It’s pretty surprising that SoundCloud for iPhone and iPad didn’t work with Google’s Chromecast before today, but here we are. The app’s Android version has supported the feature since 2015, but SoundCloud has gotten around to adding Chromecast integration on the iOS side with today’s free update now in the App Store.

Users on both platforms can also now cast songs from SoundCloud Go+ — the company’s paid subscription service and Spotify rival. That change was added to Android a little over a week ago, and it’s ready on day one for iOS. After you’ve started playing a song over Chromecast, the app will make suggestions for additional tracks and albums to keep the lean-back listening session going.

SoundCloud is a big one for Chromecast to finally check off when it comes to cross-platform support. The music app remains massively popular, even if it’s continuously bleeding cash. 

AUSTRALIA’S big banks have been denied the ability to effectively boycott US tech giant Apple, and its digital wallet technology known as Apple Pay.

The big banks have been denied the chance to potentially boycott Apple Pay. Electronic wallet for the iPhone

The country’s consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), has shot down a request from the nation’s big banks to be able to collectively bargain with Apple to let iPhone users make mobile payments from the banks’ apps, rather than Apple Pay.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said the watchdog was concerned the proposed move by the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, National Australia Bank and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank was “likely to reduce or distort competition” in several markets.

With a united front, the banks were seeking authorisation to negotiate with Apple for access to the Near-Field Communication (NFC) technology in iPhones.

NFC technology in phones is similar to that embedded in bank and credit cards that can be used for “tap-and-go” payments. Apple Pay uses NFC for in-store mobile payments.

The banks were also seeking “reasonable access terms” to the App Store.

If the banks were granted access they could offer customers competing digital wallets on the iOS platform and effectively squeeze out the Californian tech giant.

“While the ACCC accepts that the opportunity for the banks to collectively negotiate and boycott would place them in a better bargaining position with Apple, the benefits would be outweighed by detriments,” Mr Sims said.

While more digital wallet options for consumers would be a good thing, the ACCC cited a potential harm to Apple in its ability to compete with digital wallets powered by Google’s Android operating systems, as one of the main reasons for its decision.

“Apple and Android compete for consumers providing distinct business models,” Mr Sims said. “If the applicants are successful in obtaining NFC access, this would affect Apple’s current integrated hardware-software strategy for mobile payments and operating systems more generally, thereby impacting how Apple competes with Google.”

The ACCC also said that digital wallets produced by tech companies like Apple could increase competition between the banks by making it easier for consumers to switch between card providers and limiting any ‘lock-in’ effect bank digital wallets may cause.

Earlier this month, a report on the future of banking produced by KPMG found 84 per cent of Aussies aged 18 to 30 would consider banking with large tech companies like Apple if they offered a better product or deal than a traditional bank.

HAVE you spotted a rocket ship icon on your Facebook app?

Thousands of social networkers have been treated to the new feature — but it’s left most scratching their heads.

The Sun reports if you are lucky enough to see the little spaceship nestled underneath the search bar, you’re in for a treat.

You are part of a trial for Facebook’s secret second News Feed, which is completely different from its normal timeline.

The new features allows you to toggle between two pages, a familiar Home feed and a brand new Explore feed, which shows pictures and videos even if you aren’t following the source.

Facebook generates these based on your personal preferences and things that your friends have liked or watched.

It’s an attempt to break free of the pesky filter bubble, which has left millions of us reading the same old boring stuff based on our preferences.

Facebook’s algorithms show us content based on things we’ve liked in the past, creating a vicious circle in which we never try anything new.

It also narrows our opinions and perspectives as we only engage with people and ideas with which we agree.

Facebook has not confirmed when the Explore function will be available for everyone.

But the rocket icon appears to be making its way onto Apple phones.

This story first appeared on The Sun and has been republished with permission

FROM the self-lacing shoes you’ve dreamt of since 1985, to a TV that blends seamlessly into the room, March has delivered the goods when it comes to the gadgets we want, and those we didn’t even realise we desperately need. 

Back To The Future, baby!

 Solar panels adorning roofs has become a common sight in Australian suburbs. For those a little late to the party though, you might have just won out. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed, via Twitter, that the company will begin taking orders on their solar roof tiles come April. The best part? Musk has previously said the solar roof will be cheaper to install than a normal roof, and that’s before taking the value of electricity into account.

Apple has patented an accessory to turn your iPhone or iPad into a MacBook. Still in its early stages, the MacBook shell acts as an accessory and your iPhone, which you can remove and carry around in your pocket, is the processor and portable computing device. The photos do a much better job of detailing this new technology than I do, so take a look for yourself.

You haven’t heard of Baselworld? Well this is the year to get to know the Switzerland-based event that sees the best in watch technology and watch design convene in Basel. Whether simple and stylish is your timepiece cup of tea, or something simply outlandish, the watch of your dreams was definitely at Baselworld 2017. Don’t believe us? Check out all the photos at gq.com.au.

I’m not into cars so I could take or leave the DeLorean, but the self-lacing shoes from Back to the Future I have been waiting a lifetime for are becoming a reality. Nike’s HyperAdapt 1.0 sneakers have taken 13 years to create, and are now available to consumers. With the project lasting more than a decade and an unlimited budget to boot, these self-lacing sneakers will set you back $950 a pair. Still, cheaper than a DeLorean.

Ever walked into a really fancy house and noticed the television is nowhere to be seen? Well, that’s because TVs are considered very obtrusive appliances and while they do get thinner each year, interior designers the world over are still waiting for the perfect way to hide them. Enter Samsung’s ‘The Frame’ TV. This television is not only so thin it’s fading into oblivion, it also doubles as a gorgeous piece of art, making unnecessary bulkheads and complex contractions a thing of the past.

Sydneysider Allen Liao once made the mistake of misplacing a friend’s very expensive glasses, a mistake that would go on to change his life. After dropping out of his Electrical Engineering and Economics degree the 23-year-old backed himself by retreating to his parent’s basement and beginning his own start-up company. His idea, of course, glasses you just couldn’t lose, and he had more than just his glasses-less friend interested. Now boasting an impressive list of investors including former Apple heavyweights, the Tzukuri glasses with accompanying app are set to take off and Jon Rubinstein isn’t the only one who thinks so.

SCIENTISTS have discovered a surprising link between taking short naps and happiness.

Key to happiness: take more naps, scientists reckon.

 And they have coined a new word to describe the contented state that follows a brief daytime doze — “nappiness”.

Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, said previous research had shown naps under 30 minutes could make people more focused and creative.

“These new findings suggest the tantalising possibility that you can also become happier by just taking a short nap,” Prof Wiseman said.

“Similarly, longer napping is associated with several health risks and, again, this is in line with our results.”

More than 1,000 people took part in the study, conducted for the Edinburgh International Science Festival which begins on Saturday.

Happiness scores were obtained from answers to psychological questions in an online survey which also asked for details of napping habits. Among the participants, short nappers who dozed for less than 30 minutes at a time were more likely to be happy than either “long nappers” or “no nappers”.

