Innholdsfortegnelse for #263 i Techlife News

Samsung Electronics said Sunday it will offer an artificial intelligence assistant service in the upcoming flagship smartphone, as the South Korean firm seeks recovery from its global smartphone recalls. The Galaxy S8 will let users order food or perform other tasks without going through a third-party application but by simply asking the phone’s virtual assistant, Samsung said in a statement. The artificial intelligence service will also be made available in Samsung’s other consumer electronics products, such as refrigerators. The company declined to disclose what specific tasks the S8 phone will perform through its artificial intelligence feature. Samsung is expected to unveil the next iteration for its flagship Galaxy device in spring as it has typically done in the past. Sales of the Galaxy S8 will be crucial for the recovery…

China’s plans for a permanent space station remain firmly on track with the successful launch of its new heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket that will enable ambitious future missions, including a planned trip to Mars. The towering rocket that blasted off last week from the Wenchang launch center will be used to launch components for the Tiangong 2 space station and other massive payloads. China launched the Tiangong 2 precursor facility in September and sent up two astronauts in mid-October to live aboard it for 30 days. The station’s 20-ton core module will be launched in 2018, and the completed 60-ton station is set to come into full service in 2022 and last at least a decade. The Tiangong, or “Heavenly Palace,” stations are considered stepping stones to an unmanned…

Electric car maker Tesla Motors has decided to stop offering unlimited free use of its 734 fast charging stations worldwide, just months before it’s scheduled to start selling a mass-market electric car. Tesla Motors Inc. says cars ordered after Jan. 1, 2017 will get roughly 1,000 miles worth of credits each year for use at the Supercharger stations. But after the credits are used, owners will have to pay fees that Tesla didn’t detail on Monday. Vehicles ordered or sold on or before Jan. 1 would still get unlimited free charging. The move means that those who buy Tesla’s mass-market $35,000 Model 3, which is due to go on sale in the second half of next year, won’t get unlimited free charging. Tesla has more than 300,000 reservations for the…

China’s legislature has approved a cybersecurity law that human rights activists warn will tighten political controls and foreign companies say might isolate Chinese industries. Chinese leaders have said the law approved Monday is required to prevent crime and terrorism. It also prohibits activity aimed at “overthrowing the socialist system,” a reference to opposition to the ruling Communist Party’s monopoly on power. The measure tightens control on where Chinese citizens’ data are stored and impose standards for security technology. Human rights groups complain the measure will tighten already sweeping controls on speech. A coalition of business groups warned in August it might isolate Chinese companies from the global economy and limit foreign access to China’s market for security technology.…

Tesla Motors says it has agreed to buy a German engineering company to help automate its electric car manufacturing. The company is buying buy Grohmann Engineering, which Tesla says is a leader in highly automated manufacturing methods. Tesla expects to start building the $35,000 Model 3 electric car next year, and it wants to build 500,000 cars per year in two years. More than 300,000 people have put down deposits to reserve a Model 3. Tesla expects to add more than 1,000 engineering and technician jobs in Germany over the next two years. The company says the acquisition should bring improvement in the speed and quality of production at its Fremont, California, factory. The deal is expected to close early next year. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed.…

Havana Moon (Live) The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones return with a live tour showcasing the amazing sound and energy that they continue to be known for, even after 50 years of performing live. FIVE FACTS: 1. The Rolling Stones have grossed over $750 million from their concerts down the years. 2. Frontman Mick Jagger was always known for his unique style of dancing onstage, so it should come as a surprise that he is a ballet dancing enthusiast in his spare time. 3. Locks of Mick Jagger’s hair, cut off him during the 60s, have been taken to auction and sold for £4,000 (approximately $5,000). 4. There used to be a long-standing rumor that guitarist Keith Richards once had a complete blood transfusion to kick his addiction to heroin.…

Climate negotiators started work Monday on implementing the Paris Agreement on global warming amid uncertainty over how the U.S. election will impact the landmark deal as temperatures and greenhouse gases soar to new heights. U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa told delegates in the rain-soaked Moroccan city of Marrakech that “no politician or citizen, no business manager or investor” can doubt that the world is determined to shift toward a “low-emission, resilient society.” So far, 100 countries have formally joined the agreement adopted last year in Paris, including top polluters China, the United States, the European Union and India. However, U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he would “cancel” the deal if he wins the election this week. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, backs the climate policies of President Barack…

