The autonomous car has thrown the automotive industry -- an industry that is notoriously slow to change -- into the forefront of technology. The autonomous car has become a technology catalyst because it requires innovation in many areas, ranging from processor and sensor technology to AI. As with all new technologies, the industry rushes to focus on consumers because they represent the billion-dollar pot of gold, but as with many other new technologies, it is the industrial applications that are likely to take hold first.
Lenovo's Smart Display with Google Assistant has hit the market. There are two versions of the device, one with an 8-inch full HD screen and the other with a 10-inch full HD screen, priced at $200 and $250 respectively. "The cost is significantly below an iPad mini and it offers far more functionality than just a digital picture frame or a Bluetooth speaker," said Alan Lepofsky, principal analyst at Constellation Research. Buyers will get three months' free access to YouTube Premium. The Lenovo Smart Display runs on Google's Android Things OS.
Swings Bluetooth Earrings with built-in earphones showcase a practical, clever idea for people with pierced ears. Swings certainly could fix the problem of losing Apple's expensive AirPods to the ether or having to root around in one's pockets or purse to find one's tangled-up headset. The earphones are in the lower part of what look like beaded earrings, and the motion accelerators determine when you have swiveled them to nestle inside your auricle. You can expect five hours of listening time out of the Swings on a single charge.
Hundreds of U.S. utilities were penetrated by Russian hackers who could have disrupted the nation's power grid. The attacks were launched last year by threat actors belonging to a group known as "Dragonfly" or "Energetic Bear," which is sponsored by the Russian government, according to a report. The hackers used Black Hat tools such as phishing and waterhole traps to obtain credentials from legitimate users and leverage them to gain access to the utilities. It's unusual for the DHS to call out a nation-state attacker by name.
Mobile phone cameras are about to get a significant performance boost. Sony on Monday introduced a 48-megapixel sensor for cellphone cameras that measures less than one-third of an inch diagonally. The sensor is slated for release in September. To pack that many pixels into such tight quarters, Sony had to shrink their size to 8 microns. Shrinking pixel sizes usually results in performance degradation, not improvement. It usually results in poor light collection and a drop in saturation sensitivity and volume.
It's interesting to compare Google and Amazon -- two of the most incredibly powerful companies in the world. Amazon brings out product after product, with more successes than failures. Google largely buys companies and then loses interest in what they do. Amazon is a retailer, and profit is built into its efforts, while Google largely lives off selling users' information and providing access to content that doesn't belong to it -- kind of like living off an allowance from parents who don't really want to give it but don't see an alternative.
Photo-hosting service Photobucket in May quietly restored third-party hosting of photos, reversing its unpopular year-old policy that required users to pay nearly $400 in subscription fees for hosting privileges. Many irate users claimed their photos were "taken hostage." Hosted photos on blogs, forums and other sites were replaced by an image of a dial indicating the hosted data quota had been surpassed. Users were not given advance notice. Instead the company sent out emails with the message, "Some features on your account will be
disabled."
Samsung plans to launch a foldable-screen smartphone early next year, according to reports, possibly priced around $1,500. Samsung's foldable phone will resemble a book, with the main display inside the covers, said Ken Hyers, director of the emerging device strategies service at Strategy Analytics. The exterior will have a smaller notification display on the front, and a camera, or cameras, on the back. The main display will have a 7.3-inch screen. The foldable smartphone may have a 3,000 mAh battery or larger.
Microsoft has announced a new version of its Skype messaging app, along with a warning that previous versions of the software will be disabled after Sept. 1. "As we roll out improvements, there comes a time when we must shut down older services and application versions," wrote the Skype Team in an online post. "This is done to ensure that all customers have the best possible Skype experience, and that there are no quality or reliability issues resulting from old technology and new technology interoperating."
Roku has earned a reputation for making streaming TV products that are easy to set up and use, and that deliver above-average quality at affordable prices -- and that's the approach it has taken with its new Roku TV Wireless Speakers. The company unveiled the speakers on Monday, although it doesn't expect to start shipping them until October, when they will sell for $199.99. Eager consumers can preorder to take advantage of early bird offers. The speakers are designed exclusively for smart TVs that run Roku software.
Microsoft Inspire is taking place this week in Las Vegas, and a huge number of my personal friends and I were prebriefed on what the big announcements would be. Strangely, the embargo on the news lifted last week, so I'm not going to get in trouble for sharing some of the revelations. There are a number of interesting elements, including Microsoft's suddenly aggressive move to use Azure as an Internet of Things host, which suggests that in the future, many of our homes and businesses will be managed remotely in the Microsoft Cloud.
Apple has announced updated MacBook Pro 13- and 15-inch notebooks with a Touch Bar, 8th-generation Intel Core processors, support for up to 32 GB of DDR memory in the larger notebook, a True Tone display, and an improved third-generation keyboard for quiet typing. The 15-inch model comes with 6-core Intel Core i7 and i9 processors rated at up to 2.9 GHz -- with Turbo Boost, up to 4.8 GHz. It offers up to 4 TB of SSD storage. The 13-inch model has quad-core Intel Core i5 and i7 processors rated at up to 2.7GHz -- with Turbo Boost up to 4.5 GHz.
Amazon's latest gambit for taking over your living room is the Fire TV Cube. It works in much the same way as the Fire TV stick, but with the added impact this time around of stuffing in a smart speaker with the familiar tones of the Alexa voice assistant. You can use it to play whatever you want to see in up to 4K resolution from various streaming services. All the usual suspects are here, like Netflix and HBO Go, but sadly, there's no native YouTube app, thanks to a tiff between Amazon and Google.
A new feature in iOS 11.4.1, which Apple released earlier this week, is designed to protect against unwanted intrusions through the iPhone's Lightning Port. However, the protection may be weak at best. The feature, called "USB Restricted Mode," disables data transfer through the Lightning Port after an hour of inactivity. A password-protected iOS device that has not been unlocked and connected to a USB accessory within the past hour will not communicate with an accessory or computer, and in some cases might not charge, according to Apple.