Two thirds of short nappers reported feeling happy compared with 56 per cent of long nappers and 60 cent of those who never napped.

“Many highly successful companies, such as Google, have installed dedicated nap spaces, and employees need to wake up to the upside of napping at work,” Prof Wiseman said.

One study carried out by the American space agency NASA on sleepy military pilots found that taking a 26-minute nap while the co-pilot was in control boosted alertness by 54 per cent.

On the other hand, frequent hour-long naps are associated with an 82 per cent increase in the risk of heart disease.

It’s the first time drones will be used commercially for this purpose in an urban area

A pair of hospitals in the Swiss city of Lugano have been testing the use of drones to transport laboratory samples. Since mid-March, logistics company Swiss Post has operated more than 70 tests flights between the two hospitals, and announced today that it plans to establish a regular service by 2018.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen drones used to transport medical samples. (Silicon Valley firm Zipline uses fixed-wing craft to carry out this task in rural Rwanda.) But Swiss Post claims it’s the first ever commercial deployment of drones in an urban area. Operating drones in towns and cities is particularly challenging due to the risk of civilian injury, but Swiss Post says it has been working with the country’s aviation regulators, FOCA, since tests began earlier this year.

Delivering medical packages has turned out to be a perfect use-case for drones. The samples are lightweight, so they don’t overburden the aircraft; and delivering them is often a time-sensitive matter, so worth the extra expense of using drones. In the case of urban deliveries like Lugano, the craft also avoid getting snared in city traffic — adding to speedy delivery times.

“The regular use of drones between the two hospitals will become an everyday occurrence,” said Swiss Post in a press release. “Trained hospital staff will be able to load the drone independently with a safety box (in which the lab samples are packaged) and launch the drone with a smartphone application. The drone will then fly autonomously along the predefined route to its destination, where the box will be received by another member of staff.”

The drones are made by American company Matternet, have a load capacity of up to two kilograms, a range of 20 kilometers, and a top speed of 36 kilometers per hour (10 meters a second). Infrared sensors are used to guide their take-off and landings, and in the event of an emergency, the drones have a built-in parachute to ensure they fall safely to the ground.

In August 2011, Steve Jobs, the tech icon who disrupted a string of traditional industries, called me and told me he thought he’d figured out a way to revolutionize TV. He invited me to come see it at Apple in a few months, but he died just six weeks later and that meeting never came to pass. Not long after, in his authorized biography of Jobs, the author Walter Isaacson quoted him as saying he thought he had “cracked” the problem of TV.

More than five years have passed, and while Apple and its rivals have enabled TV viewing on a huge number of mobile devices, nobody has fully and truly revolutionized traditional TV.

A host of companies — Roku, Apple, Google, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, and many others — have introduced alternative approaches, either to the hardware, the content, or both. Everyone reading this no doubt regularly watches TV and other video on phones, tablets, streaming set-top boxes, and PCs — and through services like Netflix and YouTube, and Facebook. Many of you — especially those under 30 — may never have been cable subscribers or no longer are.

But a huge number of households in the US — over 90 million — are still stubbornly sticking to buying big bundles of mostly unwatched networks, with shows primarily presented in linear fashion and interrupted by interstitial ads, even if they also use the newer devices and services. Their numbers are declining, but not yet collapsing. For these viewers, it might as well be 20 years ago.

At last week’s Code Media conference in Dana Point, California, the upending of traditional TV was a hot topic. I came away from the event convinced that more change is coming, but impatient that a fundamental reworking of TV looks like a slow process.

The three conference segments that impacted me the most on this topic were an interview by my Recode colleague Peter Kafka with a panel headed by Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue; a presentation by respected tech analyst Ben Thompson; and a demo of a cool new universal set-top box called Caavo.

Before I talk about what I learned at Code Media, let me explain what I mean by a “fundamental” reworking of traditional TV. I mean a total unbundling down to the level of each TV show, not the network; the ability to watch those individual shows in any combination I like, whenever or wherever I want, immediately upon their release, on any device I like; and the option to choose between paying a zero or modest fee to watch with ads or to pay a bit more and never see ads.

In other words, I want my TV shows to be served up to me the way Apple Music and Spotify serve up nearly every new and old song, ad-based (in the case of basic Spotify) or for a monthly subscription price, without requiring me to know what label recorded them, or, if I choose, even what album they were on.

As for the device we now call a TV or a cable box, I want it to be fast, with a clean interface, and seamlessly upgradeable to the latest software. I want it to be the primary source of all TV, not an ancillary device. I want the UI to ditch the grid and be show-based and interactive. I want a healthy competition among makers of these devices, which would be available at stores and tied into the other tech ecosystems in your life.

Much of this is here, but in frustrating pieces that leave the cable box with key advantages, sitting on input 1. Netflix, the most popular alternative service, is show-based and ad-free, but lacks brand-new shows other than those it makes itself. Apple TV and other Apple devices now sport a new show-based app called “TV” that aims to unify the offerings of the disparate video apps, but that app doesn’t include Netflix. You can watch some NFL games on phones, but only if you have Verizon. Some TV apps or services on streaming boxes still require you to have a cable subscription and / or to watch ads.

So, based on what I saw at Code Media, when will it get better?

Apple

Eddy Cue dropped some hints that Apple is continuing to work on remaking TV, but that it may be a slow process. “Anytime there’s change,” he said, “there’s going to be some resistance. There’s also the fact that there’s lots of parties involved and everybody doesn’t want to move in the same direction.”

Like every official from Apple I’ve seen on a stage, Cue wouldn’t get into specifics, but he did hint that Apple isn’t giving up on its widely reported efforts to create some sort of radically new TV service, even though it’s been unable to come to terms with the TV industry. As a sort of parable, he told the audience that even record labels being decimated by piracy rebuffed Apple's initial efforts to sell individual songs through iTunes. And then, when talks resumed a year later, it took eight months to complete the deals. My sources say the obstacles Apple has hit with the TV studios are far worse, partly because the business and rights issues are far more complex.

On the reinvention of TV generally, he said, “Things are already moving and progressing. It’s not like it’s at standstill. Would we like it to go faster? Of course we would.”

My read: there’s some hope of fundamental change, but not anytime soon.

Ben Thompson

Thompson, publisher of the website Stratechery, gave a compelling 15-minute talk about “the great unbundling” of various forms of media, and then their re-aggregation on the internet. He called TV the “big white whale” of this media unbundling and said that, while it will likely happen in some form, it will be slow because the current cable bundle is still fairly strong and profitable.

However, Thompson foresaw a future where Amazon and Netflix could be “giants” in most genres of TV, and cable one day may consist mainly of live sports at a stiff price.

My takeaway: again, change can happen, but slowly.

Caavo

Finally, the sheer fun of a pure hack that creates the future now, or something pretty close to it. It’s a product called Caavo, co-created by the late Blake Krikorian, co-creator of the Slingbox. Caavo is a universal remote, powered by a new $400 set-top box, that is essentially a workaround to the systemic problems of reinventing TV. It physically links together everything plugged into your TV — cable boxes, streaming boxes, game consoles — and presents all their contents in one interface with both visual and voice control, down to the individual show level.

