The i3's two-cylinder engine is based on a motorcycle engine, in case you were wondering.
BMW
When you buy a BMW i3 electric vehicle, you have the option to include a range-extending gas motor. The REx, as it's known in car-geek parlance, is a 34-horsepower, two-cylinder engine that provides juice to the battery to boost range from about 80 miles to somewhere around 150. But in certain conditions, engaging the REx can get...hairy, as one lawsuit alleges.
MLG Automotive Law filed a national class-action lawsuit against BMW's US arm over this REx. "[W]hen the gasoline engine kicks in, it doesn't produce enough power to prevent a dramatic decrease in the vehicle's performance," MLG wrote in a statement.
As our own editor Chris Paukert has experienced firsthand, it takes a special set of circumstances to create this decrease in power. Essentially, when you've got a heavy load (such as long uphill stretches or if the car's filled with passengers), the electric motor can't produce enough juice to keep the vehicle moving while the REx attempts to charge the battery. Thus, its net output is reduced to produce a net gain on charge, extending the vehicle's range.
The problem with this solution is that the car can cut its power at inopportune moments. So if it cuts off in the middle of a 70mph cruise, you could find yourself on a 55mph white-knuckle drive, surrounded by faster, bigger vehicles that are suddenly forced to pass you. For drivers not aware of this, it can come as quite the surprise. BMW did not immediately retu a request for comment.
While it may not act as a panacea, the simplest solution to this is to have dealers better educate customers before deciding on a REx-equipped i3. It might tu a few people off the prospect of i3 ownership, but it would likely prevent future lawsuits along these lines.
Autonomous Chevrolet Bolt EVs charge (get it?) into San Francisco
It's probably not a wise idea to "test" the system by stepping out in front of it on the street.
General Motors
When General Motors decided to bolster its autonomous-driving portfolio with the acquisition of Cruise Automation, along with its $500 million investment in ridesharing company Lyft, it was pretty easy to figure out where the company was headed. Now, on the streets of San Francisco, we're finally seeing the General's plans come to fruition.
This should have two benefits for the company. One, it's able to test its autonomous software on the streets of a busy city for later use in passenger vehicles. Two, it will prove the viability of ridesharing using autonomous vehicles. Both will ease congestion and reduce overall vehicle count in a city that could use it.
In fact, San Francisco itself admits that it has a traffic problem. A hefty majority of its Smart City Challenge project involves moving commuters to either autonomous public transportation or other methods of mobility, including ridesharing. And with investments in both autonomy and alteate methods of travel, GM looks poised to jump on that.
But GM isn't the only company getting in on this action. Uber is now testing autonomous vehicles on public roads, as well. Its first test car, a Ford Fusion Hybrid, is out and about on the mean streets of Pittsburgh.
NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Bell (ASU), and M. Wolff (Space Science Institute)
Mars will make a close approach to Earth on May 30, coming within just 46.8 million miles (75.3 million kilometers). The Hubble Space Telescope celebrated the neaess a little early with the release of a fresh portrait of the Red Planet on Thursday. Hubble snapped the image on May 12 with Mars at a distance of 50 million miles (about 80.5 million kilometers).
The varied terrain of Mars in on full display in the shot. You can see craters, volcanic regions, basins and large swathes of sandy deposits. Wispy white clouds float in the planet's atmosphere, giving it an almost whimsical look, like a giant glass marble hovering against the darkness of space.
The side of Mars on display in the Hubble image has seen a lot of human-related activity. It contains the landing sites for Viking 1, Mars Pathfinder and the Opportunity rover. As Mars closes in on Earth, space watchers will be keeping an eye on the Red Planet. Even casual viewers can step outside at night and see the planet already looks brighter than usual.
"Marseille" is one of the few Netflix original TV shows set and produced in Europe.
Netflix
If you're not already a fan of British period dramas and Scandinavian noir thrillers, this may be the time to get on board.
On-demand video services including Amazon and Netflix may soon need to adhere to rules that dictate how much of their European catalogs must be occupied by European films and TV shows, according to the Daily Mail.
A European Commission proposal due to be announced next week will include an obligation for on-demand services to dedicate a 20 percent share of space in their offerings to homegrown content, said documents seen by the newspaper.
"While we cannot go into details [regarding possible quotas] at this stage, we can say that the proposal will notably strengthen the promotion of European works' obligations for on-demand services," a Commission spokeswoman said Friday in a statement.
