BMW is recalling 83 iX and i4 vehicles after investigating multiple battery fire incidents involving the two EVs. In an advisory spotted by Autoblog, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warns owners of select iX xDrive 50, iX M60, i4 eDrive40 and i4 M50 vehicles not to drive their cars, charge them or park them inside.
After first investigating an overseas incident involving a 2022 i4 eDrive back in April, BMW found a manufacturing defect with select Samsung SDI battery cells in iX models produced between December 2nd, 2021 and June 30th, 2022, and i4 models built between November 22nd, 2021 and June 13th, 2022.
BMW has already notified dealers of the recall. The automaker will replace the batteries in affected vehicles free of charge. BMW adds it’s not aware of any accidents or injuries due to the battery defect. Affected owners can expect a notification letter by September 19th. You can also contact BMW support ahead of time for more information.
For those worried about a potential repeat of the situation Chevy Bolt owners went through with GM, it’s worth noting BMW sources batteries for its iX and i4 EVs from two manufacturers: CATL and Samsung SDI. By contrast, GM single-sourced the Bolt’s battery from LG Chem before it announced a worldwide recall in 2021.
The national news cycle may have largely moved on from coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic — despite, as of this writing, infections being on the rise and more than 300 deaths tallied daily from the disease. But that certainly doesn't diminish the unprecedented international response effort and warp speed development of effective vaccines.
In The Messenger: Moderna, the Vaccine, and the Business Gamble That Changed the World, veteran Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Loftus takes readers through the harrowing days of 2020 as the virus raged across the globe and biotech startup Moderna raced to create a vaccine to halt the viral rampage. The excerpt below takes place in early 2021, as the company works to adapt its treatments to slow the surging Delta variant's spread.
Viruses of all types frequently change. They mutate as they jump from person to person. The coronavirus was no different. Throughout the pandemic, health officials tracked variants of the SARS CoV-2 virus first found in Wuhan, China, as those variants arose. None seemed a big concern, until one was flagged in the United Kingdom in December 2020, right as Moderna’s vaccine neared approval. This UK variant appeared to be as much as 70 percent more transmissible. It was given the name the Alpha variant.
Alpha reinforced the possibility that the virus could mutate enough to become resistant to vaccines and treatments that were designed to target the earlier, predominant strain. Or it could fizzle out. But variants would keep coming. Shortly after Alpha, researchers identified another variant circulating in South Africa. Beta.
In late December—just a few days after the United States authorized its vaccine — Moderna issued a statement that it was confident the vaccine would be effective at inducing the necessary immune response against variants. The original vaccine targeted the full length of the spike protein of the coronavirus, and the new variants appeared to have mutations in the spike protein that represented less than a 1 percent difference from the original.
“So, from what we’ve seen so far, the variants being described do not alter the ability of neutralizing antibodies elicited by vaccination to neutralize the virus,” Tal Zaks said during a virtual appearance at the all-important J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in January 2021. “My definition of when to get worried is either when we see real clinical data that suggest that people who’ve either been sick or have been immunized are now getting infected at significant rates with the new variants.”
Even if the vaccine proved less effective against a new variant, Moderna could use its mRNA technology to quickly tweak the design of its Covid-19 vaccine, to better target a variant of the virus, Zaks said. After all, the company and its federal health partners had already demonstrated the year before how quickly they could design, manufacture, and test a new vaccine.
Still, Moderna needed to run a series of tests to see if its original vaccine offered the same high level of protection against variants as it showed in the big Phase 3 clinical trial.
Moderna collaborated again with researchers from NIAID including Barney Graham and Kizzmekia Corbett. They analyzed blood samples taken from eight people who were vaccinated with Moderna’s shot in the Phase 1 trial back in early 2020. They essentially mixed these blood samples with the coronavirus variants, engineered so they copied the mutations of the variants but couldn’t replicate and pose a threat to lab researchers. Researchers then analyzed whether the vaccine-induced antibodies present in the human blood samples could effectively neutralize the virus variants.
The results were mixed. They suggested the vaccine worked as well against the UK Alpha variant as against the original strain of the coronavirus. That was good news. Even if the UK variant spread more easily than the original virus, Moderna’s vaccine could probably mute its effects.
