The site’s data shows that the demand for electrified vehicles – consisting of battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), and hybrid cars – has been gradually growing since the beginning of the year, rendering EVs the winners during the second quarter of 2021. BEVs have risen by 27% and hybrids by 57%, with the PHEVs seeing the biggest increase at 78%. On the contrary, petrol vehicles only witnessed a 3% growth and diesel vehicles dropped by 13%....

Similarly to TikTok, Reels lets users create 15-second clips overlaid with tunes from a large catalog of music. The app first launched in Brazil last year, but Facebook has also ran trials in Germany and France. The social media giant also rolled out the app in India, where TikTok is currently unavailable. According to NBC News, Reels will be available directly in the Instagram app. Users will be able to access the TikTok-esque feature through a new icon at the bottom of the app, create “Reels,” and post them to their Stories (which means it’s probably a good time to remind everyone that you can mute Stories)....

Facebook today rolled out its Avatars — the Bitmoji-esque cartoon lookalikes users can make of themselves — to users in the US. That means millions of users will now be able to build their doppelganger to use in comments and Messenger. The customization options are pretty extensive, so if you want to build a little mini version of you, then you can get pretty close. Doing this brings Facebook a little closer to Snapchat, which has a close relationship with Bitmoji, and Apple’s Memoji....

According to a report by TechCrunch, Facebook informed all artist page managers of a new setting that will automatically add all their music videos to the page. The report noted that the setting will go live in August, and if page managers disable it, music videos won’t appear on the artist’s page. However, since the company has licensed those videos, they’ll appear at another place. You will be able to watch videos in the Facebook’s Watch tab as well as a special feed for music videos....

The phone, designed in partnership with carmaker McLaren, uses electrochromic glass to make the camera invisible. For the uninitiated, electrochromic glass is a type of glass that can change its tint based on power supplied to it. — OnePlus India (@OnePlus_IN) January 3, 2020 A report by Wired suggests the camera has similar specifications to the OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren edition: 48-megapixel rear sensor, 16-megapixel ultra-wide sensor, and 8-megapixel telephoto sensor....

The feature is called GitHub Sponsors, and works similar to funding platforms like Patreon. This allows you to sponsor the work of developers and content creators by paying them a monthly donation. Open source software is essential in pushing technology forward. However, creating open source code isn’t exactly lucrative, so some developers have already turned to other funding platforms to raise money for their work. But by integrating this option right into GitHub, it makes it a lot more easy for them....

You’d be hard-pressed to name a software program that’s had a greater impact on how we handle data in 2019 than Microsoft Excel. For three decades, it has not only been a Microsoft flagship program, but its power and versatility have paved the way for the stat-heavy, analytics-driven business climate we live in today. Bottom line: it’s a cornerstone business tool that can be adapted to nearly any industry. Right now, you can learn how to get the most out of Excel with The Professional Microsoft Excel Certification Training Bundle, a giant instruction package that’s over 90 percent off, only $39 from TNW Deals....

With all the content available to us online these days, it’s pretty hard to pick a movie or TV show to watch. And let’s face it, recommendation algorithms of services like Netflix or Prime Video are not always helpful. Don’t worry, Google will help you out now. The search giant is rolling out a bunch of features in the US that’ll assist you with personalized recommendations of movies and shows you can watch....

According to the report, the monthly pass will cost you $4.99, and in return, it’ll give you access to a bunch of apps without any ads, fees, or in-app purchases. From screenshots obtained by the publication, it’s evident that the premium pass catalog will include puzzle games to music and fitness apps. Credit: Android Police Meanwhile, Apple’s also set to release its Arcade game pass service this fall. Google has confirmed that it is testing this service, there are no details yet on when it’ll become widely available, and in which countries....

It’s currently invite-only, and promises to help you “connect with others who have the same interests.”. You can create a listing for an event or activity you’re participating in, and invite friends and strangers to join you. In addition, Shoelace will surface events that you might be into. As Android Police noted, Google has flirted with this concept before: in 2011, it launched Schemer, which aimed to do pretty much the same thing as Shoelace....

A report from The Verge noted that once the feature is rolled out, you can record audio in one language and get live transcription in another language. Initially, it will only work with live recordings — not pre-recorded audio files — and rely on cloud-based AI. Google also said it’ll launch the feature first on Android. — Karissa Bell (@karissabe) January 28, 2020 A report from CNET says the company is already testing the feature in several languages including French, German, and Spanish....

