Day: May 28, 2020

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Google Maps Makes It Easier to Access, Share Location Plus Codes

https://www.droid-life.com/2020/05/28/google-maps-makes-it-easier-to-access-share-location-plus-codes/

Read the original post: Google Maps Makes It Easier to Access, Share Location Plus Codes

Google launched Plus Codes back in 2015, something I wasn’t aware of. Plus Codes are digital addresses made from latitude and longitude coordinates, meaning every place in the world has its own unique code. This is ideal for those who are not in a location with a conventional address, which is a sizable portion of the planet.

This week, Google announced that using Google Maps, any Android user can quickly access and share their Plus Code. To access your location’s Plus Code, tap on the blue dot that indicates your current location in Google Maps, then you’ll see the Plus Code. From there you can share it to wherever, which others can plug directly into Google Maps or Google Search for locating you quickly.

Beyond using the blue dot, you can also find the Plus Code for a location by tapping and holding the map to drop a pin at a location you want a Plus Code for.

As Google explains, “Plus Codes are especially helpful for people in emergency and crisis response scenarios. If you’ve ever been in an emergency, you know that being able to share your location for help to easily find you is critical. With Plus Codes, not only can people share their location quickly even without an address, but they can now do so by simply opening up Google Maps and tapping on the blue dot to view, copy and share their Plus Code location.”

If you think this would be helpful to you, check it out.

// Google

via Droid Life: A Droid Community Blog https://ift.tt/2dLq79c

May 28, 2020 at 12:46PM

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Google adds its own address system to Maps location sharing on Android

https://www.engadget.com/google-maps-plus-codes-android-address-system-160019436.html

Google’s Plus Codes are the company’s efforts to reinvent coordinates and addresses so it works better with all things Google. It’s also helpful for places and locations that don’t actually have addresses. The Plus Code itself is a short alphanumeric code, combined with a city and country, and has been built into Google Maps for years.

The company’s latest Maps update makes it easier for anyone with an Android phone to location-share through these Plus Codes: Tap the blue dot representing where you’re at, and this can be shared directly through any app you can copy-and-paste to. Google adds that the technology behind Codes is open-source.

If you’re looking to share another location, hold and press on the map location, and you’ll get a Plus Code for that location too. The feature will be bundled into Google Maps updates rolling out over the next few weeks.

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

May 28, 2020 at 11:06AM

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The Raspberry Pi 4 now comes with up to 8GB of RAM

https://www.engadget.com/raspberry-pi-4-now-available-with-up-to-8-gb-of-ram-095534737.html

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is always looking at ways to make its models bigger and better, and today it’s realized its ambition of an 8GB Raspberry Pi 4. It joins the 2GB and 4GB line up, and will set you back $75.

It’s essentially the same deck-of-cards-sized single board computer as its predecessors, just with more RAM, which gives DIY projects more scope and means tinkerers can start exploring more memory-hungry applications, such as streaming. A couple of components have moved on the board to help supply the slightly higher peak currents needed by the new memory package, but everything else essentially remains the same: lots of ports, ARM-based CPU, WiFi, Bluetooth…

At 75 bucks the 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 is the most expensive Raspberry Pi out there, but obviously you get what you pay for. Back in February the 1GB model was replaced by the 2GB version for the same price point — the 8GB model demands a premium not only because it’s got heftier RAM, but because cramming those specs into the palm-sized model required a chip that until last year didn’t actually exist yet. In any case, the overall pricing structure is pretty balanced: 2GB of RAM for $35, 4GB for $55 and 8GB for $75. You can find the list of approved sellers of the new model in your country at raspberrypi.org.

 

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

May 28, 2020 at 05:06AM

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GE No Longer Bringing Good Things To ‘Light’

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/27/863378300/general-electric-makes-the-switch-away-from-lightbulbs?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news

General Electric has been making lightbulbs for more than a century but is now selling its lighting business. Above, a lightbulb is displayed at the Smithsonian

GE was born when Thomas Edison’s electrical company merged with a rival in 1892, and the company has been making (and inventing) lightbulbs ever since. Now it’s selling off its lighting business.

(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

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May 27, 2020 at 02:29PM

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Tech startup Ree partners with Tier 1 supplier on a revolutionary EV platform

https://www.autoblog.com/2020/05/28/ree-reecorner-reeboard-electric-car-platform/

The idea-people aren’t finished trying to revolutionize the skateboard electric vehicle platform and in-wheel motors. Israeli startup Ree is doing both. It’s toiled on the idea for seven years, putting together the 3D-printed Flatformer concept heavy truck chassis with Hino for last year’s Tokyo Motor Show. Now the tech firm has partnered with Tier 1 OEM supplier KYB, a multibillion-dollar Japanese conglomerate specializing in active and semi-active suspension systems and owner of the world’s largest factory producing shock absorbers. The challenge ahead of this “strategic partnership to develop suspension capabilities for future electric vehicle (EV) platforms” will be clear after we explain how Ree’s system works.

The easy part is the Reeboard, the plank that contains the batteries. Last summer, Ree’s digital presentations showed a Reeboard 185 inches long, with a 110.6-inch wheelbase —  a near carbon copy of the Tesla Model 3‘s length, with a wheelbase 2.6 inches shorter. This is where all the batteries go, Ree leaving room inside to sandwich modules from tip to tip. 

The marvel is contained inside the Reecorner module that connects the platform to the wheels. Starting at the platform and working out to the wheel, a far as we can tell from an image in the Ree promotional deck, a C-shaped steering bracket attaches to an axle stub emerging from a motor between the bracket and platform. If this is accurate, it would keep the motor from becoming unsprung weight like a true hub motor. A small reduction gear and coupling sit inside the bracket’s open space. The bracket and gearing are attached to a cylindrical housing containing a small coilover damper that Ree says is a “novel active suspension with semi-active capabilities.” Clamps on the other side of the suspension housing attach to the brake rotor and the hub that mounts the wheel.

This is a wild solution, all the more so when a video shows the entire assembly from the steering clamp to the hub rotating with the wheel, including the brake caliper since there’s no stationary mount to bolt it to. Tuning an active or semi-active suspension that rotates at wheel speed to counter primarily vertical forces must make for phenomenal math and programming. However, in the video below, certain parts of the assembly behind the wheel face are stationary.

The Reeboard employs steering- and braking-by-wire. There are also diagnostic modules in the Reecorner to alert users of problems. The startup says its solution cuts weight by 33% compared to a typical electric car platform, would improve space utilization by 67% in an autonomous last-mile van. For more traditional vehicles, Ree’s presentations last year hypothesized a sports car that could do 0-60 mph in 2.6 seconds, a pickup with 720 horsepower, 14,741 pound-feet of torque, and a 1,874-pound payload capacity, a minivan with four rows and a height-leveling suspension, and a three-row sedan with a 400-mile range.

Ree claims that in addition to the “complete design freedom and cost-effective, scalable solutions” of the Reeboard and Reecorner, maintenance is a cinch. Since all the important transportation bits are hung at the corners, a mechanic would only need to replace the entire Reecorner module to get a vehicle back on the road, a task the company’s tech chief says can be done in 15 minutes. We hope someone takes Ree up on this, because we can’t wait to take it for a spin.

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May 28, 2020 at 09:21AM