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Verizon demos THOR, its new vehicle for frontline rapid humanitarian response
The increasingly intense heats bearing down feverishly across the globe are accelerating the number, scale, and complexity of disasters worldwide. Just in the past few weeks, we have seen record heat in the United States Pacific Northwest that has led to hundreds of deaths — with more heat on the way.
Heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, typhoons and many other types of weather-related disasters create huge challenges for infrastructure providers like energy utilities and telecoms, who have to keep uptime as close to 100% as possible for their customers even in the midst of some of the most challenging environments humans have ever witnessed.
To that end, Verizon (which, as a reminder, is the ultimate parent company for TechCrunch for now) announced today the first demo unit of what it dubs its THOR vehicle, for Tactical Humanitarian Operations Response. Designed on top of a Ford F650 pickup truck chassis, THOR is designed to provide highly mobile and resilient connectivity to frontline responders and citizens through wireless technologies like 5G Ultra Wideband and satellite uplinks.
Verizon’s THOR vehicle can deploy wireless technologies like 5G and satellite uplinks to rapidly deploy connectivity to frontline responders. Image Credits: Verizon
The company developed the prototype in partnership with the Department of Defense’s NavalX and the SoCal Tech Bridge, and unveiled the prototype last week at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, just north of San Diego.
In addition to wireless connectivity, THOR can also potentially deploy a variety of drone capabilities. For instance, a vehicle could deploy a drone for search and rescue operations, or to help augment firefighters with intelligence on how a wildfire is developing over time.
As I discussed a few weeks ago, telcos like Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are increasing spending on a variety of resiliency initiatives, ranging from the rapid staging of mobile wireless equipment to novel solutions like AT&T’s FirstNet One, a dirigible capable of flying near a disaster zone to offer wireless services.
DisasterTech, as I have been dubbing it, has been gaining more attention of late from investors and companies both big and small as governments, the private sector, insurers, and individuals have to confront and respond to the intensifying nature of storms globally.
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Nintendo’s OLED Switch arrives October 8, priced at $350
So much for the big E3 reveal. Weeks after the big gaming show, Nintendo has finally taken the wraps off the latest iteration of its wildly popular hybrid gaming console. The Nintendo Switch (OLED model) [parentheses theirs] will arrive on October 8, priced at $350. That is, the company’s quick to note, the same day it launches Metroid Dread, the long-awaited latest side scrolling entry in the long-standing franchise.
The system sports a 7-inch OLED, improved audio and 64 GB of internal storage. The hybrid dock sports a wired LAN port, and the system ships with an adjustable port for playing in tabletop mode. There’s a sharp black and white color scheme, though the remainder of the materials looks to be similar to the earlier model, with most of that price bump going to the display. The company will also be offering a separate carrying case, because you don’t want to get the fancy screen on your new $350 system scratched.
From the sound of it, the two existing Switch models are sticking around as lower-cost alternatives. Those models run $299 and $199, respectively, though it seems reasonable to expect there may be some price drops as the new model arrives ahead of the holidays.
“The new Nintendo Switch (OLED model) is a great option for players who want to experience the new vibrant screen when playing in handheld and tabletop mode,” Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser said in a press release. “With the addition of this new model to the Nintendo Switch family of systems, people have an additional choice of a system that best fits the gaming experience they desire – whether it’s Nintendo Switch (OLED model), Nintendo Switch or Nintendo Switch Lite.”
The system will arrive in two color configurations. Per Nintendo:
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Nintendo Switch (OLED model) white set, which features white Joy-Con controllers, a black main unit and a white dock.
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Nintendo Switch (OLED model) neon red/neon blue set, which features neon red and neon blue Joy-Con controllers, a black main unit and a black dock.
An upgraded version of the four-year-old system has been rumored for some time, carrying the decidedly less clunky name, Switch Pro. With both Sony and Microsoft releasing next-gen versions of their consoles last year, the time certainly seemed right for a big refresh from Nintendo. A refreshed version of the standard Switch arrived in July 2019, addressing the original’s poor battery life — far and away the largest complaint of an otherwise well-received system.
