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Jonathan Frankel got the idea for his startup, Nucleus, when he was renovating a house in suburban Philadelphia.

"I have a wife and three very active little boys who like to demolish everything and we wanted to put in an intercom system," Frankel told Business Insider. "The quote came back at $5,000 for literally the same one my parents had put in 20 years before: the beige, analog, ugly system."

Frankel thought there must be a better way, so he went online to research Wi-Fi intercoms. He wasn't thrilled by what he saw, so he decided to build one of his own, a touchscreen device that can be placed anywhere inside a home, and responds to voice commands using Amazon's Alexa technology.

It's a lot more than a typical intercom: also lets you have audio and video chats between rooms, or with other homes that have the system. Plus, you can tap into Alexa to do things like read headlines or listen to music. 

Nucleus went on the market last month and sold out on Amazon.com the first day.

Now, the company has restocked online and received new funding from Amazon's venture arm, the Alexa Fund. The Alexa Fund led Nucleus' $5.6 million Series A round, bringing the company's total funding to $10 million.

Frankel summed up having the support of Amazon in one word: Wonderful.

"They've really been fantastic partners and just good people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and do anything possible," Frankel said. "We had daily conference calls for months before launch."

The company has also had support from another major retailer, though a brick and mortar one: Lowe's.

Frankel said selling the devices — which cost $200 each when you buy more than one — in a physical retail location helped give the startup access to its target customers: regular families around the country. 

Nucleus is has now sold in 47 states and Frankel said the device selling best in the South, in states like Texas and Florida.

"We'd rather have the housewife in Indianapolis buy this than the leading-edge technologist in San Francisco," Frankel said. "We are going after the mainstream family, people who have never heard the term 'IoT' or 'smart home' but they do have family members that they want to talk to."

Now, Nucleus will spend the next few months gearing up for the holiday season. The company also recently made an acquisition of a company called Ily, which has a similar mission and will help Nucleus improve its mobile capabilities.

Frankel said his goal going forward is to keep the device simple and easy to use, and to stay true to the company's mission: bringing families closer together — virtually, at least.

SEE ALSO: I’ve found tons of uses for this impressive and Amazon Echo-compatible video intercom

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NOW WATCH: These secret codes let you access hidden iPhone features

Nike has finally announced when it will begin selling its self-lacing sneakers inspired by the shoes worn by Michael J. Fox in Back to The Future II. According to a tweet from the company's Heidi Burgett, the HyperAdapt 1.0 will be available for "experience & purchase" from the 28th of November, but only in select Nike locations in the US. Pricing is still unknown, but expect a "high price tag," according to a Wired feature on the shoe's development.

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Verizon and Sprint have already started selling Samsung's new Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, an updated version of the device approved by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, and apparently free of the battery problems that plagued the previous model. The new Note 7 phones were originally rumored to go on sale in late October, but appeared today in both carriers' online stores without any indications of a delivery delay. AT&T and T-Mobile, too, say they will be offering the new Note 7 in retail stores from today.

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If at first you don’t succeed ...

Google is ready to jump back into messaging.

Allo, the standalone messaging app that Google announced back in May, is now available to the masses — and probably smarter than any messaging app you’ve ever used.

Allo comes with Google’s AI assistant and search functionality baked in, which means it offers a handful of perks that other apps don’t have. It will automatically suggest replies for you to send based on your conversation. If you’re making dinner plans with a friend, it will surface nearby restaurants. You can ask it for movie times or directions or the score of the game.

“One of the principles we’ve applied here is not to have lots and lots of clutter,” explained Nick Fox, VP of Google’s communications products. “We don’t want people to be having to dig through the app to find the thing they want. We want to surface the right things at the right time.”

All of this “surfacing” happens within an otherwise typical messaging conversation, which is the key here because most people are already having these kinds of conversations inside of other companies’ apps. The artificially intelligent assistant is Google’s differentiator in its quest to capture some of the consumer messaging market from incumbents like Apple (iMessage) and Facebook (WhatsApp and Messenger), both of which have a massive head start.

No surprise, but Fox says he isn’t stressing about Google’s late start.

