MIT's Cheetah 3 Robot Can Climb, Run, and Jump Without Vision

The Cheetah 3 robot developed by engineers at the MIT can now leap and gallop across rough terrain, climb a staircase littered with debris, and quickly recover its balance when suddenly yanked or shoved, all while essentially being blind.

Described as "blind locomotion", the 90-pound mechanical beast is intentionally designed to do all this without relying on cameras or any external environmental sensors.

The design may also be used for exploring disaster zones and other dangerous or inaccessible environments and versatile tasks such as power plant inspection, the researchers said.

"There are many unexpected behaviours the robot should be able to handle without relying too much on vision," said Sangbae Kim, Associate Professor and robot's designer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.

Apple Earnings Show Growing Immunity to Smartphone Malaise

Apple's results confirmed that, while the days of double-digit smartphone industry growth are over, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has a plan to withstand the slowdown.

The shares gained after the company reported iPhone sales in line with analysts' expectations, gave a bullish revenue forecast and highlighted a surging services business. A new $100 billion (roughly Rs. 6.68 lakh crores) stock repurchase plan and higher dividend also helped. The stock jumped 3.2 percent to $174.52 (roughly Rs. 11,700) at 9:33am in New York.

The numbers show that Cook's strategy of selling a growing array of services through a base of more than 1.3 billion Apple devices is working. The smartphone sector saw shipments fall 2 percent in the past year, according to Strategy Analytics, so the company must evolve beyond its reliance on a device that still accounts for more than 60 percent of revenue.

"Slowly but surely, [Apple] is morphing into more than just an iPhone story and is displaying ability to sustain revenue growth irrespective of iPhone trajectory," Amit Daryanani, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, wrote in a research note.

The company reported iPhone unit sales grew just 2.9 percent in the fiscal second quarter. While the flagship iPhone X may not have matched the hype from its launch late last year, the device's $999 (roughly Rs. 66,700) starting price helped boost phone revenue growth 14 percent.

Asus ZenFone 5Z Review

Asus took a page out of Xiaomi's book by offering powerful hardware at an affordable price point when it brought the ZenFone Max Pro M1 (Review) to the market earlier this year. We were impressed with the device when we reviewed it, since it offered stock Android and a powerful processor, and it even managed to undercut the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro (Review) in terms of price, making it excellent value for money. With the ZenFone 5Z, Asus seems to be at it again, this time at a higher price point and against a very powerful smartphone, the OnePlus 6 (Review).

The newly launched Asus ZenFone 5Z sports a flagship-class Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor and dual cameras at the back, and starts at a surprisingly low price in India. With the ZenFone 5Z, Asus is not only creating competition for the OnePlus 6, it is also promising more features and benefits at a lower price point. But does the ZenFone 5Z have what it takes to be our new choice of budget flagship? We are about to find out.

• Asus ZenFone 5Z design

The Asus ZenFone 5Z is available in Meteor Silver and Midnight Blue colour options. The phone has 2.5D glass at the front and the back, while the frame between these layers is made of aerospace-grade aluminium. Pick it up and you will feel the premium materials used in its construction. The glass and metal get cold to the touch in an air-conditioned room. While the ZenFone 5Z has a glass back, it doesn't make the most of it as it lacks wireless charging. Also, there is no mention of any sort of waterproofing, so you will need to shield this phone from the elements.

'Norman,' When Artificial Intelligence Goes Psycho

No, it's not a new horror film. It's Norman: also known as the first psychopathic artificial intelligence, just unveiled by US researchers.

The goal is to explain in layman's terms how algorithms are made, and to make people aware of AI's potential dangers.

Norman "represents a case study on the dangers of Artificial Intelligence gone wrong when biased data is used in machine learning algorithms," according to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Pinar Yanardag, Manuel Cebrian and Iyad Rahwan, part of an MIT team, added: "there is a central idea in machine learning: the data you use to teach a machine learning algorithm can significantly influence its behaviour."

"So when we talk about AI algorithms being biased on unfair, the culprit is often not the algorithm itself, but the biased data that was fed to it," they said via email.

Hence the idea of creating Norman, which was named after the psychopathic killer Norman Bates in the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock film "Psycho."

