Month: January 2021

Enlarge (credit: Qualcomm)

Qualcomm is repackaging a chip from last year into the "Snapdragon 870." Last year's flagship SoC was the Snapdragon 865, and then Qualcomm released the slightly up-clocked Snapdragon 865+. The Snapdragon 870 seems to be a 865++. It's another clock bump.

Qualcomm has a totally impenetrable product lineup, so it's hard to know if any single non-flagship SoC announcement from the company is significant. It sounds like this chip will be picked up by some of the more interesting Android OEMs, though. The press release says it will "power a selection of flagship devices from key customers including Motorola, iQOO, OnePlus, OPPO, and Xiaomi.” The real flagship SoC is the Snapdragon 888, so Qualcomm's use of "flagship" here definitely belongs in scare quotes.

Like the 865, this is a 7nm, eight-core chip. The Prime Cortex A77 core is now clocked at 3.2GHz, and hold on to your benchmark apps, because that's 3 percent faster than the 3.1Ghz Snapdragon 865+! Qualcomm doesn't say anything, so we'll assume all the other cores are the same as the Snapdragon 865. That means three more A77 cores at 2.4Ghz and four A55 cores at 1.8Ghz. Like on the 865+ model, it sounds like there is still the option for Qualcomm's latest connectivity chip, giving you the possibility of an 870 with Wi-Fi 6E.

Enlarge / Florida's handling of the pandemic has been... a mixed bag. This beach was hopping on May 20, around the same time Jones publicly claimed the state fired her for refusing to manipulate Florida's COVID-19 data. (credit: Mike Ehrmann | Getty Images)

Florida police have arrested former state data scientist Rebekah Jones, accusing her of breaking state laws prohibiting accessing computer systems without authorization.

Jones on Saturday disclosed the arrest warrant herself, writing in a series of tweets that she and her lawyer had arranged with Florida police for her to present herself to law enforcement in Tallahassee on Sunday evening. (Jones and her family currently live in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC.) Jones was released from jail Monday after posting $2,500 bail and reportedly testing positive for COVID-19 while in police custody.

The warrant alleges that Jones gained unauthorized access to state Department of Health systems in November to send an unauthorized message to employees and to download a list of contact information for approximately 19,000 people.

Enlarge / DUNKIRK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES - 2016/10/09: A NRG owned coal fired energy facility that plans to convert to a natural gas facility. (credit: John Greim / Getty Images)

Today, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated the Trump administration's attempt to take a minimalist approach to the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions. The ruling was a lopsided victory for the long list of groups opposing the Trump EPA's approach, with the entire rule being vacated. Thus, the Biden administration will start unencumbered by its predecessors' attempts to gut carbon dioxide regulations.

Here we go again

Some of the legal issues here date back to the Clinton administration, when states sued to force the EPA to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act. That issue was ultimately clarified by the Supreme Court, which, during the George W. Bush administration, ruled that carbon dioxide could be regulated as a pollutant as defined by the Clean Air Act. Early in the Obama administration, the EPA issued an endangerment finding for greenhouse gasses that provided the scientific rationale for regulations. Those regulations came in the form of the Clean Power Plan, issued during Obama's second term.

While the Clean Power Plan completed the federal rule-making process, it was held up by lawsuits when President Obama left office. Trump issued an executive order that directed the EPA to replace the Clean Power Plan. The EPA's eventual replacement, the Affordable Clean Energy rule (ACE), went well beyond simply ending or limiting the Clean Power Plan. Instead, ACE attempted to narrow the regulation allowed under the Clean Air Act by having states regulate each individual source of emissions, rather than regulating the state's total emissions. As an added bonus, it also stretched out the timeline for states to bring their emissions into compliance.

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Today's Dealmaster includes a number of discounts on first-party Nintendo Switch games. While most of the deals don't reach the lowest prices we've ever seen, the likes of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario Party, and Super Mario Maker 2 are all down to $40, bringing them each about $10 cheaper than their usual street prices online. While many of the discounted games have been out of contract for a few years, newer recommended titles like Clubhouse Games and Paper Mario: The Origami King are down to the lowest prices we've tracked as well.

Elsewhere, we also have discounts on Amazon's Fire HD tablet lineup, the latest iPad Air and Apple Watch Series 6, and the upcoming Hitman III, among others. You can have a look at our full roundup below.

Note: Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

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  This is the $176,900 2021 Aston Martin DBX, the first ever crossover from the storied British brand. [credit: Jonathan Gitlin ]

There's no escaping the crossover, even in the poshest of neighborhoods. Everyone knows that the Cayenne saved Porsche, particularly in new markets like China, and that's why we now have six-figure SUVs like the Rolls Royce Cullinan, Lamborghini Urus, Bentley Bentayga, and now Aston Martin's $176,900 DBX.

Last year was a hectic one for Aston Martin, and that's saying something for a company with as many ups and downs as its had during its 108-year history. Lawrence Stroll, Canadian billionaire (and dad to F1's Lance) bought a 16.7-percent stake as part of a $656 million cash infusion. Stroll is also behind Aston Martin's return to F1 as a constructor, with the British marque rebranding the team most recently known as Racing Point and hiring four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel to drive alongside

CEO Andy Palmer—who led the development of the Nissan Leaf earlier in his career—was replaced by Tobias Moers, formerly boss of Mercedes-AMG at Daimler. That strengthens ties with the German giant that supplies the low-volume British firm with powerful V8 engines and 21st-century infotainment tech. There's a brand-new factory, just completed on the site of an old RAF maintenance base at St Athan, Wales. And it's from here that the brand is diversifying its lineup with what it describes as it's "first full-size five-seater." (Which tells you everything you need to know about the rear seat experience in the now-retired Aston Martin Rapide, I suppose.)

Driverless Chevy Bolts are a common sight on the streets of San Francisco, where Cruise is based. (credit: Cruise)

Microsoft has invested in Cruise, the General Motors driverless car unit, in a $2 billion funding round that gives the autonomous driving company a $30 billion valuation.

Cruise, which was bought by GM for “more than $1 billion” in 2016, when it had just 40 employees, now has almost 2,000 staff and accounts for more than 40 percent of GM’s $71.5 billion market capitalisation.

Its latest investment round puts it head-to-head with Waymo, the Google sister company, as the world’s most valuable autonomous driving start-up. Waymo raised $3.2 billion last year at an undisclosed valuation that two people said to the FT was “more than $30 billion.”