Archives for April 26, 2019

The deconstructed device came from a ‘trusted partner.’

The Galaxy Fold won’t make its planned launch date as Samsung looks into problems experienced by several reviewers with test units. In the meantime, the folks at iFixit did what they do best and pulled one apart, but on Thursday explained their choice to “withdraw” the teardown. While iFixit usually gets a device specifically for the purpose of pulling it apart, this one was apparently provided by a third party. Samsung then asked that “trusted partner” to have the teardown removed and iFixit — while insisting it didn’t have to — acquiesced to keep the peace.

iFixit called the device it undid “alarmingly fragile,” but also noted in today’s post that “Our team appreciated the chance to look inside this ambitious device. All new products face challenges—this one perhaps more than most.”

We still don’t know exactly what Samsung might tweak before the Galaxy Fold is rescheduled for a proper retail launch, but it’s possibly that the company doesn’t want to expose problems, or any secrets before the thing is actually on sale. Either way, the teardown is out there now, and preserved in the Internet Archive if someone really wants to what a Fold test unit has inside and, perhaps more importantly, what it might lack in protection that would allow debris inside.

Whether you like it or not, we’ll start seeing the icon on more phones.

AT&T is still in hot water over its 5GE logo, but that’s not slowing the company down. This week, the not-really-5G icon showed up in the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Meaning, whether you like it or not, 5GE could start showing up on Android smartphones using AT&T. According to XDA Developers, the AOSP code suggest that phones will only need to use 4G LTE with Carrier Aggregation to prompt the icon, so as critics have said, there’s no guarantee that the logo will be anything more than a visual change.

AT&T introduced the 5GE (5G Evolution) in January on Samsung’s Galaxy S8 Active and LG’s V30. But as true 5G networks are still being tested, 5GE really indicates 4G LTE-Advanced — a mix of 4G LTE plus technologies like 4×4 MIMO antennas, 256 QAM and carrier aggregation. AT&T’s competitors were quick to mock and dispute the icon. And a study by OpenSignal claimed the so-called 5GE network tested slower than enhanced 4G on Verizon and T-Mobile, though AT&T said the methodology was flawed.

The problem, critics charge, is that the label is misleading and will only confuse people, especially when actual 5G coverage is available. As Verizon previously wrote, “The potential to over-hype and under-deliver on the 5G promise is a temptation that the wireless industry must resist.” But this isn’t all that different from when AT&T started using the 4G label while everyone else was still on 3G. Now that the 5GE icon is available in AOSP, there’s a good chance that, as AT&T promised, we’ll begin seeing a lot more of it.

Pre-orders for the Mi.Mu Gloves are open now.

Imogen Heap hums the opening bars to Breathe In before pinching her fingers, instructing a sequencer to begin playing it on a loop. She opens her palms wide and makes a fist, as if holding a drumstick, and begins thumping the song’s beat. Piece by piece, Heap constructs the song until she is ready to begin singing, without ever touching an instrument.

Mi.Mu smart gloves, which she dreamt up in 2010, made this possible. Eight years of R&D later, and the gloves are ready for everyone to buy. “I always longed for more expressive control of the tech in the studio and on stage,” said the Grammy winner, back in 2012.

Inspired by MIT’s Elly Jessop, and Max Matthews before that, Heap’s gloves enable electronic musicians to step out from behind their banks of gear to actually perform to their audience.

The first pair of Mi.Mu gloves were created by Heap alongside researchers at the University of the West of England in Bristol. The idea was to use them as part of a live show for Earth Day, with an initial setup that included gloves, a backpack and bolero to house all the tech. Refinements to the system shrunk the technology to just the gloves, which Heap has used in shows ever since. And Heap has been a prominent ambassador for her new concept, showing them off at various music, technology and arts conferences.

Around 30 pairs of these prototype / first-generation gloves were made and were essentially hacked together. Because they were mostly intended as little more than custom prototypes for touring musicians, the initial models cost £5,000 (around $6,400). But they quickly found an audience. Arianna Grande used a pair during her 2015 tour.

“The first models were hand-sewn by Rachel,” said Dr. Tom Mitchell, who created the gloves with Heap. Rachel is Rachel Freire, a fashion and costume designer, making each pair in between jobs on movies like Avengers: Age of Ultron and Alien: Covenant. “It would take me about two days, solid, just to stitch the gloves,” said Freire, who also designed the gloves.

