ShinyShiny snippets: Volkswagen Golf to be reborn as ID 2 urban EV
Volkswagen has gone back to the drawing board for its long-awaited ID 2 urban EV, providing its smallest electric car with a completely new exterior and interior that are set to be previewed on a new concept car in March. Scheduled to go on sale in 2025 at a targeted base price of €22,500 (£20,135) in today’s money, the compact five-seater is being lined up to get the Golf name, according to Wolfsburg insiders. Autocar sources have also confirmed that the Volkswagen ID 2 will be the first VW based on the MEB-Plus platform that features new LFP (lithium iron phosphate) prismatic battery cells and charging speeds of up to 200kW. Autocar
Google knows its AI just isn’t ready for prime time, so it has a new plan to iron out all the kinks, by forcing thousands of its workers to spend hours poking and prodding the poor AI until it won’t embarrass the company when it’s finally released. Business Insider reported based on a leaked company-wide email that Google is asking all of its employees to take two to four hours of their day to test Google’s “Bard” AI, the same system the company plans to integrate into its chat function. Gizmodo
Major computer chip equipment maker ASML says a former employee in China stole information about its technology. The Dutch firm says it has since reported the breach to authorities in the Netherlands and the US. However, the company added that it does not “believe that the misappropriation is material to our business.”ASML is one of the most important firms in the global microchip supply chain. It makes machines that produce the world’s most advanced chips. BBC
Google has been running adverts for a “get rich quick” scheme run by the misogynist influencer Andrew Tate, new research suggests. The former Big Brother contestant, who is being held in Romania over rape and human trafficking allegations, which he denies, was prominently named on promotions for “The Real World”. It appears to be a rebranding of his “Hustler’s University”, a controversial community that paid members for sharing Tate‘s content on their own social media accounts. Sky News
WhatsApp is making some minor changes to its Android app, although they’re clearly handy additions (even if one of them is still in beta testing right now). The tweaks inbound with the latest release version of the Android client include the ability to add captions when sharing a document via WhatsApp, as WABetaInfo reports. Along with that comes a big increase in the number of photos and videos you can send at once in a conversation. Previously, the limit for this was 30 pieces of media, but that has been upped to 100. Tech Radar
Several long-awaited new features that were supposed to roll out to Sky’s streaming devices, Sky Glass and Sky Stream, have been postponed at the last minute, presumably due to technical difficulties. Some users have reported getting those features, along with a new software version, in early February – with the update then being rolled back, and their devices going back to the previous version. Among the new features that users will now have to keep waiting for – again – are the highly requested Personalised Playlists – which finally will finally bring personal profiles to Sky’s devices. Cordbusters
