Category: Technology

A local shop might deliver your next Amazon order. The company tellsAxios it’s launching an Amazon Hub Delivery system that uses small businesses in 23 states (including California, New York and Washington) to complete shipments to customers. Those businesses need secure storage areas and must deliver an average of 30 packages every day outside of major holidays. However, Amazon isn’t fussy about business types for this program — bodegas, coffee shops, florists and other locations can all qualify.

Hub Delivery is ultimately an expansion of previous initiatives. Amazon debuted an “I Have Space” system in India in 2015, and expanded it to both Japan and Spain. An American pilot program began in late 2020, although it focused on improving delivery for rural customers. The new approach covers over 20 major cities, including Boston, New York City and Los Angeles.

The incentives are clear. Amazon gets more reliable deliveries by offloading “last mile” shipments to small businesses rather than relying solely on dedicated couriers. Partners in turn can grow their businesses and supplement their income, Amazon VP Beryl Tomay says. Axios estimates that, at $27,000 in earnings per year, Amazon is paying about $2.50 per package. The online retailer hopes to team with 2,500 small business drivers by the end of 2023.

The strategy comes months after Amazon announced mass layoffs as the pandemic recovery and a rocky economy ate into profits. It also comes amid labor complaints that include past allegations of misusing Flex drivers’ tips. Hub Delivery theoretically helps Amazon not only trim costs, but minimize the labor disputes that might come with using its own workers for shipping. Not that the tech giant is completely averse to using its own staff. It’s still committed to buying about 100,000 Rivian delivery vans that will bring packages to customers.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-will-use-small-businesses-to-help-deliver-packages-in-the-us-132503498.html?src=rss 

Starting July 1st, any planes without retrofitted sensitive radar altimeters across the US can’t land in low visibility, a stipulation that could cause delays for travelers, The Wall Street Journal reports. To be clear, this is not addressing an ongoing safety issue — the deadline aligns with US wireless companies increasing the power of their 5G networks, potentially creating greater interference for any aircraft without the necessary equipment.

The 5G boost comes after years of delays and debates between the Febderal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due to concerns about the signals’ impact on radio waves that judge how far a plane is from the ground. Carriers first planned to increase the power of their networks in January 2022, delayed it until July 2022 and finally found a compromise with the FAA to proceed on July 1st, 2023.

About 80 percent of domestic aircraft have undergone the upgrade, with some top carriers still needing to finish their fleet. Delta, for instance, will have 190 planes left to bring up to par, while JetBlue will have 17 — something the Airlines for America trade association blames on supply chain problems. United, Southwest and American Airlines have all reported they will have no outstanding planes by the deadline. Another 65 percent of aircraft flying from international destinations into the US have up-to-date altimeters, with airlines poised to use those options whenever possible.

“There’s a real risk of delays or cancellations,” Buttigieg said. “This represents one of the biggest—probably the biggest—foreseeable problem affecting performance this summer.” The level of impact will depend mainly on the weather, but fortunately, there won’t be snowstorms anytime soon. All planes in the US will need an updated altimeter by February 2024, regardless of visibility conditions.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-5g-deadline-could-ground-some-us-flights-starting-july-1st-122529318.html?src=rss 

Pokémon might be a Japanese franchise, but, like people around the world, South Korean conglomerate Samsung continues to show a kinship to the series with its latest Pokémon-themed products. The electronics company has announced the release of its new Pokémon Packs, with three new Galaxy Buds 2 cases designed to look like Jigglypuff, Ditto and Snorlax. Along with the adorable case, the packs feature corresponding stickers and a choice of the Galaxy Buds 2 for KRW 129,000 ($99) or the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro for KRW 199,000 ($152). 

Samsung had started off this series of sorts with a classic option, launching Poké Ball cases for its Galaxy Buds 2 Pro and standard edition headphones in May 2022. The limited edition item sold out within an hour, so it’s no surprise the company wanted to release a few more Pokémon-themed options. The Pokémon edition of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 3 foldable smartphone had a similar response, with the KRW 1,280,000 ($979) device selling out within minutes. 

The Galaxy Watch 5 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4 smartphone have also previously gotten the Pokémon treatment courtesy of a Poké Ball-covered watch strap and phone case. As for Jigglypuff, Ditto and Snorlax, these adorable cases are only available in Samsung’s native South Korea and, like the Poké Ball edition, probably on eBay soon.  

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsungs-latest-pokemon-themed-galaxy-buds-are-too-cute-105522706.html?src=rss 

Aston Martin plans to build “ultra-luxury high-performance” EVs using Lucid’s electric motors, batteries and other technology, Lucid announced in a press release. It’s the first deal for Lucid to supply parts to other automakers — much like Rimac, which itself developed batteries and other components for Aston Martin, along with Koenigsegg and others. Lucid recently released its own debut electric car, the Air, in multiple versions starting at around $87,400. 

