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Electric Mini Cooper SE pre-orders are open in the US

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The base Mini Cooper SE will set you back $29,900 with an $850 destination and handling fee (federal and state credits will bring down the price a bit, if you’re eligible). Among the features on the standard model are a 6.5-inch display with a navigation system, Apple CarPlay compatibility, automatic dual zone climate control, heated front seats, driver assistance, a rearview camera and keyless entry.

For an extra $4,000, the Signature Plus Trim model adds a panoramic moon roof, power-folding mirrors, a Harman Kardon audio system and auto-dimming interior and exterior mirrors, among other features. For $36,900, the top-end Iconic Trim Level adds a larger, 8.8-inch touchscreen, wireless charging, a parking assistant, a Mini head-up display and more — on top of everything the other two models boast.

The Environmental Protection Agency has given the Mini Cooper SE a preliminary range rating of 110 miles, less than its European rating of between 124 and 144 miles on a full charge of the 32.6 kWh battery. While that might not inspire confidence if you’d planned to take the car on an out-of-town trip at any point, with a DC rapid charger, you can get the battery up to 80 percent capacity in about 40 minutes at compatible public stations.

The EV can hit 60MPH in 6.9 seconds thanks to its 181HP motor, which generates 199 foot-pounds of EV torque. The Mini Cooper SE can hit a top speed of 93MPH. If you pre-order, you’ll need to plonk down $500 at the outset.

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YouTube’s personalized music playlists are available to all users

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A few months ago, Discover Mix popped up on the YouTube Music app, but YouTube kept quiet about its plans for the curated list. Today, it confirmed that Discover Mix will deliver 50 tracks every week, with updates every Wednesday. Those tracks will include songs by new artists you’ve never heard, as well as lesser-known songs by your favorite musicians.

The New Release Mix will round up new music by your favorite artists and others the YouTube algorithms think you’ll like. Most new songs will land on the list on Fridays, but midweek releases will keep the selection fresh.

A third playlist, Your Mix, is for when you want tried-and-true favorites that you can sing along to. It’ll be full of songs by artists you know, with a few songs and artists you may not have heard before. YouTube says small updates, made regularly will keep the list from getting stale.

The mixes mimic playlists by other streaming services. Discover Mix appears to be YouTube’s counter to Spotify’s Discover Weekly, and YouTube’s New Release Mix sounds a lot like Spotify’s Release Radar. As Engadget’s Steve Dent wrote previously, Spotify may have more paid subscribers than YouTube Music, but YouTube Music has a lot more software engineers. That could give the streaming service an advantage. YouTube says this is “just the beginning of an even more personalized YouTube Music.”

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Democrats want to study FOSTA-SESTA's impact on sex workers online

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If you're concerned that FOSTA-SESTA seems built more to kick sex workers offline than to fight sex trafficking, you're not alone. House representatives and senators have introduced the Safe Sex Workers Study Act, a bill that would analyze the impac…

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The 1997 ‘Blade Runner’ PC game is now on GOG

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ScummVM is a program that lets users launch certain games on platforms that they weren’t designed for. Fans used this as a way to get Blade Runner working on modern computers, but it wasn’t a simple procedure. They spent about eight years analyzing the game’s code and reassembling it into its current form. Earlier in the year, ScummVM added support for Blade Runner, but it required that players still have the game files in order to launch the game. This downloadable version from GOG.com runs on its own and doesn’t require any other files.

In Blade Runner, the player assumes the role of detective Ray McCoy, who is tasked with hunting down replicants at the same time as Rick Deckard, the movie’s protagonist. McCoy has to uncover clues, interrogate witnesses, search for suspects and ultimately “retire” the rogue androids. The game progresses in real-time (as opposed to waiting for the player to trigger certain events), which is pretty unique for a point-and-click adventure. It also borrows many of the characters, locations and music from the movie, so fans of the film will likely want to check it out. You can download it today from GOG.com for $8.99 — the price will go up to $9.99 after the launch period, though it’s not clear how long that is.