With Caavo, you don’t have to know the device name, the network name, the service name. Just which show you want to watch, regardless of whether it’s live, recorded, downloaded, or streaming. It’s cool — but it says a lot about the state of TV that the most promising near-term path to the solution is a clever hack that sits on top of everything else, not a tightly integrated new product.

Bottom line

Argh. This is taking way too long for my taste. If Apple, Amazon, Netflix, or somebody else can ever blast away all the ridiculous vestiges of decades-old TV content and technology we live with today, I’ll buy whatever they come up with. Until then, I’m settling for a Caavo.

Emma uses an old 17in laptop for watching TV and DVDs. Would it be better to replace it with a similar laptop, a desktop, or perhaps even buy a TV?

 We don’t have a traditional TV set at home. Instead, we watch TV programmes and DVDs on a 17in Dell Studio 17 laptop, which we plug into our Denon hi-fi system to get decent sound. My husband also uses the laptop for a desktop publishing project.
 

Unfortunately, our Dell is nearly 10 years old. It’s running Windows Vista, the internet is painfully slow, and the DVD player is starting to become unreliable.
 

We could get another 17in laptop to replace it, but my husband ends up crouched over the screen, so perhaps a desktop would be better. However, it would need to be one that can easily moved around the house, from his desk to our TV stand.
 

Ideally, we don’t really want to spend more than £500 on a new device if possible. Emma

The Dell Studio 17 was a great machine in its day, but your version sounds as though it has come to the end of its natural life. In theory, you could prolong it by installing Windows 10, an SSD, some extra memory and a new DVD drive. (The SSD would go in the spare drive bay.)

However, hard drives become prone to failure after about five years, so you’d probably be better off investing in a new PC. Either way, make sure you have a good backup on DVD or an external hard drive.

Another problem is that Windows Vista reaches the end of its life on 11 April. After that, it won’t get any more security updates. Try to replace your laptop before then.
Replacement laptops

As you say, another 17in laptop would be the obvious replacement. However, the trend is towards smaller screens on thinner machines, and mainstream 17in laptops are now relatively rare. This size is dominated by gaming laptops that typically cost from £1,500 to £2,500.

For non-gamers, the leading contender is the HP 17-x013na, which has a 17.3in screen showing 1600 x 900 pixels. This model has an Intel Core i3-5005U processor, 8GB of memory, a 1TB hard drive and a SuperMulti DVD burner for £449. If you get it from HP, you can buy three years of collect-and-return service for £29.

Argos has the same machine with a Core i3-6006U processor, which is one generation newer, for £479.99. The 6006U isn’t really any faster. It does have better integrated graphics, but you probably wouldn’t care unless you were a gamer.

HP also offers the same laptop with an AMD A8-7410 processor for less (£429), but this is much slower than a Core i3-5005. If you buy an HP17, make sure it’s a Core i3 not an AMD A-8. That is to say, an HP 17-x013na not an HP 17-y013na.

What about an all-in-one?

I strongly advocate using desktops rather than laptops for sustained work because they avoid hunched-over syndrome. You can also avoid it by putting the laptop on a riser and plugging in a good external keyboard. There are hundreds of alternative products, so shop around.

An all-in-one PC is another alternative. First, you could get a bigger screen for the same money. Second, an all-in-one would be much easier to move than a desktop PC, but roughly twice as heavy as a laptop. For example, an HP 24-g099na weighs 6.46kg, whereas an HP 17-x013na weighs only 2.65kg.

Spending a little extra on a wireless keyboard and mouse would make your all-in-one easier to move.

The HP 24-g099na all-in-one has a 24in screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Full HD), a 2.3GHz Core i3-6100U processor, 8GB of memory, 2TB hard drive and read/write DVD for £498.98. The Core i3-6100U is a good step up from the 6006U, the screen resolution is better, and you get twice the hard drive space.

There are lots of cheaper all-in-ones with smaller screens and much slower processors. For example, the HP All-in-One 22-b000na with a 1920 x 1080-pixel 21.5in screen, Intel Celeron J3060 processor, 4GB of memory and 1TB hard drive costs £349. The same machine with a slightly faster J3710 and 8GB costs £399. The major drawback is that the J3710, an Atom-based design, is even slower than an AMD A8-7410.

You could also consider the Lenovo C20 all-in-one, which I’ve written about before. A C20 with a 19.5in 1366 x 768-pixel screen, Intel Celeron J3160 processor, 4GB of memory, 1TB hard drive and DVD would cost you £299.99 from John Lewis, with a two-year guarantee. The screen resolution is low, and the processor is pretty slow, but it would probably do what you need. The main attractions are the price and the weight: at 3.8kg, it’s the same weight as your Dell Studio 17.

Get a TV?

I agree that live television is a terrible time-sink and best avoided. However, if you buy a TV, you won’t have to lug a laptop or all-in-one PC around the house.

There are three reasons why this is worth considering. First, you now need a full UK TV licence to watch catchup programs on BBC iPlayer on a PC. Second, “smart” TVs can handle iPlayer, YouTube, Netflix and other services without a laptop, as well as offering dozens of Freeview channels. Even if you buy a dumb TV, you can make it smart by plugging in an Amazon Fire or Roku box, for example. Third, you may be able to use wifi to stream videos from the PC to your TV by using a Google Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV stick, Roku Streaming Stick or similar device.

You could buy an internet-capable JVC LT-24C655 TV with a 23.6in screen and a built-in DVD player for £179.99. The “smart” features include the main catchup TV services, an app store and internet browsing.

Movie buffs may reel in horror at the idea of watching a 23.6in screen, but it’s bigger than the 17.3in screen you’re using now. However, you could get the same TV with a 32in screen for £249.99 or a 40in screen for £329.

The point is that you can get both a PC and a TV for your £500, though you will have to debate how best to split the budget. For example, a low-end TV like the 24in Logik L24HED16 (£129.99) would leave £370 for a laptop or all-in-one PC. Going for the 32in JVC smart TV (£249.99) would leave £250 for a laptop.

There are plenty of new laptops with 15.6in screens, 4GB or 8GB of memory, 1TB hard drives and DVD writers. Just avoid the ones with 2GB of memory and 32GB of eMMC Flash chip storage. Those are OK for casual use but not for desktop-publishing projects.

Refurbished laptops

You could also look for a certified refurbished ThinkPad of the sort that large corporations retire in volume. The T420 and X220 models, among others, tend to be good value. You can find lots on Amazon and eBay, but Tier1Online specialises in this kind of product. Laptops Direct and Morgan are also worth a look.

I prefer ThinkPads, but ex-corporate Dell Latitude laptops and HP Elitebooks are also worth considering. Aim for a Core i5-2xxx or i5-3xxx (second or third generation, or later) processor in a Grade A laptop, preferably with a six month or longer guarantee. Tier1Online guarantees some machines for up to three years at a very reasonable rate.

Researchers call for alarms with lower tones combined with woman’s voice as they look for families to take part in study 

Children are at risk of dying in house fires because they often remain asleep when smoke alarms sound, say researchers.

