The world’s automakers unveiled a torrent of electric vehicles at the Frankfurt Auto Show this week. They see demand growing as range increases and governments talk about end-of-lifeing the combustion engine. Britain and France are talking about no new combustion-engine cars after 2040. China is thinking along those lines, too. That has VW talking about a market of 3 million EVs a year in 2025 — for Volkswagen alone. Here’s a look at some of the electric vehicles at the every-other-year Frankfurt Auto Show.
We’re mere days away from the end of NASA’s Cassini mission. The spacecraft has been exploring Saturn and its entourage of moons for more than a decade, but the time has come to execute the “Grand Finale.” In the early morning on Friday (September 15th), the final signals will be sent by Cassini as it falls into Saturn’s atmosphere. All the pieces are in place to track Cassini during its final maneuver, including a , which will receive Cassini’s data in real time. NASA began the Grand Finale with a course correction that sent Cassini spiraling in toward the gas giant.
Apple’s newest iPhones all support wireless charging, and that means automakers will move to make this a standard across most of their fleets. Never mind that dozens of Android phones already embed wireless charging. Overnight, Apple made it a standard. US automakers have deployed, slowly, wireless charging in their cars as far back as 2013, on a handful of models. Some existing charging mats or stands may not support the Qi standard that is quickly becoming the de facto standard. BMW wireless charging.
Samsung made a pair of announcements today about the future of its foundry manufacturing, and they imply things are going fairly well for the company. First, the company is announcing a new “11nm” process, which it claims will deliver “up to 15 percent higher performance and up to 10 percent chip area reduction with the same power consumption.” It’s also the first prime number we’ve used for a process node in a very long time; you have to go back to the 2um node for the last one. (This last bit isn’t exactly called out in Samsung’s marketing materials).
Updated 02:52: iPhone X launches on November 3rd at $999. Updated 02:21: iPhone X is coming with an OLED Super Retina Display. Updated 01:58: iPhone 8 is here! Updated 01:43: Apple TV 4K announced. Updated 01:29: Apple Watch Series 3 has a built-in cellular radio. Updated 12:58: The event has started with a montage! Check the live blog below for the latest news. As summer comes to an end, Apple begins ramping up the production of its newest products. Today at 1PM ET (), Apple will be holding a special event at the brand new Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino.
Researchers all over the world are engaged in the search for better forms of as the demands of society continue increasing, but improving efficiency is necessary as well. Around 14 percent of total US energy production goes toward cooling homes and businesses, so that’s a good place to start. A company called SkyCool Systems is leveraging an interesting quirk of physics to improve cooling efficiency by . All it takes is a very fancy mirror. The mirrors designed by SkyCool Systems have the perplexing ability to be cooler than the surrounding air, and they don’t need power to do it.
Last year, Nintendo launched its great monument to bait-and-switch, the NES Classic Edition. The cutting-edge 30-year-old console packed a reasonable number of classic NES games into a diminutive form factor; then Nintendo slapped an attractive $60 price on the whole shebang. And then, in the face of completely predictable high demand, Nintendo decided to build six of them a week. After a few months, the company decided it had enough money and , despite selling more of them in a few months than it had sold Wii U’s in the entire calendar year. But Nintendo seems to have genuinely been blind to the bad press its inventory malpractice and demand mismanagement would generate.
Apple was a few years late to the wearable game when it launched the Apple Watch in 2015. Android Wear had been around for more than a year, and the Pebble pre-dated that. However, , and . Apple says it’s selling more Apple Watches than ever, and it’s looking to continue that trend with the . The Apple Watch Series 3 looks a lot like the existing watch, but it has a cellular data option. Your carrier is at the ready to take a little more money from you every month for that feature, too. The new Apple Watch looks identical to the second-generation watch from the outside, which in itself is an impressive feat of engineering when you consider all the new stuff inside.
If you want to browse in private, you’re going to need a VPN. If you’re on public WiFi at the library or a coffee shop, anyone can look at your unencrypted traffic. Even when you’re online at home, your ISP and government might very well be snooping on your day-to-day activities. Thankfully, investing in a VPN is incredibly affordable. Take advantage of today’s deal from NordVPN, and you can get an entire year of service for less than $3 per month. • (Coupon code: 3ydeal) If you’re very concerned about privacy and security, NordVPN has your back.
