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Messaging platform Telegram received a significant update today that brings three major features: video messaging, bot payments, and something the company calls Instant View. First up is video messaging which users can access with a tap of the mic icon to switch to camera mode. Tapping and holding the camera icon begins recording up to a minute-long video, which Telegram claims is compressed and transmitted while you record to make the whole process feel snappy. In addition to this new feature the app now offers a hands-free mode for both videos and voice notes — you just need to swipe up while recording and once you’re done it’s now possible to replay the clip before sending it. The feature is also being extended to channels, Telegram’s broadcasting feature for one-way communication with followers. These videos will also be made available through URLs called Telescopes so po[CENSORED]r videos can now be shared to other platforms beyond Telegram. Next up is Payments for Bots. The platform introduced chatbots nearly two years ago, and now it is opening up the functionality so brands can sell you their products or services — order a pizza, buy clothes or even pay your bills. The transactions are being handled by Stripe and Apple Pay. If this sounds familiar, Facebook implemented a similar system on its Messenger platform late last year. Lastly, Instant View is essentially Telegram’s version of Google's AMP and Facebook's Instant Articles, allowing users to view quick-loading articles directly from within the Telegram app. Telegram is launching the Instant View Platform so anyone can create templates for their favorite websites, so website owners don’t have to do the heavy lifting themselves. These templates are sets of rules that tell a parser bot where to find useful content and what to ignore when presenting articles in a uniform and easily readable format when shared on the platform. To encourage Instant View adoption, the company is holding a contest with a $250,000 prize for those who work to enable Instant View for as many sites as possible. Telegram bills itself as a secure messaging alternative to WhatsApp and it’s built a large user base on the back of these claims — occasionally seeing a spike in downloads when rival platforms suffer an outage. Many encryption and security experts have refuted Telegram’s security claims, arguing that they use a homegrown encryption protocol that hasn’t been verified by cryptographers, and that it doesn’t even encrypt chats by default as their marketing campaigns might lead you to believe. If you’re looking to communicate securely, Signal is probably your best bet followed by WhatsApp, which uses the same end-to-end encryption protocol but collects some metadata. That said Telegram is still a convenient, well-designed, cross-platform and feature packed option that’s worth a look.

Happy birthday dude, have a good day

News of Netflix’s decision to hide its Play Store app from rooted devices was met with anger from those who like to add an extra layer of customization to their handsets. But it seems many other applications may be about to follow in its footsteps. As reported by Android Police, Google has made hiding a store app from rooted devices an official option for developers. Part of the Google Play Console updates announced at I/O 2017 includes the introduction of a device catalog section under the Release management setting. The section allows developers to specify which devices can view their app(s) on the Play Store based on certain criteria, such as performance indicators like RAM that’s under 1Gb and unsupported SoCs. But devices can also be excluded if they don’t pass SafetyNet tests or aren’t certified by Google; i.e. they’re rooted or are running custom ROMs. As is the case with the Netflix app, just because rooted users can’t see the apps in the Play Store doesn’t mean they won’t work on a device. The process is different from the full SafetyNet API implementation used with apps like Android Pay and Pokemon GO, which won’t run unless a phone passes an integrity test when the application launches. If you know what you’re doing and avoid dubious sites, you can always just install the APK from other sources. “SafetyNet Exclusions only restrict the availability of your app from the Play Store. Users can still install your app using the APK file directly,” writes Google. Nevertheless, the new developer feature is likely to annoy a lot of people.

Google at its annual I/O developer conference has provided an update regarding its plan to allow Chromebooks to run Android apps from the Play Store. It’s been roughly a year since Google announced that support for Android apps would be coming to Chrome OS. Unfortunately, the rollout has taken place at a snail’s pace as there are currently only six devices that support Android apps on the stable version of the operating system. As it stands today, Android apps on Chrome OS are still technically in beta. As Kan Liu, senior director of product management for Chrome OS, tells The Verge, Android apps are around “80 percent” ready for most users. That last 20 percent, however, won’t be completed as quickly as one might think, especially with Liu conceding that “the first 80 percent is 20 percent of the work [and] the last 20 percent is 80 percent of the work.” Liu didn’t give a definitive date as to when the beta status would be pulled but he did reveal something that’s perhaps even more interesting. Because Chrome OS launches new builds far more frequently than the dessert (mobile) version of Android (every six weeks), Liu said that some Android features will arrive on Chrome OS before they hit phones. That’s great news for Chrome OS users as major Android releases are notoriously slow at rolling out onto mobile devices. The latest version of Android (Nougat), for example, was released on August 22, 2016, yet is only installed on 7.1 percent of mobile devices.

