GM’s ‘EV Live’ online showroom is here to answer your most pressing EV questions

It’s been a while since EVs shed their fringe curiosity reputation and become a mainstream transportation technology, but they’re still not yet ubiquitous enough that the general public is really comfortable with the vagaries of their day to day use. Basically, EVs are the shiny new toy and people still have questions. GM is here to answer them. The company announced on Monday that it is opening an online showroom/studio, dubbed EV Live, that will host Q&A sessions with the general public about electrification, the ins and outs of EV ownership and GM’s Ultium 360 charging network and electric vehicle offerings.

The free service will allow anyone in the US, over the age of 18, with an internet connection to contact one of GM’s EV liaisons to “answer EV-related questions in real-time and give virtual tours of the EV Live studio.” That studio will feature mockups of GM’s home and public chargers, the company’s battery technology, and of course GM EVs. The liaisons will be able to speak on a wide range of subjects — from the engineering and chemistry that goes into the batteries, to explaining the home charger installation process and select a certified vendor — but don’t expect the answers to be all-encompassing.     

“If somebody’s got a question about a Tesla battery pack, I’m sure they’ve done a lot of resources at their fingertips,” Hoss Hassani, GM vice president of EV Ecosystem, said during a press call on Friday. “We want to talk to people about EV considerations overall where the opportunity presents to talk specifically about the GM advantage.”

“We are not looking for our EV specialists to offer any editorial commentary, or get into a political discussion about federal policy, or state policy, or any of that,” he added. The showroom is focused primarily on electric cars, trucks and SUVs but Hassani hinted that ebikes, electric ATVs and other offroad electric transports could eventually become topics of discussion as well. 

GM expects both prospective EV buyers and recent purchasers to find value in this service. “If you’re someone who owns an EV, if you drove off a lot and then realized — like many of us do — ‘oh shoot, I have a whole bunch of questions that I didn’t get answered,’ this is an awesome place to come to to understand how you can make the most of what you’re already driving,” a GM representative noted during the call.  

Visitors will be able to schedule a live one-on-one tour with a liaison — on-demand live group tours and prerecorded walkthroughs are coming later this year — and ask questions either through voice or text chat. But before you go whipping out your junk on camera, know that the liaisons will not abide. 

“The staff are empowered,” Hassani said. “If they find a conversation is just headed in a direction that is untoward, or that somebody is treating them inappropriately… well, it’s very easy to disconnect the call.” The studio will be open Monday to Thursday from 9am to midnight ET, Friday from 9am to 9pm ET, and Saturday to Sunday, 11am to 7pm ET.

Kmart halts use of in-store facial recognition amid Australian privacy investigation

Retailers in Australia are the latest companies to back away from facial recognition, albeit under pressure. The Guardianreports Kmart and Bunnings have temporarily halted use of facial recognition in their local stores while the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) investigates the privacy implications of their systems. The two chains were trialing the technology to spot banned customers, prevent refund fraud and reduce theft.

The investigation started in mid-July, a month after the consumer advocacy group Choice learned that Kmart and Bunnings were testing facial recognition. Bunnings had already paused use as it migrated to a new system. Other Australian retailers, such as Aldi, Coles and Woolworths, have said they don’t have plans to adopt the technology. 

Both retailers defended their implementations. A Kmart spokesperson stressed that its facial recognition tech was used for “preventing criminal activity” and had strict privacy controls. We’ve asked Kmart’s US operations about any possible implementations in North American shops. Bunnings managing director Mike Schneider, meanwhile, claimed Choice was “mischaracterizing” face detection. The company’s trial is only meant to catch banned customers and doesn’t store images for regular shoppers, he said.

The concerns aren’t limited to data storage, however. Systems like these still have to scan every face entering a given store, and other approaches to facial recognition have exhibited gender and race biases or produced false positives. Companies like IBM and Microsoft have backed away from at least some uses over ethical matters, and American politicians have urged government agencies to stop using such platforms. Kmart and Bunnings might not escape similar scrutiny.

Intel strikes a deal to manufacture MediaTek’s chips

Intel and MediaTek have formed a strategic partnership to build chips for “a range of smart edge devices” using Intel Foundry Services (IFS), Intel announced. The aim is to help MediaTek build a “more balanced, resilient supply chain,” with added capacity in the US and Europe. 

MediaTek is a fabless chipmaker that supplies processors for smartphones made by OnePlus, Samsung and others, with most of its capacity currently handled by fab giant TSMC. However, it looks like Intel will build chips for less glamorous devices used for industrial computing, medical devices, internet-of-things applications and more. Intel currently manufactures chips for MediaTek used in its 5G data card business.

Still, the partnership meets Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger’s pledge to seek customers for its foundry business. Intel launched IFS in 2021 to take advantage of surging demand for semiconductor manufacturing by offering “leading-edge process and packaging technology,” along with committed capacity in the US and Europe. As one of the leading fabless chip makers, MediaTek would be a key client. 

Last year, Intel announced that it would build chips for Qualcomm as part of its foundry launch. It also detailed its “IDM 2.0” strategy to catch rivals TSMC and Samsung by 2025, kicking it off with a $20 billion investment in two Arizona fabrication plants. Later in 2021, the Biden administration spurned plans by Intel to manufacture silicon wafers in China as a way to relieve global chip shortage issues, citing security concerns. 

The US Senate is set to vote on the CHIPS Act designed to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing with tax credits and up to $52 billion in subsidies. However, some industry players are concerned that it could unduly favor Intel, to the detriment of smaller manufacturers like AMD, Qualcomm and NVIDIA. Those companies design their own chips but don’t manufacture them, so would see no direct benefit from subsidies. 

A chess-playing robot broke its seven-year-old opponent’s finger

In something out of Black Mirror meets Queen’s Gambit, a chess robot accidentally broke the finger of its seven-year old opponent during an exhibition in Moscow, The Guardian reported. The child apparently moved his piece too soon and the robot grabbed his finger and squeezed it, causing a fracture before help could arrive. “The robot broke the child’s finger,” said Moscow Chess Federation president Sergey Lazarev. “This is of course bad.” 

Video shows the robot grabbing the boy’s finger and holding it for several seconds a group of people come to free him. It’s not clear what went wrong, but Lazarev said the child had “made a move, and after that we need to give time for the robot to answer, but the boy hurried and the robot grabbed him.” He implied that the robot’s suppliers may need work on the safety aspects, saying the are “going to have to think again.” 

The boy was identified as Christopher and went on to play the next day, finishing the tournament. His parents, however, have reportedly contacted the public prosecutor’s office. Russian chess official Sergey Smagin downplayed the incident, calling it “a coincidence” and saying the machine was “absolutely safe.” 

In any case, the incident can be seen as a modern parable of the dangers of robots, even in something as innocuous as chess. On a larger scale with things like robotic cars, however, the stakes are considerably higher.