07 January 2019

Daily Crunch: Nvidia breaks with tradition at CES 2019


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1. Nvidia launches the $349 GeForce RTX 2060

Nvidia broke with tradition and put a new focus on gaming at CES. Last night the company unveiled the RTX 2060, a $349 low-end version of its new Turing-based desktop graphics cards. The RTX 2060 will be available on Jan. 15.

2. Elon Musk’s vision of spaceflight is gorgeous 

This spring SapceX intends to launch the next phase in its space exploration plans. The newly named Starship rocket, previously known as the BFR, intends to to be rocket to rule them all. And it’s going to look good doing it.

3. Apple’s increasingly tricky international trade-offs

Far from its troubles in emerging markets like China, Apple is starting to face backlash from a European population that’s crying foul over the company’s perceived hypocrisy on data privacy. It’s become clear that Apple’s biggest success is now its biggest challenge in Europe.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

4. Marc Andreessen: audio will be “titanically important” and VR will be “1,000” times bigger than AR

In a recently recorded podcast Marc Andreesen gave some predictions on the future of the tech industry. Surprisingly, the all-start investor is continuing his support of the shaky VR industry saying that expanding the immersive world will require us to remove the head-mounted displays we’ve become accustomed to.

5. Fitness marketplace ClassPass acquires competitor GuavaPass

ClassPass, the five-year-old fitness marketplace, is in the midst of an expansion sprint. The company announced yesterday that it’s acquiring one it competitors, GuavaPass, for an undisclosed amount to expand into Asia. The move now puts ClassPass in more than 80 markets across the 11 countries, with plans to expand to 50 new cities in 2019.

6. Apple shows off new smart home products from HomeKit partners

Apple gave a snapshot of its future smart home ecosystem at CES. Looks like an array of smart light switches, door cameras, electrical outlets and more are on the way and will be configurable through the Home app and Siri.

7. Parcel Guard’s smart mailbox protects your packages from porch thieves

Danby is showing off its newly launched smart mailbox called Parcel Guard at CES, which allows deliveries to be left securely at customers’ doorsteps. Turns out you won’t need a farting glitter bomb to protect your packages after all. The Parcel Guard starts at $399 and pre-orders are will be available this week.


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LG is also adding Apple AirPlay and HomeKit support to its TVs


There’s a trend here. After Samsung and Vizio, LG is also adding support for Apple’s ecosystem to its TV operating system webOS. Specifically, people who buy an LG TV in 2019 should be able to share content to their TV using AirPlay 2. TVs will also be compatible with HomeKit, letting you create custom scenarios and control your TV using Siri.

“Many of our customers may also happen to have Apple devices,” Senior Director of Home Entertainment Product Marketing Tim Alessi said during the company’s CES press conference. “LG has been working with Apple as well to create a streamlined user experience. So I'm very pleased to announce today that we're adding Apple AirPlay to our 2019 TVs.”

If you have an iPhone, iPad or Mac, you can send video content to your TV using the AirPlay icon in your favorite video app. You can also mirror your display in case you want to show some non-video content.

2019 LG TVs also support AirPlay audio, which means that you can send music and podcasts on your TV, pair your TV with other AirPlay 2 compatible speakers.

New LG TVs also support HomeKit. It means that you can add your TV to the Home app on your iOS device and Mac. After that, you can control basic TV features from the Home app. You can also assign Siri keywords so that you can manage your TV using Siri on your iOS device or HomePod.

HomeKit support lets you create custom actions. For instance, you can say “Hey Siri, turn on the TV” and have Siri turn on the TV and dim your Philips Hue lights.

Unlike Samsung, LG didn’t announce an iTunes app. So you can’t rent or buy movies and TV shows straight from your TV. Buying something from your phone and then using AirPlay is still a bit clunky.

LG also said that 2019 TVs come with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant support. But this is less surprising as you can find hundreds of devices that support those voice assistants.

Finally, the company is adding a home dashboard to control a wide variety of home devices from your TV. Details are still thin on this feature. It’s unclear whether LG will roll out some of all of these software features to old TVs.

Watching all TV manufacturers add AirPlay and HomeKit support one by one reminds me of the year TV manufacturers all announced native Netflix apps for their TV. It’s clear that Apple is following in Netflix’s footsteps and opening up. Apple has been working on a subscription-based streaming service for months. And the company wants to support as many devices as possible.


