Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton has announced his company's first-ever price increase, and it's all because of the global component shortages brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic currently affecting the tech and auto industries. While Raspberry Pi can still produce as many as 7 million units this year, which is the same as last year's, companies are buying up more components than before to ensure that they can build their products. As a result, Raspberry Pi Zero and the 2GB variant of Raspberry Pi 4 are in short supply.
To address the issue, the manufacturer is moving back the 2GB Raspberry Pi 4's price to $45. The model debuted at that price, but Raspberry Pi lowered it to $35 in 2020 to replace its 1GB counterpart that was discontinued completely. Upton said the price increase in components needed for the boards means selling the 2GB Pi 4 for $35 is no longer economically viable, so the company is temporarily bringing back its old price. It's also reintroducing the 1GB variant for $35 to give customers another choice.
Upton explained in the post that the issue will affect its products built on 40nm silicon the most. Since the company has to distribute components wisely, it has decided to prioritize Compute Module 3, Compute Module 3+ and Raspberry Pi 3B, and to deprioritize Raspberry Pi 3B+. It's now encouraging industrial users of the Raspberry Pi 3B+ to use the 1GB variant of Raspberry Pi 4 instead.
The CEO said those changes are temporary and that the changes in pricing aren't here to stay. "As global supply chain issues moderate, we’ll keep revisiting this issue, and we want to get pricing back to where it was as fast as we can," he wrote. That said, the company is expecting its supply chain issues to persist all throughout 2022.
So, will Facebook pull the trigger and change its name? Maybe it's an attempt to dominate the conversation around the, ugh, metaverse, which has been around for years, perhaps to follow Google’s own reorganization around Alphabet or to simply create some distance from all the negative publicity, sentiment and impressions that Facebook is now associated with.
If the change is metaverse related, it could be very important to the company’s unreleased social virtual reality world called Horizon Worlds.
The funniest take I’ve seen, from Time’s Alex Fitzpatrick, is that Facebook is doing it just to meddle with people that write about the company, like how we remind readers that Google is now just a facet of the bigger Alphabet entity, a bullet point that we sometimes have to mention.
This week’s Upscaled show is all about Apple’s promises with its newest chips. The new M1 Pro and M1 Max bump the core count to eight high-performance and two low-power cores and add 16, 24 or 32 GPU cores. With twice the high-performance CPUs and up to four times the GPU cores as the original M1, these chips should be incredibly fast. Could Apple offer a compelling laptop option for gamers?
But Ed Sarandos continues to stand by the Chappelle special.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said he "screwed up" communication with employees following backlash over Dave Chappelle's The Closer, according to a report from Variety.
He also stood by the show, saying the company heavily values "artistic expression." His comments come just ahead of a planned walkout today organized by LGBTQ+ staffers, creatives and allies.
As part of the walkout, employees will reportedly have a list of demands for Netflix, and Sarandos has been meeting them to hear their views. He said that while the company is "deeply committed to inclusion," it's equally committed to "supporting artistic freedom with the creators who work at Netflix."
Microsoft has released an Insider Preview beta that enables the Amazon Appstore and support for running Android apps within Windows. Only 50 apps are available as part of the initial test (such as the Kindle app, Lords Mobile and Lego Duplo World), but Microsoft is promising more in the "coming months."
The aim, as before, is to make Android apps feel like they belong in Windows 11. You can multitask, check notifications and use Windows accessibility features. Mouse and keyboard input is available, but many apps will predictably benefit from a touchscreen.
DJI has revealed the Ronin 4D, a new cinema camera system with a built-in 4-axis gimbal, 8K resolution and LiDAR rangefinder that promises "sharper, faster and more reliable focusing." With a price starting at $7,199, it's clearly aimed at the professionals, but we can all dream, right?
The Zenmuse X9 camera is exclusively for the Ronin 4D. It's available either in a 6K model that can handle 6K at 60 fps and 4K at 120 fps, and there’s the 8K 75 fps version. It can capture files in RAW, ProRes or H.264, allowing maximum flexibility in production. DJI claims 14 stops of dynamic range, and it should be good in low-light thanks to the dual-native 800/5000 ISO.
CDPR also postponed its upgraded version of 'The Witcher 3.'
Despite CD Projekt Red insisting at the beginning of September it was still on track to release the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Cyberpunk 2077 by the end of the year, that's no longer the case. The developer now plans to ship the console and PC upgrades for the same game in the first quarter of 2022 (i.e. by the end of March).
In its financial report for the first half of 2021, CDPR included a chart suggesting that around a third of its development staff was working on Cyberpunk 2077 support and the current-gen version as of June 30th.
