Kalakshar US

As we’ve seen with Toyota’s Prius Prime, putting a solar panel on a car’s roof is a nifty idea but can only gain you a few free miles a day due to the limited size. With a new prototype of its hyper-popular Sakura “kei” EV, Nissan has the answer: a bigger solar panel roof called the AO-Solar Extender. When fully stretched out on a sunny day, it can add about 1,864 miles of driving distance a year and power multiple accessories.

The panel works whether you’re driving or parked. When extended (in “solar pompadour” mode as my colleague put it), it generates 500 watts on sunny days. At the same time, it helps block sunlight from the windshield, “reducing cabin temperature and lowering the need for air conditioning power consumption,” Nissan noted.  

When retracted in driving mode, it still pumps out 300 watts in the sun (80 watts in the rain), quite a bit more than the 185 watts max generated by the Prius Prime’s solar roof. And if you’re worried about aerodynamics, Nissan said the roof is designed to minimize drag and integrate well with the Sakura’s design. 

It’s not just a fun exercise, as Nissan said it’s planning to launch the AO-Solar Extender commercially, with details to follow at a later date. It could be a useful accessory on the Sakura, which has been Japan’s most popular EV since 2022 thanks to its “sufficient” range, cute kei looks and spacious interior. The automaker will show it off at the Japan Mobility Show starting on October 30, 2025. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/nissan-made-a-nifty-solar-panel-system-for-its-sakura-ev-061235566.html?src=rss 

Confession time: I’ve had the Sleep Awake Steam page open in a tab for about a month (hey, we all organize our thoughts in unique and beautiful ways), just so I don’t forget about it. The past year has been stacked with fabulous original games across a wide range of genres, including horror, and this is one I didn’t want to miss. Now, I can close the tab and put a firm release date on the calendar, as Sleep Awake is officially due to hit PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on December 2. Happy holidays, indeed.

Sleep Awake is a first-person, narrative-heavy, psychedelic horror game set in the last known city on an Earth that’s been ravaged by The HUSH, a mysterious force that disappears anyone who falls asleep. Katja must stay alert and survive the city as its citizens experiment on themselves in increasingly extreme ways, attempting to achieve permanent wakefulness and outmaneuver The HUSH. Needless to say, things get weird.

Sleep Awake comes from Eyes Out, the studio founded by Spec Ops: The Line director Cory Davis and Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck, and it’s published by Blumhouse Games. Finck is responsible for the trippy audio stylings of Sleep Awake, of course. This is the studio’s debut title and something they’ve been working on for four years. Back in 2021, Davis and Finck told Engadget they were focused on building an ultra-immersive, audio-driven horror experience with a nightmarish bent.

“The type of horror that we’re building has a lot to do with the horrors of the universe and the horrors that you kind of go to sleep with at night, the ones that are just around the corner and outside of our purview, but exist,” Davis said. “And the technology for building those types of soundscapes, the localized audio and reverb and the realism behind that, coming from VR before, I had a lot of opportunity to work with that stuff.”

Finck added the following: “I’m really excited about the nuance and the subtlety of coming from silence, like a really impactful silence, and beginning to emerge from that silence towards an impactful embellishment of some sort, however great or greater. And that play between the diegetic soundscape of the world within the tangible, physical space inside the game, and where it blurs with the score, the music of the game, can be really challenging and inspiring.”

Blumhouse Games published its first horror project, Fear the Spotlight, in October 2024 and on top of Sleep Awake, it has a steady stream of additional terrors in store. The co-op gothic-horror game Eyes of Hellfire landed in August from developer Gambrinous, and titles including Grave Seasons and Crisol: Theater of Idols are due to drop soon.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/blumhouse-games-sleep-awake-creeps-onto-steam-and-consoles-december-2-214055543.html?src=rss 

Nike is no stranger to a unique footwear concept, be it self-lacing shoes or a “Hyperboot” that can speed up recovery. The company claims its Project Amplify and new “neuroscience-based” footwear take things a bit further, though, by actively augmenting your body and mind while you’re wearing them. 

Developed with robotics startup Dephy, Project Amplify acts as “a second set of calf muscles” for “everyday athletes” who want to walk or run more. Nike says the first-generation model consists of a running shoe with a carbon fiber plate, a calf-mounted rechargeable battery, a motor and a drive belt. While it has the neon colors and cushioned finish of a normal pair of running shoes, the basic design of Project Amplify seems like a more polished version of the robotic Sidekick shoes Dephy is already pitching on its website. 

