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Enlarge / BMW continues to experiment with subscriptions in markets like the UK and South Korea, but not in the US. (credit: BMW)

If there's a topic guaranteed to get rage clicks, it's the one about BMW making some of its car options available as a subscription rather than a one-time purchase. That story is doing the rounds again today after news that the Bavarian automaker is at it again.

"BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month" declares one headline; "BMW Makes Heated Seats an $18/Month Subscription Service—Again" reads another. However, you'd have to read past the headlines and well into the bodies of the articles to find out that, actually, the automaker has no public plans to bring this subscription model here to the US market and that it's happening in South Korea.

Not that it hasn't tried such a thing in the past. In 2019, if you wanted Apple CarPlay as an optional extra, you had to subscribe to it for $80 a year, or $300 for 20 years. But the reaction by US consumers to this move was overwhelmingly negative, and, faced with resistance in its second-biggest market, the automaker relented and even made CarPlay standard across most of its range later that year.

Enlarge / The Nothing Phone (1) basically bets the farm that you'll instantly fall in love with this back design. If you don't, there's not much else to see. (credit: Nothing)

The company "Nothing" is the latest startup to try to make something of itself in the smartphone market. The company is led by Carl Pei, the co-founder and former director of OnePlus, and Nothing seems mostly intent on retreading the early OnePlus playbook—just eight years later. So meet the "Nothing Phone (1)," a device being sold in limited quantities, mostly by invitation or via "limited partner drops" that are seemingly designed to generate long lines. The parenthetical smartphone was officially announced today with lots of hype, thanks to Pei's trademark "slow drip-feed of information" strategy over the last few months.

The phone is not being sold in the US and is instead focusing on Europe and China. It has a 120 Hz, 6.55-inch, 2400×1080 OLED display, a Snapdragon 778G+ SoC, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 4500 mAh battery with 33 W charging. The lower-tier screen specs and Snapdragon 778G+ make this a mid-range phone, with four 2.5 GHz ARM Cortex A78 CPUs and four 1.8 GHz Cortex A55 CPUs built on a 6 nm process with an Adreno 642L GPU. The price for the Nothing Phone (1)—399 pounds/469 euros (about $474)—seems about in line with what other companies charge for Snapdragon 778G devices.

A close-up of the white version. It's strange to see the screws and mechanical-style design but not have the repairability benefit from it, because everything is still behind a glued-on pane of glass. The phone also isn't very water-resistant. (credit: Nothing)

You get two rear cameras, a 50 MP Sony IMX766 main camera and a 50 MP Samsung ISOCELL JN1 ultrawide, while the front is a 16 MP Sony IMX471. There's an in-screen optical fingerprint reader, Wi-Fi 6E compatibility, wireless charging, and an "IP53" dust and water-resistance rating, which means it shouldn't be damaged from a few splashes but can't handle submersion in water. The phone comes with Android 12, three years of major OS updates, and four years of security patches that arrive "every two months" instead of at the standard monthly cadence.

Enlarge / Nikon's D6 will allegedly be the company's last DSLR camera. (credit: Nikon)

Nikkei Asia reports that camera maker Nikon will discontinue further development of its single-lens reflex (SLR) camera lineup, leaving the longtime professional standbys behind and shifting its efforts to smaller mirrorless models.

For its part, Nikon has denounced the report as "speculation" and stresses that the company "is continuing the production, sales, and service of digital SLR." But this rebuttal does not mention the development of future SLR cameras—the company's last new DSLR, the Nikon D6, was released in February 2020, and the company discontinued its entry-level D3500 and D5600 DSLR cameras last month. The Nikkei report indicates that Nikon's development efforts will shift to mirrorless cameras, which are smaller and more lightweight.

Early mirrorless cameras generally couldn't match the image quality or lens selection of DSLR cameras, and their electronic viewfinders lagged behind the real-time previews that a DSLR's optical viewfinder could provide. But newer mirrorless cameras have largely addressed those shortcomings while retaining their smaller sizes and lighter weights. Mirrorless cameras also usually offer superior video quality, which is useful for people who need their cameras to multitask.

Enlarge (credit: SOPA Images / Contributor | LightRocket)

When Facebook and Instagram began removing posts about abortion that didn't violate any community standards, at least two US lawmakers decided that Meta's apparent practice of censoring pro-choice advocates needed more scrutiny.

Last week, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) sent a letter to Meta asking what the company plans to do to end abortion-post censorship on its platforms. They gave Meta until this Friday, July 15, to respond, placing urgency on their request and seeking evidence that the company is taking immediate action.

Examples of censorship cited in the letter include instances where Facebook and Instagram removed "posts providing accurate information about how to legally access abortion services" within minutes and placed sensitivity screens over a post promoting an abortion documentary. The senators also took issue with censorship of health care workers, including a temporary account suspension of an "organization dedicated to informing people in the United States about their abortion rights."

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Twitter told Elon Musk in a letter that his "purported termination" of their merger deal "is invalid and wrongful," and that his commitment to fund the purchase remains in effect.

The letter, sent to Musk's lawyers on Sunday and made public Monday in a regulatory filing, is a prelude to the lawsuit that Twitter intends to file against Musk this week. The letter said:

Mr. Musk's and the other Musk Parties' purported termination is invalid and wrongful, and it constitutes a repudiation of their obligations under the Agreement. Contrary to the assertions in your letter, Twitter has breached none of its obligations under the Agreement, and Twitter has not suffered and is not likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect. The purported termination is invalid for the independent reason that Mr. Musk and the other Musk Parties have knowingly, intentionally, willfully, and materially breached the Agreement, including but not limited to Sections 6.3, 6.8, and 6.10 thereof.

The cited sections include various commitments to close and finance the deal. Twitter's letter further said the Twitter/Musk "Agreement is not terminated, the Bank Debt Commitment Letter and the Equity Commitment Letter remain in effect, and Twitter demands that Mr. Musk and the other Musk Parties comply with their obligations under the Agreement." In the Equity Commitment Letter dated April 20, Musk committed to provide an estimated $21 billion in equity financing toward the $44 billion purchase.

Enlarge / Lenovo ThinkPad C13 Yoga Chromebook. (credit: Lenovo)

A developer has shared a way to dual-boot Windows 10/11 and Chrome OS on an AMD Ryzen-powered Chromebook.

Note that there are simpler ways to get a Windows-like experience on a Chromebook, including virtualization apps such as Parallels Desktop. And you shouldn't get your hopes too high about Microsoft's OS and apps running smoothly on a Chromebook, especially if you're using one of the many lower-specced machines, since this method is not officially supported. You should take caution and be aware of the Chromebook manufacturer's warranty before deciding if you want to use the developer's guide.

As shared via Reddit and spotted by XDA Developers on Monday, the developer known as Coolstarog reportedly got Windows and Chrome OS to dual-boot on Chromebooks using AMD 3 3250C, Ryzen 5 3500C, and Ryzen 7 3700C processors and the AMD Athlon 3015ce APU. The HP Chromebook 14b, HP Chromebook Pro c645 Enterprise, and Lenovo Yoga C13 Chromebook were reportedly tested successfully.