Month: September 2017

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we're back with a slew of new deals to share. Today you can get $200 or $300 off a Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8+ smartphone plus a bonus Gear VR headset when you participate in Samsung's trade-in program. You can also get the new Note 8 for as low as $629.99.

Check out the rest of the deals below, too.

Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

Enlarge / The iPhone X’s screen fully covers the front of the device—almost. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Apple christened the Steve Jobs Theater on its new campus in Cupertino, California, yesterday with a slew of product announcements. While iPhones took center-stage at the event, other devices under the Apple umbrella weren't left behind. Here's everything you need to know about the newest additions to the Apple product family.

iPhones

• The iPhone X, pronounced "iPhone Ten," is Apple's $1,000 anniversary device with an edge-to-edge OLED display, facial recognition, and no Home button.
• Check out our iPhone X hands-on by senior reviews editor Samuel Axon to see the high-end device in better detail.
• The iPhone X was the showstopper, but Apple announced the new iPhone 8 and 8 Plus that are more akin to last year's iPhone 7 models.
• AirPower is Apple's new wireless charging technology that works with the iPhone X and the iPhone 8 models, but it's not available yet.

Apple Watch

Enlarge (credit: Comcast)

Comcast on Tuesday said that it has started integrating YouTube into its X1 set-top boxes across the US. The two companies first announced the partnership this past February.

Much like the deal Comcast struck with Netflix last year, the move will see the YouTube app sit in the X1’s home screen, allowing subscribers to put the popular video service on their TV without switching to a third-party device like a Roku or Apple TV.

Comcast says it will also plant a handful of YouTube videos in its on-demand video section as well. Clips in the “Music” section of the on-demand menu, for instance, might feature music videos from the YouTube app.

Enlarge / Destroyed power lines hang above a road on September 12, 2017, two days after Hurricane Irma swept through the area. Power outages played a big role in Internet, TV, and phone disruptions. (credit: Getty Images | Spencer Platt )

More than 7 million subscribers to cable or wireline telecom services have lost service due to Hurricane Irma.

"There are at least 7,184,909 (down from 7,597,945 yesterday) subscribers out of service in the affected areas in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia," the Federal Communications Commission reported Tuesday in its latest storm update. These are subscribers to Internet, TV, or phone service or some combination of the three.

In addition to those 7 million, many subscribers in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands lost service. "Since there are widespread power outages in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, the FCC has received reports that large percentages of consumers are without either cable services or wireline service. Companies are actively working to restoring service," the FCC said.

Enlarge / From the Department of Energy: "This photo shows the construction phase of a 16.5 MW DC solar farm built in Oxford, MA. This 130-acre property was previously known as the largest piggery in Massachusetts." (credit: Lucas Faria/ US Department of Energy)

On Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that utility-grade solar panels have hit cost targets set for 2020, three years ahead of schedule. Those targets reflect around $1 per watt and 6¢ per kilowatt-hour in Kansas City, the department’s mid-range yardstick for solar panel cost per unit of energy produced (New York is considered the high-cost end, and Phoenix, Arizona, which has much more sunlight than most other major cities in the country, reflects the low-cost end).

Those prices don’t include an Investment Tax Credit (ITC), which makes solar panels even cheaper. The Energy Department said that the cost per watt was assessed in terms of total installed system costs for developers. That means the number is based on "the sales price paid to the installer; therefore, it includes profit in the cost of the hardware," according to a department presentation (PDF).

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), a DOE-funded lab that assesses solar panel cost, wrote that, compared to the first quarter in 2016, the first quarter in 2017 saw a 29-percent decline in installed cost for utility-scale solar, which was attributed to lower photovoltaic module and inverter prices, better panel efficiency, and reduced labor costs. Despite the plummeting costs for utility-scale solar, costs for commercial and residential solar panels have not fallen quite as quickly—just 15 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

(credit: Vicki Burton)

A new study out this week suggested that both sitting a lot overall and sitting for long, uninterrupted stretches can increase a person’s risk of all-cause mortality.

The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, adds to evidence that sedentary lifestyles can increase health risks. However, the study aimed to push the conversation forward, not just look at how much time people spend sitting each day and what that does to health. The researchers also tried teasing apart patterns of sitting. The authors, led by researchers at Columbia University, hoped to address more nuanced questions, such as: if you have to sit all day for work, can you reduce your health risks by getting up every 30 minutes? Or, if you’re generally active, are there still health risks from a 10-hour Netflix binge each week?

The questions are good ones. Based on the study’s vast media coverage, health-conscious Americans are leaping for answers and specifics on the risks of our sedentary, modern lives.

Enlarge / The Honda Urban EV is a charming-looking thing. (credit: Honda)

The theme at this year's Frankfurt Auto Show was definitely electric. Just about everyone had a new electric vehicle concept on show. And there were electrification roadmaps galore. The only thing that was missing was the here and now, and the holdup has me irked. You see, disclaimers were everywhere. The EVs on display are mostly stalking horses for production cars, but none of them is ready for sale today. Those plans to electrify entire model ranges? 2030 appears to be the date by which you'll be able to get an electric version of any car you want—subject to fine print.

Mainstream OEMs are properly beginning to grapple with the idea of a life without the internal combustion engine, and I quite like some of the directions they're going. Honda gave us possibly my favorite-looking car of the show, the Urban EV. It's a small city car with proportions that call back to the Z600 and other Honda hatchbacks of the 1970s but looks that suggest Syd Mead by way of Pixar. Wonderful design details abound, although I doubt either the stubby side-view cameras or external charge indicator will make it to production. But a production version is coming—provided you can wait another two years and live in Europe.

Mercedes-Benz, too, had a small electric concept. The EQA is the three-pointed star's idea of a sporty compact, a little smaller than the current GLA crossover. Bigger than the Urban EV, it was also designed to show its emotions. Switch the car into Sport Plus mode and the black panel at the front changes the virtual grille, replacing the blue design with a red digital facsimile of the "Panamericana" radiator used on its sports cars of new and old. Whether one wants the entire world to know what driving mode they're using must be immaterial—at least we can be glad that the blue underlighting only illuminates when stationary.