Month: May 2018

The Surface 3's non-LTE version.

Bloomberg reports that Microsoft is going to release a $400, 10-inch, Intel-powered Surface tablet in the second half of the year, in a renewed effort to take on the iPad.

This represents a return to a strategy the company has tried before. The original ARM Surface RT and Surface 2 and the Intel-equipped Surface 3 were all attempts to offer a low(ish) priced tablet operating in the same approximate market as the iPad. None saw any great success, however, and the Surface 3 was discontinued in late 2016. The winner in the Surface line has been the more expensive Surface Pro series: Microsoft found a formula that worked with the Surface Pro 3 and has seen steady sales and a proliferation of copycat devices.

The problem with Surface Pro is the price: the current-generation Surface Pro starts at $799. This makes it a hard sell for markets such as education, where it's going up against systems such as Apple's new $329 iPad (sold to schools for $299), and various Chromebooks running Google's Chrome OS.

Google is rolling back a recent Chrome browser update that inadvertently broke the audio in many HTML5-based Web games. But the browser maker says it plans to reimplement the feature in October, a move that has failed to satisfy many Web-based developers.

In a post on the Chromium developer forums, Product Manager John Pallett admits that Google "didn’t do a good job of communicating the impact of the new autoplay policy to developers using the Web Audio API." For that reason, the current Chrome version 66 will no longer automatically mute Web Audio objects. Content contained in HTML5's <video> and <audio> tags will still be silenced, though, limiting the impact of auto-playing audio on what Pallett says is "most media playback" around the Web (which was the original intent of the Chrome auto-play policy).

Pallett says this temporary rollback is intended "to give Web Audio API developers... more time to update their code" before the auto-muting is brought back for Chrome version 70 in October. Affected developers will have until then to add a few lines to their code, thus re-enabling the auto-muted audio when a user first interacts with the page.

Enlarge (credit: Francisco Antunes)

Amazon is dishing out more perks to Prime members who shop at Whole Foods. The company announced two new Prime benefits that shoppers can take advantage of in Whole Foods stores: an additional 10 percent off sale items and "deep discounts" on select bestselling items. The perks roll out across all Florida stores today and will reach all Whole Foods locations in the US this summer.

Those deep discounts will cover a variety of items, including meat and fish. Whole Foods highlighted some of the first items to get big discounts through the new program: organic strawberries, wild-caught halibut, Kind granola, and cold-brew coffee at Allegro coffee bars. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the additional 10 percent off sale items could apply to thousands of items in each store.

It appears the discounts apply to in-store purchases only (the sale items with the additional 10-percent discount will be marked with big yellow signs). Customers must download the Whole Foods mobile app, sign in with their Amazon account, and scan the Prime Code at checkout to receive the special Prime-member discounts.

Enlarge / Dr. Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, ready to name and shame. (credit: Getty | Drew Angerer)

Update 5/17/2017: The FDA has now launched the website listing the names of brand name drugs and their makers who have stood in the way of generic drug companies trying to make more affordable alternatives. You can view the list here. It includes notable medications, such as Accutane (for acne), Methadone (used for opioid dependency), and Tracleer (to treat high blood pressure). The brand name drug makers to be shamed includes big hitters such as Celgene Corp, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Gilead Sciences Inc, and Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd, now a Johnson & Johnson company. Our original story, published May 16, is unedited below.

The Food and Drug Administration plans this week to effectively begin publicly shaming brand-name drug companies that stand in the way of competitors trying to develop cheaper generic drugs.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told reporters on Monday and Tuesday that the agency will unveil a website on Thursday, May 17 that names names of such companies. More specifically, the website will publicly reveal the identity of 50 branded drugs and their makers that have blocked generic development. The website will also be updated “on a continuous basis” to list additional names.

In fielding questions from reporters, Gottlieb denied that the effort was a form of public shaming. “I don't think this is publicly shaming," Gottlieb said, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. "I think this is providing transparency in situations where we see certain obstacles to timely generic entry.”