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I used VR in a car going 90mph and didn’t get sick


VR headsets make me queasy. I’m not alone. It’s a common complaint about virtual reality content but this startup might have solved the problem in the most unlikely way. Holoride wants people to use VR in the backseat of the family sedan.

My stomach is happy to report it works as advertised.

Yesterday, after strapping on an Oculus Go, I was flung around a race track outside of Las Vegas at speeds approaching 90 mph and I didn’t get sick. In fact, after the ride was completed, I was shocked to find out we were going faster than 35 mph. Holoride’s system was entertaining and distracting. It removed me from the ride and placed me in a space battle with Iron Man and Rocket.

After the demo I was left with just one thought: The future of in-vehicle entertainment could be virtual reality.

Here’s how it worked.

After sitting down in the back of Audi’s new electric SUV, the e-tron, a company representative fitted me with an Oculus Go headset that was wired to the car. I was handed a remote and told to follow along.

Marvel’s Rocket appeared as my instructor. He said I was to help him and Iron Man defeat some of Thanos’ baddies by shooting them down while we fly through space.

And off we went — both in the game and on the track. It felt just like a ride at Disney World.

The content on the screen matched the dynamics of the vehicle. As the Audi SUV whipped around the track, the content was synced with the movements.

When the e-tron bared left, my rocket ship in the game bared left. When the e-tron flew down the track’s straightaway, my rocket stayed on its course. Meanwhile, I was in the backseat smiling like a child as I waved around a remote control trying my hardest to save the universe from Thanos.

Somehow, I didn’t get sick.

Holoride’s secret sauce involves matching the VR content with the slight movements of the vehicle. The content compensates everything from bumps to swerves to sudden stops. The company sees a future when passengers can endure long car rides free of boredom and without car sickness.

The possibilities of this technology is compelling. Nevermind entertaining passengers, motion sickness affects a lot of people and this appears to eliminates it. If programmed for a plane or train or long distance bus ride, Holoride’s system could allow for a more comfortable ride.

Holoride (no relation to Microsoft’s HoloLens) developed the technology inside Audi over the last two years. The automaker spun out the company, freeing it up to work with other car makers to put its system in their vehicles.

VR’s tendency to induce motion sickness is one of its biggest hurdles, and that’s with most people experiencing it while just standing there. Add a moving vehicle to the mix — like when you’re trying to use VR to space out as the passenger on a roadtrip — and your inner ear is getting all kinds of mixed signals. Holoride aims to turn that challenge into a feature.

This early demo shows Holoride is on the right path but I fear it’s a steep climb to gain content and users. Holoride worked with Disney Games and Interactive Experiences to develop the content.

The demo I experienced left me impressed. It featured everything I want: interactive content, marquee characters, and a fun story line. But I could only play this game a few times before I would get bored. The novelty would probably last a bit longer on my kids, but not much.

The Holoride founders tell TechCrunch it intends to release an SDK by year’s end that would open the platform to developers. It’s unclear if current VR content could be easily ported to the system.

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While Holoride says it’s an independent company, the roots of this startup are all Audi. The automaker holds a minority interest through subsidiary Audi Electronics Venture, which developed the technology. Audi will license the technology to Holoride and the startup will use an open platform to allow any automaker from Ford to Tesla and everyone in between as well as content developers to create whatever reality formats they desire.

Nils Wollny, head of digital business at Audi co-founded Holoride along with Marcus Kuhne, who was project lead of Audi’s VR experience and Daniel Profendiner, a software engineer at the company. Wollny is Holoride’s new CEO.

The co-founders began working on VR in 2014, but the project started in earnest two years ago when it partnered with Disney Games and Interactive Experiences.

The system needs to be configured for different vehicles. That’s part of the development process. Right now, in Holoride’s development cycle, a Holoride experience programmed for an Audi etron will not work in a Chevy Tahoe. A person couldn’t take the headset from one vehicle to another.

A lot of questions remain about for Holoride. Though Audi’s name is attached to the project, Holoride is an independent company. The founders tell TechCrunch it has plenty of runway before it needs to look for another round of investment.

Few technology demos have left me as impressed as I was with this system. But developing a compelling demo is different from building a successful content company. I, for one, would love to live in a future where I could strap on a headset and eliminate motion sickness and everyone else on an intercontinental flight.


