Month: May 2021

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  Here's an X-ray of the 24-inch iMac. [credit: iFixit ]

iFixit has begun a teardown of the new, M1-equipped 24-inch iMac that was released to the public just last week, and so far the finding has been that there's not a whole lot to find in there.

One thing to keep in mind: there is a version of the 24-inch iMac with seven GPU cores and another with eight. iFixit is tearing down the eight-core version, and that's relevant because the cooling system differs between the two, so this isn't exactly representative of every 24-inch iMac Apple is shipping.

Most of the components, including the logic board, can be found in the iMac's chin. Since this is an M1 Mac, there is obviously not a separate GPU, and most of the key components are on the SoC. That means that upgrading the RAM or the GPU is not a possibility. iFixit compares the logic board to that found in the M1 MacBook Air.

Enlarge / The Nest Hub. (credit: Google)

Google is officially rolling out a new operating system, called Fuchsia, to consumers. The release is a bit hard to believe at this point, but Google confirmed the news to 9to5Google, and several members of the Fuchsia team have confirmed it on Twitter. The official launch date was apparently yesterday. Fuchsia is certainly getting a quiet, anti-climactic launch, as it's only being made available to one device, the Google Home Hub, aka the first-generation Nest Hub. There are no expected changes to the UI or functionality of the Home Hub, but Fuchsia is out there. Apparently, Google simply wants to prove out the OS in a consumer environment.

Fuchsia's one launch device was originally called the Google Home Hub, a 7-inch smart display that responds to Google Assistant commands and launched in 2018. The device was renamed the "Nest Hub" in 2019, and it's only this first-generation device, not the 2nd-gen Nest Hub or Nest Hub Max, that is getting Fuchsia. The Home Hub's OS has always been an odd duck. When the device was release, Google was pitching a smart display hardware ecosystem to partners based on Android Things, a now-defunct Internet-of-things/kiosk OS. Instead of following the recommendations it gave to hardware partners, Google loaded the Home Hub with its in-house Google Cast Platform instead—and then undercut all its partners on price.

Fuchsia has long been a secretive project. We first saw the OS as a pre-alpha smartphone UI that was ported to Android in 2017. In 2018, we got the OS running natively on a Pixelbook. After that, the Fuchsia team stopped doing its work out in the open and stripped all UI work out of the public repository. Even with this official consumer launch, there's no blog post or any fanfare at all to go along with it. Google's I/O  conference happened last week, and the company didn't make a peep about Fuchsia there, either. Really, this ultra-quiet, invisible launch is the most "Fuchsia" launch possible.

Enlarge / A rendering of GE and Glosten's actively managed tension leg platform for floating offshore wind projects. (credit: Glosten)

The US took its first steps toward embracing offshore wind power earlier this month with the approval of the Vineyard Wind 1 project off the coast of Massachusetts. When the site is complete, 62 massive wind turbines anchored in the continental shelf will crank out 800 MW of electricity, giving the East Coast its first taste of a large, nearby, and renewable power source. And while the project shows the promise of offshore wind, the industry’s future may lie even deeper in the ocean.

In US waters alone, 58 percent of offshore wind capacity—some 4,200 TWh per year—is beyond the reach of fixed-foundation wind turbines, which are commercially limited to depths of less than 60 m. Offshore wind represents a massive, untapped resource, and the US used about 4,000 TWh of electricity last year.

To access offshore wind power, companies have been experimenting with floating platforms that would support the industry’s largest turbines. Yesterday, General Electric and Glosten, an engineering consultancy, announced a new design and control scheme that could significantly lower the cost of floating offshore wind as part of the ARPA-E ATLANTIS program.

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  This crisply styled thing is the Hyundai Ioniq 5, a new battery electric vehicle due later this year. [credit: Hyundai ]

It's a good time for new battery electric vehicles. Ford's F-150 Lightning electric pickup has been hogging the headlines lately—no surprise, given America's enduring love affair with the half-ton truck. But I'm more excited about Hyundai's next BEV, the Ioniq 5, which should start showing up on roads this fall. We got our first (remote) look at the Ioniq 5 back in February, but this week Hyundai opened up about specifications and features for US-bound Ioniq 5s.

At first, Hyundai will not sell the Ioniq 5 nationwide. The company will prioritize states with zero-emissions regulations—California, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont—but also Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas. If you don't live in one of those 16 states and you want an Ioniq 5, you'll have to wait until sometime in 2022 to buy one.

We still don't have pricing information—expect that information closer to release. More details are also coming for a subscription option that sounds a lot like Volvo's Care by Volvo program, which includes insurance and maintenance in its monthly fee.