General Motors and AT&T are expanding their partnership with plans to bring 5G to cars within the next few years. Some model year 2024 vehicles, which should start arriving in 2023, will be the first GM models equipped with 5G. Among GM's 2024 models is the electric Hummer SUV. GM vehicles from model year 2019 and later with 4G LTE capabilities will have faster connection speeds via the 5G network too.
The companies are building out a "high-performance 5G core network" with upgraded coverage centered on roadways. GM and AT&T claim the network will enable faster software updates and music and video downloads, as well as more responsive navigation and voice services.
Improved connectivity should benefit autonomous vehicles as well. GM says the 5G network will "provide a strong foundation" for its semi-autonomous Super Cruise tech along with its Vehicle Intelligence Platform.
Bringing 5G connectivity to cars at a broad level was always on the cards. It'll be a while yet before there's widespread network coverage on highways and in rural areas, so adding 5G to vehicles starting in model year 2024 seems a reasonable timeline. AT&T says its 5G network is currently available in 14,000 cities and towns across the US.
Amazon is preparing to increase its brick and mortar footprint in a big way. The retailer plans to open several large physical locations in the US akin to department stores, according to anonymous sources cited by The Wall Street Journal. The new stores — the first of which will come to Ohio and California — will sell clothing, household items and electronics from "top consumer brands." Obviously, shoppers can also expect to run into Amazon's own-brand products, too.
While the sites are tipped to be around the third of the size of a typical department store at 30,000 square feet, they'll still be much larger than Amazon's other physical locations. The move sees the company expanding into an area it originally disrupted as it grew into an all-in-one online shopping destination.
With their sales already plummeting, the pandemic sealed the fate of several high-profile department stores. The likes of J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus Group have filed for bankruptcy along with other big names in the sector. Though some were thrown a lifeline when they managed to attract new owners.
Amazon, on the other hand, has seen its fortunes skyrocket during the pandemic as it profited from an increasing shift toward e-commerce. Its booming business even helping to bankroll founder Jeff Bezos' trip into space.
Amazon's move into physical retail predates the virus, however. The company started with brick and mortar bookstores back in 2015, later acquiring Whole Foods for $13.4 billion in 2017. More recently, it opened cashierless Amazon Go stores in the US and UK. Not to mention its highly-curated Amazon 4-star stores and Amazon Pop-Ups inside malls.
The larger stores are apparently viewed as a way of letting shoppers try before they buy, which is particularly useful for things like apparel. That's an area where Amazon has historically struggled. As the WSJ notes, the only high-fashion label on its online store is Oscar de la Renta. It also lost a major seller in Nike in 2019, which decided to go it alone in e-commerce — a move that has paid off for the sneaker company.
Amazon's department stores would also allow it to showcase its range of electronics, from its Fire TVs and tablets to Echo speakers to its Ring home security range, and even its Luna cloud gaming service. Notably, big box retailers have shown that emboldened shoppers are returning to stores. Both Walmart and Target recently smashed estimates in their respective second quarters as sales rose across most categories.
After a bit of a break from the headlines, the Pokémon juggernaut is back. A Nintendo Direct event yesterday gave us a better look at Pokémon: Legends, a new kind spin-off title from the Pocket Monster universe. Combining the cute monsters with feudal Japan aesthetics is a fun twist, and it looks like Legends will offer a different kind of battle system. Battles are still turn-based, but rather than Pokémon each taking a turn and trading blows, their stats and equipped items dictate the order of actions.
Each Pokémon's four moves has two styles: agile style and strong style. The former speeds up your action speed and might bump up your next turn in the queue, but the move will be weaker than unusual. It appears this action queue will be core to battles in Legends.
And if you’re just here for Pokémon silliness, you’ll be able to ride your Pocket Monsters around like steeds and, well, jet skis.
Holoride’s VR gaming system for passengers caught our attention a few years back at CES when we were given a track ride in an Audi and had the game react to the movement of the vehicle while we played. Well, the company is back, and this time it demoed two games and threw off the shackles of the track for the real world. Roberto Baldwin tackles a new kind of in-car entertainment.
Researchers from Italy have created a robot that deals with diabetes without needles. PILLSID involves two separate parts: an internal insulin dispenser that a doctor would surgically implant in your abdomen and a magnetic capsule loaded with the hormone. When you need to top-up, you swallow the capsule, which makes its way to the dispenser.
