German court says cities can ban diesel cars

Germany has already made its commitment to cleaner vehicles clear by calling for a ban on combustion engine cars starting by 2030. Now, in a landmark ruling, a top court says cities have the right to ban diesel motors in an effort to improve air quality. The decision will potentially affect 12 million cars on Germany’s roads.

Campaigners, such as Jürgen Resch of environmental group Deutsche Umwelthilfe, have called the ruling “a great day for clean air in Germany.” Experts believe high levels of nitrogen oxide (NOx), which frequently exceeds the EU threshold of 40 micrograms of NOx per cubic meter, causes between 6,000 and 13,000 deaths every year in the country,

The decision isn’t being celebrated by everyone, though, as critics believe the rules will cause uncertainty for drivers and impact Germany’s car market — the largest in Europe. However, the government says there will be no immediate changes, and that it’s considering a compensation scheme for those affected. It also stressed that the ruling was intended as guidance for individual cities. “It’s really not about the entire country and all car owners,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The country has consistently led the charge on both car technology and sustainability, so if anywhere could successfully enforce policy like this it’s Germany. The longer-term impact of this ruling won’t be clear until more details on the legislation emerge, but it could set a strong precedent. With other countries already considering their existing vehicle policies, it might not be too long before they follow suit with similar decisive action.

Via: dw.com

‘Wreck-it Ralph 2’ runs the gamut of online culture

The teaser trailer for Ralph Breaks the Internet, the sequel to Wreck-It Ralph dropped today. In this second movie, Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) and his friend Vanellope von Schweetz (voiced by Sarah Silverman) head out into the expansive world of the internet. And, if the title of the movie is any indication, they wreak some real havoc along the way. Disney will release Ralph Breaks the Internet in theaters on November 21st.

The trailer features Ralph and Vanellope participating in different aspects of internet culture, from clickbait to eBay. It even ends on a nod to mobile gaming that is a little too real. This sequel also features the voice of Taraji P. Henson, and it reunites the original director (Rich Moore), producer (Clark Spencer) and co-writers (Phil Johnston and Pamela Ribon).

Apple Maps Transit Directions Now Available in Columbia, Charleston, and Greenville Areas of South Carolina

Apple Maps has been updated with transit data in Columbia, Charleston, and Greenville, enabling navigation and directions with public transportation in South Carolina’s three largest metropolitan areas.

By selecting the Transit tab in Apple Maps on iPhone, iPad, or Mac, users can now access bus routes from The COMET in Columbia, CARTA in Charleston, and Greenlink Transit in Greenville. These local bus routes complement existing support for Amtrak train service in South Carolina added to Apple Maps in late 2016.

When the Apple Maps transit feature launched in 2015, it was limited to Baltimore, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto, and around 300 cities in China. Since then, Apple has expanded the feature to dozens of additional cities around the world.

Google Maps has also supported navigation via public transportation for several years now, including in Columbia, Charleston, and Greenville. One advantage of Apple Maps is that it lists departure times for bus routes in each city, whereas Google Maps doesn’t have timetables available in every location.

In related news, Apple Maps lane guidance on iPhone and CarPlay recently expanded to Austria, South Africa, and Switzerland, in addition to existing support in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

(Thanks, Ram!)

Tags: Apple Maps, transit
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Watch ASUS’ Zenfone 5Z launch in under 9 minutes!

When you’re going up against serious mobile heavyweights, carving out a little bit of MWC for yourself can be tough. Maybe that’s why ASUS held its Zenfone 5/5Z launch on the second day of the show (and that’s not counting the pre-event press days). Either way, company CEO Jerry Shen was more than happy to enjoy his time on stage and tell us all about what’s new with Zenfone. Catch up on the whole affair right here.

Catch up on the latest news from MWC 2018 right here.

Woz was scammed out of Bitcoins now worth over $70,000

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has demonstrated the issue of bitcoin fraud by falling victim to an old school internet scam. Speaking at The Economic Times of India’s global business summit this week, he said that someone bought seven bitcoins from him using a credit card, but canceled the card after the bitcoin was transferred, so the payment failed to process. And of course the card was stolen, so there was no way to retrieve his lost assets. He bought when the cryptocurrency was priced at $700, but the loss would be worth the equivalent of $71,400 today.

“The blockchain identifies who has bitcoins … that doesn’t mean there can’t be fraud, though,” he said, highlighting the issue that banks in both the US and UK have been focusing on in recent times. Earlier this month Lloyds Banking Group, like several others, banned its customers from buying bitcoin with credit cards, in a bid to offer some protection in a landscape that remains largely ungoverned.

