MacRumors

At Shopify’s Unite developer conference in San Francisco today, the software-focused e-commerce company has debuted a new hardware product, which it simply calls the "Chip & Swipe Credit Card Reader" (via TechCrunch). Similar to other card readers, Shopify's product allows merchants who run small businesses to accept a wide variety of credit cards as payment options, although it lacks Square Reader's NFC support for services like Apple Pay.

The Shopify Chip & Swipe Reader is a modular solution that allows the reader to be detached from its base so merchants can handle card swipes from any angle. To dock, the reader connects to the base via micro USB, but Shopify said that the reader itself could handle an entire week's worth of transactions before needing to be docked and charged. Different mounting accessories beyond the simple dock sold at launch are said to be coming in the future.

“What people forget is that it’s not just the merchant that’s touching the hardware, like a cash register,” Shopify VP of Product Satish Kanwar said. “When it comes to a card reader, it’s the shopper that’s interacting with the device and inputting their card as well. What we realized is that it’s really hard to get a good balance of good quality, versatility and something that provides that delightful experience in something that’s also affordable.”

Shopify's reader will be free to all Shopify merchants without a current Shopify point-of-sale solution (the company also has a sales terminal with full tap, swipe, and chip payment compatibility that does support Apple Pay). For everyone else, the new reader will cost $29, and will process payments at 2.4 percent per transaction. The reader will connect to both iOS and Android devices via Bluetooth.

Merchants interested can pre-order the device today, and the launch window is currently predicted as sometime in June. There's also a 14 day free trial for those who sign up for pre-orders.

During its F8 Developers Conference in San Jose, California this week, social media company Facebook revealed an ongoing project in which it aims to launch a product that will allow users to send emails, texts, and post status updates using only their thoughts (via Reuters).

Conducted in a new wing it calls "Building 8," Facebook said that any final hardware launch is a few years away, but it's believed that the company is looking at the new product as a way to diversify its income so it might not have to rely so heavily on advertising revenue.

Former Google executive and DARPA director Regina Dugan is leading Facebook's new initiative, which ultimately aims to allow users to type at 100 words per minute by monitoring their brain waves. Current technology allows researchers to type at eight words per minute, but it requires a brain implant. Facebook's solution, on the other hand, will be non-invasive.

Additionally, Facebook is working on a way for users to "hear through their skin." Beyond launching as an easier way to access Facebook and other content on smartphones, both technologies could see a huge surge in users who are deaf and disabled, or act as a way to break down the language barrier. "One day, not so far away, it may be possible for me to think in Mandarin and for you to feel it instantly in Spanish," Dugan said.

On Facebook, Dugan shared a few details about the "silent speech interface" projects:

Over the next 2 years, we will be building systems that demonstrate the capability to type at 100 wpm by decoding neural activity devoted to speech. Just as you take many photos and decide to share some of them, so too, you have many thoughts and decide to share some of them in the form of the spoken word. It is these words, words that you have already decided to send to the speech center of your brain, that we seek to turn into text. And unlike other approaches, ours will be focused on developing a non-invasive system that could one day become a speech prosthetic for people with communication disorders or a new means for input to AR. Even something as simple as a ‘yes/no’ brain click, or a ‘brain mouse’ would be transformative.

We also described a system that may one day allow you to hear through your skin. You have 2 square meters of skin on your body, packed with sensors, and wired to your brain. In the 19th century, Braille taught us that we could interpret small bumps on a surface as language. Since then many techniques have emerged that illustrate our brain’s ability to reconstruct language from components. Today we demonstrated an artificial cochlea of sorts and the beginnings of a new a ‘haptic vocabulary’.
And we’re just getting started…

Other products and initiatives mentioned during the F8 conference included "clear, fashionable AR glasses that don’t obscure eyes," internet connectivity in disaster zones, and a pair of new three-dimensional cameras. These last few projects are said to be more near term, while the thought-to-text and skin-listening technology are both "years away" from an end-user launch.

When asked if Facebook has any plans to build a voice assistant of its own for its iOS and Android apps, David Marcus, Facebook's VP of messaging products, told Variety this week, "We are not working on that actively right now." The company is instead focusing on bolstering its chat bot, "M" for Facebook Messenger, because it believes that users are more inclined to use text inputs to control their smartphones over their voice, particularly in crowded public situations.

