2016 Dodge Challenger R/T Scat Pack review – Roadshow
The Good The car has just enough power to make you feel like a badass. The nostalgia value is high with this one.
The Bad No Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.
The Bottom Line Starting at $37,995, the 2016 Challenger R/T Scat Pack provides an excellent value for muscle-car enthusiasts.
I’ve always said the Dodge Challenger is the only big car that would make me cheat on my own little Miata, but that claim has been based on emotion. I’d never actually driven one, just admired them from afar.
That, my friends, has finally changed.
Emme Hall/Roadshow
I slipped behind the wheel of the 2016 Challenger Scat Pack at an old airstrip. Too impatient to worry about launch control, I slammed my foot on the skinny pedal on the right and held on to the wheel for dear life. The 6.4-liter V8 engine produced a glorious noise as the eight-speed automatic transmission blipped through the gears, and suddenly I was approaching the end of the runway at 140 mph.
Yowza.
It’s been great to see the muscle car wars of the 1970s heat up in the new millennium. Ford, Dodge and Chevrolet have been pulling out all the stops, trying to turn their high-horsepower drag strip kings into machines that can also conquer the twisties.
Emme Hall/Roadshow
At 485 horsepower and 475 pound-feet of torque, the Challenger Scat Pack lies below the crazy-pants 707-horsepower Challenger Hellcat. But the Hellcat starts at $64,195, and good luck finding one at that price as dealer markups have been a bit out of control. The Challenger R/T Scat Pack starts at a much more reasonable $37,995 and gets a cool drag-racing bumblebee badge.
Frankly, I was surprised at the relative nimbleness of the Challenger. At 4,200 pounds, it’s a relatively heavy beast, but it handles better than I expected. My test model arrived with the optional 20-inch forged-aluminum wheels, wrapped in 245/45Z all-season performance tires. It would be interesting to see how the Challenger would perform with some good Michelin Pilot Super Sport or Pirelli P Zero summer tires.
On rougher roads, the Challenger’s ride quality suffers from its stiff Bilstein suspension. It’s fine for daily driving, but I found myself avoiding broken pavement when I could.
Power goes to the rear wheels through an eight-speed automatic transmission, a $1,400 option over the standard six-speed manual. Although I always prefer the manual option, this ZF automatic shifts quickly on its own or lets you blip the paddle shifters in manual mode. In the Challenger, it enables cylinder deactivation, giving the car EPA fuel economy of 15 mpg city and 25 mpg highway, up to 2 mpg better than the manual.
Apple Watch Series 2 Nike+ review – CNET
The Good A bright display, onboard GPS and waterproof to 50 meters. Integration with Nike+ Run Club. Comfortable strap and comes with two exclusive Nike watch faces.
The Bad GPS battery life is short. No altimeter for measuring elevation. Workout data can’t be exported to other services. Lacks always-on display.
The Bottom Line If you’re a loyal Nike user, this is the Apple Watch to get, but it’s really just an Apple Watch Series 2 with a few minor changes. There are cheaper alternatives for pure fitness and run tracking.
If you’re ready to run and want an Apple Watch, you should know there’s a Nike edition available this year. Do you care? Should you care? Well, no, not unless you’re addicted to Nike+, the shoemaker’s fitness tracking system.
The Apple Watch Nike+ Edition isn’t all that different from the Apple Watch Series 2. It’s the same size and weight, and it can be used to make phone calls (when your iPhone is connected) and run apps. It also features the same ultra bright display, dual-core processor, GPS and swim-proof design as the Series 2.
The difference is the integration with the Nike+ Run Club app. You also get an exclusive silicone two-tone strap and two exclusive Nike watch faces. Essentially, this is the same Apple Watch we already like — you can read our full review on the Apple Watch Series 2 here.
I’ve logged more than 100 miles testing both the Series 2 and Nike+ Edition over the past few weeks. Both watches get the job done, but unless you’re set on a full-blown smartwatch, there are arguably better and cheaper alternatives to consider for running and overall fitness tracking.
What’s different?
The Apple Watch Series 2 and Nike+ Edition both start at $369, £369 or AU$529, but that’s for the smaller 38 mm model. Most people will likely opt for the larger 42 mm model, which will cost you $30, £30 or AU$50 extra. Here’s everything the Nike+ model can do over the Series 2:
- The Nike+ Run Club app comes preloaded on the watch and works with exclusive Siri commands, such as asking her to start a run. The app also offers daily motivation through run and weather reminders — exclusive to the Nike+ Edition — and will show when a friend has ran more miles than you.
- The watch comes with a lightweight, breathable (i.e. it has holes in it) two-tone silicone strap that’s exclusive to the Nike+ model. Color options include black and silver bands with accents in either gray, white or yellow-green (a shade Apple calls “Volt”).
- It also has two exclusive Nike watch faces (a digital one and an analog one) that can be personalized to show activity data and heart rate, or provide quick access to the Nike+ Run Club and weather apps.
