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‘La Torche’ may be the most beautiful surf film of the year http://ift.tt/2DJcl8v When it comes to surf videos, you’ll be hard pressed to find one as beautifully shot and unique as La Torche. Set to the dulcet sounds of Anna von Hausswolff’s Mountain Crave, the clip transports us to Pointe de la Torche in the Finistère region of France, where we join surfers Ian Fontaine and Gaspard Larsonneur as they arrive at the beach just as the sun is starting to set, although it isn’t until after dark that things begin to truly get interesting. Filmmaker Hugo Manhes reportedly spent three months planning the short film before actually traveling to Finistère to shoot it this past November. Using 120,000 watts of neon lights, the director illuminated the beach in an array of colors, giving it an otherworldly feel that brings a great sense of atmosphere to the clip. Those same lights cast their glow out onto the water as well, making it possible for Fontaine and Larsonneur to paddle out into the water and catch some waves in the dead of the night. Pointe de la Torche is a well known, almost legendary, spot amongst surfers. It consists of a lonely granite outcropping that extends out into the Atlantic Ocean along the southern tip of the Bay of Audierne. The point has been buffeted by waves and winds for centuries, but despite the wild conditions La Torche, as it is known, has been a gathering point for humans stretching as far back as prehistoric times. The same winds and waves that carved this granite monument also help to make it an excellent surf destination. With a strong current and big ocean rollers, La Torche is not a beach that attracts swimmers. But the big waves that form just off shore are perfect for riding, making it an epic spot for surfers. Even the most experienced surfers would find it challenging to ride those waves at night however, so filming this video definitely pushed the skills of Fontaine and Larsonneur to the limit. As you’ll see in the short film, their moves are expertly captured on film by Manhes, with all of the action illuminated in an eerie but alluring neon light.
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://ift.tt/2p4eJdC January 28, 2018 at 07:32AM
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Yes, There *Is* Gravity in Space http://ift.tt/2DG0isu This week, I settled down to watch the first episode of The 100. If you haven't seen the show, I'll just point out that it takes place in the near future (though it ran, on the CW, in the near past). For reasons that I won't get into, there is a spacecraft with a bunch of teenagers that is traveling from a space station down to the surface of the Earth. During the reentry process, one kid wants to show that he is the master of space travel and that he's awesome. So what does he do? He gets out of his seat and floats around as a demonstration of his mastery of weightlessness. Another teenager points out that he's being pretty dumb—and that he's going to get hurt very soon. OK, that is enough of the description of the scene so that we can talk about physics. The point is that there is one dude "floating" around in the spacecraft during reentry. Before I over-analyze this short scene, let me add a caveat about my philosophy on science and stories. I've talked about this before, so I'll just give a summary: The number one job for a writer of a show is to tell a story. If the writer distorts science in order to make the plot move along—so be it. However, if the science could be correct without destroying the plot, then obviously I'd prefer it. On to the over-analysis! What Causes Gravity?Obviously this scene has to do with gravity, so we should talk about gravity—right? In short, gravity is a fundamental interaction between objects with mass. Yes, any two objects that have mass will have a gravitational force pulling them together. The magnitude of this gravitational force depends on the distance between the objects. The further apart the objects get, the weaker the gravitational force. The magnitude of this force also depends on the masses of the two objects. Greater mass means a greater force. As an equation, this would be written as: In this equation, the masses are described by the variables m1 and m2 and the distance between the objects is the variable r. But the most important thing is the constant G—this is the universal gravitational constant and it has a value of 6.67 x 10-11 Nm2/kg22. That might seem like it's important, so let me give an example that everyone can relate to. Suppose you are standing somewhere and your friend is right there with you and you two are having a conversation. Since you both have mass, there is a gravitational force pulling the two of you together. Using rough approximations for distance and mass, I get an attractive force of 3 x 10-7 Newtons. Just to put that into perspective, this value is fairly close to the force you would feel if you put a grain of salt on your head (yes, I have an approximate value for the mass of one grain of salt). So, the gravitational force is super tiny. The only way we ever notice this force is if one of the interacting objects has a super huge mass—something like the mass of the Earth (5.97 x 1024 kg). If you replace your friend with the Earth and put