Month: October 2019

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  Not many nameplates make it to their eighth generation, but the Volkswagen Golf has just joined the club. [credit: Volkswagen ]

On Thursday afternoon, Volkswagen finally took the wraps off its new Golf hatchback. Many of us thought we would have seen the eighth-generation Golf at this year's Frankfurt auto show, which took place in September. But VW had other ideas for its home expo, banishing the Golf (and anything else fossil-powered) in favor of its new electric future; multi-billion Euro fines will follow if it fails to get under a fleet average of 95g CO₂/km next year. But even the most optimistic projections recognize that internal combustion engines will be a thing for at least the next decade, so this remains an important vehicle for the automaker.

Like its predecessor, the Mk8 Golf uses VW's MQB (Modularer Querbaukasten, or Modular Transverse Toolkit) architecture. Styling-wise, Golfs have always been a mixed bag; my heart belongs to the big-bumper Mk2 for a few reasons, and the Mk 7 has never really done it for me. Obviously, this sort of thing is highly subjective, but at first look, the new Golf's styling appears to be headed back in the right direction, particularly when painted a bright color. Aerodynamically, it's quite slippery, with a drag coefficient of just 0.275 and a frontal area of 23.8 square feet (2.21m²).

VW offers a range of gasoline and diesel engines, as well as 48V mild hybrid and plug-in hybrid EV variants, the last of these using a 1.4L gasoline four-cylinder and a 13kWh battery. Or at least there will be in some markets; Americans prefer sedans over hatchbacks, and VW can't make money selling cheap Golfs here. We are confirmed to get both the Golf GTI and Golf R variants, but VW isn't ready to share details on either right now.

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

Intel is unveiling its new "Tremont" line of ultra-low-power 10nm CPUs today at the Linley microprocessor conference in Santa Clara. Intel's presentation on the new line says that usage will "span client, IoT, and datacenter products." It's a little too early for a laundry list of the actual devices that will be powered by Tremont, but we do know that the new dual-screened Surface Neo is among them; its Lakefield hybrid processor uses both high-powered Ice Lake and low-powered Tremont cores.

Tremont is the successor to last year's Goldmont Plus, and Goldmont and Silvermont before it. These are the lowest-powered (and frequently, least expensive) CPUs in Intel's lineup, and consumers will generally be more familiar with them by names like Celeron and Pentium N. You could occasionally find Celeron or Pentium N processors in extremely low-end retail generic Windows PCs, but they were more frequently seen in specialty items like the bare Linux router build we showed off back in 2016.

Overcoming some bad history

Pentium N and Celeron were generally well received—but then there was the Atom. Intel CPUs branded with the Atom name have traditionally been on the extreme low end in both power consumption and processing performance. A few years ago, I saw that Asus made an Intel-powered Android tablet, and naively, I assumed anything x86 would blow anything ARM out of the water, so I bought one for my son. It did not meet my unwarranted expectations; and its Atom Z3745 performed in line with this versus.com comparison between it and its contemporaneous Qualcomm Snapdragon competitor.

Enlarge (credit: Valentina Palladino)

Greetings, Arsians! The Dealmaster returns today with new deals to share. Topping our list today are two of our current favorite dash cams: you can get the Anker Roav Duo dash cam for $109.99 and the Garmin Dash Cam Mini for $99.99.

Anker's Roav Duo tops our dash cam list because it's an excellent dual-camera unit with most of the features most users would ever need. Using Sony sensors and F1.8 lenses, the Roav Duo records crisp 1080p video both inside and outside your car. While some may not be keen on a dash cam recording their driving habits, it could help back up your story in the case of an accident.

The front camera's 155-degree field of view should capture all things important happening around your car when you're on the road. The dash cam also has a built-in GPS to tag footage with your location and speed, and the device can run 24/7 if you connect it to an optional parking kit. Like when you're on the road, the Roav Duo will detect impacts when your car is parked and record footage of the incident even when you're not around and while the car is off.

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  Google's Phil Harrison (you may remember him from his days at Sony).

When Google launches its Stadia streaming service on November 19 (for some pre-orderers, at least), it will only include titles that are also available on standard PCs and consoles. Going forward, though, the company says it's going to focus on first-party exclusives "that wouldn't be possible on any other platform."

That's how Google head of Stadia Games and Entertainment Jade Raymond (well-known as one of the creators of Assassin's Creed) summarized the company's plans in a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz. Google announced today that its first first-party game development studio would be located in Montreal, and Raymond told GI that studio will be focused on trying things that other dedicated game platforms can't do.

Part of that promise, Raymond says, is the ability to use Google's distributed data center hardware to perform real-time calculations that can't be done on even the most powerful home hardware. "A fully physics-simulated game is one of the Holy Grails of game creation since Trespasser was being imagined 20-something years ago, and now we finally have a platform where we'll be able to deliver some of those experiences," Raymond said, making reference to the overly ambitious failure of 1998's Jurassic Park: Trespasser.

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  Just cracking open the Pixel 4, you can see the new motherboard orientation, with all the important chips on the side. [credit: iFixit ]

iFixit has gotten its hands on Google's newest flagship, the Pixel 4 XL, and has torn it apart for our viewing pleasure.

Compared to the Pixel 3 XL that was torn down last year, a lot has changed. The Pixel 4 has an entirely new internal design, with a skinny, tall battery and chips on the side, whereas the Pixel 3 had a fat, short battery with most of the chips in the top of the phone. The reason for the difference is most likely the fingerprint reader: the Pixel 3 XL had a rear fingerprint reader with some stringent placement requirements, and now with no fingerprint reader at all, Google no longer has to design the phone around its location (although an in-screen fingerprint reader would have removed this limitation, too).

iFixit found that the (occasionally) 90Hz OLED display is, to the surprise of no one, made by Samsung. Samsung now makes both the 90Hz display for the Pixel 4 and for OnePlus devices like the 7 Pro and 7T. As iFixit notes in its teardown and as we noted in our Galaxy Note10 coverage, it's really baffling that Samsung is letting its competitors beat it to market with its own 90Hz displays. Maybe the Galaxy S11 will finally see a speedy Samsung display in a Samsung phone.

Enlarge / A screenshot contained in the lawsuit shows the kind of enhanced view a player can get with MizuSoft's cheat engine.

Last month, an anonymized Rainbow Six: Siege cheat maker told the BBC, "if Ubisoft decides to come after you for copyright infringement, you're in for a tough time." It seems that hacker is now facing such a tough time, thanks to a federal lawsuit filed by Ubisoft against him and associates involved with MizuSoft.

The lawsuit (thanks, TorrentFreak), filed in the Central District of California, accuses an underage Dutch hacker by the handle J.V.L. of being the "driving force" behind MizuSoft's only product, "Budget Edition Rainbow Six: Siege Cheat." It also accuses his mother, Sandra Rijken, of "collecting, processing, and transmitting" the proceeds of that cheat software's sales through her own company, Simply San Web Design.

Most of the other defendants accused of assisting with the development and sale of the cheat engine are only identified in the lawsuit by their Discord handles. Ubisoft said it hopes to "amend this complaint to state their true names and capacities once said defendants’ identities and capacities are ascertained."