Dominique Luchart's Blog, page 618
May 21, 2021
Amazon is shutting down Prime Now and folding two-hour deliveries into its main app,
Amazon is shutting down its standalone Prime Now delivery app, with its speedy two-hour delivery options moving exclusively into the company’s main app and website, the company announced today. Prime Now services have already moved into the main app in India, Japan, and Singapore, while in other countries Amazon is already directing Prime Now users into its main app and website via a pop-up, CNBC notes. The standalone Prime Now app and website will be retired by the end of the year.
Originally launched in 2014, Prime Now was designed to offer deliveries of essential items within hours rather than days for Prime members. The service was initially available in just a small number of cities, but has since expanded to over 5,000 locations around the world, CNBC notes. Writing in a blog post, Amazon’s vice president of grocery Stephenie Landry said shutting down the separate app will “make this experience even more seamless for customers.”
Two-hour delivery options from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods have been available on the main Amazon site and app in the US since 2019, but the company says third-party partners and local stores around the world will be moved onto its main service by the end of the year. These include local stores like Bartell’s in Seattle, Morrisons in Leeds, or Monoprix in Paris.
Today’s news follows Amazon’s announcement in January that it would be discontinuing its Amazon Pantry service and making those household goods and groceries available through the main Amazon website. It’s also been rebranding its Go Grocery brand as Amazon Fresh, GeekWire reports. Between the moves, Amazon is consolidating and simplifying its sprawling array of grocery delivery services.
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Smaller Pixel 6 leaks with flat screen and fewer cameras,
Yesterday OnLeaks released CAD renders of what is supposedly Google’s next flagship phone, the Pixel 6 Pro, and now the noted leaker has followed up with details and images of the smaller model, posted at 91Mobiles. The so-called Pixel 6 looks like it’ll adopt the same distinctive design as the Pro, with one colorway featuring orange and white sections broken up by a glossy black bar that houses the camera bump.
You’ll find one fewer camera in that bump, according to the leak — it’s said to be a dual-camera setup, presumably a regular wide and an ultrawide. The 6 Pro, on the other hand, appears to include a periscope telephoto lens. Both phones are depicted with a single centrally aligned hole-punch selfie camera.
91Mobiles says that the Pixel 6 has a 6.4-inch display with flat edges, unlike the curved 6.67-inch panel used in the 6 Pro. The 6 reportedly also has wireless charging, an in-display fingerprint sensor, and bottom-firing stereo speakers, with dimensions of 158.6mm x 74.8mm x 8.9mm. The OnLeaks renders match up with designs shown off by Front Page Tech‘s Jon Prosser last week.
There’s no word on exactly when the Pixel 6 will launch, but Pixel phones do have a habit of leaking (or even being announced by Google) well before their eventual release date, so we could well be waiting until fall. At this point, it’s almost a surprise that leakers managed to beat Google to the punch.
Google has also said it’s planning to release a Pixel 5A phone later this year.
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Kensington’s $399 StudioDock won’t fit the new, slightly thicker 12.9-inch iPad Pro, Sam Byford
Kensington’s StudioDock, the high-end $399.99 desktop hub for the iPad Pro that was released earlier this year, isn’t compatible with the new 12.9-inch model hitting stores today. A representative for Kensington confirmed the news to The Verge, saying it’s because the new iPad Pro is 0.5mm thicker than the 2018 and 2020 models.
The StudioDock uses a rotatable magnetic mounting plate to secure the iPad when it’s plugged in over USB-C, expanding its connectivity with extra USB-A, ethernet, and HDMI ports. Although the only difference between the StudioDock versions for the 12.9-inch and 11-inch iPad Pro is the size of that mounting plate, Kensington says it won’t be user-replaceable. Instead, the company plans to release an entirely new…
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Kensington’s $399 StudioDock won’t fit the new, slightly thicker 12.9-inch iPad Pro,
Kensington’s StudioDock, the high-end $399.99 desktop hub for the iPad Pro that was released earlier this year, isn’t compatible with the new 12.9-inch model hitting stores today. A representative for Kensington confirmed the news to The Verge, saying it’s because the new iPad Pro is 0.5mm thicker than the 2018 and 2020 models.
