Month: July 2019

Enlarge / The Twitter timeline of US President Donald Trump as seen on June 29, 2017, in Bydgoszcz, Poland. (credit: Getty | Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto )

It's one thing for most of us to block Twitter users who annoy us, but it's a violation of those users' First Amendment rights for the president to do so, a federal appeals court confirmed.

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Tuesday issued an opinion supporting an earlier federal court ruling that as long as Donald Trump is a public official, he cannot block people (which prevents them from reading his feed or responding to his comments) he disagrees with on Twitter.

The opinion (PDF) is narrow, specific, and unanimous, with all three judges concurring. "We do not consider or decide whether an elected official violates the Constitution by excluding persons from a wholly private social media account," the judges write, "Nor do we consider whether private social media companies are bound by the First Amendment when policing their platforms."

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  This may look like an ordinary Chromecast Ultra, and it is. But the orange Google Stadia logo behind it indicates that it's being promoted as a central part of the $130 Stadia Pro bundle, shipping this November. [credit: Google ]

The picture of exactly how Stadia, Google's upcoming cloud-streaming game service, will function when it formally launches this November became a bit clearer last week. An official FAQ about the service went live at Google's official support hub shortly before the Independence Day holiday. Arguably the biggest news in the update was one that spoke to Stadia's fuzzy issue of game ownership—or lack thereof.

The July 3 FAQ proposes a question that may look familiar to anyone who uses digital download services on smartphones and game consoles: "What happens to a game I bought if the publisher stops supporting Stadia in the future? Can I still play the game?" Google emphatically answers that question with a "yes," adding, "Once you purchase the game, you own the right to play it." (That clearly differs from owning the game outright, since Stadia will likely sell licenses to access games on its Stadia servers.)

Google's answer includes enough wiggle room to turn that "yes" into a future "no": "Outside of unforeseen circumstances, Stadia will aim to keep any previously purchased title available for gameplay." At the very least, this answer confirms that Stadia games may very well be delisted—meaning, they were once available for play or sale, then later yanked—but that by default, "existing players will still be able to play the [delisted] game."

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  The Raspberry Pi 4. [credit: Raspberry Pi ]

The Raspberry Pi 4 was announced two weeks ago as a major new upgrade to the line of cheap single-board hobbyist computers. The Pi 4 featured a faster CPU, options for up to 4GB of RAM, and a new, modern USB-C port for power delivery. The Pi 4 was the Raspberry Pi Foundation's first ever USB-C device, and, well, they screwed it up.

As detailed by Tyler Ward, the Raspberry Pi 4 has a non-compliant USB-C charging port and doesn't work with as many chargers as it should. Thanks to the open nature of Raspberry Pi (even the schematics are online!), Ward was able to discover that Raspberry Pi just didn't design its USB-C port correctly. Two "CC" pins on a USB-C port are supposed to each get their own 5.1K ohms resistor, but Raspberry Pi came up with its own circuit design that allows them to share a single resistor. This is not a compliant design and breaks compatibility with some of the more powerful USB-C chargers out there.

Whether your USB-C charger works with the Pi 4 has to do with whether it uses an "e-marked" cable. E-marked cables are fully featured USB-C cables with chips inside that negotiate power management, accessory modes, data rates, and other communication specs. Since the Pi 4 USB-C port is wired incorrectly, these smart cables will detect the Pi 4 as an "Audio Adaptor Accessory" and refuse to charge them. Usually, e-marked cables are more expensive and come with larger, higher-powered items, like a USB-C laptop.

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  It looks like any other Mini Cooper, but the Mini Cooper SE is a new battery electric vehicle version of the zippy little hatchback. [credit: Mini ]

Toward the end of June, we reported that BMW is accelerating its electrification strategy. Originally, it had promised 25 new electric models across its brands by 2025; now that timeline has been moved up by two years. And the first of these will be a Mini Cooper SE battery electric vehicle. We've actually known the BEV Mini has been in the works for a while, but on Tuesday the automaker confirmed that production will begin at Mini's Cowley plant in the UK in November, and it has released some of the car's specs.

Throughout Mini's 60-year history, the brand has always been about small front-wheel-drive cars, and that continues here. In this case, the front wheels are going to be driven by a 181hp (135kW), 199lb-ft (270Nm) electric motor, powered by a 32.6kWh lithium-ion battery pack. To avoid compromising the Mini's diminutive form factor, the battery pack is T-shaped, and apparently there's no reduction in cargo volume as a result.

Although weight has crept up by 319lbs (145kg) compared to a Mini Cooper S (with an automatic transmission), overall weight is still only 3,009lbs (1,364kg) which isn't too bad for a BEV. And despite an increase in height (0.7 inches/18mm), the weight of the batteries in the floor means the car's center of gravity is actually lower by 1.2 inches (30mm).

Enlarge / Makes sense to us. (credit: Netflix / Studio MDHR)

Netflix's latest adaptation of a video game is arguably its most obvious "duh" one yet, as its source material already looks like a Saturday-morning cartoon. The Cuphead Show, announced on Tuesday by Cuphead game creators Studio MDHR, is a partnership with animation production house King Features, coming exclusively to Netflix. No release window has yet been announced.

The original side-scrolling game launched in 2017 on Xbox consoles after a lengthy, well-chronicled effort to hand-animate most of its characters and worlds, and the results married the bouncy, music-synced animation style of 1930s cartoons with a diversity of worlds and color not commonly seen in that era. (The game, which we loved, has since launched on Windows PCs and Nintendo Switch.)

Today's news comes with a sole teaser image, which stretches and redraws the series' lead characters, Cuphead and Mugman, to resemble modern 2D cartoons, complete with the kinds of thick outlines seen in digitally assisted attempts to recreate the '70s Chuck Jones era. This lines up with news, reported by Deadline, that the series will be executive produced by Dave Wasson, who has worked on the rebooted Mickey Mouse Shorts found on Disney's cable-TV services (and, soon, Disney+). Those Disney shorts have leaned heavily on digital animation tools, as opposed to this video game's painstaking, hand-drawn process. Today's single-image tease bears enough similarities to Wasson's other work to hint at such a production transition for this streaming-TV version of Cuphead.