Alphabet’s Subsidiary Wing Unleashes New Drones to Meet Requirements of All Payloads
These days, the modern drones have weight problems, which is why they fail to deliver goods of all sizes
Wing, the sister organization of Alphabet, has recently unleashed a new variety of drones of different shapes and sizes to meet the requirements of all kinds of payloads. The new CEO of WIng Adam Woodworth has posted and published this launch at the company’s official blog from where users can get a glimpse of various kinds of information on the product as well.
Annapurna Interactive is selling a branded cat carrier to coincide with its new adventure game Stray. The publisher teamed up with pet accessories brand Travel Cat for the limited-edition carrier, just a few days before the game hits PlayStation and PC on Tuesday. (PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can play the game at no extra cost – the first time a third-party title will appear on a higher PS Plus tier on its release date.)
It's a version of a Travel Cat’s Fat Cat bag, with neon and charcoal colors inspired by the cyberpunk setting of Stray. The pet accessory company says the $140 carrier is sturdy and breathable, with space for more than one cat.
In a curious bit of serendipity, this announcement coincided with Engadget’s own guide to the top backpacks. Sadly, we didn’t consider the cat carrier segment. Next time!
Provided component shortages don't get the best of Apple.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says that Apple is already working on M2 versions of the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro, less than a year since both appeared. The design and features of the two computers are “likely to stay roughly the same” since Apple only redesigned the line last year to add MagSafe charging, more ports and better displays. The primary change will be the addition of M2 versions of the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips the company offers through its current models.
The Nothing Phone 1 is a striking device, but thanks to limited availability, good luck buying one. Enter Dbrand, which you might recall for its PS5 shells and skins that Sony once summarily banned. The accessory maker has announced a new “Something” line of skins that promise to transform your iPhone 13 Pro Max, Pixel 6 Pro or Galaxy S22 Ultra into a faux transparent device. Its “Something” skins are available to buy through Dbrand’s website for $24.95.
Polestar won’t officially debut its next EV until this fall, but the company has shared initial pricing information. The company’s Thomas Ingenlath said the Polestar 3 would start at €75,000 and top out at around €110,000. Judging by current exchange rates, the automaker’s first electric SUV could cost between $75,700 and $111,000 when it arrives in the US. There’s still a lot we don’t know about the Polestar 3’s specs, but the company has said the SUV will feature the same dual-motor powertrain as the Polestar 2 and a 372-mile range.
When the James Webb team was calibrating the telescope, they took photos of Jupiter to see if it can be used to observe nearby celestial objects like moons and asteroids, as well as other elements like planet rings and satellites. The answer, it turns out, is yes.
A photo taken by the telescope's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument’s short-wavelength filter (above) clearly shows the gas giant's distinct bands and its moon Europa. The Great Red Spot is also perfectly visible, even though it looks white due to the way the image was processed.
The 3-pack setup will let you cover up to 6,600 square feet, enough for even large homes. We gave the Google Nest WiFi router a score of 84 in our review for its installation simplicity and ease of use. Setup is easy to do, and its wireless radios are twice as powerful as the ones inside the old Google WiFi router. We also praised both the router and the access points for having unobtrusive designs that will fit nicely into most homes.
The access points also work as speakers with built-in Google Assistant that you can use to issue voice commands. They can't quite replace a proper speaker, but sound quality is the same as a standalone Google Home Mini. The biggest drawback is a lack of support for WiFi 6, but these are otherwise some of the best mesh routers available.
Google
Meanwhile, the Nest Video Doorbell (battery) is on sale for $120, or $60 off the regular price. The battery makes installation easy and possible to use with any door, and it offers features like visitor alerts, along with a built-in speaker and microphone.
And finally, both the wired and battery Nest Security Camera's are also marked down. The wired model (2nd generation) is on sale for $79, or 21 percent off the regular $99 price, while the Nest Cam Outdoor or Indoor (2nd gen) with battery is marked down 33 percent to $120. Both record at 1080p and they'll send alerts to your phone when motion is detected in their line of site. They also have built in speakers and microphones, so you can hear what's going on and speak to people on the other end of the camera.
With the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) now powered up and snapping some spectacular images, you may wonder exactly how it's storing them. Surprisingly enough, it carries a relatively tiny 68GB SSD, according to IEEE Spectrum — enough to handle a day's worth of JWST images, but not a lot more.
