Facebook has cut off Prisma’s Live Video access

Style transfer startup Prisma added support to its iOS app for livestreaming its art filter effects in real-time via Facebook Live earlier this month — but almost immediately the startup’s access to the Live API was cut off by the social media platform giant.

It’s a David vs Goliath tale that’s oh–so–familiar in tech.

Of course it’s Facebook’s API and they can do what they like about who can access it but the explanation they gave looks a little wonky. Facebook told Prisma: “Your app streams video from a mobile device camera, which can already be done through the Facebook app. The Live Video API is meant to let people publish live video content from other sources such as professional cameras, multi-camera setups, games or screencasts.”

Yet in an FAQ on the Facebook Live site for developers Facebook does not explicitly say streaming from smartphone cameras is prohibited — although it does flag up other types of camera, such as standalone cameras and drones, as examples of its preferred use-case for the API.

The FAQ also says the API can be used to apply special effects to video — which you could argue describes Prisma’s style transfer feature.

One rather salient detail in this story is that Facebook is in the midst of rolling out its own style transfer filter feature — which it previewed in October, the day before Prisma showed off its style transfer preview on a Facebook Live broadcast.

So Facebook evidently does not want Prisma cannibalizing its push into Prisma-style style transfer.

The Russian startup popularized the current craze for style transfer, after launching their app in June — initially offering a series of art filters that could be applied to photos. This quickly went viral on Instagram as users shared arty-looking selfies created with Prisma. By October, the app had racked up more than 70 million downloads, and the team added support for video.

“We were trying to fix the issue but Facebook has a strong policy, they only let broadcast to different cameras, drones. Our app is no drone or camera. So this means we cannot do it,” says Prisma’s Aram Airapetyan, discussing what happened when Facebook cut off its access to the Live API earlier this month.

Despite being blocked on Facebook’s platform, Airapetyan says Prisma still has “big plans for live”. “The fact that we can do it is great and we’ll probably give users an opportunity to stream to different websites,” he tells TechCrunch.

While the future of Prisma’s live video support remains up in the air at this point, the team’s current priority is working on a social-focused release, pegged for mid December.

“The priority is the social feature coming soon. But after we launch it, we’ll seriously consider giving our users an alternative for live,” adds Airapetyan.

At the time of writing Facebook had not responded to a request for comment on its reasons for booting Prisma out of its livestreaming walled garden.

Uber’s China app is now separate from its global app

If you’re an overseas visitor to China, you’ll no longer be able to use Uber for your rides. More permanent residents may also face issues using the service from today.

That’s because Didi Chuxing, which is in the process of acquiring Uber’s China business, rolled out an update which decouples the Uber China app from the Uber global app. That means there’s now an Uber app for China and a different one for the rest of the world. The change was announced last month but went into effect at 4:00 am Beijing time yesterday, November 27.

The new Chinese app looks much like the previous version of Uber in China, but there are some key differences.

For one, users must create a new account for Uber China and that require both a Chinese mobile phone number and valid Chinese payment method, such as Union Pay, Alibaba’s Alipay digital wallet or Baidu Wallet.

Uber China users have had a month-long transition period and the company said that “the majority” have upgraded to this new setup. However, it also obviously means that anyone visiting the country, or anyone not holding the necessary payment options, isn’t able to get the app and use Uber’s service in China.

“We apologize to our users for any inconvenience may be caused by this transition. The Uber China team has been working hard to make the new version faster-responding and more user friendly,” Uber China/Didi said in a statement.

That’s a sizable blow for anyone who is visiting China. Didi’s own apps are available in Mandarin only and require local phone numbers, too, which meant that Uber, for a long time, the only option for booking a taxi via your phone in the country if you were visiting. As anyone who has ever tried to hail a taxi with limited Mandarin can attest, even just getting a ride from the street in China is challenging.

On the plus side, Didi said that it will introduce “multilingual, international features” in the future, but did not give a timeframe for when that will happen.

Didi admitted recently and for the first time that it harbors ambitions to expand overseas. It isn’t exactly clear what that means, and whether it will be organic growth or via acquisition of allies like Grab (Southeast Asia), Ola (India) or Lyft (U.S.), but it could just be that Uber’s future “international features” forms part of that global push. That’s unclear right now, but Didi is testing the water through a partnership with rental giant Avis that allows users of its users to book a car overseas from inside the Didi app.

Google can now tell you how busy a place is before you arrive

With Popular Times, Google introduced a nifty little feature for its search engine last year that lets you know how busy a restaurant, coffee shop or bar typically is at any given time of the week. Today, it’s taking this concept a step further by making this tool real-time. So now, you will know exactly how long the line is going to be before you even head out to your favorite brunch place on Sunday morning.

Like before, the Popular Times widget will appear when you look for a restaurant or bar in Google Search and Google Maps. It uses anonymized location data and searches to determine how busy a place currently is.

In my experience, the non-real time version was always pretty accurate, but it obviously doesn’t account for any special events that may change how many people crave Bloody Marys on any given Sunday. In case Google gets it wrong, though, you won’t get your time back but you can send it a correction.

Google already lets you know how long people lingered at a given place, so if you’re trying to figure out if you can still squeeze in a quick coffee before your next meeting, the combination of the new real-time data and this existing feature will hopefully get you there on time.

As far as I can see, the new real-time Popular Times feature isn’t live yet, but I would expect it to be available in the next few hours.

Tesla officially SolarCity

Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity officially closed Monday morning, bringing together Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company with the solar energy company founded by his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive. The deal was approved by Tesla and SolarCity shareholders last week, after first being proposed earlier this year.

Tesla provided the following brief statement on the news:

We’re pleased to announce that Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity closed this morning.

Succinct, and probably an understatement – Musk has been advocating for the union of the two companies vocally and frequently since proposing the idea in June. Joining the two entities is central to the continued execution of his “Master Plan,” which aims to provide customers with full-stack solutions for owning their own energy production, storage and consumption.

Tesla’s recent solar roof tile launch showed why Musk believes the companies are a natural fit under a unified Tesla roof (I woke up very early, please allow me this joke). To Musk, there is not a demarcation point beyond clean generation of electric power and vehicles that make use of said power for emission-free operation. It makes sense, because the cleanliness and cost of the source is just as important as the cleanliness of operation when it comes to overall carbon footprint contribution.

Apple to use drones to improve Maps service

Apple is putting a lot of effort to improve its Apple Maps data and design. According to a new report from Bloomberg, the company plans to use drones to track changes and improve mapping data over time. It would apparently be faster to use a fleet of drones rather than vans with sensors.

Apple already admitted that mapping data is a harder problem than the company first anticipated. You need to update maps all the time and fix mistakes as quickly as possible. Roads change and new buildings keep popping up. That’s why the company now works with thousands of employees in India and elsewhere to work on mapping data.

But that’s just one part of the equation. Having a big moderation staff is useless if you don’t have fresh data coming from all over the world. Companies like Google and Apple rely on user reports and vehicles driving around multiple countries.

Bloomberg found a 2015 document from the Federal Aviation Administration. The administration granted Apple a license to “operate an unmanned aircraft system to conduct data collection, photography, and videography.” It also says that the company plans to buy drones from DJI and Aibotix for this operation.

Now, it’s unclear if Apple already started using these drones in the U.S. and in other countries. As it’s not a user-facing feature, nothing stops Apple from using drones without telling its users.

