italy, the United Kingdom and Puerto Rico).

Boston Dynamics has posted a video on Youtube depicting an interaction between two SpotMinis, those agile and graceful four-legged robots. The video, entitled, “Hey buddy, can you give me a hand,” shows a SpotMini heading towards a closed door and seeming vexed at not being able to open it. Then, another SpotMini shows up to lend a hand —it has a robotic arm on its back. The arm unfolds, grabs the handle, opens the door and keeps it open while his buddy passes through. The video provokes a wide range of comments which, surprisingly, contrast wildly. In one corner: “Oh, wicked”, “Super”, “Cool”, “Amazing”, “Impressive”, “Fantastic”, “Too cute”, “Adorable”, and in the opposite corner: “Scary”, “Nightmarish”, “Technology terrorizes me”, “Welcome to our new overlords”, “We’re doomed”, “Oh no! They’ve learned to open doors! They’re the raptors from Jurassic Park!”, “It really scares me”, “God helps us….”. Which side are you on? Around here, we’re in the camp that thinks it’s cool, and we’d definitely like to have a SpotMini roaming around the halls at the office.

Cleo Robotics has released a tiny, donut-shaped compact drone that can fit in the palm of your hand (it measures 95 mm in diameter, 33 mm thick, weighing 90 grams). It’s got a single pair of propellers on the same axis, housed inside a ring-shaped casing; it can fit in your pocket without having to be folded or taken apart, and there aren’t any fragile external parts that need to be protected. It works using a ducted fan. Changing the drone’s direction in flight relies on control surfaces into the airstream, something that company President Omar Eleryan, is saying very little about. The drone promises to be easy to use, practical and safe. Cleo should be available to the professional security market within the next 12 months, and the company hopes to launch a drone available to the public at a price competitive with other small quadcopters, between now and late 2019. That means you’ll need to be patient before you get a hold of one of these “dronuts.”

Nissan has developed a nifty system that sends slippers to their rightful place at the entryway of a traditional Japanese inn (or ryokan) all by themselves, with the click of a button. Each slipper is outfitted with tiny wheels, a motor and sensors, which enables it to cross the floor using Nissan’s ProPilot Park technology. The car giant has also integrated the system into the inn’s tables and floor cushions, allowing guests to see autonomous furniture making its way across the floor. According to Nissan, their goal is “to entertain guests and reduce staff workload,” but it’s obviously being used to promote the company’s new Leaf vehicle, an all-electric, semi-autonomous car which uses the ProPilot driver assistance technology system. Points to Nissan for a creative marketing campaign.

At the beginning of last year, HMD Global, the Chinese manufacturer that exploits the Nokia brand, brought back the Finnish brand’s iconic model - the 3310, a sturdy, no frills and cheap phone which sold 126 million units during its heyday. After it came out with the 2G and 3G models, HDM Global released a LTE “4G” model. The exterior design is identical, but the LTE model does away with the Java-based operating system (Series 30+), opting for the YunOS, an Android fork developed by Alibaba. The phone supports VoLTE HD calls and can also be used as a Wi-Fi hotspot. It’s got 512 MB of storage (up to 64 GB with a micro SD card) and the 2.4-inch screen has a resolution of 240x320 pixels. For now, the phone will be only available in China, in partnership with the China Mobile provider. The price hasn’t been announced; but to compare, the 3G is sold in the U.S. for $60 USD (at Best Buy).

Lixies are number displays modelled on good old Nixie tubes. They use WS2812B smart LEDs, the light from which is directed to a stack of acrylic sheets. The pros: they’re cheaper, sturdier, longer-lasting, multicoloured and only need a low voltage (5 V vs 170 V for a Nixie tube). They’re designed and made by Connor Nishijima, and cost $38 USD per unit. Since it’s a hand-made product, production delays are to be expected.

According to a report from the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future, we now spend almost an entire day each week online. The 15th annual report sheds some light on how our online behaviours are changing. Since 2000, the amount of time we spend online every week has risen from 9.4 hours to 23.6 hours – that’s almost a full day! Our home lives have also changed since that time: we used to spend 3.3 hours each week at home online, but this number has now risen by more than 400 percent, to 17.6 hours.