But the Beta variant first identified in South Africa seemed to pose a problem. The vaccine-induced antibodies had a significantly reduced neutralization effect on this strain in the lab tests. “Oh shit,” Bancel said when Stephen Hoge showed him the data. It wouldn’t be the last time. Moderna’s leaders saw the data on a Friday in late January 2021 and spent the weekend discussing it. They hoped that a modified, variant- targeted vaccine wouldn’t be needed, and that Moderna’s original vaccine would suffice, even if it had a reduced neutralizing effect. But Moderna didn’t want to be caught flat-footed if a variant-specific booster was needed.
They decided by the next Monday it was time to take action. They would develop a new version of the vaccine, one that more closely matched the mutations seen in the strain that circulated in South Africa, and which could potentially be given as a booster shot to better protect people who had gotten the original vaccine.
“It really highlights the fact that we need to continue to stay vigilant,” Moderna’s president, Stephen Hoge, said. “This virus is evolving, it’s changing its stripes. And we need to keep testing the new variants, and make sure the vaccine works against them.”
Moderna repeated the steps it took a year earlier: it quickly designed a new variant vaccine and manufactured an initial batch for human testing, shipping it to NIAID in late February, a year to the day after it had shipped the original batch of the original vaccine. The new batch was called mRNA-1273.351, appending the “351” because researchers initially called the variant seen in South Africa “B.1.351.”
“Moderna is going to keep chasing the variants until the pandemic is under control,” Bancel said that day.
Moderna also developed other plans to test. It would try a third dose of its original vaccine, given several months after the second dose, to see if that booster shot would protect against variants. It would also develop a combined vaccine that targeted both the original strain and the Beta strain.
Once again, volunteers stepped up to test these various approaches. Neal Browning, the Microsoft engineer who was the second person to get Moderna’s vaccine, showed up once again to volunteer. In the intervening year, he had gotten married, in a small outdoor ceremony to minimize Covid risk. Now he received a third dose of the Moderna vaccine. He felt tenderness at the injection site and a low-grade fever and chills, but the symptoms went away after several hours. He continued to visit the research site to give blood samples to be analyzed for immune responses.
By early May, Moderna had some answers. It gave booster shots — either the original vaccine or the Beta variant – targeting vaccine — to people about six to eight months after they had been vaccinated with two doses of the original vaccine. The company found that in the new analysis, both types of booster shots increased neutralizing antibodies against the Beta variant. And they increased antibodies against a related variant that had been detected in Brazil. But the newer version of the vaccine that targeted Beta induced a stronger immune response against the Beta variant than the booster shot of Moderna’s original vaccine.
At the time, Moderna’s plan was to continue testing the different booster approaches, with an eye toward possibly getting government approval to sell the booster shot that specifically targeted the Beta variant. But it didn’t seem particularly urgent. The existing mass vaccination campaign was making good progress at the time.
Then, with the virus on the retreat in the United States, scientists discovered a new variant driving an alarming surge in India. This variant had already jumped to other countries, including the United States. Initially, it was code-named B.1.617.2. It was even more contagious than the Alpha variant and there were fears that it could evade vaccines. This was the Delta variant.
The previous winter the hope provided by vaccines was juxtaposed with the deadliest virus surge in the United States. Again, in early summer 2021, the lifting of mask mandates and reopening of public life was bringing great hope and a sense of relief. And again, this would be juxtaposed with public-health officials sounding the alarm about the Delta variant. It could become the dominant strain of the virus in the United States, they said. The best way to stop its spread, officials said, was to get more people vaccinated, with any of the three vaccines available.
By mid-June, about 55 percent of the US adult population was fully vaccinated, which was good but still left many people exposed to the new Delta variant that spread much more easily than earlier strains. And there were clear geographic vulnerabilities. The Northeast United States had higher vaccination rates than the national average, particularly in some New England states, like Vermont with its 62 percent vaccination rate. But in the South the numbers were much lower in states like Alabama, where only 30 percent were fully vaccinated.
The high proportions of unvaccinated people in those places would serve as a breeding ground for Delta. And the more the variant spread, the more it could mutate into more variants.
