The tech giant bowed out after Dylan Farrow’s accusations of rape against Allen, her father, resurfaced as part of the #MeToo movement. Allen called it a “25-year-old baseless allegation” and argued he was owed $68 million in minimum guarantee payouts, but Amazon said the damage was already done. Numerous stars had “expressed profound regret” for working with Allen, according to Amazon, and the “cascading consequences” of his actions virtually guaranteed the deal’s failure. The company was never going to recoup what it poured into the project, in other words.
Allen did secure international distribution for the first movie that was supposed to be part of the deal, A A Rainy Day in New York. However, it’s safe to say the fallout with Amazon makes it unlikely that you’ll see an official US release.
The truck has a three-speaker sound emulator that mimics the two banks of a V8 engine in the back, and induction in the front. It automatically adjusts to gear changes, and can even emulate different engines that include a generic V8 as well as two versions of the LS7 Z28 (tuned for touring and the track). You can also choose a “futuristic” sound or plain silence if you’re more comfortable with electric power.
This isn’t a completely from-scratch design. Chevy borrowed both the power electronics and two battery packs from the Bolt EV. That saved the automaker development time, of course, but the independent arrangement of the batteries promises both more power and longer range. The company won’t say what that range is, but it’s safe to presume you’d have enough range to get home after showing off your ride at the local meetup.
It won’t surprise you to hear that there’s no plans make a production E-10. What you see here was up and running in less than five months. This does, however, illustrate the potential future for both electric crate motor tech and hot rod trucks. And this early experimentation might be necessary. When numerous governments both in the US and abroad expect to ban sales of fossil fuel cars in the next two decades, it may become increasingly difficult to source gas engines for hot rods.
In one instance, the employee said their manager tried to persuade two colleagues to give them negative feedback on their performance review. The colleagues refused and reported the manager to HR, but HR did nothing. One program manager was even asked by two white employees to clean up their mess after eating breakfast.
Another person sharing their experience said they gave their opinion on a topic they were an expert on during a meeting. They were reprimanded for doing so and were told they were being disrespectful and arrogant. In one post on Blind, the poster said their friend just made manager, and they were making sure that an “arrogant black man who thinks he’s smarter than everyone” gets “managed out ASAP.”
The group said they chose to talk about their experiences anonymously, because Facebook creates a hostile culture where anyone who’s non-white is made to fear for their job and safety. They also said that if their post gets any attention — and it did — the company’s M team, its group of trusted leaders, will merely say something to the effect of: “we view diversity as important,” “this behavior is not acceptable” and “we will increase our efforts to make things better.” However, they believe the cycle of racism will just repeat.
Facebook has issued an apology after the post was published. Bertie Thomson, the company’s VP of corporate communications, said in a statement: “No one at Facebook, or anywhere, should have to put up with this behavior. We are sorry. It goes against everything that we stand for as a company. We’re listening and working hard to do better.”
The Mysterious Affair at Olivetti: IBM, the CIA, and the Cold War Conspiracy to Shut Down Production of the World’s First Desktop Computer by Meryle Secrest
The world’s first desktop computer didn’t take shape in a Menlo Park garage or the bowels of a corporate production facility. It was created in a workshop in Northwest Italy owned and operated by the Olivetti family. Already renowned for their mechanical typewriters, the Olivetti pioneered electronic calculation a decade before Apple or IBM, which (as you’ll read below) debuted at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. The first of its kind, the P101, became an instant smash hit — everyone from NASA to the US military was clamoring for these highly sought after “super-calculators.”
But was the Olivetti family’s fortune actually a curse? Shortly after the P101’s debut, Adriano Olivetti, the head of the family suffered a mysterious and fatal heart attack at the age of 58, just 18 months before the company’s talented engineer, Mario Tchou, died in an equally suspicious car accident. In The Mysterious Affair at Olivetti, author Meryle Secrest reveals the incredible behind-the-scenes story of the first desktop computer.
The New York World’s Fair was always described in superlatives: 80 nations took part, there were 140 pavilions, 110 restaurants, 45 corporations, and it covered almost a square mile of Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, New York. American corporations and their products naturally took the spotlight. The themes, “Peace Through Understanding” and “Man’s Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe,” were carried out in terms of almost comic-strip Futurism, set in a landscape of parks, walks, lakes, and fountains, dominated by a stainless steel model of the earth twelve stories high. Over 50 million people visited the fair during its two years of existence in the summers of 1964 and 1965, to marvel at the spheroid-shaped pavilion (IBM), its fiberglass tower (7-Up), and its Saarinen-designed restaurants with their innovative fiberglass domes and furnishings.
