Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Builds 'Jarvis' Software Butler for His Home

Mark Zuckerberg's artificial intelligence-imbued software "butler" - named Jarvis - is now in service, and even plays with his family, the Facebook chief said Monday.

Zuckerberg took on the personal project this year, devoting about 100 hours to making a system inspired by the "Iron Man" film character Jarvis as a virtual assistant to help manage his household.

"In some ways, this challenge was easier than I expected," Zuckerberg said in a post on his page at the leading social network.

"In fact, my running challenge (I also set out to run 365 miles in 2016) took more total time."

Jarvis is not a physical robot, but an application Zuckerberg can access through his phone or computer to control lights, temperature, music, security, appliances and more.

The software learns his tastes and patterns, as well as new words or concepts, and can even entertain his one-year-old daughter Max, according to Zuckerberg.

Knowing faces

Natural language processing and facial recognition capabilities were built into Jarvis, enabling it to understand spoken or texted commands and recognize who is issuing them, Zuckerberg noted.

The software can determine when a guest at the door is expected and let them into the home, while notifying the family that someone has arrived, according to the post.

"One aspect that was much more complicated than I expected was simply connecting and communicating with all of the different systems in my home," Zuckerberg said.

"Most appliances aren't even connected to the internet yet."

Assistants such as Jarvis would not only need devices in homes to be linked to the Internet, they would have to run on common standards, according to the Facebook co-founder and chief executive, who returned to his software-writing roots for the project.

His foray into AI also impressed upon him the importance of getting software to understand context, such as who is speaking and where they are.

"When I tell it to turn the AC (air conditioning) up in 'my office,' that means something completely different from when Priscilla tells it the exact same thing," Zuckerberg said, referring to his wife.

"That one caused some issues!"

Similar problems could arise when asking for music to be played without the AI being told which room, especially if a napping baby is a factor.

The more context AI has, the better it can handle open-ended requests, he noted.

"At this point, I mostly just ask Jarvis to 'play me some music' and by looking at my past listening patterns, it mostly nails something I'd want to hear," he said.

Zuckerberg said he tends to text his Jarvis using a 'bot' he built for the Facebook Messenger service instead of speaking to it, mostly not to disturb people around him.

AI personality

Speaking to the AI had the psychological effect of making him think of it more as a real person, he noted.

"Ever since I built voice into Jarvis, I've also wanted to build in more humor," Zuckerberg said.

"Part of this is that now it can interact with Max and I want those interactions to be entertaining for her, but part of it is that it now feels like it's present with us."

He told of teaching the AI a game in which they ask it who they should tickle, and Jarvis randomly picks someone in the family, including the dog, to target.

Zuckerberg planned to continue improving Jarvis, and said he was more convinced than ever that AI technology would improve greatly in the coming five to 10 years.

"I'd love to have Jarvis control my Big Green Egg and help me cook, but that will take even more serious hacking than rigging up the T-shirt cannon," he said, referring to a popular brand of ceramic cooker.

"In the longer term, I'd like to explore teaching Jarvis how to learn new skills itself rather than me having to teach it how to perform specific tasks."

AI is getting a foothold in people's homes, starting with devices such as Amazon Echo and Google Home speakers which links to personal assistants to answer questions and control connected devices.

What is the biggest mistake that a big company like NOKIA has made?

Nokia’s CEO Rajeev Suri who become the company New CEO April 2014 said “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”.  According to him, the company did not do anything wrong but suddenly they lost out of the cell phone giant.


Nokia, their biggest mistake was avoiding making a mistake. They were afraid of making mistake, they where not willing to fall, they forget that they could pick something from the ground if they happen tall.

Nokia was a respected cellphone manufacturer and for a long time became the number one producer of cellular phones until Apple, Samsung and the rest of the smartphone gang came.

Nokia’s strategy was to stay the course and do nothing. They didn’t want to change and take risks. In the end, avoiding change to avoid mistakes cost them everything.

 As a company, business owner, or an individual, we should learn lesson from this once tech giant that suddenly, suddenly disappear.

Blackberry launched A New Phone Called Blackberry Priv

We all know the Blackberry story.

Well before Apple’s iPhone, Blackberry kicked off the smartphone revolution and brought the office out of the office and into the tap-tap-tap grasp of workers all over the world.

Ease of use and security made Blackberry handsets the choice for corporations everywhere – not to mention world leaders.

But the Blackberry went pear-shaped. Unable to keep up in a market of sophisticated phones, with vast app stores and big screens, Blackberry was soon seen as a boring business phone.
The firm, once known as Research in Motion, has had one glimmer of hope in recent times: Blackberry Messenger was unexpectedly popular with teenagers, but even BBM – as it was referred to – eventually lost out to Whatsapp and Snapchat as a the teen tool of choice.

Blackberry sales now account for less than 1% of the global smartphone market.

On Friday, Blackberry launched a new phone, which it is calling Priv by Blackberry.

Why?

It’s a cliché to regard any new Blackberry launch these days as the “last throw of the dice”. It’s also unfair – it isn’t.

Blackberry is sitting on $3bn of cash, and so there’s room to keep trying for a while yet.

The Priv is an (other) attempt by Blackberry to hit some kind of great middle ground: A phone so secure it is trusted by company IT bosses, but pleasurable and simple enough so that normal people – ie the workers – want to use it.

