Tech News Roundup For May 20, 2021
Here are a few of the Tech Stories I’ve found interesting in the past couple days
Razer Kishi Review
I reviewed the Razer Kishi, a gaming controller designed for Android phones.
https://www.thewunderbar.net/blog/2021/5/19/razer-kishi-review
Ford Unveils F-150 Lightning EV
The electric age is upon us. The Ford F-150 is one of the most popular, best selling vehicles in North America, and Ford has shown off the F-150 Lightning, an all electric version of the pickup truck. The vehicle will start at $58,000 with about 370km of range, and a $68,000 trim will come with 483km of range.
The F-150 Lightning is a very important product for Ford. Ford says the F-150 Lightning offers very few compromises over the gas powered F-150, but the EV is not ready to replace the gas truck yet. But it is clear that this is just the first step in moving the entire line to electric.
In terms of charging, the F-15 supports up to 150KW DC fast charging, and while Ford does not have a supercharger network like Tesla, it is partnering with several companies that do provide EV charging to integrate those into Ford’s software. The Verge writeup linked below goes into a ton of detail, and while much of the information is US centric, there is a lot to take in.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/19/22442777/ford-f-150-lightning-electric-truck-specs-price
Google and Shopify Expand Partnership
As part of a wider expansion of Google Shopping announced at Google I/O this week, it was announced that Google and Shopify are working more closely together to allow Shopify Merchants more discoverability and seamless access to Google Shopping. Shopify has over 1.7 Million merchants on its platform, and in theory this means all of them will have much more visibility in Google Shopping. This partnership only further cements Shopify as one of the best Canadian technology companies ever.
https://mobilesyrup.com/2021/05/19/google-launches-expanded-partnership-with-shopify/
Google Maps Gets New Features
The last thing I’m highlighting out of Google I/O is a bunch of new features to Google Maps. The new features include quality of life improvements, like the service surfacing coffee shops when opened in the morning, to eco friendly navigation routing that will take things such as elevation changes into account. There’s lot of little great things in these updates, beyond what Google has already done in the past year.
Microsoft Roundup
There was a bunch of Microsoft news this week, all worth at least a quick mention. First off, the company has quietly released the newest version of Windows 10, version 21H1. There aren’t really any new features to speak of here, with 21H1 being mostly what we’d call a maintenance release.
Next up is Microsoft announcing that Internet Explorer 11 is finally being retired in most versions of Windows, specifically those geared towards consumers. Internet Explorer 11 has been largely hidden out of view in recent years, being kept in Windows as a compatibility solution. Now, in the Windows 10 Home and Pro versions, Internet Explorer 11 is finally being retired. Microsoft will stop supporting the browser in June of 2022. On some business versions of Windows 10 Microsoft will continue to provide security updates, and security updates will also be provided to IE11 on Windows 8.1, which is supported until 2023, and business customers choosing to pay for extended Windows 7 support. But for the versions of windows most people run, Internet Explorer 11 is finally going away… in a year.
Lastly, Microsoft has announced that Windows 10X will not come to market. 10X was originally conceived as a version of Windows for the dual screened Microsoft Neo folding computer, which itself was shelved last year. Windows 10X was then pivoted to a solution for traditional laptops, but something that would be closer to the functionality of a Chromebook. There was a leaked build of Windows 10X a couple months ago and… it did not look good. Now, Microsoft seems to have realized the product would not be successful, and killed it.
https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/250228/windows-10-version-21h1-is-now-available
https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/250278/microsoft-to-retire-ie-11-in-2022-mostly