Month: March 2020

Enlarge (credit: jetcityimage / Getty)

A week after Ford shuttered its North American factories over coronavirus concerns, the Detroit automaker says it is aiming to re-open some of those factories in April. Specifically, Ford plans to test the waters by operating a single shift at the Hermosillo Assembly Plant in Mexico on April 6. A week later, on April 14, Ford hopes to resume production at several US plants, including facilities in Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, and Kentucky.

Ford says it plans to introduce "additional safety measures to protect returning workers."

April 14 is one day after a sweeping "stay home" order from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is scheduled to expire.

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  The Genesis G70 has a tough job—it has to convince buyers to look past the established names in a market sector that's shrinking all the time. [credit: Genesis ]

In 2017, Kia listened to the automotive enthusiast segment of the Internet and built the Stinger, a four-door performance car of the kind more normally the preserve of the German brands. The Stinger turned out to be a darn good car, particularly the rear-wheel drive version. But some people can't get over the idea that Kia isn't just the brand you turn to for cheap econoboxes, even if these days it does build more reliable vehicles than just about every other OEM. Those people are responsible for Genesis, which got spun out of Kia and Hyundai to create a luxury Korean car brand. Which is to explain the Genesis G70 sedan. It uses the same underpinnings as the Kia Stinger. It's slightly more expensive than the Kia, but it's also a little shorter, a fair bit lighter, and comes with an amazing interior.

If you've come this far and have a feeling of déjà vu, that's understandable. In February 2019, we reviewed the 2.0L, four-cylinder G70, and back then I explained the link with the Stinger and the fact that the G70 is lighter and looks better inside and out. But as I also explained at the time, I'd asked Genesis' press office for a rear-wheel drive model, and at the time all it had in the area was a preproduction G70 2.0T Sport that came with an automatic gearbox instead of the six-speed manual that you should really order if you're buying the cheaper, smaller-engine G70.

At the time, I wrote that I wished I'd asked for the V6 instead, particularly because the V6 Stinger was better than the 2.0L version. It seems all good things come to those who wait. Because eventually the local press fleet manager got in touch to say that my wish had been granted. Even better, it was also rear-wheel drive, which meant it did without a few hundred pounds of extra (and honestly unnecessary) weight over the front wheels.

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  The 12.9-inch 2020 iPad Pro with the Smart Keyboard and Magic Trackpad peripherals. [credit: Samuel Axon ]

The new iPad Pro is a great tablet and an OK computer.

Sure, Apple’s marketing tagline for the new iPad Pro says, “Your next computer is not a computer.” But this year’s update comes with full mouse and trackpad support, and that moves this device into completely new territory. It was always computer, of course, but there’s no room for ambiguity now.

We’re going to talk about trackpad support at length, but we’ll also make some judgments on performance. More importantly, we’ll examine the new 3D sensor Apple introduced. It’s the one component that truly distinguishes this from previously released iPads.

Enlarge (credit: Qualcomm)

Qualcomm is introducing a new slate of chips for truly wireless Bluetooth earbuds. You might not have realized it, but these Bluetooth earbuds are tiny computers now, and just as Qualcomm makes smartphone SoCs that end up in most smartphones, it also makes "Bluetooth Audio SoCs" that end up in a host of Bluetooth headphones. There are two chips in Qualcomm's announcement, the QCC514x and the QCC304x, with the difference being that the 514x SoC is built for always-on voice recognition using assistants from Google and Amazon. You'll be able to just shout the wake word, and the headphones will pick up.

As you might expect, the focus is on better battery life, with Qualcomm promising 13 hours of playtime from a 65mAh battery. Active noise canceling (ANC) is built into both SoCs, so expect to see this high-end feature make its way to many more headphones in the future. There's also a "Hybrid ANC" mode, which lets some sound from the real world in so you can remain aware of your surroundings. Qualcomm also has a feature called "TrueWireless Mirroring," which lets you use the left or right earbuds in mono mode, and even if you swap configurations, the sound will continue uninterrupted. Some previous designs had a "Primary" earbud that communicated with the playback device and then passed audio to the secondary earbud, but now, it looks like both earbuds talk to the playback device directly.

Qualcomm has lots of customers. (credit: Qualcomm)

Qualcomm provided the above list of headphone vendors that use its previous-generation chips, and many of the big headphone vendors are on there. The big missing companies are Apple and Samsung, which build their own headphone chips, and Sony, which uses a combination of its own chips and some parts from Mediatek.