Augmented Reality: Apple soll Entwicklung von AR-Headset gestoppt haben

Einige Analysten haben in der Vergangenheit berichtet, dass Apple bald sein erstes AR-Headset vorstellen werde. Ein neuer Bericht hingegen zitiert mit der Sache vertraute Personen, die von einer kompletten Einstellung des Projektes sprechen. (Apple, Au…

Einige Analysten haben in der Vergangenheit berichtet, dass Apple bald sein erstes AR-Headset vorstellen werde. Ein neuer Bericht hingegen zitiert mit der Sache vertraute Personen, die von einer kompletten Einstellung des Projektes sprechen. (Apple, Augmented Reality)

Ryzen 3000: AMD behebt fehlerhaften Zufall durch BIOS-Update

Den fehlerhafter Zufallsbefehl auf den neuen Ryzen 3000 von AMD will der Hersteller durch ein BIOS-Update beheben. Der Fehler verhindert das Booten von neueren Linux-Systemen sowie des Spiels Destiny 2. (AMD, Prozessor)

Den fehlerhafter Zufallsbefehl auf den neuen Ryzen 3000 von AMD will der Hersteller durch ein BIOS-Update beheben. Der Fehler verhindert das Booten von neueren Linux-Systemen sowie des Spiels Destiny 2. (AMD, Prozessor)

Amazon Music Unlimited is growing faster than Apple Music or Spotify, report says

Amazon still has a long way to go to catch up with Apple or Spotify, though.

An Amazon Echo smart speaker.

Enlarge / An Amazon Echo smart speaker. (credit: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

Amazon grew its Music Unlimited streaming service by over 70 percent in the past year, according to data by Midia Research published by the Financial Times. The service currently has approximately 32 million subscribers. However, the report didn't clarify whether that includes trial subscriptions as well as paid ones.

Amazon Unlimited Music is still smaller than its biggest competitors. Apple services head Eddie Cue recently revealed that Apple Music has about 60 million subscribers. Spotify has more than 100 million. Google has offered a variety of streaming services via YouTube that it has shuttered, rebranded, and shuffled around, making it difficult to quantify the company's traction with music listeners. In any case, Amazon still has a lot of catching up to do.

Midia Research credits the rapid growth of Amazon Unlimited Music to the proliferation of Amazon Echo smart speakers and other devices with Alexa. While these devices can play music from other services like Spotify, they default to Amazon services in many cases. For example, if you ask Alexa to play David Bowie's "Heroes" on a Sonos One speaker, Amazon's streaming music service will be used. You have to say "Play David Bowie's 'Heroes' on Spotify" to get a different result.

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The 2019 Volkswagen Golf R is king of the hot hatches

Take a GTI and then add more power, torque, and all-wheel drive.

From its earliest days, the automobile has been a status symbol, where badge has mattered often as much as engineering. There's a human tendency to pigeonhole, and we infer much about a person simply by knowing what they drive. Occasionally though, something comes along that transcends this class structure. The original Mini, which appealed to the smart set in 1960s Europe, for instance. Or the Ford F-150, as often used to commute to an office as to a construction site. The Volkswagen Golf definitely falls into that category.

When it was first launched in Europe in 1974, the Mk1 Golf was utilitarian, a people's car to replace the Beetle. But the secret of a classless car is that it's anything but. Peter Sellers might have driven a Mini at the height of stardom, but his was lavishly trimmed by the coachbuilder Radford. Suburban dads can spend as much on a leather-lined F-150 as they could on a big BMW the way their forebears did in the '90s. And the Golf broke out of being a mere people's car when it added the GTI to the lineup. VW didn't invent the hot hatch, but it did execute it probably better than anyone else. The company certainly advertised it better, and the car was as popular with yuppies as it was with middle-class moms.

Take a GTI and turn it up to 11

More recently, VW decided it could sell even more Golfs if it added a variant above the giant-killing GTI—enter the Golf R. If the idea behind a GTI was to take a front-wheel-drive hatchback and give it more power and better suspension, the R takes it a bit further. Now there's an even more powerful engine—a 2.0L turbocharged direct-injection four-cylinder with 288hp (215kW) and 280lb-ft (380Nm). To achieve this with VW's ubiquitous EA888 engine, the R engineers gave it a new cylinder head (plus valves and springs), a new turbocharger, new pistons, and a new injection system.