Image Credits: Nintendo
Of course, in spite of growing a bit long in the tooth, the Switch continued to dominate the sales charts ahead of the arrival of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox One X. Nintendo utterly dominated sales during the pandemic, after some initial supply chain shortages. That success was due in no small part to the arrival of a new Animal Crossing title that provided some much-needed social gaming during the pandemic. Such success — coupled with potential supply chain shortage — led to suggestions that the company had opted to delay the system’s release.
In spite of the lack of new hardware, last month’s E3 did see some big game news from Nintendo, before just a new Metroid. Far and away, the most eagerly anticipated is 2022’s sequel to Breath of the Wild, one of the most beloved entries in the Zelda series and easily one of the Switch’s best titles.
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MWC 2021 day one wrap-up
“It is great that MWC is back,” Samsung UK’s James Kitto said, opening up this year’s presser. “And behalf of everyone at Samsung, it’s great to be back at MWC.”
What, precisely, it means to be “back” in 2021 is another question entirely. Samsung was, of course, one of a number of major industry players who announced that they would not be exhibiting at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It was hard not to see an echo of last year’s event, when key players pulled out, one by one, forcing the GSMA to cancel the event altogether.
This year’s event is different for myriad reasons. For one thing, MWC’s traditional timeframe of late-February/early-March put the event directly in the crosshairs of COVID-19’s arrival in the EU. For another, this time out, the organizing body had another year to prepare.
The simplest route would have been to do what the CTA did with CES and go all-virtual. The first all-virtual CES had plenty of issues of course, but attempting an in-person element ahead of a widespread vaccine rollout in the U.S. would have, at best, complicated things by orders of magnitude.
COVID-19 continues to be a concern in Spain – as with much of the world. The GSMA opted to go ahead with the event this year, however, after pushing MWC back several months from its standard dates. The company has implemented all sorts of safety measures, but judging from early videos taken at the event, social distancing ought not to prove an issue on the show floor this year.
Image Credits: Samsung/Google
It seems safe to assume that most who are “attending” the event are doing so virtually – a list that includes the vendors themselves.
Samsung is among those high profile companies that presented a pre-recorded virtual press conference. Perhaps companies still see value in being attached to this sort of event even if it’s virtual, or maybe the on-going partnership with the organization is worth nurturing. The cynical part of me wonders how many of the sponsored sessions just couldn’t be reversed.
Samsung’s event was arguably the biggest of the day, but the presser felt like little more than a placeholder. The biggest news of the press conference was an expansion of a partnership Google announced at I/O last month, while much of the rest of the stream was pointing toward an Unpacked event happening later this summer.
Image Credits: Samsung
In fact, the event closed with a black and white slide reading “See you soon at the next Unpacked,” in case you didn’t get the hint. Bottom line: no hardware.
Lenovo, on the other hand, didn’t hold back. That’s due, in part, to the fact that the company releases a tremendous amount of hardware, so why not tie it to MWC, right?
The list of announcements inluces a new version of the Smart Clock Google Assistant alarm clock with a built-in wireless charging pads for phones and several tablets, including the Yoga Tab 11 and 13, which sport combination hanger/kickstand. The 13-inch system also doubles as an external monitor, which is when the kickstand really comes in handy.
Image Credits: Lenovo
TCL got out ahead of the event early, with the announcement of NXTWEAR G – a wearable OLED cinema display. The headmounted device approximates a 140-inch display with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The company also offered a better look at the 20 Pro 5G, which is coming to the States at just a dollar short of $500, featuring a snapdragon 750G processor and a headphone jack to boot.
TCL NEXTWEAR G
Those are your top line headlines for the show so far. The event runs through July 1st, so still plenty of show left, whether or not anyone will be there to see it in person.
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Nixie’s drone-based water sampling could save cities time and money
Regularly testing waterways and reservoirs is a never-ending responsibility for utility companies and municipal safety authorities, and generally — as you might expect — involves either a boat or at least a pair of waders. Nixie does the job with a drone instead, making the process faster, cheaper, and a lot less wet.
The most common methods of testing water quality haven’t changed in a long time, partly because they’re effective and straightforward, and partly because really, what else are you going to do? No software or web platform out there is going to reach into the middle of the river and pull out a liter of water.
