Alphabet's Google was slapped with a record French fine of 150 million euros ($170 million) by the nation's privacy watchdog, together with a 60 million-euro fine for Meta Platforms' Facebook, over the way the companies manage cookies. From a report: CNIL, France's data protection authority, on Thursday issued the companies with a three-month ultimatum "to provide internet users located in France with a means of refusing cookies as simple as the existing means of accepting them, in order to guarantee their freedom of consent." Failing to do so will come with the risk of an additional daily fine of 100,000 euros, CNIL said in the statement. The latest penalties follow probes by the watchdog looking at companies' compliance with new rules on cookies, which are tracking devices that are placed on people's computers. The watchdog in 2020 fined Google 100 million euros and online shopping giant Amazon.com Inc. 35 million euros for placing such cookies on people's computers without their consent.

An Italian mafia boss on the run for 20 years was tracked down to a Spanish town after being spotted on Google Street View. The Guardian reports: Gioacchino Gammino, a convicted murderer listed among Italy's most wanted gangsters, was arrested in Galapagar, a town near Madrid, where over the years he had married, changed his name to Manuel, worked as a chef and owned a fruit and vegetable shop. Sicilian police carried out several investigations in their search for Gammino, 61, and a European arrest warrant was issued in 2014. The fugitive was traced to Spain, but it was Google Street View that helped to pinpoint his precise location.

The navigation tool, accessible through Google Maps, had captured an image of two men chatting outside a fruit and vegetable shop called El Huerto de Manu, or Manu's Garden, in Galapagar. Police believed one of the men closely resembled Gammino, but his identity was only confirmed when they came across a listing for a nearby restaurant called La Cocina de Manu or Manu's Kitchen. The shop and the restaurant are now closed, but the police found a photo of Gammino, dressed in his chef's garb, on a still-existing Facebook page for La Cocina de Manu. He was recognisable by the scar on the left side of his chin. The restaurant's menu included a dish called Cena Siciliana or Sicilian dinner. Gammino was arrested on 17 December but the details surrounding his capture did not come to light until they were reported by La Repubblica on Wednesday. Upon his arrest, Gammino reportedly told police: "How did you find me? I haven't even called my family for 10 years!"

At CES in Las Vegas this evening, Sony's Chairman, President and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida showed off a brand new prototype of its Vision S concept electric car, and announced that the Sony Group is starting a new division -- the Sony Mobility Inc -- which will start commercializing its electric vehicles. TechCrunch reports: On the CES stage during the Sony press conference, the company showed off its existing Sony Vision-S sedan, which was revealed at CES last year. This year, it also flexed a new model in the lineup, the Sony Vision-S SUV prototype. "The excitement we received after we showed off the Vision-S really encouraged us to further consider how we can bring creativity and technology to change the experience of moving from one place to another," said Yoshida, before revealing the new Vision-S SUV prototype. "This is our new Vision-S SUV. Vision-S has been developed on a foundation of safety, adaptability and entertainment. Safety has been our No. 1 priority in creating a comfortable mobility experience. That has not changed when building this SUV. A total of 40 sensors are installed inside and outside of the vehicle to monitor safety.

"In terms of adaptability, we have connectivity that enables us to build a vehicle that continuously evolves. It also makes it possible to personalize the cabin for each user. With 5G, it enables high speed, high capacity and low-latency connectivity between the in-vehicle system and the cloud. The Vision-S also evolves mobility as an entertainment space," said Yoshida. "The Vision-S also evolves mobility as an entertainment space, including gaming experience and audio. We have learned more about mobility through our exploration of Vision-S and through our partners who have supported this effort." There's been a lot of EV announcements today. Not only did GM reveal an electric version of the Chevy Silverado, but Chrysler announced plans to go all-electric by 2028, starting with the Airflow, "a concept crossover that appears to be close to ready for production," reports Ars Technica.

BMW also unveiled color-changing paint for its vehicles that relies on the E-ink electronic paper technology found in e-readers like the Kindle.