While that might sound ludicrously small for a $10 billion satellite, there are multiple reasons NASA chose the system. To start with, the JWST is a million miles from Earth where it gets bombarded by radiation and operates at a temperature of less than 50 degrees above absolute zero (-370 degrees F). So the SSD, like all other parts, must be radiation hardened and survive a grueling certification process.
While not nearly as fast as consumer SSDs, it can still be nearly filled in as little as 120 minutes via the telescope's 48 Mbps command and data handling subsystem (ICDH). At the same time, the JWST can transmit data back to Earth at 28 Mbps via a 25.9 Ghz Ka-band connection to the Deep Space Network.
That means that while it collects far more data than Hubble ever did (57GB compared to 1-2GB per day), it can transfer all that data back to Earth in about 4.5 hours. It does so during two 4-hour contact windows each day, with each allowing the transmission of 28.6GB of science data. In other words, it only needs enough storage to collect a day's worth of images — there's no need to keep them on the telescope itself.
There is one puzzler, though. NASA estimates that only 60GB of storage will be available at the end of the JWST's 10-year lifespan due to wear and radiation — and 3 percent of the drive is used for engineering and telemetry data storage. That will leave the JWST very little margin, making us wonder if it will have anywhere near the longevity of Hubble — still going strong after 32 years.
US Democrats have urged the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) to crack down on deceptive practices in the Virtual Private Network (VPN) industry, The Verge has reported. In an open letter, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) cited research indicating that three-quarters of the most popular VPNs "misrepresented their products," leading consumers to a false sense of security.
The news comes in the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade that allows states to ban abortions. That may lead people to sign up for VPN services, but Wyden and Eshoo expressed concerns about the level of privacy they can actually expect.
"Advocacy groups have... found that leading VPN services intentionally misrepresent the functionality of their product and fail to provide adequate security to their users," they said, citing research from Consumer Reports. "We’re highly concerned that this deceptive advertising is giving abortion-seekers a false sense of security when searching for abortion-related care or information, putting them at a higher risk of prosecution."
The letter notes that "there are a lack of practical tools" to audit security claims made by VPN providers, allowing them to advertise data that may be incorrect. They also asked the FTC to develop a brochure informing anyone seeking an abortion about online privacy and the risks and benefits of using a VPN service.
"With abortion illegal or soon to be illegal in 13 states and severely restricted in many more, these abusive and exploitative data practices are simply unacceptable," according to the letter. "We urge the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to take immediate action... to curtail abusive and deceptive data practices in companies providing VPN services to protect internet users seeking abortions."
Open Source ESP32-Based PoE+ Board with a mikroBUS Socket and Two Handy Add-on Shields
Espoir from Connaxio is a fully compliant Power over Ethernet+ (PoE+ 802.3af/at) ESP32-based devboard that provides up to 15 Watts of power to your application at 5 V and 3.3 V. Four full copper layers give the board enhanced electromagnetic compatibility and thermal dissipation. Its PI-filtered power input and outputs give an excellent analog performance. Moreover, its modern USB-C connector helps get rid of old standards.
Congressional Democrats are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy to address the recent proliferation of cryptocurrency mining within the US. In a letter sent Friday (via The Guardian), Senator Elizabeth Warren and five other lawmakers said the two agencies should work together to require crypto mining firms to disclose their energy use and emissions.
The request comes after the group recently completed an investigation that began at the start of the year. According to the letter, data collected from seven of the largest mining companies in the US, including Stronghold, Bitfury and Riot, indicates they can collectively use more than 1 gigawatt of electricity. Put another way, that’s almost enough to power all the residential buildings in Houston.
Warren and the other lawmakers say they’re concerned about what all that power use will mean for the environment and consumers. Regarding the former, they state that emissions data from three of the surveyed companies indicate they emit approximately 1.6 million tons of CO2 annually or the equivalent of the tailpipe emissions of almost 360,000 cars. “Bitcoin miners are using huge quantities of electricity that could be used for other priority end uses that contribute to our electrification and climate goals, such as replacing home furnaces with heat pumps,” the letter states.
