Новости за 01.06.2017

The race to be the first to deploy autonomous vehicles is on among carmakers, emerging startups, and tech giants. Amid this constant news cycle of deals and drama, the purpose of all of it can get lost — or at least a bit muddied. What exactly are these companies racing for?

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is stepping away from his roles on two of Donald Trump’s advisory councils following the president’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement. Musk announced the news in a Twitter post shortly after the president’s statement at the White House.

President Donald Trump just announced the United States will pull out of the Paris climate agreements, though it will try to negotiate for a new climate deal. Withdrawing from the agreement — a landmark deal that commits almost every country in the world to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming — was one of Trump’s signature campaign promises. In recent months, however, it seemed less clear whether he would go through with it.

YouTube is taking new steps today to get a handle on content that might offend advertisers or, conversely, prevent a YouTube creator from monetizing their videos. Several major brands left the platform’s ad program recently to avoid being linked with hateful and offensive videos. Many creators were upset when videos started to be de-monetized.

For a few minutes on August 21st, the Moon will completely block the Sun for anyone watching the skies along a 70-mile-wide swath of North America from Oregon to South Carolina. The rest of the continent will get to see a partial eclipse lasting a few hours. The big event is being called the Great American Eclipse. But, for anyone looking to not actually be on American soil for it, well, you can apparently watch it from sea.

Lyft published its first diversity report today, revealing numbers that were slightly better than its rival Uber and the tech industry as a whole. The numbers come as Silicon Valley is facing criticism and numerous lawsuits concerning rampant sexual harassment and an overall lack of gender and ethnic diversity. But does it support the recent claim by Lyft’s president that the app company is “woke?”

Scientists can now move a mouse’s whiskers, ears, and a paw using just electrodes on the outside of the animal’s head. This new method can stimulate deep parts of the brain without surgery and — if it pans out in humans — it could be very helpful for people with neurological conditions like Parkinson’s, depression, or epilepsy.

My Neighbor Totoro, Hayao Miyazaki’s animated classic about two young girls and the friendly spirit-monsters near their new home, is getting turned into a theme park. Chunichu Web reported yesterday (in a piece translated by Anime News Network) that Studio Ghibli plans to let fans explore Totoro’s world in a park set to open in Japan in 2020.

The Wachowskis’ Sense8 has been canceled by Netflix after two seasons and one holiday special. Cindy Holland, VP of original content at Netflix, confirmed the cancelation in a statement published on the platform’s press blog.

After a lot of speculation, Korean automaker Hyundai finally pulled the wraps off of its first mass-produced electric bus this week. It’s called the Elec City. It has a range of 180 miles, thanks to a 256kWh battery pack, according to Hyundai. A report from the Yonhap news agency says the bus can also be fully charged in just over an hour. The company plans to launch the bus in 2018.

Once upon a time on Mars, there was a crater that had a massive lake that may have hosted life. Now researchers are saying that a whole variety of organisms could have flourished there. Sure, that life was probably just microbial, but this is another exciting step toward understanding just how habitable Mars may have been around 3.5 billion years ago.

Facebook is overhauling how its photo albums work to let users drop in virtually any post from the social network to save for posterity. This includes of course photos and videos, but now text posts and check-ins as well. The company is also making it easier to add friends as contributors to create shared albums, and adding the ability to display a “featured album” prominently on your profile. The idea is to turn the sometimes forgotten photo albums feature into a way to store memories of all types. Читать дальше...

Grado, a Brooklyn-based headphone manufacturer, has been pleasing audiophile ears for decades now with clean, unsweetened audio. To support the kids these days with their fancy iPods and Walkmans, the company has released a few lower-end and even in-ear models that are competitive on price while staying true to Grado sound priorities — even if build quality is a bit suspect at times.

Niantic says it’s making lots of money off sponsored Pokémon Go stops and particularly cashed out during the height of the game’s popularity last year. In interviews with Brazil’s Globo paper and TechCrunch, Niantic said that it charges anywhere from 15 to 50 cents for each visitor that the game draws to a sponsored location. There’s some uncertainty about the exact cost of a visit, but the figures imply that Niantic could be making millions of dollars off players.

Tesla fired the female engineer who earlier this year publicly made claims about “unwanted and pervasive harassment” at the electric carmaker, according to The Guardian. Tesla says it was justified in firing the engineer, AJ Vandermeyden, because her accusations were false, but Vandermeyden’s lawyers allege that it amounts to retaliation.

I have a confession to make: I like books. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s followed this monthly list, but I don’t mean just reading them. I’m fascinated by the form of a book, the book as a technology, and an object that’s changed how we transmit information from one person to another.

The Pokémon Company had a very good year in 2016. Following the release of Niantic’s Pokémon Go and Game Freak’s Pokémon Sun and Moon, the company’s net profit soared to $143.3 million — nearly 26 times the profit it made the previous year, according to Katan Games, Inc. CEO and analyst Serkan Toto.

Verizon is the exclusive US carrier of Motorola’s new Moto Z2 Play, but if you take a close look at the phone, you’ll notice something missing: there’s no Droid branding anywhere. Motorola has been Verizon’s closest partner on the Droid family of products for years. Just take a look at this history.

For the third time, scientists have detected gravitational waves — the ripples in space-time created by objects moving throughout the Universe.

Apple today announced that its education programming iPad app, Swift Playgrounds, will soon support robots and drones. That means young kids and students will be able to write their own Swift code to control any number of real-world toys and machines. The company is launching the feature next Monday, partnering with a number of top toy and robotics companies including LEGO, automated BB-8 toy maker Sphero, and drone company Parrot. Other companies on board for the launch are toy robot makers UBTECH and Wonder Workshop... Читать дальше...

Amazon is rolling out an update to Alexa today that will bring a couple of critical new features that probably should’ve been included when it launched two years ago. Reminders and named timers are both rolling out today, helping to improve Alexa’s usefulness in your daily routine.

Western animation is in the middle of a golden age. Shows like BoJack Horseman and Rick and Morty have emerged as the new standard-bearers for a kind of cartoon that’s sharp, funny, and insightful, capable of dealing with startlingly nuanced themes, like BoJack’s honest reflections on the nature of unhappiness. But few efforts in any medium can manage Steven Universe’s trick of exploring topics like intimacy, love, abuse, and the constant threat of annihilation, while balancing them with thoughts on the simple joy of eating a hot dog. Читать дальше...

It used to be a rite of passage after every holiday: grab some photos from the trip, upload them to Facebook, and see what likes and comments they get. Even now, my account is home to a dozen-plus moth-balled albums of this kind. There’s “france 2008” — a failed attempt to hitch-hike around the country that saw a friend and I get less than 100 miles out of Calais; “nepal”, “nepal deux”, and “nepal finarly” — a gap-year trilogy of cliché that spans mountains, monks, and one misjudged mohawk; and... Читать дальше...

Microsoft’s Rewards program is launching in the UK today. Originally only available in the US, Microsoft is now letting British users accrue points for using its Bing search engine. The points can then be transferred to a number of different rewards, including Xbox digital gift cards, Groove Music passes, and Skype credit. Microsoft is also partnering with a number of UK charities so you can donate points to these organizations instead.

Logitech's MX Master and MX Anywhere are considered by many to be some of the best mice for professional work on the market. Today, Logitech announced updated versions of both models in the MX line: the MX Master 2S and MX Anywhere 2S.