But with the advent of drones powerful and reliable enough to deploy in professional and industrial circumstances, the situation has changed. Nixie is a solution by the drone specialists at Reign Maker, involving either a custom-built sample collection arm or an in-situ sensor arm.
The sample collector is basically a long vertical arm with a locking cage for a sample container. You put the empty container in there, fly the drone out to the location, then submerge the arm. When it flies back, the filled container can be taken out while the drone hovers and a fresh one put in its place to bring to the next spot. (This switch can be done safely in winds up to 18 MPH and sampling in currents up to 5 knots, the company said.)
Image Credits: Reign Maker
This allows for quick sampling at multiple locations — the drone’s battery will last about 20 minutes, enough for two to four samples depending on the weather and distance. Swap the battery out and drive to the next location and do it all again.
For comparison, Reign Maker pointed to New York’s water authority, which collects 30 samples per day from boats and other methods, at an approximate cost (including labor, boat fuel, etc) of $100 per sample. Workers using Nixie were able to collect an average of 120 samples per day, for around $10 each. Sure, New York is probably among the higher cost locales for this (like everything else) but the deltas are pretty huge. (The dipper attachment itself costs $850, but doesn’t come with a drone.)
It should be mentioned that the drone is not operating autonomously; it has a pilot who will be flying with line of sight (which simplifies regulations and requirements). But even so, that means a team of two, with a handful of spare batteries, can cover the same space that would normally take a boat crew and more than a little fuel. Currently the system works with the M600 and M300 RTK drones from DJI.
Image Credits: Reign Maker
The drone method has the added benefits of having precise GPS locations for each sample and of not disturbing the water when it dips in. No matter how carefully you step or pilot a boat, you’re going to be pushing the water all over the place, potentially affecting the contents of the sample, but that’s not the case if you’re hovering overhead.
In development is a smarter version of the sampler that includes a set of sensors that can do on-site testing for all the most common factors: temperature, pH, troubling organisms, various chemicals. Skipping the step of bringing the water back to a lab for testing streamlines the process immensely, as you might expect.
Right now Reign Maker is working with New York’s Department of Environmental Protection and in talks with other agencies. While the system would take some initial investment, training, and getting used to, it’s probably hard not to be tempted by the possibility of faster and cheaper testing.
Ultimately the company hopes to offer (in keeping with the zeitgeist) a more traditional SaaS offering involving water quality maps updating in real time with new testing. That too is still in the drawing-board phase, but once a few customers sign up it starts looking a lot more attractive.
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Google announces EPYC-based Tau virtual machines for Cloud
Google this morning announced the launch of Tau, a new family of virtual machines built on AMD’s third-gen EPYC processor. According to the company, the new x86-compatible system offers a 42% price-performance boost over standard VMs. Google notably first started utilizing AMD EPYC processors for Cloud back in 2017, while Amazon Cloud’s offerings date back to 2018.
Google claims the Tau family “leapfrogs” existing cloud VMs. The systems come in a variety of configurations, ranging up to 60vCPUs per VM, and 4GB of memory per vCPU. Networking bandwidth goes up to 32 Gbps, and they can be coupled with a variety of different network attached storage.
“Customers across every industry are dealing with more demanding and data-intensive workloads and looking for strategic ways to speed up performance and reduce costs,” Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said in a press release. “Our work with key strategic partners like AMD has allowed us to broaden our offerings and deliver customers the best price performance for compute-heavy, business-critical applications– all on the cleanest cloud in the industry.”
Image Credits: Google
Google has already signed up some high-profile customers for an early trial, including Twitter, Snap and DoIT.
“High performance at the right price point is a critical consideration as we work to serve the global public conversation,” Twitter Platform Lead Nick Tornow said in a blog post. “We are excited by initial tests that show potential for double digit performance improvement. We are collaborating with Google Cloud to more deeply evaluate benefits on price and performance for specific compute workloads that we can realize through use of the new Tau VM family.”
Image Credits: Google
The Tau VMs will be arriving for Google Cloud in Q3 of this year. The company has already opened the system up to clients for pre-registration. Pricing is dependent on the configuration. For example, a 32vCPU VM sporting 128GB RAM will run around $1.35 an hour.