Olivetti’s stand consisted of a huge display of Logos 27 mechanical calculators, adding machines, accounting machines, invoicing machines, and typewriters. In the summer of 1965, the P101 made it to the fair but only just. It was hidden away in a small room behind the main stand. If anyone found it, it was supposed to be an accident. But a few people did. Soon more and more began to squeeze their way in. They wanted to touch the machine. They wanted to feel it. They thought it must be connected to a big machine hidden behind a wall and were amazed to learn it was not. They wanted to play with it. Pretty soon Olivetti salesmen who had been hired to demonstrate the mechanical machines were diverted to the P101. Extra attendants had to be brought in to manage the crowds. Perotto himself, who was always hovering in the background, was pressed into service to show the computer could play games as well. He invented one on the spot and to his delight, he lost. Perhaps the ultimate compliment that autumn was a request from NBC for five P101 computers so as to calculate election results that would be transmitted to millions of viewers in the greater New York area.
Newspapers and magazines such as Fortune, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and others groped for ways to describe the new machine. “The first desktop computer in the world,” one said. Another, “the machine is filling the gap between the large conventional computer and the desk calculators.” A third, with some prescience, predicted there would be “a computer in every office even before there are two cars in every garage.” A brilliant idea that evolved in the minds of Roberto Olivetti, Mario Tchou, and Adriano Olivetti a decade earlier had led to this: universal acclaim and so many phone calls and letters that the company was overwhelmed.
The next problem, even if a gratifying one, kept the team up at night. They had assembled about a dozen demonstration machines but going into mass production was another matter, and the problem of logistics was urgent. They were concerned for a number of reasons. Their enemies inside the company would pounce if it turned out that the new machines, once tested in somebody’s office, did not work, or only worked once in a while. However, the manpower to make sure they were ready to be sold did not yet exist.
This led to another eleventh-hour save that, once again, put them in the position of acting like conspirators in their own company. They waited until evening, when the plant was closed. Then they talked their way past the guards and into an area of the building where the machines, already crated, were ready to be shipped to the U.S. One by one they removed the machines and tested them to make sure they worked. “We went all through that night and the next, testing, repairing and substituting.” One week later the first batch left for America “in perfect working order.”
The Programma 101 was the world’s first commercial, programmable desktop computer. This groundbreaking version used a keyboard, a printer unit that printed data and instructions, and also a magnetic card reader. Once programmed, this card would store data and programs. These cards were made of plastic, with a magnetic coating on one side and a writing area on the other. They were easy and economical to use; to make use of the program stored on it you simply inserted it into the machine. Its memory of 240 bytes is negligible by today’s standards but was then a huge advance over mechanical calculators in terms of speed. And in terms of mainframe computers it had the advantage of being in the office and did not need a cadre of technicians in white coats. You could put it on an office desk (it weighed about sixty pounds), it was easy to use, and it was all yours. The price, in 1965, was $3,000 ($24,500 in 2016 dollars). Not cheap, but attractive enough to be snapped up by eager buyers. Some 44,000 P101 machines were sold. In short, it was a winner.
Among the buyers was the National Air and Space Administration (NASA), which was preparing to land on the moon in 1970 and bought ten copies. David W. Whittle, a programmer for NASA at the Johnson Space Center said, “By Apollo 11 we had a desktop computer . . . an Olivetti Programma 101. It was a kind of supercalculator. It could add, subtract, multiply and divide, [and] also remember a sequence of these things, [recorded] on a magnetic card . . . So you could write a programming sequence and load it in there.” He continued, “The Lunar Module high-gain antenna was not very smart; it didn’t know where Earth was . . . We would have to run four separate programs on this Programma 101.” The computer was also being used by the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War to “compute coordinates for ground-directed bombings of targets for the B-52 Stratofortresses.” The military had taken note.
Almost the first thing was to take out a copyright for the P101. This turned out to be a wise precaution when, in 1967, barely two years later, the American company Hewlett-Packard brought out its own desktop computer that resembled, in all essential respects, the design of the P101. They put the machinery into its own case, with HP on the label and sold it with its own number. Olivetti launched a copyright suit and was rewarded with almost $1 million in royalties.
For Perotto the P101 was just the “first lonely brick” laid toward what would be a shining road to the future. All that daring, forethought, and subterfuge had led to the startling lead that the P101 then held over every other company. Perotto thought Olivetti had a five-year advantage over the competition. David Olivetti calculated longer — seven years, a lifetime in the cutthroat business world — in which to establish a world market, making use of the new semiconductor technology that was the next bold step. It would be a world leader and Ivrea would become its center, for an Italian Silicon Valley.