In a test involving three diabetic pigs, the research team found the system could successfully manage insulin levels for several hours. In some instances, they found bodily fluids from the pigs would leak into the robot. It’s early days for now.
The FBI received a tip-off about suspicious activity ahead of the Capitol Riot on January 6th from a surprising source: a recreational mapmaker. Elliot Carter contacted law enforcement after his site about Washington, DC's underground infrastructure got a spike in activity from suspicious websites. His warning eventually made it to the highest ranks of the Capitol Police.
His "online tip" to the FBI was even mentioned in the US Senate Rules and Homeland Security committees' June 2021 review of the US Capitol insurrection.
Since the start of the pandemic, Facebook has taken a much tougher stance on health misinformation than it had in the past, removing millions of posts for sharing misinformation. Now, we know how many accounts, groups and pages have been banned from the platform for repeatedly breaking those rules: just 3,000.
But the relatively low number of bans tracks with findings by researchers who say that only a few individuals are responsible for the vast majority of vaccine mistruths on social media. Facebook’s VP of Content Policy, Monika Bickert, told reporters that the company has had to continually evolve its policies, noting that some groups have used “coded language” to try to evade the company’s detection.
Splitgate, a frenetic free-to-play arena shooter with portals, has become a word of mouth hit with 10 million downloads in under 30 days. Developer 1047 Games has announced that the game will remain in open beta indefinitely as it works on managing the sudden influx of players. As a result, Splitgate is no longer slated to fully launch this month. Instead, 1047 will continue to roll out updates and fixes to the game complete with new content and improvements to the backend that can facilitate the uptick in players. Queue times are now less than 10 minutes and a new Ranked Duos mode recently went live.
Splitgate injected the tired arena shooter with a much need blast of vitality by adding portals to the mix. Players can cast these wormholes around the map and even shoot opponents through them. It helps that it's free-to-play, contains a variety of guns and plenty of game modes (like Team deathmatch, Team Shotty Snipers and Team SWAT).
While the game has been in early access since 2019, it exploded in popularity in the wake of its open beta launch in early July, which brought with it cross-play with Xbox and PlayStation consoles. According to 1047, the shooter went from an initial 4,000 concurrent players to more than 175,000 in a few weeks. Naturally, the massive increase caused backend issues. Splitgate was taken offline twice in recent weeks as the small 1047 team worked on server optimizations.
In late July, the developer announced that it had raised $10 million in a recent funding round led by Human Capital on top of the $6.5 million it snagged earlier in the year. 1047 said it would put the money toward expanding its engineering team. The company also has a major announcement in store for Gamescom later this month as it looks to build on Splitgate's breakout success. In a recent Q&A session on Twitch, the developer reportedly mentioned that a Switch and mobile port of the game was "part of the vision."
“This has been the most surreal time of my life,” said Ian Proulx, CEO and co-founder of 1047 Games. “The fan support has been incredible as we work to improve the player experience. We never dreamed of having to scale this big this quickly, and as a result we have had to overcome challenges to keep up with player demand. We met several major milestones in a short time, creating a stable platform where fans can expect to find a server to play on relatively quickly, and I’m proud of what our team has accomplished - but there’s a lot more to come!”
Proulx continued, “In looking at the issues facing the scalability of the game’s backend, the process includes far more than simply dealing with server capacity. We are focused on keeping the game stable for fans, and iterating on the game’s concurrent capacity in order to minimize player wait times. We want to do this the right way, and we want to be prepared for massive scale when we officially launch, all the while continuing to improve the beta with frequent updates, additional features, and improvements to server capacity.”
The US crackdown on flavored e-cigarettes might soon reach the federal government. A New York-led coalition of 31 states and territories is pressuring the Food and Drug Administration to regulate flavored e-cigarettes. The group wants to not only ban e-cigs with "youth-appealing" flavors like candy, mint and menthol, but to limit nicotine levels and restrict marketing efforts aimed at kids.
The coalition is hoping to thwart what it calls a "youth nicotine epidemic." About 19.6 percent of high school students from 2020 said they'd used e-cigarettes at least once in the past 30 days, according to a study published in the National Library of Medicine. The alliance also pointed to the effects of nicotine on kids' brains, including higher chances of addiction as well as mental health issues and poisoning.
The pressure campaign follows high-profile action against e-cigarettes at the state level, particularly in New York. The state not only banned flavored cigarettes in late 2019, but sued Juul (owned by tobacco giant Altria) for "deceptive and misleading" marketing that contributed to a youth vaping crisis. We've asked Juul for comment on this latest action.