the distance between you and your friend-Earth as the radius of the Earth, then you get a gravitational force of something like 680 Newtons—and that is a force you can feel (and you do). Is There Gravity in Space?Now for the real question. Why do astronauts float around in space unless there is no gravity? It sure seems like there is no gravity in space—it's even referred to as "zero gravity." OK, I've answered this before, but it's important enough to revisit the question. The short answer is "yes"—there is gravity in space. Look back at the gravitational equation above. What changes in that equation as you move from the surface of the Earth into space? The only difference is the distance between you and the center of the Earth (the r). So as the distance increases, the gravitational force decreases—but by how much does the gravitational force change? How about a quick estimation? Let's use an Earth radius of 6.371 x 106 meters. With this value, a person with a mass of 70 kg would have a gravitational force of 686.7 Newtons. Now moving up to the orbital height of the International Space Station, you would be an extra 400 km farther from the center. Recalculating with this greater distance, I get a weight of 608 Newtons. This is about 88 percent the value on the surface of the Earth (you can check all my calculations here). But you can see there is clearly gravity in space. Oh, here is some extra evidence. Why does the moon orbit the Earth? The answer: gravity. Why does the Earth orbit the Sun? Yup, it's gravity. In both of these cases, there is a significant distance between the two interacting objects—but gravity still "works," even in space. But why do astronauts float around in space? Well, they float around when in orbit—if there was a super tall tower reaching into space, they wouldn't float around. The "weightless" environment is caused by the orbital motion of the people inside a spacecraft or space station. Here is the real deal. If the only force acting on a human is the gravitational force, that human feels weightless. Standing on a tall tower would result in two forces (gravity pulling down and the tower pushing up). In orbit, there is only the gravitational force—leading to that feeling of weightlessness. Actually, you don't even need to be in orbit to feel weightless. You can be weightless by having the gravitational force as the only thing acting on you. Here is a situation for you to consider. Suppose you are standing in a stationary elevator at the top of a building. Since you are at rest, the total force must be zero—that means the downward gravitational force pulling down is balanced by the upward pushing force from the floor. Now remove the force from the floor. Yes, this is difficult but it can be accomplished. Just have the elevator accelerate down with the same acceleration as a free falling object. Now you will be falling inside an elevator. The only force is gravity and you will be weightless. Some people think this falling elevator is fun. That's why many amusement parks have a ride like The Tower of Terror. Basically, you get in a car that drops off a tower. During the fall, you feel weightless—but you don't crash at the bottom. Instead, the car is on a track that somehow slows down more gradually than if it smashed into the ground. They have one of these types of rides at the NASA center in Huntsville. went on this with my kids—it was actually scarier than I had imagined. How about another example? If you are in an airplane and the plane flies with a downward acceleration, everyone inside will be weightless. Even a dog. Check it out. In the end, there seems to be huge misunderstanding about gravity. I believe the reasoning follows like so: Astronauts are weightless in space. There is no air in space. Therefore, if there is no air, there is no gravity. This no-air/no-gravity idea pops up all the time in movies (incorrectly so). Here's how you'll see it: Some dude is floating around in space (that's OK) and then he enters the airlock of a spacecraft, still floating. The airlock door shuts and air is pumped into the chamber and boom—he falls to the ground because now there's gravity. Here is what it should look like—from the epic movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. SPOILER ALERT: Hal is crazy and won't open the pod-bay doors. Not even for Dave. Wow. That scene is pretty much perfect. They even have no sound until the air comes in. What Happens During Reentry?Now back to the events in The 100. The scene doesn't take place in orbit, it occurs during reentry. This is the part where the spacecraft enters back into the atmosphere and encounters an air resistance force (because there is air). Let me start with a simple force diagram showing the spacecraft at some point during this motion. Clearly, this not weightless. Yes, there is a gravitational force acting on everything—but there is also that air drag force that will make the spacecraft slow down as it moves down. If the human is going to stay inside the spacecraft, there must also be an extra force on that human (from the floor). So, not weightless—in fact, the human would feel more than normal gravity because of the acceleration. You already know this, though, because the exact same thing happens to you in an elevator. As the elevator is moving down