Tech Trend 247

A company headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand has played an integral role in global mass surveillance, according to a new report.

Based on documents and emails leaked to The Intercept, Endace has quietly been selling its technology to government agencies, allowing them to gather vast quantities of "private emails, online chats, social media conversations, and internet browsing histories."

Founded in 2001, the company claims to deliver "the world's best network monitoring and recording systems," producing technology that can help clients intercept and monitor online traffic. It boasts "100 percent accurate capture and storage of network traffic." 

TVNZ, which also worked on the story, reported that Endace founder Ian Graham shed light on how some of its technology worked in a 2004 news story.

"[Endance had] developed equipment that allowed customers to 'see a copy of all the internet traffic passing that point.' He said 'we put a time stamp on it and feed it to software which gets out the information that the user needs.'"

According to a leaked client list, customers apparently include government agencies in Australia, Canada and Israel, among others. 

The Intercept also reported Endace had sold assets to DGST, the Moroccan spy agency, which has been implicated in serious human rights abuses.

Corporate clients also include Australia's largest telco company, Telstra, as well as AT&T in the U.S.

On its website, Endace says it works with "5 of the top 10 global telcos" and "Top US, European and APAC government and defence departments."

One important customer according to The Intercept, is UK spy agency, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). 

"The records of Endace sales are confirmed by internal GCHQ documents, provided by Snowden, which describe the company's data capture devices being used as part of mass surveillance programs ... documents from 2010 and 2011 repeatedly mention the Endace products while discussing the capture of "internet-derived" data to extract information about people's usage of services such as Gmail, Hotmail, WhatsApp, and Facebook."

In order to capture ever growing amounts of internet traffic for GCHQ, Endace began work on a product called Medusa, with the ability to hoover traffic at up to 100 gigabits per second from trans-continental undersea cables.

According to the report, it's also possible Endace used public money from the New Zealand government to develop the surveillance gear for GCHQ.

The Intercept has published the leaked documents on its site.

Apple just released iOS 10.1, the first major update to the iPhone and iPad's mobile operating system since iOS 10 launched in September.

For iPhone 7 Plus users, the update officially brings Portrait mode, the camera feature that creates photos with a blurred-out background. Portrait mode will continue to be an ongoing public beta, but iPhone 7 Plus users no longer need to install the public beta in order to get it.

As always, the easiest way to update your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to iOS 10.1 is to go to Settings > General > Software Update and download it over-the-air (OTA).

iOS 10.1 weighs about 200MB and we recommend connecting to a Wi-Fi network to download adn install it instead of eating into your data plan.

If the update is taking forever to download, your best option is to try again later when Apple's servers aren't being slammed by everyone simultaneously downloading it.

Alternatively, you can also connect your supported iOS device to your PC or Mac and update through iTunes. 

The full iOS 10.1 release notes from Apple include:

iOS 10.1 is available for the following iOS devices:

• iPhone: iPhone 5, iPhone 5C, iPhone 5S, iPhone SE, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus

• iPad: iPad 4, iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3, iPad mini 4, iPad Pro 9.7, iPad Pro 12.9

• iPod touch: iPod touch (sixth-generation)

As a precaution, we also recommend backing up your data with iCloud or to a computer via iTunes beforehand to prevent any accidental data loss during the update process. It's rare you'll lose any data, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.

Google Photos is also a great way to keep a backup of all your photos and videos. If you go with the free tier, you'll be able to store an unlimited amount of photos at up to 16 megapixels and video at up to 1080p full HD resolution; to store video at up to 4K resolution, you'll need to pay for storage.

In a move that's guaranteed to inspire awe but is really just laying the foundation for the robot takeover Elon Musk has been warning us about, IBM's artificial intelligence program Watson has helped write some music. 

Alex Da Kid, a Grammy-winning producer, got all sorts of data from Watson that helped him craft the song "Not Easy," a collaboration with X Ambassadors, Elle King, and Wiz Khalifa. 

So how did Watson help? Well, according to IBM: 

Watson AlchemyLanguage API helped by analyzing five years of natural language texts including New York Times front pages, Supreme Court rulings, Getty Museum statements, the most edited Wikipedia articles, popular movie synopses and more. Once Watson had learned the most significant cultural themes, Watson Tone Analyzer read news articles, blogs and tweets to find out what people felt about them.

In addition to all of this fun stuff, Watson also analyzed lyrics from thousands of popular songs and the keys and chord progressions of those songs to create "an emotional fingerprint of music by year." 

Watson also ingested album art and used a "cognitive cloud-based app" called Watson Beat that, with artist input, helps put together a musical composition. 

