Fine. He’s the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, the founder of The Boring Company and Neuralink, a certified member of the PayPal Mafia, and a well-known internet troll.
He sounds rich.
He is. Depending on where the market closes on Friday, he’s either the first or the second richest person in the world. The other contender is Jeff Bezos. A substantial part of both men’s net worth is tied up in their company stock.
Okay. What is Saturday Night Live?
Saturday Night Live is an American television show that has been on the air since 1975. It is in a sketch comedy format. There is usually at least one good sketch in each 90-minute episode, and it is often the digital short.
SNL features a guest host, usually an actor with a movie to promote, and a musical guest, usually promoting a recently released album. After the “cold open,” a topical sketch about current events, the host gives a monologue.
What is Elon Musk doing on SNL, though?
Selling Teslas and getting richer.
Musk’s sales acumen is a running theme in Ashlee Vance’s biography of him and in the lore Musk loves to promote about himself: arbitraging Easter eggs with his cousins, running a nightclub out of his frat house, writing a computer program at age 12 and sending it to PC Magazine for $500. A major component of sales, of course, is advertising, and the most powerful form of advertising is “earned media,” or mentions you don’t have to pay for. You know, like the kind you get by guest-hosting Saturday Night Live.
Tesla famously doesn’t do paid advertisements. It doesn’t need to. Appearing on PewDiePie’s Meme Review is free. So is getting papped in a Cybertruck at Nobu. So is squiring musician Grimes to the Met Gala. Parties for people who own Teslas, Boring Company Flamethrowers, or who are just big fans have been part of his promotional efforts for years. He has a spicy Twitter account — spicy enough to earn Jack Dorsey’s endorsement and piss off the Securities and Exchange Commission — and his tweets often make headlines. This is to say nothing of the infamous Joe Rogan blunt-smoking episode.
This isn’t Musk’s first foray into Hollywood, either. He was an executive producer of Thank You for Smoking. He’s also appeared in Rick and Morty, Big Bang Theory, South Park, The Simpsons, and Iron Man 2.
Most CEOs don’t do this. Tesla gets compared to Apple a lot, and I would like you, for lols, to just visualize Tim Cook appearing on Joe Rogan’s show at all. Okay. Can you even see him drinking whiskey? He’s certainly not gonna pass that dutch. Steve Jobs appeared in only one movie, a 1988 documentary about Bruce Springsteen.
SNL promises to be an hour and a half of Elon-friendly writing, with goofs that burnish his reputation and let him laugh at himself. Plus, he gets to remind everyone Tesla exists and basically re-created the electric car market at a time when a lot of his competitors have jumped into EVs. My only real unanswered question about this is: Why isn’t the musical guest Grimes, tho?
Do you think he’ll pump Dogecoin?
I mean, yes, probably? One hedge fund made very good returns on the GameStonk debacle by selling immediately after Elon Musk pumped GameStop, so that’s something to consider.
Is Tesla involved in Dogecoin?
Not as far as I know, and I love reading their financial documents. Tesla is involved, however, in bitcoin. You can even buy a Tesla with bitcoin.
Why has Elon gotten involved in Dogecoin and GameStonk?
They’re popular online, and he, famously, loves memes — even if he often arrives at them late.
It also seems like he really wants to be liked. Musk has spent a lot of time courting an online fan base — some of his media appearances, like on Rick and Morty and Meme Review, seem designed to appeal to that fan base. While those fans may or may not convert into actual Tesla purchases, they help keep Musk relevant and are useful in hassling his critics online.
Okay, but what matters more to Musk, money or popularity?
Ahahahaha you are asking me to read Elon Musk’s mind? Fine, great, hold on, let me concentrate. I see… an army of angry squirrels.
No, seriously, though — Musk has been consistent about his admiration for humorists. He considered buying The Onion’s parent company in 2014 but ultimately didn’t put in a bid. Later, he funded a humor effort called Thud,which he briefly suggested would be part of his “intergalactic media empire.” Thud crashed and burned shortly after it launched.
Judging by his past beef with the SEC and his history with Thud, which was never meant to make money, I would argue the thing that matters most to Musk is neither money nor popularity. It’s his ability to do whatever he damn pleases. Arguably, that’s part of what makes him popular — popular enough to host SNL, even. Now the question is, will he send the ratings to the Moon?
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk — the first or second richest man in the world, depending on the phase of the Moon — will host Saturday Night Live this weekend (the first or second funniest show that airs on Saturday evenings, depending on if anything else is on TV).
The event is a strange confluence of things that The Verge covers: a powerful tech leader with ambitions that are as huge as his blind spots, and someone destined to barrage you with so many dad jokes that one is bound to land at some point. Plus maybe Dogecoin? (A meme gone so awry that it’s shaping the actual landscape of the physical world is definitely some Verge shit.)
So what can we expect when Musk takes the stage late on Saturday evening? Using a bit of algorithmic trickery and some advanced machine learning (aka The Verge staff typing eagerly into a shared Google Doc), we’ve made our best predictions of what this episode of SNL is likely to bring. And because we’re a little deranged from spending the week covering Epic v. Apple, we also decided to turn it into a game.
Tile has announced that it’ll be launching support for Amazon Sidewalk — the company’s local, Bluetooth network — on June 14th, allowing Amazon’s Echo devices to strengthen Tile’s network.
The two companies had already announced plans for Tile to join Sidewalk last fall, but today’s announcement gives an actual date and details for the integration. The addition of Tile support comes just a few days after Amazon is turning on Sidewalk support for compatible Echo devices in the US on June 8th, too. Also getting access to Sidewalk are Level’s smart locks, which will be able to leverage Sidewalk to directly connect to Ring doorbells, allowing the locks to be used even when outside of Bluetooth range.
According to Amazon, Sidewalk uses a combination of “Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), the 900 MHz spectrum, and other frequencies” to allow devices to communicate without Wi-Fi. Devices that support Sidewalk — including a variety of Echo and Ring gadgets — can serve as “Sidewalk Bridges” that work together as access points to the Sidewalk network (think of them almost like individual points on a neighborhood-wide mesh router system).
When Tile joins Sidewalk, its trackers will be able to be found using Amazon’s network in conjunction with Tile’s existing Bluetooth network, making it even easier to find your missing devices. Additionally, Tile is expanding support for Amazon’s Echo smart speakers by allowing users to see the Echo device to which the missing tag is closest. It’s not quite on the level of the hyper-localized tracking of an ultra-wideband network, though.
The news also comes as Apple launches its own AirTag trackers, a direct competitor to Tile’s. Apple’s trackers rely on a mixture of the company’s Find My network — which leverages the Bluetooth capabilities of iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices — and its ultra-wideband radio technology to help locate missing tracking tags.
Tile has recently criticized Apple’s trackers, claiming that Apple is using its control over its hardware and software stack for unfair advantages that third-party companies (like Tile) are unable to access.
