Expensify says receipts found on Amazon Turk were from testing a new feature

Expensify is a popular app that helps employees quickly submit reports for business-related expenses. Expensify’s standout feature is its SmartScan OCR, or optical character recognition, technology. The feature saves data-entry time by scanning your receipt, verifying that the expense is compliant with your employer’s rules, and then organizing it into an expense report — all automatically. When the technology fails, however, Expensify says it has a team of secure technicians to intervene behind the scenes. But Twitter users grew concerned after the discovery of several Expensify receipts on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service last week.

Mechanical Turk is a crowdsourcing marketplace where anyone can post tasks that need completing for small sums of money. Twitter user Rochelle found receipts hosted on Expensify.com that were visible on the platform, complete with details about names, dates, addresses, and signatures. One receipt apparently showed Uber pickup and drop-off locations. 

In a blog post, the company says those receipts were part of testing its new Private SmartScan feature that allow companies to staff their own team of Mechanical Turk transcribers. Expensify said that it started live testing the system on September 20th, with the initial testing only using Expensify employee receipts. On November 15th, the company began processing 10 percent of non-paying user receipts that require human review on Turk, but access was still limited to its own SmartScan agents. It then opened up access to the receipts to all vetted Turk workers on November 22nd. A day later, after Twitter users voiced their concern, the company stopped the test and returned all the receipts to private SmartScan agents.

“The only users who can access receipts are the Mechanical Turk workers. The only way to access the worker interface (to view receipts) is to be a worker,” Expensify CEO David Barrett said in an interview with The Verge. Turk workers are thoroughly vetted by Amazon, and Barrett says during the 24 hours, hundreds of receipts from three users were open to all of the Turk workers, compared to the routine millions it usually handles.

Expensify says Private SmartScan will allow companies to have better control over who views the receipts processed. The Private SmartScan feature is in early stages of testing though and it won’t be available until sometime next year, and only to customers on the company’s Enterprise Plan. The discovery caused some Expensify users to disable the SmartScan feature in the app, making the expense report service much less useful. “We take our privacy very seriously as a financial company, privacy is an extremely important thing, and so security and privacy are the bedrock of our company,” Barrett said.

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Instagram now lets you vandalize your friends’ photos with custom text and doodles

In a bid to encourage more users to privately message one another, Instagram today announced a new feature it’s calling “remixing.” The process involves editing a friend’s photo sent to you via direct message with stickers and custom text and doodles, and then sending it back to them within another photo of yourself. 

That way, you can make it seem like your friend’s selfie is part of your own staged scene, giving your friend free rein to make you look as goofy or compromised as possible. You can also control how many times the message can be viewed by your friends by choosing between “one view” or “allow replay” options when sending. The update is live now, Instagram says.

If that sounds confusing, that’s because it is. But visually, you can see what the app maker is going for here:

You can probably already see all the playful chaos you can cause with such a feature when applied with a more adult-themed mindset. I mean, we live in a world where a US Navy pilot drew a giant penis using the exhaust clouds of his aircraft this month. I shudder to think of the kind of vandalism close friends may be willing to subject one another to in the privacy of their Instagram DM chats.

Still, perhaps I’m expecting the worst out of what may amount to a relatively harmless feature. Maybe people will really draw goofy neon light sunglasses on their friends’ faces, or share their colorful, tropical-themed drinks and never pull pranks on each other using unfettered access to doodling tools and a perfectly innocent photograph. What a world that would be. 

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Google has learned the proper way to make a cheeseburger in Android 8.1

Google CEO Sundar Pichai promised to look into the great cheeseburger emoji debate, and he's made good on his word. Apparently Android 8.1 ships with a new and improved cheeseburger emoji in which the cheese is placed atop the patty, as opposed to underneath it. Emojipedia first spotted the fix. 

Google previously pictured the cheese at the bottom of the sandwich, which we can all agree is incorrect. But it wasn't until someone named Thomas Baekdal called the emoji out in October that the world woke up to this extremely incorrect cheeseburger depiction.

Although Google has now realized the proper way to make a cheeseburger, the company did also create its emoji IRL. It served an "Android Burger" to employees earlier this month with the cheese melted onto the bottom bun. I don't know how it tasted.

There are still some slight variations in emoji cheeseburgers. Samsung, for example, layers the sandwich as tomato, cheese, lettuce, and then the patty, whereas Apple depicts its emoji as having tomato, cheese, patty, and then lettuce. Google seems to be on the right track here with its lettuce on top. This is proper. This is how we make a cheeseburger, and I'm thrilled Google has learned.