Here’s how it hopes to woo companies:
Firms can control updates to employees phones, rather than having some workers on more up-to-date software, causing compatibility issues, or less up-to-date phones with security holes.
An onboard chip also protects against “rooting” by verifying that the operating system installed on the device is genuine and not tampered in any way.
For the first time, Blackberry’s device will run Google’s Android software, meaning a much wider range of apps and business utilities. Bringing Blackberry’s security expertise to the most widely-used mobile operating system is a big selling point for companies nervous (as they should be) about cybersecurity.

And to keep users happy:
The phone has a big touch screen as well as a slide-out keyboard which also doubles as a trackpad. Any Blackberry without a keyboard annoys the loyal Blackberry fans, but the smaller screen as a result has normally put off others. This is, apparently, the best of both worlds.
The phone has a decent 18 megapixel camera.
A 5.4in screen that will be good for consuming entertainment – not just work emails.
A system called DTEK that alerts the user to precise moments when privacy-related things may be happening, such as an app suddenly accessing your location, camera or microphone.

Will it work?

Canada-based Blackberry may desert the device business if its latest handset is a flop

By Blackberry’s own admission, its handsets are performing terribly. So much so that current chief executive John Chen said he’d pull out of the device market if things didn’t pick up soon.

But the Blackberry aesthetic has attracted some fans.

The unorthodox Blackberry Passport, which is square, was laughed at by many techies but impressed in the fashion community, picking up various design awards along the way.

By being aligned with corporate success, Blackberry devices can be a status symbol, like a sharp suit. It says “you must be doing something very important if you’re using a Blackberry to do it”.

Furthermore, as the Priv is an Android device, it means all the popular apps will be available – unlike previous Blackberrys which didn’t support the likes of Uber and Instagram (although there were some attempts to emulate Android apps).

As for the downsides, while the rear camera is well-specced, the front-facing camera is a less impressive at 2 megapixels. Not great for selfies, naturally, but also bad for video conferencing over Skype, among others – so perhaps a turn-off for business customers.

At a cost of $700 for a sim-free handset (or £579.99 in the UK) – the new handset is in line with the iPhone and top-end Android devices.

Though a more aggressively priced device might have been what made people jump ship at their next upgrade.

What if it flops?

According to Forbes, less than 10% of Blackberry’s value is from flogging handsets, and so the company can remain pretty calm if the Priv doesn’t do well because the firm’s security software side will prop it up – for now.

Mr Chen has said he wants to sell five million Privs in a year. That’s compared with Apple which sold 48 million iPhones in its last quarter.

While Blackberry is not being too ambitious compared with Apple and Samsung, five million in one year would be a big improvement.

In its last quarter, Blackberry managed just 800,000 device sales.

If the Priv doesn’t impress consumers and business people, it could well be Blackberry’s last ever handset.

The company will survive, but it will always wonder what might have been had it kept up with the rapid mobile world.

By Dave Lee, BBC North America technology reporter

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Facebook Launches Mobile Music Sharing App Named Music Stories

Facebook has announced a new post format which allows people to listen to the first 30 seconds of a song shared on the site.

It will be called Music Stories and Facebook says it is aimed at “enabling better music discovery and sharing”.

The previews will be streamed from Spotify and Apple Music and fans can link through to buy or save the music.

It means Facebook will allow its users to listen and share music they like, without leaving the app.
There are also plans underway to add other music streaming services to the feature.

Music sharing is one of the most fought over parts of the tech world right now, along with the battle for video views.

In August, Vine announced it was taking on Shazam with a new music feature which allows users to work out what tracks are being played in a Vine.

But adding music to a social media networking platform hasn’t been a money maker for everyone.

Instagram launched its @music feature in April but it hasn’t yet grown a huge following.

Newsbeat spoke to Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom who said: “It’s just a matter of time before music becomes even more dominant.

“Instagram’s all about finding the unknown photographer or that little gem and we started doing that with music… I think it’s been very successful so far.”

Twitter’s venture into including music on its service didn’t last very long.

Source: jumpfon

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Google’s To Unvail New Video Editing Apps

Despite an overall slowdown in acquisitions, Google has acquired the team behind Fly Labs, a New York-based startup that makes video-editing apps.

Fly Labs had produced a quartet of video-editing apps to help people “edit on the fly.” One of the apps, Crop, turned vertical cellphone videos into horizontal, YouTube-friendly ones. Its newest release, Clips, turned small video fragments into so-called masterpiece short films.

In the Fly Labs announcement the startup said more than 20 million videos had been created through its product.
The Google acquisition came after the company reported its lowest deal activity, by value, in six years. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the New York startup had reportedly raised $750,000.

The Fly Labs technology will be incorporated into Google’s already robust photos app.

Here’s Fly Labs’ full statement:

We’re excited to announce that Fly Labs has been acquired by Google!

Our mission at Fly Labs has always been simple: to help people make the most of their photos and videos. We make video-editing apps because we believe that there’s no better way to stay connected with your memories than by engaging with them creatively. In the last 18 months, our video-editing apps have been downloaded more than 3 million times in over 150 different countries. More than 20 million videos have been created with apps made by Fly Labs.

We’re excited to continue on our mission by joining Google and the Google Photos team in Mountain View, California. Google Photos is a home for your life’s memories, powered by Google’s machine-learning and computer-vision technology. It’s a perfect match for what we built at Fly Labs, and we’re looking forward to folding our technology into Google Photos. We’ll be pouring the same passion into Google Photos that we poured into Clips, Fly, Tempo, and Crop on the Fly.