and coming to a stop, it is also slowing down. During this time, you would feel a little bit heavier because of the force from the floor pushing on you. You aren't really heavier, you just feel that way because of the acceleration. Again, there is another movie example where someone gets this reentry physics right. It's from Apollo 13. Check it out. Notice the water falling from the ceiling. In this case, the capsule is moving downward at an angle. However, the air resistance force is pushing in the opposite direction of motion causing the spacecraft to slow down. But what slows down the water? The water does cling to the surface a little bit—but the acceleration is too much to keep it there and it "falls" towards the astronaut. Note that "falling" here doesn't mean straight towards the surface of the Earth but rather just in the opposite direction as the acceleration. Looking back at the scene from The 100, here's how they could fix the scene—and it's pretty simple. Have the bold floating guy move around before they get to reentry. Then the other guys fall as soon as the spacecraft starts to interact with the atmosphere. That wouldn't even change the plot—and it would be more scientifically accurate. Digital Trends via Feed: All Latest http://ift.tt/2uc60ci January 28, 2018 at 07:03AM
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Gboard Is the Best Keyboard For Most Smartphones http://ift.tt/2rMDzW3 Whether on Android or iOS, you likely already use Google Maps for navigation. You use Gmail for email. You use YouTube to watch videos. And you’re right to do so. You’d be even more right to ditch whatever junk keyboard your smartphone shipped with for Gboard, another Google staple that works like a dream. Lots of Android devices—including the Pixel line of premium phones—already use Gboard by default. It's been widely available to download for a year and a half. But if you have an iPhone, or a Samsung Galaxy, or anything else that doesn’t live up to the high quality swipe-type experience that your fingers deserve, it’s time for an upgrade. But my keyboard’s fine, you say, which, maybe, sure. But since when did you settle for fine? Fine is an ice cream sundae with no sprinkles. It’s a movie trailer without that bwoooom sound. And it’s a smartphone keyboard that doesn’t let you search for just the right emoji by drawing it. Yes, that’s right. With Gboard, you can draw a cat on your screen to view all the cat-related emoji. You can draw a house to view all the building emoji. You can draw the letters ‘O’ and ‘K’ to view the OK emoji, if for whatever reason you don’t want just write OK in your text. And that’s just one of its parlor tricks. Gboard contains too many other useful features to tick off every single one, but the shortcut to understanding the scope of its powers is the knowledge that it has Google built right in. That means you can search the entirety of the internet directly from your keyboard. You can translate words and phrases in real time from any app that allows typing. It supports voice-to-text in dozens of languages. It’s a pro-grade multitool in a world full of butter knives. It has GIF search built right in. In fact, as of last week, on iOS it even has a functional GIF creator built in. It’s true! You can make a GIF. From your keyboard. Any time you want. It offers more than just search-related benefits though. Gboard includes thoughtful touches aplenty. A double tap of the space bar automatically adds a period to the previous sentence. You can gently slide back and forth along that same space bar to position your cursor. And One-handed mode lets you shrink and position the keyboard to wherever your stubby fingers feel most at ease. Sure, you can tap delete to vanish one letter. But if you swipe the same key a little to the left, you can delete a whole word. Swipe it a little more, and you’ve vanquished an entire sentence at once. Magic! Or at least: Convenience! This all might not sounds like much in isolation. And other smartphone keyboards offer some of the features. But the joy of Gboard is the totality. It does it all, and it does it well, and it’s free. And that’s before you get to the actual swiping and autocompletion, a software keyboard’s two most important functions. Gboard executes them both as well as anything else out there. Obligatory caveat: Yes, Gboard is also yet another way for Google to insinuate itself into your life, particularly if you own an iPhone. If it helps, Google says it doesn’t record keystrokes, other than when you’re using the search—where it needs that access to actually perform the search. And MacWorld confirmed that Gboard behaved as advertised back when it launched. To minimize the amount that Google can glean from your Gboard experience even further, you can open the app, head to Settings > Advanced and toggle off both Share snippets and Share usage statistics. And if you’re worried about security more generally, well, at least take some comfort in the knowledge that Google has far more security resources at its disposal than other third-party keyboard developers do. In fact, it has more resources in general. That’s how it can keep adding all those fun features, and offer them for free. Which really, at that point, why not give it a try? You can download it from the Play Store here, and the App Store here. After you’ve grabbed it, on Android just go to Settings > Languages and input > Keyboard and select Gboard. On iOS, go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards, and drag Gboard to the top of the list. If you hate it? Delete it! But you won’t. You’ll be too busy drawing up just the right emoji. SmartphoneDigital Trends via Feed: All Latest http://ift.tt/2uc60ci January 28, 2018 at 06:03AM
