In February 2022, Samsung started promising up to four generations of Android OS and One UI upgrades to “select” Galaxy devices, as well as “up to five years of security updates.” And in January, it announced moving to seven years of security and OS updates, matching a move from Google. However, the Fold 2 wasn’t included in Samsung’s list of “select” Galaxy devices.
Thus, one could have estimated that the Fold 2 might stop receiving OS and security updates by 2024, four years after its debut. But it’s still hard to reconcile with paying four figures for a phone that became a security risk after four years, despite functioning properly otherwise. Apple, by comparison, now promises at least five years of security updates. Apple only started making that promise in 2023 with the iPhone 15 series. However, the current-generation iOS 18 is supported by iPhones released in 2020, like the second-generation iPhone SE, and even older ones, like the iPhone XR that came out in 2018. Arguably short-lived expensive devices like the Fold 2 are part of the reason some activists are pushing for the FTC to require that smart devices state on their packaging how long they’ll receive updates.
However, unlike iPhones, Samsung phones aren’t all powered by a proprietary chip, making promises of upgrades require commitments from third-party vendors, like Qualcomm. With Qualcomm known for being resistant to longer chip life cycles in the past, seven years of updates is progress for Samsung users—just not those who invested in the Z Fold 2.
Samsung issued a software update on October 2 that bricked some older Galaxy smartphones. While Samsung has stopped the update from rolling out further, those with broken phones have received a harsh reminder of the importance of data backups.
On Wednesday, numerous people online started complaining about their Samsung phones being stuck in a bootloop (you can see examples here, here, and in newer comments here).
A Samsung spokesperson confirmed to Ars Technica that an update to Samsung’s SmartThings Framework app for managing smart devices caused the problems:
We are aware that a limited number of Galaxy smartphones running on Android 12 are rebooting continuously during an update to the latest version of the SmartThings app.
Samsung “immediately suspended the update” after learning of the problem and is “working to resolve the issues,” the company’s spokesperson said. According to user reports online, Samsung has issued a new update that people can download without their phones breaking.
However, owners of older affected phones, namely the Galaxy S10 series, Galaxy Note 10 series, Galaxy M51, and Galaxy A90, have been unable to power their devices on to roll back the update. Many users who already manually or automatically installed the update are still dealing with bricked devices.
A harsh reminder
Users with bricked Galaxy phones were initially met with a difficult choice: Go without their phone or perform a data-erasing factory reset.
Samsung’s statement to Ars advised customers to “contact the Samsung Contact Center” for support, but it’s unclear if a fix can be employed that doesn’t wipe the phone.
Sonos’ controversial app update in May was “obviously a failure,” Sonos CEO Patrick Spence told Reuters today.
When the update launched in May, customers revolted over missing features, like the ability to search music libraries, edit song and playlist queues, and set sleep timers. In addition, some already purchased hardware, especially older models, began having problems.
In a note to investors on Tuesday, Sonos said that “more than 80 percent of the app’s missing features have been reintroduced.” The app should be “almost 100 percent restored in the coming weeks.” Sonos has been updating the app every two weeks in an effort to bring it to parity with the old one.
“This is obviously a failure of Sonos, but it starts with me in terms of where it started,” he said.
The CEO reportedly admitted to the botched rollout stemming from a lack of proper testing and a desire to push out a lot of features simultaneously:
We underestimated the complexity of the system, and so our testing didn’t capture all of the things that it should. We released it too soon.
Sonos was reportedly eager to get the app out to accommodate Ace, resulting in an overhaul of the app, its player side, and Sonos’ cloud infrastructure. Last month, purported former and current Sonos employees spoke about the app accumulating technical debt before being forced into an update that wasn’t ready and overlooked some workers’ concerns.
No executive bonuses for now
Reuters reported today that Spence and seven other execs “would forgo their bonus in the most recent fiscal year,” which ended on September 30. The publication noted that Spence got a bonus of approximately $72,000 for fiscal year 2023. Reuters reported that the company heads have “certain benchmarks” to meet to receive bonuses for the October 2024 to September 2025 fiscal year.
It’s not hard to understand why the executives aren’t getting their bonuses. In addition to the damage that the botched app redesign has wrought on Sonos’ reputation—aggravating long-time customers and deterring prospective ones—the app has had tangible financial consequences. The Santa Barbara, California company is expecting to pay up to $30 million in the short term to fix the app and try to restore customer and partner trust. The company also delayed two hardware releases, which led it to reduce its fiscal 2024 guidance. Sonos shares have fallen more than 30 percent since before the app update, Reuters noted.
Enlarge/ The small quantum processor (center) surrounded by cables that carry microwave signals to it, and the refrigeration hardware.