Although it’s been available as a developer preview for a while, yesterday at its annual I/O conference Google announced that the first public beta for Android O is now available to download so anyone with a compatible device can test out the next version of the operating system. The list of supported devices includes the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel C, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, and Nexus Player. The next major version of Android has several under the hood improvements like limiting resource consumption by apps running in the background, which should result in improved battery life, as well as improving boot up times, general performance and security. But there are also several new user facing features and changes worthy of mention. Here are some of these new features you'll see in Android O: Picture in picture With Android O you’ll be able to keep a video running in a small window while you’re doing other stuff on your phone. For now only YouTube Red subscribers and users of the Google Duo video-chatting app have access to this functionality, but third party developers will likely jump on board soon. Notification dots You’ll now see tiny badges placed on app icons to inform you when those apps have new notifications. They essentially work much the same way as Badge Icons on iOS except they’re not numbered, and Google automatically matches the color of dots to the app icon. The notification tray is still there, Google is just offering another way of accessing app notifications — instead of pulling down the notification shade to view a particular alert, you can now view it by pressing and holding on the icon of an app that has a notification dot so you can act on it or swipe it away. Autofill Autofill now extends into apps using context like user names so you don't have to manually enter frequently used info all time. If you keep your passwords stored in Chrome you’ll now be able to autofill those details in apps too rather than only when using the browser. Smart text selection Google is constantly getting smarter about context and now whenever you select part of an address, Google will be able to automatically select all the relevant parts so you don’t have to fiddle around with those tiny handles. Android can recognize phone numbers, addresses, and the names of businesses, and will offer quick actions like launching the dialer, Google Maps or Gmail depending on what’s selected. Blob emojis are gone Google has done a full redesign of their admittedly ugly emoji set with something that looks more consistent with what other platforms offer instead of those confusing blobs. And more Android O will offer a cleaner settings app that groups similar options together, more granular control over notifications, including the ability to “snooze” notifications for later and the ability to group different apps into different Notification Channels, among several other small changes. You can sign up for the Android O beta at android.com/beta.

