After pulling search in 2010, Google has shut down one of its last remaining services in China, citing low usage. CNBC says that the service now redirects users to the Hong Kong version, which isn’t accessible from mainland China anyway.
From our own James Vincent on Wednesday reporting on what experts will be looking for during the Tesla Bot reveal later today:
Anything where the hand just moves without contacting anything else is trivially simple and not impressive, no matter how ‘human-like’ it looks. If it simply waves hello, that’s a groan fail.
911 million shares of Porsche (get it!) are now being traded in Frankfurt after parent company Volkswagen carved off a 12.5 percent slice of the iconic brand for public ownership. The Porsche IPO is expected to be one of the largest in European history. Shares are currently trading at €84 adding about €75 billion to VW’s coffers. Not bad for a day’s work.
Apple has responded to the removal of Russia’s largest social network from the App Store globally.
“These apps are being distributed by developers majority-owned or majority-controlled by one or more parties sanctioned by the UK government,” Apple said in a statement to The Verge.
On Monday, the UK government enacted new sanctions on Russian oligarchs in response to sham referendums Russia recently held in parts of Ukraine. The sanctions affect 23 executives at Gazprombank, a Russian bank with ties to VK.
Just Google for “NASA DART.” You’re welcome.
Season 34 of The Simpsons kicked off on Sunday night with an opening credits “couch gag” based on the offline dino game from Google’s Chrome browser. Cactus, cactus, couch, d’oh! Perfect.
”It’s the most rugged and capable Apple Watch yet,” said Apple at the launch of the Apple Watch Ultra (read The Verge review here). YouTuber TechRax put that claim to the test with a series of drop, scratch, and hammer tests. Takeaways: the titanium case will scratch with enough abuse, and that flat sapphire front crystal is tough — tougher than the table which cracks before the Ultra fails — but not indestructible.
What does it cost to buy a smartphone that does something no smartphone from Apple, Google, Samsung can? $1,599.99 is Sony’s answer: for a camera lens that can shift its focal length anywhere between 85mm and 125mm.
Here’s Allison’s take on Sony’s continuous-zoom lens when she tested a prototype Xperia 1 IV back in May:
Sony put a good point-and-shoot zoom in a smartphone. That’s an impressive feat. In practical use, it’s a bit less impressive. It’s essentially two lenses that serve the same function: portrait photography. The fact that there’s optical zoom connecting them doesn’t make them much more versatile.
Still, it is a Sony, and like.no.other.
