Friday Tech News Roundup #24

Below are 10 tech news that I found interesting and are related to topics I care about.

Google hired professional photographers to help train its AI cameraHow – did Google get Clips, its AI-powered camera, to learn to automatically take the best shots of users and their families? Well, as the company explains in a new blog post, its engineers went to the professionals — hiring “a documentary filmmaker, a photojournalist, and a fine arts photographer” to produce visual data to train the neural network powering the camera. The Verge

Lyft employees may have improperly looked at customer data – As Uber goes, so does Lyft, apparently. The ride-hailing company says it’s investigating whether some of its employees abused access clearances and looked into customers’ information, with one saying it went on for “too long.” The Verge

Singtel to offer Apple Watch Series 3 with built-in cellular service from Feb 9 – Singtel will be the first telco in Singapore to offer a new model of the Apple Watch Series 3 which has a built-in cellular service, from Feb 9, according to a statement on Friday (Jan 26). Business Insider

Spotify user? You may as well forget about Apple HomePod – Apple’s Siri-powered HomePod smart speaker is finally launching on Feb. 9. There are a dozen reasons why you shouldn’t buy one — it’s kind of big, it’s expensive, it doesn’t support the ballyhooed multi-room audio at launch, Siri (lol) — but my biggest concern hinges on its key selling point: music. Mashable

Apple raises privacy concerns by putting medical records on iPhones – Apple wants to put your medical history in the palm of your hand. The tech giant confirmed Wednesday that it intends to allow customers access to their medical records via iPhones on iOS 11.3 beta. But like with so many things in the world of highly personal data, putting medical information on a digitally connected device is not without risk — and how it all shakes out could have a huge impact on the lives of millions. Mashable

Firefox’s Quantum update will block websites from tracking you 24/7 – Mozilla’s speedy Firefox Quantum browser hit the ground running when it rolled out in November. On Tuesday, Mozilla released an update to the browser, called Firefox 58. Its most significant feature: 24/7 tracking protection. Mashable

Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem – “The decades-old floating point error problem has been solved,” proclaims a press release from inventor Alan Jorgensen. The computer scientist has filed for and received a patent for a “processor design, which allows representation of real numbers accurate to the last digit.” The patent (No. 9,817,662, “Apparatus for Calculating and Retaining a Bound on Error During Floating Point Operations and Methods Thereof”) was issued on November 14, 2017. HPCWire

Apple could be redesigning the iBooks app – As AppleInsider first spotted, the first beta of iOS 11.3 includes a subtle change. iBooks is now called Books. And Mark Gurman thinks it could be a sign that there will be bigger changes with Apple’s ebook reading app. Techcrunch

You can now buy a Surface Laptop with Windows 10 Pro pre-installed – Microsoft’s productivity-focused Surface Laptops were met with a fairly positive reception when they launched back in May. However, not everybody was a fan of the devices’ stripped-down Windows 10 S operating systems. The OS, created to compete with Google’s lightweight Chrome OS, only allows customers to download and use apps from the Microsoft Store. Techspot

Fitbit to end support for Pebble smartwatches in June – Fitbit on Wednesday said it would be extending its support of the Pebble smartwatch ecosystem for an additional six months, until June 30, 2018. Techspot

10 Tech News Roundup #6

Here are 10 tech news that I found interesting.

Google Cloud adds support for more powerful Nvidia GPUs – Google Cloud Platform announced support for some powerful Nvidia GPUs on Google Compute Engine today. Techcrunch

Why video games cost so much to make – Video game publishers are notoriously secretive about the budgets behind their games, but when a number does slip out, it can be shocking. Techspot

Apple Watch Series 3 reviews are in, see what the experts think – Apple’s smartwatch took a big step forward last week with the introduction of LTE connectivity on the new Apple Watch Series 3. Techspot

Apple will bring back iPhone’s 3D Touch multitasking gesture in future iOS 11 update – Apple executive Craig Federighi has apparently confirmed that a popular 3D Touch gesture for the iPhone that was removed in iOS 11.0 will be returning in an upcoming software update. The Verge

Netflix adds HDR support for iPhone X and iPad Pro – Netflix already streams HDR video on the new Apple TV 4K, so it only makes sense for the company to add support for Apple’s HDR-ready iOS devices as well. The Verge

Intel shows off 10-nm Cannon Lake wafer and talks process tech – Intel does fine work as a silicon designer, but its manufacturing technology is probably what truly sets the company apart from its competitors. TechReport

Google acquires part of HTC’s smartphone business for $1.1 billion – Google and HTC have officialized a deal under which a portion of HTC employees, many of whom were already working with Google developing Pixel phones, will join Google. Techspot

13 hidden features in iOS 11 – You don’t need to buy an iPhone 8 (or an iPhone X for that matter) to get that shiny, new-iPhone feeling.Mashable

Apple’s iOS 11 gives the iPad the boost it desperately needed – Every new version of iOS in the last decade has always put the iPhone first. Mashable

The Ionic is a smartwatch only diehard Fitbit fans would love – If the Ionic smartwatch is the best Fitbit can do, the company might be doomed, and the Apple Watch has nothing to worry about. Mashable