Intel's groundbreaking 8008 microprocessor was first produced 45 years ago.1 This chip, Intel's first 8-bit microprocessor, is the ancestor of the x86 processor family that you may be using right now. I couldn't find good die photos of the 8008, so I opened one up and took some detailed photographs. These new die photos are in this article, along with a discussion of the 8008's internal design. Die photograph of the 8008 microprocessor The photo above shows the tiny silicon die inside the 8008 package (click the image for a higher resolution photo). You can barely see the wires and transistors that make up the chip. The squares around the outside are the 18 pads that are connected to the external pins by tiny bond wires. You can see the text "8008" on the right edge of the chip and "© Intel 1971" on the lower edge. The initials HF appear on the top right for Hal Feeney, who did the chip's logic design and physical layout. (Other key designers of the 8008 were Ted Hoff, Stan Mazor, and Federico Faggin.) Inside the chip The diagram below highlights some of the major functional blocks of the chip. On the left is the 8-bit Arithmetic/Logic Unit (ALU), which performs the actual data computations.3 The ALU uses two temporary registers to hold its input values. These registers take up significant area on the chip, not because they are complex, but because they need large transistors to drive signals through the ALU circuitry. Die of the 8008 microprocessor showing major components. Below the registers is the carry look ahead circuitry. For addition and subtraction, this circuit computes all eight carry values in parallel to improve performance.2 Since the low-order carry depends on just the low-order bits, while the higher-order carries depend on multiple bits, the circuit block has a triangular shape. The triangular layout of the ALU is unusual. Most processors stack the circuitry for each bit into a regular rectangle (a bit-slice layout). The 8008, however, has eight blocks (one for each bit) arranged haphazardly to fit around the space left by the triangular carry generator. The ALU supports eight simple operations.3 In the center of the chip is the instruction register and the instruction decoding logic that determines the meaning of each 8-bit machine instruction. Decoding is done with a Programmable Logic Array(PLA), an arrangement of gates that matches bit patterns and generates the appropriate control signals for the rest of the chip. On the right are the storage blocks. The 8008's seven registers are in the upper right. In the lower right is the address stack, which consists of eight 14-bit address words. Unlike most processors, the 8008's call stack is stored on the chip instead of in memory. The program counter is just one of these addresses, making subroutine calls and returns very simple. The 8008 uses dynamic memory for this storage The physical structure of the chip is very close to the block diagram in the 8008 User's Manual(below), with blocks located on the chip in nearly the same positions as in the block diagram. Block diagram of the 8008 microprocessor, from the User's Manual. The structure of the chip What does the die photo show? For our purposes, the chip can be thought of as three layers. The diagram below shows a closeup of the chip, pointing out these layers. The topmost layer is the metal wiring. It is the most visible feature, and looks metallic (not surprisingly). In the detail below, these wires are mostly horizontal. The polysilicon layer is below the metal and appears orange under the microscope. A closeup of the 8008 die, showing the metal layer, the polysilicon, and the doped silicon. The foundation of the chip is the silicon wafer, which appears purplish-gray in the photo. Pure silicon is effectively an insulator. Regions of it are "doped" with impurities to create semiconducting silicon. Being on the bottom, the silicon layer is difficult to distinguish, but you can see black lines along the border between doped silicon and undoped silicon. A few vertical silicon "wires" are visible in the photo.4 Transistors are the key component of the chip, and a transistor is formed where a polysilicon wire crosses doped silicon. In the photo, the polysilicon appears as a brighter orange where it forms a transistor. Why an 18 pin chip? One inconvenient feature of the 8008 is it only has 18 pins, which makes the chip slower and much more difficult to use. The 8008 uses 14 address bits and 8 data bits so with 18 pins there aren't enough pins for each signal. Instead, the chip has 8 data pins that are reused in three cycles to transmit the low address bits, high address bits, and data bits. A computer using the 8008 requires many support chips to interact with this inconvenient bus architecture.5 There was no good reason to force the chip into 18 pins. Packages with 40 or 48 pins were common with other manufacturers, but 16 pins was "a religion at Intel".6 Only with great reluctance did they move to 18 pins. By the time the 8080 processor came out a few years later, Intel had come to terms with 40-pin chips. The 8080 was much more po[CENSORED]r, in part because it had a simpler bus design permitted by the 40-pin package. Power and data paths in the chip The data bus provides data flow through the chip. The diagram below shows the 8-bit data bus of the 8008 with rainbow colors for the 8 data lines. The data bus connects to the 8 data pins along the outside of the upper half of the chip. The bus runs between the ALU on the left, the instruction register (upper center), and the registers and stack on the right. The bus is split on the left with half along each side of the ALU. Die photo of the 8008 microprocessor. The power bus is shown in red and blue. The data bus is shown with 8 rainbow colors. The red and blue lines show power routing. Power routing is an under-appreciated aspect of microprocessors. Power is routed in the metal layer due to its low resistance. But since there is only one metal layer in early microprocessors, power distribution must be carefully planned so the paths don't cross.7 The diagram above shows Vcc lines in blue and Vdd lines in red. Power is supplied through the Vcc pin on the left and the Vdd pin on the right, then branches out into thin, interlocking wires that supply all parts of the chip. The register file To show what the chip looks like in detail, I've zoomed in on the 8008's register file in the photo below. The register file consists of an 8 by 7 grid of dynamic RAM (DRAM) storage cells, each using three transistors to hold one bit.8 (You can see the transistors as the small rectangles where the orange polysilicon takes on a slightly more vivid color.) Each row is one of the 8008's seven 8-bit registers (A, B, C, D, E, H, L). On the left, you can see seven pairs of horizontal wires: the read select and write select lines for each register. At the top, you can see eight vertical wires to read or write the contents of each bit, along with 5 thicker wires to supply Vcc. Using DRAM for registers (rather than the more common static latches) is an interesting choice. Since Intel was primary a memory company at the time, I expect they chose DRAM due to their expertise in the area. The register file in the 8008. The chip has seven 8-bit registers: A, B, C, D, E, H, L How PMOS works The 8008 uses PMOS transistors. To simplify slightly, you can think of a PMOS transistor as a switch between two silicon wires, controlled by a gate input (of polysilicon). The switch closes when its gate input is low and it can pull its output high. If you're familiar with the NMOS transistors used in microprocessors like the 6502, PMOS may be a bit confusing because everything is backwards. A simple PMOS NAND gate can be constructed as shown below. When both inputs are high, the transistors are off and the resistor pulls the output low. When any input is low, the transistor will conduct, connecting the output to +5. Thus, the circuit implements a NAND gate. For compatibility with 5-volt TTL circuits, the PMOS gate (and thus the 8008) is powered with unusual voltages: -9V and +5V. A NAND gate implemented with PMOS logic. For technical reasons, the resistor is actually implemented with a transistor. The diagram below shows how the transistor is wired to act as a pull-down resistor. The detail on the right shows how this circuit appears on the chip. The -9V metal wire is at the top, the transistor is in the middle, and the output is the silicon wire at the bottom. In PMOS, a pull-down resistor (left) is implemented with a transistor (center). The photo on the right shows an actual pull-down in the 8008 microprocessor. History of the 8008 The 8008's complicated story starts with the Datapoint 2200, a po[CENSORED]r computer introduced in 1970 as a programmable terminal. (Some people consider the Datapoint 2200 to be the first personal computer.) Rather than using a microprocessor, the Datapoint 2200 contained a board-sized CPU build from individual TTL chips. (This was the standard way to build a CPU in the minicomputer era.) Datapoint and Intel decided that it would be possible to replace this board with a single MOS chip, and Intel started the 8008 project to build this chip. A bit later, Texas Instruments also agreed to build a single-chip processor for Datapoint. Both chips were designed to be compatible with the Datapoint 2200's 8-bit instruction set and architecture. The 8008 processor was first described publicly in "Electronic Design", Oct 25, 1970. Although Intel claimed the chip would be delivered in January 1971, actual delivery was more than a year later in April, 1972. Around March 1971, Texas Instruments completed their processor chip, calling it the TMC 1795. After delaying the project, Intel finished the 8008 chip later, around the end of 1971. For a variety of reasons, Datapoint rejected both microprocessors and built a faster CPU based on newer TTL chips including the 74181 ALU chip. TI tried unsuccessfully to market the TMC 1795 processor to companies such as Ford, but ended up abandoning the processor, focusing on highly-profitable calculator chips instead. Intel, on the other hand, marketed the 8008 as a general-purpose microprocessor, which eventually led to the x86 architecture you're probably using right now. Although TI was first with the 8-bit processor, it was Intel who made their chip a success, creating