Kalakshar US

Don’t worry if Mercedes’ insistence on EQ branding for electric cars seems arbitrary — the naming scheme might not last much longer. Sources speaking to the German daily Handelsblatt claim Mercedes will drop the EQ brand as soon as late 2024, when it’s expected to debut its next wave of compact cars. Simply put, the company won’t have much use for the label when more and more of its cars will be electric.

Mercedes first used the EQ name on production cars with 2019’s EQC SUV. Since then, the company has applied the branding to both electrified versions of conventional designs like the EQB as well as unique models like the EQS SUV. Concept cars like the long-range EQXX have similarly stuck to the nomenclature.

In a statement to Reuters, a Mercedes spokesperson said it was “too early” to divulge plans. However, the representative said the automaker would “adapt” the use of the EQ brand as it transitioned to an all-EV lineup by 2030. The identification still plays a key role in the company’s current electric vehicle strategy, the spokesperson added.

If the report is true, the rethink won’t come as a surprise. While car manufacturers have frequently used names to highlight electric powerplants, such as the Chevy Bolt and Ford Mustang Mach-E, they’re starting to rely on more traditional monikers as EVs become more commonplace. Chevy’s upcoming electric Blazer is one example. EVs will eventually become the default, and companies won’t get to use the presence of an electric motor as a selling point.

 

Instacart will pay workers $5.1 million as part of a settlement after it allegedly failed to provide some benefits, as The San Francisco Chronicle reports. San Francisco accused the company of violating healthcare and paid sick leave ordinances. The company, which has not admitted to wrongdoing, will pay an additional $150,000 to cover the city’s legal costs and pay for a settlement administrator to distribute the funds.

“Instacart has always properly classified shoppers as independent contractors, giving them the ability to set their own schedule and earn on their own terms,” Instacart said in a statement. “We remain committed to continuing to serve customers across San Francisco while also protecting access to the flexible earnings opportunities Instacart shoppers consistently say they want.”

People who worked as independent contractors for Instacart in the city between February 2017 and December 2020 are eligible for payments based on how many hours they worked. San Francisco estimates that between 6,000 and 7,000 people are affected by the settlement. The city and Instacart previously reached a similar settlement that covered an earlier time period. San Francisco has settled a benefits-related case with DoorDash too.

After December 15th, 2020, Instacart workers were subject to Proposition 22, which afforded them some benefits without the company having to define them as employees. An Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled in 2021 that the measure was unconstitutional, but it remains in force while Instacart, DoorDash, Uber, Lyft and other gig companies who bankrolled Prop 22 appeal the decision. Another suit — filed by San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego — claims that Uber and Lyft drivers should have been classed as workers until Prop 22 passed.

 

The US government has reportedly passed on buying more HoloLens-based AR combat goggles from Microsoft after discovering the current version has some kinks to work out, according to Bloomberg. So instead of ordering more of the current model, the government approved $40 million for Microsoft to develop a new version.

The updated combat goggles will address test results from last year when 70 soldiers wore the current version during three 72-hour scenarios simulating combat conditions. The results showed that the soldiers suffered “headaches, eyestrain and nausea” and that the system had too many “failures of essential functions.” In addition, more than 80 percent of soldiers who reported discomfort began experiencing it less than three hours into the 72 hours test.

The Army had initially requested $400 million to buy up to 6,900 pairs of the goggles as part of the $1.75 trillion government funding bill. Instead, Congress approved $40 million from that sum to develop the new version. The Army has already given Microsoft $125 million to create a revised model, and it still plans to spend up to $21.9 billion over the next decade for as many as 121,000 devices.

The Department of Defense contract has significantly boosted Microsoft’s ability to profit from its AR device. Before working with the DoD, the company had marketed the headset for enterprise manufacturing, training and other industrial purposes. Although Microsoft has hinted at an eventual consumer version of HoloLens, the company hasn’t yet announced any specifics — and its plans are hazier after the company has reportedly struggled to form a coherent strategy for its headset.

 

Everything was going great until it wasn’t in the skies over Cornwall, UK on Monday. Virgin Orbit, the space launch division of Sir Richard Branson’s sprawling commercial empire, was in the midst of setting a major milestone for the country and the nation: to be the first orbital launch from European soil. The carrier aircraft, Cosmic Girl, had successfully taken off from Spaceport Cornwall, LauncherOne had cleanly separated from the modified 747 and properly ignited its first stage rocket, blasting it and its payload of satellites into space. But before they could be pushed into their proper orbit by the rocket’s second stage, something went wrong. On Thursday, Virgin Orbit leaders provided a preliminary explanation as to just what happened.

