Month: August 2022

Enlarge (credit: Matt Cardy / Contributor | Getty Images News)

This week, a California court denied Visa’s motion to be dropped from a lawsuit alleging that Visa “intended to help” monetize child sexual abuse materials hosted on sites like Pornhub. In part, because the credit card company processed payments for ads featured alongside these videos, the judge determined that Visa will have to answer to victim claims that Visa provided the tool that made hosting illicit videos profitable.

Today, Visa responded to the court's decision by suspending all advertising purchases from Pornhub owner MindGeek’s advertising arm, TrafficJunky. “During this suspension, Visa cards will not be able to be used to purchase advertising on any sites including Pornhub or other MindGeek affiliated sites,” Alfred F. Kelly, Jr., Visa chairman and CEO, wrote in a statement.

This move follows an earlier decision Visa made in December 2020 to stop allowing payments on MindGeek’s websites featuring user-generated content, like Pornhub. The new statement says that they decided to end advertising payments, too, because the California court’s decision “created new uncertainty about the role of TrafficJunky” in MindGeek's alleged practice of posting illegal videos depicting content that Visa says it condemns.

Enlarge / Someday, Google's messaging lineup will look like this (assuming Google can stop launching competing products). (credit: Ron Amadeo)

Google is officially kicking off the merger of its two video chat apps, Google Meet and Google Duo. Google announced the merger in June, with the plan to keep the Google Meet brand name while merging the best of both code bases into the Google Duo app. According to Google's PR email (no links, sorry), people will begin seeing Duo's app and website branding swap over to Google Meet this week. Google's various rebrandings are all on a rollout, so they'll arrive at different times for different people, but Google says the complete rebrand should finish for everyone by September.

So Google Duo is being rebranded to Google Meet, and the existing Google Meet app is sticking around for a bit. That means there are now two apps called "Google Meet." Google has a help article detailing this extremely confusing situation, calling the two Meet apps "Google Meet (original): The updated Meet app" and "Google Meet: The updated Duo app." The "Google Meet (original)" app will someday be put out to pasture; it's just sticking around while Google rebuilds the meeting functionality on top of Google Duo. Did everyone follow that?

The Meet and Duo video services were both built as reactions to Google's far more stable communication competition. Google Meet was technically created in 2017 as a group business video chat application called "Google Hangouts Meet," but it really became a major project after Zoom's growth exploded in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Google Meet was still locked behind a paywall during the initial months of the work-from-home era, and while it eventually became as easy to use as Zoom, it was after Zoom became a household name.

Enlarge (credit: Getty)

As work on the Wi-Fi 7 specification continues, products supporting the upcoming standard are seemingly on track for a prompt release. This week, Intel said that computers using its Wi-Fi 7 modules are expected to be available within the next two years.

"We are currently developing Intel's Wi-Fi '802.11be' in order to obtain the 'Wi-Fi Alliance' certification, and it will be installed in PC products, such as laptops, by 2024. We expect it to appear in major markets in 2025," Eric McLaughlin, VP of the Client Computing Group and GM of the Wireless Solutions Group at Intel, said at a recent press conference, according to South Korean IT news site ETNews (as spotted by The Register).

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11be standard, also known as Wi-Fi 7, is expected to leverage the 6GHz band in addition to the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands while delivering a max channel bandwidth of 320 MHz, compared to Wi-Fi 6/6E's max of 160 MHz.

Enlarge (credit: Wemo)

When the smart home compatibility standard Matter finally arrives, it promises to simplify and improve the connections and compatibility between different device brands, using Thread as its secure, low-energy backbone.

Until then, let devices like Wemo's new Smart Dimmer with Thread serve as a warning: Matter runs on Thread, but not all Thread devices will give you a Matter experience. Belkin's new dimmer is a prime example of a device "with Thread" that is far from universally accessible—and likely confusing to buyers.

Wemo's new dimmer doesn't require the onerous Wi-Fi setup you might remember from switches of old, instead connecting to your smartphone by Bluetooth or an NFC tap. To use it outside of Bluetooth range, you'll need a Thread network in your home. But here's where it gets tricky: This smart dimmer is controlled exclusively through HomeKit, so you'll specifically need a HomePod Mini or second-generation Apple TV 4K within a reasonable range of the switch. Those more robust devices can act as "border routers" in a Thread network, allowing more single-purpose devices like a dimmer to connect to a Thread mesh and access the Internet.

Enlarge / An ID.4 crosses a bridge in Chattanooga. Local production of the electric crossover has enabled a cheaper version with a smaller battery. (credit: Volkswagen)

Last year, Ars visited Volkswagen's factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the company was preparing to begin local production of its ID.4 electric crossover. That factory is now up to speed, and VW is making good on its promise to make a cheaper ID.4, made possible by a smaller battery pack.

It's a tried-and-true approach by automakers, as the higher margins on better-equipped models help offset the high costs of putting a new model into production.

The new model is called the ID.4 Standard, and it keeps the same 201-hp (150-kW) electric motor driving the rear wheels as the ID.4 Pro or the ID.4 First Edition we tested in April 2021. But instead of that car's 82 kWh pack, the ID.4 Standard makes do with a 62 kWh pack (gross capacity—unfortunately, VW hasn't shared net capacity).

Enlarge / Riding in Tula's DMD-equipped Chevrolet Bolt EV. (credit: Roberto Baldwin)

SAN JOSE, CALIF.—Electric vehicles are all about small gains in efficiency leading to increased range. Reduce the drag, tweak the acceleration curve, and increase the regenerative braking, and you get a few more miles. Car tech company Tula has come up with another solution to enhance efficiency.

Called Dynamic Motor Drive (DMD), the system pulses the electric motor to operate within a "sweet spot" of efficiency. DMD adds efficiency and removes one of the more controversial materials found in EV motors: rare earth metals. The result is an efficiency gain of about 3 percent. That's not a huge boost, but if your vehicle gets 300 miles of range, for instance, you get nine extra miles of road you can cover. But the system also sets itself up to work in a world with fewer rare earth magnets.

Those rare earth magnets cost automakers a pretty penny, and they're not aligned with the green positioning of EVs. Currently, 90 percent of the EV industry's materials for these magnets (mostly neodymium) come from China. Since late 2021, the price of those materials has increased by about 90 percent. There are plans to increase rare earth mining in the US, but considering the environmental precautions that need to be taken, it still won't be cheap.