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Grindr is updating its app to be more gender-inclusive

Grindr announced new updates today to its gay dating app on iOS and Android that are designed to make its social network feel more inclusive of transgender users. The app will now include more gender-neutral terms, and it’s getting an identity section on user profiles that includes options for gender and pronouns. Importantly, users can also write in their gender identity if it’s not on the list and specify pronouns that also might not be listed. Additionally, gender-neutral language is used across the app, and there’s now an FAQ explaining trans issues.

Gender options listed include “trans man,” “woman,” “cis man,” “non-binary,” “non-conforming,” and “queer.” The options are meant to make it easier for users to express their identities without having to constantly explain and answer other users’ questions. 

The changes come as a direct result of Grindr conducting a survey with thousands of existing users of the app who are transgender. Transgender users gave feedback to app developers saying that their non-trans peers didn’t know how to speak respectfully about transgender issues.

“We created written resources linked from the gender identity fields in the profile to answer cis users’ questions and decrease that burden on trans people,” Grindr director of equality Jack Harrison-Quintana said in an emailed statement.

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Microsoft’s photos app for iOS and Android will quickly transfer pictures to a PC

Microsoft is planning to release a photos companion app for iOS and Android devices, to quickly transfer pictures to a PC. The app will be available soon for Windows 10 testers, and it will support the quick transfer of photos or videos from phones to PCs on the same Wi-Fi network. Microsoft already offers a similar service through its OneDrive app, which will upload photos in the background on a phone and import them into the Photos app in Windows 10. This new app is designed for most people who don’t already backup their photos to OneDrive.

Italian blog Aggiornamenti Lumia spotted the new companion app, and reports that the Photos app in Windows 10 will also see some improvements, soon. Microsoft is rolling out premium content, including special effects, themes, and music to use in photos and videos. The software giant also appears to be working on stickers for photo stories, which include effects like hats, cars, dinosaurs, and text overlays. All of these features are currently in testing, and are expected to be made available to Windows Insiders in the coming months.

Microsoft has been focusing on a number of experiences between phones and PCs over the past year. After giving up on Windows Phone, Microsoft’s new mobile strategy is to make iOS and Android better. Microsoft is bringing tabs to every app in Windows 10 that will eventually sync to mobile phones, and a Timeline experience that lets you resume activities across devices. Microsoft’s Edge browser is even coming to iOS and Android, as the company continues to make its software and services available across all devices.

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Moleskine's Smart Writing Set digitizes your notes for Windows 10

 

Moleskine introduced its Smart Writing Set last year, which let users jot down their notes in a specially textured Moleskine notebook and transfer them to an iOS and Android app. Now the company is collaborating with Microsoft to bring the Moleskine Notes app directly to Windows 10, so you can see your notes in real-time on your Surface device. The app is free, but the Paper Tablet notebook and Pen+ will cost you $199. Replacement Smart Planners cost $29.90.

In addition to the transcribing your handwritten notes and sharing them to iCloud, Google Drive, Evernote, and Adobe, the Windows 10 Notes app brings a few new features. You can also draw images and charts that can be copied into PowerPoint, OneNote and Word, making it easy to create presentations and save all your frenzied brainstorm doodles. There’s also a new “Collaborative Ideation” feature, which lets you and up to six of your richest friends connect your smart pens together and actively participate in projects. Fun!

 

Plenty of companies have their own analog-to-digital smart pen and notebook systems, from Livescribe’s line of smart pens, which debuted in 2012, to Montblanc’s digital notebook wrapped in Italian leather. These products have all forced users to dig through their notes within their own poorly-designed apps though, which is why Moleskine’s Notes app for Windows 10 makes a little bit more sense. Still, if you have a Surface device, wouldn’t it be easier to just write directly on it with the Surface Pen? Maybe if you’re worried about distraction, today’s research that laptops are terrible for students at lectures will give you the push to start reconsidering pen and paper.

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Google updates Docs, Slides, and Sheets for iPhone X and iOS 11

Google has updated its trio of office apps — Docs, Slides, and Sheets — for the iPhone X and iOS 11 today, via MacStories. The updates add support for the larger display of Apple’s latest phone as well as for iOS 11’s drag and drop functions on the iPad.

It’s good to see Google playing nice with Apple and supporting the features of the Cupertino company’s latest hardware and software, especially given that unlike Apple’s own word processing, slide show, and spreadsheet apps (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, in case you’ve forgotten), people actually use Google Docs. 