As the first week of the Epic v. Apple trial comes to a close, Apple is picking a fight over one of Epic’s witnesses. The fight centers on testimony from Lori Wright, Microsoft’s vice president of Xbox business development, who testified about the distinction between “general purpose” and “special purpose” devices on Wednesday in favor of Epic’s claim. Wright’s testimony set off a day of confusion over whether Microsoft actually makes money selling Xbox hardware. Apple is now asking the judge for an “adverse credibility finding,” basically a determination that Wright’s testimony can’t be trusted because of irregularities in document production.
In a new filing, Apple argued that some of the documents referred to in Wright’s testimony weren’t produced in advance, and the entire testimony should fall under a cloud. Apple’s lawyers zeroed in on Wright’s claim that Xbox hardware was sold at cost in order to subsidize game sales.
“Ms. Wright testified about the supposed unprofitability of Microsoft’s console business without providing the P&L statement from her files that could have substantiated (or disproven) her testimony,” Apple’s filing argues.
Apple has actually made this case before, arguing back in April that Wright’s testimony should be stricken from the record because of irregular document production in the weeks leading up to the trial. Now, they’re arguing that Wright stepped outside of the preset parameters of her testimony, and her entire testimony should be deemed not credible.
And at the center of it all is Microsoft’s profit-and-loss analysis for the Xbox hardware, which no one on the Apple side has seen. It’s worth remembering here that Apple and Microsoft have been locked in heated competition for decades now, and while Apple doesn’t have a product competing specifically against the Xbox, the broader companies are tied up in a delicate balance of fierce competition and business cooperation. As a result, Microsoft really does not want to give Apple sensitive financial data about the Xbox — and Apple sees the P&L statement as a way to punch back at Microsoft for getting involved in the App Store fight in the first place.
From the beginning of the Epic v. Apple trial, documents have been an issue — and it’s likely to continue being a problem as long as the proceedings go on. Both sides agreed in advance to upload exhibits to a public Box folder (it’s here, if you want to follow along), but the actual use of that folder has been extremely chaotic. On the first day of the proceedings, more than 100 different filings were uploaded to the general exhibits folder, only to have a handful clawed back as sealed — including some of the Sony docs we published here. Nearly every day, documents have been added to the Box and then pulled back, to the point where we’ve had to mirror the whole thing just to make sure we don’t miss anything.
Some of this is normal. A big part of the legal fight is over which documents can be used in the trial and which parts of those documents can be blacked out to conceal trade secrets or other information the companies would rather not get out. The companies’ lawyers have been going back and forth on these tiny details for months; it’s just what lawyers do.
But it’s fair to say this case has been unusually chaotic — either because of the remote nature of the trial or the sheer volume of different companies involved. A lot of information has come out of the discovery in this case, and not all of it was supposed to. Now, Microsoft is caught between giving up information that could help in court and giving up business secrets to a longtime rival. Microsoft wants Epic to win this case, and it’s willing to talk about Xbox profitability if it helps to make that happen. But giving up that information in open court might be a bridge too far.
(Pocket-lint) – Sonos offers multiple speakers within its portfolio, but as great as they are, none had been portable, none had been water-resistant, and none had offered Bluetooth audio support. The Sonos Move, however, changed all of that.
While Sonos previously focused on offering speakers designed for the home that require mains power and use a mesh Wi-Fi network to talk to each other, the Sonos Move was the first portable Bluetooth smart speaker marking the beginning of Sonos outside of the home.
Move was first, but since its release, there is also now the smaller, and more portable Sonos Roam to consider if you’re in the market for a Bluetooth Sonos speaker. You can read our full Sonos Roam review separately, but here we are focusing on the larger, more powerful, Sonos Move.
Sonos Move vs Sonos Roam: What’s the difference?
Design
IP56 water- and dust-resistant design
Capacitive touch controls
Integrated handle
Measures: 240 x 160 x 126mm
Weighs: 3kg
Sonos plays close attention to design and all its latest speakers – from the 2015 Play:5 to the Sonos Arc – share similar design features, like capacitive touch controls, black and white colour options and plastic detailing.
Pocket-lint
The Sonos Move has the same design ethos as these newer Sonos speakers, with rounded edges, capacitive controls and an almost identical top to the Sonos One – albeit oval shaped and with repositioned controls – but it raises the stakes when it comes to durability.
While the design of the Sonos Move clearly resembles the Sonos portfolio, it offers an IP56 water and dust resistance and it is one tough little cookie – although it’s not actually that little. Sonos says the Move can withstand pretty much every obstacle life might throw at it, whether that be sand, water or a drop on concrete, and while we didn’t fancy testing the last of those, it’s clear this speaker is able to hold its own.
To achieve this, the bottom of the device is silicone with a clear coat of paint over the top to deter dust. Everything inside has been considered, too, from a custom-made polycarbonate basket case reinforced with glass for the mid-woofer, to the colour of the Move itself – it is Shadow Black and not just plain, absorbant black to take UV exposure into account. We had it outside in 25C with the sun shining directly on it for several hours but it didn’t feel too hot as a result. There’s a Lunar White model too, which are the same colour offerings as the Sonos Roam.
Pocket-lint
As we say, though, this portable speaker is not small. It’s wider and taller than the Sonos One and it weighs a hefty 3kg – so you’ll need a pretty decent-sized backpack to lug it around. The point is that you can bring it wherever you want, whether that’s your garden, the beach or a camping trip. At this scale we suspect it’ll be nearer to the home, for a garden party, while the smaller Sonos Roam is more suited to the park or beach.
On the rear of the Move is a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth toggle switch, a power button and a pairing button – the last of which all Sonos speakers except the Roam offer. The buttons are all positioned on an inward slant that allows for the convenient integrated handle – which is built into the design, rather than a separate strap or handle – to exist within this design format.
When the Sonos Move is on its Loop Dock charging cradle it looks like any other Sonos speaker and blends into the home. You’d never know it was portable from the front, giving it an element of surprise about it. If you’re thinking about buying a permanent in-home Sonos speaker but might want to occasionally take it out and about then we can see why this design makes perfect sense, though the same can definitely be said for the Roam too.
Pocket-lint
A USB Type-C port sits below the integrated handle and the buttons, as well as two charging pins below that for the Loop Dock – which the Sonos Move snaps into place on.
Hardware & Specs
Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy
AirPlay 2 support
45W power
The Sonos Move delivers 45W of power, coupled with Bluetooth for audio streaming capabilities rather than needing a mesh-connected device. The Sonos One, by comparison, doesn’t offer Bluetooth for audio streaming (only for quick setup), making the Move the first Sonos speaker to offer the technology, followed by the Roam.
Pocket-lint
The Sonos Move also supports Apple’s AirPlay 2 – as per the Roam, Arc, Beam, One, Play:5, and the Sonos One SL (the voiceless version of the Sonos One) – which allows for easy streaming from an Apple device without the need to open the Sonos app. It’s quick, convenient and it offers Apple users integration with Siri for voice control too.