In other news, Apple also acquired Indoor.io for indoor mapping. Bloomberg got an official confirmation from Apple. Apple has already made another acquisition of an indoor mapping company and is playing catch up on this front.

In Google Maps, you can already find maps of popular malls, museums and public buildings. Apple wants to provide indoor maps as well as an indoor positioning system that would take advantage of your iPhone’s sensors to locate you within a building. It would go beyond a simple GPS dot.

All of this is great, but I still miss an equivalent of Street View in Apple Maps. This feature is quite useful when you want to see what a building looks like. I’ve been using Apple Maps every day for a couple of years now, and it’s the only thing that makes me open Google Maps every now and then.

Trick Could Unlock iOS 10 devices in Lost Mode

Lost and stolen iOS devices could be at risk if ne’er-do-wells learn of this blunt-force method of getting past Activation Lock. No special equipment or technical know-how is required, which means any geek off the streets can do it. Fortunately, it’s easily fixed — but until that happens, you might want to be a little extra careful about leaving your phone unattended.

The latest exploit is described by Benjamen Kunz-Mejri, founder of German security outfit Vulnerability Lab. An earlier variation, discovered by Slash Secure’s Hemanth Joseph, affected iOS 10.1 and was reported to Apple in October. Although the company attempted to fix the problem in 10.1.1, adding a twist — literally — the the attack means devices are still vulnerable after the update.

When an iOS device’s owner activates Lost Mode through Find my iPhone/iPad, the device is remotely put into Activation Mode, requiring your Apple ID for it to unlock and return it to normal. But logging in requires an internet connection, and for that purpose you can opt to use wi-fi. So the attacker goes to the wi-fi network select screen, and selects “other network.”

This is where things get hot. The network name and password fields here have no character limits!

Apple wasn’t silly enough to allow arbitrary code execution from the fields, so there’s no serious buffer overflow attack here. But if you put enough characters into both fields (upwards of 10,000) the device will slow down and eventually freeze. Put the device to sleep with a cover, wait a few seconds, and open it up — voila, the home screen!

That method worked on 10.1, but with 10.1.1, you have to do a bit of screen rotation and use Night Shift mode. The home screen only shows up for a fraction of a second, but Kunz-Mejri told SecurityWeek that one can get it to stay visible with a well-timed button press.
The problem could be fixed with a simple character limit on those fields, a fix Apple apparently overlooked or didn’t have time to implement in the update.
TechCrunch has contacted Apple for confirmation and further details, and this post will be updated if we hear back.

MediaTek announces the new Helio X23 and X27 deca-core mobile processors

The name MediaTek is usually associated with lower-end Chinese smartphones and tablets, since their SoCs are rather inexpensive. In the last year or so, the chip manufacturer has been working to push past that reputation. When it introduced the Helio X20, a few people took notice. Innovation is not usually the game with MediaTek, but it does try some interesting CPU designs. Today, it revealed the new Helio X23 and Helio X27 mobile processors.

These upgrades to the Helio line come with some nice improvements. They both have better support for dual cameras and even better power management. The "Tri-Cluster" architecture remains the same with two ARM Cortex-A72 and eight Cortex A-53 clusters (though, four of those eight are clocked at a different frequency than the other four). Also, the scheduling algorithm called CorePilot has been updated to version 3.0 for these SoCs.

In addition to showing off the odd CPU designs, MediaTek has added full support for multiple cameras with the upgraded Imagiq signal-processing solution. The claim is that Imagiq is the first ISP to integrate color and mono cameras, as well as depth-of-field applications, into one single solution. All of this is to mean that, in theory, the Helio X23 and X27 will be better equipped to provide high quality and functionality to mobile photography.

Finally, the chipsets include new screen power-saving technology. The CPUs will modify the "smart" display parameters using contexts like on-screen content and ambient lighting. This is supposed to provide a 25% reduction in how much power the screen consumes. The X23 and X27 should be hitting new devices soon. 

Meizu Officially Announces the Pro 6 Plus and M3X running on Flyme 6

The company just announced two new smartphones, a big update to their OEM skin, and their plans for which devices will be getting the Flyme 6 update. We’ve heard whispers about the existence of the following two smartphones for quite some time, but Meizu has finally made it official. The Meizu Pro 6 Plus and the Meizu M3X will be joining the Meizu line-up as the first two devices running on Flyme OS version 6.

The Meizu Pro 6 Plus has a metal unibody build with the Samsung Exynos 8890 SoC. For reference, this is the same chip found in the Exynos variant of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge. The Pro 6 Plus will ship in two variants – a 64GB storage model with an underclocked CPU and a 128GB storage model clocked a little higher. Both variants will sport 4GBs of RAM, a 5.7″ Super AMOLED 1440p display, a 5MP, f/2.0 front camera, a 12MP 1/2.9” Sony IMX386 Exmor RS sensor with 1.25µm f/2.0 rear camera, and a 3,400mAh capacity battery.

The Meizu M3X is a mid-range device with its MediaTek Helio P20 SoC, a 5.5″ 1080p Sharp TDDI LCD display with “2.5D” curved glass, a 5MP front-facing camera, a 12MP 1.25 μm f/2.0 Sony camera on the rear, 3GBs of RAM, 32GBs of internal storage, and a 3,200mAh capacity battery.

Both the Pro 6 Plus and the M3X will feature the company’s updated mTouch 2.1 fingerprint scanner along with their mCharge fast charging technology that promises to charge 40% in 30 minutes thanks to its 18W charger. In addition, both of these new smartphones will be running on Meizu’s latest Flyme OS version 6 OEM skin that is built on top of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Meizu has also announced their plans for which devices will receive the Flyme 6 update. So if you have any of the following, you should look forward to an OTA update over the coming months.

• Meizu Pro 6
• Meizu MX6
• Meizu Pro 5
• Meizu MX5
• Meizu MX4 
• ProMeizu MX4
• Meizu M3 Max
• Meizu M3 Note
• Meizu M3E
• Meizu M3s
• Meizu M2 Note
• Meizu M2
• Meizu M1 Note
• Meizu U20
• Meizu U10

Spotify to ramp up its original content with new weekly series

Spotify appears to be following Netflix in the direction of original content with a weekly series of programming consisting of two programs. The first, Singles, will feature big name acts recording a pair of songs exclusively for the service. One of these tracks will be one of the artist’s own songs, but the recording itself will be Spotify exclusive. The other track will be a cover. 

Spotify is promising that each Singles release will be accompanied by exclusive artwork, and some will feature video content. 

The second program, Live, is a live series of recordings with fans in attendance. Spotify has already been producing similar content under its fan-free ‘Sessions’ banner which Live will be replacing.

It’s been a big year for Spotify, which has recently announced the top five acts streamed through the service in the UK which featured Drake, Justin Bieber, Kanye West, Coldplay and Twenty One Pilots. However with Spotify’s top lists still being dominated by non-exclusive artists such as these, it appears the service is looking to bolster its exclusive offering after the aggressive moves by Tidal and Apple Music to secure exclusives of their own. 

In the past Spotify has spoken out against the practice of streaming exclusives, so it’s interesting to see the company go down this route with exclusive versions of songs, rather than exclusive studio albums.  Need some cans to listen to your streamed music? Check out our guide to the best headphones.