Speaking to radio host Elvis Duran, Alex said of the song created with Watson, "My creative process starts with a conversation. And when I kind of understood what Watson could do, it could kind of take that conversation and that understanding of how people talk to each other and do that on a massive scale."

While Watson has been working on something like this for a while, there's no word on whether or not we'll see another matching of the platform and Nobel Prize-winning poet Bob Dylan, who appeared alongside Watson in an IBM commercial before apparently disappearing into the ether. 

Google won’t make the world’s fastest growing smartphone market wait for long to get its hands on the new Pixel and Pixel flagship smartphones. This is a stark deviation from the general norm that sees companies take weeks — and sometimes months — in bringing their top smartphones to India. 

Google announced today that stores across Indian cities will start selling the Pixel and Pixel XL starting Tuesday. This is a welcome move for many in the country who were hoping to grab the smartphone ahead of the Diwali festival later this month. Google unveiled the Pixel smartphones earlier this month. 

Flipkart, Google India’s online seller partner for Pixel smartphones, has also informed customers who had pre-ordered that it will begin shipping their smartphones starting tomorrow. A Google India spokesperson said that Flipkart is shipping some inventory starting today, though the general availability is Tuesday. 

The Android maker is leaving no stones unturned for what it’s calling first "Made by Google" phones. Earlier this month, Google said it had partnered with HTC India for after sales support of Pixel smartphones in the country.  

Google says it will also offer support for Pixel smartphones at 56 HTC India walk-in service centres in more than 30 cities in India. The company will also offer a toll free phone support service at 18004190655 in India. The number will be functional all days of the week between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm (local time). 

The Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones are available to purchase from Flipkart and over 1,000 retail stores in India including retail chains like Reliance Digital, Croma and Vijay Sales. Experts and users alike across the world have nice things to say about the Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones. 

 
We may have just seen a major player in the drive towards autonomous cars apply screeching brakes. Apple has reportedly abandoned its plans to build its own self-driving electric vehicle and is instead going to focus on the underlying autonomous software. A similar initiative to produce a fully autonomous car by Google also appeared to run out of steam. Building self-driving cars clearly poses a challenge that even the world’s top technology giants can’t yet meet.

So what is it about building autonomous cars that is proving to be such a challenge? The high-value consumer electronics and software industry is used to very different margins than the cut-throat automotive sector, which has tough market entry conditions and tribal supply-chain relationships. Then there is the technological challenge of effectively integrating sensing, communication and autonomous technology to deliver a genuinely safe product.

Modern vehicles, even those without self-driving technology, are making increasing use of artificial intelligence. It’s playing a critical role in increasing fuel economy, providing active safety systems, advancing navigation, and adding various driver-assistance tools that build up towards full self-driving capability. But integrating all the physical and software technologies needed for these systems is a complex task.

At the heart of this challenge is the cost of failure – human life. The recent fatal accident involving Tesla’s “autopilot” system serves as a tragic reminder of this.

Car manufacturers have traditionally had to prove the safety of their vehicles through road tests on dedicated testing tracks, as well as a series of assessments to show risks are at an acceptable level. But the increasing number of interdependent technologies within a car and their complex levels of integration ultimately means more difficult testing. This is not system testing as Apple and Google know it. Neither is the industry forgiving of system failures, as shown by the major product recalls that take place after a software glitch.

Capture and communication of personal data is another feature of modern cars. And storing details of everything from journey routes to driver behaviour adds to the growing privacy concerns about how much data on us companies collect. The technology giants have built much of their business around collecting and monetising this kind of data, but the issue is also at the heart of the latest challenge faced by Google thanks to opposition by Californian lawmakers. The commercial interest in such data makes it even more of a challenge, in privacy terms, to reach consensus on and resolve.

This problem is made worse by the issue of how secure this data is. A key element of driverless technology is the car’s ability to communicate with other systems around it. This opens a channel through which hackers could not only steal data but even take control of the car. Attacks have already been demonstrated against car’s internet connections and even their tyre pressure wireless sensors. This has already brought legal challenges for the automotive industry, with Toyota, GM and Ford subject to a class action lawsuit for “dangerous defects”.

There is also the problem of how drivers interact with autonomous technology – where human control ends and automatic control begins – that only adds more complexity. Not to mention the potential physical effects on drivers of not having to watch the road all the time. What’s more, there are serious ethical questions for designers of artificial intelligence in self-driving cars that are bound to change the dynamics of their design. For example, should a car crash itself to avoid hitting pedestrians?

The software industry has tackled many of these kinds problems over the years. But building a fully driverless car goes far beyond the software component. It requires a complex interaction of numerous digital and physical systems, each with their own technical and legal issues.