Now, if Google can see fit to finally release Gmail and Google Maps updates for the iPhone X, we’ll be all set. 

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Google releases final Android 8.1 beta with support for Pixel 2’s hidden imaging chip

Google has released the final preview build of Android 8.1, a small update to Android Oreo due out next month. There isn’t a ton of new stuff in 8.1, but there is one big update coming for Pixel 2 owners: support for the phone’s “Visual Core,” an imaging chip Google included but wasn’t ready to activate at launch.

The chip has been sitting dormant, but as of today, developers can start to try it out. The Visual Core is enabled in the final 8.1 preview, allowing camera apps that use the correct API to capture shots using Google’s HDR+ and to do so using the dedicating imaging chip, which should speed things up.

You can download Android 8.1 right away by signing up for Google’s beta program, though we wouldn’t recommend doing it on any device you rely on day to day (I’ve gotten stuck with some frustrating bugs — and once you’re in the beta, you have to wipe your phone to get out of it). But if developers start playing around with Google’s imaging chip this month, there should be apps ready to take advantage of it when 8.1 is released widely in December.

The Visual Core is the first processor Google has designed for a consumer device. The chip is a dedicated image processor, so when it’s enabled, it should allow the phone to shoot photos quicker than it does today. The phone is already pretty fast, so the bigger news may be that other apps will be able to take advantage of it, letting third parties get the benefits of Google’s clean HDR+ images.

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Apple capitalizes on the Animoji karaoke fad in its latest ad

Apple just released its own Animoji karaoke video today, weeks after Twitter users uploaded their own versions by combining the Animoji feature on the iPhone X with their favorite songs.

Apple did briefly hint at Animoji karaoke in its iPhone X launch video in September, where at 0:30 into the video, a monkey lip syncs the words, “Do you want to meet me on the floor?” However, the trend picked up on Twitter in November when Fast Company tech editor Harry McCracken tweeted a fox Animoji version of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Others were quick to add their own songs to the mix, with a variety of currently available Animoji figures.

Apple’s YouTube video today is just a little more cringey than the Twitter clips that iPhone X users made. Each Animoji leers at you at the start of the video, grinning ear to ear and swinging their heads back and forth. Models dressed in matching colors alongside their Animojis to Big Boi’s “All Night” also add to overly intentional factor. It’s hilarious and notable to see Apple taking notes from Twitter trends and uses of its products, even if the ad appears almost too self aware.

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Samsung may fix the Chromebook Pro's biggest problem with a backlit keyboard

 

For the most part, the Chromebook Pro has what you’d expect from premium Chromebook hardware. Samsung’s machine has a fantastic screen, high-end design, and it runs fast. But there’s one seemingly obvious feature missing from device: a backlit keyboard. It’s a strange omission, especially considering the Pro’s relatively high asking price, but it’s one that may be remedied in future iterations of the hardware. Chrome Unboxed has discovered details that point at the addition, though it’s unclear what form it might take. It may be added as part of a second run of the current hardware, or a feature included in a rumored beefed-up version of the Chromebook Pro. While it’s not official yet, the change would make the Pro a much more enticing option in the increasingly crowded Chromebook landscape.

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Amazon’s Black Friday deals have big discounts on Echo devices and TV sales

 

‘Tis the season for Black Friday deal announcements, and Amazon is finally lifting the curtain for a sneak peek at some of its Black Friday sales. While Amazon will have many, many more deals than what we’ve got here, the company is kicking things off with some details on a few discounts, which will begin on November 17th and run through Black Friday on November 24th. 

As a note, Amazon’s deals are on a rolling basis — meaning that various deals will go live at different points throughout that window of time, and there’s no great way of knowing when a deal should go live. We’ll do our best to keep this page updated with deals as they come in, so stay tuned. The full chaos of Amazon’s Black Friday deals can be found on the company’s dedicated Black Friday hub here.

In addition to these deals, Amazon has a few other opportunities for customers on the hunt for the best bargains. The company will be offering an exclusive early deal period starting at 8PM ET on November 22nd for people using voice shopping through an Alexa device. 

And if in-person shopping is more your cup of tea, the Amazon-owned Whole Foods is featuring sales on Amazon hardware, too. 

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Unfortunately, this Steve Jobs figurine may not ship in time for the holidays

 

Everyone has that Apple fanatic on their holiday gift list — but what to buy for the Apple fan who already has everything? I wish I could say the answer was this one-foot tall Steve Jobs figurine from Dam Toys, which comes with 10 different accessories and three pairs of interchangeable hands. Yes, three pairs of hands: one pair of “open hands” and two pairs of the “relaxed hands” that Jobs was so famous for.

