Lifeboat Foundation

Google has warned that growth in the use of Android in India may stall due to an antitrust order issued by the Indian antitrust watchdog last year over the U.S. company’s domination in the country.

The order, which was issued by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in September, found that Google had abused its dominant position in the market for mobile operating systems by imposing restrictive contracts on mobile manufacturers.

The CCI ordered Google to change its contracts with manufacturers, allowing them more freedom to install rival apps and services on Android devices. According to a Reuters report, Google filed a challenge with India’s Supreme Court and said that the order would require some modifications of its existing contracts and new license agreements. It would alter the company’s existing arrangements with over 1,100 device manufacturers and thousands of app developers.

Google announced a new HD version of its Maps service for cars with the Android Automotive operating system. The new HD maps will provide more detailed road markings, lane-level localization, road barriers and signs. The feature will debut on the Volvo EX90 and Polestar 3 models and will benefit from the lidar, radar and camera sensors on vehicles to ensure a safer driving experience.

Volvo EX90 using Google HD maps.

Continue reading “Google announces new high-definition maps, Android Auto redesign rolling out” »

Apple Maps launched a new parking feature that provides users with parking options and availability near a specific destination. In partnership with the digital parking reservation platform, SpotHero, Apple Maps users across the U.S. and Canada can now get parking information for over 8,000 locations.

To use the new feature, launched late last week, iPhone and Mac users can search for a destination in the Apple Maps app and then select “More” and “Parking.” They’re then directed to the SpotHero website without leaving Apple Maps. Users can search for nearby parking and reserve a space using SpotHero’s secure payment options, the parking platform claims.

SpotHero also allows users to filter their search by date and time as well as parking spots with EV charging, wheelchair accessibility, valet services and more.

Humans are eternally curious about the night sky, but figuring out how to use a telescope is non-trivial. At CES in Las Vegas, Unistellar believes it has the perfect solution with its Equinox 2 Smart Telescope.

“When I was a young teenager, I had a telescope that I used during the long summer nights. Fast forward to being an adult – I didn’t have any more time to do astronomy. With a friend of mine, we started to think about what we can do to bring astronomy back to our busy daily lives,” says Laurent Marfisi, co-founder and CEO of Unistellar in an interview with TechCrunch. “We thought up a telescope that is easy to use, that is powerful enough to see through the light pollution, and that has the possibility to reveal galaxies and nebulae, all those things that we could not see even when we were teenagers. The aim is to bring a lot of the power that professionals have in astronomy into the daily lives of consumers who just want to have fun, spend good quality time with their children and their friends around astronomy.”

When there is no mobile coverage, phones will be able to send emergency texts via satellite.

Mental health has become a widespread topic nowadays.

In the past, discussions concerning mental health were often hushed up or altogether swept under the rug. A gradual cultural change has led to openly considering mental health issues and eased qualms about doing so in publicly acknowledged ways.

You might give some of the credit for this change in overarching societal attitudes as an outcome of the advent of easily accessed smartphone apps that aid your personal mindfulness and presumably spur you toward mental well-being. There are apps for mindfulness, ones for meditation, ones for diagnosing your mental health status, ones for doing mental health screening, and so on.

Continue reading “People Are Eagerly Consulting Generative AI ChatGPT For Mental Health Advice, Stressing Out AI Ethics And AI Law” »

Existing smartphones will connect with new satellite constellations in 2023.

I had many ideas on how to improve Twitter, and a communication paradigm was one. The iPhone changed phones, and was a device. Twitter has no device to add to its portfolio. People have no desire to add products to Twitter portfolio to boost revenues. iPhone revenue surpassed computers, therefore it is very easy for Twitter to develop its portfolio to include better more reliable forms of revenue than advertising. A device can make a lot of money if it is a “paradigm” like an iPhone that completely changed our understanding of what a phone can be.

In 1943, Thomas Watson, the president of IBM, famously predicted the world market for computers would top out at “maybe five” of the machines. He was wrong – you likely have more than that in your own house, let’s face it – but at the time, it made sense. After all, if computers were still gigantic, vacuum-tube-powered addition machines, you probably wouldn’t want more than about five either.

It’s a similar story with holograms. Even back in the 1990s, more than 40 years after Dennis Gabor first came up with the idea of using wavefront interference to reconstruct images in three dimensions, science fiction was still assuming the need for entire decks and suites to power our holographic adventures.

Continue reading “You’ll Soon Be Able To Run Holograms On Your Smartphone” »

Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and… breakthroughs in wireless power transfer? Yep, scientists at a branch of the Walt Disney Company called Disney Research have found a way to charge devices on a room-scale without using any wires.

Wireless power is an idea that goes back to the 19th century, with Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla perhaps being its most famous proponent. But getting it to work has been a bit of a problem, with the extent of modern wireless power coming mostly in the form of electric toothbrushes or flat charging pads for phones.

Continue reading “Disney Researchers Make Wireless Power Transfer Breakthrough” »