In another black eye for one of the world’s leading consumer brands, U.S. authorities announced a recall last week of nearly 3 million Samsung washing machines following several reports of injuries - including a broken jaw - due to “excessive vibration.” The recall comes a month after the South Korean manufacturer recalled millions of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones from consumers around the world, because of a mysterious problem that caused the phones’ batteries to overheat and catch fire. Since then, the company stopped producing that device entirely, while estimating the debacle will cost it $5.3 billion. Samsung said Friday that its washing machine recall would also extend to models sold in Canada, although it said no injuries had been reported in that country. The company launched an earlier, unrelated…

German prosecutors have widened their investigation into Volkswagen’s handling of the emissions scandal to include its board chairman, Hans Dieter Poetsch, the company said last Sunday. Poetsch was VW’s chief financial officer when the company’s efforts to rig cars to cheat on U.S. diesel emissions tests became public in September 2015. Volkswagen said in a statement that prosecutors in the German city of Braunschweig are investigating three members of the board including Poetsch. Prosecutors were already investigating former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn and VW brand chief Herbert Diess over allegations they didn’t inform investors soon enough. VW rejects those allegations. “Based on careful examination by internal and external legal experts, the company reaffirms its belief that the Volkswagen board of management duly fulfilled its disclosure obligation under German capital markets…

CONTRADICTORY STATISTICS INDICATE EXTENT OF RIVALRY Two reports recently emerged shedding some light on not only how tight the competition continues to be between the operating systems of iOS and Android, but also how dramatically Apple and Google differ in their mobile strategies. For, while 2016’s third quarter saw Android’s share of the smartphone market reach nearly 88%, it also saw Apple’s iPhone line take over 100% of the market’s profits. ANDROID: A LEADER, BUT A HOLLOW ONE Fresh data from Strategy Analytics could have led many observers to believe that Android has pretty much sewn up the smartphone market. After all, the data revealed that Android was on a mammoth 87.5% of smartphones shipped during the just-gone quarter; that compared to the 12.1% share that Apple’s iOS took in the same…

A Samsung phone user in France says her Galaxy J5 smartphone caught fire and exploded on Sunday. The model is different from the Galaxy Note 7 that has been recalled worldwide. Lamya Bouyirdane told The Associated Press on Monday that she noticed the phone was very hot after she asked her four-year-old son to pass it over during a family gathering at her home. She said she threw the phone away when she realized it had “swollen up” and smoke was coming out. “I panicked when I saw the smoke and I had the reflex to throw it away,” said Bouyirdane, a mother of three in the southwestern French city of Pau. The phone then caught fire and the back blew off. Her partner quickly extinguished it. Bouyirdane said she…

It turns out that when space aliens do eventually arrive on Earth - and, wouldn’t you know it, they traveled all that way without bothering to learn any of our languages beforehand? - we won’t need any fancy high-tech gizmos with LED screens to communicate. All we’ll need is a simple whiteboard and a black marker to break the intergalactic ice and say “hi.” That’s among some of the hard-to-swallow premises of“Arrival ,”a sluggish, naturalistic meditation on loss and time that also happens to have lumbering spidery, squid-like aliens who arrive in a spacecraft that resemble massive watermelon seeds. The film tries to straddle the line between serious sci-fi that examines Big Ideas (like“Solaris”) and the kind of popcorn-munching, go-get-those-slimy-critters summer blockbusters (hello, “Independence Day”). It doesn’t always succeed and…

Marvel’s “Doctor Strange” topped a strong weekend at the box office with $85.1 million from North American theaters, according to box office sales reported by the studios on Monday. The success of “Strange” also continues Marvel’s now fourteen-film streak of always opening in first place. There was more money to go around, too. DreamWorks Animation’s “Trolls” sang its way into the second place spot with $46.6 million, while Mel Gibson’s independently-financed WWII drama “Hacksaw Ridge” took third place with $15.2 million. The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by comScore: 1.“Doctor Strange,” Disney, $85,058,311, 3,882 locations, $21,911 average, $85,058,311, 1 week.…

Indian officials were trying Tuesday to restore the websites of seven Indian embassies in Europe and Africa that were hacked and had data dumped online. The security of the websites of Indian embassies in Italy, Switzerland, South Africa, Libya, Malawi, Mali and Romania was breached by hackers who identified themselves to the media as Kaputsky and Kasimierz L. “We are aware of the problem and are trying to fix it,” External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup told reporters. Attempts were being made to track the IP addresses of the hackers, who posted online the names, email addresses, phone numbers and passport numbers of some embassy staff members. Several Indian websites have come under attack this year. Last month, Pakistan-based hackers targeted more than 7,000 Indian websites after India launched a…

