Volkswagen Amarok (2016) first drive: A tough toiler in smart trousers
Amarok is the Inuit word for wolf. We don’t speak Inuit, but you can see what Volkswagen is trying to achieve with its surprisingly luxurious pickup.
The canis lupus is a hardy creature, living its life in the wilderness, traversing all sorts of challenging terrain. Yet it remains mysterious, majestic and a damn sight more appealing that the bin-scavenging foxes that keep leaving chicken carcasses all over downtown driveways.
Volkswagen sees its robust pickup trick in the same light: capable enough to tackle the odd mountain, yet stylish enough to draw appreciative glances from passers-by. It doesn’t eat chickens though, only diesel.
VW Amarok review: The beating heart of the beast
The latest edition Amarok has improved on the “everyday usability” front with a new, more powerful engine, revised aerodynamics and suspension for a smoother ride, as well as a more familiar VW cabin – complete with the marque’s touchscreen infotainment system and smartphone tethering capabilities.
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The 2.0-litre TDI unit that powered previous Amarok models was fairly weedy, developing either 138bhp or 178bhp. Customers quite rightly argued that such a mammoth machine deserved a larger engine – and VW listened. The latest generation now comes fitted with a powerful 3.0-litre V6 diesel (borrowed from the Audi Q7) that develops a thumping 220bhp and 550Nm of torque in the range-topping models.
This engine choice is instantly noticeable, with the new Amarok gathering pace at an impressive rate on the road. The 0-62mph sprint takes just 7.9 seconds, despite it weighing about the same as a small cargo ship. That extra torque is also a welcome addition, particularly when towing heavy loads and tackling serious off-road inclines.
Surprisingly, fuel consumption has been improved slightly and CO2 emissions are now down to 199g/km. This is due to some tweakery in the exhaust system, improvements in aerodynamics and the fact that the new V6 engine doesn’t have to strain as much to get this pickup truck moving.
Volkswagen also says that 160bhp and 201bhp versions of the same engine will come later in the year, alongside the option of a manual gearbox, but the 8-speed DSG box is silky smooth and that powerful engine is mightily addictive.
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VW’s engineers claim that despite sharing many parts with the Audi Q7 and the VW Touareg, the Amarok’s engine has been tweaked for added robustness. It has undergone and extra 100,000km of testing for a start, plus it features protective cladding to ensure dust and dirt doesn’t clog up important parts.
Volkswagen Amarok review: The premium pickup
It’s highly likely that you’ll see an Amarok towing a speedboat to the lake rather than hauling hay bales from the farmyard. The Amarok keeps things equally upmarket in its cabin with the latest interior tech: leather and electrically adjustable seats are available, soft-touch plastics festoon the dashboard and the 7-inch touchscreen MIB infotainment system packs in DAB radio, sat nav, CarNet and App Connect systems (supporting Mirror Link, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto).
Exterior design has also been improved; with a sharper front grille and optional bi-xenon headlights giving is a menacing road presence. There’s also the option to add a “sports bar” at the back, which gives it a fastback look, as well as a set of lamps on the roof for the full mud-plugging package.
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It’s a comfortable place to be behind the wheel and feels more like whiling away the hours inside a jacked-up Passat than it does a typical pickup, with only the whistling of wind noise from the large wing mirrors and tyre roar from the huge 20-inch alloy wheels occasionally creeping into the cabin at speed.
Neat touches, such as a rear-view camera and audible sensors make parking the monster much easier – but there are occasions when it becomes clear that this isn’t your typical road-going SUV. For example the suspension can be a bit unruly on scarred Tarmac and the Amarok’s mass reveals itself when a corner is taken a little too hastily. Parallel parking its 5.25m-long body is a challenge in busy areas, too, but that comes part-and-parcel with a vehicle that can shift over a ton of gear in its flatbed.
VW Amarok pickup review: A mountain-climbing maestro
The European-spec launch edition Amarok will come in a neat Aventura trim level, which includes those aforementioned alloy wheels, a matte grey or popping blue paint job and the premium finish interior, which makes it very tempting to bubble wrap the goliath and never take it near a puddle in its life.
