Shortly after taking office, President Joe Biden announced a major effort to jump-start the offshore wind industry in the US, with the stated goal of going from roughly zero to 30 GW of capacity before the decade is over. To that end, the Biden administration has given final approval to Vineyard Wind near Massachusetts and has been involved with three large wind projects that will be sited off New Jersey.
But even with the massive size of those projects, the US would be left with about 4 GW of offshore wind—nowhere close to the 30 GW goal. So on Wednesday, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland laid out an ambitious roadmap that will see all coastal areas of the contiguous 48 states evaluated for leasing, with lease deals being completed before the end of Biden's term in 2024.
A multi-year process
At the federal level, the leasing process is far more involved than simply finding a site that has strong, consistent winds. Federal regulators have to consider environmental impacts, conflicts with other users, damage to historical sites, and the needs of any Native American groups in the area, among other factors. It's only after these hurdles are overcome that the lease sale can begin.
The HTC Vive Flow is a virtual reality headset that you can use as a standalone entertainment and gaming device, no computer required. It’s up for pre-order today for $499 and ships in November. There’s probably nothing particularly surprising about that, since many details were revealed in a series of leaks from Evan Blass earlier […]
The HTC Vive Flow is a virtual reality headset that you can use as a standalone entertainment and gaming device, no computer required. It’s up for pre-order today for $499 and ships in November.
There’s probably nothing particularly surprising about that, since many details were revealed in a series of leaks from Evan Blass earlier this week. But now that the Vive Flow is official, we’re learning more about the specs, software, and target market for HTC’s new entry-level VR hardware.
First up, there’s no skirting around the Vive Flow’s unusual design: putting mirrored surfaces in front of each eye on the front may be an effort to make the Flow look like a pair of bulky sunglasses, but it really makes the person wearing it look more like they have bug eyes.
That said, HTC says it’s focused on comfort – the Vive Flow weighs just 189 grams, or about 6.7 ounces. By comparison, Facebook’s Oculus Quest 2 weighs 500 grams, or about 1.1 pounds. That should make HTC’s standalone headset a lot easier to wear on your face for extended periods.
There’s a reason this thing is so light though – its built-in battery is only designed to run for a few minutes, or just long enough to swap out external battery packs. HTC says you can use a USB-C cable to connect any power bank, but the company also sells its own 10,000 mAh Vive Power bank for $79. That battery is not included in the $499 price tag for the Vive Flow, which only covers the headset itself.
So while the Vive Flow is technically a standalone headset, in that you don’t need to connect it to a phone or PC to run applications, you will probably need to tether it to a power source most of the time in order to actually use the device. But at least the weight of the battery won’t be carried by your face.
Other comfort-focused features include an easy-to-remove face gasket that can be cleaned or swapped out if want to share the headset with other users. There’s an active cooling system to move warm air away from your face. Dual hinges make the headset adjustable for different head sizes. And each lens be focused individually.
HTC says the Vive Flow has 75 Hz display panels with a combined 3.2K resolution (or 1.6K per eye) and a 100 degree field of view. Built-in speakers offer spatial audio, and noise-cancelling mics aid with voice communication.
There are also a pair of front-facing cameras to help with inside-out motion tracking and The Verge reports that HTC plans to support hand-tracking too. One thing you don’t get is a set of handheld controllers. But you can pair the Vive Flow with an Android phone and use it as a remote control that lets you point your phone or tap on-screen buttons to select.
You can also mirror your Android screen to the Vive Flow in order to run Android apps in a more immersive view, which could allow you to stream videos from Netflix or YouTube on a virtual big-screen display, among other things.
HTC says about 100 native apps will be available for the Vive Flow when it hits the streets next month, with another 50 or so coming by the end of 2021. And folks who want access to a range of apps without paying for them outright will be able to pay $6 per month for a Viveport subscription that provides “unlimited access to a wide range of immersive apps covering well-being, brain training, productivity, light gaming, and exclusive content like a Lo-Fi room designed to look and feel like a cozy cafe.”
In terms of horsepower, the HTC Vive Flow has a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 processor, which is the same chip used in the $399 Oculus Quest 2. The Vive Flow has 64GB of built-in storage, and no support for expansion, since there’s no SD card slot.
England-based audio brand Bowers & Wilkins is offering audiophiles another ride on its Zeppelin, but this time, there's a new friend on board. The Zeppelin speaker that was announced on Wednesday marks the first new addition to the series since 2015. It's flying into the new age by integrating Amazon Alexa and some newer technologies for reducing wireless latency.
Bowers & Wilkins' Formation series of wireless speakers got Alexa in 2020, but this is the first time the smart assistant gets a ticket for the Zeppelin. For those who would prefer not to speak to Alexa, the speaker has physical buttons, too.
The latest Zeppelin continues the series' flight toward going completely wireless. Bowers & Wilkins' original Zeppelin in 2007 was an iPod dock, while the 2011 Zeppelin Air still had a dock but added Apple Airplay. In 2015, the Zeppelin Wireless dropped the dock but offered a 3.5 mm connection. Today's Zeppelin has no wired option, except for a USB-C port that's for service only.
