October 2017 – Page 4 – Peter's Quasi-Daily Blah-g

October 31, 2017

New Kindle Oasis doesn’t work well with water

It’s 1 p.m. in the middle of a work day and I am taking a bath.

I’m testing the new $250 Kindle Oasis, the high-end e-reader from Amazon. After 10 years, the company has finally made a waterproof Kindle presumably so you can read at the beach, during a water-balloon fight, or in a tub.

Everything is going great. The wedge-shaped Oasis is lightweight and fits snugly in one hand. Once I get past the busy home screen and plunge into a book, the text looks amazing. The screen is matte with subtle backlighting that feels like a relief after staring at computer and smartphone screens for hours.

It seemed like the perfect reading device for the bath. Then I made the mistake of getting it wet.

Amazon Oasis waterproof

Water, it turns out, triggers the Oasis touchscreen. One small splash can turn the page, change the font size, exit the book or do anything else a rogue hand might. In my tests, it didn’t take more than one fat droplet to activate the 7-inch touchscreen.

The Oasis can be submerged in two meters of fresh water for up to an hour and not break, according to specifications. But if you had dreams of reading underwater, cancel them. When I dunk the Oasis the screen gets hopelessly confused, the font goes up and down, and I lose my place.

Sensitivity to water is not an uncommon issue for capacitive touchscreens like the Kindle’s. They work by sensing electrical charges from fingers and hands. Like our fingers, water can also conduct electricity. That makes the Kindle Oasis almost unusable in wet environments.

Newer smartphones have engineered their screens not to react to water. Waterproof phones from Samsung and Apple might actually be a better fit for bathing than the Kindle Oasis. (Never use devices in a bath while they are plugged in.)

Amazon says the devices were “thoroughly tested” for water sensitivity.

“While a large amount of water on the screen may trigger the display, most customers will not encounter issues when reading near water. On the off chance the display is triggered, simply wipe the water off and continue reading,” said an Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) spokesperson.

E-readers may have already peaked in popularity. E-book sales dropped 15.6% in 2016, according to the Association of American Publishers.

Waterproofing seemed like the one thing that could actually make the $250 Kindle Oasis worth the steep price. It’s by far the most expensive Kindle, and it’s hard to justify the cost when Amazon still makes the excellent $120 Paperwhite.

The Oasis does add support for audio books over Bluetooth connected headphones or speakers. Maybe you’re best off listening to a book in the tub.

CNNMoney (San Francisco) First published October 31, 2017: 9:01 AM ET

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October 31, 2017

Tesla Model S shooting brake being built by Dutch customizer

If you think the

Model S

has two too many doors and not nearly enough cargo space, and you also have a Model X-load worth of cash to burn, RemetzCar is the customizer you should direct your ducats towards. As far as we can tell, they’re the only company around to have built a hearse from a Model S (seen above), so they have a proven track record of chopping up the platform and reassembling it. (A bit of advice: You may want to examine that vehicle before committing to having your Model S permanently altered.) Here’s a teaser image:

remetzcar tesla model s

RemetzCar is ambitiously planning to build 20 units, the first of which is in production thanks to a commission from a Dutch shooting brake collector and

enthusiast, says the company. They intend to unveil it in March, and it’ll likely have a custom interior considering what the company usually does when converting a vehicle. From what we can tell, RemetzCar mainly builds limos, and they look decent enough. Moreover, they have a broad range of donor vehicles â€“ we saw everything from a stretched

Fiat 500

to several

Mercedes-Benz

wagon-limos.

The process seems to start with an angle grinder and end with a lot of welding. You can see how they built the hearse below; it’s a safe bet the process for the shooting brake will be very similar.

VIDEO

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October 31, 2017

Google ditched autopilot feature after test user napped behind wheel

By Paresh Dave

ATWATER, Calif. â€” Alphabet Inc’s self-driving car unit stopped developing semi-autonomous features that required drivers to take control in dangerous situations, its chief executive said Monday, as autopilot reliance left users prone to distractions and ill-prepared to maneuver.

The decision to focus on full autonomy followed experiments of lower-level driver-assist technology in Silicon Valley that showed test users napping, putting on makeup and fiddling with their phones as the vehicles traveled up to 56 mph.

John Krafcik, the head of Waymo, which was formed in 2009 as a project within Alphabet’s Google unit, told reporters that about five years ago the company envisioned technology that could autonomously drive cars on highways as a quick way to get on the market.

Automakers include similar autopilot features for highway-driving in vehicles, but they require drivers to take over the steering wheel in tricky situations. Waymo had planned to do the same.

But, “What we found was pretty scary,” Krafcik said on Monday during a media tour of a Waymo testing facility. “It’s hard to take over because they (drivers) have lost contextual awareness.”

Krafcik said the company determined a system that asked drivers to jump in at the sound of an alert was unsafe after seeing videos from inside self-driving cars during tests.

The filmed tests were conducted in 2013, with Google employees behind the wheel. The videos had not been publicly shown until Monday’s event, Waymo spokeswoman Lauren Barriere said.