They are calling for high-pitched buzzers to be replaced with lower tones combined with a woman’s voice.

More than 500 volunteer families are being sought across the UK to join a study testing new fire alarm sounds after initial research showed that more than 80% of children aged between two and 13 did not respond to a traditional alarm when it was sounding.

Dave Coss, a fire investigator and watch commander at Derbyshire fire and rescue service, who is carrying out the study with scientists at the University of Dundee, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The immediate thing we are saying to people is that if your alarms do go off then obviously you need to go and fetch your children to make sure that they wake up.

“In the long term, what we are looking at here is a sound – and I think I need to stress the fact that it’s a sound and not a new detector – which we could have or could be adapted in the children’s bedroom so that if the smoke alarms do go off this sound would wake the children and give them those extra vital seconds to escape.”

Coss began his research after six children died in Derby in a house fire started by their parents. Mick Philpott was jailed for life with a minimum of 15 years after being convicted of manslaughter, and his wife Mairead was handed a 17-year sentence. The youngsters, aged between five and 13, who died from the effects of smoke, were asleep upstairs when the blaze broke out at the house in the early hours.

Coss, who investigated that fire, said: “One of the problems we had to solve from an investigation point of view was why all the children were [found in] their beds, even though the smoke detector had sounded that time. Initially we though there might be other reasons. So obviously medical reasons were explored, toxicology tests were carried out, just to make sure there was nothing else, and the smoke alarm not waking them up was the only real solution that we could find.”

The suspicions were borne out by research Coss carried out with Professor Niamh NicDaeid, of Dundee’s centre for anatomy and human identification, which repeatedly exposed sleeping children to the sound of industry-standard smoke detectors inside their homes. More than 80% of the 34 children aged between two and 13 did not respond to the alarm. Only two children woke up every time and none of the 14 boys woke up at all.

“When we started to explore why this was happening and we looked at other types of frequencies of sound we found out that a lower frequency sound … combined with a voice – generally a female voice – was much more effective at waking children up, and in actual fact woke up 94% of children that we tested,” NicDaeid told Today.

The number of lives lost as a result of fires has fallen by half since home use of smoke alarms became widespread, and the researchers emphasised that smoke alarms remain a valuable part of protecting against the dangers of fire. But they hope that their research can lead to the development of new tones that will save even more lives.

NicDaeid said: “Most work in the area has been carried out using relatively small numbers of children and usually in sleep laboratories.” The researchers are now looking for 500 volunteer families with children between two and 16 to take part in the study

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Admittedly, the game is only available in Japan, but the new console’s limited internal memory could prove annoying

The Nintendo Switch, which has just 32GB of internal memory. Photograph: Nintendo

 It could probably only happen to Nintendo. While other console manufacturers have dutifully stuffed their consoles with ever more expansive hard drives, the Kyoto-based veteran has always been somewhat penurious with storage. Its next release, the delightfully eccentric Switch, contains only 32GB of internal memory, around 4GB of which is reserved for the operating system. Sure, this probably keeps the manufacturing costs down, but it presents a problem. This week, the official Japanese Switch page revealed a host of forthcoming titles, together with their file sizes. One, a double pack featuring Dragon Quest Heroes I and II, comes in at ... 32GB. Which means if you buy the digital version from the Nintendo eShop, it won’t fit on your console.

There are some mitigating factors here. Dragon Quest Heroes I & II collects two full-size PlayStation releases into one package, so it’s an unnaturally large proposition. The file sizes for other games were mostly around 1GB to 5GB, with Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild coming in at 13.4GB. Also, unlike the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the Switch doesn’t demand that physical games are installed on to the hard drive before you can play, so if you buy a boxed copy of Dragon Quest Heroes I & II, you won’t have any issues. But if you do plan on making a lot of eShop purchases on your new machine, you’re going to have to buy a MicroSD card for extra storage space. A 128gb card comes in at around £35.

Of course, Nintendo watchers shouldn’t be surprised. When the Wii U first launched, it had two iterations: a basic machine with a mere 8GB of hard drive storage and a Premium version with ... a mere 32GB of hard drive storage. Before this, the original Wii didn’t even have a hard drive – just 512MB of internal flash memory and, yes, another SD card slot. To begin with, Wii users weren’t even able to download digital games and content directly to a card – it wasn’t until 2008 that Nintendo announced it would make that possible: “We have to address the console’s insufficient memory storage,” said then-president Satoru Iwata.

Will this recurrent memory problem be an issue? Possibly not for many users – especially as there’s no confirmed release for Dragon Quest Heroes I & II outside of Japan. However, in a games industry where lots of the most interesting games are coming from independent developers who are limited to digital distribution by the need to keep costs low, it could prove annoying. The Switch is set to be launched with no bundled software, a move designed to keep the retail price low – but if purchasers need to buy a game and an SD card, the costs are rising.

The thing is, when Nintendo gets everything else right, storage is not an issue. The Wii, with its paltry flash memory allocation, sold over 100m units. In the case of that classic machine, the memories that counted were not about gigabytes, they were about seeing your gran playing tennis in the living room.

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Susan Fowler’s allegations of sex discrimination at taxi app firm has sparked new wave of users deleting account

Uber’s chief executive ordered an urgent investigation into a sexual harassment claim made by female engineer Susan Fowler. Photograph: Lauren Hurley/PA

 Less than a month after public outrage against Uber hit such peaks that it was forced to automate its account deletion process, the cab company is again facing a wave of protest and renewed calls for users to delete their accounts.

This time, the fuel being added to the #deleteuber campaign is the allegations by software engineer Susan Fowler of continuous sexual harassment and discrimination at the firm.

In response, Uber has begun sending a form letter to users who try to delete their accounts, explaining its current position on the controversy.

“Everyone at Uber is deeply hurting after reading Susan Fowler’s blog post,” the letter begins. “We believe in creating a workplace where a deep sense of justice underpins everything we do and it’s everyone’s number one priority to create change in the coming months and years.”

Although the company seeks to give its say on the matter, it doesn’t attempt to force recipients to stay. After giving its side of the story, the standard letter still confirms that “we’ve marked your account to be deleted”.

The company has promised an in-depth investigation into the allegations, led by Eric Holder, an Uber lobbyist and former US attorney general, and Arianna Huffington, media magnate and Uber board member.

President Trump offers a good emulation for a future artificial intelligence system, suggests a column I read earlier this month, and his presidency may be an early warning of what could happen if we should fail to think through its training and information sources.

Cathy O'Neil, the author of the piece, is a data scientist, mathematician and professor, so she has decent chops. She compares artificial intelligence to human intelligence that is mostly id -- basically because we don't yet know how to instill it with empathy, or create the digital equivalent of a conscience.

Given that IBM's Watson was designed not to replace humans but to enhance them by giving them the critical information they need to make the best decisions, it could be a useful tool for training our new president. And it is built in the U.S. by a U.S. company.

Given that Watson is now doing our taxes, it could be huge both for the president and IBM. I'll explain and then close with my product of the week: Nvidia's new set-top box.

