Formula E’s New York City race is set for Brooklyn next year

We already knew Forumla E was planning to race in New York City and now we have more details about the event. The all-electric race series announced during a press conference today that the final race of the 2016-2017 season, the New York City ePrix, will take place in the area around Pier 11 and the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook. The two-day event is currently scheduled for July 29-30, 2017 with a 1.21-mile course that winds around the terminal’s parking lot with two straightaways that run down the side of Pier 11.

If you happen to live in the area don’t fret, no public streets are being used for the race. The 13-turn race course does include views of Lower Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty and Governor’s Island along the way, so there should be some scenery for spectators to enjoy. This won’t be the first time Formula E has raced in the US. Previous events were held in both Miami and Long Beach, California. However, it will be “the first FIA-sanctioned open-wheel race to take place within the five boroughs of New York City in modern history,” according to Formula E. The upcoming season kicks off October 9th in Hong Kong with 13 total races scheduled to take place in Africa, Asia, Europe and both North and South America.

Source: Formula E

Volkswagen investors sue for another $9 billion in damages

It’s been exactly one year since news of Volkswagen’s emissions testing scandal broke wide, and the lawsuits keep on coming. Already on the hook for $14.7 billion in one of the largest class-action settlements in US history, another 1,400 of VW’s investors are now suing the company for grand total of $9.1 billion (8.2 billion euros) in damages.

As Reuters reports today, the automaker had to bring in extra staff just to process all of the paperwork, which was filed in a regional court in Braunschweig, Germany near the Volkswagen headquarters in Wolfsburg. Over half of those lawsuits arrived on Monday, reportedly because VW shareholders believed September 18th was the deadline to file.

The majority of the plaintiffs claim that Volkswagen didn’t act fast enough to alert shareholders to the fact that its software was cheating the emissions testing system. Earlier this month a veteran Volkswagen engineer pled guilty in a US federal court to charges of conspiring to defraud American consumers and regulatory agencies.

The biggest of the new shareholder lawsuits amounts to about $3.6 billion (3.3 billion euros) and was filed on behalf of the big-money institutional investors. Also named among the plaintiffs were a number of German state pension funds, which took a hit when VW stock tanked a year ago. Volkswagen has already set aside more then $18 billion to cover the US settlement and the cost of buyback and retrofit programs, but analysts believe that figure will continue to rise as more lawsuits and regulatory penalties trickle in. Looking a little further down the road, however, the company is still banking on an ambitious lineup of electric vehicles to help steer it back on track.

Source: Reuters

Gawker Media has been renamed ‘Gizmodo Media Group’

It’s been about a month since Gawker.com shut down, and now the last traces of the site’s heritage have been effectively erased. Parent company Univision, which purchased Gawker Media’s assets after it filed for bankruptcy (thanks to Hulk Hogan and retaliatory lawsuit aficionado Peter Thiel) just named Raju Narisetti as new CEO of Gizmodo Media Group. There’s not a word to been seen here of Gawker’s heritage, and with the flagship site on ice, there’s nothing left for the Gawker brand.

Renaming the group as Gizmodo Media Group makes sense, as Gizmodo was the first blog that founder Nick Denton created under what would become the Gawker Media Group. Still it’s undoubtably the end of an era for a site that was notorious for both stirring up trouble as well as doing some undeniably excellent reporting.

What’ll ultimately happen to Gawker’s years of content remains to be seen. The site is still live, but with no word from Univision as to what’ll happen to it, it wouldn’t surprise us if it was purged from the internet entirely at some point. First, though, Univision will likely have to get to the bottom of the Gawker / Hogan lawsuit before it can remove Gawker from the internet entirely.

Source: Univision

Adidas shows off the first shoe made at its robot factory

Last last year, Adidas began rolling out its plans for Speedfactory, a set of robot-staffed manufacturing facilities located in Germany and, soon, the US. Today, the sportswear giant revealed the first silhouette developed through this new project, known as Futurecraft M.F.G. It’s a sleek running shoe that features Adidas’ trademark Primeknit upper and Boost midsole, similar to what you see on popular models like Kanye West’s Yeezy 350s.

While there is some human assistance during the assembly process, as shown in the video below, the majority of the crafting is done by the machines. What’s more, the design itself relies heavily on data from ARAMIS, a motion capture technology that maps an individual’s skin, bone and muscle to create a more comfortable shoe.

Adidas says the M.F.G. (aka “Made for Germany”) is only the beginning, with more products expected to come over the next few months. The company has been pushing the envelope with its Futurecraft line recently, which also includes sneakers made partially with 3D-printed materials.

Don’t hold your breath if you want a pair of Futurecraft M.F.G., though, since only 500 pairs will be available for an undisclosed price.