Roberto was already looking ahead. He had signed an agreement with Fairchild, a company already working in the semiconductor field, to jointly sponsor further research and development, which, in short order, would lead to the development of personal computers on a vast scale. Richard Hodgson, an executive with the Fairchild Semiconductor Company, was enthusiastic. His company would gain the edge in Europe and Olivetti would gain innovative technology that would enhance its stunning advantage. All this took place in September 1959, a few months before Adriano’s death. The two men liked each other immediately. Hodgson thought the young Italian was sensitive, and “brimming with youthful vitality,” and Roberto saw Hodgson as Mario Tchou’s logical successor. But then the objections started and the roadblocks were built by directors and shareholders who, Hodgson concluded, cared only about immediate profits. Visentini scowled. Nothing came of it.
The Mavic Mini is so small and light (just 249g) you won’t need to register it with the FAA — you were registering your larger drones with the FAA, right? But that size isn’t just about doing less paperwork, it’s about doing more flying. With a drone you can literally slip in your back pocket, there’s almost never an inconvenient time to bring along, assuming you have a second pocket for the controller. (You can’t fly the Mini with just your phone like you could the Spark.)
DJI has traditionally been good about giving its smaller/cheaper drones premium features. The Air, for example, cost less than the Mavic Pro that came before it, but it had features its pricier sibling didn’t. Even the little old Spark offered gesture control and follow-me features on a budget. With the Mini, though, there are quite a few compromises — but the majority shouldn’t deter most people.
Perhaps the most crucial missing feature is obstacle avoidance. The Mavic 2 Pro and the Air both come with sensors that detect obstacles, allowing for safer flying. The Mavic Mini has none. This seems reasonable given that the Mini costs more than $1,300 less than the Mavic Pro 2 and $500 less than the Air. But DJI is also pitching the Mini at beginners who would benefit from those sensors the most.
The second notable compromise is the camera. As with the Spark, there’s no 4K video here but the Mini will record in 2.7K/30 (along with FHD up to 60 fps at 40Mbps), so there’s at least some form of high resolution to enjoy. Another trick the Mini has that the Spark doesn’t is the ability to fold down its arms. The Spark’s body is a similar size, but its fixed arms make it much less portable.
The Mavic line’s foldable design has become something of a calling card. What makes drones unwieldy are those all-important protruding arms. DJI came up with a clever design for the first Mavic, and it’s been present in nearly all its consumer drones since. When fully folded down, the Mini is about the size of a soda can and weighs about as much as a large phone (my OnePlus 7 Pro with a case comes in at around 230g).
When I first saw the Mini I had some concerns. Mostly, how will it hold up in windy conditions? The bigger Mavics easily hold their position against strong breezes. The Mini actually does surprisingly well here too. I really thought it would be thrown around, but it held its ground (at least against the gusty Bay Area coast). I did notice it would often move up and down with the wind, but lateral movement was minimal.
In fact, the app was warning me that conditions were too windy and to fly with caution, but the video held steady. You can see the Mini twitching in the air, but it won’t spoil your footage. If anything, it’s the vertical position that’s more troubling. I flew out in a straight line over water, and a few times I had to pull the drone up because the wind was pushing it down.
The Mavic Mini might lack obstacle-avoidance sensors, but it’s not completely devoid of positioning technology. There’s GPS, obviously, and a downward-facing sensor so that it can hold its position when there’s no satellite connection (for example, indoors).
I was also surprised that the Mavic Mini doesn’t offer “Tripod mode.” This simple feature found in other Mavics limits the speed of a drone, which in combination with the three-axis gimbal is great for slow, steady tracking shots. The Mini would be perfect for this, especially when flying indoors. As far as I can tell, there’s no technical reason the Mini doesn’t support it, but it’s not here, which is a slight disappointment. There is, however, a new “Cinesmooth” mode, which DJI says “elongates the braking process.” That sounds a bit dull, but in my testing, it actually is more like Tripod mode (thankfully) than I thought. Basically, it seems to soften out turns, braking and other harsh movements, leaving you with a much smoother shot.
