Google has won approval to bolster work on its Minority Report-style touchless technology, which enables electronics to be controlled by hand gestures.

The Federal Communications Commission has approved Google’s plans to use more powerful sensors for its Project Soli initiative, first unveiled in 2015. The radar-based technology is now poised to kick on to the next level after Google was given special permission to use higher frequencies for its tests.

When Google first showcased the tech in 2015, it came under the X Labs banner and was focused on smartwatches, with specific gestures replacing a physical tap on the touchscreen. For example, it was possible to rub two fingers together in the vicinity of the watch to cycle through menus or turn up the volume of media.

Now the company could expand the operation to enable the sci-fi like air gestures we’ve seen in films like Minority Report and the Iron Man franchise, on larger screens and devices. The waiver granted by the FCCcould also be highly beneficial to tech users with mobility, speech, and tactile impairments.

In a statement (via Reuters), the FCC said: “The ability to recognize users’ touchless hand gestures to control a device, such as a smartphone, could help people with mobility, speech, or tactile impairments, which in turn could lead to higher productivity and quality of life for many members of the American public.”
The regulator also said there’s little chance of Google’s Project interfering with other spectrum users and has approved the tech for use on aircraft.
​
Google hasn’t commented on the news yet, but it’ll be interesting to see what the company has in mind for Project Soli moving forward. Hopefully, we’ll find out more in 2019.

Recently, Anker launched a new campaign on Indiegogo under its Nebula sub-brand for the upcoming Capsule handheld projector.

Called the “world’s most advanced pocket cinema,” this soda-can sized device offers a range
of connectivity options including AirPlay, Chromecast, Bluetooth, and HDMI. The unit boasts an internal battery pack that supplies upwards of 2.5-hours of playtime on a single charge.

Anker’s Nebula brand first arrived on the scene this past summer with its Mars projector. A portable cinema designed in partnership with JBL. At $600, it’s a unique blend of portability and function that provides three hours of continuous playback. Today’s announcement brings much of the same functionality in a smaller package and roughly one-third of the weight at a $299 price point.

The Nebula Capsule runs on a version of Android Nougat, but it supports a wide range of products and connectivity. That includes AirPlay, Chromecast, and Miracast, which complements a built-in HDMI 1.4 port and Bluetooth capabilities. Built-in support for streaming apps from Netflix, YouTube, HBO, Amazon Prime and others round out the list of content providers available at launch.

Capsule sports a native resolution of 654 x 480, but it can handle 1080p and 4K streams with a few adjustments. The DLP lens can display a screen up to 100-inches in size.
​
Anker will ship its latest release with a remote, Quick Charge 2.0 wall charger and a micro USB cable. When the Nebula Capsule hits retail in December, it will have a list price of $349.

It seems no matter how big screens get on smartphones, they’ll never really be big enough. When Apple debuted the original iPhone in 2007, it only had a 3.5-inch display. Ten years on and smartphone screens have now ballooned up to a little over six inches. Some of the new “plus” models are practically tablets at this point.

If, however, you’re still in the camp that prefers something a bit more manageable but sort of wishes the screen was bigger at times, the Canyoze Screen Magnifier may well be a worthwhile investment. If you have kids, elderly family members, or simply want to share your screen with others without having to huddle close together, this is one surefire way to handle it.

Rather than spending extra on a tablet or even a mobile projector, the Canyoze will magnify your existing smartphone’s screen by up to 3x. Or in this case, enlarge it to a 7.6-inch screen. While it may slightly diminish the overall resolution of the picture or movie you’re viewing, it doesn’t require any electricity to work its magic so it will work anywhere you want it to, like on the plane or at the park.

It’s an easy way to show movies or YouTube clips on your phone, so everyone has a front row seat. Or use it to blow up photos when you’re gathered around to see the latest pics from your vacation.
​
When not in use, the Canyoze conveniently packs away into a folder that measures just 4.72” x 0.79” x 5.12”. For less than ten bucks, it’s a handy tool to keep on hand.

HEIF is the new photo format that Apple is using to replace JPEG. And it probably will replace JPEGs, because the iPhone is the most popular, most-used camera in the world, and as of iOS 11, most iPhones will be switching from JPEG to HEIF.

But what is HEIF? What makes it better than JPEG? And what difference will it make?

HEIF (High-Efficiency Image Format) is the still-image version of the HVEC (H.265) video format. Its main advantage is that photos saved in HEIF are roughly half the size of JPEGs, and of better quality. That means you can store twice as many photos on your smartphone before filling it up or, said another way; you can keep all the photos you have while freeing up a ton of gigabytes on your smartphone.

Why? Because image compression has gotten a lot better than it was when JPEG was born in 1992. Apple’s newest operating systems (MacOS High Sierra and iOS 11) feature built-in support for HVEC, and therefore HEIF, which means images can be encoded and decoded super-fast, without stressing the system or the battery.

HEIF offers other advantages over JPEG. For starters, it is not so much a file format as a container for files. A JPEG is a single image, but a HEIF can be a single image or a sequence of images.