The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth toggle switch on the rear of the Sonos Move allows users to switch the speaker between modes – something the Roam does automatically. When the Move is ready to pair, the LED light on the top flashes blue then goes solid blue when pairing is successful. We paired our Apple iPhone 11 at the time of review with it in a matter of seconds and switching between the two modes is virtually instant, making it pain-free, even if the Roam does make this element more seamless.
Pocket-lint
The power button, meanwhile, allows users to switch the Sonos Move off entirely, otherwise it will stay in a low power mode when not being used – useful for quick wake-up if it’s grouped with another Sonos speaker or an alarm is set, for example.
Features
Automatic Trueplay
Alexa and Google voice control
The Sonos Move functions as a typical Bluetooth speaker when in Bluetooth mode, allowing users to send music to it via a paired device, as you would the Ultimate Ears UE Megaboom 3, for example. In Bluetooth mode, the Move isn’t controlled via the Sonos app, with the control shifted to your device and the streaming service you are using instead.
When not in Bluetooth mode, the Move functions as a traditional Sonos speaker, but it appears with a battery indicator in the Sonos app. Functioning as a traditional Sonos speaker means you can group it with other Sonos speakers, control it through the Sonos app and access all the features that come with that app, including compatibility with over 100 music streaming services, stereo pairing and customisation of equalisation levels (EQ).
Sadly, you can’t use two Sonos Move speakers in a surround setup, as you can with all other Sonos speakers except the Sonos Roam, which also doesn’t offer the feature. Read our Sonos tips and tricks to learn more about the features offered by the Sonos system as a whole.
The Sonos Move also offers a feature called Automatic Trueplay. Trueplay is a software feature Sonos introduced with the Play:5 in 2015 and it allows users to tune their Sonos speakers according to its surroundings using an Apple iOS device. You can read all about it in our seperate feature.
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By Adrian Willings
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Automatic Trueplay uses the four built-in microphones on the Sonos Move to listen to the sound produced by the speaker and tune it automatically according to its surroundings, making for a much simpler process than the original (where you had to walk around the room waving your iOS device up and down slowly, yep, really).
Pocket-lint
The Automatic Trueplay feature was introduced on the Move to combat the issues of moving a speaker from outside to inside and still ensuring it sounds good. An accelerometer helps the Sonos Move detect when it has been moved, allowing it to adjust itself within around 30 seconds to what it deems as the best for its new surroundings. You can turn it off in the Sonos app if you don’t want it though.
Additionally, the Sonos Move supports Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa voice control. As with the One, Beam, Arc and Roam, which offer the same control, you can’t have both assistants setup at the same time – but you will be able to switch between them as you please, as well as turn the microphone off (an LED light on the top of the Move indicates when the microphones are on). You can also choose to have Alexa on one compatible Sonos speaker and Google Assistant on another if you want.
When the voice assistants are setup, you get almost all the same features you would an Amazon Echo or Google Home or Nest speaker device, bar a couple, meaning you’ll be able to ask Alexa or Google anything you like, such as set a timer or alarm, control compatible smart home devices, or find out about your day or commute.
Pocket-lint
Voice control is only available when in Wi-Fi mode (AKA standard Sonos mode), but don’t mistake this for only when docked on the Loop Dock. For us, we get Wi-Fi in our garden at home and therefore we could use Google Assistant on the Move in the garden during a BBQ with friends, which was great.
Sound and performance
Two Class-D digital amplifiers, tweeter and mid-woofer
10 hours battery life
Replaceable battery
The Sonos Move has a downward-firing tweeter at the top of the speaker, coupled with a mid-range woofer inside. For those wondering why the company has used a downward-facing tweeter, Sonos told us it was to achieve evenly dispersed sound; there’s what the company calls a Wave Guide inside to enable this to happen.
Pocket-lint
Based on our experience at review and continued experience, the Sonos Move offers a great sound quality for its size and the sound is evenly dispersed. It’s on the bassy side, which is typical of Sonos speakers, but we see that as a good thing compared to other portables that can’t deliver in this regard.
There’s plenty of volume too – which you definitely need when outdoors – and the Move copes well with mid-range, treble and vocals. You don’t get as wide a soundscape as per the Play:5, but the Move sounds better than the Sonos One to our ears. That gives you an idea of its positioning in the range. It’s also more powerful than the Roam, which you would expect.
Sonos claims the battery will deliver 10 hours of music playback. We had the Sonos Move outside on Wi-Fi, on mid-volume for four hours and we only managed to drain the battery to 80 per cent, so we suspect this figure is based on use at louder volumes, thus you might get more out of it.
Pocket-lint
The battery can be replaced too – it will last around 900 charging cycles, which is around three years on average – after which it is recommended to replace it to continue to get longevity out of the device. Sonos offers a battery replacement kit that allows you to do this yourself.
Verdict
We waited a long time to see Sonos launch a portable speaker with Bluetooth streaming before Move was finally revealed. In fact, we asked co-founder Tom Cullen about a portable speaker back in 2015, so it’s something we’ve been pining after for a while and now we have two choices.
The Move is bigger and heavier than we expected, and certainly not cheap, but with its price and size comes durability, toughness and performance – and that’s no bad thing, especially if you actually plan to make use of the Move’s portability. We also suspect many will use it as a sometime portable, not as a constant cart-around speaker.
There are other great portable Bluetooth speakers out there – including Sonos’ own Roam that is far smaller and better designed for constant portability – but there are none quite like the Sonos Move in terms of sound output and features, especially not for those already invested in the Sonos system. It’s the Bluetooth speaker Sonos fans were waiting for.
This article was first published on 5 September 2019 and has been republished to represent its full review status.
Also consider
Pocket-lint
Sonos Roam
squirrel_widget_4437410
The Sonos Roam is the second portable, Bluetooth speaker from Sonos. It’s much smaller than the Move and while it isn’t as powerful, it offers some great features like automatic switching between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, as well as a feature called Sound Swap.
Sonos Roam review
Pocket-lint
Sonos One
squirrel_widget_148504
The Sonos One isn’t portable like the Move, nor does it offer Bluetooth audio capabilities, but it is cheaper, it has built-in Google Assistant and Alexa capabilities, and it offers a good sound for its size. Two Sonos One speakers can also be used in a surround setup with a Sonos Arc, Sonos Beam and Sonos Sub.
Sonos One review
Pocket-lint
Ultimate Ears Megaboom 3
squirrel_widget_145462
The Megaboom 3 is quite a bit smaller and cheaper than the Sonos Move and it doesn’t offer the soundscape as a result of this, but it is completely waterproof, it offers decent bass for its size, and it is more portable than the Move. It’s that last point that’s a big sell here.