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Valve: Neue Steam Labs zeigen Empfehlungsexperiment

Das Entwicklerstudio Valve lässt sich ein bisschen in die Karten schauen: In einer neuen Rubik namens Steam Labs können Spieler frühzeitig neue Funktionen kennenlernen. Darunter ist ein interessantes Empfehlungsexperiment, das auf Maschinenlernen setzt…

Das Entwicklerstudio Valve lässt sich ein bisschen in die Karten schauen: In einer neuen Rubik namens Steam Labs können Spieler frühzeitig neue Funktionen kennenlernen. Darunter ist ein interessantes Empfehlungsexperiment, das auf Maschinenlernen setzt. (Steam, Onlineshop)

Stuber review: The world’s worst Uber ride becomes pure popcorn comedy

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the comedic ride(share)—it’s a major studio, original comedy.

AUSTIN, Texas—July has barely gotten underway, but we have finally reached peak 2019. This weekend, a film whose entire premise hinges unironically on the modern app-driven gig economy will hit theaters.

"Uber hates this movie, by the way," comedian Kumail Nanjiani said after a crowd of RTX Austin 2019 attendees just watched his ridesharing-meets-'80s-buddy-cop flick, Stuber. "It's about a guy who kidnaps someone in an Uber—it's like if Titanic was made for Carnival cruise ships."

If hearing "Uber" and "movie" that close together immediately gives you chills, don't fret: Stuber proves to be less of a marketing grab than Stranger Things 3. The ubiquitous modern taxi company had no direct involvement even though it had a role to play, says director Michael Dowse. That's because of the Kleenex principle: using a fake brand would take people out of the film immediately.

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Autonomes Fahren: Tesla will Hilfe von Apple in Verfahren gegen Ex-Mitarbeiter

Sie sind Konkurrenten beim autonomen Fahren. Aber möglicherweise sind sie auch Verbündete gegen einen chinesischen Hersteller von Elektroautos: Tesla verlangt Hilfe von Apple in einem Verfahren gegen einen ehemaligen Mitarbeiter, der Teslas geistiges E…

Sie sind Konkurrenten beim autonomen Fahren. Aber möglicherweise sind sie auch Verbündete gegen einen chinesischen Hersteller von Elektroautos: Tesla verlangt Hilfe von Apple in einem Verfahren gegen einen ehemaligen Mitarbeiter, der Teslas geistiges Eigentum an das chinesische Unternehmen weitergegeben haben soll. (Tesla, Apple)

Lion King remake review: Roaring visuals, but the execution is a hairball

Amazing tech (and hilarious Billy Eichner) aren’t enough to make this a must-see.

You would <em>not</em> like Adult Simba when he's angry.

Enlarge / You would not like Adult Simba when he's angry. (credit: Disney)

You have definitely seen The Lion King before. That sentence applies to both the 1994 Disney classic and next week's CGI-filled remake. This new version, premiering worldwide on Friday, July 19, has been remade in such a stark, scene-by-scene manner that there's no point in slapping a spoiler warning on this article. Every character from the box-office-dominating Disney classic has returned to retread every plot point and sing every familiar, chart-topping song.

But Disney wants very badly to convince you that you have not seen The Lion King like this, and in some ways, that sales pitch is accurate. I can confirm that the latest film from director Jon Favreau is enough of a technical masterpiece to usher in a new level of the question, "is that CGI?" Photorealistic flora and fauna pack each frame of this film, which Favreau directed, in part, by putting on VR headsets and aiming his virtual camera at raw digital assets.

But while Favreau clearly has the right technology⁠—and the right attitude over how to render his star characters—his efforts are hobbled by the baggage that is a beloved, bubbly Disney film.

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Energie: Wo die Wasserstoffqualität gestestet wird

Damit eine Brennstoffzelle einwandfrei arbeitet, braucht sie sauberen Wasserstoff. Wie aber lassen sich Verunreinigungen bis auf ein milliardstel Teil erfassen? Am Testfeld Wasserstoff in Duisburg wird das erprobt – und andere Technik für die Wassersto…

Damit eine Brennstoffzelle einwandfrei arbeitet, braucht sie sauberen Wasserstoff. Wie aber lassen sich Verunreinigungen bis auf ein milliardstel Teil erfassen? Am Testfeld Wasserstoff in Duisburg wird das erprobt - und andere Technik für die Wasserstoffwirtschaft. Ein Bericht von Werner Pluta (Nachhaltigkeit, GreenIT)