At CES 2022, BMW unveiled color-changing paint for its vehicles that relies on the E-ink electronic paper technology found in e-readers like the Kindle. Engadget reports: [N]o, this futuristic feature is nowhere near production ready despite appearing at the show on a live demonstration vehicle, dubbed the BMW iX Flow featuring E Ink. The electrophoretic coloring material itself is applied as a vehicle body wrap but works just like it e-ink displays do in your Kindle. The wrap is embedded with millions of microcapsules each containing a negatively-charged white pigment and a positively charged-black pigment. Depending on the setting, applying an electrical charge to the material will cause either the white or black pigments to rise to the top of the microcapsule, changing the vehicle's color in moments.

While the current iteration can only swap between a pair of colors, the palette could eventually be expanded to display a rainbow's worth of differing shades. "This gives the driver the freedom to express different facets of their personality or even their enjoyment of change outwardly, and to redefine this each time they sit into their car," Stella Clarke, Head of Project for the BMW iX Flow featuring E Ink, said in a prepared statement. [...] E-ink exterior displays could also prove useful in more practical applications such as changing colors depending on the weather to increase a vehicle's battery life (and therefore, range) in cold climates or reduce the need for air conditioning in balmy weather.

A supermajority of customer service representatives for Google Fiber, operating out of a store in Kansas City, Missouri, have signed union cards in the hopes of bargaining their first contract with their bosses. Engadget reports: They're organizing under the auspices of the Alphabet Workers Union, a year-old division of the Communication Workers of America which is seeking to represent employees and contractors at all level of Google's parent company. The 11 workers -- 10 of whom have signed cards since the union drive began in October -- are jointly employed by Google and a staffing agency called BDS Connected Solutions.

That's not out of the ordinary, as staffing arrangements with Alphabet go: a 2019 story in the New York Times found temps and contractors made up the majority of the tech giant's workforce, while a Recode report that same year indicated that this second class of laborers earned significantly less than Google's own full-time employees. According to two BDS workers who spoke to Engadget, customer representatives had been feeling left out of key conversations about staffing and safety protocols, and communication with management has deteriorated. [...] Kansas City was the very first market Google Fiber launched in, nearly a decade ago.

What makes this push to form a bargaining unit somewhat unusual, however, has been the decision to skip straight to petitioning the National Labor Relations Board. Typically, this is the longer, more arduous option when an employer refuses to voluntarily recognize a union. But, according to Adair, Alphabet and BDS have neither attempted to quash the union drive, nor expressed a willingness to recognize it. "There's been no acknowledgement, no pushback. no response at all yet," they said. [...] While they weren't keen to give too many specifics as to what they'd hope to secure in a first contract, one of the benefits they're seeking to obtain is hazard pay [while working in person in a pandemic.] While it may be months or years before the NLRB makes a ruling, Google Fiber representative Mike Knox hopes it might spur action from others within Google Fiber. "We're really hoping that this inspires in that regard," he said. "We're hoping that's a flashpoint where other people can see that and decide to push for more input."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Chevy Silverado, one of the top-selling pickup trucks in the US, is going electric. General Motors CEO Mary Barra unveiled Chevy's answer to the Ford F-150 Lightning during a virtual presentation at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. GM hopes that the plug-in pickup's familiar nameplate will help it lure Silverado owners and other truck fans to the world of zero tailpipe emissions. The Silverado EV is the second electric truck for GM, succeeding the GMC Hummer EV, which went into production last year. But when it comes out in late 2023, the electric Silverado will be one of the flagship vehicles in the company's much larger $35 billion push into electric vehicles, as well as the first electric truck for the automaker's Chevy brand.

At launch, the Silverado EV will be available in two configurations: an RST First Edition and a fleet-oriented Work Truck (WT) model. Both models will get more than 400 miles of range on a full charge (though that number still needs to be certified by the Environmental Protection Agency). The base model work truck will start at $39,900, while the fully loaded RST First Edition, named because it will be first off the assembly line in spring 2023, will sell for the suggested price of $105,000. Chevy says that after production ramps up, various versions of the truck will be available for $50,000-$80,000. The automaker is already taking reservations.