“While messaging has been around for a while, smart messaging is much newer,” said Fox. “I do think this is a new era where we have a lot of advantages building on top of a lot of these investments we’ve been making around machine intelligence.”

That may finally be the case, though Google has never been able to crack messaging or social media in the past. Its Facebook killer, Google+, has fallen off the map. Its native Android messaging app is just texting, and Google now says that it considers Hangouts (formerly Gchat) to be an enterprise messaging client for things like inter-office communication.

Which brings us back to Allo. Coupled with Duo, the company’s new video chat app, Allo represents the tech giant’s foray back into mobile communication.

We tested the app over the past 24 hours and found it to be relatively useful. For the most part, the assistant felt more helpful than invasive, though that could easily change when the conversation switches from where to meet for lunch to something more serious and private. Google does offer an “incognito” messaging mode for end-to-end encrypted messages. Google’s AI assistant won’t chime in on those message threads.

One other critique: While we didn’t need to go hunting for things inside the app, adding the Google search results to the messaging thread does seem to clutter it up a bit. At times it was tough to tell which messages were sent by a human and which were Google-generated.

Still, Google Allo offers something we haven’t seen before in a messaging app. A nice perk is that you should be able to use Allo to message people even if they don’t have the app. Messages to those without Allo are simply sent as texts.

Allo is available beginning Wednesday for free on both iOS and Android.

Larry Ellison used most of his hour-long keynote session slot at this week's Oracle Open World conference in San Francisco to trash Amazon and its $10 billion Amazon Web Services cloud computing platform.

Amazon has emerged as an unlikely rival to Oracle, poaching loads of database customers over to Amazon Web Services.

Today, Ellison fired back by detailing in great depth all the ways in which the upgraded, "second generation" Oracle Cloud, announced this week, purportedly beats Amazon Web Services.

"Amazon Web Services uses slow first-generation cloud infrastructure," Ellison says.

Chief among Ellison's criticisms of Amazon Web Services: 

• Amazon is slower: According to benchmark tests the company says will soon to be published on its website, Amazon is 24 times slower than the Oracle Cloud at running Oracle databases. He challenged Amazon to produce better results, saying "if they can beat them, we'll put Amazon's result in."
• Amazon's tech is out of date: Ellison says the comparison gets worse when you're using Amazon's home-grown Redshift and Aurora database products. "Why is Amazon Redshift so slow? Because it's 20 years behind Oracle," Ellison says. He says that Amazon's database products lack simple, basic features that have been common to Oracle technology since the 1980s and 90s, and they pay for it in performance.
• Amazon is "more closed than an IBM mainframe:" Because Oracle's database products are available from the Oracle Cloud, the Microsoft Azure cloud, Amazon Web Services, or in a customer's own data center, you have a lot of choice over where and how to use them. Meanwhile, if you want to use Amazon's database products, you have to use Amazon Web Services – which could end up locking you in to using them forever. "I'm not sure that many people will think that's a good idea," Ellison says. 

"You know when I'm talking about Amazon, I'm being nothing but fair. You can count on that," Ellison says. "It's just true."

It wasn't all negative: Ellison also showed off some of the design thinking that went into the next-generation Oracle cloud. He's promoting it as the low-cost, high-reliability alternative to Amazon Web Services for developers of all shapes and sizes to use to build and host their apps. 

But it's clear that Amazon's shadow is hanging heavy over Oracle, which is redoubling its efforts to compete in the cloud, even as its long-time rival Microsoft establishes a solid niche for itself as the #2 player and the cloud of choice in the enterprise. 

Still, while Ellison is as enthusiastic as ever, analysts are skeptical of Oracle's ability to truly be competitive in this fast-growing market.

 

 

SEE ALSO: Larry Ellison says Oracle's new cloud will crush Amazon — but the rest of the world isn't so sure

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NOW WATCH: Amazon has an oddly efficient way of storing stuff in its warehouses

AT&T says it has developed a new technology it calls AirGig, which links up to standard power lines and uses a special transmitter to deliver super-fast gigabit internet wirelessly.

