Power

America's EV Charging Infrastructure Has Doubled In Less Than Four Years (carscoops.com) 104

The electric revolution has given way to a gradual transformation, but the groundwork is already being laid for the future. From a report: The Department of Energy recently highlighted this by noting the number of publicly available EV chargers has doubled since President Biden was inaugurated on January 20, 2021. According to the government, there are now more than 192,000 publicly available charging ports in the United States and around 1,000 are being added every week. The Department of Energy credited the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as aiding the buildout, which is helping to bring charging infrastructure to rural, suburban, and urban communities.

The law provided funding for a $2.5 billion Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program. A big chunk of that money is now heading out as the Biden administration recently announced $521 million in grants to support projects in 29 states as well as the District of Columbia and a few tribal areas. This will result in more than 9,200 charging ports being added, which means each one will cost roughly $56,630 -- although California's West Coast Truck Charging and Fueling Corridor Project also includes a hydrogen component.

Robotics

Engineers Gave a Mushroom a Robot Body and Let It Run Wild (sciencealert.com) 64

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceAlert: Nobody knows what sleeping mushrooms dream of when their vast mycelial networks flicker and pulse with electrochemical responses akin to those of our own brain cells. But given a chance, what might this web of impulses do if granted a moment of freedom? An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Cornell University in the US and the University of Florence in Italy took steps to find out, putting a culture of the edible mushroom species Pleurotus eryngii (also known as the king oyster mushroom) in control of a pair of vehicles, which can twitch and roll across a flat surface. Through a series of experiments, the researchers showed it was possible to use the mushroom's electrophysiological activity as a means of translating environmental cues into directives, which could, in turn, be used to drive a mechanical device's movements. "By growing mycelium into the electronics of a robot, we were able to allow the biohybrid machine to sense and respond to the environment," says senior researcher Rob Shepherd, a materials scientist at Cornell.

By applying algorithms based on the extracellular electrophysiology of P. eryngii mycelia and feeding the output into a microcontroller unit, the researchers used spikes of activity triggered by a stimulus -- in this case, UV light -- to toggle mechanical responses in two different kinds of mobile device. In controlled experiments, the team used the signals from a fungal culture to govern the movements of a five-limbed soft robot and a four-wheeled untethered vehicle. They were able to influence and override the 'natural' impulses produced by the fungi, demonstrating an ability to harness the system's sensory abilities to meet an end goal. "This kind of project is not just about controlling a robot," says Cornell bioroboticist Anand Mishra. "It is also about creating a true connection with the living system. Because once you hear the signal, you also understand what's going on. Maybe that signal is coming from some kind of stresses. So you're seeing the physical response, because those signals we can't visualize, but the robot is making a visualization."
The research has been published in the journal Science Robotics.
Data Storage

Discord Lowers Free Upload Limit To 10MB (dexerto.com) 65

Discord has reduced the upload limit for free users from 25MB to 10MB per file, citing financial and operational reasons. "Every day, millions of files are uploaded to Discord and stored securely for your future access. Storage management is expensive, so we regularly review how people use Discord and their storage needs. In fact, our data shows that 99% of users stick to files smaller than 10MB," the company wrote in an updated support page. Dexerto reports: Discord increased its file-sharing limit to 25MB in April last year. Before that, the limit was set at 8MB for free users. While the new 10MB limit isn't terrible by comparison, it can still be frustrating for those who frequently share high-quality photos and videos. The messaging app is recommending those who want higher sharing limits use Nitro. "Unlike other platforms, we store your files for as long as you need them, so it is crucial that we manage our storage sustainably. If you need more upload capacity, Nitro Basic offers a 50MB limit, and Nitro gives you up to 500 MB, so you have options that fit your needs," the company said on its official support page.

For those who aren't aware, a Nitro Basic subscription costs $3 a month. Nitro users, who pay $10 a month, get to stream videos in 4K and use emojis in channels. In comparison, messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram offer a 2 GB file limit.