Ars Technica looks back on a prediction made in 2012, which at the time generated a lot of press: that the era of video game consoles was coming to an end. Time has proven this wrong, of course, as the game console market is thriving these days. NPD analysts noted that the US market for videogames rose by 11% in 2017, and is worth $3.3 billion. The launch of Nintendo Switch was a success. Sales of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are continuing on a “record-setting pace” in the United States. Together, these high-end consoles are selling 18% better than the PS3 and Xbox 360 at the same point in their life cycle. It’s hard to believe that six years ago, the general opinion was that consoles were headed the way of the Dodo bird, to be shunted aside by cell phones, tablets and PCs. Consoles remain fixtures in many family rooms to this day.

A new set of AR smart glasses, dubbed the Blade, was recently unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by display provider Vuzix. Unlike previous versions developed by the company, the entire display and its power source are contained within the eyewear frames. Vuzix worked with Amazon, and the glasses are the first ever to feature Alexa. The glasses can be a headset, can connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi, or be paired over Bluetooth with an iPhone or Android.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Japanese startup Xenor unveiled a smart shirt with 14 sensors that can transform your torso into a video game controller. While the device seems limited in its current iteration, it’s clearly blazing a trail for future VR games. Even if Circuit Breaker’s journalist thinks the look itself is silly, I fancy the design and think it’s pretty cool. At this rate, pretty soon we’re all going to look like characters from Tron…

After an agonizing six-year wait, a $1.9 B investment and development shrouded in secrecy, startup company Magic Leap has, at long last, unveiled the design of its AR headset. The company is playing it coy on the technology and how the headset actually works, which makes it difficult to envision all the different applications and viability of the set, which seems to be in league with Microsoft’s Hololens. Magic Leap One, as it is known, is a system including a big pair of glasses lined with sensors, a circular case housing a central unit that attaches to your belt, and a wireless controller with a touch pad for interacting with virtual interfaces. It should be available in 2018 for developers.

Facebook is beefing up its use of facial recognition technology, and will now alert you if a friend, or a friend of a friend, uploads a picture with you in it, even if you weren’t tagged in the photo. If you aren’t OK with the publication of that photo, you’ll be able to hide it. If someone uploads a photo of you as his or her profile pic, Facebook will also notify you. “We’re doing this to prevent people from impersonating others on Facebook,” the company wrote on its blog. This being said, everyone using Facebook will be able to request to not be identified visually. Facebook could also use a method of account recovery that will use facial recognition to check that you’re the legitimate account holder. Unfortunately for some of us, though, facial recognition is not supported by Facebook in Canada or in the European Union, where laws about protection of personal information and privacy are more stringent than elsewhere.

Within the Apple family, the iMac has always been the all-in-one entry-level model, right from the birth of the “Bondi Blue” iMac G3 19 years ago, with its daring design and translucent enclosure. Now, the iMac is all grown up: the impressive Pro carries a price tag of 6,300 CAD for the base model, and if your pockets are deep, you can scale up to the 16,338 CAD model, for what is probably the most expensive Macintosh in history.

Paper Signals is an open-source Google project that allows you to build voice controlled folded paper objects; origami you can direct vocally. Using your voice, you can order these cute little guys to track the weather, bitcoin or rocket launches, for example. Experienced techies use the open source code to develop their own paper assistants. To get started, you’ll need a Paper Signals kit, which includes an Adafruit Feather HUZZAH ESP8266 board, all the required cables and a micro servo motor to animate the little fellows. Then, you’ll need a phone that’s compatible with Google Assistant, a printer and craft supplies to cut, paste and assemble.

A web developer has just posted a video on DIY website howchoo, featuring his creation that’s a hybrid of Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa and Furby, the talking stuffed animal that was once on many children’s Christmas toy lists.

