Starlink users can now take their terminal on the road

Folks who enjoy camping or weekend trips in an RV now have another way to access the internet when they set up shop for the night — as long as they don’t mind lugging around Starlink hardware and paying $135 per month. A new feature called Portability allows users to temporarily use Starlink when they’re away from home.

In the US, Portability costs $25 per month. That’s on top of the regular service fee, which SpaceX recently bumped up to $110 per month. The hardware now costs $599 for those without a preorder.

Beyond the cost, there are a few other limits to Portability. For instance, it’s not worth taking a terminal with you on a transatlantic trip. Starlink says the feature is only available when users are on the same continent as their registered service address. If you use Starlink in another country for longer than two months, you’ll need to change the registered address to one in that jurisdiction.

Starlink still doesn’t support in-motion use as yet either, so you’ll need to find a stationary spot that’s within the service area and has a clear view of the sky. Meanwhile, it says Portability is offered on a “best effort basis.” Customers who are at their registered service address will receive priority access to the network. “When you bring your Starlink to a new location, this prioritization may result in degraded service, particularly at times of peak usage or network congestion,” Starlink wrote on a support page.

That said, the feature could give users much more flexibility. Starlink can provide internet access in areas that aren’t covered by cell towers, which could make Portability particularly useful for digital nomads who want to work from just about anywhere.

Chromebooks are finally getting AMD Ryzen 5000 C-series CPUs

AMD has at last made chips with its Zen 3 architecture for higher-end Chromebooks. It created several C-series Ryzen 5000 processors that are designed for Chrome OS. All of the CPUs in this lineup were built on a 7nm process and have Vega graphics.

At the top of the line is the eight-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 5825C. It has eight GPU cores and tops out at 4.5GHz with max boost — just below the 5700G’s 4.6GHz. AMD says this is the first Chromebook processor with eight high-performance cores.

A step below that APU is the Ryzen 5 5625C, which has six cores, 12 threads, seven GPU cores and a max boost speed of 4.3GHz. Next up is the Ryzen 3 5425C, with four cores, eight threads and six GPU cores. That maxes out at 4.1GHz. Lastly, there’s the Ryzen 3 5125C, which has a top speed of 3.0GHz. That model has two cores, four threads and three GPU cores.

The Ryzen and Athlon 3000 C-series chips, which top out at eight cores and eight threads, use the Zen architecture and are being positioned as mainstream-level options.

With the Ryzen 5000 C-series, AMD is promising up to 94 percent better battery life than you’d get with Intel chipsets. It says machines with the processors will run for up to 13 hours before they need to be recharged. The chips also have multi-monitor support for up to three 4K monitors, fast charging support and Chromebooks using them can instantly wake from sleep.

Among the first manufacturers to use the new chips are Acer and HP with the Chromebook Spin 514 and HP Elite c645 G2 Chromebook.

The latest version of Acer’s Chromebook is a 14-inch, full HD 2-in-1 that can house up to the Ryzen 7 5825C processor. It has support for WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 and up to 256GB of PCIe gen-3 NVMe SSD storage.

Acer says its device has military-grade MIL-STD 810H durability and a 100 percent sRGB color range. It has a 1080p webcam with a shutter, two USB-C gen-2 ports and optional HDMI. The battery will run for up to 10 hours on a single charge, Acer claims.

The Acer Chromebook Spin 514 (CP514-3H) will be available in Q3 in North America and the EMEA region, starting at $580/€749. An enterprise version will also be available in the third quarter, starting at $900 or €849.

HP Elite c645 G2 Chromebook Enterprise
HP

As for the HP Elite c645 G2 Chromebook, there are multiple display options, including a 14-inch 1080p IPS touchscreen with 250 nits of brightness. There’s also a non-touch 1,000-nit panel with low blue light and HP’s Eye Ease tech.

This model can be equipped with up to 16GB of soldered LPDDR4X memory, up to 512GB of PCIe SSD storage and an optional smart card reader. It has a 5MP webcam, along with two mics and dual speakers tuned by Bang & Olufsen. 

