Tesla Model Y Unveiled – S3XY Lineup Complete!

March 15, 2019April 6, 2020Posted in Cars, technologyTagged coming soon, electric car, featured, Model Y, New Technology, technology, TeslaLeave a comment

Today at 8PM PDT (11PM EST), Tesla livestreamed the unveiling of the Tesla Model Y and what an exciting event it was! Look at this crowd…

Elon said that up to today, they’ve made 550,000 cars and in 12 months, they will have made over a million vehicles. 11 years ago when “electric cars was thought to be a stupid idea” they made 1 car (the first Tesla Roadster). They had to break this mindset and make something for mass-production that could compete with gasoline cars, looked better than gasoline cars and was just as competitively priced – so they designed and created the Model S (‘S’ for “sedan”). From there, they designed:

Model X (‘X’ for crossover SUV), the best electric SUV
Model 3 (originally aiming for ‘E’ but “Ford killed SEX” says Elon because of the naming trademark infringement!), the cheapest electric car in their lineup that doesn’t skimp on performance
New Roadster, the fastest car in the world that can do 0-100 km/h in 2.1 seconds (60 mph in 1.9 seconds)

Afterwards, Elon highlights how far they’ve come in terms of production and scale through their new gigafactories. He also highlighted that “2019 is the year for the Solar Roof and Powerwall”. It has so far been delayed because the power cells were needed for the Model 3 production issues.

In 2010, there were no high-power superchargers. Today they have 1400 Supercharger stations and 12000 Superchargers in 36 countries and have introduced the Supercharger v3, delivering up to 1600 km range / hr (1000 mi / hr).

And finally, the moment we were all waiting for, the…

MODEL Y

Driving out, the Model Y looks like a cute hatchback version of the Model 3. It has very similar design features with a big widescreen in the middle, no other user interfaces and a nice panoramic glass roof. A big difference, it has 3 rows of seats instead of 2 and can therefore fit 6 people comfortably and 7 max. Surprisingly, it comes in at very similar prices to the model 3, $47,000 for the first long range models and $39,000 for a standard version by Spring 2021. See other specs and full range/pricing below:

Other Key Specs

0 – 60 mph in 3.5 seconds
Very low centre of gravity which allows for great handling and tight turns
300 miles range true useful range

Elon ends the formal presentation with “… and there you have the S3XY presentation”! Everyone there is then allowed to take a closer look and take a test drive if they’d like. I wish I was there! Let me know in the comments if you’d consider the Model Y over the other models :).

Snapdragon 820 Official News and Announcements

November 11, 2015November 11, 2015Posted in mobile, smartphoneTagged 820, coming soon, CPU, featured, GPU, Official News, Qualcomm, smart phones, SnapdragonLeave a comment

Qualcomm recently announced its new Snapdragon 820 chip and it is looking good! It is more efficient and powerful than previous chips and will likely power many of next year’s flagship phones. With past rumors of the chip overheating being officially denied by Qualcomm on Weibo, manufacturers and consumers are more excited than ever.

Among the many improvements to the chip, the features that stand out are the new Kyro CPU which promises 2x better speed compared to the 810 while also increasing battery life. Along with this improvement to battery consumption is the support for “always-on” low-power sensors and Quick Charge 3.0 which is promised to be 4x faster than traditional charging and 33% more efficient than Quick Charge 2.0. According to tests by Droid-Life for the Quick Charge 2.0 of Samsung’s S6, the new chip in Samsung’s future S7 could promise a full charge (from 0% –> 100%) in under 1 hour!

The new Adreno 530 GPU offers a 40% graphics performance boost compared to the Adreno 430 GPU of the 810 chip. This can hopefully pave the way for upcoming VR applications. With better performance, developers will be able to push the new GPUs to their limits with high-res VR environments and actions.

