Technology

General Motors announced that it will construct a new cathode factory in North America for its electric vehicle batteries. The factory, which will be built under a joint venture with South Korea’s Posco Chemical, will process cathode active material (CAM), which represents about 40 percent of the cost of an EV battery cell. Much like the rest of the auto industry, GM is racing to boost its EV offerings, vowing to spend $27 billion on the development and production of 30 new electric vehicles by 2025. To accomplish this enormous feat, the company is trying to get a stronger grasp on its supply chain, which includes battery manufacturing. The company has said it will spend over $4 billion on the construction of two battery factories in North America in partnership with South Korea’s LG Chem....

Google has a bevy of new features coming soon to Android, including new widgets for YouTube Music, Google Play Books, and Google Photos; new Android Auto features; and updates for Google Assistant and Google Photos. The company detailed the new features in a blog post. The biggest car-based addition is that from today Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S21 owners will be able to use their phones as a car key with “compatible BMW vehicles” in select countries. Google announced it was working on the car key feature for Android 12 in May, specifically citing BMW as one of the manufacturers with which it would work. Google says the feature will be available “on all BMW 2020 & 2022 model year vehicles,” and that it hopes to add more compatible vehicles in the future. Other new Android...

Twitch will be using machine learning to combat users circumventing bans. The platform announced its new Suspicious User Detection system to flag users who may be creating new accounts to evade bans from a streamer’s channel. The system, which will be turned on by default for all Twitch users, employs two classifications for moderating users potentially in violation of bans: “likely” and “possible.” While “likely” ban evaders will still be able to visit the streamer’s channel, their messages won’t be sent to the chat. The user will also be visible to Creators and Mods so that they can simply monitor or choose to ban the account. For those only in “possible” violation, their account will be flagged for closer moderation, but they’ll still be able to send chat messages. In addition to the ne...

Polaris has unveiled the Ranger XP Kinetic, an all-electric side-by-side and the first vehicle to emerge from the collaboration between the Minneapolis-based company and Zero Motorcycles. Polaris is hoping the electric Ranger will help attract new customers to the world of power sports vehicles, which also include ATVs, snowmobiles, personal watercraft, and heavy motorcycles. The segment, which currently represents over $9 billion in sales globally, is expected to grow to over $12 billion by 2027, according to market researchers. And Polaris, through its partnership with Zero Motorcycles, is hoping to expand its lineup of electric vehicles. two trim levels, Premium and Ultimate, priced at $24,999 and $29,999 The first will be the electric Ranger, which comes in two trim levels, Premium and...

Nothing’s Ear 1 earbuds, which launched earlier this year in a fetching white and transparent plastic color scheme, will soon come in black. The new Nothing Ear 1 black edition still features transparent plastic in its construction, but now it’s accompanied by matte black plastic. The new color scheme will be widely available from December 13th at the same price as the original white versions: $99 / £99. Aside from the new design, these earbuds are functionally identical to what Nothing released earlier this year. You still get up to 5.7 hours of battery life from the earbuds with noise canceling turned off, dropping to four hours if you turn it on. Alongside the case, you get a maximum of 34 hours. The earbuds are also IPX4 water resistant and can be charged wirelessly using Qi. A close-u...

“Party Worlds” are new spaces coming to Fortnite which are designed to focus on socializing over combat, the game’s developer Epic Games has announced. “These are experiences that are designed as places for players to hang out, play fun mini-games, and make new friends,” the developer says, adding that Party Worlds cannot be centered on “combat or damage.” To kick off the initiative, Epic has collaborated with community members fivewalnut and TreyJTH on a pair of example Party Worlds. One is an amusement park called Walnut World, and the second is called Late Night Lounge and has more of a nightclub vibe. The developer says it’s taking submissions for more community-made spaces. Just use the tag “Party World” for an island, and submit it through this submission form. There’s a second Party...

Nuro, a leader in autonomous delivery vehicles, is kicking off a new service in California in partnership with 7-Eleven. The company will deliver convenience store products to customers in its autonomous Toyota Prius vehicles, which will include a safety driver behind the wheel, before eventually shifting over to its fully driverless R2 delivery vehicles. The service will only be available to residents who live in proximity to the 7-Eleven store at 1905 Latham Street in Mountain View, from 8AM–9PM, seven days a week. Customers can order items like pizza, chips, beverages, and household items through 7-Eleven’s “7NOW” delivery app, although age-restricted items, like alcohol and cigarettes, won’t be available. Orders will be delivered in 30 minutes or less Orders will be delivered in 30 min...

Meta has delivered a new batch of features for Quest headsets in an update rolling out today. The changes include cloud backups, a mixed reality camera mode, and other settings that round out the Quest’s already impressive feature set. I’m most excited about the cloud backups feature, which gives you a way to restore user-specific data to your apps, including game saves and headset settings, if you need to replace, update, or reset your Quest. This is one of those things that I’m surprised the Quest didn’t support already, and I found out the hard way that it didn’t a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, I’m glad that it’s here now. It can be activated within the “Device” tab in the settings menu. The mixed reality camera also seems really cool. Unlike the Live Overlay feature that arrived in v29 ...

Twitch is furthering its efforts to reduce harassment with a new tool that uses machine learning to detect people who may be attempting to evade bans. It’s the company’s latest addition to combat things like hate raids, where streamers’ chats are overrun with trolls sending hateful messages. The new tool, called Suspicious User Detection, can identify users as “likely” or “possible” people who have evaded bans from a streamer’s channel. The machine learning model powering the tool identifies potential evaders by evaluating things such as their behavior and characteristics about their account and compares that information against accounts that have been banned from a streamer’s channel. Messages from “likely” evaders won’t be sent to chat, but streamers and their mods can see them. Streamer...

No one was more invested in Theranos than CEO and founder Elizabeth Holmes, she testified today. She owned the most stock. She could even fire the entire board of directors — and basically anyone else at the company. “Is that fair?” Prosecutor Robert Leach asked Holmes in his cross-examination. “The buck stops with you?” “I felt that,” Holmes replied. Holmes’ defense has mostly tried to lay blame elsewhere — lab directors, her co-defendant Sunny Balwani (who is being tried separately), marketing firm Chiat Day, and more. Holmes, who is standing trial for 11 counts of wire fraud, portrayed herself as a true believer in Theranos’ technology who was largely unaware of Theranos’ problems. In order to knock down that testimony, prosecutors got her to admit to: Knowing Theranos was in a precario...

With the removal of data-tracking site cookies earlier this year, individual data privacy has increased in importance within the headspace of Internet users. Coupling that with numerous leaks and breaches, one can only wonder if our data is truly safe, especially in this time when we own multiple accounts from multiple services. Consolidating it all together comes in the form of Treasure Cloud’s interface, where it brings together the most popular cloud storage services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box. By utilizing a single set of log-in details, users have access to all of their pre-linked services. Other than being just another data hub, individual user data and files are protected by individual unique encryption keys where even Treasure has no access. For files where high degrees...

Infinite Objects, a company that prints digital collectibles into physical frames, has partnered with NBA Top Shot so collectors can display their moving NFTs in acrylic frames. The company worked with the NBA, the NBA Player’s Association and NBA Lab to officially license video prints of the NBA Top Shot Moments. The NFT video prints come with holographic stickers of authenticity from the NBA and Infinite Objects on the back. In addition, every Top Shot Moment is authenticated by Infinite Objects via a user’s Dapper Wallet to prevent unauthorized use of the digital asset. In honor of the new partnership, Infinite Objects has created a new extra-large-sized acrylic frame to display the looped sports highlight in fuller resolution. Users can head over to the Print Your Top Shot site to conn...