Google’s Trusted Contacts app lets users share locations in an emergency

Emergency contacts are a handy thing to have, and Google has just unveiled its Trusted Contacts app to help keep us all a little safer when we're walking home in the dark or off on an adventure into the unknown. As the name suggests, Trusted Contacts can be used to quickly share your location with a selection of your most trusted family and friends.

The app works with existing contacts on your phone, but allows you to assign a "trusted" status to your friends and family. These people can then make location requests about you if they're worried, which you can deny if you want some privacy. You can make similar requests of them and can also send them your location directly should you need bailing out of a tricky situation. The contact limit is 50, but Google expects that most people will just opt to use 5 or 6. Location access can also be revoked at any time, and it's entirely an opt-in service.

If a contact requests your location and you don't reply back in five minutes, Google will automatically send your location to them. As well as sharing GPS location details, the app offers up the ability for contacts to view your phone as offline when you don't have any reception and also when you're battery is dead.

The app is currently available for all Android devices running version 4.1 and up. To get started, simply download the app below, add some contacts, and then they'll receive an email asking them to sign up to the app too.

Download from Google Play

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The LG G6 could be waterproof and charge wirelessly

LG may drop the modular capabilities of the LG G5 and introduce waterproofing on its upcoming flagship, the LG G6, according to a new report. The news arrived yesterday via Korean site ETNews and also suggests that the G6 will lose one of the long-standing features of the G-series: a removable battery.

ETNews recently speculated that the LG G6 would lack the modular aspect of its predecessor, however it didn't reference waterproof capabilities in the original story. According to ETNews, this is now going ahead, and LG will employ a waterproofing method which makes use of an adhesive, rather than tape like its Korean competitor Samsung utitlizes on its phones, which is said to be a less expensive alternative.

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An official from LG Electronics told ETNews, "The climate of Japan is humid and rainy, and the hot spring culture has developed and demand for waterproof phones has been high."

Meanwhile, Korean tech site The Investor suggests that the LG G6 would feature wireless charging and LG's yet-to-be-released mobile payments system.

Would you be disappointed if LG dropped a removable battery in favor of waterproofing on the LG G6? Let us know in the comments.

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Blu phones will use Google’s OTA solution going forward

Blu, the US-based smartphone manufacturer, found itself in quite a jam a few weeks ago. The security firm Kryptowire discovered that a few of Blu's devices were sending user's personal data to a company in China.

To prevent more security incidents, Blu announced that it would start using Google's OTA update solution infrastructure of the backdoor-afflicted solution provided by Chinese company Adups. Speaking to PCMag, the CEO of the company, Sammy Ohev-Zion, confirmed this by saying, "Any new model that launches from December onwards will have Google's OTA application instead of Adups."

He also added that the company will not install third party applications onto their devices if it doesn't have the source code and doesn't understand exactly how they work.

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Blu has admitted that about 120,000 of its phones were affected by the security issue and were sending user sensitive data to China including, among others, text messages, call logs, and contacts. The R1 HD, the Energy X Plus 2, the Studio Touch, the Advance 4.0 L2, the Neo XL, and the Energy Diamond are the devices that are part of this fiasco.

"We have an email history with Adups saying we did not want that functionality on our devices, and they violated our request," he said. "We are a hard-working, American, family-owned business, and we are the last people on Earth that would engage in anything that would abuse our hard-earned customer relationship." — Sammy Ohev-Zion, Blu's CEO.

Blu has already fixed the issue with a software update but nevertheless the company's reputation took a massive beating. In addition, it might be facing a class-action lawsuit soon.

So, any thoughts on this matter? Would you buy a Blu smartphone considering they now use Google's OTA solution? Let us know in the comment section below.

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DeepMind CEO: General AI is still decades away

The use of machine learning and computer intelligence is becoming increasingly important in emerging technology fields, from big data to self driving cars. However, Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of AI company DeepMind which Google bought back in 2014, still believes that we're still a long way away before general artificial intelligence becomes a reality.

Speaking at the Disrupt London event today, Mustafa suggests that computer learning technologies will continue to focus on solving specific problems in the immediate future, while technology presumable improves processing and compute capabilities. He also raised a point about developers potentially introducing their own judgement flaws and biases into machine learning algorithms, and that designers need to take a new approach when building these new systems to avoid human error.

According to the talk, Mustafa believes it could be 20 years or so before general AI capable of broader understanding emerges, and even then he believes that it won't bear much resemblance to the type of AI that we're used to seeing in films. At least not based on the research that DeepMind is undertaking.

"when we say it's 20 years out or decades way, we say that it so far out, we can't really measure it … When it comes to imagining what the future will be like, a lot of that is fun and entertaining, but it doesn't bear a great deal of resemblance to the systems that we are building," – DeepMind CEO, Mustafa Suleyman

Those worried about a post-apocalyptic future ruled by computer overlords won't take much comfort from Mustafa's refusal to name those who sit on Google's mysterious AI ethics board. He has previously stated that he wants to disclose details to the public. When pressed on the issue, Mustafa suggested that we're still decades away from the kinds of risks that the board initially envisages, and he repeated that DeepMind's mission statement is to "solve intelligence and make the world a better place."

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On the more productive side, DeepMind has also just opened up its Lab platform to researchers. It features a 3D game-like engine tailored for agent-based AI research. This allows researchers to test navigation, memory, and other strategies in a 3D environment. Code for the DeepMind Lab platform is going to be published to Github later this week.