Governments are becoming more mindful of the issues involved with bitcoin fraud, though. South Korea, for example, has limited cryptocurrency trading to real-name bank accounts, while UK Prime Minister Teresa May said the government is taking fraud in cryptocurrencies “very seriously”. However, many would argue that meaningful action is not being taken quickly enough — if tech legend Steve Wozniak can fall prey to this kind of fraud, anyone can.

Via: Coindesk

Apple Watch Series 3 Can Now Track Skiing and Snowboarding Activity

Apple has announced that skiers and snowboarders can use Apple Watch Series 3 to track their activities starting today.

Apple Watch apps snoww, Slopes, Squaw Alpine, Snocru, and Ski Tracks have each been updated to take advantage of custom workout APIs released in watchOS 4.2 that enable tracking of specialized metrics:

• Total vertical descent and horizontal distance
• Number of runs
• Average and maximum speeds
• Total time spent
• Calories burned

While not all of this information is available in the Activity or Workout apps at this time, some of the apps do have integrations. Ski Tracks, for example, features 17 different snow workouts that can earn credit towards Activity rings, while Snocru contributes active calorie measurements to the Activity app.

The ski and snowboard tracking is limited to Apple Watch Series 3 models, which are the only ones with a built-in altimeter to track elevation. TechCrunch’s Katie Roof shared a closer look at some of the updated apps, which are now available on the App Store and require watchOS 4.2 or later.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 4Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)
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Apple Transfers Chinese Users’ iCloud Data to State-Run Servers in China

Today marks the official transfer of Apple’s Chinese iCloud services from a hosting location in the United States to servers owned and operated by state-run Chinese company Guizhou-Cloud Big Data (GCBD) (via CNN). With the move, all Chinese users’ iCloud accounts will now be hosted on GCBD’s servers, along with the iCloud encryption keys needed to unlock an iCloud account.

Apple made the transfer to comply with the latest laws enacted in China regarding regulations on cloud services, requiring foreign firms to store data within the country. At the time of the original announcement, Apple said, “While we advocated against iCloud being subject to these laws, we were ultimately unsuccessful.”

Still, Apple remains adamant about its users’ privacy:

“Apple has not created nor were we requested to create any backdoors and Apple will continue to retain control over the encryption keys to iCloud data,” the Apple spokesman said.

“As with other countries, we will respond to legal requests for data that we have in our possession for individual users, never bulk data,” he added.

The company decided to obey the new law in China, instead of outright discontinuing iCloud services in the country and causing a “bad user experience and less data security and privacy” for its Chinese customers. Now, starting today, any iCloud accounts on a device with location settings set to China will have their accounts switched to host GCBD, which is owned by the Guizhou provincial government in southern China.

Because of the move, the Chinese government will be able use its own legal system to ask Apple for its users’ iCloud data, whereas before the government had to go through the U.S. legal system. This has been the focus of controversy regarding the move, with human rights and digital security advocates questioning whether Apple will be able to maintain and protect its customers’ privacy under the new Chinese laws.

“The changes being made to iCloud are the latest indication that China’s repressive legal environment is making it difficult for Apple to uphold its commitments to user privacy and security,” Amnesty International warned in a statement Tuesday.

Speaking to CNN, Ronald Deibert, an expert on human rights and global digital security from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, said that Apple customers in China will need to take “extra and possibly inconvenient precautions not to store sensitive data on Apple’s iCloud.” Apple has noted that users can terminate their iCloud account if they don’t want their data stored by GCBD, but a company spokesperson said that “more than 99.9 percent” of iCloud users in China have decided to continue using the service.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tag: China
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Watch the world’s largest plane hit 46 mph in latest taxi tests

While Stratolaunch didn’t meet its original 2016 launch goal, the company has been putting its massive plane through one test after another over the past year. During its most recent tests, the 500,000-pound aircraft with a 385-foot wingspan has successfully reached a top taxi speed of 46 mph. It still hasn’t taken to skies, but that’s a huge improvement over the 28 mph it hit during the first taxi tests the space transportation company conducted in December.

According to Stratolaunch chief Paul Allen, his team has also verified that they can steer and stop the aircraft — another success, since the tests’ purpose is actually to certify that operators can control the largest plane in the world. The company hasn’t revealed what other tests will need to be conducted before its new target launch date in 2020 and whether reaching 46 mph on the ground means we’ll see it fly soon. But the hope is that once development is finished and it’s been thoroughly tested, Stratolaunch will serve an affordable way to ferry small satellites to Low Earth Orbit.

The plane will do so by attaching the payload and its launch vehicle companion to its belly. It will then fly into the stratosphere before letting the vehicle go, so it can make its way to space. Stratolaunch shares a similar two-fuselage combination with Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne, which Richard Branson’s Virgin Group is also developing for satellite launches. It’s much, much bigger than LauncherOne that can only carry up to 500 pounds of payload, though, and will be able to carry as much as 500,000 pounds.