This makes HEIF perfect for Apple’s Live Photos, but also makes it a potential replacement for GIF images on all platforms. HEIF also supports transparency, and image color up to 16 bits, versus JPEG’s measly 8-bit color.

In practice, this means that HEIF can capture all the extended color range provided by the camera’s 10-bit color output. In other words, you will no longer see ugly banding across a blue sky.

HEIF is also good for editing. A HEIF image can be rotated and cropped without altering the image or resaving it. This makes such edits undoable at any time in the future.

Right now, we live in a JPEG world. To fit in, iOS 11 will convert its HEIF images to JPEGs upon export — for sharing to non-iOS devices, for example, or for passing images to apps that don’t support HEIF. As a user, you will notice nothing. All the work will be done behind the scenes.

Photos will take up less space while looking better. They will upload and download to and from your iCloud Photo Library much faster. And, if the rest of the world adopts HEIF in place of JPEGs, then the whole web will operate more quickly.

It’s important to note that HEIF isn’t an Apple-owned technology at all, any more than JPEG. JPEG has been around for a quarter of a century. It’s as established as a file format gets. But it’s also due for retirement. HEIF is a suitable heir, and may just usurp JPEG thanks to the massive iOS user base. Hopefully, the most controversial thing about HEIF will be — like GIF — its pronunciation.
​
For an in-depth look at the technical details of HEIF, you should read Kelly Thompson’s excellent piece for 500px.

A new payments terminal, E la Carte's PrestoPrime EMV, could potentially bring Apple Pay and other mobile payment systems to more restaurants, and let people pay for food and drinks without either a card or interacting with a waiter.

The terminal sports dual processors with one dedicated to payments, E la Carte said, and can even temporarily save some data locally in case of a power failure, forwarding it later once an internet connection is back. In addition to Apple Pay, it also supports Android Pay and Samsung Pay, plus less direct mobile payment methods by way of a camera and QR code reader.

For card-based transactions, the device supports both chips and magnetic stripes, with a PIN pad and signatures. Before or during a meal it can provide entertainment like games and video.

The PrestoPrime EMV's predecessor is said to be in use at over 1,800 U.S. restaurants, including chains like Applebee's. While restaurants are unlikely to upgrade en masse, a gradual changeover during the next few years could see mobile payment systems become more prominent.

Traditionally, mobile payment systems were limited to fixed point-of-sale terminals or handheld readers like those from Square. At restaurants, waiters may sometimes have to bring a reader to a table for people to pay.
​
Platforms like Apple Pay and PayPal so far appear to be winning out over QR-based options. Recently MCX sold off assets from CurrentC, a failed QR-based challenger, to JPMorgan Chase. The latter company is working on a system called Chase Pay.

It took a year from proof of concept to in-the-wild attack, but ransomware for Android-based smart TVs is now here. As one victim discovered this Christmas, figuring out how to clean such an infection can be quite difficult.

Ransomware for Android phones has already been around for several years, and security experts have warned in the past that it's only a matter of time until such malicious programs start affecting smart TVs, especially since some of them also run Android.

In November 2015, a Symantec researcher named Candid Wueest even went as far as to infect his own TV with an Android ransomware application to highlight the threat. While that infection was just a demonstration, this Christmas, the owner of an LG Electronics TV experienced the real deal.

Kansas-based software developer Darren Cauthon reported on Twitter on Dec. 25 that a family member accidentally infected his Android-based TV with ransomware after downloading a movie-watching app. The picture shared by Cauthon showed the TV screen with an FBI-themed ransom message.

On Android, most ransomware applications are so-called screen lockers. They work by displaying persistent messages on the phone's screen and preventing users from performing any other actions on their devices. The messages usually impersonate some law enforcement authority and ask victims to pay fictitious fines to regain control.

Cauthon, who was the previous owner of the three-year-old TV, tried to help the new owner restore the device to its default factory settings, but didn't succeed even after receiving many suggestions and advice from other Twitter users.

According to the software developer, when he first contacted LG's tech support, he was told that a technician would have to come over and the fee for the visit would be $340.

The ransom amount itself was $500 although even paying that would have been difficult because there was no way to click on the payment section to find the instructions on how to do so. The only thing that worked was just moving a mouse-like pointer on a portion of the TV screen via an accompanying smart remote.

Eventually, LG provided Cauthon with a solution that involved pressing and releasing two physical buttons on the TV in a specific order. This action booted the TV, which runs the now defunct Android-based Google TV platform, into a recovery mode.

The Android recovery mode allows wiping the data partition, which deletes all user settings, apps and data and is the equivalent of a factory reset. While this sounds straightforward, Cauthon's experience suggests that many users would have difficulty figuring it out on their own and would probably be forced to pay for technical assistance.

If recovering from smart TV ransomware infections can be hard, imagine what users would have to deal with if these programs start infecting other internet-of-things devices, as some security experts predict.
​
In this case, the victim was lucky because the ransomware app was only a screen locker and not a program that encrypts files. Smart TVs have USB ports and allow connecting external hard disk drives to watch personal videos or photo collections – the type of data that are valuable to users, especially if they're not backed up.

