Tag: TechTips

Enlarge (credit: Google)

Stadia’s rumored pivot to a Google Cloud service is real! At the “Google for Games Developer Summit” Tuesday, Google announced that the technology underpinning Stadia will be available for sale as a Google Cloud service called “Immersive Stream for Games.” That’s nowhere near as catchy as the “Google Stream” name that was rumored, but Google Cloud services aren’t consumer-facing anyway.

The company confirmed AT&T was one of the first to trial Immersive Stream for Games last year, when it launched Batman: Arkham Knight as a free streaming game for AT&T mobile subscribers (AT&T owns Batman via DC Comics). Despite giving the game out to mobile subscribers, you aren’t actually supposed to play Batman over your cellular connection just yet—it only works on PCs, not smartphones.

During the keynote, AT&T said it would soon enable playback on a smartphone for the Stadia-powered game. “This technology, paired with the AT&T network, gives us the ability to deliver games directly to customers,” AT&T Vice President of 5G Product & Innovation Jay Cary said during the keynote. “We’re preparing for the launch of our next title on the immersive streaming platform soon.” ISPs like AT&T have an incentive to push cloud gaming since it uses a ton of data and makes users reliant on ISPs for quality access. AT&T does not zero-rate its own services anymore, so this Stadia game will be an easy way to make your cellular bill skyrocket or quickly exhaust your unthrottled data allocation. Cary mentioned that “thousands” of AT&T customers have tried the Stadia-powered game so far.

Enlarge / Dan Ball, host of One America News show Real America. (credit: One America News)

One America News might have to shut down because of DirecTV’s decision to drop the right-wing network from its channel lineup, OAN said in a lawsuit against DirecTV and its owner AT&T.

DirecTV recently said it will drop OAN after their carriage contract expires in early April. DirecTV will also drop AWE (A Wealth of Entertainment), as OAN and AWE are both owned by Herring Networks. In a lawsuit filed on March 7 and reported by the Daily Beast on Friday, Herring Networks alleged that breach of contract and other violations were committed by AT&T, DirecTV, and AT&T Board Chairman William Kennard.

“As a result of the conduct of AT&T, AT&T Services, DirecTV, and Kennard, OAN and AWE might be forced off the air because Herring will no longer be able to broadcast OAN and AWE via DirecTV and Herring presently has limited alternative carriage options,” the lawsuit said. The nonrenewal “will result in damage to Herring exceeding $1 billion” if it isn’t reversed, the lawsuit said. The complaint was filed in California Superior Court in San Diego County and seeks both injunctive relief and financial damages.

Enlarge / Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference before newly appointed state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo at Neo City Academy in Kissimmee, Florida. (credit: Getty | SOPA images)

Florida is allowing its top public health official in Orlando to return to work after a two-month suspension related to an email he sent to his staff noting their abysmal COVID-19 vaccination rate and urging them to get vaccinated.

Dr. Raul Pino, the health administrator for Florida’s Orange County, sent the email to public health employees on January 4 as the state was seeing a surge of COVID-19 cases amid the omicron wave of the pandemic. The email noted that less than half of the 568 employees at the county’s public health office were fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Only 77 of them had gotten a booster shot, Pino added. He called the staff’s vaccination rate “pathetic” and wrote that it was “irresponsible” not to be vaccinated at that point.

“I have a hard time understanding how we can be in public health and not practice it,” he wrote, according to Click Orlando.

Enlarge / Tesla Model 3. (credit: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Tesla raised prices last night on every model it sells. The move comes just a week after the company increased prices for its long-range battery packs by $1,000. The new increase means that the cheapest Tesla, a Model 3 with rear-wheel drive, now costs $46,990 before taxes and fees, a jump of $2,000.

CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the company is “seeing significant recent inflation pressure in raw materials and logistics.” Prices are up in several sectors of the economy, of course, though economists are debating what is driving them higher. For electric vehicles like Teslas, the main culprits today could be nickel and cobalt prices, which have shot through the roof in recent weeks, though Tesla has also made a habit of increasing prices in recent months.

Both nickel and cobalt are key elements in the lithium-ion batteries commonly used in today’s EVs. Nickel helps boost a cell’s energy density, while cobalt stabilizes the microscopic structure. Battery chemistries that use the metals are often referred to according to the proportion of metals they use. A common one is NMC, which stands for nickel, manganese, and cobalt, while Teslas often use NCA, or nickel-cobalt-aluminum. Tesla doesn’t disclose its NCA ratio, but other companies use NMC chemistries with ratios of 8-1-1, 6-2-2, or 5-3-2.