Month: April 2020

• 

  For testing with a Pixel phone, Google sent us this custom-made Stadia controller grip that it's calling "the claw." It doesn't come in the pre-order package but will be sold on the GStore soon. [credit: Kyle Orland ]

With Google finally offering a totally free tier of Stadia game streaming earlier this month—including a free two-month trial of its expanded Stadia Pro subscription—now seems like a good time to check in on how many people are even interested in trying Google's new experiment in game distribution. Enter mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower, which is now estimating (via Reuters) that 1 million people have installed the Stadia app across iOS and Android.

Mobile app downloads aren't a perfect analogue for actual Stadia usage. People can download the free app on Android or iOS to browse Stadia's offerings without signing up for the service, for instance (and the iOS version doesn't even support direct game streaming currently). Some Stadia users might also ignore the mobile apps in favor of playing exclusively via browser or a Chromecast Ultra. And app downloads tell us nothing about how much time users are spending playing Stadia, or if they're sticking with the service after their initial download.

All that said, the app download numbers provide a good rough estimate for how many people have even tested Stadia's streaming offerings. Sensor Tower's new 1 million download estimate is up quite a bit from the 750,000 total Stadia app downloads the firm estimated earlier in April, just before the free tier rolled out.

• 

  The battery-powered Mustang Cobra Jet 1400 prototype is purpose-built and projected to deliver over 1,400 horsepower and over 1,100 ft.-lbs. of instant torque to demonstrate the capabilities of an electric powertrain in one of the most demanding race environments. [credit: Ford ]

If you want to go from a standstill to very fast as quickly as possible, there's nothing quite like an electric motor. They're compact, powerful, efficient, and they can make all their torque almost instantly, so they're pretty darn good at drag racing. Which is convenient for automakers who still need to convince 98 percent of American car buyers that battery electrics are worth a look, given the emotional resonance of the quarter-mile among the nation's car enthusiasts. That's why Ford Performance has put together the Mustang Cobra Jet 1400 prototype.

"This project was a challenge for all of us at Ford Performance, but a challenge we loved jumping into. We saw the Cobra Jet 1400 project as an opportunity to start developing electric powertrains in a race car package that we already had a lot of experience with, so we had performance benchmarks we wanted to match and beat right now. This has been a fantastic project to work on, and we hope the first of many coming from our team," said Mark Rushbrook, global director of Ford Performance Motorsports.

The specs make the Mustang Shelby GT500 we tested last year seem pretty tame. The Cobra Jet packs more than a megawatt of power (1,400hp) and 1500Nm (1,100lb-ft) of torque, with its electric motor and inverters supplied by Cascadia Motion, which also builds high-end electric motors and control hardware for race cars in F1, Formula E, Le Mans, and Pikes Peak. The powertrain software comes from well-known AEM, which recently added a new line of performance EV systems to its range of motorsport and tuning products.

Enlarge / SpaceX CEO Elon Musk at the Satellite 2020 Conference in Washington, DC, on Monday, March 9, 2020. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

SpaceX will start testing Starlink broadband service in a private beta in about three months and make it available in a public beta about six months from now, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter yesterday. The first beta trials will occur in high latitudes, he wrote.

When asked by a Twitter user if Germany counts as a high-latitude area for purposes of the beta trial, Musk answered "yes." Parts of the US would presumably be included in beta trials, given that SpaceX has said it plans to make Starlink service available in parts of the US this year.

The private beta would "almost certainly be reserved for SpaceX and Tesla employees and their families," according to a Teslarati article. "Just like Tesla currently trials early software builds on employee cars, those customers would serve as much more regimented guinea pigs, likely offering detailed feedback throughout their trial of Starlink Internet."