A couple of weeks ago, we asked ourselves the question, “How much does it cost to charge an electric vehicle?” Calculating that — when you’re charging at home of course — is a straightforward case of multiplying the per kWh cost of your electricity by the size of your car’s battery in kWh. However, one interested reader asked us another brain teaser: how much does it cost to drive an EV per mile....

“Guess what? Advertising doesn’t work!” makes a great narrative hook for a podcast, but it’s not helpful if what you’re trying to do is measure advertising effectiveness. My concern here is that a lot of decision-makers believe Freakonomics’ general premise that advertising is “guilty until proven innocent.” However, anecdotes aren’t a substitute for a rigorous measurement strategy bespoke to a brand’s characteristics and conditions. Instead of trying to find “smoking guns” that highlight the inadequacy of advertising, the more productive path for a CEO or CMO is to understand the inadequacy of measuring advertising correctly....

The Game of Life is a grid-based automaton that is very popular in discussions about science, computation, and artificial intelligence. It is an interesting idea that shows how very simple rules can yield very complicated results. Despite its simplicity, however, the Game of Life remains a challenge to artificial neural networks, AI researchers at Swarthmore College and the Los Alamos National Laboratory have shown in a recent paper. Titled, “It’s Hard for Neural Networks To Learn the Game of Life,” their research investigates how neural networks explore the Game of Life and why they often miss finding the right solution....

Let’s begin with the news. Pfizer, in a press release, claims a 90% reduction in symptomatic COVID-19 cases among those who took the vaccine versus those who received a placebo. These are preliminary results as a part of the company’s phase three drug testing. During phase three vaccine trials the emphasis for drugmakers is on both determining the efficacy and the safety of a vaccine. This is done so that explicit data can be presented to the various global and national bodies which govern the approval and registering of drugs....

By contrast, young people have already demonstrated a competitive edge in the virtual workplace. They come equipped with a more intuitive grasp of digital technology and the initiative to troubleshoot problems via YouTube tutorials, social media, and subreddits. As a generation, they’re also bigger gamers. As more and more work takes place in virtual reality (VR) – and one does not have to share the somewhat eccentric vision of the metaverse Mark Zuckerberg articulated at the 2021 Connect Conference to believe that it will – being familiar with massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) like Fortnite and Roblox, not to mention the ability to manage multiple digital identities, is set to make that edge keener still....

We know that viruses have passed from animals to humans throughout history, and will continue to do so. But the factors that influence the geographical origin of these events is less clear, despite being highly important. Knowing where they occur can help us understand the factors behind a virus crossing species, in particular, by looking at the traits of viruses circulating in the ecosystem where the jump happened. But identifying a virus’s origin is sometimes difficult....

This means that developers can take better advantage of these power upgrades. If you’re looking for the top-of-the-line MacBook Pro with a 16-inch screen, 64GB RAM, and a 32-core CPU, it’ll cost you around $4,000. That’s not a small amount by any means. But that hasn’t stopped companies like Twitter, Uber, and Shopify from giving their developers these machines. — John Szumski (@jszumski) November 5, 2021 Before you get all excited, most of these new MacBooks have been allotted to mobile engineers — aka folks working on iOS and Android platforms....

The reason behind this is simple. EVs don’t have a gearbox. They’re automatic. So instead of a stick, you’ll find a lever, switch, or button that allows you to select “drive,” “park,” and “reverse.” Why don’t EVs have multiple gears? Unlike petrol or diesel cars, they don’t need them. The internal combustion engine of conventional vehicles develops its power and torque at different RPMs (revolutions per minute), and therefore it needs a gearbox with various gear ratios to effectively transfer the power from the engine to the wheels....

Let’s take a look at the camera specifications of the new devices first: iPhone 11: Rear camera: 12-megapixel wide sensor with f/1.8 aperture + 12-megapixel ultra-wide sensor with f/2.4 aperture, 120° field of view Front camera: 12-megapixel true depth sensor with f/2.2 aperture iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max: Rear camera: 12-megapixel wide sensor with f/1.8 aperture + 12-megapixel ultra-wide sensor with f/2.4 aperture, 120° field of view + 12-megapixel telephotos sensor with f/2....