Like most electric vehicles, the electric Silverado will be incredibly quick, able to sprint from 0 to 60 mph in less than 4.5 seconds. That's quicker than the RWD single-motor Cybertruck and about on par with the Ford F-150 Lightning and the tri-motor Cybertruck. (Tesla says the quad-motor truck will be able to hit 60 mph in 2.9 seconds.) The RST version sounds like it could easily knock the wind out of you, with 485kW of total power (664 horsepower) and 780 pound-feet of torque while in the Silverado's Wide Open Watts Mode. The RST First Edition of the truck will also feature a host of additional features, including: Four-wheel steering; Automatic Adaptive Air Suspension, enabling the vehicle to be raised or lowered 2 inches; Multi-Flex Midgate that expands the truck's cargo capability while maintaining seating for a rear row passenger Available Multi-Flex Tailgate with power release; 17-inch LCD infotainment screen paired with a neighboring 11-inch-diagonal reconfigurable driver instrument display and a multi-color driver head-up display with a field of view over 14 inches; and Trailering-capable Super Cruise, GM's hands-free driver assistance technology, allowing drivers to travel hands-free on more than 200,000 miles of compatible roads across the US and Canada. GM doesn't have its own charging network, so Silverado EV owners "will need to rely on a patchwork of third-party EV charging companies for most of their needs," notes The Verge. For onboard power, the Silverado bests the F-150 Lightning "putting out an incredible 10.2kW for all sorts of charging needs, including powering an entire home or charging another electric vehicle."

The vehicle will be built in Detroit at GM's Factory Zero EV plant.

Further reading:
Car and Driver: As Chevy Silverado EV Charges after Ford F-150 Lightning, How They Compare
The Drive: Here's What Comes in the $40K 2024 Chevy Silverado EV Work Truck
Engadget: Watch GM's Silverado EV Reveal In 10 Minutes

When it comes to forecasting the elements, many seem ready to welcome the machine. But humans still outperform the algorithms -- especially in bad conditions. From a report: [...] Similarly, research published by NOAA Weather Prediction Service director David Novak and his colleagues show that while human forecasters may not be able to "beat" the models on your typical sunny, fair-weather day, they still produce more accurate predictions than the algorithm-crunchers in bad weather. Over the two decades of information Novak's team studied, humans were 20 to 40 percent more accurate at forecasting near-future precipitation than the Global Forecast System (GFS) and the North American Mesoscale Forecast System (NAM), the most commonly used national models. Humans also made statistically significant improvements to temperature forecasting over both model's guidance. "Oftentimes, we find that in the bigger events is when the forecasters can make some value-added improvements to the automated guidance," says Novak. Particularly in adverse conditions, great improvements to the model's forecast were usually due to human augmentation, he adds. This is even more true for local, severe events like thunderstorms and tornadoes, which rely on split-second decision-making in order to save lives. As forecasters become more familiar with a particular model, they begin to notice its biases and failings, Novak adds. Just like the model learns from us, we learn from the model.

Alphabet's Google used the annual CES technology conference to showcase upcoming deeper ties among its devices and preview support for unlocking more cars with Android phones. From a report: The enhancements announced Wednesday included more quickly pairing accessories with devices running Google's Android and Chromebook laptop software, unlocking devices with Google software via smartwatches running Google's Wear OS and sharing content across products. The new features mirror work Apple has done with its software and hardware, an effort that has led consumers to buy more types of Apple devices. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant has long touted its ecosystem as superior to Google's because of tight integration, and now Google is trying to rival that experience.

Facebook parent company Meta Platforms has stopped development of a new software operating system to power its virtual reality devices and upcoming augmented reality glasses, The Information reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the decision. From a report: Shelving the project, which had been underway for several years and involved hundreds of employees, marked a setback for the company's attempt to own the underlying software behind its Oculus VR headset and future augmented or mixed reality devices. The screens of its planned devices aim to overlay digital images on the real world or weave real-world objects into VR apps.

Meta uses an open-source version of Google's Android operating system to power Meta's existing Oculus Quest VR devices. But Meta wanted to create an OS from scratch to power them and future devices, a project that became known internally as XROS. XR is a catch-all term for VR, AR, and mixed reality. In MR, the wearer of a headset could view and use real-world objects, such as a keyboard, to do work or play games in a VR-like app. Instead, the company has told some staff it would continue to modify an open-source version of Android, which Google developed for smartphones but which other companies have used to power various devices, the people familiar with the matter said. Meta's modified version of Android, known internally as VROS, powers existing Oculus VR headsets.

