Platinum Crib: Google Patent Releases Screen You Can Rip Off

Platinum Crib: Google Patent Releases Screen You Can Rip Off: Digital screens can already be bent and rolled . But Google seems to want to make them tearable too. In a patent filing published Thursd...

Google Wants To Inject Cyborg Lenses Into Your Eyeballs

Google has patented a new technology that would let the company inject a computerized lens directly into your eyeball.

The company has been developing smart glasses and even smart contact lenses for years. But Google's newest patented technology would go even further -- and deeper.
(Note: the squeamish should skip to the next paragraph.) In its patent application, which the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved last week, Google says it could remove the lens of your eye, inject fluid into your empty lens capsule and then place an electronic lens in the fluid.

Once equipped with your cyborg lenses, you would never need glasses or contacts again. In fact, you might not even need a telescope or a microscope again. And who needs a camera when your eyes can capture photos and videos?

The artificial, computerized lenses could automatically adjust to help you see objects at a distance or very close by. The lenses could be powered by the movement of your eyeball, and they could even connect to a nearby wireless device.

Google says that its patented lenses could be used to cure presbyopia, an age-related condition in which people's eyes stiffen and their ability to focus is diminished or lost. It could also correct common eye problems, such as myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism.

Today, we cure blurry vision with eyeglasses or contact lenses. But sometimes vision is not correctable.
And there are clear advantages to being a cyborg with mechanical eyes.

Yet Google ( , Tech30 ) noted that privacy could become a concern. If your computerized eyes are transmitting data all the time, that signal could allow law enforcement or hackers to identify you or track your movements. Google said that it could make the mechanical lenses strip out personally identifying information so that your information stays secure.

Before you sign up for cyborg eyes, it's important to note that Google and many other tech companies patent technologies all the time. Many of those patented items don't end up getting made into actual products. So it's unclear if Google will ever be implanting computers into your eyes -- soon or ever.

Google Patent Releases Screen You Can Rip Off

Digital screens can already be bent and rolled . But Google seems to want to make them tearable too.
In a patent filing published Thursday, inventors detailed a new kind of device that people can rip and then put back together. When the screen is modified, the contents are modified as well.
Google uses a lost dog flier to illustrate how it could work. The flier shows a photo of a dog when it's wholly intact. When torn, the smaller display presents the picture of the dog and a phone number.
The patent filing was first spotted by Mikhail Avady, the founder of legal software company
ClientSide .

Avady says the patent is important because it points to two concepts long promised by sci-fi films: modular displays and disposable displays.

Samsung, one of the biggest manufacturers of digital screens, showed off a way that modular displays can work during CES this year. By pushing together multiple small screens, Samsung made a screen that was even bigger.

Disposable displays probably won't emerge as a viable technology until manufacturing costs drop significantly. But engineers have also been working on ways to make digital pixels appear on regular paper too.
"We hold patents on a variety of ideas -- some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, some don't," a Google statement said.
"Prospective product announcements should not necessarily be inferred from our patents."

Yahoo Is In A "Serious Fall"

At least according to the disclosure documents that Yahoo is giving potential buyers. Re/code's Kara Swisher has seen "the book" and says it "shows a company in what has been a serious free fall."

Yahoo's revenue is expected to drop 15% and earnings to decline more than 20%, according to the report.

In February, Yahoo started looking for a buyer for its core businesses, including search, mail and news. The deadline for initial bids is Monday, April 11, according to Re/code.

The company expects to lose over a thousand employees this year, from 10,500 in 2015 to 9,000 at the end of 2016. But even with far fewer heads,
Yahoo's ( , Tech30 ) stock-based compensation will continue to hit $400 million.

"That's double what it was only a few years previously and means CEO Marissa Mayer is loading up valued employees with outsize share grants to get them to stay," Swisher wrote.

The documents also included an enthusiastic pitch for Yahoo's assisted-search technology Index, a potential competitor to Siri, Cortana, and Alexa-type assistants.

Swisher said investors find the company's numbers confusing, and the book does not make clear what departments are doing well. Even so, investors told Swisher they are planning to bid.

Swisher said there was more from the book to reveal. Yahoo did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Nike Unveils Auto-Lacing Sneakers

Nike has unveiled its long-awaited sneaker with self-tying "adaptive" laces.

