consumer – Page 12 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

LG jumps on the VR bandwagon with the LG 360 VR

Jennifer Hahn The LG 360 VR. I can see the future! 6 more images in gallery LG’s biggest announcement today is undoubtedly the LG G5 , but next to the company’s flagship smartphone, it was also demoing this crazy VR headset called the “LG 360 VR.” It requires a smartphone to work, but unlike Galaxy Gear-style headsets that require you to slot the phone into the headset, this headset is just tethered to the LG G5 via a USB cable. The device is basically an external display for the G5, allowing the headset to have a slimmer profile while cutting the weight down to only 118g. LG isn’t offering many specifics about the display inside the headset, only saying it has a resolution of 639 ppi. LG also isn’t saying much in the way of pricing, a launch date, or even capabilities, but it does mention that it “is compatible with 360-degree images as well as all Google Cardboard content.” We were able to briefly check out prototype hardware at LG’s G5 event, and we can say the big, face-engulfing VR headsets are that size for a reason—namely blocking out the light in the room. This was more like wearing a pair of opaque eyeglasses; allowing light to gush in from the top and bottom of the device. For the most part, the headset didn’t work yet, but it did briefly mirror the G5’s home screen when we plugged in the USB cable. The display area is about what you would expect from looking at the outside of the device. It’s a long, thin screen the fills maybe half your vertical vision. It won’t be a device for immersion, but LG says it will “simulate a 130-inch TV viewed from two meters.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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LG jumps on the VR bandwagon with the LG 360 VR

VR games Audioshield, Hover Junkers lead latest wave of HTC Vive stunners

SEATTLE, Washington—How many times can a publication attend a virtual reality showcase and walk away stunned by something it’s never seen before? Judging by the past few years of Ars’ VR explorations, quite a few . As such, we don’t blame readers who might say, “Tap the VR brakes, Ars.” Still, this week’s SteamVR Developer Showcase event is forcing us to reach into the hyperbole bag once more. The event blew us away thanks to a number of never-before-seen stunners, along with previously announced HTC Vive titles that have only gotten better in the oven before their retail launch later this year. (April, we hope .) “Room scale” VR is a tough sell, especially for people whose homes don’t easily accommodate enough cleared-out space for walking around with a headset on, but while we’ve already been impressed with what the platform can support, we didn’t think we could be impressed any further. We were wrong. Read below to see why we’re currently trying to put our kids, pets, beds, and significant others up for adoption—so we can hurry up and make space for this incredible new platform. (Sorry, sweeties.) Read 42 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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VR games Audioshield, Hover Junkers lead latest wave of HTC Vive stunners

DeLorean Motor Company will start building new DMC-12s

Ian Weddell @ Flickr The DMC-12 was styled by the legendary Giogretto Giugiaro. The gullwing doors suggested exotic performance that the underpowered car was never able to provide. 5 more images in gallery The DeLorean DMC-12 might have been destined to pass quietly into obscurity, that is until its starring role in 1985’s Back to the Future . A little more than 8,500 DMC-12s left DeLorean’s factory in Northern Ireland between 1981 and 1983, until it all fell apart following founder John DeLorean’s arrest by the FBI on charges of drug trafficking. But Doc Brown souped up his DeLorean with a flux capacitor, imbuing the DMC-12 with iconic status in the nerd canon. Soon, you’ll be able to buy a brand new one—production is about to resume on this side of the Atlantic, in Humble, Texas. The Texas-based DeLorean Motor Company —not directly related to its defunct predecessor—has been supplying parts and rebuilding or restoring DMC-12s for many years. Now it is able to build new cars as well, following changes to the laws governing low-volume auto manufacturers. The 2015 Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015 rolled up a lot of different transportation-related bills, including one that now allows companies to build replica vehicles without having to satisfy modern safety regulations, as long as fewer than 325 are made each year. Replica cars still have to meet current Environmental Protection Agency standards for emissions, so the DMC-12’s old Peugeot-Renault-Volvo V6 is out. DMC’s CEO told Houston’s KPRC2 that the final price will depend upon whichever engine replaces the old unit, although new cars should still cost less than $100,000 (£70,000) There could even be an electric variant , although little has been heard about this version for some time now. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

Ars talks self-driving car technology with Ford at CES

Wayne Williams from Ford shows us one of the company’s fully autonomous Fusion research vehicles. Video shot/edited by Nathan Fitch. (video link) LAS VEGAS—As we’ve noted elsewhere, CES has now evolved to be part car show. But not just any car show—the focus is on how technology is transforming the car, and nowhere is that more evident than in autonomous driving. The goal is to get to “level four”—the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s highest level of self-driving vehicle, capable of getting from point A to point B without any human driver intervention. We’re not there yet—no one in the industry Ars has spoken to recently thinks the tech challenges are quite solved yet—but research vehicles from companies like Google , Delphi , Audi , and Ford are testing out the hardware and software necessary to get us to that point. With that in mind, we spoke to Wayne Williams, who gave us a quick tour of one of Ford’s fully autonomous hybrid Fusions. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Ars talks self-driving car technology with Ford at CES

Finally, over-the-air software updates for your car are becoming a reality

Harman’s Yoram Berholtz explains how Harman is helping the car industry stay current with over-the-air software updates. Video shot/edited by Nathan Fitch. (video link) LAS VEGAS—A constant bugbear in automotive tech is how inconvenient it is to have to take one’s car to the dealership to get a software update—something Tesla owners often gloat about since their cars don’t suffer that problem. Well, have faith, non-Tesla owners, because it looks like the auto industry is moving in the right direction. To find out more, we spoke to Harman’s Yoram Berholtz at CES. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Finally, over-the-air software updates for your car are becoming a reality