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EA will host an ‘Apex Legends’ tournament series in 2020

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In all, EA says the tournament circuit will consist of 12 global live events, including four “Majors,” in 2020. Some of which the company will host itself, with the remaining ones put together by esports organizations like PGL and GLL. The first three Majors will feature 100 three-person teams, while the fourth and final one, the Apex Legends Global Series Championship, will spotlight the top 60 teams in the world. At that event, there will be a $1 million prize pool, with more than $3 million on the line throughout the year.

The circuit is open to players from more than 60 countries around the world — as long as they meet certain eligibility requirements. Notably, the league will only be open to PC players initially.

“This is only the first step in the Apex Legends Global Series journey and we’ll have more to discuss about console competitions in the future,” Todd Sitrin, senior vice-president of EA’s competitive gaming division, told Engadget when we asked him about the eligibility requirement. He also noted console players can still take part in the league and play with a controller as long as they have access to a PC.

To compete in the Majors, most teams will first need to first qualify through an online tournament. They’ll then need to make their way through live regional “Challenger” and global “Premier” events. At each step, they’ll earn points. The teams with the most points will get an invite to the Majors.

While the league’s total prize pool is modest by the standards of the biggest esports tournaments (the team that won this summer’s Dota 2 International tournament took home $15 million), it’s certainly a start. And whether or not you personally have an interest in Apex‘s competitive community, it is a way to keep players invested in the game — which is something it needs to find ways to do. With approximately 70 million players globally, Apex is one of EA’s most important properties. However, it’s in an extremely competitive market that includes games like Fortnite and Overwatch, which have growing communities of 200 million and 50 million players respectively.

The company will host the first online tournament on January 25th, with registration opening earlier in the month. You’ll be able to watch the first Major event starting on March 13th.

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NASA’s X-59 supersonic jet is cleared for final assembly

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This is NASA’s first large-scale, piloted x-plane (or experimental aircraft) in more than three decades, and its goal is to reduce the loudness of a sonic boom to more of a sonic thump. When the long, slender jet transitions to supersonic speed, it will make about as much noise a car door closing, and since it will be flying 940 MPH at 55,000 feet, that could be essentially inaudible.

NASA will test the X-59 over select US communities to gather feedback, as it has done with the F/A-18 Hornet aircraft over Galveston, Texas. Those tests will help establish new rules for commercial supersonic air travel over land.

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‘Pokémon Go’ will let you play with your monster pals ‘soon’

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You’ll also be able to see your monster pal follow you on the game’s map. Niantic says each Pokémon has different quirks, which will translate to different behaviors. The closer you get to your favorite Pokémon, the more in-game perks you’ll unlock. For instance, get to the “Ultra Buddy” level, and your virtual pal will direct you to nearby points of interest. You can start the process of bonding with a Pokémon by feeding berries to them.

Squirtle

Following the launch of buddy adventures, Niantic plans to add a new shared augmented reality mode to the game. The feature will allow you and two friends to take a group photo with all of your Pokémon buddies.

To take advantage of both features, you’ll need access to a phone that supports Pokémon Go‘s AR+ functionality. On iOS, that means an ARKit-compatible iPhone. On Android, meanwhile, you’ll need a device that supports Google’s ARCore platform. If you’re unsure if your phone makes the cut, if it came with or you were able to update to either iOS 11 or Android 7.0, you should be good to go.

Like a lot of things to do with Pokémon, the Buddy Adventure system is a strong nostalgia play. Pokémon that follow you as you explore the world is a feature that has appeared in Pokémon games on and off since Pokémon Yellow back in 1998. Niantic, well aware of that, released a very precious trailer to hype longtime Pokémon fans ahead of the feature’s launch. Make sure to have a box of tissues ready when you watch it.