The StudioDock uses a rotatable magnetic mounting plate to secure the iPad when it’s plugged in over USB-C, expanding its connectivity with extra USB-A, ethernet, and HDMI ports. Although the only difference between the StudioDock versions for the 12.9-inch and 11-inch iPad Pro is the size of that mounting plate, Kensington says it won’t be user-replaceable. Instead, the company plans to release an entirely new SKU to fit the 2021 12.9-inch iPad Pro.
The new 11-inch iPad Pro should be unaffected, because its dimensions are the same as last year’s model. The 12.9-inch version, however, is slightly thicker because it uses a new, more advanced display with Mini LED technology. Apple itself has warned that its 2020 Magic Keyboard “may not precisely fit” the 2021 12.9-inch iPad Pro due to this difference in thickness, although we found it worked fine in our review.
No such luck for the StudioDock — you’ll need to buy a whole new one if you want to upgrade your iPad. This wasn’t entirely unforeseeable, and I warned of the possibility when reviewing the StudioDock in March because new iPad Pro models did seem overdue. But the incompatibility is unfortunate for such an expensive product, especially since it was only just released.
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New Qualcomm 5G modem will connect robots in factories, tractors in the field – CNET, Shara Tibken
The 315 5G modem promises to let internet of things devices tap into faster connectivity.
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New Qualcomm 5G modem will connect robots in factories, tractors in the field – CNET,
Qualcom says its 315 5G IOT modem will help connect robots in factories and enable high-tech tractors in the field.Qualcomm
5G may soon come to robots, tractors and self-checkout lanes, among other things, thanks to a new wireless processor from Qualcomm. On Thursday the chipmaker unveiled the 315 5G IOT modem, its first chip to link internet-connected devices to superfast 5G networks.
The processor will be aimed at industrial segments such as agriculture; automation and manufacturing; construction; energy; mining; public venues and retail. A stadium owner could install the 315 5G IOT to bring better connectivity and coverage to game attendees, while a tractor manufacturer could use it to enable more-precise data collection in fields, Qualcomm said.
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To address the needs of industrial customers, Qualcomm designed the processor to be low power — which means the machines run cooler in hot warehouses — and smaller in size than its modems for consumer devices, letting the 315 fit in the same size package as its earlier 4G processors. That should let industrial companies easily switch 4G chips for 5G modems without having to completely redesign their machines, speeding up how quickly they can deploy them.
“Power, thermal efficiency and size are … the key elements as to why we felt that there is a need in the market for this type of part,” Qualcomm’s vice president of product management, Vieri Vanghi, said in an interview ahead of the news. “Those are important characteristics of this chipset that make it suitable for IoT and that are meant to remove some of the friction points” that prevent Qualcomm’s mobile-focused processors from appealing to customers in the IoT sphere. IoT refers to the Internet of Things, or devices — from refrigerators to cars to factory machines — that can communicate via the internet.
The heavily hyped 5G technology runs between 10 and 100 times faster than today’s typical 4G cellular connection, and it’s much more responsive than 4G and Wi-Fi. 5G provides more capacity on the network, letting a greater number of devices be connected at the same time. And it’s more reliable than other wireless connections. The initial hype around 5G has been all about mobile, but the technology has the ability to transform more than just phones. And Qualcomm wants to be the company providing the modems to connect everything to 5G networks.
The 315 runs on the slower but more reliable type of 5G known as sub-6GHz. One version of the chip also comes with 4G connectivity for customers who aren’t ready to go all-in on 5G. It’s capable of downloading data at up to 1.54Gbps and uploading data at up to 330Mbps.
“Sub-6GHz is what the industry requires, for good reasons,” Vanghi said. “Most of the applications … even the ones that relate to robots and control, those are not high volume data. … Those require low latency, [but] they certainly don’t require high data rates.”
Right now most 5G networks in the US are something called nonstandalone. They need 4G as the anchor to make that initial handshake between a phone and network before passing the device along to a 5G connection. The next version of 5G networks, called standalone, lets a phone go straight to 5G, speeding up the connection and improving the power consumption.
