It took several months, but Lyft and nuTonomy have made good on their promise to test autonomous ridesharing cars in Boston. The two have launched a pilot program that gives "select" Seaport-area passengers a ride in one of nuTonomy’s self-driving Renault cars. If you’re one of the few to hop in (the Lyft app will make it obvious), your feedback will help refine the system to make sure it’s both comfortable and safe.
This is as much a tech demo as it is a trial run. Lyft and nuTonomy aren’t shy about using the Boston experiment to help you "better understand the impact" of self-driving cars — that is, to sell you on the concept so that you’ll be a customer when driverless cars dominate. Marketing strategy aside, it’s still an important step for everyone involved. NuTonomy may see the most benefit as it improves its navigation systems, but it also gives Lyft an opportunity to integrate driverless cars into its service. And of course, that first contact for passengers could reduce fears and (eventually) make self-driving cars a mainstay of daily life.
It’s easy to find celebrity info if you’re determined to look for it, but wouldn’t you rather hear it straight from the source? You just might. Google is adding a feature to mobile searches in the US that has celebrities answering questions in selfie-style videos. If you want to know Gina Rodriguez’s favorite movie or whether Will Ferrell can play the drums, you’ll see a video that can take over the full screen.
Other celebrities answering questions on launch include Nick Jonas, Priyanka Chopra, James Franco, Tracee Ellis Ross and Seth MacFarlane, among others. That’s definitely not a comprehensive celeb list, but Google is promising more videos from both up-and-coming and well-known stars in the "next few months." There’s no mention of international availability.
The feature is intended to offer a "surprise" to searchers. At the same time, it’s also a slight competitive edge for Google. If you’re a Nick Jonas devotee, wouldn’t you rather hear answers from him on Google instead of reading text on Bing? So long as you like the videos in the first place, this could keep you coming back just in case your favorite star has a custom Google answer.
The next big hurdle for virtual reality is obvious to anyone who’s put on a headset: Getting rid of all of those wires. We’ve seen cordless solutions from TPCast and Intel, but now Amimon, a company best known for developing wireless video technology, is getting into the ring. Its spin on wireless VR uses the 5GHz spectrum, instead of the 60GHz band used by competitors. That allows it to work through walls and without direct line of sight, something the 60GHz frequency range can’t do. Most importantly, Amimon promises a lag-free experience. According to the company, it could even support up to 10 VR or AR headsets in the same room (either with their own computers, or a souped-up gaming server).
Amimon, which will be debuting the technology at the VRX conference in San Francisco today, says its solution has advantages over the WiGig-powered alternatives. Since it doesn’t need to be in view of a receiver, you can step outside with a pair of augmented reality glasses and still be able to connect to a computer in your home. It’ll also be able to work in a variety of spaces, from crowded rooms to huge open environments. The main reason companies are eyeing 60GHz/WiGig for VR is due to its low latency and massive data throughput, but Amimon claims its patented technology can do the same in the 5GHz spectrum.
Amimon’s wireless VR module
As you’d expect, the company’s tech is currently compatible with all of the major VR headsets: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR. It can output 2K video at 90FPS for the two PC-powered headsets, as well as 1080p at 120 FPS for the PS VR. Amimon describes it as a complete solution for wireless VR — it’s able to both transmit lag-free video, as well as all the necessary sensor data.
At this point, Amimon’s wireless module is still in its early stages. The company isn’t discussing any release timing yet, as that will depend on future partners. Similarly, pricing is still up in the air, but it expects the first generation of wireless accessories to cost around $100.
While the brand name 66 Audio might not be all that famous, the company is a noted pioneer when it comes to wireless consumer audio technology. Having revealed their all-new PRO Voice Bluetooth wireless headphones, this is a special pair of wireless headphones that will be different from the rest due to its unique capability of featuring integrated Amazon Alexa voice recognition. In other words, you get a breakthrough in how one communicates in the digital world, as PRO Voice will bring Alexa outside the home in order to deliver a fluid voice experience regardless of where the user is, as long as there is Internet connectivity.
Among the list of breakthrough innovations include up to 125 feet of wireless range, 40 hours of non-stop playback, crystal clear HD sound, and the MotionControl companion app, where all of it arrives in a durable yet sporty design which allows those who are active or simply dormant office drones to find it equally useful.
With the PRO Voice, you can access tens of millions of songs via Prime Music, play games and even order a pizza, courtesy of simply asking Amazon Alexa. It will be a whole new user experience for many, where PRO Voice’s new ActiveVoice recognition technology will work in tandem with the MotionControl smart app (available on iOS and Android platforms) which enables users to customize many different kinds of headphone features. Those who reside in the US, UK, Canada and Germany are able to ask Alexa to play their favorite tracks from Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Pandora, and TuneIn, while Alexa voice control for Spotify will also be available after its launch.