Many European countries already have quotas regarding content made within the EU, but the lack of EU-level rules means there are massive variations between member states. Some countries may have up to 60 percent European films in their catalogs; others may have only 10 percent, according to the Commission. A move from the EU to put an inteational quota in place could be seen as an attempt to harmonize the rules, but overall its mission is to bolster the European film industry.
Under the proposal, EU member states would be able to demand financial contributions from streaming services to produce new European work, either by direct investment or by putting money into national funds.
Amazon and Netflix did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
TV broadcasters in Europe currently invest 20 percent of their tuover in European content production, whereas on-demand providers invest less than 1 percent. "The proposal will therefore aim at encouraging new investment in European works," the spokeswoman said. The result would be more access for Europeans to European works in catalogs, she added.
In a speech at Cannes Film Festival earlier this week, Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip hinted at coming changes that will impact on-demand streaming services in Europe and emphasized his commitment to expanding Europe's creative industries -- particularly the film industry.
One of his primary goals, he said, is "broadening its exposure and audience, particularly between EU countries." Ansip also wants to boost the circulation of European works and help European cinema reach a wider audience.
"It is time to update [the rules] to reflect new online realities and the changing digital world," he said. "This is also about creating a level playing field."
The Commission is expected to announce the proposal Wednesday, the Daily Mail reported, along with laws that restrict geoblocking, whereby Inteet users are shown different content depending on where they are viewing it from.
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Microsoft seeks to expand Minecraft's influence with the new deal.
Microsoft
Microsoft and NetEase have signed a deal to bring the hugely popular video game Minecraft to China, the companies said Friday.
Microsoft, which owns Minecraft, signed a five-year exclusive agreement with NetEase, a China-based Inteet technology firm, to license Minecraft's mobile and PC editions. As part of the deal, Mojang, Minecraft's creator, will develop a version of Minecraft specifically made for the Chinese market.
Microsoft bought Mojang, a Sweden-based game studio, in 2014 for $2.5 billion.
There are more than 100 million registered players on Minecraft, a building game that's become a cultural phenomenon. Released in 2009, the game lets players create their own worlds and explore others, with no particular goals or missions. Bringing the game to one of the most-populous countries in the world could help the game expand its popularity even more.
No specific date was announced for when Minecraft will launch in China.
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I have no clever intro for this one. Honestly, any words I attempt to hamfist into coherent thoughts will not do the Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato Concept any justice. Simply put, it's an absolute stunner, a marvel of mode design that blends new and old. Nothing you or I create will ever be this beautiful, and it's best to just accept that fact.
Debuting this weekend at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este at Lake Como, this is the fifth collaboration between the British supercar manufacturer and the famed Italian design studio. Several Zagato design staples are quite apparent -- mainly, the round taillights that also hark to the "bladed" look of the Aston Martin Vulcan's lights.
The body's new, as well. It's entirely carbon fiber, and massive panels help to cut down the number of visible seams along the body. The wing mirrors are reminiscent of the One-77, and the side strakes invoke the all-new DB11. The roof rocks the "double bubble" look, yet another Zagato hallmark.
If you think this is some non-functional concept that's heavy on the show and light on the go, you'd be dead wrong. The car's V-12 engine puts out some 592 horsepower. The interior is fully done up, as well, with herringbone carbon fiber, bronze and leather.
OK, that's enough words for now. They're only serving to prevent you from spending more time staring at this train-stoppingly gorgeous supercar.
The very first Google I/O conference didn't have the puffy white tents or long lines of this year's show, held at an outdoor concert venue in Mountain View, Califoia -- and it certainly didn't have attendees fretting about seagull droppings splatting down from overhead. We would know. We were there.
Marissa Mayer, then a Google VP, addresses the crowd at Google I/O 2008, its first developer conference.
Stephen Shankland/CNET
What the Google I/O of 2008 had was a lot of geeky developers who were interested in this shaky little brand-new phone thing called Android, plus a few joualists like us who wanted to know what Google would say. Google had held two previous single-day developer events, but this was its first full-blown conference.
And it was nerd heaven.
We filed into the smallest building of San Francisco's Moscone Center in a civilized way (nobody ran or pushed or made you feel like corralled cattle). Up on stage, Marissa Mayer, now Yahoo's CEO, then Google's vice president of search products and user experience, spoke about the wonders of split A/B testing.
