Jeep will install EV charging stations at off-road trailheads across the US as part of a partnership with Electrify America, the company announced. Chargers on the Jeep 4xe Charging Network will either be solar powered or connected to a power grid.
The first of the stations will open this spring in Moab, Utah; the Rubicon Trail in Pollock Pines, California; and Big Bear, California. The chargers will have Level 2 (240 volt) charging, which Jeep notes will fully recharge the 17-kWh battery pack in its Wrangler 4xe in about two hours and provide 49 MPGe and 21 miles of electric range. The chargers will be available free to Jeep 4xe owners via a mobile app, and will be compatible with its future EVs.
Over the next year, additional chargers will be added at Jeep Badge of Honor off-road trails across the US. The announcement comes a few days after Jeep unveiled its concept for an all-electric Wrangler, called the Magneto. Its design is based on the 2020 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, with an electric motor offering up to 273 pound-feet of torque and 285 horsepower, with an 800-volt system spread across four battery packs, according to Jeep.
Rivian, the Amazon-backed electric vehicle startup, said last week it plans to install 10,000 fast EV chargers across the US and Canada by 2023.
Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where we discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.
This week, co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn bring in Verge reporter Allison Johnson to chat about her review of the One Plus 9 and how the phone compares to the company’s 9 Pro model as well as other Android flagship phones out in the market.
The second half of the show is dedicated to Congress’ first big tech hearing of 2021 with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Politics reporter Makena Kelly stops by while the hearing is ongoing to comment on the effectiveness these types of proceedings have on making new tech regulation a reality, the live Twitter trolling conducted by Dorsey himself, and Zuckerberg’s thoughts on reforming Section 230.
There’s a whole lot more in between all of that — like Intel’s big changes coming with its new CEO, an augmented audio reality startup taking on theme parks, and a class action status for the butterfly keyboard suit against Apple — so listen here or in your preferred podcast player for the full discussion.
Further reading:
AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine 79 percent effective in US study
US officials publicly question AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine data
Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine website builds on a swine flu tool
OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro announced with Hasselblad-branded cameras
OnePlus 9 review: cheaper than the Pro and almost as good
The lower-cost OnePlus 9R is official, and it sounds surprisingly strong
OnePlus 9 Pro review: the elegant Android alternative
Here’s how the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro compare to Samsung and Apple’s flagships
The $159 OnePlus Watch is OnePlus’ first smartwatch
Angry MacBook owners get class action status for butterfly keyboard suit
Intel invests $20 billion into new factories, will produce chips for other companies
Intel Unleashed, Gelsinger on Intel, IDM 2.0 (Stratechery)
The startup trying to augment audio reality in public spaces
Yes or no: Are these tech hearings doing anything?
Mark Zuckerberg proposes limited 230 reforms ahead of congressional hearing
Jack Dorsey is just trolling Congress with Twitter polls now
Lina Khan is just the first step toward tougher US tech regulation
Congress tries to get the FTC in fighting shape
Microsoft rebrands Xbox Live to Xbox network
The street prices of Nvidia and AMD GPUs are utterly out of control
Gaming platform Rec Room is now a unicorn, valued at $1.25 billion during a recent funding round of $100 million. It appears to be one of the first, if not the first, virtual reality-focused startup to achieve unicorn status, a notable feat since Facebook’s landmark acquisition of Oculus VR for $2.4 billion in 2014 helped established the modern VR business.
Founded in 2016, Rec Room is a free app that lets players build custom virtual spaces and games that can be played across various platforms. The Seattle-based company launched on Steam as a VR-focused platform, and in 2018, expanded to non-VR platforms. It’s now available on Xbox, PlayStation, iOS, and PC. CEO Nick Fajt said in an interview with The Verge that VR usage on the platform climbed over the holiday season due in part to sales of the Oculus Quest 2 headset.
In 2020, Rec Room saw a 566 percent increase in revenue — most of that comes from in-game purchases — and it now has more than 15 million lifetime users. Fajt says the company now has 1 million monthly active VR users, a number that tripled during the pandemic, TheWall Street Journal reported.
The platform’s primary users are teenagers between ages 13 and 16, Fajt said, so Rec Room benefited from students being online longer during the coronavirus lockdowns of 2020. But it was also growing in popularity before people were confined to their homes.
“The pandemic accelerated trends we’d been seeing for several years,” Fajt said. “A lot of people are looking for a digital third place that’s distinct from home and school or work where they can meet up with friends, hang out, explore, and be creative. I think that’s been true whether teenagers were going to school physically or on Zoom. People need a space like this.”
He added that while it’s possible the platform may see a decrease in users once teenagers can gather in person, he sees Rec Room as more than just a replacement for real-life socializing. “It’s helping a lot of people maintain connections with friends that are hundreds or thousands of miles away,” Fajt said. “These are friends separated by physical distance not just social distance. So if Rec Room has become part of your routine, I suspect it will stay that way even beyond the pandemic.”
Rec Room is preparing for an IPO in the coming years. In the meantime, other gaming platforms are continuing to grow thanks to a boost from pandemic audiences. Roblox, an online gaming platform for slightly younger users than Rec Room’s, also has seen a sharp uptick in use during the pandemic. Roblox went public via direct listing earlier this month and said in its prospectus that it has 31.1 million daily users, who spent an average of 2.6 hours daily on the platform in the past year.
Roblox told The Verge last summer that over half of US kids and teenagers under the age of 16 play the game. During the pandemic there has been much hand-wringing about kids’ increased screentime, but games like Roblox and Epic Games’ Fortnite provide socialization, just not the in-person kind we may be used to.
Before the pandemic, some of the appetite to develop new AR and VR hardware had started to wane — Sony PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan suggested in October that an update to Sony’s PlayStation VR headset was still a few years away. (Sony has since teased more details about its next iteration of PlayStation VR with a formal product announcement, followed by images of its new controllers.)
