There is hope for the diesel. I just spent a week in the 2018 Chevrolet Equinox LT turbodiesel, a compact SUV new for 2018, and got 42 mpg without trying to be a model driver. A 950-mile run from Atlanta to New Jersey cost $70 in fuel. A flight the same day was $193 minimum with two stops, or $612 nonstop. Vehicles like the Equinox diesel could play an important role in fuel conservation in the years leading up to a more electrified future. Against this, there’s a significant diesel premium compared with the gas-engine. This long-distance cruiser can’t be had with adaptive cruise control, and some of the other options depend on trim lines and options packages.
The mechanics of planet formation are thought to be pretty universal, but a new report suggests that Pluto could have formed from very different processes than those we typically expect. The standard model of planetary formation is that planets form as grains of ice and rock collect together. These grains eventually form a structure large enough to be called a planetesimal. As the planetesimal grows, it pulls more surrounding material towards itself. Eventually, these planetesimals collide and form larger bodies, known as protoplanets. We still have three protoplanets in our own solar system — Ceres, Vesta, and Pallas, left over from the dawn of the solar system.
Content filtering is a major problem for all social media sites. Faced with a veritable avalanche of material being uploaded every second, firms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have struggled to handle a suite of problems, ranging from mundane copyright detection and flagging to issues like revenge porn. Human beings are far better than computers at content classification and determining whether images and video violate a site’s terms of service. But human scanning doesn’t scale well, and often causes significant levels of psychological distress for the employees in question. There’s a huge potential market for products that can handle this work more effectively — and FB, apparently, is tossing its own hat into the silicon design ring.
African safaris are one of the last refuges of standalone cameras. After all, for many a safari is the experience of a lifetime, and they provide challenging conditions for capturing great photos. But on my trips there I see an increasing number of tourists using only their smartphones. So on our recent photo safari, I took along two high-end smartphones to see what they could do, both in conjunction with my DSLRs and by themselves. The good news is that they are capable of creating some great memories, although it’ll be a while before they can completely replace a dedicated camera.
A few months back, we covered Samsung’s new line of 4K televisions that the company marketed as being “invisible.” The new displays allow you to take a picture of the area of wall where the panel will hang, upload that capability to the TV, and then watch as the television mimics the wall standing behind it. Of course, this isn’t the same as literally making the TV invisible, but it’s a much less intrusive presence compared with a standard screen. It’s apparently rather difficult to advertise an invisible television that’s explicitly built not to be noticed, which is why Samsung has concocted one of the more annoying advertising campaigns in recent memory for its UK product launch.
A few weeks back, we covered problems between Microsoft’s latest Windows 10 update (the ) and certain Intel SSDs. Users with an Intel SSD 600p or Pro 600p were advised to until unspecified problems could be resolved. As of now, those issues have been resolved, and customers can begin downloading the update now (assuming that Windows 10 isn’t already offering it to you). The patch to watch for — the one that resolves the problem — is (OS Build 17134.81). The update notes that it “Addresses an issue with power regression on systems with NVMe devices from certain vendors,” and later name-checks the affected products by name, including the Intel SSD 600p, and Pro 6000p.
A few weeks ago, Valve that it would launch the ability to play games on your smartphone by streaming them via its Steam Link app. While Valve already offers a set top box for performing this kind of function, the ability to use your pre-existing router (provided it met certain specifications) was a major step forward and the kind of feature that PC gamers of all types might enjoy. As of now, however, it looks as if that benefit will be reserved solely for Android users. Apple is refusing to approve Valve’s Steam Link app for iOS, and Valve isn’t sure what the problem is.
For many of us, our smartphones are not just a way of communicating with the world. They contain sensitive data and can serve as a key to important online accounts. According to security researcher Ryan Stevenson, wasn’t taking account security very seriously. It on the open internet that would provide customer details to anyone who had your phone number. The hole has been patched now, but the site may have been used to hijack accounts. The domain in question is promotool.t-mobile.com, which is not listed anyplace on the T-Mobile website. However, it’s easy to dredge up in a Google search.
Is Tesla CEO Elon Musk losing it, or just expressing unhappiness that the media aren’t telling his side of the Tesla story? Musk has been ratcheting up the heat on the media (and analysts) this spring, at the same time Wall Street has been turning up the pressure on Musk and Tesla’s stock. It started with a meltdown in an analyst call, and an apology. More recently, there’s been an escalation on Twitter that reached near-presidential levels, just without the late-night calls to Sean Hannity. Now, Musk is calling for a journalist review-and-rating site to be called Pravda. What gives?
