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Technology
Google this week said it may identify slow-loading websites in Chrome, shaming their developers to up their game.
"In the future, Chrome may identify sites that typically load fast or slow for users with clear badging," wrote a trio of Chrome developers - Addy Osmani, Ben Greenstein and Bryan McQuade - in a post to the Chromium blog. They used the term badging to refer to on-screen cues and clues. "This may take a number of forms and we plan to experiment with different options, to determine which provides the most value to our users."
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Xpeng Motors, the Chinese electric vehicle startup backed by Alibaba and Foxconn, has raised a fresh injection of $400 million in capital and has taken on Xiaomi as a strategic investor, the company announced.
The Series C includes an unidentified group of strategic and institutional investors. XPeng Motors Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng, who also participated in the Series C, said the received strong support from many of its current shareholders. Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun previously invested in the company.
&Xiaomi Corporation and Xpeng Motors have achieved significant progress through in-depth collaboration in developing technologies connecting smart phones and smart cars,& XiaomiJun said in a statement. &We believe that this strategic investment will further deepen our partnership with Xpeng in advancing innovation for intelligent hardware and the Internet of Things.&
The company didn&t disclose what its post-money valuation is now. However, a source familiar with the deal said it is &better& than the 25 billion yuan valuation it had in its last round in August 2018.
The announcement confirms an earlier report from Reuters that cited anonymous sources.
XPeng also said it has garnered &several billions& in Chinese yuan of unsecured credit lines from institutions such as China Merchants Bank, China CITIC Bank and HSBC. XPeng didn&t elaborate when asked what &several billions& means.
Brian Gu, Xpeng Motors Vice Chairman and President added that the company has been able to hit most of its business and financing targets despite economic headwinds, uncertainties in the global markets and government policy changes that have had direct impact on overall auto sales in China.
The round comes as XPeng prepares to launch its electric P7 sedan in spring 2020. Deliveries of the P7 are expected to begin in the second quarter of 2020.
Xpeng began deliveries of its first production model the G3 2019 SUV in December and shipped 10,000 models by mid-June. The company has since released an enhanced version of the G3 with a 520 km NEDC driving range.
The company plans to launch the P7 sedan in the spring 2020 and will start delivery in 2Q 2020.
XPeng has said it wants to IPO, but itunclear when the company might file to become a public company. No specific IPO timetable has been set and a spokesperson said the company is monitoring market conditions closely, but its current focus is on building core businesses.
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Microsoft big experiment in real-world augmented reality gaming, Minecraft Earth, is live now for players in North America, the U.K. and a number of other areas. The pocket-size AR game lets you collect blocks and critters wherever you go, undertake little adventures with friends and, of course, build sweet castles.
I played an early version of Minecraft Earth earlier this year, and found it entertaining and the AR aspect surprisingly seamless. The gameplay many were first introduced to in Pokémon GO is adapted here in a more creative and collaborative way.
You still walk around your neighborhood, rendered in this case charmingly like a Minecraft world, and tap little icons that pop up around your character. These may be blocks you can use to build, animals you can collect or events like combat encounters that you can do alone or with friends for rewards.
Ultimately all this is in service of building stuff, which you do on &build plates& of various sizes. These you place in AR mode on a flat surface, which they lock onto, letting you move around freely to edit and play with them. This sounded like it could be fussy or buggy when I first heard about it, but actually doing it was smooth and easy. Iteasy to &zoom in& to edit a structure by just moving your phone closer, and multiple people can play with the same blocks and plate at the same time.
Once you&ve put together something fun, you can take it to an outdoor location and have it represented at essentially &real& size, so you can walk around the interior of your castle or dungeon. Of course, you can&t climb steps, because they&re not real, but the other aspects work as expected: you can manipulate doors and other items, breed cave chickens and generally enjoy yourself.
The game is definitely more open-ended than the collection-focused Pokémon GO and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Whether that proves to be to its benefit or detriment when it comes to appeal and lasting power remains to be seen — but one thing is for sure: People love Minecraft and they&re going to want to at least try this out.
And now they can, if they&re in one of the following countries — with others coming throughout the holiday season:
- United States
- United Kingdom
- Canada
- South Korea
- Philippines
- Sweden
- Mexico
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Iceland
You can download Minecraft Earth for iOS here and for Android here.
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Write comment (100 Comments)Twitch today publicly launched Twitch Studio, its new software designed to help new streamers get started broadcasting. The idea behind the app is to make it simple for someone new to the space to get started, by offering a quick setup process and other tools to make the stream both look and sound more professional — even if the streamer doesn&t have broadcasting experience.