Using this figurine, you could recreate great moments in Apple keynote history, like Jobs scrolling through the first iPad, or Jobs posing with an Apple he has taken exactly one bite out of. The set also comes with a miniature version of the very first MacBook Air, though you’ll need to construct your own miniature manilla envelope in order to truly recreate the keynote moment.

Honestly, the attention to detail here is quite good. Just look at the texture on that chair:

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

 

The figurine seems to have been announced a week or so ago, but tragically for holiday shoppers, there’s no guarantee it’ll be shipping soon. One retailer is taking pre-orders (for $193) through December 14th and has the shipping date listed as “TBA.” Even if it does ship on the 14th, that’s too close for comfort. And since this older Steve Jobs model with swappable hands is no longer on sale, it seems like you’ll just have to wait until next year.

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Hackers stole information from 1.7 million Imgur accounts in 2014

If you were an Imgur user in 2014, you might want to consider changing your password. Yesterday, the photo-sharing site revealed (via Engadget) that it learned of a security breach in 2014 that compromised the e-mail addresses and passwords of approximately 1.7 million users. 

Imgur’s Chief Operating Officer, Roy Sehgal, confirmed that the breach occurred in 2014. Sehgal explains that Imgur doesn’t collect names, addresses, or phone numbers from its users, and that only user e-mails and password information was leaked. According to ZDNet, Troy Hunt, who runs the notification service Have I Been Pwned, obtained the data, and turned over the information to Imgur. 

The company says that it’s still investigating the incident, but that it believes that hackers cracked the older algorithm that was used at the time with brute force. The company upgraded its encryption in 2016. 

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You will soon be able to listen to Amazon Music through your Samsung Smart TV

 

Recently, Samsung has been rolling out new features to its lineup of Smart TVs, such support for YouTube TV. Yesterday, the company announced (via Engadget) that owners can soon listen to Amazon Music through their Smart TVs, the first third-party device to connect to the service.

The company says that users will be able to browse their libraries, playlists and access recommendations and stations through the system. The service will also be accessible through other Samsung audio products, such as soundbars and wireless speakers. 

While users can listen to streaming services such as Spotify through Samsung’s SmartTVs, this might be appealing alternative to Prime users who own a Samsung TV, but who don’t have an Amazon Echo or Echo Dot in their home. The company didn’t say exactly when users will be able to begin listening, saying only that it will be “available starting this month.” The functionality is limited to models from 2015 and newer

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People driving while playing Pokémon Go caused millions in damages in 148 days

 

For a brief, shining period last summer, Pokémon Go reigned supreme. It brought obsession, joy, and, according to a new paper, injuries and death. 

This working paper, appropriately and evocatively titled “Death by Pokemon Go,” shows the darker side of the massively popular augmented reality game. Purdue University economists Mara Faccio and John McConnell combed through accident reports from Tippecanoe County, Indiana, in the first 148 days after the game was released in July 2016. In that county alone, the total value from injuries, damage, and the two lives lost is between $5.2 million and $25.5 million. If you scale this to cover the entire US, it would suggest that $2 billion to $7.3 billion were lost just in those few months.

The reports showed during those 148 days, 286 additional crashes occurred in the county, compared to the same period before. Of these, 134 were near pokéstops. In this scenario, it’s crucial to determine that Pokémon Go caused these damages directly, as opposed to just causing people to be outside more, thus more likely to be hit by cars.

To understand how they figured this out, it’s important to remember that in the world of Pokémon Go, there are pokéstops and there are gyms. Pokéstops are where you can get more pokéballs and pick up supplies; gyms are where you battle. You’re supposed to walk around to hit all these spots, but plenty of people cheated by driving to the various stops, then hopping out of the car and picking up some supplies or going for a quick battle. To prevent idiots from doing this, the makers of Pokémon Go made it hard to play the game while moving at a high speed. If you’re going too fast, you just can’t battle at a gym. But this wasn’t the case for all pokéstops.

By looking at the numbers, the economists realized that the number of crashes was much higher near pokéstops than gyms, suggesting that the crashes really were caused by people hopping out of cars while playing the game. The increased number of deaths wasn’t just because more people were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pokémon Go was actually causing people to be stupid. Come on, folks. Catching ‘em all isn’t worth this.

