Tech Nuggets with the Technology

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Uber launches voice-based helpline in India to tighten rider safety

The feature enables people to call the customer support team during an ongoing trip in case of a safety issue. https://ift.tt/2MGT0c5 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Facebook expands 'Local Alert' tool in bid to help in emergencies

With Local Alerts, Facebook account holders in local government and among first responders such as the police and fire departments can send out messages that are then spread more widely by Facebook. https://ift.tt/2znxO2l

Ex-Google Engineer Charged in in Self-Driving Trade Secrets Case

Anthony Levandowski, who worked for Google parent company Alphabet's Waymo unit, downloaded thousands of files from Waymo servers as he was leaving the company in 2015. https://ift.tt/2L1l5Jh

BSNL's New Rs. 96, Rs. 236 Prepaid Plans Offer 10GB of Daily 4G Data: Report

BSNL has reportedly launched two new STVs – priced at Rs. 96 and Rs. 236. Both these plans offer huge data benefit of 10GB per day of 4G data. https://ift.tt/2ziZWDI

Google Job Search Tool Faces EU Investigation

EU regulators are checking Google for Jobs to see if the company unfairly favours its fast-growing tool for searching job listings, Europe's antitrust chief said on Tuesday. https://ift.tt/2NxkhgV

Qualcomm Targets Wi-Fi Market in Push to Expand Beyond Phones

Qualcomm on Tuesday announced a new range of Wi-Fi chips designed to work with Wi-Fi 6, the newest version of the technology and one that Qualcomm hopes will help boost sales of its separate 5G chips. https://ift.tt/327Ea1T

Facebook Rolls Out Local Emergency Alerts Feature in the US

Facebook announced on Tuesday that it was rolling out a tool that aims to provide users with potentially life-saving information in emergencies. https://ift.tt/322jgRQ

ETtech Top 5: VCs chase seed-stage deals, Swiggy's potential cloud kitchen trouble & more

A closer look at today's biggest tech and startup news and why they matter. https://ift.tt/2Lqbyun https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

TikTok claims ‘intermediary’ status

Government officials pointed out that TikTok’s response to all requests to take down certain content, including porn, was based on claims it was a social media intermediary. https://ift.tt/2ZldA8B https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Amazon moves top court against direct-selling companies

Late last year, Amway had dragged Flipkart to Delhi High Court, accusing the Walmart-owned ecommerce marketplace of “unauthorised” selling on its platform. https://ift.tt/2Lcg6nR https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Sources: when Telegram raised $1.7B in 2018, it told investors it will deliver Gram by Oct. 31, 2019, or give back the money, and now says it is still on track (Nathaniel Popper/New York Times)

Nathaniel Popper / New York Times:
Sources: when Telegram raised $1.7B in 2018, it told investors it will deliver Gram by Oct. 31, 2019, or give back the money, and now says it is still on track — While Facebook's big cryptocurrency plans have hit a wall with regulators, another big social network, Telegram, is charging ahead with its own digital currency.

Starhopper aces test, sets up full-scale prototype flights this year

On Tuesday evening, Starhopper launched from South Texas. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann for Ars ]

On Tuesday evening, in South Texas, SpaceX launched its Starhopper test vehicle for the second time. During this test, it flew much higher than last month, nearly straight up to 150 meters. Then, under the power of a single Raptor engine, the vehicle smoothly moved laterally for about 100 meters before a controlled descent and touchdown in the center of a landing pad.

From a technical standpoint, the test was impressive, demonstrating the thrust and vector control of the new Raptor engine. This was the first time a large rocket engine burning liquid-methane propellant made a significant flight, and it appeared to be mostly, if not entirely, successful. SpaceX engineers can take confidence from this test as they move into finishing their builds of Starship orbital prototypes in Texas and Florida later this year.

The test may have had more political significance, however. SpaceX seeks to demonstrate that Starship is a viable vehicle for NASA to consider flying astronauts to and from the Moon and other destinations. Visually, the flight of the stubby Starhopper was arresting: it took off in a cloud of smoke and landed in the reddish—almost Mars-red—dust it kicked up at the landing site.

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https://arstechnica.com

Lenovo’s new, Comet Lake-equipped ThinkPad X1 Carbon hits this September

The 2019, 7th generation Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 1. [credit: Lenovo ]

Today, Lenovo announced launch plans for the seventh generation of its critically acclaimed ThinkPad X1 Carbon laptop. A number of modest changes improve on an already strong business laptop line, with the most notable being 10th-generation Intel Carbon Lake CPUs.

We've previously reviewed the ThinkPad X1 Carbon and found it to be one of the strongest business laptops on the market thanks to good performance, strong battery life, and an outstanding keyboard. One of our chief complaints with last year's model—the lack of a 4K option—has been addressed this year. So you can now get the laptop in both FullHD or 4K variants, as well as WQHD. The 4K variant offers a carbon-weave-material option for the lid, giving it a more "premium" look. Or so Lenovo suggests.

As noted, we already liked the performance and battery life in this line, but those are really the two main areas of improvement with this release. The 10th-gen Intel Core i5 or Core i7 CPUs (there's a six-core configuration at the high end) bring with them greater power efficiency and a promise of up to 18.5 hours of battery life in the FHD configuration. The 14-inch display peaks at 400 nits of brightness (for the FHD version) or 500 nits with HDR support (for the 4K version).

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