The crackdown is killing the entrepreneurial drive that made China a tech power and destroying jobs that used to attract the country's brightest. From a report: Like many ambitious young Chinese, Zhao Junfeng studied hard in college and graduate school so he could land a coveted job as a programmer at a big Chinese internet company. After finishing graduate school in 2019, he joined an e-commerce company in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, got married and adopted a cat named Mango. In November of 2021, he moved to Shanghai to join one of China's biggest video platforms, iQiyi. He was on track to achieve a much-desired middle-class life, documenting his rise on his social media account. Then barely a month into his new job, he was let go when iQiyi laid off more than 20 percent of its staff.

The ranks of the unemployed technology workers are swelling, as China's once vibrant internet industry is hit by a harsh and capricious regulatory crackdown. Under the direction of China's top leader, Xi Jinping, the government's unbridled hand is meddling in big ways and small, leaving companies second-guessing their strategies and praying to not become the next targets for crackdown. In place of the pride and ambition that dominated a few years ago, fear and gloom now rule as many tech companies lower their growth targets and lay off young, well-educated workers. Like their American counterparts, China's biggest tech companies are regulated to limit abuses of power and to mitigate systemic risks. But Beijing's hyper-political approach shows that it's more about the Communist Party taking control of the industry than about leveling the playing field.

The crackdown is killing the innovation, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit that made China a tech power in the past decade. It is destroying companies, profits and jobs that used to attract China's best and brightest. Even people within the system are alarmed by the heavy-handed approach. The former head of China's sovereign wealth fund urged restrictions on the power of regulators. Hu Xijin, the newly retired editor of the official newspaper Global Times and an infamous propagandist, said he hoped that regulatory actions should help make most companies healthier instead of leaving them "dying on the operating table." The damage has been done. Some internet companies have been forced to shut down, while others are suffering from huge losses or disappointing earnings. Many publicly listed companies have seen their share prices fall by half, if not more.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Agricultural equipment maker John Deere has announced its latest piece of autonomous farming kit: a package of hardware and software that combines machine learning with the company's GPS-powered auto-steer features to create a "fully autonomous tractor." The technology to support autonomous farming has been developing rapidly in recent years, but John Deere claims this is a significant step forward. With this technology, farmers will not only be able to take their hands off the wheel of their tractor or leave the cab -- they'll be able to leave the field altogether, letting the equipment do the work without them while monitoring things remotely using their smartphone. "This is not a demo. It's not a concept machine. It's something we've had in the field with farmers for years and will be taking to production in fall," Deanna Kovar, vice president of production and precision ag production systems at John Deere, told The Verge. "We're not going from no tech all the way up to an autonomous machine," says Kovar. "John Deere's AutoTrac solution has taken the job of steering in the field out of the operators' hands for almost 20 years now." Today's announcement, she says, builds on these solutions.

The big difference with this new technology is that drivers will now be able to set-and-forget some aspects of their self-driving tractors. The company's autonomy kit includes six pairs of stereo cameras that capture a 360-degree view around the tractor. This input is then analyzed by machine vision algorithms, which spot unexpected obstacles. "All [farmers] need to do is transport [their tractor] to the field, get it set, get out the cab, and use their mobile phone to 'swipe to farm,'" says Kovar. "And every eight hours, they return to give it fuel and move it from field to field."

Although John Deere is presenting this as an autonomous system, it's worth noting that there are humans in the loop, and not just farmers. When the company's algorithms spot something unexpected, images from the cameras will be sent to "tele-operators" -- essentially a call center of third-party contractors who will manually check if the obstacle is a false positive or if the problem has resolved itself. If it's a real issue, they'll escalate things to the farmer via an alert on their mobile app. The farmer can then view the images themselves and decide if they want to plot a new course or check the situation in person. "We've trained the algorithm to know that those are birds flying, you don't have to stop for birds. But if you have, say, a dog in the field, then we'll stop," says Kovar. "We don't want to always alert the farmer because this could be two in the morning. Part of the value of autonomy is allowing farmers to focus on other tasks." At first, the autonomous tractors will focus on the job of tillage. "This is a 'competing priority' job that's usually done around harvest time, says Kofar, meaning farmers may set it aside in favor of more pressing tasks," reports The Verge. "That makes it a perfect target for automation."