The 315 operates in standalone mode, which is only deployed by T-Mobile (and formerly Sprint) in the US. The processor, because of its standalone capabilities, will arrive first in Europe and China and later expand to Japan. It’s unclear if customers in the US will use the technology, Vanghi said.
Qualcomm’s 315 5G IOT modem will ship this week to customers and will likely appear in devices later this year and early next year.
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May 20, 2021
TikTok now lets you wipe out up to 100 nasty comments at once, Jacob Kastrenakes
Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeTikTok is making it much easier for creators to quickly report harassing comments. With an update that starts rolling out today, the app is adding the ability to select multiple comments at once — up to 100 — so that creators can delete and report remarks or block accounts in bulk. Creators previously had to go one by one when reporting, deleting, or blocking, so this new system should help and perhaps even encourage people to wipe out comments they don’t want to see.
The feature should be particularly helpful on TikTok, since the network’s vaunted algorithm can rocket anyone to stardom in an instant, suddenly placing them in front of millions of unknown viewers. That can put unsuspecting amateurs and seasoned creators alike in a…
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Senators roll out bipartisan data privacy bill, Makena Kelly
Sen. Amy Klobuchar is back with a bill to protect consumer data privacy when collected by large tech platforms like Facebook and Google.
Klobuchar (D-MN) has teamed up with a bipartisan group of senators, including Sens. John Kennedy (R-LA), Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Richard Burr (R-NC), to reintroduce the Social Media Privacy Protection and Consumer Rights Act. The privacy legislation would force websites to grant users greater control over their data and allow them to opt out of data tracking and collection.
“This legislation will protect and empower consumers”“For too long companies have profited off of Americans’ online data while consumers have been left in the dark,” Klobuchar said in a statement to The Verge. “This legislation…
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ZIGBEE ON MARS!, Thomas Ricker
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter communicates telemetry over Zigbee to the NASA’s Perseverance rover. | Image: NASA/JPL-CaltechToday I learned that the Ingenuity drone copter twirling about on Mars communicates with the Perseverance rover using 900MHz Zigbee radios. Not Wi-Fi, GSM, or something exotic like fission-powered lasers or space algae, but the same consumer tech you use to turn on a Philips Hue lightbulb.
I came across the news via an incredulous tweet from Ben Bromley who discovered it on the Linux Unplugged podcast with guest Tobin Richardson, CEO of the Zigbee Alliance.
According to Richardson, Zibee is the ideal wireless protocol to transfer telemetry data between NASA’s Perseverance rover and the semi-autonomous flying drone. “Looking at really extreme environments, like Mars, it’s good to have a very lightweight purpose-built standard,” said…
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On This Day in Space! May 20, 1978: NASA launches Pioneer Venus Orbiter, ,
On May 20, 1978, NASA launched a spacecraft to Venus. The mission was called Pioneer-Venus 1, but it’s also known as the Pioneer Venus Orbiter.
This was the first of two spacecraft that made up the Pioneer Venus mission. Pioneer Venus 2 launched a couple months later, and that spacecraft dropped five probes onto the surface of Venus. NASA called this the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe. The orbiter was designed to study the atmosphere of Venus. It was a solar-powered cylinder about the size of a hot tub.
The 10 Weirdest Facts About Venus
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An artist’s illustration of NASA’s Pioneer 12 spacecraft, also known as Pioneer Venus Orbiter, which explored the cloudy planet for 14 years from orbit. (Image credit: NASA/Paul Hudson)The mission launched from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas-Centaur rocket and reached Venus about six months later. While orbiting Venus, it measured the structure of the upper atmosphere and studied how the solar wind interacts with its ionosphere and magnetic field. It also detected gamma-ray bursts and made ultraviolet observations of comets.
Pioneer Venus 1 continued to beam back data for 14 years before its decaying orbit sent it into Venus’s atmosphere, where it was destroyed.
Catch up on our entire “On This Day In Space” series on YouTube with this playlist.
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