It's called the HyperAdapt 1.0, and Nike CEO Mark Parker introduced it at the Nike Innovation 2016 event in New York City this week.

How does a sneaker tie itself?
"When you step in, your heel will hit a sensor and the system will automatically tighten. Then there are two buttons on the side to tighten and loosen. You can adjust it until it's perfect."
That was how Nike senior innovator Tiffany Beers explained it.

The technology has been in the works since 2013, and it's based on what went into the Nike MAG -- a replica of Marty McFly's self-lacing sneakers in "Back to the Future" that Nike made last year.

Nike said the HyperAdapt makes use of a "more technical, sport version" of the automatic tying mechanism.

The HyperAdapt 1.0 will be available in three colors to Nike+ members this holiday season. The company said interested buyers can create an account online and sign up for updates about the shoe.

The Nike+ app will be revamped in June and will give users access to "coveted products and events," the company said in a press release.
Shoe designer Tinker Hatfield said the HyperAdapt shoe aims to give athletes the ability to quickly make small adjustments to how tight or loose their shoes fit.

"That's an important step because feet undergo an incredible amount of stress during competition," he said in a statement.
Nike did not have pricing information available about the HyperAdapt 1.0.

iPhone 6s Phone Has Been A Major Disappointment For Apple

The iPhone 6S has the dubious distinction of being the first iPhone ever to sell fewer models than its predecessor. And it's not underperforming the iPhone 6 by a little bit -- Apple sold 51.2 million iPhones last quarter, 10 million fewer than it sold during the first three months of 2015.

On a conference call with analysts on Tuesday, CEO Tim Cook said the percentage of customers who are upgrading from older iPhones to the iPhone 6S is way lower than the upgrade rate to the iPhone 6 from a year ago.
"I don't mean just a hair lower -- it's a lot lower," said Cook. "If we would have the same rate on iPhone 6S that we did iPhone 6, it would be time for a huge party. It would be a huge difference."

The iPhone 6S' poor performance dragged down Apple's overall sales last quarter, causing Apple's revenue to fall for the first time in 13 years.

Why the iPhone 6S has been a disappointment
In many ways, the iPhone 6S was destined to fail.

The iPhone 6S had a set of relatively unappealing upgrades compared to the iPhone 6. 3D Touch was its most innovative feature, but it's utility is still rather limited. It also has a better camera than the iPhone 6. Those features haven't provided a compelling case for customers to put down $650.

There's also a case of bad timing: The release of the iPhone 6S coincided with the death of two-year contracts in the United States. American wireless customers are now incentivized to keep their phones longer, allowing them to pay less every month on their bill.
And smartphone sales have been slumping overall, as the global economy worsens. That's particularly true in China, where Apple's sales fell the most last quarter.

Richard Windsor, analyst at Edison Investment Research, said he thinks comparing the iPhone 6S to its predecessor is unfair. The iPhone 6 addressed Apple customers' clamoring desire for a bigger phone. The bigger screen size helped drive upgrades at an unprecedented rate that the modestly improved iPhone 6S couldn't match.

"There was a lot of pent up demand for the device and many users also switched from Android to iOS," Windsor said. "This phenomenon is now over and iPhone demand has normalized, leaving Apple looking at declines."

Can the iPhone 7 restore Apple's mojo?
Analysts and Apple shareholders are holding out hope that the iPhone 7 can produce the same kind of boost that the iPhone 6 gave Apple.
There's reason for optimism. The upgrade cycle for people who purchased iPhone 6 phones is set to begin in September -- most iPhone owners skip a generation when they upgrade. And Cook hinted that there are many customers with older iPhones who were unimpressed with the iPhone 6S and are holding out for the iPhone 7, noting that there's "quite a bit of room" for upgrades down the road.

But there's plenty of room for skepticism too. What unaddressed markets can the iPhone 7 address? Apple already went smaller and cheaper with the iPhone SE , and it went bigger and more powerful with the iPhone 6S Plus.
Rumored iPhone 7 features , including wireless charging, a thinner profile (and no headphone jack), dual cameras and a curved all-glass body sounds intriguing. But it's unclear that any of those are what customers are clamoring for.
Related: Apple could be radically redesigning the iPhone

"Apple is not innovating enough on the product front to drive sales," said Neil Saunders, CEO of Conlumino. "In our view Apple's last product unveilings were rather lackluster and characterized a company that, while still on the cutting edge of technology, seems to have run out of radical new ideas."