Hotstar's New UI Looks a Lot Like Netflix

Hotstar and Netflix are competing with each other - and Amazon's Prime Video - for a lead in the online content streaming market in India, and a recent development might make it harder for you to differentiate between the two.

Hotstar recently updated its interface to something very similar to what Netflix offers. The updated interface, which recently debuted on Amazon Fire TV Stick, features a giant show preview that has links to all the episodes and trailers of the selected show. There is also an episode listing with thumbnails, titles, and synopsis of different episodes. All the seasons are also available on the episode listing to let viewers easily move from one season to another.

Among other similarities, Hotstar on Amazon Fire TV Stick offers a show preview once you select any of the shows from the catalogue. This preview screen has the synopsis of the show at the left side. There are also the links to the latest episode, seasons, and previous episodes below the synopsis. Below the episode links, there are the links to Extra clips, if any. There is also the poster of the episode at the right side.

Asphalt 9 for Android and iOS Could Be the Best Mobile Racing Game Yet

Asphalt 9: Legends for Android and iOS is the latest in the long-running series of racing games from Gameloft. It’s currently in soft-launch in the Philippines, Thailand, and France. Asphalt 9 download size is around 1.3GB on Android and iOS. While Asphalt 9 is not available in India officially, we’ve managed to check it out on a OnePlus 6 and an iPhone 6s to give you an idea of what to expect when it’s finally out in India.

First up, Asphalt 9 looked fantastic on both smartphones - from highly detailed car models complete with reflections and incidental details like meters on the dashboard to the tracks themselves with snow and water effects in full view. Be it the snowcapped peaks of the Himalayas to the gloomy wet roads of Scotland, every single inch of Asphalt 9 is spectacular.

Even insignificant bits like tires heating up when applying the breaks to the dust that’s kicked up when you use nitrous to boost through the game, it’s obvious that developer Gameloft Barcelona has spared no expense in making Asphalt 9 gorgeous, which is an impressive feat when you consider how visually stunning Asphalt 8 is.

However, graphics aren’t the only area that’s seen an upgrade. Asphalt 9 gameplay has seen some interesting changes versus Asphalt 8. You can double tap the left side of the screen to spin your car, allowing you push your opponents off the track. Double tapping the right side of the screen uses your nitro to send out a purple pulse that makes your ride invincible. If you tap the right side of the screen when the nitro bar is blue, you earn points for pulling off what the game calls a Perfect Nitro, increasing your score. It’s similar to Gears of War’s Active Reload mechanic.

Amazon Fire TV Stick, Kindle, Echo Now Available in India With 2-Hour Deliveries via Prime Now

Amazon Fire TV Stick, Kindle, and Echo devices can now be availed in select cities in India within two hours, through the Prime Now app. The app-only ultrafast delivery service is initially available in Bengaluru, Mumbai, New Delhi, and Hyderabad, and only for Prime members. To attract customers, Amazon has also announced a limited period introductory offer under which the Amazon devices are available with 15 percent discount. The latest development comes weeks after the e-commerce giant rebranded the original Amazon Now app as Prime Now in the country and introduced its two-hour fast delivery service exclusively for Prime members in select cities. Essentially, with the move, Amazon has brought the Fire TV Stick, Kindle, and Echo devices to the Prime Now store.

By leveraging the two-hour ultra-fast delivery service, Prime members can order the Fire TV Stick, All New Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite (Wi-Fi), Echo Dot, and Echo anytime between 6am to midnight. You can also avail the 15 percent discount. This brings down the price of the Fire TV Stick to Rs. 3,399 (MRP Rs. 3,999), All New Kindle to Rs. 5,099 (MRP Rs. 5,999), Kindle Paperwhite (Wi-Fi) to Rs. 9,349 (MRP Rs. 10,999), and Echo Dot to Rs. 3,699 (MRP Rs. 4,499), and Echo to Rs. 8,499 (MRP Rs. 9,999).