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Don’t Make Artificial Intelligence Artificially Stupid in the Name of Transparency http://ift.tt/2GoJqV9 Artificial intelligence systems are going to crash some of our cars, and sometimes they're going to recommend longer sentences for black Americans than for whites. We know this because they've already gone wrong in these ways. But this doesn’t mean that we should insist—as many, including the European Commission's General Data Protection Regulation, do—that artificial intelligence should be able to explain how it came up with its conclusions in every non-trivial case. WIRED OPINIONABOUTDavid Weinberger (@dweinberger) is a senior researcher at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Demanding explicability sounds fine, but achieving it may require making artificial intelligence artificially stupid. And given the promise of the type of AI called machine learning, a dumbing-down of this technology could mean failing to diagnose diseases, overlooking significant causes of climate change, or making our educational system excessively one-size-fits all. Fully tapping the power of machine learning may well mean relying on results that are literally impossible to explain to the human mind. Machine learning, especially the sort called deep learning, can analyze data into thousands of variables, arrange them into immensely complex and sensitive arrays of weighted relationships, and then run those arrays repeatedly through computer-based neural networks. To understand the outcome—why, say, the system thinks there’s a 73 percent chance you'll develop diabetes or there's a 84 percent chance that a chess move will eventually lead to victory—could require comprehending the relationships among those thousands of variables computed by multiple runs through vast neural networks. Our brains simply can't hold that much information. There's lots of exciting work being done to make machine learning results understandable to humans. For example, sometimes an inspection can disclose which variables had the most weight. Sometimes visualizations of the steps in the process can show how the system came up with its conclusions. But not always. So we can either stop always insisting on explanations, or we can resign ourselves to maybe not always getting the most accurate results possible from these machines. That might not matter if machine learning is generating a list of movie recommendations, but could literally be a matter of life and death in medical and automotive cases, among others. Explanations are tools: We use them to accomplish some goal. With machine learning, explanations can help developers debug a system that’s gone wrong. But explanations can also be used to to judge whether an outcome was based on factors that should not count (gender, race, etc., depending on the context) and to assess liability. There are, however, other ways we can achieve the desired result without inhibiting the ability of machine learning systems to help us. Here’s one promising tool that’s already quite familiar: optimization. For example, during the oil crisis of the 1970s, the federal government decided to optimize highways for better gas mileage by dropping the speed limit to 55. Similarly, the government could decide to regulate what autonomous cars are optimized for. Say elected officials determine that autonomous vehicles’ systems should be optimized for lowering the number of US traffic fatalities, which in 2016 totaled 37,000. If the number of fatalities drops dramatically—McKinsey says self-driving cars could reduce traffic deaths by 90 percent—then the system will have reached its optimization goal, and the nation will rejoice even if no one can understand why any particular vehicle made the "decisions" it made. Indeed, the behavior of self-driving cars is likely to become quite inexplicable as they become networked and determine their behavior collaboratively. Now, regulating autonomous vehicle optimizations will be more complex than that. There’s likely to be a hierarchy of priorities: Self-driving cars might be optimized first for reducing fatalities, then for reducing injuries, then for reducing their environmental impact, then for reducing drive time, and so forth. The exact hierarchies of priorities is something regulators will have to grapple with. Whatever the outcome, it’s crucial that existing democratic processes, not commercial interests, determine the optimizations. Letting the market decide is also likely to lead to, well, sub-optimal decisions, for car-makers will have a strong incentive to program their cars to always come out on top, damn the overall consequences. It would be hard to argue that the best possible outcome on highways would be a Mad Max-style Carmaggedon. These are issues that affect the public interest and ought to be decided in the public sphere of governance.