There's a chance the states could get more than they were hoping for when the FDA will decide whether or not to ban e-cigs and oral nicotine starting on September 9th. Even if this doesn't lead to an extensive ban, though, the coalition's sought-after measures could significantly limit the reach of e-cig technology across the US.
When Samsung introduced the original Galaxy Z Flip in 2020, it surprised us all with a “one last thing.” The company revealed special editions of the Flip, Galaxy Buds and Galaxy Watch styled by American designer Thom Browne. Since then, every foldable Samsung has launched has come in a special Thom Browne (TB) version. Just 3,500 units of these limited edition bundles are available each time, and according to Browne, “they sell out supposedly in minutes.”
This year, Samsung is offering the Thom Browne bundles of the Fold 3 and Flip 3 for $3,449 and $2,349 respectively. Each box comes with TB-themed versions of the foldable, Buds 2, Galaxy Watch 4, wireless charger trio and a selection of cases and straps. The regular Fold 3, Buds 2, Watch 4 and wireless charger cost $1,799, $150, $250 and $80 respectively, bringing the total to about $2,280, not including the cases and straps. So you’re paying about $1,000 more for the Thom Browne aesthetic.
The packaging for the special edition Fold 3 bundle is extravagant. Each device has its own labelled container and sits in slots carved out inside a giant box. Thankfully, most of the packaging is paper, so I didn’t feel too guilty about the environmental impact. A drawer beneath the devices holds all the accessories, like a pair of TB-themed straps for the watch, a case for the Fold 3 and covers for the Buds 2’s charging case. There’s also a special S Pen Pro in the Fold bundle that’s white with blue and red stripes on the inside.
All the devices have Thom Browne branding on them, and this year’s set features the designer’s signature stripes in red, white and blue. It’s a deliberate selection of colors meant to be an homage to American sportswear, but also acknowledge that it’s an Olympic year.
“The reference to the red, white and blue, and specifically the white with the red trim felt very reminiscent of old Olympics and old Olympics uniforms,” Browne told Engadget. “I love sports, I love athletes, I’ve been so inspired by athletes at that level,” he said. (He’s a swimmer, in case you were wondering. And while we’re in a parenthetical, I’m a thrower.)
But the stripe-centric design and familiar color scheme have always been a part of the Samsung bundles, which Browne said is “something that feels very signature to me.” He’s made sure to keep recognizable elements from his brand on them, because he felt people “would have been disappointed if it were to be approached any differently.”
Not only does the motif appear on the Galaxy devices’ externally, the Fold 3 and Watch 4 also have custom wallpapers in TB themes. The default background on the special edition Fold is covered in the designer’s signature gray-and-white vertical lines with a small postage stamp-esque square in the middle as the clock widget. At the top center of the screen is a small band of the red-white-and-blue pattern that’s reminiscent of a fabric bookmark. System icons and fonts match the overall theme as well.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
Though there aren’t any differences in size between the TB edition devices and their standard counterparts, the shiny metal finish on the branded Fold and Watch make them feel sleeker somehow. I also vastly prefer the Thom Browne watch straps to Samsung’s boring, chunky versions. And though there isn’t much room on the buds for the company to add design flourishes, I love that it still managed to paint little strips of red-white-and-blue on each headphone. Though in that shape, they look like color-reversed French flags.
Now that the Thom Browne versions of these devices are in their third iteration, the designer is pretty familiar with the process of coming up with them. Each edition has taken about a year to create, and Browne said that the “most important thing for these collaborations is that you see the best from both parties.”
For Browne, the partnership has been a “really good, very supportive, mutually respectful relationship” that’s lasted over 15 years. Though the special edition foldables have only been around for about two years, Samsung has carried his collections in its stores in the past. But the opportunity to create a Thom Browne version of the original Z Flip was intriguing. Browne said the first phone he ever had was a flip phone, so “it was interesting to me, the idea of that iconic phone being reintroduced, yet, making it a very relevant device for today.”
Samsung
Though Browne says Samsung has never put any limits on how he wanted to approach his designs for the devices, something he would make if anything was possible would be a phone made from pure gold. “That would be a challenge that I would like to give to Samsung.”
Perhaps because of how content he is with the partnership, Browne said he wouldn’t want to work with any other company in this field. He’s not thinking of making a Thom Browne smartwatch, though he’s open to considering other Samsung products.