There May Be a Better Answer Than Electric Cars

Erich Sixt, chairman and chief executive officer of the Pullach, Germany-based global car rental company that bears his family's name, recently described electric cars as a "costly political error" given their still inferior range, long charging times and the huge investment necessary to expand the charging infrastructure. It may have been a self-serving statement (renters don't like them), but he may also well be right: If a paper published on Thursday correctly estimates the cost of extracting carbon dioxide from the air, regulators could do better to concentrate on that technology rather than on forcing vehicle electrification.

Carbon Engineering is a company co-founded by Harvard physicist David Keith and funded, among others, by Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Since 2015, the firm has been running a CO2 extraction plant in Canada, testing out a technology that was until recently rejected as too costly. Keith and his collaborators, who wrote the paper, have used an independent cost assessment to calculate that using the process they developed allows the capture of a metric ton of carbon dioxide at the cost of $94 (roughly Rs. 6,400) to $232 (roughly Rs. 15,800), depending on variable costs such as the price of natural gas. (Since energy is used in the process, about 0.9 tons of CO2 is actually removed from the atmosphere with each ton captured).

That is far lower than previous estimates for the technology, ranging from $550 (roughly Rs. 37,400) to $1,300 (roughly Rs. 88,400) per ton. The paper's authors explain that the reduction comes from simply using industrial equipment already available on the market without much customization, a strategy they put in place at the Canadian plant.

PUBG Xbox One Has Over 8 Million Players; Xbox One X PUBG Bundle Announced

Fortnite may be hogging the spotlight, but that doesn't mean PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) doesn't have an audience. Microsoft has announced that PUBG on the Xbox One has over 8 million players and is the "most popular games on the platform since its release as a console launch exclusive in the Xbox Game Preview program". Furthermore, the company also revealed a new bundle for the game featuring the Xbox One X. Also included is an Xbox Live Gold subscription, Xbox Game Pass, and of course an Xbox One controller. Microsoft says the Xbox One X PUBG bundle will be "available later this week" for $499 (around Rs. 34,200) "at most major retailers worldwide". Here's what you get with the Xbox One X PUBG bundle.

Xbox One X PUBG bundle

• Xbox One X with a 1TB hard drive
• Xbox Wireless Controller
• Full-game download of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
• One month Xbox Game Pass trial
• One month Xbox Live Gold trial 

Do You Really Know What Your Kid's Doing on That Device?

The 7th grader looks desperate as she approaches. She's just been to a cyber-security talk at her school, where she raised her hand when asked if she has a social media account - Snapchat, in her case.

Most students at Chicago's Nathan Hale Elementary School, many of them younger than the required social media age of 13, did the same when retired police detective Rich Wistocki inquired about Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat or any other number of applications and games.

"Please, please, pleeeeease, don't use my picture or a video of me raising my hand," this particular kid begs repeatedly, despite assurances that she was not caught on camera.

"Don't use mine either," a friend quickly pipes in, as they reclaim and then busily start scrolling through the mobile phones, which all students at Nathan Hale are required to give to their homeroom teachers during the school day.

They are pleading because their parents don't know they're on social media, the gateway to the secret digital lives many of today's teens are living - and that, for a good number, might also include:

- Using video and chat functions to meet strangers on apps ranging from Musical.ly to WhatsApp and Houseparty;

- Storing risqué photos in vault apps that look like something as innocent as a calculator - and then trading those photos like baseball cards;

- Using Text Burner and other apps to harass and bully peers with anonymous messages;

- Using apps that secretly record messages on Snapchat and other apps before they disappear;

Moto G6 Review

After a rather lean period, Motorola India has kicked off its 2018 innings with the launch of the Moto G6 and Moto G6 Play. The Lenovo-owned company has refreshed the design language of its budget-minded G series and has equipped both smartphones with tall 18:9 displays, which have already become ubiquitous.

We have the Moto G6 in for review, which adds a rear dual-camera setup to the mix and starts at Rs. 13,999 for the variant with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. While past G-series models from Motorola have been received warmly by buyers and critics alike, the Moto G6 is arriving at a time when competition in the sub-Rs. 20,000 market has heated up considerably.

Does the Moto G6 have what it takes to compete with the likes of the Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1(Review), which received top marks from us at Gadgets 360, and the Redmi Note 5 Pro (Review), which has established itself as the segment benchmark? Let's find out in our full review.