The project is only in its early test phases for now, and AT&T hasn't announced where and when it'll deploy it publicly. But based on the company's blog post announcing AirGig, it sounds like AT&T will likely target rural areas at first.

Gigabit internet is several times faster than the standard broadband most people get in their home. The AirGig project attaches antennas to existing power lines and uses a millimeter wave frequency to broadcast gigabit internet to devices.

AT&T wouldn't describe exactly how the technology works, but would only say it's not tapping into the power of the power line.

AT&T says AirGig is several times cheaper than standard wireless internet because it's cheaper for the company to deploy and deliver. It can also be used over open wireless spectrum.

AT&T isn't the only company exploring wireless gigabit internet. Google, Facebook, and the startup Starry are all experimenting with ways to bathe the world in super-fast wireless internet access.

For now, the technology is clearly in its early days, but it has the potential to create more competition among companies for broadband access and provide broadband to underserved areas.

Here's a video that shows how AT&T's system works:

SEE ALSO: Comcast is going to launch a wireless service in 2017

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NOW WATCH: Why Comcast is getting into the wireless business

Comcast just solidified long-rumored plans to launch its own MVNO cellular service. Speaking at an investor conference moments ago, CEO Brian Roberts revealed that the Comcast "network" will launch by mid-2017 and put a large focus on Wi-Fi hotspots — similar to Google's Project Fi. When away from Wi-Fi connections, Comcast's service will run on the Verizon Wireless network.

Roberts didn't announce pricing or more detailed rollout plans, only saying that Comcast will aim the mobile solution at its existing base of cable customers. That plan would give Comcast its own answer to the one-two punch that AT&T offers through its DirecTV satellite service. In AT&T's case, customers who subscribe to DirecTV get access to an unlimited AT&T...

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If you live in or close to New York City, your cellphone likely made a strange sound at about 8 a.m. this morning. The noise accompanied a special notification about the identity of the chief suspect in this weekend's Chelsea bombing, 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami, with advice to call 911 if he's spotted.

This is the wireless emergency alert (WEA) system in action. Rarely used, the system takes advantage of smartphone technology to push urgent alerts out to the public quickly. Considering smartphone penetration in the U.S. is about 80% of the population — and most users carry their phones or have them nearby at all times — the WEA system is arguably more effective at pushing alerts to the public than TV-based emergency broadcast system (EBS). Read more...

More about Chelsea Bombing, Wireless Emergency Alerts, Wea, Tech, and Mobile

Google will hold a press event on October 4 in San Francisco, the company announced on Monday.

Android Police previously reported that Google will use the event to announce its new "Pixel" lineup of phones, a Chromecast that supports 4K streaming, and details (like price and release date) for Google Home, the Amazon Echo competitor it announced at its I/O developer conference earlier this year.

Google will also likely take the opportunity to show off updates to its upcoming AI-powered virtual assistant that was debuted at I/O in May.

SEE ALSO: BEHOLD: Google's Amazon Echo competitor

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NOW WATCH: Google is trying to kill one of the most annoying things about the internet

CenturyLink says it is cutting more than 3,000 jobs to lower its costs.

The Monroe, Louisiana-based telecommunications company said Monday that it expects to lay off about 7 to 8 percent of its 43,000 employees. That would be roughly 3,000 to 3,400 jobs.

According to industry news site CRN.com, CenturyLink blamed a decline in its landline phone business.

CenturyLink said it is seeking to first trim its headcount on a voluntary basis. Employees who take voluntary severance packages can participate in outplacement assistance programs.

Company spokesman Mark Molzen said most of the layoffs are expected to be done by Dec. 16.

CenturyLink, which acquired Denver’s Qwest in 2011, has been cutting staff locally. In 2011, the company employed 7,400 people in Colorado. Earlier this year, the company employed 5,300 in the state.

The company has gone prior rounds of job cuts. In August 2015, it announced its decision to cut 1,000 workers nationwide, which included about 150 in Colorado.

Though staff has shrunk, the company said that its TV business has grown. As of June 30, the company had 311,000 customers, up from 258,000 the prior year and up 9,000 from first quarter.