By late July, the effects of an ill-fated combination — stubbornly low vaccination rates in some regions, the winding down of masking and distancing, and a rapidly spreading Delta strain—were clearer. Infections, hospitalizations, and deaths were climbing again, especially in open states like Florida, which suffered one of the highest rates of Covid-19 hospitalizations, and low-vaccinated states.
Doctors and nurses who thought they had put the worst of the pandemic behind them were once again scrambling to treat severely ill Covid-19 patients in intensive-care units. By the end of August, the United States was averaging about fifteen hundred Covid-19 deaths a day, versus fewer than two hundred in early July. Nearly all of the patients who ended up in the ICU were unvaccinated.
Some vaccinated people were beginning to test positive for Covid-19, too — commonly called “breakthrough” cases—and a few progressed to severe cases. The vaccines, after all, weren’t 100 percent effective in the clinical trials, either. A small percentage of vaccinated people in the studies got sick with Covid. But it was becoming clear that the vaccines weren’t entirely blocking transmission of the virus or stopping asymptomatic infections, as initially hoped.
Vaccinated people were better protected than unvaccinated people, even when Delta took over. In states like Massachusetts, less than 1 percent of fully vaccinated people in the state had tested positive for Covid-19 by the fall of 2021. Other analysis showed that people who weren’t fully vaccinated were nearly five times more likely to get infected, ten times more likely to be hospitalized and eleven times more likely to die from Covid than fully vaccinated people.
But Delta reminded people, or made them understand for the first time, that the vaccines weren’t bullet-proof. New indoor mask mandates were imposed, including at schools, where educators just weeks earlier had been eager for the first normal back-to-school season in two years. No vaccine was yet authorized for children under twelve (both Moderna and Pfizer were studying that population), raising concerns that Delta would spread rapidly among them as they gathered in classrooms.
By the end of the summer, people wondered if the pandemic would ever end. Some started talking about the coronavirus as endemic, not a pandemic.
And a big slice of America was still saying “No thanks” to the vaccine.
If you missed the chance to buy the Apple TV 4K when it was $59 off a few weeks ago, now is your opportunity to purchase it at that price again. Amazon has discounted the 32GB model to $120, making it only $10 more than it was during Prime Day. That’s a compelling price for one of the best streaming devices you can buy.
Engadget senior editor Devindra Hardawar awarded the 2021 Apple TV 4K a score of 90. Highlights include a much improved Siri remote and a more powerful A12 Bionic chip. The latter allows the Apple TV 4K to output HDR video at up to 60 frames per second and deliver excellent gaming performance.
If you own a handful of other Apple devices, you’ll appreciate the Apple TV 4K’s support for AirPlay. The wireless protocol makes it easy to share video, photos and music from your iPhone, iPad or Mac to your TV. With SharePlay built-in, you can even participate in watch parties over FaceTime with friends and family. For those with AirPods, Apple updated the Apple TV 4K last fall to add support for spatial audio so you can enjoy a more immersive experience without buying an expensive sound setup.
The Apple TV 4K also supports all of the most popular streaming services, including Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu and more. One of the most significant drawbacks of Apple’s streaming device is its expensive price tag, but that's something the $59 discount helps address.
Indonesia is blocking residents from accessing various online platforms after those services failed to comply with a July 29th regulatory deadline, reports Reuters (via The Verge). Among the affected platforms are PayPal, Steam and Yahoo (owned by Engadget’s parent company Apollo Management).
Under the country’s 2020 MR5 law, companies labeled as “Private Electronic System Providers” had until this week to register with a government database or face an outright ban. Similar to India’s restrictive 2021 IT law, MR5 gives Indonesia the power to force online platforms to take down content the government deems unlawful or a threat to public order. In instances involving “urgent” requests, services have four hours to take action.
According to Reuters, a handful of tech companies, including Google, Meta and Amazon, rushed in recent days to meet Friday’s deadline. Indonesia may restore access to some of the online services that are currently blocked in the country, provided they register with the government.
PayPal and Valve did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, the general director of Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information, told a local news network that the government could temporarily lift restrictions on PayPal to allow users to withdraw their money.
Organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Human Rights Watch have criticized Indonesia’s new content moderation rules. “[MR5] is a tool for censorship that imposes unrealistic burdens on the many digital services and platforms that are used in Indonesia,” said Linda Lakhdhir, Asia legal advisor at Human Rights Watch. “It poses serious risks to the privacy, freedom of speech, and access to information of Indonesian internet users.”
Many Indonesians have also come out against the law, using hashtags like “BlokirKominfo” to voice their opposition to the government’s actions. On Saturday, Pangerapan dismissed those criticisms, saying the measure would help protect the country's internet users.
A group of former CD Projekt Red developers is working on a new online action that will take players to feudal Japan. This week, Dark Passenger co-founders Jakub Ben and Marcin Michalski announced the formation of their studio and put out a call for talent in a series of tweets spotted by PC Gamer. Ben and Michalski were part of the art team that worked on The Witcher 3 and later went on to do contract work on Cyberpunk 2077.
Dark Passenger’s first game doesn’t have a name yet, but the studio’s website provides some details on the project. Ben and Michalski say they want to create an online multiplayer game with support for both competitive and cooperative play. They describe a title that sounds like it will borrow elements from games like Titanfall and Absolver. “Our locomotion system will allow players to perform incredible [feats] such as running on arrows that were fired by other players, fast climbing on vertical surfaces with the use of shuko claws or using [a] yari spear like a pole to jump over obstacles,” the studio said. “Engaging [in] close-ranged combat will demand as much dexterity as tactics and close cooperation with teammates.”
The news of the founding comes after former CDPR executive Konrad Tomaszkiewicz announced at the start of the year he was creating a studio named Rebel Wolves. He said his team would release its first project, a dark fantasy role-playing game built in Unreal Engine 5, sometime in 2025. After directing the critically acclaimed The Witcher 3 and contributing to Cyberpunk 2077, Tomaszkiewicz left CDPR in May 2021 amid allegations he bullied coworkers. Before his departure, it came out that work on Cyberpunk involved a lengthy and brutal crunch period for many of its developers.
As PC Gamer points out, Dark Passenger’s careers page alludes to some of the criticisms of CDPR. “We create a prejudice-free environment based on tolerance, support and understanding. We treat individual needs as seriously as the group's expectations,” the page states. “We provide all amenities, private medical care and paid overtime. With an emphasis on work-life balance, we offer flexible working hours and holidays.” As for when you can expect to play the studio’s first game, Dark Passenger has not shared a release date.
Contrary to what you may have heard in the past few days, Google says it’s not shutting down its Stadia gaming service. The company issued the statement after a rumor began circulating earlier this week that suggested it would sunset the platform later this year. “Stadia is not shutting down,” the official Stadia Twitter account told a concerned fan in a tweet spotted by PC Gamer. “Rest assured we’re always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro.”
— Killed by Google 🌻🇺🇦 (@killedbygoogle) July 28, 2022
Some Stadia fans were convinced Google would finally pull the plug on the service after Cody Ogden of Killed by Google fame, a Twitter account and blog that keeps track of the company’s constantly expanding graveyard, shared a post from a Facebook fan group. According to the message, an “old coworker and friend” told the poster Google had recently held a meeting to discuss Stadia’s future — or lack thereof. They claimed the company would shut down the platform by the end of the summer and would do so using the same strategy it employed with Google Play Music.
Old coworker of mine is now one of the social managers for Google. They had a pretty large seminar in California this past weekend, and long story short you now can play Wavetale at no additional cost on Stadia Pro until August 1: https://t.co/2O6P0Kd8Kdpic.twitter.com/Hjo0pvARKx
That even a thinly sourced rumor caused upheaval among the Stadia community isn’t surprising. The service has been on an extended deathwatch ever since Google shut down its first-party studios. The incident highlights the unhealthy parasocial relationships people can sometimes have with tech companies like Google. “Communities that are confident in their continued existence don’t respond like some of the things that have been hurled at me in public and in DMs the past couple days,” Ogden said after the dust settled. “If even the suggestion that a piece of technology could go away affects you so deeply that it brings you to threats, maybe you need to reevaluate your relationship with the tech?”