Neben einem neuen Bildschirm verfügt die Nintendo Switch OLED auch über eine umgestaltete Kühlung, wie der Teardown von iFixit zeigt. (Nintendo Switch, OLED)
Neben einem neuen Bildschirm verfügt die Nintendo Switch OLED auch über eine umgestaltete Kühlung, wie der Teardown von iFixit zeigt. (Nintendo Switch, OLED)
“Most open source projects are black holes ultimately and always will be.”
Enlarge/ An old PowerBook G4 running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Microsoft Word 2008, and the TenFourFox browser. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)
It has been well over a decade since PowerPC Macs roamed the earth—so long that the Intel Macs that replaced them are themselves being replaced by something else. But to this day, there's a small community of people still developing software for PowerPC Macs and Mac OS 9.
One of those projects was TenFourFox, a fork of the Firefox browser for G3, G4, and G5-based PowerPC Macs running Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5. Maintained primarily by Cameron Kaiser, the TenFourFox project sprang up in late 2010 after Mozilla pulled PowerPC support from Firefox 4 during its development. And amazingly, the browser has continued to trundle on ever since.
But continuing to backport Firefox features to aging, stuck-in-time PowerPC processors only got more difficult as time went on. And in March of this year, Kaiser announced that TenFourFox updates would be ending after over a decade of development. The final planned release of TenFourFox was earlier this month.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes gave Walgreens executives fake reports from major pharmaceutical companies to lend credibility to her company's ill-fated blood diagnostic devices.
The bombshell came during the prosecution’s questioning of former Walgreens CFO Wade Miquelon. Holmes is on trial for 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Partly on the strength of those reports, Walgreens would go on to make a $140 million deal with Holmes’ startup, $100 million as an “innovation fee” and $40 million as convertible notes that could be converted into equity.
“Our common understanding was the technology worked as we were told,” Miquelon told jurors. He said his company had also spoken with doctors and other experts at Johns Hopkins who said Theranos’ technology was sound and would be useful in clinics like the kind Walgreens envisioned. However, Walgreens executives weren't able to validate the device first-hand—Theranos took it back before they had the chance.
Die Keychron K14 ist eine kompakte mechanische Tastatur. Die Switches sind austauschbar und es ist eine Verbindung über Bluetooth möglich. (Tastatur, Eingabegerät)
Die Keychron K14 ist eine kompakte mechanische Tastatur. Die Switches sind austauschbar und es ist eine Verbindung über Bluetooth möglich. (Tastatur, Eingabegerät)
Merck's advance purchase agreement with the US government pegs the price of a five-day treatment at about $700. But an independent analysis by public health researchers at Harvard estimated that a sustainable generic price—with a 10 percent profit margin built in—would be just $20 per treatment. Further, rival generic manufacturers in India are already expected to offer the drug at $15 or less for a treatment once it's authorized for use.
Given that, the $700 price tag in the US represents a 46-fold markup of the drug, which is named after Thor's hammer, Mjölnir.
Datenträger sammeln und dann nichts wie weg: Die Entwickler von Battlefield 2042 haben den bislang geheimen Modus Hazard Zone vorgestellt. (Battlefield 2042, Electronic Arts)
Datenträger sammeln und dann nichts wie weg: Die Entwickler von Battlefield 2042 haben den bislang geheimen Modus Hazard Zone vorgestellt. (Battlefield 2042, Electronic Arts)
The new headset, whose basic concept leaked on Tuesday via a massive Twitter image dump, will be available for preorder at some point today (perhaps right now, as this story goes live) for $499. Unlike HTC's Vive Pro line, this new VR headset does not appear to prioritize gaming or other higher-fidelity use cases.
Instead, this all-in-one headset—whose massive, outward-facing lenses resemble something from a Venture Bros. henchman's outfit—appears to have casual users in mind. Today's announcement highlights apps that focus on "meditation," "brain training," and "collaborating and socializing," and the latter example requires using HTC's own Vive Sync virtual conferencing software. Additionally, promotional materials provided to Ars ahead of today's reveal mention simple VR games for the platform, like Space Slurpies. (No, I never thought I'd type the words "space slurpies" in an Ars article, either.) The headset does not currently include any way to connect to gaming-grade computers, either wired or wireless, to run higher-fidelity VR experiences.
Neben einem neuen Bildschirm verfügt die Nintendo Switch OLED auch über eine umgestaltete Kühlung, wie der Teardown von iFixit zeigt. (
Die Keychron K14 ist eine kompakte mechanische Tastatur. Die Switches sind austauschbar und es ist eine Verbindung über Bluetooth möglich. (
Datenträger sammeln und dann nichts wie weg: Die Entwickler von Battlefield 2042 haben den bislang geheimen Modus Hazard Zone vorgestellt. (
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