Tech Digest daily round up: LG to stop making smartphones
LG Electronics said on Monday it would close down its loss-making smartphone business. In January, the South Korean electronics giant said it was looking at all options for the division after almost six years of losses totalling around $4.5bn (£3.3bn). LG had made many innovations including ultra-wide angle cameras, rising to third-largest smartphone maker in 2013. But bosses said the mobile phone market had become “incredibly competitive”. While Samsung and Apple are the two biggest players in the smartphone market, LG has suffered from its own hardware and software issues. As LG struggled with losses it had held talks to sell part of the business but these fell through. It still ranks as the third most popular brand in North America but has slipped in other markets. BBC
The company behind Fortnite is suing Google in the UK for allegedly violating competition laws by monopolising how Android smartphone users can download and pay for apps. Epic Games said it had recently served the internet giant with legal papers, the latest in its worldwide effort to force Google to cease what it says is anti-competitive behaviour related to its Android app store. It is the third country in which Epic has sued Google for allegedly abusing a monopoly over how apps are downloaded on Android phones, following similar challenges in Australia and the US. The company is running a separate legal campaign against Apple but has been prevented from suing the iPhone maker in the UK due to legal differences in how Google and Apple are structured. Telegraph
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has determined Amazon.com Inc illegally retaliated against two of its most prominent internal critics when it fired them last year, the New York Times reported on Monday. Last year, Amazon fired two user experience designers, Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, for what it called repeated violations of internal policies. (nyti.ms/39J25Lw). Amazon and NLRB did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Reuters.
It is a technology that has been frowned upon by ethicists: now researchers are hoping to unmask the reality of emotion recognition systems in an effort to boost public debate. Technology designed to identify human emotions using machine learning algorithms is a huge industry, with claims it could prove valuable in myriad situations, from road safety to market research. But critics say the technology not only raises privacy concerns, but is inaccurate and racially biased. A team of researchers have created a website – emojify.info – where the public can try out emotion recognition systems through their own computer cameras. One game focuses on pulling faces to trick the technology, while another explores how such systems can struggle to read facial expressions in context. Guardian
NASA’s Perseverance Rover has dropped Ingenuity, the helicopter that will conduct the first controlled flight on another planet, onto the surface of Mars. The helicopter fell four inches from the belly of Perseverance onto Mars. It means that the helicopter is now looking after itself: heating and powering itself, which includes gathering solar energy from panels attached to its body. Temperatures through the night can drop as low as -54 degrees celsius, and an on-board heater aims to ensure that its battery and other components are protected from any damage. At some point after 11 April, and when preparations are over, Ingenuity will take off for the first-ever powered flight on any other planet. Independent
