Land Rover's robo-SUVs will take away the tedious and just leave the fun

IN DEPTH Super-smart 4x4s to hit the streets within 10 years

Land Rover's hot new Discovery Vision isn't just a concept.

It's the launch vehicle for Land Rover's plans to bring self-driving, gesture-controlled, augmented-reality, cloud-connected and generally super-smart SUVs to market inside 10 years.

As it happens, it wasn't the only launch vehicle on display during a stunning event aboard the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier on the New York water front. Virgin Galactic's Space Ship One made an appearance, too.

For Land Rover, though, the Vision concept is a tour-de-force of technology that comprehensively blows apart conventional notions of SUVs as big, dumb, lumbering beasts.

Highlights include augmented reality allowing drivers to see right through the bonnet to the ground beneath, smart glass tech that turns windows into high-def, context-aware displays and an inevitable dose of Minority Report-style arm-flapping.

Question is, exactly how much of this should you take seriously? How much is actually likely to see production? And how much is the usual conceptual hubris that's all too easy to talk about but much harder to deliver?

The roll call of clever new technologies is certainly incredibly ambitious. Luckily, we're out in New York and we've had a good sniff around the concept and posed a few searching questions to the right people.

First, let's cover some of the details. On the in-car side there are several big innovations in the concept and under development. First out of the box is the new In Control app. It's Land Rover's take on smartphone syncing and integration. We'll be looking in more detail at that new platform at the show itself, so we'll leave that for a separate story.

The other technologies are further out and arguably more speculative. Most realistic at this stage is gesture control as part of Land Rover's dual quests to reduce both the number of switch-gears and driver distraction.

Suggested gestures includes hand swipes to open doors and control multimedia functionality. It ties in with another new tech - smart glass. The idea here is transparent OLED dislays embedded in the windows.

That allows for everything from tinting windows at the flick of a wrist to displaying context-relevant information as you drive along. You might give rear seat passengers interesting info about the sights and scenery, for instance.

The smart glass also enables Land Rover's transparent bonnet tech. This is all about improving visibility when off-roading. The ability to see right through the bonnet courtesy of a virtual version of what's beneath rendered in the windscreen OLED display would be one hell of a feature.

Cloud connectivity is another part of the package and it's interesting to here Land Rover being up front about the fact that speech recognition is better done server side in the cloud than in-car. Makes sense to us, although for vehicles that could be used in remote locations, internet connectivity could prove problematical.

But it's only the beginning of what Land Rover reckons it has in the pipeline. Another major area of development is autonomous driving. Part of Land Rover's pitch here is similar to most car makers – safer travel, better traffic flow. You know the drill.

To that, Land Rover is adding an off-road angle. What if your SUV could drive autonomously through a farm gate? You'd only have to get out to open and close the gate once.

And what if you could stand outside your SUV and act as spotter when driving through really tough, boulder strewn terrain? Suddenly, you could go places and one-up that previously required spotter and driver.

Land Rover reckons these features could be enabled by a sort of remote control using a tablet device.

Another really interesting piece of off-road tech is the use of lasers to gauge water depth. No more wading and depth gauging required. Your Landie would simply know if the water ahead was too deep.

The list of new technologies is borderline mind boggling. But just how realistic is it and when can we expect to see any of this stuff on Land Rovers you can actually buy?

To find the answers to these questions and more, we caught up with Dr Wolfgang Epple, Director of Research and Technology for both Land Rover and sister brand Jaguar.

First up, just how realistic is it for Land Rover to develop autonomous cars? After all, Google has been throwing money at it for years and still has plenty of work to do. Epple says that much of the development heavy lifting is done by Land Rover's suppliers including Bosch.

The likes of Bosch develop the underlying hardware and software platforms, he says. Land Rover involvement involves the the top layer of actuators and fine tuning. As for when we might see something approaching an autonomous Land Rover, Epple's answer is startling. "Within 10 years."

To be clear, that's not necessarily a fully autonomous Landie. More an 'intelligent' SUV with extensive autonomous capabilities.

So what about the in-car technology? We know the In Control app is immenent. How long before the gesture control, smart glass and the rest appear?

Epple says gesture controls are "coming soon". He won't put a precise date on it but does say it will be "sooner than five years".

The other features are a little further out and fall into that 10-year intelligent SUV category. But it's good to see Land Rover emphasising partnerships with companies like Intel for onboard computing power and Apple with its CarPlay interface for multimedia.

Realistically, Land Rover can't reinvent this wide range of technologies on its own. But Epple makes a pretty convincing argument for how Land Rover can work with partners to create an SUV with world-beating tech.

Land Rovers, of course, have always been market leading. For the future, that has to mean market leading tech.

The Discovery Vision concept proves Land Rover knows that. So even if some of the technologies on display are a little pie-in-the-sky, the important point is that the company knows what has to be done. It's looking very promising.

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Meet the car that thinks it's a smartphone

Smartphone on wheels. That's the sales pitch for the new limited edition Vauxhall Adam White.Does it deliver or even make any sense?

Here's one way to look at it. The idea that there are no bad cars any longer is a familiar refrain that reflects the increasing dynamic similarity between modern cars. Nobody really makes sheddy cars these days.

But one area where there is plenty to choose from is in-car technology. There are some hugely dramatic contrasts in quality between the various multimedia systems – much more so than in engines or handling.

