Not all Android Automotive cars support Google applications (like Google Maps or the Play store), and not all Android apps are supported, so it's very much not like Android Auto in that respect. And having to manually enable tethering on your phone every time you get in the car (to avoid burning battery life) is hardly an ideal solution. Not to mention the inconvenience for iPhone users, who represent 55-60% of all smartphone users in North America, and aren't going to have the same set of apps they want to use or the same integration into the Google/Android ecosystem.

Android Automotive still has a limited number of supported apps (it doesn't support all Android apps), doesn't necessarily have access to Google apps or the Google play store (licensing Google Automotive Services to get access to Google apps is not required, and a bunch of car makers don't), doesn't automatically have the same apps/settings/accounts that your phone does, doesn't have your media library, doesn't use your existing cellular connection and data plan (unless you tether your phone or pay for a second data plan), and if you're an iPhone user (as 55-60% of people in North America are), then there's an even bigger disconnect.

Having to pay for a separate data plan should be a deal killer right off the bat.

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto allow your phone to take over the car's screens and speakers. If you're only playing music, then yes, a bluetooth connection is enough. But if you're using a map app with turn-by-turn directions (Google Maps, Waze, etc.) then you can see that app on the car's screen.

Turn-by-turn directions is also a good example of a service that's free with your phone, but subject to a subscription fees from many car makers that have their own built-in system.

I will not buy a car that does not have Apple CarPlay/Android Auto. Car systems always suck, and they don't have all the apps/accounts/settings/cellular connection/data plan that my phone does.

Literally the only reason that any car manufacturer tries to force you to use their own system is to sell you subscriptions.

They cite "cold winters" as why mosquitos aren't found in Iceland, but... Iceland doesn't have cold winters. In Reykjavik, their lowest mean daily minimum temperature is -2 C in January. Here in Montreal, it's -14 C, so much colder, and there have always been mosquitos in Montreal.

I would imagine that Iceland's cold *summers* is probably more responsible. It never gets very warm, with a highest mean daily maximum of 15 C in July, versus Montreal at 27 C.

I used to pay the small extra surcharge for Uber Green to get an electric vehicle for my trip, but that option disappeared and no "Uber Electric" option replaced it. There is currently no way for me to book an EV, where there was before.

Damn, munged the link: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

Bullshit. Citation needed. He dealt (poorly) in NYC real estate, just like his future father-in-law. From :

For much of his career, Kushner worked as a real-estate investor in New York City, especially through the family business Kushner Companies. He took over the company after his father, Charles Kushner, was convicted for 18 criminal charges

His "investment firm" was just a bribe for pulling the rug over Saudi Arabia's crown prince kidnapping, killing, and dismembering a journalist that was critical of him while Kushner was in the first Trump administration. Kushner never did any venture capital investing, but it didn't stop the Saudis from giving him billions of dollars.

From the same article:

Since leaving the White House, Kushner founded Affinity Partners, a private equity firm that derives most of its funds from the Saudi government's sovereign wealth fund.

So both of the buyers are the Saudi PIF, it's just one of them has a level of misdirection.

I don't get this. It's solar. If you don't want the power then turn it off. The utility may not have that level of control over home inverters (though some do) but they certainly can control the output of any grid-scale solar install. Why would they be paying "out of state utilities" (presumably where the sun don't shine) to take the power? Utilities like money and that doesn't seem like a money-making idea. Yeah, they don't want their large capital investment sitting idle but it's better than running it and paying someone to take the output.

The only 32-bit Windows version currently supported by Steam is Windows 10, and I doubt you're going to have any better compatibility with old games running the 32-bit version of Windows 10 than on the 64-bit version.

Many laptops already don't have upgradable RAM, and since SODIMMs are limited to lower speeds, eventually no laptops will have upgradable RAM. LPCAMM and LPCAMM2 were supposed to solve this, but by the time they started hitting the market, they too suffered the same fate: they allowed faster RAM than SODIMMs, but were still a clockspeed bottleneck.

It's fine to sell a laptop with slower RAM today, but in a few years, when that faster RAM is the mainstream, it won't be.

As a Fiver (not Fiverr), gotta love the folk bragging on having (or losing) 6-digit accounts. Way to make me feel old.

Given their "self-service" business model, why did Fiverr need 762 employees to begin with?

Here's a good one: When you need to pay hush money to a porn star so she doesn't talk about your mushroom dick when you're trying to gain political office, have your lawyer pay the hush money and then have your company reimburse the lawyer and write it off as "legal expenses". You gain twice, you don't have to pay income taxes on the hush money you are paying and your company gets to deduct the hush money amount.

Or here's another one, you have your company rent an apartment nominally for business purposes but then let your CFO live there in lieu of salary. You can also have the company provide him a car, vacations, pay for his grandkids exclusive private school, and provide other benefits. The employee doesn't have to pay taxes on this compensation so you can pay them less overall. You can also use this weird trick for yourself, your family, and other close employees.

If you're so smart why don't you know about these awesome scams?

Did you miss the story earlier today? iPhone 17 Air Drops Physical SIM Slot Globally, Pushing eSIM-Only Future said in the summary that 75% of phone connections are going to be eSIM by 2030. Just because a cellular device doesn't have a physical SIM card doesn't mean they can't communicate. This will make it harder to identify hardware that has undocumented cellular components, you will have to identify the actual components instead of just going "WTF is a SIM slot doing there?". It will be almost impossible to identify if the manufacturer actually is trying to hide such hardware in a SOC or something like that, the only giveaway might be the need for an antenna but those are getting smaller and smaller.

eSIM makes it much quicker and easier to swap SIMs. In fact, being able to have many eSIMs on your phone that you can quickly switch between (for example while traveling) or having multiple simultaneously active is one of its biggest benefits. It is equivalent to or better than physical SIMs in literally every way except for the ease of moving a SIM between different devices.