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This $799 water monitor tracks how long you've been in the shower

 

A new company named Buoy Labs is trying to make it easy for homeowners to monitor and cut down on their water usage. The company is releasing its debut product today, a big buoy-shaped device named Buoy, that attaches to a home’s water line and measures how much water is going through it. Using that data, Buoy can tell homeowners how much water they’re using for showers, doing dishes, cleaning laundry, and flushing toilets. It can also tell if there’s a leak.

Keri Waters, Buoy’s co-founder and CEO, lives in Santa Cruz, California, and became interested in finding ways to reduce water usage a little over two years ago, while her city and state were requiring homeowners to lessen their usage amid an ongoing drought. The drought in California, Waters says, “is a canary in the coal mine of what's coming for the whole country.”

So Waters and what’s become a team of 17 people came together to build Buoy, a device that’s meant to make cutting down your water usage a bit easier. Waters says that most people assume cutting down on water usage means taking shorter showers, but homeowners can also cut down by fixing invisible leaks or using efficient appliances, like a dishwasher, instead of doing dishes by hand with a running faucet. The EPA, Waters points out, also says that 10 percent of homes have wasteful leaks and that correcting them could cut down their water usage by 10 percent. For homes that can identify and fix a leak, it could be a big gain toward mandatory water reductions targeted at 20 percent or more.

 

To do all this, Buoy watches the rate at which water flows through your home’s pipes, then using a Wi-Fi connection, uploads it to the company’s servers, which use machine learning to categorize water usage. Based on flow rate, it’s supposed to be able to automatically pick apart showers, running faucets, flushed toilets, and so on. It’s even supposed to be able to tell when multiple things are being use simultaneously — say, when one person is showering and another person flushes a toilet, because it’ll identify the spike in water usage and separate it out.

In a companion app, Buoy will then be able to show a home’s water usage throughout the day and overall water usage by category. It’ll also be able to tell if there’s a leak and in certain cases even identify what the problem is. Beyond that, it’ll still be up to homeowners to figure out exactly how they want to cut down on their water usage, but getting a clear picture of what they’re currently using might make it easier to figure out the best course forward.

Buoy also offers a handful of other smart features. It can send notifications about water usage and, more importantly, about leaks. And it’ll also allow homeowners to shut off their water line in the event that it detects a leak. That could make the device useful not just for homeowners trying to reduce their daily usage, but also for people who own properties they don’t live in year round, as it could potentially stop leaks from leading to water damage.

 

Waters’ company isn’t the first to come up with a device like this. Over the past few years, several other companies have put out (or tried to put out) smart water monitors that connect to apps, to help people get a sense of their water usage. But those haven’t automatically characterized water usage the way that Buoy does (or they never managed to ship).

Buoy Labs, on the other hand, begins shipping its debut product today. The Buoy sells for $799 — much more expensive than other water monitors — and includes installation by a plumber. That price includes lifetime usage of Buoy’s current app features, meaning you won’t need to pay for an additional subscription. Waters says the device should be compatible with any single-family home and newer multi-family buildings — anywhere the water line is divided up per residential unit.

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Moment now sells official counterweights for the DJI Osmo to balance out its lenses

Using DJI’s Osmo stabilizer with Moment’s modular system to attach better lenses to your smartphone seems like it would be a match made in heaven — except for one small problem. The weight of the Moment lenses combined with Apple’s larger phones, like the 6 Plus and 7 Plus are too heavy for the Osmo to work properly. And even with smaller models, like the iPhone 7 or iPhone X, the Osmo’s motors have to work harder to keep things leveled out, which in turn drains the battery faster. 

Fortunately, Moment has a solution in the form of some official counterweights that are made out of stainless steel and designed to perfectly counterbalance the extra weight of Moment’s lenses on the Osmo. Moment is making two sizes for the counterweight: a 50g option for smaller phones like the iPhone 6, 7, 8, X, the Google Pixel, and Galaxy S8, and a heavier 100g size for bigger devices like the iPhone 7 Plus and 8 Plus, Pixel 2 XL, and Galaxy S8 Plus.

It’s not Moment’s first crack at fixing this issue. Earlier this year, the company posted a DIY solution to the problem, showing users how to manually stick 45 to 55 grams of metal to one side of the the Osmo to balance out the extra weight from the combined Plus-size iPhones and the Moment lenses. Obviously, sticking a chunk of metal to the side of your Osmo with double-sided tape isn’t really a great long-term solution, so it’s nice to see Moment stepping up to the plate with a more polished fix.

The counterweights aren’t cheap, however: Moment is charging $39.99 for each, which is definitely more expensive than taping a stack of quarters to your Osmo. But if you’re looking for a simple, long-term fix, it might be worth it. The official Moment counterweights are available for preorder now at a discounted price of $31.99, and are expected to ship around December 11th.