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Nintendo teases 2022 release for Breath of the Wild sequel and releases Zelda Game & Watch to tide us over
Nintendo defied expectations today with an E3-timed Direct showing off not the hoped-for new Switch hardware but a dozen or so new games — as well as a general release window for the much-anticipated next Zelda game. And to celebrate the original’s 35th anniversary, it will sell a new Game & Watch featuring the first three games in the series.
Among other things, Nintendo showed off remasters or remakes of titles from the “Monkey Ball,” “Mario Party,” “Advance Wars, “Wario Ware” and other series, and announced new entries in the “Mario + Rabbids” and “Shin Megami Tensei” worlds. Other newly announced or teased games will be making it to Switch as well, like the new “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
Perhaps most surprising was the inclusion of a new side-scrolling Metroid game, the first in nearly 20 years — and in fact, it has been in and out of development for half that time. “Metroid Dread,” the fifth in the mainline series that began on the NES, will release October 8, and we’ll see if Nintendo has managed to keep pace in a genre it pioneered but others have refined.
Image Credits: Nintendo
Everyone was hoping for Zelda news, however, and Nintendo… only slightly disappointed us. As the announcers noted, it’s the 35th anniversary of the NES original, and the perfect time to announce something truly special, but they have “no campaigns or other Nintendo Switch games planned.”
Instead, they offered an admittedly tempting Game & Watch in the style of the one we saw released last year for the Mario series. I had lots of good things to say about that device, and the new one will no doubt be just as fun. The ability to pause the game and pick it up later (but not rewind or save states) should make for a fun, authentic playthrough of the first three games in the Zelda series: “The Legend of Zelda” and “Zelda II: The Adventure of Link” for NES, and “Link’s Awakening” for Game Boy (recently remade).
Image Credits: Nintendo
The last item on the list was a new look at the follow-up to Breath of the Wild, which years after its debut still shines as one of the, if not the, best game on the Switch. Its sequel has a lot to live up to!
While the first trailer was all cinematic, this one showed gameplay and the overworld, including a new level of verticality that brings flying fortresses and castles in the air into play. It certainly looks impressive, but one wonders how much further the company can push its Switch hardware. After all, “Breath of the Wild” pushed the system to its limits at its debut, and even then it was not as powerful as its rivals from Microsoft and Sony — both now replaced by a new generation.
One hopes that Nintendo is simply being weird and has a trick up its sleeve, as it has many times before. The Switch was announced out of nowhere, and previous hardware updates have also dropped with little or no warning and seemingly arbitrary timing. What’s expected is an updated Switch that’s physically the same dimensions but considerably updated inside and using a larger, better display. Perfect backwards compatibility, like with the 3DS series of handhelds, also seems only logical. But Nintendo has always done its own thing and its fans wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Microsoft plans to launch dedicated Xbox cloud gaming hardware
Microsoft will soon launch a dedicated device for game streaming, the company announced today. It’s also working with a number of TV manufacturers to build the Xbox experience right into their internet-connected screens and Microsoft plans to bring cloud gaming to the PC Xbox app later this year, too, with a focus on play-before-you-buy scenarios.
It’s unclear what these new game streaming devices will look like. Microsoft didn’t provide any further details. But chances are we’re talking about either a Chromecast-like streaming stick or a small Apple TV-like box. So far, we also don’t know which TV manufacturers it will partner with.
It’s no secret that Microsoft is bullish about cloud gaming. With Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, it’s already making it possible for its subscribers to play more than 100 console games on Android, streamed from the Azure cloud, for example. In a few weeks, it’ll open cloud gaming in the browser on Edge, Chrome and Safari, to all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers (it’s currently in limited beta). And it is bringing Game Pass Ultimate to Australia, Brazil, Mexico and Japan later this year, too.
In many ways, Microsoft is unbundling gaming from the hardware — similar to what Google is trying with Stadia (an effort that, so far, has fallen flat for Google) and Amazon with Luna. The major advantage Microsoft has here is a large library of popular games, something that’s mostly missing on competing services, with the exception of Nvidia’s GeForce Now platform — though that one has a different business model since its focus is not on a subscription but on allowing you to play the games you buy in third-party stores like Steam or the Epic store.