Apple ( , Tech30 ) hopes that the iPhone 6 isn't its bestselling iPhone ever. But if it can't come up with something truly revolutionary in the iPhone 7, the company's best days may be behind it.

China Restaurant Debuts Robot Waiters

(CNN) — It's tempting to herald each new announcement of humankind's glorious automated future with the same PR enthusiasm as the creators of our latest computerized advances.
We've bought into the hype ourselves from time to time.

Like when we proclaimed science fiction as "science fact" after a Japanese hotel unveiled its ultra-creepy robot staff .
But this week we've been asking ourselves how big a step forward is having our dumplings and roasted duck delivered to us by uncoordinated cyborgs.

When the "Taste and Aroma" restaurant in Guiyang, capital of China's Guizhou province, rolled out its new robotic wait staff this week, we thought, "Cool, let's check it out." (See video above.)

Trouble is, robot waiters have been bleeping and blorping in restaurants across China since at least 2014 and often haven't lived up to expectations.

On April 4, China's Workers' Daily newspaper reported that three restaurants in the Chinese city of Guangzhou recently sacked their robotic staff for incompetence.

"Not only could robots not carry food with too much soup, they also frequently break down," a staffer was quoted as saying.
"So our boss has stopped using them."
Two of the restaurants reliant on the machine servers actually had to close down.

Dumb waiters?
While on first glance the five new robots at "Taste and Aroma" seem super-futuristic, it turns out they can only move along fixed paths and are unable to respond to requests from customers.

Frankly, we expect more from our interns -- who on their first day in the office can be programmed to fetch tea and coffee faster and cheaper than the $6,500 (each) Chinese kitchen bots.

Don't get us wrong.
We're still interested in the future -- and robots.
Next time we're in Guiyang, we might even order a bowl of noodles from one.
Assuming it's been pre-loaded with gawking-tourist empathy, we might force it to pose for pictures with us.

Local Guizhou media even vouched for their uniformity (report in Chinese), suggesting they won't discriminate between different customers.
But until they're able to deliver our food as efficiently as the servers on roller skates back at the old 1950s drive-ins, we're not going to worry too much about their takeover of the world.

CITE: A $1 billion City No One Calls Home

CITE is a full scale model of an American town in the New Mexico desert

The £1 billion city will be used to undertake ambitious experiments and test new products
(CNN) — In the arid plains of the southern New Mexico desert, between the site of the first atomic bomb test and the U.S.-Mexico border, a new city is rising from the sand.

Planned for a population of 35,000, the city will showcase a modern business district downtown, and neat rows of terraced housing in the suburbs. It will be supplied with pristine streets, parks, malls and a church.
But no one will ever call it home.

The CITE (Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation) project is a full-scale model of an ordinary American town. Yet it will be used as a petri dish to develop new technologies that will shape the future of the urban environment.

The $1 billion scheme, led by telecommunications and tech firm Pegasus Global Holdings , will see 15-square-miles dedicated to ambitious experiments in fields such as transport, construction, communication and security.

CITE will include specialized zones for developing new forms of agriculture, energy, and water treatment. An underground data collection network will provide detailed, real-time feedback.

"The vision is an environment where new products, services and technologies can be demonstrated and tested without disrupting everyday life," says Pegasus Managing Director Robert Brumley.

Without a human population to worry about, the possibilities are endless.
Driverless vehicles could be used on responsive roads, monitored from above by traffic drones. Homes could be designed to survive natural disasters, and fitted with robotic features. Alternative energy sources such as Thorium power could be tested at scale.

"You can bring new things to have them stressed, break them, and find out the laws of unintended consequences," says Brumley. "This should become like a magnet where people with ideas and technologies come, and not just test but interact."

The director describes CITE as an "intermediary step" between lab testing a technology and it reaching the public. He believes the process will deliver more market-ready products and address the 'Valley of Death' -- the shortfall that exists between investment in research and development, and the revenues this generates.

"The US spends billions of dollars on research and gets 2-3% return in commercial products," says Brumley. "This facility could extend and increase the return."