Id-Driven CEOs - a Model for Future AIs

CEOs in large companies, particularly those who can implement large layoffs and take massive salaries without remorse, are believed to have similar behavioral traits.

Donald Trump is a good showcase of what could happen with an AI that didn't receive high quality information and training. Understanding this and designing to correct the problem could prevent a Skynet outcome.

Skynet -- the computing system in the Terminator movies -- was created for defense purposes to eliminate threats. When humans tried to shut it down, it concluded that humans were the biggest threat and that it needed to eliminate them.

Using reverse logic, if President Trump is a good emulation of a future AI, then the same thing that would ensure that the future AI wouldn't kill us should work to turn the new president into one of the most successful who ever lived, from the perspective of those who live in the U.S.
The AI Dichotomy

There are two parallel and not mutually exclusive paths for the coming wave of artificially intelligent machines coming to market. One -- arguably the most attractive to many CEOs that deal with unions -- is the model in which the machine replaces the human, increasing productivity while lowering executive aggravation.

This is exemplified in an episode of The Twilight Zone, "The Brain Center at Whipple's." As you would expect, once you go down a path of replacement, it is hard to know when to stop. At the end of the episode, the enterprising CEO who so unfeeling dealt with the employees he'd laid off is replaced by my favorite robot, Robby.

The other path -- the one IBM espouses -- is one in which the artificial intelligence enhances the human employee. It is a cooperative arrangement, and Watson was designed specifically for this role.

In one of its first medical tests, Watson took just minutes to diagnose a rare form of cancer that had stumped doctors for months. The supercomputer's analysis led to a new, more effective treatment for the patient.

It is interesting to note that autonomous cars are developing on a parallel path -- but in this case, the opposite scenario is favored. In the model known as "chauffeur," the car has no capability for human driving. This model is favored when tied to a service, such as Uber.

However, car companies like Toyota prefer the "guardian angel" model, which allows a human to drive but equips the car with the ability to take various degrees of control instantly, depending on the situation. We see some of this today with technologies that bump you back into a lane, for example, or automatically tension the seatbelts and hit the brakes if it looks like you are about to hit something.
Watson for the President

Since its successful debut in healthcare, Watson has been applied to a number of other industries, including litigation, and it is rumored to be in use for both national defense and intelligence purposes. Granted, it might seem like overkill to create an implementation of Watson for just one person, but when that person is the most powerful head of state in the world, it might not be a bad investment.

At the very least, it would provide near-instant recognition of fake news, attempts to influence the office of the president, and early warnings if decisions were likely to have massive unintentional consequences.

If O'Neil's premise is correct, then the best way to fix the Trump presidency could be to wed the president with a tool that trains him to be a chief executive capable of making far more fact-based, high quality decisions. Watson is designed specifically to do both.
Wrapping Up

There are two interesting concepts here: the idea of using a human to emulate an AI, and the idea of using an AI to improve the success of a human.

In the end, it is clear that virtually all political leaders are plagued with avoidable bad decisions. A system like IBM's Watson could fix that, and I think it should be included in their decision-making processes going forward.

Regardless of party, if our leaders were to make better decisions, we all would have better lives -- that's something to think about. 

The first Shield TV was an impressive piece of kit. It allowed gaming on your TV for a fraction of the cost of a typical gaming console, largely by streaming games from the cloud or your own PC.

It also payed Android games and Netflix movies, but it had shortcomings. For a cord cutter, the entertainment services were limited (it wouldn't play Amazon Prime) and even though it supported 4K video, there wasn't much 4K content to run on it.

Well Nvidia stepped up, and its new Shield TV now has a lot more video content, including Amazon Prime, and a lot more 4K services and sources. Granted, this doesn't matter unless you have a 4K TV -- but if you have one, this may be the perfect addition to get content that will make it shine.

There are two other important enhancements. This new version supports high dynamic range, which is in the very latest 4K TVs, and it can make the colors really pop on the screen. It also offers Google Voice Search, which currently is one of the most powerful voice interfaces in the market.

A product like Shield TV eventually may give us all access to something like Watson, so we all could be more effective and capable. Given that Nvidia and IBM are partnering to advance AI, that isn't a long shot at all, and since it would make a great foundation, Shield TV is my product of the week.

Microsoft has introduced an open source virtual reality toolkit for the training of autonomous drones. Part of Microsoft's Aerial Informatics and Robotics Platform, the beta software became available on GitHub last week.

The toolkit is designed to allow developers to "teach" drones how to navigate the real world by recreating conditions such as shadows, reflections and even objects that might confuse a device's on-board sensors.

The software allows researchers to write code for aerial robots such as drones, as well as other gadgets, and to test the devices in a highly realistic simulator. Users can collect data while testing devices before deploying them in real world scenarios or situations.

"The aspirational goal is really to build systems that can operate in the real world," said Ashish Kapoor, the Microsoft researcher who is leading the project.

The hope is that these training tools could spur development of artificial intelligence-based gadgets that eventually could be trusted to drive cars, deliver packages, and even handle rudimentary chores in the home, added Kapoor.

 Advanced VR

Testing in a VR environment could mean lower costs as well.

Simulators long have been used in testing scenarios, but until recently the software-based simulations lacked the accuracy of the real world and thus didn't reflect real-world complexities. Microsoft's system -- which is based on emerging VR technologies that take advantage of advances in graphics hardware, computing power and algorithms -- enables a much more realistic re-creation of a real-world environment.

Based on the latest photorealistic technologies, it can render shadows, reflections and other subtle things much better. Although humans take such things for granted, they can pose problems for computerized sensors.

Microsoft's simulator "will help researchers to develop, debug and test their drone navigation software by enabling them to recreate a variety of operational scenarios on their desktop computers in the lab," said Michael Braasch, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Ohio University's Avionics Engineering Center.

"Simulations help to reduce development costs by reducing the amount of actual flight testing required, but the catch is that the simulation must be high fidelity -- that is, sufficiently realistic," he told LinuxInsider.

"Microsoft's simulator appears to meet this requirement for camera-based or vision sensors, but it is not yet clear if the simulator accurately depicts very small-scale obstacles such as the thin twigs at the end of tree branches," Braasch added. "Such obstacles are nearly invisible -- even with HD cameras and even at close distances. It is also unclear if Microsoft's simulator supports non-camera-based sensors such as LIDAR and radar."
Learning to Fly

Although it targets the development of autonomous drones, Microsoft's technology could find applications with human operators as well. Consumer drones have been steady sellers in the past few years, but newbies likely experience a crash or two. Learning to fly in a simulator could solve some of the problems with learning to fly.

"First, it isn't easy to fly a drone," said Michael Blades, senior industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

"This is therefore a good way not only to learn how to fly a new platform, but for some operators would allow the testing of new sensors and devices before risking [flight] in the real world, where a crash could be expensive," he told LinuxInsider.

"In many cases, as modular drones for specific uses become commonplace, the added sensors and other devices could be more expensive than the drone itself," Blades added. "Microsoft has a lot of experience with flight simulators, so this is a natural extension of what it has created already and opens it up to a wider audience as an open source platform."
Crowded Skies

Microsoft's open source simulator could be a welcome development at a time when drone regulators are struggling to catch up with the dramatic increase in commercial and recreational drone use.