On the latter point, the lawmakers cite a 2021 study from the University of California, Berkeley that estimated crypto mining in upstate New York raised annual electricity bills by approximately $165 million for small businesses and $79 million for consumers. What's more, they say their investigation doesn’t even scratch the surface of the full impact of crypto mining on power use and emissions in the US. “None of the companies provided full and complete information in response to our questions,” they note.
“The results of our investigation, which gathered data from just seven companies, are disturbing, with this limited data alone revealing that crypto miners are large energy users that account for a significant – and rapidly growing – amount of carbon emissions,” the letter states. By requiring crypto mining firms to disclose their energy use and emissions, the group says the EPA and Department of Energy could provide lawmakers with better data to inform future policy decisions. The agencies have until August 15th to respond to the request.
Polestar won’t officially debut its next EV until this fall, but the company has shared initial pricing information. Earlier this week, Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath said the Polestar 3 would start at €75,000 and top out at around €110,000, reports Automotive News Europe (via Autoblog). With the current parity between the euro and dollar, the automaker’s first electric SUV could cost between $75,700 and $111,000 when it arrives in the US.
Of course, with Polestar 3 production not slated to start until early 2023, the exchange rate could tip back in favor of the euro, but Ingenlath’s comments give us an idea of where the automaker plans to position the EV. A $75,000 price tag would put the base model Polestar 3 in about the same category as the Tesla Model Y and Rivian R1S, which before incentives cost $69,990 and $72,500 in their respective Performance and Explore trims. Meanwhile, you’re looking at a car in Model X territory with the top-end model.
There’s still a lot we don’t know about the Polestar 3’s specs, but the company has said the SUV would feature the same dual-motor powertrain as the Polestar 2 and a 372-mile range. Polestar also shared that it plans to produce the vehicle in the US partially. We’ll likely learn more about the SUV before its October debut.
Less than a year after announcing the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros, Apple reportedly plans to update those devices as early as this fall. Responding to a reader question in his latest Power On newsletter (via 9to5Mac), Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says the company is already working on M2 versions of the 14- and 16-inch models.
According to Gurman, the design and features of the two computers are “likely to stay roughly the same” since Apple only redesigned the line last year to add MagSafe charging, more ports and better displays. The primary change will be the addition of M2 versions of the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips the company offers through its current models. “Look for much of the focus to be on the graphics side, just like with the standard M2,” said Gurman of the upcoming SoCs. On the 2022 MacBook Air, graphics performance is about 35 percent faster if you go with the 10-core GPU variant.
Although Apple reportedly hopes to release the new MacBook Pros sometime in the fall, Gurman notes the company could delay them to the spring of 2023. “Given the continued supply-chain challenges, it’s hard to predict exactly when these will hit store shelves,” he said. New Macs are just among a “deluge” of products Apple plans to release over the next year. In another recent newsletter, Gurman said the company was also working on a new HomePod and an extreme sports Apple Watch.
After nearly a decade of work on Warframeand more than five years since it canceled its most recent project, Digital Extremes is working on a new game. On Saturday, the studio announced Soulframe, a free-to-play MMO set in a fantasy world. Outside of an enigmatic teaser trailer, Digital Extremes has shared only a few details about Soulframe.
In an interview with The Washington Post, creative director Geoff Crookes said the game draws inspiration from classics The NeverEnding Story and Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke. Like the latter, Soulframe will explore what happens when humans collide with the natural world. “The conceit [in Soulframe] is that the world itself is a little angry about what’s been done to it, and the grounds underneath tend to shift throughout the day,” Crookes told The Post. “So there’s going to be proceduralism within the cave networks and crevasses and so on underneath the world.”
From a gameplay standpoint, Soulframe primarily focuses on “slow and heavy” melee combat. Despite including “Soul” in the title, Crookes told The Post his team didn’t set out to create a Soulslike when they began work on the project – though it became impossible to ignore FromSoftware’s latest masterpiece. “Elden Ring has absolutely been a subject of some conversation — maybe to do with camera, maybe to do with how excellent their combat pacing is,” said Soulframe co-lead Steve Sinclair. “And you know, screw those guys, because damn, [Elden Ring] was absolutely fantastic.”
Soulframe doesn’t have a release date yet, and both Crookes and Sinclair emphasized the game is still early in development, but like with Warframe, Digital Extremes plans to involve the community in the creation process. So expect frequent behind-the-scenes Twitch streams. Moreover, some fans could receive early access to the game within a year.