Aircharge and BMW have teamed up to offer a customized wireless charging case for iPhones to take advantage of the new in-car wireless system that debuted in the BMW 5 Series Sedan earlier this year.

The BMW 5 Series Sedan was one of the first cars to include wireless CarPlay support, allowing iPhones to integrate with the BMW iDrive ecosystem over Bluetooth instead of a Lightning cable. In-car phone wireless charging is also standard in the 6 and 7 series and available as an option on the rest of the range.

Integrating the smartphone into the vehicle's system allows the iPhone to be operated directly via the screen in the car, the iDrive Touch Controller, voice commands or gestures, avoiding potential distractions whilst at the wheel.

Given that heavy usage of apps, navigation and music can drain a battery at the end of a drive, the addition of wireless charging solves this issue by keeping the device fully powered while in operation.

With Apple yet to launch a smartphone with the wireless charging function integrated into its hardware, the German carmaker worked with Aircharge to design the case to add on the capabilities and bring the convenience of wireless charging to BMW owners.

The case features a hard shell to protect the phone and a tactile finish, along with a total black look, and has engraved the BMW Group’s branding on the front and back.

All Aircharge case models carry the official 'Made for iPhone' MFi certification by Apple and are also certified to the global wireless charging standard Qi. The Aircharge case is currently available for iPhone 6, 6s, 6 Plus, 6s Plus, 5, 5s and SE models and can be purchased through BMW's online retail stores as well as high street shops.

MasterCard today unveiled a biometric chip-and-pin credit card featuring a built-in fingerprint sensor that takes cues from mobile payment systems such as Apple Pay.

The card can be used to make purchases like any other, except rather than keying in a PIN number, card holders can choose to place their finger over the square sensor to approve the transaction.

Alternatively, users can take a two-tier authentication approach and use both their PIN and fingerprint to approve the purchase. However, users of the card won't have the convenience or security that comes with registering their print with their smartphone.

With Apple Pay, fingerprint data is encrypted and protected with a key available only to the Secure Enclave on the user's iPhone. The Secure Enclave is walled off from the rest of the hardware and the OS, meaning iOS and other apps never have access to user fingerprint data, it's never stored on Apple servers, and never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else.

The biometric credit card has no such protections. Instead, the user must register their print with the bank or financial institution that issued the card, and while the fingerprint is encrypted on the card itself, it's still unclear what security and privacy measures are in place to deal with the registration process.

Despite those concerns, Mastercard's chief of safety and security, Ajay Bhalla, said that the fingerprint technology was "not something that can be taken or replicated", and that the biometric card would help "to deliver additional convenience and security".

MasterCard plans to roll out the cards in Europe and the Asia Pacific region soon, following successful tests in South Africa through Barclays subsidiary Absa and supermarket Pick n Pay.

Amazon on Wednesday made the AI and voice-recognition software that powers the company's Alexa virtual assistant available to all its cloud-computing customers.

Called Amazon Lex, the service will allow developers to make chat bot applications using Alexa's voice recognition technology and leverage the AI's deep learning abilities to enable their apps to understand more text and speech queries.

Amazon CTO Werner Vogels said that Amazon's cloud-based work in processing how humans write and speak would make chat bots more helpful than the clunky tools they've been in the past.

"There's massive acceleration happening here," said Vogels, speaking to Reuters at the company's cloud-computing summit in San Francisco. "The cool thing about having this running as a service in the cloud instead of in your own data center or on your own desktop is that we can make Lex better continuously by the millions of customers that are using it."

Similar to how it operates its other cloud-based services, Amazon will charge developers based on how many text or voice requests Lex processes. The company's hope is that its Alexa technology will take center stage in the current e-commerce boom based around chatbots. This week, Facebook announced its own virtual assistant called M, which can help users order food, while MasterCard also launched its own Messenger merchant bots for food deliveries.

Amazon's move comes fast on the heels of similar announcements by the company, as it aims to head off competition in the virtual assistant space by rivals Apple and Google. Just last week Amazon opened up access to the far-field voice recognition technology found in its Echo smart speakers so that third-party manufacturers can make their own versions.

Alexa support is also increasingly cropping up in smart home devices, with chip vendors hoping to start shipping their own Alexa-like devices this year. Alexa is even set to appear as a built-in feature in some third-party smart products, like Ecobee thermostats.