Ultimate Ears Megaboom 3 review
Pocket-lint
JBL Link Portable
Smaller and more compact than the Move, the Link Portable doesn’t deliver the same sound experience as a result, but there are plenty of features, including Google Assistant, AirPlay 2, Chromecast support and both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
The Raspberry Pi might be known as a pocket-sized computer but it does turn up in all manner of places. This maker, known as Littlespleen online, decided to use an old Apple laptop as housing for a Raspberry Pi 4.
The best Raspberry Pi projects breathe life into old hardware, and this one recycles a broken MacBook. This exact model, the A1181, was chosen due to the trackpad and keyboard which connect via USB—perfect for attaching to a Raspberry Pi.
The Raspberry Pi 4 outputs video to the original MacBook screen via an adaptor. According to Littlespleen, there are many third-party controller boards on the market that can take inputs from HDMI / DVI and VGA and output to LCD displays. Users need to research the exact model number when recreating this project to make sure a compatible board is chosen.
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(Image credit: Littlespleen)
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(Image credit: Littlespleen)
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(Image credit: Littlespleen)
As space is at a premium, careful decisions had to be made and one was form factor. This required some capacitors to be placed on their side to make room for the LCD controller board installation. Most of the hardware was placed under the keyboard after gutting the original internals. The onboard batteries power both the Raspberry Pi and the display, with careful consideration made to include a voltage regulator / switching power supply to ensure the Raspberry Pi only sees 5V.
The end result is a fully functional laptop that looks like Apple but tastes like Raspberry. If you want to read more about how it goes together, visit the original Reddit thread for more details.
Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge
‘The AV industry has promised too much for too long, and has delivered too little’
After years of positive vibes about the future of autonomous vehicles and nearly unrestricted access to cash from Kool-Aid-drunk venture capitalists, the AV industry is confronting some hard truths. The first is that autonomous vehicles are going to take a lot longer to reach mass scale than previously thought. The second is that it’s going to be a lot more expensive, too. And the third hard truth: going it alone is no longer a viable option.
Last week, Lyft sold its self-driving car division to a subsidiary of Toyota for $550 million. Cruise bought Voyage. Aurora merged with Uber’s autonomous vehicle unit. Delivery robot startup Nuro acquired self-driving truck outfit Ike. There have been so many mergers, joint ventures, and various tie-ups lately it can be difficult to keep them all straight.
Where that leaves things is a little unclear. There is still money flowing to these companies, and nearly all of the executives, engineers, and software developers working on the technology remain bullish about the future. But there is a growing sense among experts and investors that the heady days when anyone with a couple of test vehicles, some LIDAR, and a vision for the future could launch a startup are at an end. And there will definitely be more shrinkage to come.
“The consolidation is long overdue,” said Raj Rajkumar, robotics professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “The AV industry has promised too much for too long, and has delivered too little.”
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
There are other signs of general unease in the AV world. Last month, John Krafcik announced that he was stepping down as CEO of Waymo after helping lead the company since 2015. Krafcik oversaw the transformation of Google’s self-driving car division from “Project Chauffeur” to its own standalone company. During his time, Waymo struck partnerships with several automakers, launched a limited ride-hailing pilot with fully driverless vehicles in Arizona, and expanded its commercial ambitions to include trucking and last-mile delivery.
As a former auto executive with years of experience at Hyundai and Ford, Krafcik was seen as someone who could bring self-driving cars to the mainstream. But his decision to step aside at a time of heightened uncertainty highlights the difficult road ahead for self-driving cars — especially as many of those early predictions have failed to come to pass.
Krafcik was not able to bring to market an autonomous vehicle that can drive on any road and in any conditions without years of rigorous testing. Aside from a small area outside Phoenix, Waymo’s cars require backup drivers to monitor the vehicle’s operations and take control if anything goes wrong.
Waymo still has a commanding lead in autonomous vehicles, but diminished expectations about the future of self-driving cars are affecting its business in other ways, too. In 2018, Morgan Stanley published a research note valuing the company at $175 billion based on its perceived leadership in the space and the potential for massive amounts of revenue from its autonomous vehicles.
A year later, the bank slashed Waymo’s valuation to $105 billion, still an extraordinary amount of money for a company with no revenue. But last year, when Waymo announced its first external funding round of $2.25 billion, the company declined to discuss what valuation that investment was based on. Later, the Financial Times reported it to be $30 billion — a nearly 85 percent decrease from 2018.
Valuations aren’t the sole indicator of where things stand with autonomous vehicles. But they do point to investor sentiment. And right now, investors are not feeling as confident in the prediction that autonomous vehicles will soon become the dominant form of transportation.
Drive.ai
For years, Missy Cummings, director of the Humans and Autonomy Lab at Duke University, has been criticizing rosy predictions about our driverless future. She’s consistently warned that the technology is much further away and harder to get right than anyone in the industry cares to admit.
The recent trend in consolidation is vindication for her position, she says.
“It’s kind of like the elephant in the room,” she said of the shrinking of the AV world. “People will mention that and then they’ll stop themselves from making the Socratic connection to what this means about the viability of this industry.”
But Cummings doesn’t think people in the industry will be able to ignore the truth for much longer. “There is an embarrassingly large sum of money that’s been invested in this, so people feel like they have to keep going down that path because surely all these people who invested all this money can’t be wrong,” she says.
“Not everyone is delusional,” she added. “Just most people in this business.”
That said, Toyota and Aurora weren’t delusional when they decided to buy the automated driving teams at Lyft and Uber, respectively. They likely saw the value in the code produced by those teams, as well as the talent accrued by the ride-hailing companies over the years. When you can’t hire the people you’d like to staff your own projects, then you have to acquihire them, the distinctive Silicon Valley practice of buying a smaller company for the express purpose of acquiring their team of software engineers. Also, Uber and Lyft were very motivated to sell as recently public companies under pressure to staunch the bleeding and become profitable.
Another recent acquihire was when Apple bought bankrupt self-driving startup Drive.ai back in 2019. Apple had just laid off over 200 engineers from its secretive Project Titan, its own floundering self-driving operation. The Drive.ai team, composed of several graduates from Stanford’s AI lab, had already had some modest success with a ride-hailing pilot in Texas. Unhappy with its own team, Apple simply fired them and bought a new one.
“The buying up of these companies represents companies being able to buy skill sets that they would not otherwise be able to recruit,” Cummings said. “And I think that’s very valuable.”
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
The recent reorganization of the self-driving car industry may also point to a new set of priorities. Namely, robotaxis are out, and logistics and industrial applications are in.
Four years ago, the industry saw plenty of startups come out of stealth promising to do everything: they were going to make hardware and software; they were going to build their own vehicle; they were going to do robotaxis and delivery and trucking. And of course, they were going to change the world in the process. “It was a little bit like the decathlete business model,” said Reilly Brennan, general partner at venture capital firm Trucks. “We’re going to be very good at 10 different things.”