"The company will be selling its new autonomy package as equipment to be retrofitted onto a number of its more recent tractors. But it has not released pricing -- either upfront costs or annual subscriptions (which it charges for its autosteer products)."

A class action lawsuit has been filed in California against Google, Apple and the CEOs of both tech giants for allegedly violating antitrust laws, according to a press release. The complaint calls for the breakup of Google and Apple into separate and independent companies in keeping with the precedent of the of Standard Oil company into Exxon, Mobile, Conoco, Amoco, Sohio, Chevron and others, the release stated. PYMNTS.com reports: Charges in the suit allege that Google and Apple have agreed that Apple would keep out of the internet search business against Google, according to the release. It also claims Google shares its search profits with Apple and gives Apple preferential treatment for all Apple devices; annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; suppression of smaller competitors to keep them from the search sector; and acquiring competing companies. Allegations also include higher advertising rates than rates that would be in a competitive system, the release stated.

Attorneys are seeking an end to the alleged billion-dollar payments to Apple from Google and asking the court to prohibit non-compete agreements between the two companies and end the profit-sharing agreement and the preferential treatment for Google on Apple devices, according to the release. "These powerful companies abused their size by unlawfully foreclosing and monopolizing major markets which in an otherwise free enterprise system would have created jobs, lowered prices, increased production, added new competitors, encouraged innovations and increased the quality of services in the digital age," Joseph M. Alioto of Alioto Law, who is representing the plaintiffs, said in the release.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Whether it's cigarettes or alcohol, many governments have legislated that companies must warn consumers of the negative effects of their products. This is often achieved on packaging or required in advertising. France is now intending to bring such measures to the automotive industry, forcing carmakers to supplement ads with messages about greener transport alternatives, as reported by CTV News. Coming into force on March 1st, the legislation is the product of years of lobbying from French environmental groups. The law requires the mention of one of three statements in any given advert. Roughly translated, these are "For short journeys, walk or cycle," as well as "think about carpooling" and "Take public transport daily."

These messages must be included in all advertising, whether in print, online, or broadcast on radio or TV. The messages must be clearly visible on screen, or in the case of radio ads, be spoken aloud after the ad proper is finished. A hashtag, #SeDeplacerMoinsPolluer, is also required to be displayed in certain contexts, which translates to "Move without pollution." Fines for non-compliance can range up to $56,450. It's part of a wider push to cut down on transport emissions in France, with private cars making up a full 15 percent of the country's greenhouse gas output. The country has already pledged to end the sale of gas and diesel-powered cars by 2040, while the city of Paris has banned older, more polluting vehicles from the city center.

Reader segaboy81 shares a report: When Microsoft announced Windows 11 in June of 2021, it was greeted with mixed reactions by the tech press. Some outlets praised the round corners and modern design elements, while others conjectured that visual elements from the remains of Windows 10x had simply been transplanted onto a stable, familiar base. All the while, Microsoft had been gaining a loyal following with what was purported to be last version on Windows. Windows, like Arch Linux, had essentially become a rolling release. That all changed with the announcement of the Surface Pro 8, Surface Go 3, and Surface Laptop Studio.

The road has been long for many users, mired with controversy regarding TPM 2.0, AMD Ryzen performance pitfalls, and more. We are a full two months into the official release of Windows 11, but driver support for Microsoft's Surface line of devices listed on the official compatibility list is still incomplete. Counting AMD and Intel variants of the Surface Laptop and the 2021 lineup of new hardware, there are 16 base Surface configurations that support Windows 11. Five of them still don't have a Windows 11 driver package two months after release. They are as follows: Surface Go 2, Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop 2, Surface Laptop 3 (Ryzen), and Surface Studio 2.

