Month: July 2020

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  A product shot of Vizio's new OLED set. [credit: Vizio ]

Vizio is on the precipice of shipping its first OLED TVs, after having made a name for itself as the gadget-maker that produces LED TVs that offer a particularly strong balance between cost and performance. The company has also just begun rolling out its annual lineup of LED TVs.

The OLED models will be pricy by most people's standards but slightly cheaper than entry-level sets from Sony or LG, which have been the only large-scale suppliers of OLED sets in the United States for a while now. Vizio plans to ship 55- and 65-inch models at $1,300 and $2,000.

Vizio has a much larger market share in the US than LG or Sony (it's third behind Samsung and TCL), so it could become the most popular OLED TV maker if these sets are as successful as its LED lineup. Most reviewers agree that Vizio's LED TVs are neither the cheapest nor the absolute highest quality—but they might be an optimal middle ground for many enthusiasts. Vizio looks to be aiming for a similar strategy with OLED.

Enlarge (credit: Dish Network)

Dish Network has completed a $1.4 billion acquisition of Boost Mobile, a former Sprint subsidiary that resells prepaid mobile service.

After years of buying up spectrum but never delivering service, Dish is finally a mobile provider—albeit as a reseller that doesn't yet operate its own network. Dish was able to buy Boost as part of the merger agreement in which the Department of Justice allowed T-Mobile to buy Sprint. The DOJ required T-Mobile and Sprint to sell Dish the prepaid business as well as spectrum licenses and wholesale access to the combined T-Mobile/Sprint network. The prepaid sale and wholesale access are intended to let Dish operate a wireless business as a network reseller while it builds its own 5G network that could eventually make it the fourth major wireless provider.

"With this purchase, Dish officially enters the retail wireless market, serving more than nine million customers," Dish said in a press release today. Starting tomorrow, Dish said its Boost subsidiary will offer a "$hrink-It! plan, which starts at $45 for 15GB, reduces customers' monthly rates by $5 after three on-time payments, and by an additional $5 after six total on-time payments." Boost will also "offer a $35 10GB plan that includes unlimited talk and text," Dish said.

Enlarge / U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO), joined by members of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, delivers remarks during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on June 30, 2020 in Washington, DC. (credit: Stefani Reynolds | Getty Images)

A House committee tasked with managing the global climate crisis this week unveiled an ambitious, detailed policy-package proposal. It brings the United States to net-zero emissions, protects vulnerable communities, and helps limit global warming to an increase of 1.5 degrees.

The full report (large PDF) from the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis clocks in around 550 pages and contains suggestions for just about every sector you can think of. Not only does report provide specific policy recommendations and spell what should happen—it also suggests Congressional committees and Cabinet departments to oversee the creation and enforcement of each element.

Broadly speaking, the goals of the plan are to bring the United States to net-zero emissions no later than 2050 and then follow through to negative emissions in the back half of the 21st century. That goal would be achieved by adopting new regulations and incentives in energy, transportation, housing, construction, manufacturing, agriculture, telecommunications, and infrastructure for a start and then building on those accomplishments from there. The report is broad and dense, but here are a few of the highlights.

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft has published unscheduled fixes for two critical vulnerabilities that make it possible for attackers to execute malicious code on computers running any version of Windows 10.

Unlike the vast majority of Windows patches, the ones released on Tuesday were delivered through the Microsoft Store. The normal channel for operating System security fixes is Windows Update. Advisories here and here said users need not take any action to automatically receive and install the fixes.

“Affected customers will be automatically updated by Microsoft Store. Customers do not need to take any action to receive the update,” both advisories said. “Alternatively, customers who want to receive the update immediately can check for updates with the Microsoft Store App; more information on this process can be found here.”

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  A styling sedan that sips fuel? The 2020 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid really impressed us in testing. [credit: Jonathan Gitlin ]

It seems like every article we write explaining just how good Korean cars have become is met with surprise. Well, I'm ready for more shocked faces, because I just spent a week with a 2020 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid, and it is spectacular. It's handsome, well put-together, boasts some nifty driver-assist tech, and best of all, it sips gas, averaging a combined 52mpg (4.5L/100km). Not bad for a sedan that starts at $27,750.

To be fair, I expected the Sonata Hybrid to be good. An hour spent in the not-hybrid Sonata as part of the judging process for the World Car Awards in late 2019 suggested that the Camry and Accord should both be scared. As for the Sonata's hybrid version, I first saw it at this year's Chicago Auto Show, where it stood out against a sea of pedestrian-terrifying SUVs and trucks.

The Sonata is a sleek-looking thing, with a hint of techno catfish to it, thanks to visual whiskers that appear where the chrome cuts through the hourglass grille at its narrowest. I also love the way the daylight-running LEDs blend into strips of chrome as they make their way toward the A pillars. Other design details tell of the wind tunnel and fluid-dynamics simulations in a server farm rather than the whimsy of a design sketch—leading to the disc-like wheels, for instance, or the spikes on the tail lights that work like hostile architecture but for vortices instead of homeless people.

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  North's smart glasses. They look... normal?! [credit: North ]

Google Hardware's latest acquisition is North, a wearables computing company that most recently was making smart glasses that seemed like a successor to Google Glass. Google Hardware SVP Rick Osterloh announced the purchase on Google's blog, saying, "North's technical expertise will help as we continue to invest in our hardware efforts and ambient computing future."

North developed and released a pair of smart glasses called "Focals," which came the closest we've seen so far to smart glasses that looked like normal glasses. First, the company didn't neglect the "glasses" part of "smart glasses" and provided the frames in a range of styles, sizes, and colors, with support for prescription lenses. The technology was noticeably less invasive, too. Google Glass's display surface was a transparent block distractingly placed in front of the users' face, but Focal's display surface was the glasses' lens itself. A laser projector poked out from the thicker-than-normal temple arms and fired into the lens, which has a special coating, allowing the projection to reflect light into the eye.

As you can probably guess from the thicker arms, all the computer components and the battery were smushed into the arms. The device worked a lot like a smartwatch, tethering to your phone for Internet and personal data. It not being a part of the Google or Apple ecosystem duopoly meant a host of app and ecosystem problems, but the glasses supported pop-up notifications, calendar viewing, weather, navigation, Uber, and some kind of messaging support. There was even Amazon Alexa support for voice commands. Like Google Glass, Focals aren't augmented reality; they're just a transparent display that shows flat imagery, more like a smartwatch for your face.

Enlarge / Billy Mitchell (left) and Jace Hall (center) attend an event at the Arcade Expo 2015 in Banning, California. (credit: Datagod / TwinGalaxies forums)

In May, Ars Technica was the first to report on a Los Angeles County defamation lawsuit brought against Twin Galaxies over the video game scoreboard's 2018 removal of Billy Mitchell's historical scores.

As that case barrels toward a July 6 anti-SLAPP motion hearing, both sides have recently filed hundreds of pages of new evidence and arguments laying out their contrasting views of the case and the facts behind it. Those documents contain some of the strongest language yet between the two parties, with Mitchell accusing Twin Galaxies of lying and ignoring eyewitness accounts during its investigation while Twin Galaxies says some of Mitchell's statements "flirt with perjury."

Pineiro’s dueling statements

Some of the strongest disagreement in the opposing filings center on the role of one Carlos Pineiro. Both sides agree that, during Twin Galaxies' investigation, Pineiro spent significant time experimenting with arcade Donkey Kong hardware and recording equipment. That time was expended in an effort to recreate the infamous "girder finger" that appears during level loads in certain Twin Galaxies tapes of Mitchell's purported gameplay performances.