Now, most investors are interested in more “structured” applications of automated driving technology, such as construction, mining, middle-mile delivery, and agriculture. “So instead of being a decathlete, you had to pick a javelin thrower,” he said.
That’s not to say robotaxis are completely dead — far from it, with major players like Waymo, Cruise, Argo, and Baidu as well as smaller startups like Pony.ai, May Mobility, and Optimus Ride still banking on the proliferation of autonomous ride-hailing vehicles by the middle of this decade. But Brennan says the robotaxi craze has definitely cooled in recent years.
“Frankly, we stopped seeing robotaxi startups in probably the end of 2017,” Brennan said. “Here we are in 2021 and there are very few ongoing robotaxi startups that aren’t, you know, Cruise, Waymo, or Argo.”
Brennan thinks the concept of autonomous vehicles that can drive anywhere under any conditions is still possible, but much further out than originally thought. They will require huge financial investments — “11 figures” by Brennan’s estimates — and a willingness to tolerate zero cash flow until the technology is mature and safe enough to launch. There are only so many companies with deep enough pockets to take on that challenge: major car companies like Ford, GM, and Volkswagen or tech giants like Apple, Alphabet, and Intel. Everyone else is probably not long for this world.
The mid-level engineers always knew this to be true, Brennan said. It was the CEOs who were making the erroneous predictions about the availability of self-driving taxis by 2020. “I think the CEOs of those companies knew that they were going to be playing golf by 2020,” he said.
(Pocket-lint) – When the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra touched down at Pocket-lint HQ it made for a moment of genuine excitement. This flagship, which has more features than, well, any other handset we’ve seen in recent times, is one of those rare moments of a company trying to be different; to standout for the right reasons.
Not only does the Mi 11 Ultra have one of the boldest screens on the market, it has a second screen on its rear too. It’s one of those unusual double-screen devices – we’ve seen other different implementations before, from the Vivo NEX Dual Display to the Meizu Pro 7 and beyond – with the Xiaomi’s smaller touchscreen integrated into the camera unit to act as a notification and control centre. You can see why the tech nerd in us got all excited, right?
Except, having used the Mi 11 Ultra for two full weeks as our own device, it’s stood out for too many of the wrong reasons. The camera bump is huge, the second screen adds nothing of genuine use (and sometimes actively gets in the way), the screen’s touch-responsiveness is unacceptably bad, and the MIUI software continues to deliver irks that, at this high-end level, simply don’t add up to the ‘Ultra’ experience we were expecting.
Design
Dimensions: 164.3 x 74.6 x 8.4mm / Weight: 234g
IP68 dust- and water-resistant (1.5m for 30 mins)
Finish options: Cosmic White, Cosmic Black
Build: Ceramic back in aluminium frame
Under-display fingerprint scanner
Upon pulling the Mi 11 Ultra from its box, it was impossible to not continually stare at the rear camera unit. That protruding bump is huge – the biggest we can ever recall seeing on a phone. At least it’s wide enough that the device doesn’t rock around when laid flat (well, flat-ish) on a desk.
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The build quality is second to none, though, especially standout if you’re seeking high-end details such as a ceramic rear, aluminium frame, water-protection, and curved screen edges. It’s every bit the flagship in such regards.
Odd, then, that the included transparent case does an assured job of undoing much of that high-end look. It’s an essential for protection, though, so we’ve had it wrapped around the phone’s body the majority of the time. But it’s just a budget translucent bit of plastic.
The reason it’s ultra-light plastic is likely to avoid adding too much additional weight to the Mi 11 Ultra’s already hefty frame. We thought the Poco X3 Pro, at 215g, was one chunky monkey. The Xiaomi tops that, at 234g. It’s not as though it’s going to hurt your wrist during use or anything, but it’s an undoubtedly heavy phone to be carting around and using day to day.
In addition to offering face unlock sign-in, the Mi 11 Ultra also has an under-display fingerprint scanner – which we’ve found generally ok, but occasionally to falter. We actually prefer the Mi 11 Lite 5G’s side-positioned one.
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Thinking about it, we actually prefer the Lite model for its overall lightweight design and eye-catching colour finish. Which really isn’t the position this Ultra should be in – being somewhat usurped by the baby in the Mi 11 range.
Rear (within camera unit): 1.1-inch AMOLED, 126 x 294 resolution
The Mi 11 Ultra’s 6.81-inch AMOLED display has some truly flagship specifications. It’s got a WQHD+ resolution, for starters, which means more pixels are packed onto its surface than you’ll find in many competitors these days. There’s also a 120Hz refresh rate to up the smoothness, which is particularly noticeable when scrolling or in some faster moving games.
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There are other headline features here, too, such as Dolby Vision for HDR (high dynamic range) playback and a peak 1700 nits brightness – meaning the maximum punch this screen can output is really, very bright. But you’re not likely to have it cranked up to the max much of the time and, actually, when it’s in lower-light conditions and the brightness falls it begins to crush black levels – a problem others, such as the Oppo Find X3, can also suffer. It’s subtle, but it’s there, and can affect those Netflix sessions.
The screen is also curved, which might look nice to the eyes, because it helps diminish the appearance of edge bezel, but in the case of the Mi 11 Ultra is an often fatal flaw. Why? Because the screen’s touch responsiveness is terrible. By this we don’t mean touch sampling rate, rather the simple fact that the software will often think the screen in being accidentally touched and ignore your input. Even really prominent input, such as when scrolling through pages, often stutters or ignores input.
There’s a software section to choose between the degree of accidental edge touch that’s permissible, or even custom adjust it, but whatever we’ve done it’s been an ongoing issue. Furthermore the screen seems to time-out – such as when watching an advert in a game, for example – and isn’t actively ready for input immediately afterwards. It can take two, three or more taps to get the device to re-engage. And that’s nothing to do with the standard 15/30/60-second auto-timeout. No, this is different. And it goes a good way in breaking the Mi 11 Ultra’s potential.
Accidental touch is something that also affects that rear display. So often we’ll have Spotify running and pick the phone up, only to accidentally skip back to the beginning of the current track. We get that having such controls available for a quick tap could be useful, but most of the time it’s just been a hindrance. And quite often the notifications, owed to poor servicing from the MIUI software, will say things like “checking for messages” from WhatsApp, for example, without delivering anything of actual use.
We’ve already said the tech nerd in us was excited about the prospect of this small second screen to the rear, as it seemed like a smart way of getting quick notifications that you could then pay further attention to. In reality, however, that’s what a full-size always-on display can do already – which the Mi 11 Ultra offers.
Plus, as we’ve come to learn when trying to watch shows in near black-out darkness, having this second screen means you don’t get to “hide” your phone from alerting you and lighting the room in one way or another – unless, of course, you turn the feature off entirely.