In August, CenturyLink said subscribers to its TV service Prism TV have grown with about 500,000 homes in the Denver area that can order the cable-like video service. The company also has made its high-speed gigabit internet service available to about 160,000 homes in the Denver area.

Also in August, the company became the exclusive broadband internet service for the new Douglas County master planned community called Sterling Ranch. Each of the proposed 12,000 homes will be connected to fiber-optic lines and offer speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second.

General Motors isn't letting up on Tesla, as the Chevy Bolt heads into production next month and is expected to hit dealerships before the end of the year.

Last week, Chevy announced that the Bolt, an all-electric hatchback, would arrive with an EPA-estimated 238 miles of range on a charge — about 20 more than the 215 predicted for the Tesla Model 3 mass-market vehicle by CEO Elon Musk back in March.

On Tuesday, Chevy kept the pressure on by revealing that the Bolt would priced at $37,495. What's important about that number is that after a $7,500 federal tax credit, the Bolt's price falls below $30,000.

Yep, it could be $29,995. Come on down!

In all seriousness, Chevy's North American president, Alan Batey, said in a statement: "Value is a hallmark for Chevrolet and the pricing of the Bolt EV proves we’re serious about delivering the first affordable EV with plenty of range for our customers."

He added: "We have kept our promise yet again, first on range and now on price."

So there you have it. Tesla's Model 3 is expected to be priced at around $30,000, also after tax credits. If that comes to pass when the car arrives in 2017, the Chevy Bolt will be $5 cheaper.

SEE ALSO: The 238-mile range for the Chevy Bolt is a big problem for Tesla

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NOW WATCH: Everything we know about the Tesla Model 3

Still torn about the iPhone 7 not having a headphone jack? Make your own. As TechRax shows us, it works.

All you need for this DIY is a drill with a 3.5mm bit, a vice to hold your device in place, and a very steady hand. And maybe a forgiving wallet if you mess it up.

More about Headphone Jack, Iphone 7, Iphone, Tech, and Videos

The British decision to exit the European Union is creating uncertainty for U.K. Internet of Things (IoT) statups looking to sell gadgets in Europe.

In an article by the Register, Damon Hart-Davis discusses the impact of the vote for the British to exit the EU (Brexit) on his company. He runs OpenTRV, a green-tech startup that sells smart radiator valves.

The natural core market for OpenTRV products is the EU which, including the U.K., totals nearly 500 million people. And so Hart-Davis says it is paramount for British-based IoT firms like his to maintain access to the whole continent.

However, he says there is much uncertainty surrounding the ubiquitous CE stamp which is required for most IoT gadgets and appliances sold in Europe. The stamp indicates that the equipment has complied with standards that can cover everything from radio band use to safety.

“On the regulatory front alone, what do I, or someone else in my position, need to know about how the world of CE marking will change?” he asks.

Political negotiations on future relations between the EU and Britain haven’t even begun. Yet Hart-Davis has learned that some industry experts are already speculating about how such standards would work in the post-Brexit reality.

“Long-term there is likely to be some loss of influence on setting new standards where the UK would not, post-Brexit, have an automatic right to participate in EU working groups,” he says.

However, in the past non-EU citizens from such countries as Norway have been able to make contributions to standards working groups. This could indicate that Britain won’t be frozen out of the dialogue around industry standards.

“Unless the UK and EU have a really major falling out, the UK is likely to be able to continue to contribute and influence,” said Hart-Davis.

Brexit still years away

By most estimates it will take years to disentangle Britain from the web of EU laws and regulations as both parties renegotiate such issues as trade treaties and industry standards.

In the meantime Hart-Davis says that most industry experts he’s spoken with say that the best approach is to soldier on with the CE compliance standards.

Indeed CE compliance may remain the standard for U.K.-based IoT device makers for the foreseeable future as industry would likely find another layer of standards cumbersome to manage.

“Manufacturers are unlikely to want to have to support extra U.K.-only standards for cost and complexity reasons if possible,” he says. “The CE mark will probably continue to work much as now from a purchaser’s point of view, either consumer or business, across all the current EU-27 and UK across the Brexit epoch.”