Huawei Fit review

The Huawei Fit tries to answer the call for those looking for a simplistic, traditional-looking fitness tracker. There are even a few surprise features included, but the interface isn’t as intuitive as it claims, and slightly pricier competing wearables offer a much better value overall. Last year’s Android Wear-powered Huawei Watch didn't offer much in the way of fitness smarts, but it acts as the perfect segue to the Huawei Fit, marking the company’s first full step into the fitness tracker space. 

Or, is it more of a half-step?

Buy Huawei Fit at Amazon for $99.99

The Huawei Fit looks and feels enough like a proper effort, with a minimalistic design and sought-after features along for the ride, like waterproofing, continuous heart rate monitoring, up to six days of battery life, and training plan, which helps to prep you for a marathon. 

At $129 (awaiting global pricing and availability details), it sits in an awkward place in the fitness tracker market. It might look a lot like the Pebble Time Round, but it lacks the little things that work so well in setting that wearable apart, like its soulful interface, music playback and native app support. 

Sure, it’s cheaper than the Samsung Gear Fit 2, but we’d much rather pay $50 more to have built-in GPS functionality, and more importantly, the vibrant AMOLED display with the responsive Tizen operating system. The Huawei Fit doesn’t stand out from the crowd, but that’s not its fatal flaw. Huawei’s fitness tracker just doesn’t feel all that smart. 

If the aforementioned features cover your needs, Huawei’s wearable will probably satisfy you. But for everyone else, here are the candidates for best fitness tracker in 2016.

Design : 

Slick, traditional look

Very comfortable to wear on a 24/7 basis

18mm band support offers broad customization

Huawei’s fitness tracker rocks a circular face, which is no doubt a desirable design trait for those looking to replace their watch with something a little smarter, but no less traditional.

It’s clad in an aluminum enclosure, and is capped on its top with a plastic-covered LCD touchscreen, which supports simple gestures, like tapping and multi-directional swiping. 

Surrounding the 208 x 208 monochromatic ambient-lit display, Huawei added a handy ring that shows the minute markers, which works in tandem with a few of the built-in watch faces to give you an analog-esque look at the time. Flipped over, its heart rate sensor comes into view along along with the pogo pins used to charge the Fit on its included micro USB charging dock. Like other fitness trackers, Huawei’s uses photoplethysmography to track your heart rate. If you’re curious how it works in-depth, you can read more about that right here.

Lastly, the Fit supports any 18mm watch strap you may already have laying around. The default orange strap is pretty eye-opening and comfortable, though we take every possible opportunity to swap in Google’s-own Modebands that we use on the Huawei Watch and LG Watch Urbane. Although the fit wasn’t perfect, it made for a more unique-looking wearable. This fitness tracker would also look great with a NATO strap.

Android key mobile competition Security

Google has dismissed the European commission’s charges that it abuses the market dominance of its Android operating system to prevent rivals from competing with alternative software and services.

The EC filed charges in April that could carry a fine for Google of up to $7.4bn (£5.9bn), or 10% of its global revenue, and centre on what the commission saw as “unjustified restrictions and conditions” placed on smartphone and tablet makers, preventing them from choosing other, non-Google default search engines and browsers.

Kent Walker, senior vice president and general counsel for Google, said: “Android hasn’t hurt competition, it’s expanded it. Android is the most flexible mobile platform out there, balancing the needs of thousands of manufacturers and operators, millions of app developers and more than a billion consumers. Upsetting this balance would raise prices, hamper innovation, reduce choice and limit competition.”

In its response to the EC today, Google objects to several of the commission’s premises, including the view that Google’s Android does not compete with Apple’s iOS operating system that runs iPhones and iPads.

Walker said: “The commission’s case is based on the idea that Android doesn’t compete with Apple’s iOS. We don’t see it that way. We don’t think Apple does either. Or phone makers. Or developers. Or users.

“To ignore competition with Apple is to miss the defining feature of today’s competitive smartphone landscape.”

The company claims that its agreements with smartphone makers, which insist that a suite of Google apps be pre-installed on devices with some positioned on the homescreen when a device is first started, allow Google to distribute Android for free and continue investing in the development of the platform.

Industry watchers said Google’s prospects of making money from advertising could diminish if its apps were not pre-loaded on devices, despite users being free to delete many of them and replace all of them apps of their choosing.

It also insists that its agreements are crucial to allow anyone to take Android and modify it to suit their requirements, but maintain a level of control on compatibility to help prevent so-called fragmentation, where one version is incompatible with another.

Walker said: “Our voluntary compatibility agreements enable variety while giving developers confidence to create apps that run seamlessly across thousands of different phones and tablets. This balance stimulates competition between Android devices as well as between Android and Apple’s iPhone.”

Google’s Play Store has more than 2.2m third-party apps available for download across 1,000s of devices, including apps from the search company’s chief rivals, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook, of which Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp have been downloaded more than 1bn times.

Commenting on the EC’s case, Daniel Castro, vice president of tech policy think tank ITIF said: “If Google instead only sold Google-made devices, it would … control all aspects of the operating system plus the apps it includes on Android devices.

“This is exactly what companies like Apple and Blackberry have long done with their respective mobile operating systems, yet the practice is not considered anti-competitive for them.”

The case against Android comes at a time when Google is also embroiled in a battle with the EC over its Shopping search engine feature and its AdSense text advertising service. Last week, Google dismissed the commission’s Shopping case with similar rhetoric, saying that its competition with Amazon should be taken into account.

Galaxy S7s Are Not Exploding

Isolated reports of Samsung's flagship Galaxy S7 smartphone exploding have not been confirmed, according to the Korean tech giant. As it continues to deal with the aftermath to end production of the Galaxy Note 7 some Galaxy S7 have seemingly exploded as well.

There have been several recent reports in Asia and Canada, according to VentureBeat, raising the possibility that the same issues that plagued the Samsung Galaxy Note7 are also cropping up in the Samsung Galaxy S7. In the US, a construction worker in Ohio and an employee at a smartphone store both claimed that they had seen fire-damaged on the slightly dated flagships, PhoneArena reported.

In a statement, Samsung said there are 10 million Samsung Galaxy S7 devices in the US, and none of them have had internal battery failures, but it has confirmed "a number of instances" caused that are known to have severe external damage.

"Until Samsung is able to obtain and examine any device, it is impossible to determine the true cause of any incident," the statement said. It is certainly unclear if the company had sought out the devices in the reported explosions to examine them. A spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Samsung's reputation as a maker of high-end smartphones took a big hit two months back when it recalled and ultimately discontinued the Note 7 following multiple confirmed reports of fires and explosions. The US Department of Transportation classified the next-gen flagship smartphone as dangerous goods and banned passengers from carrying them on commercial flights.

Samsung apologised to consumers and even offered incentives, all of which come in zone-specific variants, to get owners to switch to another Samsung flagship device. At press time, it has so not yet announced the cause of the fires and explosions.

Amazon Alexa Offers Hands-Free Access to 60,000 Recipes Cooking

Amazon Alexa wears many hats—fitness tracker, mood setter, life scheduler, trip planner, and now, sous chef. In partnership with Allrecipes, the digital assistant helps you plan breakfast, lunch, and dinner via hands-free access to 60,000 recipes.