What Microsoft clearly wants to do is expand the overall Xbox ecosystem, even if that means it sells fewer dedicated high-powered consoles. The company likens this to the music industry’s transition to cloud-powered services backed by all-you-can-eat subscription models.
“We believe that games, that interactive entertainment, aren’t really about hardware and software. It’s not about pixels. It’s about people. Games bring people together,” said Microsoft’s Xbox head Phil Spencer. “Games build bridges and forge bonds, generating mutual empathy among people all over the world. Joy and community — that’s why we’re here.”
It’s worth noting that Microsoft says it’s not doing away with dedicated hardware, though, and is already working on the next generation of its console hardware — but don’t expect a new Xbox console anytime soon.
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Tiny handheld Playdate preorders open next month for $179, with 24 charming monochrome games to start
Playdate, app and game designer Panic’s first shot at hardware, finally has a firm price and ship date, as well as a bunch of surprise features cooked up since its announcement in 2019. The tiny handheld gaming console will cost $179, ship later this year and come with a 24-game “season” doled out over 12 weeks. But now it also has a cute speaker dock and low-code game creation platform.
We first heard about Playdate more than two years ago, were charmed by its clean look, funky crank control, and black and white display, and have been waiting for news ever since. Panic’s impeccable design credentials combined with Teenage Engineering’s creative hardware chops? It’s bound to be a joy to use, but there wasn’t much more than that to go on.
Now the company has revealed all the important details we were hoping for, and many more, to boot.
Image Credits: Panic
Originally we were expecting 12 games to be delivered over 12 weeks, but in the intervening period it seems they’ve collected more titles than planned, and that initial “season” of games has expanded to 24. No one knows exactly what to expect from these games except that they’re exclusive to the Playdate and many use the crank mechanic in what appear to be fun and interesting ways: turning a turntable, opening a little door, doing tricks as a surfer, and so on.
The team hasn’t decided how future games will be distributed, though they seem to have some ideas. Another season? One-off releases? Certainly the presence of a new game by one-man indie hit parade Lucas Pope would sell like hotcakes.
Image Credits: Panic
But the debut of a new lo-fi game development platform called Pulp suggests a future where self-publishing may also be an option. This lovely little web-based tool lets anyone put together a game using presets for things like controls and actions, and may prove to be a sort of tiny Twine in time.
A dock accessory was announced as well, something to keep your Playdate front and center on your desk. The speaker-equipped dock, also a lemony yellow, acts as a magnetic charging cradle for the console, activating a sort of stationary mode with a clock and music player (Poolsuite.fm, apparently, with original relaxing tunes). It even has two holes in which to put your pens (and Panic made a special yellow pen just for the purpose as well).
Image Credits: Panic
The $179 price may cause some to balk — after all, it’s considerably more than a Nintendo 3DS and with the dock probably approaches the price of a Switch. But this isn’t meant to be a competitor with mainstream gaming — instead, it’s a sort of anti-establishment system that embraces weirdness and provides something equally unfamiliar and undeniably fun.
The team says that there will be a week’s warning before orders can be placed, and that they don’t plan to shut orders down if inventory runs out, but simply allow people to preorder and cancel at will until they receive their unit. Shipping will begin in late 2021, and if the 20,000 units in the initial run don’t cover it, they’ll make more and ship as they come in.
We hope to get one ourselves to test and review, but since part of the charm of the whole thing is the timed release and social aspect of discovery and sharing, it’s more than likely we’ll be experiencing it along with everyone else.
(This article originally stated Playdate ships next month, but it will actually ship later — preorders begin next month.)
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Huawei officially launches Android alternative HarmonyOS for smartphones
Think you’re living in a hyper-connected world? Huawei’s proprietary HarmonyOS wants to eliminate delays and gaps in user experience when you move from one device onto another by adding interoperability to all devices, regardless of the system that powers them.
Two years after Huawei was added to the U.S. entity list that banned the Chinese telecom giant from accessing U.S. technologies, including core chipsets and Android developer services from Google, Huawei’s alternative smartphone operating system was unveiled.