“At an altitude of approximately 180 km, the upper stage experienced an anomaly. This anomaly prematurely ended the first burn of the upper stage,” the company told Engadget via email. “This event ended the mission, with the rocket components and payload falling back to Earth within the approved safety corridor without ever achieving orbit.”

Virgin Orbit has also announced a “formal” investigation into the root causes of the anomaly which will be led by Jim Sponnick, who developed the Atlas and Delta launch systems, and Chad Foerster, Virgin Orbit’s Chief Engineer. Despite the setback, the company is already in contact with UK officials to reschedule the launch for as soon as late 2023.    

 

There wasn’t anything particularly sinister about the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) outage that prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to ground US flights on Wednesday — it appears to have been a relatively simple glitch. As part of its early investigation, the FAA has determined that the outage was prompted by a “damaged database file.” The agency is still working to identify the exact causes and prevent repeat incidents, but says there’s still “no evidence” of a cyberattack.

The FAA grounded all domestic departures in the US on Wednesday morning after the NOTAM system failed the afternoon before. This was the first such failure in the country, and it prompted hundreds of delays that took hours to resolve. NOTAMs provide important information about potential problems along a flight’s path, such as runway closures and temporary airspace restrictions.

The initial findings may be reassuring for those concerned the outage may have stemmed from another critical infrastructure hack. However, it still leaves some unanswered questions about the fragility of NOTAM in the US. A single corrupted file was apparently all it took to disrupt flights nationwide for over half a day — whatever redundancy was in place clearly wasn’t enough.

 

Intel has just introduced a new desktop processor, the Core i9-13900KS, that can reach up to 6GHz without overclocking, making it the fastest desktop processor available. This is made possible by the processor’s Thermal Velocity Boost feature, which allows the chip to run faster when it’s cool enough.

The i9-13900KS is an upgraded version of the i9-13900K, which Intel released last fall. The main differences between the two processors are that the older chip reached a maximum speed of 5.8GHz and had a lower base power of 125W compared to 150W in the new chip. However, the i9-13900KS has the same number of cores (24), amount of cache (36MB) and number of PCIe lanes (20) as the i9-13900K. In addition, the new processor is compatible with Z790 and Z690 motherboards; however, an updated BIOS is recommended.

The Thermal Velocity Boost is a feature in 11th Gen and later Intel Core chips that lets them run faster when they’re cool. It does this by increasing the clock frequency by 100 MHz when the temperature is below a threshold of 70 degrees C. However, you’ll need a good cooling solution to get the most out of it.

This release comes before the launch of AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X3D, which is set to be released in February. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D can reach standard speeds of 5.7GHz and has 144MB of 3D V-Cache technology, which allows for more cache to be added to the CPU. The i9-13900KS is available starting today, with a suggested starting price of $699.

 

Sam Bankman-Fried is in a world of trouble. He’s facing up to 115 years in prison if he’s convicted of federal fraud and conspiracy charges. And yet the embattled founder of collapsed crypto exchange FTX — who has pleaded not guilty and is out on a $250 million bond while awaiting trial — figured it’d be a great idea to write about his perspective on the saga in a Substack newsletter.

In his first post, which is ostensibly about the collapse of FTX International, Bankman-Fried (aka SBF) claims that “I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away.” SBF notes that FTX US (which serves customers in America) “remains fully solvent and should be able to return all customers’ funds.” He added that FTX International still has billions of dollars in assets and that he is “dedicating nearly all of my personal assets to customers.” SBF, who once had a net worth of approximately $26.5 billion, said at the end of November that he had $100,000 in his bank account, though he pledged to give almost all of his personal shares in Robinhood to customers.

The post covers much of the same ground that SBF has gone over in the myriad interviews he gave between FTX’s collapse in November and his arrest last month. He discusses the multiple crypto market crashes in 2022 and a tweet from Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao that sparked a run on FTX’s FTT token and prompted the implosion of his exchange. SBF also writes about how he was pressured to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for FTX. Meanwhile, he notes that many of the numbers he cites in the post are approximations, since he has been locked out of FTX’s systems by those overseeing its bankruptcy proceedings.

What’s more interesting is what SBF doesn’t address. He does not mention the fact that FTX co-founder Zixiao “Gary” Wang and former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison pleaded guilty to fraud charges and are cooperating with prosecutors.

