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Apple updated the security and privacy information on its website on Wednesday, revealing new details about how its new facial-recognition technology works.

The new details come about a month before Apple’s most advanced iPhone, the iPhone X, goes on sale. The banner feature of the iPhone X is a facial-recognition tool called Face ID that unlocks the phone, replacing the fingerprint sensor.

Since Face ID and its corresponding 3D camera, called TrueDepth, were announced earlier this month, the technology has attracted a lot of attention and speculation from privacy advocates and security experts. Sen. Al Franken even wrote an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook with 10 questions about the technology.

Continue reading “Apple just released new information about how facial recognition on the iPhone X works” »

Windows Phone has been dead for a good year now, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has decided it’s also time to move on. In an interview with Fox News Sunday (spotted by On MSFT), Gates reveals he’s now using an Android phone. While Gates doesn’t reveal the exact model, he does note that it has “a lot of Microsoft software” on it, which could suggest it’s a special Microsoft Edition Samsung Galaxy S8 handset with bundled software.

Microsoft started selling the Samsung Galaxy S8 handset in its retail stores earlier this year, and it includes apps like Office, OneDrive, Cortana, and Outlook. Any Android phone also supports these apps, but Microsoft’s customized S8 does suggest the company might continue to offer this for other Android devices in the future.

While Gates is switching to Android, he’s still not interested in an iPhone. Gates famously banned iPhones and iPods at home in the past, but he does admit that Steve Jobs was a “genius” in the Fox interview. Gates is still using Windows-based PCs, but he’s still not switching over to an iPhone, despite the Steve Jobs praise.

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Smartphone chip manufacturers are increasingly talking up the introduction of AI processor tech inside their latest SoCs, but why is this trend growing so fast?

I did a new interview on #transhumanism for some journalism students at Germany’s Technical University of Dortmund. It’s in English:

Mechanical bodyparts are very common nowadays – a lot of humans have a hip replacement or a pacemaker. Technology helps saving our lives rather often. Some people want to take this a lot further – a philosophical and scientific movement called Transhumanism. Zoltan Istvan Gyurko is one of the most famous Transhumanists, he even ran for president in 2016. In this interview, he talks about his first experiences with Transhumanism, immortality and the future of humanity.

By Marie-Louise Timcke und Paul Klur

Continue reading “Humanity will be lost” »

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New technology enables thought to be translated into audible words with surprising accuracy by reading user’s brainwaves. The developers say they might be able to get the device to work with smartphones via an app in just five years.

A new system developed by a team of researchers from Japan’s Toyohashi University of Technology can read people’s minds using brainwaves.

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The new digital payment app, called Tez, allows people in India to use a phone to pay for goods in physical stores and online, or make payments to other bank accounts. It’s different to the (already incredibly popular) Indian service PayTM in the respect that it links a phone directly with a bank account, rather than having the user regularly top up a wallet with money.

The Financial Times reports ($) that, unlike many other mobile payment systems which rely on NFC to make payments, Google offers users the ability to make use of a technology called AudioQR to transfer money. The approach allows any two phones with mics and speakers to communicate with each other using ultrasound, above the range of human hearing, to arrange a transaction. That will be particularly useful in a country where not everyone has a high-spec device.

According to TechCrunch, Google has also trademarked the name Tez in other Asian countries, including Indonesia and the Philippines. That suggests that, in the longer term, it has bigger ambitions for the service.

Continue reading “Google’s New Mobile Payment System Sends Money via Sound” »