BMW's concept car is a shape shifting, danger-sensing chariot of the future
In celebration of its 100th anniversary, BMW has unveiled a stunning concept car called the Vision Vehicle that looks as futuristic as its name suggests.
Unlike some concept vehicles of the past, the Vision Vehicle doesn't look that unrealistic compared to cars on the road today. In this case, the concept car's wonders are a bit more subtle.
For example, the car features what BMW calls "materials of the future," which gives the car a kind of shape shifting look by allowing its wheels to seamlessly move as part of the main chassis. Inside, the steering wheel is refashioned as a thin rectangle with handles that retracts into the dashboard when the car takes over the driving.
BMW concept
The demonstration video also shows off the vehicle's "Boost" and "Ease" modes, which shift the car into self-driving and human driver assist modes, respectively.
Another feature called Alive Geometry alerts the driver of upcoming potential road hazards, both static and moving (like a cyclist crossing your path), by layering an augmented reality display on the windshield. Alerts are created through — and we're quoting BMW here, since this sounds like science fiction — "preconscious communication, where an intuitive signal predicts an imminent real-time event."
Although there are no plans (at the moment) to sell the car, BMW has created an incredibly detailed site devoted to the vehicle featuring a number of interactive displays and breakdowns of how it works.
The vehicle will tour the world as a public display, visiting China in May, London in June and the U.S. in October.
That was fast: Ford is reportedly preparing an all-new Mustang for 2020
Can't wait for the next Mustang? Well, you might not have to sit on your hands for long. Its production has reportedly been pushed up by two years.
The current all-new Mustang went on sale just last year. But according to a report from a group of accountants and consultants called UHY Hacker Young, Ford has pushed the all-new Mustang up from 2022 to 2020.
Spotted Thursday morning by the eagle eyes at MustangG6, page 15 of the UHY Automotive Industry Forecast report states: "Program code for the next‐generation Mustang (S550(ng)) has been changed to S650 and the SOP has been shifted back from January 2022 to May 2020. Subsequently, the EOP for the S550 has been moved to April 2020."
If you're wondering, SOP stands for "start of production" and EOP stands for "end of production." That means the current Mustang will end — according to UYH — in April 2020 and the next-gen Mustang will begin in May 2020.
If you're wondering why Ford would want to put the pedal to the metal on the Mustang production schedule, it might be because the iconic pony car isn't enjoying the sales dominance it once had over the Chevy Camaro. Or perhaps Ford just has a bunch of great new ideas for the 'Stang.
Either way, it's nice to know that its not being put out to pasture anytime soon.
Amazon removed encryption from the latest version of Fire OS
Amazon has removed device encryption from Fire OS version 5. This means that devices such as the Fire Phone, Amazon Fire HD, and Kindle Fire tablets will no longer support device encryption, after being updated to Fire OS 5.
Amazon's decision to remove onboard encryption isn't new; Amazon actually dropped the feature from Fire OS 5 back in the fall. As The Verge points out, a member of Amazon's customer forum noticed the feature was disabled back in February.
Amazon Fire devices that shipped with Fire OS 5 did not ship with encryption support. Users with older devices that had encryption enabled can choose to stay on Fire OS 4 if they want the additional protection.
In a statement, Amazon told Mashable, "In the fall when we released Fire OS 5, we removed some enterprise features that we found customers weren't using." Amazon added that, "all Fire tablets' communication with Amazon's cloud meet our high standards for privacy and security including appropriate use of encryption."
Amazon is still encrypting the way it sends data from its devices to its servers, but the data on the devices themselves are no longer encrypted.
Still, it does seem strange that Amazon would remove device-side encryption, even if the feature was rarely used. The timing of this removal is not related to the ongoing encryption battle between Apple and the FBI — but the issues raised in that case do underscore why many tech watchers are upset about this change.
Nathan White from Access Now — an organization committed to defending digital rights — told Wired that, "Amazon's decision is backward — it not only moves away from default device encryption, where other manufacturers are headed, but removes all choice by the end user to decide to encrypt it after purchase."
And it is true that removing device encryption is ultimately not great for consumers. Now, from what Amazon was saying (and based on how long it took anyone to figure out support for the feature was dropped), it doesn't look like a lot of users were using it anyway. But that's not really the point.
Ultimately, as we see more manufacturers and operating systems moving toward encryption by default, seeing any company take the option away is a bad thing.