Different voice-control technology will include play, pause, next track, volume up and down functions, which means you never ever have to glance at your smartphone again to interact with your music with this $139.99 bad boy.
Then-FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler with current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai testify before the House Judiciary Committee about Internet regulation on March 25, 2015 in Washington, DC.
Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla
Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler took aim at his successor’s plan to eliminate net neutrality rules today, saying that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is selling out consumers and entrepreneurs at the behest of major Internet service providers.
“ISP monopoly carriers have been trying for four years to get to this point,” Wheeler said, pointing to a 2013 story in The Washington Post about how telecoms were trying to “shift regulation of their broadband businesses to other agencies that don’t have nearly as much power as the FCC.”
“It is a classic example of regulatory capture, where the regulatory agency bends to the wishes of those they are supposed to oversee,” Wheeler said today during a press conference with US Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
Big ISPs will “make their own rulesâ€
The net neutrality repeal hurts consumers while benefiting large broadband companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Charter, and Comcast, Eshoo said.
“There are essentially four enterprises that are very happy, and the rest of the country is very unhappy [about the repeal],” Eshoo said.
The big ISPs haven’t suffered from the net neutrality rules, Wheeler said. Instead, the rules have been a win-win for businesses that offer services over the Internet and the broadband providers, he said. Venture capital money for Internet-based companies has risen, and ISPs have enjoyed “expansion in profitability and stock prices,” he said.
But eliminating net neutrality regulations will allow the big four ISPs to “make their own rules,” Wheeler said. Wheeler accused the “Trump FCC” of “walking away from the responsibility… to oversee networks” and “walking away from existing consumer protections for a fast, fair and open Internet.”
The FCC imposed net neutrality rules in 2010, but they were struck down in court in 2014 after Verizon sued. Wheeler’s FCC reinstated the rules and made them stronger in 2015 by reclassifying broadband providers as common carriers, which allowed the new rules to survive a court challenge.
ISPs scale back promises
Wheeler noted that when he was FCC chairman, ISPs made lots of promises about how they would uphold net neutrality even as they urged the FCC to avoid imposing strict rules.
“When we were considering our rule, they were constantly coming in and saying we will not have paid prioritization,” Wheeler said. “Well, you noticed that paid prioritization is off the list now.”
With net neutrality rules now on the chopping block, ISPs are “making no such assurances about not having fast lanes and slow lanes,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler also referred to a statement Verizon made in court in 2013 when the company was trying to eliminate the previous version of the FCC’s net neutrality rules. “The Verizon lawyer said, ‘I have been instructed by my client that I may say, one of the reasons we are appealing is that we intend to prioritize traffic,'” Wheeler said.
Pai’s proposal will eliminate bans on ISPs blocking or throttling traffic and a ban on paid prioritization. Pai’s plan would also remove FCC oversight of network interconnection disputes, such as the ones that harmed Netflix quality on major ISPs before the net neutrality rules were passed.
Wheeler’s FCC didn’t prohibit ISPs from demanding payments for network interconnection, but it set up a complaint process.
“That simple keeping-an-eye-on-what’s-going-on has resulted in the elimination of the interconnection bottlenecks that existed before, and interconnection prices actually going down, just because somebody was watching,” Wheeler said.
FTC can’t act until “the barn has burned downâ€
Relying on the FTC to police net neutrality will be much less effective than the FCC’s current regime, Wheeler said. The FTC can’t issue net neutrality rules of its own; it can only punish ISPs if they make net neutrality promises and then break them.
“The FTC does not have forward-looking rule-making authority, it can only look backwards,” Wheeler said. “The FTC can’t move until the horse is out of the barn, or actually the barn has burned down.”
Wheeler and Democrats in Congress don’t expect the Republican-controlled FCC to change its mind about scrapping net neutrality rules. There’s also little chance of Congress passing rules to enforce net neutrality, Markey said.
“We are at the point of litigation, not legislation,” Markey said. “I plan to stand side by side with online companies and advocates who plan to challenge the FCC in court… I think we have a very good chance of prevailing in court.”
Qualcomm is hosting the “Snapdragon Technology Summit” in Hawaii this week, where it unveiled its flagship system-on-a-chip (SoC) for 2018: the Snapdragon 845. Qualcomm has a near-monopoly on the high-end smartphone SoC market, so unless you’re buying an iPhone or non-US Samsung phone, you can expect most 2018 flagship smartphones to be powered by Qualcomm’s latest. You might even see the chip in your next laptop, with Qualcomm breaking into the Windows 10 market.
