Archives for July 4, 2019

The Ivy Rec could document your hiking adventures.

Canon may be late to the clippable camera party, but it’s still convinced it can bring something new to the table. The company is preparing a crowdfunding campaign for the Ivy Rec, a clip-on rugged camera that’s designed to capture your hikes and other outdoor adventures. The cute-looking device won’t win the image quality wars with a 13-megapixel sensor and 1080p 60FPS recording. However, it’s built around a tiny water- and shock-resistant design that should be safer to use than your phone in the woods or at the beach.

Logically, there will be a mobile app to both preview shots and transfer them to your phone for social sharing.

It’s not certain how much the Ivy Rec will cost, or when its campaign will start. It’ll likely cost considerably less than ehe phone in your pocket, though, and that’s part of the point. This is a camera you shouldn’t have to worry about. While it’s not quite as rugged as a full-fledged action camera, it should help you spend more time enjoying moments and less time worrying about breaking your electronics or framing the perfect picture.

That’s ‘ev-eye-a’ to you.

No, Lotus isn’t ready to spill the beans on its Type 130 electric hypercar. It is, however, ready to give the car a name: meet the Evija (pronounced “ev-eye-a”). While the company’s choice of name is a bit strained — it means “the first in existence” or “the living one” — it makes sense given both Lotus’ traditions and what it represents. The company has long given its cars names starting with E (Esprit, Elise, Exige), and it only seems fitting to name an EV as, well, “Ev.”

You won’t have to wait too long to get some proper details. Goodwood Festival of Speed attendees will get a “sneak peek” at the Evija through a light show, and a formal reveal is due later in July. Consider the name reveal a declaration of intent. Lotus wants to assure people that this will be a flagship car that continues the company’s traditions, not an offshoot.

Product lead David Lieb revealed that change, and others, in a surprisingly open Twitter dialogue.

Google Photos’ product lead David Lieb took advantage of some downtime this week to start a surprisingly open dialogue on Twitter. Yesterday, he asked users what they want to see next from Google Photos — new features, bug fixes, performance improvements, etc. The conversation lasted for hours, and it shed light on a few changes coming to the service. One of the most notable is that Google Photos plans to add a manual face tagging feature that will let users tag faces it doesn’t recognize.

According to Lieb, a few capabilities previously restricted to the web will finally make their way to mobile. You’ll soon be able to search for recently uploaded photos on mobile, and you’ll be able to edit timestamps on Android; as Android Police reports, users can already do that on the web and iOS. Lieb also revealed that “the team” is working to let Android users delete photos while in an album. Again, that’s a feature that web and iOS users already have access to.

It’s unclear when the new features will arrive or if Google Photos will consider any of the ideas that were tossed around — like adding a map feature, removing duplicates and showing photo descriptions in slide shows. If nothing else, it’s nice to see a Google product lead take to Twitter to have an open conversation with users.

It’s a stopgap until more secure systems arrive.

Many existing keyless entry systems aren’t secure, but few people are likely to replace their cars just to reduce the chances of a determined thief making off with their ride. Kia UK has an official stopgap solution, though. It’s taking a cue from third parties and releasing KiaSafe, a case that serves as a minuscule Faraday cage to block the key’s wireless signals. There’s nothing particularly special to it — it’s ultimately a metal-lined pouch — but that’s all might you need to prevent someone from swiping your car while you’re asleep.

The case is available for £10 (slightly under $13) both during the transfer process for both new and existing Kia owners.

Before you ask: yes, Kia is fully aware that this isn’t an ideal situation. It’s promising that future wireless key fobs are “as close to impervious to attack as possible” through technologies like ultra-wideband signals and sleep buttons. This is more about acknowledging the issue (a particularly rampant one in the UK) and sparing drivers the trouble of hunting down an aftermarket option.