Remember last month’s brouhaha about the cheeseburger emoji for Android 8.0, when Google’s designers had the audacity to put the cheese slice under the beef patty? Right away, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was in full damage control mode; Google’s restaurant in Mountain View even temporarily adapted its burger recipe, serving the unorthodox version of the controversial burger. Fast-forward one month, and Android’s version 8.1 has rectified the burger bug. Its designers also used the opportunity to tweak their beer stein emoji.

Last June, it was rumoured that Toyota was on the verge of acquiring robot-maker Boston Dynamics, which at the time was a subsidiary of Alphabet-Google. SoftBank ended up sealing that deal, but that hasn’t dampened Toyota’s robotic ambitions, as shown by its continued heavy investment in robotics and artificial intelligence. Its robotics division just unveiled its T-HR3, a brand-new, third-generation humanoid robot. It measures 1.5 metres high, weighs 75 kg, and looks at first glance like a high-performer, with fluid movement, excellent balance and good coordination. A human is at the reins, however, and controls the robot by a sophisticated immersion system known as a “Master Maneuvering System,” allowing the robot to serve as a physical substitute for people with mobility issues.

Last night, in an airport hangar in Hawthorne, CA., Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled a stylish prototype electric semi-truck that he said will travel 800 km (500 miles) on a full charge of its lithium-ion battery pack, go zero to 100 km/h (60 mph) in 20 seconds fully loaded, and charge most of the way in 30 minutes while a driver rests and eats. An average truck trip is less than 400 km, which meant that a driver could do a round trip without recharging.

Robot-maker Boston Dynamics, which is now owned by Japanese tech giant SoftBank, just posted a short YouTube clip showing off a new version of its four-legged robot, SpotMini. This robot, first unveiled in June 2016, became famous for its dramatic wipeout on a banana peel.

Slovakian firm Kinazo Designs has unveiled the “Enduro e1”, a stylish e-bike, created using 3D printing and available for approximately $23,500 USD. Volkswagen Slovakia helped the firm develop the bike through the loan of their X Line 2000R 3D laser printer from Concept Laser, that uses laser-selected sintering (or compression) technology, and is capable of printing very large items (with build areas of 8 x 4 x 5 m). Weighing 20 kg, the Kinazo e1 features an aluminum frame and a mountain-bike style. It is powered by an eDrive system, and available in two versions with a Brose motor and BMZ batteries with 500-650 Wh capacity: Pedelec (up to 25 km/h) or S-Pedelec (up to 45 km/h). A mobile app is used to control the bike’s electronics.

Razer, the well-known gaming company, unveiled its first smartphone, simply called Razer Phone. The introduction of an Android phone by a company known for its gaming-oriented PCs, keyboards and mice is the result of Razer’s January purchase of Nextbit, a start-up founded by former Google and HTC employees in 2015. Not surprisingly, the Razer Phone looks just like the Robin, the angular phone Nextbit launched in August 2015.

Yamaha has developed a professional robot motorcycle rider. The robot hunches over an unmodified bike, sensing the environment, calculating what to do, keeping the bike stable, managing acceleration and deceleration—all the while factoring in road conditions, air resistance, and engine braking. The project is part of an industry-wide drive to incorporate autonomous features into commercial motorcycles to make them easier and safer to ride, for example the ability to free-stand even when stopped, or to respond to voice commands.

Google’s DeepMind lab has developed AlphaGo Zero, an artificial intelligence programme that is exceptional because it was able to teach itself to play Go. Google says the programme independently acquired “superhuman abilities”, becoming virtually unbeatable in just a few days.

Ever see a roach on its back, flailing its legs around helplessly? Ron Fearing, of UC Berkeley’s Biomimetic Millisystems Lab, has the answer to their prayers: a tail. Biomimetic Millisystems has been working on cockroach robots for years. At IROS 2017, it presented a roach with a tail, able to easily and quickly flip itself over on its stomach. Besides a tail, the 77.5-gram, 18-centimeter-long VelociRoACH also has a protective polycarbonate shell for impact protection, meaning it can fall down a flight of stairs unharmed, roll over, and scurry on its merry way.