Television

After Nearly a Decade Away, Panasonic TVs Are Back In the US (wired.com) 29

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: You might have a hard time stretching your memory to the Obama era, but back in 2013, Panasonic's plasma TVs were the critical darlings of the US market. They far outperformed their LED/LCD counterparts at a time when OLED was little more than a pipe dream for most. Then suddenly, under enormous pressure from ever-cheaper LED panels, Panasonic halted all plasma TV production. By 2016, the company had left the US TV space entirely. Now, over 10 years after its plasma models reigned supreme in the US, Panasonic TVs are back, baby.

Outside the US, Panasonic has remained a global leader in the OLED era. Rumors about a stateside return have been swirling for nearly as long as the brand has been away, but a global partnership with Amazon announced at CES 2024 kicked things into high gear. Today, Panasonic officially revealed the US launch of three premium TVs powered by Amazon's Fire TV smart interface: the flagship Z95A and "core" Z85A OLED TVs, and the W95A flagship mini LED TV. All three models are available now in limited sizes, as Panasonic begins its slow walk back to competing against LG, Samsung, and Sony.
There are three models now available in the US: 55- and 65-inch OLED options and a Mini LED TV that measures up to 85 inches.

The Z95A is Panasonic's top OLED model featuring advanced gaming features, a 144-Hz refresh rate on select inputs, HDR10+, Dolby Vision support, and AI-powered picture modes. According to Wired, it boasts an impressive sound system developed with hi-fi audio brand Technics and employs Panasonic's proprietary microlens array technology for optimized brightness and heat management.

The Z85A is a step-down model offering similar gaming specs and smart home integration at a lower price, lacking the Z95A's specialized brightness and sound enhancements. It includes a game mode, HDR10+, Dolby Vision support, and a Mark II processor but only supports up to 120 Hz and doesn't have a built-in microphone for Alexa.

Last but not least is Panasonic's W95A flagship miniLED model, offering gaming-ready features like a 144-Hz refresh rate on two HDMI inputs and local dimming for deep contrast and high brightness. It includes the same smart-home integration as other models but features a more standard sound system, and Alexa control is available only through the remote.
Hardware

In Consumer Hardware, Niche is the New Mainstream (axios.com) 22

A pair of devices launching Wednesday highlight a growing trend in consumer hardware: doing one thing well, Axios writes. From the report: The smartphone rendered many formerly standalone devices obsolete, but now some tech with a single purpose can offer an experience that a digital Swiss Army knife can't. GoPro announced its latest cameras on Wednesday. The $199 GoPro Hero is a smaller, simpler camera that presents fewer controls, while this year's flagship -- the $399 Hero 13 Black -- supports a series of add-on lenses without losing its core as a rugged, waterproof action camera.

Meanwhile, the reMarkable tablet company is adding its first color model. ReMarkable's tablets allow creators to write and sketch without the distractions of more full-featured devices. ReMarkable's paper tablets are similar to Amazon's Kindle Scribe, but with a focus on creating and editing documents rather than reading digital books. In addition to adding color -- the most requested feature -- the Paper Pro has built-in illumination, a larger eInk display and an active digital pen, which allows digital ink to appear on the display within an imperceptible 12 milliseconds. The new Paper Pro ($579 or $629, depending on which pen is bundled) is still aimed at those who want to avoid notifications rather than those who want to multitask.