MasterCard added its digital wallet Masterpass to Facebook Messenger this week, enabling consumers to place online orders via the chat platform with just a few clicks. The rollout is still in the initial stages but the payment system is already available for some food merchants, including Subway, The Cheesecake Factory, and FreshDirect.

The transaction process involves searching for and interacting with a Messenger chat bot to specify the order from a range of options. The user then arranges a pick-up or delivery location, followed by checkout confirmation, where they pay for the order via Masterpass.

With 1.2 billion users on Messenger, MasterCard hopes the feature will boost fast food sales online by removing the need for consumers to type in their card information for every transaction. Instead, consumers load their card number and other identifying information onto the digital wallets and then use the wallets for faster shopping.

That said, users still need to input their password for every Masterpass transaction, so the system lacks the ease of use of biometric mobile payment systems like Apple Pay. MasterCard is said to be working on a similar solution.

MasterCard's plans to bring merchant transaction bots to Facebook's chat service where revealed in October. The credit card company also unveiled plans for bank bots, through which users can ask questions about their account, look at purchase history, monitor spending levels, receive financial assistance, and more.

Bose has been hit by a lawsuit that accuses the company of spying on its wireless headphone customers through its Bose Connect mobile app and violating consumer privacy rights (via Reuters).

The complaint was filed on Tuesday in a Chicago federal court by Kyle Zak, who is seeking an injunction to stop Bose's "wholesale disregard" for the privacy of customers who download the app to their smartphones.

The lawsuit alleges that Bose tracks the listening habits of users when they are wearing headsets like the company's QuietComfort 35 headphones, gleaning information through the app such as music tracks played, podcasts, and other audio listened to.

According to Zak, who bought a pair of $350 QC35 cans, Bose sends all available information to third parties such as Segment.io, a data capture outfit whose website promises to "collect all of your customer data and send it anywhere".

"People should be uncomfortable with it," Christopher Dore, a lawyer representing Zak, said in an interview. "People put headphones on their head because they think it's private, but they can be giving out information they don't want to share."

Audio choices offer "an incredible amount of insight" into customers' personalities, behavior, politics and religious views, the complaint said, citing as an example that a person who listens to Muslim prayers might "very likely" be a Muslim.

Zak is seeking millions of dollars of damages for customers who bought Bose headphones and speakers, including QuietComfort 35, QuietControl 30, SoundLink Around-Ear Wireless Headphones II, SoundLink Color II, SoundSport Wireless and SoundSport Pulse Wireless.

Zak also wants a halt to the data collection, which he said violates the federal Wiretap Act and Illinois laws against eavesdropping and consumer fraud. Bose has yet to respond to requests for comment on the proposed class action case.

Microsoft today announced the preview launch of a new "intelligent task management app" that's designed to make it easier to plan and manage a day's activities.

Called "Microsoft To-Do," the app was designed by the team behind Wunderlist, which Microsoft purchased in June of 2015. To-Do is designed to replace Wunderlist, which Microsoft plans to retire after all Wunderlist features have been built into the new app.

It includes Intelligent Suggestions that aim to help users focus and plan to complete tasks that are the most important. The app offers up "helpful suggestions" based on a "smart algorithm."

What areas of your life do you want to be more productive in? You can have a color-coded list for each. Now you can quickly add your homework to one list, your groceries to another, your packing list, your work projects and your home DIY projects to yet more lists. You can create as many lists as fits your lifestyle. And if you follow a productivity system such as GTD (David Allen's Getting Things Done Methodology) then you can create a Someday list or a Follow-up list. To-Do is here for you, whether your goals are for this week or in 5 years time.

Microsoft is making To-Do available for iPhone, Android, Windows 10, and the web. It's available in a Preview capacity starting today, and in the future, Microsoft plans to add support for the iPad and release a Mac app.

Microsoft To-Do can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Hulu's upcoming live streaming television service could launch as soon as early May, reports TechCrunch. Hulu has already confirmed the service will launch in the spring, but has not given a more specific public launch date.

Internally, the company is said to be telling employees that the first week of May is being targeted for launch, but TechCrunch says this is a rolling target date that could shift to later in May if necessary.

Despite the internal communication - which we've seen - claiming the "first week of May" launch, we've also heard that the chatter among employees is that consumers will likely get the service around mid-May. In addition, other sources familiar with Hulu's launch plans have confirmed that mid-May is just as likely as earlier in the month. It could even end up being the third week.