In the 1960s, American political activist Ralph Nader campaigned successfully for automotive manufacturers to bear responsibility for design defects in their cars and not shift them to car owners. Ultimately, self-driving cars will mean manufacturers also have to take responsibility for every second of operation on the roads. So far, that has proven too big a challenge for even the biggest tech firms.

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This article originally published at The Conversation here

You may soon see a lot more NSFW content on Facebook. 

The social network is updating its community standards to allow more types of graphic or offensive content that would have previously violated its standards — if the content is deemed newsworthy or "important to the public interest."

"In the weeks ahead, we’re going to begin allowing more items that people find newsworthy, significant, or important to the public interest — even if they might otherwise violate our standards," facebook's VP of Global Policy Joel Kaplan and VP Global Operations & Media Partnerships Justin Osofsky wrote in a statement..

It's not clear how Facebook will determine what types of content are allowed going forward, but the executives noted that the social network wants to avoid showing graphic content to "minors and others who do not want to see them." Whether this would be automated or whether there would be a specific way to opt-out is unclear. 

Facebook also said it would work with publishers, journalists, members of law enforcement and others as it develops its policies. 

Facebook has grappled with censorship for some time. The social network's somewhat nebulous content policies, which already allow for some kinds of graphic content if it's a matter of public interest, have come under fire repeatedly for uneven enforcement. Earlier this year, a Norwegian newspaper published a front page editorial taking Mark Zuckerberg to task for removing a famous photograph from the Vietnam War. 

As you move towards the high-end spectrum of hi-fi, features on gadgets typically disappear. It's not uncommon to see a power amplifier, priced like a family car, with a single button, while amps that cost a few hundred bucks come with a bazillion knobs and switches. The idea is that everything that's not strictly necessary just gets in the way of that perfect sound — and perfect sound is the ultimate goal of expensive hi-fi equipment. 

It's no wonder, then that B&W's latest pair of headphones, the P9 Signature, doesn't have wireless connectivity, noise cancellation, or even a single button. The company's top-of-the-line headphones cost $900, and they promise just one thing: stellar sound. 

Judging from the week or so I've spent with them, the P9 Signature delivers, but that price tag might not be justifiable to everyone. 

Reviewing the P9 Signature, whose launch has been timed to celebrate Bowers & Wilkins' 50 years of existence, was fairly simple, as I've just finished reviewing the company's P7 Wireless headphones, B&W's priciest, best sounding headphones before the P9 came along. The two sets of cans share a similar design and sound (I was able to compare them directly), so my primary task was to figure out whether the price jump from $500 to $900 is worth it. 

Luxurious, comfortable and focused on the music

Let's start with this: If features are what you're after, you're looking at the wrong set of headphones. The P9 Signature comes with three cables (one with included volume and play/pause controls) of varying length, and an adaptor to the larger, 6.35mm audio jack (a must if you have serious hi-fi equipment at home), but that's it. There's no Lightning cable either, a must for owners of iPhone 7 (which has no audio headphone jack) though it will be shipped with the P9s starting early 2017, and those who buy them now can ask B&W for a free cable when it becomes available. 

These headphones are not meant to amuse you with gesture-based operation, smart sensors and similar shenanigans. They're meant to be the link between you and beautiful sounding music. 

Design-wise, the P9s look like a fancier version of the P7s. Brown, Italian Saffiano leather on the earcups, an Alcantara carrying case and an aluminum headband (which is, thankfully, foldable) give the headphones a distinctive, luxurious look. The P7 Wireless looks good, but when you place them next to the P9 Signature, they're just not in the same league. 

The P9s also have a hidden headphone jack — to replace a cable, you need to remove the magnetically-fastened earcup. The solution works better than it did with the P7 Wireless; you're not going to change the cables on these very often, if ever, and it keeps the headphone jack safely (and nicely) tucked away. 

Thanks to the premium materials and slightly bigger earcups, the P9 Signature are also more comfortable than the P7 Wireless — and generally very head-friendly, even though they're quite heavy at 413 grams. Both sets of headphones tend to become a bit heavy on the top of my head — uncomfortably so after an hour and a half of listening — but the effect is less pronounced with the P9s. 

A deepness in the bass

We've established that the singular goal of these headphones is great sound, but is it nine-hundred-bucks good? While the figure might sound outrageous to some, it's not uncommon in the world of high-end headphones; in fact, the world's best sounding headphones often cost several thousand dollars, which would make the B&W P9 Signature entry-level high-end hi-fi (yes, that's a lot of dashes). 