 

The post Brexit muddies waters for UK IoT firms selling into Europe appeared first on ReadWrite.

The company will join Facebook’s new top-secret hardware lab, Building 8.

Facebook has acquired Nascent Objects, a small Bay Area startup that offers what the company calls a “modular electronics platform” — essentially a software program to help expedite the process for building physical gadgets, including 3-D-printed hardware.

Nascent Objects will join Facebook’s Building 8, the company’s new top-secret hardware lab run by former Xoogler Regina Dugan, who used to run Google’s advanced technology and products team that did things like 3-D mapping and modular smartphones.

Here’s a short video Dugan posted Monday that provides a glimpse of what Nascent Objects does.

The “modular” element is interesting. The idea of a modular smartphone where you can easily add or remove different components like a camera or battery or storage has been kicked around for a while now but has never taken off. It’s unclear what Facebook wants to build, but Nascent Objects specializes in modular gadgets.

The other key seems to be expediting the time it takes to prototype hardware projects, which is also why Facebook recently built a new hardware lab on its Menlo Park, Calif., campus.

Facebook did not disclose the deal terms for the acquisition, but Nascent Objects founder and CEO Baback Elmieh is joining Facebook along with “other key members” of the startup, according to a FB spokesperson.

Nikon has just announced a pair of rugged action cameras at Photokina and released new details of the KeyMission 360, the 360-degree camera the company announced at CES. The two new cameras also carry the KeyMission branding, and their names also correspond to their field of view. One is a more traditional GoPro-style 4K action camera that will be called the KeyMission 170, and the other is a life-logging camera called the KeyMission 80. All three will be available in October and are firsts of their kind for Nikon.

Let’s start with the KeyMission 360, which will cost $499. It debuted at CES, but Nikon didn’t provide a ton of details other than it would use two lenses to capture 360-degree 4K footage. Now we know that each of those...

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Smart beacons are currently limited to displaying personalized or relevant data on the smartphone, but that might not be the case for much longer. Estimote, a leader in beacon tech, has launched the Mirror, a beacon that connects to TV displays.

A retailer can connect the Mirror to a TV through HDMI and USB, usually found on the side or back of the TV. Once connected, the beacon can pair with a nearby smartphone and send relevant data to large displays, which can show additional details.

See Also: Xerox beacon technology brings retail to commuters

Estimote gives a few examples, an airport screen could provide personalized data of your flight and the easiest route to the gate; a retailer could tell you if a shoe is available in your size.

Connecting multiple displays—a smartphone and a TV—gives retailers more opportunity to entice customers. A retailer might check your recently searched Google results and show applicable products at the store window, with a reduced price.

Estimote uses sticker technology

Estimote supplies a sticker that uses geolocation to recognize what user has picked up a product, and displays relevant info on the smartphone. If the customer is near a TV, the sticker will also send that info to the larger display, if retailers add the Mirror beacon.

Beacons are still an emerging tech for the retail market, some stores are adopting the technology, while others are worried about consistency, programming, and privacy.

Estimote’s solution, which now covers smartphones and TVs—and connects individual products to the beacons—might invite new interest from retailers that were on the fence.

The post Estimote Mirror combines smart beacons with TV displays appeared first on ReadWrite.

Speed is crucial in the world of technology. In order to stay relevant, companies often must overhaul, adapt, and reinvent themselves to keep up with the relentless pace of change.

That's not a problem at Cisco. CEO Chuck Robbins likes to go fast.

It's only been a year since he's taken the helm at the American networking hardware giant, but the industry's already buzzing over his drive. Robbins has already come up with a massive plan to restructure Cisco and a new partnership with Apple, along with many other pushes to keep the company's focus on the cloud and "the Internet of Things,".

Robbins is clearly a man with a vision. That's why we're thrilled that he'll be speaking at IGNITION 2016, Business Insider's flagship conference.

Cisco's success under Robbins is defying expectations on Wall Street, as the company reported growth in its security, collaboration, and services business.