“The supply agreement with Lucid is a game changer for the future EV-led growth of Aston Martin,” said Aston Martin executive chairman Lawrence Stroll. “Based on our strategy and requirements, we selected Lucid, gaining access to the industry’s highest performance and most innovative technologies for our future BEV products.”

Aston Martin said it selected Lucid through a “competitive process” and will use Lucid’s proprietary electric powertrain technology, including its ultra-high performance twin motor drive unit, battery technology, and onboard “Wunderbox” charging unit. The technology will allow for features like torque vectoring, heat exchanger tech and a battery system upgraded for higher power. 

In 2020, Aston Martin scrapped plans to manufacture an all-electric Rapide E, saying it wouldn’t release any EVs until it’s “financially stable.” Stroll, a Canadian billionaire who also owns the Aston Martin F1 team, took a 25 percent ownership in Aston Martin back in 2020. Mercedes-Benz, meanwhile, currently owns 9.4 percent of Aston Martin, and previously said it plans to increase that to 20 percent by 2023. 

As part of that deal, Mercedes-Benz granted Aston Martin access to its hybrid and electric powertrains, but it’s not clear how Lucid and Mercedes will interact. Aston Martin’s F1 team currently uses a Mercedes-Benz power unit, though it plans to switch to Honda in 2026. “Along with Mercedes-Benz, we now have two world-class suppliers [with Lucid] to support the internal development and investments we are making to deliver our electrification strategy,” Stroll said. 

Rimac has supplied technology, including a lightweight battery system, to Aston Martin’s 1,160 HP Valkyrie hypercar. Back in 2015, Aston Martin joined forces with LeEco to build an electric version of the Rapide, but LeEco bowed out with its own financial issues. To complete the circle, LeEco originally had a stake in Lucid, but founder Jia Yueting was forced to sell it due to a liquidity crisis. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lucid-will-power-aston-martins-future-evs-101040684.html?src=rss 

Users in Canada are once again serving as involuntary first adopters of Netflix’s new policies. Following its February decision to charge more for account sharing between houses in the country, the streamer has now announced its basic plan will no longer be an option for Canada’s subscribers, The Winnipeg Free Press reports.

Anyone already on a basic plan doesn’t have to worry about being kicked off it, but if they choose to move to another option or close their account, they can’t get back on that tier. New users can no longer choose the basic option, while current subscribers on other plans will lose the opportunity to switch over “in the near future.” In Canada, the basic tier is $9.99 (CAD) per month, while the basic with ads tier is $5.99, the standard is $16.49 and the premium is $20.99.

After claiming it would never offer an ad-supported option, Netflix did just that in November 2022, launching the new tier in Canada, the US and ten other countries. Now with the decision to remove its basic option, the streamer is pushing more of its customers towards an ad-filled viewing experience. The rationale is simple: Ad-supported plans can be highly beneficial to Netflix’s bottom line. In the first quarter of 2023, across the US, Netflix saw its basic with ads tier bring in more money per user than its standard plan. This dichotomy held even though its ad tier is $6.99, compared to its standard plan costing $15.49.

There’s no indication that Netflix will remove the basic tier in the US anytime soon, but if you want to avoid paying more or watching ads, now might be the time to pick it. In the US, the basic plan is $9.99, and the premium is $19.99.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflix-is-removing-its-basic-plan-in-canada-092535002.html?src=rss 

Despite our intrinsic distrust of AI in space taught to us by movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey (“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave“), it offers large advantages to both manned and unmanned missions. To that end, NASA is developing a system that will allow astronauts to perform maneuvers, conduct experiments and more using a natural-language ChatGPT-like interface, The Guardian reported. 

“The idea is to get to a point where we have conversational interactions with space vehicles and they [are] also talking back to us on alerts, interesting findings they see in the solar system and beyond,” said Dr. Larissa Suzuki, speaking at an IEEE meeting on next-gen space communication. “It’s really not like science fiction anymore.” 

NASA aims to deploy the system on its Lunar Gateway, a space station that will orbit the Moon and provide support for NASA’s Artemis mission. It would use a natural language interface that allows astronauts to seek advice on experiments or conduct maneuvers without diving into complex manuals. 

On a dedicated page soliciting small business support for Lunar Gateway, NASA wrote that it would require AI and machine learning technologies to manage various systems when it’s unoccupied as well. Those include autonomous operations of science payloads, data transmission prioritization, autonomous operations, health management of Gateway and more.