What's more, car-buying punters have ever higher expectations of technology in general. Everyone's a smartphone expert nowadays.

Intellilink inside

Anyway, in that context the whole smartphone-on-wheels pitch actually makes a lot of sense. And for the Vauxhall Adam that translates into the Intellilink multimedia system.

The basics involve media playback, app support and connectivity. There's audio playback via USB, Bluetooth and DAB radio. You get full hands-free telephony, too, obviously.

Where things get interesting is Intellilink's app functionality. Currently, that's a little limited. You've a choice of just two internet radio apps and one nav app.

The streaming audio apps are TuneIn Radio and Stitcher while the nav functionality takes the form of BringGo. As the system is currently designed, you'll actually have to visit your local dealer to add any apps which appear in future.

Internet radio

That said, for now the apps work well. You'll need to connect a smartphone to enable them. Both Android and Apple iOS devices are supported, though oddly iPhones must connect via USB while Android handsets must sync via Bluetooth.

Either way, you're presented with a good-quality interface on the Adam's seven-inch central touchscreen. In terms of response, the resistive-touch screen isn't as slick as your smartphone's capacitive screen, but it's functional enough.

Oh, and for iPhone users there's also fully integrated Siri support via steering wheel controls. In other words, any functionality that doesn't require that you look at your iPhone's screen can be controlled via Siri is available.

So you can set new appointments, have emails and texts read out to you, compose the same. Exactly how useful you'll find this will depend on how much you already use Siri. But in our experience, the voice recognition accuracy while using Siri in the Adam is pretty comparable to using it directly on the handset.So you can set new appointments, have emails and texts read out to you, compose the same. Exactly how useful you'll find this will depend on how much you already use Siri. But in our experience, the voice recognition accuracy while using Siri in the Adam is pretty comparable to using it directly on the handset.

The cost of connectivity

So far, so good. While the app functionality is limited, the streaming audio works well and the nav app has the advantage of being internet connected and thus offering high-def real-time traffic, a service that's miles better than the brain-dead RDS-TMC traffic data that most built-in nav systems make do with.

However, there is one conspicuous downside to bringing the app model into cars, and that's premium pricing. Not for the system itself. Intellilink comes as standard with the Vauxhall Adam White.

Instead, we're talking about app pricing. You can try the BringGo nav app for 69p in the UK for 30 days. After that, you'll need to stump up £37.99 for full nav functionality or £54.99 for nav with traffic data and map updates.

On the one hand, this is very cheap compared to the prices charged to add nav to most cars. And it's worth noting this is buying you the BringGo app on your handset that you can then use anywhere, not just in the Adam.

On the other, when you've just paid £14,995 for the Adam itself, you might feel like they could have chucked a £50 app into the bargain. In the end, a car isn't a smartphone and that's always going to create some tension when it comes to notions of pricing and value.

Oh, you can drive it, too

As for what the rest of the Adam White is like, it's mostly good news. It's a great handling little car and thus bags of fun to punt about.


It's grippy and responsive while also feeling very solid and grown up. The best of both worlds, then, and a surprisingly decent long-distance cruiser.

If there is a dynamic downside, it's the engine. The 1.4-litre petrol lump is pretty coarse and delivers mediocre performance. It's really the only significant weak link in the overall package.

Overall, we like the work Vauxhall has done with the Adam and Intellilink. Is it the best multimedia system in this part of the car market? No. MINI Connected is clearly superior. If you want a hatchback with the best possible infotainment, that will be a MINI, albeit in a car that's a size up from the Adam and more expensive.

And what about Apple CarPlay?

It's also worth noting that what works well now may seem very old hat once car's with support for Apple's CarPlay interface begin to appear.

Things are changing awfully fast when it comes to in-car tech and it's not yet clear whether built-in systems with app support like Intellilink or mobile-OS mirroring a la CarPlay are the future.

However, Intellilink is still a nice system that offers most of the key functionality we want for little to no outlay and thanks to Siri support is a particularly good proposition for iPhone owners.

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Tesla goes open source to put more electric cars on the road

Tesla is taking a bold stance today in the name of putting more electric vehicle - Model S's or not - on the road.

In a blog post entitled, "All Our Patents Belong to You," CEO Elon Musk outlined Tesla's new stance towards patents and patent lawsuits. Namely, the company won't sue you if you, in good faith, use its patented technology to make electric vehicles.

"Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport," Musk explained. "If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal."

In a Q&A following the posting of the blog, Musk said, "I think this is actually good for Tesla and for the electric vehicle industry. I really do believe that."

More, more, more

The move is relatively unprecedented in the automotive space.

Musk wrote that initially Tesla felt the need to protect designs and technologies against major car companies that might run it into the ground.

"The unfortunate reality is the opposite: electric car programs (or programs for any vehicle that doesn't burn hydrocarbons) at the major manufacturers are small to non-existent, constituting an average of far less than 1% of their total vehicle sales," Musk lamented.

The company is going open source in the hopes of accelerating sustainable transportation innovation, Musk said during the Q&A.

He elaborated on what "good faith" use means in an agreement between Tesla and a company that wants to use its technology. Musk gave the example that if a company is using "all of our patents" and it sues Tesla for using one of their's, "that seems like it wouldn't be a very nice thing to do." He said a company does have the right to demand compensation if the patent Tesla was using was more valuable than the patents belonging to Tesla.


