Razer has unveiled its latest Blade 17 with the latest NVIDIA and Intel parts targeted at both gamers and content creators. It also launched the more mild-mannered, but much cheaper and still pretty well-equipped Blade 15 Base, also equipped with Intel's latest 11th-generation CPUs.

The Blade 17 is certainly the star of this show, as it comes with Intel's 8-core 11th-generation Core i9-11900H, the same we saw in its Blade 15 laptop earlier this year. As Intel's first 10-nanometer gaming PC chips, it delivers a 19 percent speed bump over equivalent last-gen CPUs, Intel claims. You can also clock the chip up to 4.9 GHz while seeing a stock PL1 power draw of 65 watts. All of that means you should see more performance and power efficiency at the same time, according to Razer and Intel.

Razer

To compliment that CPU, you can get the Blade 17 with up to an RTX 3080 GPU in either 8GB or 16GB configurations, depending on the display. And there are three display choices: you can get it with a 120Hz 4K HDR 400 nit touch display for content creation (with the 16GB VRAM RTX 3080 configuration), a 360Hz 1080p display for the fastest gaming possible, or a 240Hz 2,560 x 1,440 display for a blend of the two.  

Other specs include 32GB of 3,200 MHz Dual-Channel DDR4 RAM (upgradeable to 64GB), up to a 4TB NVMe SSD (with an open M.2 slot) and numerous ports: Two Thunderbolt 4 ports (USB-C 3.2 Gen2), three USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A ports, HDMI 2.1 and a UHS-III SD card reader. It also comes with WiFi6, a 1080p webcam with Windows Hello IR, THX spatial audio support, a 4-mic array and a 70.5 WHr battery. 

Razer

All of that fits in a 6.06 pound squarish body with typical Razer styling that's relatively slim at 19.9 mm. The Blade 17 is now available for pre-order at $2,400, but you'll pay up to $3,700 for the 4K display-equipped model with 32GB of RAM and an RTX 3080 with 16GB of DDR6 VRAM. 

The Blade 15 Base (below) is more modestly equipped than either that model or the Blade 15 we saw in May. However, it still has respectable components including Intel's 8-core i7-11800H processor and up to RTX 3070 8GB graphics. It also comes with either a 144Hz 1080p IPS, THX certified display or a 165Hz QHD display with up to 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage.

Razer

Other features on the Blade 15 Base include a single Thunderbolt 4 port (USB-C), three USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, HDMI 2.1 and Gigabit ethernet. That's a bit of a letdown from the Blade 15 advanced, which has an extra Thunderbolt port and an SD UHS III card reader. However, you'll also pay considerably less, as the Blade 15 Base starts at $1,800, compared to the $2,300 starting price of the Blade Advanced. 

The race to develop satellite internet includes some pretty big players like SpaceX, Amazon, Softbank and Facebook. However, Facebook has now essentially thrown in the towel in that business, selling its internet satellite team to Amazon, The Information has reported. For Amazon, it's a significant step in its effort to develop its Project Kuiper satellite network and catch up with SpaceX's Starlink broadband constellation.

Like Starlink, Project Kuiper is designed to provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to users around the world. Amazon aims to have a 3,236-satellite constellation in orbit by 2029, with half of it launched by 2026. It also plans to build 12 ground stations around the world to transmit data to and from the satellites. 

The company has said it will spend more than $10 billion to make all that happen and recently received FAA approval for the project. It also announced last year that it would use United Launch Alliance's ultra-reliable Atlas V rocket for the initial satellite launches. 

Amazon has significantly ramped up hiring efforts for Project Kuiper at its Redmond headquarters, with 500 employees currently aboard and 200 open positions. The employees coming from Facebook are reportedly based in the Los Angeles area and include physicists as well as optical, prototyping, mechanical and software engineers. Facebook's former head of Southern California connectivity, Jin Bains, is now listed as a Project Kuiper director in his LinkedIn page. 

Meanwhile, it seems Facebook is getting out of the satellite internet business and focusing on terrestrial programs, having invested in subsea and terrestrial fiber as well as wireless services like ExpressWiFi. The company recently launched an "Athena" satellite through its PointView Tech subsidiary, but it was only a test mission rather than the start of a satellite internet constellation. With the sale of its satellite team to Amazon, it appears that any ambitions it may have had in that area are over. 

As it promised last month, Amazon has launched its serialized fiction Kindle Vella store that lets you unlock episodic, self-published stories via in-app purchases. The new platform is a way for readers to discover new fiction and a new way for authors to generate revenue from the Kindle Direct Publishing service. 

While the name might suggest otherwise, Kindle Vella isn't available on Amazon's Kindle e-readers. Rather, you'll only find it on Amazon.com or the Kindle iOS app (no Android for now). To start with, the service will be limited to US-based authors who publish stories in English. 