Come listen to Robbins speak at this year's IGNITION conference. As a 19-year Cisco veteran, he's been around to see many shifts in the world of technology. He's got both the experience and vision necessary to navigate this ever-changing business, and he's sure to share some great insight with us come December.

Don't miss your chance to hear all about the future of technology at IGNITION 2016! The event takes place from December 5-7 at the Time Warner Center in New York City.

This year's speakers also include Thrive Global CEO & Founder Arianna Huffington, Tencent's SY Lau, and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson.

SEE ALSO: Bleacher Report CEO will discuss knocking it out of the park in digital media

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Watching the first NFL game live-streamed on Twitter on my Galaxy 6 felt like being in the sports bar of the future.

Watching the first NFL game live-streamed on Twitter on my Galaxy 6 felt like being in the sports bar of the future.

I've been a football fan for as long as I can remember. But my first memory of the game is set on the other side of the world, in New Delhi, India, where I grew up. It involves me, bleary-eyed and wearing a wedge of Swiss cheese-shaped foam on my head, huddled next to my dad on the couch.

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A team of Microsoft researchers has achieved the lowest error rate for speech recognition on record at 6.3%, overtaking prior record holder IBM Watson’s 6.9%.

The news brings the company one step closer to getting computers to understand speech as well as a person, and helps in its efforts to provide conversation as a service through tech like Cortana, Skype Translator, and other language-related cognitive services.

Voice is going to emerge as a dominant computing interface. Digital voice assistants, like Apple’s Siri, have long been a part of the mobile device ecosystem, but the technology has often been slow or returned irrelevant information. Now, recent technological advancements in search functionality and language understanding — through AI tech like deep neural networks — are vastly improving the accuracy and convenience of voice assistants. And in an attempt to get ahead of the hype, tech companies including Amazon, Apple, Google, and IBM, are already deploying voice to consumers. Apple, for instance, recently added third-party integration to Siri, which will allow it to communicate with other apps. This means that users can order an Uber through Siri.

However, voice assistants still need to improve.  before voice becomes the primary platform for consumers. Speech recognition needs to reach roughly 99% (it's at approximately 90% now) in order for voice to become the most efficient form of computing input, according to Kleiner Perkins analyst Mary Meeker.

Meanwhile, companies that aren’t investing in voice technology could run the risk of being left behind. This point was reiterated in a recent interview at TechCrunch Disrupt SF with VP of Messenger David Marcus who conceded that Facebook’s emphasis on text could result in it not having a horse in the voice race.

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InFocus, the makers of the miniature $99 Windows 10-running Kangaroo PC, announced the Kangaroo Notebook earlier this week, a laptop that takes the miniature computer idea of the original Kangaroo PC and expands it to laptops.

The Notebook itself — with a 11.6-inch screen and relatively weak specs built around an Intel Atom processor — strongly brings to mind the netbook aesthetic of years past. But unlike most laptops, which are closed systems, the Kangaroo Notebook is actually based around individual Kangaroo Mini modules that comprise the computer, with each separate module slotting into the Notebook hardware to run the specific system on that Kangaroo Mini.

the individual Kangaroo Mini modules can't be used...

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Microsoft kicked off a battery life war with Chrome and Opera earlier this year, and Google finally responded last week. Microsoft's original tests showed exactly how bad Chrome is for laptop battery life, but Google's response was packaged in the release of Chrome 53 with CPU and GPU power consumption enhancements for video playback. Google even made a video with Surface Books, just like Microsoft, to compare its battery life improvements to previous versions of Chrome. Microsoft isn't convinced Google's latest browser update is that much better, though.

In a new blog post, Microsoft has tested Edge and Chrome battery life on a Surface Book running the latest versions of Chrome and Edge (from the Anniversary Update). Using the same...

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Apple's latest operating system for iPhone and iPad, iOS 10, is now available and full of new features.

While it's fun to play with the new iMessage app, there's also new stuff for the people who use their iPhones and iPads for work and features for the IT people who manage fleets of devices for employees.

Until a couple of years ago, Apple had sort of ignored this class of users. But when iPad sales started to wane, it looked around and saw a massive market: enterprises.

