Month: May 2020

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  The Samsung T7 is available in blue... [credit: Samsung ]

Samsung has announced availability of its T7 external USB-C solid-state hard drive, starting at $110. Like the previous drives in this line, it's business-card-sized (except in thickness) and relatively fast.

The T7 is available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB configurations, and it's also available in three colors: red, blue, and gray. Packaged inside is a USB-C-to-USB-A cable, so it should be simple enough to connect to legacy ports. It also comes with a USB-C to USB-C cable for users of modern Ultrabooks, MacBooks, and the like. The drive uses the USB 3.2 Gen 2 standard.

What's exciting here is that Samsung claims this drive can achieve a read speed of 1,050MB/s and a write speed of 1,000MB/s—significantly faster than its predecessor, the T5.

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

The Federal Communications Commission is not convinced that SpaceX's Starlink broadband network will be able to deliver the low latencies promised by CEO Elon Musk. As a result, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is proposing limits on SpaceX's ability to apply for funding from a $16 billion rural-broadband program.

While traditional satellite broadband generally suffers from latency of about 600ms, Musk says that Starlink will offer "latency below 20 milliseconds, so somebody could play a fast-response video game at a competitive level."

Everyone expects Starlink to offer much lower latency than traditional satellites, because SpaceX satellites are being launched in low Earth orbits ranging from 540km to 570km. By contrast, geostationary satellites used for broadband orbit at about 35,000km.

Enlarge / Larry Hogan, governor of Maryland, wears a protective mask while talking to Ivanka Trump, senior adviser to US President Donald Trump, during a tour of the distribution center of Coastal Sunbelt Produce in Laurel, Maryland, US, on Friday, May 15, 2020. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg)

Maryland reported its highest number of new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday—just four days after the state began easing public health restrictions aimed at thwarting the spread of disease.

Though state officials note that an increase in testing and a backlog of test results may partly explain the spike, case counts overall suggest that disease transmission is not on the decline—and transmission could very easily increase as residents begin venturing into public spaces more frequently.

Maryland’s outcome may hold lessons for other states attempting their own reopening. As of today, May 20, all 50 states have begun easing restrictions at some level, according to The Washington Post.

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  It looks like any other Mini Cooper, but the presence of this one at an electric charger is a clue to the fact that the Mini Cooper SE is a battery electric Mini. [credit: Jonathan Gitlin ]

We can't say we weren't warned. When Mini first shared technical details about its new Mini Cooper SE battery electric vehicle last summer, it didn't hide the fact that the little hatchback would only carry 32.6kWh of lithium-ion on board. At the time, I speculated that the car's 148 to 167 mile (235-270km) European range would translate to about 130 miles (209km) once the EPA got hold of the numbers. As it turns out, I was being optimistic. In fact, the EPA calculates the range of this new BEV at just 110 miles (177km), a figure that is probably low enough to get some of you to stop reading any further.

Perhaps an easier way of expressing that idea would be "Mini by name, mini by nature." If you're looking for a BEV to fill the role of a family car, shuttling 2.4 kids and taking annual road trips, look elsewhere. But almost no one who wants those things would look at a Mini Cooper in the first place. The cars might be a lot bigger than Alec Issigonis' groundbreaking machine from the swinging '60s, but they're still dwarfed by most other four-wheelers, and people buy these cars because they look cool and they're fun to drive, not for the last word in practicality.

And on that front, there's ample reason to like the Mini Cooper SE. My supposition from last year regarding the high probability of the electric Mini being a good car to drive was spot-on. Minis are supposed to be fun, and this one is, with direct handling and plenty of torque. Its electric motor drives the front wheels, the way a Mini should, and with 181hp (135kW) and 207lb-ft (270Nm), it's just about the same in the power and torque stats as the conventionally powered Mini Cooper S. At 3,009lbs (1,364kgs) it's only 10-percent heavier than the internal combustion Mini, too, and thanks to a T-shaped arrangement for the battery pack, you don't actually lose out on interior space in the switch to electric mobility—although this being a Mini, there wasn't a huge amount of that to begin with.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)

Early in April, before much data was in on potential COVID-19 treatments, President Trump promoted one that seemed to have anecdotal support. Hydroxychloroquine was suggested as a potential treatment very early on in the pandemic and had picked up some weak support via a badly flawed French study. That was enough for Trump to suggest people take it, his rhetorical "What do you have to lose?" question breezing past the well-known and potentially dangerous side effects of the drug.

In the time since, however, Trump went silent on the topic, and the evidence piled up that chloroquine did little while retaining its problematic side effects. But it returned to the spotlight on Monday when Trump announced he had been taking it, possibly in response to several cases among the White House staff. This naturally led to questions about why he was doing that in light of the research that has come out in the intervening weeks. Trump's response was to label a study done by government researchers a "Trump-enemy statement."

The chloroquine saga

Chloroquine and its derivatives, like hydroxychloroquine, were first developed as anti-malarial drugs. But they have a variety of effects on the body and have found a use through their role as immune suppressors, treating autoimmune diseases like lupus. In cultured cells, they show a relatively general antiviral activity, including the suppression of SARS-CoV-1. This led a number of teams to try chloroquine against SARS-CoV-2 early on in the pandemic. Notably, a French team released a draft study that seemed to show some promising results.