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Google Lens will launch within Assistant on all Pixel phones in the coming weeks

 

Google is bringing its artificial intelligence-powered Lens tool to all Pixel and Pixel 2 phones in the coming weeks as part of an update to Google Assistant, the company announced today in a blog post. Lens, which was first unveiled back in May at the company’s I/O developer conference, is an computer vision system that lets you point your Pixel or Pixel 2 camera at an object and get information about it in real time, as the AI-powered algorithm is capable of recognizing real-world items. 

Lens was first made available within Google Photos last month as part of the Pixel 2 launch, and now Google says Lens will soon arrive as a built-in feature of Google Assistant starting in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, India, and Singapore “in the coming weeks,” the blog post reads.

Right now, Lens won’t be able to identify everything around you. Google says it’s best used on simple items to start. It can identify text, for when you want to save information from business cards, save a URL from a poster or flier, call a phone number written down on paper, or open Google Maps with directions to a written address. Lens can also identify notable landmarks and can pull up information websites and media for art, books, and movies by pointing the camera at film posters, book covers, and museum installations. 

Lens also works as a more efficient barcode and QR code scanner. Down the line, Google says Lens will only improve as it learns more about our surroundings and becomes more adept at identifying people, objects, and any manner of other things in the real world. 

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Casio's rugged action camera looks like a G-Shock with a lens

In the latest case of a product to be filed under “of course this exists,” Casio has announced a rugged action camera heavily influenced by its iconic G-Shock brand. Though the G'z Eye GZE-1 takes its name from Casio's line of sturdy smartphones, its design comes straight from the company's tough watches. 

The GZE-1 isn't the most capable action camera in the world — it shoots 1080p at 30fps, 480p at 120fps, and 6-megapixel photos — but with 50 meters (164 feet) of waterproofing and 4 meters (13 feet) of shockproofing, it's one of the toughest. At 190.8 degrees, the f/2.8 lens is also wider than those of most action cameras. And if you happen to have Casio's latest Pro Trek Android Wear watch, you can use it as a viewfinder; in the likely event that you don't, there'll be a G'z Eye app for your phone.

Casio hasn't announced a global release date or pricing for the GZE-1 just yet, but it costs 46,000 yen in Japan, so you should probably expect the US price to be set at around $400.

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Google Lens will launch within Assistant on all Pixel phones in the coming weeks

 

Google is bringing its artificial intelligence-powered Lens tool to all Pixel and Pixel 2 phones in the coming weeks as part of an update to Google Assistant, the company announced today in a blog post. Lens, which was first unveiled back in May at the company’s I/O developer conference, is an computer vision system that lets you point your Pixel or Pixel 2 camera at an object and get information about it in real time, as the AI-powered algorithm is capable of recognizing real-world items. 

Lens was first made available within Google Photos last month as part of the Pixel 2 launch, and now Google says Lens will soon arrive as a built-in feature of Google Assistant starting in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, India, and Singapore “in the coming weeks,” the blog post reads.

Right now, Lens won’t be able to identify everything around you. Google says it’s best used on simple items to start. It can identify text, for when you want to save information from business cards, save a URL from a poster or flier, call a phone number written down on paper, or open Google Maps with directions to a written address. Lens can also identify notable landmarks and can pull up information websites and media for art, books, and movies by pointing the camera at film posters, book covers, and museum installations. 

Lens also works as a more efficient barcode and QR code scanner. Down the line, Google says Lens will only improve as it learns more about our surroundings and becomes more adept at identifying people, objects, and any manner of other things in the real world. 

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Google’s top search results promote offensive content, again

Google’s search algorithms have been haphazard for a long time, but over the past year we’ve seen a number of incidents where top results are spreading wildly inaccurate and offensive material. The latest has Google highlighting an offensive meme from the sjwhate subreddit as part of its search result for the “gender fluid” query. The offensive image is the first thing you see for the term, alongside a Wikipedia entry.

The slip-up comes just a month after Google briefly gave its “top stories” stamp of approval to two 4chan threads identifying the wrong suspect in the recent Las Vegas mass shooting tragedy. This latest search result problem appears to be related to the company’s snippet feature. Featured snippets are designed to answer queries instantly, and they’ve often provided bad answers in the past. Google’s Home device, for example, used a featured snippet to answer the question “are women evil?” with the horrendously bad answer “every woman has some degree of prostitute in her.”

