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Mercedes parent company Daimler, Bosch get approval to test driverless parking valet

Image: Daimler AG

Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, and Bosch, a global auto supplier, received approval from local authorities in Stuttgart, Germany, to test an autonomous parking valet system, the companies announced on Tuesday.

The testing will take place in the Mercedes-Benz Museum parking garage, which has been fitted with sensors to guide and monitor the vehicles as they park themselves autonomously. A car owner simply taps an app to send their vehicle away to its parking space, and summoning the car back is just as simple. No human driver is needed, the companies claim.

One aspect of the pilot project involved testing lighting concepts on the vehicles. Turquoise lighting was used to…

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Author: Andrew J. Hawkins

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Fortnite 9.41 Patch Notes Storm-Tracking Rifle, Birthday Presents, And More

Fortnite has rolled out its 9.41 content update patch with loads of new goodies. The centerpiece is the new storm-tracking rifle, but you’ll also find some special celebration items alongside the balance changes and tweaks.

Specifically, Epic has added birthday presents and a birthday cake to celebrate Fortnite’s second birthday. The presents are legendary items, and opening them up will give you some surprise loot to commemorate the occasion. The cake will restore some health and shield. The update also adds new Overtime challenges.

Creative Mode has added movie set prefabs and highlighted a community-created Prop Hunt LTM. Save the World mode got updated with a new Pulsar 9000 sci-fi shotgun.

One larger-scale feature is a new picture-in-picture feature for viewing matches. Epic points out that you can use this to watch the Fortnite World Cup Pro-Am and Finals while also playing the game.

This all follows a mech vs monster showdown that took place in-game over the weekend. As usual this made some big changes to the map, which will probably come into play as the game prepares to cycle over into Season 10, which could be coming fairly soon. Check out the full patch notes below.

Fortnite v9.41 Content Update Patch Notes

Battle Royale

What’s New?

Storm Scout Sniper Rifle

Stay one step ahead of the Storm by scoping in to see it’s next location!

Birthday Presents

They say the best gifts are surprises. Open up these Legendary items commemorating Fortnite’s second birthday to see what loot awaits.

Birthday Cake

Celebrate another year of Fortnite with some Birthday Cake! Find this sweet treat around the map and get some Health & Shield.

Weapons + Items

  • Storm Scout Sniper Rifle
    • The scope on this sniper rifle contains an embedded weather map that displays upcoming storm circles before they are revealed on the minimap.
    • Available at Epic and Legendary Rarities.
    • Damage: 81/85
      • Headshot: 202/212
    • 1.1 Rounds per second.
    • Uses Heavy Ammo.
    • Reload Speed: 2.84s/2.7s.
  • Birthday Presents
    • Available in Legendary Rarity.
    • Can be found from Floor loot, Chests, Vending Machines, Supply Drops, and Llamas.
      • Not available in Arena and Tournament playlists.
    • Presents have six possible packages of loot.
  • Birthday Cake
    • Found around various POIs.
      • Not available in Arena and Tournament playlists.
    • Grants 5 Health and 5 Shield.

Gameplay

  • Overtime Challenges
    • Unlock rewards and gain XP with the Season 9 Overtime Challenges. Jump in-game now for more details!

UI

  • PiP (Picture-in-Picture) Streaming
    • Drop into the Fortnite lobby to begin your viewing of the Fortnite World Cup Pro-Am and Finals… while playing the game! Get wins while you watch your favorite competitors do the same. For more information, check out our blog.

Creative

What’s New?

Movie Set Prefabs

Lights. Camera. Action! Set the scene for the next blockbuster using the Movie Set prefabs and galleries.

Prop Hunt LTM

Face off in a thrilling game of hide and seek with a twist. Play StrayKite’s Prop Hunt game as an LTM!

Gameplay

Bug Fixes

  • Players can now edit pre-built structures during a game.
  • Coins are no longer disappearing while in Create mode after finishing a game.