He also said he "wouldn't want someone to mimic our car in such a way as to deceive consumers into thinking it's a Tesla." Tesla won't stand for a car maker tricking people, Musk said.

Patents shmatents

Musk said Tesla won't stop acquiring patents, saying the company's slips of IP paper will grow from several hundred to several thousand. He cautioned against overplaying the importance of the decision, calling it a "modest thing … not some enormous thing," and said he doesn't think patents are all that strong to begin with.

"Patents are relatively weak thing for companies," he said. "If a company is truly relying on patents or some existing set of patent portfolios, I think that's actually a weak position because it means that they aren't innovating. They aren't innovating fast enough. You want to be innovating so fast that you invalidate your prior patents in terms of what really matters.

"I think none the less, this can be of some modest help to others," he concluded.

Musk even called out the long-running Apple vs Samsung patent battle, questioning who really wins from such disputes.

When asked whether making Tesla technology open source is solely an effort to spur electric car development or also a commentary on the patent system in general, Musk said it was a bit of both. However, he quickly gained steam against a system that many see in dire need of reform.

"There's far too much effort and energy put into creating patents that do no end up fostering innovation," Musk said. "That's the whole point of the patent system. Does it further innovation or does it not? No reasonable person would say that the current patent system is ideally suited to foster innovation. It definitely needs reform."


Meet Ford's latest concept car

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Apple CarPlay has its sights set on Volkswagen for 2016

The CarPlay crew may gain a new member

Apple's CarPlay was always going to be a slow rollout but we're steadily seeing more names get on board. Volkswagen was missing from the original list of manufacturers, however we're now hearing that things may soon change.

VW is talking to Apple about integrating CarPlay, says 9 to 5 Mac, and if things go well we could see an announcement made later this year.

Sources say that we'll see CarPlay show up in Volkswagen's 2016 vehicle range as it's a bit too late to make it in for 2015.

Lightning delay

But the delay might not be such a bad thing, as Apple is rumoured to be working on an update to allow its CarPlay system to connect wirelessly instead of using the USB Lightning cable.


Unsurprisingly, both Apple and Volkswagen are keeping schtum on all of this, so we'll just have to cross our fingers and hold out for that announcement.

Google vs Apple CarPlay

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Volvo and B&W put 'tweeters on top' for uber clear in-car audio

Latest audio tag team promises world's most refined in-car sound

Swedish car maker Volvo and Brit sound specialist Bowers & Wilkins have teamed up to give the new Volvo XC90 SUV what's claimed to be, "the most innovative, sonically refined in-car audio system in the world".

How do they deliver on this bold claim? By putting tweeters on top, of course. If you're wondering what that actually means, you're not alone.

Volvo says that physically separating a tweeter from the confines of a speaker cabinet delivers clearer, purer treble, particularly vital for vocals. In the Volvo XC90, the dashboard-mounted centre tweeter "ensures absolute voice clarity".

The tweeters use technology derived from Bowers & Wilkins' NautilusTM speakers, and spiralling diffusion channels on the rear of the speakers soak up reflected sound, reducing resonance.

"With tweeter-on-top technology, more of the signal reaches the listener directly from the tweeter. So the XC90 system sounds incredibly tangible and lifelike," reckons Stuart Nevill, Bowers & Wilkins Head of Engineering.

So now you know. Of course, good sound is about much more than tingly treble.

The XC90's sound system also gets Bowers & Wilkins' signature yellow Kevlar 100mm midrange drivers, visible but protected by a grille designed for optimum acoustic openness as part of a total package of 19 speakers driven by a highly efficient Class D amplifier for a total of 1,400 Watts power. Crumbs.

Just how good this system will sound remains to be seen. It's standard of late for premium car manufacturers to team up with premium audio outfits to create custom sound systems for the latest models.

We've experienced most of them and, to date, we'd give the top-spec Meridian system offered by Range Rover with its clever Trifield tech the nod for overall sonic prowess.

If Volvo can match the Range Rover-Meridian rig, they'll be doing well. If they can beat it, we'll probably have to start eating hats. Well, after we've gone out and bought some hats, first. You know what we mean.

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Apple and Samsung Agree To End All Non-U.S. Patent Disputes

Apple and Samsung have agreed to drop all non-U.S. litigation. The announcement came late Tuesday in a release first reported by the Financial Times. In the joint statement, the two tech giants said they “…have agreed to drop all litigation between the two companies outside the United States.”

This brings to an end a crucial part of the ongoing intellectual property battle between Apple and Samsung, which have been slugging it out for years in courts across the world, with noteworthy decisions rendered in Germany, Japan and in other markets. The Apple and Samsung dispute, which mostly sees Apple accusing Samsung of copying its device designs and Samsung retaliating with countersuits asserting infringement of its mobile phone tech patents, has been among Apple’s longest standing legal battles, after it settled suits with HTC, Motorola Mobility and Google earlier. Samsung has also been seen as a way for Apple to target Android indirectly, since the Korean company owns such a hefty share of that market.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. But, as noted in the statement, this agreement does not involve any licensing arrangements or existing court cases within the U.S. Apple and Samsung will now focus their efforts in ongoing trials in two California courts, both of which are in the appeals phase.