But other companies have for years been ramping up their efforts in AR and VR hardware. The Information reported earlier this month that Facebook has some 10,000 employees — roughly a fifth of its workforce — focused on new devices in both fields, and the company has already shown off prototypes of experimental research products and plans to release a pair of Ray-Ban-branded smart glasses later this year. Apple has long been rumored to be working on AR and VR hardware, too, and recent reports suggest the iPhone maker will debut a VR device sometime in 2022.
“The market has shown an increased appetite for gaming companies,” Fajt said. “I think that will only grow as more data becomes available about the strength and durability of these businesses.”
(Pocket-lint) – The DS 3 Crossback E-Tense name might be something of a mouthful, but hidden behind the nomenclature is a nice compact hatchback, boosted to give it crossover appeal, while retaining the charms of the regular DS 3.
The E-Tense is the first fully electric car from DS Automobiles, arriving in full DS style, with options for lavish design and something that’s just a bit different to everything else on the road. But it’s a bit expensive considering, so does it offer true appeal?
A unique design
Being different is often enough to make you stand out when you’re a car. If it wasn’t for the super Honda e – which is even more different – the DS 3 Crossback E-Tense might be the most distinctive EV on the road, from the interior at least.
From the outside there are some quirks – such as that shark fin behind the B pillar – but you can feel the DS 3 heritage getting inflated, riding a little higher, slightly more accentuated. Otherwise the general positioning of the car as a practical hatchback remains the same.
Pocket-lint
But this is a unique DS model. While it sits on the same platform as some rivals – the Peugeot e-2008, Vauxhall Corsa e, Citroën eC4 – nothing carries these looks. There’s no old Citroën model that looks the same, and no petrol version that’s just been converted – so there is something special about this model.
There’s a huge grille on the front, while areas that look like they might have been somewhere to put other vents on a combustion car sport the same look, resulting in a car that isn’t a hugely electric-looking EV.
But that does lend some sporty charm to things, while the recessed doorhandles – which pop out as you approach the car – bring a premium sense of occasion.
Pocket-lint
The stance on the road is pretty good, but some of those styling points do start to get in the way. The fins on the side reduce the window space for the rear passengers, while the rear window looks smaller from the inside than it needs to be – a chunk of the rearview is eaten up by plastic bodywork across the bottom of the window, which we don’t really think needs to be there.
A distinctively designed interior
Since the separation of DS Automobiles from Citroën, DS has pursued a design line based around offering something inspired by French fashion. It wants to be unique and it wants to give you a higher quality experience. That’s seen heavily in the interior design, with the use of textures you might associate more with prestige watchmaking than in a car.
Up at the top level, on the Prestige Ultra model (as reviewed), that results in a sumptuous finish. It’s not just leather, it’s hand stitched in places, using special pearl stitching and – importantly – uniquely different to the premium German marques that DS Automobiles wants to compete with.
At the same time, that commitment to design can see impracticalities. We know why DS chose to put the dash buttons into diamond shapes, but they are larger than they need to be – and the couple of blank spaces are what you notice the most.
But there are choices to be made, with the DS 3 Crossback E-Tense available in five different trims, affecting the wheel size, paint colours and interior options.
To give the E-Tense its due, though, it is comfortable. We like the finish on the seats and it’s nice to be in a cabin that isn’t just the same as a whole family of cars elsewhere. Front passenger and driver get plenty of room, but the rear is a little short on knee space, just like many other hatchbacks.
Pocket-lint
The boot offers 350 litres of space, which is typical for this size of car, meaning you can stuff in a large family shop or enough baggage for a weekend away.
Interior tech
When it comes to the interior tech offering, the DS 3 Crossback E-Tense again suffers from that heavy design ethic. We’ve commented on this before – especially on the DS 7 Crossback – that some of that styling in the graphical interface isn’t especially helpful.
The DS 3 is clearer, however, with a smaller digital driver display having the benefit of not giving the software designers too much space to fiddle around. There are several views you can scroll through to customise the information – and on our review model, a heads-up display (HUD) to provide pertinent information while on the road.
In the centre of the car is a larger display, 7-inches on lower trims and a 10.3-inch on higher trims. The expansion to the larger models seems to result in empty space at the edges, or once you’ve made your selection, permanently visible cabin temperature, so it’s not a huge gain.
The infotainment system is easy enough to use, offering touchscreen interaction, working with those big buttons on the dash to work through the mainstays of music, climate control, navigation, car settings, and phone.
We found the navigation and mapping to be pretty good, although you can’t zoom and manipulate the maps to the same sort of extent that you can a smartphone, so it does have some limitations – likely to be addressed in the new system being introduced in the DS 4.
Pocket-lint
Perhaps the thing that’s the most irksome is having to dig to find charging stations through the points of interest options. Again, as this is an EV, that sort of option should be front and centre.
Where things get a bit questionable are diving into the details of power consumption. As this is an electric car, efficiency and performance is ever more important, and getting access to that information is useful for a driver. There’s a dedicated button which is good, but the information you get could be better.
The E-Tense will present stats for your journey, giving you a sensible miles per kWh which is useful, but it also presents a graph. The Y axis on this graph has a scale that runs up to 120miles per kWh, which is utterly useless, seeing as the average is going to be around 4 – so it’s literally wasted space, unless you’re just rolling down hills.
Pocket-lint
On the Prestige Ultra there’s a Qi charging pad for your phone, but it also supports Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, so you can use a phone-based system if you want.
We found the sound quality to be good from the speakers within the car, although it’s always a pleasure listening to music in an electric car when you’re not fighting with any engine noise.
Equipped with cameras, there’s fancy parking assistance, able to view the car’s surroundings on the screen, making it really easy to put yourself into a tight parking space – especially useful for reversing into awkward EV charging locations.