Apple has yet to issue a mandate similar to Google's that would require all employees to be vaccinated, but it's tightening its COVID-19 protocols nonetheless. According to Bloomberg, the tech giant will start requiring all unvaccinated corporate employees to be tested for COVID-19 every time they have to work in the office instead of working from home. Back in September, Bloombergreported that Apple asked employees to share their vaccination status voluntarily. Those who refuse to share their vaccine status will also have to undergo daily testing, while vaccinated office workers will only have to do rapid testing once a week.
The company's retail store employees, however, won't be subjected to daily tests despite having consumer-facing jobs. Unvaccinated staff members are required to be tested twice a week. Like Apple's office workers, vaccinated staff will only have to undergo weekly rapid testing. It's unclear if the tech giant will ever issue a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, but the Biden administration previously gave all federal contractors a December 8th deadline to require all their employees to be inoculated against the virus. As Bloomberg notes, Apple sells products to the US government.
For now, Apple has reportedly given employees an October 24th deadline to report and show proof of their vaccination status, so it could implement the new rules starting on November 1st. Unvaccinated employees will have to pick-up at-home rapid tests from Apple offices and stores, do the test themselves and then report their results through an internal app.
Former President Donald Trump has officially revealed that he's launching his own social media in 2022, a few months after his aide toldFox News about his plans. He's calling it TRUTH Social, and the platform is apparently part of his camp's efforts to fight back against "the Big Tech companies of Silicon Valley, which have used their unilateral power to silence opposing voices in America."
Some of Trump's supporters believe that social networks are biased against conservative voices — in 2018, a group even sued Twitter, Facebook and Google, accusing them of breaking antitrust laws and violating their First Amendment rights by conspiring to suppress conservative viewpoints. The case was tossed out of court a few times. According to a New York University research published earlier this year, there's no evidence of conservative bias on the world's most popular social networks. There was even an Instagram bug in the months leading to the US Presidential Elections that favored Trump content over Biden's.
It is true, however, that Facebook and Twitter banned Trump from their platforms following the January 6th US Capitol riots. Twitter determined that his tweets at that time violated its policies. According to the website, his tweets (which you can view in an archive) "must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence..."
Earlier this month, Trump sued to get his Twitter account back, arguing that the ban violates his First Amendment rights. Indeed, his ban on the website gets a special mention in TRUTH Social's announcement. He said in a statement: "We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced."
TRUTH Social will have a beta launch in November for invited guests. Trump and his team are expecting to roll it out nationwide in the first quarter of 2022.
On Wednesday, Clark County Commissioners voted unanimously to approve plans for The Boring Company’s Vegas Loop system. With the decision, the Elon Musk venture moves one step closer to the day when it can start digging the 29 miles of tunnel that will make up the project. Once complete, the 51-station network will connect various hotels and other destinations between Allegiant Stadium and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The company now needs to obtain the necessary permits before it can start excavating.
Expanding and moving forward with plans for the "Vegas Loop." #ClarkCounty Commissioners just approved an agreement with the @boringcompany to establish and maintain a transportation system that will go under the Las Vegas Strip. It will also go to @AllegiantStadm and @UNLV. pic.twitter.com/2ju3xcFq7O
Boring President Steve Davis Told the Las Vegas Reviewthe company will build the system in phases. Once it completes work on an individual station, it will open immediately. Boring hopes to build five to 10 stations within the first six months of the project, and then between 15 and 20 every year thereafter. The goal is to finish construction within three years.
The Boring Company is making some ambitious claims about how efficient the Vegas Loop will be once it’s complete. Davis said the network will move approximately 57,000 riders per hour. He also said it will be a point-to-point system, meaning passengers won’t have to stop at every station on the way to their destination. The LVCC, the company’s first loop, has thus far not lived up to claims made by Elon Musk. When it was first pitched, the system was supposed to move up to 4,400 passengers every hour. But as of earlier this year, it was only capable of moving about 576 passengers per hour.
Excessive meetings were already a problem before the pandemic, and they're even more of a problem as remote work enters the mainstream. How do you set aside time for your own projects? As The Vergereports, Google has a simple answer: make it clear you should be left alone. It's rolling out a "focus time" feature in Google Calendar that not only indicates your status, but can optionally auto-block meeting requests for that time slot.
You can choose a special color for focus time. Those moments will also be included in your Time Insights to help you improve your meeting-to-work ratio. The feature will take up to 15 days to reach Google Workspace users on the rapid track, and those offices on scheduled releases will see their change starting November 3rd.
Google is ultimately hopping on a trend. Microsoft included a Focus Sessions feature in Windows 11 to help people work in shorter but more effective spurts. With that said, you probably won't complain about another tool. This could make the difference between a last-minute delay and meeting a deadline.