The company decided to focus solely on technology that didn’t require human intervention a couple of days after the napping incident, said Krafcik, who joined as CEO in 2015. It has also since argued against allowing “handoffs” between automated driving systems and people.

“Our technology takes care of all of the driving, allowing passengers to stay passengers,” the company said in a report this month.

The two drive controls provided to passengers in Waymo’s Chrysler Pacifica minivans are buttons for starting a ride and asking the vehicles to pull over at their next chance.

Waymo is running a ride-hailing pilot program around Phoenix, Arizona that chauffeurs an undisclosed, but growing number of users in self-driving cars. The service area is limited to well-mapped roads on which Waymo has extensively tested.

Krafcik declined to specify when the company would expand beyond the small experiment, saying only that such a moment is getting “close.”

He reiterated that the company is simultaneously also identifying ways to launch self-driving trucks, municipal transit services and partnerships with carmakers.

“We see four potential applications, whether it’s Waymo branded or not,” he said.

Reporting by Paresh Dave

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October 31, 2017

Taking a truly driverless ride in Waymo’s Chrysler Pacifica

Today was a first for me: I drove in a fully autonomous vehicle on roads without anyone behind the wheel. They weren’t public roads, but they did have intersections, other vehicles, pedestrian traffic, cyclists and more, and the car managed a fairly long route without any human intervention â€” and without any cause for concern on my part.

I’ve done a lot of self-driving vehicle demos, including in Waymo’s own previous-generation Lexus test vehicles, so I wasn’t apprehensive about being ferried around in Waymo’s Chrysler Pacifica minivan to begin with. But the experience still took me by surprise, in terms of just how freeing it was once it became apparent that the car was handling things all on its own, and would continue to do so safely regardless of what else was going on around it.

Waymo’s test track at Castle (more on that facility here) included multiple intersections with traffic lights, a roundabout, cars stopped on the shoulder, crossing foot band cycle traffic and more. Even if these were staged, they’d be hard to replicate in exact detail every time, so despite the fact that Waymo clearly had more control here than they would out in the real world, the driving experience was still impressive.

In particular, one event stuck with me: A squirrel (or other small rodent, I’m no expert on the fauna of Northern California) darted out quickly in front of the car, before turning back off the road â€“ but the vehicle perceptibly slowed in case it needed to avoid it. Barring an incredibly lifelike animatronic, this isn’t something Waymo could’ve planned for.

Regarding how it actually works, once in the vehicle and buckled up, a rider taps a button to start the ride, and then displays mounted on the backs of the front seats show a visualization of what the car’s sensors see, but selectively simplified and redesigned to draw focus to things that riders find important, and to reassure them about the system’s competence and ability to spot all the key variables on the road.

This is essentially the same car driving riders around Chandler, in Phoenix, where the current Waymo pilot is operating. It’s still essentially a stock Pacifica van, with a premium trim upgrade, but included features in that vehicle, including the many USB ports for charging located throughout, the dual screens mentioned above on the seat backs, and the rear cabin AC and climate controls all make it particularly well suited to the task of putting the rider first.

I also noticed that the Pacifica drove in a manner which itself made me feel more comfortable as a rider, essentially by making it familiar. It edged into intersections cautiously, moved forward slowly when it had the right of way but its path was obstructed by a pedestrian crossing the street, and did a number of other things that made its driving feel more “human” than you might expect from an exacting computer system.

Waymo’s self-driving car ride won’t be my last, and it certainly wasn’t my first â€“ but it was the first that suggested we might be closer than many think to Level 4 autonomous vehicles operating on public roads for a public customer base. When asked directly for a timeline on a public service launch, Waymo CEO John Krafcik declined to even claim a specific year, but he did say it’s probably going to happen sooner than many would believe.

Written by Darrell Etherington for TechCrunch.

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October 30, 2017

Hilarious Stranger Things Parody Features Kids as Adults and Adults as Kids

Ok, I first I wasnâ€™t sure that parody was going to be all that great, but after seeing Eleven show up and the cameo from a young actor, I was immediately sold. Check it out!

[devinsupertramp]

The post Hilarious Stranger Things Parody Features Kids as Adults and Adults as Kids appeared first on Geeks are Sexy Technology News.

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October 30, 2017

Megaton Rainfall Review

You can play as Superman in a bunch of games. But despite the lack of a DC Comics license, or a set of red and blue tights, Megaton Rainfall offers one of the most engaging Superman experiences to date. The exhilaration of flight, the feeling of power, and, perhaps most importantly, the sense of personal responsibility for the planet, has never been captured quite like this before.

Megaton Rainfall is at its core an arcade-style shooter, but its priorities are far different than your average button-mashing, auto-scrolling game. You play as a superpowered being called the Offspring, brought to life by a mysterious cube for the sole purpose of stopping an alien invasion from destroying Earth. You start in space, and when the cube gives you control, youâ€™re given a marker, showing where the aliens will make landfall. They may set their sights on only one city, but if they see theyâ€™re no match for you, they tend to flee halfway across the country to find a new target. Every mission involves shooting off to another city, waiting for the extraterrestrial threat, busting up their weapons of mass destruction, and taking the harvested energy back to the cube, whoâ€™ll convert it into new cosmic powers.