Power

World's First Zinc-Ion Battery Megafactory Opens For Business 67

Sweden's Enerpoly has opened the world's first zinc-ion battery megafactory near Stockholm, aiming for a 100 MWh annual capacity by 2026. "According to Enerpoly, this megafactory will serve Europe's needs for safe energy storage, and also utilize an all-European supply chain to boot," reports New Atlas. From the report: If you're wondering why Enerpoly is bothering with zinc-ion and not lithium-ion batteries, it's because the former is a better choice for storage in several ways:

- They use a water-based electrolyte, which makes them non-flammable, and reduces the risk of fires and explosions.
- They're less expensive, because zinc is far more abundant than lithium (which is difficult and expensive to extract), and easier to handle. They can also operate across a wider temperature range and require less maintenance, making them cheaper than lithium-ion options.
- They're more eco-friendly for the same reason. In contrast, extracting lithium currently requires extensive mining as well as the use of massive evaporation ponds before processing even begins.
- They're said to last a whole lot longer. According to the International Zinc Association, a nonprofit trade association which counts Enerpoly as a member, zinc-based batteries can last up to 20 years, while lithium batteries manage about 12 years.
The downside? They have a lower energy density than something like a Tesla 4680 battery, making them ideal for applications like load shifting and grid resilience.
Earth

Northern Lights Imperiled Infrastructure From Power Grids To Satellites (bloomberg.com) 51

An anonymous reader quotes a Bloomberg article, written by Jason Leopold: The aurora borealis, or northern lights, is a colorful display in the night sky that comes from geomagnetic storms in space. When charged particles from the sun smash into the Earth's upper atmosphere, they create bright, kaleidoscopic ribbons of light, typically in polar regions. Really big solar action can interfere with GPS systems and power grids. That's exactly what happened on May 10, when there were three "coronal mass ejections" (my future metal band name) that produced one of the most powerful solar storms in 500 years, hence the dazzling, polychromatic sky visible even from South America. Turns out, the extreme space weather also disrupted life on Earth.

Six days after the northern lights, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with NOAA. I was curious how the agency reacted to the atmospheric event and whether the public deserved to be concerned. I asked NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center and National Weather Service for a wide range of records, including emails, photographs, satellite images and threat assessments. A couple of weeks ago, NOAA turned over some interesting documents. The short version is, while we marveled at the light show, scientists were concerned. According to one internal memo, the geomagnetic storm was an "extreme," rare event and if NOAA scientists hadn't been on their game it could have been catastrophic.

A May 14, three-page after action memo disseminated by Clinton Wallace, the director of the Space Weather Prediction Center, described the storm's impact and explained the celestial phenomenon. He said "Solar Cycle 25," a phase of solar sunspot activity that began in December 2019 and continues through 2030, "has been more active than anticipated, with an intense surge in solar activity marking the beginning of May." "A large group of unstable sunspots on the Sun's surface unleashed several powerful solar flares, immediately affecting the Earth's outer atmosphere and causing disruptions in high-frequency (HF) radio communications," he wrote. "This had significant implications for trans-oceanic aviation, which relies heavily on HF radio for communication over long distances."

On May 9, a day before the northern lights extravaganza, staff at the Space Weather Prediction Center "activated" the North American Electric Reliability Corp. hotline to make sure the regulator was prepared. Wallace's memo said NERC gave about 3,000 electric utility companies a six-hour head start to get ready. The space weather officials also advised the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on preparedness. Wallace wrote in his memo that the storm caused "significant disruptions across multiple sectors, including navigation, power grids, aviation, and satellite operations." He also noted that the severity of the geomagnetic storm "underscored the interconnectedness and vulnerability of modern infrastructure to space weather." Although Wallace said the space weather scientists took steps to mitigate any potential disaster, their work "highlighted areas for improvement in preparedness and response." He didn't elaborate.

Desktops (Apple)

M4 Mac Mini Likely To Lose Support For USB-A, Keep Internal Power Supply (9to5mac.com) 116

According to Mark Gurman, Apple's upcoming M4 Mac mini will undergo a major redesign, dropping USB-A ports entirely in favor of five USB-C ports. The new design will also feature front ports for the first time, an internal power supply, and retain Ethernet, HDMI, and the headphone jack.

