Hasta La Gadget!

With its newly minted bi-directional charging capabilities, the Ford F-150 Lightning can now serve as a backup home power supply in a pinch. Soon, the automaker hopes it might do the same for your office space thanks to a new partnership with Cisco, makers of Webex conference software.

Ford CEO Jim Farley announced on Tuesday, “We’re going all in, creating separate but complementary businesses that give us start-up speed and unbridled innovation.” So far that effort has seen the company announce in recent months plans to separate its EV and ICE businesses, produce in excess of 600,000 EVs annually by in 2023, and introduce seven new EV models to the European market in the next few years. 

And what better way for Ford to fully capture the hearts and minds of the American driving public than to outfit their electric vehicles with the internet’s most popular pastime since March 2020, online conference calling? “We’re looking at ways to bring the human connection in,” Darren Palmer, Vice President, Ford Electric Vehicle Programs, said in a press statement. “We don’t see why people wouldn’t be using their vehicles as a fantastic quality office, to be able to collaborate together.”  

To that end, Ford and Cisco have partnered to “unlock the browser experience on SYNC4A,” the automaker’s infotainment system, and are currently developing a WebEx app capable of running natively on the HTML 5-centric OS. “Ford is excited to be collaborating with Webex by Cisco for next-gen experiences in our electric vehicles,” Palmer continued. “We see Webex as providing a secure and immersive collaboration experience.”

Your cat jumping in front of the webcam can be quite cute when you’re conference calling from home. Your kids loudly melting down in the back seat about who may or may not be touching whom is decidedly less adorable. To help prevent those high-decibel interruptions, future Ford EVs will be outfitted with Webex’s Optimize for My Voice feature which automatically mutes out everybody in the cabin who isn’t part of the meeting. To further minimize distractions to the driver, “We’ll make sure that any collaboration like Webex is deployed only when the vehicle is stationary, or audio-only when driving,” Palmer said. The companies did not disclose a timeline for the application’s eventual release.

Maserati is already following the reveal of an electric GranTurismo with another, decidedly more practical model. The trident badge has introduced its first electric SUV, a Folgore edition of its upcoming Grecale crossover. While the company didn’t share many technical details, it promised a familiar 400-volt architecture (not like the speedier 800V of the Porsche Taycan or Hyundai Ioniq 5) and previously indicated it wouldn’t share a platform with other Stellantis EVs. The Vergenotes Maserati will instead use a modified take on the platform from Alfa Romeo’s Stelvio SUV.

The in-cabin tech also represents an upgrade for Maserati. The Grecale Folgore and its siblings will include a digital instrument cluster (a first for the brand), a 12.3-inch main center screen and an 8.8-inch sub-screen for extra controls. Passengers will have their own touchscreen, too. You can also expect a 3D sound system with 14 speakers standard and 21 available as an upgrade.

The Grecale Folgore is due in 2023 alongside two “mild hybrid” variants, the 300HP GT and 330HP Modena, as well as a gas-only Trofeo with the 530HP V6 from the MC20. The price of the Folgore wasn’t available, but the GT will start the line at $63,500.

This and the GranTurismo aren’t Maserati’s only EVs. The automaker also plans electric versions of all its models by 2025, including the GranCabriolet convertible, Levante SUV, MC20 Spyder sports car and Quattroporte sedan. While Maserati won’t completely drop combustion engines until 2030, the marque’s role is clear — it’s becoming the vanguard for Stellantis’ upscale EV efforts.

A week ago, Google somewhat surprisingly announced that Steam was coming to Chromebooks in a very early alpha test format — but aside from a mention of this during the company’s Games Developer Summit keynote, there were no details to be had. Given the somewhat surprising amount of interest around it, Google is now making things a bit more official by releasing instructions on how to get Steam up and running on Chrome OS. The company is also providing details on supported hardware, games that should work and bugs you can expect to run into. 

For starters, you’ll need a supported device, and it’s only a handful of Chromebooks. Google says that you’ll need a device with Intel Iris Xe Graphics, 11th-generation Core i5 or i7 processors and at least 8GB of RAM. Google specifically said that configurations with an Intel i3 processor or 4GB of RAM aren’t supported. For the alpha, only the following devices are supported:

● Acer Chromebook 514 (CB514-1W)

● Acer Chromebook 515 (CB515-1W)

● Acer Chromebook Spin 713 (CP713-3W)

● ASUS Chromebook Flip CX5 (CX5500)

● ASUS Chromebook CX9 (CX9400)

● HP Pro c640 G2 Chromebook

● Lenovo 5i-14 Chromebook

Assuming you have supported hardware, Google says you’ll need to switch your Chromebook to the Dev channel, and cautions that you shouldn’t do this with hardware that you rely on for daily use. From there, you’ll need to enable a specific flag in Chrome as well as type a few commands into Chrome OS’s Crosh terminal. Google says you can find full directions here.