 

So why does this keep happening? As my colleague Adi Robertson points out, Google’s original PageRank algorithm was built to deliver the most popular and influential results for any search query regardless of accuracy. The algorithm has developed into providing instant results, and we’ve seen those algorithms manipulated by third parties or duped by inaccurate sources. 

The dominance and popularity of Google means people use the company’s name as a transitive verb to define information searches. And with little competition, Google becomes the de facto source for all the answers we seek. People trust Google more than most tech companies, as highlighted in a recent Verge survey, thereby giving its search results and featured snippets an enhanced sense of authority. 

While Facebook understandably receives a lot of attention for the “fake news” epidemic, Google’s search results are a big part of this problem. Google has an important role to play in managing its own platform and internet search results correctly, and over the past year its shown it has a lot of work to do. We’ve reached out to Google for comment on this recent search result mishap, and we’ll update you accordingly.

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The Sonos One is already going on sale for $175 on Black Friday

  

The Sonos One may have only come out a few weeks ago, but Sonos is already putting its latest speaker on sale for $25 off, bringing the price down to $175 on Sonos’ website. 

The Sonos One is Sonos’ first speaker with integrated smart assistants (Alexa for now, but Google Assistant support is promised for 2018), and this discount is the first time Sonos has offered a price cut on it. Given how rare Sonos hardware sales are, the fact that the company is offering any sort of discount this early in the product’s life cycle is pretty unusual. 

Along with the Sonos One, there are also a bunch of sales on other members of the Sonos lineup, too, which are definitely worth taking a look at if you’re interested in building out your Sonos setup.

• Sonos Playbase for $599 (usually $699)
• Sonos Play:1 for $149 (usually $199)
• Sonos Playbar for $599 (usually $699)
• Sonos Play:3 for $249 (usually $299)

These deals go live on November 23rd at midnight local time in the US and Canada. The deals on the Sonos One, Playbase, and Playbar will run through November 27th, while the Play:1 and Play:3 deals are set to run “all season” while supplies last. 

The Article was Published on : TheVerge

GE launches $50 hub to connect its Bluetooth smart lights to Alexa and Google Assistant

 

GE’s been making some really simple and accessible smart lights called C by GE for the past two years, and today, the company is announcing its first big upgrade to the system. It’s a hub, called the C-Reach, that connects C by GE lights to Wi-Fi so that they can be controlled by Alexa or the Google Assistant.

The device costs $50 on its own, but GE will also sell it bundled with pairs of bulbs at a discount — $65 for two “Life” bulbs (which have a single color option) and $85 for two “Sleep” bulbs (which have three color options).

The C-Reach hub is a useful addition to the product line that starts to make it a lot more capable — if also a lot more expensive. The strength of C by GE bulbs has always been that they’re really easy to get started with, since they rely on Bluetooth and connect directly to a phone, meaning there’s no need for a hub. The downside has been that they were pretty limited beyond that. Because they only use Bluetooth, you can’t control them remotely or set up complicated routines very easily, since the bulbs don’t connect to much else.

GE is solving that problem with the C-Reach hub, though it’s also taking away the line’s great strength. In paying to add these features to the C bulbs, everything gets pricey and complicated enough that the C system doesn’t really seem worth investing in. For little more than those prices, you can buy into Philips’ much more flexible Hue smart lighting system, which even offers cheaper bulbs.

On top of that, GE promised that this hub would support Apple’s HomeKit system, but as of now, it doesn’t. That means this product is only a worthwhile buy if you also have an Amazon Echo or a Google Home. GE also said the product would sell for below $50. It does, but by only a penny.

Basically, this hub is probably only worth getting if you already own some C by GE bulbs. And even then, you may want to consider putting that money toward a more robust smart light system if you like them enough to know you want more features.

GE is running some sales on all of its C lighting line for Black Friday, making things a bit cheaper if you buy right away. The two bulb and a hub starter kits will sell for $50 and $65, instead of $65 and $85. And GE’s Sol lamp will go on sale for $100 on its own or bundled with four C bulbs for $120.

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Honor’s 7X looks to offer reduced bezels at a reduced price

Huawei’s Honor sub-brand has announced its newest midrange device, the Honor 7X, which serves as the successor to last year’s Honor 6X. Like the 6X, which served as a cheaper option below the Honor 8 (Honor’s 2016 flagship), the 7X is a more budget-minded alternative to this year’s Honor 9 flagship.