Meanwhile, as of today, all Fly Labs apps are completely free with no in-app purchases. The apps will be available on the App Store for another three months, so you can still download them and use them to get creative with video. But please note that we will not be submitting anymore updates to the apps. Once the apps are removed from the App Store, you will still be able to use them, but they will no longer be available for download.

We’d like to thank our users, beta testers, investors, friends, and families and everybody who helped us get this far. Onward and upward!

Love,
The Fly Labs Team
Source: Business Insider

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Google Set To Fuse Chrome OS Into Android Phone's

Google will fold its Chrome operating system used in personal computers into the Android mobile OS, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Beginning in 2017, Google will only have a single operating system on the market, with Android featured on tablets, smartphones, and notebook computers, the report said. Google will show an early version of the new unified Android OS next year, The WSJ said, citing anonymous sources.

The move should help unify Google’s software efforts and make its platform more appealing to third-party software developers.
But the unification efforts are still early and it’s still not clear how everything will ultimately play out, a person familiar with the matter told Business Insider. In fact, the person said it’s possible that Google could continue to support Chrome OS, and actually maintain three different OS variants going forward.

Three operating systems?
“There is a scenario in which we move forward and the likelihood is there is still Chrome OS and Android and there could be a third project that combines the best of both,” the person said.

Until now Google has maintained a clear delineation between its two operating systems, The Chrome OS, based on Google’s Chrome web browser, is for the traditional laptop and PC-like family of Chromebook devices. Android is for lower-powered devices like tablets and smartphones, and increasingly gadgets like watches and TVs.

Google will rename the Chromebook notebook computers, once they feature the new version of Android, The WSJ said, but the new name for the Chromebooks has not yet been determined. Google’s web browser will apparently keep the Chrome name and the open source version of the Chrome OS that other PC makers can use for their laptops will continue to exist, the report said.

The move is not a complete surprise. Google executives have acknowledged in the past that Android and Chrome “will likely converge over time.” Google united the teams working on the two operating systems under one management structure in 2014.

Another recent clue came in September, when Google unveiled the Pixel C hybrid tablet-notebook. The device is the first product in the Pixel line of devices to drop the Chrome OS in favor of Android.

Google declined to comment.

Source: Business Insider

High Sales Of iPhone Send Apple Profits Up

Apple has reported a jump in sales in the three months to September, driven by sales of its iPhone.

The tech giant’s revenue was $51.5bn (£33.6bn), up 22% compared with the same period last year.

It sold more than 48 million iPhones in the period, which it said were “record fourth quarter sales”, although the figure did miss analysts’ expectations.

It also reported a net income of $11.1bn for the period, adding that 2015 was its most successful ever year.

“The growth was fuelled by record fourth quarter sales of iPhone, the expanded availability of Apple Watch, and all-time records for Mac sales and revenue from services,” the company said.
In China, the biggest market for smartphones, Apple’s sales nearly doubled from a year ago to $12.52bn. Apple now has 25 stores in China and is opening a new one every month in a market that supplies about a quarter of sales.

That sales figure is a dip from the prior three-month period, however, when Apple recorded revenues of $13.2bn in China.

For the current quarter, Apple estimates global sales of between $75.5bn and $77.5bn.

Morningstar analyst Brian Colello said the forecast was slightly below market expectations, but investors were expecting a worse outcome, which was why the stock initially rose 3% in after hours trading.

Facebook In India And China: Big Risk, Big Reward

In the face of slowing growth at home, Facebook Inc. (FB) is courting new users in India and China. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s CEO, spoke to students at Tsinghua University in “heavily accented” Mandarin and will renew efforts to promote Internet connectivity to the masses when he travels to India later this week.

But the company’s ventures into new territories is fraught with risks. It may not result in substantial revenues and it also might tarnish the social network’s reputation as a place for free expression.

(Dis)Likes in India

India would seem like safe ground for Facebook.
It is already home to the second-largest Facebook population in the world. By 2020, the South Asian country is expected to overtake the United States in the number of Facebook users. That growth in users comes on the back of a solid reputation for U.S. tech firms, such as Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) and Facebook that employ a large number of Indian engineers and are generally perceived as a force for good in the country’s burgeoning tech economy.

But, Facebook’s reputation has taken a beating in recent times.

The social network’s Internet.org initiative, a collection of free Internet services offered in partnership with local carriers, has failed to take off due to a patchy Internet connection. What’s more, the Menlo Park-based company has also been charged with “economic racism” for limiting the Internet’s unbounded confines by cherry-picking select sites for its service. For example, Google, the world’s most popular search engine, is not offered as part of the Internet.org service. Instead, Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT) Bing is the default search engine. (Microsoft is an investor in Facebook.)

The charges could hurt the company in the long run, especially as its competitor Google, which launched its own cheap phone – the Android One – last year, makes inroads into the market.

Then, there is the question of revenues. Even with a growing ecosystem, India does not represent substantial mobile advertising revenues for the company. According to a report released by research firm emarketer earlier this year, India will fail to “eclipse $1 billion” in ad spend by 2018. For comparison, the United States and China, the top two markets for mobile ads, are collectively expected to spend $62.38 billion in advertising this year.

China: A Complicated Case

But, India remains a far easier case study for Facebook, as compared to China where the service is blocked. Even if it is allowed to operate in the country, Facebook would find operations difficult. As a host of American companies, such as Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Home Depot Inc. (HD), have already found out, China is not an easy market to crack. The company already faces formidable competition from a number of home-grown social networking sites, such as Weibo.com and Renren.com, which comply with government dictates and have already garnered a substantial following.