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Oh, but what about selfies, surely that’s where this screen comes into its own? Well, you’d think so. But to use the main cameras to shoot you’ll need to select the ‘Rear display preview’ from within the camera app, which will show you all selfie ready in that small display, but then there’s no logical way to shoot the shot. Fumble too much and you’ll likely end up clicking out of the main camera app with your fingers touching around the phone anyway. So, no, it just adds layers of confusion that needn’t be there.
Overall, then, this second screen has served as little more than a because-it-can gimmick.
Performance
Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 platform, 12GB RAM
67W fast-charging (wired and Qi wireless)
5,000mAh battery capacity
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6e
24-bit/192kHz audio
5G connectivity
Being a true flagship, Xiaomi has gone all-out when it comes to top-tier specification. The Mi 11 Ultra is kitted out with the Snapdragon 888 platform and 12GB RAM, so no current app is going to be a bother to run.
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What is a bother, however, is as we’ve highlighted above: the screen’s response. Load up a game like South Park: Phone Destroyer and because the screen will often not register touch input, you’re left with the frequent possibility of losing during play as a direct result of this hardware/software combination. PUBG Mobile? Forget about it.
So while the Mi 11 Ultra has the capacity to deliver these games at their very best – the smoothest frame-rates and so forth – it’s irrelevant. It’s not a gamers’ phone by any means as a result.
The battery capacity, at 5,000mAh, is relatively large. Depending on how you approach using this phone that can mean decent longevity. However, given all the available features – WQHD+ resolution at 120Hz – there’s greater likelihood that it’ll be a stretch to get through the day. We’ve been just about managing it, but often with 20 per cent left after around 13 hours of use.
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Using the phone in this way will see the software suggest doing a large number of things that dumb the features down. Resolution drop. Refresh rate drop. Dark mode activation. Quicker screen auto-off. Always-on display deactivation. Disallowing apps to auto-start. The kind of things that you would otherwise want to always keep operational for that true flagship feel in use. So, in many ways, it’s as though the Mi 11 Ultra’s software is keen to hamper its performance potential.
We’ve seen Xiaomi’s MIUI software in numerous iterations and it’s often varied in its success – sometimes for no apparent reason. In the Mi 11 Lite 5G, which is our favourite in this series, we had no issues with receiving app notifications. In the Mi 11 Ultra, however, it can be temperamental. As we’ve said in many other Xiaomi/Poco/Redmi reviews (multiple brands under one roof) you’ll need to dig into the software and tinker with whether an app has no restrictions to ‘Battery Saver’ – otherwise it may not always be readily available.
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One clear positive we can highlight about the Mi 11 Ultra is the fast-charging. It’s got a 67W charger, which is among the fastest you’ll find anywhere, and makes for rapid top-ups. It’s the same for wireless charging apparently – although we haven’t been able to test and verify this. Good job, really, as that quick-to-deplete battery has a way to help keep it juiced up in little time.
Given the prominence of place given to the camera unit on the rear of the Mi 11 Ultra, it’s safe to say that it’s the most prominent feature of this flagship. It’s here that the Xiaomi often pulls its (considerable) weight, delivering images that are high quality and frequently outclass the competition.
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As a quick summary, the rear unit houses three cameras: the main wide-angle, a 24mm equivalent wide-angle with 50-megapixel resolution; a 0.5x ultra-wide with 48-megapixel resolution; and a periscope zoom, also 48-megapixel, that delivers 5x optical zoom (so a 120mm equivalent).
There’s no gimmicky lenses, no useless macro or dedicated mono sensor, just the core of what you’re really likely to want. Now, the 5x zoom is quite a ‘steep’ jump from the main sensor, but it is possible to pinch-zoom between the two with results of varying quality. You can even do this when live-recording video, which is pretty impressive in result.
As we’ve seen from pretty much every maker with multi-faceted cameras, there’s a slight disparity between the colour balance and quality from each lens though. There’s also a delay when ‘jumping’ between the available lenses – select between the main optic and 5x, for example, and you’ll first see a digital zoom from that main sensor before it suddenly updates with a different fill from the true optical zoom sensor. Not a major drama, but it’s not 100 per cent immediate when selecting between the lenses.
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: Main cameraMain camera
The Mi 11 Ultra’s ultra-wide lens is also a bit toowide-angle – we think it should be 0.6x to avoid some of the more considerable barrel distortion really. But, unlike typical 8-megapixel ultra-wide sensors, this one is capable of delivering decent quality at 12-megapixels (using four-in-one processing technology, as the Mi 11 Ultra does on all its shots).
It has to be said that the Mi 11 Ultra’s 5x optical zoom delivers crisp and clear shots. It’s particularly apparent here, because so many competitors use digital or hybrid zooms and talk them up to such an extent that you almost believe the results will be good – but nothing can beat a true optical zoom as Xiaomi has graced the Mi 11 Ultra with here.
Epic v Apple, future of projectors and more – Pocket-lint Podcast 102
By Rik Henderson
·
The main sensor is equipped with on-sensor phase detection autofocus, there’s laser autofocus too, and optical image stabilisation to keep everything smooth and sharp. It’s a well equipped sensor that delivers fine results indeed – whether in daylight, low-light, backlit or really any given set of conditions.
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: Main cameraMain camera
In short: the Ultra’s forte really is found in its photography prowess. Whether it’s worth having such a giant hunk of a camera unit to the rear for the sake of that, however, is another question.
Verdict
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra does a really good job of shouting “shiny, shiny!” from the rooftops and being undoubtedly alluring for all the bells, whistles, and other embellishments that make it an altogether different and standout device. It wants you to look at it and think “that’s more exciting than the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra” – because, from a pure features and spec point of view, it really is.
But once you brush away what are frankly excess features – some of which, such as the second rear screen, are nothing but gimmicky – you’re left with a device that fails to get many of the basics right. The screen response is unacceptably bad. The camera bump is huge – and not really worth it for the sake of that second rear screen. The MIUI software has various moments of failing to send notifications too.
The Mi 11 Ultra is a rare moment from Xiaomi. One that’s excited us more than any other phone of late. Yet, when it comes to the crunch, it’s the one Mi 11 device that’s left us ultra disappointed. The promise is huge, but it just hasn’t lived up to the potential.
Also consider
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Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
A neater camera integration, better software, and fewer irks make the Samsung the phone that Xiaomi should have beaten – but failed to do so.
Read our review
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Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
This, our favourite of the whole Mi 11 range, is everything the Ultra isn’t: it’s lightweight, its colour finish is more eye-catching, its battery lasts longer (despite being less capacious), and, for whatever reason, the software implementation here hasn’t been problematic. You don’t get outstanding cameras by comparison, of course, but you do save two-thirds on the Ultra’s asking price. And you still get 5G connectivity!