SBF has continued to give interviews and tweet about the situation while he’s out on bail. That’s despite the complaint filed against him by the Securities and Exchange Commission citing his tweets and comments he made in an interview in early December. Perhaps this whole Substack thing will turn out to be a mistake too.

 

Warner Bros. Discovery is increasing the price of an HBO Max subscription for the first time. As of today, new users on the ad-free plan will pay $16 per month. Existing subscribers, who are currently paying $15 per month, will have to pony up an extra buck starting on their next billing cycle, but not before February 11th.

“This price increase of one dollar will allow us to continue to invest in providing even more culture-defining programming and improving our customer experience for all users,” WBD told Variety in a statement. It’s not clear whether the price of the ad-supported plan is going up. That currently costs $10 per month.

HBO Max debuted in May 2020, so it has gone almost three years without a price increase. WBD is planning to merge HBO Max and Discovery+ this spring, so the timing of the price hike is intriguing, given that the company hasn’t indicated how much the combined service will cost or even the name of it. A report last month suggested that the fused streaming service may simply be called “Max.”

In the meantime, subscribers might be forgiven for feeling aggrieved about the price increase. Since WarnerMedia and Discovery merged to create WBD last year, the company has been slashing costs at HBO Max. It has canceledsomeprojects, removedtitlesit owns from the platform and canned unreleased exclusive movies in favor of tax writeoffs. Despite adding more recent shows, films and other content to the platform in recent months, there’s a case to be made that WBD is charging more for less.

 

Autonomous transportation assistance isn’t limited to cars. Airbus has started testing a pilot assistance feature, DragonFly, that could save an aircraft in an emergency. The system can automatically divert a flight in an emergency. It can not only pick a flight path to the best airport (using factors like airspace rules and weather), but communicate with air traffic control and an airline’s operations center. If the pilots are incapacitated, the aircraft can still land safely.

Accordingly, DragonFly can automatically land on any runway using sensors and computer vision algorithms. Pilots can even get help taxiing around airports through technology that translates air traffic control’s clearance into usable guidance clues in a companion app. It can assist with speed control and alert pilots to obstacles. Crews can spend more time getting ready for the actual flight.

The testing has so far been limited to one A350-1000 demonstrator aircraft. It could be a while yet before DragonFly reaches production, and regulators (like the Federal Aviation Administration in the US) will need to approve its use.

All the same, this hints at where autonomous flight systems are going. Although completely self-flying airliners might not arrive for a long while, you could see aircraft that require little intervention even in the middle of a crisis. This could also help increase flights to airports with difficult landings (such New Zealand’s Wellington Airport) and minimize taxiing-related delays.

 

If you’re determined to listen to high-resolution audio on your phone using high-end earphones, you’ll want a DAC — and Astell & Kern thinks it has one of the better options. The company has introduced its third USB DAC, the AK HC3, and this one may finally nail enough features to satisfy most users. It promises very high-quality 32-bit, 384kHz audio like its HC2 predecessor, but you can finally use your headset’s microphone. You won’t have to choose between pristine sound and making phone calls.

The AK HC3 also uses ESS’ newer ES9219MQ dual DAC. A built-in LED even shows if you’re using a high-res audio format. The USB-C connection supports Macs, Windows PCs, Android phones and many tablets (including recent iPads), but there’s an included Lightning adapter in the box for your iPhone. Android users get a dedicated app to fine-tune the output.

Astell & Kern will sell the AK HC3 for $229, with pre-orders starting January 20th and a release estimated for February 13th. This isn’t the absolute highest-quality DAC (Fiio’s Q3 can manage 768kHz), but it’s better than many mobile options and is relatively easy to carry.

There are two similarly new headphone amps if you’re more interested in quality than size. The Acro CA1000T is a second-gen “carriable” model that uses ESS’ new high-end ES9039MPRO dual DAC and a triple amp system that lets you switch between dual vacuum tubes, normal amping and a hybrid that combines both technologies. It arrives alongside the HC3, although the $2,299 price will limit it to well-heeled audiophiles.

The AK PA10 portable, meanwhile, is Astell & Kern’s first device with a Class-A amp. The choice promises the “best” linear output and a warm, natural sound for 12 hours of battery-powered use. It also won’t be cheap when it arrives on February 13th for $599, but it may be worth considering if you want a balance between portability and raw technical prowess.