Watch An Apple IIgs Boot Over 20 Years After It Was Last Turned Off

Digital archeology is one of my favorite blog post forms. An avid X user from 198X resurrects an old system that he or she had used to create something amazing/build a business/write a game/or generally hack around. The resulting material – photos, video, and commentary – are priceless. Today we bring you Quinn Dunki has post a truly amazing look inside her Apple IIgs and a passel… Read More

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Watch An Apple IIgs Boot Over 20 Years After It Was Last Turned Off

Intel’s next NUC will be a quad-core mini PC with Iris Pro and Thunderbolt 3

Andrew Cunningham The Broadwell NUC (left) and the new Skylake NUC (right). 4 more images in gallery Last night, Intel’s opening-day CES keynote focused mostly on wearables and Internet of Things things, the sort of forward-facing, maybe-useful, possibly-vaporware technology that characterizes CES. But in a small meeting this morning, we were able to get more information on less zeitgeist-y but more practical gadgets like the Compute Stick and the NUC mini desktops. The basic NUC boxes have been around for four generations now, so their Skylake refresh is predictable. They still use low-voltage U-series dual-core Core i3-6100U and i5-6260U CPUs like the ones you’d find in Ultrabooks. The i3 versions come with Intel HD 520 graphics, while the i5 boxes have Iris graphics—non-Pro Iris GPUs in the Skylake generation get 64MB of eDRAM cache to help add memory bandwidth, so graphics performance should be quite a bit better than the HD 6000 GPU in the equivalent Broadwell NUC. Intel has dropped the mini HDMI port on the back of the PC in favor of a full-size HDMI port, and it’s added an SD card reader on all models. Otherwise input and output is the same: four USB 3.0 ports (two on front, two on back, one yellow one that can charge devices when the NUC is powered off), a mini DisplayPort 1.2 port, gigabit Ethernet, and an IR receiver and a headphone jack on the front. The lids are still interchangeable, and they can connect to a USB header on the motherboard to extend the capabilities of the box. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel’s next NUC will be a quad-core mini PC with Iris Pro and Thunderbolt 3

Intel’s new Atom and Core M Compute Sticks get faster and look better

Andrew Cunningham Intel’s new Compute Stick has a better-looking design. 7 more images in gallery Intel’s original Compute Stick was an neat idea that ultimately wasn’t executed very well. Any system based on one of Intel’s Atom processors is going to be a little slow, but flaky wireless, inconsistent performance, and a clunky setup process all made it less appealing than it could have been. It had all of the hallmarks and rough edges of a first-generation product. Today Intel showed us its next-generation Compute Sticks, and it’s clear that the company is taking seriously the criticism of the first model. There are three new versions to talk about: the lowest end stick uses a Cherry Trail Atom CPU and is the closest relative to the first-generation Compute Stick. The other two use more powerful Skylake Core M processors—one has a Core m3-6Y30 processor, and another has a Core m5-6Y57 CPU with Intel’s vPro management features enabled. All three sticks share the same basic design. The first-generation stick used a bulky, glossy plastic housing that made it look and feel more like a reference design than an actual shipping product, but all three new models switch to a softer, curvier case that looks more refined. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel’s new Atom and Core M Compute Sticks get faster and look better

Using the new Apple TV to emulate classic game consoles

Enlarge / The Apple TV and the Horipad Ultimate MFI controller. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) For those of us fortunate enough to have the privilege, late December and early January bring two things: new toys and a bit of vacation time. That makes it a great time to tinker with little tech projects, things that are inessential and maybe a bit time-consuming but fun enough and useful enough to be worth doing. One of my projects was to experiment with classic console emulators on the new Apple TV . There aren’t many of them yet, and installation takes a little work (Apple doesn’t allow emulators in the App Store), but new capabilities introduced in iOS 9 and the iOS-based tvOS make it possible to install them. Emulation and the Apple TV Right now there are two notable emulation projects targeting tvOS. One is a distant relative of the MAME arcade emulator , though it doesn’t seem as though it’s being maintained. Another, Provenance , is the one we’ll be spending the most time with. It’s a multi-system emulator that supports most major 8- and 16-bit consoles, including the NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance. Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Using the new Apple TV to emulate classic game consoles

Toshiba to cut 6,800 jobs following accounting scandal

The fallout from Toshiba’s accounting scandal is hitting in force, and it’s not pretty. The Japanese company has announced that it will take a $4.5 billion loss and cut 6, 800 jobs, or about 30 percent of its total consumer electronics workforce. Although some of the losses can be chalked up to a tight market, Toshiba took a serious hit after admitting it lied about profits for nearly six years. As part of the restructuring, it will sell off its TV and washing machine factories to Hong Kong partner Skyworth. The company recently sold its image sensor business to Sony and stopped building TVs for the US market. Toshiba is still far from being out of the woods. To further streamline operations, the company wants to combine its PC operations with Fujitsu and Vaio, and may join forces with Sharp — which is also stumbling — in the appliance business. In addition, former executives may face criminal charges, and Toshiba hasn’t yet accounted for the cost of the 2011 tsunami on its nuclear business. In total, the company employees nearly 200, 000 workers. Via: BBC Source: Toshiba

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Toshiba to cut 6,800 jobs following accounting scandal