Apple filed for a cross-appeal of final judgement in March. The most recent action happened last week when Apple dropped the cross-appeal judgement of a landmark 2012 ruling.

Keeping open the lawsuits in the U.S. likely doesn’t indicate a desire to continue the legal battle in that market, however, as both cases currently ongoing in the U.S. are in various stages of appeal, meaning that their ultimate resolution could finally bury the hatchet between the two device makers (though the lack of any licensing agreements mean tensions could flare up again in the future). Both have likely realized they have bigger fish to fry when it comes to the future of the mobile market, and challenges they face from emerging competitors including Xiaomi and other Chinese phone makers.

This could also be a sign that Apple CEO Tim Cook isn’t quite as committed to a patent battle with Samsung as former CEO and founder Steve Jobs was reported to have been. Regardless of the reason behind the detente, it could be good news for the supplier relationship between Apple and Samsung, which ultimately should be good for both companies’ bottom lines.

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This Is The New Foursquare

After five years of gamifying location-based sharing, Foursquare is today making its biggest change to date. Everyone, please meet the new Foursquare, a recommendations app that has nothing to do with location sharing and everything to do with smacking down Yelp using the force of a thousand suns.

Earlier this summer, Foursquare announced that it would be splitting its main app into two separate experiences: Swarm for social location sharing, and Foursquare for personalized location recommendations. Swarm launched a while ago, and though the app has shown growth, there are still plenty of folks out there that miss the old Foursquare and, hating change, hate Swarm along with it.

Look And Feel:

If you’re feeling personally or sentimentally attached to the old foursquare, it’s in your best interest to let go now. It’s over. The new Foursquare looks and feels completely different, with a new flag-pole, superhero-themed logo, a new blue and pink color scheme, and one very familiar puzzle piece missing, the check-in. In fact, in the new foursquare, there is no location sharing at all.

When you first sign up for the app, users are sent to a screen that shows a number of “tastes.” These might include “Spicy Tuna”, “deep dish pizza”, or simply “cheddar cheese.” It’s a similar on-boarding experience to the Beats Music app, but with foods instead of music preferences. Once you’ve added tastes, you’re sent to a main home page.

The app finds your location and gives you a sliding header bar with options for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, snacks, nightlife, shopping, etc.

As you scroll through these recommendations, the new Foursquare feels a lot like a restaurant blog, with various featured sections based around your personalized tastes. So, for example, if you’re looking at nightlife, it might make various suggestions for different categories like Dive Bars or Fancy Cocktails. The suggestions themselves, and the categories, are both based on the information you’ve given Foursquare about your preferences.

When you click into an establishment, you’re given basic information about that place like phone number, address, and some photos. Plus, you’re given a series of “tips”, which are the equivalent of a Yelp review but if Yelp users were given a word maximum. Tips are short and sweet, and the ones that come from your friends or people you follow will surface higher and help inform the recommendations you’re given.

Alongside the passive search that happens each time you open the app, users can also do their own search on Foursquare. Results come up in a list view by default, but users can toggle a map with a button on the top right corner to see search results relative to their location. A “What’s Here” tab on the bottom also brings up a list of the best spots around you, based not only on your preferences but tips from other users.

Yelp Killer?

If you were to pull someone through the space-time continuum into our world, and this person had never before used a location-based recommendations/search app, they would probably choose Foursquare over Yelp, based on aesthetics alone.

Unfortunately for Foursquare, Yelp is an ingrained behavior for a big chunk of the audience they hope to capture. Still, using the new Foursquare instead of Yelp for the past few days has felt like upgrading from a BlackBerry Bold to an iPhone 5s.

That said, most searches (both passive and active) brought up a lot of the same results. In other words, Foursquare isn’t using some backdoor algorithm to surface the most exclusive, secretive, hottest places in New York. When I search for pizza in Williamsburg on both apps, I see all the same stuff.

Still, the way the content is presented within Foursquare has two advantages over that of Yelp. To start, it’s just prettier. And more importantly, it is generally more useful.

That’s not to say that Yelp reviews and ratings aren’t somewhat useful, but we’re all aware of the inconsistencies with that system. Establishments can buy good reviews, and as we’ve learned recently, they can even fine folks for leaving bad reviews. Plus, as a species, we’re far more inclined to take action when we’re leaving a negative review than to praise a restaurant after a delicious meal. And if that weren’t enough, the people leaving information on Yelp are strangers.

With Foursquare, your searches and passive recommendations are based around personalizations that you’ve specified, as well as a follow-based interest graph. See, Foursquare asks you to follow people who you might trust for recommendations on what to do, where to eat, etc. This means you can follow one of Foursquare’s launch partners like TimeOut, the Washington Post, or the LA Times, as well as your friends to ensure that you know why a certain place is good, not just that a lot of strangers think it’s good.

Alongside the added credibility of the follow structure, Foursquare also asks users to leave tips on places that look and feel more like a tweet than anything else. Yelp reviews end up reading like long-winded horror stories narrated by bad fiction writers, whereas Foursquare tips are boiled down to a few words expressing approval or disapproval.

Swarm vs. Foursquare

The logic behind splitting up the main foursquare app into two different experiences is sound. We sat down with Jon Steinback, VP of product experience, to learn more.