What’s more, Facebook’s foray into China could entail subjecting its user’s posts to censorship. Chinese regulations also mandate technology companies to operate their servers in the local market. This means that Facebook’s servers would be subject to security checks and could threaten the viability of its operations. In turn, this could compromise the social network’s commitment to free expression and set a precedent for its operations in other countries.

The Bottom Line

Emerging markets promise growth for Facebook. But, that growth comes at a cost. As it expands outside home base, the social network sticking to its original vision of a connected world without making compromises.

By Rakesh Sharma (a freelance journalist) 

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Google, New Holding Company Alphabet, Spells Success With Mobile, YouTube

Google, reporting its first earnings as the new holding company Alphabet, said it owed its profit and sales success last quarter to having six products with more than a billion users apiece.

They are Search, the mobile operating system Android, the Web browser Chrome, Maps, the marketplace Play and YouTube.

But Google executives on Thursday specifically called out YouTube.

The Google-owned video giant has become synonymous with online video. Every month, more than a billion people, or one of every seven on the planet, visit the site to watch movie trailers, get makeup tips or see cute animals do something adorable.
That appetite for cat videos does more than satisfy our collective dopamine receptors; it’s also good for Google.

So much so that the Mountain View, California, company has been expanding YouTube’s offerings to get you to spend even more time on the site. On Wednesday, Google announced YouTube Red, a subscription version of the service that for $10 a month nixes the ads and gives you access to original shows and movies from top YouTube talent. In August, Google launched YouTube Gaming, a hub dedicated to video game-related content.

“The shift to video is a profound medium shift, especially in the context of mobile,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on a conference call. He said the video site has had “amazing momentum,” especially on smartphones and tablets.

The result is an ever-sprawling video powerhouse that in many ways points to the future of Google. In July, Google CFO Ruth Porat said videos kept people watching 60 percent longer than they did a year ago. On smartphones and tablets — the preferred places for advertisers, aka Google’s lifeblood — the average watch time is 40 minutes. That’s double what it was a year ago, Porat said.

On Thursday, announcing results for the quarter ended September 30, Google said it beat Wall Street expectations for sales and profit, thanks to “substantial growth” in mobile search sales. One of the biggest contributors: YouTube.

Third-quarter sales were $18.67 billion, Google/Alphabet said in a statement. Profit, after adjustments for stock-based compensation and other items, was $7.35 a share. Analysts had estimated $18.53 billion in revenue and earnings of $7.21 per share.

Investors are happy. At 3:30 p.m. PT, Alphabet’s stock jumped more than 11 percent in after-hours trading to more than $725. The company also said it will repurchase $5 billion in shares starting in the fourth quarter.

Earlier this month, Google restructured itself under a new holding company named Alphabet, part of an effort to make it easier for each unit to develop new projects, faster. On Thursday, Alphabet said it will keep reporting financial results for Google’s business — which includes YouTube, search and maps — as a single group. Other businesses, including its X research lab and device maker Nest, will be reported as a combined group known as “Other Bets.”

Still, even with the company’s outsize ambitions, it all comes back to the tiny video startup Google acquired in 2006 for $1.65 billion.

It doesn’t look like Google will slow its expansion of YouTube anytime soon. The site will be a key part of Google’s virtual-reality efforts. Last year, the company unveiled Google Cardboard, a no-frills kit made of, well, cardboard that turns your smartphone into a VR headset. In May, the company said people would be able to directly watch VR videos on Cardboard through YouTube. All you will need to do is choose the VR function from the YouTube smartphone app.

Google can use YouTube as a place to experiment with video, like trying to make it more interactive or immersive, said Brian Blau, an analyst at Gartner.

“How can Google reinvent video over time?” he said. “That is going to be really powerful for YouTube going forward.”

In the meantime, what are people watching? YouTube lists the top videos of the moment here. Unsurprisingly, No. 1 is the new “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” trailer, which premiered Monday night.

Source: Cnet

Toshiba To Sell Its Image Sensor Business To Sony For About $165 Million

Toshiba Corp is set to sell its image sensor business to Sony Corp for around 20 billion yen ($164.68 million) as part of a restructuring plan laid out earlier this year, sources with knowledge of the deal said on Saturday.

Toshiba, whose businesses range from laptops to nuclear power, is undergoing a restructuring after revelations this year that it overstated earnings by $1.3 billion going back to fiscal 2008/09.
Image sensors, which are used in digital cameras and smartphones, are part of Toshiba’s system LSI semiconductor business. Toshiba plans to sell its image sensor manufacturing plant in Oita, southern Japan, and pull out of the sensor business altogether, said the sources, who declined to be identified.

The sale is likely to be finalised soon, the sources said.

Toshiba is considering several options for its system LSI semiconductor business and its discrete semiconductor business and that debate is ongoing, a Toshiba official said when contacted.

An official from Sony declined to comment.

Masashi Muromachi, who became Toshiba’s CEO following the accounting scandal, has promised to restructure lower-margin businesses.

The deal for the image sensor business would be the beginning of the restructuring, Nikkei reported earlier on Saturday.

Sony is already a dominant player in the image sensor market, with its products used in phones made by China’s Xiaomi and India’s Micromax Informatix Ltd.

Source: jumpfon

Facebook Explains Why iOS App Drain Battery, And Fixed It

Facebook, one of the worst offenders when it comes to battery drain on iOS devices, claims it has fixed the issue in the latest version of its Facebook iOS app, offering an unusually detailed explanation as to why this happened.