In addition, there’s support for fast charging and WiFi 6E. The c645 G2 has passed MIL-STD 810H durability tests as well. HP is also guaranteeing Chrome OS support through June 2030. 

The HP Elite c645 G2 Chromebook should be available in early June and it will start at $559. On top of that, the company announced the HP Elite c640 G3 Chromebook, which has similar specs but runs on Intel chips. That should arrive in mid-May with a starting price of $509. 

Enterprise versions of both the AMD- and Intel-powered Chromebooks are expected to go on sale in the same timeframes. Pricing for those will be announced later.

Sonos may roll out its own voice assistant next month

It seems Sonos is gearing up to roll out its own long-rumored voice assistant in the coming weeks. Sonos Voice is said to offer voice control for music playback on many of the company’s devices, offering owners another option if they’d rather not use Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

Sonos will first roll out Sonos Voice in the US on June 1st as part of a software update, according to The Verge. The feature should arrive in other countries later. Smart speakers and soundbars that support the S2 platform will all reportedly gain Sonos Voice support. A rumored $250 soundbar called Sonos Ray will likely be among those.

At the outset, Sonos Voice is said to support Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, Deezer and Sonos Radio. It’s believed that the voice assistant won’t work with Spotify or YouTube Music at the jump, which are pretty significant omissions. As you might expect, you’ll be able to ask Sonos devices to play artists, albums, songs or playlists from compatible services.

Voice commands will reportedly be handled on-device, and won’t be recorded or processed in the cloud. Unsurprisingly, the wake word is expected to be “Hey Sonos.” Users should still be able to control other connected home products via Alexa or Google Assistant on Sonos devices.

Sonos has had uneasy relationships with the likes of Amazon and Google over the years. In 2020, Sonos sued Google over alleged speaker patent infringement. The US International Trade Commission finalized a ruling on the case earlier this year, which resulted in Google having to make some minor changes to some products.

NYC targets CEO Bobby Kotick in latest Activision Blizzard lawsuit

Activision Blizzard has been hit with another lawsuit, this time from New York City officials. The suit, which was first obtained by Axios, takes aim at CEO Bobby Kotick. It accuses him of being “unfit” to negotiate his company’s pending sale to Microsoft, citing his “personal responsibility and liability for Activision’s broken workplace.”

The suit was filed by the New York City Employees’ Retirement System and pension funds that represent police, teachers and firefighters. The plaintiffs, who own stock in Activision Blizzard, argue that the Microsoft deal allows “Kotick and his fellow directors a means to escape liability for their egregious breaches of fiduciary duty.”

Since last July, Activision Blizzard has been the target of multiple lawsuits. It has been accused of fostering a “frat boy” culture and some have made allegations of workplace harassment and discrimination. In March, a wrongful death suit was filed against the company. Activision Blizzard also said in a filing yesterday that it’s cooperating with a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation on “disclosures on employment matters and related issues.”

In November, The Wall Street Journal reported that Kotick was aware of many of the alleged instances of harassment and that he may have protected employees who were accused of misconduct. That report, and the alleged workplace problems, are said to have prompted the buyout. The companies announced the sale in January.

New York City claims the $68.7 billion Microsoft deal, which was valued at $95 per share, undervalues a company that was trading at close to that price before the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued it last summer and started a wave of litigation. The NYC plaintiffs are demanding access to various company documents, including those related to the pending takeover and details on the five other possible buyers that Activision mentioned in filings on sale talks.

Activision Blizzard shareholders last week overwhelmingly approved the Microsoft deal. The companies hope to close the merger by the end of June 2023, though they require approval from regulators in the US, UK, China, the European Union and some other markets. Should the sale go through, Kotick stands to make as much as $520 million.

Xbox users can share screenshots and clips as Instagram-style stories

Microsoft is rolling out an update to the Xbox app for iOS and Android that includes a new social sharing feature. Players will be able to share screenshots, gameplay clips and achievements with their friends and others as Instagram- or Snapchat-style stories. You’ll be able to respond to other people’s stories with a reaction or message too.

