Eight Sleep has launched a new sleep system called the Pod 5, which uses the power of artificial intelligence, as one would expect from a lot of new products these days. The Pod 5 system consist of a cover, a hub, a blanket and a base that works with any mattress you already have. Its cover and hydro-powered blanket cool down or heat up from 55 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit across your whole body, adjusting their temperatures based on the biometric reading from the cover’s embedded sensors. 

If the system detects that you’re snoring through vibrations, the base automatically but gently elevates your head in response, which had been clinically proven to reduce snoring. The base is supposed to go in between your mattress and the bed frame, but it can also be used freestanding with an optional leg kit. Pod 5’s base comes with a built-in surround-sound speaker that plays audio, which the company says was designed to support relaxation and recovery. The company has added a guided meditation technique to its audio options, as well as a curated selection of white noise and calming sounds. Finally, the Hub contains the water that the system uses to regulate the cover’s and blanket’s temperatures. It also contains tech like the WiFi that connects the Pod 5 to the internet. 

The company says the whole experience is powered by its proprietary AI engine Autopilot that’s trained on almost 10 million hours of sleep data. It also learns from your own biometrics and sleep patterns, so it can adjust the system as needed. In addition, Eight Sleep has launched a set of AI-powered algorithms called Health Check that monitors your heart and respiratory rates while you sleep through the sensors in the cover. If your heart rate or breathing shows some abnormality, for instance, you’ll see a report in the system’s accompanying app notifying you of the reading. 

The Pod 5 system is now available for purchase in the US, the EU, the UK, Canada, Australia, the UAE, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Monaco and Switzerland. Prices begin at $2,849, and you can get up to a 30-night trial and free returns in case you change your mind. 

Eight Sleep

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/eight-sleep-launches-the-ai-powered-pod-5-sleep-system-130034283.html?src=rss

As people continue to move away from sedans to larger vehicles, the distinction between SUVs, crossovers and MPVs has become even blurrier. But make no mistake, if you’re looking for a big car with tons of power, excellent handling and a true seven-person capacity, the Lucid Gravity might be the coolest three-row EV on sale today. Just don’t call it a minivan.

Not that you would be incorrect. Between its extra-long dimensions (198 inches, three inches longer than a LWB VW ID. Buzz), a smooth, sloping front end and an emphasis on aerodynamics, the Gravity certainly looks more like a Chrysler Pacifica than a brawny Rivian R1S. But as one Lucid representative told me, minivans have gotten a bad rap in recent times, due to their focus on basic practicality while eschewing anything in the way of engaging driving dynamics. This makes slapping the minivan tag on a car feel almost like a death sentence, even if the biggest difference between the Gravity and some of its cross-category rivals is the lack of sliding doors.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

With the Gravity’s Grand Touring spec (which starts at $94,900) packing a whopping 828 horsepower along with fancy features like standard air suspension and optional rear-wheel steering, this thing is anything but pokey. And that’s before you consider a 0 to 60 time of just 3.4 seconds, which puts most sports cars (especially gas-powered ones) to shame. So despite how it looks, there’s no doubt the Gravity offers better performance than any minivan on the planet.

The speed continues when it’s time to charge. Thanks to its 926 volt architecture, the Gravity can suck down up to 400 kW of juice, which makes this the fastest charging EV outside of China. Lucid’s charging tech is also capable of adding 200 miles of driving distance in under 11 minutes. When combined with up to 450 miles of range, this vehicle is almost single-handedly upending the idea that electric cars are bad for long road trips.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

Meanwhile, for those who want to travel in luxury, the Gravity has more creature comforts than minivans too, even for a class of vehicle that can often be judged by its number of cupholders. Not only are the front and second row seats heated, Lucid’s glass panoramic roof runs nearly the entire length of the car. That means unlike most rivals where the driver is stuck without a view, all you see is sky when you look up from behind the wheel. There’s even a screen for second row occupants to control music and climate (among other things).

Lucid also makes great use of the Gravity’s length. While I wouldn’t want to ride back there as an adult all the time, it has one of the most spacious third rows I’ve ever sat in. Alternatively, if you need extra cargo space, the rearmost seats fold into the floor, providing you with a flat load space featuring 56.2 cubic feet of room (and that’s with the second row still up). And while it’s not something you’ll use all the time, I love the company’s optional folding cushion that transforms the frunk into a loveseat — complete with cupholders on each side. It’s a fun little feature that makes me sad that drive-in movie theaters are becoming extinct.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

The most enchanting contradiction about the Gravity is what it feels like to drive. After getting into the pilot’s seat, you’re greeted by a massive 34-inch 6K OLED display. And unlike some of its competitors, it’s not two or three screens sandwiched together. It’s all a single panel that’s an absolute treat to look at. This expansiveness is only reinforced by Lucid’s squircle-shaped wheel. It’s a touch smaller than you might expect on a vehicle this size, but it also gives you increased visibility at its giant infotainment system.

