Month: June 2022

CUPERTINO, Calif.—iOS 16 will reach iPhones later this year, and as expected, it's loaded with major changes.

Apple executives and product managers took the stage at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote to outline the upcoming features and changes, which include a focus on the lock screen.

It includes more personalization options, like a "depth effect" where you can make a selected photo appear in front of the time. You can also press and hold to customize the lock screen and swipe to try out different styles, like black-and white and other color filters, and font and time options.

Enlarge (credit: FT | Reuters | Unsplash)

Amazon and Alphabet are spearheading what is shaping up to be the most intense political campaign by corporate America in recent history as part of a last-ditch attempt to stop Congress from passing laws to curb their market power.

The companies are targeting a “self-preferencing” bill which would prevent large online platforms from using their dominance in one field to give other products an unfair advantage — for example, Alphabet using its Google search engine to promote its travel or shopping products.

If the bill goes through, it is likely to lend momentum to a wave of legislation aimed at strengthening America’s competition rules, in what could be the biggest update of the country’s antitrust rules in a generation.

Enlarge / The M Hybrid V8 is instantly recognizable as a BMW, as it wears the brand's kidney grille. (credit: BMW)

On Monday, BMW became the first carmaker to reveal its new hybrid racing prototype built to the new LMDh rule set. It's called the BMW M Hybrid V8, and it will race for the first time at next January's Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Sports car racing is in the midst of a transition period as race organizers in the US and Europe adopt new rules for prototype race cars. Because we're talking about sports car racing, and because there are two sets of organizers, it's all a bit complicated.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is organized by the French Automobile Club de l'Ouest, or ACO. Many of the cars that run in that race also compete in the World Endurance Championship, which is organized by the Federation Internationale de L'Automobile (or FIA). In the US, there's the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA), which runs the WeatherTech championship.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto)

Elon Musk today threatened to pull out of his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter in a letter that claimed the company violated the merger agreement by refusing to provide the data behind its spam estimates. Musk needs the data to obtain financing and prepare for the ownership transition, according to the letter sent to Twitter Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde.

"Based on Twitter's behavior to date, and the company's latest correspondence in particular, Mr. Musk believes the company is actively resisting and thwarting his information rights (and the company's corresponding obligations) under the merger agreement," Musk's legal team wrote in the letter to Twitter on Monday. "This is a clear material breach of Twitter's obligations under the merger agreement, and Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement."

As we've previously written, Musk's offer to buy Twitter waived "business due diligence," and the Twitter board relied on that commitment when it approved the transaction and recommended that shareholders vote for it. A Twitter proxy statement told shareholders that one reason to approve the agreement is "the likelihood that other potential acquirers would require substantial due diligence, creating a delay and risk to reaching the signing of such a potential transaction."

Enlarge / Artist's impression of the Spektr-RG spacecraft carrying the German ‘extended ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array’ (eROSITA) X-ray telescope and its Russian ART-XC partner instrument. (credit: German Aerospace Center)

Launched in 2019 on a Proton rocket, the Spektrum-Röntgen-Gamma telescope is arguably the most significant space science mission built and flown by Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago.

The 1.2-ton Spektr-RG spacecraft, located about 1.5 million km from Earth in a halo orbit, is an advanced X-ray observatory designed to detect and map galaxy clusters as well as supermassive black holes. The concept for the spacecraft originated during the Soviet Union, but like a lot of major space projects, it was set aside during the USSR's collapse.

The Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, eventually picked up the idea and partnered with the German space agency, DLR, on the mission. Under the plan, Russia would build the Spektr-RG spacecraft and launch it, whereas the Germany-based Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics would design and build the primary instrument on board, named eROSITA. This instrument took its first observations in late 2019 and was intended to conduct a seven-year survey.

Enlarge / A solid-state lithium cell is pressed together by Solid Power's new automated EV cell pilot line.

Solid Power, a Colorado-based battery developer, moved one step closer to producing solid-state batteries for electric vehicles on Monday. The company has completed an automated "EV cell pilot line" with the capacity to make around 15,000 cells per year, which will be used first by Solid Power and then by its OEM partners for testing.

"The installation of this EV cell pilot line will allow us to produce EV-scale cells suitable for initiating the formal automotive qualification process. Over the coming quarters, we will work to bring the EV cell pilot line up to its full operational capability and look forward to delivering EV-scale all-solid-state cells to our partners later this year," said Solid Power CEO Doug Campbell.

Solid-state batteries differ from the lithium-ion batteries currently used in EVs in that they replace the liquid electrolyte with a solid layer between the anode and cathode. It's an attractive technology for multiple reasons: Solid-state cells should have a higher energy density, they should be able to charge more quickly, and they should be safer, as they're nonflammable (which should further reduce the pack density and weight, as it will need less-robust protection).