The serialized stories will run from 600 to 5,000 words per episode, with the first three offered for free. To see subsequent episodes, you'll need to pay for "tokens," with prices ranging from $2 for 200 tokens up to $15 for 1,700 tokens. The latter will give you about 34 episodes, though prices per episode depend on the word count — the more words, the more you'll have to spend. 

Authors, meanwhile, will receive 50 percent of the revenue along with bonuses based on engagement with the app's social media-style features. To that end, readers can follow stories to be notified of new episodes, leave a thumbs up for episodes they like, apply a "Fave" for their favorite story of the week (provided they purchase tokens), and share on Twitter, Facebook and other social media. To boost engagement, authors can speak directly to readers at the end of episodes to "share story insights and behind-the-scenes content," Amazon wrote. 

Since Amazon opened Vella to authors three months ago, "thousands of authors" have published "tens of thousands of Kindle Vella episodes across dozens of genres and microgenre," Amazon said. Authors appear to be interested as well. "I’ve published close to 30 novels, and I’m enjoying the adventure of writing The Marriage Auction in this new format,” said bestselling author Audrey Carlan in a statement. Whether or not the format takes off now depends on readers — to try it out, you can access Vella here. 

The FAA has approved Blue Origin's maiden crewed rocket voyage set for July 20th with the company's chief executive Jeff Bezos aboard. The flight aboard the New Shepard will take Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and three other passengers to Kármán line, just beyond the edge of space. 

To get the certification, Blue Origin had to verify New Shepard's hardware and software operation during its NS-15 test flight conducted on April 14th, 2021. If all goes to plan, the New Shepard booster and capsule with astronauts aboard will blast off to an altitude beyond 100 kilometers (62 miles). The booster will eventually separate from the capsule and attempt to land Earth, while the capsule with passengers aboard will descend to the ground carried by a triple parachute system. 

Rival Richard Branson beat Bezos to be the first billionaire in space aboard Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo. However, Blue Origin claimed that Virgin Galactic didn't truly go to space as it "only" went 57 miles up and didn't cross the Kármán line considered by many to be the edge of space. 

In any case, neither company will be taking passengers into orbit, unlike SpaceX, which is set to do a true orbital flight with passengers aboard later this year. The prices for the different systems are also vastly different: Virgin Galactic's customers pay $250,000 for a ticket to the edge of space, Blue Origin space tourists are expected to pay around $500,000 and SpaceX clients will pay $55 million for a 10-day mission to the ISS. 

However, a seat to fly with Jeff Bezos on the maiden Blue Horizon flight sold at auction for $28 million to a buyer expected to be named soon. That's a lot for a flight expected to last about 10 minutes, but it should be quite a ride. 

Cars are loaded with cameras these days, including on the front and rear, mirrors, side-sensing cameras and driver monitoring cameras. Samsung is trying to attack that market with a specially-designed automotive sensor that uses some unique technology to adapt to both low and bright lighting situations, the company announced. 

A touch smaller than sensors used on smartphones, the ISOCELL Auto 4AC offers 1,280 x 960 resolution but has a unique "CornerPixel" arrangement. Within a single pixel areas it uses both 1 micron and 3 micron photodiodes, with the latter used for capturing images in low light situations. Much like Sony's HDR automotive sensor, it can capture video at night while also adapting to fast-changing lighting situations like in tunnels. 

Samsung

"With two photodiodes capturing images in different exposures simultaneously, the sensor offers up to 120dB HDR with minimal motion blur, allowing smoother transitions between dark and bright areas while preserving more details of the road ahead," according to Samsung. At the same time, it can mitigate flicker issues with LED lights over 90 hertz used in headlights, street lamps and other sources. 

Samsung is rumored to have won a $436 million dollar contract to supply "the largest US EV maker" with camera modules that would replace rearview mirrors, according to the Korea Economic Daily. That automaker is rumored to be Tesla and the vehicle may be the Cybertruck, which has cameras in the front fenders rather than rearview mirrors, as Electrek has noted. All that said, however, the new sensor launch may be unrelated and for now, cameras still can't legally replace side mirrors in the US. 

As with other automotive-grade sensors, it can withstand temperatures ranging from -40 to 125 degrees Celcius, and can be adapted to both human (mirrors, backup cameras etc.) and machine (self-driving) systems. The sensor is currently in production so it could appear in cars in the near future. 

Robots have plenty of potential to help people with limited mobility, including models that could help the infirm put on clothes. That's a particularly challenging task, however, that requires dexterity, safety and speed. Now, scientists at MIT CSAIL have developed an algorithm that strikes a balance by allowing for non-harmful impacts rather than not permitting any impacts at all as before. 