Sony launched its original robot dog, Aibo, in 1999. It was lovable and was an immediate hit, especially in Japan, where 10 different models were available until 2005. But it wasn’t cheap. For example, the ERS-7 model, launched in 2003, cost US$1,600 (but still found 45,000 forever homes).

apanese company Omron has developed a table tennis robot called Forpheus, which will not only play with you but also teach, coach and encourage you along the way. Forpheus (“Future Omron Robotics technology for Exploring Possibility of Harmonized aUtomation with Sinic theoretics”) uses a robotic arm controlled by AI through a 5-axis motor system.

We didn’t expect a new Sphero robot so soon after the recent announcement of the BB-9E and R2-D2. Yet the company has just announced the arrival of a new addition to the Star Wars family: the R2-Q5, an Imperial Astromech Droid that made its debut back in 1983 in Return of the Jedi and looks like a sinister version of the R2-D2.

Waymo, Google/Alphabet’s self-driving car division, is set to launch “a commercial ride-sharing service powered by self-driving vehicles with no human ‘safety’ drivers as soon as this fall.” Anonymous sources have mentioned the pressure Alphabet CEO Larry Page put on Waymo to speed the conversion of the new technology to a commercial product.

PocketBeagle is a new nano-computer measuring 56x35mm, similar to the Raspberry Pi Zero. It is based on the 21x21mm Octavo OSD3358 system-in-package and includes 512MB of DDR3 RAM, a 1GHz ARMv7 Cortex-A8, two 200 MHz programmable real-time units, a SGX530 graphics card and a power management system. The board also features micro-USB (OTG 2.0-compatible) and microSD connectors, and works with an adapted Debian Stretch distribution. Ideal for hobbyists and IoT professionals alike, the PocketBeagle is available for US$25 at Mouser, Arrow and Digi-Key.

Robots are great when they’re up, but once they’re down, they stay down. A team from the University of Tokyo and Kawasaki Heavy Industries has adopted a new approach: fall-proof instead of fall-less. The Robust Humanoid Robot (RHP2) falls over all the time, but keeps getting back up again and carrying on. The humanoid, life-size machine is covered in metal armor protecting it from fall-related damage, and has autonomous behaviors to get itself upright again after a fall. It can be sheathed in a waterproof, fireproof suit to work in disaster sites or wet environments. RHP2 is powered by electric motors and needs an electric tether line, though it will eventually be upgraded to hydraulics

Broadcom announced it will soon release a chip that can take advantage of the new generation of global navigation satellite signals (L5 GPS signal). The chip will provide the next generation of smartphones 30-centimetre accuracy instead of the current 5 metres.

Researchers at the universities of Nottingham and Kingston in the UK have developed an AI tool that turns 2D portraits into 3D models. Unlike other, similar tools, this one can produce a good likeness based on a single photo. It uses a convolutional neural network (CNN) fueled by a library of 2D pictures of faces associated to their 3D models.

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s other company, has been working on its Falcon 9 rocket to make it reusable, one iteration at a time. The path to success was paved with spectacular failures, as shown in this cringe-worthy video showing the company's fiery lessons learned. Kudos to Musk for allowing failure – and not just learning from it, but laughing about it.

Nintendo made enemies last April when it suddenly discontinued its wildly popular NES Classic Edition after just 1.5 million units and six months on the market, with no explanation (some suspect supply issues). But all is forgiven: today, Nintendo announced that its $60 plug-and-play retro console will be coming back to retailers "next summer."

If owning the latest iPhone is just too plebeian for you, why not try a gold-plated one or, better yet, a solid gold one? Would you like diamonds with that? London and Dubai-based GoldGenie had given the iPhone 7 Plus the bling treatment last year and is promising more of the same with the iPhone 8 and even the iPhone 7S, should it ever materialize.

A page in IT history has turned. The San Jose Mercury News revealed that Oracle is about to lay off 983 employees at its Santa Clara facility.

Just months after the NYPD issued its officers with 36,000 Microsoft-based smartphones, the force is switching to iPhones. The city bought Windows-based Lumia smartphones as part of a $160 million NYPD Mobility Initiative that Mayor Bill de Blasio touted as “a huge step into the 21st century.”

