Month: March 2018

Enlarge / Traffic passes along the A453 dual carriageway against the backdrop of Uniper SE's coal-fired power station in Ratcliffe-on-Soar, UK, on Tuesday, September 13, 2016. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images (credit: Getty Images)

Britain's Communities Secretary rejected plans for a new Northumberland open-pit coal mine, citing climate change concerns. The rejection was the first of its kind to rest on climate change concerns in the United Kingdom. The country has committed to phasing out coal use at power plants by 2025.

Member of Parliament Sajid Javid overturned the recommendation of the UK planning inspector as well as the Northumberland county council's approval last week, according to the Financial Times. The project would have been completed before 2025 and would have employed about 100 people. Still, the mine would have been situated near Druridge Bay and would have destroyed landscape and heritage assets, in addition to contributing to climate change.

The Guardian posted a detailed memo (PDF) from the Communities Ministry explaining that Javid "concludes that overall the scheme would have an adverse effect on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change of very substantial significance, which he gives very considerable weight in the planning balance."

Enlarge / Traffic passes along the A453 dual carriageway against the backdrop of Uniper SE's coal-fired power station in Ratcliffe-on-Soar, UK, on Tuesday, September 13, 2016. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images (credit: Getty Images)

Britain's Communities Secretary rejected plans for a new Northumberland open-pit coal mine, citing climate change concerns. The rejection was the first of its kind to rest on climate change concerns in the United Kingdom. The country has committed to phasing out coal use at power plants by 2025.

Member of Parliament Sajid Javid overturned the recommendation of the UK planning inspector as well as the Northumberland county council's approval last week, according to the Financial Times. The project would have been completed before 2025 and would have employed about 100 people. Still, the mine would have been situated near Druridge Bay and would have destroyed landscape and heritage assets, in addition to contributing to climate change.

The Guardian posted a detailed memo (PDF) from the Communities Ministry explaining that Javid "concludes that overall the scheme would have an adverse effect on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change of very substantial significance, which he gives very considerable weight in the planning balance."

Enlarge / Facebook has some hardware on the market already through Oculus, but its reported smart speakers would be a deeper dive. (credit: Oculus)

Facebook is delaying plans to unveil its long-rumored smart speaker in the wake of the ongoing public outcry over the company's data collection policies, according to a new Bloomberg report.

Reports from Digitimes and Bloomberg last year said that Facebook is working on a large-touchscreen smart home speaker designed for video chatting, similar to Amazon's Echo Show, as well as a standalone speaker akin to the Google Home and Echo, which would sell for a lower price.

The former will reportedly include a wide-angle lens that can recognize users' faces and associate them with Facebook accounts. Both devices are said to use a new voice assistant. A January report from Cheddar said that the video chat device would be named "Portal" and that it could be priced at $499. Work on the devices is said to be led by Facebook's Building 8 team, a group within the social media giant that focuses on consumer hardware.

Enlarge / Facebook has some hardware on the market already through Oculus, but its reported smart speakers would be a deeper dive. (credit: Oculus)

Facebook is delaying plans to unveil its long-rumored smart speaker in the wake of the ongoing public outcry over the company's data collection policies, according to a new Bloomberg report.

Reports from Digitimes and Bloomberg last year said that Facebook is working on a large-touchscreen smart home speaker designed for video chatting, similar to Amazon's Echo Show, as well as a standalone speaker akin to the Google Home and Echo, which would sell for a lower price.

The former will reportedly include a wide-angle lens that can recognize users' faces and associate them with Facebook accounts. Both devices are said to use a new voice assistant. A January report from Cheddar said that the video chat device would be named "Portal" and that it could be priced at $499. Work on the devices is said to be led by Facebook's Building 8 team, a group within the social media giant that focuses on consumer hardware.

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Last week, when discussing the HTC Vive Pro's sky-high, $799 headset-only price, we noticed a bit of an oddity surrounding the pricing of the tracking base stations and controllers needed to go along with the system. Picking up two of each accessory at HTC's retail pricing would run about $530, or $30 more than a $500 original Vive bundle which also includes the same accessories.

Someone at HTC seems to have noticed the same oddity, because the company is now offering a "Pro Headset Accessory Starter Kit" for the slightly reduced price of about $450 ($450.47, to be exact), down about $80 from the a la carte price. As noted by UploadVR, the accessory pack doesn't currently show up for purchase on the Vive's main accessory store page, but it does appear as an additional option after the Vive Pro is added to your online shopping cart.

The deal lowers the "starter" price for a Vive Pro experience to about $1,250, not including the high-end computer needed to power the setup. But the new price doesn't change the fact that, for about $50 more, you can buy a Vive Pro and an original Vive, getting two headsets and one set of needed accessories for very nearly the same price (as if that wasn't enough, the original Vive comes with a copy of Fallout 4 VR to boot).