“We saw two common use cases in the old foursquare app that are best encapsulated in the night of a New Yorker,” said Steinback. “For dinner, you look for a place that matches your taste, and afterwards you look for a bar where your friends are. In less than two percent of app opens did we see those two behaviors overlap. No one was saying, ‘I’m in the mood for chili, I wonder which of my friends are getting chili right now.'”

Still, the process by which any software company totally pivots its products is a difficult one, no matter what. In the case of Swarm, the theft of the check-in was a slow, painful one. It’s as if I came into your house, put on all your jewelry, and sat down on the couch for a sandwich and an episode of Veep before leaving with your most prized possessions.

That said, people aren’t happy. The Swarm app has a 1.5 star rating on the App Store, and folks have even built a Kill Swarm Twitter feed to fight the shift.

But Foursquare and Swarm can play nicely together for those who love both sides of the Foursquare experience. For instance, Foursquare pulls in your check-ins and asks if you want to leave a tip on them. It also uses Swarm check-ins to make better suggestions.


With the launch of the new Foursquare today, the team can now devote more time to improving the Swarm experience. Unlike the new Foursquare, which is based around the original app and using much of the same data, Swarm was built from the ground up. Steinback explains that the team is still working out bugs and other small issues, but that gamification is certainly in the pipeline for Swarm.

“With the old gamified system, only a few people could actually win,” said Steinback. “We want to reinvent the game mechanics to make them more relevant. We’re thinking about stickers and interesting ways to compete with friends instead of the whole network, which means that our plans around gamification in Swarm won’t include points or mayorships.”

If you remember the old Foursquare, you remember that the search box was a very small piece of the app, while the check-in was front and center. This made me wonder why the new Foursquare, based around recommendations, gets to keep the original moniker while the check-in is re-debuted in a brand new app called Swarm.

“That was one of the longest discussions we had during this process,” said Steinback. “Both of these apps change the way that people explore cities — Swarm does it socially and Foursquare does it through information around places. In the end, though, there is a profoundly large audience for the new Foursquare.”

Steinback revealed, however, that despite the backlash among some users, Swarm is seeing that 90 percent of the users who were actively checking in on the old foursquare are checking in on Swarm.

What Next?

Obviously, there’s a bit of a road ahead for Foursquare in terms of educating users about their new products and ensuring that their loyal users are pleased with the new experiences. But even if the change is hard, it’s necessary.

The old Foursquare was losing in a big way, and by splitting up the use cases, Foursquare is not only trying to solve its own problem but hopping into the ring with a player (Yelp) that is in need of some disruption.

The new Foursquare will be available around noon ET today in the App Store and Google Play.

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Can iBeacons Be Used To Help The Visually Impaired Navigate Public Transport?

London-based digital design studio ustwo is working on a project with the Royal London Society for Blind People (RLSB) to determine whether iBeacons/Bluetooth Low Energy beacon technology can be used to help visually impaired individuals navigate public transport by mapping their location dynamically and providing audio cues to direct them through stations and onto trains via an app.

Quick recap for those not up to speed on what beacon technology is: these are low powered indoor transmitters which notify mobile devices of the user’s proximity (via Bluetooth) to trigger proximity-related actions. Early interest in the tech has focused on retail scenarios such as shops and stadiums where a mobile user could, for instance, walk past a particular store and be sent a mobile ad or discount coupon in an effort to lure them inside. (iBeacon is Apple’s trademarked name for its own version of the tech but there are myriad other beacons out there.)

The ustwo-RLSB project is very much a work in progress at this point, with ustwo having built a prototype to prove the concept and brought the RLSB in to test it. The basic idea is that once the visually impaired user enters a public transport terminal where iBeacons (or similar BLE tech) have been deployed and opens the app (called wayfindr), their location can be determined via trilateration, based on pings from the nearest iBeacons, and mapped on their device — and then directions provided through bone conducting earphones.

ustwo has been using the Estimote iBeacons for this prototype.

“We’ve built a prototype, tested and evolved it with participants from the RLSB Youth Forum. We’re now in discussions with transport operators about running a trial, which would mean installing beacons around the transport network to validate whether this can work at scale,” says Umesh Pandya, associate UX director at ustwo.

“Currently there’s no time frame for deployment, but we hope to start the trial within the next few months. The ambition would be a seamless consistent experience across all modes of public transport but we’ll need to see if it will perform as intended within the right context before we get too excited.”

All of which is to say this is mostly an interesting idea at this point — but an exciting one, nonetheless, which hints at more socially valuable applications for Beacon tech than stalking shoppers to try to encourage them to spend more money.

It’s not clear how many iBeacons might be required — and at what density within transport locations — to make the navigation system work well in practice. That’s one of the factors that a future trial would look to figure out, according to Pandya, who notes that factors such as architecture and volume of people can have an effect on the pings.

“We’ll also consider looking at other beacons other than the Estimotes, to see which give us the best accuracy. We’ll plan to test an alternate version which we’re calling ‘augmented signage’ which will read any signs out aloud,” he adds.

ustwo has been funding the project itself so far and is now looking for addition funding or sponsorship.

“The challenge we set ourselves was to use ‘off the shelf’ products, compatible with the devices visually impaired people already use,” adds Pandya. “We wanted to avoid getting into expensive bespoke hardware development, or speculating too much about the potential future of untested technology. We wanted to see if we could solve this challenge right now.”