The software, which was only available in closed beta until today, will detect the usermic, webcam, monitor resolution, bitrate and more through a guided setup process. Streamers can then choose from a variety of starter layouts and overlays that will help them personalize their streamlook-and-feel.
Once live on Twitch, the software will also help streamers interact with the online community and viewers, including by way of built-in alerts, an activity feed and integrated Twitch chat.
As the company previously explained, many people have thought about streaming but gave up on doing so because the process was too difficult. The new software aims to get them over that hurdle of setting up a stream for the first time.
As the streamer becomes more knowledgable and capable, they may outgrow their need for Twitch Studio — and that would be fine. The goal is to get them involved with Twitch streaming in the first place, not necessarily keep them on the platform longer-term.
Twitch Studio is currently available only on Windows PCs, not Mac, iOS or Android &at this time,& Twitch says — a hint that cross-platform support could come further down the road. However, in the near-term, Twitch is working to better integrate the software with other Twitch functionality, as well as roll out tools that make it easier to chat and engage viewers.
The launch timing is notable as Twitch has recently lost its biggest streamer, Tyler &Ninja& Blevins, to MicrosoftMixer. The loss was then followed by the exit of Michael &Shroud& Grzesiek, also to Mixer. Meanwhile, GoogleStadia, which is about to launch on November 19, will make it easy to stream directly to YouTube.
Twitch says the new Twitch Studio software is available today, in beta, for anyone on Windows 7 or newer.
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The man who oversaw the creation of some of HBO most highly praised &prestige TV& could soon be making shows for Apple TV+, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. Richard Plepler, who was HBOchairman and CEO up until he parted ways with the company last February following its acquisition by AT-T, is nearing an exclusive production deal with Applenew original content streaming service, the report says.
Plepler, who spent almost 30 years at HBO, including six as its CEO during which the media company aired some of its biggest hits, including &Game of Thrones,& would definitely bring some big-name industry influence to Apple efforts. Not that Apple TV+ lacks for that in its early offing, either: The premiere slate of original shows include Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon-led &The Morning Show,& and a show centerd around OprahBook Club, just to name a couple of examples.
The deal, which isn&t yet final but might be signed officially &within the next few weeks,& per the report, would be between Apple and PleplerRLP - Co., a production company he established after leaving HBO. Therenothing yet to indicate what kind of projects he&d be working on for Apple TV+, but ita logical target for Applenew original content enterprise to pursue, given that its focus thus far appears to be on fewer, big-budget, high-profile projects, but critical reception hasn&t been up to par with the kind of TV that HBO has a track record of producing.
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A federal court in Boston has ruled that the government is not allowed to search travelers& phones or other electronic devices at the U.S. border without first having reasonable suspicion of a crime.
Thata significant victory for civil liberties advocates, who say the governmentown rules allowing its border agents to search electronic devices at the border without a warrant are unconstitutional.
The court said the governmentpolicies on warrantless searches of devices without reasonable suspicion &violate the Fourth Amendment,& which provides constitutional protections against warrantless searches and seizures.
The case was brought by 11 travelers — 10 of whom are U.S. citizens — with support from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who said border agents searched their smartphones and laptops without a warrant or any suspicion of wrongdoing or criminal activity.
The border remains a bizarre legal grey area, where the government asserts powers that it cannot claim against citizens or residents within the United States but citizens and travelers are not afforded all of their rights as if they were on U.S. soil. The government has long said it doesn&t need a warrant to search devices at the border. Any data collected by Customs - Border Protection without a warrant can still be shared with federal, state, local and foreign law enforcement.
Esha Bhandari, staff attorney with the ACLUSpeech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said the ruling &significantly advances& protections under the Fourth Amendment.
&This is a great day for travelers who now can cross the international border without fear that the government will, in the absence of any suspicion, ransack the extraordinarily sensitive information we all carry in our electronic devices,& said Sophia Cope, a senior staff attorney at the EFF.
Millions of travelers arrive into the U.S. every day. Last year, border officials searched 33,000 travelers& devices — a fourfold increase since 2015 — without any need for reasonable suspicion. In recent months, travelers have been told to inform the government of any social media handles they have, all of which are subject to search prior to being let in to the United States. But some have been denied entry to the U.S. for content on their phones shared by other people.
A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection did not immediately comment.
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