The hard thing to wrap your head around though, is that for a long SUV with three rows of seats, it doesn’t drive like a big car. The cabin is spacious and airy and it feels like you could fit a pickleball court between its mirrors. And yet, thanks to features like the optional rear-wheel steering on my demo vehicle, it almost felt petite during a quick drive around New York City.

Now, I will admit that my route down the West Side Highway wasn’t the best place to really test out its driving dynamics. But there were a few spots where I got a sense of how good the Gravity will be on the open road. For example, I had to make a U-turn down near Battery Park and I thought there was no way I was going to make it without committing to a three-point maneuver. But to my delight, it just darted around the divider in a way that defies its dimensions.

Lucid’s suspension is also a work of art. For a car that weighs around 6000 pounds (depending on spec), it doesn’t lumber or bounce when it goes over bumps. It just kind of floats. You can still feel the road, but it’s just more of a gentle reminder that its surface texture is constantly changing rather than a jolt up your backside. Granted, my test vehicle was equipped with Lucid’s Dynamic Handling Package, which includes three-chamber air suspension instead of the standard two. But, honestly, that extra $2,900 feels well worth it, especially when that option also adds the rear-wheel steering.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

I also appreciate how the car automatically hunkers down when you set it to sport mode to improve performance. Even without room to get it up to top speed, it’s impossible to escape the feeling of immense power the car gets from its dual motors (a single-motor RWD is slated to come out later). The Gravity might just have the best ride quality of any EV SUV currently on sale.

However, I do have some complaints. The most obvious one is that this thing ain’t cheap at just shy of $95,000 for the initial Grand Touring version. And even when the base model eventually comes out at around $80,000, that’s still a far cry from mainstream affordability. It really makes me wonder why Lucid didn’t jump straight to making its rumored (and almost certainly more affordable) mid-size SUV.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

I don’t love Lucid’s current color options either, which seem aimed more at boomers than younger, more EV-friendly drivers. (Though I guess that’s where the money is.) The most vibrant paint choice is either a brownish bronze or a faded olive green. I was hoping that the company had learned something from the stunning blue it uses on the Air Sapphire and carried over some of that styling to the Gravity. But here we are.

Finally, Lucid won’t have its version of Dream Drive 2 Pro hands-free driving tech available at launch. Furthermore, the company is running into issues sourcing components for its HUD system, which means you’ll have to wait a bit longer for that option. The good news is that when (or if) Lucid eventually figures out its hand-free tech, all the hardware needed to support it will already be in the Gravity, so all you’ll need is an OTA update to turn it on.

Regardless, as Lucid continues ramping production throughout the year, the Gravity already feels like the coolest big EV SUV on sale today and an immediate top contender for anyone looking for a luxurious three-row people carrier.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/the-lucid-gravity-is-the-coolest-three-row-ev-on-the-market-120024089.html?src=rss

Sony has sold 77.8 million PlayStation 5s since the console first went on sale in 2020 after shipping 2.8 million units in its latest quarter, the company announced. That figure lines up remarkably well with PlayStation 4 sales which hit 79.1 million units in approximately the same amount of time. However, Sony’s full year fiscal 2024 PS5 sales of 18.5 million were down compared to the 20.8 million it sold in 2023. 

Game sales more than made up for that though, rising nine percent and helping push the division’s operating income up 43 percent year over year. That was largely due to third-party sales, as first-party sales actually fell a bit. Sony has only released one first-party game so far this year with key titles like Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and Ghost of Yōtei still to come. 

Sony doesn’t expect this growth to continue, though. The company is predicting a ¥100 billion ($700 million) hit to sales next year due to tariffs, given that most of its sales occur in the US — and the company had already forecast flat revenue for 2025. Another key blow was the delay of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto VI launch that was just pushed back to May 2026. 

During its earnings call, Sony said that it was considering “passing on” tariff hikes to consumers, though it didn’t mention the PS5 or US specifically. The company has already raised the price of the console in other territories including Europe, but US increases are extremely rare. Sony CEO HIroki Totoki also brought up the possibility of building the PlayStation 5 in the US, saying it’s something that “has to be considered going forward.” 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/sony-has-sold-778-million-ps5s-to-date-but-expects-a-downturn-due-to-tariffs-120013001.html?src=rss

Longtime Slashdot reader ndsurvivor shares a report from TechCrunch: In 2018, Liangbing Hu, a materials scientist at the University of Maryland, devised a way to turn ordinary wood into a material stronger than steel. It seemed like yet another headline-grabbing discovery that wouldn’t make it out of the lab. “All these people came to him,” said Alex Lau, CEO of InventWood, “He’s like, OK, this is amazing, but I’m a university professor. I don’t know quite what to do about it.”

