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The Pentagon wants to catch rogue drones in nets

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Drone Hunter uses radar to track unauthorized drones. When the target is in range, Drone Hunter shoots it with a web-like net and a kind of Spider Man-style flair. According to Defense One, the Pentagon is spending millions on the system.

Catching drones in mind-air offers a few benefits over shooting them out of the sky or trying to intercept their communication signals. The net approach means the drone isn’t going to crash on any bystanders, and if the drone isn’t obliterated, the DoD can better investigate who’s behind it.

The DoD also purchased other Fortem products, including SkyDome Network, which can autonomously monitor an environment to look out for unauthorized drones and distinguish between other flying objects — so this shouldn’t take down the local birds. If SkyDome finds a threatening drone, it can notify personnel or deploy the Drone Hunter autonomously.

As we’ve seen at several busy international airports, drones can cause major delays and havoc. A system like this could potentially protect against interruptions like those. Though, it’s definitely not the only solution. The UK is working on high-energy lasers that could zap drones and missiles out of the sky. Heathrow Airport recently introduced a “Counter Drone” system to detect and track unauthorized drones, and several years ago, Tokyo demonstrated its own drone-catching net.

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YouTube Premium and Music have 20 million subscribers

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The company’s live YouTube TV service fared relatively well, too, with about 2 million subscribers by the end of 2019. That makes it smaller than Hulu With Live TV’s estimated 2.7 million from November and Sling TV’s 2.69 million. However, that’s still a healthy number for a service that was comparatively late to the party.

While YouTube hasn’t elaborated on just how its services reached these milestones, there are a number of possible factors at work. YouTube’s ubiquity gives it a lot of exposure. It’s not a stretch to sign up for YouTube Music if it’s just a short hop away on your Android phone, and you’re going to get pitches for Premium and TV simply by visiting YouTube. And then there’s sponsorships — watch the right MLB games and other events and it’ll be hard to avoid marketing for YouTube TV. If there’s a challenge for YouTube, it’s competing with rivals on sheer numbers.

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Mobile app problems could delay Iowa caucus results

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The problems aren’t expected to affect accuracy, and there weren’t concerns about security. The Democrats first used a phone app to submit results in 2016.

This is a small problem in the long run. Most concerns about technology in the 2020 election revolve around more serious issues like voting system security and attempts to manipulate social media users. It’s setting a not-so-positive tone for the election, though, and it won’t be surprising if technical snafus pop up elsewhere on the road to the final vote on November 3rd.

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YouTube ad revenue has almost doubled in the last two years

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In 2019, YouTube ad revenues were $15.15 billion, which represents 86 percent growth since 2017. By contrast, the main Google search business grew by 40 percent to $98.1 billion over the last two years. Of course, Google’s search business is even more mature than YouTube, and 40 percent growth is still quite impressive. But the importance of YouTube to the Alphabet business can’t be overstated; indeed, Sundar Pichai has highlighted the growth of YouTube advertising on nearly every earnings call we’ve listened to in recent years.

Alphabet’s “other revenue” category is another one we’re always interested in, because it’s the only way we can really get an idea of how projects like Google’s hardware division are doing. This quarter, other revenues totaled $5.3 billion, up 10 percent over the previous year — something that could suggest the Pixel 4 launch was a little more successful than the Pixel 3 launch in 2018. But this category also includes things like the Play Store and “YouTube non-advertising revenues” (which are probably things like the YouTube Premium subscription service), so we can’t say for sure how much of this is due to hardware. Regardless, the “other revenue” category has grown 56 percent over the last two years — so like YouTube, it’s outperforming Google’s core search ad business.

Alphabet’s conference call for investors kicks off at 5PM ET, and we’ll be listening to see if they disclose anything else of note. We’ll share those updates here.

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Samsung updates the almost five-year-old Gear S2 to improve battery life

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As for the contents of the update, SamMobile says it improves battery life and makes the watch more secure. There’s also at least one report that says it brings the Galaxy Watch Active 2‘s One UI interface over to the device. We don’t have a Gear S2 on hand to double-check this claim and there’s no mention of a UI refresh in the changelog, so if you own a Gear S2, it’s best not to get your hopes up too high before downloading the 6.79MB file.