According to Facebook engineering manager Ari Grant, the problem was twofold: First, Facebook’s app had something called “CPU spin” in its code.
“A CPU spin is like a child in a car asking, ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’ with the question not resulting in any progress to reaching the destination. This repeated processing causes our app to use more battery than intended,” wrote Grant in a public Facebook post.

Second, as suspected by MacStories‘ Federico Viticci, Facebook’s app managed audio sessions poorly, causing unnecessary battery drain.

“If you leave the Facebook app after watching a video, the audio session sometimes stays open as if the app was playing audio silently. (…) The app isn’t actually doing anything while awake in the background, but it does use more battery simply by being awake,” wrote Grant.

Grant also pointed out that the excessive battery drain had nothing to do with how Facebook manages location, as some users have suspected.

The new version of Facebook’s iOS app, available in Apple’s App Store, should be less of a battery hog for your iPhone. Let us know if this is really the case in the comments.

Source: Mashable

The Audi RS 7 Is One Of The Best Cars In The World

The Audi RS 7 is one of fastest cars with four doors and a trunk that money can buy. This week, Audi introduced the new RS 7 Performance edition, loaded with all kinds of go-fast upgrades.

Earlier this year, Business Insider spent a weekend behind the wheel of Audi's road-going rocket ship and absolutely loved it. Now there's a new and improved RS 7. We haven't been behind the wheel, but it looks even better and faster than before.

When it hits showrooms, the RS 7 Performance will be the top-of-the-line offering in Audi's A7 series.
Look for more information on the car during the 2015 LA Auto Show, set to run November 20 to 29.

Here's a closer look at the new Audi RS 7 Performance.

To create the RS 7, Audi took their stellar A7 four-door coupe and turned up the volume on the power and performance technology.

Audi

Instead of the A7's supercharged V6 engine, the RS 7 has a 4-liter, twin-turbocharged V8 engine shared with Bentley's Continental GT and the Audi S8.

Audi

Although we didn't have ideal driving weather during our test of the standard RS 7, we can confidently say that this thing is fast.

Benjamin Zhang/Business Insider

For the RS 7 Performance, Audi engineers managed to extract 45 more horsepower from the power plant by improving the exhaust manifold and twin turbochargers.

The result is a Performance edition with 605 horsepower — 45 horsepower shy of a Corvette Z06.

Audi

Audi claims the RS 7 Performance is good for a 0-to-62 mph sprint in 3.7 seconds and, if you opt for the "dynamic" package, a top speed of 190 mph.

Audi

But Audi's performance figures are probably a bit on the conservative side. Car and Driver magazine's RS 7 test car made the sprint to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds, while Motor Trend casually hit 192 mph on Germany's no-speed-limit Autobahn highway with the Euro-spec car. In all likelihood, a pro driver on a test track could go north of the 200-mph mark.

Audi

These stats put the latest RS 7 is position to compete against BMW's M6 Gran Coupe and ...

BMW

... the Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG.

Mercedes-Benz

Some may even see the Audi as an internal-combustion foil for the Tesla Model S P90D.

Hollis Johnson

Source: Business insider

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Report: Samsung Will Be Adding A '3D TOUCH' Feature To It's Galaxy Phones Next Year

Samsung is reportedly preparing a feature that is similar to 3D Touch for its Galaxy line of devices releasing in 2016, according to a post written by a credible source known as “I Ice Universe” on Weibo.

Samsung will be using technology created by San Jose, California based human interface Software Company. Last week, Synaptics announced the new generation of its ClearForce touchscreen technology called ClearPad 3700. ClearPad 3700 can distinguish between light taps and harder presses.
ClearPad 3700 enables new dimensions in user interfaces like zooming in/out, unlocking devices, setting up contextual menus, gaming and photo editing simply by applying variable force using a finger or stylus. In a press release, Synaptics said it has been working closely with global manufacturing companies to integrate ClearForce into smartphones that are expected to start shipping in 2016. Synaptics did not specify which manufacturers it partnered with. But it seems likely all of the major Android manufacturers will be included such as Samsung.

“This exciting next step in human interface for smartphones will soon become the norm and highlights Synaptics’ leadership in force,” said Kevin Barber, the senior vice president and general manager of the Smart Display Division at Synaptics, in a statement. “Early adopters of Clear Force include industry leading OEMs and LCMs seeking advanced technology that drives an enhanced and more productive user experienced.”

Even if Samsung integrates a “3D Touch” feature into its future devices, it will not be first Android manufacturer that has done so. Last month, Huawei unveiled a smartphone called the Mate S which has a “smart-pressure sensitive screen.” There are contextual gestures that appear when you apply pressure to the screen of the Mate S such as game controls and photo zooming. Huawei actually announced the pressure-sensitive screen feature for a smartphone before Apple revealed “3D Touch” for the iPhone 6s. But Apple popularized pressure-sensitive technology with the Force Touch feature in the Apple Watch and the new 12-inch MacBook Pro.

Source: Forbes

Will YouTube’s New Subscription Model Work?

YouTube (GOOG) is planning introducing a new subscription service that will feature original content from its stable of homegrown YouTube stars as well as premium content from Hollywood studios. The initiative is part of YouTube’s plan to earn revenues from its massive user base.

Even though it reported $4 billion in revenues last year, YouTube failed to turn a profit. The entry of a number of major entertainment studios and Facebook Inc. (FB) in the online video streaming space has further ratcheted up the pressure on the service to report profits.

But the success of the service, which will reportedly charge $10 from users and is ad free, depends on a number of factors.

Here are two of them:

Will Users Pay?