But the highlight of the show, hands-down, was the very first prototype Android phone, that included -- get this -- technology called a touchscreen! Even that first prototype had a prominent Google search bar, which telegraphed the basic purpose of Android: drive the people who own the phones into using Google's services.
Back then, though, BlackBerry was still a commanding power, and phone owners were comfortable using a stylus, scroll wheels and hardware keyboards to navigate their phones. Apple's iPhone -- introduced just a year earlier, and still lacking an app store -- helped popularize the touchscreen, and Google's Android team was quick to join the trend.
This newbie Android prototype didn't even support multitouch actions like pinch to zoom. What it did have was 3G networking and a mere 128MB of memory -- though Google needed twice that to run Adobe Systems' Flash (a software feature Google tried to use early on to differentiate Android from the more established iPhone OS, later called iOS). 128MB is unbelievably small by today's memory standards. The recently released Samsung Galaxy S7 has about 30 times that amount.
Android's first app champions
Sessions were appropriately in-the-weeds geeky, and tough to translate for the regular consumer. But there was so much to lea and explore (not to mention 3,500 pounds of snacks such as gummy bears and M&Ms). CNET sat down on colorful bean bags in the quiet open space during and between other sessions to chat with the earliest Android programmers.
These were mostly individuals or small teams of people, not big-name brands, just enthusiastic programmers who had entered Google's contest to kickstart the Android app ecosystem at a time when the mobile world was just discovering how powerful and popular third-party apps could be.
The apps were simple by today's standards, with just two or three panes for finding a local music station, for instance. Developers wanted to make money, sure, but seemed more interested in exploring the possibilities of programming not just for a touchscreen, but also for a promising new ecosystem that could leverage Google's dominating ads and search.
Since those humble days, Google I/O has matured into a cooler, slicker version of itself. In 2012, its rockstar cofounder Sergey Brin narrated as skydivers wearing Google Glass converged on the keynote, and in 2016, evening entertainment pulls in chart-topping, clubber mainstays like Kygo and Charli XCX.
Jemaine Clement, left, and Bret McKenzie, otherwise known as Flight of the Conchords, entertained developers and press at the very first Google I/O.
Stephen Shankland/CNET
You know who entertained us at the very first Google I/O? Flight of the Conchords! And they were nerdily awesome.
Google I/O hasn't just grown. It's blown up, and that's clear at this show, with its laid-back music-festival vibe. 2,500 people attended the first two-day I/O; today, the three-day event is home to 7,000 developer attendees and Google live-streams it to millions on the Inteet.
Although it's grown more polished year after year, a change befitting Google's place at the top of the Inteet services food chain, the attitude on the ground is a little different than in past years when we crammed into Moscone, zinging off each other's energy with plenty of consumer devices to play with and brand-new Android features to demo.
In a way, this is a more developer-centric show that refocuses on technical sessions and coder's clinics. This is where software engineers tackle the important work that will create the apps that will hook into the exciting products Google announced, but isn't ready to show: VR headsets, Google's potentially industry-gobbling Home connected speaker, and more capable Android watches with standalone programs that don't need your phone.
Google I/O may have changed from a campfire to a circus, but its goal -- to get people to make things for Google's ever-expanding platform -- has not.
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A Taiwanese iPhone parts supplier has predicted that an upcoming variant of Apple's handset will feature glass casings.
Catcher Technology CEO Allen Hog made the prediction at a shareholder meeting on Thursday, the Nikkei Asian Review reports. Though Catcher currently builds metal frames for iPhones, Hog said he does not expect such a move to impact his business, since an iPhone with a glass casing would still need a durable metal frame inside it.
The iPhone 4 and 4S, introduced in 2010 and 2011 respectively, both had glass backings while retaining metal frames. Apple retued to using metal backs in the iPhone 5 in 2012.
Though Apple has not said when it will introduce its next iPhone models, an iPhone 7 (as it will presumably be called) should be due in September. Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Xiaomi announced Friday that it will land in the quickly growing drone market by releasing its first quadcopter at an event next week.
The company spilled the news on its Miui blog with no details beyond two photos, one of a spider-like drone and the other of a toy bamboo-copter (the kind you spin in your hand to get it in the air). The only mention of a possible product name came in a closing tagline that said, "Shall we discover the world with Mi_________ ?"
Guest: We welcome Katie Earl and Andy Warren from The Mowgli's to the show to talk about their upcoming album and tour (and how tech helps them plan shows with the fans).