Humans are hardwired to accommodate and adjust to other humans, but robots have to learn all that from scratch. For example, it's relatively easy for a person to help someone else dress, as we know instinctively where to hold the clothing item, how people can bend their arms, how cloth reacts and more. However, robots have to be programmed with all that information. 

In the past, algorithms have prevented robots from making any impact with humans at all in the interest of safety. However, that can lead to something called the "freezing robot" problem, where the robot essentially stops moving and can't accomplish the task it set out to do. 

To get past that issue, an MIT CSAIL team led by PhD student Shen Li developed an algorithm that redefines robotic motion safety by allowing for "safe impacts" on top of collision avoidance. This lets the robot make non-harmful contact with a human to achieve its task, as long as its impact on the human is low.

"Developing algorithms to prevent physical harm without unnecessarily impacting the task efficiency is a critical challenge," said Li. "By allowing robots to make non-harmful impact with humans, our method can find efficient robot trajectories to dress the human with a safety guarantee."

For a simple dressing task, the system worked even if the person was doing other activities like checking a phone, as shown in the video above. It does that by combining multiple models for different situations, rather than relying on a single model as before. "This multifaceted approach combines set theory, human-aware safety constraints, human motion prediction and feedback control for safe human-robot interaction," said Carnegie Mellon University's Zackory Erickson.

The research is still in the early stages, but the ideas could be used areas other than just dressing. "This research could potentially be applied to a wide variety of assistive robotics scenarios, towards the ultimate goal of enabling robots to provide safer physical assistance to people with disabilities," Erickson said. 

Amazon has managed to develop a pretty wide range of Fire HD tablets, Echo Show devices, Kindles and Echo Glow lights for kids. Now, it has launched a big sale for all of those products with discounts as high as 40 percent on its Fire 7 Kids Pro tablets, with the latter product now available at just $60 instead of $100.   

Buy Fire 7 Kids Pro tablet at Amazon - $60Buy Fire HD 8 Kids Pro tablet at Amazon - $90Buy Fire HD 10 Kids Pro tablet at Amazon - $130

The Fire HD Kids Pro lineup features bright colors, kid-friendly cases and a two-year "worry-free" replacement warranty if it breaks, but as Amazon puts it, they're real tablets and not toys. To that end, the Fire 7 Kids Pro tablets come with 7-inch 1,024 x 600 displays, front- and rear-facing 2-megapixel cameras, Micro USB ports and 16 GB of RAM, expandable to 512 GB. You also get a 1-year subscription to Amazon Kids+ with over 20,000 apps, games books, videos, songs and Audible books from National Geographic, Rabbids Coding, LEGO and others. 

The Fire HD 8 Kids Pro model boosts the screen to a 1,280 x 800 model, with 32GB of storage expandable to 1TB, while the Fire HD 10 Kids Pro offers a 10.1-inch 1,920 x 1,200 display with 2-megapixel front and 5-megapixel rear cameras. All the models come with a digital store when kids can request apps and parents can approve them. 

Amazon

Amazon is also offering it's Echo Glow smart multicolor lamp (above) for kids at $20 rather than $30, for a savings of 33 percent. Paired with an Echo Dot Kids (available together for $55 or $35 off the full price), your kids can change the color of the light with their voice, or "ask Alexa to play music, read stories, and call approved friends and family," Amazon notes. 

Buy Echo Glow smart lamp at Amazon - $20Buy Echo Dot Kids + Echo Glow at Amazon - $55

Naturally, Amazon makes the Echo Show 5 (2nd gen) in a kids version with parental controls, and that device is available for $80 or $15 off the regular price. It features a bright "chameleon" cover and allows kids to ask Alexa to play videos, help with homework and make video calls to approved contacts. As with the tablets, it comes with a year of Amazon Kids+ with access to 15,000 videos, audiobooks, games, music stations and more. You can also get it in a bundle with the Echo Glow for $95, for a savings of 24 percent. 

Buy Echo Show 5 Kids at Amazon - $80Buy Echo Show 5 Kids + Echo Glow at Amazon - $95

Finally, for any young readers in the family, Amazon is offering the Kindle Kids Edition for $70 rather than $110, for a savings of $40 or 36 percent. This model is a 10th-generation Kindle (again, not a toy) with a kid-friendly cover and 2-year worry-free guarantee. It offers a black and white glare-free display, weeks of battery life and a 1-year subscription to Amazon Kids+, with access to the complete Harry Potter series and others like Artemis Fowl. 