"As I've been reporting for several months now, the Mac is in for a big transition to M4 chips -- starting around the end of this year and extending into the first half or so of 2025," writes Gurman in a newsletter for Bloomberg. "Apple plans to kick things off soon with a new Mac mini, iMac and MacBook Pro. Of those models, the Mac mini will get the most dramatic new design, its first major overhaul since 2010. Just to put that in perspective: The last time there was a Mac mini redesign, preorders of the iPhone 4 had just began."
Intel

Intel Launches Lunar Lake: Claims Arm-Beating Battery Life, World's Fastest Mobile CPU Cores (tomshardware.com) 56

Intel launched its new Core Ultra 200V-series processors on Tuesday, promising significant improvements in power efficiency, performance, and battery life over competitors and previous generations. The company claims the chips offer "historic x86 power efficiency" and the "world's fastest mobile CPU cores." The processors, available for pre-order in OEM systems and shipping September 24, feature four Lion Cove P-cores and four Skymont E-cores with boost speeds up to 5.1 GHz.

Intel says the chips deliver up to 20.1 hours of battery life, Tom's Hardware reports, outperforming Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite by nearly two hours and AMD's chips by almost four hours. Intel asserts a 30% faster gaming performance than competing processors and highlighted compatibility issues with Qualcomm's chips, noting that nearly two dozen games used for benchmarking failed to run on X Elite chips. The company claims up to 64% advantage in single-threaded performance over Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and up to 33% over AMD Strix Point HX370.
Transportation

What's Holding Back America's Move to Electric Cars? (theverge.com) 430

"Let's get one thing out of the way," writes the Verge's transportation editor. Contrary to what you may have heard about U.S. sales of electric vehicles — sales are up. [Consumer insights company] JD Power is projecting that 1.2 million EVs will be sold in the US by the end of 2024, an increase over 1 million sold last year. That's 9 percent of total vehicles sold, which has been revised down from a previous prediction of 12 percent... Overall, an additional 35,000 battery-electric vehicles were sold in the first seven months of 2024 as compared to last year, JD Power says.

That includes hybrids and PHEVs, which I think gets at the root of the problem. Those who were expecting an even swap — battery-electric for internal combustion — didn't anticipate the popularity of hybrids in the market. If anything, hybrids are cannibalizing EV sales, giving the pure-battery electric vehicles more competition than anticipated. But in retrospect, it makes sense. What better response to "range anxiety" than a vehicle that, in a sense, operates as an electric vehicle until the battery runs out, and then switches over to gas...?

EVs are still too expensive, giving potential buyers sticker shock. According to data from Kelley Blue Book, the average transaction price for an electric car in July 2024 was $56,520. Meanwhile, the average gas-powered vehicle is selling at $48,401. There's also a depreciation problem. New research out of George Washington University finds that older EVs depreciate in value faster than conventional gas cars. Some even lost 50 percent of their resale value in a single year. The upside is that newer models with longer driving ranges are holding their value better and approaching the retention rates of many gas cars.

The charging experience is still wildly out-of-sync for most people. Either it's the single most satisfying thing about owning an EV or it's the worst. And the distinction is usually between people who live in houses and can install a home charger in their garage and those who live in an apartment building or multi-unit housing and have to rely on unreliable public chargers... But JD Power is optimistic about where that's heading, especially as public satisfaction is growing in both Level 2 and DC fast charging over two consecutive quarters. The Biden administration also continues to make massive investments in public charging, which should slowly ease the experience of public charging from "soul-sucking" to "honestly whatever."

The article concludes that the EV industry needs patience and flexibility. But more than that, it "needs to slow it down with the six-figure, luxury pickups and SUVs and start offering more low-cost compact cars and sedans."
Power

Green Energy from Storage Batteries are Replacing Fossil Fuels in California - and Texas (elpais.com) 152

1.9 million solar panels began operating this year in California — at a Mortenson facility with 120,000 installed batteries that give it a storage capacity of 3,280 megawatts. An article in El Pais notes that this helped California pass 10,000 megawatts of photovoltaic storage in April — enough to meet 20% of demand — for the first time ever. (In 2019, the state had just 770 megawatts of storage capacity.)