Despite a global pandemic and ongoing chip shortage, Tesla continues to make money hand over fist. The company reported on Wednesday that it had a net income of $1.62 billion — five times more than it did this time last year. What's more, Tesla's operating income grew some 54 percent over the past quarter to $2 billion.
Company executives pointed to record-setting sales of both the Model 3 and Model Y — a combined 232,102 units delivered during Q3 2021 — for the explosive earnings growth, though only 9,289 Models X and S were shipped during the same period, a nearly 40 percent drop from Q2 2021 rates.
On the technology front, Tesla continues its FSD City Streets beta rollout and plans to "continue to monitor fleet data closely to help facilitate a smooth rollout," per its quarterly update.
The company also released a more streamlined iteration of its car companion app that "enables phone key for multiple vehicles simultaneously, allows commands to be sent to the vehicle immediately upon opening the app and integrates the purchase of upgrades, subscriptions and accessories." New features include Disney+ streaming, a scrolling arcade shooter dubbed Sky Force Reloaded, a "car wash mode," and various tweaks to improve the vehicle's cold weather performance.
Looking ahead, the company expects to achieve a 50 percent average annual growth in vehicle deliveries "over a multi-year horizon" and eventually reach "industry-leading" operating margins.
Stay tuned! The Tesla Q3 investors call starts at 2:30 PT today, we'll have more details as the event progresses.
The robotic artist known as Ai-Da was scheduled to display her artwork alongside the great pyramids of Egypt on Thursday, though the show was nearly called off after both the robot and her human sculptor, Aidan Meller, were detained by Egyptian authorities for a week and a half until they could confirm that the artist was actually a spy.
The incident began when border guards objected over Ai-da's camera eyes, which it uses in its creative process, and its on-board modem. “I can ditch the modems, but I can’t really gouge her eyes out,” Meller told The Guardian. The robot artist, which was built in 2019, typically travels via specialized cargo case and was held at the border until clearing customs on Wednesday evening, hours before the exhibit was scheduled to begin.
“The British ambassador has been working through the night to get Ai-Da released, but we’re right up to the wire now,” Meller said, just before Ai-Da was sprung from robo-jail. “It’s really stressful.”
Ai-Da is slated to participate in the Forever is Now exhibit, which is slated to run through November 7th and features a number of leading Egyptian and international artists, is being presented by Art D’Égypte in conjunction with the Egyptian ministry of antiquities and tourism and the Egyptian ministry of foreign affairs.
“She is an artist robot, let’s be really clear about this. She is not a spy," Meller declared. "People fear robots, I understand that. But the whole situation is ironic, because the goal of Ai-Da was to highlight and warn of the abuse of technological development, and she’s being held because she is technology. Ai-Da would appreciate that irony, I think.”
Senator Richard Blumenthal is again calling on Mark Zuckerberg to testify about Facebook’s research into Instagram and child safety. “It is urgent and necessary for you or Mr. Adam Mosseri to testify to set the record straight and provide members of Congress and parents with a plan on how you are going to protect our kids,” the Connecticut lawmaker wrote in a letter addressed to Zuckerberg.
Blumenthal is the chair of the Senate subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security that’s been holding hearings on social media and child safety in recent weeks. Earlier this month, Blumenthal said that a series of whistleblower disclosures about Facebook was the company’s “big tobacco moment.”
Since then, pressure has mounted on Facebook to address internal research that shows Instagram can have a negative impact on some teens’ mental health. The company has already “paused” work on a forthcoming Instagram Kids app, but lawmakers have said the company should end the project altogether.
In his letter, Blumenthal said that Facebook’s head of safety, Antigone Davis, who testified at a previous hearing, “appears to have provided false or inaccurate testimony to me regarding attempts to internally conceal its research.” He also said that Facebook “has continued to demean impactful and independent investigative reporting” and “downplayed its own research.”
Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
NASA doesn't just want adults learning how to work with lunar soil. The space agency has launched a Lunabotics Junior contest that tasks K-12 students in the US with designing (but not manufacturing) a Moon-digging robot. They have to envision a compact (3.5ft by 2ft by 2ft) automaton that can dig and move lunar regolith while dealing with the stickiness of that soil.
Kids have until January 25th, 2022 to submit both an image of the robot and a summary of how it's meant to operate. The two winners for the K-5 and 6-12 categories will each get a virtual classroom chat with Kennedy Space Center director Janet Petro, while four finalists in each group will have virtual sessions with a NASA expert. Ten semifinalists will get an unspecified prize pack. NASA will announce the semifinalists on March 8th, the finalists on March 22nd and the winners on March 29th.
No, NASA isn't trying to crowdsource Artemis program ideas from children. This is more about inspiring a new wave of engineers who could one day lead Moon colonization efforts. It's a relatively modest investment that could pay dividends for NASA's long-term plans.