"There is no need to tap, swipe, type, or squint to get the five-star results your family craves," Allrecipes said in a YouTube video description (watch below).

To enable the feature, simply open the Alexa mobile app, navigate to Menu > Skills > Allrecipes; created a new account or link to an existing one before asking Alexa to search and save favorite meals from the website.

Use just your voice to find step-by-step instructions by title, ingredients, or cooking time. Say "Alexa, ask Allrecipes for the Recipe of the Day," for instance. Or "Alexa, ask Allrecipes for an easy lasagna recipe."

Need ideas for how to create a meal using the three ingredients left in your fridge? Kids hungry for something other than meatloaf? Ask Alexa. She even broadcasts online ratings and reacts to personal needs like time limit.

Home chefs, meanwhile, can also tap into the artificial intelligence to control connected General Electric kitchen appliances—refrigerators, dishwashers, wall ovens, ranges, laundry machines—thanks to a recent partnership between GE and Amazon.

As of September 2016, Alexa boasted more than 3,000 skills—triple the amount it had just three months earlier.

Apple Launches iPhone 6s Repair Program for Faulty Batteries

Last week, Apple launched a repair program after acknowledging the Apple iPhone 6 Plus had a touchscreen issue widely dubbed as 'Touch Disease'. The program is not well-received as Apple blamed users instead of acknowledging that there is a design fault on the phone.

Because of that, the repair will cost Apple iPhone 6 Plus owners US$149. Now we have a second repair program underway, only this one is for the Apple iPhone 6s.

A small batch of Apple iPhone 6s handsets manufactured between September and October 2015 have a battery issue. There's no threat of injury or device damage, but it may unexpectedly shut down. The battery is at fault and Apple will happily replace it for you for free.

For those experiencing the unexpected shut downs, take the problematic Apple iPhone 6s to an Apple retail store or an authorised Apple service provider. The serial number of the device will be checked to verify it is carrying one of the faulty batteries. If it is, expect a replacement to be fitted to solve the issue.

Before taking it in to be checked, Apple recommends backing up the data to Apple iTunes or iCloud, turning off the 'Find my iPhone' feature, and erasing data and settings in Settings > General > Reset > Erase all Content and Settings.

There are two ways this 'free repair' could end up costing money. If the APple iPhone 6s is experiencing the shut down problem and is not eligible for the repair program, users are, likely, expected to pay for the fix. Also, if the smartphone has another issue that interfere with a battery replacement, for example, the screen is cracked, Apple won't replace the battery unless you agree to have that fault repaired as well, which won't be free.

Apple Mulls Moving iPhone Production to US

President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants Apple to start making its "damn computers and things" in the US, and he may get his wish. Citing unnamed sources, Japanese-based Nikkei claimed that Apple's key partner Foxconn "is studying the possibility of moving iPhone production to the US."

One source reportedly told the paper that Apple in June asked Foxconn and another Taiwanese iPhone assembler Pegatron to look into making the handsets in the states.

"Foxconn complied, while Pegatron declined to formulate such a plan due to cost concerns," the source said, according to Nikkei.
Moving iPhone production to the US would undoubtedly be more costly for Cupertino. One source told the newspaper that production costs would more than double.

Apple and Foxconn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2011, Steve Jobs reportedly scoffed at the idea of bringing iPhone production to the US when asked by President Obama what it would take to make that happen.

"Those jobs aren't coming back," Jobs said at the time.

A year on, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced plans to bring some parts of Mac production to the US; Apple reportedly invested more than $100 million as part of that effort.
This isn't the first time Foxconn has considered setting up shop in the US. The manufacturing giant in 2012 confirmed that it was looking to expand operations in North America, but that has not yet happened.

"We are looking at doing more manufacturing in the US because, in general, customers want more to be done there," Louis Woo, a Foxconn spokesman, told Bloomberg Businessweek at the time.

Nintendo Switch Pokemon Game Expected in 2017

Today is the day Pokemon fans have been waiting for, with Pokémon Sun and Moon launching in North America on Nintendo 3DS (while Japan and Europe have to wait until next week). However, there's news of another Pokemon game in development.

However, this one is heading to the Nintendo Switch.

Eurogamer has reported that multiple sources have confirmed Nintendo is planning to release a Pokémon game for the Nintendo Switch before the end of 2017. If true, it will class as the first mainline Pokémon game to ever see a release on a home console.

The new game carries the codename Pokémon Stars and has Game Freak as the designated developer—the developer behind the majority of Pokémon games since Red and Green launched in 1996. Game Freak also handled Sun and Moon development and this is significant because Pokémon Stars is thought to be the third game of this generation's Pokémon releases.

Nintendo typically releases two new Pokémon games at the same time and then follows up with a third game a couple of years later offering an enhanced version of the previous two games (for example, Pokémon Yellow, Crystal, Emerald, and Platinum are all enhanced version releases). Pokémon Stars will form the enhanced version of Pokémon Sun and Moon, but on a separate platform (also a first).

We will be kept waiting until January 12 to learn the launch line-up of Nintendo Switch games. However, rumours suggest The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild won't be one of them due to localisation taking longer than planned. Zelda should appear later in 2017, and if it is closely follows Nintendo's first home console mainline Pokémon game, the Nintendo Switch could have a bumper holiday season next year.

Xgimi’s H1 is a powerful, portable all-in-one home theater projector

To project or not to project, that is the question. For a growing number of individuals who are happy using their smartphones, tablets and notebooks for the bulk of their media consumption, a projector makes a lot of sense vs. a traditional TV for occasional big-screen viewing, and Xgimi’s new H1 is an even better fit than most for the mobile generation.

The Xgimi H1 is currently available for pre-order via a funding campaign on Indiegogo, but the review unit the company sent is definitely already production-ready. The projector is about the size of a medium-sized Bluetooth speaker (and it doubles as one as well), but provides a screen of up to 300-inches in size with true 1080p output, better sound than you’ll hear from far more expensive projectors, and a built-in, Android-powered computer that means you really don’t need any other devices to get a full home theater experience.

Projector setup can be frustrating, especially when it comes to getting the angle right. The Xgimi H1 has automatic keyframe adjustment, and it’s effective enough that I was able to get a clear, aligned picture working pretty much out of the box with minimal fuss. That’s a huge advantage, especially when the total package is small enough that you can see yourself moving the projector around frequently to use it indifferent places (more on this later).

The picture quality is good – crisp and clear, with bright, vivid colors. It’s not the kind of projector that can contend with a whole lot of ambient light, however, so don’t expect to use this in the middle of the day with the windows unblocked by curtains. It’s 900 ANSI lumens are still effective with reasonable measures taken to prevent too much light getting in, like thick curtains or whenever used in the evening, however – which is true even for most home theater projectors that cost $500 to $1,000 more than the H1.

My only real qualm with the Xgimi H1 in terms of its projected image is that size adjustment and vertical angle are entirely manual processes. Unlike other dedicated home theater projectors, the H1’s only means of increasing the size of the picture is what I like to call “foot zoom,” which means you have to adjust its physical distance from the projection surface. Others offer an optical zoom on the projection lens itself. Likewise for the angle of the lens – many competitors will offer physical “feet” which can adjust the tilt, but the Xgimi has to be placed at the proper height to hit the projection surface with a screen where you want it – which can be tricky depending on your available mounting options.