But while the 6X stood out from other budget phones by offering a dual-camera system usually found on high-end smartphones, the 7X is hoping to make an impression by going bigger, with a 5.93-inch “Fullview” display to evoke the reduced-bezel designs of flagships like the Galaxy S8 or iPhone X. The Honor 7X also offers a fingerprint reader and an entirely metal shell, which are both nice additions.

Of course, the 7X is still a midrange smartphone, so the end result isn’t quite the same truly bezel-less design that Apple and Samsung’s dramatically more expensive devices offer.

The rest of the specs are more or less what you’d expect from a midrange device like this: Huawei’s own Kirin 659 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a 3,340mAh battery. There’s no USB-C, no waterproofing, no NFC, no wireless charging, and no Android Oreo — yet, anyway. (Honor is promising an update in 2018.)

Honor hasn’t revealed a price or release date for the 7X yet, but more details on both should be coming at an event on December 5th.

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Google will issue a fix for Pixel 2’s buzzing sounds heard during calls

 

Google is releasing a fix in the coming weeks to remove a faint buzzing sound that appears during phone calls on some Pixel 2 devices. A community manager posted a short message on the Pixel User Community forum confirming the fix, stating, “We’re rolling out a software update in the coming weeks which eliminates a faint buzzing sound on some Pixel 2 devices when the phone is placed to your ear during a phone call.”

Some users received replacement handsets, but said the problem remained. Others described the noise as a hissing sound. The fix comes shortly after the company issued a software update to fix the faint NFC-related clicking sounds some users experienced last month.

Though the Pixel 2 launched with rave reviews, the first month of rollout has been troublesome for Google, with devices suffering from a variety of issues including poor sound recording quality, unresponsive spots on the XL’s touchscreen, and some display issues.

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iMac Pro will reportedly have an A10 Fusion coprocessor for ‘Hey, Siri’ support and more secure booting

 

There haven’t been many updates on Apple’s iMac Pro since it was first announced back at WWDC in June. However, over the weekend, news broke from the internet’s favorite Apple firmware gurus Steven Troughton-Smith and Guilherme Rambo that the upcoming pro desktop computer will feature an A10 Fusion coprocessor.

Based on the leaked code, which has been compiled and explained by Jonathan Levin, it seems the A10 Fusion chip will enable two interesting new features. The first is the ability for the iMac Pro to feature always-on “Hey, Siri” voice command support, similar to what’s currently available on more recent iPhone devices. The news seems all but confirmed: Rambo has posted a video of the feature working on a Mac. 

But, as Pepijn Bruienne pointed out, the bigger implication of the A10 Fusion is for a less user-facing function, with Apple likely to use the coprocessor to enable SecureBoot on the iMac Pro. In more practical terms, it means that Apple will be using the A10 Fusion chip to handle the initial boot process and confirm that software checks out, before passing things off to the regular x86 Intel processor in your Mac. 

It’s not something that will likely change how you use your computer too much, like the addition of “Hey, Siri” support will, but it’s a move toward Apple experimenting with an increased level of control over its software going forward. 

The Article was Published on : TheVerge

Apple served with warrant for Texas shooter’s iCloud data

Texas Rangers have served Apple with a search warrant for data from deceased Sutherland Springs gunman Devin Patrick Kelley, who killed 26 people in a Texas church earlier this month.

The San Antonio Express-News reports that the warrant covers files stored in Kelley’s iCloud account, with law enforcement apparently seeking phone call and message information, photos and videos, and other data dating back to January 1st, 2016. Another warrant allows law enforcement to look for this data independently on an iPhone SE found near Kelley’s body. (A separate warrant covers data on a second device, which court records identify as an LG feature phone.) The warrants were obtained on November 9th, two days after the FBI complained that encryption had prevented it from accessing the shooter’s phone.

Apple’s policies state that it will share iCloud data with law enforcement agencies if there’s a valid warrant. Depending on how frequently Kelley created backups using iCloud, there may be additional information on the phone itself, but Apple has refused past requests to directly access devices — the company went to court last year to avoid unlocking a phone belonging to San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook, until the FBI successfully hacked the phone without its help, rendering the case moot.

The FBI has used the Sutherland Springs shooting to argue that strong encryption is hurting law enforcement’s ability to investigate crimes, saying it was “working very hard to get into the phone.” Later reports indicated that it did not reach out to Apple within a 48-hour period during which Kelley’s fingerprint might have unlocked the phone via Touch ID.

Apple declined to comment on pending law enforcement matters, including whether it had provided iCloud data to the Texas Rangers. However, a spokesperson said that the company had not received any law enforcement agency request for technical help (like unlocking) related to Kelley’s phone.

The Article was Published on : TheVerge