As we described earlier this year, operating a quantum computer will require a significant investment in classical computing resources, given the amount of measurements and control operations that need to be executed and interpreted. That means that operating a quantum computer will also require a software stack to control and interpret the flow of information from the quantum side.
But software also gets involved well before anything gets executed. While it’s possible to execute algorithms on quantum hardware by defining the full set of commands sent to the hardware, most users are going to want to focus on algorithm development, rather than the details of controlling any single piece of quantum hardware. “If everyone’s got to get down and know what the noise is, [use] performance management tools, they’ve got to know how to compile a quantum circuit through hardware, you’ve got to become an expert in too much to be able to do the algorithm discovery,” said IBM’s Jay Gambetta. So, part of the software stack that companies are developing to control their quantum hardware includes software that converts abstract representations of quantum algorithms into the series of commands needed to execute them.
IBM’s version of this software is called Qiskit (although it was made open source and has since been adopted by other companies). Recently, IBM made a couple of announcements regarding Qiskit, both benchmarking it in comparison to other software stacks and opening it up to third-party modules. We’ll take a look at what software stacks do before getting into the details of what’s new.
What’s the software stack do?
It’s tempting to view IBM’s Qiskit as the equivalent of a compiler. And at the most basic level, that’s a reasonable analogy, in that it takes algorithms defined by humans and converts them to things that can be executed by hardware. But there are significant differences in the details. A compiler for a classical computer produces code that the computer’s processor converts to internal instructions that are used to configure the processor hardware and execute operations.
Even when using what’s termed “machine language,” programmers don’t directly control the hardware; programmers have no control over where on the hardware things are executed (ie, which processor or execution unit within that processor), or even the order instructions are executed in.
Things are very different for quantum computers, at least at present. For starters, everything that happens on the processor is controlled by external hardware, which typically act by generating a series of laser or microwave pulses. So, software like IBM’s Qiskit or Microsoft’s Q# act by converting the code they’re given into commands that are sent to hardware that’s external to the processor.
These “compilers” must also keep track of exactly which part of the processor things are happening on. Quantum computers act by performing specific operations (called gates) on individual or pairs of qubits; to do that, you have to know exactly which qubit you’re addressing. And, for things like superconducting qubits, where there can be device-to-device variations, which hardware qubits you end up using can have a significant effect on the outcome of the calculations.
As a result, most things like Qiskit provide the option of directly addressing the hardware. If a programmer chooses not to, however, the software can transform generic instructions into a precise series of actions that will execute whatever algorithm has been encoded. That involves the software stack making choices about which physical qubits to use, what gates and measurements to execute, and what order to execute them in.
The role of the software stack, however, is likely to expand considerably over the next few years. A number of companies are experimenting with hardware qubit designs that can flag when one type of common error occurs, and there has been progress with developing logical qubits that enable error correction. Ultimately, any company providing access to quantum computers will want to modify its software stack so that these features are enabled without requiring effort on the part of the people designing the algorithms.
In May, Sonos updated its mobile app—to the dismay of many users. With missing features and bugs, customers complained about a loss of functionality and hardware not working the way it should. As Sonos deals with the expensive repercussions, a report from Bloomberg today highlights how Sonos allowed the release of an update so buggy and incomplete as to overturn its goodwill with long-standing customers.
Illustrating how poorly this app update has gone, last month,Sonos CEO Patrick Spence said the company would spend $20 million to $30 million in the short term to get the app where it needs to be (which is, basically, functioning as well as the predecessor) and rebuild customer and partner trust. Sonos also expects to miss its annual revenue target by $200 million. This is partially due to its delay of two hardware releases to focus on the app. Bloomberg noted that “Sonos shares are down 25% this year.” Annual bonuses and merit-based raises have also reportedly been canceled.
Outdated code
One reason for the app’s failure is the outdated code and infrastructure that the prior app was running on. Anonymous employees Bloomberg spoke with claimed that the Sonos app’s technical debt had been building up for 20 years before the update.
By the time Sonos decided to update the app in mid-2022, it was dealing with software based on virtually obsolete infrastructure and code languages. As such, the app update “was less about introducing new functionality than sorting out the existing mess,” Bloomberg reported.
After decades of the app’s inner workings growing stale, the impending release of Sonos’ long anticipated Ace wireless headphones, which came out in June, made the need for a new app both urgent and necessary. This is because the headphones were made to be on-the-go, differing from Sonos’ other products, mainly speakers and soundbars relying on home Wi-Fi. This seems to align with comments that Spence made to investors in August. He said that the app update was “a redesign of the entire system—not only the app but also the player side of our system, as well as our cloud infrastructure—and this was a complex undertaking.”