If you build it, they will come


After first being proposed in 2011, CITE struggled to find suitable land and the project was shelved for two years. One site close to the Organ Mountains was nixed when President Obama declared it part of a National Monument.

But a new location has been chosen, and pending the release of commercial licenses, work can begin. Builders will be on site this year, and the city could be operational as early as 2018.

Pegasus has support from the state of New Mexico, which signed a Memorandum of Understanding pledging its commitment to the project, including through "advice and guidance" on the epic construction.

The company expects CITE to attract prestige clients from the public and commercial sectors, including government departments, academic institutions and some of the world's largest technology companies. It is hoped that the city could eventually rival tech hubs such as Silicon Valley.

High-concept 'future city' designs are spreading across the world, from waste-free Masdar City in the UAE to Portugal's PlanIT Valley, which uses 100 million connected sensors.
But CITE's managing director is confident his project will stand out; as the only city that is purely for testing, for the variety and scale of experimentation it allows, and for the range of clients it can serve.

"The facility is open to anybody who wants to test," says Brumley. "That makes it unique."
'Technologies need people'
The concept has been welcomed by leading urban planning experts.

"We need to develop new testing environments that go beyond the conventional models operating today," says Nataly Gattegno, Design Principal at the Future Cities Lab in San Francisco. "It sounds like rapid simulations and evaluations would be possible with CITE, which would allow us to cycle through tests much faster."

Gattegno hopes CITE can lead to deeper conversations about how cities are planned:
"I wonder what this means for the future of the design of our cities. Are we assuming that our cities are static and will look the same in 100 years? What if we want to test a new city rather than just the infrastructure that underlies it?"
Others are skeptical of the premise of testing without people.

"Technologies are not merely artifacts, they are social systems intermediated by materials and devices," says Professor Steve Rayner, co-director of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities. "The idea of 'testing' complex socio-technical systems without the people is bound to yield misleading results because real people frequently interact with materials and devices in ways that are not anticipated by the designer."

"There are many reports of people defeating energy-saving devices in buildings because they want fresh air and prop doors open."
Brumley says that people could be added to a given experiment if necessary, but Rayner rejects this as inadequate.

"The inhabitants of cities are not just interchangeable individuals that can be dropped into experimental settings; they are diverse communities with varied cultures, expectations and behavioral patterns which grow up over time."

Opinions are divided on whether CITE will deliver tangible returns on its bold promise. But at the very least, the test city will provide a fascinating preview of potential futures.

Apple Is Close To Selling Its Billionth iPhone

Between June 29, 2007 -- when the iPhone first went on sale -- and the end of 2015, Apple has sold 896 million iPhones. If Wall Street analysts' forecasts are accurate, Apple will sell its billionth iPhone sometime this summer.

When Apple ( , Tech30 ) provides its quarterly finances on April 25, the company is expected to report that it sold 50 million iPhones during the first three months of 2016.

That would get Apple to 946 million total iPhones sold. During the current quarter, analysts polled by FactSet said they expect Apple to sell another 44 million, pushing the total to 990 million.

Despite some relatively lackluster enthusiasm about the iPhone lately, Apple has an outside shot at getting to 1 billion iPhones before July. To accomplish that, Apple would need to best forecasts by just 10 million iPhones. If the new iPhone SE helps boost sales during the spring, it's within the realm of possibility.

If analysts' forecasts hold true, however, Apple should sell its 1 billionth iPhone in July (Wall Street's estimates currently have Apple selling iPhone No. 1 billion on July 20).
The iPhone is one of the bestselling tech products of all time. For perspective, Apple also makes the bestselling tablet (the iPad) and music player (iPod), and the Mac is among the top selling PCs. Yet Apple has sold more iPhones than Macs, iPads and iPods combined, dating back to 1993.

By itself, the iPhone brought in enough revenue last year ($155 million) to place fifth on the
Fortune 500 list .
One billion is a familiar number to Apple. In November 2014, Apple sold its 1 billionth iOS gadget, which includes iPhones, iPads and the iPod Touch. In January, Apple said it has 1 billion devices that are currently in use by customers.

But selling 1 billion of a single product alone is an even more significant milestone.
The iPhone has been on sale for nine years, but Apple has sold half of its iPhones just over the past two. At its current pace, Apple should sell its 2 billionth iPhone by 2020.