A recent ABI Research report predicts that in five years’ time the Bluetooth beacon device market will be some 60-million units strong. Let’s hope that by then some of those beacons will be doing some social good, not just firing more ads at mobile users.

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Microsoft Offers Chinese Workers A Free Windows Phone To Quit

News broke today that Microsoft is offering employees in China a Lumia 630 device to leave the company voluntarily.

Microsoft’s mass layoffs are not going over smoothly in China. Reports of protest have cropped up, with workers reacting in anger about the company’s impending job cuts that will eventually total 18,000 across the company.

When Microsoft purchased most of Nokia’s hardware assets, it acquired tens of thousands of workers. Losses from the purchase weighed down its earnings, causing the company to report a profit miss in the most recent quarter. The company is working to trim expenses to get its financials back in line with market expectations.

According to MarketWatch, Microsoft is offering the deal to up to 300 employees per day. Gifting in-kind hardware on their way out the door is surprisingly close to the dividing line between gauche, and tone-deaf.

Microsoft’s planned layoffs will heavily impact its hardware group, while leaving its main corporate campus generally unscathed. Sources around Redmond, Wash., where the company is headquartered, have indicated to TechCrunch that morale and home is intact. Elsewhere, that isn’t the case.

Investors were generally pleased with Microsoft’s cost-cutting measures — the short-term profit decline that the hardware assets will induce isn’t a problem as long as the losses end. Microsoft has promised that they will in 2016. Layoffs also lessen immediate profit impairment by allowing for a stronger cost makeup.

That doesn’t take the massive human impact into the picture — more than ten thousand lives are about to be tossed into turmoil in a difficult global economy. But at least some will walk away with a shiny new smartphone.

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Google Acquires Emu, An IM Client With Siri-Like Intelligence

Google has acquired Emu, a new mobile messaging application that just exited beta earlier this year. Emu was at heart an IM client, but it differentiated itself from the crowded market with smart features that incorporated a virtual assistant not unlike Siri to automate tasks based on your conversations – meaning you could do things like schedule appointments to your calendar, set reminders and even make reservations at a restaurant directly from your conversations.

Emu’s roots were deep; its co-founder and CEO Gummi Hafsteinsson is ex-Google and ex-Apple, where he worked on Siri after coming on board following that startup’s acquisition. Emu works a lot like Google Now, too, scouring your conversations for contextual information about your life and plans in order to provide recommendations in-line about booking appointments, restaurant ratings and reviews and even things like movie suggestions.

In fact, Emu, which debuted as an Android application, looks like it can offer a lot to Google if the company is intent on continuing to grow the influence of Google Now across its properties, and extend its capabilities beyond the contextual launcher where it currently resides. Messaging is a new mobile battleground for big tech companies, and a potential motivating factor in attracting and keeping users within a particular ecosystem – Apple is focusing heavily on iMessage with its iOS 8 update, and in OS X Yosemite, adding multimedia messaging features, refining group chat, and making it easier to get your messages on all devices, regardless of what kind of device the person sending them is using.

It’s easy to see Google potentially using Emu’s tech in Hangouts, which itself is evolving into a central, multi-featured hub for communications on Android, and leaving behind its origins first as simply a video calling service and later as a text communication tool. Messaging could become the home base for mobile in the same way that email is in many ways the HQ for desktop computing, at least in terms of P2P communications (the browser rules for content consumption) and Emu’s tech could be instrumental in truly evolving it past what it is now.

Emu says it will shut down the standalone Emu app as of August 25 as a result of the acquisition, and it will cease to work for existing users. Emu had raised $1.5 million from KPCB, Kleiner Perkins, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Menlo Ventures and others. No financial details regarding the acquisition were disclosed.

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Google Acquires Directr, An App For Shooting Short Films On Your Phone

Directr, an app that we’ve covered a few times since its launch back in 2012, has just been snatched up by Google.

In an age of ultra-brief videos, Directr existed to help users and businesses shoot videos that were a bit longer than your average Vine — think ads, or promo clips, or family holiday videos.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but the pieces fit together like that of a smaller purchase/acquihire: the Directr product will live on (now free) under its own branding, but the team behind it is joining YouTube’s video ad team.

Directr’s approach was clever: to encourage users to shoot better video, Directr would provide templates (or “storyboards”) that explained how a scene might best be framed/shot. The user would just fill in the blanks with their own clips, and Directr would piece it together, add music, and prep everything to be shared across your myriad Facebooks and Twitters.

Directr came in two forms: one for personal use, and one for business. The former focused on videos you might shoot to share with friends (travel videos, family holiday gatherings, etc), while the latter focused on teaching companies to shoot things like testimonials, product demos, etc. The personal edition was free but downloading a finished video cost 99 cents; the business version cost $250-$500 a year, depending on what features you needed.

Directr had raised around $1.7M to date

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Samsung loses top position in China to Xiaomi, India to Micromax

Samsung has seen better days. No longer it holds the top position in two of the world’s biggest phone markets, China and India.

During the second quarter of 2014, Xiaomi moved more phones than Sammy in China, according to Canalys. Said analysts claim Xiaomi managed to ship 15 million units to grab 14% of the market, compared to Samsung’s 12% with 13.2 million handsets.

The situation is similar in India with Hong Kong-based research firm Counterpoint Technology claiming that a local player, Micromax, garnered about 17% market share compared to Sammy’s 14%.