Mark Rothleder, the vice president of the independent grid operator, California ISO (CAISO), said earlier this year that they will add another 1,134 megawatts in the first eight months of 2024. This is growth on top of the leap made last year. "In 2023 alone, the ISO successfully onboarded 5,660 megawatts of new power to the grid," Rothleder said at a conference in San Diego...

Renewable production was enough to supply the grid on 40 out of 48 days this spring, compared to seven days in the whole of last year. Lithium batteries appear to be undercutting the use of fossil fuels. Gas accounts for 40% of California's grid. However, its use in April registered its lowest proportion in seven years. "The data clearly shows that batteries are displacing natural gas when solar generation is ramping up and down each day in CAISO," notes an analysis by Grid Status, a firm specializing in energy issues. Natural gas was king on the grid in April 2021, 2022 and 2023. CAISO was sending between 9,000 and 10,000 megawatts produced from gas to the grid once solar ran out. Last April, however, it amounted to only 5,000 megawatts... [California's goal: run on 100% renewable energy by 2045.]

Arizona and Georgia have followed California's lead. But it is Texas, the other major U.S. giant in this industry, that is snapping at its heels. At the end of April, batteries supplied 4% of the grid's electricity, enough to power several million homes. Batteries are beginning to look like an alternative to a system heavily dependent on gas and coal.

Communications

Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Home Videoconferencing System? 76

renzema (Slashdot reader #84,617) wants suggestions for a point-to-point video conferencing system "to connect the kids to their grandparents... We live in Europe and they in the U.S., but we both have gigabit internet and can sustain upwards of 100mb between our houses." I've been spoiled at work with super high quality Cisco systems... Currently, we have Amazon Echos, but the video quality on these (at least for Sweden/U.S. calls) is really lacking.

We've tried Facetime as well, and while the video quality is much better, the inconvenience of needing to use it on an iPad or phone is quite high (or starting a call with them, then them needing to move to the computer...) Ideally I would love Facetime on an Apple TV with a camera that follows us. We have played a bit with the phone-as-a-camera thing with Facetime and Apple TV, but the sound was not great...

I'm willing to invest in hardware, up to a few hundred dollars per site, if this can really be bulletproof and give a consistently high quality video connection. Ideally it would be standalone hardware that does not need a computer to be running all the time.

There's one problem that can't be solved: calling the grandparents' phone when they're out of the house and not available to talk. But the dream solution involves using a TV to make and receive video calls. "When a call is received, it would power on the TV and 'ring'."

The wishlist?
  • High quality picture
  • No echo in large rooms. Handles people sitting a few meters away from the TV.
  • "Would really prefer no monthly fees."

Any suggestions? Share your own thoughts and experience in the comments.

What's the best home videoconferencing system?

Power

US Government Opens Up 31 Million Acres of Federal Lands For Solar (electrek.co) 103

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: The Biden administration has finalized a plan to expand solar on 31 million acres of federal lands in 11 western states. The proposed updated Western Solar Plan is a roadmap for Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) governance of solar energy proposals and projects on public lands. It bumps up the acreage from the 22 million acres it recommended in January, and this plan adds five additional states -- Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming -- to the six states -- Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah -- analyzed in the original plan.

It would make the public lands available for potential solar development, putting solar farms closer to transmission lines or on previously disturbed lands and avoiding protected lands, sensitive cultural resources, and important wildlife habitats. [...] BLM surpassed its goal of permitting more than 25 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy projects on public lands earlier in 2024. It's permitted 29 GW of projects on public lands -- enough to power over 12 million homes. The Biden administration set the goal to achieve 100% clean electricity on the US grid by 2035.