In May, Bloomberg reported that Sonos aimed to release the new app “at least a few weeks” before Ace. At the time, Bloomberg said that the update was originally supposed to release in March but was delayed due to “software-engineering challenges.”
Although it makes sense that Sonos’ most mobile offering yet would need a more advanced, revamped app, it seems that the app’s redesign could have been initiated earlier than the mid-2022 timeframe that Bloomberg reported. In addition to the years of technical debt that has been said to be built up, Sonos’ headphones have been reported to be in development since at least 2019.
Hundreds of owners of smart TVs and streaming devices from United Kingdom telecom Sky reported that their hardware stopped powering on Thursday. Sky hasn’t confirmed the cause of the problem, but a botched update is largely suspected.
Sky, a Comcast company that sells Internet, mobile, and satellite TV service in the UK, got into the streaming hardware business in 2021. Its proprietary Glass TVs and Stream pucks let people access TV channels offered through Sky via the Internet instead of a dish. As of this writing, Glass TVs range from 600 pounds (about $800) for a 43-inch set to 1,199 pounds (about $1,600) for 65 inches and include quantum dots and Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG HDR support. To order a Glass TV, people have to sign up for a Sky Entertainment subscription that includes the same type of channels offered through Sky’s satellite TV services but via streaming, plus Netflix (with or without ads). If you don’t buy/renew your Sky Entertainment subscription, “access to TV apps like Netflix won’t be available,” Sky says. The Stream puck, meanwhile, supports various streaming apps but doesn’t work without a Sky subscription.
As of yesterday, paying subscribers and owners of Glass and Stream devices reported that their devices were unable to power on. Users reported only being able to see a blank screen, with some saying the problems lasted for hours.
As noted by the BBC, problems started on Thursday night. Per Downdetector, the situation seemed to peak at around 3: 10 pm UTC with 377 incidents reported, but the overall number of affected devices could vary. A thread on Sky’s community forum about the problem is currently 141 pages long.
This morning, some people were still complaining about broken devices online; although, some reported that their devices were functioning again. As of this writing, DownDetector is showing 142 reported incidents.
With no TV to watch, Glass and Stream users had plenty of time to go online to try to troubleshoot with each other and share their disappointment in Sky. Some have called for Sky to pay for the cost of a new TV, while others are wondering if they will get financial compensation for their troubles. Sky hasn’t made any public mention of refunds or credits, though.
A user going by larky+marky on Sky’s community forum wrote:
What a total lump of st.
I have been thinking of cancelling my subscription altogether, so now this has made my mind up.
Yesterday, a Twitter user claimed that their TV was bricked “for the best part of 11 hours.” The user, going by MattHudson81, wrote, “We pay a lot of money each month for the use of your services and understand at times faults happen, but 11 hours so far with no end in sight, it’s not good.”
On Sky’s support forum, an employee said that Sky was working on the problem throughout Thursday night. “We continue to work on the problem in the background,” the employee going by KevNewMedia wrote today.
Sky also acknowledged the problems on Thursday via its Twitter account, saying:
Some Sky Glass/Stream customers are currently experiencing technical issues when trying to switch on their devices. Our technical teams are working hard to fix this. We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused.
Today, the Twitter account posted another apology along with a link to a support page with steps for getting the hardware to work (basically by resetting it). However, at least some people on Sky’s support forum have said that the fix hasn’t worked for them.
“Yet this isn’t working for everyone though. You’re essentially just tell[ing] people to turn it on and off again,” PaulRC1963 wrote. “Sky is acting very incompetent.”
Sky hasn’t confirmed the cause
Sky declined to answer questions from the BBC about the cause of the problems or when they’d be totally resolved. Without further explanation, a poorly executed software update issued via the Internet seems to be the most obvious reason for hundreds of people concurrently reporting broken devices.
The situation, which led to missed sporting events and hours of boredom, is a reminder of the risks of buying hardware from companies, like ISPs, that aren’t traditionally in the technology game. Sky first unveiled its Glass TVs in 2021, ostensibly as an attempt to save its business amid a massive shift to streaming over satellite dishes and cable and to drive subscription revenue. It’s possible that in its haste to jump on the streaming bandwagon, it has overlooked some of the intricacies and complexities in mass, web-issued updates. Notably, Sky’s set-top boxes have reportedly been unaffected.
If a botched update didn’t break the smart TVs and streaming sticks, it would be prudent of Sky to inform customers of the root of the problem. Otherwise, it can be hard for customers to have confidence that the problems won’t repeat and that their subscriptions and Sky hardware are worthwhile.
Users of Fitbit’s iOS and Android apps have been reporting problems with the apps’ ability to sync and collect and display accurate data. Some have been complaining of such problems since at least April, and Fitbit has been working on addressing syncing issues since at least September 3. However, Google’s Fitbit hasn’t said when it expects the bugs to be totally resolved.
