Volvo made a big commitment earlier this year to put electric motors in all of its vehicles by 2019 — and now the automaker will double down on electrification with an entirely new luxury car brand. 

Volvo and its Chinese parent company, Geely Holdings, just announced that they’ll invest about $755 million together to create Polestar, which will manufacture electrified vehicles in China. The new brand will be a “fully consolidated Volvo Cars subsidiary,” focused solely on creating electric, performance-first vehicles.

The plans for the Polestar were unveiled at an event in Shanghai, where the first vehicle from the brand, the Polestar 1, also made its debut. The brand new two-door coupé isn’t an all-electric car, but it has a hybrid engine that the company claims will offer an estimated 93 miles per charge of range running on electricity alone, which would give it more range than any hybrid currently on the road.  Read more…

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Source: Mashable | Volvo's wave of electric cars starts with a new brand: Polestar

This is basically the car version of the Konami Code, right?

There’s an incredible Easter egg tucked away in the computer brains of trucks produced by Russia’s Gorky Automobile Plant. As the video above demonstrates, performing a specific set of steps unlocks a playable version of Tetris on the tiny dashboard screen.

The vehicle in question is the 2017 model of GAZelle Next trucks, according to a translation of a related news story provided by the Russian-speaking father of Mashable‘s Anna Shkolnikov.

This simple, monochrome version of Tetris is no mere Easter egg, either. It’s installed for the specific purpose of testing out the picture quality on the dashboard screen. The nature of the falling blocks game presumably allows testers to make sure every inch of the display works correctly, since you can effectively fill the screen. Read more…

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Source: Mashable | 'Tetris' is playable in certain Russian trucks, and for a very specific reason

Your next electric car might be fueled up by drone. 

Amazon was granted a new patent earlier this month that was only recently spotted by Green Tech Media. The patent explains how Amazon drones might one day latch onto an electric vehicle and charge it while it’s driving — a complicated balancing act between the car and the drone.

The drones could be fully autonomous, the patent claims, meaning that they would be able to plan and navigate their own routes without any human assistance. 

Here’s how it would work: An electric vehicle would send a request for fuel on a network to which the drones are connected. The server would then select an available drone and assign it to meet the vehicle at a rendezvous point.  Read more…

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Source: Mashable | Amazon patent shows how drones might some day charge your car

Nestled amongst the many useful parenting tips in Ivana Trump’s new memoir, Raising Trump, is the revelation that Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka reportedly had a “punk phase” — during which she loved Nirvana and dyed her hair blue (for about five seconds), she writes in her mom’s book.

One problem, Ivanka dear: Nirvana is grunge, not punk. As in angst and flannel and the Pacific Northwest, not studs and anarchy and decaying, mid-size industrial cities in the U.K.

In the passage, first spotted by New York Magazine, Ivanka details how her rebellious hair dying episode is actually responsible for her current signature platinum lewk. Read more…

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Source: Mashable | Everybody is calling bullsh*t on Ivanka Trump's 'punk phase'

NASA Astronaut Randy Bresnik posted a video of himself and his fellow astronauts testing Newton’s laws of motion by playing with a fidget spinner aboard the International Space Station.

Now we can answer the age-old question: would a fidget spinner spin forever in space? Read more…

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Source: Mashable | Astronauts got to play with fidget spinners in space

Twitter has been known for preaching free speech, but that’s come to harm the company as trolls and abusers thrive across its network. 

Now, in the wake of a movement for women to boycott Twitter, the company is making its biggest sweep of changes yet to address hate speech and abuse. 

The details, leaked to Wired, were shared with members of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council Tuesday. In an email, Twitter’s team outlines both its current and updated policies on several circumstances:

• Non-consensual nudity

• Unwanted sexual advances

• Hate symbols and imagery

• Violent groups

• Tweets that glorify violence  Read more…

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Source: Mashable | Twitter is taking a much more aggressive stance on hate speech. Here's what we know:

Google just released its most powerful security feature yet.

The search giant announced on its blog Tuesday morning the new Advanced Protection Program, which is intended to protect people who are at a high risk of being hacked. This means high-profile figures like Hillary Clinton, investigative journalists, and even activists.

Most of the products Google creates are made for the masses — the billions of people who use Gmail, Google Drive, and the Chrome web browser. In this case, however, Google created a security feature for only a select number of users who are willing to sacrifice some convenience for substantially increased e-mail protection. Read more…

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Source: Mashable | Google adds stronger security features for hacking targets