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But that would be a crying shame because the Amarok makes a pretty formidable off-road companion, particularly when it is specified with the clever 4Motion all-wheel-drive system (a 4×2 model is available for less demanding tasks) and beefed-up suspension system.
The model we drove came fitted with all of the above, as well as a mechanical differential lock for the rear axle, meaning it was happy tackling some serious articulation without breaking a sweat.
Unlike other off-road rivals, the Amarok appears pretty simple though. There’s no low-range gearbox to mess with, no terrain selection system or computer display wizardry. Instead, there’s simply a button labelled “off-road”, which automatically activates hill descent control (foot off the brake and let the car ease itself down steep declines) and the mechanical diff lock switch if this option is selected.
Expect to tackle 100 per cent inclines, slope angles of up to 45-degrees and water up to half a metre deep, with the clever 4Motion technology deciding where to send power for optimal grip at all times.
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Plus, the added torque from that big V6 means the Amarok will even tow up to 3.5 tons of braked cargo in unfavourable conditions.
First Impressions
The improvements, both in terms of the new engine and the upmarket interior, are welcome additions and the Amarok can now truly claim that it is the only premium pickup truck in the segment to boast a diesel V6 and such a swanky interior.
Nissan’s latest Navara NP300 rival is arguably better on-road, as certain models feature a 5-link independent suspension system (as opposed to archaic leaf spring system found on most pickups) that makes it handle much better on the daily drive. Plus, Toyota’s all-conquering Hilux and Mitsubishi’s latest Outlander would arguably beat the Amarok in a true robustness test.
But that sort of defeats the point. Anyone looking to step out of an estate or premium SUV and into a pickup won’t be disappointed with VW’s latest Amarok, it’s a smart blend of capability with premium touches but it doesn’t come cheap, with an anticipated price of £35,000 with all the bells and whistles.
Sony PS VR Aim gun controller is here to make you feel like you’re carrying the real thing
Now that the Sony PlayStation VR virtual reality headset has a release date of 13 October and price of £350, it’s time to start thinking about gaming with it. To make first person shooters really immersive a new controller called PS VR Aim has been announced.
The PS VR Aim is shaped so the user can hold it like a rifle pulled into the shoulder or fire from the hip. The controller uses a similar system to the Move controllers meaning it will respond to movement in the real world by moving the gun in the game. So if you point the gun to the side it’ll move that way, independently of your head movements. So pulling off badass shots without even looking should now be a gaming possibility.
The Aim controller features a trigger for firing, stick and d-pad for movement and another front trigger.
Virtual reality game developer Impulse Gear has developed the first-person shooter, Farpoint, to work specifically with the Aim controller. The game is set on an alien world where your character has crash-landed and needs to keep moving and exploring to survive. Check out the trailer below to see more.
While the PS VR is available for pre-order now there is no sign of the VR Aim just yet. Presumably this will come in a bundle with the Farpoint game and, hopefully, be compatible with more games in the future.
READ: E3 2016: All the launches, games and consoles at the show
When should I upgrade to iOS 10?
Apple has announced iOS 10 at WWDC bringing with in a multitude of new features ranging from an enhanced lock screen, to a new Home app to control your Homekit devices to even letting you delete the stock Apple apps like Stocks or Compass.
READ: Apple iOS 10 release date and everything you need to know
If you are an iPhone or iPad user you are probably bouncing giddily with excitement over some of the new features, wanting the new toys now rather than waiting until the early half of September.
But how can you get it, when can you get it, and more importantly should you get the new iOS 10 preview? We look at your options.
Getting iOS 10 today
If you want iOS 10 today the good news is you can get it very easily. Go to developer.apple.com, sign up to become a developer, pay £79 for a year’s membership and you’ll get access to the iOS 10 developer preview.
Once you’re an “Apple developer” you’ll need an iPhone or iPad to install it on and you can follow the fairly simple instructions from Apple to get yourself setup. It is not as easy as installing the standard update you’re probably used to, but neither is it rocket science.
Via this route you can be living the iOS 10 dream within the next couple of hours, get access to most of the new features Apple debuted in its keynote at WWDC and brag to your friends and family that you’ve got it and they haven’t. Remember though if you use a Mac you’ll probably have to update MacOS Sierra developer beta too to get the full benefit.