“Mozart 225: The New Complete Edition” (Decca and Deutsche Grammophon) What measures 11 inches square and 7 inches high, weighs 21 1/2 pounds and takes 10 days and nights to play? Answer: A new box set jam-packed with 200 CDs that contains every note composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in his short 35 years of life. Just in time for the 225th anniversary of the composer’s death on Dec. 5, Decca and Deutsche Grammophon have combined forces to issue this compilation, mind-boggling in its thoroughness and admirable in its scholarly depth. There are other “Complete Mozart” sets on the market, but this one has fair claim to boast that it’s “completer” than the rest. Talk about your embarrassment of riches! Chronologically, the compilation starts with Mozart’s first known compositions, two…

The election of a U.S. president who has called global warming a “hoax” alarmed environmentalists and climate scientists Wednesday and raised questions about whether America, once again, would pull out of an international climate deal. Many said it’s now up to the rest of the world to lead efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, while others held out hope that Donald Trump would change his stance and honor U.S. commitments under last year’s landmark Paris Agreement. “Now that the election campaign has passed and the realities of leadership settle in, I expect he will realize that climate change is a threat to his people and to whole countries which share seas with the U.S., including my own,” said Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine. Small island nations which fear they…

Several far-right Polish groups have protested outside Facebook’s office in Warsaw after the social networking site temporarily blocked their profiles. About 120 people demonstrated in the Polish capital last week, denouncing what they said was “censorship.” Facebook recently blocked the profiles of far-right nationalist groups ahead of nationalist demonstrations on Independence Day next Friday, Nov. 11. In recent years, extremist groups have clashed violently with police on the annual holiday. Facebook has since unblocked the profiles. Those at the rally in Warsaw called on Facebook to respect the freedom of expression as guaranteed in Polish law. Krzysztof Bosak of the National Movement told the protesters: “What Facebook does is not in line with our constitutional rights.” Other groups at the rally included the National Radical Camp and All-Polish Youth.…

Kubo and the Two Strings A young boy with magical powers embarks on a quest for the suit of armor that his late father wore, in order to defeat the vengeful spirit invading his peaceful village. FIVE FACTS: 1. The Kubo puppet used in the film had a total of 23,187 faces, which made it possible for him to pull over 48 million facial expressions. 2. The giant skeleton is the largest stop-motion puppet ever constructed. The armor that it wears consists of over 1,000 bones. 3. The Moon Beast was created entirely with 3D printing. It was printed at 1/5 scale and included in composition shots with the full-sized Kubo puppet. 4. To research how to portray Beetle, Matthew McConaughey read the script to children to see what would…

For a time, Amy Adams, a former chorus girl from Colorado, was known for her princesses and country girls: sweet and sunny characters that helped make Adams a star. “I call them the innocents - like Picasso, my ‘innocent period,’” Adams says, chuckling. “But the naivety or anything that I brought to a role, I didn’t feel trapped by it. I thought each of them saw the world in a different way. I was perplexed that people saw me in that way but I understood it. I didn’t know when or how that would change, but I knew it needed to in order for me to evolve as an actress.” That evolution has been going on for some time, from the forceful restraint of her performances in “Doubt” and “The…

Forget dumping ice buckets, dancing or planking, the latest viral phenomenon sweeping the internet consists of people standing still as part of the “mannequin challenge.” Videos of the challenge feature posing as mannequins in dramatic postures. They began to appear late last month online and by last weekend everyone from high school cheerleaders in Texas to the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks had taken part. The Dallas Cowboys went airborne for their challenge, complete with a stoic Tony Romo being stuffed into an overhead compartment on the team plane. The challenge has become a victory celebration for some teams. Texas Christian, Penn State and Clemson’sfootball teams posted mannequin challenges after big wins Saturday. The videos are set to the song “Black Beatles” by rap duo Rae Sremmurd, which held a live version of the challenge…

Gemalto on Oct. 28 cut the forecast to 500 million euros ($553 million) to 520 million euros, from 660 million euros previously. It cited the combined effect of some contract delays and the need to keep spending on items including its distribution network. Analysts predict earnings before interest and taxes will be 484 million euros next year on average; a month ago, they were still expecting 518 million euros, within a range as high as 609 million euros. “We could’ve edged closer to analysts’s consensus if we’d sacrificed investments, but we can’t under-invest only to boost short-term profitability,”Vallee said. “Growth prospects are very good in our markets beyond 2017,” and Gemalto needs to prepare for that, he said. The company’s recent wins include contracts to secure connected objects for Alibaba…