the microprocessor industry. A family tree of the 8008 and some related processors. Black arrows indicate backwards compatibility. Light arrows indicate significant architecture changes. The diagram above summarizes the "family tree" of the 8008 and some related processors.10 The Datapoint 2200's architecture was used in the TMC 1795, the Intel 8008, and the next version Datapoint 220011. Thus, four entirely different processors were built using the Datapoint 2200's instruction set and architecture. The Intel 8080 processor was a much-improved version of the 8008. It significantly extended the 8008's instruction set and reordered the machine code instructions for efficiency. The 8080 was used in groundbreaking early microcomputers such as the Altair and the Imsai. After working on the 4004 and 8080, designers Federico Faggin and Masatoshi Shima left Intel to build the Zilog Z-80 microprocessor, which improved on the 8080 and became very po[CENSORED]r. The jump to the 16-bit 8086 processor was much less evolutionary. Most 8080 assembly code could be converted to run on the 8086, but not trivially, as the instruction set and architecture were radically changed. Nonetheless, some characteristics of the Datapoint 2200 still exist in today's x86 processors. For instance, the Datapoint 2200 had a serial processor, processing bytes one bit at a time. Since the lowest bit needs to be processed first, the Datapoint 2200 was little-endian. For compatibility, the 8008 was little-endian, and this is still the case in Intel's processors. Another feature of the Datapoint 2200 was the parity flag, since parity calculation was important for a terminal's communication. The parity flag has continued to the x86 architecture. The 8008 is architecturally unrelated to Intel's 4-bit 4004 processor12. The 8008 is not an 8-bit version of the 4-bit 4004 in any way. The similar names are purely a marketing invention; during its design phase the 8008 had the unexciting name "1201". How the 8008 fits into the history of semiconductor technology The 4004 and 8008 both used silicon-gate enhancement-mode PMOS, a semiconductor technology that was only used briefly. This puts the chips at an interesting point in chip fabrication technology. The 8008 (and modern processors) uses MOS transistors. These transistors had a long path to acceptance, being slower and less reliable than the bipolar transistors used in most computers of the 1960s. By the late 1960s, MOS integrated circuits were becoming more common; the standard technology was PMOS transistors with metal gates. The gates of the transistor consisted of metal, which was also used to connect components of the chip. Chips essentially had two layers of functionality: the silicon itself, and the metal wiring on top. This technology was used in many Texas Instruments calculator chips, as well as the TMC 1795 chip (the chip that had the same instruction set as the 8008). A key innovation that made the 8008 practical was the self-aligned gate—a transistor using a gate of polysilicon rather than metal. Although this technology was invented by Fairchild and Bell Labs, it was Intel that pushed the technology ahead. Polysilicon gate transistors had much better performance than metal gate (for complex semiconductor reasons). In addition, adding a polysilicon layer made routing of signals in the chip much easier, making the chips denser. The diagram below shows the benefit of self-aligned gates: the metal-gate TMC 1795 is bigger than the 4004 and 8008 chips combined. Intel's 4004 and 8008 processors are much denser than Texas Instruments' TMC 1795 chip, largely due to their use of self-aligned gates. Shortly afterwards, semiconductor technology improved again with the use of NMOS transistors instead of PMOS transistors. Although PMOS transistors were easier to manufacture initially, NMOS transistors are faster, so once NMOS could be fabricated reliably, they were a clear win. NMOS led to more powerful chips such as the Intel 8080 and the Motorola 6800 (both 1974). Another technology improvement of this time was ion-implantation to change the characteristics of transistors. This allowed the creation of "depletion-mode" transistors for use as pull-up resistors. These transistors improved chip performance and reduced power consumption. They also allowed the creation of chips that ran on standard five-volt supplies.13 The combination of NMOS transistors and depletion-mode pull-ups was used for most of the microprocessors of the late 1970s and early 1980s, such as the 6502 (1975), Z-80 (1976), 68000 (1979), and Intel chips from the 8085 (1976) to the 80286 (1982). In the mid 1980s, CMOS took over, using NMOS and PMOS transistors together to dramatically reduce power consumption, with chips such as the 80386 (1986), 68020 (1984) and ARM1 (1985). Now almost all chips are CMOS.14 As you can see, the 1970s were a time of large changes in semiconductor chip technology. The 4004 and 8008 were created when the technological capability intersected with the right market. How to take die photos In this section, I explain how I got the photos of the 8008 die. The first step is to open the chip package to expose the die. Most chips come in epoxy packages, which can be dissolved with dangerous acids. The 8008 microprocessor in a ceramic package Since I would rather avoid boiling nitric acid, I took a simpler approach. The 8008 is also available in a ceramic package (above), which I got on eBay. Tapping the chip along the seam with a chisel pops the two ceramic layers apart. The photo below shows the lower half of the ceramic package, with the die exposed. Most of the metal pins have been removed, but their positions in the package are visible. To the right of the die is a small square; this connects ground (Vcc) to the substrate. A couple of the tiny bond wires are still visible, connected to the die. Inside the package of the 8008 microprocessor, the silicon die is visible. Once the die is exposed, a microscope can be used to take photographs. A standard microscope shines the light from below, which doesn't work well for die photographs. Instead, I used a metallurgical microscope, which shines the light from above to illuminate the chip. I took 48 photographs through the microscope and then used the Hugin stitching software to combine them into one high-resolution image (details). Finally, I adjusted the image contrast to make the chip's structures more visible. The original image (which is approximately what you see through the microscope) is below for comparison. Notes and references 1. According to the oral history of the 8008, photos of the 8008 were obtained in October / November 1971 (page 6). Chip designer Federico Faggin mentions that toward the end of 1971, "everything was working except for a few errors." Faggin then debugged a problem with the dynamic memory losing data, making it ready for production (page 9). 2. Using the carry look ahead circuit avoids the delay from a standard ripple-carry adder, where the carries propagate through the sum. 3. The 8008's ALU supports eight operations: add, subtract, add with carry, subtract with carry, AND, OR, XOR, and compare. It also implements left and right shift and rotate operations. The 8008 also has increment and decrement instructions, extending the Datapoint 2200's instruction set. 4. Because silicon has higher resistance than polysilicon, most chips use the polysilicon and metal layers for wiring, not the silicon layer. The 4004 and 8008 chips are unusual in that they prefer to use the silicon layer for wiring rather than polysilicon. I expect this was due to the recent introduction of polysilicon: before polysilicon, routing needed to be done in the silicon layer and perhaps the chip designers were sticking with the older layout techniques. 5. The 8008 required 20 support chips according to chip architect Federico Faggin. In contrast, the 4004 and earlier MOS computers such as the Four Phase and CADC were designed with a small number of MOS chips that worked together without extra "glue chips". In this sense, the 8008 was a step backwards architecturally, saying "here's the CPU, you figure out how to make a computer out of it." 6. For details on Intel's insistence on 16 pins, see Oral History of Federico Faggin, page 55-56. It was only when the 1103 memory chip required 18 pins that Intel reluctantly moved beyond 16 pins. And that was treated by Intel like "the sky had dropped from heaven," resulting in "so many long faces". 7. If two metal lines need to cross, one of them can be routed under the other by using the polysilicon layer. To be low resistance, this cross-under must be relatively wide, so cross-unders are avoided if possible. 8. The 8008 registers use the "3T1C" cell: three transistors and one capacitor (details). The circuit doesn't physically contain a separate capacitor, but uses the gate capacitance of the transistor. One unusual feature of the 8008 cell is it uses one wire for both reading and writing the bit, while the typical 3T cell has separate wires for reading and writing. The 4004 had separate wires, but the design changed slightly in the 8008. 9. Pull-up resistors in later chips such as the 6502 were implemented using depletion-mode NMOS transistors. These yielded more faster, more efficient logic. They were also wired differently, with the gate connected to the output rather than the power rail. 10. The 8008 architecture and the evolution of Intel's microprocessors are discussed in detail in Intel Microprocessors: 8008 to 8086. 11. The second version of the Datapoint 2200 had a totally new implementation of the processor, still built from TTL chips. While the first version had a serial ALU (processing one bit at a time), the second version operated in parallel using 74181 ALU chips. As a result, the second version was much faster. 12. The extensive 4004 Anniversary Project has reverse-engineered the 4004 processor. The 4004 schematic is here. 13. The Motorola 6800 microprocessor originally used enhancement-mode transistors. To operate off a single +5V supply, it had a voltage-doubler circuit on the chip. 14. Interestingly, in 2007 Intel started using metal gates again in order to scale transistors further (details). In a way, semiconductor technology has gone full circle, back to metal gates, although now unusual metals such as hafnium are used. Article From: TechSpot