But stipulating optimizations and measuring the results is not enough. Suppose traffic fatalities drop from 37,000 to 5,000, but people of color make up a wildly disproportionate number of the victims. Or suppose an AI system that culls job applicants picks people worth interviewing, but only a tiny percentage of them are women. Optimization is clearly not enough. We also need to constrain these systems to support our fundamental values. For this, AI systems need to be transparent about the optimizations they're aimed at and about their results, especially with regard to the critical values we want them to support. But we do not necessarily need their algorithms to be transparent. If a system is failing to meet its marks, it needs to be adjusted until it does. If it’s hitting its marks, explanations aren’t necessary. But what optimizations should we the people impose? What critical constraints? These are difficult questions. If a Silicon Valley company is using AI to cull applications for developer positions, do we the people want to insist that the culled pool be 50 percent women? Do we want to say that it has to be at least equal to the percentage of women graduating with computer science degrees? Would we be satisfied with phasing in gender equality over time? Do we want the pool to be 75 percent women to help make up for past injustices? These are hard questions, but a democracy shouldn’t leave it to commercial entities to come up with answers. Let the public sphere specify the optimizations and their constraints. But there's one more piece of this. It will be cold comfort to the 5,000 people who die in AV accidents that 32,000 people's lives were saved. Given the complexity of transient networks of autonomous vehicles, there may well be no way to explain why it was your Aunt Ida who died in that pile-up. But we also would not want to sacrifice another 1,000 or 10,000 people per year in order to make the traffic system explicable to humans. So, if explicability would indeed make the system less effective at lowering fatalities, then no-fault social insurance (governmentally-funded insurance that is issued without having to assign blame) should be routinely used to compensate victims and their families. Nothing will bring victims back, but at least there would be fewer Aunt Ida’s dying in car crashes. There are good reasons to move to this sort of governance: It lets us benefit from AI systems that have advanced beyond the ability of humans to understand them. It focuses the discussion at the system level rather than on individual incidents. By evaluating AI in comparison to the processes it replaces, we can perhaps swerve around some of the moral panic AI is occasioning. It treats the governance questions as societal questions to be settled through existing processes for resolving policy issues. And it places the governance of these systems within our human, social framework, subordinating them to human needs, desires, and rights. By treating the governance of AI as a question of optimizations, we can focus the necessary argument on what truly matters: What is it that we want from a system, and what are we willing to give up to get it? A longer version of this op-ed is available on the Harvard Berkman Klein Center site. WIRED Opinion publishes pieces written by outside contributors and represents a wide range of viewpoints. Read more opinions here. More on Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous CarsDigital Trends via Feed: All Latest http://ift.tt/2uc60ci January 28, 2018 at 06:03AM
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Poptheatr is your own personal theater that you wear on your head http://ift.tt/2Efcv4q Have you ever wanted to watch a movie in public but not be distracted by the public? For most people, earphones would likely be enough to ensure their movie isn’t interrupted, but if you need even more privacy, there’s a new Kickstarter that might be just for you. Poptheatr is a bucket that you can put over the top of your head to block out noises and other distractions while viewing content on your smartphone or tablet. You simply place your device inside the top of the theater and look up to watch movies or TV shows. You can also control the content via a separate Bluetooth device. “Poptheatr is your own private theater that provides you with a comfortable, personal viewing experience when watching on your mobile device,” the product’s Kickstarter reads. “No longer will you face distractions and constant discomfort when you could be enjoying your movie or show to the fullest extent.” At the time of this reporting, the product has raised little over $4,000, which is about a tenth of what it needs to get funded. It currently has 32 backers and there are 20 days to go until the Kickstarter ends. The product doesn’t seem to fill any real need, but then again, a successful project does not always have to solve any problems. If you’re at home, would the Poptheatr be preferable to using your TV or computer to watch your favorite shows or movies? Even if you want to be alone, many people may prefer to curl up under a blanket with a tablet and good pair of earphones than place a sleeve over their head. The company claims that not having to use headphones is an advantage, and that the product is more comfortable than a VR headset. It is collapsible for easy transport and storage. The main use would be to use it in public to block outside disturbances, but if you use it on a bus or subway, you could risk missing your stop someone messing with you while you’re distracted. Early bird pricing for the Poptheatr starts at $54, and the estimated delivery date is July 2018.