Best MicroSD Card For Android

Behold: The best tiny cards for storing your stuff.

microSD cards, where they’re supported, are a great way to add extra storage to an Android phone or tablet. You can easily offload photos, videos and music to the external card, thus freeing up valuable internal space for apps. And certain Android 6.0 and above phones even let you plug in a microSD and use it to directly boost your storage for all things — including apps.

But the microSD standard has been around for longer than Android, and not all cards are equal. So we’ve rounded up the best out there.

Best top-tier

Samsung EVO+ 256GB

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Samsung’s very-highest-of-the-high-end microSD card isn’t cheap. In fact, it’s the priciest on this list. But you’re also getting a winning combination of performance and storage capacity, with 90MB/sec write speeds and 95MB/sec reads, and an enormous 256GB of space.

That’s more than you’ll never need in a smartphone, and the high read/write speeds will help if you’re shooting lots of 4K video on a high-end phone like the Galaxy S7 (as too will that enormous capacity.) Better still, it’s water, temperature, X-ray and magnetic proof, so you needn’t worry about it getting damaged while you’re out and about.

Best value – capacity

PNY Elite 128GB

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If you want a nice high storage capacity without breaking the bank, PNY’s UHS-I 128GB card is a good option — $34.89 gets you a staggering amount of storage, and with pretty fast read speeds to boot — up to 85MB/s. It’s about the lowest price we’ve seen for a 128GB card, and a great way to free up a ton of space on your phone or tablet.

What’s more, you can pay an extra $10 at checkout and get an OTG reader thrown in too.

Best value – speed

Lexar Professional 1000x 32GB UHS-II/U3

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If speed is more important — for example, if you’re using Android’s Adoptable Storage feature to keep apps on your SD card — you might want to give this Lexar card a shot. It uses UHS-II flash memory and boasts read speeds of up to 150MB/sec. The capacity isn’t the greatest, but if you’re up for paying $14 more you can double your capacity to 64GB.

The Lexar card also comes with a USB reader for plugging into your PC.

Best Balanced

SanDisk Extreme PRO 64GB UHS-I/U3

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This SanDisk card won’t break the bank at a little under $45, but offers a great balance of speed and capacity. 64GB should be enough for most people’s photo, video and offline music needs, while the card’s speed rating offers up to 90MB/sec writes and 95MB/sec reads.

The card also comes with a full-sized SD adapter, for plugging into a laptop or camera.

Break the spell with these Beauty and the Beast wallpapers

Beauty and the Beast is one of the greatest animated movies of all time (don’t worry, Ariel, you’re still #1 in my heart!). 2016 marks the 25th anniversary if its release, which Disney has celebrated by releasing a special edition on Blu-ray, DVD, and for the first time, digital! After you go grab it from Google Play and sing along, bring some of that magic to your home screen with these beautiful wallpapers!

The enchanted rose is one of the most iconic symbols in Disney, and the subject of no small number of works. While this one does have black bars at the top and bottom, it’s too beautiful a work to deny (besides, that’s why we can zoom in wallpapers). The glow off the bell jar, the petals scattering, the magic dripping down from above… makes a girl go weak at the knees.

The Enchanted Rose by Tigermint

“I want adventure in the great wide somewhere! I want it more than I can tell!”

If this line never called to you as a kid or an adult, then you can get out. Belle was a strong, intelligent, woman who stood up for herself and those important to her, but the trait I most loved in her was that desire to be more, to find more, to escape her comfortable little corner of the world for something more exciting. This bright wallpaper also has a lot of clear sky above our dreaming princess with plenty of space for icons.

This Provicial Life by alicexz

Belle’s dress has been beautifully portrayed in so many styles and lights, but this soft, fuzzy piece gives a beautiful simplicity and grace to it, and to the princess wearing it. The cobwebs playing over the frame and the soft lighting throughout the work make it a wallpaper that works exceedingly well.

Also, can I steal that dress? No? Fine….

The West Wing by Elf-in-mirror

The magic of the Beast’s transformation is breathtaking, but it’s merely a taste of the magic to come. See, the spell may have been broken by Belle admitting that she loved him, but the spell on the castle and the enchanted objects wasn’t broken until Belle acknowledged and accepted her prince in his ‘new’ form. Kisses have broken spells many a time in Disney fantasies, but none are so literally magical as the one shared by Belle and Prince Adam.

It’s you by YoriNarpati

Gaston is an amazing musical number for kids and adults alike, but it gains new levels of brilliance and bluster as an adult as you start to get the subversive tones of the song. Gaston is basically the manliest of men to ever grace a Disney film, and that gutsy glory is now on display at the Magic Kingdom, where Gaston has his own larger than life statue in the fountain outside his tavern. It’s a beautiful fountain and a beautiful dark image by Disney Parks Blog, and as always, Pierrot le Fou is right by his side… or in this case, under his side.

Gaston

Slap a Pebble Time to your wrist for just $90 right now!