Prefabs & Galleries

  • 4 New Movie Set Prefabs
    • Movie Set Warehouse
    • Movie Set Helicopter Crash
    • Movie Set Docks
    • Movie Set Ceremony
  • 3 New Galleries
    • Movie Set Gallery
    • Movie Set Prop Gallery
    • Nature Tree Gallery B

Weapons + Items

  • Storm Scout Sniper Rifle
    • The scope on this sniper rifle contains an embedded weather map that displays upcoming storm circles before they are revealed on the minimap.
    • Available at Epic and Legendary Rarities.
    • Damage: 81/85
      • Headshot: 202/212
    • 1.1 Rounds per second.
    • Uses Heavy Ammo.
    • Reload Speed: 2.84s/2.7s.

Save The World

What’s New?

Pulsar 9000

Ready… Aim… PLASMA! Unleash piercing plasma shots on the Husks with this new Sci-fi Shotgun.

Weapons + Items

  • Pulsar 9000 added to the Weekly Store.
    • Energy shotgun that shoots large rings of plasma. Shots pierce enemies!
    • Available in the Weekly Store from Wednesday, July 24th at 8 PM ET until Wednesday, July 31st at 8 PM ET.

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Author: Steve Watts

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Honor announces its first phones with pop-up selfie cameras

Image: Honor

Huawei’s sub-brand Honor has announced its first phones to feature pop-up selfie cameras. When combined with their side-mounted fingerprint sensors, this means the Honor 9X and 9X Max have almost entirely bezel-less displays, with no display notches or hole-punches in sight. Android Authority reports that the Honor 9X will release in China on July 30th with prices starting at 1,399 yuan (around $203), while the 9X Max will come later on August 9th starting at 2,199 yuan (around $320).

Internally, both phones are using Huawei’s new Kirin 810 chipset, which made its debut on the Nova 5 Pro last month and is the company’s second 7nm chipset. The 9X starts with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, while the 9X Pro starts with 8GB of RAM…

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Author: Jon Porter

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Ubisoft Narrows Down Rainbow Six Quarantine Release Window

Rainbow Six Quarantine was revealed at E3 this year with a vague “early 2020” release window. Now, publisher Ubisoft has narrowed that time frame a little further.

The company stated in its most recent earnings call that the game will launch before the end of the current financial year (via Game Informer). That means we’ll be playing Quarantine on March 31, 2020 at the very latest–barring any delays, of course.

Quarantine is a multiplayer PvE game, in contrast to Siege‘s predominantly PvP gameplay. The mode appears similar to Rainbow Six Siege Outbreak, a popular limited-time mode. Ubisoft has now decided to split off PvE into its very own game. Like the company’s entire library, it will be included in the Uplay+ service set to launch this fall.

Quarantine is designed to sit alongside Siege, rather than replace it. The latter continues to evolve, and its latest Operation Phantom Sight update makes a bunch of Operator changes. You can see more on the new spin-off game, meanwhile, in the video above.

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Author: Oscar Dayus

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Libra scams are already proliferating on Facebook

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

An investigation by The Washington Post has uncovered a dozen accounts, pages, and groups across Facebook and Instagram which misleadingly claim to be official hubs for Libra, Facebook’s proposed digital currency. In some cases these pages, which were only removed after WaPo reported them to Facebook, offered to sell Libra at a discount through third-party websites.

Given the proliferation of cryptocurrency scams seen in recent years, it’s not surprising that scammers have descended on Libra given its widespread attention. However, it’s far more surprising that Facebook doesn’t seem to have been prepared for the influx of tricksters on its own service, especially as it struggles to assure regulators that it’s equipped to handle a global…

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Author: Jon Porter

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Ford teases all-electric F-150 pickup truck by pulling a million-pound train

In 2017, Ford announced that it would sell an all-electric version of its best-selling F-150 pickup truck. It plans to start selling a hybrid version in 2020, and as a way to start priming the pump (or plug, as it were) for a vehicle that will no doubt be a very big deal, the company released a video Tuesday demonstrating the electric truck’s remarkable towing capacity.

The electric prototype is seen pulling 10 double-decker rail cars over 1,000 feet. It does it once when the rail cars are empty and a second time with them loaded with 42 regular, gas-burning F-150s. The latter stunt puts the entire load at 1.25 million pounds,…

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Author: Andrew J. Hawkins