Welcome Alex!

Microsoft has launched a new, stripped down version of Windows that aims to take on Google and Apple in the education market. Dubbed Windows S, it’s meant to be cheaper and less resource intensive than Windows 10 Home or Pro by having fewer programs running in the background, while being easier to manage and secure since you can only install apps from Microsoft's Windows Store. The latter might come as a disappointment seeing as the lack of traditional desktop software is arguably one of the main reasons Windows RT — a lightweight, mobile-friendly variant of Windows 8 — failed. Then again the Windows Store has gotten better since, and Microsoft is specifically aiming this at managed environments like the education market, where Chrome OS is thriving with similar limitations. Windows 10 S runs on the full range of Windows 10 hardware, including high-end models like the Surface Book, although it is primarily intended for use with inexpensive, low-end hardware. Microsoft says Windows 10 S will take around 15 seconds to be ready for a student to login and use for the first time. Meanwhile, administrators will be able to setup machines using a USB drive with preconfigured options — Windows 10 S will simply detect the key and customize all the settings accordingly. Windows S will be available in a number of inexpensive laptops from major computer manufacturers including Dell, HP, and Acer starting at just $189. All machines will ship with a free subscription to Minecraft: Education Edition, and schools will also get free Office 365 education with Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Surface Laptop To get things rolling Microsoft Microsoft its launching its own laptop preloaded with Windows S. The new Surface Laptop, however, is aimed the higher-ed crowd with a starting price of $999, and going all the way up to $2,199 if you factor in all the available hardware upgrades. The Surface Laptop weighs only 2.76 pounds and is 1.47 cm thick. Available for pre-order today, the laptop will start shipping June 15. It will sport a 13.5-inch, 2256 x 1504 resolution multi touch display, a seventh-generation i5 or i7 Intel Kaby Lake processor, up to 512 GB of solid state storage, up to 16GB RAM, 14.5 hours of battery life, one USB 3.0 port (no USB-C, surprisingly), and a mini DisplayPort. Luckily, if you feel all that hardware is being underused with Windows S, Microsoft also offers a $49 upgrade from Windows 10 S to the full Windows 10 Pro.