View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET
Features
The Apple Watch is waterproof up to 50 meters (164 feet), has GPS, an optical heart-rate sensor, all-day fitness tracking and can run dozens of third-party apps. There’s also 8GB of storage, 2GB of which can be used for music storage (about 500 songs). When connected to your iPhone, it can be used to make calls, respond to messages and view incoming notifications from apps such as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.
View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET
Running features vary from app to app. I used both the default Apple workout app and the Nike+ Run Club app, which includes auto pause and auto lap, and will display pace, distance, elapsed time and beats per minute. That’s all most people will want (and need), but given the high price I was expecting the Apple Watch to do a little more. The Garmin Forerunner 35 offers all of these features, can display notifications from your phone, and includes structured interval workouts and information on specific heart rate zones — all for half the price.
Sony MDR-XB50BS review – CNET
The Good The Sony MDR-XB50BS is affordably priced, sweat-resistant, sounds decent and fits well (it’s easy to get a tight seal). Battery life is good at 8.5 hours and the headphone has strong bass performance.
The Bad Not the greatest-looking wireless sports headphone; performed only OK as a headset; no protective case.
The Bottom Line It’s got some small downsides, but the reasonably priced Sony MDR-XB50BS is a step up in sound from a lot of inexpensive wireless sports headphones.
Sony’s new MDR-XB50BS Extra Bass Sports Wireless in-ear headphone is worth considering for a few reasons: Not only is it relatively inexpensive at around $60 online (£60 or AU$130), but just as importantly it fits well and sounds good, particularly if you listen to bass-heavy music.
A bit clunky-looking, it isn’t the smallest in-ear wireless headphone, with a footprint around the size of the Beats Powerbeats3 Wireless (which is, in turn, three times more expensive). However, it’s fairly lightweight, and fit me better than the Powerbeats3, though the Powerbeats3′ ear hooks are beneficial in keeping the earphones on your ears.
The MDR-XB50BS comes with a few different size fins and eartips, and I was able to get a nice tight seal with the large size of both, and that seal was crucial for maximizing bass performance. This is a noise-isolating headphone and it does passively muffle ambient noise pretty well, so you won’t be able to hear traffic while you’re running if you’re playing your music even at moderate volume levels.
The headphones come with three different sizes of eartips and sport fins.
Sarah Tew/CNET
Speaking of running with these earphones: While I got a snug fit and the headphones stayed in my ears just fine walking around New York City and while lifting weights at the gym, I did notice a little bit of slippage when I ran with them. For me anyway, the fin wasn’t locked in my ear quite as well as I thought it was. To be clear, everybody’s ears are shaped differently, and these may lock very well in your ears. But I’m just passing along my experience, which left me with some doubts about whether they’d be the perfect fit for runners.
Battery life is rated at 8.5 hours, which is decent, and the headphone is water-resistant but not waterproof. I can’t say they seem like the sturdiest headphones in the world, but they do only cost $60.
HP Spectre x360 (late 2016) review – CNET
The Good The new HP Spectre x360 is a durable, stylish and light machine with a comfortable keyboard, touchpad, long battery life and a crisp backflipping touchscreen. Extras include excellent speakers, USB-C charging and Windows Hello face login.
The Bad Only one full-size USB port. No HDMI output or SD card slot. The fan is noisy and spins up frequently. The size tradeoff doesn’t justify the missing features.
The Bottom Line The new HP Spectre x360 is an excellent laptop with a lot to offer in a small package, but it’s only incrementally better than the previous model, and leaves out some useful features.
If your laptop could be thinner, lighter and smaller with the same great battery life and performance, would you celebrate? Or complain about all the missing ports?
That’s not a rhetorical question, it’s the deciding factor when you consider the latest version of the HP Spectre x360.
Earlier this year, I called the 13-inch Spectre x360 one of my favorite laptops, because it didn’t force me to compromise. It offered powerful processors, long battery life, a beautiful backflipping hybrid screen, a relatively thin aluminum frame plus enough ports to plug in two monitors, a mouse, keyboard, a USB thumb drive and my camera’s SD card simultaneously.
View full gallery
The HP Spectre x360 has slimmed down.
Josh Miller/CNET
Starting at $1,049 or AU$2,299 (UK availability TBD) the new, slightly revamped version of the HP Spectre x360 is just as good in almost every way — but it’s missing a lot of those ports. Like Apple with its new MacBook Pro, HP chose thinness over utility.
HP Spectre x360 (late 2016)
| $1,099 in the US, AU$2,299 in Australia |
| 13.3-inch 1,920×1,080 touch-display |
| 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-7500U |
| 16GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,866MHz |
| 128MB dedicated Intel HD Graphics 620 |
| 512GB SSD |
| 802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.2 |
| Windows 10 Home (64-bit) |
Personally, I’d buy last year’s laptop. The same point goes for last year’s MacBook Pro if you need HDMI or USB-A ports. But I’m not you. Here’s what you need to know about HP’s new Spectre to make the right call.