It started signing partnerships to make its products more attractive to this group, including one with Cisco, announced a year ago.

So iOS 10 includes some features from its work with Cisco, as well as a few other things that improve it as a device for work.

SEE ALSO: The 26 best-paying non technical jobs in the tech industry

Better WiFi connections as you roam around a corporate campus with your device: The connection won't drop or stall if it needs to switch WiFi networks. This only applies to WiFi networks built with Cisco gear, but Cisco is the largest supplier of WiFi.

More bandwidth for business apps: IT managers can "whitelist" the business apps installed on your phone. So when your co-workers in the next cubical are watching video or playing games, they won't overload the Cisco WiFi network. Your work app will get priority.

Overall, an iOS 10 device on a Cisco WiFi network will be up to 8 times faster roaming, Cisco says, and have 90% fewer web browsing failures, up to 66% more reliable calling. For IT folks, it will reduce the "management traffic overhead" on the WiFi network by half.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Amazon launched its Echo Dot device earlier this year, but it has been sold out in recent months. While the original Echo Dot was priced at $89.99, Amazon is unveiling an all-new Dot today that's priced at just $49.99. Just like the previous Dot, you can use the tiny puck-like device to add the Alexa voice assistant to existing speakers. Amazon is releasing the new Echo Dot in both black and white, with a more powerful, completely redesigned voice processor.

Amazon has also built a new Echo Spatial Perception technology into the Dot. It's designed to detect multiple instances of the Echo or Dot in use in a home, so that not every device responds to voice recognition. It will detect exactly which device your voice is talking to, and...

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Amazon says the future of digital assistants isn't just a talking computer in your kitchen — it's a talking computer in every room in your house. To make that dream a little more accessible, the company is now selling multipacks of its new, upgraded Echo Dot, which will ship to UK customers October 20th. If you buy five Dots at $49.99 apiece you get one free; if you buy 10 you get two free. That means a six-pack will cost you $249.95 while a 12-pack is $499.99.

The updated Dot was announced at an event in London this morning, alongside availability of the Echo in the UK and Germany. Both the Echo and the Dot are now also available in white and black, and Amazon says the number of Alexa skills has risen to more than...

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USA Network's "Mr. Robot" is the first television show to really get hacking right with its realistic depictions of technical details and hacker culture, and one of the main reasons for that is just one man: Kor Adana, a former hacker himself who now serves as a staff writer and technical consultant on the show.

“From what I’ve seen in a lot of film and television, it’s the hacker [being depicted] in the dark basement with the glowing screen," said Adana, at a Monday night event on hackers in film and television hosted at Google's office in Venice, California.

That depiction is inaccurate to say the least. And it's one that Adana, a former network security analyst for Toyota, has worked diligently to correct over two seasons of "Mr. Robot." That work has paid off, since the critically-acclaimed show is beloved by real hackers, security professionals, and even non-techies for its drama and realism.

For those unfamiliar, here's the basic premise of the show: Elliott (played by Rami Malek) is a respectable employee of a cybersecurity firm by day, but by night, he's a hacker taking on the world around him with his technical skills, going after everyone from child porn peddlers to adulterers.

Real world testing

Eventually Elliot gets recruited into a hacker group, led by the pseudonymously-named "Mr. Robot," to infiltrate and take down a global conglomerate known as E Corp (which is referred throughout as Evil Corp). While Elliott also has a very bad drug addiction and makes an unreliable narrator, his hacks are legitimate — right down to the tools and code depicted onscreen.

"Everything in the show is feasible," Adana said.

At the Google event, Adana explained how the show maintains this accuracy, and it starts with an interesting choice for showrunner and creator Sam Esmail: Figuring out whether something is going to work before it's written into the script.

In the writer's room, Esmail and others will usually go to Adana and explain what they want Elliott to do: Perhaps they want him to gain access to a bank or take over someone's smartphone, for example. Then it's up to Adana to figure out whether it can actually be done.

