Corey B. Marion, Co-Founder of The Iconfactory, Dies Age 54

Designer and co-founder of The Iconfactory, Corey B. Marion, has died following a long battle with cancer. He was 54. AppleInsider reports: Marion founded The Iconfactory in 1996 with Talos Tsui, and Gedeon Maheux, when he was 29. For a quarter of a century, he led the firm while also designing icons — including the company’s own factory logo one — and created a typeface based on his own handwriting. […] The Iconfactory produces sets of icons, such as free ones commissioned by Paramount to promote a “Star Trek” film, and over 100 for Microsoft Windows XP. Corey designed logos, emojis, and wallpapers too. Plus from 1997 to 2004, he was a judge on The Iconfactory’s annual Pixelpalooza icon design contest, created specifically for the Mac community. “We hope you’ll join us in celebrating his life via the digital gifts he gave of himself as well as send warm and comforting wishes to his entire family,” says a statement on the front page of the company’s site. “Our sadness is tempered by the fact that his art and legacy live on in all of us here at the factory as well as for all those, like yourselves, who have enjoyed his creations over the years.”

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Microsoft Dev Box Will Virtualize Your Windows Development PC In a Browser Window

Microsoft Dev Box is intended to simplify the process of getting new developer workstations up and running quickly, with all necessary tools and dependencies installed and working out-of-the-box (so to speak), along with access to up-to-date source code and fresh copies of any nightly builds. Ars Technica reports: Dev Box is built on Windows 365, a service that IT admins can use to provide preconfigured virtual PCs to users. Admins can build operating system images and offer hardware configurations with different amounts of CPU power, storage, and RAM based on what particular users (or workloads) need. Windows 365 virtual machines, including but not limited to Dev Box VMs, can be accessed from other Windows PCs, or devices running macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, or ChromeOS.

“Microsoft Dev Box supports any developer IDE, SDK, or internal tool that runs on Windows,” writes Microsoft product manager Anthony Cangialosi [in a blog post introducing the service]. “Dev Boxes can target any development workload you can build from a Windows desktop and are particularly well-suited for desktop, mobile, IoT, and gaming. You can even build cross-platform apps using Windows Subsystem for Linux.” Dev Box is currently available in a private preview. If you’re interested in testing it when the preview goes public, you can sign up to learn more here.

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California Parents Could Soon Sue For Social Media Addiction

California could soon hold social media companies responsible for harming children who have become addicted to their products, permitting parents to sue platforms like Instagram and TikTok for up to $25,000 per violation under a bill that passed the state Assembly on Monday. The Associated Press reports: The bill defines “addiction” as kids under 18 who are both harmed — either physically, mentally, emotionally, developmentally or materially — and who want to stop or reduce how much time they spend on social media but they can’t because they are preoccupied or obsessed with it. Business groups have warned that if the bill passes, social media companies would most likely cease operations for children in California rather than face the legal risk.

The proposal would only apply to social media companies that had at least $100 million in gross revenue in the past year, appearing to take aim at social media giants like Facebook and others that dominate the marketplace. It would not apply to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu or to companies that only offer email and text messaging services. […] The bill gives social media companies two paths to escape liability in the courts. If the bill becomes law, it would take effect on Jan. 1. Companies that remove features deemed addictive to children by April 1 would not be responsible for damages. Also, companies that conduct regular audits of their practices to identify and remove features that could be addictive to children would be immune from lawsuits. “Monday’s vote is a key — but not final — step for the legislation,” adds the report. “The bill now heads to the state Senate, where it will undergo weeks of hearings and negotiations among lawmakers and advocates. But Monday’s vote keeps the bill alive this year.”

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Dyson’s Been Secretly Working On Robots That Do Household Chores

Dyson has revealed that it has an entire division that’s secretly been developing robot prototypes that do household chores. Engadget reports: The company didn’t detail any of the models in particularly, but many look like regular robot arms adapted to do specialized home chores like cleaning and tidying. One appeared to be designed to vacuum out the seat cushions, mapping an armchair out in detail to do the job. “So this means I’ll never, ever find crisps around the back of my sofa again?” the company’s chief engineer, Jake Dyson, asked a researcher in a video (here).

Another robot was putting away dishes or at least placing them in a drying rack, and another was grasping a teddy bear, presumably picking up after a child. Dyson also showed off a “Perception Lab” that was all about robotic vision systems, detecting its environment and mapping humans with sensors, cameras and thermal imaging systems. Dyson is currently on a recruiting drive, looking for around 700 engineers, which is one reason it finally decided to show off the lab (located at Hullavington Airfield, Wiltshire in the UK) after keeping it under wraps.

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Driverless Cars Could Force Other Road Users To Drive More Efficiently

MattSparkes shares a report from New Scientist: The idea that autonomous cars, even in small numbers, can increase fuel efficiency, travel times and safety for all cars on the road will be put to the test on routes around Nashville, Tennessee, later this year. Benedetto Piccoli at Rutgers University, New Jersey, and his colleagues previously used a computer model of a simple circular road with just one lane in each direction, and found that autonomous cars could decrease overall fuel consumption of all traffic by 40 percent, even once adoption of these vehicles had only reached 5 per cent.

The best-case scenarios from these new models “rarely happen” in the real world, he says, but his team still hopes to reduce fuel consumption of all vehicles on the road during the trial — not just the driverless cars — by as much as 10 percent. “If you take just the overall cost of the traffic system in any country, and you reduce that by even 5 percent we are talking about billions of dollars,” he says. The researchers have shared their findings in a paper via arXiv.org.