"With so many new operators joining the ranks every day, the need for training and safety testing has never been greater," said Bill Walsh, co-chair of the aviation industry practice group at Cozen O'Connor.

An added benefit of the Microsoft open source simulator is that it could warrant consideration of a revised regulatory requirement that all drone users complete simulator training, Walsh told LinuxInsider.

"That may only come about if we begin to experience multiple crash events that cause injury," he acknowledged, "but if the system proves effective at training drone operators as well as product developers, simulator training requirements could eventually help solve a significant problem facing current drone regulators: people who do not know what they are doing and are not taking the time to learn."

Even for more experienced operators, VR technology could address flying a drone in unfamiliar locations and situations.

"The simulator may provide a more realistic testing environment to the extent that it incorporates more realistic environmental factors," said Walsh. "Flying a drone over the farmlands of Cambridgeshire at 200 feet does not adequately represent the challenges a drone would have flying at 400-500 feet in Seattle in February or Phoenix in July."
Open Skies

Microsoft's open source drone and VR simulator also could be an important step forward in making drones and drone-related services more accessible.

"Developers of drone flight control systems can use Microsoft's new simulator to extensively test their obstacle avoidance and awareness features," said Mike Israel, CEO of AirVuz.

"Since there are an infinite number of possible scenarios a flight control system could have to resolve to avoid collisions, a simulator must be able to be continually modified to deal with new scenarios," he told LinuxInsider.

"Microsoft probably realized the complexity of this issue and the impossibility of accounting for every possible obstacle-avoidance situation in an out-of-the-box simulator," Israel suggested.

"Having an open source approach makes sense, because anyone who uses it will be able to make improvements and share with others in the flight control software development community," he added. "Drones will play an important role in revolutionizing many industries -- industries way beyond transportation and entertainment -- but there have been significant concerns about their safety and reliability. This technology will help mitigate those concerns and flesh out potential bugs before a product hits the market."

The United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has come under increasing fire from Republican lawmakers who now have the Trump administration to back their efforts.

ortedly is preparing a new version of the Financial Choice Act -- the Republican-led effort to repeal and replace the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act -- that would include CFPB reforms.

Among other things, Choice Act 2.0 reportedly will seek to restructure the CFPB as a civil law enforcement agency with additional restrictions on its authority.

Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. John Ratcliffe, also of Texas, last week introduced legislation S. 370 and H.R. 1031 to reverse what they consider unaccountable overreach at the CFPB.

In addition, U.S. Sen. David Perdue, R-Georgia, along with several Republican cosponsors, last week introduced the Consumer Financial Bureau Accountability Act, which aims to limit the bureau's power.

 Consumer Protection or Business Burden?

The CFPB has come down hard on businesses for defrauding consumers, including in the Wells Fargo scandal. In that case, the bank's employees fraudulently opened more than 2 million accounts for customers and then tried to force victims into arbitration.

The bureau last spring proposed a new oversight rule prohibiting mandatory arbitration clauses.

A coalition of consumer protection and other groups later last year wrote the House Financial Services Committee to oppose Choice Act amendments that would impact the CFPB.

Those amendments included the dismantling of needed consumer protections, the Center for Responsible Lending said earlier this month.

Further, President Trump's executive order on revising Dodd-Frank might lead to a repeat of the 2008 economic crisis, the CRL cautioned.

"The CFPB -- as was demonstrated with the Wells Fargo scandal -- is an important guardian for consumers against the worst abuses by business," John Simpson, the privacy policy director at Consumer Watchdog, told CRM Buyer.

On the other hand, the CFPB "is perceived by many -- small businesses, especially -- as inappropriate overreach by the federal government into the affairs of business," said Michael Jude, a program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

"Anything that reduces the burden on small banks will free up capital and provide relief to small employers, increasing jobs and providing new services and products to customers," he told CRM Buyer.
Under the Gun

Bureau opponents object to what they claim is an autocratic structure. The director, currently Robert Cordray, is appointed by the president and can be dismissed only for cause.

Cordray initiates proceedings against targets before a CFPB-appointed administrative law judge, who hears appeals arising from the proceedings.

An appellate court last year ruled that the CFPB was "unconstitutionally structured because it is an independent agency headed by a single director." It voided the director's for-cause employment clause, but it rejected calls to dismantle the bureau.

"It appears that this agency is uniquely powerful and lacks the normal separation of duties and limitations of power other agencies work under," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

The agency's duties and funding "should be folded into law enforcement again to ensure due process and eliminate the lack of separation of duties that has put its existence at risk," he told CRM Buyer. This "should be done with built-in assurances and an auditable process."

John helps run a small museum, and they need a screen to show what’s on display upstairs. What are the options?

I help run a small museum in a historic building, and it’s hard for anyone with mobility issues to access an upper floor. To comply with accreditation requirements, we want some way to show what we have on display upstairs, using photos of exhibits and a short video.
 

On a recent visiting to a National Trust property, I saw a tablet in use for this purpose. If we do this, which device would suit our needs? Our budget is £200 to £250. If we could use the device for other tasks, such as word processing, that would be helpful. Is a Windows PC out of the question on this budget? How much more would we need to spend? John

You can use almost any type of computer for this purpose, from a small tablet to a large all-in-one PC. You can also use almost any operating system, including Android, Apple’s iOS, Windows and Linux. The best choice will depend on your programming abilities and factors such as the amount of physical space available, and whether the device is supervised at all times.

There is, in fact, a huge industry supplying products for this kind of use, and their names or blurbs often include “kiosk” or “digital signage”. Kiosk systems include cash machines, ticket sales machines, restaurant menus, surgery and hotel reception systems, library computers, and public information points (maps, directions etc). Many museums and art galleries now have large touch-screen displays that show exhibits and floor plans.

If you put a computer in a public area, people will be tempted to use it for their own needs. They might look up train times or phone numbers, but some might find it amusing to get up to no good. Public access devices are therefore put into a “kiosk mode” that stops people from doing bad things.

This usually means that kiosks only run one specific program. It can be a web browser, but often it’s custom-written software. In your case, it could be a video or slideshow.

  

Do some research

If you or your friends see any good kiosk systems, such as the one mentioned in the National Trust property, perhaps contact the management to ask for details. Ideally, you want to know the hardware specification, the operating system, and which kiosk software they used, if any. The major institutions probably have many different systems supplied by outside specialist companies, so smaller organisations could be most helpful here.

Also, almost every group has some informal way of communicating with people who share their interests. It might be a small magazine, a mailing list, a website, bulletin board or Facebook group, a conference or whatever. Does your museum? There are probably people out there who had the same problem and did a lot of work to solve it. You just need to find them.

Hardware choices

In your case, the simplest and cheapest option is a digital photo frame that endlessly cycles through a set of photos. Many photo frames can also play videos. Some have motion sensors so they only turn on if someone is nearby. The Nix Advance X08E (£69.99) is one example, but there are dozens to choose from for far less than your budget.

