Harman may be best known for its audio products, but the Samsung subsidiary is now expanding into the world of charging accessories. On Thursday, the company announced the launch of InfinityLab, a new brand under which it plans to sell a line of "sustainable" wall chargers, power banks and cables. With today's announcement, the company is debuting nearly a dozen new accessories.
According to Harman, the "core" products in the lineup are made from 90 percent recycled plastic. Like parent Samsung, the company is also trying to avoid using plastics for any packaging and to source cardboard from responsibly managed forests. Additionally, Harman will make any cables it includes with its new products from recycled polyester.
Harman
Taking a look at the accessories themselves, the one that caught our eye is the GaN charger Harman plans to sell. The company will offer three different wall chargers capable of outputting 20, 30 and 65 watts of power. They'll be priced at $19.95, $29.95 and $49.95, with the last one featuring gallium nitride circuitry.
If you know something about gallium nitride chargers, it's that they're smaller than their silicon counterparts but also tend to cost more. Razer, for instance, recently announced a 130W model that it's selling for $180. Harman's GaN charger isn't as powerful, nor does it include as many ports, but at $49.95, you're still getting a model with interchangeable plugs included. It also comes from a brand that many people trust, and that's not something you can say about a lot of the more affordable GaN chargers you'll find through Amazon and other retailers.
Almost exactly a year ago, IKEA announced it was partnering with ASUS’ Republic of Gamers unit to create an affordable collection of gaming furniture and accessories. After debuting in China and Japan, those products are finally making their way to the US and UK on October 1st.
IKEA
The collection is made up of six product families: Uppspel, Lånespelare, Matchspel, Gruppsel, Utespelare and Huvudspelare. Of those, IKEA designed the first one in direct collaboration with ASUS, while the others it created on its own with insights it gleaned from working with the company.
The collection includes everything from furniture like gaming chairs and desks to handy accessories like a mouse bungee and ring light. Pricing starts at $6.49 for the most affordable item, a mouse pad with a polyester top layer, and goes all the way up to $599 for an adjustable gaming desk.
IKEA
In practice, some of the items in the collection represent “gamified” versions of existing IKEA products. Take the Uppspel pegboard, for instance. It features the same dimensions as the company’s Skådis pegboard, but you’ll pay an extra $3 for it because of its more aggressive finish. That's the kind of upsell that comes with a lot of gaming products (see: every RGB-infused device ever), but most of the collection does live up to IKEA's affordable billing.
Lucid has revealed the EPA range of its first, limited edition Air EV and it's mighty impressive. The Air Dream Edition Range will go 520 miles on a charge, "delivering at least 100-plus miles of additional range of its closest competitor," the company announced. The models tested "now occupy the top six positions for overall EPA range ratings among EVs," according to Lucid.
The Air Dream Edition models (Range and Performance) both offer 113kWh battery packs — significantly larger than the 100 kWh used in Tesla’s Model S Long Range Plus — but the company said the prodigious range is not just due to that.
"This landmark has been achieved... not by simply installing an oversize battery pack,” said Lucid CEO/CTO Peter Rawlinson. “Our race-proven 900V battery and BMS [battery management system] technology, our miniaturized drive units, coupled with our Wunderbox [drivetrain] technology endow Lucid Air with ultra-high efficiency, enabling it to travel more miles from less battery energy."
Lucid Motors
The Air's very low 0.21 drag coefficient likely helps too, particularly on the highway. When considering EPA range versus battery size, the range model delivers 4.6 miles per kWh, compared to 4.01 miles per kWh for the Tesla Model S long range.
Performance isn't sacrificed in the range model either, despite the name. It still delivers 933 horsepower, enough to kick it from 0 to 60 MPH in 2.7 seconds and hit a top speed of 168 MPH. The 1,111 horsepower performance version, meanwhile, will travel 471 miles on a charge and the 800 horsepower Lucid Air Grand Touring will go 516 miles. Tests were done with 19-inch wheels, and all models will travel significantly less far (though probably look cooler) with 21-inch wheels.