Driving, battery size and range
The DS 3 Crossback E-Tense is a nice car to drive. It rides pretty high, so there’s a sense of road domination which is great from a smaller car. The ride is pretty quiet, too, so you don’t hear too much noise coming into the cabin – extending the feeling that this is just a little better than average.
The suspension is perhaps a little on the hard side – while we didn’t have a problem with it on broken suburban roads, it could just be a little softer. The steering is a little light, probably designed to suit the urban driver that’s likely to buy this car, rather than the B-road racer who might want something a little heavier.
Pocket-lint
One of the advantages of electric cars is that they offer instant torque for a spritely drive and the E-Tense is no different in that regard. There’s a D and B position on the gear selector, with the B (battery) option giving you a stronger regeneration when lifting off the pedal. This goes some way to offering one-pedal driving, although the car won’t come to a complete standstill in this mode, it will just slow down and then creep along the road.
The best electric cars 2021: Top battery-powered vehicles available on UK roads
By Chris Hall
·
There are also driving modes which have a bigger impact on the setup of the car – eco, normal, sport – with the names very much revealing what they do. Eco cuts the throttle response so you don’t expend so much energy in acceleration. It works well, we just wish you could have the car startup in these modes, rather than having to select it every time.
Turning to the important range, and the DS 3 Crossback E-Tense is equipped with a 50kWh battery and a 100kW motor. That gives you a larger battery than the Mini Electric, a smaller battery than the Kia e-Niro – and that’s generally reflected in the resulting range.
Pocket-lint
The range, on paper, is 191-206 miles. In our driving we found we could, with a little effort (aircon off, eco mode, infotainment off), get averages of around 4.7 miles per kWh around town, which would bring it in at 235 miles. Casually nipping to the supermarket sat closer to 3.2 m/kWh, which would give you 160 miles. We couldn’t find long-term averages for the car during our review.
It also supports up to 100kW charging, which will take it to 80 per cent in 30 minutes. Home charging on a 7.2kW will take about seven-and-a-half hours to completely charge it.
That sits the E-Tense in a reasonable position, although the Kia e-Niro gives you more range for your money in a similar size car, while the Peugeot e-2008 is a healthy chunk cheaper for much the same setup. There is a premium to pay for all that prestige, it seems.
Verdict
There are some elements of the DS 3 Crossback E-Tense that we really like. It’s a nice car to drive and the performance is pretty good, making it a practical electric car, sizeable enough to seat a small family, so great for everyday use.
The range sits in the middle of the pack and you can get a little more range for around the same price elsewhere – it’s hard to ignore the offerings from Peugeot which are also more affordable.
Ultimately, the DS 3 Crossback E-Tense again delivers something a little different. Stylistically that interior is like nothing else on the road. That could make the E-Tense stand apart – but at the same time, there are things that could be done to make it a more attractive buy too.
Also consider
Pocket-lint
Kia e-Niro
It’s one of the top rated electric cars and that comes down to value for money, efficiency of the drive, and the option for a pretty big battery.
Read our review
Pocket-lint
Nissan Leaf
Nissan has been in this game a long time and that shows in the Leaf. There’s efficiency and the option for bigger batteries to provide a useful range.
A startup called Spatial is unveiling its first suite of products today, focused on creating audio experiences that are immersive, interactive, and automatically generated. The products themselves are a little complicated to explain, but the result is simple: ambient and interactive audio for public spaces that’s easy to create and more dynamic than the usual tracks.
Although Spatial has a consumer offering, the most likely customers are going to be businesses. Think hotels that want a different audio experience in their lobby, theme parks that want to develop audio for their spaces faster, brand activations, or AR experiences (National Geographic is an investor). Think about how corny the canned audio at the zoo often is; Spatial wants to fix that.
In one demo a couple of weeks ago, I sat in a room and heard the sounds of a forest all around me, with birds chirping in one spot and then moving to another — until a dragon flew overhead and scared them all away for a little while.
That’s frankly nothing special: audio positioned in space is simple. What’s complex is the engine that created all of that audio. Spatial’s goal is to make designing custom sound for a space easy and also to make that sound happen generatively instead of on a loop or a track. There are three main pieces to it.
First, there’s Spatial Studio, a Mac app that’s a sort of unholy melding of Logic and Unreal Engine. It defines a 3D space where users can place audio objects – either sounds they’ve created themselves or pulled from Spatial’s library. Users can even pipe in live audio as an object – say, if they want to bring the sound of the nearby ocean up into the lobby or just run a Sonos stream.
What’s special about Spatial is that those audio objects have behaviors. A bird might move along a predetermined track (with some randomness so it doesn’t get boring) or an ocean tide might appear at certain times of day, for example. Those audio objects might also react — either to each other or to something that happens in the real space.
The second part of Spatial’s system is turning all those dynamic audio objects into actual sound that you can hear in a space. For that, it uses Mac minis (or, for corporate customers, Linux) to run a real-time audio engine called Spatial Reality. It will take inputs from various sensors if need be, or simply let the little audio world run its course — and since the things in that little audio world have different behaviors, it will sound different all of the time. Spatial has also created an iPhone app for more direct interaction.
You’d think the third part is the speakers, but that’s actually Spatial’s third trick: it can work with any speaker setup. Spatial’s engine serves as an abstraction layer that is aware of the speakers’ position in the room and automatically adjusts the sound to ensure correct 3D positioning of the audio. Instead of a strict set of placement rules, Spatial can work with what you’ve got.
Michael Plitkins, one of the cofounders, tells me that fundamentally he believes that laying down audio on a static track is backwards. It’s better, he says, to let the computers figure it out in real time based on what they know about the speaker system. As the product stands right now, Spatial isn’t bothering with any real-time tuning to the audio in the room. It will work with any speaker setup, but users will need to program in what they have in the Spatial Studio app.