It’s also worth noting that you have to change flying modes (Regular/Sport and Cinesmooth) in the app now. Other Mavics have a switch on the controller, but that’s another small compromise I guess. In fact, the whole app experience is massively simplified. I’m inclined to say that this is a good thing, as I’ve never been a huge fan of DJI’s information-dense app. But as nice as it is to have things simplified, I’d almost say the new Go app is almost too sparse. It’s nice that there are fewer things onscreen, but vital information like battery life and GPS signal is represented by icons so small that you can’t really see them at a glance — which means you end up peering at the screen for longer than you’d like.
In its attempt to simplify, DJI also moved the QuickShot section of the app under the camera options on the right, rather than over on the left under its own icon as before. Here you can choose between photo, video and QuickShot. The sub-menu for each will appear once you select it.
For photos, you’ll only see the self-explanatory options for “Single” or “Timed shot,” though under the main settings menu, you’ll find options for photo aspect ratio (4:3 or 16:9), toggles for the onscreen histogram and overexposure warning, gridlines and so on. As already mentioned, for video, your options are FHD and 2.7K, and then a choice of frame rates: 25, 30, 50 and 60 for FHD versus 25 and 30 for 2.7K. No 24 fps here for some reason.
The selection of QuickShots on the Mini is limited. You have Dronie, Rocket, Circle and Helix — the names broadly describe how the Mini will move around a target. There’s no Asteroid or Boomerang this time around, and that’s fine. I’m more disappointed at the lack of ActiveTrack — DJI’s people-tracking feature. It’s been present on most products, including the Osmo Mobile, which doesn’t have a camera at all (it uses your phone’s). What’s curious is that the QuickShot modes the Mini does have ask you to click on a human target for it to focus on — so the bones of the technology are there, but for some reason the company chose not to include it. Long story short, the Mavic Mini can’t follow you autonomously. But it feels like something that’s just a firmware update away.
Despite the minor annoyances, like the small power indicator (it’s literally a small battery icon with a percentage number like on a phone), the app is easy to use. Connect your phone to the controller, open the app and you’re pretty much good to go. The bigger problem is that the connection with the drone is done over WiFi, which doesn’t handle the video stream nearly as well as DJI’s proprietary Ocusync technology. For the most part, it’s fine, but there were too many times when the stream stalled or skipped. This was particularly frustrating when I was relying on that connection to line up and monitor my shot.
A related issue, not unique to the Mini but exacerbated by its size, is that it’s remarkably easy to lose sight of the drone in the sky after you’ve looked down at the video stream. Line-of-sight flying is important. I see too many people flying with the drone out of view, relying on the video stream to know where it is. But that video stream can fail, and it did with the Mavic Mini just enough that I would never rely on it for navigation. Even just a quick glance at the app, look back up and… where the hell did it go? It caught me out a few times.
You don’t need your phone at all to fly the drone, or even to shoot video. But it’s much easier with the video stream and on-screen buttons should you need to take action and maneuver around something. Also, while there are buttons on the controller to take a photo or start a video, you can’t change settings or access QuickShots, so you definitely want your phone fully charged.
Not least, because the Mini can fly for a long time. DJI claims up to 30 minutes per charge. I think that’s possible if you fly gently, but around 25 minutes is more realistic in windy conditions, or if you’re tearing around in Sport mode etcetera.
A few more minor nitpicks, and we’ll get to the good stuff, I promise. The first one is that there’s no way to see how much charge the Mini’s batteries have, unless they’re either in the drone or in the multi-charging caddy (which comes with the “Fly more” kit). Most other camera drones have a button on the batteries that will show roughly how much power they have left. Having to put a battery in the drone or the caddy isn’t exactly hard, but if you have a few of them, it’s not ideal.
Secondly, it’s 2019, and everything on the Mavic Mini is still micro-USB. To charge the controller? Micro-USB. Want to connect to the drone itself? You get it. USB-C has been around long enough that it should be the default here. Especially on the battery charging caddy. Using micro-USB just means charging takes longer. (Oh, bonus nitpick: The caddy holds three batteries, but charges them one by one, not in parallel, which seems a little unhelpful.) And lastly, for the first time in a few years, I managed to get the propellers in shot. This used to be a regular problem, until DJI figured out how to keep them out of the camera’s way. It’s only happened once so far, in windy conditions and during a tight turn, but worth remembering that it can happen.
Billy Steele calls these “Beats most impressive set of headphones to date.” With excellent sound, an improved design, hands-free Siri support and solid active noise cancellation, what could go wrong? Unfortunately, getting the tight seal needed was uncomfortable enough that he could only use them for about a half-hour at a time.
Ford has partnered with Webasto on a Mustang Lithium project car (no, it’s not the Mustang-like SUV) for SEMA 2019 that mates a monstrous 900-plus horsepower electric motor with a six-speed, drag-race-ready Getrag transmission.