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OnePlus contest sees OnePlus 3T and more available for one rupee (India)

OnePlus has introduced a contest for customers in India which allows users to exchange points for items in the OnePlus store. The December Dash promotion, which runs until the end of the year, also sees three OnePlus 3T devices become available each week for one India rupee.

To have a chance of buying a one rupee OnePlus 3T, users must complete an Entry Challenge which involves signing into the OnePlus account, verifying your mobile number, adding your address details and then sharing the OnePlus competition page on their social channels. Those who do so before December 28 will be entered into the OnePlus 3T prize draw which occurs every Saturday (winners will be notified by email).

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In addition to the prize draw, users can earn points for each person who completes the Entry Challenge using one of the links they share on social media. Each registration earns the user one point, redeemable at OnePlus's prize shop. Items which can be exchanged include phone cases for between 6 and 15 points and a 128 GB OnePlus 3T for those you manage to amass 300 points (for clarity, that means 300 people must complete the Entry Challenge through links you post.)

Items which can be exchanged include phone cases for between 6 and 15 points and a 128 GB OnePlus 3T for those you manage to amass 300 points (for clarity, that means 300 people must complete the Entry Challenge through links you post.)

The prize shop is open 12 – 6pm (IST) on every Friday in December (9, 16, 23, 30) but items seen there may have limited stock. For the full rules and conditions of the December Dash, head over to OnePlus.com.

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Panasonic announces 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio LCD panel to rival OLED

While OLED may be seen by many as the future of mobile and large panel displays, LCD manufacturers have recently come along with a number of innovations breathing new life into the panel type, including Quantum Dot and fast refresh rate technology. Today, Panasonic has unveiled its latest LCD IPS display that boasts a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. That's up to 600 times more contrast than some of the company's conventional LCD panels, which offer around 1800:1 ratios, and rivals OLED specifications.

Panasonic has accomplished this through the use of its new light modulating cell technology, which allows the company to switch off individual pixels in the display using a secondary control layer. Typically, LCD backlights mean that either the entire or only large parts of the display can be dimmed at any one time. OLED panels switch of lights entirely for a black pixel to offer very high contrast ratios, and this new LCD technology works on a very similar principle. This is particularly important for reproducing HDR video content, which is becoming increasingly popular.

Furthermore, this new light modulating cell technology allows Panasonic to increase the peak brightness and stability of the display, which can reach 1,000 cd/m2 while also providing HDR colors. Many other HDR TV panels top out in the range of 700 to 800 cd/m2, so colors, highlights, and shadows should appear vivid and realistic.

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Unfortunately, Panasonic's new technology is quite expensive and won't be heading to small form factor mobile panels, at least not yet. Although it can be built on existing LCD manufacturing lines, so prices should come down. The company states that it will be targeting the technology at panels in the high-end broadcasting, video production, medical, and automotive fields first, with sizes ranging from 55 to 12 inches. Sample shipments are scheduled to begin in January 2017, so we won't see it in products for a little while yet.

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Teardown finds dangerous battery design to blame for Galaxy Note 7 fires

While we wait for Samsung to publish the results of its official investigation into the Galaxy Note 7 fires and subsequent recall, a new teardown from Instrumental, completed with a fire extinguisher at hand, gives us our clearest look yet at what went wrong with the Note 7. In short, Samsung engineers didn't allow enough internal space for the handset's large battery, leading to a pressure build-up, short-circuit, and fires.

Many of the early reports about exploding Galaxy Note 7 handsets pointed to a major issue with the battery and a breakdown in the lithium ion battery's electrolyte-soaked separators was thought to be the most likely cause of the fire, and this seems to have been the case. While it's still possible that the manufacturing technique or a fault in Samsung SDI's design is still partially responsible, the teardown reveals that excessive pressure on the battery is what is most likely to have cause the positive and negative layers of the thin polymer separator to touch, causing the fire. Put simply, the engineers crammed the battery in too tightly.

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October 12, 2016

The teardown reveals that the Galaxy Note 7's battery sits within a costly CNC-machined pocket, which only leaves between 0.1 mm and 0.5 mm of space space for the cell to expand in the X and Y axes. That's not very much, and the engineers also neglected any space for expansion in the Z axis. The battery measures 5.2 mm thick, and the pocket is only 5.2 mm deep. Ideally, Samsung should have left a 0.5 mm (10% rule of error is common in most engineering fields) ceiling for battery expansion in the XYZ planes. This is essential as all lithium-ion batteries expand slightly as they are charged and discharged overtime. Failing to accommodate for this extra space increases the pressure on the cell, putting it at a much greater risk of exploding.

The Galaxy Note 7's design left little room for batteries to expand, which is a dangerous design decision.

What's particularly disheartening about this revelation is that it could have easily been avoided with a less aggressive design. Samsung's engineers ended up making a conscious decision to pursue the maximum possible battery capacity knowing the additional risks and breaking well known design principles. While ensuring that the phone's battery life competes with rival handsets is a tough requirements, other less dangerous design compromises should have been given more of a hearing in hindsight.

Although this teardown reveals a glaring issue with the Note 7, we should also wait for Samsung to announce the results of its official investigation before drawing definitive conclusions, as it may reveal other causes. Either way, with the Galaxy Note 7 now mostly behind Samsung, the company will hopefully have learned from its mistakes in time for next year's Galaxy S8 flagship release.

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