At the start, Spatial’s main competition is some combination of Muzak for public spaces and whatever custom tools Disney Imagineers use for the audio in their theme parks. It may appeal to some hobbyists too — part of the inspiration for the company was Plitkins’ desire to create a soundscape in his own back yard. I had a demo of that space too, complete with cave sounds under the deck so authentic it was eerie.
Whomever the customers end up being, it probably won’t be an easy sell. (And launching a product meant mainly for public spaces while a pandemic is still on is another challenge.) Dynamically created rain and birdsong doesn’t sound any different from a static audio track if you only listen for a couple minutes.
But during a long interview in a conference room where the team explained the ins and outs of their product, they turned off the cabin in the woods-themed audio that had been gently playing the whole time. The silence was weirdly stressful, the way conference rooms usually are.
Home/Component/Graphics/AMD Radeon Software update adds Performance Tuning tool and improves Radeon Boost and Anti-Lag
João Silva 12 hours ago Graphics
Besides a multitude of fixes, AMD’s latest Radeon Software 21.3.1 driver also comes with some new improvements for Radeon Boost and Radeon Anti-Lag, as well as a new stress test to ensure all of your settings are stable.
With the AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 21.3.1 driver, users can take advantage of Anti-Lag in DirectX 12 titles. Radeon Boost also received DX12 support, allowing users to optimise selected games featuring Variable Rate Shading.
Another feature included in this driver is the Performance Tuning Stress Test, a new built-in stress tool to test GPU overclock stability. AMD has also redesigned portions of the UI to simplify the process.
The following list includes all the fixes coming with AMD Radeon Software 21.3.1 driver:
Radeon Software may sometimes have higher than expected CPU utilization, even when a system is at idle.
A system hang or crash may be experienced when upgrading Radeon Software while an Oculus™ VR headset is connected to your system on Radeon GCN graphics products.
Minecraft DXR may exhibit corrupted or missing textures when ray tracing is enabled on Radeon RX 6000 series graphics products.
An application crash may occur in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare with ray tracing on Radeon RX 6000 series graphics products.
Lighting fails to render correctly on Radeon RX 6800 series graphics products in Star Citizen.
A black screen may occur when enabling and disabling Enhanced Sync while vsync is enabled in some Vulkan API games.
A black screen or system hang may occur on Hybrid Graphics systems for some Vulkan API games when Enhanced Sync is enabled.
Bethesda launcher may experience an application crash on startup when launching some games.
Users may be unable to create a new scene in the Radeon Software Streaming tab on first launch or after a settings factory reset.
Game specific performance tuning profiles may fail to load when a global performance tuning profile has been created or set.
Disabling HDCP support and performing a factory reset and/or system restart may sometimes trigger a system crash.
Epic Games social overlay or launcher may exhibit color corruption.
Xuan-Yuan Sword VII may experience an application crash with DirectX 12 ray tracing enabled on Radeon RX 6000 series graphics.
Color corruption may be experienced in Cyberpunk 2077™ when Radeon Boost is enabled.
Display flicker or corruption may occur on high refresh rate/resolution multi-monitor system configurations on Radeon RX Vega series graphics.
Audio loss or cut-out may intermittently occur on some TV displays when Windows® audio is set to use 5.1 or 7.1 speaker configurations.
The new Radeon Software graphics driver also adds support for Radeon RX 6700 graphics and DOOM Eternal: the Ancient Gods – Part Two. Lastly, it also brings back Frame Rate Target Control (FRTC) and enhances Vulkan support.
You can download the new AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 21.3.1 driver HERE.
KitGuru says: The Performance Tuning Stress Test and DirectX 12 support on Radeon Boost and Radeon Anti-Lag are welcome additions to the software. Did you already try these new features? What do you think of them so far?
Amazon-backed electric vehicle startup Rivian will install more than 10,000 fast chargers across the US and Canada by 2023, the company announced. The Rivian Adventure Network is designed to allow quick recharges along highways and also includes Level 2 charges at more remote locations near parks and other destinations.
Rivian described the network in a blog post:
Each site will have multiple chargers and will be conveniently located on highways and main roads, often by cafes and shops. These DC fast chargers will be for Rivian owners only, with details on pricing and associated programs coming soon.
The company also is installing waypoint Level 2 AC chargers, each with a 11.5 kW charging speed, to add about 25 miles of range every hour for Rivian’s R1T pickup and R1S SUV. These chargers will be located along routes that Rivian thinks its drivers will take. The first such waypoint chargers are being installed in Colorado’s state parks beginning in July, and will be accessible to any electric vehicle with a J1772 plug.
A map of the 3,500 fast chargers Rivian is planning at 600 sitesRivian
Rivian says drivers can locate the waypoints and fast chargers in their vehicles’ navigation systems and the Rivian app. The network will be powered by 100 percent renewable energy, the company says.
It’s an ambitious plan to be sure, and Rivian is still a relatively new player in the EV market, with its pickup truck and SUV debuting late in 2018 (it began operating in stealth mode in 2009). But the company has managed to raise several huge funding rounds, with Amazon leading a $700 million round in February 2019, and Ford adding $500 million in April 2019. In January, Rivian raised $2.65 billion from T. Rowe Price and Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund.
AMD’s latest Radeon driver update, Adrenalin version 21.3.1, adds several new features to team red’s graphics cards, but the biggest update is a new stress testing utility that allows you to check the stability of your overclocked AMD graphics card right from the Adrenalin software.
When you install the 21.3.1 driver, the new stress test option should be available to you called “Performance Tuning Stress Test.” According to AMD, Adrenaline has also been updated to help novice overclockers with newer temperature gauges and easier-to-understand performance readouts, PC Gamer reported. AMD also said it added more indicators to show where performance is being limited on your best graphics card.
(Image credit: PCGamer)
We aren’t sure how much better this stress test is compared to stress testing your graphics card in popular games and applications like 3DMark, Superposition and your favorite graphically demanding video game. But it is nice that you can now stress test right from the Adrenaline software without using any other software to see if your GPU overclock is stable or not.