Much has changed between then and now, and while Freire still hand-makes the gloves, the process is a little faster. At an intimate launch in North London, UK, the company showed off a new edition of Mi.Mu, demonstrated through performances by Chagall van den Berg and Lula Mehbratu. Heap herself was absent, journeying to Toronto to perform at a Blockchain conference.

Mitchell and his team have made a number of refinements to the gloves as Mi.Mu has evolved into a genuine consumer product.

For one, the flex sensors have been redesigned for better accuracy, so it can pick up subtle pinch gestures with the fingers. That offers a greater variety of controls and enables performers to move in a more natural way. A redesigned IMU (inertial measurement unit) helps ensure the gloves always know where they are in three-dimensional space. The prior models often needed to be told which way the performer was facing to avoid errors creeping in.

Another big problem was latency, with a noticeable delay between a command and an action with the first version. This time around, the gloves use 802.11n WiFi, which has ensured that when someone does an action, the system instantly obeys the command.

Finally, the new gloves have removable batteries, chunky cells that, the company promises, will run for six hours on a charge. Artists will be able to swap in a fresh battery between a sound check and a live show, ridding them of panic over power. These batteries were originally designed for vapes, but suit Mi.Mu’s purposes perfectly.

With an eye on durability and sustainability, Friere looked for materials that were both recyclable and hard-wearing. She eventually settled on Yulex, a natural, environmentally friendly alternative to Neoprene popularised by sportswear-company Patagonia. The material, along with some tactical gluing, helps strengthen the gloves, since they have both an open palm and no fingertips.

This time around, the gloves are glued in layers rather than sewn, helping them look sleeker and feel more comfortable. It’s a practice created by Nick Turner’s Sew Systems and is more commonly found in high-end lingerie and sportswear. It’s indicative of the very broad, multidisciplinary team that Heap and Mitchell assembled to create this new type of product.

“We want people to be able to express themselves,” said Mi.Mu’s chief, Adam Stark, on the future direction of the company. The hope is that, eventually, the Mi.Mu gloves will fall in cost to be the price of an electric guitar, but it’ll take some time to get there. In the meantime, the gloves have found many uses that its creators didn’t conceive of, including use by disabled musicians. Kris Halpin has cerebral palsy, so struggles to play the guitar and piano — but has no problem using the gloves.

I tried the new Mi.Mu gloves very briefly, but the differences between them and the first version were staggering. The latency and fuzziness of the gestures seem to be all gone, replaced with a seamless setup that makes the virtual feel very real. Drumming on a virtual kit, you can pretty much pretend that you’re Phil Selway, with line after line of drums in front of you.

Both Mitchell and Freire describe the initial editions of the Mi.Mu as “bespoke tailoring” thanks to the painstaking process of assembly. That, combined with the £5,000 price and very long lead time meant that the gloves weren’t — until this point — ever actually on sale. “People would email in, asking how they could become part of this ‘exclusive club,'” said Adam Stark. With the price cut in half to £2,500 (around $3,220) and mass production on the way, the days of the exclusive club are gone.

The new Mi.Mu gloves are available to pre-order today, with deliveries expected to commence on July 1st.

It could arrive this year for around $15 per month.

Amazon could be preparing to set itself apart from rivals like Spotify and Apple in the music space, as it’s said to be working on a high-fidelity streaming platform. It might arrive later this year for around $15/month. Amazon Music Unlimited starts at $4/month, while Amazon added a free, ad-supported music service to Alexa devices last week.

The rumored upcoming platform will reportedly offer “better than CD quality” music. So far, at least one major record company has signed up to license its recordings, according to Music Business Worldwide, while Amazon is supposedly in talks with other significant rights holders. If the platform comes to light, it could help Amazon differentiate itself further from Spotify and Apple Music, neither of which have high-fidelity options.

At the $15/month price level, the platform would undercut the likes of Tidal and Deezer, both of which offer high-fidelity tiers for $20/month. Amazon could eat into both of their user numbers significantly if it bundles its subscription with its other services, or, for instance, offers Prime members a discount.

However, a higher bit rate means more data, and many users will need to be conscious of how much their data allowance music streaming is gobbling up. As such, they might be happy to stick with the current offerings on the market.