Smart Brita pitcher tracks your water intake and orders its own filter replacements
Now that almost everything in our lives has a smart variant, from our watches to our refrigerators, why not add water pitchers to that list?
Brita has teamed up with Amazon to create the very first smart pitcher, the Brita Infinity Pitcher. The pitcher tracks the amount of water that passes through its filter and automatically orders a new filter on Amazon for delivery when it gets close to its pour limit.
The pitcher connects to your home Wi-Fi and utilizes Amazon’s Dash Replenishment feature to order a new filter after filtering 40 gallons of water.
You’ll have to sign up for Amazon Dash Replenishment to utilize the smart capabilities of the Brita Infinity Pitcher. If you want to delay your purchase or change your order in any way, you can manage orders and deliveries online at any time.
The Brita Infinity Pitcher costs $44.99 and holds 8 cups of water, which means you can refill it 80 times before needing a filter replacement. The filters cost $5.99 each.
Google robot turns your selfies into line-drawn art
BARCELONA — This year's Mobile World Congress is a huge sea smartphones (yay!), networking gear (meh) and people wearing VR headsets (uh...), but in between all the suited-up business folks and sweaty, stinky reporters was one booth that had something really charming.
At the Android Experiments tent (thankfully, located outdoors), Google brought out developers from its Creative Lab to show off a few of the weirder apps that people can create with Android.
One such experiment was the IOIO. After you take a selfie, the image data is converted into triangulated coordinates for the triangle-shaped robot to plot out on paper. Armed with the plot points, the robot then gets to work drawing your special selfie portrait using its attached ink pen.
Three minutes later, you've got yourself a line-drawn interpretation of your selfie:
It's fun, geeky and I have to admit a little empowering. The whole reason for the Android booth, after all, was to promote how easy it is to work with the software's open-source code and encourage developers to make new things.
Microsoft is ditching Android app ports for Windows Phone
Mobile app developers who wanted to easily port their apps from Android or iOS to Windows 10 devices were in luck when Microsoft announced it created tools to help with that transition last year. But now Microsoft is going back and dropping the Android bridge, focusing on just iOS.
In a blog post, Microsoft announced that while it has been updating the Windows Bridge for iOS, it is dropping the Windows Bridge for Android project with an interesting explanation.
“We received a lot of feedback that having two Bridge technologies to bring code from mobile operating systems to Windows was unnecessary, and the choice between them could be confusing,” wrote Kevin Gallo, director of Windows' developer platform. “We have carefully considered this feedback and decided that we would focus our efforts on the Windows Bridge for iOS and make it the single Bridge option for bringing mobile code to all Windows 10 devices we would focus our efforts on the Windows Bridge for iOS and make it the single Bridge option for bringing mobile code to all Windows 10 devices, including Xbox and PCs.”
The two projects for iOS and Android were very different in how they bridged apps from those platforms to Windows and were obviously platform specific. While many app developers create apps for both iOS and Android, there are Android-only developers that are now missing out on the Windows Store market unless they want to rewrite their app.
The solution for this is the acquisition of Xamarin, which is an app development company. Xamarin allows developers to use a homogenized C# language which easily moves between all three platforms. This is more of a forward-looking move, as it won’t help developers who already have their apps on iOS or Android.
There is some speculation from Extreme Tech that the Android bridging was canceled because being able to seamlessly port any app would cancel out the need for developers to create Windows-optimized apps.
India's Tata Motors renames its controversial Zica car Tiago
Indian automaker Tata Motors has rebranded its latest hatchback after its original name Zica attracted controversy for being similar to the mosquito-born Zika virus. The model has now been renamed Tiago.
The name was selected after an international crowdsourcing campaign which invited people to send names for the car. The final name was chosen after a social media poll in which participants were asked to choose between Tiago, Civet and Adore. Tiago received the highest votes among the three entries.
Tata Motors is one of India's largest automobile companies, and owns the iconic British brands Jaguar and Land Rover. It had chosen the name Zica, an abbreviation of zippy car, before the outbreak of the virus in the Americas. The small car was already being promoted in an advertising campaign starring Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi.
While Tata showcased the car under its old name during the Indian Auto Expo 2016 earlier this month, it had said that it would change the name before its market launch. The company said that the decision to rename the car was "the right and responsible action following the hardships caused by the virus outbreak across many countries." It now plans to launch the car by March-end.