Data Storage

Asia's Richest Man Says He Will Give Everyone 100 GB of Free Cloud Storage (techcrunch.com) 43

Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest man and the chairman of Reliance Industries, said this week that his telecom firm will offer users 100 GB of free cloud storage. Oil-to-retail giant Reliance, which is India's most valuable firm by market cap, has upended the telecom market in India by offering free voice calls and dirt-cheap internet access.

Jio, Reliance's telecom subsidiary, serves 490 million subscribers, more than any rival in India. Jio offers access to at least 2GB of data per day for 14 days to subscribers for a total of $2.3. TechCrunch adds: Reliance plans to offer Jio users up to 100 GB of free cloud storage through its Jio AI Cloud service, set to launch around Diwali in October, Ambani said.
Power

Meta Strikes Geothermal Energy Deal To Power US Data Centers (reuters.com) 26

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Facebook owner Meta struck a deal to buy geothermal power from Sage Geosystems to supply its U.S. data centers, it said on Monday, as it races to build out the infrastructure to support its massive investments in energy-hungry artificial intelligence. The first phase of the 150-megawatt project should be operational by 2027 and "significantly" expand the use of geothermal power in the United States, the social media company said. The location has yet to be determined, but the companies said it will be east of the Rocky Mountains. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. [...]

Sage, which is based in Houston, is a four-year-old startup developing next-generation technology that it says can be deployed in more locations than traditional geothermal, which requires naturally occurring underground reservoirs of hot water and accounts for 0.4% of U.S. power generation. The company is backed by oil and gas firms Chesapeake Energy and Nabors Industries and venture capital firms Virya and Helium-3 Ventures. The project for Meta would be Sage's largest to date by far. The company said it first validated the technology in the field just two years ago. A Meta spokesperson told Reuters the company expected the Sage Geosystems energy to feed the power grid, rather than directly supplying any specific data center.

Technology

Meta Reportedly Plans Ultralight Headset With Tethered Puck For 2027 (uploadvr.com) 35

According to The Information (paywalled), Meta plans to ship an extremely light mixed reality headset in 2027, codenamed Puffin. It follows a report that the company canceled a high-end headset planned for the same year, which previous reports speculated as being a Quest Pro 2. UploadVR reports: Puffin reportedly resembles "a bulky pair of glasses" and weighs less than 110 grams, yet is an opaque VR-style headset with pancake lenses and passthrough cameras. Its remarkably light weight is apparently being achieved by offloading both the battery and computing hardware to an external tethered puck, which Meta "hopes" will be small enough to fit in the user's pocket.

If the report is accurate, Puffin will be significantly lighter than any other shipping fully functional VR headset to date. For comparison, Meta Quest 3 weighs around 400 grams without its straps and facial interface and around 515 grams with them. Of this weight, the battery is around 70 grams. The report describes Puffin as not including controllers, instead using the gaze-and-pinch input scheme introduced by Apple Vision Pro.

Youtube

Can a YouTube Video Really Fix Your Wet Phone? (theverge.com) 45

An anonymous reader shares a report: Every day for the last four years, dozens of people have shown up in the comments of one particular YouTube, declaring their love and appreciation for the content. The content: two minutes and six seconds of deep, low buzzing, the kind that makes your phone vibrate on the table, underscoring a vaguely trippy animation of swirled stained glass. It's not a good video. But it's not meant to be. The video is called "Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED )." [...] If you believe the comments, about half the video's 45 million views come from people who bring their phone into the shower or bathtub and trust that they can play this video and everything will be fine.

The theory goes like this: all a speaker is really doing is pushing air around, and if you can get it to push enough air, with enough force, you might be able to push droplets of liquid out from where they came. "The lowest tone that that speaker can reproduce, at the loudest level that it can play," says Eric Freeman, a senior director of research at Bose. "That will create the most air motion, which will push on the water that's trapped inside the phone." Generally, the bigger the speaker, the louder and lower it can go. Phone speakers tend to be tiny. "So those YouTube videos," Freeman says, "it's not, like, really deep bass. But it's in the low range of where a phone is able to make sound."

