Day: September 25, 2020

While contact tracing flails in the U.S. thanks in part to government dysfunction, Google’s deploying a feature to at least help us avoid covid-19 hotspots. Sometime this week, Android and iOS users will be able to toggle on color-coded overlays in Google Maps, representing the concentration of positive cases on the country, state, city, and county level. You’ll be able to turn this feature on by clicking the “layers” icon (the one that looks like two small diamonds, stacked) and navigating to “COVID-19 Info.”

The numbers on each color-coded segment represent a seven-day average of new diagnoses per 100,000 people, with arrows indicating upward or downward trends. Google says it pulls data “where available” from Johns Hopkins, the New York Times, and Wikipedia (which itself pulls data from Johns Hopkins). News outlets have heavily relied on Johns Hopkins’s granular “near real time” global tracker with data gathered from a variety of governmental and non-governmental sources, which are listed on Github.

Google already has some covid-19 tools in Maps, like wait time trackers for testing centers based on users’ location data, alerts for covid-19-related transit restrictions and checkpoints, and previously-implemented crowd alerts.

Is it good to know where there are concentrations of new covid cases? Sure. Should you be traveling right now? Probably not. Our government fucked us, so get back inside. These feeds ain’t gonna doomscroll themselves.

Privacy is the big thing that gives people the heebie-jeebies when it comes to digital assistants like Alexa. But at Amazon’s devices and services event today, the company announced it was expanding privacy settings with regard to voice recordings.

Later this year, you’ll be able to say, “Alexa, delete everything I’ve said.” According to Amazon, that command will then delete all previously saved voice recordings associated with your account. But, wait, didn’t Amazon already let you do that before? What gives?

Previously, you had to navigate through labyrinthian menu settings to find the page where you could review and delete any recordings. Then, in 2019, Amazon introduced the ability to say “Alexa, delete what I just said,” to erase your last request. You could say “Alexa, delete everything I said today.” While a nice improvement, it wasn’t completely foolproof. Gizmodo found that the feature was not only opt-in, it didn’t necessarily mean that all your recordings from a 24-hour time period would be deleted. Ostensibly, clarifying the prompt to, “Alexa, delete everything I’ve said,” leaves less wiggle room than trying to define what time period “today” refers to.

It also appears that Amazon is trying to somewhat simplify the whole process. You can now ask, “Alexa, how do I review my privacy settings?”, which will send you to a direct link in the Alexa app to the relevant page. Hopefully, this means you’ll never have to cry while looking at Amazon’s horribly crowded page menus again. You can also now “choose whether or not to save your voice recordings.” Amazon said in its event liveblog that if you opt for the latter, recordings will automatically be deleted once Alexa processes your request. It also says that “all previously saved recordings will also be deleted.”

But it’s possible there’s a catch. Last July, Amazon confirmed that it kept text transcripts of Alexa requests—even if a user had asked for those recordings to be deleted. Specifically, Amazon said at the time it kept text transcripts of Alexa requests to subscribe to things like Amazon’s music or delivery services, as well as other requests like ordering pizza, setting alarms, and scheduling calendar events. Gizmodo has reached out to Amazon to clarify whether this applies to the updated “delete everything” command. We’ll update if and when we hear back.

Why does Amazon need voice recordings at all? The sad truth is voice assistants still cock things up on the regular when it comes to understanding human voices. Just ask Siri.

But regardless of whether you believe Alexa actually will delete everything you’ve ever said to it, making it easier for people to review their settings is always a good thing. If you really, really, really don’t want Big Tech to have your voice data, your best bet is not buying into digital assistants at all.

With two new physical gaming consoles less than a month and a half away from release, Amazon announces Luna, a new paid game streaming service aimed at allowing subscribers to play PC games remotely on computers, phones, and tablets. It’s sort of like Stadia with a slightly better controller.

By subscribing to Amazon Luna, now accepting sign-ups for early access at the introductory price of $5.99 per month, players gain access to a curated library of PC games called the Luna+ game channel. Games will be playable across a broad range of devices, including Fire TV, PC and Mac, and iOS devices (via a web-based app that bypasses Apple’s app store, via Engadget), with Android support available in the coming weeks.

Titles expected to be playable during early access on the Luna+ game channel include Resident Evil 7, Control, Panzer Dragoon, A Plague Tale: Innocence, The Surge 2, Yooka-Laylee and The Impossible Lair, Iconoclasts, GRID, ABZU, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and more.

Amazon also announced the first of many additional channels, the Ubisoft channel, which will include a selection of older Ubisoft games as well as day one access to new games like Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. No word yet on how much subscriptions to additional channels, including Ubisoft’s, will cost.

The coolest aspect of the service is the Luna controller. Instead of connecting to the device the player is playing on, it connects directly to Amazon’s cloud, lowering latency and allowing for fancy tricks like instantly swapping games between screens without losing control. That’s a cool innovation.

The rest sounds very Stadia: Unlimited play, some games will eventually be able to run in 4K, instant play via remote servers … we know this drill. If you’re interested in giving it a go, early access sign-ups for Luna are live now on Amazon’s landing page.

The startup electric car company Canoo made a splash with its bubbly minivan late last year. The company even attracted attention and investment from Hyundai. But the van part of the car isn’t necessarily the most important thing Canoo has developed. Instead, the skateboard platform is the key to Canoo, and to illustrate that, Canoo turned it into a a go-kart.

There’s no body on the Canoo platform, it’s solely the powertrain platform that underpins the minivan body the company developed. It contains all the batteries, motors, brakes and suspension needed for a car, so it’s completely drivable. It features two motors, a large rear one making 300 horsepower and 332 pound-feet of torque, and a small front one making 200 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque. To get the suspension to fit, Canoo uses transverse composite leaf springs, just like the Corvette has used for its rear suspension for decades. Range is about 250 miles. It sounds like it’s probably loads of fun to drive.

The point of this low, flat platform is that you can put just about any body on top of it. Canoo says it’s aiming to be able to develop new car models in a period of 18-24 months, since its cars will all use the same basic underpinnings. Adding to the flexibility are the by-wire controls for steering, throttle and brakes. It allows the driver seat to be placed anywhere in the car, or in this case, on the kart. Canoo also notes that the by-wire controls can be tuned for all variety of feel and responsiveness, too.

While this design should have plenty of benefit for Canoo itself, we also see enormous potential for kit car companies and coach builders. It’s just like a modern-day VW Beetle floor pan. You have the powertrain and suspension all bolted to a flat “frame” of sorts, and you just drop on whatever body you want. Want a sports car? Move the driver close to the middle, and drape a low, slinky shell on it. Need a really practical pickup truck? Move the driver all the way to the front, and turn the rest of it into open cargo space like a VW Bus-style pickup. The possibilities are quite exciting.

Of course, those possibilities depend on whether the platform becomes available to private owners. Canoo is starting out by offering its van on a subscription basis, not permanent ownership. The first ones are slated to be available in 2021 in Los Angeles and eight other large cities on each coast.