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://ift.tt/2p4eJdC January 28, 2018 at 04:13AM
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Explore The Space Between Script and Screen With This Comparison From Inside Out http://ift.tt/2nhS0wE Much the way emotions live inside every person, a script lives inside every movie, helping shape it, direct it, give it life. Scripts form a superstructure around which films are built. But the execution of a scene can diverge wildly from what’s in the script, for better and for worse. In a new video released by Pixar, viewers can compare the script-to-screen execution of one of Inside Out’s most memorable scenes. It’s a master class in how direction and acting can give a scene strength it doesn’t have on the page. While the action and dialogue is mostly identical between the script and the final film, the voice work, particularly Amy Poehler’s turn as Joy, lends drama and emotional resonance to work that doesn’t quite get there on the scripting alone. Advertisement Inside Out was a sharp, heartfelt movie, and this video starts to show why. It fires on all cylinders, the animation building on the foundation of the script to turn it into something truly special. Watch below. Digital Trends via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com January 27, 2018 at 08:06PM
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How Kia went from peddling econoboxes to challenging BMW http://ift.tt/2GnZgiv Even the younger ones among us remember the time when driving a Kia was the automotive equivalent of drinking Shasta soda. We’re talking about the not-too-distant era when Kia’s flagship model, the Amanti, looked like a Mercedes-Benz E-Class viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. Few took much notice. The ones who did explained the purchase with a resigned shrug. But then, something unexpected happened; Kia evolved. Its cars began to feel appreciably nicer inside, to drive much better, and, importantly, to develop a design identity of their own. Not convinced? Check out the Stinger, a world-class rear-wheel drive sports sedan that’s got enthusiasts excited like citizens of a newly-founded republic. Digital Trends sat down with Orth Hedrick, Kia Motors America’s vice president of product planning, to get insight on the brand’s astounding transformation. Digital Trends: When I was in high school, about 10 years ago, driving a Kia wasn’t great. No one aspired to own a Sephia. Now, you’ve got the Stinger, which by all accounts is a great car. How do you take a car brand this far in such a short amount of time? Orth Hedrick: If you look at some of the great brands, like Toyota and Honda and others, they also had humble beginnings. Do you remember the original Civic? Or, the Corolla and the Corona from the 1960s? You go through this period and it’s a generational thing. I think for us, one of the key points is the fact that we have the Kia badge loud and proud on the front and back of the Stinger. We had this massive discussion about “why don’t we hide the Kia badge and just put Stinger on the front?” We considered hiding the fact that it’s a Kia. We’ve noticed a lot of folks pry the badges off of their Optima. They love the car but they can’t stand the badge or the brand. I think it’s just going to take time. It’s going to take time and experience in the marketplace. We’re getting there; we almost made car of the year. That’s huge growth from our design-led transformation and from building vehicles that look as good as they drive. Now, think of someone who is in the market for a new car every six to seven years, which is about average. There are a lot of people who still remember the “old Kia.” The question is, how do you go about making that transition? It’s time and persistence, and I think eventually it happens. What role has design played in this transformation? It’s been huge. We coined the first chapter our “design-led transformation.” It was driven a lot by bringing [former Audi designer] Peter Schreyer on-board to change the look and design of our cars. Albert Biermann joined us from BMW to help with vehicle dynamics. He was heavily involved in the Stinger, which was about a third of the way into development when he joined. He went and actually moved suspension touch down points and made changes to the geometry, which kind of delayed the program because then they had to go back and redo everything. It was so important to get this thing right that the changes were made. And because of him, and because of the work he’s doing on the performance side, we’re developing the engineering competencies to improve the dynamics and handling of other vehicles. Vehicle dynamics were a huge challenge on the Stinger because it’s a five-door. You’ve got a big opening right above where the suspension is doing its thing. That was a major, major engineering challenge. It took a lot of time and effort to achieve the stiffness we wanted. Audi was able to do it with the A7, Porsche with the Panamera, and it was a great technical challenge, but we were able to deliver