Month: July 2023

Enlarge / BMW is testing a remote parking solution. (credit: BMW)

Part of the autonomous driving dream is the ability to jump out of your vehicle in front of the store, mall, concert hall, or museum and let the car find its own parking while you enjoy life. No more creeping along in garages thinking you found the perfect spot, only to have your delight dashed by the motorcycle you couldn't quite see.

While true autonomous driving is still years away, regardless of the declarations of automakers and startups, there's another way to have your car seemingly park itself: remote teleoperation. BMW and Valeo are teaming up to make this a reality at BMW's new Future Mobility Development Center in Sokolov, Czech Republic. The automaker gave us a sneak peek and let us remotely drive a vehicle in a simulated parking lot.

Sim racing rig, but less exciting and more anxiety-inducing

As I stood in a small building, about 100 m away sat a BMW iX waiting to be piloted via the rig sitting before me. It resembled the typical online racing rig you see in the homes of car enthusiasts and gamers, except that the side monitors didn't expand the view horizontally. Instead, they were used to display an overhead version of the world around the vehicle. Below those monitors were tablets with controls (forward, reverse, etc) and vehicle status.

Enlarge (credit: Karol Serewis/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Good news, electric road-trippers: DC fast chargers are about to become a lot more common. On Wednesday, a group of seven major automakers announced a plan to create a new charging network of more than 30,000 chargers across North America starting next year.

BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis are creating a joint venture to significantly expand the number of fast charging sites in the US and Canada. The sites will use the new National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure guidelines, which means, among other things, 97 percent uptime for each charging port. The sites will support both CCS1 and NACS plugs, and the chargers will also support the plug-and-charge protocol.

"North America is one of the world’s most important car markets—with the potential to be a leader in electromobility. Accessibility to high-speed charging is one of the key enablers to accelerate this transition. Therefore, seven automakers are forming this joint venture with the goal of creating a positive charging experience for EV consumers. The BMW Group is proud to be among the founders," said BMW Group CEO Oliver Zipse.

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  Samsung's new foldables, the Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5. [credit: Samsung ]

Samsung's newest foldable phones are the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5. The two devices were made official at a South Korean show early this morning.

First is the Z Fold 5, which is phone-sized when closed and opens up to be a bigger device. The changes here are mostly just a spec bump and a new "double rail Flex Hinge" system. The new hinge design brings the phone more in line with most other foldables. When closed, the support plates under the display crease swing out of the way, allowing the bent-over display to sit more loosely in a teardrop shape rather than crushing it into a hard crease. This means the phone can fold flat instead of having a gap when closed. Most executions of this style of hinge still have a divot or trench in the middle of the screen, but it's easier on the display.

The Fold was a pioneer as the first foldable phone, but it now seems to be spending this release catching up to the competition. Besides adopting the competition's hinge design, Samsung still has some work to do on the thinness front. Foldables are giant devices in your pocket, and thinness really matters when you're potentially talking about double the weight and thickness of a normal phone. The fold-flat hinge and some work slimming down the phone puts the Z Fold 5 at 13.4 mm thick when folded up. With a 4400 mAh battery, that's just not very impressive. In the US, the Pixel Fold manages to be 12.1 mm thick with a 5000 mAh battery. In China, the Honor Magic V2 is somehow 9.9 mm thick when folded, with a 5000 mAh battery.

Enlarge / The four companies say they launched the Frontier Model Forum to ensure "the safe and responsible development of frontier AI models." (credit: Financial Times)

Four of the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence companies have formed a group to research increasingly powerful AI and establish best practices for controlling it, as public anxiety and regulatory scrutiny over the impact of the technology increases.

On Wednesday, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI launched the Frontier Model Forum, with the aim of “ensuring the safe and responsible development of frontier AI models.”

In recent months, the US companies have rolled out increasingly powerful AI tools that produce original content in image, text or video form by drawing on a bank of existing material. The developments have raised concerns about copyright infringement, privacy breaches and that AI could ultimately replace humans in a range of jobs.