Updates will come thick and fast across the next couple of months, normally every two weeks on a Tuesday, and you’ll see the iOS adapt and change between now and September when iOS is expected to launch.
Because it is a beta preview designed for developers to mess around and break things, elements of the operating system will break, features won’t work, and performance and efficiency, especially at the start, will be sub-optimal.
In previous years we’ve noticed that battery life is the last thing Apple worry about in the developer preview, so if you need your iPhone to last you all day, don’t update to the beta, especially not for the first couple of updates.
Likewise, it is also worth noting that once you move over to the iOS 10 developer preview it is very, very, very hard to move back to iOS 9. Basically you can’t change your mind and within 30 minutes be back to where you were before.
iOS 10 developer preview verdict: Not for the faint hearted, but if you have £79 and a spare iPhone or iPad lying around it is worth a play if you really must “have a go” with the new features.
iOS 10 Public Beta in July
Apple has stated, as it did last year, that there will be a public beta programme for those who want to try iOS 10 before its official launch, but are happy to deal with the odd crash or bug.
In previous years, the iOS Public Beta has been fairly stable from the start and becoming part of the public beta is as easy as signing up with your Apple ID email address.
When the Public Beta goes live (there is one for MacOS Sierra too) you’ll be asked to download the beta on your iPhone or iPad, and the instructions are fairly simple. Certainly easier than with the iOS 10 developer preview.
Like the iOS 10 developer preview there is no turning back, and the updates are less frequent than the developer programme. That could mean that if you find a bug that affects your workflow then you’ll be stuck with it for a number of weeks, perhaps even a month, before you can hopefully fix it.
iOS 10 Public Beta verdict: Worth a play if you’ve got a spare device at home to try it on and, for the very brave, your main iPhone or iPad. The Public Beta is normally fairly stable and if you are happy to deal with the odd glitch it’s a good way to experience iOS 10 before it comes out later in the year.
iOS 10 final release “this Fall”
The safest option of the bunch is to sit and patiently wait for Apple to release iOS 10 to your iPhone or iPad when it is ready. That is after all those braver than you have struggled and got frustrated with bugs and issues, and after everything has settled in terms of development and performance improvements.
This might be the most boring option of the three, but it’s also the safest. You didn’t even know about the new features before WWDC, so what’s a couple of summer months wait anyway?
For most people, this is the best option, even if it means having to wait a little longer for those new features.
If that fills you with sadness and melancholy, then click here to download the new iOS 10 wallpaper so you can at least enjoy one part of the new OS before it’s official launch later in the year. Of course, the update is likely to be announced at the same time as the iPhone 7 launch, adding yet another dilemma for you.
iOS 10 final release verdict: Best option, and the safest one. It’s not exciting, but means you’ll have zero hassle with your iPhone or iPad between now and the final full release of iOS 10.
FIFA 17 preview: The biggest journey of its gaming life
Every year we wonder what tweaks and changes EA Sports will make to its FIFA game and for the last few, they have been minor. The action on the pitch has steadily improved but, bar women’s football, there have been few additions in terms of gameplay modes.
This year is different. A whole new mode has been added and, for the first time in a FIFA game, there’s a story mode.
In The Journey, you take control of Alex Hunter, a young lad who undertakes a rags to riches rise to the top of the footy ladder, and you are steering him along the way. It stars a number of real-life personalities, including Jose Mourinho, but the main action centres on the fictional star.
Electronic Arts
Having played this mode at E3 2016, we have to say it adds a new element to the game. It won’t replace Ultimate Team as everyone’s favourite mode, but there’s something interesting about getting involved with a player’s off-pitch life as well as his destiny on it.
The in-game stuff is similar to previous you are the player modes from former years. You get scored on how much of a contribution you’ve made to the score and action. Outside of games, you are also asked questions on occasion, with your answer determining what kind of person you are judged to be.
Electronic Arts
Hunter’s meteoric rise takes him through Manchester United and, ultimately, England, while the short section available to us at the show dealt with his debut at Old Trafford.