Once you have Steam installed, there’s a surprisingly large group of games that Google has tried and suggests testers try as well. Unsurprisingly, it includes a lot of Valve titles like Portal 2, Dota 2, Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2. Other games Google suggests trying include Celeste, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (i7 and 16GB of RAM required for that one, with graphics set to medium or lower), Hades, Cuphead, TEKKEN 7, Fallout 4 and more. 

Google notes that Steam will default to installing and running a Linux version of your selected game, assuming it’s available (which is why so many Valve games are supported here). But the Steam Play compatibility tool means you can try other games, as well; it leverages the Proton software that allows some Windows-based games to run on Linux. Of course, there are no guarantees this will work, but it’s worth a shot if there’s a particular title you want to try on Chrome OS. 

Come to think of it, “there are no guarantees this will work” sums up the vibe of Google’s blog post pretty well. The company took great pains to note this is an alpha release; between the less stable nature of the Dev channel in general and the alpha status of Steam, Google says that “anything can break” and that “you will encounter crashes, performance regressions, and never-before-seen bugs.” 

So, this isn’t exactly a release for the faint of heart — but the good news is that it’s extremely easy to roll back Chrome OS to its original state, and most of your settings and preferences are all kept in the cloud. If you have one of the few supported Chromebooks and want to give it a shot, you can do so now, but just make sure you’ve backed up any local files on your device before you take the plunge. 

If you’ve been eager to use NVIDIA’s more powerful robotics ‘brain’ for projects, you now have your chance — provided you’re willing to pay a premium. The company is now selling the Jetson AGX Orin developer kit for $1,999. The palm-sized computing device is now billed as eight times more powerful than Jetson AGX Xavier (275 trillion operations per second, or TOPS) thanks to its 12-core ARM Cortex-A78AE CPUs, Ampere-based GPU and upgrades to its AI accelerators, interfaces, memory bandwidth and sensor support.

You’ll have to wait a while longer for production-ready units. They’ll be available in the fourth quarter of the year starting at $399 for a ‘basic’ Orin NX kit with six CPU cores, a 1,792-core GPU, 8GB of RAM and 70 TOPS of performance. To match the claimed 275 TOPS, you’ll need to use a $1,599 Orin module with the full 12 CPU cores, 2,048-core GPU and 64GB of RAM.

NVIDIA is doing more to give robot creators a helping hand, though. It’s launching an Isaac Nova Orin platform that includes two Jetson AGX Orin modules and the sensor suite needed for a robot to detect the world around it. The platform can handle up to six cameras, three LiDAR units and eight ultrasonic sensors. You’ll also get the tools needed to simulate the robot, not to mention support for software that helps speed up mapping, navigation and perception. NVIDIA hadn’t mentioned pricing as of this writing, but it’s safe to presume the extra module and sensors will cost significantly more.

You probably won’t use the new Jetson hardware for amateur projects, but it could have a significant impact on the technology you use or buy. NVIDIA is keen to note existing Jetson users like John Deere (which uses the tech in an upcoming autonomous tractor) and Hyundai Robotics. Orin’s extra performance isn’t guaranteed to lead to more intelligent robots, but it should at least help those robots handle tasks quickly.

Nintendo’s first foray into original mobile games is coming to an end. As Polygonreports, Nintendo and developer Cygames are gradually shutting down the gacha fantasy RPG Dragalia Lost. The last big content update arrives March 31st, when new characters come to the game. After that, the producers won’t provide new content updates apart from those for “certain quests” and the main story, which wraps up in July.

Dragalia Lost itself will shut down at an unspecified “later date” following the core campaign’s end. There will still be “summon showcases” and event revivals until the full shutdown, the companies said.

The companies didn’t explain the decision. Dragalia Lost wasn’t strictly a failure. Sensor Tower estimated the game earned $146 million in revenue by October 2020, roughly two years after launch. It also had 3.9 million installs across Android and iOS, and in 2019 had made more money than every Nintendo mobile game beyond Fire Emblem Heroes. Dr. Mario Worldshut down sooner, in November.

The title has lately faced stiff competition from heavyweights like Genshin Impact, however. And as Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad observed, Nintendo hasn’t exactly been rushing to expand its mobile catalog — the only release in the past two years was the licensed Niantic game Pikmin Bloom. Nintendo may be consolidating around adaptations of well-known franchises, such as Super Mario Run and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.