With the ongoing pandemic and chip shortages still making headlines semiconductor revenue totalled $464 billion in 2020 and will top $522 billion 2021, according to IDC. Despite widespread shortages, sales of chips are going to grow further this year as more devices are getting smarter and more chips are consumed overall. Fuelled by home working and education computing is set to be the main driver of growth as each PC uses dozens of chips many of which are made using an advanced process technology. Meanwhile, shipments of chips for smartphones, consumer electronics, and automotive applications will also be strong.
Global semiconductor revenue increased by 10.8% last year to $464 billion and will grow another 12.5% this year to $522 million because of growth in consumer, computing, 5G, and automotive semiconductors, a new report from IDC says. Shortages of chips will continue through 2021, but since the industry will adopt more expensive chips for a wide variety of applications, sales of semiconductors are destined to grow once again.
Semiconductors for PCs and servers outpaced the overall chip market and grew 17.3% year-over-year to $160 billion in 2020. There were several factors that drove sales of PC and server chips to new heights. Demand for PCs grew rather dramatically last year, which caused shortages. Meanwhile, CPUs and GPUs are made using sophisticated fabrication technologies and therefore are rather expensive. Finally, supply constraints allowed manufacturers to further increase prices of their products. IDC predicts that sales of semiconductors for computing will grow 7.7% to $173 billion in 2021.
“Demand for PC processors remains strong, especially in value-oriented segments,” said Shane Rau, research vice president, Computing Semiconductors. “The PC processors market looks strong through the first half and likely the whole year.” IDC forecasts computing systems revenues will grow 7.7% to $173 billion in 2021.
Chips for smartphones have been a major semiconductor revenue driver for about a decade since the market of handsets was growing rapidly. Last year unit shipments of smartphones dropped by 10%, but since new 5G devices use more expensive SoCs and more chips in general, smartphone semiconductor revenue increased 9.1% year-over-year. IDC believes that sales of chips for mobile phones will grow by 23.3% in 2021 to $147 billion.
“2021 will be an especially important year for semiconductor vendors as 5G phones capture 34% of all mobile phone shipments while semiconductors for 5G phones will capture nearly two thirds of the revenue in the segment,” said Phil Solis, research director for Connectivity and Smartphone Semiconductors.
Chips for consumer electronics totalled $60 billion in 2020, up 7.7% year over year as sales of devices like game consoles, tablets, wireless headsets, smart watches, and set-top-boxes were strong.
“New gaming consoles from Microsoft and Sony, continued strong sales of wearables from Apple, and the rise in smart home networks managed by Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant will accelerate growth in 2021 to 8.9% year over year,” said Rudy Torrijos, research manager, Consumer Semiconductors.
Shipments of chips for automotive applications recovered in the second half of 2020, but many semiconductors for cars are in tight supply now, a situation that will persist throughout 2021, according to IDC. Nonetheless, automotive semiconductors revenue is expected to grow 13.6% year-over-year, the analysts note.
“Overall, the semiconductor industry remains on track to deliver another strong year of growth as the super cycle that began at the end of 2019 strengthens this year,” said Mario Morales, program vice president, Semiconductors at IDC.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has published its long-awaited report on how manufacturers limit product repairs. The “Nixing the Fix” report details a host of repair restrictions, especially those imposed by mobile phone and car manufacturers. The anticompetitive practices covered by the FTC range from limited availability of spare parts and diagnostic software to designs that make repairs more difficult than they need to be. In response, the FTC wants to develop new laws and rules surrounding repairs, but it also wants better enforcement of existing legislation like the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (MMWA).
While debates around right to repair rules in the EU have tended to focus on the environmental impact of sending broken devices to landfills, the FTC’s report leads with the impacts they have on people. It says repair restrictions are bad for consumers when they can’t easily repair their devices, and adds that these “may place a greater financial burden on communities of color and lower-income Americans.” Independent repair shops also suffer as a result of repair restrictions, “disproportionately [affecting] small businesses owned by people of color.”
The timing of the report is also important. Not only has it arrived during an unprecedented period of working from home and remote learning, where teleworking equipment is more important than ever, but it also coincides with a global semiconductor shortage that’s made buying new equipment particularly difficult. Combined, they make it particularly important to be able to repair our existing devices.
According to the FTC, manufacturers are guilty of using numerous tactics that make it difficult for customers and independent businesses to repair their products. Here’s the full list from the FTC’s report:
Product designs that complicate or prevent repair;
Unavailability of parts and repair information;
Designs that make independent repairs less safe;
Policies or statements that steer consumers to manufacturer repair networks;
Application of patent rights and enforcement of trademarks;
Disparagement of non-OEM parts and independent repair;
Software locks and firmware updates; or
End User License Agreements
Manufacturers have long argued that they have legitimate reasons for at least some of these restrictions. These include protecting their intellectual property, cybersecurity, and possible safety risks associated with independent repairers opening up our devices and replacing failed parts. But the FTC isn’t buying it. “There is scant evidence to support manufacturers’ justifications for repair restrictions,” the report states, adding that “the majority” of manufacturers’ explanations for repair restrictions “are not supported by the record.”
Apple, one of the companies most frequently criticized for its repair policies, has made moves to make spare parts and diagnostic tools more available to independent repair shops in recent years. But critics say the new policies still give the company too much power over independent businesses.
The CEO of repair specialists iFixit welcomed the FTC’s report. “This is a great step in the right direction,” said Kyle Wiens. “The bi-partisan report shows that FTC knows that the market has not regulated itself, and is committing to real action.”
With the findings submitted to Congress, the question now is how to make repairing devices easier. The FTC’s report makes several suggestions, including the introduction of new legislation to address repair restrictions and open repair markets. While it also encourages manufacturers to self-regulate, the FTC concedes that the broad range of industries and products involved would make that a challenge.
The FTC suggests consumers could be given more information on how repairable devices are, such as with repairability scores like those recently introduced in France. But the FTC also wants consumers to report when manufacturers aren’t obeying existing rules surrounding repairs, as described in an accompanying blog post:
Let’s say you took a product to an independent repair shop to fix or maintain it. Then later you go to the product’s manufacturer for a repair — but one not related to the earlier fix. If that repair is covered by your warranty, and if your warranty hasn’t expired, the manufacturer can’t refuse to make the repair.
If you’re told that your warranty was voided or that it will be voided because of independent repair, we want to hear about it. Report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
The FTC’s report follows efforts by several US states, as well as a European Parliament vote last year, to expand right to repair rules.
Apple has announced that it’s awarding Pennsylvania-based optical technology company II-VI with $410 million from its Advanced Manufacturing Fund. Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted that the company’s tech helps power Apple’s FaceID, Memoji, and Portrait Mode. The company also manufactures lasers that are used in the LIDAR scanner found in the iPhone 12 Pro and iPad Pro, technology that Apple touts as being key to augmented reality experiences.
