Technology and Gadjet

GoPro QuikStories Automatic Story Creation Feature Launched for Android and iOS HIGHLIGHTS QuikStories works with any Hero5 camera You’ll also need the GoPro and Quik mobile app installed QuikStories combines photos and videos into a mini movie Popular action camera maker, GoPro, has added a new feature to its GoPro mobile app called QuikStories. The features automatically pulls clips shot by your GoPro Hero5 series cameras and creates a ready-to-share video clip. The new feature is available alongside an update to the GoPro app (formerly known as Capture) on Android and iOS, while it currently supports only the Hero5 series of action cameras. We had a chance to try this out at the launch in Mumbai and it actually works as seamlessly as GoPro says. Before you get started, your Hero5 camera will need the latest firmware update for this to work, which should happen automatically once the camera is connected to the app. Next, you’ll need the latest versions of the GoPro

No Roadmap to Check Objectionable Content on WhatsApp, Admits Government   Indo-Asian News Service ,  28 July 2017 HIGHLIGHTS The government on Friday virtually expressed its helplessness about checking objectionable content uploaded on online messaging site  WhatsApp  as they are encrypted end-to-end and no third party can access them. The government can take action once the content is reported as it has laws in place, Electronics and Information Technology Minister  Ravi Shankar Prasad  told Congress member Raj Babbar in the Rajya Sabha in reply to a question. The member had asked whether the government has any plan to stop sharing of objectionable videos through mobiles and WhatsApp. In the answer, Prasad cited laws that deal with offences of publishing or transmitting objectionable contents. He admitted that instances of objectionable videos being uploaded through mobile phones and shared through WhatsApp have been noticed but added that messages are  end

Apple Says It Is Removing VPN Services From China App Store HIGHLIGHTS Apple Inc says it is removing virtual private network (VPN) services from its app store in China, drawing criticism from VPN service providers, who accuse the U.S. tech giant of bowing to pressure from Beijing cyber regulators. VPNs allow users to bypass China's so-called "Great Firewall" aimed at restricting access to overseas sites. In January, Beijing passed laws seeking to ban all VPNs that are not approved by state regulators. Approved VPNs must use state network infrastructure. In a statement on Sunday, an  Apple  spokeswoman confirmed it will remove apps that don't comply with the law from its China App Store, including services based outside the country. Beijing has shut down dozens of China-based providers and it has been targeting overseas services as it bids to tighten its control over the internet, especially ahead of the Communist Party congress in August. While per

This Drone Battery for Submarines Drinks Seawater As  Boeing  and others work to advance underwater drones, those drones will need better batteries. MIT spinout Open Water Power (OWP) has developed and aluminum-water power system that's safer and more durable that current drone batteries, and on top of that gives underwater drones a tenfold increase in range over traditional lithium-ion. OWP built a system out of alloyed aluminum, a cathode alloyed with a combination of elements, primarily nickel, and an alkaline electrolyte that's positioned between the electrodes. Underwater drones generally need larger batteries than airborne ones, to the extent that it's not practical to ship lithium-ion batteries of that size because of the chance that they'll catch fire—not that it would last long underwater, but long enough to destroy the battery. There's no such risk with this cathode, which draws its power from the very seawater in which it will sit. Once

The Marimba Robot That Composes and Plays Its Own Music At the Georgia's Institute of Technology, Shimon plays some marimba jams. Shimon is also not human, but a robot using deep learning and artificial intelligence to play music of its own creation. Being f ed a variety of over 5,000 songs from Beethoven to Lady Gaga along with a library of 2 million motifs and riffs, Shimon is one of the world's first synthetic musicians. Mason Bretan, a Ph.D. student and Georgia Tech, perfected Shimon's musical abilities after seven years, enabling him to comprehend music played by humans and extemporize over the pre-composed chord progressions. "An artist has a bigger idea of what he or she is trying to achieve within the next few measures or later in the piece," Bretan says  in an interview . "Shimon is now coming up with higher-level musical semantics. Rather than thinking note by note, it has a larger idea of what it wants to play as a whole."

The Machines Are Learning To Gamble Like No Human Can When it comes to betting, sports is all data. Since the 1970s, baseball has been revolutionized by the Society for American Baseball's (SABR) unique understanding of statistics. Now a company is attempting to utilize the vast wealth of data available in sports for gambling purposes, with an AI at the heart of its operation. Stratagem is a British company that takes bets on soccer games. Currently, it employs some 65 human experts who study matches across the globe and uses machine learning to automate parts of the process of betting, like figuring out when people like to gamble the most. But what's down the pike, founder Andreas Koukorinis tells potential investors and  The Verge , is an AI that can watch a game in real time, and, with thousands upon thousands of data points, predict who can win. "They're short duration, repeatable, with fixed rules," Koukorinis  tells   The Verge . "S

Kalashnikov Will Make an A.I.-Powered Killer Robot Russian weapons maker Kalashnikov is working on an automated gun system that uses artificial intelligence to make "shoot/no shoot" decisions. But exactly how this AI or any other decides who is a combatant and who isn't is at the heart of a raging debate over allowing autonomous weapons on battlefields filled with both soldiers and civilians. The Kalashnikov "combat module" will include 7.62-millimeter machine gun coupled with a camera attached to a computer system. According to TASS, the module  uses  "neural network technologies that enable it to identify targets and make decisions". A key part of neural networking technology is the ability to learn from past mistakes. Neural networks are computer systems that learn much like animal brains, learning from example and then using that learning to make decisions in the future. A battlefield robot, for example, may store images of bot

