Mini’s future vision is an urban go-kart, made for sharing

BMW’s stargazing has reached Mini, with the company unveiling its Vision Next 100 model in London. Joining siblings from BMW and Rolls-Royce, the future of Mini is designed to be fun, funky, and shared with strangers. Acknowledging that urban dwellers often don’t need a car all the time, BMW sees the future of Mini as a communal vehicle.

Hopping on the DriveNow bandwagon – BMW’s urban car rental service – the Mini slides into a future where cars drive themselves to you on demand, customise themselves to your requirements, and tootle off again when you’re finished. It’s all about digital, rather than physical, ownership. 

It’s an idealised vision of the future, where cars are rarely seen in cities, as roads are turned into communal gardens lined with open-air bistros, packed with urbanites sipping organic teas. Ok, we’ve ad-libbed that last part, but you get the idea. 

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It’s all about you, and everyone else

This peaceful, sophisticated, car user is firmly in Mini’s sights, with the car able to customise itself based on what you like. The example given by Mini revolves around a favourite artist, perhaps setting the car’s colour hues to reflect that interest. 

Personalisation, then, lies at the heart of this concept of a Mini for sharing. Personalisation that changes for each driver, because the car knows who you are, what you like, what you want and where you’re going. 

The idea is that you walk up to the car, it biometrically recognises who you are, it’s then able to transform to your preferences. The Mini can beam a Hello message onto the pavement on your approach and thanks to a digital skin, can change the graphics on the exterior of the car.

But what’s that about biometrics? When pushed on this aspect, Mini responded that because of the enhanced sensor systems that the Mini will use to enable autonomous driving – both with or without occupants – the car will be able to see and recognise you. It sounds fancy, perhaps a step beyond the necessary, when an app on your phone will do all that for you and provide that link to the car, and already does.

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Reflected Mini design

There’s one problem with offering a car that changes for each different occupant: you’re limited by the physical vehicle. Although Mini showed off some fancy digital graphics (and we all know that the first graphic your typical man will bless the car with will be a phallus), the streets of the future may be awash with silver Minis, an orderly line of sentient urban transporters, lacking the Union Flags or racing stripes that gives the current Mini its character. 

That might be the reason behind the glass front. With an electric powertrain in this autonomous car, there’s nothing to stop you having a front view that’s almost entirely unobstructed. While the wheel arches and roofline reflect those of the current Mini Hatch, the clear front lets you project personality onto the road, again expanding that individuality of your shared car. 

That’s unlikely to happen, however, running counter to the sort of privacy that people like. You’ll be sitting in a city traffic jam, scratching yourself absent-mindedly, in full view of the rest of the world. Or, when you’re zipping along a B road in John Cooper Works driving mode and you hit a low-flying pigeon, you’ll spend the rest of the journey looking at its bloody innards.

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The Cooperizer

With this being a concept, none of that really matters, because the glass front shows off the minimalist interior. With the dashboard reduced to a bar, and controls that you can slide out of the way to the middle of the car if you don’t want to actually drive it, all the attention is on one thing: the Cooperizer.

A system of cylindrical dials sits in the centre of the car, a physical controller to alter, reflected on a larger rounded display sitting proudly like the main speedo in current Mini cars. In the centre of the controller is an “Inspire Me” button, for those who are sitting in their (rented) car, at a loss as to what to do with themselves. 

A poke of the button, and the car’s digital intelligence comes up with an idea, based on everything it knows about you already. In Mini’s idealised future, you’ll be off to a pop-up exhibition or artisan nut seller, but in all likelihood, it will drive you to Nando’s. 

The Cooperizer is an idea, a vague idea, about how you might change the character of the car, switching the colour ambience or the driving mode, but giving you something tangible to link you to the digital world.

Unlike the Rolls-Royce Vision Next 100 model unveiled today, the Mini remains very much about driving yourself. Mini said that the go-kart characteristics of this car are part of its DNA and central to the experience of digitally owning it.

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Much as we’ve questioned some of the practicalities of this vision, we can’t help liking the lines of this Mini. Put a little more privacy on the front, and we’d happily step between those clamshell doors and into the eco-friendly interior. Whether people will actually want to share cars as readily as Mini suggests, we’re not so sure. 

Iconic Impulses: The BMW Group Future Experience

BMW Group unveiled its first Vision Next 100 car in March in celebration of the centenary of the company. The UK is the home of two key BMW brands – Rolls-Royce and Mini – so presents the perfect place for the future vision of these two brands.

BMW’s future experience is presented at the Roundhouse in Camden, London, between 16-26 June 2016 and is open to the public. The exhibition, called Iconic Impulses, is a roadshow that’s showing the future of motoring for the company, across the BMW, Rolls-Royce and Mini brands.

The next stop on the tour is Los Angeles, 11-16 October 2016, where BMW will unveil a fourth and final car – BMW Motorrad.

The Grammys finally embrace the streaming age

Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book was the first streaming-only album to hit the Billboard 200 chart, and now the album will be eligible for the Grammys. The Recording Academy announced today that streaming-only recordings will now be included in the voting for the awards starting next year. This means that one of the year’s most popular hip-hop albums may get even more recognition. As Chance noted in a tweet about the news, it also means that the masses of aspiring artists now have a better shot at winning an award.