Megaton Rainfall looks rough around the edges, but where it lacks in eye candy, it makes up for in sheer scale. Earth is represented through a wide range of environments and bodies of water separating the aliens’ primary targets. Despite underwhelming textures, moving to and fro can feel like youâ€™re flying around the world, especially in VR, where the sheer sense of speed becomes a delirious distraction.

What makes every encounter truly thrilling is the game’s unique life bar. It isn’t measuring your own vitality, but instead the health of the city you’re protecting. Every loss of life and bit of damage results in a storm of rubble and shrapnel, accompanied by the harrowing screams of the populace. Alien crafts can cause extreme damage, but so can you if one of your attacks misses its mark and hits a crowded street or city hall instead. One of the more tense elements later in the game comes when a particular alien craft starts dropping little green nuclear bombs that need to be tossed into the ocean or flown into the upper atmosphere, lest they detonate within a city. You never forget for a second just how many people stand to lose their lives if you fail, and the feeling of relief when you succeed, is an experience even some of the best superhero games havenâ€™t quite been able to deliver.

As you can guess, you can’t just fly around tossing energy blasts and heat rays willy-nilly. Each of the enemy spacecraft have their own glaring weaknesses to exploit, but getting into just the right position to toss energy or fire a heat ray is a careful process, one the game isn’t always quite precise enough to handle. Some enemies move with fairly predictable patterns, but some have a habit of moving with such unpredictable behavior that hitting them without using one of your limited special powers is more a matter of luck than skill. Combine that with the fact that flight is sometimes a bit too responsive, making it easy to overshoot your target. More frantic fights can also get extraordinarily dizzying, a problem that’s exacerbated when playing in VR. There’s a rather impressive amount of options to tweak the VR experience, but even with most of the safety features turned on, hectic stages still feel disorienting. A lock-on function would’ve made all the difference in the world here.

Your arsenal is also mildly underpowered for much of what you’ll be facing. The primary weapon is an energy blast that does decent damage but is also slow moving. The other powers you earn over the course of the game–the ability to stop time, a focused heat ray, telekinesis, a super dash, and the ability to drill underground–all have their uses, but cooldown times for each one often run longer than it takes for you to get into another situation that needs it. None of the challenges are impossible, but all of them require just a bit more work than they logically should.

Still, when Megaton Rainfall succeeds, even the relative problems fade into the background. Watching aliens crumble into a million pieces, stare in horror as a city gets eclipsed in a nuclear blast, watching a mothership collapse under fire, drilling into the Earth to stop a bomb from going off–all of these are the stuff of childhood dreams. To play Megaton Rainfall is to inhabit a flying superhero like nothing else in VR.

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October 30, 2017

Hellcrate 6.2-liter V8 delivers plug-and-play Hellcat hype to SEMA

SEMA

just provided another entry for the folder marked “What A Time To Be Alive,” with Mopar’s announcement of the “Hellcrate” 6.2-liter supercharged Crate HEMI engine. Enthusiasts have been desperate to upgrade their vintage rides with the woozy thrills provided by

Dodge’s Hellcat

motor, so

Mopar

answered.

The Hellcrate engine assembly ships in plug-and-play configuration, in specially designed packaging with “Hellcrate” logos. The assembly sells separately from the Hellcrate engine kit, the kit adding a powertrain control module, power distribution center, engine wiring harness, chassis harness, accelerator pedal, ground jumper, oxygen sensors, charge air temperature sensors, and fuel pump control module. The PCM comes programmed with the production-car engine’s 707 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque. An optional front-end accessory drive kit contributes peripherals like alternator, power steering pump, belts, and pulleys. Don’t bother trying to lash up a sleeper 1997

Chrysler Sebring

, though; Mopar tuned the Hellcrate for pre-1976 vehicles and manual transmissions.

The engine assembly retails for an MSRP of $19,530, and the kit wants a further $2,195. Mopar didn’t announce pricing for the accessory drive kit. The engine and kit come with a three-year, unlimited-mileage

warranty

when bought together. The

Mopar Hemi Crate

website will be happy to take your orders as of now.

For help envisioning the possibilities, stop by

Fiat

Chrysler’s 15,345-square-foot

SEMA

booth to check out the Limelight Green, Hellcrate-powered 1970

Plymouth

Superbird clone worked up by Mark Worman of Velocity’s “

Graveyard Carz

.” While you’re there you might as well peep Worman’s encore, a 1968

Plymouth

GTX stuffed with Mopar’s 392 Crate HEMI in place of the original

440

big block, and the 1937

Dodge

pickup that swallowed a Mopar 345 Crate HEMI. Mopar’s come a long way from its original product: antifreeze products.

Tomorrow it’ll be

Jeep’s

turn to ring the SEMA bells, once the noise dies down from the Mopar-jacked

Wrangler

Switchback, CJ66 and

Jeep

Shortcut. You can

watch the brand’s presentation online

at 7:26 p.m. ET/4:26 p.m. PT. Until then, we’re going to work the angles on a Hellcrate-powered Plymouth Volare. The sedan, naturally. Because we’re practical.

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