The verdict is not an easy one to give. On a technical level, the P9 Signature have slightly better specifications: their 40mm drivers have a larger frequency range (from 2Hz to 30KHz; good luck trying to hear sounds at the end of that range) and a lower distortion level, but are otherwise the same. They're also angled to provide a sound stage that's in front of you, not on the sides. And the earcups have been decoupled from the headband with a nifty little gimbal system to remove unwanted vibrations. 

But can you actually hear those differences?

The answer is yes, but it really depends on what type of listener you are. The P9 Signature headphones offer an extremely detailed sound. The bass is rich and precise, but slightly toned down compared to the P7s; it won't jump at you at every occasion, but if you focus, you'll hear it's fuller and more detailed. 

It's not just the bass; the sound of the P9s can generally be described as extremely precise, if a little dark. You'll hear it all; the hint of cold in the singer's voice, and the droning of an electric guitar left plugged in on stage at the end of a concert.  

The sound stage is moved a little to the front as promised by the angled drivers, but not vastly. In fact, if I were to point out one flaw (and that's only if I compare the sound with high-end equipment), the sound stage always sounds like a tiny club; you'll never get the feeling of being in a huge arena. 

But to hear all this, I've had to listen to CDs or flac files. And I used a 24-bit DAC audio module to connect to my MacBook Air. I've listened mostly to amazingly well-recorded music: Pink Floyd's The Wall, Ryan Adams' Live at Carnegie Hall and Nick Cave's Live from KCRW. This is where the P9s shine; put any of these on, and you'll instinctively close your eyes and lean back into the chair to listen to the song through to the end. 

If you just slap on a 128kbps mp3 of Kruder and Dorfmeister's K&D Sessions, it will still sound great (in fact, it's amazing how much these headphones can squeeze out of those compressed files), but the P7 Wireless won't lag too far behind.  

Unfortunately, I didn't have anything like the Sennheiser HD800 or the Audio Technica ATH-W5000, which fall roughly in the same price range, to compare with the P9s directly. Working from memory, the P9s are not as transparent as some of the high-end headphones I've heard; they flirt with high-end but still remain a great option for folks that just like a good dose of pop, electronic or dance music.

For long, home listening sessions

The P9 Signature headphones are beautiful, luxurious, comfortable and they sound great. The price point, while high, is still below the level of most flagship headphones from renowned hi-fi companies. Could they be a little cheaper? Probably, but they're aimed at the person who wants the best and can afford it. 

You can't have it all, though. These headphones are not the everyday workhorse cans you'll throw in your backpack and use on commutes and plane rides. They're a bit too heavy and bulky for that. Furthermore, they don't have wireless connectivity, noise cancellation, an attention button or any of the latest bells and whistles you can now get in the $200-$400 price range. If you want all that, you'll need to look elsewhere. But if curling up with some great-sounding recordings is your thing, the P9 Signature are nearly perfect. 

At Google's headquarters, there must be a room full of people trying to figure out which aspect of the Android phone the company still doesn't have its paws on.

Right now, on my phone I have the following Google apps installed: Google, Gmail, Maps, YouTube, Drive, Play, Play Music, Play Movies & TV, Hangouts, Photos, Google+, Play Newsstand, Play Games, Docs, Authenticator, Google Now Launcher, Google Cast, Calendar, Keep, Slides, Earth, Cardboard Camera, Arts & Culture, Allo, Goggles and Translate, and there are plenty more available on Google Play. 

Add another app to that list: Wallpapers. First launched on the company's new Pixel and PIxel XL phones, the app has recently become available to everyone, as noticed by Android Central. 

All jokes about Google's ravenous need to swarm your Android phone with its apps aside, the Wallpapers app is actually quite cool. It offers a variety of wallpapers, which you can set as a one-time thing, or turn on the Daily wallpaper feature, which gives your phone a new wallpaper every day. 

The images come from Google Earth, Google+ and 500px, and you can choose from five topics: Earth, Landscape, Cityscapes, Life and Textures. The app also taps into your camera photos and images from the designated wallpapers folder on your phone. 

Unfortunately, only Android 7.0+ users get the option to set a different image for the phone's home and lock screens. If you have an earlier version of Android, the app will only be able to set a wallpaper for your home screen. 

While finding wallpapers for your phone is not a very difficult task, and most phones these days have themes and their own, built-in ways to set periodically changing wallpapers, there's something to be said for getting a new, beautiful satellite image of Earth as your phone's background every 24 hours. 

You can download the Google Wallpapers app from Google Play, here.  

Attempting to cash in on India’s Diwali festive season, WhatsApp’s India rival Hike Messenger today announced it is bringing popular Diwali-themed game 'Teen Patti Nights' on its instant messaging client. 