The Xgimi is unlike other projectors in another, much more positive way; while smart TVs have loaded in operating systems, apps and access to services, most mainstream home theater projectors are basically just output waiting for cable connections to other devices. The H1 has its own processor, 3GB of RAM, and an Android-based OS that provides direct access to content-filled apps like Netflix and Plex.

The interface isn’t native Android TV; it’s Xgimi’s own flavor of the mobile OS, reconfigured for big-screen use. Android TV is a little more visually rich and user-friendly, but the Xgimi interface is very usable, especially with the included Bluetooth remote/gaming and motion controller the company includes int eh box.

To be clear, the H1 still has plenty of inputs and outputs, including two HDMI ports, one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 port, and an Ethernet port, for connecting to external devices. But it’s also completely self-sufficient, with built-in Wi-Fi, meaning you can plug it into power anywhere you have a data connection (or stored local media) and get to viewing, without needing the other components of a typical home theater setup.

It’s sort of like having a media PC right at your fingertips, but with more out-of-the-box support for mobile games and the apps you’re suing on your smartphone typically anyway.

Standalone sound
In addition to being itself media source, the H1 is also a standalone speaker, with Harman Kardon-branded audio. The speaker runs the length of most of the height of the projector, and its grill and the Harman Kardon branding are among the first things you’ll notice about the outside design of the H1. It’s actually very reminiscent of the look of a Sonos Play:1 speaker, which is actually a good thing because it blends seamlessly into most decor, just like the Sonos does.

The speaker itself is pretty good, too. I wouldn’t put it quite on the level with Sonos, which manages to deliver terrific sound for its size and weight, but the H1 can definitely hold its own and offers very clear dialogue for TV and films in addition to rich music playback. It’s far better than the typical built-in speakers offered on much more expensive projectors, and it’s definitely capable enough to act as its own Bluetooth speaker for your smartphone – which it can do, with pairing as easy as it is for your average dedicated mobile sound system.

Having a capable speaker onboard is a huge reason why the H1 seems like a complete, portable package. Even your average pico projector typically requires an external sound device to be worth anything in a group setting, and yet the H1 is good for both movies and standalone tunes wherever you set it up. The Xgimi H1 is a bit big in terms of devices that I’d typically classify as “portable,” but in this case the moniker definitely applies. It’s not heavy, despite its size, and it’s basically the size of a small muffin tray or a large Bluetooth speaker, both things you’d definitely pack for a friendly visit or a road trip.

Xgimi even offers a carrying case through its Indiegogo campaign, but you can probably transport it fairly easily without. And an integrated slide-over lens cover should help ease your mind in terms of damaging the optics.

The H1 is almost small enough that I’d feel comfortable packing it in a suitcase for use in hotels, but that’s a bit extreme. It’s definitely road-trip worthy, however, and paired with an external power source like a backup car battery, and a bed sheet, you could definitely use it to make yourself a mean little camp-side movie theater.

While the H1 isn’t quite as good as some of the more expensive dedicated home theater offerings from big brands like Epson and Benq when it comes to image quality, it’s a far more versatile device, with IQ that’s close enough most people probably won’t appreciate the difference. It’s important to note that while the Xgimi team uses 4K in their marketing materials, that just means it can interpret and downsample a 4K signal intelligently – output is 1080p, but it does manage that with sharp definition even at large sizes.

The choice about whether it’s right for you will probably depend on what you want to do with it; if you’re looking for a flexible, bright big screen you can use in a number of different settings, the Xgimi H1 is a great all-arounder and almost certainly your best bet at this price point.

15in Apple MacBook Pro Uses a Non-Removable SSD

Apple creates device it expects you to use and then replace, but never repair. We know this from the countless teardowns iFixit carries out on iDevices only to find lots of glue, soldered in place components, and a generally hostile environment for anyone venturing inside.

With the launch of the 15in Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar late last month, Apple removed the last user-friendly component from the notebook: the SSD.

The 13in Apple MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar retains the removable SSD seen in earlier models, but the new 15in Touch Bar entry, and we have to assume the 13in model as well, replaces it with storage chips soldered to the logic board.

The change had been confirmed via MacRumors reader Jesse D. who had been brave enough to unscrew the base of his new MacBook Pro to take a look. Sure enough, he found the logic board cutout where the removable SSD usually sits is now gone. The soldered in place chips can be seen in the image above.

Storage is usually the first component that gets replaced in a notebook, either due to an issue or simply as part of an upgrade. But Apple removes that option completely from its Touch Bar models entries. If anything goes wrong with the SSD, the entire logic board will have to be replaced, which won't be cheap.

The situation is actually worse than that, though. By soldering the storage to the board, if anything else goes wrong on the logic board you also lose all your data. You can't simply remove the SSD and recover the data anymore.
Backing up your data on a regular basis is a task everyone should be doing anyway, but if an Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is your next purchase, it becomes absolutely essential.

In New Zealand, Your Domino's Delivery Guy Is a Drone

Ever imagine a future where you could order up a cheesy pizza and it would be delivered to your doorstep by drone? The future is here for some lucky people in New Zealand. Pizza chain Domino's teamed up with up with drone delivery service Flirtey to send its pies via the sky.

The companies this week launched what they're calling the "world's first pizza-by-drone" commercial trials. While they're just testing this concept in New Zealand at the moment, the companies plan to expand the operation to other areas of the globe "in the near future."

In this week's tests, Flirtey had able been to successfully deliver hot, fresh pizzas in an urban environment, validating that the system works and that it's "prepared for mass market deliveries around the globe," said the company's CEO, Matthew Sweeny.

"We are moving closer and closer to widespread store-to-door drone delivery," he added.

A lot of customers are on board with this idea. 70% of Domino's customers recently polled said they would be willing to have their pizza delivered via drone.

"We invested in this partnership, and technology, because we believe drone delivery will be an essential component of our pizza deliveries, so even more customers can receive the freshest, hottest pizza we can offer," added Domino's Group CEO and Managing Director Don Meij. "Drones offer the promise of safer, faster deliveries to an expanded delivery area, meaning more customers can expect to receive a freshly made order within our ultimate target of 10 minutes. This is the future."

Flirtey's autonomous, electric drones are made from carbon fibre, aluminium, and 3D-printed components. They lower cargo via tether, and are programmed to return to a safe location if the battery is running low, and automatically return home if they lose communication or encounter a low GPS signal.

In 2013, Domino's teased drone delivery in the UK via a video featuring the 'DomiCopter', though it had largely been viewed as a marketing stunt at the time rather than an actual service.

Drone technology has changed a lot in three years. In the US, Chipotle recently teamed up with Google's parent company, Alphabet, to deliver burritos by drone at Virginia Tech, one of the FAA's six approved drone test sites.

The Moto Z gets a Nougat update and Daydream certification

The last time we checked in on Nougat market share numbers (a little over a week ago), the latest version of Google’s operating system was ranked below Gingerbread in terms of adoption. Slowly but surely the needle is starting to move. A handful of manufacturers have announced updates for their devices in the lead up to the holiday, including both variants of the OnePlus 3.

This week, Motorola’s modular Moto Z handsets will be getting Android 7.0 (not 7.1, mind) this week – or at least the Moto Z and Z Force – no word yet on the Play, but it’ll likely follow fairly shortly after, as that’s how these things tend to go.