Facebook launched its Instant Games platform last November in 30 countries around the globe. An addition to Messenger, the HTML5 gaming platform allows friends and family members to battle it out across a variety of classic video games including Galaga, Pac-Man and Space Invaders, among others. On Tuesday, Facebook said it has started the global rollout of Instant Games on Messenger complete with the new features it teased at its annual F8 conference a few weeks back such as turn-based gameplay and game bots to help re-engage players and encourage competition. Speaking of, one of the first games to take advantage of turn-based gameplay will be Words with Friends: Frenzy from Zynga. Blackstorm’s EverWing, meanwhile, is slated to be among the first to use game bots. Messenger Product Manager Andrea Vaccari notes that there are currently more than 50 titles to play on the app (give or take a few depending on where you are located) with more being introduced on a near-weekly basis. For example, the world’s top pool game, 8 Ball Pool from Miniclip, is coming to the platform very soon. Games are free to play and there are currently no in-app purchases. Whether or not Facebook will maintain this model, however, remains to be seen. Instant Games on Messenger will roll out worldwide over the next few weeks across both Android and iOS, we’re told.

For all its improvements over the PlayStation 4, the PlayStation 4 Pro hasn’t exactly set the gaming world on fire. Things are looking even more troubling for Sony, after recent specs and early previews revealed Microsoft’s own mid-gen refresh, the Scorpio, could be closer to an entirely new console generation, and certainly quite a jump over the PS4 Pro. So, could Sony fight back with an early release of the PlayStation 5? That’s what one analyst thinks. Even though it’s only been less than 5 years since the launch of the PlayStation 4, Macquarie Capital Securities analyst Damian Thong believes the PlayStation 5 will be here sometime during the second half of next year. It may sound like an outlandish claim, but this is the same person who correctly predicted both the PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro. Thong never offered any predictions about the console other than its release date. A lot can change in 18 months, but a machine with a focus on 4K graphics and high framerates, and one that’s more powerful than Scorpio seems like a given. And with the PlayStation 4 Pro having just been released in November, backward compatibility would likely be a feature of the PS5. All of this is, of course, speculation, but there seems to be an excitement around Scorpio that was never present during the run up to the PlayStation 4 Pro's launch. Sony is reported to have sold almost twice as many PS4s compared to the Xbox One since the consoles were released, but fear that Scorpio will give Microsoft the upper hand in the console wars could encourage Sony to expedite the PS5’s arrival.

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Yesterday an artificial intelligence firm in Canada called Lyrebird announced that it had developed algorithms that can mimic anyone’s voice using only 60 seconds of audio. They are not the only company that is working on human-like voice synthesis. The Verge points out that both Adobe and Google have voice synthesis divisions working on developing realistic computer generated speech. Using machine learning AI, Google has developed life-like voice synthesis that even incorporates the breath sounds that are heard in human speech. Adobe has been working on Project VoCo, a tool similar to Photoshop, except for audio editing. Its software can make just about any voice say anything, but it needs a 20-minute speech sample to accomplish this. The fact that Lyrebird only needs 60 seconds of audio is a significant factor, but the resulting voice still sounds robotic. However, the software does get the pitch, accent, and some of the speaking mannerisms though, as this sample of a conversion between Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Hilary Clinton shows. It will be some time before it is of a quality that would fool someone, but that raises the question: What happens when it or any other software can fool someone? A successful Turing test for voice synthesis is not that far away judging from some of the samples already out there. So what happens when a computer can fool a human into thinking that they are hearing another human? The potential for abuse is obvious. According to the Verge, “We already know that synthetic voice generators can trick biometric software used to verify identity.” Additionally, a combined effort between the University of Erlangen in Nuremberg, the Max-Planck-Institute of Informatics, and Stanford University has resulted in a system that is capable of taking video of anyone and transforming it into a controllable puppet, complete with realistic facial gestures and mouth movement. The team demonstrated the technology they call Face2Face, editing YouTube videos of Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Barrack Obama, and Vladimir Putin in real time. Combining something like Face2Face with Lyrebird’s, Google’s, or Adobe’s algorithms, or a combination of them could render realities that are completely false. In the wrong hands, use of technologies like these could cause much damage. Regardless of the potential for misuse, Lyrebird believes that the technology's development is inevitable. “This technology is going to happen. If it’s not us, it’s going to be someone else,” Alexandre de Brébisson of Lyrebird stated. The company has indicated that knowledge is power when it comes to technology such as this. It plans to release its software “publicly” with the intent being that if everyone knows this technology exists, the dangers of its misuse are lessened. “The situation is comparable to Photoshop. People are now aware that photos can be faked. I think in the future, audio recordings are going to become less and less reliable [as evidence]," said Brébisson. There is no word yet when the software will be ready for commercial consumption nor how much it will cost. However, Brébisson told the Verge that over 6,000 people had expressed interest in having early access to the APIs, which the company’s website says "are still in beta.” He also revealed that the company plans on providing versions for other languages as well. We have all joked about how our politicians are just puppets. In the near future, that may be the case in a very literal sense. However, it is not all bad. For example, you may be able to program Siri to sound like whomever you wish, so long as you have 60 seconds of their voice to feed the algorithms. And what about those terrible automated telephone systems? Realistic voice synthesis and further advances in voice recognition are going to make talking to customer service robots much more tolerable, and who is not for that?