Hike said 'Teen Patti Nights' is its first game that has multi-player support. The company has been testing games on its platform since March this year, and claims it has registered over 1.3 billion game sessions since then. 

'Teen Patti Nights' is a popular poker game which sits well with a tradition among some Indians who play poker during Diwali. The game file is very light — weighing only about 1MB — and is aimed at all smartphone users in India, Kavin Bharti Mittal, founder and CEO of Hike told Mashable India. 

The addition of 'Teen Patti Nights' further illustrates Hike’s growing intent to build a platform on top of instant messaging. The app, which competes with Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger app, offers news and several other features on its platform. As of January 2016, Hike Messenger has over 100 million registered users. The company declined to share the latest number. 

Mittal added that the company will be adding more games to Hike app in the coming months. When asked if the company also plans to launch a desktop app, Mittal told us that desktop app won’t appeal to most people in India with majority of them using a mobile phone as their only computing platform. 

Earlier this August Hike became the latest unicorn startup from India after it raised $175 million at a valuation of $1.4 billion from China's Tencent and Foxconn.

Facebook has issued an apology for removing a Swedish video on breast cancer awareness and deeming the images offensive. 

The video from Cancerfonden, the Swedish Cancer Society, showed animated figures of women with their breasts represented by pink circles, with the aim of explaining to women how to detect suspicious lumps. 

Facebook later apologised for the blunder and said the images were now available: 

"We're very sorry, our team processes millions of advertising images each week, and in some instances we incorrectly prohibit ads," a Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement to Mashable.

"This image does not violate our ad policies. We apologise for the error and have let the advertiser know we are approving their ads."

Earlier Facebook removed the video saying the images were "offensive". Cancerfonden said it had tried in vain to get in touch with the company. 

It later wrote an open letter to Facebook explaining that the campaign "was not meant to offend." 

"We understand that you have to have rules about the content published on your platform. But you must also understand that one of our main tasks is to spread important information about cancer – in this case breast cancer," it said.

"After trying to meet your control for several days without success, we have now come up with a solution that will hopefully make you happy: Two pink squares!"

All ads on Facebook must not contain "nudity, depictions of people in explicit or suggestive positions, or activities that are overly suggestive or sexually provocative", according to the company's ad policy.  

The ad policy is separate from the company's community standards and Mashable understands the erroneous disapproval was related to the ads, not the content policies. 

Facebook's community standards, instead, “restrict[s] some images of female breasts if they include the nipple” but “always allow[s] photos of women actively engaged in breastfeeding or showing breasts with post-mastectomy scarring.”

Facebook came under fire last month for removing the famous "napalm girl" photo published by Norway's largest newspaper saying it showed nudity. 

It later agreed to reinstate the picture. 

"Because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal, so we have decided to reinstate the image on Facebook where we are aware it has been removed," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.

A surfer from the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia, has captured footage of the aftermath of a car fire he claims was caused by his week-old iPhone 7 on Thursday. 

Mat Jones told media outlets he wrapped the phone in some clothes on the seat of his car, while he went for a surf. By the time he returned, his vehicle was severely fire damaged. 

Jones is adamant the flaming Apple product was responsible for the starting the blaze, telling 7 News he had not damaged the phone or used a dodgy charger since buying the new model. 

"Here's the phone. Total burnout," he says in the video he recorded of the incident. 

"As I look into my car you could not see inside the car. All the windows were just black," he said according to the news program. "Ash was coming from inside the pants. Once you unwrapped the pants, the phone was just melting inside of it." 

While there's currently no evidence to suggest that the iPhone 7 "exploded" as some publications are claiming, it wouldn't be the first alleged explosion on record, the most recent Australian example being when a Sydney man fell off his bike and onto his butt, claiming his iPhone exploded on impact like a "mini bomb."  

Overcharging, puncturing or otherwise severely damaging the phone are all possible reasons why an iPhone 7 might catch fire. 

Chances of this happening could very well be heightened if the phone were placed in an excessively hot environment, such as in the back of a hot car on an Australian beach.

Apple has confirmed to Mashable that they are aware of Mat Jones' complaint and are investigating the incident.  

Nintendo is switching things up with its newly revealed transformative gaming console: Nintendo Switch.

Though the hardware's Thursday reveal left many unanswered questions relating to price, battery life and more, it did do one thing extremely well. The first look gave us a sneak peak at some of the many different ways the versatile gaming system can be used from the comfort of your living room and on-the-go.

The trailer was packed with a whole lot of information, so we assembled this collection of GIFs to highlight some of the Switch's sweetest features thus far.