Needless to say that it’s difficult to play one half of a new football game as a single-player that didn’t appear much on screen – and our AI-controlled teammates didn’t really help much, so we didn’t complete any tasks successfully. But there’s a lot of potential in The Journey for one play through, before heading back to Ultimate Team.
We also played a versus match with the new engine and we have to admit that, while the graphics are neater and crisper, thanks to the switch to the Frostbite Engine, it still felt very much like last year’s game.
It must be pointed out though that there wasn’t much time for us to get a real handle on the changes. Free kicks and corners are very different in that you can choose the spot on the pitch you want to aim at for both. Again though, it will take a few more plays to assess whether it works better than the old system.
First Impressions
There’s no doubt that this year’s FIFA will be considered as significantly different to last. Whether that is a good thing remains to be seen – we definitely need to play much more of it to find out.
What we do think so far is that The Journey will at least give you something else to occupy your time with, until the single-player campaign is finished.
With PES 2017 really upping its game this year where it matters, on the pitch, it’s interesting that FIFA’s biggest new feature is more about what goes on behind the scenes. It’s certainly an interesting year for footy games, that’s for sure.
France creates a meteor-tracking camera network
It’s difficult to track where meteors go when showers are both relatively common and rain down loads of space rocks. However, France thinks it has the answer. It recently launched FRIPON, a meteor detection network. The system uses a country-wide camera system (currently 68, scaling up to 100) to track where meteors fly — if two or more cameras spot something, scientists get an alert. Eventually, that camera data will help narrow down likely impact areas (as small as 1 kilometer, or 0.6 miles) and send thousands of volunteers out to recover meteorites.
This could dramatically increase the number of meteorites found in France. Ideally, it’ll find a meteorite every year — no mean feat when an equivalent Spanish network only found two of them in 12 years. However, FRIPON’s linked cameras and small army of searchers might be just enough to give it an edge.
Via: Nature, Scientific American
Source: FRIPON
Travelex’s Supercard lets Brits spend money abroad without fees
Back in April 2015, foreign exchange company Travelex attempted to change the way Britons spend money abroad with the launch of the Supercard. Operating as a pre-paid Visa card that didn’t need topping up, the prototype allowed a limited number users to connect up to five debit or credit cards and pay for items without incurring a exchange fee from their bank.
Users travelled the world during the pilot, spending over £1 million in distant lands before it closed on June 7th. After a brief period of downtime, Travelex has returned with a new version of its payment card, which is now available to everyone in the UK from today.
The new Supercard is essentially the same as the old Supercard, but with one big difference. Travelex has swapped providers, choosing Mastercard to set its exchange rate. The reason for this, Travelex says, is that the Mastercard rate was better 82.5 percent of the time than Visa’s offering across 45 currencies.
It still means there are no application, registration or payment fees and you’ll be able to monitor your spending via the companion apps, which are available on both iOS and Android. You can also register your new Supercard via these apps, which is then sent via post. As soon as it arrives, add your existing debit and credit cards and you’re ready for fee-free spending abroad.
To make some money, Travelex does impose a 3 percent charge on ATM withdrawals made abroad. Also, if you use it in the UK, you will be charged £1 plus one percent of the transaction value. The Supercard is designed to be used abroad, so this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
Source: Supercard
Everything we saw at Sony’s E3 2016 event
Sony revealed the PS VR’s launch date in North America and served up game after game at E3 2016 with barely any pauses in between. We saw trailers and sample gameplay of the new God of War, Insomniac’s take on Spider-Man, Hideo Kojima’s mysterious creation Death Stranding (featuring a naked Norman Reedus), the remastered version of Crash Bandicoot and about a two-second-view of Persona 5. Sony also previewed its upcoming virtual reality titles, including Resident Evil 7 and Batman. We’ve gathered (almost) everything the company revealed this year right here — just browse the gallery below to watch all the trailers and to get a quick look of what you can expect for the PS4 and the PS VR.
Follow all the news from E3 2016 here!
Vodafone enters flagship territory with the Smart Platinum 7
When mobile providers make own-brand devices, they stick to a pretty strict set of unwritten principles. While many customers will want the best that Apple, Samsung, HTC and other big names have to offer, homegrown handsets are for everyone else. They typically represent an agreeable balance between performance and cost, sometimes hitting the sweet spot, and sometimes not. After a couple of recent, somewhat disappointing releases, Vodafone has thrown the rulebook out the window with the new Smart Platinum 7: A network flagship with many of the bells and whistles you’d expect from a major manufacturer’s top-end device.