Google has launched a development kit for Android to ease the integration of augmented reality in mobile applications. Called ARCore, it works with Java/OpenGL, Unity and Unreal. It provides motion tracking using the telephone’s camera to observe feature points in the room, as well as IMU (inertial measurement unit) sensor data to accurately place virtual objects.

In what is nothing less than a high-stakes wager, Samsung has unveiled its Galaxy Note 8. After one of the greatest disasters in the history of consumer electronics, the South Korean company decided to face the challenge head-on without giving up its Galaxy Note line. Samsung hopes that consumers will be won over by this new version of its phablet with stylus, guaranteed non-explosive.

Google chose the day of the solar eclipse to reveal the treat selected for its latest version of Android: “Nougat” will be followed by “Oreo”. Google and Nabisco have inked a deal for the use the brand. This is the second time Google uses a brand name for Android, after the “KitKat” in 2013 (version 4.4).

Specdrums are rings that turn colour into sound. They connect to your phone through Bluetooth and use optical sensors to read the colour of any surface they come into contact with. An application lets you personalize the sound associated with each colour, allowing you to make music by tapping on any surface, object, or colour around you.

Betsy Morris and Deepa Seetharaman, two reporters for the Wall Street Journal, revealed that Facebook is monitoring potential rivals, including new startups with exceptional performance, thanks to an in-house database. Facebook acquired the database when it purchased Onavo, a young Israeli company. Onavo’s application, Onavo Protect, guarantees users full data protection while routing traffic through a VPN.

When it comes to PC gaming accessories, you can have any choice of colours as long as it’s black. Same thing goes for Razer’s gaming suite: black mouse, black keyboard, black mousepad, and did we mention the black headset? But now you have choices! Razer has unveiled two new revolutionary colours for its gaming suite: “Mercury”, i.e. white, and “Gunmetal”, or grey.

RED, the high-end 4k and 8k camera manufacturer, caused a stir when it announced that it would produce a “holographic” Android phone, called Hydrogen One. Skimpy on details, the company promised a 5.7-inch screen able to convert from 2D to 3D, support for additional modules, a price tag of $1,195 for the basic model and a delivery date in early 2018.

Adobe announced that it would end support for Flash at the end of 2020, after which the player will cease to be developed and distributed. The veteran of Web animation and interactivity finally died a death by a thousand cuts: a history of security flaws, poor portability on mobile phones, a crippling blow dealt by Apple, increasing disaffection by browser developers, progress made in Web standards (HTML5 video and audio, Canvas 2D, WebGL…).

TurtleBot3 is a robot specifically developed to teach the Robot Operating System (ROS), a popular platform with academic researchers and industrial developers. The robot comes in two flavours, the Burger and the Waffle. The Burger, based on the Raspberry Pi 3, is the cheaper version, at US$550.

Nokia, or more accurately HMD Global, the company that produces Nokia-branded phones, has unveiled two new phones for emerging markets, the 105 and 130. These are basic devices, with 1.8-inch screens, an LED torch and up to a month’s worth of battery on standby.

The Raspberry Shake 4D is a more sensitive and powerful update to last year’s Raspberry Shake seismograph. Available by preorder on KickStarter for US$249, it includes the Raspberry Shake 4D, a 4.5 Hz geophone and a weatherproof box. Delivery is slated for October 2017.

Researchers at the University of Teheran have been working actively for years on robots, specializing in human-size humanoid machines like the impressive Surena III, which stands 1.9 metres tall. Today, they unveiled a smaller, cuter robot, called Surena Mini, whose look is reminiscent of SoftBank Robotics’ Nao.

Ofer Dekel is a researcher at Microsoft, in Redmond, Washington. Dekel has a problem: squirrels are feasting on flower bulbs and bird seed in his backyard — a problem experienced by most North-American homeowners. Dekel has developed a solution that isn’t currently within everyone’s reach: a model for the visual recognition of squirrels for the Raspberry Pi 3, where an algorithm identifies the squirrels, triggering the sprinkler system.