Uber has launched a couple of features designed to improve the experience of and increase transparency for drivers. A few months ago, the ride-hailing giant started piloting a feature called "Upfront Fares" in a handful of cities. Now it's expanding its availability and rolling it out to most of the US over the coming months. When they get access to the features, drivers will see how much they'll earn and where they're going for a trip on the request screen before they accept the booking.
According to the Help page explaining how Upfront Fares work, Uber calculates the amount it shows using several factors, "including base fares, estimated trip length and duration, pickup distance and surge pricing." Uber will also show drivers the cross streets closest to the pick up and drop-off points to help them make a decision. In addition, Uber will also expand the availability of "Trip Radar," a feature that shows drivers a list of possible trips nearby, along with Upfront Fares. They'll still get individual trip requests, but now they can pick another booking that might suit them better.
Uber is positioning these new features as a way to support its drivers, but as Axios notes, the impact they may have on customers remains unclear. They could end up being misused and lead to the increase of rider and trip discrimination if drivers look at them as tools to avoid specific neighborhoods. That said, the features could also prevent canceled trips, because they allow drivers to make a conscious decision when accepting trips.
The company has also launched a new Uber Pro debit card that will enable drivers to earn cashbacks for getting gas at select stations. Back in March, Uber added a fuel surcharge to rides and deliveries, as well, to help drivers keep up with skyrocketing gas prices.
GM doesn't want people buying some of its newer and most sought-after models, such as the GMC Hummer EV, to quickly sell them for a profit. The automaker is implementing several aggressive measures meant to discourage the practice, even if it ends up losing the company some customers. In a letter obtained by Corvette Blogger, Steve Carlisle, GM President for North America, told the GM Dealership team that the company is "limiting the transferability of certain warranties" if the vehicle being resold was purchased within the past 12 months. Further, GM will ban the seller from "placing future sold orders or reservations for certain high demand models (as identified by GM)."
Carlisle said the models affected by this new rule are the GMC Hummer EVs (SUT and SUV), the 23MY Cadillac Escalade-V and the Chevrolet Corvette Z06. GM has been struggling to keep up with the demand for its electric Hummer vehicles, and the company said it's because it was developed from scratch and was built on top of its new Ultium EV platform. According to a Wall Street Journal report earlier this month, GM has only been producing up to a dozen electric Hummers a day. A spokesperson told the publication that the company's output will increase sharply in the second half of the year, but the automaker has over 70,000 reservations for the vehicle, and some people may run out of patience and just purchase from a reseller.
"When vehicles are quickly resold, particularly by unauthorized dealers or other resellers that do not adhere to GM's standards, the customer experience suffers and GM's brands are damaged," Carlisle said, explaining the reason behind the automaker's decision. "These changes are being implemented to ensure an exemplary customer experience, to ensure our brands remain strong, and to help prioritize ownership by brand enthusiasts and loyal customers."
In addition to these particular measures, GM also recently announced that it's giving $5,000 in reward points to customers who keep their eighth-generation Corvette Z06 sports car for a year.
With stories of hackers selling personal information in bulk on forums becoming more common, it can be stressful to send your device for repair. Yes, you could wipe your phone, but then you have to go through the hassle of restoring it afterward. Now, Samsung has introduced a solution for that issue in the form of a new function called "Repair Mode."
According to a Korean announcement first spotted by SamMobile, you can activate the new mode under "Battery and Device Care" in Settings. Samsung didn't explain the technology behind the feature, but when activated, it will hide your personal information, photos, messages and linked accounts. Only the device's pre-installed apps will be visible to the technician. To regain access to your data, you simply have to disable Repair Mode and use pattern or fingerprint recognition to authenticate your identity.
Seeing as Samsung has yet to announce the feature outside Korea, it's most likely safe to say that it's only available in the company's home country at the moment. Further, it's only available on the Galaxy S21 series phones for now. However, the company says it will roll out Repair Mode to other models — and hopefully to other regions — in the future.
Warzel dives into questions about DALL-E 2 in his newsletter for The Atlantic, many of which have been voiced by others. Those include what it could mean for the future of art and the potential commercial ambitions of OpenAI, the company that created it.
Before Meta's dismal earnings report this week, there was news of how CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to revitalize the company as it focuses on the metaverse.