Right now you can pick up a Pebble Time smartwatch for just $90 at Amazon, a savings of $60 from its regular price. If you aren’t a fan of the current Android Wear watches and still want something to deliver notifications to your wrist, this is worth checking out. The Pebble Time is the first smartwatch from the company that offers a color display and its new Timeline OS. Pebble has also introduced a number of activity tracking and health functions in the watch, making it part fitness tracker part smartwatch.

If you are looking for a new wrist gadget, be sure to check this $60 savings out. Which color will you buy? Let us know in the comments!

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Samsung going to great lengths to force return of recalled Note 7s

Samsung is taking unprecedented steps to convince customers to return recalled Galaxy Note 7s.

“Most Canadians are extremely supportive of how we’ve handled things,” says Paul Brannen, COO and Executive Vice President of Samsung Canada, in a Toronto board room.

He’s talking with reporters in 15-minute sessions, hoping to quickly cut to the essential truth of the issue: Samsung Canada has handled the Galaxy Note 7 recall better than any other region. He conveys this without saying it, noting that Samsung has managed the return of 70% of the nearly 22,000 outstanding devices, and already has the inventory to replace that number and more with phones containing updated, safe battery cells.

Samsung and its carrier partners plan to issue a software update to all Note 7 units that will make it very clear which devices are safe for use.

The number is certainly smaller than the one million-plus that needed to be corralled in the U.S., but Brannen is emphatic that his team took the appropriate steps between the stop-sell order on September 2, the publishing of a recall replacement form on September 6, and the official Health Canada recall on September 13, to earn the support and trust of the Canadian public.

“We’ve had a lot of long nights, and not a lot of sleep,” he says, referring to a so-called “Tiger Team” of lawyers, public relations, and logistics personnel convened to ensure that the recall process was implemented in the correct order.

Now, after just under two weeks into the replacement cycle, Samsung Canada and its carrier partners plan to issue a software update to all Note 7 units that will make it very clear which devices are safe for use, and which still need to be returned. As we’ve already heard from other regions, including the U.S., Note 7 units with certified safe battery cells will have a green battery indicator in the notification shade, along with a new green battery icon in the phone’s power menu.

The update, which will be issued on September 21, will roll out simultaneously to all carriers, and will not be optional: users will be reminded to install it every three hours until it is applied. After installing, the remaining 6,600 or so Note 7 users stubbornly holding onto their old devices will see warnings and reminders to return the phone to Samsung Canada every time they start up or shut down.

“The goal is to have 100% of the affected devices replaced,” says Brannen, “and these steps are the way to ensure that happens.” That Canada was the first to ship replacement units to customers, and has the lowest number of complaints of all the regions that were selling the Note 7 before it was recalled is a bright spot in this largely negative experience, but Brannen assures me that the Note brand, and Samsung’s long-term health, are salvageable.

“We’ve had very few people [get a refund] and say they don’t want the device anymore,” he says. Even fewer have exchanged their Note 7 units for Galaxy S7 models, which is an option for those who don’t want to wait. “Note users are probably the most loyal customers there are,” says Brannen.

It’s unclear whether the recall will negatively affect the long-term perception of Samsung as a trustworthy company

Some analysts dispute the notion that most Note 7 users are deciding to wait for replacements. While Canadian carriers had new stock within a week of the recall, early reports out of the U.S. suggest that the Note 7 recall was a boon to early iPhone 7 Plus sales, though without Apple releasing any first-weekend sales numbers this year it’s difficult to know for sure.

It’s also unclear whether the recall will negatively affect the long-term perception of Samsung as a trustworthy company; a number of airlines, which have banned the use of the Note 7 based on orders from the FAA and Transport Canada, were mistakenly calling for the shut down of all Galaxy-branded devices prior to liftoff, though Brannen assures me that such occurrences were rare, and have since been corrected.

More: How to exchange your recalled Galaxy Note 7 in Canada

“Many people laughed at us when we came out with the [original] Note,” he continues. “Now people upgrade to a new model every year.” While Brannen only speaks for the Canadian market, his comments are similar to those of Tim Baxter, President and COO of Samsung America, who soberly addressed affected Note 7 owners in a video last week. “At Samsung, our highest priority is our customers,” said Baxter. “With battery defects in some of our Note 7 phones, we did not meet the standard of excellence that you expect and deserve. For that, we apologize.”

Indeed, the Canadian market is well ahead of its U.S. counterpart in acquiring and replacing Note 7 units, but their messages are the same: customer safety is the number one priority, so if you haven’t done so already, shut down your phone and return it.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7

• Galaxy Note 7 recall: Everything you need to know
• Samsung Galaxy Note 7 review
• The latest Galaxy Note 7 news!
• Here are all four Note 7 colors
• Complete Galaxy Note 7 specs
• Join the Note 7 discussion in the forums!

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