The future of driving is electric, but if you’ve ever actually driven a modern electric car, there’s one thing about them that can seem really….weird: They’re so quiet. Without all those little explosions taking place under the hood like in a gas-powered vehicle, there’s not a lot of noise going on besides the wind and tires on pavement. Sure, it’s cool, but for some hardcore motorheads, it’s also just…. wrong. Also, regulatory bodies – as in, governments – want electric cars to make SOME sort of noise so pedestrians locked into the phone screens don’t get mowed over when they wander into an intersection while watching YouTube.
So to soothe those concerns, Jaguar has added some sound effects to their new iPace electric car for when you stomp on the throttle, and what can we say: Warp speed ahead, Mr. Sulu. Yes, the “sound” sounds a bit like a Star Trek shuttle warming up for launch, crossed with the thrum of a gas engine. It doesn’t sound bad, just kind of… odd. In a futuristic Jetsons kind of way. Anyway, the motorheads over at car site Roadshow put a mic in the car and got a clean recording so check it out and see if the iPace’s “dynamic audio” as they call it makes you feel like you’re driving into the future – or into a cartoon.
Move, countermove
Oh, we couldn’t see this coming at all: Following revelations that police departments we increasingly using a device to crack the security on Apple iPhones, Apple will reportedly close the door on such devices in a future update. This whole thing got started when Apple refused to unlock the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino terrorists, prompting law enforcement officials to cast around on the fringes of the tech world for a solution, which they found in the form of a little box called the GrayKey device. You plug it into the iPhone, and it unlocks it.
But Apple says it’s got a solution to that solution: The future update will essentially make the lightning data and charging port go dead about an hour after the phone was last used, and require entering the essentially uncrackable password to restart the flow of data. As you might imagine, law enforcement agencies are not one bit happy about this latest move. But Apple is in a tough spot: They’ve pledged to make user security paramount, and privacy advocates have lined up behind Tim Cook in this fight. So who’s right? Leave us a comment on our YouTube page.
No Fortnite for you, platform Switcher
We got all happy yesterday that Epic Game’s epically popular title Fortnite was now out on the Nintendo Switch, but, there’s a problem. According to popular gaming site Polygon, Sony’s social media accounts have literally been under attack with complaints from players who are now unable to play the game on the PlayStation after playing it on the Switch, and simultaneously, PlayStation account players say they’ve been locked out of using their Sony accounts when trying to play it… on the Switch.
We get it: Sony and Nintendo compete. Big time. But to not give players a heads up on the locking out of competing accounts for the game is borderline nefarious. Sony released a statement that basically said “we offer a lot of cross platform gaming support for other platforms that aren’t the Switch,” and that only seemed to make the situation worse. Nintendo says they have no sway over how Sony treats PlayStation account holders, and Epic Games also said the issue is pretty much out of their hands as well. So, Sony: How about it? Can’t we all just get along – and play some Fortnite? We’ll keep tabs on this story and let you know if anything changes.
We’ve got more news on our Facebook page and YouTube channel, and be sure to tune in to this week’s DT podcasts: Trends with Benefits (general tech shenanigans) on Thursdays, and Between the Streams (movie and TV topics) every Friday.