You’ll find the stories on the home screen of the app. To share a clip, screenshot or achievement, access the channel, tap the plus sign on your gamertag and choose what you want to post from the gallery. You’ll be able to add a caption before sharing your story.

Although Instagram and Snapchat stories typically disappear after 24 hours, Xbox stories will be available for 72 hours. That means it’s more likely that your friends will see your updates, as long as they can tear themselves away from the new Halo Infinite season for long enough.

There’s another new feature for Xbox consoles as part of the May update. Microsoft calls it Quality of Service (QoS) tagging. It says this is a way of prioritizing “latency-sensitive outbound networking traffic such as party chat, console streaming and multiplayer.” The company says this feature could help to maintain your gaming experience amid connection issues on congested networks.

You can manage QoS tags in the Settings app. After selecting the General option, go to network settings, then advanced settings. You’ll then see the QoS tagging settings. DSCP tagging is enabled at the IPv4 and IPv6 packet level and works on both wired and wireless connections. WMM tagging works on the wireless packed level and is active only on Wi-Fi connections.

These updates are now live in Australia. Microsoft says they’ll arrive in other regions soon.

New ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ trailer shows a certain Sith Lord being assembled

Happy Star Wars Day! Lucasfilm and Disney+ are celebrating May the 4th by offering another look at the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series.

There’s not a ton of new footage in this trailer compared with the first teaser. There is, however, a snippet of a conversation between Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) and Owen Lars (Joel Edgerton) about training young Luke Skywalker to become a Jedi. There’s also a look at Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) being pieced together, which is much more than the breathing cameo from the previous trailer.

This clip reinforces one of the show’s main story threads as well. The Empire is desperately trying to hunt down an on-the-run Obi-Wan in an attempt to wipe out the Jedi once and for all. I wonder how that’ll pan out. There’s also a very brief peek of Kumail Nanjiani, whose character is intriguingly wearing Jedi-style robes, along with several shots of the villains.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is set 10 years after Revenge of the Sith and it will fill in some of the narrative gaps between the prequels and the original trilogy. While The Mandalorian, which was the first live-action Star Wars series, has been a hit, Obi-Wan Kenobi should be an easier sell for Disney+ thanks to the familiar characters that are front and center. Because of that, it doesn’t need to give away too much before the series debuts with two episodes on May 27th.

Uber is bouncing back from the pandemic faster than Lyft

Uber had a successful first quarter of 2022 by some measures, as it more than doubled its revenue year-over-year to $6.85 billion. Increased demand for rides following the Omicron surge played a role, as did higher ride prices due to a shortage of drivers.

The company reported that riders took 1.71 billion trips last quarter, an increase of 18 percent from the first three months of 2021. Gross bookings (the total amount Uber receives from customers) for rides increased by 58 percent year over year to $10.7 billion. Delivery gross bookings rose by 12 percent to $13.9 billion. Uber’s revenue from rides was $2.52 billion. From deliveries, it earned $2.51 billion in revenue.

However, Uber’s net loss increased from $108 million in Q1 2021 to $5.93 billion last quarter. That’s largely due to its equity investments in Didi, Grab Holdings and Aurora Innovation. Still, Uber believes it will be cash-flow positive on a full-year basis for 2022.

Growth is expected to continue this quarter. Uber claims the value of rides booked in April surpassed 2019 levels, for one thing. The company also noted that rider wait times and surge trips were at their best levels for a year.

Uber says that many drivers have opted to move over to Eats deliveries. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the company won’t have to make “significant incremental incentive investments” to keep drivers on the platform and persuade new and lapsed drivers to get behind the wheel. The same can’t be said for rival Lyft.

That company expects it will need to spend more to entice drivers to return or join its platform. It’s taking longer than expected for its driver base to return to pre-pandemic levels, Lyft president John Zimmer told Reuters. Uber has a leg up on Lyft in this regard, since its drivers can choose to deliver food and other items instead of ferrying passengers around. However, Lyft didn’t provide more details of how much it will spend on driver incentives.

