Month: May 2022

Enlarge / LG UltraGear 48GQ900. (credit: LG)

LG is already an OLED TV king, but when it comes to PC monitors, the company's OLED offerings are scant. That's changing this summer with the LG UltraGear 48GQ900 announced this week. Just like LG's other OLED monitors, you can expect this to be a lavish display for those with extreme needs and large budgets.

Aimed at console and PC gamers, the 47.5-inch OLED screen will have a 4K resolution at 120 Hz (overclockable to 138 Hz) and a 0.1 ms gray-to-gray response time. Some people consider 120 Hz beneficial for watching content made at 24 fps, like movies, in order to avoid the judder you might get with some 60 Hz displays. All that, combined with a generous panel size, makes it easy to see the monitor being a living room TV replacement, especially for a cable-cutter. It will even come with a remote.

For extreme competitive PC gaming, however, it's worth noting that you can now reserve an OLED monitor with a 240 Hz refresh rate.

Enlarge / This year's Indianapolis 500 will be the last to run on E85 gasoline. From next year, the series is switching to renewable ethanol. (credit: Meyer Shank Racing)

The IndyCar racing series is switching to an entirely renewable fuel next year. On Friday, ahead of Sunday's Indianapolis 500 race, IndyCar announced that starting next year, the race cars will be powered by a new, second-generation renewable ethanol race fuel developed by Shell.

"The fuel and lubricant and energy solutions developed through our strategic relationship with IndyCar and Penske Corporation can ultimately help accelerate reduced carbon emissions from transport in many sectors of the economy," said Carlos Maurer, executive vice president of Sectors and Decarbonization at Shell. "Shell's motorsports technical alliances around the world provide a testing ground for fuel and lubricant technologies and products in demanding road conditions."

The manufacturing process for IndyCar's ethanol will be slightly less exotic than that seen in the low-carbon fuel that Formula 1 is considering for 2026. Rather than carbon capture and electrolysis, Shell will use sugarcane waste and other renewable feedstocks, which are hydrolyzed and fermented at a plant in Brazil operated by Raízen (Shell is a co-owner).

Selecting multiple blocks of text in Google Drive. (credit: Google)

The Google Workspace team is rolling out some solid productivity updates to Google Drive.

You can now select multiple blocks of text at the same time in the Docs editor for quick editing. This is a feature Microsoft Word has had for a while, and it allows you to you can hold Ctrl, highlight multiple blocks of text, and apply a style. Unfortunately, Google Docs isn't using an obvious shortcut key. According to the updated shortcuts page, you'll need at least four fingers to get this done. It's Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Left/Right arrow on Windows, or  Ctrl + Cmd+ Shift + Left/Right arrow on a Mac. From there, Google says you'll need to "use [the] left/right arrow to move to a separate section of text you also want to select."

The next dead-simple addition is keyboard shortcuts for copy/paste in the Google Drive file browser. The ability to copy and paste in the text editors has been around forever, but you'll now be able to do so in Drive's web file manager, which previously wasn't possible. It's strange that it has taken Google so long to implement this feature, but there's a lot of abstraction between you and the Google Drive JavaScript app. If you copy a Google Docs document, you aren't actually copying a file to the clipboard because the file lives on the Internet. You're moving organizational links around with a clipboard that JavaScript doesn't even have read access to. You've also always been able to install the Drive sync app and manage files through your operating system's file manager, but now the web version is getting better functionality.

Enlarge / It might be a while until you can stream Halo Infinite to a TV using just a small dongle. (credit: Microsoft)

Last year, Microsoft officially confirmed years of rumors and announced plans for "standalone streaming devices" that could stream Xbox games through the company's xCloud service. Now, though, the company says it's essentially going back to the drawing board and "pivot[ing] away from the current iteration" of that streaming-focused hardware.

In a statement to Windows Central, a Microsoft spokesperson reconfirmed that the company has "been working on a game-streaming device, codenamed Keystone, that could be connected to any TV or monitor without the need for a console." At the same time, that spokesperson suggested that it may be a while until we see that hardware being finalized and released:

As part of any technical journey, we are constantly evaluating our efforts, reviewing our learnings, and ensuring we are bringing value to our customers. We have made the decision to pivot away from the current iteration of the Keystone device. We will take our learnings and refocus our efforts on a new approach that will allow us to deliver Xbox Cloud Gaming to more players around the world in the future.

Microsoft's statement comes weeks after a GamesBeat report suggested that Microsoft's game-streaming device would be released "in the next 12 months," citing "people familiar with [Microsoft's] plans." That report also said that certain Samsung smart TVs would be getting an Xbox cloud streaming app in the same time period.

Enlarge / Simon Pagenaud of Meyer Shank Racing Honda during testing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (credit: Meyer Shank Racing)

On most IndyCar teams, Simon Pagenaud would play the role of mentor. But when the 38-year-old French driver joined Meyer Shank Racing for the 2022 season, he paired with 47-year-old Helio Castroneves—fresh off his record-tying fourth Indianapolis 500 victory—to form one of the most experienced duos on the grid.

"I definitely feel like the young guy, that's for sure!" Pagenaud told us.

In advance of this weekend's 106th running of the Indianapolis 500, we spoke with the Meyer Shank duo about drafting dynamics, sports car experience, and the quest to make history.