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Google says Assistant will be on a billion devices by the end of the month


As with Android, Google’s goal with its voice-driven AI helper, Google Assistant, is to get it onto devices. Lots and lots of devices.

And they’re making pretty damned good progress there. Ahead of CES this morning, Google dropped a little stat update: Google expects Assistant to be on 1 billion devices total by the end of this month.

That’s up from around 400M devices this time a year ago.

Google first announced Assistant back in May of 2016. By October of that year, they’d rolled it out to the Pixel/Pixel XL; nowadays, it’s on TVs, smart speakers, tablets, smart watches, and just about every new Android phone that hits the market.

It’s hard to know exactly how many actual users this translates to — but it’s definitely not a billion. On one hand, many Google Assistant users probably have it on multiple devices simultaneously, be it their phone, their tablets, Google Homes around their house, etc. On the other, many devices — particularly Google Homes — are meant to be used by multiple users throughout the day. Google will only say that active users are up “4 times over the past year”.


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Spotify will let now brands sponsor its Discover Weekly weekly playlist


Spotify has begun testing a new type of ad in Discover Weekly, its personalized playlist of music that’s the streaming service’s flagship feature. The company says that, for the first time, it will allow a brand to “sponsor” this playlist as opposed to just running ads. It believes many advertisers will be interested in this opportunity due to the playlist’s ability to reach heavily engaged Spotify users, and because it allows advertisers to “own the personalized listening experience” on Spotify.

According to Spotify, Discover Weekly listeners stream more than double the amount of users who don’t listen to the playlist because of the personalized experience it offers. That will make the ad product more compelling, compared with brands’ existing ability to sponsor other editorial playlists on the service.

With Spotify’s Sponsored Playlist ad product, brands can surround Spotify’s free listeners with audio or video messages in ad breaks, and gain Spotify’s help in building a collaborative marketing plan.

Microsoft will kick off the launch of branded ads by running an A.I. ad campaign called “Empowering Us All.” This will explore A.I. across sectors like Education, Healthcare and Philanthropy. Spotify says it was a good fit for the launch, as Discover Weekly is customized for each user by taking advantage of A.I. technology.

“At Microsoft we are focused on empowering every individual and organization to do more. Our work in AI is a central part of that mission to unlock human ingenuity,” said Erin Bevington, General Manager of Global Media at Microsoft, in a statement. “Our partnership with a technology innovator like Spotify offered a way for us to effectively share that message within a personalized entertainment experience powered by AI.”

Spotify recently passed 200 million monthly active users, but is now looking to new ways to generate revenue from its user base beyond simply converting free users to premium subscribers.

The company has been growing its subscriber base at a steady pace, but Wall St. hasn’t been happy with its financials. One issue is that its newer promotions, like its low-cost student and family plans, have seen its average revenue per user dropping – as of Q3 2018, it had fallen 6 percent year-over-year to $5.50. A more valuable ad product could help bring these numbers back up. 

“Personalization has quickly gone from a nice-to-have to an expected consumer experience that delights audiences and marketers are craving opportunities to be part of it” said Danielle Lee, Global Head of Partner Solutions at Spotify, in a statement. “Our new Discover Weekly ad experience positions advertisers for success and ensures that our fans are hearing messages that embody the ethos of discovery.”

Brand sponsorships for Discover Weekly are currently in beta testing, says Spotify.


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Ikea’s smart window blinds leak, to be compatible with Alexa, HomeKit and Google Assistant


Meet KADRILJ and FYRTUR. They’re Ikea’s upcoming smart window blinds and they look great. The two product lines are battery-powered shades that can open and close through a dedicate app. They also interact with IKEA’s TRÅDFRI lighting gateway allowing homeowners to control the shades through Alexa, HomeKit and Google Assistant.

Pricing is aggressive: 99 to 155 euros (about $113 to $181). The shades have yet to be officially announced by Ikea, but according to the company’s site, they will be available in Europe on February 2nd. It’s unclear when they’ll be available in different markets.

These products are joining Ikea’s growing list of smart home devices. Last year, the company launched its smart lighting solutions that competes with Philips Hue and LIFX. Before that, Ikea produced a few tables integrated with wireless charging pads.