Along with the software upgrade comes Daydream compatibility, meaning you’ll be able to plug the phone into Google’s new VR headset without any hassle, marking the first non-Google-branded handset to be certified with that official distinction. Perhaps Google is throwing a little love toward its former sub-brand.

At the very least, the Pixel is about to get a little less lonely on the Daydream page, and Motorola’s bringing some more key functionality to its most compelling handset.

ZTE announces Force Touch-equipped version of its Axon 7

A few days after OnePlus announced a souped-up verson its flagship smartphone, the OnePlus 3T, ZTE is following suit with the Axon 7.

The limited edition phone is available starting today for $499.98 direct from ZTE's website.

The upgraded Axon 7 is the first ZTE device available in the US with a pressure sensitive display, ZTE calls Force Touch. If that name sounds familiar, that's because it's the same name Apple uses for similar technology on the Apple Watch and its Mac trackpads. The same tech is used in the iPhone with the name 3D Touch.

Through Force Touch users gain the ability to press on the screen to trigger various actions. If you press on an app icon it will bring up a shortcut to launch to a specific task within the app. For example, you could Force Touch on the messaging app to display a shortcut to create a new conversation or select an existing conversation.

Also included for the $100 premium over the standard Axon 7 is 6 gigabytes of memory, and 128 gigabytes of storage.

The new Axon 7 model will use the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, microSD card support, 20-megapixel rear camera, 8-megapixel front camera, 3,250 milliamp-hour battery, and 5.5-inch display.

Zuckerberg Teases Warning System, Labels for Fake News

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, last Friday outlined some of the things his team is doing and considering to combat fake news, including a warning system for suspicious content and bringing in third-party fact-checking services to weigh in on popular content across the site.

"While the percentage of misinformation is relatively small, we have [so] much more work ahead on our roadmap," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post.

Some might quibble with his assertion that fake news has not proliferated on the site; earlier this week, for example, BuzzFeed reported that fake stories generated more engagement on Facebook in the last three months of the election than stories from reputable news sources. Even President Obama has criticised its spread. "If we can't discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems," he said during a news conference in Berlin this week.

Indeed, this is the third time Zuckerberg has had to address the topic since Election Day alone. The Friday after the election, he told those at the Techonomy Conference that "the idea that fake news on Facebook...influenced the election in any way… is a pretty crazy idea." He followed that up with a Facebook post that said "more than 99% of what people see [on Facebook] is authentic, [and] only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes."

That did little to assuage concerns, thus, prompting Zuckerberg's latest post. "Normally we wouldn't share specifics about our work in progress, but given the importance of these issues and the amount of interest in this topic, I want to outline some of the projects we already have underway," he wrote last night.

Zuckerberg promised "better technical systems to detect what people will flag as false before they do it themselves." He also tipped easier reporting that will make "it much easier for people to report stories as fake [and] help us catch more misinformation faster."

Facebook is also exploring a labeling system for stories that have been "flagged as false by third parties or our community, and showing warnings when people read or share them." The company has reached out to "respected fact checking organizations" and "we plan to learn from many more," he wrote.

"We will continue to work with journalists and others in the news industry to get their input, in particular, to better understand their fact checking systems and learn from them," according to Zuckerberg.

When you click on a news story, Facebook will suggest related articles you might also want to read. Going forward, "we are raising the bar for stories that appear in related articles under links in News Feed," Zuckerberg added.

Earlier this month, BuzzFeed also reported on a group of teens in the Balkans whose raison d'etre is to create fake news that would appeal to Trump supporters. As engagement increased, so did the funds making their way to the scammers' Google AdSense account.

"A lot of misinformation is driven by financially motivated spam," Zuckerberg acknowledged in his post. "We're looking into disrupting the economics with ads policies like the one we announced earlier this week, and better ad farm detection."

That new ad policy bans ads in apps or sites containing fake news stories. Google also said it will punish websites pushing fake news by banning them from using its AdSense service.

Zuckerberg's post came at 9:30pm on a Friday night, leading some to speculate that the CEO is trying to bury his post. In the comments, however, Zuckerberg said he posted so late because "that's when I landed and got into in Lima last night" for the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference.

Huawei Mate 9 really want a 5.9in phablet

Huawei’s new smartphone has a massive 5.9in screen. But just how big do you really want your smartphone to be?

Phablets – smartphones with screen sizes over 5.5in – have become more and more popular, showing a trend migration from their Asian origins to the US and Europe. Even Apple, famous for smaller smartphones, launched a phablet in 2014 with the iPhone 6 Plus. But few phablets have stretched their screens beyond 5.7in.

The new €699 (£621) Huawei Mate 9 has a 5.9in full HD display, dual cameras on the back, is 7.9mm thick and runs the company’s latest version of its customised Android 7.0 Nougat called Emotion UI 5. It also has Huawei’s latest processor, which the company claims is 20% more powerful than its previous generation and more powerful in multi-core operations than Apple, Samsung or Qualcomm’s latest processors.

But the question remains whether buyers in the US and Europe want such a large screen. Previous iterations of the Mate line have not been sold en masse in stores, meaning the Mate 9 is the first of Huawei’s super-sized phablets to officially roll out in the UK.

With the failure of Samsung’s Note 7, which was expected to be the big seller in the phablet category, Huawei and others have an opportunity to fill the gap. While others have concentrated on the smaller end of the phablet scale, with Google’s Pixel XL having a 5.5in screen, Huawei has attempted to address poor battery life and the slowing down of phones over time.

To do that, the Mate 9 has a large 4,000mAh battery that’s about 500mAh larger than most mainstream phablets, including the Pixel XL, along with a learning-based system, which runs locally on the phone and detects usage patterns, preparing apps that are normally used at certain times of the day to launch faster without impacting battery life or performance.

Huawei claims the system will also be able to run maintenance routines overnight, clear out the cruft and keep the phone running like new two years down the line. Compared with previous versions of the company’s software, it is expected to run 80% faster after a year.

The Mate 9’s large battery also has Huawei’s new fast-charging system, which like OnePlus’s Dash Charge, moves some of the electronics required to safely charge a battery at high voltage into the charger. The company claims that the new charge system will be able to reach 58% battery capacity in 30 minutes, with a full charge in 90 minutes.

“Battery management research and development is performed in house, and given recent developments we’ve upped research and development spend to make sure nothing similar can happen. We spend a year qualifying and testing components such as batteries both internally and externally before going on sale,” said Ed Gemmell, Huawei’s consumer business group director of communications.

Tablet sales, along with PC sales, are shrinking, as more people use their smartphone as their primary computing device. But whether European and US consumers will take to such a large smartphone remains to be seen.

A limited edition Mate 9 Porsche Design variant, with a smaller 5.5in quad HD curved screen and similar specifications will also be available in the UK and EU costing €1,395 (£1,238), but not in the US.

SpaceX Successfully Tests Mars

Elon Musk's private spaceflight company, SpaceX, has successfully tested a prototype of the fuel tank it plans to use for its Mars spaceship. It announced the news on Twitter last Wednesday, noting that the successful test took place last week.