AMD didn’t say if this new stress test was limited to newer Radeon GPUs, so we assume that this new stress testing utility will work on any Radeon GPU that supports the 21.3.1 driver.
More Adrenalin 21.3.1 Updates
A few more highlights from 21.3.1 include added support for Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods – Part Two, as well as major updates to Radeon Boost and Radeon Anti-Lag with both technologies now supporting the DirectX 12 API. Plus, there are a few more updates to Vulkan support.
Here’s the full list of issues the driver fixes, as per AMD:
Radeon Software may sometimes have higher than expected CPU utilization, even when a system is at idle.
A system hang or crash may be experienced when upgrading Radeon Software while an Oculus VR headset is connected to your system on Radeon GCN graphics products.
Minecraft DXR may exhibit corrupted or missing textures when ray tracing is enabled on Radeon RX 6000 series graphics products.
An application crash may occur in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare when ray tracing is enabled on Radeon RX 6000 series graphics products.
Lighting fails to render correctly on Radeon RX 6800 series graphics products in Star Citizen.
A black screen may occur when enabling and disabling Enhanced Sync while Vsync is enabled in some Vulkan API games.
A black screen or system hang may occur on Hybrid Graphics systems for some Vulkan API games when Enhanced Sync is enabled.
Bethesda launcher may experience an application crash on startup when launching some games.
Users may be unable to create a new scene in the Radeon Software Streaming tab on first launch or after a settings factory reset.
Game specific performance tuning profiles may fail to load when a global performance tuning profile has been created or set.
Disabling HDCP support and performing a factory reset and/or system restart may sometimes trigger a system crash or hang on boot.
Epic Games social overlay or launcher may exhibit color corruption.
Xuan-Yuan Sword VII may experience an application crash with DirectX12 ray tracing enabled on Radeon RX 6000 series graphics.
Color corruption may be experienced in Cyberpunk 2077 when Radeon Boost is enabled.
Display flicker or corruption may occur on high refresh rate/resolution multi-monitor system configurations on Radeon RX Vega series graphics.
Audio loss or cutout may intermittently occur on some TV displays when Windows audio is set to use 5.1 or 7.1 speaker configurations.
Facebook has offered a glimpse inside its plans for a new augmented reality interface, based on technology from CTRL-Labs, the startup it acquired in 2019. In a video, it shows off wristbands that use electromyography (EMG) to translate subtle neural signals into actions — like typing, swiping, or playing games like an archery simulator. The bands also offer haptic feedback, creating a system that’s more responsive than basic hand tracking options.
Facebook Reality Labs published a blog post detailing its work on a prototype of the wristbands. At its simplest, the bands would track basic gestures Facebook calls “clicks,” which are supposed to be reliable and easy to execute. They’re a little bit like the all-purpose Microsoft HoloLens “air tap” gesture but tracked with the nerve signals that run along your arms, rather than visual sensors mounted on a headset.
The bands can theoretically do a lot more, though. For instance, they could track the nerve signals your brain sends to your fingers while you’re typing, so you can type on a virtual keyboard without physical buttons. And unlike a normal keyboard, the bands can slowly adapt to the way you type — so they can “learn” the ways your fingers move when you’re making common typos, then automatically correct for them and capture what you probably meant to type instead.
This would be a huge change in how most people interact with computers, but conceptually, it’s not actually a major update to how CTRL-Labs described its work years ago. In fact, the ultimate possibilities for EMG wristbands are much more mind-bending: eventually, you could perform the same typing-style gestures by thinking about moving your hands instead of actually moving them. Facebook wants to further streamline user interactions by relying on artificial intelligence and augmented reality glasses, which it announced it was working on last year.
Even in their simpler iterations, these controllers would offer an interface that you could wear all the time instead of picking up and holding, like the current Oculus Touch VR controllers. The effect could be similar to smaller startup offerings like the Mudra Band, which senses gestures via an Apple Watch band.
One major new addition is haptics. Facebook says it’s been implementing various prototypes that could give you subtle feedback using different methods. One, the “Bellowband,” has eight pneumatic bellows placed around each wrist. These can be inflated or deflated in patterns that produce distinct sensations. Another is “Tasbi,” which uses vibrating actuators and a “novel wrist squeeze mechanism.” When they’re paired with visual feedback from an AR headset, they can offer a lot of information through a simple and intuitive interface.
Facebook insists that although the band reads neural signals, “this is not akin to mind reading.” Here’s how it explains the concept:
You have many thoughts and you choose to act on only some of them. When that happens, your brain sends signals to your hands and fingers telling them to move in specific ways in order to perform actions like typing and swiping. This is about decoding those signals at the wrist — the actions you’ve already decided to perform — and translating them into digital commands for your device.
CTRL-Labs has still characterized this technology as a brain-computer interface, but it’s a sharp contrast with technologies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink — which reads neural activity directly from the brain through an implant. Implants have unique uses, particularly for people with paralysis or amputated limbs, whose bodies simply can’t send nervous signals to a wristband. But Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently criticized implants as a near-term consumer technology, saying that “we don’t think that people are going to want to get their head drilled open in order to use virtual or augmented reality.” Wristbands also don’t have quite the same privacy scare factor as something that reads your thoughts at the source.
That said, the bands will almost certainly be collecting a lot of data. That might include incredibly fine variations in typing patterns; overall levels of bodily tension; and any biometric information captured by fitness tracking sensors, augmented reality glasses, and other tech that could be integrated with the bands. (Facebook Reality Labs notes that it has a “neuroethics program” examining the privacy, security, and safety implications of AR and neural interface tech.)
Like most wearable technology, EMG bands offer an intimate look at how our bodies are moving — and while it’s not quite as creepy-sounding as a band that reads your thoughts, it still requires a lot of trust.