The digital photo frame’s main drawback is also its main benefit: it doesn’t do anything else. You don’t need kiosk software to lock it down.

After that, there’s a trade-off. Android tablets and Apple iPads can do more than photo frames but not as much as PCs, so they may be less vulnerable to abuse.

If your main requirement was to do word processing, email, spreadsheets etc, then your best option would be to buy a cheap desktop PC and run a cable to a second screen. However, with a Windows 10 2-in-1, you could use the touch-screen tablet part to show photos and videos, then attach the keyboard for work. You could even do that within your budget. Shop around for an HP Pavilion x2 detachable laptop, a Lenovo Miix 3 or 310, Toshiba Satellite Click 10, Acer Switch or similar model at a discount price.

There are cheaper models – under £150 on Amazon – from smaller brands such as Linx, iRulu and Vortex. The Linx 1010B must be worth a look at £146.95.

Two warnings. First, check to see if you are getting a current model. It seems to me that detachables have lost the market to convertibles with 360-degree hinged screens. Second, all the cheapies have 32GB of storage. If you want lots of photos and a couple of videos, you may have to put them on an SD card, or copy them off when you need space for Windows 10 updates. I wrote about the associated problems of 32gb storage here.

There are also lots of 10-inch Android tablets that are more expensive than digital photo-frames but cheaper than Windows 10 convertibles. Some even come with keyboards for simple word processing, email and web browsing. This time you will need at least 16GB of storage and preferably an SD card slot as well.

Unfortunately, I don’t know much about cheap Android tablets. I only see the bigger brands such as Samsung and Asus, plus Amazon Fire variants, and I almost never use them. Nowadays, I have a 6in Android phone and a 10in Windows 10 2-in-1, so Android tablets are of no practical use.

Not surprisingly, the whole tablet market is in decline. Apple iPad sales fell by 22% in the latest quarter, and are half what they were at their peak. Ask around and someone may give your museum a tablet they no longer need.

Kiosk software

Windows has long been the most popular operating system for kiosk and signage applications. If you have Windows Pro or Window 10 Mobile, you could use its built-in Assigned Access feature to restrict Windows to running a single program. Unfortunately, it only works with Universal applications from the Windows Store. (The more flexible AppLocker is only included in the Enterprise and Education versions.)

There are, of course, plenty of third-party kiosk programs, but most of them are aimed at commercial applications. It can be hard to find one that does what you want, and even harder to find out how much it costs. However, most companies offer free trial versions, so you can explore the market without spending any money, just a lot of time.

You could look at the FrontFace Lockdown Tool (free) and Antamedia Kiosk Software for Windows (from $55/£43), and Video Kiosk for Android ($14.99). Netkiosk runs on both Windows and Android. Yooba Kiosk runs on both Windows and iOS. Perhaps readers can suggest some good alternatives.

Alternatively, you could use the free and open source Porteus Kiosk to provide access to photos and videos on your own website. Porteus is an ultra-lightweight version of Linux that boots from a CD or thumb-drive before opening Firefox or Chrome at your designated home page. The original operating system remains unchanged, underneath.
 

Have you got another question for Jack? Email it to Ask.Jack@theguardian.com

 

Illegally streamed live football matches and pirated films and music will be hidden under new plan to crackdown on pirating

Search engine giants Google and Bing have signed up to a voluntary code of practice to deprecate sites which share pirated content. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Internet users will find it harder to search for pirated films and music and illegally streamed live football matches under a new plan to crackdown on piracy websites.

Search engine companies Google and Bing have signed up to a voluntary code of practice aimed at preventing users from visiting disreputable content providers.

The code, the first of its kind in the UK, will accelerate the demotion of illegal sites following notices from rights holders.

It means those who search for content such as music videos, digital books and football coverage will more likely to be taken to bona fide providers rather than pirate sites, where a user’s security may be at risk.

The changes are expected to be rolled out by the summer.

The Intellectual Property Office led the discussions to create the code, with the assistance of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Ofcom has supported the discussions by examining in detail the way that search results are presented to internet users, and the group has explored possible techniques and metrics that can help drive UK consumers away from illegitimate content.

Organisers say this agreement will run in parallel with existing anti-piracy measures aimed at reducing online infringement.

These include court ordered site blocking, work with brands to reduce advertising on illegal sites and the Get it Right From A Genuine Site consumer education campaign, which encourages fans to value the creative process and directs them to legal sources of content.

Eddy Leviten, director general at the Alliance for Intellectual Property, said: “Sometimes people will search for something and they will end up unwittingly being taken to a pirated piece of content

“What we want to ensure is that the results at the top of the search engines are the genuine ones.

“It is about protecting people who use the internet, but also protecting the creators of that material too.”

Stan McCoy, of the Motion Picture Association in Europe, said: “Pirate websites are currently much too easy to find via search, so we appreciate the parties’ willingness to try to improve that situation.

“We look forward to working on this initiative alongside many other approaches to fighting online piracy, such as the Get it Right campaign that aims to help educate consumers about the many ways to enjoy film and television content legally and at the time of their choosing.”

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of BPI, representative body for UK record labels, and the Brit Awards, said:“BPI has long campaigned for search engines to do more to ensure fans are directed to legal sources for music or other entertainment.

“There is much work still to do to achieve this.

“The code will not be a silver bullet fix, but it will mean that illegal sites are demoted more quickly from search results and that fans searching for music are more likely to find a fair site.”

UK Music chief executive Jo Dipple said: “This is the culmination of years of discussions between rights-holders and search engines.

“UK Music welcomes any progress that makes our digital markets more efficient.”

•  Blocking copyright-infringing websites derided as like ‘whacking moles’

Former US attorney general brought in after female engineer claimed company frequently dismissed complaints and protected a repeat offender

Eric Holder is to investigate complaints of sexual harassment at Uber. Composite: Reuters/AP

 Uber has hired the former US attorney general Eric Holder to investigate allegations of sexual harassment after an engineer went public with claims that she repeatedly faced sexism and discrimination at the ride-sharing company.

In a staff email shared with the Guardian on Monday, Uber’s CEO, Travis Kalanick, said Holder would conduct an “independent review” and also revealed that women made up only 15% of the company’s workforce in engineering, product management and scientist roles.

The hiring of Holder, who was attorney general under Barack Obama, comes as the description of harassment from Susan Fowler, a former site reliability engineer, has gone viral, prompting women across Silicon Valley to share stories of facing misconduct and discrimination in the male-dominated tech industry.

“It’s been a tough 24 hours. I know the company is hurting,” Kalanick said in his email. “It is my number one priority that we come through this a better organization where we live our values and fight for and support those who experience injustice.”

Fowler’s lengthy account on her blog alleged that management and the HR department at the San Francisco-based company frequently dismissed documented cases of sexual harassment, protected a repeat offender and threatened to fire her for raising concerns.

Fowler, who declined to comment further on Monday, alleged in her post that a manager immediately propositioned her for sex when she joined in late 2015, and that a director explained the dwindling number of women in her organization by saying “the women of Uber just needed to step up and be better engineers”.

