The Volkner Performance S luxury motor home has it all, including storage underneath for a low-height supercar and a 136-square-foot rooftop terrace. The base model starts at around $1,200,000 and goes up to over $5,000,000 for the fully optioned version seen in the video below. For reference, you can get a nice stationary home for less than a tenth of that.
The motor home is powered by a 460 HP Volvo or Mercedes diesel engine capable of pulling up to 18 tons of total weight. It measures 39′ long, 8.2′ wide, and & 13′ tall, with an electronically limited top speed of 155MPH. Wait – 155MPH in a mobile home? That seems excessive. I’m not Walter White trying to outrun the cops in my mobile meth lab.
The motor home’s rooftop is covered with enough solar panels to generate around 2,000 watts of electricity, which should help in powering the coach’s 5.1 surround sound system, numerous smart TVs, and 12-bottle wine chiller. That’s all very cool, but if I’m dishing out several million dollars for a motor coach, shouldn’t it come with a robotic chauffeur, so I don’t actually have to do any driving? I want to be relaxing and enjoying the amenities, not yelling at some guy driving a minivan like a race car for just cutting me off.
German Bionic, the robotic exoskeleton startup behind the Cray X, will be showing off two new posture-protecting products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada this week. The Apogee is the company’s latest and lightest powered exosuit built for commercial and industrial use while the Smart SafetyVest will “bring ergonomic monitoring and protection to every worker,” per a Monday release.
German Bionic
The Apogee builds from the lessons learned in developing the Cray X, resulting in German Bionic’s lightest exosuit to date. Despite the litheness, it can offset up to 66 pounds of load to the user’s lower back per lifting motion and offers active walking assistance to reduce fatigue. The SafetyVest, on the other hand, doesn’t actively help the user pick up heavy stuff but it does monitor their movements and body positioning as they work and offers “data-based, personalized ergonomic insights, as well as assessments and recommended actions.”
Both the Apogee and SafetyVest rely on the German Bionic IO architecture to collect, monitor, analyze and report the user’s ergonomic data back to them. This is done typically either through the onboard display or via audible alerts when the user is actively making unsafe movements.
German Bionic
“With our new wearables, we are empowering hard-working people with the tools they need to do their jobs more safely and sustainably,” Norma Steller, CPO of German Bionic, said in the release. “Both our new ergonomic wearables – Apogee and Smart SafetyVest – as well as our award-winning Cray X exoskeleton enable us to provide the right support for just about any company or work environment where manual work is performed. And with the German Bionic IO data platform, we also deliver a powerful analytics tool for workplace ergonomics and processes.”
Details are still sparse ahead of the show but German Bionic will be exhibiting its wares at CES, booth #7141 in the West Hall if you’re attending in person. If not, no worries, Engadget will have full coverage of the show floor with hands-on reviews, videos and news throughout the week — stay tuned!
Welcome, reader, to 2023! While some of us are still musing on New Year’s resolutions (we have the tech to help you right here), will 2023 be the year you finally break up with Twitter? There’s never been a better time. All this Elon Musk-induced chaos has breathed new life into the numerous Twitter alternatives. Of all of them, Mastodon has probably benefited the most. The open-source service gained notoriety back in 2017 when some Twitter users were upset with changes the company had made to the functionality of @-replies. (Back then, that was a big deal.) Mastodon isn’t the only app to get a boost from the turmoil at Twitter, though. Other apps like CounterSocial, which has a Tweetdeck-like interface, and Tribel have also seen increased user numbers. There are some new upstarts, too. Post News, a new service from former Waze CEO Noam Bardin, has also tried to capitalize on Twitter’s current state.
Meanwhile, Twitter hasn’t been paying its office rent in San Francisco. According to Bloomberg, Twitter was told on December 16th that it would default on its lease for the 30th floor of the Hartford Building. So far, it’s failed to pay $136,250 in rent.
– Mat Smith
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
After completing its 1.4 million mile trip to the Moon and back at the start of last month, NASA’s Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft has returned to the Kennedy Space Center. The homecoming occurred on December 30th. Artemis 1’s record-breaking journey began on November 16th, launching atop NASA’s next-generation Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket. NASA will now conduct an “extensive analysis” of the component and determine precisely how it fared during atmospheric reentry. The agency will also remove Moonikin Campos, the test dummy NASA sent aboard Orion to collect data on how travel to the Moon might affect humans.
The app previously added age restrictions to some “mature” content.
TikTok is launching a new version of its “borderline suggestive model,” which the company uses to automatically identify “sexually explicit, suggestive, or borderline content.” According to a TikTok spokesperson, the new model can better detect so-called “borderline content,” videos that don’t explicitly break the app’s rules but may not be suitable for younger users. Elsewhere, the app is also allowing creators to restrict their videos to adult viewers.
The Attorney General’s office accused the company of using deceptive techniques.
Washington DC Attorney General Karl Racine has announced that his office has reached an agreement with Grubhub “for charging customers hidden fees and using deceptive marketing techniques.” The company was sued earlier this year, accused of charging hidden fees and misrepresenting Grubhub+ subscription’s offer of “unlimited free delivery” since customers still have to pay a service fee. The DC Attorney General’s office also accused the company of listing 1,000 restaurants in the area without their permission by using numbers that route to Grubhub workers or creating websites without the eateries’ consent. Under the settlement terms, Grubhub will pay affected customers in the DC area a total of $2.7 million.
Samsung’s mobile division has a new design chief. The company announced Hubert H. Lee would head up its mobile design team, the unit responsible for designing some of Samsung’s most important products, including its flagship Galaxy S series of phones. Lee joins the electronics giant after a stint as the chief design officer of Mercedes-Benz China.
There are a couple of different ways to interpret today’s Wordle answer, but the most common one involves a piece of clothing. Need more hints? We have them.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