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Google accused of firing another worker in union-busting drive

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In a post on Medium, Spiers says that Google was recently forced to a publish a list (by the NLRB), internally, outlining the rights its employees have. And in order to ensure that all affected employees knew about it, Spiers added a pop-up notification to the company’s internal Chrome browser. Apparently this is a common practice inside the company, allowing people to share “hobbies or interests.”

In response to a request for comment, a Google spokesperson said that it had “dismissed an employee who abused privileged access to modify an internal security tool. This was a serious violation.”

“When I heard that Google had hired a union-busting firm and started illegally retaliating against my coworkers,” writes Spiers, “I decided to make sure that my coworkers knew about the [list].” Spiers is referring to Google’s recent hiring of IRI Consultants, a company described by the New York Times as an “anti-union consulting firm.” When Google employees visited IRI’s website, or the internal guidelines, a pop-up would read “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.”

Spiers says that Google’s response was to suspend her immediately, and call her into “interrogations” where she was aggressively asked about “other organizing activities.” She says that her treatment was “extremely aggressive and illegal,” and Google did not allow her to speak to a lawyer or other representative. On December 13th, she was fired for “violating Google’s security policies,” but no explanation as to how was given.

This part of a growing culture of discontent inside Google which seems to be spilling over into outright hostility between management and employees. In November, four employees were fired, Google says because they were caught committing “clear and repeated violations of data security policies.” The victims, however, feel they were fired in retaliation for attempting to organize protests against problematic government contracts.

Google’s role has come under increased scrutiny by its employees, especially around some of its plans to work with China, the defense department and CBP. The company has also seen walkouts after details leaked that Andy Rubin, who allegedly left the company after he carried on an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, was given a $90 million golden parachute. Google’s famously open culture is apparently contracting, and the company recently ended its practice of weekly town-hall meetings in which employees could ask leaders questions.

The four employees, who were fired at Thanksgiving, are all filing unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming the firings are attempts to prevent organizing. Spiers also alleges that a senior Google employee signed a letter “falsely accusing four of my coworkers,” a reference to the “Thanksgiving Four.” The NLRB has pledged to investigate the firings.

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Google AI tool helps conservationists (and the public) track wildlife

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The website, meanwhile, is powerful whether or not you’re a researcher. You can explore about 4.5 million images (as of this writing) using a map with helpful filters for species, countries, dates and specific projects. If you want to find pictures of giraffes in Kenya, you can go directly to the camera traps that spotted them.

Google’s database will only be as useful as the number of uploads, and there’s no guarantee this will lead to meaningful conservation efforts. However, this does give policy makers a better chance of making more informed decisions that could curb animal population losses and, hopefully, spare some species from the threat of extinction.

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Google explains the science behind the Pixel 4’s Portrait Mode

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Portrait Mode takes images with a shallow depth of field, focusing on the primary subject and blurring out the background for a professional look. It does this by using machine learning to estimate how far away objects are from the camera, so the primary subject can be kept sharp and everything else can be blurred.

In order to estimate depth, the Pixel 4 captures an image using two cameras, the wide and telephoto cameras, which are 13 mm apart. This produces two slightly different views of the same scene, which, like information from human eyes, can be used to estimate depth. In addition, the cameras also use a dual pixel technique in which every pixel is split in half and is captured by a different half of the lens to give even more depth information.

Using both dual cameras and dual pixels allows a more accurate estimation of the distance of objects from the camera, which leads to a crisper image. Machine learning is used to determine how to weight the different outputs for the best photo.

Dual pixels vs dual cameras

In addition, Google has also improved the bokeh or blurred background effect. Previous, bokeh blurring was performed using a technique called tone mapping which makes shadows brighter relative to highlights. This lowers the overall contrast of the image, however. So for Portrait Mode, the software first blurs the raw image and then applies tone mapping, which makes the background nicely blurred but also as saturated and rich as the foreground.

You can read more about the improvements to the camera AI on Google’s AI blog.



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