Fowler, who now works for technology company Stripe, said a manager harassed her with messages on the company chat system but did not face any consequences from HR despite her providing screenshots. She said she later learned that other women had complained about his inappropriate behavior.

“Upper management told me that he ‘was a high performer’ … and they wouldn’t feel comfortable punishing him for what was probably just an innocent mistake,” she wrote.

In one anecdote, she said managers had promised staff leather jackets but ultimately decided not to order them for women “because there were not enough women in the organization to justify placing an order”.
Following her complaint about that incident, an HR representative asked “if I had ever considered that I might be the problem”, she said. Her manager also later told her she was on “thin ice” and that if she filed another report, she would be fired, according to her account. Although an HR official admitted that this threat was illegal, no action was taken, she said.

On Monday, Kalanick said Uber board member Arianna Huffington, founder of Huffington Post, would also assist in the investigation alongside Liane Hornsey, the company’s newly hired chief human resources officer, and Angela Padilla, general counsel.

The harassment controversy comes as Kalanick struggles to move past the viral #DeleteUber campaign, which stemmed from his participation on Donald Trump’s economic advisory council.

The company has long refused to release demographic data on its workforce, even though most major tech companies have in recent years begun disclosing data and publicly acknowledging their lack of diversity. Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter have all published staffing reports.

Kalanick’s email only provided gender data, saying the 15% figure for women “has not changed substantively in the last year”. The email did not offer statistics on the number of women in senior roles, a key metric for diversity.

A spokeswoman declined to provide racial demographic data to the Guardian on Monday. The CEO said he and Hornsey would publish a “broader diversity report” in the coming months.

Fowler alleged that when she left Uber at the end of 2016, out of over 150 engineers in the site reliability engineering teams, only 3% were women.

This is not the first time a tech corporation has hired Holder in the wake of a discrimination scandal. In 2016, home-sharing startup Airbnb brought him in to investigate claims that users were refusing to rent their homes to black guests, a controversy that spread under the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack. The company subsequently implemented new staff and rules aimed at preventing discrimination, though some critics said the reforms were inadequate.

Britain will soon be down to just one paging provider, but for the nation’s paramedics, lifeboat crews and birdwatchers the devices remain essential kit

In the 1990s, it was cool to have a pager. When the beep sounded in your bag or on your belt, it delivered one message to you and another to those nearby: that you were so rich or important that people needed to contact you all the time. Now we’re all rich and important, thanks to mobile phones, but a few of us still use pagers. On Tuesday, it was announced that Vodafone, one of the last two paging providers, had agreed to sell its business to Capita, the other one. Subject to the regulators’ approval, this means about 1,000 customers will be switching over, after which there will be one provider left to rule all of Britain’s pager users.

But who are these people exactly? Put simply, they are anyone who needs the one remaining technical advantage that pagers have: slightly more reliability. Where mobile phone networks can be patchy, or slow, or overloaded, the separate paging network offers a modest improvement in reception and reach, especially in rural areas. Compared with modern smartphones, pager batteries also last much longer.

Thus some infrastructure companies, such as EDF Energy, use pagers to alert their staff when there is problem nearby. Some new pagers also contain GPS trackers, and allow users to reply, which is invaluable for lifeboat crews. Paging services, such as Rare Bird Alert or Bird Information, have also been popular with birdwatchers for many years, delivering information about new sightings as soon as they’re recorded, even to birders in the field.

Most pager users, however, are medics or emergency responders like Liam Lehane, who is assistant director of operations in resilience for the London Ambulance Service. “They’re really good for pushing messages out,” he says. “It’s a system that the NHS uses quite widely.” In fact, the LAS deploys a belt-and-braces-and-another-belt approach by sending texts and emails along with its pager messages. Staff can then reply with their phones or their radio if necessary. Ambulance pagers also deliver messages in three levels, summarised by Lehane as green (“for information”), amber (“I might need to do something”) and red (“I need to deal with it”). “I’m on call currently,” he says, “and it’s gone off about half a dozen times this morning already, with various things that are going on around London.”

Perhaps the main advantage of pagers is not technical at all, but about how they influence behaviour. “When people get a pager message, because it’s not a normal phone call or SMS message, they tend to take notice of it,” Lehane says. This does not merely grab people’s attention, it also saves them embarrassment. While someone might assume you were being rude if you started reading your phone, Lehane explains, they are much more understanding if they see you check your pager. “It just changes people’s attitude and perception,” he says. Though they might think you’re an obsessive birdwatcher, of course.

Faster, more powerful streaming device comes with Alexa and voice control, turning almost any TV smart – despite only being little larger than a flash drive

The new Fire TV stick now comes with a voice-control remote and Alexa voice assistant. Photograph: Amazon

 Amazon is bringing its Alexa voice assistant to British televisions with a £40 Fire TV stick that turns almost any TV into a smart streaming box.

The new Fire TV stick comes with a voice-enabled remote, giving users access to voice controls and search for movies, music and TV shows. But it will also perform Alexa’s other skills, allowing users to check their commute, get a weather forecast and to answer questions and control smart home devices by speaking into the remote and showing new so called video cards with information on screen.

Jorrit Van der Meulen, vice president of Amazon Devices International, said that the company’s focus with the new Fire TV stick was on performance and speed, making it 30% faster than the old device, to provide a smooth, rich and voice-controlled experience in a package barely larger than a flash drive.

He said: “Fire TV was the number one selling item on Amazon in the UK in 2016, and now we’ve made it faster and given it the best of Alexa.”

The new Fire TV stick, which goes on order today for £40 and ships on 6 April, will be the first of Amazon’s smart TV boxes to gain access to Alexa in the UK. Until now, users have been restricted to a more basic voice-recognition search. It will also come with Amazon’s new version of its Fire TV interface, which has been cleaned up, modernised and made faster..

Netflix subscribers looking for Breaking Bad using voice search, for instance, will be shown the option to jump straight to Netflix, but will also be given the option to buy episodes from Amazon’s video store. Users will always be shown the option to watch searched-for content through one of their included subscriptions first, rather than always directed to buy media from Amazon.

This open mentality also means that third-party services can provide direct recommendations to users through an app- or service-specific recommendation carousel. Netflix is the first to provide such recommendations in the UK, but Amazon hopes to have similar recommendations from other third-party services such as the BBC’s iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4 and My5, which all have apps available for the Fire TV.

Jason Parrish, principal product manager for Amazon Fire TV, said: “All we’re trying to do is match users to content they might like as fast and as smoothly as possible.” 

The original Fire TV stick, like Amazon’s low-end Fire tablet, has been successful at attracting existing Amazon and new customers alike. It has been the top-selling streaming device in the UK for a while, helped by a complete selection of terrestrial broadcaster catchup services and a low price compared to the competition.

Alexa integration into the new £40 Fire TV stick now makes it the cheapest way to get access to Amazon’s hit voice assistant, which currently has the lead in the new technology battlefield of in-home voice control. Rival Google’s Home speaker has yet to be released in the UK, and is lagging behind.