At its CES press conference today, NVIDIA teased a new flagship GPU: the RTX 3090 Ti. It says more details will arrive soon, but handed out a few specs to tide its fans over until then. From a report: As a refresher, NVIDIA currently has the RTX 3090 at the top of its stack, with the RTX 3080 Ti close behind and the RTX 3080 as the mainstream flagship. All three are based on the same GA102 chip, with the number of active cores, clock speeds and memory configurations being the key differentiators. The RTX 3090 Ti will usurp the 3090 as the ultra high-end GPU outside of its creator line. Like the 3090, the 3090 Ti will have 24GB of GDDR6X memory, except it'll be running at 21Gbit/s, as opposed to the 19.5Gbit/s of the 3090's memory. NVIDIA also says the GPU is capable of calculating 40 shader teraflops, 78 RT teraflops and 320 tensor (AI) teraflops That compares to the 3090's 35.6 shader teraflops, 69.5 RT teraflops and 285 tensor teraflops.

AnandTech: The notebook market is a tough nut to crack with a single solution. People want that mix of high performance at the top, cost effectiveness at the bottom, and throughout there has to be efficiency, utility, and function. On the back of a successful ramp last year, AMD is striking the notebook market hot again in 2022 with the launch of its new Ryzen 6000 Mobile processors. These 'Rembrandt' APUs feature AMD's latest RDNA2 graphics, up to eight Zen3+ cores with enhanced power management features, and it uses TSMC's N6 manufacturing process for performance and efficiency improvements. Yesterday AMD disclosed that they would be launching the new Ryzen 6000 Mobile series today -- updated cores, better graphics, more features, all in a single monolithic package a little over 200 mm2.

There will be 10 new processors, ranging from the traditional portable 15 W and 28 W hardware, up to 35 W and 45 W plus for the high-end gaming machines. AMD is expecting 200+ premium systems in the market with Ryzen Mobile in 2022. At the heart of the design is AMD's Zen 3+ core, which affords an improvement in power management between the cores, but keeps the Zen 3 performance characteristics. The focus here is mainly to improve idle power consumption and power when using accelerators, to help extend the life of ultraportable devices -- AMD is claiming 15-40% lower power between web browsing and video streaming. There is a frequency uplift as well, with the top processors going up to 5.0 GHz. AMD is claiming up to 1.3x single thread performance for the Ryzen 7 6800U.

Josh Wardle, a software engineer in Brooklyn, knew his partner loved word games, so he created a guessing game for just the two of them. As a play on his last name, he named it Wordle. But after the couple played for months, and after it rapidly became an obsession in his family's WhatsApp group once he introduced it to relatives, Mr. Wardle thought he might be on to something and released it to the rest of the world in October. From a report: On Nov. 1, 90 people played. On Sunday, just over two months later, more than 300,000 people played. It's been a meteoric rise for the once-a-day game, which invites players to guess a five-letter word in a similar manner as the guess-the-color game Mastermind. After guessing a five-letter word, the game tells you whether any of your letters are in the secret word and whether they are in the correct place. You have six tries to get it right. Few such popular corners of the internet are as low-frills as the website, which Mr. Wardle built himself as a side project. There are no ads or flashing banners; no windows pop up or ask for money. There is merely the game on a black background.

"I think people kind of appreciate that there's this thing online that's just fun," Mr. Wardle said in an interview on Monday. "It's not trying to do anything shady with your data or your eyeballs. It's just a game that's fun." This is not Mr. Wardle's first brush with suddenly capturing widespread attention. Formerly a software engineer for Reddit, he created two collaborative social experiments on the site, called The Button and Place, that each were phenomena in their moment. But Wordle was built without a team of engineers. It was just him and his partner, Palak Shah, killing time during a pandemic. Mr. Wardle said he first created a similar prototype in 2013, but his friends were unimpressed and he scrapped the idea. In 2020, he and Ms. Shah "got really into" the New York Times Spelling Bee and the daily crossword, "so I wanted to come up with a game that she would enjoy," he said. The breakthrough, he said, was limiting players to one game per day. That enforced a sense of scarcity, which he said was partially inspired by the Spelling Bee, which leaves people wanting more, he said.

