The Morning After: Gmail gets an overdue redesign
And BMW reveals a new electric new car.
It's the middle of the week? Already? Well, we advise you take a peek at Gmail's new look and get ready for a slew of earnings reports later today that will include Facebook, Twitter, AT&T and LG.
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BMW's Concept iX3 dials back the futuristic styling
Say hello to the pure electric Concept iX3, a vehicle that in one form or another will eventually make its way into production. Other than a few design tweaks and an off-white matte paint job, the crossover looks like an X3. That's the point. Launched with two very different and equally polarizing vehicles, the i brand includes the urban i3 and the i8 hybrid supercar. The futuristic design was off-putting to some. "It's difficult with such niche products to reach the main customers in the wide range," Domagoj Dukec head of the design team for BMW i and M vehicles said during the unveiling.
They've smoothed out the body to reduce wind resistance and removed the iconic BMW "kidney" grill (found at the front of all the automaker's cars) -- the radiator doesn't need an air feed, after all, and without it, the vehicle's aerodynamics lower, too. One thing that will differentiate the Concept iX3 is its color: blue. Even the space where you would typically see the exhaust now has blue rectangles.
Gmail's big redesign helps you spend less time in your inbox
Gmail has become the email service of choice for innumerable people since it first went live in 2004. New features have popped up at a steady clip ever since, but we haven't really seen a big redesign since 2011. Whispers started cropping up earlier this month of another considerable overhaul, which Google is formally revealing today. The bulk of the overhaul is designed to make Gmail a more productive place for business users. But the updates apply to Gmail as a whole, so there's plenty for the rest of us to play around with, too.
A first look at Spotify's redesigned free mobile experience
As rumored, Spotify unveiled a redesigned app geared toward users of its free music-streaming service. The new mobile experience is all about personalized on-demand listening, with 15 playlists curated by Spotify based on your listening habits. That includes sets like the Daily Mix, which feature songs you've "hearted" (aka liked) and Discover Weekly, to help you expand your music taste with artists and tracks you may not be too familiar with. The Release Radar playlist, meanwhile, will let you keep up with all the new music popping up on the service. Spotify says that the more songs you heart or hide, the smarter its playlists will get and others will begin to populate as a result.
The company says its new approach, one not based simply on shuffling tracks (though you can still do that), should keep its more-than-90-million free users locked in to the app.
Amazon can deliver packages to the inside of your car
Amazon Key's in-home delivery is all well and good (if rather creepy), but there's an obvious caveat: You have to go home to get it. Amazon's new Key In-Car service lets couriers deliver packages to the trunk of your vehicle as long as it's in a publicly accessible parking space. You'll need a 2015 or newer GM-made or Volvo car with an internet-savvy account (OnStar or Volvo On Call), making it a relatively niche audience, but after that it's relatively seamless. The delivery driver requests access to your car, and you'll get a notification when the package is in your car and the courier has locked it. If you're a little nervous about that, Amazon notes that the driver never gets a special code or key, so they won't have access to your vehicle beyond a given delivery.
The 65th anniversary Corvette is a performance beast for data nerds
The Corvette is 65 years old. Typically, in your sixties, you slow down. You relax. The 2018 Z06 Carbon 65 convertible is doing none of those things. If anything, Chevrolet has produced one of the best Corvettes ever. It's fast (duh), but thanks to lightweight materials and an onboard data tracking system, the Vette is ready for a new generation of drivers to take the wheel. Just be ready to drop a lot of cash. All of it.
Selfie-snapping monkey loses copyright infringement case (again)
The copyright battle over who owns that famous simian selfie taken by a macaque monkey in Indonesia apparently didn't end last year. On Monday, an appeals court affirmed the lower court's decision that Naruto, the seven-year-old crested macaque in the selfie, can't file a copyright claim for the photo. "[W]e conclude that this monkey -- and all animals, since they are not human -- lacks statutory standing under the Copyright Act," Judge N. Randy Smith wrote in the ruling.
Hubble flies through the Milky Way's 'raucous star nursery'
NASA has unveiled a new fly-through video of the Lagoon Nebula, in the center of the Milky Way. NASA calls it a "raucous star nursery" full of dust and star formation with Herschel 36, a star 200,000 times larger than our sun, at its center.
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