Новости за 17.11.2017

Republic Wireless, a popular MVNO that runs off of Sprint and T-Mobile, offers, among other things, some pretty comprehensive Wi-Fi calling features that caught the eye of Walt Mossberg last year.

This week on The Vergecast, Nilay, Paul, and Dieter run through a few things in the tech world that happened this week, like reviews for Google’s Pixel Buds and Microsoft’s Surface Book 2, and the announcement of the OnePlus 5T.

Doubts that Elon Musk would be unable to put on a raucous reveal party were put to rest late Thursday night. Amid Tesla’s “production hell” this fall, the automaker delivered two beacons of hope for the California-based company’s future.

China-based gadget maker Xiaomi is bringing more of its products to the US this week. Two headphone models, a 10,000mAh Mi Power Bank Pro, a 360-degree camera, and a robot coding kit are all coming to Amazon. This continues the company's slow march toward wider device releases in the US.

I’ve been using an iPhone X for about a week and, like Nilay Patel said in his review, “the good news is that Face ID generally works great. The bad news is that sometimes it doesn’t.”

Starting today, the first thing you’ll see when you walk into the Scotiabank Theatre in downtown Toronto — even before the giant Romulan Warbird dangling above the escalators — is a state-of-the-art virtual reality arcade. You’ll probably even hear a few of the telltale shrieks that come from someone’s first VR experience. Today, IMAX is opening the latest of its IMAX VR centers with its first location in Canada. The launch follows VR installations in theaters in Shanghai and New York, as well... Читать дальше...

Hot on the heels of Tesla’s big event last night, Walmart says it has preordered 15 of the electric automaker’s new semi trucks, according to CNBC. The deal was likely in the works before Tesla unveiled its new truck to the public, but interest from the world’s biggest retailer in battery-powered transport is still a huge boost of confidence for Elon Musk and his mission to electrify the industry.

Virgin Orbit — one of the Virgin Group’s three primary space companies — has scored a deal with the Department of Defense, agreeing to launch experimental satellites for the agency on the company’s future LauncherOne rocket. The mission, slated for 2019, marks the first national security agreement for the private spaceflight company.

The first teaser trailer has dropped for the highly anticipated Deadpool 2. The trailer opens with Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) dressed in a collared shirt and curly wig, spoofing Bob Ross’ The Joy of Painting, except it’s called “Gettin’ Wet on Wet with Deadpool 2.” He’s seen puttering around, muttering about the colors he’s using in his painting (which include “mennen black,” “box office gold,” “doc brown,” “pretty n’ pink,” “silverlicious,” “yellow snow,” “red dit,” and “Betty White”). “God I love... Читать дальше...

For the first time, scientists have confirmed a diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — a neurological disease linked to head injuries from sports like football — in a living person. Until now, we’ve only been able to diagnose CTE in dead patients. Finding the disease while the patient is still alive could help scientists find a way to treat it.

MoviePass, the subscription movie ticketing service, just launched its cheapest plan yet: $89.95 per year, paid up front. That includes a $6.55 processing fee, meaning the monthly price before the fee comes out to around $6.95, Deadline reports.

Apple has delayed the release of its HomePod speaker until 2018. In a statement to The Verge, Apple says that it needs more time to work on the HomePod. “We can't wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple's breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a little more time before it's ready for our customers,” an Apple spokesperson said. “We'll start shipping in the US, UK and Australia in early 2018."

Flippin’ out

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If you needed one more reason to love your puppy, here’s a pretty good one: your furry best friend might help you live longer.

Broken headphones

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The Federal Communications Commission voted yesterday to begin overhauling a program known as Lifeline that provides discounted internet and phone service to low-income homes. The changes immediately affect discounts available on Tribal lands by vastly limiting who can receive them. The commission also said it would begin considering a laundry list of proposals that include putting a spending cap on the program, severely constraining which providers can offer discounted service, and giving up federal approval of providers as well. Читать дальше...

Google Assistant can help you troubleshoot issues you might encounter on your phone, though the feature is only available for Pixel 2 users at the moment, according to Android Police. A user running Android Oreo 8.1’s developer preview asked Google Assistant why their phone wasn’t charging fully, and a troubleshooting feature jumped into gear. A battery health check was run and the virtual assistant also scanned the phone for apps that might be causing the battery to drain.

When one plus one isn’t two

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The OnePlus 5T and Razer Phone are two fundamentally different devices, which are nonetheless united by one unfortunate downside: both of them are going on sale this month without the latest version of Android on board. OnePlus will tell you that this issue is down to its extremely stringent testing process, while Razer offers a similar boilerplate about working as fast as possible to deliver Android Oreo. But we’re now three months removed from Google’s grand Oreo launch, timed to coincide with this summer’s total eclipse... Читать дальше...

LG’s OLED TVs are widely considered to be among the best-looking TV sets out there — if not the outright best. But the problem is, they’re all very, very expensive. At least, they usually are: next week, as part of an extended Black Friday sale, LG is dropping the price on nearly all of its 2017 OLED TVs.

Someday mirrors will be smart enough to lie to us, assuring us we’re the fairest of them all. Until then, there’s this thing from iHome.

Microsoft revealed earlier this week that it’s cutting the Xbox One S price to its lowest point of $189 for Black Friday, and now it’s discounting games to match. Xbox Live Gold members can get early access to the deals, with a range of games seeing discounts up to 65 percent.

Last night, Tesla had a bit of a celebration for itself, unveiling its new Semi truck and (in a surprise) a second-generation Roadster. It was a typical Tesla event, full of twists, shocks, and plenty of smoke and mirrors. The soundtrack rocked, the starry-eyed fans lapped it up, and now you can watch the highlights in this supercut we made for you. You’re welcome.

During Tesla’s semi truck event tonight, CEO Elon Musk had a surprise up his sleeve — a new version of the Tesla Roadster, and now we know how much it will cost. The base model will start at $200,000, and with a $50,000 deposit required upfront. Interested parties can place their deposits today.

“Period.”

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