You'll certainly pay for that range and performance, however. The Air Dream Edition models, released in limited run of 500 and arriving first to market, will start at $169,000. The Air Grand Touring model will show up later for $139,000, followed by the $95,000 Air Touring and finally the base, sub-$80,000 Air. When they'll go on sale is still an open question, though. Lucid most recently promised the second half of 2021 for the first limited edition models, but it has already missed a number of previous deadlines.
One of the devices Apple revealed during its latest hardware event is an updated 10.2-inch iPad with prices that start at $329. You can get the base tablet for $30 less than that, though, if you pre-order from Walmart where it's currently listed for $299. The listing says the tablet will begin shipping on September 28th, a few days later than its official release date of September 24th. But if you don't mind waiting a bit to get your purchase, you can get the 64GB WiFi version of the 2021 10.2-inch iPad in either Silver or Space Gray from the retail giant's website.
Apple focused on updating the base iPad's internals instead of overhauling its design. It's now powered by an A13 Bionic chip, which also powers the iPhone 11, the iPhone 11 Pro and the Pro Max. The tech giant says it has a 20 percent faster overall performance compared to the previous generation. In addition, the new iPad is equipped with a new 12-megapixel ultra wide, front-facing camera that has a 122-degree field-of-view, which sounds especially useful for video meetings and online classes. Even better? It supports Apple's Center Stage feature, which gives it the capability to detect people and keep you in the frame as you move around. Center Stage works with Facetime, as well as Zoom.
Like Apple's other products, the new base iPad has Retina display. It will ship with iPadOS 15, which features intuitive multitasking, a Translate app and a Live Text function that can detect text in photos. The OS will also add a Focus feature that will let you filter notifications. In case 64GB isn't enough for you, Apple will also sell a 256GB version, but that's not available at a discount right now.
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Since 2009, companies handling health records have been required to notify consumers if their data is breeched. Now, the rule has been extended to health apps that track fitness, vital statistics, sleep and more. The FTC ruled 3-2 that companies producing such apps must inform users impacted by data breaches, lest they face a financial penalty of over $43,000 per day, The Hill has reported.
"As many Americans turn to apps and other technologies to track diseases, diagnoses, treatment, medications, fitness, fertility, sleep, mental health, diet, and other vital areas, this Rule is more important than ever," the FTC wrote in the ruling. "Firms offering these services should take appropriate care to secure and protect consumer data."
A more fundamental problem is the commodification of sensitive health information, where companies can use this data to feed behavioral ads or power user analytics.
Recent high-profile breaches include UnderArmour's MyFitnessPal breach that affected 150 million users in 2018. A more recent data leak came about due to an exposed server that contained 61 million records related to fitness trackers and wearables that exposed Apple and Fitbit users' data online.
The rule passed along party lines, with the majority Democratic commissioners voting 3-2 in favor. However, the Republican commissioners dissented because the FTC was already working on revamping health breach notification rules. "The right way to go about it is to conclude the ongoing rulemaking process, especially when the statutory and regulatory interpretation on which the majority rely is far from clear," said commissioner Noah Phillips.
FTC Chair Lina Khan said the ruling is just the start of what's needed. "A more fundamental problem is the commodification of sensitive health information, where companies can use this data to feed behavioral ads or power user analytics," Khan said. "The Commission should be scrutinizing what data is being collected in the first place and whether particular types of business models create incentives that necessarily place users at risk."
Microsoft isn’t so much declaring war on passwords as bragging about a successful first strike against them. The Windows maker has announced users can now remove the password from their Microsoft account in favor of something that’s (hopefully) more secure.
The feature, which had already rolled out to enterprise users, will let you ditch your password and leverage Windows Hello’s biometric security tools. Alternatively, you can grab your phone and use the Windows Authenticator app to grant you access to your machine.
Given that passwords have now become such a pain for so many people to use, switching to something more elegant is welcome news. Of course, for this news to drop at the same time as the announcement that Microsoft had to patch a fairly substantial security vulnerability in Office is slightly less comforting.
