Month: March 2018

Bollinger Motors

It has become a trope to compare every new electric vehicle (EV) startup to Tesla. I know I'm guilty of doing so, but it's hard not to; for all its troubles with Model 3 mass production, you can't deny Tesla's achievements. Bollinger Motors is almost entirely unlike Tesla. There's no masterplan to ramp up to half-a-million units a year. No one is working on self-driving software or sensors. Its vehicle, a refreshingly utilitarian-looking thing called the B1, doesn't even have a touchscreen. But it may be the coolest EV in development, particularly if you're someone who prefers function over form.

The company is the brainchild of Robert Bollinger, who ended up in the fortunate position of being able to indulge his childhood passion—in this case building a car. Given a childhood drawing sports cars, it's therefore a little surprising that the B1 intends to remake the truck.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

SAN FRANCISCO—Going into the Game Developers Conference this week, you could foresee some of the hot topics that would be consuming the world’s largest gathering of game makers: stuff like real-time raytraced graphics, fantastical blockchain-based business schemes, and how to design games for augmented reality. But another surprising issue has overtaken many of the discussions in the Moscone Center hallways this week: that of unionization.

Labor organizing isn’t a new idea in the game industry—the first time I personally wrote about the issue was in Electronic Gaming Monthly more than a decade ago. There seems to be more momentum for the idea among the grassroots developers on hand at the conference this year, though, thanks in large part to an organized movement called Game Workers Unite. The organization, which isn’t a union itself, formed over private Facebook groups and Discord chats in recent weeks and has practically blanketed the Moscone Center with brochures and zines encouraging developers to band together against exploitative working conditions, uncertain project-based job security, and excessive, life-consuming crunch time.

“We are currently forming an anonymous and horizontal organization of people dedicated to advocating for workers' rights and the crafting of a unionized games industry,” GWU writes on its website. “We represent all workers in game development and we seek to increase the visibility of our cause through community building, sharing resources, and direct action. We seek to bring hope to and empower those suffering in this industry.”

Enlarge / Huawei Mate 10 Pro, one of the phones that won't be sold by US carriers. (credit: Valentina Palladino)

Here's another nail in the coffin for Huawei's US expansion plans: Best Buy will reportedly stop selling Huawei products over "the next few weeks," according to a new report from CNet. Best Buy is the latest major retail partner to dump Huawei's products after the US Senate and House Intelligence committees targeted Huawei smartphones over spying concerns earlier this year.

Huawei was poised to make a big break into the US market this year via deals it had lined up with AT&T and Verizon. Once the Intelligence Committee caught wind of Huawei's plans, it started contacting Huawei's partners and pressuring them to cut ties with the company. Despite the ubiquity of Chinese products in the US marketplace, the committee feels Huawei is a little too connected to the Chinese government, which it says raises "concerns regarding Huawei and Chinese espionage." Huawei's potential for spying has long been a concern of the US government, but those concerns mostly revolved around the company's networking gear.

Best Buy is the latest distributer to walk away from Huawei, and, with all the carriers jumping ship, it was also the last major brick-and-mortar location where consumers could actually see a Huawei phone in person. The only places to buy Huawei phones in the US now are Internet retailers like Amazon and Newegg.

Enlarge (credit: Ferrari)

In 2016, US-based Liberty Media bought the commercial rights to that most spendy of motor sports, Formula 1. In doing so, it promised to bring the 21st century to a racing series that, when it came to fan engagement, might as well have been trapped in 1995.

One of those changes has been a desire to offer a streaming service for fans, but, with the season-opening race taking place March 25—this Sunday—the service is conspicuous by its absence. The launch of F1 TV Pro, which would have cost around $8 to $12 for a race weekend, is now on hold.

Until this year, the lack of a streaming service was mostly down to a combination of apathy and contracts. Bernie Ecclestone, who ran the sport for decades, got there by buying up the broadcast rights to each race, eventually packaging them all together in a move that made him extremely wealthy and changed the sport into the polished, glossy, elitist thing it is today. And there was a time when Ecclestone even embraced progress. In the late 1990s, he launched a pay-per-view channel called F1 Digital+, which didn't take ad breaks and offered multiple video and audio feeds.