On September 3, Fitbit’s Status Dashboard updated to show a service disruption, pointing to an incident affecting the web API.
“Some users may notice data discrepancies or syncing issues between [third-party] apps and Fitbit. Our team is currently investigating the root cause of the issue,” the dashboard reads.
On September 3, Fitbit also released version 4.24 of its mobile apps. It’s unclear if the update is related to the problems. At least some of the complaints in this story started coming to light before September.
Owners of older and newer Fitbit devices have taken to the company’s online support forum to discuss software problems they’re reportedly having. There are several threads with dozens of pages’ worth of responses pointing to issues, like the app’s dashboard “deleting steps and not syncing properly,” the app recording steps but not distance traveled, the app seemingly showing inaccurate data, and other bugs.
When reached for comment about the complaints, a Google spokesperson told Ars Technica: “We’re aware of the issue and are working hard to get it resolved.”
Monthslong problems
Some of the complaints about the apps have seemingly gone on for months. Fitbit representatives have said online that the issues are being worked on.
For example, in an 11-page thread on Fitbit’s community forum, users say the app inaccurately claims that they’ve taken about the same number of steps per day for several days in a row. The thread began on April 10. On September 8, a Fitbit moderator said that Fitbit “is aware of the situation and is working on a solution to it.”
“We haven’t received any time frame yet, how long our team still needs to solve this. Hopefully it will be fixed soon,” the Fitbit moderator going by JuanFitbit said.
The Fitbit app.
Google
In another thread, started on July 3, a Charge 5 user claimed that their iOS is tracking steps but not kilometers traveled. On September 18, JuanFitbit posted in the thread: “We still haven’t received an update on how long this will take. But our team has this problem as one of their priorities to solve.”
“Insanely annoying”
As expected, the ongoing bugs and broken features have left users frustrated and hungry for a solution.
“This is insanely annoying,” a forum user going by MonkeyPants wrote on September 11. “The app has constant syncing issues especially with the One.”
On Fitbit’s forum, a user called DustyStone claimed they are having problems with the app’s dashboard losing steps and not syncing properly. They said this happened with both an old Fitbit One and newly purchased Inspire 3:
It looks that Google just somehow screwed up the app. Worse yet, nothing has changed in weeks. Google is a tier 1 tech company. But their response to this issue and the deletion of the web based Fitbit platform shows that may no longer be the case.
Similarly, MBWaldo said they are “not sure how serious the fitbit team is about resolving” the app problems while lamenting the lack of an online dashboard, like countless other users we’ve seen.
“Very frustrating!!!!,” MBWaldo wrote. “I have been experiencing this for several days now. I have deleted app and reinstalled it, I have unpaired and re-paired the ONE and looked for app updates in the app store – NADA. And of course the dashboard is no longer available at fitbit.com.”
Some app problems fixed
Based on Fitbit’s forums, it seems that at least some recently reported software problems have been fixed.
For example, some customers recently pointed to a problem with the apps’ “Exercise days” tiles not loading properly being fixed. Some people have also said that they’re no longer experiencing a problem where the app was listing calorie counts for days in the future.
One only needs to go back to the recent Sonos app debacle for a reminder of the importance of ensuring that software changes won’t hurt the experience of already-purchased hardware. A company’s bad app and slow response to issues can ruin otherwise functioning hardware and discourage future purchases.
Although this is different from the Charge 5’s battery problems that were suspected to be caused by a firmware update—Google denied this was the case but didn’t provide an alternate answer—it’s an improvement to see Google at least acknowledge the app problems. But killing features combined with a broken app experience won’t help the wearables brand’s errant reputation. Fixes are reportedly in the works, but for some it may be too little too late.
Enlarge/ A Samsung representative demonstrating Tizen OS in February.
Samsung
Samsung will provide operating system updates for its newer TVs for at least seven years, the company announced last week. The updates will first apply to some TVs released in 2023 and TVs released in March 2024.
According to Business Korea, Samsung made the announcement regarding the Tizen OS at the Digital Research Lab of Samsung Electronics’ Suwon Campus in Gyeonggi Province. As spotted by FlatPanelsHD, the announcement follows previously announced plans from Samsung to provide seven years of software updates for the Galaxy S24 smartphone series.
Per Korea Economic Daily, speaking at last week’s event, Samsung Electronics’ president of the Visual Display Business Division, Yoon Seok-Yoon, said: “With the seven-year free upgrade of Tizen applied to AI TVs, we will widen the gap in market share with Chinese companies.”