Finisar, which was later acquired by II-VI (pronounced “two-six”) received $390 million from Apple’s fund back in 2017. While this latest investment likely shows that Apple intends to keep FaceID (which is powered by II-VI’s vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers) around for a while, it could also be another sign pointing to Apple’s future with AR and VR.
Tim Cook has publicly said that he believes AR is “critically important” to Apple’s future, and II-VI manufactures devices that help computers see the world in 3D. The money could help develop more advanced version of the technology already found on Apple devices, potentially for the rumored mixed reality headset. II-VI’s CEO says in Apple’s press release that the partnership with Apple “sets the stage for a new wave of breakthrough technologies that we believe will enable a wide range of applications that will benefit our world for decades to come.”
The press release states that II-VI will use the funds to expand manufacturing capacity, create jobs, and “accelerate delivery of future components for iPhone.”
Correction: A previous version of this article had II-VI written as II-IV throughout. We regret the error.
Apple has announced that it’s awarding Pennsylvania-based optical technology company II-IV with $410 million from its Advanced Manufacturing Fund. Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted that the company’s tech helps power Apple’s FaceID, Memoji, and Portrait Mode. The company also manufactures lasers that are used in the LIDAR scanner found in the iPhone 12 Pro and iPad Pro, technology that Apple touts as being key to augmented reality experiences.
Finisar, which was later acquired by II-VI (pronounced “two-six”) received $390 million from Apple’s fund back in 2017. While this latest investment likely shows that Apple intends to keep FaceID (which is powered by II-IV’s vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers) around for a while, it could also be another sign pointing to Apple’s future with AR and VR.
Tim Cook has publicly said that he believes AR is “critically important” to Apple’s future, and II-IV manufactures devices that help computers see the world in 3D. The money could help develop more advanced version of the technology already found on Apple devices, potentially for the rumored mixed reality headset. II-IV’s CEO says in Apple’s press release that the partnership with Apple “sets the stage for a new wave of breakthrough technologies that we believe will enable a wide range of applications that will benefit our world for decades to come.”
The press release states that II-IV will use the funds to expand manufacturing capacity, create jobs, and “accelerate delivery of future components for iPhone.”
As Bitcoin and Ethereum reach record-high prices, miners can increase their spending on hardware and companies developing mining ASICs waste no time rolling out new models. Bitmain, a designer of mining accelerators, has reportedly placed an order with TSMC to produce an ASIC using the foundry’s latest N5 fabrication process (5nm).
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is expected to start making Bitmain ASICs using its N5 technology starting the third quarter of the year and ‘ramp up’ its output for Bitmain substantially in Q1 2022, reports DigiTimes. It is unclear how high demand for mining ASICs made using a leading-edge manufacturing technology will be, but it may well reduce TSMC’s ability to supply other chips that are designed for its N5 fabrication process.
TSMC’s N5 manufacturing technology offers industry-leading transistor density and power efficiency, just what the doctor ordered for mining ASICs. But these advantages come at a price. So far TSMC’s N5 process has been adopted by Apple and Huawei, two companies selling high-end smartphones, tablets, and PCs. For them, SoC prices are not as important as for companies selling chips (what they sell are $1,000+ gadgets, not silicon), so they can afford to be early adopters of TSMC’s advanced technologies. MediaTek, a mobile SoC company, is projected to adopt N5 technology shortly too, albeit for its top-of-the-range mobile processor.
As it turns out, Bitmain is a yet another company that can afford to develop an N5 design and order its production at TSMC. There is no information about Bitmain’s 5nm chip, but it is logical to expect the company to tangibly increase hash rate of the ASIC when compared to existing offerings.
Bitmain’s latest Antminer S19j miner has a hash rate of 90 TH/s as well as a power consumption of 3100W. The price of the unit is $5,017.
Anyone interested in doing some crypto mining at home, can get started by checking out our tutorials on how to mine Ethereum and how to optimize your GPU for mining, along with our list of the best mining GPUs.
Apple’s Night Shift feature, which it says “may help you get a better night’s sleep,” doesn’t appear to live up to its claim, according to new research. Because exposure to blue light affects the regulation of sleep cycles, the hope is that Night Shift, which filters blue light from screens after sunset, will make falling asleep easier. But as a recent study shows, sleep is weird and complicated, and a single phone feature likely won’t do much to combat sleepless nights.
The study, published in Sleep Health, tracked the sleep of 167 young adults for one week. People were divided into three groups: one that used their phones for an hour before bed with Night Shift turned on, one that did the same with Night Shift turned off, and one that didn’t use their phones at all before bed.
“In the whole sample, there were no differences across the three groups,” said Chad Jensen, the lead researcher of the study, in a press release. “Night Shift is not superior to using your phone without Night Shift or even using no phone at all.”
This is only one small study that will need to be replicated at a larger scale with different samplings of people before it can be generalized. Still, the results for the Night Shift feature fall in line with early skepticism about how much it can help sleeplessness, especially because Apple doesn’t specify which wavelengths of light are blocked. And while blue light and phone use do likely contribute to difficulty sleeping, there are many other variables to consider within the complexities of sleep and sleep hygiene.
The researchers were mildly surprised that even the group of people who went phone-less before bed didn’t necessarily have better sleep on average. “Our hypothesis was that we would see better sleep without using the phone across the full sample,” Jensen tells The Verge, “so it was a bit surprising that we didn’t find that.”
Part of that result is likely due to the fact that most of the participants were college students who, according to the researchers, were already sleep-deprived. When people are already very sleepy, it doesn’t really matter if they’re on their phones before bed, says Jensen. “Because your need for sleep is so high at that stage that you fall asleep pretty readily no matter what you do before bed.”
One of the few phone-related differences that the study did observe actually had to do with how much sleep participants got. Of the people in the study who slept more than the roughly seven-hour average sleep time, the people who went phone-less slept better and didn’t wake up as often during the night compared to those who used their phones. But the people who slept less than the average showed no difference in any measures of sleep quality, regardless of whether they used a phone at bedtime or not.
If you are a generally well-rested person, Jensen lists myriad factors that could impact your sleep beyond your phone use: caffeine, exercise, the temperature of the room, the amount of light, the amount of noise, consistency of sleep schedules and bedtime routines, and using the bed for activities besides sleeping. And that’s all before we even consider various sleep disorders that can make people too sleepy or not sleepy enough, even if they strive for good sleep habits.
“Sleep is so individualized, there’s not one thing that works for everyone,” says Raj Dasgupta, a sleep medicine specialist at the University of Southern California. Some people are more sensitive to light and might find blue light filtering helpful, but it won’t be the singular fix that leads to better sleep for everyone.
As far as phones go, there are things to consider besides just blue light exposure, says Jensen. “All those other forms of stimulation that are not related to light are equally important.” If you’re reading a depressing article or laughing at TikToks at bedtime, that level of alertness and engagement will likely hinder your ability to fall asleep, and filtering blue light won’t offset that effect.
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