The upcoming smart window blinds follow the understated trends set by Ikea’s other smart home products: inexpensive relative to competitors and equipped with just a basic feature set. There’s nothing fancy here with the smart window shades. And that’s the point. With its smart home products, Ikea is seemingly concentrating on including just the necessary functions and not building in extra things, feature-creep style. Ikea’s smart home gadgets are as basic as Ikea’s furniture and that’s great.


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Vizio adds Apple AirPlay and HomeKit integrations to its SmartCast smart TV platform


Apple is reportedly gearing up for a new streaming TV service to rival Netflix, Amazon and Google this year, but in the meantime, it is also expanding interoperability with more third parties like smart TV makers to make what it already has available easier to use in the living room.

In the latest development, smart TV maker Vizio today announced at the CES consumer electronics show that it’s adding support for AirPlay 2 and HomeKit to its SmartCast interactive TV platform. The integration will mean that Vizio TV owners can link their other Apple devices up to their TVs to browse and watch content from iTunes, as well as any photos, videos or music on those devices. Then, through HomeKit, they can also control that content and the rest of the TV using Apple’s voice assistant Siri.

Vizio said that the feature will be rolled out first to beta users of the SmartCast 3.0 platform in the U.S. and Canada in Q1 2019. In Q2, it will be rolled out to all SmartCast TV users via a free, over-the-air update to the 3.0 version of the platform.

“At our core, Vizio is committed to delivering value. SmartCast 3.0 is one of the ways we’re doing just that. By adding support for Apple AirPlay 2 and HomeKit, users can play content from their iPhone, iPad and Mac directly to SmartCast TVs, and enable TV controls through the Home app and Siri,” said Bill Baxter, Chief Technology Officer, Vizio, in a statement.

He added that this also will make Vizio the first smart TV brand to offer the ability for consumers to use any major voice assistant — Siri, Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant (the latter two integrations were added previously) — to control their sets. “We’re excited to be the first in the marketplace to support such a wide range of ways for consumers to sit back and enjoy the entertainment they love.” The Google Assistant functionality is also expanding to control more services such as the launching of apps and switching inputs.

The Vizio / Apple news comes just one day after Vizio’s bigger rival Samsung — which has a 33 percent share of the smart TV market in the US compared to Vizio’s 24 percent — also debuted an Apple AirPlay integration, along with a new tab directly linking to iTunes in Samsung’s interactive platform.

The iTunes app is an exclusive to Samsung for the time being, but the Vizio deal lays the groundwork for more collaboration between Vizio and Apple ahead. Vizio, notably, is not a direct competitor to Apple in other business areas in the way that Samsung is.

For Vizio, this is a significant step ahead for the company at a time when it is playing some catchup against Samsung, which once trailed Vizio but gradually overtook it as the leading smart TV player. I’d argue that Vizio is also still recuperating from its no-good, very bad 2017.

Its series of unfortunate events included a failed $2 billion acquisition of the company by Chinese maker LeEco after LeEco itself fell apart; a lawsuit against LeEco over that deal breaking down; another lawsuit, this time from the FTC (settled for $2.2 million) over snooping on its customers’ viewing habits; and a third suit brought by AMD, this time over graphics patent infringement, which AMD has since won.

This is actually the first time that Vizio has been at CES in years, which is also saying something. The company is also using the event to announce its newest range of 4K HDR smart TVs and audio equipment, including sound bars and subwoofers.

On the side of Apple, taken together, the two integrations with Vizio and Samsung underscore Apple’s challenges and ambitions at the moment.

The company last week warned the market that sales of its iPhone smartphone — for years now the company’s undisputed growth engine — would be falling short of expectations for a number of reasons. (They included worse-than-expected sales in China, where price and feature competition is fierce; a global slowdown in phone sales as the market saturates; and weaker demand for its new, expensive models.

Apple, as you know, has over the years been building up a services model to complement its hardware business — with apps, music, video, cloud services and more — and many believe that the company will start to focus on that even more to offset slowdowns in its hardware sales, as well as to boost the sales of that hardware. (Hence the rumors of a Netflix-style OTT video service.)

It’s an opportunity for sure, but not a guaranteed win. Apple TV — the company’s existing bridge to content on televisions — hasn’t managed to overtake the collective popularity of other smaller middleware like Google’s Chromecast and Amazon’s Fire TV and Fire stick. And the OTT market is very crowded already, with offerings from all of the above, pay-TV providers, smart TV makers and more.

