Month: September 2020

The Audi e-tron Sportback is a stylish sophomore electric car

It’s a better drive than the first e-tron, but efficiency still lags rivals.

  • Audi has given its e-tron electric car a fancy new look—this is the Audi e-tron Sportback. [credit: Audi ]

December 2018 marked the arrival of the Audi e-tron, the first in a massive onslaught of post-dieselgate electric vehicles from Volkswagen Group. With brands across VW Group still working on new bespoke EV platforms and architectures, the e-tron was a bit of a stopgap, intended to reach the market quickly to show that upper management was now serious about electrification. Now it has company in the form of the new Audi e-tron Sportback.

Audi says that the e-tron Sportback is for its customers who care about the planet but also about aesthetics—basically you buy this car if the thought of an A7's carbon footprint is unbearable. To my eyes, the design team should consider its work a success. The e-tron Sportback is a more attractive vehicle than either the e-tron SUV or the closely related (but internal combustion engine-powered) Q8. In fact, if you ignore everything below the top of the wheel arches, it's a stunner, particularly the flare of the bodywork around the rear wheel and then that little ducktail spoiler.

Overall, the roofline of the e-tron Sportback is about half an inch (12.7mm) lower than the e-tron, and in US-spec with reflective side-view mirrors it has a drag coefficient of 0.28 (a reduction of 0.02).

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ASRock iBOX 1100 is a fanless Tiger Lake desktop (designed for embedded and industrial use)

The first little desktops with Intel Tiger Lake processors are coming soon, with new Intel NUC and similarly-sized mini PCs in the works. But one of the first to be officially announced isn’t aimed at consumers at all (although I suspect it coul…

The first little desktops with Intel Tiger Lake processors are coming soon, with new Intel NUC and similarly-sized mini PCs in the works. But one of the first to be officially announced isn’t aimed at consumers at all (although I suspect it could be used as a general purpose PC). The ASRock iBOX 1100 is a […]

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Blackrock-Enteignen – aber wie?

Am Wochenende fand in Berlin das Tribunal gegen Blackrock statt. Nach dem Urteil verstößt der Konzern “gegen die wesentlichen Prinzipien der Demokratie, gegen Völkerrecht und Menschenrechte”

Am Wochenende fand in Berlin das Tribunal gegen Blackrock statt. Nach dem Urteil verstößt der Konzern "gegen die wesentlichen Prinzipien der Demokratie, gegen Völkerrecht und Menschenrechte"

Computer: Gebrauchsanleitung des Zuse Z4 gefunden

Die Anleitung für den Zuse Z4 galt lange als verschollen, bis sie an einer ehemaligen Wirkungsstätte des Supercomputers der 40er und 50er Jahre entdeckt worden ist. (Konrad Zuse, Computer)

Die Anleitung für den Zuse Z4 galt lange als verschollen, bis sie an einer ehemaligen Wirkungsstätte des Supercomputers der 40er und 50er Jahre entdeckt worden ist. (Konrad Zuse, Computer)

FarmVille—yes, the original—is finally meeting its demise

Yes, people are still playing—but only for three more months.

They are <em>very</em> excited about doing chores until they run out of energy.

Enlarge / They are very excited about doing chores until they run out of energy. (credit: Zynga | Facebook)

You may have thought it was already dead, but today the developer of FarmVille, arguably the first Facebook game to become a true sensation, announced that the game is finally meeting its end.

"Following an incredible 11 years since its initial launch back in 2009, we are officially announcing the closure of the original FarmVille game on Facebook," Zynga said this morning. Players will be able to keep making in-app purchases through November 17; after that point, payments and refunds will be suspended but users will still be able to play through December 31, at which point FarmVille shuts the barn doors for good.

The timing isn't exactly Zynga's choosing: a decade ago, games of that ilk were usually built using Adobe Flash. Flash has for several years notoriously been a complete security disaster, and Adobe said back in 2017 it would finally kill off Flash at the end of 2020. That time is now upon us.

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