For instance, Suzuki outlined a scenario in which the system would automatically fix data transmission glitches and inefficiencies, along with other types of digital outages. “We cannot send an engineer up in space whenever a space vehicle goes offline or its software breaks somehow,” she said. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasa-is-creating-a-chatgpt-like-assistant-for-astronauts-081903604.html?src=rss 

The New York City Department of Education has become the latest organization to disclose it had private data stolen as part of the far-reaching MOVEit file transfer software hack. In an email sent to parents on Sunday, the agency said the personal information of approximately 45,000 students, including in some cases social security numbers and birth dates, had recently been compromised. The Education Department said the personal information of staff was also accessed but did not share how many teachers and other personnel were affected.

“The safety and security of our students and staff, including their personal information and data, is of the utmost importance for the New York City Department of Education. Our top priority is determining exactly which confidential information was exposed, and the specific impact for each affected individual,” the department said Sunday. “When that determination is made, we will begin preparing notifications to individuals whose confidential information was compromised. Along with the notification, individuals will be offered access to an identity monitoring service.”

The Education Department is one of many organizations affected by the MOVEit hack. Clop, a ransomware gang with suspected pro-Russian ties, claimed responsibility for the cyberattack in early June. The group took advantage of a zero-day vulnerability in the enterprise file transfer software to breach the servers of “hundreds of companies,” including the largest US pension fund. The scale of the New York City Department of Education breach is small compared to some of the other victims caught up in the hack but is notable for including the personal information of minors. In an interview with Bleeping Computer, the Clop gang claimed it would erase any data it obtained from governments, the military and children’s hospitals. It’s unclear if the group includes student data in that final category.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/clop-ransomware-gang-obtained-personal-data-of-45000-new-york-city-students-in-moveit-hack-204655820.html?src=rss 

NASA has achieved a technological milestone that could one day play an important role in missions to the Moon and beyond. This week, the space agency revealed (via Space.com) that the International Space Station’s Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) is recycling 98 percent of all water astronauts bring onboard the station. Functionally, you can imagine the system operating in a way similar to the Stillsuits described in Frank Herbert’s Dune. One part of the ECLSS uses “advanced dehumidifiers” to capture moisture the station’s crew breaths and sweat out as they go about their daily tasks.

Another subsystem, the imaginatively named “Urine Processor Assembly,” recovers what astronauts pee with the help of vacuum distillation. According to NASA, the distillation process produces water and a urine brine that still contains reclaimable H20. The agency recently began testing a new device that can extract what water remains in the brine, and it’s thanks to that system that NASA observed a 98 percent water recovery rate on the ISS, where previously the station was recycling about 93 to 94 percent of the water astronauts were bringing aboard.

“This is a very important step forward in the evolution of life support systems,” said NASA’s Christopher Brown, who is part of the team that manages the International Space Station’s life support systems. “Let’s say you collect 100 pounds of water on the station. You lose two pounds of that and the other 98 percent just keeps going around and around. Keeping that running is a pretty awesome achievement.”

If the thought of someone else drinking their urine is causing you to gag, fret not. “The processing is fundamentally similar to some terrestrial water distribution systems, just done in microgravity,” said Jill Williamson, NASA’s ECLSS water subsystems manager. “The crew is not drinking urine; they are drinking water that has been reclaimed, filtered, and cleaned such that it is cleaner than what we drink here on Earth.”

According to Williamson, systems like the ECLSS will be critical as NASA conducts more missions beyond Earth’s orbit. “The less water and oxygen we have to ship up, the more science that can be added to the launch vehicle,” Williamson said. “Reliable, robust regenerative systems mean the crew doesn’t have to worry about it and can focus on the true intent of their mission.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasa-is-recycling-98-percent-of-astronaut-pee-and-sweat-on-the-iss-into-drinkable-water-184332789.html?src=rss 

If you had hoped to play Diablo IV this weekend, it appears someone is intent on ruining those plans. Since at least the early hours of Sunday morning, Blizzard’s Battle.net online service has been the target of an apparent DDoS attack, making it difficult, if not impossible, to play Diablo IV,World of Warcraft and other Blizzard titles. “We continue to actively monitor an ongoing DDoS attack which is affecting latency/connections to our games,” Blizzard’s customer support account tweeted at 10:24AM after it originally said it was investigating an authentication issue.    

As of 12:30PM ET, the issue appears to be unresolved. “We are currently experiencing a DDoS attack, which may result in high latency and disconnections for some players,” states a notification that appears when you launch Battle.net on PC. “We are actively working to mitigate this issue.” When I tried to log into Diablo IV, I was briefly able to play the game before I was disconnected. Over on Reddit, some players report they haven’t been able to play Blizzard’s latest for at least 10 to 12 hours. At the very least, you can bet this incident will likely renew calls for Blizzard to add an offline mode to Diablo IV. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/diablo-iv-and-other-blizzard-games-are-down-due-to-a-ddos-attack-164231957.html?src=rss