Black Friday 2016 Deals
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Google, other tech giants outline ways to improve IoT security
Google, Intel, Microsoft, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and a handful of other tech industry giants joined former FCC Chief Technologist Dale Hatfield to form the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group in 2010, in an attempt to develop a set of best practices for broadband management and security. Today, BITAG laid out its recommendations for a rapidly growing industry within the world of online communication: the Internet of Things.
Connected home devices occupy the wild west in terms of security and privacy practices; there’s little to no regulation in terms of the software that powers smart homes. BITAG says some IoT devices have security vulnerabilities relating to outdated software, unauthenticated and unencrypted communications, data leaks, malware, and service interruptions.
This isn’t just speculation: IoT devices enabled two widely publicized DDoS attacks in October, one that took out the internet across the United States and another that disabled the website of security researcher Brian Krebs. The Krebs attack infiltrated an estimated 145,000 IoT devices, mainly security cameras and DVRs.
BITAG recommends a handful of security standards for IoT devices, including timely, automated and secure software updates, password protection, and increased testing of customization options. The group also suggests implementing encryption best practices, plus the ability for these devices, particularly home alarm systems, to function if internet connectivity or the cloud fails. BITAG even wants to establish an industry cybersecurity program that includes a seal for certified “secure” devices.
BITAG doesn’t have any actionable power to enforce these recommendations, but its report can influence regulatory discussions in the future.
Source: BITAG
‘Rocket League’ + Steam Workshop = more crazy stadiums
As cool as playing a game of soccer (football to the rest of the world) with cars in a rapturous undersea arena is, sometimes you want to go somewhere even the development team couldn’t dream up. Good news then, because Steam Workshop support is en route for Rocket League.
Uploading custom creations sounds simple enough for anyone familiar with Workshop, but developer Psyonix stresses that preview images should be “sharp, accurate” representations of what you’ve designed. A Workshop section is being added to the game’s Steam Community Hub, and any levels you “subscribe” to will automatically populate the Extras section of the main menu.
If you’ve had the perfect stadium in mind for awhile and wanted to show it off for the biggest audience possible, this forthcoming update could be your chance to shine.
Source: Psyonix
Twitter cracks down on developers making surveillance tools
If it wasn’t already clear that Twitter wants to keep police and spies out of your tweets, it is now. Twitter is warning developers that it won’t let them use public programming kits or Gnip data for surveillance reasons, whether the clients are law enforcement or anyone else. Just because many tweets are public doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to harvest them, Twitter says. To that end, it’s promising “expanded” efforts to crack down on developers who use the data for surveillance reasons. Get caught and you’ll either have limited access or lose it entirely.
To Twitter, the reasoning is simple: the company is devoted to “social justice,” and that’s not possible when officials are using these public data sets to track protesters, scoop up people’s names and otherwise curb freedom of expression.
The policy and resulting crackdown isn’t going to stop authorities from collecting information through other means, whether it’s old-fashioned searching or formal requests. However, it’ll at least make the process harder. Agencies will have to really want that information to get it, and can’t just gather it en masse with a simple program.
Via: Daily Dot
Source: Twitter Blog
iPhone Generated Record-Breaking Profits Last Quarter Despite Continued Sales Decline
iPhone sales may have declined for three consecutive quarters, but the latest data from research firm Strategy Analytics suggests Apple is unsurprisingly still doing exceptionally well in the smartphone market.
Apple captured a record 91% of profits in the worldwide smartphone market in the third quarter, or $8.5 billion of the overall $9 billion in profits recorded by all vendors combined, according to Strategy Analytics.
Apple’s biggest competitor Samsung was nowhere to be found on the list, as Chinese smartphone makers Huawei, Vivo, and OPPO took the second, third, and fourth spots respectively with between 2.2% and 2.4% of profits.
“Apple’s ability to maximize pricing and minimize production cost is hugely impressive and the iPhone continues to generate monster profits,” said Linda Sui, Director at Strategy Analytics. “Huawei, Vivo and OPPO are the next three most profitable smartphone vendors globally this quarter, but they are still a long way behind Apple.”
Apple’s profit margin is impressive given no other smartphone maker generated more than $200 million in profits during the quarter, according to Strategy Analytics. Apple’s share of profits was some 40× larger than its closest competitor.
iPhone sales declined on a year-over-year basis in the second, third, and fourth quarters of the 2016 fiscal year, after rising only marginally during the first quarter, which makes Apple’s record-breaking smartphone profits even more impressive.
BMO Capital Markets analyst Tim Long previously estimated Apple captured 103.6% of smartphone industry profits in the third quarter. The reason for the discrepancy between the datasets remains unclear.
Tag: Strategy Analytics
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