The cameras and sensors will watch out for factors such as drivers closing their eyes for a long time, looking away from the road for long periods, very slow reaction times, weaving across lanes too much and no steering input over extended periods of time. Volvo plans to start installing sensors and cameras in all of its cars starting in the early 2020s, and it will reveal more details later. Starting from model year 2021, all Volvo cars will also have a top speed of 180kph (112mph) to stop excessive speeding.
With those cameras and sensors, however, come inevitable concerns about surveillance and whether drivers will be comfortable with being explicitly monitored while they’re behind the wheel. Volvo is aware of those worries though. It “wants to start a conversation about whether car makers have the right or maybe even the obligation to install technology in cars that changes their drivers’ behavior,” it said in a press release.
When the Duffer Brothers said Stranger Things 3: The Game would tie in with the third season of the Netflix series, they weren’t kidding. Bonus XP’s suitably retro beat-em-up is due to launch on the Switch (and most likely other platforms) on July 4th, or the same day Stranger Things 3 is available to stream. The title has you playing one of 12 protagonists from the series and battling through events from the show, including the Starcourt Mall that has been at the center of Netflix’s teasers from day one.
The Rift S swaps out OLED displays for the LCD panels used in the Oculus Go, which will bump up the resolution from 1080 x 1200 to 1280 x 1440. However, the refresh rate is dipping from 90Hz to 80Hz. The field of view is a little larger than on the Rift too, according toTechCrunch.
As with Oculus Quest, the headset will ship with Touch controllers. Meanwhile, the on-ear headphones are gone in favor of near-ear speakers (though you can still plug in your own headphones). The Rift S also packs in five tracking cameras, which you can use to look at your surroundings without having to take off the headset via a feature called Passthrough+.
Lenovo helped redesign the Rift S, which Oculus claims “has increased comfort, better weight distribution, and improved light blocking, as well as a simple, single-cable system for a clutter-free experience.” You’ll need a compatible PC of course, and Oculus has a downloadable tool to help you find out if your system meets the necessary benchmarks before you buy the Rift S.
The first collection, Arcade Classics, comprises a bumper pack of Konami’s 1980s hits, including Haunted Castle, A-Jax, Gradius, Gradius 2, Life Force, Thunder Cross, Scramble and TwinBee. This one goes on digital sale on April 18 for the reasonable price of $20.
Next up, and arriving in “early summer,” is the Castlevania: Anniversary Collection. This will also include eight titles, four of which have been confirmed: Castlevania (NES), Castlevania 2: Belmont’s Revenge (Game Boy), Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse (NES) and Super Castlevania 4 (Super NES). Most of these have been accessible before in some shape or form, but having them on Switch and other contemporary platforms is a nice addition to the Konami catalogue.
The Contra: Anniversary Collection will also arrive in early summer, again an eight-title collection, with confirmed games including Contra (arcade), Super Contra (arcade), Super C (NES), and Contra 3: The Alien Wars (Super NES) — a great pickup for retro enthusiasts.
Konami says that each collection will come with a digital book that features behind-the-scenes notes, never-before seen design sketches and interviews with development staff. While it’s not yet clear which other titles will round out the Castlevania and Contra collections, Konami certainly has a decent catalogue to choose from. It would be great to see Vampire Killerfor the MSX2 on a modern platform, for example.
It kicks off with a homecoming party for Dustin, set to Mötley Crüe’s 1985 power ballad Home Sweet Home (a nice tie-in with Dirt, Netflix’s upcoming biopic of the hair metal band), and spirals into the Upside Down from there. The Reagan-era decried by Bruce Springsteen is in full swing, reflected in the show’s star-spangled July 4th backdrop, and the creeping darkness on the edge of town. It all concludes with a monstrous crescendo. You’ll be able to catch up with the gang, and their growing pains, when Stranger Things 3 hits Netflix, fittingly, on July 4th
The government aims to allocate CA$300 million over the next three years to fund the purchase incentive, which will slash up to CA$5,000 off an electric or a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle’s price… so long as its manufacturer’s SRP is less than CA$45,000. As Electrek notes, that means Tesla vehicles will likely be off the table, seeing as their prices begin at CA$47,600.
The proposal reads:
“To encourage more Canadians to buy zero-emission vehicles, Budget 2019 proposes to provide $300 million over three years, starting in 2019–20, to Transport Canada to introduce a new federal purchase incentive of up to $5,000 for electric battery or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of less than $45,000. Program details to follow.”