South Korea Suspends THAAD Deployment The new president of South Korea has halted the deployment of a controversial missile defense system designed to protect the country from incoming enemy missiles. The  Terminal High Altitude Air Defense system , or THAAD, was agreed to by the previous administration as a means to defend both South Korea and the U.S. troops based there from North Korean missile attack. Earlier this year South Korean President Park Geun-hye agreed to the deployment of the US-made THAAD missiles to her country. South Korea had waffled for years on the deployment, which was urged by the Pentagon, but the  breakneck pace of North Korea's missile tests —and what appeared to be an imminent nuclear test—forced the country's hand. President Park was impeached and removed from office this spring on corruption charges. The new president, Moon Jae-in, has criticized the previous administration's decision to deploy THAAD, saying it it should have b

Oops! Multi-Million-Dollar Missile Test Failed Because a Sailor Pushed the Wrong Button Last month an expensive test of a system designed to shoot down North Korean ballistic missiles failed. Now we know that failure was because of human error, according to a report by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. The test was the second involving the latest version of the SM-3 interceptor, a key platform in America's missile defenses.  It  took place  off the coast of Hawaii at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on June 21 , 2017 at 1:20 AM Eastern . The destroyer USS  John Paul Jones— equipped with the SM-3 Block IIA ballistic missile interceptor, AM/SPY-1 radar, and version 9.C2 of the Aegis Combat System—was supposed to shoot down an incoming simulated ballistic missile. Human error got in the way.  According to  Defense News , a tactical datalink controller accidentally marked the incoming missile as friendly, causing the SM-3 missile to self-destruct in flight.

Wisconsin company to install rice-sized microchips in employees A Wisconsin technology firm has begun offering employees microchip implants to scan into the company building and purchase food at work. Welcome to the future?  A Wisconsin technology company is offering its employees microchip implants that can be used to scan into the building and purchase food at work. Whether or not to get a chip is up to the employee to decide. Three Square Market,  a company that provides technology for break-room or micro markets, has over 50 employees who plan to have the devices implanted. The tiny chip, which uses RFID technology or Radio-Frequency Identification, can be implanted between the thumb and forefinger "within seconds,"  according to a statement from the company. The company, which is based in River Falls, Wisc., envisions the rice-sized micro chip allowing employees to easily pay for items, access the building and their computers all with a scan of their hand.

Apple Music says it's for country music loving patriots too Commentary: A new Apple Music ad crosses over to the country side of life and features singer Brantley Gilbert. Since Apple Music's launch, it's been tempting to regard the service as the home of the self-consciously  style conscious . For instance,  Taylor Swift . Like the Democratic Party, Apple hasn't seemed to make too much effort to reach out to the heart of the country, where the values are a little different than they are in, say, Culver City, California. Until now, that is.  A new Apple Music ad  offers patriotism and the joys of the open road and of eating in the local diner.  Narrated by Georgia-born country singer Brantley Gilbert, the ad shows that his own taste in music includes Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild," Kendrick Lamar's "Backseat Freestyle" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama." It's unclear whether Gilbert is one of those b

Elon Musk's car elevator is the future of sewer drag racing In a sign that the billionaire tech entrepreneur's underground road project is continuing apace (and that he's sick of using regular roads like the rest of us chumps),  Elon Musk  Instagrammed  a video  of a car elevator designed to send vehicles underground. He used a  Tesla  (of course) outside SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California. It was a test for Musk's new venture,  The Boring Company , which is  currently digging tunnels across LA  in a bid to ease traffic congestion and create new transit routes for the future. Musk has previously shared footage of the building work around the elevator, but now, we have lift off (or, more accurately, drop down).  It's just the latest in a raft of projects seemingly ripped from the pages of a 1958 sci-fi magazine, alongside the electric cars that forged Musk's place in the Silicon Valley pantheon, and the space exploration of  SpaceX , wh

With new Porsche Panamera, E-Hybrid means massive power The 911 pace car ahead of me raced up the main straight and took the ascent up through Turn 1 of the Vancouver Island Motorsport Circuit without a flash of brakelights. Behind the wheel of the 2018 Porsche Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid, I tried to close the distance. My car weighed a lot more but it also boasted substantially more power. The pace car's brakes went on hard before Turn 2, a strategy I emulated. The very tight corners on this tiny track gave the smaller 911 a natural advantage. To close the distance, I quickly learned that, to access the Panamera's 680 horsepower I needed to really put the pedal down, as the throttle felt modulated for smooth on-road driving. On the third of a succession of turns, I steered too tight and the Panamera's rear end began to wag. It wasn't pretty, but it wasn't devastating, either. Under Porsche's direction, I was driving with the Panamera's Porsche Stabili

Good news, data junkies: USB speeds doubling again USB 3.2-equipped laptops and external drives could reach speeds of 20 gigabits per second. You'll likely have to wait until 2019, though. If you're the type of person who copies hundreds of photos or mammoth video files to your external hard drive, good news: USB ports are about to double in speed again. USB, the port that every phone and PC uses to transfer data, tops out today at 10 gigabits per second with USB 3.1. The new USB 3.2 technology doubles that to 20Gbps using new wires available if your device embraces the newest USB hardware -- specifically the  modern USB-C connectors and cables . Well, maybe. The industry group that announced the move Tuesday, the  USB Implementers Forum , isn't willing to commit to 20Gbps just yet. Marketing plans need to be finalized before USB IF starts making any performance promises. In any event, though, faster USB is handy if you're restoring data from a drive, backi