Rather than give up, Hu spent the next few years refining the technology, reducing the time it took to make the material from more than a week to a few hours. Soon, it was ready to commercialize, and he licensed the technology to InventWood. Now, the startup’s first batches of Superwood will be produced starting this summer. “Right now, coming out of this first-of-a-kind commercial plant — so it’s a smaller plant — we’re focused on skin applications,” Lau said. “Eventually we want to get to the bones of the building. Ninety percent of the carbon impact from buildings is concrete and steel in the construction of the building.” To build the factory, InventWood has raised $15 million in the first close of a Series A round. The round was led by the Grantham Foundation with participation from Baruch Future Ventures, Builders Vision, and Muus Climate Partners, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. How do they do it? According to TechCrunch, InventWood’s Superwood is made by treating regular timber with “food industry” chemicals to remove lignin and modify its structure, then compressing it to increase hydrogen bonding between cellulose fibers. This densification makes the wood up to 10 times stronger than natural wood, with a higher strength-to-weight ratio than steel. “You end up with something that looks like these richer, tropical hardwoods,” Lau added.

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Identity thieves have found an insidious target: death row inmates. A SentiLink report published this week reveals scammers are stealing identities of Texas prisoners awaiting execution to orchestrate “bust-out” fraud schemes — patiently building credit before disappearing with up to $100,000.

Nearly 10% of Texas’ 172 death row inmates have fallen victim. The operation, active since March 2023, exploits inmates’ isolation from financial communications. “They wouldn’t receive text or email alerts from a financial institution,” said Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center.

Beyond opening credit accounts, NBC reports, fraudsters have registered fake businesses using inmates’ identities, including a landscaping company created under Ronald Haskell’s name — a man imprisoned since 2014 for killing six people. TransUnion estimates bust-out scams now cost banks $1 billion annually.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has threatened to revoke EchoStar licenses for radio frequency bands coveted by rival firms including SpaceX, which alleges that EchoStar is underutilizing the spectrum. “I have directed agency staff to begin a review of EchoStar’s compliance with its federal obligations to provide 5G service throughout the United States per the terms of its federal spectrum licenses,” Carr wrote in a May 9 letter to EchoStar Chairman Charles Ergen. EchoStar and its affiliates “hold a large number of FCC spectrum licenses that cover a significant amount of spectrum,” the letter said.

Ergen defended his company’s wireless deployment but informed investors that EchoStar “cannot predict with any degree of certainty the outcome” of the FCC proceedings. The letter from Carr and Ergen’s statement is included in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing submitted by EchoStar today. EchoStar’s stock price was down about 8 percent in trading today. EchoStar bought Dish Network in December 2023 and offers wireless service under the Boost Mobile brand. As The Wall Street Journal notes, the firm “has spent years wiring thousands of cellphone towers to help Boost become a wireless operator that could rival AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, but the project has been slow-going. Boost’s subscriber base has shrunk in the five years since Ergen bought the brand from Sprint.” […]

EchoStar will have to prove its case in the two FCC proceedings. The FCC set a May 27 deadline for the first round of comments in both proceedings and a June 6 deadline for reply comments. The proceedings could result in the FCC letting other companies use the spectrum and other remedies. “In particular, we seek information on whether EchoStar is utilizing the 2 GHz band for MSS consistent with the terms of its authorizations and the Commission’s rules and policies governing the expectation of robust MSS,” the FCC Space Bureau’s call for comments said. “We also seek comment on steps the Commission might take to make more intensive use of the 2 GHz band, including but not limited to allowing new MSS entrants in the band.” Last month, SpaceX urged the FCC to reallocate the spectrum, saying “the 2 GHz band remains ripe for sharing among next-generation satellite systems that seek to finally make productive use of the spectrum for consumers and first responders.”

EchoStar countered that SpaceX’s filing is “intended to cloak another land grab for even more free spectrum,” and that its “methodology is completely nonsensical, given that EchoStar’s terrestrial deployment is subject to population-based milestones that EchoStar has repeatedly demonstrated in status reports.”

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Google’s stalwart search button has a new neighbor: AI Mode. From a report: The artificial intelligence feature is being tested directly beneath the Google search bar beside a “Google Search” button, replacing the “I’m Feeling Lucky” widget. The new feature, though not widely available yet, is being tested in a location where Google rarely makes changes.

