Month: January 2023

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Elva Etienne)

A lawsuit filed by Seattle Public Schools alleges that social media is one of the main causes of "a youth mental health crisis" and blames social media companies for "exploit[ing] the neurophysiology" of kids' brains. Arguing that social media companies are violating the state public nuisance law, the lawsuit seeks financial damages and other remedies from the owners of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube.

"Defendants have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youth, hooking tens of millions of students across the country into positive feedback loops of excessive use and abuse of Defendants' social media platforms," the lawsuit said. "Worse, the content Defendants curate and direct to youth is too often harmful and exploitive (e.g., promoting a 'corpse bride' diet, eating 300 calories a day, or encouraging self-harm)."

The complaint was filed Thursday in US District Court for the Western District of Washington.

Enlarge / Some BMW i4s are being recalled to fix their battery-management software. (credit: BMW)

BMW is the latest automaker to issue a recall for some of its electric vehicles. It has identified a problem with the battery-management software for the traction batteries in some i4 and i7 sedans, as well as some iX SUVs, that could result in a car temporarily losing power. Consequently, it wants to update the software in those cars' battery-electronic control units.

The problem was first brought to BMW's attention last June with a report from a Chinese BMW that experienced a drivetrain warning light in one of its EVs. This was traced to the high-voltage battery ECU, at which point BMW started investigating the problem. By late November, it had identified 10 warranty cases in the US involving a temporary loss of power.

By this time, BMW's engineers decided that the problem had the potential to occur in other vehicles, and in mid-December BMW decided to issue a recall.

Enlarge / Apple introduced an all-new ruggedized Apple Watch Ultra in 2022, but updates for the Apple Watch and many of Apple's other products will be more low-key in 2023. The company is gearing up to release a new mixed-reality headset. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Apple is still planning to launch a new mixed-reality headset sometime in 2023, according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. The headset will run its own operating system (currently dubbed "xrOS"), and Gurman says there are still "many kinks to work out," which is typical of any new hardware and software from any company.

Aside from its ever-changing release window—previous estimates said the headset could be announced as early as this month, which has now changed to "spring 2023 announcement, fall 2023 launch"—there aren't many new details about the headset in the latest report. What's coming into focus, though, is the extent to which the headset launch will divert resources from elsewhere in the company this year.

Gurman says the main casualties will be the iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and AirPod lineups—all of these lineups received significant updates in 2022, and the report indicates that most updates this year will be mostly minor "spec bump" updates. New iPad Pros supposedly won't launch until 2024. Apple's established operating systems, including iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, will all have "fewer major changes than originally planned."

Enlarge / The Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3 variants. Green are standard, black are infrared. And it's implied that this photo is showing off some of the HDR prowess of the new Camera Module 3 itself. (credit: Raspberry Pi)

Raspberry Pis will soon have many more camera-based projects available to them, as the newest Camera Module from the single-board computer maker allows for autofocus, high dynamic range, lower-light photos, and more.

The Camera Module 3, starting at $25, lets you take "crisp images of objects from around 5cm out to infinity," Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton wrote in a blog post announcement. Standard field-of-view (FoV) camera modules cost $25, while wider-FoV models are $35 for the "more complex and expensive optical stack."

The sensor comes from Sony and uses a back-illuminated IMX708 that provides a 12-megapixel resolution, larger (1.40μm) pixels, and support for HDR. Among other improvements from the Camera Module 2 released in 2016, this model allows for finer image details, 16:9 HD video, and better low-light sensitivity. The standard models capture a 66-degree field of view, similar to the previous module's 62. The wide-FoV models capture 102 degrees at a slightly lower angular resolution but allow for new uses, including digital panning.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Skepticism about electric vehicles—and there's a lot of it out there—is really more of a concern about infrastructure than the EVs themselves. After all, EVs are more efficient, quieter, more refined, and usually much quicker than an otherwise-identical fossil-powered vehicle. But the charging problem is not something EV advocates can dismiss as a simple inconvenience.

While it's true that most EV owners recharge their EVs overnight at home, as adoption increases, EVs will be purchased by people without garages or carports from which to charge, increasing the importance of widespread and reliable public chargers. And we'll need many more public chargers, according to a report from S&P Global Mobility.

As regular readers will no doubt be aware, there is plenty of investment going into charging infrastructure. In March 2021, US President Joe Biden set a goal of adding half a million new EV charging stations by 2030. In 2022, President Biden followed up with a $5 billion plan to build DC fast chargers along the interstate highway network, with at least four chargers every 50 miles.

Enlarge / Modern farm equipment is packed full of software, and repairs have become a real pain. (credit: John Deere)

Farmers now have the right to repair their John Deere tractors themselves or through independent third parties, ending a lengthy battle with the agricultural machinery company. On Saturday, John Deere and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) outlining the company's responsibilities to provide diagnostic tools and software outside of the company's official authorized repair centers.

The right for consumers to repair their own property, be that cars, electronics, or farm equipment, has been growing over the past few years, with some states taking action to enshrine the right for their residents. Farmers have been at odds with John Deere since 2016, when the company changed its end-user license to require that any repairs involving embedded software be carried out only by authorized technicians. Like cars, modern tractors are now packed full of complicated electronics, and the restrictions imposed upon farmers did not go down well.

In July 2021, US President Joe Biden weighed in with an executive order that specifically mentioned this problem. Among other actions, the order called on the Federal Trade Commission to prevent "unfair anticompetitive restrictions on third-party repair or self-repair of items, such as the restrictions imposed by powerful manufacturers that prevent farmers from repairing their own equipment."