On Wednesday, Huawei officially launched its proprietary operating system HarmonyOS for mobile phones. The firm began building the operating system in 2016 and made it open-source for tablets, electric vehicles and smartwatches last September. Its flagship devices such as Mate 40 could upgrade to HarmonyOS starting Wednesday, with the operating system gradually rolling out on lower-end models in the coming quarters.
HarmonyOS is not meant to replace Android or iOS, Huawei said. Rather, its application is more far-reaching, powering not just phones and tablets but an increasing number of smart devices. To that end, Huawei has been trying to attract hardware and home appliance manufacturers to join its ecosystem.
To date, more than 500,000 developers are building applications based on HarmonyOS. It’s unclear whether Google, Facebook and other mainstream apps in the West are working on HarmonyOS versions.
Some Chinese tech firms have answered Huawei’s call. Smartphone maker Meizu hinted on its Weibo account that its smart devices might adopt HarmonyOS. Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi, which are much larger players than Meizu, are probably more reluctant to embrace a rival’s operating system.
Huawei’s goal is to collapse all HarmonyOS-powered devices into one single control panel, which can, say, remotely pair the Bluetooth connections of headphones and a TV. A game that is played on a phone can be continued seamlessly on a tablet. A smart soymilk blender can customize a drink based on the health data gleaned from a user’s smartwatch.
Devices that aren’t already on HarmonyOS can also communicate with Huawei devices with a simple plug-in. Photos from a Windows-powered laptop can be saved directly onto a Huawei phone if the computer has the HarmonyOS plug-in installed. That raises the question of whether Android, or even iOS, could, one day, talk to HarmonyOS through a common language.
The HarmonyOS launch arrived days before Apple’s annual developer event scheduled for next week. A recent job posting from Apple mentioned a seemingly new concept, homeOS, which may have to do with Apple’s smart home strategy, as noted by MacRumors.
Huawei denied speculations that HarmonyOS is a derivative of Android and said no single line of code is identical to that of Android. A spokesperson for Huawei declined to say whether the operating system is based on Linux, the kernel that powers Android.
Several tech giants have tried to introduce their own mobile operating systems, to no avail. Alibaba built AliOS based on Linux but has long stopped updating it. Samsung flirted with its own Tizen but the operating system is limited to powering a few Internet of Things, like smart TVs.
Huawei may have a better shot at drumming up developer interest compared to its predecessors. It’s still one of China’s largest smartphone brands despite losing a chunk of its market after the U.S. government cut it off from critical chip suppliers, which could hamper its ability to make cutting-edge phones. HarmonyOS also has a chance to create an alternative for developers who are disgruntled with Android, if Huawei is able to capture their needs.
The U.S. sanctions do not block Huawei from using Android’s open-source software, which major Chinese smartphone makers use to build their third-party Android operating system. But the ban was like a death knell for Huawei’s consumer markets overseas as its phones abroad lost access to Google Play services.
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Microsoft’s Surface Duo gets dual-screen gaming support
In December, Microsoft wrote a blog post highlighting “The year ahead for Surface Duo.” The news highlighted the dual-screen device’s upcoming availability outside the U.S. (including Canada, the U.K., France and Germany this year), as well as a smattering of features. It’s been pretty well acknowledged from most everyone who reviewed the device (us included), that it’s very much a work in progress.
After making the feature available in beta, Microsoft today is issuing at update to Xbox Cloud Gaming for Android that will unlock some of the product’s entertainment potential. It’s something the company has discussed, and even previewed, but until now, it has remained one of a handful of blind spots.
The app works as you’d expect on the Duo — displaying the game on the top screen and transforming the bottom into a virtual version of an Xbox controller in the Compose Mode orientation. Obviously you can only go so far on that front with a touchscreen, but gaming is genuinely an application where having a second screen can really come in handy.
As Engadget notes, there are now more than 50 titles that support Xbox Touch Controls. Those will be available to users with an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription.
A much-hyped — and eagerly anticipated — alternative to the foldable form factor, the Duo was a disappointment on launch. The company has since dropped the product’s price from $1,500 to $1,000 — not exactly a sign that it was selling well — but continued software support like this is, perhaps, an indication that the company is going to support the line going forward, in spite of early stumbles.
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