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Spain To Invest $13 Billion To Build Microchip Industry

The Spanish government on Tuesday announced plans to invest $13.2 billion to build microchips in the country and “help reduce the dependence of Span and the European Union on other suppliers,” reports the Associated Press. From the report: Speaking in Madrid, Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Nadia Calvino said the five-year plan is aimed at enabling Spain to cover every area in the design and production of microchips, which are now considered key to all areas of modern industry. She said the plan was among the most ambitious of the Spanish government’s projects to reboot the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic and that it would have an effect on other sectors.

The project was directed at boosting the EU’s weak position in microchip production, which Calvino said represented some 10% of the world total. She said this led to a great dependence on a small number of major producers such as Taiwan, the United States, South Korea, Japan and China. Calvino added that “the war in Ukraine makes it a priority to reinforce strategic autonomy in energy, technology, food production as well as cyber security.”

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Samsung Allegedly Assembling a ‘Dream Team’ To Take Down Apple’s M1 In 2025

Samsung is rumored to be assembling a special task force dubbed “Dream Platform One team” tasked with designing a custom in-house Samsung mobile Application Processor (AP) that can take on Apple Silicon. Neowin reports: It’s probably fair to say that Samsung hasn’t had the best time with its Exynos offerings when compared against rivals like Qualcomm or Apple. To shake its fortunes up, the company also paired up with AMD for its Exynos 2200 GPU, and results were a mixed bag. Both the AMD RDNA 2 Xclipse 920 graphics and the Exynos 2200 CPU were found to be pretty disappointing in terms of power efficiency as they were not much better than the previous Exynos 2100 offering. In a nutshell, the new CPU was around 5% faster while the AMD graphics was around 17% better, both of which were clearly not enough (via TechAltar on Twitter). However, the company is looking to get real serious and down to business come 2025. The new report coincides with a separate report suggesting that Samsung was working on a custom chipset for its Galaxy S series. The downside is that it’s not slated for 2025 and will obviously have to compete against whatever Apple offers at that time.

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EPA Opens Applications For Its $5 Billion Clean School Bus Program

The EPA is formally accepting applications for its Clean School Bus Program, a $5 billion program to replace dirty diesel school buses with more environmentally friendly options. Ars Technica reports: Specifically, the EPA is aiming to replace older (model year 2010 or older) diesel-powered school buses, which must be scrapped in order for a clean bus to be bought to replace them. Oh, and the old bus has to be fully functionalâ”this isn’t intended as a way to make the government pay for broken junk to be replaced with shiny new buses. But the agency says it will also accept applications from schools looking for zero-emission buses that are prepared to scrap older non-diesel school buses, as well as newer internal combustion buses (which should either be sold, scrapped, or donated).

The EPA isn’t requiring the replacement buses to all be electric, however. While the program will pay for battery-electric buses — such as the Thomas C2 Jouley that was delivered to a school in Alexandria County in Virginia on Friday to mark the start of the program — it will also pay for buses powered by propane or compressed natural gas as long as they’re also model year 2021 or newer and will serve the school district for at least five years, among other requirements.

The EPA will consider applications to replace up to 25 buses at once and has set aside $250 million for zero-emission buses in 2022 and $250 million for clean school buses, with another $4.5 billion remaining for 2023-2028. Rebates range from $375,000 for a zero-emissions Class 7 or Class 8 bus down to $25,000 for smaller propane buses (classes 3-6). The application process is open until August 19, and successful applicants should be notified in October that it’s time to order some new buses.

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Airbnb Is Closing Its Domestic Business In China

According to CNBC, Airbnb is closing its domestic business in China. From the report: All mainland Chinese listings — homes and experiences — will be taken down by this summer. Airbnb formally launched its mainland China business in 2016 and has faced mounting competition from domestic players. Sources say that the segment was already costly and complex to operate. The pandemic worsened these issues and heightened their impact.

Despite in-country branding and putting Airbnb cofounder, Nathan Blecharczyk, at the head of efforts, stays in China on the platform have accounted for approximately 1% of revenue for the last few years. Sources say Chinese outbound travel has been a bigger opportunity for Airbnb and the company will refocus on providing listings for Chinese travelers going abroad. One source says the overlap between Airbnb’s outbound and domestic businesses was not strong. Airbnb will maintain an office in Beijing with hundreds of employees, according to one source.

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Apple In Talks To Buy EA Gaming; Disney and Amazon Also Potential Suitors

Video game publisher Electronic Arts (EA) is actively seeking a potential buyer or merger. Apple has reportedly been in talks with the company about buying EA out according to Puck. Disney and Amazon have also been in talks about purchasing the video game company. 9to5Mac reports: The Redwood City-based firm has published hits like Apex Legends, Madden, and The Sims franchise. According to Puck, EA ideally would like a merger so Andrew Wilson can remain CEO of the combined company. […] EA’s roots actually go back to Apple. Back in 1982, Apple’s then Director of Strategy and Marketing, Trip Hawkins, left the company to start EA. A buyout wouldn’t be Apple’s first venture into gaming, however. The Cupertino company unveiled its gaming service Apple Arcade back in 2019. Through Apple Arcade, users can play ad-free games on their iOS, macOS, and tvOS devices.

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