YouTube has built its reputation on free content. Users and viewers flock to the service to upload videos expressing themselves and, also, to search for their favorite soundtrack or movies. In turn, this made the service the second-biggest search engine in the world and brought in advertising dollars. There is a possibility that locking part of its content behind a paywall may result in a user mutiny.

On the other hand, an industry-wide move towards paid video content makes the chances of that happening fairly low. Besides, YouTube has successfully cobbled together a network of studios, ranging from Time Warner Inc. (TWC) to Comcast Corp’s NBC (CMCSA), to provide content for its new service. This, combined with its own YouTube stars, should ensure programming variety and user stickiness.

Is It A Win-Win Deal?

YouTube launched a similar program back in 2013. The service’s paid subscription pilot program provided funding to independent content creators to launch multi-channel networks (a combination of different YouTube channels related to particular themes) to produce high-quality videos.

But, the initiative failed to take off for a number of reasons including disagreements over revenue sharing. Back then, the service offered a 45% cut from ad revenues to content creators. But creators charged that the amount was far too low to make a viable profit from Youtube’s “content farm.” This time around, the service is offering 55% of subscription revenues to creators. But, major entertainment studios are reportedly miffed at the deal because their production costs are higher in comparison to independent content creators. Whether YouTube can create an equitable mix of free and paid content to make the economics work this time around remains to be seen.

The Bottom Line

The key question here is whether Youtube can successfully make the transition from free content to paid content, which is part of the future wave. If the paid subscription model is a success, it could result in a revenue windfall for Youtube.

Credit Rakesh Sharma (freelance journalist)

See How Google Is Tapping India’s Smartphone Market

China is the world’s largest mobile market and has been the focus of the technology industry in 2015. However, that may soon change. India has a growing demand for smartphones and is expected to surpass the United States in 2017 as the world’s second largest smartphone market.

In response to this increased demand, some of the largest companies in technology and mobile are beginning to shift their focus from China to the growing market in India. Businesses such as Apple have begun making heavy investments in India and have been rewarded with huge increases in sales in the country. Apple invested more in marketing and production in India and was rewarded with a 93% increase in iPhone sales in the third quarter of 2015.

However, Apple only has a 2% share of India’s smartphone market, and it is still an attractive investment for companies looking to grow international sales. Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), for example, is implementing an Android One smartphone project in India, making it the centerpiece of its investment push to capture demand by increasing Internet access and creating new products for the country.

Google’s Investment Strategy in India’s Smartphone Market

Google is investing in India’s smartphone market through the allocation of resources to its Android One program. This program lays out a set of specifications that help manufacturers develop cheap, high-quality smartphones. Android One is one of the most important initiatives that Google is investing in to continue its dominance in emerging markets. Its main focus with Android One is to implement it in countries where customers might otherwise be unable to afford Android-operated smartphones, most notably in India.

Phones made by manufacturers under the Android One standard are priced at around $100 and were introduced to the market in 2014. Google plans to target the cost-conscious part of India’s smartphone market with phones between $30 to $50 to drive mass adoption.

Google will invest in its Android One program and work with manufacturers over the next few years in order to bring high-quality smartphones to the marketplace and drive prices down to the company’s target price. If Google is able to achieve mass adoption of Android devices in India, Android One will be one of its best investments. India’s fast-expanding amount Internet users is expected to surpass 500 million by 2017, and any smartphone company that can gain the most traction within the country will benefit greatly.

Google’s Challenges in India

Google will face challenges in India, even though it provides a great investment opportunity. The country’s market for digital marketing, Google’s main revenue driver, is small. Additionally, flagship products such as YouTube and Google Maps require fast Internet speeds to work on mobile, and they may not work properly in India.

However, these challenges provide another investment opportunity for Google. The company plans to move forward with a large-scale investment program that will bring millions of Indian companies online and develop content suitable for a country that doesn’t speak English as a first language. The program will also create products that work with slow data or Internet connections. This should further drive demand for Internet and smartphone devices.

Google’s Financials

If Google is able to invest in the growth of India’s smartphone market, its revenue will increase. Additionally, smartphone manufacturers take the burden of building and selling the devices, meaning that Google will be able to increase revenue without increases to operating costs or costs of goods sold.

Since Google develops the operating system that runs these smartphones, any Android-operated smartphone sold benefits the company. Any increases in the Android market share of India’s smartphone market will increase profits and cash flow for Google, giving the company the opportunity to pay out more dividends, pay down debt or save more cash on hand for other investments.

Credit: Evan Tarver (business development specialist)

Facebook's Instant Article Finally Rolling Out To Mobile

 Facebook's Instant Article, which brings news stories directly to your News Feed, has finally roll out to mobile phone, starting with its iOS app.

So with it you can catch all the latest news right within the Facebook app on your iPhone and iPad, you might have already been aware of the Instant Article which was launched earlier this year on desktop.

Instant Articles for Android has also launched in public beta alongside ios, with a full roll out scheduled for later this year.


Facebook also announced that the Instant Articles feature has new news partners as well, including the New York Times, NBC News, The Atlantic, MTV, Slate, Cosmopolitan, The Huffington Post and the Washington Post.

They will be joining previously announced partners BBC, Guardian, Buzzfeed and National Geographic.

The social media giant added that it will also be adding a lot more partners as well as time go on, which will including Billboard, CBS News, Cracked, E! News, Fox Sports, Harper's Bazaar, Mashable, NBA, The Onion, Pop Sugar, Rolling Stone, Time, Variety and The Weather Channel.