Project Amplify doesn’t replace your legs’ ability to walk or run, but rather makes going further and faster easier. Nike compares the experience to an e-bike, which typically don’t eliminate the need for pedaling, and instead augment your pedals with power from an electric motor. Nike says Project Amplify “makes walking or running uphill feel like moving on flat ground,” and in the case of some people who tested it, turned a 12-minute mile into a 10-minute mile. Dephy and the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL) worked with more than 400 different athletes to test various versions of robotic shoes, covering “over 2.4 million steps, the equivalent of roughly 12,000 laps around the NSRL’s 200-meter track.” 

The companies’ approach, melding an existing fashion brand with robotics, is similar to Arc’teryx’s MO/GO pants from 2024, robotic trousers developed in partnership with Skip that help hikers with balance and endurance. Project Amplify is smaller (and hopefully less expensive), but robot-assisted gadgets increasingly seem like a way robotics research could make its way into consumer products, beyond things like vacuums.

The Nike Mind 001 mules and Nike Mind 002 sneakers on a white background.

Nike’s Mind 001 and Mind 002 shoes are based on the company’s neuroscience research, and are strange in a different way. Created by the Nike Mind Science Department, the foam nodes in both shoes — a pair of mules and sneakers, respectively — imparts the texture of the ground underneath the wearer’s feet. This process “heightens sensory awareness, which can help clear away distractions and enhance concentration,” Nike says.

The Nike Mind 001 and Mind 002 will go on sale in January 2026 as the first shoes in the Nike Mind line. Nike says Project Amplify, meanwhile, will receive “a broad consumer launch in the coming years.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/nike-pitches-robotic-sneakers-and-mind-altering-mules-212716340.html?src=rss 

I know there are bigger fish to fry, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t draw your attention to this travesty of a commercial Verizon just released. It’s only 30 seconds long but may go down as one of the worst ads I’ve ever seen.  

What’s so offensive, you ask? Well, the carrier (and one-time parent company of Engadget) wants to promote the fact that it will give AT&T and T-Mobile customers a better deal on their wireless plan if they bring in their monthly cellular bill. That’s all well and good, but we need to talk about the cathode-ray tube TV that’s at the center of the commercial.   

The ad opens with a woman walking into a Best Buy-coded store and handing over a 27-inch CRT TV to a nearby sales associate. “Hi, I got this old thing and the bill from the store where I got it,” she tells the young salesperson while casually tossing the TV to him. “Figured you could beat it with a better deal on one of these big boys,” she adds, pointing to, let’s be honest, an objectively worse flat panel TV. 

Now, I need to know: did anyone who worked on this commercial try to lift a CRT? Look, I know it’s 2025, and even the newest sets are now close to two decades old, but even if you’ve never seen one in real-life, surely you’ve heard how heavy they are? If I had to guess, the TV we see in the commercial, which looks like an RCA 27R411T, weighs close to 75 pounds. There’s a reason so many Facebook Marketplace listings recommend you bring a friend with you when you come pick up the CRT they’re selling; most people can’t lift even a mid-sized set on their own. 

I hate to think how Verizon made this commercial. CRTs are a dead technology. No company is making new consumer sets anymore, and any working CRTs left out in the world are on borrowed time. If the company gutted a working set to make this commercial, it means there’s one less CRT in an ever-dwindling pool. Someone could have enjoyed that TV and stopped it from entering a landfill.

But as for the rest of the commercial, it’s equally as bad. No big box retailer is accepting trade-ins for a CRT TV, and even if they were, trying to get rid of one that way would be a rookie move. CRTs, both TVs and monitors, are highly sought after by retro gamers. Even a relatively unknown set like the 27R411T can catch a few hundred dollars, especially if it’s in pristine condition. In fact, a quick eBay search returns a seller looking for $350 for their 27R411T unit. 

But you know what our dear Verizon booster does? She just walks away without the CRT after the salesperson tells her the shop won’t give her a better deal on a new TV. “Guess you’re not as cool as Verizon” she says, uttering a thing no one in the history has ever said. Sorry, joke’s on you, lady. Not only is that TV impossibly light, it’s way cooler than anything Verizon has ever done.  

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/verizons-latest-ad-defies-crt-physics-202441012.html?src=rss