The best real-world example of how this can work is probably the Apple Watch, which has a dedicated feature for ejecting water after you've gotten it wet. When I first reached out to iFixit to ask about my water-expulsion mystery, Carsten Frauenheim, a repairability engineer at the company, said the Watch works on the same theory as the videos. "It's just a specific oscillating tone that pushes the water out of the speaker grilles," he said. "Not sure how effective the third-party versions are for phones since they're probably not ideally tuned? We could test."

Hardware

EmuDeck Enters the Mini PC Market With Linux-Powered 'EmuDeck Machines' (overkill.wtf) 11

An anonymous reader quotes a report from overkill.wtf: The team behind popular emulation tool EmuDeck is today announcing something rather special: they've spent the first half of 2024 working on their very first hardware product, called the EmuDeck Machine, and it's due to arrive before the year is out. This EmuDeck Machine is an upcoming, crowdfunded, retro emulation mini PC running Bazzite, a Linux-based system similar to SteamOS. [...] This new EmuDeck Machine comes in two variants, the EM1 running an Intel N97 APU, and the EM2 -- based on an AMD Ryzen 8600G. While both machines are meant as emulation-first devices, the AMD-based variant can easily function as a console-like PC. This is also thanks to some custom work done by the team: "We've optimized the system for maximum power. The default configuration of an 8600G gets you 32 FPS in Cyberpunk; we've managed to reach 47 FPS with a completely stable system, or 60FPS if you use FSR."

Both machines will ship with a Gamesir Nova Lite controller and EmuDeck preinstalled naturally. The team has also preinstalled all available Decky plugins. But that's not all: if the campaign is successful, the EmuDeck team will also work on a docking station for the EM2 that will upgrade the graphics to an AMD Radeon 7600 desktop GPU. With this, in games like Cyberpunk 2077, you'll be able to reach 160 FPS in 1080p as per EmuDeck's measurements.
You can preorder the EmuDeck Machines via Indigogo, starting at $322 and shipping in December.
AI

Midjourney Says It's 'Getting Into Hardware' 4

Midjourney, the AI image-generating platform, announced on Wednesday that it's "officially getting into hardware." TechCrunch reports: As for what hardware Midjourney, which has a team of fewer than 100 people, might pursue, there might be a clue in its hiring of Ahmad Abbas in February. Abbas, an ex-Neuralink staffer, helped engineer the Apple Vision Pro, Apple's mixed reality headset. Midjourney CEO David Holz is also no stranger to hardware. He co-founded Leap Motion, which built motion-tracking peripherals. (Abbas worked together with Holz at Leap, in fact.)

Despite the lawsuits over its AI training approach working their way through the courts, Midjourney has said it's continuing to develop AI models for video and 3D generation. The hardware could perhaps be related to those efforts, as well.
Power

Publicly Available EV Charger Network Doubles Under Biden-Harris Administration (electrek.co) 247

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Over 192,000 publicly available charging ports are now online, and approximately 1,000 new chargers are being added each week. To build on this momentum, the federal government has awarded $521 million in grants to further expand the national network, with new chargers being deployed across 29 states, two Federally Recognized Tribes, and the District of Columbia.

The $521 million investment is divided into two key areas: 41 community projects ($321 million) and 10 corridor fast-charging projects ($200 million). The grant awards also support President Biden's Justice40 Initiative, which aims for 40% of the overall benefits of federal investments to flow to disadvantaged communities, with over half of the funding going to sites in disadvantaged communities.
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg emphasized the importance of this initiative, stating, "The Biden-Harris Administration has been clear about America leading the EV revolution, and thanks to the historic [Bipartisan Infrastructure Law] package, we're building a nationwide EV charger network to make sure all drivers have an accessible, reliable, and convenient way to charge their vehicles."

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