Acer teased a new Chrome OS desktop back in January at CES, and today, we have more pricing release information. The Acer Chromebox CXI3 is now available for preorder, and it costs $297.99 for the most basic variant, as spotted by ChromeUnboxed.
As we heard at CES, it has three Intel Core processor options: the Intel Celeron 3865U, Intel Core i3 (seventh-gen) 7130U, or the Intel Core i5 (eighth-gen) 8250U. The basic version has 4GB of RAM, but you can select up to 16GB of RAM. The eighth-gen Intel Core version costs $744.99.
There are three USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and one USB-C 3.0 port. There’s also a port for an HDMI cable, LAN for Gigabit Ethernet, headphones / microphone, and a microSD card slot. It comes with a vertical stand and an optional VESA mounting kit so you can attach the Chromebox to the back of your monitor if desired.
The Acer Chromebox CXI3 is available for preorder from NextWarehouse and TigerDirect for now, with other sites to follow. While TigerDirect prices the Chromebox at the lower price of $297.99, it charges $10 for shipping and is currently out of stock. NextWarehouse charges $308.53 for the basic version with free shipping.
Uber is adding a direct way to call 911 within its app in a major safety overhaul announced on Thursday by CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. The emergency button will be located in a new “safety center” that will be easily accessible from the app’s home screen, giving riders a quick way to contact first responders in the event that something goes wrong during their trip.
The safety center will feature information about the driving screening process, insurance protections, and community guidelines (aka the list of horrible behavior that will get you banned from Uber). Riders will also be able to designate five friends and share their location during every ride. It’s all part of Khosrowshahi’s effort to reform Uber’s rule-skirting reputation and address valid criticisms about the company’s lax approach to safety.
“We were not perfect,” Khosrowshahi said in an interview on Today. “Anytime you’re growing as fast as we were growing... but that’s not an excuse, and sometimes you get things wrong. But our intent now is to get things right.”
Of course, a new button to contact emergency dispatchers is only as useful as 911’s ability to find you. A recent USA Today report said 911’s chances of getting a quick fix on a distress call’s location can range as low as 10 percent. And according to a 2014 Federal Communications Commission study, location accuracy improvements could save over 10,000 lives annually.
Uber said it will commit $350,000 to improve communications between the nation’s thousands of 911 centers. Uber will also pilot 911 integration with local emergency authorities, starting in Denver. “If a rider uses Uber’s emergency button in one of our pilot cities, their location and trip details will be automatically sent to the 911 dispatcher,” Khosrowshahi writes in a blog post.
Uber is also upgrading its driver screening process. In the past, Uber has been criticized for failing to provide adequately screen its drivers before allowing them to accept rides on the platform. Starting today, the company says it will rerun criminal and motor vehicle checks on its drivers each year, “regardless of whether there is a legal obligation to do so,” Khosrowshahi said in a blog post.
Uber will also introduce new technology that continuously monitors new offenses by drivers using data sources that cover most new criminal offenses. If it receives a notification about a new violation by a driver, Uber says it will investigate and verify any potentially disqualifying information from public records, such as a new and pending charge for a DUI, to ensure the driver is still eligible to use Uber.
More reforms will likely be needed, given Uber’s fairly atrocious safety record. The company was sued last year by a woman who was raped by an Uber driver after it was reported that top executives, including former CEO Travis Kalanick, had obtained and mishandled the woman’s medical records in an effort to discredit her. And the city of London said it would not renew Uber’s license, citing the company’s lax approach to safety. Uber appealed the decision.
Most recently, a pedestrian was killed after being struck by a self-driving Uber vehicle in Tempe, Arizona. The company immediately halted its autonomous vehicle testing nationwide as it awaits the conclusion of an investigation by federal authorities. In the Today interview, Khosrowshahi said he is doing “a top-to-bottom audit” of safety procedures but adds, “We’re absolutely committed to self-driving cars.”
Luxury car brands are increasingly trying out subscription-based services to get customers who want to have access to a fleet of fancy cars, rather than just picking one. Mercedes-Benz is the next to join the fray.
The company’s US arm announced Thursday it would begin a pilot program called Mercedes-Benz Collection in June. Nashville and Philadelphia are the first cities where the automaker will offer an unspecified fleet of their new cars. Those who subscribe will have access to the cars through a dedicated app, with some Mercedes-AMG models also planned to be part of the fleet. Prices for the subscriptions weren’t announced, but similar programs from BMW, Cadillac, and Porsche range from $1,800 per month to more than $3,000.
Both Mercedes and BMW were rumored in January to start offering such services, with BMW announcing theirs just last week — also in Nashville. The already established Book By Cadillac and Porsche Passport pilot programs offer cars that range from sports cars to SUVs to luxury sedans, depending on what the user wants at a given time. Meanwhile, Audi on Demand has operated in San Francisco for a couple years now, with per-hour or daily rates. In all cases, insurance and maintenance are included.
As drivers — especially those in crowded cities — evaluate car ownership, luxury brands are likely to increasingly try out subscription-based services to get you to try their cars. For a price, of course.
A new phone dubbed the Black Shark marks, in a roundabout way, Xiaomi’s entry into the gaming phone market. The device’s launch follows an investment made by Xiaomi in Black Shark Technology, a Chinese gaming company that will presumably form part of the Mi ecosystem.
The Black Shark’s black and green styling won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s seen the Razer Phone, the most prominent gaming phone on the market today, although it’s a lot smoother and curvier. (Also, check those green chamfered edges.) Inside it has the appropriately high specs you’d expect: a Snapdragon 845, up to 8 GB of RAM, a 1080p 21:9 display, and a 4,000mAh battery.
There’s no mention of a high refresh rate display, unlike the Razer Phone, but the Black Shark phone earns its gamer credentials by way of an attachable analog stick controller that snaps onto one side of the screen. The phone also supposedly has true “liquid cooling,” a term that’s previously been used for heat pipe-style cooling solutions on phones like the Lumia 950, which isn’t quite the same thing as what you’d find on a gaming PC. In any case, Black Shark is claiming temperature reductions of 8℃.
The Black Shark phone is available to pre-order online now for 3499 yuan (about $480) for a model with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage — pretty cheap for a phone with a Snapdragon 845. It’s not clear whether Xiaomi itself will be selling it directly, however. We’ve reached out for clarification on this and the relationship between the two companies.
Although gaming phones are still a pretty niche market worldwide, they make more sense in China than most other places due to the overwhelming popularity of relatively hardcore mobile games like the dominating MOBA Honor of Kings and various spins on the PUBG battle royale formula. Dedicated consoles don't have the same degree of penetration in China, so the idea of a phone focused on gaming performance could well be appealing to serious players. Last month Xiaomi also announced its first gaming-first computer, the Mi Gaming Laptop.