"Hit both of our pressure targets—next up will be full cryo testing," the company wrote. According to Space.com, the company hauled the large carbon-fiber fuel tank out to sea on a barge before testing how it performed under pressure.
Musk, in September 2016, laid out his plan for making humans a 'multiplanetary species' and creating a self-sustaining civilisation on Mars. To make this a reality, four things need to happen, he said: rockets need to be fully reusable (a goal SpaceX and others have been making progress on as of late); rocket re-fuels need to happen in-orbit; propellant will need to be produced on Mars to send spaceships back to Earth; and the right propellant needs to be used (Musk favors methane over hydrogen).

The idea is that the spaceship will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and enter orbit, at which point the rocket booster will detach and head back to Earth, landing upright on the launch mount. From there, a propellant tanker will be loaded onto the booster and sent to space, where it will refuel the spaceship in orbit. The tanker will then return to Earth and the spaceship will depart for Mars.

SpaceX also recently test-fired the Raptor interplanetary transport engine, the advanced tech it plans to use on Mars missions. This test marked the first time SpaceX successfully fired it.

Hands On With GoPro's Karma Drone

The GoPro Karma drone has been a long time in the making. The company first teased a new line of 'multi-rotor helicopters' outfitted with high-definition cameras two years ago, and hinted that sales would begin in early 2016.

Then the Photokina 2016 unveiling happened. Thus, the world now knows the GoPro Karma is a concrete product.

Of course, it won't go on sale until October 23, which had been last week. At a launch event near Lake Tahoe, California, Nick Woodman, CEO of GoPro, offered some vaguely apologetic explanations for the drone's lengthy development. Based on PCMag's quick hands on, this is a drone that needs no apology.

Besides the fact that it's easy to fly, the GoPro Karma works with the GoPro Hero4, a camera that many outdoor enthusiasts already have in their backpacks. That enables a relatively low US$799 price tag, though pricier bundles with the new GoPro Hero5 Black cameras are also available.

The drone itself won't surprise you. It's a fairly ordinary quad-copter, though it does fold to fit in a backpack and has very bright lights that make it easy to identify against the deep blue Sierra Nevada sky.

Notably, the first thing about the GoPro Karma that makes you raise your eyebrows is the controller. Unlike the DJI Phantom 3, it has a built-in, 720p touch screen display, making for a flying experience that feels a bit like a videogame.

KarmaDroneWeb5

To engage automatic take-off, you hold down the centre button until a countdown timer appears on the screen. After a few seconds, the rotors roar to life and the drone lifts off. The screen then switches to a livestream from the camera; you can adjust the gimbal using the left and right trigger buttons on the controller.

A nudge on the right joystick will free the GoPro Karma from hover mode and send it skyward at a deliberate pace. Even if you flick the joysticks to the stops, the drone responds slowly. This is good for the gusty mountain winds during the test flight, but might not be optimal for quick maneuvering in calm weather.

KarmaDroneWeb3

I flew the drone for approximately four minutes, or 20% of its battery life. I never felt like I had to battle the strong winds nor did I have the opportunity to push the drone to its limits or modify the flight controls' responsiveness. During the entire flight, the video feed appeared smooth, with the camera set to record in 1080p at 60fps.

When it is time to land, you can either activate the 'return to home' feature, or manually guide the GoPro Karma to the ground. I opted to do the latter with assistance from an ever-watchful GoPro pilot.

KarmaDroneWeb1

Incidentally, by the time the GoPro Karma ships, the GoPro Passenger app will be ready for download as well, allowing friends to connect to your GoPro Karma contoller, view the live video from the GoPro camera, and even control the camera's direction by adjusting the gimbal. The app makes a wireless connection directly to the controller, so video should appear as smooth as it is on the controller's screen.

Obviously, the app isn't ready for the test flight.

Interestingly, even as I handed over the controller, my GoPro Karma experience is not yet finished: the US$799 Karma base price includes the GoPro Karma grip, an accessory that I found to be essentially like a mini Steadicam. The fact that GoPro is including it with the drone is a bit puzzling, since it has nothing to do with flying. If you have a spare hand to film, though, it will make your on-the-ground action shots look so much better than if you rely solely on the camera's built-in image stabiliser.

KarmaDroneWeb6

It would be tempting to have left Lake Tahoe convinced that GoPro Karma will be a worthy DJI competitor—the four-minute flight is nothing short of being very good. However, too much uncertainty remains: GoPro engineers are still putting the finishing touches on the GoPro Passenger app and it's unclear how the drone controller will handle some of the most advanced drone features, like autoflight, landing at a set home location, 4K video, and adjusting flight controls.

Still, it's clear that GoPro means business and at least two features—a palatable price and a household name—will work in the company's favor even if the GoPro Karma can't deliver on its promises.

Cortana Now Supports Shopping Lists

Microsoft Cortana is setting out to rescue grocery shoppers, busy professionals, and pretty much everyone else who relies on to-do lists but hates to make them. Starting today, Cortana can automatically start a grocery, to-do, or shopping list to which you add items using your voice.

Phrases like "Hey Cortana, create a holiday list," will trigger the new option, which is available on the Cortana Android and iOS apps, as well as Windows 10.

If you'd like access to the lists Cortana creates without asking her to read them back to you, you can read them via an integration with Wunderlist. Connecting to Wunderlist also gives you the ability to add due dates to your to-dos and create shared lists from the Wunderlist app.

Cortana Gives Third-Party Apps a Voice
One of Cortana's chief rivals, Apple's Siri, can also create and update to-do lists. Siri keeps track of your lists via the Reminders app for iOS and macOS.

Microsoft has been positioning Cortana as a worthy alternative to Siri and Amazon's Alexa voice assistant. One of the keys in that strategy is welcoming third-party developers: at its Build developers conference in April 2016, Microsoft announced a new 'Actions' platform that makes it easier for developers to add items from their apps to Cortana.

Panasonic's Multilingual Megaphone Translates as You Speak

As Japanese tourism grows, businesses struggle to bridge the language divide between international visitors and locals. Panasonic, however, may have a solution: a multilingual loudspeaker. The Megahonyaku—an amalgamation of 'megaphone' (megahon) and 'translation' (hon'yaku)—automatically translates Japanese into English, Chinese, and Korean. Simply speak into the microphone; the machine listens as well as analyses sentence structure, and then transcribes the words. Using the integrated touchscreen, pressing the respective dialect button outputs your sentence in one of the three available languages.

Aimed at corporate customers, including train stations and airports, the amplifier could prove very useful in crowded locations and tourist destinations where information is dispensed to groups who may all speak different languages. The Megahonyaku, The Japan Times reported, comes pre-installed with 300 common sentences in Japanese, including "The train has been delayed" and "Watch your step." Additional phrases will be available via Web-based updates.

Making your voice heard in a congested, noisy terminal isn't always an easy task—even with a portable PA system. However, the Megahonyaku's speech recognition system will be unaffected with background noise, the Times said, and is 'almost certain' to recognise preset sentences if not spoken verbatim.

Google Translate Now Covers 99% of Online Population Panasonic did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment. The megaphone is expected for launch December 20 2016, on sale for less than ¥20,000 (US$183) per month on a three-year contract. This comes with all future updates and maintenance.

Panasonic is also developing a number of other audio solutions, with an eye on the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, an event tht promises throngs of international travelers spilling into the capital city.

There's no going back now: Two months with iPhone 7 Plus

Even before Apple announced the iPhone 7 Plus, I made the decision to go big with this year's model, despite my reservations.