Vodafone’s certainly not messing about, with what’s effectively a reskinned Alcatel Idol 4S. For starters, we’re looking at 5.5-inch, Wide Quad HD AMOLED display (2,560 x 1,440) wrapped in an attractive blend of “aircraft-grade” aluminium and glass. No polycarbonate unibody here, and by using quality materials while keeping the weight at a comfortable 155g, it’s by far the most premium own-brand handset I’ve seen from a UK carrier. In fact, it has something of a Samsung Galaxy vibe about it, without approaching shameless, carbon copy territory.
The Platinum 7’s octa-core Snapdragon 652 chip (four 1.8GHz and four 1.2GHz cores) is paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. Only 22 gigs of that is available out of the box, but a microSD slot supporting cards of up to 128GB makes that shortfall a non-issue. You’ve also got a 16-megapixel main camera to work with — there’s a dedicated shutter button on the device’s edge, too — and an 8MP front-facer for selfies and the like.
A Cat 6 LTE radio (which Vodafone calls 4G+) and the latest Android Marshmallow build (6.0.1) — which is basically stock apart from a couple of preinstalled, Voda-branded apps — round out the rest of the key specs. Where the Platinum 7 really stands out, though, is in the value-added features. The front-facing camera has a small, dedicated flash, for example, and the 3,000mAh battery supports quick charging that’ll take you from 0-50 percent in half an hour.
The Smart Platinum 7 sports front-facing stereo speakers, and tucked away on the back you’ll find a small fingerprint sensor, too. But if you needed any further proof of its flagship status, the device comes with a free, virtual reality headset dock, similar to Samsung’s Gear VR.
These trimmings obviously come at a price, though, and the Smart Platinum 7 launches next Monday, June 20th, for £300 on pay-as-you-go. That might seem pretty steep, but considering Huawei’s P9 is £85 more at Vodafone, there’s definitely space for it in the roster. The own-brand device will also be available for free on contracts from £28 per month (unlimited minutes/texts and 1GB of data), easily making it, on paper, the network’s most attractive option in and around that price range.
Source: Vodafone
Dark matter might be made of black holes
So just what is dark matter made of? Astronomer Alexander Kashlinsky of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland thinks the mysterious cosmic stuff could be made of black holes that formed soon after the Big Bang.
Gravitational waves were first observed last September by the ground-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), which scientists believed came from the collision of two black holes. But another astronomer saw that the ripples in space-time were much smaller than expected from mature black holes, and he theorized that they were made by primordial black holes (PBH) merging just after the dawn of the universe.
Kashlinsky took the idea a step further and proposed in a recent paper that dark matter, which has been undefined, could be made of PBHs. This hypothesis lines up with Kashlinsky’s previous observations of the universe’s excessive infrared glow in 2005 and x-ray emanations in 2013.
If he’s right, it could change our models for the origins of the universe. For the first 500 million years of its existence, Space.com explains, dark matter clumped up into halos that formed the gravitational seeds allowing matter to accumulate into stars and galaxies. That explains the infrared glow Kashlinsky saw years ago, but PBHs converting into dark matter would explain the x-rays.
The next great step will be confirming whether the gravitational waves measured by LIGO are from primordial black holes merging in the primordial period or more recently. But that task will likely fall to Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), an observer craft built to measure gravitational waves in the isolation of space, which has far less interference than the ground-based LIGO. LISA recently moved into its final position at the gravity-neutral first Lagrangian point and may soon start measuring gravitational waves.
Via: Space.com
Source: Astrophysical Journal Letters
ICYMI: Trees rest their branches at night
Today on In Case You Missed It: There’s no doubt you’ll be well-acquainted with everything that happened with LinkedIn, Apple and XBox, so today’s show will look just a little different. I focused the show on just one story to get a little more into the details on a study out of Europe that tracked how trees relax their branches at nighttime.
We also threw in the video of the first child-sized exoskeleton suit, just because. As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
AIVAnet 