Swedish trucking company Einride unveiled its T-Pod prototype, a cabless truck that will revolutionize the driverless transportation of goods. The 7-metre truck can carry 15 standard pallets over 200km between charges, operating fully autonomously on highways and by remote-control from a control centre on city streets.

Salto-1P is a miniature robot that gets around in leaps and bounds, much like a large grasshopper. But look closely, and you’ll see that the critter has just one leg, making its agility all the more astonishing. Salto-1P can jump 1.25 metres high and still keep its balance thanks to a rotating balancing tail and a pair of miniature thrusters.

Rumours confirmed: Nintendo is about to launch a SNES Classic console, a miniaturized version of the magnificent Super NES of the early 90s, no doubt to the delight of nostalgia players worldwide. The SNES Classic will come with 21 games (Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, The Legend of Zelda, etc.), including Star Fox 2, which was never released originally. The system will be available as of September 29 for US$80, and will come with two controllers. Just 5 games are truly simultaneous multiplayer games. Let’s hope that Nintendo doesn’t repeat the NES Classic fiasco, which was hard to get in the first place, then unceremoniously axed in April despite high demand.

Chip designer AMD unveiled its new line of processors for data centre servers. This is of course a full frontal attack against Intel’s last, most profitable bastion, the Xeon processor. These new SoCs are based on the new Zen microarchitecture, which we’ve seen in action in Ryzen chips.

Traditional Sumo wrestling opposes two wrestlers in a round ring, the dohyō. The winner must force his opponent outside the dohyō or get him to touch it with a body part other than his feet.

Stack Overflow’s latest annual survey revealed that developers who use tabs to indent their code earn US$43,750 per year on average, while those who use spaces earn US$59,140, vindicating Jeff Atwood, who has always maintained that only morons use tabs to format their code.

At the E3 conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One X, its new game console long known only as “Project Scorpio”. It will come with 6 teraflops of graphical power, more than its main rival, the PS4 Pro, with 4.2 teraflops.

In 2014, Google presented a prototype for a completely autonomous vehicle. The cute, round, self-driving car was dubbed Firefly by its creators. After three years of experimentation, Waymo (Alphabet’s autonomous-vehicle division) announced the end of the experiment.

Boson’s DFRobot kits are designed to look like toys to turn kids on to electronics, programming and robotics. The modules are divided into four easily-identifiable, color-coded categories: blue for inputs, green for outputs, yellow for functions and pink for power.

It came out of the blue, with no sneak leaks… so we were completely surprised when the iMac Pro was unveiled at the WWDC developers conference. This 27-inch model with a 5K display in a “space grey” shell is propelled by 8, 10 or 18-core Xeon processors (depending on the model).

Motorola unveiled the Moto Z2 Play, a midrange smartphone running on Android 7.1.1. Nougat, with a 5.5-inch display, more RAM, and a better camera. It will sell for $499 and will be available from Verizon or unlocked from Motorola’s website this summer. Of the four new Mods Motorola also revealed, the one that has us most excited is the Moto GamePad, which includes dual control sticks, a D-pad and four buttons.

Last January, Andy Rubin, the creator of the Android operating system, founded a startup focused on consumer electronic devices, called Essential Products. At the Code Conference, Rubin unveiled the first Essential phone, which runs on Android (unsurprisingly) and a Snapdragon 835 processor.

Additive printing is about to make a splash in the maritime sector. Damen Shipyards Group, RAMLAB, Promarin, Autodesk and class society Bureau Veritas have entered into a consortium to develop the world’s first class-approved 3D-printed ship propeller. The propeller will be based on a Promarin design typically found on port tugs. The propeller, 1.3m in diameter and weighing 180kg, will be made from a bronze alloy using the Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing process. The actual printing will be performed by RAMLAB in Rotterdam. This will be the first 3D-printed maritime component to be approved by Veritas, after testing.

Elon Musk announced on Twitter that its solar roof tiles were available for preorder as of today, May 10. Two types are currently available: smooth and textured. Roman and imitation slate tiles are not yet in production.