Samsung is the biggest smart TV seller in the world, but rival companies from China are close behind. According to numbers from Omdia, Samsung’s TV market share (based on units shipped) declined from 20.3 percent in Q1 2023 to 18.8 percent in Q1 2024. Market share for Chinese brand TCL, meanwhile, increased from 9.8 percent to 11.6 percent (LG’s market share was about flat at 11.8 percent in Q1 2024).
Market competition has gotten so fierce that the South Korean government reportedly pushed rivals Samsung and LG to cooperate so that they could stay competitive. This has resulted in Samsung selling TVs that use OLED panels made by LG Display.
Samsung hasn’t provided a specific list of each model guaranteed to receive seven years of updates. However, the company’s announcement suggests the news will apply to TVs with AI-based features that came out in the aforementioned release window. (Samsung has been pushing the term “AI TVs” lately and also says building AI features is also a way for it to compete against Chinese brands.)
A step in the right direction
Samsung’s upgrades commitment comes amid growing concern about e-waste and expensive products suddenly no longer getting software updates, resulting in bricked, slowly operating, or buggy experiences.
Research suggests that the average TV lasts about seven years. However, as UK consumer advocacy group Which? has found, the average TV brand offers software updates for less than seven years. With Samsung being the world’s biggest TV brand, offering longer-term software support could encourage more in the industry to do the same. It could also help users keep their devices for longer. Samsung’s seven-year commitment is longer than what LG recently announced it would offer, which is four OS updates over five years (you can see LG’s webOS update plan here).
However, other TV hardware companies are doing better. Apple has provided updates for its first Apple TV since 2015, FlatPanelsHD pointed out, while Roku’s still providing OS updates to Roku OS-based TVs released in 2014. However, in general, TV OEMs and streaming device makers could make it easier for prospective buyers to know how long a device will continue getting software updates before they buy it.
Enlarge/ Nike announced the Adapt BB as “a Self-Lacing Basketball Shoe” with app-controllable LEDs.
Nike
In 2019, Nike got closer than ever to its dreams of popularizing self-tying sneakers by releasing the Adapt BB. Using Bluetooth, the sneakers paired to the Adapt app that let users do things like tighten or loosen the shoes’ laces and control its LED lights. However, Nike has announced that it’s “retiring” the app on August 6, when it will no longer be downloadable from Apple’s App Store or the Google Play Store; nor will it be updated.
In an announcement recently spotted by The Verge, Nike’s brief explanation for discontinuing the app is that Nike “is no longer creating new versions of Adapt shoes.” The company started informing owners about the app’s retirement about four months ago.
Those who already bought the shoes can still use the app after August 6, but it’s expected that iOS or Android updates will eventually make the app unusable. Also, those who get a new device won’t be able to download Adapt after August 6.
Without the app, wearers are unable to change the color of the sneaker’s LED lights. The lights will either maintain the last color scheme selected via the app or, per Nike, “if you didn’t install the app, light will be the default color.” While owners will still be able to use on-shoe buttons to turn the shoes on or off, check its battery, adjust the lace’s tightness, and save fit settings, the ability to change lighting and control the shoes via mobile phone were big selling points of the $350 kicks.
Despite the Adapt BB being Nike’s third version of self-tying sneakers and its most widely available one yet, the sneakers look doomed to have some its most marketed features bricked. Nike still maintains other mobile apps that are directly tied to shoe functionality, like its shopping app and Run Club app for tracking running.
Disappointed sneakerheads
Adapt BB owners have shared disappointment after learning the news. One Reddit user who claimed to own multiple pairs of the shoes called the news “hyper bullshit,” while another described it as “immensely disappointing.”
Some hope that Nike will open-source the app so that customers can maintain their shoes’ original and full functionality. But Nike hasn’t shared any plans to do so. Ars Technica asked the company about this but didn’t hear back ahead of press time.
One person going by Maverick-1776 on Reddit wrote:
These shoes were so expensive when they came out. I don’t see why it’s such a big deal to keep supporting the app. It doesn’t mean they need to dedicate a dev team. …
Hopefully the app doesn’t disappear if you already have it installed. I like using the app to see how much battery is left, or just messing around with the LEDs.”
Reddit’s Taizan said companies like Nike should “offer alternatives or put out stuff to the public domain when they do these things,” adding: “Sustainability also involves maintenance of past products, digital or not.”
“I’m out. Fuck ’em.”
Some may be unsurprised that Nike’s attempt at commercializing the shoes from Back to the Future Part II has run into a wall. Nike, for instance, also discontinued NikeConnect, its app for $200 NBA jerseys announced in 2017 that turned wearers into marketing gold.
Casual sneaker wearers would overlook the Adapt BB’s flashy features, but the shoe had inherent flaws that could frustrate sneaker fanatics, too. It didn’t take long, for example, for a recommended software update to break the shoes, including making them unwearable to anyone who wanted to tighten the laces (at the time, Nike said the problem affected a small number of owners). Nike’s tech inexperience played a role, as the company’s testing reportedly didn’t fully consider all the different phone models in use and their varying Bluetooth capabilities.