Mercedes-Benz has unveiled a concept electric vehicle it claims would be able to run for more than 620 miles before needing to recharge. Engadget reports: Should it come to fruition and live up to that promise, the Vision EQXX would beat the range of the Lucid Air Dream Edition by more than 100 miles and the Tesla Model S Long Range Plus by around 220 miles. Based on the automaker's simulations, the Vision EQXX would use less than 10 kWh to travel 62 miles on public roads, delivering an efficiency of more than 6 miles per kWh. Converted into fossil fuel consumption, Mercedes says that's around the "golden figure" of 1 liter of gasoline per 62 miles.

The battery is half the size of and 30 percent lighter than the one in the EQS. However, it still has a capacity of almost 100 kWh. What's more, there are ultra-thin solar panels on the roof that can add up to 25 km (15.5 miles) of range. The Vision EQXX is a lightweight car (1,750 kg or 3,858 lbs) that has been aerodynamically optimized. The automaker says that, with a drag coefficient of cd 0.17, the EV is more aerodynamic than a football (which has a cd of 0.18 to 0.2). What's more, Mercedes claims that 95 percent of battery energy is directed to the wheels.

Teams from Mercedes' research and development centers worked with its Formula 1 and Formula E engineers on the concept. They harnessed digital tools to reduce waste and weight by cutting out excess material -- the wheels are made with magnesium and the brake discs are built with aluminum alloy. The Vision EQXX uses recycled and plant-based materials too. As for the interior, the Vision EQXX's infotainment system has a single 47.5-inch, mini-LED 8K screen. Like the Hyperscreen in the EQS, it spans almost the entire width of the cabin, though this is a one-piece display. The automaker worked with NAVIS Automotive Systems on a navigation system with zoom and scroll functions that include a satellite view. The "Hey Mercedes" voice assistant is integrated into the infotainment system too.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Five of the world's most powerful nations have agreed that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought" in a rare joint pledge to reduce the risk of such a conflict ever starting. The pledge was signed by the US, Russia, China, the UK and France, the five nuclear weapons states recognized by the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) who are also the five permanent members of the UN security council. They are known as the P5 or the N5. Such a common statement on a major issue of global security has become a rarity at a time of increasing friction between Russia, China and the west. With Moscow threatening to invade Ukraine and China signaling its readiness to use military force against Taiwan, the joint statement represents a renewed commitment to prevent any confrontation turning into a nuclear catastrophe.

A senior US state department official said the wording of the statement had been hammered out at P5 meetings over several months, despite the high-tension environment. "At the base level to be able to say that this is how we think about these risks, and this is an acknowledgement that it is something that we want to avoid, particularly during a difficult time, I think is noteworthy," the official said. The release of the statement had been timed to coincide with the five-yearly review conference of the NPT, but that conference has been postponed amid the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, and disagreements on whether the session could be held virtually. "We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought," the statement said, echoing a joint declaration by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev at a 1985 summit in Geneva.

The NPT was a bargain between states without nuclear weapons, who pledged not to acquire them, and the five nuclear-armed states, which promised to disarm. The review conference, originally planned for 2020, was expected to be contentious as a result of the stalling of momentum towards disarmament and the moves made by the five weapons states to modernize their arsenals. Four other countries with nuclear weapons, not recognized under NPT: Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea -- have also shown no signs of reducing their stockpiles. Meanwhile, the breakdown of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran and the deadlock so far in attempts to salvage it, have raised the risks of nuclear proliferation, particularly in the Middle East. Monday's joint statement was aimed at improving the atmosphere at the NPT review conference.

Given that 2021 was a blockbuster year for NFTs, it's not particularly surprising that major tech companies are incorporating Non-Fungible Tokens into their CES lineup. From a report: The latest comes from Samsung, which revealed a new "NFT Aggregation Platform" designed for its smart TVs. The platform, which will be available on Samsung's MicroLed, Neo QLED and The Frame models, allows users to browse and buy NFTs directly from their sets. The platform pulls in NFTs from several marketplaces, so users can preview the art and see other relevant details, like who created the work, as well as relevant blockchain metadata.