Yes, it’s just a single quarter, but it’s a sign, nevertheless.

Samsung is having hard time competing in low- and mid-ends of the market, where its competitors are routinely launching more affordable products with better specs. But… they’re also facing heat in the high-end of the market with the likes of Xiaomi launching top-notch phones that are sold for the friction of the price Samsung typically sells its phones for.

Going forward, we’re sure Koreans will adjust their strategy in some way; one idea would be to launch a new brand of affordable phones and preserve the Samsung brand for better devices. We don’t have any inside information, it’s just that something like that sounds like a viable strategy to me…

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Electric Blue Samsung Galaxy S5 Best Buy Exclusive, Available on August 17th

An Electric Blue Samsung Galaxy S5 is coming to..you guessed it…Best Buy. The blue bugger will be exclusive to Best Buy stores, and will be available on August 17th for $199.99 with a new two-year contract with AT&T, Sprint or Verizon. For those who would like to make payments on the blue GS5, Best Buy has options for you there as well. Customers who opt for a payment plan will get a $100 Best Buy gift card for a limited time. The gift card offer is valid from August 17th until August 23rd.

Any takers?

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Humble Mobile Bundle 6 Delivers Six Solid Android Games for Under $5

The latest Mobile Humble Bundle brings six awesome Android games for just a little under $5. Here’s a list of the titles included in the Humble Mobile Bundle 6:

Eliss Infinity
Duet Premium
Combo Crew Special Edition
Threes!
Mines of Mars
Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf: Full Game

We’re big fans of the Humble Bundle here at IntoMobile. Since its first offering back in 2010, the Humble Bundle has provided a model for crowdfunding that’s a win for everyone involved. The consumer gets a great deal on a selection of games, the game creators are compensated directly, and charities such as Child’s Play get funding. Also, you can choose how much of your donation goes to each, as well as the “Humble Tip” which funds the continued work of the Humble Bundle folks with convenient sliders.

Head here to grab you Humble Mobile Bundle today! If you want to make your life a little bit easier, there’s an Android app too.

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Facebook Messenger Now Lets You Chat From Your Wrist

A new update for Facebook Messenger for Android is rolling out today, but you might not even notice the difference. The update adds support for Android Wear devices, allowing you to chat with your friends right from your wrist.

Android Wear devices are still in their infancy, so there’s not a lot of apps that support Android Wear yet. The list is growing however, and now that the Facebook empire has thrown its weight behind the platform, we can expect to see more developers bake Android Wear support into their apps.

The update will be landing on your device soon, if it hasn’t yet. If you just can’t wait for it, head over to the Google Play Store.

Are you rocking Facebook Messenger on your wrist right now? Let us know what you think of it.

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EyeEm Partners With Foursquare And The Huffington Post For Latest Photography Challenges

Photo-sharing service EyeEm is announcing today that it is partnering with Foursquare and The Huffington Post to get photos taken by its users in front of more people with the introduction of two new competitions in its iOS and Android apps.

The competitions are part of EyeEm’s “Missions,” where members of the community can submit photos around certain areas or topics (like the World Cup or photos of people in love) in exchange for prizes.

The missions announced today are both intended to get the work of EyeEm users in front of more people outside of the company’s app. For its partnership with Foursquare, users submit photos to the “Where do you Swarm?” mission by adding a tag to photos they upload to the app, which then show up on the profile pages of venues in the Foursquare app. Ten days from now, a winner will be selected to receive $300 and their submission will be hung in Foursquare HQ in New York City. Runners-up will receive Foursquare apparel and be featured on EyeEm’s blog.

The mission for The Huffington Post (which, like TechCrunch, is owned by AOL) is a more straightforward content partnership between the two companies. The theme of the mission is “What Does Peace Look Like To You?” and users can freely submit photos that they think match the theme. There’s no cash prize for photos submitted to the mission — the only reward is to have your work featured in Huffington Post articles, with picture linking back to EyeEm profiles.

While that seems like a great opportunity to get work out their for photographers, it’s also in that awkward gray area where artists give out work for free online in exchange for “exposure,” a practice that some consider exploitative. With that said, this is something you can opt-in to from an app where you’d freely share those photos anyway and many EyeEm users submit photos to the company’s missions in order to get feedback on their work, not for the monetary rewards.

In other news, EyeEm also began rolling out a new version of its iOS app today. The two biggest changes are a simplification of the overall interface and the addition of a feature the company is calling “EyeZoom.” As you can see in the photo above, everything in the app is available at all times — nothing is hidden off to the side in a menu you have to know to swipe to.

The introduction of EyeZoom is part of the company’s efforts to put as much emphasis on high-quality photos in its apps as possible. Tapping anywhere on a photo seamlessly zooms in on a high-resolution version of the portion of the photo while the rest downloads in the background. The result is you can appreciate photos as they were intended to be seen faster than you would clicking on a thumbnail and waiting for the entire photo to load in other apps:

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Asus packs a laptop, tablet and smartphone into one device

Meet the Transformer Book V

Asus has the knack to unveil its flagship computing products in Computex in Taiwan and this year is no exception as it unveiled what it calls a 5-in-1 device.

The Asus Transfomer Book V combines an Android laptop that can transform into a tablet and a phone and can dual boot Windows as well (although not Windows Phone).