It's a handheld device

It's a free-standing console

It's a living room console

It's a portable party machine

It uses cartridges

Is has a headphone jack (sup Apple?!)

It's sharable 

It's made for collaboration

Feel free to watch these GIFs on repeat while you get pumped for the Switch's March 2017 arrival.

Shortly after yesterday's announcement, in which Tesla promised to equip all of its future cars with self-driving hardware, CEO Elon Musk promised to soon share a video of a Tesla "navigating a complex urban environment."

The video, according to Musk, is what had delayed the announcement from Sunday (as originally promised) to Wednesday. 

Now, the video is available, and it shows a Tesla car driving a typical home-to-work route without any assistance from its human driver (who is required by law to sit in the driver's seat and be able to take control of the car at any moment). 

In the three minute, 46 second-long video, we see a Model X exit the garage, enter traffic, join a highway lane and drive itself into a city, abiding all traffic regulations (stop signs, traffic lights) along the way.  

The video is edited; we don't see if the car actually encountered any issues on its ride, but the parts that we do see work without a hitch. At the end, the driver exits the car, which then proceeds to find a parking spot at a crowded parking lot and parallel park itself. 

Musk later noted on Twitter that the car is smart enough to skip the disabled spot. He also said that with this technology, the Summon feature will bring the car to you no matter where you are. 

On Wednesday, Musk said that Model S and Model X cars with self-driving hardware are already in production. He claims the cars will have "Level 5" autonomy, meaning they will be able to drive themselves in all conditions. 

BONUS: Affordable solar-powered car

SAN FRANCISCO — Chinese tech giant LeEco is ready to make its North American debut.

The company, which has been called the "Netflix of China," introduced a new lineup of products on Wednesday, including two inexpensive Android smartphones, a VR headset, a 7-foot 4K TV and a new streaming service. LeEco also showed off its electric bike and self-driving electric vehicle concept.

Like the company's last generation of smartphones, the Le Pro 3 and the Le S3 are Android-powered handsets that use USB Type-C and skip the headphone jack. 

The $399 Le Pro 3 manages to cram in most of the features you would expect from Android flagships these days. It has a 5.5-inch HD display, 4GB of RAM, a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera  and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chip (the same one in the new Google Pixel phones). It also promises an impressive battery life with a 4,070 mAh battery that will get 14 hours of streaming video playback, according to the company. The Le Pro 3 has curved edges and comes in silver and gold finishes.

The $249 Le S3 has slightly lower end, though still respectable, specs for its price point. It also has a 5.5-inch HD display and a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera but has 3GB of RAM and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 chip. It comes in silver, gold and rose gold finishes and is only available with 32GB of onboard storage. It also has a smaller 3,000 mAh battery.

Both smartphones will be available beginning Nov. 2 from LeEco's LeMall website. 

LeEco also unveiled a new VR headset, called ExploreVR, that will be powered by the company's phones. LeEco didn't announce pricing or availability for the headset but said it would be equipped with an array of sensors to enhance the VR viewing experience.

A 7-foot, 4K TV, the uMax85, was also announced. It'll cost $4,999 when it goes on sale Nov. 2 (also on the LeMall website.) 

The company also unveiled a new streaming service to bring content to its new devices. The company is partnering with content providers like Vice, Lionsgate and Showtime, as well as developing its own original content. Its first original title is called The Great Wall and will star Matt Damon. 

Some of the streaming service's content will be free and some will be available through a separate subscription, which also comes with free cloud storage and other benefits for people who buy multiple products.

And as if new phones, a huge TV and new content weren't plenty already, LeEco unveiled concepts for two electric self-driving vehicles, the LeSee and LeSee Pro, as well an electric "Super Bike," that was previously announced. 

Flashy products aside, LeEco executives spent much of Tuesday's event making the case to those in attendance why they should care about the Chinese tech giant that's still not widely known in the U.S. 

Executives shrugged off comparisons to U.S. tech companies like Netflix and Apple saying that they promised to provide a full ecosystem to consumers, from their phones and televisions, to the content they watch, to the vehicles to they drive. 

Whether that pitch will resonate with U.S. consumers the same way it has with those in China is another matter, though LeEco is hoping its relative affordability will help sweeten the deal.

It may be a tough sell — at least initially — but the company, which made headlines earlier this year when it acquired Vizio for $2 billion, certainly has the resources to become a force in the U.S.

Google will make it easier for more people in India to purchase apps, music and other items from it Google Play store. The company today revealed that it will be bringing carrier billing option to two of India’s largest telecom operators. 