Google unveiled a light new operating system called Fuchsia. We thought at first that it would be IoT-oriented, but now, it comes with a graphic interface for mobile devices (telephones and tablets), called Armadillo. Unlike Google’s two other operating systems (Android and Chrome OS), Fuchsia is not based on a Linux kernel but rather on a home-grown one, called Magenta. Fuchsia applications are being developed with Dart, a language developed by Google to replace JavaScript. Fuchsia remains somewhat mysterious, as Google has released no information on the underlying strategy. It seems that the idea is to replace Android by starting from scratch and breaking away from the Linux GPL.

We had been anxiously awaiting the elusive Windows 10 Cloud; we ended up with a very mundane, very locked-down Windows 10 S, positioned somewhere between the Home and Pro versions. You’ll be restricted to Windows Store applications, Edge as a Web browser, and Bing as a search provider… just like that time Microsoft tried to force Internet Explorer on us. If you’re dead set on using Chrome or Firefox (not available in the Microsoft store), or Google Search by default, you’ll have to fork over US$49, i.e. the price of an upgrade to the Pro version.

In Florida, the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition unveiled its Planar Elliptical Runner (PER). This light, bipedal robot is unique in that it can keep its balance purely mechanically, without the assistance of a computer. The cat-sized prototype can run at 16 km/h, but its developers believe that a human-sized version could reach speeds of 30 to 50 km/h.

ARM has unveiled the Mali-C71, an image signal processor (ISP) specifically designed for automotive applications. New driver assistance and autonomous driving systems require an increasing number of on-board cameras, but images produced must be processed and analyzed in real-time. Unlike a traditional camera, the goal of the Mali-C71 is not to produce pretty pictures, but to provide the highest possible levels of clarity and reliability and an ultra-wide dynamic range (24 stops). This processor is the first imaging product of a new family called Mali entirely dedicated to image processing; ARM has other image processors in the works, optimized for other uses. For mobile phone applications, the ISP can come not as a separate component but built right in a SoC, along with the CPU and GPU.

Waymo, Google/Alphabet’s self-driving car unit, is looking for hundreds of families in the Phoenix, AZ area to test-use its self-driving vehicles in real-world conditions. The vehicles are Chrysler Pacifica mini-vans, a model that has already been used for other tests. “We’ve given 10,000 rides internally, but if you’re just providing experiences to folks inside the company, you’re missing the broader range of diversity,” John Krafcik, Waymo’s chief executive, said.

Microsoft first announced its plans to bring Windows desktop apps to mobile ARM processors last year. The software giant is planning to allow partners to build laptop devices first, with a version of Windows 10 that will support ARM chips directly by including an emulator in the operating system.

Google is gearing up to implement an ad-blocking feature in its Chrome browser, which corners nearly half of the browser market. Of course, it would not block out all ads, and especially not Google’s Adwords ads.

The Internet Archive Web site lets you play with emulations of old Macintosh operating systems: System 6, released in 1988, in the days of the Macintosh IIx, and System 7, released in 1991 along with the Quadra 700 and 900, the first Macs to run on the Motorola 68040 processor.

Some farmers already use drones to monitor their crops, but a team of researchers from Georgia Tech have created a far more interesting alternative. Instead of designing yet another drone, they created a robot inspired by the sloth.

Japanese toy maker Bandai has re-released the first edition of the electronic pocket pet, complete with the original six characters. Bandai’s also stayed faithful to the six hardware designs it first released, though there is one noticeable difference—the new Tamagotchi is half the size of the original.

British entrepreneur Richard Browning has created a real-life Iron Man suit, by attaching miniature jet engines to his limbs. He has just founded Gravity, a tech start-up who has built and filed patents for the human propulsion technology that could reimagine manned flight.

Samsung, like Motorola (Atrix) and Microsoft (Continuum) before it, is trying to turn a phone into a PC. Samsung’s Galaxy S8 will pair with a new Samsung Desktop Experience (DeX) dock accessory to morph into a desktop PC-like environment.

Ikea is getting into the home automation game with its own system for smart lighting. The new range of products is called Trådfri — which means “wireless” in Swedish — and is built around the ZigBee Light Link standard for connected lights (the same as Philips Hue).

