Google’s self-driving car division, Waymo, will be creating an autonomous version of Jaguar’s new I-Pace EV. The lofty goal of this partnership is to produce 20,000 vehicles that would join the Waymo ride-hailing service fleet by the year 2020. Waymo is currently testing the service using Chrysler Pacifica minivans that are true driverless vehicles with nobody behind the wheel.
Jaguar’s autonomous I-Pace will be on display at the New York International Auto Show this week, and look for it to the on the streets in test markets by the end of this year.
Huawei is taking smartphone cameras to the next level with its new flagship, the P20 Pro. Featuring a triple-lens Leica camera it sports a 40-megapixel RGB color lens, an 8-megapixel telephoto lens, and a 20-megapixel monochrome lens. This delivers a 5 times hybrid zoom that produces clean and sharp images, brighter shots in low light, excellent portrait mode shots, and super slow-mo like we’ve seen in the Galaxy S9. The P20 Pro also uses AI for a number of camera functions, including image stabilization. In our tests we were even able to take long exposure shots at night without using a tripod.
Unfortunatley, Huawei devices aren’t easy to come by in the United States as the FCC is looking to ban devices from the Chinese manufacturer. To learn more about the P20 Pro, and how you can get your hands on one, take a look at Andy Boxall’s full review.
For those of you who fondly remember the screeching sound of old dial up modems, this story will absolutely terrify you. The Department of Defense is testing a sonic warfare system that combines a couple of lasers to produce sounds out of thin air.
This is called the Laser-Induced Plasma Effect and as of now it mainly produces vintage modem-esque sounds. But long-term the team that developed it hopes to hone it to create human-sounding voices. The idea of using lasers to create voices out of thin air sounds crazy, but that is exactly what the Pentagon may be capable of within just a few years.