In other words, "mid-May" doesn't translate to a May 15th launch.

However, the month of May - in general - is definitely a go.

The official launch date of the service is perhaps dependent on an ongoing beta testing period that the company is using to garner feedback from users and eliminate bugs.

Rumors suggest Hulu plans to price its upcoming television service at $39.99 per month, with an add-on cloud DVR service that could cost an additional $20 per month for "unlimited" storage capped at 200 hours of programming.

Hulu is said to be planning to allow concurrent devices on up to three devices in the same home, and channels will include content from CBS, 21st Century Fox, ESPN, and Disney. Many details of Hulu's upcoming service remain a mystery, including whether or not the company will offer multiple packages like DirecTV Now, but its TV package is "comparable" to rival services.

Hulu's streaming service will offer a mix of live TV and on-demand content, something that will make the service unique among its peers.

Qualcomm today reported earnings for the second fiscal quarter of 2017, and in its report, the company says Apple suppliers are withholding royalty payments amid Apple's ongoing legal dispute with Qualcomm. [PDF]

According to Qualcomm, Apple's contract manufacturers underpaid royalties in Q2 2017 in an amount equal to that which Qualcomm has not paid Apple. Qualcomm says this hasn't had a negative impact on revenue, but it could be an issue next quarter if manufacturers continue to underpay.

Apple's contract manufacturers reported, but underpaid, royalties in the second quarter of fiscal 2017. However, our revenues were not negatively impacted as the contract manufacturers acknowledged the amounts are due and the underpayment was equal to the amounts that Qualcomm has not paid Apple under our Cooperation Agreement that are currently in dispute. The Cooperation Agreement expired December 31, 2016.

It is not clear whether Apple's contract manufacturers will underpay royalties owed under their contracts with us in the third quarter of fiscal 2017, which could have a negative impact on our financial results. Our guidance range for fiscal third quarter EPS is wider than our typical practice primarily due to this uncertainty. We have considered a variety of scenarios within this range, but have not included a scenario where no payment is made by the contract manufacturers. We will update our guidance if we subsequently learn of any action that would take us outside of the announced guidance range.

Qualcomm and Apple are embroiled in an ongoing legal dispute that dates back to an FTC complaint alleging Qualcomm engaged in anticompetitive patent licensing practices. Shortly after the FTC filed its complaint, Apple levied a lawsuit against Qualcomm, accusing the company of charging unfair royalties for "technologies they have nothing to do with."

Apple claims that Qualcomm "reinforces its dominance" through exclusionary tactics and high patent licensing fees, charging Apple "at least five times more" in payments than other cellular patent licensors.

Qualcomm has separately refused to pay Apple quarterly rebates due to Apple's participation in an antitrust lawsuit against Qualcomm in South Korea, which has led Apple to seek $1 billion in rebate repayments. Qualcomm has called Apple's claims "baseless" and has accused Apple of "encouraging regulatory attacks."

Earlier this month, Qualcomm filed a countersuit against Apple, claiming Apple has breached its licensing agreements, made false statements, and encouraged regulatory attacks on Qualcomm's business in multiple countries. According to Qualcomm, Apple "could not have built the incredible iPhone franchise" without relying on Qualcomm's "fundamental cellular technologies."

Cartoon Network today announced that it has implemented support for several of Apple's recently introduced television features on the Apple TV and iOS devices, including the TV app, Single sign-on, and universal search.

Through the TV app installed on Apple iOS devices in the United States, Cartoon Network content is now displayed alongside content from other apps that have added TV app support. Cartoon Network shows are now available in the "Up Next" and "Recommended" sections of the TV app.

With Single sign-on, Cartoon Network app users with supported Single sign-on cable providers will no longer need to sign into the Cartoon Network app with their cable credentials on the Apple TV and iOS devices as signing in will be automatic.

When using Siri on the Apple TV to ask about content, Cartoon Network app content will now be displayed alongside other results thanks to universal search support.

The Cartoon Network is a popular channel that offers shows like Adventure Time, Steven Universe, The Amazing World of Gumball, Regular Show, and The Powerpuff Girls. While the app offers some free content, cable authentication is required to access all of what the app has to offer.

Cartoon Network can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]