Given all of the above, it will be worth watching to see who else might have Apple-related news this week and if a kinder, more device-agnostic Apple-as-services provider emerges as a theme at CES this week.


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Marsiforming


Marsiforming

Watch LG’s CES press conference live right here


LG is opening the show with its CES press conference. Many consumer electronics companies are going to show us their new and shiny products all day long. And LG is starting at 8 AM Pacific, 11 AM Eastern, 2 PM in London.

You can expect new TVs (4K? 8K? The sky is the limit), more info on that funny beer machine and maybe a few surprises. Check out our full CES coverage.


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Watch Sony’s CES press conference live right here


Sony is holding its CES press conference today at 5 PM Pacific, 8 PM Eastern. The company will talk about all of its new devices, from connected speakers to cameras, TVs and maybe even turntables. Sony’s press conference is usually packed with product announcements.

We’ll have a team on the ground, so you should also check out our full CES coverage.


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Watch Samsung’s CES press conference live right here


Samsung is holding its CES press conference today at 2 PM Pacific, 5 PM Eastern, 10 PM in London. The company will unveil its new lineup of consumer electronics devices. You should expect a wide range of new products, from smart watches to washing machines.

We’ll have a team on the ground, so you should also check out our live blog for our first-hand impressions of the announcements.


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Acer’s launches new high-end gaming laptops with Nvidia RTX 2080 GPUs


Acer today announced two new gaming laptops at CES, the 17-inch $4,000 Predator Triton 900 with a convertible 4K display and the somewhat more affordable all-metal 15-inch $1,800 Triton 500. What sets these laptops apart is, among a few other interesting features and some interesting design choices, support for Nvidia’s new(ish) RTX 2080 GPUs, the most powerful graphics processors on the market today.

The Triton 900 features the RTX 2080 by default, while you’ll have to shell out an extra $700 to get it on the Triton 500. Otherwise, the specs are very much what you’d expect from a modern gaming laptop, with 8th generation Intel i7 chips, 16GB of base memory (with the option of going up to 32GB) and up to a terabyte of NVMe-based storage.

The Triton 900’s flipping screen is a bit of a gimmick, but it doesn’t look bad and the company argues that it’ll allow for “multiple gaming scenarios and better ergonomics.” I’m not sure ergonomics is top of mind for most gamers who are willing to shell out $4,000 for a laptop, but it can’t hurt either. The 4K display is a touchscreen, too, which could make it interesting as a more high-end portable workstation for creative work. If you’re a gamer, though, you’ll likely be more excited about the built-in Xbox wireless receiver and audio by Waves, which offers head tracking to provide you a more realistic 3D audio experience

Unsurprisingly, the Triton 500 is the more “sensible” option here, with a more palatable starting price, slim design (it’s 0.7 inches thick and weighs in at 4.6 lbs) and the promise of eight hours of battery life. You only get a full HD display, though, with even the base model comes with an RTX 2060 card, which is no slouch either and should easily be able to let you play and modern game at its maximum graphics settings in HD.


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In major TV push, China’s Xiaomi buys 0.5% stake in TCL


A veteran TV maker just got a notable refresh as it enters the age of connected devices. Xiaomi, the Beijing-based firm best known for budget smartphones, has bought 65.2 million shares, or 0.48 percent, of Chinese home appliance maker TCL, said TCL in a statement to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Sunday.

Shares of TCL, the world’s third-largest LCD TV manufacturer, jumped nearly 4 percent in morning trading on Monday, giving the company a market cap of $36 billion.

The financial gesture deepens an existing alliance between the duo. On December 29, the companies signed a strategic partnership that would see them collaborate on various fronts, including R&D in integrating smart devices with “core, high-end, and basic” electronic parts. To put in layman’s terms, the joint effort focuses on chips and will make it easier for TCL devices to incorporate into Xiaomi’s operating system, where an expanding universe of third-party gadgets reside. The partners may also make co-investments in the hardware field.

The tie-up provides “tremendous help” for Xiaomi as it ups the ante in home appliances, wrote Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun on Weibo, China’s closest answer to Twitter, in a reply to TCL’s CEO Li Dongsheng. During the third quarter of 2018, smart TVs helped drive revenue growth for Xiaomi’s non-smartphone hardware segment, shows the company’s financial results.

“[Our partnership] helps facilitate the transformation and upgrade of China’s manufacturing industry,” wrote Li, whose company started in 1981 as a cassette manufacturer.

