Month: December 2020

Produced by Adam Lance Garcia, edited by Ron Douglas. Click here for transcript. (video link)

We've hung out with Linus, made incoherent shouting noises with Markiplier, chilled with LGR, and debriefed with Scott Manley—but we've got one last video to share as we roll into the end of 2020.

This time we're sitting down with Dimitris Giannakis, better known as Modern Vintage Gamer. We're running MVG through the same gauntlet as we did the previous stars of the segment—we came prepared with some of his most popular and/or most obscure comments from his YouTube channel, and we're quizzing him on how well he remembers them. (Spoiler alert, he does great—in fact, the video contains a lot of gems of wisdom from MVG about hacking on console hardware.)

Enlarge (credit: DeFodi Images )

As the first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine were administered yesterday, most of the US public began a potentially long waiting game, as the vaccine will be in short supply for many months and is being administered to healthcare workers and the elderly first. For most of the US, that means waiting until manufacturing can catch up with our needs.

One thing that could significantly speed vaccinations is the approval of additional vaccines, and here the news is also good: today, the Food and Drug Administration released detailed data on Moderna's RNA-based vaccine, finding it well over 90 percent effective. These numbers make it highly likely that the FDA will issue an Emergency Use Authorization when it considers the issue on Thursday.

Looking good

The previous data on the vaccine's efficacy had been delivered by press release in mid-November. The FDA's documentation is, as you'd expect, far more detailed. We'll provide a summary of it here and will update the story as we get a chance to look through all 54 pages the FDA has released.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Walter Zerla)

The EU will threaten on Tuesday to break up Big Tech companies if they repeatedly engage in anti-competitive behavior.

The warning comes as Brussels publishes its drafts of two major new pieces of tech regulation.

A Digital Markets Act will aim to tackle unfair competition in the sector, and a Digital Services Act will force tech companies to take more responsibility for illegal behavior on their platforms.

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  This is the facelifted Audi R8 V10 performance Coupe quattro. You can tell it apart from the pre-facelift R8 by those three vents above the grille, as well as the shape of the air intakes below the headlights. [credit: Jonathan Gitlin ]

2020's been a crappy year, but even amongst the domestic political turmoil and global pandemic-related disruption to normal life there have been the occasional bright spots. Like the long weekend I spent with a $195,900 Audi R8 V10 performance Coupe quattro. Any day I get to drive something mid-engined is a good day, after all. Particularly when it's with the kind of car that might not be with us that much longer.

Our first taste of the second-generation Audi supercar was back in 2017. Mechanically, the R8 V10 performance Coupe quattro is much like we found the R8 V10 plus back then. Its centerpiece is that naturally aspirated 5.2L V10, shared (as with much else under the skin) with the Lamborghini Huracán. (Audi bought Lamborghini back in 1998.) Hand-built in Hungary, the V10 generates 602hp (449kW) at a heady 8,100rpm, with a peak torque figure of 413lb-ft (560Nm) arriving at 6,700rpm. That gets sent to all four wheels via a seven-speed dual clutch transmission, and in the case of the rear axle, via clutch-based torque-vectoring that takes the place of a traditional differential.

Externally, the R8 has had a slight facelift. There are a few more vents that allow cooling air to enter the car and a few more that help it on its way out the back, but the tweaks are subtle.