The SoC is manufactured by Samsung on the company’s 10nm process, just like the Snapdragon 835. The Kryo 385 is once again a derivative of ARM’s Cortex CPU, with four “performance” cores (based on the Cortex A75) clocked at up to 2.8GHz and four “efficiency” cores (based on the Cortex A55) that run at up to 1.8GHz. Qualcomm is boosting the performance core clock speeds by 19 percent over the Snapdragon 835, but thanks to a CPU redesign, Qualcomm is promising a “25-percent performance uplift” over the previous generation. The CPU also gets a new 2MB L3 cache and 3MB of system cache.
The GPU is now the Adreno 630, and Qualcomm is promising “30-percent faster graphics” and “30-percent better power efficiency.” The company says a 2.5×-faster display throughput will allow for a 2K×2K display at 120Hz. Qualcomm is really pushing AR and VR with the Snapdragon 845, promising out-of-the-box support for eye tracking, hand tracking, foveated rendering (adding more detail to the part of the screen you’re looking at), multiview rendering (great for rendering the left and right eyes in VR goggles), and HTC Vive-style six degree of freedom (6DoF) tracking for headsets and controllers. In fact, the Adreno 630 GPU isn’t even called a “GPU” anymore—now it’s a “Visual Processing Subsystem.” It’s not that any of this was impossible before, but now Qualcomm is officially supporting all of these VR/AR use cases out of the box.
The Snapdragon 845’s ISP (image signal processor), the Spectra 280, can now capture 4K, 60fps video in an “HDR” 10-bit color depth. Slow motion video is up to 480fps at 720p. For photos, the ISP can capture 16MP images at 60 frames per second (does it still count as a “photo” at that point?), and there’s out-of-the-box support for depth sensing.
The 845 also includes a new secure processing unit (SPU) that can handle encryption, payments, and biometric authentication in an isolated subsystem away from all your potentially nasty application code.
For connectivity, the cellular modem is now a Qualcomm X20 LTE modem, with a theoretical max download speed of 1,200Mbps, provided your carrier supports this ridiculous level of connectivity. The Wi-Fi now supports the 60GHz 802.11ad standard, which isn’t a replacement for the usual 802.11ac connection but is instead an ultra-fast, short-range, “wire replacement” technology. It only has a useful range of a few feet (theoretically 30 feet), but the 4.6 Gbps max speed makes a great way to send a ton of data to something without plugging in (assuming you can find something else that supports 802.11ad). There are “proprietary enhancements” to Bluetooth 5, which Qualcomm says will “reduce battery consumption of wireless earbuds by up to 50 percent.”
“Artificial Intelligence” is another big focus, with Qualcomm using the Hexagon 685 DSP as an AI and imaging co-processor. The Hexagon 685 is three times faster than the Hexagon 682 in the Snapdragon 835 and will support Android 8.1 Oreo’s new Neural Networks API. Google Assistant addicts (or Bixby addicts, I guess?) will be happy to hear about the “improved always-on keyword detection and ultra-low-power voice processing.”
The Snapdragon 845 is expected to begin shipping in devices in early 2018.
PC gaming platform Steam no longer accepts Bitcoin as a payment method, Valve announced today. The company said it won’t accept the cryptocurrency any longer due to "high fees and volatility" in its value. Regarding the fees, Valve pointed out that the transaction fee charged to the customer using Bitcoin rose from 20 cents when Valve started accepting it to almost $20 today. Valve doesn’t control these fees, but the company is unpleased with the situation it puts its users in.
Regarding the volatility (Bitcoin stands at around $13,000 USD today but it fluctuates significantly and often), Valve said this is problematic in part because Bitcoin’s value is only guaranteed for a set period of time. "So if the transaction doesn’t complete within that window of time, then the amount of Bitcoin needed to cover the transaction can change. The amount it can change has been increasing recently to a point where it can be significantly different," Valve said.
The way it worked in this situation was that Valve would refund the payment or charge more to cover the remaining balance. "At this point, it has become untenable to support Bitcoin as a payment option. We may re-evaluate whether Bitcoin makes sense for us and for the Steam community at a later date," Valve said.
Some believe that Bitcoin’s bubble is about to burst. "This is a bubble and there is a lot of froth. This is going to be the biggest bubble of our lifetimes," Mike Novogratz, a hedge fund manager, told Bloomberg.
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