Like the Porsche Taycan, the Mustang Lithium has an 800-volt battery system that delivers more performance (up to a megawatt of electrical discharge) even as it reduces weight and heat. You can fine-tune the output on a 10.4-inch touchscreen, too, choosing between torque settings that range from a modest “valet” through to “beast.”
In a move that Instagram claims it’s making to improve how users feel, it has been testing taking away the ability to see how many likes posts by other people have gotten. After rolling out the change in several countries around the world, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced that next week, it is going to test the change in the US.
Whether it’s 2005’s Walk The Line or, most recently, Ken Burns’ Country Music, it’s not hard to find a detailed account of the career of the Man in Black. What many of them don’t offer though is Cash’s own perspective on his life — both the highs and the lows. With Emmy-winning director Thom Zimny’s new documentary, we get just that.
The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash debuts for free on YouTube on Monday, November 11th at 12PM ET. YouTube Premium subscribers will get access to bonus footage, which includes discussions of how “Walk The Line” came to be, prison shows and more.
Instead of grabbing separate apps for Word, Excel and Powerpoint (aka the Office Triforce), Microsoft’s new Office app puts them all together. The Office app also makes better use of your phone’s talents, with the ability to take a photo of a document and turn it into an editable Word file on the fly or even do the same with printed-out tables in Excel. It’s available for public testing on Android, while an iOS test group is already full.
But wait, there’s more…
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Still, there’s plenty to enjoy here for both fans and the unfamiliar. Rick Rubin’s account, in particular, is one of my favorite parts of both The Gift and Cash’s decades-spanning career. The singer had basically been discarded by the music industry, and Rubin stepped in to compile an album from Cash’s library of hundreds of songs he’d yet to record.
“It’s his ability to inhabit these songs,” Rubin recalls. “It’s real.”
The pair captured the tracks in Rubin’s living room with just Cash, two mics and a guitar. The result was American Recordings, arguably the artist’s best album. To hear both Cash and Rubin discuss the process will always be fascinating — no matter how many times I watch it. It’s still baffling that the same guy who produced Beastie Boys and Slayer was able to guide Cash to create some of the best work of his life, especially in his later years.
Despite its shortcomings, The Gift is a unique take on the life of a music icon. By allowing Johnny and June Carter Cash to tell their stories themselves, this documentary hits harder in spots than a third-party retelling ever could. It gives you a real glimpse into the hardship, heartache and jubilation that Cash and his family encountered throughout his life. And these stories, just like his songs, have the emotional weight that only the Man in Black himself could conjure.
The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash debuts for free on YouTube on Monday, November 11th at 12PM ET. YouTube Premium subscribers will get access to bonus footage, which includes discussions of how “Walk The Line” came to be, prison shows and more.
#Daimler CEO Källenius: “There will be a zero-emission #EV version of the #MercedesBenz G-Class. In the past there were discussions whether we should eliminate the model, the way I see things now I’d say the last Mercedes to be built will be a G-Class” #AMWKongress#eMobilitypic.twitter.com/tAS6tzpR3Y
As Autoblog notes, any potential “EQG” (following Mercedes’ naming scheme for the EQC) faces the catch 22 of adding an extra large battery to an already-XL-sized SUV, and adding even more weight.
But the company is apparently willing to invest in necessary engineering to make it all work, with Källenius saying “In the past there were discussions whether we should eliminate the model, the way I see things now I’d say the last Mercedes to be built will be a G-Class.” If you can’t wait, then maybe you can pull a Schwarzenegger and have Kreisel custom build an electric G wagon for you right now.
You can also use voice commands for specific requests, such as to launch certain apps (“Launch Hulu”) or to look for shows to binge on (“search for comedies.”) That feature’s only available on select Roku TVs and devices, though. Finally, you can use the Apple Watch app to find the actual Roku remote if, say, it went missing in your couch or if you have no idea where you left it. You can use the app to send a signal to your remote to play a chime, so long as you have a Roku Ultra and one of the Roku TV models with the feature.
In the video, Incite co-founder and new Westworld character Liam Dempsey Sr. goes on about how his company’s “revolutionary strategy engine” can use data to fix everything, while ominously ending on the note that “your only choice, is us.” Not creepy at all.
Other than Jefferson Mays, seen here playing Dempsey, season three will also add Aaron Paul, Scott Mescudi and Lena Waithe to the cast, and based on previous teasers, the action will take place outside of the park this time around.