It just has to work out how to integrate the necessary infrastructure.
The state of New York has passed a bill banning the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035 which, it hopes, will help slash the state’s emissions. It’s the third major US state to do so, after California and Massachusetts, while Washington state tried, but the bill was vetoed. Given the scale of the challenge to get New York EV-ready, leaders have already tasked a number of agencies to start working on a zero-emissions vehicle masterplan. That will include creating a market for zero-emission vehicles, rolling out charging infrastructure and developing incentives for purchase.
Xiaomi’s new device launch includes the flagship X11T Pro, the romantically named superphone with a number of gee-whizz features. That includes 120W HyperCharge technology that promises to juice your phone full in less than 20 minutes. On the imaging front, the X11T Pro is packing a 108-megapixel primary camera that can shoot 8K Video with Samsung’s HD10+ (and AI cinema modes). Watching those magnum opuses should be pretty enjoyable, too, since the phone’s display has a 120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision and HDR10+.
At the same time, the company unveiled the Pad 5, an 11-inch tablet with a WQHD+ screen and support for Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. More importantly, however, Xiaomi’s ubiquitous Mi Smart Band 6 now has updates for NFC contactless payments. You’ll also be able to connect to Alexa for voice control, among other things.
Flight of the Navigator may not have been a global smash hit, but it certainly jibes with a certain age group right now. Now, several years after Disney first planned to do something with the film, the company has announced a reboot for Disney+ is in the works. Details are thin on the ground at such an early stage, but we do know that Bryce Dallas Howard (star of Jurassic World and regular Lucasfilm director) will helm the remake. If you’re looking for your fill of Disney content, Kris Nadus has done their regular deep-dive on this week’s episode of Marvel’s What If.
Well, it’s official, the robot dog that will hunt us all down in the end-times has learned to navigate on its own. Boston Dynamics has announced a software update to its Spot robot means the machine can reroute itself when its regular planned path is blocked. The company says this will enable Spot to better run autonomous inspection tours, taking photos in hazardous or hard-to-reach areas. Yeah, sure, that’s the reason.
Alphabet ended Project Loon earlier this year, but the things it learned from the internet-broadcasting balloon initiative haven't gone to waste. The high speed wireless optical link technology originally developed for Loon is currently being used for another moonshot called Project Taara. In a new blog post, Taara's Director of Engineering, Baris Erkmen, has revealed that the initiative's wireless optical communications (WOC) links are now beaming high-speed connectivity across the Congo River.
The idea for Taara started when the Loon team successfully used WOC to beam data between Loon balloons that were more than 100 kilometers apart. The team wanted to explore how the technology can be used on the ground. As part of the team's exploration on WOC's potential applications, they worked on bridging the connectivity gap between Brazzaville in the Republic of the Congo and Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The two locations are separated by the Congo River and are only 4.8 kilometers apart. However, internet connectivity costs much, much more in Kinshasa, because providers will have to lay down enough fiber connection to cover 400 kilometers of ground around the river. What Project Taara did was install links that can beam high-speed connectivity from Brazzaville to Kinshasa across the river instead. Within 20 days and with 99.9 percent availability, the links served served nearly 700 TB of data.
Taara's WOC links work by seeking each other out and linking their beams of light together to create a high-speed internet connection. It's not ideal for use in foggy locations, but Project Taara has developed network planning tools that can estimate WOC availability based on various factors like weather. In the future, the team will be able to use those tools to plan for the locations where Taara's technology will work best.
Baris Erkmen, Director of Engineering for Taara, wrote in the post:
"Better tracking accuracy, automated environmental responses and better planning tools are helping Taara's links deliver reliable high-speed bandwidth to places that fiber can't reach, and helping us connect communities that are cut off from traditional ways of delivering connectivity. We're really excited about these advances, and are looking forward to building on them as we continue developing and refining Taara's capabilities."
