Category: Uncategorised

OMG no way. (credit: CNBC)

In the wake of New Year's weekend, the news seemed inevitable. Some high school kids faked their identities on Airbnb, rented a nice couple's house in Oakland, California, and absolutely trashed the place during a giant party. It was yet another dark tale about the company, which seems poised to overtake Uber in the contest to become the most successful service that generates reams of bad publicity.

Objectively speaking, Airbnb's business is booming. Valued at $25.5 billion, it raised $1.5 billion in investments over the summer, followed by another $100 million in November. In March of last year, the company's future prospects brightened considerably when the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that online travel companies like Airbnb are not responsible for paying hotel occupancy taxes. In May, the company reported that it had almost a million guests per night. And yet its public image keeps taking a beating.

Some of Airbnb's troubles began when the company decided to intervene in San Francisco municipal politics. In October, Airbnb spent $8 million to post what many observers called "passive aggressive" ads in bus shelters all over San Francisco. "Dear Public Library System," one read. "We hope you use some of the $12 million in hotel taxes to keep the library open later. Love, Airbnb." Read another: "Dear Public Works, Please use some of the $12 million in hotel taxes to install more electric vehicle charging stations. Love, Airbnb." The references were to Airbnb caving to pressure from San Francisco to charge a 14 percent hotel tax to its guests (the same tax that people pay at San Francisco hotels). But the goal of the campaign was to defeat Proposition F, which would have made it unlawful for people to rent out their properties for more than 75 days consecutively per year. Dubbed "the Airbnb law," F was eventually defeated. But even people who thought F was a bad idea were still revolted by the tone-deaf propaganda campaign, which portrayed Airbnb as some kind of do-gooder pal of local city government when in fact they'd fought to avoid paying municipal taxes.

In 2010, Panasonic made the odd decision to stop producing the Technics SL-1200MK2, a turntable that's as much a part of pop culture as it is one of the most revered and reliable ever made. DJs, who depended on the 1200's powerful direct drive motor and solid tone arm to manipulate the sound of records without skipping, had to rely on the second hand market or alternative brands if they needed a new scratch machine. Although, given that units made in the '70s are still going strong, perhaps there wasn't as big a need for Panasonic to keep making the 1200s as the online petitions claimed.

Still, six years on, Panasonic has decided that now's the time to bring back the legendary SL-1200 turntable, Technics branding included. There is a limited-edition 50th Anniversary Grand Class SL-1200GAE, which is limited to 1200 units and goes on sale this summer, and a non-limited Grand Class 1200G, which goes on sale towards the tail end of the year. Panasonic promises DJ-level reliability and audiophile-grade sound quality from both models.

Audiophile-grade sound quality isn't typically associated with the 1200, thanks to its use of a direct drive motor, as opposed to the belt-driven motor often used in an audiophile turntable. The high-torque direct drive motor is excellent for stability, very low wow and flutter (how much the pitch varies during playback), and swift start/stop speeds, but has been criticised in the past for suffering from "cogging," where small speed fluctuations from the motor are transferred though the stylus, causing a degradation in sound quality.

(credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Samsung has upped its smartwatch game with what it's calling premium materials and high-end style. The company announced two new Gear S2 smartwatches at its CES press event, one encased in 18K rose gold and the other in platinum. While these finishes are more luxe than the all-black Gear S2 Classic released in 2015, they won't be that much more expensive. According to Samsung, the gold and platinum finishes sit atop of the devices' stainless steel frames.

Samsung also announced that the Gear S2 collection will support Samsung Pay with NFC, although a specific time for that feature hasn't been announced. Continuing the luxury trend, Samsung released a few new straps and bracelets for the smartwatch, as well as new watchfaces created in partnership with artists including Keith Haring, Jean-Michael Basquiat, and Jeremyville.

You'll soon be able to pay using Samsung Pay and NFC from the smartwatches. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

But arguably the most exciting announcement about the Gear S2 range is that they will work with iOS devices at some point. Samsung only briefly mentioned this during its press conference, so not much else is known about when its smartwatches will be able to work with Apple devices.

(credit: Double Robotics)

Today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, telepresence company Double Robotics announced that it would be making some long-awaited upgrades to its original hardware. After 18 months of development, the Double 2 will now have improved lateral stability control to get the robot over challenging office terrain (like stray cords), a function called Power Drive to speed the Double down long hallways faster, and an optional Camera Kit accessory, which increases the Double’s field of view by 70 percent.

Double Robotics is just one of a handful of companies that started making telepresence robots a few years back. Beam, Anybot, and VGo are all competitors of Double Robotics. All of the companies make apparatuses that allow people who can’t be physically present at a gathering to call in from a Web or mobile interface and move around the space where the gathering is being held and interact with the people around them. Double Robotics’ devices are arguably sleeker and have a more minimalist design than its competitors, but the Doubles tend to be expensive (the base price of the new Double 2 is $2,500 and it doesn’t come with the iPad you’re supposed to affix to the top to allow two-way communication).

Ars played with one of the original Doubles two years ago in the MongoHQ headquarters, and we really enjoyed it. The Web interface allows you to see and hear everything going on in an office, and you can adjust the height so you can easily talk to people who are sitting or standing. It also lets you toggle between a view of the room and a view of the floor so you can navigate cluttered offices and stray paraphernalia lying around.

Microsoft has reminded Internet Explorer users that it will imminently end support for older versions of its browser from next week.

The software giant plans to hit the kill switch on IE 8, 9, and 10 on January 12, and it has been advising users to upgrade to Internet Explorer 11, or its new Edge browser, to avoid being exposed to potential security risks after that date.

From next Tuesday, Microsoft will end updates for the aged browsers and the nudge brigade from the Redmond camp is in full, sharp elbow mode to encourage users to swiftly upgrade to IE 11 or Edge. There will be one last patch on January 12 that will include an "End of Life" notification, asking users to upgrade.