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Tesla’s in-car browser will be upgraded to Chromium

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Of course, Musk’s tweet doesn’t really reveal anything when it comes to availability. The updated app could come out really, really soon or years from now. Tesla made previous attempts to release a better browser over the past few years, after all, but it kept getting pushed back. A recent software update seemed to fix the current browser for some people, though, and that may be enough to tide some owners over until the Chromium version comes out.



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GM will build a new Chevrolet EV at its Orion plant

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GM has confirmed plans to build another electric vehicle at the same Orion Township, MI factory where it currently manufactures the Bolt, as well as test autonomous vehicles for Cruise. We don’t have a name or potential release date for this next EV, but it will use the same BEV3 platform underpinning the recently announced electric Cadillac on the way.

We visited GM’s Orion factory back in 2016 as it ramped up Bolt production, and now the plan is to invest some $300 million and add 400 jobs there. This week Ford also announced an expansion at one of its Michigan plants to build more electric and autonomous vehicles, so now all that’s left is waiting to hear about a battery-powered Mustang or Camaro.

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‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ comes to Netflix June 21st

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Netflix’s flood of content includes a significant anime push — Ghost in the Shell, Ultraman — and as part of that it’s going to be the first streamer with Neon Genesis Evangelion on tap, worldwide. The classic series will go live on Netflix June 21st, complete with all 26 episodes plus the two films: Evangelion: Death True² and The End of Evangelion. There’s a brief trailer to help reacquaint you with its mech action and melodrama, but we figure you can just mark your calendar.

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Self-healing 3D-printed gel has a future in robots and medicine

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The 3D-printed hydrogel is a dual polymer that’s capable of bending, twisting or sticking together when treated with certain chemicals. One polymer has covalent bonds, which provide strength and structural integrity. The other polymer has ionic bonds, which allow more dynamic behaviors like bending and self-adhesion. Together, the polymers create a material that is soft, strong and responsive — ideal for creating a soft, robotic grip.

Brown University

Above, the researchers demonstrated the self-adhering behavior on the tail of a 3-D printed hydrogel salamander.

The hydrogel could also be a promising base for microfluidic devices — used for everything from cancer treatments to liquid-based watch tech and detecting explosives. Until now, it’s been hard to pattern hydrogels with the complex channels and chambers needed in microfluidics. But because this new material is 3D-printed, it can be made in stackable LEGO-like blocks, and “complex microfluidic architectures” can be incorporated into each block. These could create a type of modular system in which blocks with different microfluidic channels could be fit together as needed.

The material isn’t quite ready for use. Researchers say they’re still tweaking the polymers to get even more durability and functionality. If they succeed, this could make building soft robotic components and labs-on-a-chip as simple as snapping together LEGO pieces — or at least significantly easier.

Brown University

Above, the self-adhering behavior was used to make hydrogel building blocks that fit together like LEGO blocks.

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Firefox finally takes fuller advantage of your iPad

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The new version also enables sending tabs to other synced devices (no more copy-pasting links). And if you use Outlook for iOS, you now have the option of setting Firefox as your default browser.

This combination of features probably won’t have you racing to replace your existing browser if you’re already happy. It might, however, tip the balance if you were already looking Mozilla’s way and were just waiting for a Firefox version that did justice to your Apple slate.

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Beats’ spin on the new AirPods could debut in April

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They could include the same H1 chip as the latest AirPods and may have handsfree support for Apple’s voice assistant through the “Hey Siri” function. The true wireless Powerbeats may also offer more use out of a single charge than AirPods (which offer about five hours of listening time).

Beats adopted a similar release strategy after Apple announced the first version of AirPods in 2016. Soon after, it revealed several headphones with the same W1 chip as its parent company’s earphones.

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Intel is ending development of its Compute Cards

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Compute Cards were first introduced by Intel at Computex in 2017. The concept behind the product was to fit all of the necessary computing power a device may need — CPU, RAM, storage, etc. — onto a single card. Those cards would then be interchangeable, allowing a person to quickly upgrade their desktops, laptops or other devices in a matter of minutes. Rather than swap out the pieces individually or let a machine slowly fall behind modern devices, the Compute Card would make it easy to stay up to date with the latest hardware.

One of Intel’s partners, NexDock, expressed some frustration over the discontinuation of Compute Cards. In a blog post, the company said it took them over a year to develop software that would allow its NexPad computer to work with Intel’s modular devices. With the machine finally ready, Intel is ceasing support for the Compute Cards and taking away the prospect of upgradability that would have been the NexPad’s primary selling point.

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DC Universe celebrates Batman’s birthday with free access March 30th

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The pre-Nolan Batman movies will be free, whether it’s classics like the 1989 Tim Burton release or, er, less-than-well-received titles like Batman & Robin. There’s also a veritable deluge of cartoons, including the legendary Batman: The Animated Series and Super Friends. DC is somewhat choosier with its comics, but this still includes some issues of Detective Comics (sadly not Batman’s debut in #27), Batman and Son and the Superman/Batman series.

Naturally, there’s a hard sell involved. Anyone who’s new to DC Universe can get their first month for 80 cents (get it?) between midnight EST on March 29th and the end of April 4th. It’s clearly hoping you’ll be sufficiently enthralled that you’ll pay for a subscription after the free day is over. Nonetheless, it’s still a relatively pain-free opportunity to see if you’ll like what the service has to offer.

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MIT’s AI can train neural networks faster than ever before

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Today, AI can design machine learning systems known as neural networks in a process called neural architecture search (NAS). But this technique requires a considerable amount of resources like time, processing power and money. Even for Google, producing a single convolution neural network — often used for image classification — takes 48,000 GPU hours. Now, MIT researchers have developed a NAS algorithm that automatically learns a convolution neural network in a fraction of the time — just 200 GPU hours.

Speeding up the process in which AI designs neural networks could enable more people to use and experiment with NAS, and that could advance the adoption of AI. While this is certainly not uncomplicated, it could be a step toward putting AI and machine learning in the hands of more people and companies, freeing it from the towers of tech giants.

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Samsung’s US marketing lead quits following department investigation

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The investigation reportedly centered around interactions between marketers with outside ad agencies and media companies. It’s not certain just what might have gone wrong, although the WSJ pointed out that marketing staff at many companies will either accompany partners to sponsored events or pay for perks during meetings. It’s possible there was a conflict of interest where marketers were playing favorites with these moves instead of pouring money into the outlets where it will be the most effective.

You might not get answers about whatever the big-name executives were doing, if anything. Samsung spokespeople have only confirmed “organization changes” in the marketing unit, and said that Mathieu left “to pursue other opportunities outside the company.”

Some of those who were forced out accused Samsung of being unfair and using “trivial” justifications to give them the boot, the WSJ said.

This could have a significant impact on how Samsung pitches its devices to you, particularly its smartphones. The Verge observed that Mathieu is best-known for shifting Samsung’s focus away from conventional ad agencies and toward creators like YouTube star Casey Neistat, ensuring that its phones and other gear are constantly in the limelight. That practice won’t necessarily end, but Samsung might alter its approach. The timing isn’t great, at least. Samsung’s profit dipped sharply at the end of 2018, and it now has to improve its fortunes while its American team is in flux.

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