With the rule change, the Academy will now take into account “paid subscription, full catalogue, on-demand streaming/limited download platforms.” If the service has existed for at least a year prior to the submission deadline, its streaming exclusives will be considered. That cutoff is September 30th, so anything released after October 1, 2015 and then is eligible for this year’s round of recognition. This news follows a similar move from the RIAA back in February when the association announced that streaming plays would count towards gold and platinum certification.

The victory this morning isn’t about me, it’s about all the Soundcloud albums that may now be recognized for excellence.

— Lil Chano From 79th (@chancetherapper) June 16, 2016

Via: Pitchfork

Source: The Grammys

House votes down privacy measure blocking backdoors

The US House of Representatives voted Thursday to block an amendment that would have prevented the government from stepping in to force weakened encryption and security backdoors. Although Politico reports the provision received increasing support in the House over the past two years, that support has weakened in the wake of the Sunday’s mass shooting in Orlando.

The amendment was part of the fiscal 2017 defense appropriations bill, and actually passed through the House twice in 2014 and 2015, but was removed by the Senate on both occasions. After Sunday’s tragedy, the measure’s opponents pointed to suspected Islamic State sympathizer Omar Mateen’s attack on a gay nightclub to justify giving law enforcement increased spying powers and easier access to private data.

“Sunday’s deadly attack proves once again that the terror threat has not dissipated,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) said during the bill’s debate. “Now is not the time to block a critical investigative tool.”

Law enforcement officials investigating Sunday’s events are trying to determine whether Mateen was in contact with any terrorist groups. Like the shootings in San Bernardino and the subsequent privacy debate, the measure’s detractors say this bill would make it more difficult for law enforcement to search encrypted phones or computers. Those same opponents believe the encryption technology included in the latest phones and messaging apps will prevent the government from obtaining crucial information even in cases where they have a warrant. On the other hand, privacy advocates argued those who voted against the amendment were using “fear tactics” to give law enforcement easier access to private data.

“It’s unfortunate my colleagues would take advantage of that situation,” the measure’s co-author Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) said.

Supporters and privacy advocates point out that the bill simply would prevent the NSA or CIA from requiring companies to alter the products, weaken encryption or leave a backdoor for law enforcement. According to Massie, the amendment “does not take any tools away from those that want to investigate what happened in Orlando.”

CDC outlines how it’ll cope with Zika outbreaks

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published how it plans to tackle the Zika virus in the event of a domestic outbreak. While there are already cases of the virus in the US, these were contracted overseas and brought back by unwitting travelers. The agency believes, however, that certain breeds of mosquitos could spread the condition across the US, should they come into contact with a carrier. The plan outlines five stages of action, starting by simply monitoring mosquito patterns and controlling their populations as well as preparing emergency response teams.

Should a local outbreak be detected, the CDC will swoop in (if required) and assist with all aspects of damage limitation. Experts will help train local medical professionals, offer support for diagnosis and help secure supplies of clean blood. Should the situation worsen and transmission increases, officials will help spray the local area with pesticides and plan for dealing with babies born with microcephaly. Having plans in place to handle outbreaks is all the more valuable now that the CDC has confirmed the occurrence of Zika-linked birth defects in the United States. According to the Washington Post, three women delivered babies with said defects, while three more terminated their pregnancies because the infants suffered Zika-related brain damage.

Hawaii, as well as states in the south and southwest of the continental US are on higher alert as they play host to the largest mosquito populations. If there are no new infections 45 days after the initial call, teams will stand down and go back to a state of preparedness. But, as Stat explains, prevention is better than cure, and residents in certain states are being advised to dump standing water and take other general precautions.

Via: Stat

Source: CDC (.PDF)

Turtle Beach’s glass speaker fires a focused ‘beam’ of audio

Turtle Beach’s HyperSound Glass is one of the most impressive tech demos I’ve seen in years.

The broad pitch used to sell the concept is pretty easy to grasp. With traditional speakers, sound travels out like light from a lamp: It’s directed, for sure, but not focused. HyperSound is more like a flashlight: a concentrated “beam” of sound, which is only fully audible in front of the “speaker,” a piece of glass.

To achieve this trick, HyperSound starts by creating audio in the ultrasound spectrum — sound waves at a higher frequency than the human hearing range. By the time they reach your ears, those waves are entirely audible, of course.

HyperSound tech is already in use in a single product from Turtle Beach, albeit without glass. The HyperSound Clear 500p is designed to help the hard-of-hearing watch television. It’s a pair of ultrasonic speakers that are meant to be positioned directly towards a listener, allowing them to better hear high-frequency audio (i.e., dialog) while others watching the television listen to the regular output of the TV.

The demo had a piece of glass laid over a monitor, connected to a MacBook Pro via a receiver box that does the audio processing. Around six feet in front of the setup was a couch, where I was instructed to sit. From my position, Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean” came through crystal clear. The glass outputs a tinny, but listenable sound — akin to the output of a tweeter, rather than balanced speaker. When I moved to the side of the room, I could still hear the sound, but it was very quiet. My ears were also convinced the sound was coming from the couch: It sounded as though someone had left a cellphone gently playing music on it.

Turtle Beach hopes its Glass prototype will spark a conversation on what can be done with the tech. The company floated a few ideas: the glass on a car dashboard giving the driver — and only the driver — instructions, or something simpler like a TV, smartphone or laptop having the equivalent of an audio privacy mode. For TV watching, which is by the far the most appealing of the concepts to me, you’d need to nestle a mid-range speaker by the listener. The company was very clear that this is a proof of concept for glass-based speakers, and that any commercial product is many years away. But as a tech demo? Wow.

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