Ultimately, the biggest benefit for him is probably visibility. “I hope, in a way, that the phone introduces a lot of new people to the world of Thom Browne.”
The Pokémon Company (TPC) held its latest Pokémon Presents event on Wednesday, in which it revealed more details about its upcoming games. Pokémon Legends: Arceusgot much of the focus. It's a brand-new open-world adventure set in the Hisui region (later known as Sinnoh), and it takes place long before the events of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.
Since this is a different spin on the Pokémon formula, developer Game Freak has revamped the battle system, taking a similar approach to Final Fantasy X. Battles are still turn-based, but rather than Pokémon each taking a turn, their respective stats and other facets such as items dictate the order of actions and how many each creature gets to take.
Pokémon might take multiple turns in a row, so you might take the opportunity to dish out multiple attacks on the spin or take time to heal up in between. Each of your Pokémon's four moves has two styles: agile style and strong style. The former speeds up your action speed and might bump up your next turn in the queue, but the move will be weaker than unusual. You can unleash a more powerful attack if you opt for strong style, though you might need to wait longer to act again. It's clear you'll need to rethink your battle strategies to be successful here.
Not only can you sneak up on wild Pokémon through tall grass to hurl a wooden Poké Ball at them, you can use smoke bombs to conceal yourself. Wild Pokémon also might attack before you deploy a Pokémon of your own. Battles will start right away rather than moving to a battle-specific screen.
The Pokémon Company
Elsewhere, the trailer featured another look at the game's gorgeous visuals and other gameplay. It has expansive vistas that feel a bit reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. You'll be able to ride certain Pokémon on land, as well as in the water or sky.
The aim of the game is to create the region's first-ever Pokédex, and you'll need to carry out research tasks to learn more about each Pokémon. There are base camps dotted around Hisui, where you can craft items and restore the health of your Pokémon. Pokémon Legends: Arceus arrives on Nintendo Switch on January 28th.
The Pokémon Company
Meanwhile,Pokémon Unite is scheduled to hit iOS and Android on September 22nd. The free-to-play MOBA landed on Switch in July. If at least 2.5 million players pre-register, they'll all be able to use Pikachu in battle. TPC also noted that Pokémon Café Mix is being reworked as Pokémon Café Remix with updated gameplay and more Pokémon. The new version will arrive this fall.
Holoride’s VR gaming system for passengers caught our attention a few years back at CES when we were given a ride in an Audi on a track and had the game react to the movement of the vehicle while we played. Well, the company is back and this time they demoed two games and threw off the shackles of the track for the real world.
We took a ride in an Audi with the Holoride system and again enjoyed video games while someone else drove. The company is currently courting developers to build games via their recently announced SDK and are partnering with automakers to make sure that the data they need from the car to make their games a reality is available. Watch the video above for the full story.
Samsung's insistence on shoving ads into its stock apps has detracted from its otherwise stellar phones. If the pop-ups inside Samsung Pay and Music irked you, we have good news: They'll soon be axed for good. “Samsung has made a decision to cease the advertisement on proprietary apps including Samsung Weather, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Theme,” the company confirmed in a statement to The Verge. “The update will be ready by later this year.”
The move to cull in-app ads was first reported by Korean media who attributed it to TM Roh, president and head of mobile communications business, Samsung Electronics. In response to a question by an employee at the company's online town hall, the exec said that ads would go away in future versions of apps like Samsung Pay, Samsung Themes and Samsung Weather. Roh hinted that the reversal was made in response to user and staff feedback.
We were never fans of the in-app ads here at Engadget. In our recent reviews of the flagship S21 Ultra and mid-range A52 5G, we noted that the "lousy" ads in Samsung's Weather and Daily news apps felt "unpleasant and weird." It seems Samsung finally took heed of the criticism, especially from irritated users, and decided to ditch them altogether.
As more and more venues and events, including CES, require proof of vaccination against COVID before granting entry, Samsung is working to make it easier to keep your records on hand. The company has today announced that it has partnered with non-profit The Commons Project to help digitize people’s vaccination records. Once a user has authenticated their record through the CommonHealth app, they can add the details to their Samsung Pay wallet for “convenient access and use.”
The feature is rolling out to a small number of devices initially, but Samsung says that every compatible device will have access by the end of the week. Both parties say that the data will be secure and the transfer from the CommonHealth app to Samsung Pay will be quick and painless.