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Qatar is gifting Trump a $400 million luxury 747 to serve as a temporary Air Force One, but experts warn that retrofitting it to meet presidential security standards could take years, cost hundreds of millions more, and risk national security due to potential embedded surveillance. The Register’s Iain Thomson reports: The current VC-25s aren’t just repainted 747s. They’re a pair of flying fortresses that must be capable of allowing the president to run the country, survive wartime conditions (even nuclear), and be totally secure from outside influence or intrusion. While the precise details of the current airframe are a tightly guarded secret, some details are included on government fact sheets or have been revealed in various media reports. For a start, it must have an in-flight refueling capability so the president can go anywhere in the world and stay up as long as needed. Retrofitting this to an existing 747 would be very expensive, as the feds would need to strengthen portions of the hull to handle the refueling system and reconfigure the fuel tanks to handle trim issues.

Then there’s the hull, which is known to be armored, and the windows are also thicker than you’d find on a normal flight. The government would also need to build in weapons systems like the chaff rockets used against radar-guided missiles, flares against heat seekers, and AN/ALQ-204 Matador Infrared Countermeasure systems, or similar to try and confuse incoming missiles. Next up, the engines and electrical systems would have to be replaced. The electronics in the current VC-25s are hardened as much as possible against an electromagnetic pulse that would be generated by a nuclear detonation. There are also claims that the aircraft have extra shielding in the engines to help against missile fragments should a physical attack happen.

Next up are communications. Air Force One has air-to-ground, air-to-air, and satellite comms systems that are thought to be the equal of what’s in the White House. There are at least two separate internal phone systems – one open and the other highly secure – that would need to be installed and checked as well. Then there are incidentals. Contrary to what films will tell you, there is no escape capsule on the current Air Force One, nor a rear parachute ramp, but there is a medical suite with emergency equipment and space for a physician which would already need to be installed, as well as a secured cargo area designed to prevent tampering or unauthorized access. As for the threat of embedded surveillance devices, Richard Aboulafia, managing director of aircraft consultancy AeroDynamic Advisory, said: “You’d have to take it apart piece by piece to stop a professional operator putting in lots of equipment to confuse things, like spare sensors and wiring.”

“It wouldn’t be in the air before 2030 at the earliest, long after he’s left office and probably later than the existing planned replacements,” said Aboulafia. “It makes no sense on any level, except that he wants a free 747 for himself. Nothing else makes any sense.”

“What’s sort of annoying about the whole thing is I’m not sure what’s wrong with the current Air Force One,” Aboulafia said. “Maybe if they gave it a gold makeover, he’d like it more.”

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According to Rest of the World, a major confrontation between Meta and the local authorities in Nigeria is currently taking place: “Local authorities have fined Meta $290 million for regulatory breaches, prompting the social media giant to threaten pulling Facebook and Instagram from the country.” Techdirt reports: As with earlier EU fines imposed on the company, the sticking point is Meta’s refusal to comply with local privacy laws […]. The fine itself is small change for Meta, which had a net income of $62 billion on a turnover of $165 billion in 2024, and a market capitalization of $1.5 trillion. Meta’s current revenues in Nigeria are relatively small, but its market shares are high: “According to social media performance tracker Napoleoncat, Meta has a massive presence in the country, with Facebook alone reaching about 51.2 million users as of May 2024, more than a fifth of the population. Instagram had 12.6 million Nigerian users as of November 2023, while WhatsApp had about 51 million users, making Nigeria the 10th largest market globally for the messaging app.”

Since many Nigerians depend on Meta’s platforms, the company might be hoping that there will be public pressure on the government not to impose the fine in order to avoid a shutdown of its services there. But it is hard to see Meta carrying out its threat to walk away from a country expected to be the third most populous nation in the world by 2050. In 2100, the population of Nigeria could reach 541 million according to current projections.

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Amazon’s Audible is expanding its audiobook offerings by giving select publishers access to its AI-powered production tools that will let them more easily convert books into audiobooks with over 100 customizable AI voices to choose from. It will also launch an AI translation tool in beta later this year to help publishers translate and localize audiobooks into multiple languages, with both automated and human-assisted options. The Verge reports: Audible says its new AI narration technology leverages Amazon’s advanced AI capabilities and will be made available to interested publishing partners in the coming months in one of two ways. For publishers wanting to be hands-off, an end-to-end service managed by Audible handles the “entire audiobook production process” right up to publication, while a self-service option will give publishers access to the same tools so they can independently direct the entire production process.

With both options, publishers are able to “choose from a quickly growing and improving selection of more than 100 AI-generated voices across English, Spanish, French, and Italian with multiple accent and dialect options, and will be able to access voice upgrades for their titles as our technology evolves,” according to Amazon. […] Publishers will also be able to review translations themselves or opt for a human review through Audible with a professional linguist.

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