Nike’s borked shoe update was early warning of what happens when expensive products are tied to technology run by companies with limited tech chops.
Reddit user rtuite81 called Adapt’s sunsetting “entirely expected, but frustrating.” They added:
I knew this day would come … I just didn’t think it would be so soon LOL. I’ve only had these for a little over a year and worn them about 15 times. Hopefully my current phone outlasts the shoes.
This year, we’ve reported on customers of numerous companies—including Amazon, Oral-B, and Spotify—that have disappointed early adopters of their ambitious tech-tied projects.
As we’re currently seeing with AI, corporations are eager to force technology into products that don’t necessarily need it in order to set themselves apart and make money. But this makes customers inadvertent test subjects for products that are inevitably dropped. And as customers like Reddit’s henkmanz get let down, they lose faith in such trendy products:
I’m done with products supported by apps, now. If you can’t trust a multi-billion dollar company like Nike to continue support for a sneaker, how can you trust a toaster maker [or] an automaker? I’m out. Fuck ‘em.
Enlarge/ Right now, the software doesn’t do arms, so don’t go taking on any aliens with it.
20th Century Fox
Exoskeletons today look like something straight out of sci-fi. But the reality is they are nowhere near as robust as their fictional counterparts. They’re quite wobbly, and it takes long hours of handcrafting software policies, which regulate how they work—a process that has to be repeated for each individual user.
To bring the technology a bit closer to Avatar’s Skel Suits or Warhammer 40k power armor, a team at North Carolina University’s Lab of Biomechatronics and Intelligent Robotics used AI to build the first one-size-fits-all exoskeleton that supports walking, running, and stair-climbing. Critically, its software adapts itself to new users with no need for any user-specific adjustments. “You just wear it and it works,” says Hao Su, an associate professor and co-author of the study.
Tailor-made robots
An exoskeleton is a robot you wear to aid your movements—it makes walking, running, and other activities less taxing, the same way an e-bike adds extra watts on top of those you generate yourself, making pedaling easier. “The problem is, exoskeletons have a hard time understanding human intentions, whether you want to run or walk or climb stairs. It’s solved with locomotion recognition: systems that recognize human locomotion intentions,” says Su.
Building those locomotion recognition systems currently relies on elaborate policies that define what actuators in an exoskeleton need to do in each possible scenario. “Let’s take walking. The current state of the art is we put the exoskeleton on you and you walk on a treadmill for an hour. Based on that, we try to adjust its operation to your individual set of movements,” Su explains.
Building handcrafted control policies and doing long human trials for each user makes exoskeletons super expensive, with prices reaching $200,000 or more. So, Su’s team used AI to automatically generate control policies and eliminate human training. “I think within two or three years, exoskeletons priced between $2,000 and $5,000 will be absolutely doable,” Su claims.
His team hopes these savings will come from developing the exoskeleton control policy using a digital model, rather than living, breathing humans.
Digitizing robo-aided humans
Su’s team started by building digital models of a human musculoskeletal system and an exoskeleton robot. Then they used multiple neural networks that operated each component. One was running the digitized model of a human skeleton, moved by simplified muscles. The second neural network was running the exoskeleton model. Finally, the third neural net was responsible for imitating motion—basically predicting how a human model would move wearing the exoskeleton and how the two would interact with each other. “We trained all three neural networks simultaneously to minimize muscle activity,” says Su.
One problem the team faced is that exoskeleton studies typically use a performance metric based on metabolic rate reduction. “Humans, though, are incredibly complex, and it is very hard to build a model with enough fidelity to accurately simulate metabolism,” Su explains. Luckily, according to the team, reducing muscle activations is rather tightly correlated with metabolic rate reduction, so it kept the digital model’s complexity within reasonable limits. The training of the entire human-exoskeleton system with all three neural networks took roughly eight hours on a single RTX 3090 GPU. And the results were record-breaking.
Bridging the sim-to-real gap
After developing the controllers for the digital exoskeleton model, which were developed by the neural networks in simulation, Su’s team simply copy-pasted the control policy to a real controller running a real exoskeleton. Then, they tested how an exoskeleton trained this way would work with 20 different participants. The averaged metabolic rate reduction in walking was over 24 percent, over 13 percent in running, and 15.4 percent in stair climbing—all record numbers, meaning their exoskeleton beat every other exoskeleton ever made in each category.
This was achieved without needing any tweaks to fit it to individual gaits. But the neural networks’ magic didn’t end there.