Sources: Qualcomm, Droid-Life, CC

Bio Processing: Your Heartbeat May Be the Key to Your Car, Home, Bank Account…

November 8, 2015April 6, 2020Posted in smart devicesTagged coming soon, health and fitness, heart rate monitor, samsung, smart devices, technologyLeave a comment

What if your heartbeat was the key to your car, home, bank account… It turns out this may be coming in the future! Samsung Electronics has developed a Bio Processor (BioP) which is able to constantly monitor one’s heart rate with a built in Electrocardiogram (ECG). This technology puts it far ahead of any current wearables in accurately detecting heart rate by being able to actually graph and record changes in electrical currents that cause heart muscle depolarizations. The applications for health informatics would be huge if this technology was affordable for the everyday consumer, especially for people with heart problems.

Aside from the obvious health applications, Samsung Electronics is looking to use the BioP’s technology to securely unlock car doors and homes. To do this, the BioP has an included bluetooth transmitter and flash-memory to connect to your phones and other devices and provide constant health-related information very similar to the smart wearables we use today. Due to its ability to constantly monitor one’s unique heart rate (which is very hard to copy), it provides a high level of security. The downside to the current iteration of the device is that it needs to be placed directly on your skin next to your heart. Samsung is working to make this chip smaller and hopefully more affordable.

As a side note, you may be wondering how everyone’s heart rate can be unique when one’s heart rate varies during different activities and that is a very good question. The uniqueness of one’s heart rate comes from the patterns of electrical currents within the depolarization of the heart muscle that generates the beat. So although you may have increased your heart rate substantially after running, the pattern of eletrical currents that causes your heart polarization, albeit at a faster rate, will still be constant and unique to you.

Sources: Samsung, EtNews

Apple’s Indoor Directions and iBeacon

November 7, 2015November 7, 2015Posted in applicationsTagged Apple, coming soon, GPS, iBeacon, iOS10Leave a comment

Companies have ventured into providing indoor interactive maps including Google. Large malls have developed their own mobile apps that provide indoor maps and directories, some even interactive. However, Apple is looking to join and take over the scene with the ability to map an entire indoor space without any additional hardware except the latest iPhone!

Sources show a new app that was officially published to the App Store by Apple called “Indoor Survey” that requires special permissions to log onto and use. Apparently this app will allow the user to broadcast their location and through the phones GPS and other sensors, beam information about the space indoors.

If this app succeeds and works as described, you could safely assume that any well-visited and popular indoor venue will be mapped. The consumers may not benefit from this as much as the corporations, in particular all the retail stores in malls! If consumers are broadcasting their location (relatively accurately) indoors, a retail store can ping a potential customer through Apple’s iBeacon service very easily, notifying the customer of new promotions and incentives. Maybe you won’t be greeted by a friendly employee handing you a sale flyer for much longer!

Newly Announced OnePlus X, Another Flagship Killer!

October 29, 2015November 6, 2016Posted in smartphoneTagged cheap phones, coming soon, OnePlus, OnePlus X, OnePlus X Specifications, OnePlusX, smartphoneLeave a comment

Available November 5, OnePlus will start rolling out invites for consumers to purchase their new phone, the OnePlus X. OnePlus is famous for making flagship killers and this phone lives up to their reputation… arguably anyway. The specs of the OnePlus X definitely don’t compete with some higher end flagship phones out there but what makes it still a flagship killer in my opinion is what you get for its insanely low cost of $250 USD or ~$329 CAN.

First of all, the specs are actually not bad at all:

5-inch 1080p display
Snapdragon 801 processor
3GB of RAM
13-megapixel rear camera
16GB/32GB of storage.

Rumors point towards the inclusion of NFC, a 2450mAh fast charging battery and a water-resistant design.

Second of all, the design is beautiful and arguably better looking than some flagships out there. The OnePlusX has a beautiful all Gorilla Glass front and back panel. The border of the entire phone is a nicely finished “grated” metal (shown to the left) that provides a premium feel with the added benefit of extra grip!

I want to emphasize one last reason for why it is a flagship killer which is the sim/microsd slot visualized below. A lot of flagships today stopped including or never included expandable storage. The OnePlus X however includes a slot for a microsd card for up to 128GB of expandable storage while also doubles as a dual sim slot if needed (**Note that you can only have dual sim or microsd slotted in, not both).

Sources: OnePlus, TechnoBuffalo