Month: June 2022

Enlarge / There’s no mistaking the BMW XM concept as anything other than a BMW. The production version of the hybrid SUV goes on sale later this year. (credit: BMW)

If Oscar Wilde was right that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about, you have to hand it to BMW’s styling. Over the years, the company’s design department in Munich has probably generated enough column inches to stretch from here to the moon, as it has challenged conventional tastes time and again with its concepts and production cars.

These days, the fuss often concerns each new interpretation of BMW’s iconic kidney grilles, and we’ve seen a few: the self-healing polymer of the iX, the wide chrome bling of the X7, and the gaping void of the M3. Before that, it was the so-called “Bangle butt”—the stepped tail at the back of the fourth-generation 7 Series named for then-head designer Chris Bangle. When the model was launched in 2001 (and for years afterward), BMW fans would recoil just at its mention; today, it has become normalized and acceptable.

The design of the trunk lid on the E65 7 Series (second from right) was not well-received at the time.

But the brand’s willingness to embrace left-field ideas predates this century—how else to explain the 1989 Z1 roadster, with its removable plastic body panels and doors that dropped down into their sills?

Enlarge / A Tim Hortons in Toronto in May 2022. (credit: Getty Images | Roberto Machado Noa )

Canadian investigators determined that users of the Tim Hortons coffee chain’s mobile app “had their movements tracked and recorded every few minutes of every day,” even when the app wasn’t open, in violation of the country’s privacy laws.

“The Tim Hortons app asked for permission to access the mobile device’s geolocation functions but misled many users to believe information would only be accessed when the app was in use. In reality, the app tracked users as long as the device was on, continually collecting their location data,” according to an announcement Wednesday by Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner. The federal office collaborated with provincial authorities in Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta in the investigation of Tim Hortons.

“The app also used location data to infer where users lived, where they worked, and whether they were traveling,” the Office of the Privacy Commissioner said. “It generated an ‘event’ every time users entered or left a Tim Hortons competitor, a major sports venue, or their home or workplace.”

Enlarge / Someday, Google’s messaging lineup will look like this (assuming Google can stop launching competing products). (credit: Ron Amadeo)

The long-rumored Google Duo and Google Meet merger is actually happening. Google officially confirmed the move on Wednesday, explaining in a blog post that the goal is to create a “single video communications service” and that the Duo brand will go away in favor of Google Meet.

While the Google Duo brand is dying, it sounds like the Duo codebase will live on as the basis for the new Google Meet. Google says that “existing video calling features from Duo are here to stay” and that “in the coming weeks, we’re adding all the Google Meet features to the Duo app, so users can easily schedule a video meeting at a time that works for everyone, or continue using video calling to instantly connect with a person or group. Later this year, we’ll rename the Duo app to Google Meet, our single video communications service across Google that is available to everyone at no cost.”

The move comes after Google unified its communication teams under Google Workspace VP and GM Javier Soltero (the author of Google’s blog post) in 2020. Google has not clarified which products are being unified, but it should mean that Google Hangouts, Google Meet, Google Chat, Google Messages, Google Duo, and Google Voice will all live under one roof.

Enlarge (credit: vladimir18 | Getty Images)

Russian companies have been plunged into a technological crisis by Western sanctions that have created severe bottlenecks in the supply of semiconductors, electrical equipment, and the hardware needed to power the nation’s data centers.

Most of the world’s largest chip manufacturers, including Intel, Samsung, TSMC and Qualcomm, have halted business to Russia entirely after the US, UK, and Europe imposed export controls on products using chips made or designed in the US or Europe.

This has created a shortfall in the type of larger, low-end chips that go into the production of cars, household appliances, and military equipment. Supplies of more advanced semiconductors, used in cutting-edge consumer electronics and IT hardware, have also been severely curtailed.