Here you are, wearing your HTC headset and lost in your immersive irreality game, frolicking with pink unicorns in a verdant valley. Suddenly, Whiskers decides he needs human contact, or rather, that you need to be brought back to reality, since it’s time for his Fussy Cat Ultra Premium Wet Food with Chunks, Island Shrimp flavour.

With its new SoC Qualcomm 205, presented at an event in New Delhi, the leader in chips for mobile phones has updated its entry-level processor for the first time in three years.

Google has developed and open-sourced a new JPEG algorithm that reduces file size by about 20–35% percent, while still maintaining compatibility with existing browsers, image processing applications and the JPEG standard. This new encoder is called Guetzli, which is Swiss German for cookie (the project was led by Google Research’s Zurich office).

One of just eight known functional Apple I computers is going to auction on May 20 in Koln, Germany. It is expected to fetch an auction price of US$190,000 to 320,000, compared to an original selling price, in 1976, of US$666.66. Pretty good return…

You dream it, and Claudiu, a Romanian programmer, makes it! Introducing PC Building Simulator, a program that lets you virtually build the PC of your dreams without spending a penny. You start with an empty tower and a budget, and are set loose on a components library: motherboard, processor, graphics card, cable, hard drives, fans, etc. All you do is pick and click. It might not be as much fun as Goat Simulator, but it is educational and it could launch some of us on the road to assembling our own PC, which is so much more satisfying than buying off-the-shelf.

Today, at the Google Cloud Next Conference in San Francisco, Google announced three new Google Cloud regions: the Netherlands, Montreal and California.

This house, printed on site by a 3D-printer in Stupino, a town about 100km south of Moscow, demonstrates how additive technology could revolutionize some aspects of construction.

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Sony unveiled its flagship Xperia, the XZ Premium. The design is boxy and boring, but the specs are to die for: 5-second videos at 960 frames per second, a 5.5-inch, 4K (801 ppi) screen, nothing less… And the rest is nothing to sneeze at: Snapdragon 835 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, IP68 water resistance, 19-megapixel main camera and 13-megapixel secondary camera. No info on price or availability has yet been released.

To celebrate its fifth birthday, Raspberry Pi Foundation unveiled a new variant of the Raspberry Pi Zero, with Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi (802.11n) connectivity, priced at just US$10. The rest of the Pi stays the same, with a single-core processor clocked at 1GHz, 512MB of RAM and Mini-HDMI and micro-USB ports.

Original design is a scarce commodity in the Android phone market, where one handset looks much like the next. So let’s raise our devices to a very different phone, the Alcatel A5 LED, produced by Chinese manufacturer TCL. This mid-range smartphone will not turn you on with its run-of-the-mill features: 5.2-inch, 720x1280 screen, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, 8MP camera, 4G LTE, 8-core 1.5GHz processor. But the back panel comes drenched in multi-coloured LEDs that can be used for notifications, or beat and blink to the rhythm of your favourite tune or pre-programmed graphic theme (there’s an app for that). Not keen on the light show? Remove the panel and replace it with one equipped with loudspeakers or an extra battery. The A5 LED should be available in May for about €200 (CA$280). No word yet on North American availability.

For BBC’s latest animal program, Spy In The Wild, John Downer and his team were tasked with creating animatronic animals convincing enough to live among their wild counterparts. Over 30 hyper-realistic robots were developed and deployed all over the world.

Apple’s newest campus, covering 70 hectares, will start welcoming employees in April. Its official name has been announced: Apple Park. The transfer of over 12,000 employees will take all year. The mammoth ring, providing 260,000m2 of “creativity space”, was dreamt up by Steve Jobs, who worked on it until his dying day.

This week, Agility Robotics unveiled Cassie, a bipedal robot that walks like a chicken. Cassie’s design mimics animal morphology, with a hip joint with three degrees of freedom and flexible ankle joints, giving it better stability than previous designs. The advantage of walking robots is that they can go where rolling ones can’t. Even so, the resulting gait is decidedly creepy. Happily, Cassie’s roll-out, er, step-out, is still some ways down the line.