Month: September 2019

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  The B1 sport utility truck was inspired by boxy trucks and 4x4s like the Defender, Bronco, and Harvester Scout. [credit: Bollinger Motors ]

Did you look at the new Land Rover Defender and think to yourself "that thing's got way too many curves"? If so, you might enjoy these photos of the Bollinger Motors B1 and B2 electric trucks.

We covered the company in early 2018, when it revealed the first images of its four-door B1. On Thursday at a live-streamed event, it showed off a beta prototype of the the B1, which it calls a sports utility truck, as well as the B2, a more conventional pickup truck.

They share the most of the same technical specs. It's a 458kW (614hp), 905Nm (668lb-ft) dual-motor, all-wheel drive design, with a whopping 120kWh lithium-ion battery pack between the axles. Even with that much power and torque, don't expect Taycan-rivaling performance; 0-60mph might take 4.5 seconds, but these EVs are limited to 100mph (160km/h) flat-out.

Enlarge (credit: Magisto)

Vimeo is collecting and storing thousands of people's facial biometrics without their permission or knowledge, a recently filed lawsuit alleges.

The "highly detailed geometric" facial maps, according to a complaint, are being collected and stored in violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy ACT, or BIPA, according to a complaint filed last week in Illinois state court. The law bars companies from obtaining or possessing an individuals' biometric identifiers or information unless the company (1) informs the person in writing of its plans to do so, (2) states in writing the purpose and length of term for the collection and storage, (3) receives written permission from the user, and (4) publishes retention schedules and guidelines for destroying the biometric identifiers and information.

The complaint alleges Vimeo is violating the law by collecting, storing, and using the facial biometrics of thousands of unwitting individuals throughout the United States whose faces appear in photos or videos uploaded to the Magisto video-editor application. Vimeo acquired Magisto in April and claimed the editor had more than 100 million users.

Enlarge / Mark Zuckerberg reveals Facebook Horizon at Oculus Connect 6 in San Jose, California. (credit: Facebook)

SAN JOSE, Calif.—The fusion of Oculus and Facebook continues apace at this year's sixth annual Oculus Connect conference, with this year's biggest example coming in the form of Facebook Horizon: a new VR chat app exclusive to Oculus whose mix of cartoony avatars, social spaces, and playable games resembles current VR mega-hit Rec Room. The app won't premiere until "early next year" as a closed beta, but in the meantime, we got a chance to test it out—and learned about the crazy plan Facebook has for its first foray into social VR.

After testing the solid-if-early app, I asked two Facebook representatives about existing social-VR apps like Rec Room and VRChat, which have their own creative, organic approaches to making strangers meet each other in VR. Facebook says it's going to try something we haven't yet seen in any chat app, VR or otherwise: a fully staffed concierge service.

After going through Horizon's tutorial, "you'll encounter humans that are part of our team in the product, known as 'Guides,'" Facebook's AR/VR experiences director, Eric Romo, told Ars Technica. "Those are the people who will be trying to set the tone of what the environment is." When asked to clarify whether these would be paid Facebook staffers, sitting in microphone-equipped headsets and waiting for new users to appear, Romo answered, "Yeah!" He added that these staffers would be "saying, 'How can I help you? What can I show you to do?'"

The next time you're hunting for a parking spot, mathematics could help you identify the most efficient strategy, according to a recent paper in the Journal of Statistical Mechanics. It's basically an optimization problem: weighing different variables and crunching the numbers to find the optimal combination of those factors. In the case of where to put your car, the goal is to strike the optimal balance of parking close to the target—a building entrance, for example—without having to waste too much time circling the lot hunting for the closest space.

Paul Krapivsky of Boston University and Sidney Redner of the Santa Fe Institute decided to build their analysis around an idealized parking lot with a single row (a semi-infinite line), and they focused on three basic parking strategies. A driver who employs a "meek" strategy will take the first available spot, preferring to park as quickly as possible even if there might be open spots closer to the entrance. A driver employing an "optimistic" strategy will go right to the entrance and then backtrack to find the closest possible spot.

Finally, drivers implementing a "prudent" strategy will split the difference. They might not grab the first available spot, figuring there will be at least one more open spot a bit closer to the entrance. If there isn't, they will backtrack to the space a meek driver would have claimed immediately.

Enlarge / U.S. Attorney General William Barr speaks at an event at the Robert F. Kennedy Main Justice Building in Washington, DC, in May 2019. (credit: Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images)

Facebook, it seems, is continuing to shatter records of all sorts. Usually, regulators at the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice agree to conduct antitrust probes against a company one at a time, deciding in advance who should take the lead and run with it. According to a new report, though, the US attorney general has decided that one federal investigation just isn't enough.

"Prodding" from US Attorney General William Barr has led the DOJ to launch its own antitrust investigation of Facebook, sources tell Bloomberg News. The DOJ will reportedly focus on conduct that is not included in the FTC's current investigation.

The FTC's Bureau of Competition and the DOJ's Antitrust Division share authority for antitrust enforcement in the United States. When a specific case arises, such as a high-stakes proposed merger or a complaint against a single company such as Facebook, the two agencies generally work out an agreement between them that will put that particular ball in one court or the other—not both.

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  The new hula hoop?

The worst thing about regular exercise, in my book, is just how boring it can be. At their best, exercise video games can help alleviate this boredom, giving you a distracting and entertaining goal to chase that makes you forget you're exercising at all.

After spending an hour with Ring Fit Adventure—Nintendo's recently announced pilates-ring-meets-RPG for the Switch—I found it to be, most often, a mildly engaging distraction from the tedium of exercise. Occasionally, it even became an all-encompassing focus that made me forget my body's movements entirely. But I'm still skeptical that it will remain engaging enough to carry me through weeks and months of regular workouts.

Put a ring on it

From the first moment I held the Ring Fit itself, I found it to be surprisingly solid. It has a decent amount of heft and gives a fair amount of resistance both when pushing in and pulling out on the comfy cushioned grips (you can adjust just how much pushing and pulling is necessary to register via the game settings). And unlike some other (cheaper) Pilates rings I've tested, the Ring Fit doesn't twist or bend in unexpected directions as you push and pull on it. It doesn't feel like it's going to snap apart or succumb to wear and tear through normal use.