For those who found themselves unable to log into po[CENSORED]r chat service HipChat recently, here’s why: An unknown intruder broke into one of its servers over the weekend, forcing the company to reset users’ passwords as a precaution. In a security notice on the firm's blog, Atlassian’s Chief Security Officer, Ganesh Krishnan, writes that the incident was the result of a vulnerability in a “po[CENSORED]r third-party library.” The attacker may have accessed user account information such as names, email addresses, and hashed passwords, along with metadata such as room names and topics. The post notes that HipChat hashes passwords using bcrypt with a random salt. In a small number of instances – under 0.05 percent – messages and content posted in rooms may have been accessed, but there’s no evidence of any financial and credit card information being stolen. Additionally, no other Atlassian products, such as Trello and Jira, were compromised during the attack. After invalidating all the passwords on HipChat-connected accounts, the company sent out emails with instructions on how to reset the login credentials. If you’re a user who didn’t receive an email, the security team has found no evidence you were affected. “While HipChat Server uses the same third-party library, it is typically deployed in a way that minimizes the risk of this type of attack. We are preparing an update for HipChat Server that will be shared with customers directly through the standard update channel,” states the blog post. “We are confident we have isolated the affected systems and closed any unauthorized access,” added Krishnan. Atlassian said it is now working with law enforcement on the investigation of this matter.

Back in 2015 Google partnered with action camera pioneer GoPro on a new virtual reality platform called Jump, consisting of a custom hardware rig that uses an array of GoPro cameras to capture footage that’s then turned into 360-degree video. Today the company is announcing its second-generation VR camera, this time around however they’re partnering with Yi Technology, a Xiaomi-backed GoPro competitor. The device is called the Yi Halo and comprises of 17 different Yi 4K — 16 along the circumference and one placed in the middle facing up. On the software side the Jump Assembler takes the video from all of the cameras and seamlessly stitches them together in a few hours. The camera can generate 8K x 8k stereoscopic VR content at 30fps, as well as 6K x 6K content at 60fps. Despite all the cameras involved and a removable battery good for 100 minutes of continuous recording, the whole thing weighs in at only 7.5 pounds (3.4 kg). The platform is aimed at pros or semi-pros so as you’d expect it won’t come in cheap. The camera itself will retail for $16,999 and there are presumably other costs associated with the use of Google’s Jump Assembler for stitching video. That said, Google is also announcing a new program called Jump Start, which aims to give over 100 filmmakers free access to a Jump camera and unlimited use of the Jump Assembler over the next year in other to get more content out there. Yi Technology has made a name for itself in the last two years by releasing cheaper, but capable GoPro competitors. The company doesn’t expect the Yi Halo to be a huge money-maker, but it’s a step towards building significantly cheaper, consumer-grade VR cameras at some point down the line.

Researchers at Vienna University of Technology have built a flexible microprocessor using the transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD). Like the “wonder material” graphene, TMD can be formed into layers that are only one atom thick, making a surface that is as close to two-dimensional as we can physically get. This ultra-thin surface is what makes the processor flexible. According to Network World, the processor is not as powerful as our current standard. In fact, it is only a one-bit processor with 115 transistors and is only capable of executing four instructions. However, in the paper the researchers published in the journal Nature, they point out that this is “a first step towards the development of microprocessors based on 2D semiconductors.” The circuit is 100 times larger than current ARM processors, but the large size was partially intentional. “They deliberately chose an overly large feature size for their manufacturing process to reduce the effects of holes, cracks, and contamination in the molybdenum disulfide film and to make it easier to inspect the results with an optical microscope,” said Network World. Multi-bit design and miniaturization should both be fairly straight forward. However, the researchers say they will have to figure out a way to lower contact resistance before they can manufacture on the sub-micrometer scale. Further development should go much faster than modern microprocessor design since much of the same theoretical and practical applications used in the production of silicon chips can be applied to working with TMD. Furthermore, Samsung and others are already looking into ways to make flexible and ultra-thin phones. Companies like Corning and LG already have bendable, and roll-up screen prototypes developed. Part of the reason we do not already have these technologies available is due to the brittle nature of silicon chips. It does not take much flex to cause them to crack. If developers working on TMD technology can catch up to current silicon processors, we might start seeing some of these concepts make it to market.