Buy Kindle Kids Edition at Amazon - $70

After releasing the feature on Android last month, Facebook is debuting WhatsApp self-erasing media and texts on iOS via a new beta release, according to WhatsApp info site WABetaInfo. If you sign up for the beta version 2.21.140.9 on Testflight, you'll be able to send photos and videos that self-destruct as soon as they're viewed and dismissed. Users with access to the "view once" feature will see a dedicated button resembling a timer in the caption input field, as shown in the WABetaInfo screen capture below. 

WABetaInfo

Unlike WhatsApp's disappearing messages, which delete after seven days, photos and videos sent using view once mode will vanish immediately after you close them. The sender will be notified when their media has been viewed. 

As WABetaInfo notes, there's nothing stopping users from taking screenshots of media and you won't be notified if a recipient has done so. As a recipient, you can't block the sender from being notified after opening the message, either. 

WhatsApp has promoted the feature as a way to encourage more authentic and intimate conversations. Parent Facebook previously said that select features would be blocked from users who didn't accept its divisive new privacy policy, but it later backtracked on that decision. 

Apple and Intel are reportedly testing chip designs with TSMC's 3-nanometer process and could be first to market with the technology, according to Nikkei. Intel may be planning to use the chips in next-gen notebooks and data centers, while Apple could be first to market with a 3-nanometer processor in future iPad models. Taiwan-based TSMC will reportedly start manufacturing processors for both companies as early as next year.

TSMC is currently manufacturing 5-nanometer chips for Apple's iPhone 12, and in 2022 will build next-gen AMD Zen 4 chips. It has targeted 3-nanometer volume production for the second half of 2022 with products likely coming along in 2023.

TSMC expects the new tech to deliver 10-15 percent greater performance at the same power levels, or reduce power 25 to 30 percent at the same transistor speeds over 5-nanometer tech. The company also has a 4-nanometer N4 process set to arrive in 2022, offering an evolution over 5-nanometer with minimal changes required by chip designers.

Apple's iPad will reportedly be the first devices powered by 3-nanometer chips, according to Nikkei's sources. The next generation of iPhones rolling out next year will supposedly use 4-nanometer tech for scheduling reasons. 

Currently the chip volume planned for Intel is more than that for Apple's iPad using the 3-nanometer process.

The situation with Intel is perhaps more interesting. Intel confirmed to Nikkei that it would work with TSMC for its 2023 product lineup and has previously said that it would subcontract some chip manufacturing out to the Taiwan-based company, though it didn't say which technology it would use. 

As it stands now, Intel has only just started rolling out its 10-nanometer chips (which are broadly equivalent to chips made with TSMC's 7-nanometer process), and has delayed 7-nanometer production until 2023.

According to Nikkei, TSMC will produce more chips for Intel than Apple. "Currently the chip volume planned for Intel is more than that for Apple's iPad using the 3-nanometer process," a source said. Intel plans to use TSMC to build processors for notebook and data servers "in an attempt to regain market share it has lost to Advanced Micro Devices and NVIDIA over the past few years," the story reads.

If the rumors prove accurate, Intel could possibly beat AMD to 3-nanometer tech, as AMD plans to use 5-nanometer chips for its next-gen Zen 4 processors. AMD now relies on TSMC for its processor and GPU chips, as its previous supplier GlobalFoundries decided not to manufacture 7-nanometer or smaller chips back in 2018. 

TSMC is building a $12 billion chip fab plant in Arizona and plans to use its current 5-nanometer manufacturing technology. Intel, meanwhile, plans to invest $20 billion in two Arizona factories.

Porsche is planning to recall its Taycan EV around the world over a software issue that can cause a sudden power loss, Bloomberg has reported. The action follows an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) started in May following reports of cars switching to emergency mode. There have been no reports of accidents or injuries, according to sources familiar with the situation. 

The NHTSA identified nine complaints of sudden power loss, according to a filing uncovered by Automotive News in May. The problem, which affects model year 2020-2021 vehicles, reportedly stems from the auxiliary 12 volt battery and not the 800 volt main battery that powers the car. 

According to the complaints from May, "a loss of charge in the 12V battery may deactivate the entire electrical system and prevent the vehicle from operation." Loss of power reportedly occurred with no warning or error messages, and six complaints said the vehicle could not be restarted.

"We are already underway in addressing this issue and look forward to answering the NHTSA's questions and quickly resolving the underlying issue, should one be confirmed," a Porsche spokesperson told Road & Track at the time. 

The recall is a first for the Taycan, Porsche's debut all-electric car. Sales in the first quarter of 2021 nearly matched the company's iconic 911 and the EV is a key part of Porsche's fledgling subscription service. Porsche wouldn't be the only EV maker with recall issues — rival Tesla recently recalled nearly 300,000 Model 3 and Model Y EVs delivered in China over the Autopilot assisted driving feature.