“The problem with traditional, handcrafted policies was that it was just telling it ‘if walking is detected do one thing; if walking faster is detected do another thing.’ These were [a mix of] finite state machines and switch controllers. We introduced end-to-end continuous control,” says Su. What this continuous control meant was that the exoskeleton could follow the human body as it made smooth transitions between different activities—from walking to running, from running to climbing stairs, etc. There was no abrupt mode switching.
“In terms of software, I think everyone will be using this neural network-based approach soon,” Su claims. To improve the exoskeletons in the future, his team wants to make them quieter, lighter, and more comfortable.
But the plan is also to make them work for people who need them the most. “The limitation now is that we tested these exoskeletons with able-bodied participants, not people with gait impairments. So, what we want to do is something they did in another exoskeleton study at Stanford University. We would take a one-minute video of you walking, and based on that, we would build a model to individualize our general model. This should work well for people with impairments like knee arthritis,” Su claims.
Schleswig-Holstein, one of Germany’s 16 states, on Wednesday confirmed plans to move tens of thousands of systems from Microsoft Windows to Linux. The announcement follows previously established plans to migrate the state government off Microsoft Office in favor of open source LibreOffice.
As spotted by The Document Foundation, the government has apparently finished its pilot run of LibreOffice and is now announcing plans to expand to more open source offerings.
In 2021, the state government announced plans to move 25,000 computers to LibreOffice by 2026. At the time, Schleswig-Holstein said it had already been testing LibreOffice for two years.
As announced on Minister-President Daniel Gunther’s webpage this week, the state government confirmed that it’s moving all systems to the Linux operating system (OS), too. Per a website-provided translation:
With the cabinet decision, the state government has made the concrete beginning of the switch away from proprietary software and towards free, open-source systems and digitally sovereign IT workplaces for the state administration’s approximately 30,000 employees.
The state government is offering a training program that it said it will update as necessary.
Regarding LibreOffice, the government maintains the possibility that some jobs may use software so specialized that they won’t be able to move to open source software.
In 2021, Jan Philipp Albrecht, then-minister for Energy, Agriculture, the Environment, Nature, and Digitalization of Schleswig-Holstein, discussed interest in moving the state government off of Windows.
“Due to the high hardware requirements of Windows 11, we would have a problem with older computers. With Linux we don’t have that,” Albrecht told Heise magazine, per a Google translation.
This week’s announcement also said that the Schleswig-Holstein government will ditch Microsoft Sharepoint and Exchange/Outlook in favor of open source offerings Nextcloud and Open-Xchange, and Mozilla Thunderbird in conjunction with the Univention active directory connector.
Schleswig-Holstein is also developing an open source directory service to replace Microsoft’s Active Directory and an open source telephony offering.
Digital sovereignty dreams
Explaining the decision, the Schleswig-Holstein government’s announcement named enhanced IT security, cost efficiencies, and collaboration between different systems as its perceived benefits of switching to open source software.
Further, the government is pushing the idea of digital sovereignty, with Schleswig-Holstein Digitalization Minister Dirk Schrödter quoted in the announcement as comparing the concept’s value to that of energy sovereignty. The announcement also quoted Schrödter as saying that digital sovereignty isn’t achievable “with the current standard IT workplace products.”
Schrödter pointed to the state government’s growing reliance on cloud services and said that with related proprietary software, users have no influence on data flow and whether that data makes its way to other countries.
Schrödter also claimed that the move would help with the state’s budget by diverting money from licensing fees to “real programming services from our domestic digital economy” that could also create local jobs.
In 2021, Albrecht said the state was reaching its limits with proprietary software contracts because “license fees have continued to rise in recent years,” per Google’s translation.
“Secondly, regarding our goals for the digitalization of administration, open source simply offers us more flexibility,” he added.
At the time, Albrecht claimed that 90 percent of video conferences in the state government ran on the open source program Jitsi, which was advantageous during the COVID-19 pandemic because the state was able to quickly increase video conferencing capacity.
Additionally, he said that because the school portal was based on (unnamed) open source software, “we can design the interface flexibly and combine services the way we want.”
There are numerous other examples globally of government entities switching to Linux in favor of open source technology. Federal governments with particular interest in avoiding US-based technologies, including North Korea and China, are some examples. The South Korean government has also shared plans to move to Linux by 2026, and the city of Barcelona shared migration plans in 2018.
But some government bodies that have made the move regretted it and ended up crawling back to Windows. Vienna released the Debian-based distribution WIENUX in 2005 but gave up on migration by 2009.
In 2003, Munich announced it would be moving some 14,000 PCs off Windows and to Linux. In 2013, the LiMux project finished, but high associated costs and user dissatisfaction resulted in Munich announcing in 2017 that it would spend the next three years reverting back to Windows.
