Month: July 2016

Winds in the 250mb level of the atmosphere, as seen on June 29. (credit: earth.nullschool.net/modified by Ars)

There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the Earth's climate, from rising seas to droughts and intense heat waves. But amidst these concerns there is the potential for hyperbole, and we saw some of that flare up during the last few days, when two protagonists put forward the idea that the planet's jet streams are spinning out of control.

One of the people making this claim was Paul Beckwith, a self-described "well-known climate science educator," who noted that the jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere has crossed the equator and joined up with the jet stream in the Southern Hemisphere. "Welcome to climate chaos," Beckwith wrote. "We must declare a global climate emergency." He then encouraged readers to donate to his site. Another person, Robert Scribbler, declared that the jet stream was now wrecked. These claims went viral.

It sounds terrible, of course, and we definitely need to be concerned with rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases playing havoc with global atmospheric circulations. But in this case, we can probably view these claims as a bit of hot air.

The WRT54GL. (credit: Linksys)

In a time when consumers routinely replace gadgets with new models after just two or three years, some products stand out for being built to last.

Witness the Linksys WRT54GL, the famous wireless router that came out in 2005 and is still for sale. At first glance, there seems to be little reason to buy the WRT54GL in the year 2016. It uses the 802.11g Wi-Fi standard, which has been surpassed by 802.11n and 802.11ac. It delivers data over the crowded 2.4GHz frequency band and is limited to speeds of 54Mbps. You can buy a new router—for less money—and get the benefit of modern standards, expansion into the 5GHz band, and data rates more than 20 times higher.

Despite all that, people still buy the WRT54GL in large enough numbers that Linksys continues to earn millions of dollars per year selling an 11-year-old product without ever changing its specs or design.

Faraday Future released these images of what a Dragon Racing vehicle might possibly look like in the next series and beyond.

Friday morning, officials from electric car startup Faraday Future and American auto racing team Dragon Racing announced a technical partnership to get Dragon Racing through the next four Formula E race series. The partnership begins with Formula E’s third series, which starts October 9, 2016.

In a press conference in London just before Formula E’s ePrix competition, Dragon Racing Team Owner and Team Principal Jay Penske said his team was looking forward to taking advantage of Faraday Future’s intellectual property. Penske cited the startup’s Los Angeles-based team of more than 1,000 people and its portfolio of more than 320 patents.

Faraday Future has attracted some attention as a potential competitor to Tesla as a from-scratch luxury electric vehicle designer. The company revealed a concept car at Las Vegas’ Consumer Electronics Show this year, but since then it has provided scant news of what an actual production vehicle would look like. The lack of reveals has drawn criticism regarding whether Faraday can actually compete against companies like Tesla, GM, and Nissan that have already been producing road-ready electric vehicles for years.

The Vive with proper branding. (credit: HTC / Ron Amadeo)

HTC has recently announced it is spinning off its VR division into a wholly owned subsidiary called "HTC Vive Tech." The move seems to suggest that VR headsets are now a pillar of HTC and that the company will be a player in the VR market for years to come. While the HTC Vive is a compelling device, and the best VR headset out there, the driving force behind the Vive is co-creator Valve. I think HTC is taking way too much credit for the Vive's creation.

HTC is struggling mightily in the smartphone market and is still good for a 40-percent year-over-year decline in revenue every month. The Vive—a "joint effort" between HTC and Valve—is a rare bright spot in the company's lineup, but I think it's a temporary reprieve. Evidence shows HTC had little to do with the technology behind the Vive. HTC is more like Valve's tool, and while the company is in charge of manufacturing the Vive right now, HTC won't be left with any IP or competitive advantages once Valve is done with it.

"HTC Vive" makes about as much sense as "Foxconn iPhone." The name "Valve Vive" would probably be more appropriate. HTC seems more like the contract manufacturer for the device, building the Vive for Valve the same way Foxconn builds iPhones for Apple. The Vive is a product of Valve research using licensed Valve technology and Valve software in an effort to kickstart Valve's VR ecosystem. The only oddity is that, through a weird quirk of branding, HTC's name ended up on the side of the device.