Month: June 2017

Enlarge / The hardware Bixby button. (credit: Ron Amadeo)

When Samsung announced its new flagship, the Galaxy S8, one of the headline features was Samsung's new "Bixby" assistant. This voice assistant is supposed to be Samsung's answer to Siri, the Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa, but when it came time to actually launch the Galaxy S8 in the US, Bixby's voice functionality was nowhere to be found. The Wall Street Journal broke the news that the English-language version of Bixby was delayed to the end of May, but now that May is over, the WSJ is back to say the voice assistant is again delayed in the US until "at least late June."

The report says an English-language version of Bixby is "weeks away from being finished" due to the assistant "struggling to comprehend English syntax and grammar." Samsung's first language of Korean has apparently been easier for Bixby to master, as the assistant launched in South Korea alongside the Galaxy S8.

Bixby isn't just a mere software feature on the Galaxy S8. The device was designed with Bixby in mind, and it sports a side hardware button specifically for launching the assistant. Samsung has also hurt the Galaxy S8's functionality as a form of protectionism for the unfinished Bixby—it blocked users from remapping the Bixby button and turning it into a general-purpose "convenience key," and it crippled the competing Google Assistant so it can't work when the Galaxy S8's screen is off.

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

In a bid to make Skype more social, Microsoft is launching a whole new generation of Skype clients. The big new feature? "Highlights," a way of publishing photos and videos so that your contacts can keep up with what's going on in your life. Highlights are more or less a replica of the Snapchat Story, a way of sharing time-limited pictures and videos to your contacts. It changes the client from being a strictly conversational application (with both one-to-one and group chats) into something that also offers a broadcast style.

While Microsoft's Skype messaging system is still regularly used by hundreds of millions of people, it's not the mindshare winner it once was. A range of mobile-oriented upstarts—including Kik, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Facebook Messenger—have proliferated in the smartphone era. Skype initially struggled in this new world, with its peer-to-peer architecture making it a poor fit for a world where connectivity can be intermittent and conversations are expected to migrate between devices.

Over a number of years, Microsoft has moved Skype to a more conventional client-server architecture, using the opportunity to add useful features such as vastly improved file sharing and offline messaging. With this ground work finally done, the company has been developing a new client, internally named Skype for Life, to try to reconnect with this audience.

Enlarge / Uber's financials remain upside down. (credit: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Uber's chief financial officer is leaving the company amid yet another loss-making quarterly result, according to the Wall Street Journal. In the first three months of 2017, the company lost $708 million on revenues of $3.4 billion. That might sound disastrous, but it's actually an improvement for the ride-hailing company, which has posted billions of dollars of losses since 2014. Excluding the money the company didn't earn in China, it lost $2.8 billion in 2016.

For Uber fans, the important figure from the latest results is that $3.4 billion. That's up 18 percent from Q4 2016 (when it lost $991 million), suggesting that the #DeleteUber campaign—which encouraged people upset with the company and its numerous scandals to stop using the service and delete the app—may not have had much of an effect.

Uber told the WSJ that it still has $7.2 billion left in its coffers and that "the narrowing of our losses in the first quarter puts us on a good trajectory towards profitability."

Enlarge (credit: NIH)

So, you know how some women of a certain age get kind of... well, thick around the middle? This “enhanced visceral adiposity” is just one of the many joys that accompany the end of fertility. Along with the constant reminder of our impending mortality, menopausal women also have to deal with bone loss, a reduced energy balance, and reduced physical activity. All of these effects stem from the drop in estrogen levels as the ovaries fail.

Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), like other hormones produced in the pituitary, is ancient; it is evolutionarily conserved and found even in organisms like jellyfishes, corals, and sea anemones. In mammals, it helps fertility by promoting the synthesis and release of estrogen from the ovarian follicles. Levels of FSH rise during perimenopause as the ovaries fail, presumably as the body tries (and fails) to stimulate more estrogen production.

Scientists wondered if blocking FSH might therefore prevent some of the physiological effects associated with menopause. To do so, they generated an antibody that binds to mouse FSH, preventing it from interacting with its receptor and effecting any cellular changes.

Jonathan Gitlin

Whether we like it or not, SUVs and crossovers are fast becoming the dominant species in our automotive ecosystem. Sure, a station wagon offers all the same convenience without compromised handling, but people just aren't reaching for their wallets for those the way they do for a raised ride-height and the (theoretical) potential to drive on rough terrain. Even OEMs that ply their trade based on a heritage of racing, with back catalogues full of sports cars, have gotten in on the act. Porsche showed the way with the Cayenne—the vehicle that arguably saved the brand—and then the Macan. Audi has the SQ5. Alfa Romeo has high hopes for its Stelvio. And then there's the Jaguar F-Pace.

The F-Pace is the first Jaguar SUV, built on a lightweight aluminum platform that also underpins the company's sedans. One might think Jaguar wouldn't need an SUV, since its Tata-owned stablemate Land Rover makes SUVs and nothing else. But the corporate bean-counters evidently saw an untapped market, and here we are. Jaguar says that the F-Pace is a "performance SUV for those who love driving, with exceptional dynamics and everyday usability," something we decided to put to the test during the course of a week we spent with an F-Pace 35t R-Sport.

Enlarge / $159/£159 Apple AirPods.

Ahead of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference next week, a report from Bloomberg suggest the company could announce a long-rumored, Siri-controlled smart speaker. "People familiar with the matter" told Bloomberg that the device could be revealed as early as WWDC, but likely would not ship until later this year.

Details about the speaker are slim, but the report states the Siri-controlled smart speaker will have "virtual surround sound technology" and integration with Apple's existing product lineup. This would be Apple's first device to compete with Amazon's Echo and Google's Home, both of which are vessels for each company's virtual assistant. Sources say Apple has been developing the speaker to be louder than its competition and to produce crisper sound overall. The device may also include "sensors that measure a room’s acoustics and automatically adjust audio levels during use."

In addition to keeping up with Amazon and Google, a Siri-controlled speaker would also likely serve as a smart home hub for Apple HomeKit products. Currently only Apple TVs and iPads can fully control HomeKit lights, door locks, and other devices, so a home-based speaker would be a logical addition to a household already equipped with HomeKit products.