An interesting little device was discovered planted in the iPhone of Russian anti-corruption activist Lyubov Sobol's campaign manager over the new year. On December 21, 2020, Sobol's campaign manager Olga Klyuchnikova was taken into custody by the Russian FSB. She spent a week in jail on "administrative charges" and was released - but something was amiss.
The calendar has switched to another year but some things have unsurprisingly remained the same. COVID-19 still threatens the world's population, Big Tech is still on trial for various things, and Fortnite remains absent on iPhones. Despite being one of last year's highest-profile dramas, the fight between Epic Games and Apple seems to still have no resolution in sight. As if to stir things up again, Epic Games has apparently filed an antitrust complaint against Apple and even Google, this time in the United Kingdom across the pond.
Pokemon GO has a Hoenn Region event coming up, and we've got the list of Pokemon that'll be out in force. The Shiny Pokemon that'll be in the mix are numerous - but noy all common. The difference between a Shiny Pokemon released here and Shiny Pokemon released on a special event for it, specifically, is the likelihood that you'll find one.
A Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI) was created for the near future in which COVID-19 vaccination checks are imperative. The VCI is a coalition of public and private partners that include Evernorth, Mitre, SAFE, SalesForce, Change Healthcare, CARIN, The Commons Project, Epic, Mayo Clinic, Oracle, and Microsoft. Cards will allow individuals to access and display their vaccination records "based on open, inoperable standards."
Way back in November 2019, Google announced its intention to acquire Fitbit for a whopping $2.1 billion. The acquisition has clear benefits for Google, as bringing Fitbit under the Google umbrella could help the company build out Wear OS in a big way, but the proposed acquisition was met with a significant amount of resistance from regulators and advocacy groups alike. Fast forward to today and Google's acquisition of Fitbit is complete, but not without some hefty promises made on the part of Google.
Today Samsung revealed their Galaxy SmartTag series, with Bluetooth for the standard version and UWB tracking with the Galaxy SmartTag+. Each Samsung Galaxy SmartTag will be able to be viewed in an app on your smartphone, tracked in real time, and pinged at a moment's notice with UWB (with the SmartTag+) or with the last known location using Bluetooth (with the standard SmartTag).
On the 13th of January, 2021, Google announced the launch of Guest Mode. They've revealed this feature as "another easy way to control your privacy on smart speakers and Smart Displays." That includes Google Nest and Google Home speakers as well as a number of Google-embedded Smart Displays. This system was launched in English, first, and will likely spread to other devices and languages in the near future.
Three star chip designers from Apple and Google formed a company called NUVIA in late 2019. They aimed to create silicon processing chips that'd eventually take on the likes of Intel and AMD, and raised a whole bunch of money in Series A and B funding and became a force to be reckoned with in a relatively short amount of time. Today, Qualcomm announced that they'll be acquiring NUVIA for $1.4 billion USD.
This week the folks at Spotify launched a major upgrade for their shared family plan feature. Spotify Kids is a feature within Spotify that curates the Spotify music universe in a way that makes the whole experience safe for a kid. With a shared account, a parent can give access to their child via an account made specifically for said kid. With this latest update, they'll have access to Shared Playlists, too.
Today we're taking a peek at the next Pokemon GO Community Day - ready for Machop! The day includes an optional $1 ticket for Special Research called "Straight to the top, Machop!" It also includes a special Machop Community Day Bundle that'll only be available one time (one purchase, only) with an Elite Charged TM.
This week we caught our first glimpse of what LG described as the world's first rollable smartphone. This device was first shown at CES 2021, the consumer electronics show, the first "all digital" version of the show thanks to the pandemic through which we're still living. Today it's been reported that this LG-made smartphone with rollable display won't have a display made by LG.
One goal of AI researchers is to figure out how to make machine learning models more interpretable so researchers can understand why they make their predictions. Google says this is an improvement from taking the predictions of a deep neural network at face value without understanding what contributed to the model output. Researchers have shown how to build an explainable machine learning model able to analyze baking recipes.