Xiaomi has long been keen to team up with manufacturers to make its own branded devices instead of producing them itself. By early 2018, Xiaomi reached nearly 100 such partners, many of which Xiaomi had invested in to harness bargaining power in the supply chain, from what a smartphone should look like to how much it’s priced at. Xiaomi’s retail stores — available online and in physical manifestations — have also opened doors to third-party brands in an effort to broaden product selection.

Xiaomi’s close ties with its ecosystem partners result in an inventory of affordable products rivaling the likes of Fitbit and Apple. During the third quarter of 2018, Xiaomi topped the global chart by shipping 6.9 million units of wearables. Apple and Fitbit came in second and third with 4.2 million units and 3.5 million units, respectively, according to market research firm IDC.

Xiaomi derives most of its revenues from smartphones, though Lei Jun has long envisioned a future in which internet services will be the firm’s main force. This segment, which Xiaomi has marketed as its key financial differentiator against other phone brands, includes sales from mobile games, internet finance, paid content among a slew of services available through Xiaomi’s connected devices.


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Watch Nvidia’s CES press conference live right here


Nvidia is holding its CES press conference today at 8 PM Pacific, 11 PM Eastern. The company will talk about self-driving cars and all things GPUs. It’s a great way to see what’s ahead for Nvidia.

We’ll have a team on the ground, so you should also check out our full CES coverage.


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Ledger announces next-generation cryptocurrency hardware wallet


French startup Ledger unveiled its new hardware wallet to manage your cryptocurrencies. The Ledger Nano X is a Bluetooth-enabled wallet, which means that you’ll be able to send and receive tokens from your phone.

The previous version of the device required you to plug the key to your computer using a microUSB cable in order to execute an order. Switching to Bluetooth and opening it up to smartphones is the next logical step.

Ledger is going to launch a full-fledged mobile app called Ledger Live. You’ll find the same features as the ones in the desktop app. You’ll be able to install new apps, check your balances and manage transactions.

The app will be available on January 28th and existing Ledger users will be able to check their balances in read-only mode thanks to public addresses (in case you’re not using Spot). Ledger has sold 1.5 million Ledger Nano S so far. And it sounds like other companies will be able to build mobile apps that work with your Nano X.

The Nano X looks more or less like the Nano S. It’s a USB key-shaped device with a screen and a couple of buttons. The screen is now slightly bigger.

One of the main issues with the Nano S is that you were limited to 18 different cryptocurrencies. You can now store up to 100 different crypto assets on the Nano X — the device supports 1,100 different tokens overall.

Just like other Ledger devices, the private keys never leave your Ledger wallet. It means that even if your computer or mobile phone get hacked, hackers won’t be able to grab your crypto assets.

The company is presenting the new device at CES, I’ll try to play with it to see how it works when it comes to pairing, battery life, etc.


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Netatmo announces HomeKit doorbell that doesn’t require a subscription


Netatmo is announcing its first new product following its acquisition by Legrand — and it’s a connected doorbell. The company says that it is the first Apple HomeKit compatible doorbell but other companies could still beat Netatmo by releasing their product sooner.

If you’ve been thinking about getting a connected doorbell, the main issue is that Ring, August and other brands require a subscription to store video footage and more advanced feature. Netatmo doesn’t want to get in the subscription business and lets you access all features without a subscription.

The doorbell is called the Netatmo Smart Video Doorbell — a very descriptive name that is going to work well in search engines. It requires a standard doorbell wire and connects to your Wi-Fi network. When somebody presses the button, you receive a notification on your phone and can view the video feed. You can press a button and talk to the person if you’re not home.

It also acts as an outdoor security camera by alerting you if somebody is in front of your house. You receive a “person detected” notification and can talk to the intruder. It also works in the dark using infrared. In other words, it can replace your Netatmo Presence security camera.

Video footage is stored on a microSD card on the device. The company never stores video on its servers, which is a big advantage if you care about privacy. You can optionally configure the device to automatically upload videos to your Dropbox account or a standard FTP server.

The doorbell is compatible with IFTTT and HomeKit. This way, you can view your camera from the Home app on your iPhone or Mac and you can create chained events. For instance, you can turn on your Philips Hue lights if somebody is detected outside your home.

The device will be available at some point during the second half of 2019. Pricing hasn’t been announced yet.


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