Truck rental company Ryder says it’s owed nearly $4 million from EV startup Chanje after it failed to deliver 100 of the 125 vans promised back in 2017, according to a previously unreported lawsuit in Florida.
The lawsuit comes as a massive shift toward electric propulsion is underway in the commercial vehicle space, with new startups raising billions of dollars and established automakers announcing electric delivery vans and trucks at a regular clip.
Chanje emerged from stealth in 2017 and is one of a number of electric vehicle startups that have called California home. Like many of its peers, it got early attention by hiring a few former execs from Tesla, and even poached some talent from fellow startup Faraday Future. Also like many of those California EV startups, Chanje is owned by a larger Chinese automotive company — in this case one called FDG.
But whereas others at the time were focused on luxury passenger cars, Chanje set out to make electric delivery vans instead. Ryder was Chanje’s first big customer, pledging to buy 125 vans back in 2017. The truck rental company agreed to pay $45,000 for each of the vehicles from Chanje, with $35,000 per vehicle up front and $10,000 per vehicle upon delivery. As such, Ryder made an initial deposit of $4,375,000 in 2017. Ryder was also supposed to be the exclusive sales and service provider for the startup’s vans.
Ryder received 22 vehicles from Chanje by the end of 2017, but when it went to pay the $10,000 deposit on those, it mistakenly paid the full $45,000 for each, an overpayment of $770,000. That’s when the trouble started, according to the lawsuit.
Ryder made “repeated requests” to be reimbursed for the overpayment, but Chanje told the truck rental company it did not have the cash to pay Ryder back, according to the complaint. Chanje eventually delivered three more electric vans, but never delivered the remaining 100. Ryder tried to terminate the contract and recoup the $3.5 million in deposits it paid on those vans it never got, but Chanje balked.
In early 2019, according to the lawsuit, Ryder got FDG to agree to loan money to Chanje to pay the $770,000 in overpayments. In late 2019, Ryder again got FDG to agree to loan money to Chanje to pay back the $3.5 million in deposits. Chanje ultimately paid Ryder back $500,000 of the overpayment money, but hasn’t paid the truck rental company another dollar since. Ryder therefore says it’s still owed $3,770,000.
Ryder, Chanje, and FDG did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In 2018, Ryder had arranged to have FedEx lease 900 Chanje vans and buy 100 more. But as it started to fight Chanje and FDG for the money it was owed in 2019 and 2020, Ryder tried to give the electric van startup and its parent company an out. It struck an agreement with Chanje and FDG that said if they delivered at least 700 vans to FedEx, Ryder would waive the $3.5 million in deposit money. “Chanje did not meet its obligations and deliver the 700 vehicles” to FedEx, Ryder’s lawyers write.
It’s unclear if Chanje delivered any vans to FedEx. FedEx also said in early 2020 that it was developing “groundbreaking charging infrastructure” with Chanje at a few dozen stations in California, and the status of that project is also unclear. FedEx did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Chanje has been quiet since its debut in 2017, aside from the announcements with FedEx. The startup has been sued more than once in Los Angeles Superior Court by former employees who say they’re owed tens of thousands in back pay and bonuses. Chanje has also been hit with liens from the California Secretary of State for not paying taxes.
In the time since Chanje came onto the scene, commercial electric vehicle companies have taken off as governments around the world push to reduce harmful emissions. The UK’s Arrival recently went public after merging with a special purpose acquisition company, raising nearly $700 million at a $5.4 billion valuation. General Motors even spun out an entire business dedicated to commercial EVs.
Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast The Vergecast, our chat show discussing the week in tech news featuring our reporters and editors.
This week, co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn talk to Verge deputy editor Elizabeth Lopatto about the rise in interest of NFTs. Elizabeth explains the basics of how NFTs work and what someone actually owns when a transaction takes place.
In the second half of the show, Verge deputy editor Dan Seifert stops by for a gadget roundup — there’s a review for the wild Asus ROG Phone 5, some rumors of OnePlus’ new flagship device, and the announcement of Sonos’ first fully mobile Bluetooth speaker.
Listen here or in your preferred podcast player to hear the full discussion.
Stories mentioned in this week’s episode:
COVID-19 took disease tests out of the lab — and may keep them there
People who are vaccinated can socialize together without masks, CDC says
COVID-19 vaccine supplies are on the rise in the US
Single-shot COVID-19 vaccine is popular at vaccination sites
Artifacts from the first COVID-19 vaccination in the US are headed to the Smithsonian
Meet Dr. B, the startup connecting people to leftover vaccines
Beeple sold an NFT for $69 million
NFTs, explained
Of course John Legere bought an $888,888.88 NFT from Steve Aoki
Jack Dorsey’s first tweet may fetch $2.5 million, and he’ll donate the NFTy proceeds to charity
Sonos Roam officially announced for $169, preorders start now
Sonos partners with Audi to bring its audio tech to cars
Asus ROG phone 5 review
Leaked OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9 renders leave little to the imagination
OnePlus’ next phones will come out on March 23rd
Samsung will host another Unpacked event on March 17th
Apple reportedly overestimated iPhone 12 mini demand, by a lot
Insta360’s Go 2 is a $299 action camera with a surprisingly powerful case
The most powerful Wear OS watches are held back by Wear OS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 review: AMD and Nvidia at their best
Google has detailed the efficiency improvements it made with Chrome 89, the latest version of its browser released earlier this month. Depending on whether you’re using the browser on Windows, macOS, or Android, Google says the browser should use less resources, launch quicker, and feel more responsive to use. There’s no mention of any improvements specifically for users on iOS.
The exact benefits vary by OS. Across platforms, Google says Chrome is able to reclaim as much as 100MiB (or over 20 percent on some sites) by using foreground tab memory more efficiently, and on macOS it’s saving up to 8 percent of its memory usage based on how it handles background tabs (something which Chrome already does on other platforms). Google says these improvements on macOS have benefited the browser’s Energy Impact score by as much as 65 percent, “keeping your Mac cooler and those fans quiet.”