At its Google Playtime developer event in Gurgaon, Kunal Soni, head of business development at Google Play, said the company will be bringing carrier billing to Airtel and Vodafone, according to one developer who attended the event. The two carriers have over 300 million subscribers between them. As of now, only Idea subscribers in India have carrier billing option. Mashable India has reached out to Google India for comment.

Carrier billing feature has long been requested by Android users in the country. Unlike Western nations, the penetration of debit and credit card is very low in India, leaving people with little choice to make digital purchases. Last year, Google launched its Google Play prepaid vouchers in India and made them available through online as well as offline retailers. 

With carrier billing (also known as operator billing), users are able to pay for their purchases with the credit on their phone in case of a prepaid connection or it reflects in their monthly bill. This is one of the most convenient payment modes for digital purchases in emerging regions. 

The developer community, especially game firms, have also expressed need for this feature in India. Google’s announcement today made many happy. "This is a big movie," Anuj Tandon, head of mobile games and marketing at game publishing firm Nazara Games told Mashable India. "App and game developers have requested this feature for years. It should help remove the friction in making payments in a market like India."

Microsoft just made another big advancement in artificial intelligence.

Researchers at the company have created speech recognition software that is able to hear language as accurately as humans. The development, detailed in a paper published Monday, marks the most advanced speech recognition software to date, according to Microsoft, who had also set the previous record for speech recognition.

In the study, the software had a word error rate of 5.9 percent, which is about the same as that of human transcribers. 

Here's how Microsoft explains it: 

The research milestone doesn’t mean the computer recognized every word perfectly. In fact, humans don’t do that, either. Instead, it means that the error rate – or the rate at which the computer misheard a word like “have” for “is” or “a” for “the” – is the same as you’d expect from a person hearing the same conversation.

Previously, the researchers had reached an error rate of 6.3 percent and had set their sights on reaching human-levels of accuracy next. That was just over a month ago. 

The software itself relies on deep neural networks — technology that interprets data in a way similar to how the human brain works — as well as specialized graphics processing units (GPUs) that allow the software to learn at speeds not previously possible.

The milestone has far-reaching implications. On a practical level, it means that Microsoft's products could soon be a whole lot better at understanding humans. The researchers name Microsoft's personal assistant app Cortana and the Xbox as two products that could immediately benefit from the research. Accessibility software, such as instant transcription services, could also benefit from the advancement.  

The milestone has far-reaching implications

It could also easily be incorporated into Microsoft's productivity tools like Office — imagine how much better Word's dictation feature would be with near-human levels of accuracy — or its enterprise offerings. 

Consumer products aside, it also marks a turning point for AI research. In a statement, Geoffrey Zweig, from Microsoft's Speech and Dialog research group, notes that the next phase is to help build software that can not just transcribe human speech but understand it as well. Though that's a goal that's much further away, being able to accurately transcribe human speech is a big step forward. 

Before the mobs come out and put a hex on me, remember that photography and image quality is subjective. What looks better to me might not to you.

That said, let's get on to the camera comparisons between Google's new Pixel and Pixel XL and the iPhone 7/7 Plus and Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 Edge.

On paper, Google, Apple and Samsung's flagship phones appear to have the same cameras: 12 megapixels on the back. The front cameras differ in resolution: 8 megapixels for the Pixels, 5 megapixels for the S7 Edge and 7 megapixels for the iPhone 7.

But as I've said a million times and I'll say a million times more: megapixels (aka resolution) aren't everything. Having more megapixels doesn't make a camera necessarily better. Resolution matters, but if it's at the detriment of image quality and performance, what's the point?

To me, the best phone camera has to be a few things:

• Fast to autofocus and capture: Because you don't want to miss a shot.

• Produce realistic colors with wide dynamic range: Because reality is not a comic book

• Produce sharp details with little image noise: Because details matter.

• Take great low-light photos: Because we like the dark and we like photos in dark places.

The iPhone 7 checks off all of these. Its cameras and image quality are well balanced across the board. The iPhone 7 Plus also has a fancy dual-lens camera that gives it 2x optical zoom and a fancy Portrait mode. Samsung's Galaxy S7/S7 Edge is better with low-light performance and the camera is faster to launch and autofocus, but it also saturates colors more.

The Pixel and Pixel XL's cameras falls somewhere in-between the iPhone 7 and Galaxy S7. They're super fast. Images look incredibly crisp and have great dynamic range and low-light performance is damn good. So what's not to like? I'm not a fan of the oversaturated colors, but that's just me.

Testing method:

I left all camera settings on their defaults. In the past, I've always turned off HDR on all smartphone cameras before shooting with them, but I've now had to change that testing method since most people never bother to fiddle with them.

