Pokemon Masters is a Pokemon game that takes place on the island of Pasio and features dozens of trainers, gym leaders, and champions to fight with and against in 3-on-3 team trainer battles.
Players use their Sync Pair Pikachu to battle alongside Rosa, Barry, Flannery, Eirika, Skyla, and more to take on the Pokemon Masters League and collect 5 badges.
Apple has said it will no longer have human contractors listen to audio recordings of customers using its digital assistant Siri.
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The tech giant’s apology comes about a month after a whistleblower told The Guardian about the practice, which Apple said in its statement on Wednesday, was part of the company’s “Siri quality evaluation process,” called grading.
The report raised privacy concerns among customers and Apple said Wednesday it halted the grading program immediately.
“We realize we haven’t been fully living up to our high ideals, and for that we apologize,” Apple said in the statement.
The company said it will resume the Siri grading program this fall, but with changes, including not keeping any audio recordings from Siri.
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However, customers will be allowed to opt in to let Apple listen to audio samples, but only Apple employees will be able to listen, and “inadvertent triggers” of Siri will be deleted, the company said.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | %Chg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAPL | APPLE INC. | 205.53 | +1.37 | +0.67% |
“Apple is committed to putting the customer at the center of everything we do, which includes protecting their privacy,” the company said. “We created Siri to help them get things done, faster and easier, without compromising their right to privacy. We are grateful to our users for their passion for Siri, and for pushing us to constantly improve.”
In July, The Guardian reported that Siri could be activated by something as mundane as the sound of a zipper -- leaving any conversation open to surveillance and accompanied by user data like location and contact details.
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Siri is not the only assistant listening in on the recordings of users. In April, it was revealed that Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa was at times recording private conversations. In July, it also emerged that Google’s Assistant was doing the same.
FOX Business’ Tuttie Dedvukaj contributed to this report.
Surprise, Apple didn’t release yet another beta version of iOS 13. The company released the first developer beta of iOS and iPadOS 13.1 instead.
This is a curious move, as Apple doesn’t usually share beta versions of .1 updates before the release of major updates. What’s even more surprising is that Apple released new beta versions for watchOS 6.0 and tvOS 13.0 today.
Chances are that iOS 13.0 is pretty much done by this point. Usually, Apple releases major versions of iOS a few days after announcing the new iPhone — the press event will likely take place at some point in early September. The company might release iOS 13.0 a bit earlier than expected this year.
Apple removed some minor features in iOS 13 in early beta versions of iOS 13. As MacRumors spotted, many of those features are now back in the beta version of iOS 13.1. Those features include Shortcuts automations and the ability to share your ETA in Apple Maps.
It’s clear that Apple is trying to make iOS 13.0 as stable as possible, even if it means releasing some features a bit later this fall.
Smartphone networks are constantly evolving: adding more capacity, expanding to new areas, and generally trying to get a leg up on the competition. But while improvements are always being made, every few years we see a massive shift as the industry transitions to the latest technology. It's been about eight years now since we saw 3G start giving way to 4G, and right now we're witnessing the early days of the move from 4G to 5G.
Of course, to take advantage of 5G you're going to need more than just a 5G smartphone — you'll have to be connecting to a 5G network. How can you make sure you're ready to do that? We're taking a look at the availability of 5G in the US: where it is now, where it's coming next, and how to get it.
Considering the physical size of the US, and the mountains of existing infrastructure in place, upgrading the nation's cellular backbone for 5G is no small undertaking. And while all the carriers are eager to demonstrate high-speed 5G availability, actual access to 5G has been plagued by stipulations, misrepresentations, and half-truths.
Some of that stems from confusion and ambiguity over just what counts as "5G," a situation particularly capitalized on by AT&T and its 5G Evolution scheme. And to be fair, there are a lot of moving parts to keep track of, like which frequency bands a particular carrier is using — and understanding why factors like that could influence performance more than on previous-generation networks.
But mostly, we're just waiting for the carriers to flip 5G on, and that's a slow process, market by market. As we inch our way along towards more-or-less nationwide coverage, we're keeping track of the four big networks and their efforts to deliver 5G. Where coverage is currently available, we've listed it — though keep in mind that access can be very, very spotty for now, and some cities don't see more than a few isolated blocks of 5G reception.
Where available, we've also listed those markets set to receive 5G "soon." Depending on the carrier, that might be in a few months, or maybe in a year or more, but all these cities are on the road maps. There also may be more markets in the works than just those displayed below, but these are the ones we've seen publicly disclosed.
Now:
Soon:
Now:
Soon:
5G coverage for all four carriers should be up to date as of the time of publication. We'll check back in with this list every couple weeks to update it with new entries as 5G sweeps across the nation.
The global smart speaker market grew 55.4% in the second quarter to reach 26.1 million shipments, according to a new report from Canalys. Amazon continued to lead the race, accounting for 6.6 million units shipped in the quarter. Google, however, fell to the third spot as China’s Baidu surged ahead. Baidu in Q2 grew a sizable 3,700% to reach 4.5 million units, overtaking Google’s 4.3 million units shipped.
China’s market overall doubled its quarterly shipments to 12.6 million units, or more than twice the U.S.’s 6.1 million total. The latter represents a slight (2.4%) decline since the prior quarter.
Baidu’s growth in the quarter was attributed to aggressive marketing and go-to-market campaigns. It was particularly successful in terms of smart displays, which accounted for 45% of the products it shipped.
“Local network operator’s interests on the [smart display] device category soared recently. This bodes well for Baidu as it faces little competition in the smart display category, allowing the company to dominate in the operator channel,” noted Canalys Research Analyst Cynthia Chen.
Meanwhile, Google was challenged by the Nest rebranding in Q2, the analyst firm said.
The report also suggested that Google should to introduce a revamped smart speaker portfolio to rekindle consumer interest. The Google Home device hasn’t been updated since launch — still sporting the air freshener-style looks it had back in 2016. And the Google Home mini hasn’t received much more than a color change.
Instead, Google’s attention as of late has been on making it easier for device manufacturers to integrate with Google Assistant technology, in addition to its increased focus on smart displays.
Amazon, by comparison, has updated its Echo line of speakers several times while expanding Alexa to devices with screens like the Echo Spot and Show, and to those without like the Echo Plus, Echo Dot, Echo Auto, and others — even clocks and microwaves, as sort of public experiments in voice computing.
That said, both Amazon and Google turned their attention to non-U.S. markets in Q2, the report found. 50% of Amazon’s smart speaker shipments were outside the U.S. in Q2, up from 32% in Q2 last year. And 55% of Google’s shipments were outside the U.S., up from 42% in Q2 2018.
Beyond the top 3 — Amazon, Baidu and now No. 3 Google — the remaining top 5 included Alibaba and Xiaomi, with 4.1 million and 2.8 million units shipped in Q2, respectively.
The rest of the market, which would also include Apple’s HomePod, totaled 3.7 million units.