On Windows and Android, the browser is also using a more advanced memory allocator across more areas to further reduce memory usage, and increase browser responsiveness. On Windows, Google says it’s seeing “significant memory” savings of up to 22 percent in the “browser process,” 8 percent in the renderer, 3 percent in the GPU, and that overall browser responsiveness is improved by up to 9 percent.
There are also a host of improvements specific to Android, which google says result in 5 percent less memory usage, fewer crashes, 7.5 percent faster startup, 2 percent faster page loads, and a 13 percent faster startup. High-end Android devices running on Android 10 and newer with at least 8GB of RAM should also load pages 8.5 percent faster, and be 28 percent smoother to use.
Google has made similar promises about previous Chrome releases. For example it said Chrome 87, released at the end of last year, was “the largest gain in Chrome performance in years.” Under-the-hood performance improvements were said to improve everything from CPU usage, power efficiency, and startup times.
No, that’s not a Duplo toy — what you see above (and in the renders below) is the design for a pickup truck from California electric vehicle startup Canoo.
Revealed in a leak on Reddit on Wednesday, and then subsequently confirmed to Reuters, the head-turning EV truck is not due out until 2023. By that time, Tesla’s Cybertruck, the electric Hummer pickup, Ford’s electric F-150, and Rivian’s EV pickup should all be on the road. Canoo said it will start taking preorders for its pickup later this year, but did not release pricing details.
The toyish truck shows just how far Canoo is willing to push the design of the microbus-style vehicle it first debuted back in 2019, which it originally planned to sell on a subscription-only basis.
Canoo has undergone a lot of changes since it debuted that first vehicle, though. It’s now a publicly-traded company after it merged with a special purpose acquisition company in late 2020. Its new executive chairman has also refocused the company on selling commercial vehicles based on the original van design and the technological platform that powers it.
But all of that doesn’t mean Canoo is exactly done trying to make vehicles for regular consumers. This new truck sort of bridges the two sets of customers, thanks in part to being loaded up with all sorts of utility features.
There are multiple fold-down and flip-out work surfaces on Canoo’s pickup, with one in the nose of the vehicle and another on the side of the truck bed. There’s an extension that can be pulled out to make the bed a few feet longer. There are power outlets (120V and USB) dotting the inside of the bed and the storage compartments. Promo images also show the truck decked out in a roof rack and, in a bid to capitalize on the booming “van life” market, an “overlander” trim with a camper shell and a pop-up tent.
This is all in keeping with the vision of Canoo’s original vehicle, which was decked out in pegboards on the inside that the company imagined people could use to customize and personalize the vehicle. And the ability to use the new truck’s modular features in so many different ways — and to customize them from the start when ordering — is what Tony Aquila, the startup’s new executive chairman, hopes is a big selling point for the small businesses and more adventurous consumers that Canoo is targeting.
The “overlander” version of Canoo’s new pickup truck.
“When the working person sees this they go, ‘I can have a better quality of life with this vehicle, and I can get a return on capital.’ And every one of these areas is a space to create a return on capital, which is why we spent so much money to develop the most intelligent [truck] bed,” Aquila said in a video announcing the truck. (Canoo spent $47 million on research and development in 2018, $137 million in 2019, and $52 million through the first three quarters of 2020, according to a recent government filing.)
The sloped roof of the truck also tracks with Canoo’s original vehicle, though it’s a far more familiar design feature for a van. Fortunately for Canoo, Tesla has already started stretching the public’s imagination of what a pickup truck can look like.
“That was our dream, to make sure that we had a vehicle that brought a truck to the market that just really shocked people just from the visual, and then to the functional,” Aquila said in the video. “This is for America. This is what built America, anyways.”
Canoo’s truck will be built on the same platform that powers the company’s other proposed vehicles, which means it largely shares the same specs across a number of configurations. The highest-cost all-wheel-drive truck will have around 600 horsepower and more than 200 miles of range, while the lower cost versions will get closer to 100 miles of range and feature a single motor in the rear. The truck also uses the same brake-by-wire and steer-by-wire system Canoo developed for its other vehicles, which reduces complexity.
These technologies have made it possible for the startup to mate so many different designs to the same underlying technological platform. They’re also things that drew the interest of Apple, which at one point wanted to acquire Canoo, as The Verge exclusively reported earlier this year.
More than half a million people have signed up to a newly launched service called Dr. B in an attempt to snag a COVID-19 vaccine — and reduce the number of doses that might end up in the trash. Led by ZocDoc founder Cyrus Massoumi, Dr. B is a website that aims to function as a kind of emergency alert system for thawed coronavirus vaccines, which typically need to be injected within six hours of being thawed.
“This vaccine is now the scarcest resource on earth,” says Massoumi. “We were concerned about the fact that a lot of the vaccine ends up in this last-minute shuffle at the end of the day.”
A longtime drag on conventional health care, missed appointments have become an unusually vital issue for the coronavirus vaccine. Massoumi estimates as much as 20-30 percent of vaccine appointments are missed, leaving a thawed vaccination dose that must be used within six hours or be permanently lost. State reports suggest that few of the doses are allowed to expire. Instead, vaccination sites distribute them to employees or whoever happens to be standing outside. But that confusion has led to chaotic lines and a haphazard approach to priority lists — something Massoumi delicately describes as “suboptimal.”
Dr. B is designed to serve as a kind of standby list for those situations, giving providers an easy way to summon willing patients in a matter of hours. More than half a million people in the US have signed up to be on the waitlist, each giving their home zip code and filling out a catchall version of their state’s questionnaire. (Each state has a slightly different list of who is eligible for vaccines first. In New York, the first tier, 1a, is people over 65 or with co-morbidities. The next tier, 1b, includes grocery store employees and other essential workers, and so on.)