Albrecht in 2021 addressed this failure when speaking to Heise, saying, per Google’s translation:
The main problem there was that the employees weren’t sufficiently involved. We do that better. We are planning long transition phases with parallel use. And we are introducing open source step by step where the departments are ready for it. This also creates the reason for further rollout because people see that it works.
Online graphic design platform provider Canva announced its acquisition of Affinity on Tuesday. The purchase adds tools for creative professionals to the Australian startup’s repertoire, presenting competition for today’s digital design stronghold, Adobe.
The companies didn’t provide specifics about the deal, but Cliff Obrecht, Canva’s co-founder and COO, told Bloomberg that it consists of cash and stock and is worth “several hundred million pounds.”
Canva, which debuted in 2013, has made numerous acquisitions to date, including Flourish, Kaleido, and Pixabay, but its purchase of Affinity is its biggest yet—by both price and headcount (90). Affinity CEO Ashley Hewson said via a YouTube video that Canva approached Affinity about a potential deal two months ago.
Before its Affinity purchase, Canva claimed 175 million users, which interestingly includes 90 million accrued since September 2022, when Canva launched Visual Suite. Without Affinity, though, Canva hasn’t had a way to appeal to the business-to-business market.
Affinity, which works with iPads, Macs, and Windows PCs, meanwhile, has a creative suite that includes a photo editor, professional page layout software, and Designer, a vector-based graphics software that “thousands” of illustrators, designers, and game developers use, Obrecht said when announcing the acquisition.
Of course, Affinity’s user base isn’t nearly the size of Adobe’s. Affinity claims that 3 million creative professionals use its tools. Adobe hasn’t provided hard numbers recently, but in 2017, it was estimated that Adobe Creative Cloud had 12 million subscribers, and Adobe currently claims to have 50 million members on its Behance online community.
However, Affinity has earned a following among creative professionals seeking an alternative to Adobe. Speaking to Bloomberg, Obrecht was keen to point out that Apple has featured Affinity apps in presentations about creative products, for example.
Perpetual Affinity licenses will still be available
Since being founded in 2014, one of the biggest ways that Affinity has stood out to creatives looking to avoid the costs associated with Adobe, including subscription fees, is perpetual licensing. New owner Canva pledged in an announcement today that one-time purchase fees will always be an option for Affinity users.
“Perpetual licenses will always be offered, and we will always price Affinity fairly and affordably,” an announcement today from Canva and Affinity said.
If Canva ever decides to sell Affinity as a subscription, perpetual licensing will remain available, Canva said, adding: “This fits with enabling Canva users to start adopting Affinity. It could also allow us to offer Affinity users a way to scale their workflows using Canva as a platform to share and collaborate on their Affinity assets, if they choose to.”
As we’ve seen with many other acquisitions, though, it’s common for companies to start changing their minds about how they’re willing to operate an acquired business years or even months after finalizing the purchase. And, of course, Canva’s idea of pricing “fairly and affordably” could differ from those of long-time Affinity users.
What about AI?
Canva also vowed to keep Affinity available as a standalone product and said there will be upcoming free updates to Affinity V2. However, Cameron Adams, Canva’s co-founder, pointed to potential future integration between Canva’s and Affinity’s offerings when speaking with Sydney Morning Herald:
Our product teams have already started chatting and we have some immediate plans for lightweight integration, but we think the products themselves will always be separate. Professional designers have really specific needs.
Canva’s announcement today said that the company plans to accelerate the rollout of “highly requested” Affinity features, “such as variable font support, blend and width tools, auto object selection, multi-page spreads, [and] ePub export.” With Canva, which was valued at $26 billion in 2021 and generates over $2.1 billion in annualized revenue, taking ownership of Affinity, the creative suite is expected to have more resources for improvements and updates than before.
Notably, though, Canva hasn’t revealed to what degree it may try to incorporate AI into Affinity. Canva is fully aboard the generative AI hype train and, as recently as this Monday pushed workers of all types to embrace the technology. Affinity, meanwhile, has said that it won’t make any generative AI tech and is “against anything which undermines human talent or tramples on artists’ IP.” Affinity’s stance could be forced to change one day under its new owner.
To start, though, Canva’s acquisition helps to fill the B2B gap in its portfolio, and it’s expected to use its new appeal to go after some of Adobe’s dominance.
“While our last decade at Canva has focused heavily on the 99 percent of knowledge workers without design training, truly empowering the world to design includes empowering professional designers, too. By joining forces with Affinity, we’re excited to unlock the full spectrum of designers at every level and stage of the design journey,” Obrecht said in Tuesday’s announcement.
Meanwhile, Adobe abandoned its own recent merger and acquisition efforts, a $20 billion purchase of Figma, in December due to regulatory concerns.