Google and Samsung on Friday announced a partnership that’ll make Google Play Music the default music player and music service on new Samsung handsets and tablets globally. It starts today with the launch of the Galaxy S8 and S8+. Elias Roman, Lead Product Manager at Google Play Music, said in announcing the partnership that those with a new Samsung device can now upload and stream up to 100,000 of their songs to the service absolutely free. That’s twice as much storage capacity exclusively for Samsung customers, we’re told, which should make it even easier for users to migrate their personal music collection to Google Play Music. It doesn’t end there, however, as new Samsung mobile devices will also come with a free three-month trial of the streaming service that offers ad-free, on-demand access to more than 40 million tracks and thousands of playlists curated for a variety of moods and occasions. A subscription also grants access to YouTube Red, the ad-free version of Google's po[CENSORED]r video sharing service that launched in late 2015. Last but not least, Google Play Music will integrate seamlessly with Bixby when English language voice support arrives later this spring. Samsung launched its own streaming music service, called Milk Music, in early 2014 but shut it downback in September (probably because that name was so terrible, no?). Will Google’s partnership with Samsung sway your decision to pick up a Galaxy S8 or S8+ (or any other Samsung device on your radar) or is it just icing on the cake?

Mobile fans may be focused on Friday’s release of the Galaxy S8/S8+, but another Android device has just been unveiled that features the same Snapdragon 835 processor as Samsung’s handsets and costs a fraction of the price. Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi, once called the Apple of China, has announced the successor to last year’s well-received and equally cheap Mi 5. The Mi 6 comes with Qualcomm’s latest chip - which is currently found only in the S8 and S8+ - along with 6GB of RAM, but its price starts at an incredibly low 2499 RMB (about $360) for the 64GB model. There’s also a 128GB option for 2899 RMB ($420) and a ceramic edition that costs 2999 RMB ($435). Boasting a 5.15-inch FHD display, dual cameras (12MP wide angle and 12MP telephoto camera for 2x optical zoom and 10x digital zoom), dual stereo speakers, a 3,350mAh battery, an under-glass fingerprint sensor, and water resistance, the Mi 6 has some impressive specs at a bargain price. Other features include 2.2 dual Wi-Fi technology for improved connectivity and speed, along with screen options such as a new night display and reduction of the blue ray output. The design follows that of the Mi 5 – curved glass back and metal frame – though the rear glass panel now curves along all the edges, which Xiaomi says was made possible using “four-sided 3D glass.” There are, of course, some shortcomings. Like the iPhone 7, the handset lacks a headphone jack. And while bezel-free displays seem to be the path all flagships are now taking, they’re present and appear quite large on the Mi 6. As is usually the case with Xiaomi’s products, availability will likely be the Mi 6’s biggest drawback. It’ll launch in China and will probably get released in India, but there’s no word on whether it’ll ever come to the US and Europe.

Maybe in some countries it is not yet available, could be available within a few more months, just wait...

Google has rolled out an updated version of Google Earth for Android and on the web that provides additional ways for users to explore and learn about this amazing planet we call home. The standout feature of the new Google Earth is Voyager which provides interactive guided tours courtesy of scientists, non-profits and storytellers from around the world. Interested in learning more about various landmarks? Simply click the UNESCO World Heritage Sites category to virtually visit 30 historic landmarks like the Pyramid of Khufu, the Taj Mahal or the Borobudur Temple in Indonesia. Or, perhaps you’d rather sail through Raja Ampat and get up close and personal with some of the world’s most impressive coral reefs? Google has also expanded its “I’m feeling lucky” feature to Google Earth, allowing you to be transported to a new and interesting place every time you click the dice icon (my first click took me to Lambai Island in Taiwan and then Swallow’s Nest, a decorative castle located in the Crimean Peninsula). Google says they’ve curated roughly 20,000 different places so you’ve got plenty to keep you busy. The update, which is two years in the making and arrives just days ahead of Earth Day on April 22, additionally includes a new 3D button that lets you view imagery with a bit of depth. Job well done, Google.

After recently announcing that the service has reached 1.2 billion monthly active users, it came as no surprise to see Facebook focus on Messenger during the start of this week’s annual F8 developer conference. Yesterday, the social media giant revealed the revamped version of its po[CENSORED]r chat platform: Messenger 2.0. David Marcus, VP of Messaging Products, explained the update on stage at the McEnery Convention Center. It includes more bot-related features, such as the new Discovery tab on the home screen. From here, users can discover the businesses they want to contact, or services they need to use. It’ll show featured and trending bots, along with a search bar. There’s also going to be what Facebook calls “Chat extensions,” which are essentially a new way for apps to integrate with the service. You could, for example, use the Spotify extension to share a song with a group of your Messenger friends without leaving the platform, or use another extension to order food for a whole group and natively pay from Messenger. Marcus said Apple Music “will soon be on the platform as well.” M, Facebook’s virtual assistant, has been updated so it now listens to your conversations and offers suggestions based on what you’re chatting about. So if you’re talking about having dinner, it will suggest placing an order with delivery.com. Another example is when asking a friend about money, which could see M suggest using Facebook’s payment services. The Messenger camera can now scan special QR codes at places like concerts and sports events to bring up a branded bot that provides more information. Facebook will be providing tools to businesses that allow them to generate these codes. Lastly, Messenger is getting a game tab on the home screen, allowing access to Game bots and Rich Gameplay (turn-by-turn games).