Month: September 2017

Enlarge / James Dyson at the "James Dyson Award 2007" ceremony in Berlin. (Photo by Franziska Krug/Getty Images) (credit: Franziska Krug | Getty Images)

To most people, the name Dyson conjures up images of vacuum cleaners and those powerful air dryers in public restrooms. Soon, you might be able to add "electric cars" to that list. In an e-mail to his staff, James Dyson revealed that the company has started work on a battery electric vehicle. According to the message, the project is expected to cost at least $2.7 billion (£2 billion), and, if all goes to plan, the EV should be launched in 2020.

James Dyson just announced to @Dyson employees that we’ve begun work on a battery electric vehicle, due to launch in 2020. pic.twitter.com/yUZNvIsYIi

— Dyson (@Dyson) September 26, 2017

The EV project is already 400-strong—that number includes some veterans of Aston Martin, Tesla, and BMW—and is "recruiting aggressively." As Autocar notes, last year Dyson received a $21.4 million (£16 million) grant from the UK government. That is part of an ongoing strategy to provide funding to many of the country's small-volume manufacturers and suppliers. Morgan, that most traditional of car makers, is one such recipient, as is another sports car outfit, Ariel.

The BBC reports that half of the $2.7 billion investment will go toward developing the batteries for the EV, with the rest spent on the vehicle itself. Nor should we expect something cheap and cheerful, as Dyson is targeting the "tech end" of the market. According to Bloomberg, the car will use solid-state batteries, not lithium-ion. Recently, VW Group also committed to developing solid-state batteries for EVs.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Yagi Studio)

The Federal Communications Commission today declared that there is "effective competition" in the United States' mobile wireless market, a finding that could influence how the FCC regulates wireless carriers and whether it approves mergers such as a possible combination of T-Mobile USA and Sprint.

The FCC is required to report annually on the state of wireless competition, but during each year of the Obama administration it declined to make a finding on whether the market benefits from effective competition. The FCC had declared the market competitive during George W. Bush's presidency and is now returning to that finding with Republicans once again controlling the White House and the FCC.

The change, adopted in a 3-2 vote, comes as T-Mobile and Sprint are reportedly deep into merger talks. It wouldn't be the first time that two of the four major nationwide carriers tried to consolidate.

Enlarge / Say hello to an actual, honest to goodness Ataribox. Or, at least, a prototype. But, hey, at least it's not just a 3D render. (credit: Atari)

The trademark and license borg that currently calls itself Atari continues to push ahead with an "Ataribox" project, and, after being teased in July, the device has begun to take shape. Fans and press alike may have expected a low-priced, retro-gaming living room device—since they're all the rage and since this thing looks like a tiny, restyled Atari 2600—but Tuesday's news suggests something a little more ambitious.

The spec sheet, as announced, is still pretty vague, but Atari has confirmed a few notable things, starting with a price point between $250 and $300. In exchange for costing roughly as much as a Nintendo Switch, Xbox One S, or PlayStation 4, the Ataribox will come packed with an "AMD customized processor with Radeon graphics technology." Additionally, this will not be an Android system. Instead, the Ataribox will run Linux "with a customized, easy-to-use user interface."

Enlarge (credit: Aurich / Getty)

Earlier this year we wrote about Project Quantum, Mozilla's work to modernize Firefox and rebuild it to handle the needs of the modern Web.

Today, that work takes a big step towards the mainstream with the release of the new Firefox 57 developer edition. The old Firefox developer edition was based on the alpha-quality Aurora channel, which was two versions ahead of the stable version. In April, Mozilla scrapped the Aurora channel, and the developer edition moved to being based on the beta channel. The developer edition is used by a few hundred thousand users each month and is for the most part identical to the beta, except it has a different theme by default—a dark theme instead of the normal light one—and changes a few default settings in ways that developers tend to prefer.

That theme is a good place to start. The new user interface, named Photon, brings with it square tabs and a much more conventional main menu. The current curvy tabs were met with outrage on their introduction in 2014, so the reversion to square tabs will, frankly, probably be met with outrage, but the look is clean and precise. There's also a new new tab page that adds recommended stories to the usual list of your most-visited sites.

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Apparently, it's totally OK to take to Twitter and declare that you're going to attack an entire country or assassinate its leader. According to Twitter, that's true if you're US President Donald Trump, even if the tweets are a violation of the micro-blogging platform's terms of service.

Ever since Trump took office in January, the Internet has been wondering how San Francisco-based Twitter could allow the Tweeting President to routinely violate "The Twitter Rules." The latest came when Trump labeled North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un a "Little Rocket Man" in reference to the North's nuclear ambitions.

Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017

Facing criticism that Twitter's most popular tweeter had gone too far, again, Twitter responded. It said the president's tweet didn't come down, or that the president hasn't been disappeared from Twitter, because his tweets are newsworthy. Twitter said it is now unveiling a long-held "internal policy," and that it would "soon update our public-facing rules to reflect it."