"For us, if the hack isn't feasible in real life, it doesn't get in the script," he said. Once he learns what Esmail wants, he'll reach out to his team of consultants, which include other experts such as Marc Rogers, an information security manager with CloudFlare and head of security for the Def Con hacking conference; and Michael Bazzell, a former FBI cybercrime investigator who now teaches open source intelligence-gathering techniques.

After they figure it out — with Adana often performing the hack himself as a test — he'll bring it back and say yeah, it can be done. Interestingly, Adana has to clear many of his hacks with USA's legal department first, since they need to sign off  on the depiction of certain tools, such as the Social Engineer Toolkit or ransomware code known as Cryptowall.

"We fudge the timing"

Once Adana gets the okay, the graphics team recreates the hack in Flash animation so the computer screens in front of the actors display what a hacker would really be doing. Unlike other shows which would use a blank screen and then insert computer code in post-production, "Mr. Robot" has the animation right there in front of the actor, and Adana shows them where to place their fingers and when to type.

Adana does have just one criticism of the show, which has been mentioned by some critics. “If there is one criticism of our own work," Adana said. "It is that we fudge the timing.”

The hacks are carried out very fast onscreen, but that is understandable when you have an hour-long show that needs to depict the cracking of a password that would take a normal hacker days, if not weeks, to get through. Adana also mentioned that he tries to keep a low online profile, and doesn't share nearly as much about himself as many people do on social media, for fear of it aiding those who might try and hack him.

And the realization among actors on the show that what they do on the show can be done in real life, along with Adana's own security-mindedness, certainly has made the crew wary.

“There is a healthy level of paranoia there," he told Business Insider.

SEE ALSO: This is the powerful speech the real Edward Snowden gives at the end of the new 'Snowden' movie

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NOW WATCH: NASA is bringing back one of its most experimental and dangerous programs

 Evernote — the popular note taking and productivity startup with 200 million users — has built its reputation around an app that lets you record and track all your life’s details hold them there, for life. Today, the company is shifting gears on the question of how it will keep hold of and track that information: Evernote is migrating all of its data, including some… Read More

iOS 10, the new operating for iPhones and iPads, is out now.

The biggest change in iOS 10 is iMessage, which has been completely overhauled.

Here's a look at how iMessage has changed in iOS 10.

SEE ALSO: The iPhone 7 review

Emojis are now three times larger. The app will also suggest emojis by analyzing the text you type in the field.

Type your message, then tap the emoji button on the keyboard. Some words will turn yellow. Tap on them to change them to emoji. It's much easier than hunting for the perfect emoji for what you're trying to say.

You can send doodles and sketches, just like you can on the Apple Watch.

There's a lot to unpack in this feature. Tap the heart icon next to the text field to unlock a new interface that lets you doodle messages, send taps, or even "blow a kiss." This should look very familiar to Apple Watch users.

You can also send quick videos with text scribbled on the screen.

It's very similar to Snapchat, right?

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

GE launched its new "Geneva" skill for the Amazon Echo today that’ll let users control their connected appliances with their voice. You can start your laundry from another room, for instance, or preheat the oven, or use any of these other commands:

GE

I’m unclear about the cookies command, but I am intrigued. GE also made its appliances IFTTT-compatible earlier this year. I said before that if fashion companies aren’t making a fitness tracker yet they are messing up, and now I’m going to adjust that statement and say appliance companies that aren't making a customized Alexa skill are missing the boat. Word up.

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Orion Labs is a company that has spent the last few years developing a modern take on the push-to-talk device. They call it the Onyx, it goes on sale today ($199 for a pack of two), and it’s come a long way since we first saw it in late 2014. The design has been overhauled and refined, but it’s still basically the same idea: you carry Onyx with you, or clip it to your shirt, and it connects to your phone to transmit real-time voice messages to other Onyx users. You can talk to someone directly, or loop them into groups so that you can allow a whole team to talk together, no matter where they are in the world.

It’s a cool idea, and when it works well it’s really fun to use — Orion has sent us some preproduction units to try out — but it’s...

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By Zeus Kerravala
From my perspective as a longtime Polycom watcher, here's my ideas for incoming CEO Mary McDowell.