Month: April 2018

Enlarge / Put these on your face. (credit: Daydream)

Google has temporarily cut the price of its latest Daydream View virtual reality headset in half, bringing the device from $99 to $49.

The deal is available through Google's own online store as well as various third-party retailers, including Best Buy, B&H, and Verizon.

The deal technically began on April 15 at the Google Store, but Google says it will run through April 28. The company says the deal is only available for those in the US on its site.

Enlarge / Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly do a photo op in a Best Buy store. (credit: Best Buy)

Amazon and Best Buy today announced a partnership that will see Best Buy selling smart TVs running Amazon's Fire TV software and Alexa in its physical stores. The deal will begin with "more than 11" models of Insignia and Toshiba TVs going on sale at Best Buys this summer.

TVs are a challenge for Amazon, as consumers might be disinclined to buy a TV sight unseen. You can't judge comparative quality from images on your computer monitor. Some things, like HDR, are not possible to experience at all without being physically present in most cases. So Amazon needs a popular retail outlet for its TVs to make progress in that market. Best Buy dedicates much of its stores' square footage to showcasing TVs, though the lighting conditions are only suitable for assessing quality in the specialized rooms reserved for the highest-end sets.

When Amazon acquired Whole Foods, industry analysts suggested several options for other retailers that Amazon could benefit from acquiring, and Best Buy has come up in that context a few times. However, Best Buy's partnership with Amazon indicates that Amazon doesn't need to make an acquisition to reach consumers who need to see a TV in person before buying it.

Enlarge / Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly do a photo op in a Best Buy store. (credit: Best Buy)

Amazon and Best Buy today announced a partnership that will see Best Buy selling smart TVs running Amazon's Fire TV software and Alexa in its physical stores. The deal will begin with "more than 11" models of Insignia and Toshiba TVs going on sale at Best Buys this summer.

TVs are a challenge for Amazon, as consumers might be disinclined to buy a TV sight unseen. You can't judge comparative quality from images on your computer monitor. Some things, like HDR, are not possible to experience at all without being physically present in most cases. So Amazon needs a popular retail outlet for its TVs to make progress in that market. Best Buy dedicates much of its stores' square footage to showcasing TVs, though the lighting conditions are only suitable for assessing quality in the specialized rooms reserved for the highest-end sets.

When Amazon acquired Whole Foods, industry analysts suggested several options for other retailers that Amazon could benefit from acquiring, and Best Buy has come up in that context a few times. However, Best Buy's partnership with Amazon indicates that Amazon doesn't need to make an acquisition to reach consumers who need to see a TV in person before buying it.

Enlarge / California State Capitol building in Sacramento. (credit: Getty Images | joe chan photography)

The strongest state net neutrality bill in the nation passed a key test yesterday when a California Senate committee approved it over the objections of AT&T and the cable lobby. AT&T claimed that the rules aren't needed because it already follows its own net neutrality guidelines, while a cable lobbyist told senators that large corporate users shouldn't get "free access" to consumer broadband networks.

The California legislation would replicate the US-wide bans on blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization that were implemented by the FCC in 2015, and it would go beyond the FCC rules with a ban on paid data-cap exemptions. The FCC passed its rules under Democratic leadership but voted to eliminate them after Republican Ajit Pai took over the chairmanship.

AT&T and a cable lobby group spoke out against the California bill at a hearing of the state Senate Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee yesterday. But lawmakers were unswayed by the industry lobbyists and voted 8-3 to move the bill forward. The eight ayes came from Democrats and the three noes came from Republicans.

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On April 13, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom launched the largest barrage of cruise missiles since the opening of the Gulf War. One hundred and five cruise missiles launched from sea and air struck three alleged chemical weapons facilities in Syria. The majority of the US military's strike package—75 cruise missiles—targeted a cluster of three buildings on the outskirts of Damascus, in the midst of Syria's greatest concentration of air defenses.

But while President Donald Trump was quick to tweet "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED," US military officials have already acknowledged that the strikes did little to blunt Syria's capacity to manufacture and deliver chemical weapons. The mission was a compromise from the start, targeting facilities that would result in the lowest possible probability of loss of civilian life. And the US warned Russia in advance using the deconfliction line between the US and Russian militaries that there would be an operation over Syria, tipping off Russia and Syria of the strike Trump had already promised was coming.

Enlarge (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

New regulatory filings may hint at new iPhone models coming earlier than this September. According to a MacRumors report, the French website Consomac first reported new Russian-language regulatory filings in the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) database that indicate 11 new iPhone models all running iOS 11.

The model numbers in the filing are all different from existing iPhone model numbers, which means all 11 models would be totally new iPhones. The EEC has a decent track record in revealing new Apple device model numbers: in February, the EEC detailed two new iPad model numbers, and those ended up being the identifiers of the two new 9.7-inch iPads that debuted in March. The EEC also had the model numbers of the new MacBook models revealed at WWDC 2017 one month before they were announced.

So which iPhones correspond with these new model numbers? Probably not any new variations of the iPhone X—while it's safe to say that Apple will debut new iPhone X-like models in September, that's unlikely to come before then (much less around WWDC time). Apple is reportedly planning three new iPhones for a fall announcement, including 5.8- and 6.5-inch OLED models and one more affordable LCD model. These will all likely have the same stand-out features as the current iPhone X, including an edge-to-edge display, FaceID, ARKit capabilities, and wireless charging.

Enlarge / Electric car charging point, Shanghai Pudong. (credit: Getty Images)

This week China announced plans to ease restrictions on automakers importing cars into the country, with electric vehicle makers being the first to benefit from the change.

Currently, foreign automakers that want to sell their cars in China must either face a 25-percent import tariff or must build a factory in China with a 50-percent ownership cap—a domestic firm must own the other 50 percent. Tesla has been the most vocal in its opposition to China's restrictions, and it could stand to gain the most from the changes off the bat. Tesla doesn't yet have a manufacturing presence in China, and the country has said that it will relax its factory ownership restrictions on electric vehicle manufacturing within the year.

According to the South China Morning Post, the 50-percent factory ownership restriction will be relaxed in 2020 for non-electric commercial vehicle manufacturers and in 2022 for non-electric passenger vehicle manufacturers.

Enlarge / Microscope image showing diamond (blue), graphite (black/gray), and blobs of iron-sulfur minerals (yellow). (credit: Dr. F. Nabiei/Dr. E. Oveisi/Prof. C. Hébert, EPFL, Switzerland)

On Earth, diamonds are time capsules with fascinating stories to tell. After all, they form at great depths—below the tectonic plates that make up Earth’s crust. It's only because they travel to the surface with the volcanic equivalent of a jet pack that we're able to see them at all.

But there's another way to get your hands on a diamond: wait for one to crash to Earth inside a meteorite. And in the case of a new study published this week, it might even tell a story of a different planet, one that died in the early days of our Solar System.

Diamonds from space

The meteorite in question fell in 2008 in Sudan and contained a type of meteorite rock called “ureilite” that is composed of minerals you’d only find in the deep mantle of the Earth. Among those minerals were microscopic crystals of diamond and graphite—two minerals composed entirely of carbon atoms.