When a provider ends up with thawed doses, Dr. B sends out texts to participants from nearby zip codes, prioritizing them according to the state health department’s tier list. Once texted, a participant has fifteen minutes to confirm that they can get to the provider, then two hours to reach the location and get their shot. If you say you can’t make it, you go to the back of the line (within your priority group).
The system counts on providers to schedule a follow-up shot, which both the Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines still require — but the hope is that simply getting patients in the door for their first dose will be a significant improvement.
This isn’t the first project aiming to create a standby list for coronavirus vaccines, but it’s quickly become the largest one, absorbing the smaller Vaccination Standby project in February. What’s most impressive is how quickly the effort has grown. Still limited to America, Dr. B’s waitlist currently has more than half a million people, up from 300,000 just two weeks ago.
Providers are coming on board more slowly, since each one needs to be vetted to ensure it’s legitimate, but there are already two sites providing shots through the system — in Little Rock, Arkansas and Queens, New York. The company won’t say how many doses have been given out through those sites, but they do say alerts have been sent out each day that the two test sites were open, suggesting at least a handful have been administered through the system. More than 200 other providers are in the pipeline, spanning 30 states.
Massoumi says signing up those providers is still the biggest bottleneck — but it’s an impressive record for what is still mostly a volunteer effort. There’s no plan to monetize the system and much of the hosting and other back-end services have been donated by companies like Amazon, Twilio, and others. Some staff are on loan to the project from their regular jobs; others are being paid out of Massoumi’s pocket. There’s no clear sign of what will happen to the project after COVID-19 is defeated.
“We’re just trying to get this moving as fast as we possibly can,” Massoumi says. “We have patients and provider sites that want to use this and we just want to make sure that it’s ready for prime time.”
As with any vaccination problem, there are concerns about who will get access and who won’t. Black and Latino communities have lagged behind in vaccination rates, a reminder of long-standing patterns of discrimination in US health care. The new standby list runs the risk of making those inequities worse: the nature of the project means it will only work for patients with phones who can drop what they’re doing and head to a vaccination site at a moment’s notice.
The problem isn’t lost on medical ethicists. Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz, a professor at Baylor’s Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, told The Verge he applauded the effort behind Dr. B, but he worried the project could deepen inequality in how vaccines are distributed.
“If Dr. B sends out a text, most of the people who are going to be able to drop what they’re doing and get the vaccine will be people who have access to emergency childcare, people with cars, people who can probably get out of work more easily than most underserved populations,” Lázaro-Muñoz said. “So they’re trying to address the problem, but it also exacerbates the equity issue.”
Many of the fixes the team has tried only address parts of the broader problem. The project has already launched a Spanish-language version of the site and is in talks with Uber and Lyft to provide free rides in connection with the shots — an effort that would make a significant dent in the transportation problem.
But Massoumi believes Dr. B’s queueing system will be fundamentally more equitable than what most states are doing, particularly as more tiers open up. Most state systems have focused on giving the elderly and vulnerable first access to the vaccine — but as more people become eligible to receive the shot, vulnerable patients will find themselves in a larger and larger pool of potential recipients. Under the current system, a first-tier patient who waited to get their shot would have no advantage over anyone else in an open tier. Massoumi compares it to an airplane boarding call, when a Group 1 passenger who arrives late has to wait in the same line with all the other groups. But because Dr. B has granular information on each person’s tier, the system can send the most vulnerable patients to the front of the standby line automatically — a kind of express lane for late arrivals.
Behind it all, there’s the steady march of vaccinations. More than 20 percent of the US population has received at least one dose of the vaccine at this point, and President Biden has said he expects the government to have secured enough doses for every adult in America by the end of May. Even small lags in rate or distribution can compound to huge gaps over the coming months.
Dr. B’s plans are still limited by providers’ willingness to use the system, which has kept them limited to the US rollout and places where the scheduling system fails. But like any startup founder, Massoumi isn’t afraid to dream big, noting that there’s nothing stopping the system they build from being applied for non-thawed doses or in other countries where the rollout is proceeding more slowly.
“It’s not just this country. The entire world is not going to be vaccinated until 2023,” Massoumi says. “It’s a global problem, both the pandemic and the scheduling problem, and what we’re creating is a global solution.”
Aya, a startup behind the industry’s first crowdfunded handheld Windows 10-based game console, has begun its Indiegogo campaign. The start of the campaign was postponed earlier due to components shortages, but now Aya thinks that the market situation is right to start the company’s crowdfunding campaign. To be the first to get the Aya Neo, one must pay as much as $789 via the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform, reports Liliputing.
The Aya Neo uses the AMD Ryzen 5 4500U system-on-chip produced using TSMC’s N7 fabrication process (7 nm-class). This APU has six cores running at 2.30 GHz/4.0 GHz along with with the Radeon Vega 6 graphics unit (384 SPs), 16GB of memory, and 1TB of PCIe/NVMe storage. The AMD system-on-chip is cooled down using a proprietary cooling system with to copper heat pipes and a fan.
(Image credit: Aya Neo)
The console has a 7-inch IPS LCD touch-enabled display along with analog sticks, a D-pad, and other game-specific buttons. The Aya Neo exceeds expectations with regard to connectivity, which includes Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, stereo speakers, a 3.5-mm audio output, and three USB Type-C ports.
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(Image credit: Aya Neo)
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(Image credit: Aya Neo)
While a 7-inch x86 Windows-based PC seems impressive, the Aya Neo has its peculiarities. In particular, the console uses a six-year-old Polar/Vega GCN 1.4 graphics architecture that first came to life in the form of the Radeon RX 470 GPU in early 2016. AMD and game developers support this architecture for now, but only time will tell for how long this architecture will be supported given the fact that AMD is promoting its RDNA/RDNA2 GPUs and it is the RDNA2 architecture that powers both new generation game consoles, the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox One X/S series.
In any case, without any doubts the Aya Neo is an interesting device from engineering and gaming performance standpoints.
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