That said, Samsung does have a history of supporting its older Tizen smartwatches. In May, for instance, it updated the Galaxy Watch, Gear S3 and Gear Sport to bring a bunch of Galaxy Watch Active features to those older devices. In any case, new interface or not, we won’t complain about Samsung continuing to support one of its older products.

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Toyota and Panasonic will start producing EV batteries in April

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As expected, Toyota is the majority owner of the company with a 51 percent stake. The two also confirmed that Prime Planet Energy would make batteries for both Toyota as well as a variety of other automakers. Moving forward, they plan to develop new types of power cells as well.

“Batteries — as solutions for providing energy for automobiles and various other forms of mobility, and as solutions for various kinds of environmental issues — are expected to fulfill a central role in society going forward — a role that supports people’s lives,” Toyota and Panasonic said.

The pact makes a lot of sense for both companies. From Toyota’s perspective, a steady supply of batteries will help the company as it attempts to ramp up EV production. For Panasonic, meanwhile, the agreement will let the company become an even more dominant player in the marketplace.

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Online sneaker drop cancelled thanks to bots

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Bots became a popular method of buying sneakers around 2016, when Kanye West released the first models in Adidas’ Yeezy line. The shoes were so popular that they routinely sold out in seconds, leading tech-savvy sneakerheads to develop tools that would autonomously purchase the right pair and size of sneakers. Most bots require the user to pay a small fee, but many of the less scrupulous buyers purchase multiple pairs and sell them on the secondhand market at a huge mark-up, negating the cost of using the service.

Those who don’t use bots are often left to either miss out on the sneakers they were hoping to buy or to pay a big markup on eBay or GOAT. Some sneaker brands have responded by developing apps — like Nike’s SNKRS — that can’t be accessed by bots. And while this helps get sneakers onto the feet of those who don’t cut in line, not all brands can afford to develop and maintain such apps. Strangelove Skateboards is among them, saying in an Instagram post that “circumstances spun way, way out of control in the span of just two short minutes.” The store will still sell its stock — which was previously allotted to online sales — to loyal in-person customers, but those who don’t live near a Nike SB retailer will be out of luck.

Bots have been extremely frustrating for sneakerheads who don’t have the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” mentality. But in Strangelove’s case, this weekend’s swarm of bots not only affected customers, but the business itself. As bots cause more headaches for businesses, it would be helpful to see some form of federal regulation, similar to a bill introduced to fight bots that buy concert and sports tickets.

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‘Apex Legends’ season 4 trailer shows the assassin Revenant in action

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There’s a new battle pass, of course, along with plenty of cosmetics for you to earn. You’ll also be able to pick up a bolt-action sniper rifle called the Sentinel, while series 3 of Ranked mode is about to start. Perhaps most importantly for many players, there’s a look at the latest legend, Revenant, in action. The trailer gives a glimpse of his abilities, including what seems to be a projectile the cyborg assassin can use to stun enemies. You’ll be able to get to grips with him when Season 4: Assimilation starts on Tuesday.

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Artist creates traffic jams in Google Maps with a wagon full of phones

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Weckert’s description of the project says he wanted to draw attention to just how dependent we’ve become on services like Maps. Citing apps like Airbnb, Uber and Foodora, he wrote: “All of these apps function via interfaces with Google Maps and create new forms of digital capitalism and commodification. Without these maps, car sharing systems, new taxi apps, bike rental systems and online transport agency services such as ‘Uber’ would be unthinkable.”

To its credit, Google took the “hack” in stride and told 9to5Google it would use the art project to make the app better. “Whether via car or cart or camel, we love seeing creative uses of Google Maps as it helps us make maps work better over time,” a spokesperson for the company said. They also noted that the company doesn’t exclusively use phones operating Maps as proof of a traffic jam, instead it relies on multiple sources. So don’t expect many copycats.

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Microsoft Teams went down because of an expired certificate

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It’s odd that Microsoft would forget to renew a critical authentication certificate, and it was rude timing, as so many were attempting to log in and start their week.

Almost three years old, Microsoft Teams is the company’s Slack competitor. Last year, it added new features like private channels and custom video chat backgrounds, and it recently launched its first TV ad campaign. Needless to say, today’s outage probably doesn’t help in Microsoft’s efforts to take on Slack.



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