on that. The payoff is the car handles and feels great. Why develop a car like the Stinger? It was really born out of passion. I don’t know if you remember the GT concept we had on the show circuit. That was a designer’s dream car. They were figuring out what to put on the circuit and the guys in the Frankfurt studio are the ones that put the car together. They grew up when the notion of a gran turismo was big in Europe. Now, a getaway weekend is Southwest Airlines. You fly down to Nashville. Back in the day they didn’t have that. They had fast, powerful coupes for two couples to take off with all their stuff on the weekend. They’d go to the south of France, in the vineyards, but they needed to get there in a fast car so they created the GT. It wasn’t about ultimate performance or ultimate Gs; it was about fast and comfortable motoring. That was very influential for some of our designers. These were the aspirational cars for a young 13-year old guy. When it came time to develop a show car, they said “this is what we were drawing when we were 13; let’s make one of these!” That turned into the GT concept. It went through the show circuit and got huge response and huge accolades. It fell to the engineering department to figure out how to make one of these things. One of the main points was to move to a five-door body style to get that room in the back for stuff. It was born out of passion. There wasn’t a business case; it wasn’t like we ran market research and figured out “this is the vector we’re going to take.” It was fueled by passion from the studio. So, there wasn’t already a product behind it? No. Six or seven years went by between the time the GT concept first went on the circuit and the time the Stinger came out. We started and we brought Albert on board. He spent 30 years at BMW. He knows that millimeters on a 20-foot long object that weighs 4,000 pounds make a big difference. Small adjustments; that’s what took so long. Are there lessons from the Stinger you can apply to other cars? Yes, a lot. On the Forte, we redesigned the sub-frames so that there’s more lateral stiffness but still plenty of compliance on vertical travel. When you’re going through a corner, the sub-frames are able to keep the wheels in a very specific geometry in relation to the body. You don’t see a lot of movement or sloppiness in the corners. That’s because of those details. The body-in-white is 16-percent stiffer, too. It provides a very solid foundation for the suspension to do its work. It’s already paying off on cars like the brand-new Forte. We’re getting fantastic reviews on the new Rio. We hear a lot of people say they can’t believe it’s a sub-compact car. The lead market for that was Europe. The general feel is that, as time goes on, our cars are going to feel a lot better than previews cars. It’s just getting people to come drive them. To your point, perception of the old cars and the experience they had is quite different than the new cars. Where do you see the Kia brand going in the next 10 years? We refer to the Stinger as an inflection point. As we sort out what we stand for and what we represent, I think we’re centering around this vibrant and young-at-heart idea. The cars are part of that personality trait; they show us doing things differently. The Niro, the Soul, and the Stinger are all good examples of us doing things differently. They don’t fit a normal recipe or category definition.
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://ift.tt/2p4eJdC January 27, 2018 at 08:03PM
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Does Razer Know It Posted a Racist Meme? http://ift.tt/2DIJnFP There’s being into video gaming and there’s identifying as a hardcore gamer. Both are fine! But the latter group has developed a well-earned reputation for being rife with bigoted jerks, from the whole mess over Gamergate to more recent instances like PewDiePie’s repeated instances of racism. It’s also not a coincidence that hardware manufacturers have long learned to appeal to hardcore gamers with branding exercises that could be described as Mountain Dew with an extra spoonful of cringe. On Saturday, gaming giant Razer waded directly into the latter territory by reposting a “De Wey” meme, apparently unaware the punchline is making fun of Ugandans. Razer, WYD? If your brand is gaming, you should probably know to be extra cautious around gamer memes, because half of the time they’re horrible Advertisement The “De Wey” meme has evolved into a racist joke for reasons our sister site Kotaku accurately called “excruciating to explain,” but it’s a mashup of two memes. One is a completely harmless, if dopey, drawing of Sonic the Hedgehog franchise character Knuckles by a YouTuber using the name Gregzilla. The other is making fun of a Ugandan action movie titled Who Killed Captain Alex, which contains the line “He knows the way of using a gun”:
“De Wey’s” racial connotations became so explicit that, as Kotaku reported, some Overwatch League teams stopped engaging with fans that posted it or publicly distanced themselves from its use.