With Instant Articles coming to the iPhone and iPad this week, Apple's new 'News app' might been facing some competition from Facebook users, considering it'd be easier to get your news reading done while you're on your News Feed checking out what your friends and family are up to rather than opening up a whole different app.

Facebook also has the added benefit of showing you articles from publishers you already follow, or those that are shared by your friends, while Apple needs to seek permission to gather info about the kinds of articles you might be interested.

For Facebook users, Instant Articles will be shown on your News Feed with a lightning bolt next to them and when you tap a story, the social media giant says article will load 10 times faster than a standard mobile web browser, making for a faster and "richer reading experience."

So while it thankfully cuts out the ads you might see on a typical article on your phone, Instant Articles still retains images, the ability to comment, videos and even interactive maps, and you can view all the features of an article by either scrolling, etc.

Video: Switzerland Students Invent Wheelchair For Climbing Stairs

Click above to watch the video:

An electric wheelchair that can climb most stairs, including spiral staircases, has been developed by Zurich-based students.

The Scalevo Wheelchair can mount one stair per second and was designed by 10 students at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) and the Zurich University of the Arts.

When being used on normal flat ground it balances on two wheels like a Segway and allows users to turn on the spot in order to quickly change direction.



Two rubber tracks mounted to the bottom of the chair can be summoned at the press of a button to allow the user to climb stairs.

According to Carlos Gomes, of ETH Zurich, “we have two main wheels, two large wheels to drive around on the flat ground in a balancing mode like a Segway. And then we have two rubber tracks which we can extend to the angle of the stairs and let the wheelchair be always upright on every angle on the stairs.”

Colleague Miro Voellmy said the rubber tracks make the system entirely safe, even if stairs are uneven or cracked. “Tracks are excellent for this use case because they have a very large footprint, which makes it near impossible to tilt, and they are also very smooth so it doesn’t feel like you’re driving up stairs, so it just feels like you’re driving up a ramp because they’re so flat and they adapt to the stair profile. So it doesn’t matter if the stair is wooden or metal or glass, the tracks they grip and there’s no danger of slipping,” said Voellmy.

Scalevo ascends the stairs backwards. When it reaches a set of stairs, the user presses a button to lower the tracks to the ground and its rubber grips hook onto the steps above to propel the chair and its occupant upwards. As it reaches the top a smaller pair of support wheels descend to prevent the wheelchair from toppling over.

By traveling backwards the user can see what is below them, while a small video device similar to those used as reverse parking cameras in cars is fitted on Scalevo’s arm, allowing them to see where they are going.

“The great thing is that everything on this wheelchair is automated,” said Voellmy. “If I want to climb the stairs I can just drive up to them, turn around, press one button and all I have to do is control the velocity I want to drive at. The alignment on the stairs, the leveling of the wheelchair driver, is automated and he can control it, he can view the back with a back facing camera, and have a full, safe, driving experience.”

The designers believe that, if adopted widely, their technology could negate the necessity for access ramps and in-house stair lifts, while wheelchair users could have the option of avoiding out-of-the-way lifts.

“It was built very compact, so it’s not much wider than a classic manual wheelchair and it can still go under tables, you can go through narrow doors and use it indoors without any hassle, so it’s extremely compact in comparison to different wheelchairs and it’s very easy to use,” said Voellmy.

Their prototype was built in ten months and has been subjected to a series of tests. According to Gomes, “we tested the wheelchair on several staircases, even on a spiral staircase, because we can move the tracks independently and all kinds of staircases we are able to drive (on) like from 34 to 17, I think, degrees. And this is almost every stair. You can drive everywhere.”

Previous stair-climbing wheelchairs have failed to make the grade. Six years ago the iBot, devised by Johnson & Johnson product was discontinued, regarded as expensive, and requiring users to have use of at least one arm and some upper body control, according to the Huffington Post.

Scalevo’s makers believe that when it eventually comes to market, their stair-climbing wheelchair will not be much more expensive than traditional wheelchairs.

Scalevo is also taking part in the 2016 Cybathlon, an ETH-organized championship for pilots with disabilities using advanced assistive devices.


Source: Reuters

Ghanaian Actor John Dumelo To Launch New Game App

The popular movie star John Dumelo is set to unveil a new mobile game application that will run on  any android and Apple (iOS) phones.

The game is named ‘Aya’ centres on the main character, John Dumelo, trying to rescue a loved one who has been captured by an evil villain.



These game will be officially launched in April 2016 and it has several scenes from several parts of Accra, Nigeria and other parts of Africa.

According to the 31-year–old actor, who was speaking in an interview with Hitz, said it took him a lot of time and effort to develop the game.

He added that “It’s taken a lot of time to build this game which will be released in April next year,”.
He said ‘Aya’, which is a female name, is for both young and old. Is just for girl and kids alone but for adults too,” he explained.

“It now time that we do other stuff of things that can also bring us money,” the award winning actor added.

Facebook Has Bans Daily Phrase – No One Knows Why

 On Sunday, a Redditor named “System_Requirements” made a mysterious discovery: If you try to post “everyone will know” on someone else’s Facebook page, the system would block you indefinitely.

Conspiracy theories ran rampant: Maybe “everyone will know” means something insidious. Maybe Facebook is scheming to shape the global dialogue. Or maybe (read: definitely) that particular phrase just happened to get snagged in Facebook’s spam filter — which is its own sort of Internet puzzle.