Lyft earned revenue of $875.6 million for the first quarter, a year-over-year increase of 44 percent. It had a net loss of $196.9 million, down significantly from the $427.3 million net loss it posted a year earlier. Its active number of riders rose to 17.8 million from 13.5 million in Q1 2021.

Apple reportedly hired a longtime Ford executive for its car project

Apple has hired a longtime Ford engineer and executive to work on its long-gestating car project, according to Bloomberg. Desi Ujkashevic had been with the automaker since 1991. Before leaving the company in March, Ujkashevic was Ford’s global director of automotive safety engineering.

She previously oversaw the global body engineering team, safety engineering for Ford of Europe and the global design technical operations division. In her early years at Ford, according to her LinkedIn profile, Ujkashevic held roles in vehicle engineering, testing and durability. She has also worked on Ford’s electric vehicle efforts and regulatory issues. In other words, she seems like exactly the kind of person you’d want to hire for an EV project.

Apple is said to have started work on an autonomous vehicle in 2015. However, those efforts have suffered several setbacks over the years, partly as a result of strategy and staffing changes. Doug Field, who was said to have led Project Titan, left Apple to rejoin Ford last September. However, the reported hire of Ujkashevic is another indication that Apple is still trying to build its own EV.

For what it’s worth, in a recent LinkedIn post, Ujkashevic said she was “excited to start my next adventure and I hope to continue to contribute to society and advancing technology with a purpose […] ultimately making a better world!”

Ubisoft Montreal takes over work on ‘Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake’

Work on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake evidently hasn’t gone as smoothly as Ubisoft hoped. The company has now put its Montreal studio in charge of the project. Ubisoft Pune and Ubisoft Mumbai had been working on the game.

Ubisoft Montreal was “the very birthplace of the epic Sands of Time trilogy,” the developers wrote in a message to fans. The original game was released in 2003. The dev team “will now take the time they need to regroup on the scope of the game to deliver you the best experience for this remake of an all-time classic, when it’s ready.”

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake was delayed from January 2021 to March last year, before it was put on hold indefinitely. As of last June, Ubisoft was targeting a 2022 release window. That seems less likely given the latest update. Engadget has contacted Ubisoft for comment.

This is far from the only Ubisoft game to suffer from a protected development cycle. Skull and Bones has been in the works since 2013 and, until alpha test footage leaked last week, Ubisoft hadn’t shown much from the often-delayed title since E3 2018. As for Beyond Good and Evil 2, that was first teased in 2008 and officially announced in 2017. That game still does not have a release window.

Instagram is testing even more recommendations in the main feed

Instagram will test some additional changes for the main feed, including more recommendations. Extra content from accounts you don’t follow will bubble up in the default algorithmic feed “based on what you love.” It’s not clear how many of these suggested posts you’ll see, though Instagram says the experience will be personalized and factor in things like the number of accounts you follow and how often you use the app.

This isn’t a massive surprise, given that Instagram has been placing more emphasis on recommendations. Showing photos and videos from people you don’t already follow might boost engagement, but Instagram’s running the risk of annoying people who want a more curated experience centered around their friends, family and whatever @sainthoax is posting.

That said, Instagram is promising to give people more ways of personalizing their experience in the app over time. Two more feeds were introduced to the app in March. The Following view shows posts from the accounts you follow in reverse chronological order. Favorites, meanwhile, allows you to keep closer tabs on up to 50 accounts. You can switch between the feeds by tapping the Instagram icon in the top left corner.

Instagram is also testing some tweaks to how posts are displayed in the feed. It says posts will have a “full-screen” appearance. It plans to make videos more prominent too.

The new view looks like how Stories are presented, based on an image Instagram shared. The username, profile photo and caption are laid on top of the post, as are the like, comment and share icons. Tabs will still be displayed at the bottom of the screen. Stories will remain at the top of the feed, but as is the case now, these will be hidden after you start scrolling.