Not only that, but phones rely heavily on software processing to help produce the final photos. HDR+ is so vital to the Pixels' final image quality that my reviewers guide actually warned me that turning it off would result in poorer-looking photos and slower camera performance. Yikes!

As such, all photos below were shot with HDR set to auto. I couldn't tell you which ones actually had HDR on or off and I don't really care because what you see is what the camera considered the best shot.

Way warmer tones

The Pixel cameras' biggest weakness is color reproduction. Android is doing so much processing to the images that all the colors end up artificially pumped up and oversaturated. I've noticed it's a common symptom that plagues most Android phones like the Galaxy S7 and LG G5 and OnePlus 3. 

How is it that in 2016 no phone maker can match the iPhone's realistic colors?

I personally don't like the saturated colors. They don't look real. Skies are always way too blue. Yellows are too deep. Reds all blend into each other. I'll take photos with lifelike colors over saturated colors any day.

But if you're into the boosted colors or crank up the saturation in post anyway, you'll love the Pixel's  pictures.

Compare these two photos below. Just look at how much bluer the sky in the upper right corner is and how much more yellow the building is.

Here's another example where the blues and yellows are dialed up on the Pixel:

Turning off HDR+ mutes the saturation to some extent, but not by much. And turning HDR+ off on the Pixels isn't worth it since the camera start to lag a little.

Though most photos are way warmer than on the iPhone, sometimes the rear camera goes cooler for some reason. There just isn't much consistency for white balance:

But, at least the dynamic range is wider on the Pixel XL. The details on the fountain grass (that's the fuzzy plant) are softer on the Pixel XL compared to the iPhone 7, but look at how vibrant the purple leaves below it look. The same leaves in the iPhone 7 photo look totally dull in comparison.

Wider field of view

Compared with the iPhone 7, the Pixel XL's camera has a wider field of view thanks to its wider angle lens.

In English, it means you can fit more into a photo. The Pixel XL's wider angle lens makes it a more versatile camera for landscape photography.

It's perfrect for taking photos of tall landscapes, like the Bank of America building below:

The Pixel XL and Galaxy S7 Edge have roughly the same wide field of view:

Both photos look pretty sharp on their respective phone displays. It's only when you view them at 100% crops on a computer monitor that you can really see some of the differences in sharpness.

Honestly, the differences in sharpness are so minor, nobody but a nerd like me would care.

Here's another comparison showing how much more the Pixel XL cameras can capture:

And another close-up crop showing the barely noitceable sharpness differences:

Strong selfie game

As for selfies, I think the Pixel XL does a better job than the iPhone 7:

My skin looks smoother and healthier in the Pixel XL selfie since it's brighter:

Shoots well in low light

The Pixel XL performs quite good night shots. As expected, photos are a yellower than the iPhone 7:

You can click the below comparison to see how the Pixel XL stacks up against the iPhone 7 and Galaxy S7 Edge:

Notice how the sky is more washed out on the Pixel XL photo and the Galaxy S7 Edge turns all the bricks on the building in the left red:

The Galaxy S7 Edge preserves sharper details of the Empire State Building, but the image noise is greater, too:

See that building just between the water tower and that skinny high-rise condominium on the upper right? The Pixel XL brings the green color out best, but the rest of the image is kind of a wash.

Impressive video stabilization

While the camera attention is almost always focused on still photography, the Pixel XL boasts impressive video recording capabilities. Like most smartphones, it records at up to 4K resolution.

That's nothing special. What is crazy is how well the camera stabilizes video. Phones like the iPhone 7 and Galaxy S7 rely on optical image stabilization (OIS) to compensate for shake in different directions, but the Pixels uses electronic image stabilization (EIS) to outstanding effect. 

EIS is normally inferior to OIS, but not so on the Pixels. Through software even the shakiest footage appears smooth — even smoother than the iPhone 7. Here's a video stabilization comparison between the Pixel XL and iPhone 7 (both originally shot in 4K and then downsized to 1080p):

Best smartphone cameras ever?

I don't think so, but they're so damn close. The color saturation bothers me too much, but again, that's personal preference. And that's fine, too, because if you prefer the artificially amplified colors, then the Pixel cameras will be perfect to your eyes.

It feels like a total cop-out to say this, but we've reached a point where the differences — outside of color reproduction — between flagship phone cameras are so negligible that most people will be very happy with the image quality.

We're all benefitting in the end. Android cameras have finally caught up to the iPhone with comparable performance and picture quality. Years of competition have pushed all phone makers to innovate harder and faster and now we're all winning because we don't have to look at crappy photos and videos.