The phone is a full HD IPS handset that's 4G capable with a 5.5-inch display with a quad-core Intel Moorefield Atom processor inside.

It includes a 2,500mAh battery, a rear 8-megapixel camera, 2GB of RAM up to 64GB of RAM and appears to be an updated version of the Padfone Infinity.

It slots into a 12.5-inch tablet (that's also full HD) that contains an unnamed Intel Core processor. It weighs in at 800g, has 4GB of RAM, a 28Whr battery offering up to 10 hours battery life, up to 128GB storage.
The latter converts into a sleek laptop once attached to a keyboard dock that houses a 1TB HDD (but no battery like some previous Asus products).

You can then switch to Windows 8.1 OS by pressing on a button. We expect a 6-in-1 version next year when dual-booting Android/Windows Phone 8 smartphones start to appear on the market.

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Asus shows off Transformer T300FA hybrid laptop at IFA

Asus has proved that there's still room for spontenaity at major tech shows by launching the previously unannounced Transformer Book T300FA at IFA 2014.

The T300FA is being pitched as an entry-level, Windows-based, Intel-powered convertible laptop/tablet. As expected, the device is made up of two distinct parts: the tablet itself and a dock, which weigh a combined 1.6Kg and measure 20.3mm (0.8-inch) thick.

The 12.5-inch tablet has a 1,366 x 768 pixel resolution and houses the main components. It features the latest Intel Core M processor (with Intel HD graphics), comes with either Windows 8.1 or Windows 8.1 Pro, has up to 4GB of RAM (which pre-supposes that 2GB models will be available), 32GB or 64GB onboard storage and a front-facing camera.

As for the dock, it has two USB ports (including a USB 3.0 model), a decent-sized keyboard, a touchpad and either a 500GB or a 1TB HDD.

That's perculiar because the HDD is housed in what Asus called a smart HDD tray that has been designed for an easy DIY upgrade (which means that you should be able to swap the default one for a 2TB model).

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Zillow Expands Its Mortgage Services With Mobile Pre-Approvals

Unless you are buying a house in cash, you pretty much have to have a mortgage pre-approval letter from your bank before you even start house hunting. That’s typically something you would go to the bank for, but a number of mortgage services now also allow you to go through this process online. Online real estate site Zillow has long offered mortgage comparison services and a web-based pre-approval process, but today it is taking this one step further by adding pre-approval to its mobile apps, too.

So now, when you spontaneously decide that it’s time to buy your dream home, you can get pre-approved right on the doorstep as you walk into the Saturday open house while the smell of fresh-baked cookies from the seller’s agent wafts into your face. Pre-approval is available through Zillow’s Mortgages app and its real estate search app on iOS.

The process on mobile is the same as anywhere else. You fill out your info and lenders will come back with some initial quotes. From there, you can authorize the lenders you like best to pull your credit report info and assuming your numbers match up, you’ll get a pre-approval letter sent right to your phone. Given that these letters are just for show and tell, you can always select another lender later on anyway, but at least nobody will kick you out of the open house because you aren’t pre-approved and look like a hobo.

According to its latest earnings report, Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace — which is essentially a lead-generation service — handled 5.5 million loan requests in the second quarter of 2014, up 3% from the year-ago quarter. Adding the pre-approval service to mobile, the company believes, will help continue to drive up this contact volume to lenders. In the last quarter, mortgages accounted for almost 12 percent of Zillow’s  total revenue – up from 8 percent a year ago. That makes it the company’s fastest-growing revenue source, though it’s still far behind what it makes from its real estate and advertising services.

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HP Stream is a Chromebook-killer Windows laptop with a higher-end price

After weeks of teasing and leaks, HP and Microsoft's super affordable Chromebook killing Windows 8.1 laptop is finally here.

Meet the HP Stream laptop. It's an affordable little machine sporting a 14-inch, 1,366 x 768 resolution display. Underneath the machine's plastic exterior lies an AMD AR Micro-6400T Quad APU that delivers both computing power and drives the graphics engine.

The budget laptop is also equipped with 2GB of Memory and 32GB in SSD storage, which thankfully can be expanded though a MicroSD card slot. In a Google-like move, Microsoft is offering Stream laptop owners two years of free OneDrive storage amounting to an additional 100GB of online disk space.

Throw in the speculated 6 hours and 30 minutes of battery life plus a one-month trial ofMicrosoft Office 365, and this seems like a Chromebook killing deal…except it's not.

So much for a plan

The only problem with the HP Stream is it actually costs $300 (about £186, AU$322), which is proportionally steeper than the $200 (about £124, AU$215) price tag Microsoft COO Kevin Turner first posited at the Redmond company's Worldwide Partner Conference in July.

Even with the higher price point the HP Stream is still a fair deal for any Windows laptop. However, there are more than a handful of Chromebooks users can get for less including the touchscreen equipped Acer C720P and the premium lookingSamsung Chromebook 2.

Last week at IFA 2014 even HP announced a new Chromebook competitor that comes in at the same price as the Stream. Called the Chromebook 14, this will be HP's second 14-inch Google cloud-powered laptop, except the internals have been upgraded to an  Nvidia Tegra K1 processor with a purported nine-hour battery life.

But before we get too down about the HP Stream's higher than expected price, we'll have to reserve our final judgment for our review. The Stream ships on September 24.

The horizon is looking bright for Windows 9

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