For starters, Facebook doesn’t just block malware, phishing or other explicit forms of spam: Its researchers have defined spam, broadly, as any communication that the recipient doesn’t want to get. (“Different cultures have different social norms around communication,” an in-house team wrote in a 2010 paper. “Acceptable behavior in one region may be interpreted as unwanted contact in another. This makes a uniform definition of spam difficult.”)

For another thing, we have next to no idea how that blocking mechanism works: Like Google, Twitter and a host of other major tech companies, Facebook doesn’t share the details of its spam filter out of fear they’ll be abused.


What we do know is vague and impenetrable. That same 2010 paper, titled “Facebook Immune System,” outlines an overlapping complex of machine-learning algorithms, analyzing dozens of factors across millions of pages. The number of URLs in a message can signal the spam filter, for instance, as can the number of liked pages in common between a requester and his would-be friend. Other purported factors include the number of messages you send, the percentage of people who accept your friend requests, the length of your comments, the length of that particular comment thread, and who else has or is commenting on it.

Put those two things together — the semi-arbitrary blocking and the vagueness of the process — and you end up with an opaque system that selectively regulates the speech of millions of people. It’s no wonder that the spam filter has repeatedly been accused (unfairly!) of having nefarious motives: of silencing the critics of Roman Polanski, for instance, or censoring the tech blogger Robert Scoble. Or, for no immediately apparent reason, blocking the phrase “everyone will know.”

So why did Facebook block “everyone will know”? A company spokesperson told the Huffington Post that it was “a mistake with our spam filter” which has since been repaired. Maybe the phrase appeared on some kind of suspicious-word list, or maybe there was a cross in Facebook’s various spam-fighting layers.

There’s another possibility, however: Presumably, one of the many factors that Facebook’s spam algorithm weighs is unexpected spikes in the frequency of words. When our Reddit friend “System_Requirements” accused Facebook of blocking “everyone will know” in a highly upvoted post, a flood of Redditors rushed to test it.

So merely because it was called spam, “everyone will know” became spam for real. That may be the closest we get to a “universal definition” of the Internet’s least-loved kind of speech.

Microsoft Launches Windows Laptop And Show Off Two New Phone

Microsoft has launched a laptop dubbed the Surface Book, as part of a suite of new Windows 10 products.
It also showed off two new smartphones, an updated Surface tablet and a new fitness band.

Much is riding on the launches as chief executive Satya Nadella sets out to prove Microsoft can compete with its rivals.
Analysts said the new laptop may help revive the ailing PC market.



The laptop, Microsoft’s first, was the highlight of a tranche of new products shown off at an event in New York.

It is designed to take on Apple’s Macbook, with Microsoft directly comparing the products.

It said that, just as its Surface tablet was a hybrid between a tablet and a laptop, so the Surface Book would “reinvent categories”.
Analysts seemed impressed.

“It is a highly innovative, flagship device that will act as a much-needed halo product for Windows 10 and the broader PC market and proves that innovation in personal computing is not just confined to Apple’s Cupertino campus,” said Ben Wood, head of research at CCS Insight.

The device, which weighs 1.6lbs (0.7 kilograms) and is 7.7mm thick, comes with a touchscreen that can be separated from the keyboard. It will be available at the end of October for $1,499 (£984).

Microsoft also showed off two new smartphones – the 5.2in Lumia 950 ($549) and the slightly larger Lumia 950 XL ($649) both of which will be available in November.

Features include a 20 megapixel camera, a dedicated camera button, the ability to capture 4K video and 32 gigabytes of storage.

A cheaper Lumia 550 will be available in December, priced $139.
Mr Wood said Microsoft still had a “mountain to climb” to regain relevance in the smartphone market.

“These new Lumia devices tick all the boxes in terms of specifications and features but they are unlikely to be enough to lure customers away from the iPhone or Android-powered rivals,” he said.

Microsoft has found success with its Surface tablets
Microsoft also showed off its much-anticipated upgraded tablet – the Surface Pro 4 which will be released at the en of October, priced at $899.

It is thinner, with new screen technology, a more ergonomic keyboard cover and various other upgrades.
Mr Wood described it as “an impressive update”.

Microsoft showed off its new fitness device, Band 2
Also on show was an updated fitness band, dubbed Band 2.

The wearable comes with a improved curved design and 11 sensors including a barometer to track elevation. It is linked to virtual assistant Cortana and the Microsoft Health platform, which will provide users with feedback on their fitness.

It will aggregate anonymised data from Band owners so that users can compare their performance with people of a similar age, weight and fitness.

Priced at $249, it will be available at the end of October.
Mr Wood said that the band showed that Microsoft remained “committed to the wearables category” but that the device was more “functional than fashionable”.

Microsoft showed off a mixed reality game for its VR headset HoloLens
Microsoft also revealed that it would be making a version of its virtual reality headset, HoloLens available to developers at the beginning of next year at a price of $3,000.

It demonstrated a game that has been developed internally, codenamed Project X-ray, which it dubbed “mixed reality gaming”.

The game featured a robot invasion that can be “customised to your living room”.

Microsoft wants to unite all its hardware under the Windows 10 umbrella
Windows 10 began rolling out 10 weeks ago and is, according to Microsoft’s vice president Terry Myerson, now running on 110 million devices.

“With the future of Microsoft and its new subscription-based business model depending heavily on Windows 10, Microsoft must be encouraged by how many devices have been updated so far,” said Mr Wood.

“Windows 10 also seems to be getting a far more positive reception from consumers than the ill-fated Windows 8. The challenge now is to build on this positive momentum, particularly in the area of apps where Microsoft has a huge gap versus rivals.”