The 2016 Rio Olympics are how history and there was no shortage of tech at this year's event. Athletes used all kinds of gadgets to help them train and stay fit, from heads-up displays used by cyclists to jump trackers worn by the volleyball team. Here are a few of the gadgets that made it to Rio.
​
Smart Cycling Glasses

You may have seen U.S. cyclists wearing Solos smart glasses, a kind of Google Glass for athletes. The glasses have a tiny heads-up display that shows metrics like heart rate, pace, distance, and cadence. The data appears in real-time, so cyclists know if they are moving at their projected pace. The glasses have built-in headphones and can run for around six hours before needing a charge. The Solos glasses are expected to become available next Spring and should cost around $500.

Joint and Muscle Therapy

Athletes with the U.S. gymnastics team used LumiWave's Infrared Light Therapy device to treat minor muscle and joint pain. Each of its eight "pods" beams infrared light into body tissue, which helps increase blood flow and provide short-term pain relief. The device has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration "for temporary relief of minor muscle pain and spasms and minor joint pain and stiffness." While gymnasts have access to it now, the device is on pre-order to the general public starting at $449.




​
Jump Tracker

Wearables provide analytics data to help athletes train. The U.S. women's volleyball team used the Vert Wearable Jump Monitor, which clips onto clothing to track how high, how far and how often each player jumps. The data is sent to an app to help coaches ensure athletes don't over-exert themselves, which can lead to injury. It can also be used for basketball and other sports. You can buy your own for $125.

 


Visa's Payment Ring

​Crime was a big concern at the Rio Olympics. Visa provided a wearable payments ring to its sponsored athletes at the games, allowing them to make cashless payments. Tap the ring on a compatible payment terminal and you're done. Visa is also linking pre-paid cards to payment bands and smartwatches like the Swatch Bellamy.

It doesn't happen often but Bluetooth is getting an upgrade all the way to a new version, Bluetooth 5. Announced last week by Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), will have double the speed, quadruple the range and increases data capacity by 800%. It should also work far better outdoors than current offerings. In an age of smart connected homes and smartwatch devices this is very good news indeed.

Bluetooth is lower power consuming than Wi-Fi, but has been limited by range and bandwidth, until now. Bluetooth 5 is expected to start arriving later this year and early in 2017 inside new devices.

Expect new smartphones, smartwatches, speakers, headphones, smart bulbs, connected cameras and more to sport the new Bluetooth 5 connection. There are currently over 30,000 companies working with the Bluetooth SIG so expect this to appear on a huge scale when it starts to arrive later this year.

This could also mean indoor location tracking, like that used by Apple in its Stores, could become wider spanning and more accurate than ever.
​
Expect to hear manufacturers announcing their devices which will pack Bluetooth 5 towards the end of 2016.

Several reviewers and critics have said that the smartphone has hit a wall with respect to design and innovation. Fortunately, the people at Fingerprint Cards don’t believe that. They recently announced that they have collaborated with TPK, a leading company specializing in cover glass and lamination technology. Through this collaboration, Fingerprint Cards can now offer smartphone manufacturers new, highly attractive and innovative design options where the fingerprint sensor (FPC 1268) is integrated with and under the cover glass.

Jörgen Lantto, President and CEO of FPC, comments: "By teaming up with TPK, we can  provide a highly compelling offering to the smartphone manufacturers, making it possible to mount the fingerprint sensor under the cover glass."

Traditionally, fingerprint readers required a discrete area just for their use. To integrate them most efficiently, smartphone manufacturers have tended to build them into either the home button on the front (as Apple and Samsung do) or the power button on the back or side (as with Google's Nexus and Sony's Xperia).

And the benefits of this technology isn’t just aesthetic. LG Innotek, the research arm of Korean manufacturer LG, points out that waterproofing a smartphone becomes significantly easier without a discrete button for the fingerprint reader. Plus, the sensor itself is less susceptible to being scratched if it sits under the same tough cover glass as the display.

Leading the list of possible adopters of this technology is Huawei and Google. Currently the two leading manufacturers, Samsung and Apple have their own proprietary designs and are not likely candidates for this new technology. But given the desire to have fully water repellant models, both companies are most likely considering under glass implementations.

The first commercial devices are expected to reach the market in second half of 2016.

Samsung is rumored to be developing a device that offers both a phone and tablet together
The company is changing the world of smartphones and tablets by putting them together in a foldable device. The rumored project is called Project Valley.

This isn’t the first time Samsung introduced a foldable smartphone concept to the public. In 2014, an ad was released to share Samsung’s idea of a ‘smartlet.’ But in March 2016, the patent for the device was made public, further fueling speculations that Project Valley is already in the works and after three years of development, it is gearing up for release in 2017.

The phone measures 5 inches tall, but can offer a 7-inch display when unfolded. The phone offers a foldable OLED display and will come in two variations based on the processor chip being either a Snapdragon 620 or Snapdragon 820. Moreover, the device will also have 3GB of RAM, non-removable battery and a microSD card slot.
​
The company has put together a humorous commercial on YouTube.