In addition, the proposal is calling for EVs to be “eligible for a full tax write-off in the year they are put in use” in hopes of encouraging taxi/bus operators and other businesses to transition to zero-emission fleets. Since the hope is for those plans to boost EV adoption, the government is also looking to expand the availability of charging stations by giving Natural Resources Canada a $130 million budget over the next five years. The department will be in charge of deploying new stations in workplaces, public parking lots, commercial and residential buildings, as well as various remote locations.
The software shows just how far neural networks have come. In the past, apps like Prisma have utilized AI-powered filters to turn your photos into paintings that evoke art masters like Van Gogh or Picasso. Both Facebook and Google also brought the so-called “style transfer” feature to their respective platforms. But NVIDIA’s new tool goes one further by creating lifelike pieces from the most basic of outlines (in other words, something from nothing).
There are essentially three parts to the GauGAN software: a paint bucket, pen and pencil. At the bottom of the screen are a bunch of labels like sky, water, rock, and sand. Select “water” and tap the paintbrush and the tool will turn your blue line into a cascading, photorealistic waterfall. The same goes for turning circles into clouds or lumps into rocks or a cliffside.
“It’s like a coloring book picture that describes where a tree is, where the sun is, where the sky is,” said Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning research at NVIDIA. “And then the neural network is able to fill in all of the detail and texture, and the reflections, shadows and colors, based on what it has learned about real images.”
GauGAN’s underlying AI is also intuitive enough to cast a reflection from a tree into the puddle of water below it. Swap a label from “grass” to “snow” and the entire image switches to a winter scene, even plucking the leaves from your tree’s branches.
For now, NVIDIA is only showing off a demo that highlights the software’s strengths. There’s no mention of its approach to man-made objects like buildings and furniture, which as The Vergenotes, is much trickier for GANs to replicate. NVIDIA hopes GauGAN will eventually make it onto its AI playground: a new website that opens up its image editing, styling, and photorealistic synthesis software demos to the masses. It envisions the tool being used by everyone from architects and urban planners to video game developers.
The new feature follows the addition of the Q7 SUV to Silvercar’s offerings, and both sound like they’re meant to attract families, groups of travelers and perhaps even consummate fashionistas who need to carry dozens of suitcases when they travel. Anyone who could use the add-on can request for a pick up or a drop off via the Silvercar app or website.
While Silvercar’s availability remains pretty limited, Audi has been taking steps to expand it to more locations bit by bit. In addition to the new delivery and pick-up feature, the service has also announced that it will make its way to Boston at Logan International Airport on April 15th.
“Unfortunately, instead of recognizing the integral role of songwriters to its company, Peloton has built its business by using their work without their permission or fair compensation for years,” said NMPA President and CEO David Israelite in a statement. NMPA is the largest trade association for music publishers in the US. The group accused Peloton of using unlicensed work from artists such as Rihanna, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, Shawn Mendes, Ed Sheeran, Wiz Khalifa, Thomas Rhett, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Florida Georgia Line, Drake, Gwen Stefani, and others.
Peloton, which was valued at $4 billion in 2019, has sold more than 400,000 indoor exercise bikes so far. The bikes offered a popular at-home fitness option for those whose schedules are too busy for the gym. Peloton owners pay an additional $39 per month for live classes they can stream right from their bike. The virtual spin classes have drawn thousands of devotees, including celebrities like Hugh Jackman, Usain Bolt, and David Beckham.
When reached for comment, Peloton gave the following statement to Engadget:
“We just received the complaint this morning, and we are evaluating it. Peloton has great respect for songwriters and artists. In fact, we have partnered with each of the major music publishers, record labels and performing rights organizations, and many leading independents. We have also invested heavily to build a best-in-breed reporting and licensing system to support our partners and provide our members with a world-class fitness experience.”
If you’re unfamiliar with VPNs, the service allows you to create a private connection with a remote server that will communicate with websites that you’re visiting. Instead of sending and receiving information over a public network where it could potentially be intercepted by a malicious actor, all of those exchanges are handled by the server. With an encrypted connection between your phone and the VPN server, your data is indecipherable to anyone trying to spy on your actions online.
Opera’s built-in VPN uses 256-bit encryption to protect data. It also obscure’s a user’s true location by connecting to servers located around the world. While the company didn’t specify what will be available for locations for its VPN, the beta version allowed users to select servers in America, Europe or Asia, or use a setting to automatically pick the best available connection. Opera is also promising not to keep logs of user activity, so it won’t retain any data in a way that might allow someone to identify an individual based on their online activity.