So at some point, this meme transitioned from in-joke to something much less palatable—the exact kind of racist meme one might want to avoid if they were, say, tweeting from a major brand account. Yet when other Twitter users suggested tweeting out the meme was “a misstep,” it responded with this: Numerous other Twitter users called out the company in the replies below the post, though it didn’t respond to any of them directly bringing up that the meme is racist. As colleague Alex Cranz noted in 2016, Razer’s previous juvenile antics have included things like tweeting “You call yourself Pro? S my D.” So while this appears to be yet another example of a brand getting itself stuck in the social media race to the easiest joke, there’s precedent for Razer being kind of dumb in its gamer branding. Advertisement A Razer spokesperson told Gizmodo that they would try to “figure out the particulars of this situation,” and we’ll update this post if we hear back. Digital Trends via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com January 27, 2018 at 07:30PM
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Elon Musk’s Boring Co. flamethrower is real, $500 and up for pre-order http://ift.tt/2Fnh3VS So that flamethrower that Elon Musk teased The Boring Company would start selling after it ran out of its 50,000 hats? Yeah, it’s real – and you can pre-order one now if you want need a ridiculous way to spend $500. Musk revealed the flamethrower on Saturday, after some digging tipped its existence late last week. The Boring Company Flamethrower is functional, too, as you can see from this Instagram featuring some Boring Co. staff, presumably well safety trained, firing off two of the things IRL. Marketing copy for the flamethrower includes a “guarantee” that it will “liven up any party,” and a proclamation that it’s “world’s safest flamethrower,” in case you were concerned (you probably are not, if you’re ordering a flamethrower on the internet). The $500 fee doesn’t include taxes and shipping, which are added at checkout, and the initial shipments will come out in spring. There’s also a disclaimer about international shipping incurring extra fees (and maybe seizure at the border?) plus, buyers will be required to review and accept a terms and conditions document prior to getting their flamethrower in the mail. The Boring Co. also sells a fire extinguisher, because they know how to make an upsell with specific relevance, and it’s $30, which they fully admit is more than you’d pay elsewhere. But it has a sticker. There’s not even a picture, so it probably doesn’t look all that impressive. Musk’s Boring Company is literally a company focused on tunnel boring, but it seems like it’ll be a while before it has revenue or significant results (even if it’s already digging test tunnels). To fund the project until then, selling weird stuff with the company’s logo to Muskheads everywhere seems like a decent plan. Even if it contributes negatively to the sum total of working flamethrowers existing in the world. Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com January 27, 2018 at 07:11PM
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The Rocket Lab founder just launched a giant disco ball into orbit http://ift.tt/2EevqMI The spaceflight startup Rocket Lab recently launched the second test flight of its Electron rocket, and it marked the first rocket launched from New Zealand. Named “Still Testing,” the 55-foot-tall rocket successfully deployed three commercial satellites. The launch from the Māhia Peninsula made New Zealand the 11th country to deliver a payload into orbit. The rocket had an extra passenger that it deployed in addition to the satellites, however, as sharp-eyed observers noticed and the company recently revealed. Created by the company CEO Peter Beck, the sculpture called “Humanity Star” is a polygonal carbon-fiber sphere consisting of 65 panels that reflect sunlight as it spins. About the size of a large beach ball, it’s visible from Earth with the naked eye, and the company announced it will be “the brightest thing in the night sky.” Don’t call it a disco ball, Beck told the Washington Post. He wants it to have a more serious impact. “But in all honesty, yes, it’s a giant mirror ball,” he admitted. The space sculpture will orbit the Earth every 90 minutes travelling at 27 times the speed of sound, spinning as it orbits. Its orbit will last for about nine months, at which point it will burn up as it reenters the atmosphere. Rocket Lab has set up a website for tracking Humanity Star, so you can see it when it passes overhead. “The goal is make people look up and realize they are on a rock in a giant universe,” Beck said in a statement. “My hope is that everyone looking up at the Humanity Star will look past it to the expanse of the universe, feel a connection to our place in it and think a little differently about their lives, actions and what is important,” he added. “You may just feel a connection to the more than seven billion other people on this planet we share this ride with.” Not everyone views the space sculpture as such a lofty accomplishment, as Mashable points out. “This is stupid, vandalizes the night sky and corrupts our view of the cosmos,” tweeted astronomer David Kipping. “Looking up at the Moon and the planets in the night sky invokes similar feelings of wonder – why do we need this artificial disco ball in orbit?” echoed planetary scientist Meg Schwamb. According to Rocket Lab, regulators of space missions in both the U.S. and New Zealand were informed of the payload and approved it prior to launch. The company also responded to the critics with an emailed statement. “The Humanity Star will briefly flash across the sky for a few seconds, reflecting sunlight back to the Earth’s surface, creating a fleeting glint of light,” said Beck. “It is designed to be a brief moment of just a few seconds.”
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://ift.tt/2p4eJdC January 27, 2018 at 06:45PM |
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