FTC Chair Lina Khan wants the commission to identify potential loopholes in its merger reporting guidelines that allowed some acquisitions to "fly under the radar," according to CNBC. That's one of the FTC's key takeaways after completing its inquiry into the unreported acquisitions by Google owner Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft from 2010 to 2019. The commission has published its findings over a year after it started the inquiry in February 2020, focusing on 616 transactions valued at over $1 million.
Under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, only mergers and acquisitions exceeding $92 million in value need to be reported to the FTC and the DOJ for antitrust review. The FTC found that the five tech giants made 616 non-reportable transactions over the course of almost a decade and that quite a big chunk actually exceeded the HSR threshold. Of the 616, 94 exceeded the threshold but weren't reported, because they met certain criteria or because statutory/regulatory exemptions applied to the transaction.
Three more transactions would have exceeded the HSR threshold if the debts or liabilities the acquirer assumed were added to the total amount. Nine additional transactions would've also gone above the threshold if the "deferred or contingent compensation to founders and key employees" were added. The FTC didn't mention any specific acquisition in its report, but Bloomberg mentioned Facebook's acquisition of Giphy last year. Bloomberg says Giphy paid a dividend to investors to lower its assets so that antitrust officials wouldn't have to be notified. While Facebook didn't reveal how much it paid for the GIF database, reports say it cost the social network $400 million.
In addition to identifying potential loopholes in HSR reporting, Khan also wants the commission to learn from international peers, since a third of the acquisitions involved foreign companies. Finally, the chairperson wants to scrutinize the use of non-compete clauses in mergers. In more than 75 percent of the transactions investigated, the key personnel of the acquired companies were required to sign non-compete agreements.
Khan said in a statement:
"While the Commission’s enforcement actions have already focused on how digital platforms can buy their way out of competing, this study highlights the systemic nature of their acquisition strategies..It captures the extent to which these firms have devoted tremendous resources to acquiring start-ups, patent portfolios, and entire teams of technologists — and how they were able to do so largely outside of our purview."
Samsung has started manufacturing 90Hz OLED displays that will be used in the latest ASUS laptops, it announced. The 14-inch, 2,880 x 1,800 16:10 panels were significantly delayed, as Samsung said they'd arrive in March this year when it first unveiled the technology.
The extra speed compared to 60Hz OLED panels makes these interesting for gaming in particular. Samsung notes that the OLED tech creates less blurring on motion than LCD panels and claims you'll see clearer movement on a 90Hz OLED display than you would on a 120Hz LCD model. In theory, that could mean relatively sharp gaming on a display that's not as taxing for your computer's GPU.
The OLED screens deliver better color too, with 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage that beats most LCD models. They also offer deeper blacks, faster response times and better viewing angles. The drawback compared to LCDs is a lack of brightness and lower energy efficiency when viewing bright content. The screens are set to arrive on ASUS's Zenbook 14X Pro and Vivobook Pro 14X models announced earlier this month. Samsung is also supplying the 16-inch 4K 60Hz panels used in the ASUS ProArt Studio OLED and other models.
At the end of the stream for Undertale's sixth anniversary, Toby Fox has dropped a surprise for his fans: The second chapter of Deltarune, his newer top-down RPG, will be available this week after almost a three-year wait. As Kotaku notes, Fox's release of the first chapter Deltarune in October 2018 also came a surprise. In the game, you control a human named Kris who fell with his classmate Susie into the "Dark World," where they meet Ralsei who tells them they're heroes destined to save the world.
As you'd expect from any RPG, the three embark on a quest and encounter monsters along the way. Deltarune is a top-down 2D RPG like Undertale, but it features an improved turn-based, multi-character battle system similar to Final Fantasy's. In a previous interview, Fox said the idea for Deltarune came to him in a dream he had back in 2011— development for the game started the year after that.
The second chapter of Deltarune will be available on September 17th, 8PM EST for PC and Mac. There's no word on the Switch and PS4 versions yet. Fox said on the game's official website that he's planning more chapters for the game but has only completed the second one, so far.