Captured new video of @Stratolaunch plane as it reached a top taxi speed of 40 knots (46 mph) with all flight surfaces in place on Sunday. The team verified control responses, building on the first taxi tests conducted in December. pic.twitter.com/OcH1ZkxZRA

— Paul Allen (@PaulGAllen) February 26, 2018

Source: Paul Allen (Twitter), Stratolaunch

Intel’s PC concept ‘hides’ a 5G antenna in a plump kickstand

MWC 2018 has been gripped with 5G fever, even more intensely than in years past. Intel has gone all out for the show this year, with display upon display of 5G demos dominating its booth. One of the new proofs of concept from the chip maker is a detachable PC streaming a 4K video over a test 5G connection using an early modem. Intel also announced a partnership with Dell, Lenovo, HP and Microsoft to bring 5G-connected PCs with XMM 8000 series modems to market in the second half of 2019.

The unnamed concept 2-in-1 is a preview of what those PCs might be capable of, in terms of connection speeds. Intel is not going to sell hardware like this directly to consumers. At the booth, the convertible streamed Wonder Woman on loop, and company reps told Engadget that the demo was hitting 4 to 5 Gbps rates.

That’s impressive if true (we had no real way of measuring), but remember that the conditions were ideal. The 28GHz spectrum that the PC was tapping for the demo is dedicated to the stream, and thus not congested. Intel also placed the base station for the network about four or five feet directly above the device, leaving little room for interference to affect the stream.

One of the biggest challenges in implementing the millimeter wave communication that’s crucial to 5G is signal interference. Line of sight, meaning the path between the transmitter and receiver, is necessary to transport data. One of the ways Intel is catering for this is by embedding its early 5G modem in the concept PC’s kickstand that flaps out of the device, which it believes should minimize obstruction of incoming signals. To be clear, on this concept device, the kickstand is much larger than we’ve seen on commercially available convertibles, and might become smaller in eventual products.

Since this isn’t a device that you’re ever going to be able to (or want to) buy, there’s no real point in telling you how the display looked or the keyboard felt. What’s interesting is, Intel’s rep told me that the device can last between 3 and 4 hours when streaming the 4K video over 5G. We don’t have any other benchmark to compare that with just yet, and actual PCs may ship with differently sized batteries, but that’s long enough to watch an entire blockbuster, and even a couple of credits scenes.

We’re just a year and a half away from these devices launching, and hopefully by then, 5G networks will have become a widespread reality. Until then, we can only wait for a world without buffer delays.

Catch up on the latest news from MWC 2018 right here.

One of the UK’s largest electronics retailers is broke

Many years ago, Maplin was the place to go if you needed a VGA to Scart cable, a weird battery or a new charger for your Samsung flip phone before there were industry standards for that kind of thing. It’s the UK equivalent of RadioShack, and the only well-known highstreet chain still selling obscure electronics. Next to aisles of every cable and converter you could imagine, you’ll often find random delights such as a smoke machines and soldering stations. In more recent years, Maplin started stocking products with a broader appeal, like Nest thermostats, Amazon Fire TV sticks and Google Home speakers. It even launched a smart home consultation service late last year, but the change in tack hasn’t rescued the retailer from going broke.

Maplin’s CEO today announced the company has gone into administration after failing to find a buyer to inject cash into the beleaguered business. For a number of years, Maplin’s books have been several millions in the red and late last year its credit insurance was withdrawn, meaning it could no longer issue IOUs and had to start paying for new stock upfront. Maplin blames the tough times on the falling value of the pound since the Brexit vote and “a weak consumer environment.” The problem Maplin’s always had is it’s the place you go for once-in-a-lifetime purchases: That cable to connect your old speakers to your new smart TV. It’s never shaken the image of being a specialist retailer addressing niche needs.

Maplin’s become less relevant as tech has evolved to be wireless, plug-and-play, and generally more consumer-friendly. What’s more, the internet exists. If your pet rabbit has chewed through your HDMI cable, you can get another delivered the next day from Amazon or eBay for a pittance. Bricks and mortar retailers everywhere are struggling with the same competitive pressure. In the UK, HMV and Game have both gone into administration over the past six years and come out the other side with a much reduced highstreet footprint; because people don’t tend to go out of their way to buy CDs and games consoles for higher prices than can be found online.

RadioShack, the closest thing the US has to Maplin, was in similar financial trouble a few years ago and declared bankruptcy. And last summer, it had to file for bankruptcy yet again after failing to turn things around. The one thing Maplin has going for it is a sizable highstreet presence. The company has more than 200 stores across the UK, and while Maplin’s 2,500 staff may not all survive the fallout, there’s still value in the name. It’s unlikely, however, that Maplin will be able to reverse its fortunes by continuing to appeal to mostly a specialist audience.

Source: PwC