Once Apple confirmed nearly every rumor we'd covered and read leading up to the iPhone 7 announcement, including two cameras on the back of the 7 Plus model and increased battery life, there was no turning back.

On launch day, my iPhone 7 Plus arrived, and I spent a weekend adjusting and tweaking how I held the phone and where I placed it while driving my car.

Fast-forward two months, and it's (mostly) as if I've always used the larger iPhone.

A BIGGER SCREEN REALLY IS BETTER
By far, my favorite aspect of the iPhone 7 Plus is the size of the screen. From watching videos to reading news, I appreciate the added screen real estate.

Due to the increased screen size, I've found myself using my iPhone in landscape mode more often. When Apple first announced the larger "Plus" model iPhone 6 in 2014, the company also revealed developers could create custom interfaces to take advantage of the bigger screen, even in landscape orientation.

For example, when using an app like Safari in landscape orientation, you can view and manage tabs in the same manner as on an iPad or Mac.

I'm continuously surprised each time I rotate my phone and find myself interacting with more than one column of information in Mail or an iPad-inspired look in a third-party app such as Deliveries. Even the home screen is usable in landscape.

Other than when watching a video, I don't recall ever using the standard iPhone 6S in landscape mode. Now, it's a common occurrence.

After using countless Android phones with screens larger than 4.7-inches, I knew the added screen size would be useful. I just didn't imagine it being this useful on an iOS device.

PORTRAIT MODE IS HIT OR MISS
If you recall, one of the headlining features of the iPhone 7 Plus over the standard iPhone 7 is an additional camera lens on the back of the phone that can be used to optically zoom, and thanks to some fancy software tricks, create a depth-of-field effect on some photos.

IPHONE 7 PLUS REVIEW
The iPhone 7 Plus is the best iPhone, as it should be.

Read More
Despite announcing it at the iPhone event in September, the iPhone 7 didn't launch with Portrait mode. It wasn't until a few weeks later that Apple released a beta version of iOS 10.1 with a Portrait mode included for the iPhone 7 Plus. A few weeks after that, the update went live for all (although the Portrait mode feature is still labeled as a beta).

The short review of Portrait mode is this: when the software gets it right, it looks amazing. You'd be hard pressed to find another smartphone camera with a similar effect that can pull it off with the same level of clarity.

However, when Portrait mode gets it wrong, it's laughable. I've taken countless photos where the top half of a glass is cut off or an entire side of someone's face is blurred out all together.

That said, after you use Portrait mode for an extended amount of time, you begin to learn situations, subjects, and lighting environments that work well with the camera's latest trick.

Having the option to optically zoom in on a photo or video has proven invaluable, as I take photos of my kids or products for work. I want every phone to have optical zoom after using the 7 Plus.

NO GOING BACK NOW

Out of curiosity, I picked up the review iPhone 7 I have on hand and was shocked at just how small the phone felt. It was a similar feeling when Apple launched the 4-inch iPhone 5, using it for a while, then picking up the 3.5-inch iPhone 4S.

That said, I find myself still trying to figure out the best technique for one-handed use -- specifically when typing. I haven't dropped the 7 Plus yet, but plenty of close calls and miraculous catches as my phone spiraled toward the floor would make you believe my phone has nine lives of its own.

I have yet to master shuffling the 7 Plus up or down in the palm of my hand with just my thumb, while keeping it secure.

It's still a big phone, too big most of the time, but at this point I've learned to deal with the size in exchange for the larger screen, better camera, and battery life.

I'm disappointed to read rumors about next year's bigger iPhone getting a bigger screen, but leaving the overall footprint of the phone the same. That is to say, the 2017 Plus model -- whatever Apple ends up calling it -- might have the same size of housing, but thanks to new display technology, the company can increase the screen size.

I would much rather Apple use the same size of screen and shrink down the overall size of the phone. While carrying the Plus model, I am constantly reminded of its size when it's in my jeans or coat pocket, and when I'm trying to get it to sit in a cup holder as I drive, if it fits at all.

Despite my gripes, I can't see myself ever using a smaller iPhone.

Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon 835, Quick Charge 4

Qualcomm is manufacturing its next-generation mobile processor, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, in a partnership with Samsung, the companies just announced. Seeing both rivals coming together is unprecedented as is.

This is due to the fact that the two are increasingly rivals when it comes to chips for smartphones and tablets, but Qualcomm said it chose Samsung to produce the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 in part because the Korean tech giant is the first to offer 10nm chip fabrication. Although Samsung uses Snapdragon processors in some of its devices, including the flagship Samsung Galaxy S7 for its US release, it is also well-known for making its own Exynos-series mobile chips.

"This collaboration is an important milestone for our foundry business as it signifies confidence in Samsung's leading chip process technology," Samsung's Chip Foundry Head, Jong Shik Yoon, said.
In using the 10nm fabrication process, mobile chips are able to deliver either 27% higher performance or 40% lower power consumption. Qualcomm said its newest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 is in production now and expected to ship in commercial devices in the first half of 2017.

Qualcomm also revealed the next generation entry for its Qualcomm Quick Charge technology that is to be used for smartphones and tablets, one week after Google strongly encouraged Android manufacturers to ditch Quick Charge and other similar technologies over compatibility concerns.

Quick Charge 4 will be 20% faster at charging devices and includes new protections against battery overcharging. It will start to show up in consumer devices in early 2017, Qualcomm shared.

Last week, Google criticised third-party charging technologies for modifying the voltages of Android-powered devices beyond default levels, explaining that they may interfere with its own USB Type-C quick charging technology.

Google's USB Type-C specification requires between 4.45- and 5.25V, while Qualcomm Quick Charge typically uses 9- or 12V. Qualcomm also revealed how its new power-management controllers used in the Quick Charge 4 are compatible with any high-voltage power source, including USB Type-C.

There are more than 100 Quick Charge-compatible mobile devices and more than 300 unique accessory products such as wall and car adapters, battery packs, and docking stations. In total, Qualcomm revealed that over 600 million mobile devices and accessories support Quick Charge technology.

Google Slams Proprietary Fast Charging on Android Devices
For most devices, Quick Charge 4 will provide up to 50% battery charge in 15 minutes or less. By comparison, Google's own fast charging on the Google Pixel XL lets recharges up to 35% in 30 minutes, and fully in 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Qualcomm did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Google's advice to manufacturers to stop using Quick Charge and other third-party charging technology.

In April, it issued a statement that said it has "received no reports of user experience or device malfunction issues with or without USB Type-C connectors."

Google's request for map of Korea denied

Google's request for a detailed map of South Korea for Google Maps has been denied by the government.

The decision was made by a joint-committee led by the country's transport ministry and IT, foreign affairs, unification, defense, administration, and trade ministries. The committee cited "security concerns" as the reason behind the decision.

The final call comes after a delay from the initial August deadline for the US search giant's request in June. The postponement is speculated to have been caused by the US election, so as to wait for the election results and see the stance of President-elect Donald Trump before making a decision.

This is not the first time Google has requested access to more detailed maps from South Korea. The company has been requesting access to Korean maps that include navigation details and driving directions since 2010, which have been repeatedly refused.

South Korea, which is technically at war with North Korea since the armistice in 1953, has strict regulations over revealing map information.

Current law doesn't allow detailed maps to be housed in servers outside of the country. Google has created a server in South Korea to service the map of the country in a limited capacity.