stella
Latest
Facebook may be creating AR glasses with Ray-Ban's owner (updated)
Apple might not be the only big tech company working on an augmented reality headset. CNBC sources maintain that Facebook is partnering with Luxottica (owner of Ray-Ban, Oakley and other brands) on AR glasses nicknamed Orion. The eyewear would be a full-fledged phone replacement, according to the contacts. You could take calls, see information and livestream what you're seeing. In that sense, it would be closer to Google Glass (which also involved Luxottica) than phone-dependent devices like Snap's Spectacles.
PBS celebrates the lunar landing's anniversary with a space miniseries
This year marks the lunar landing's 50th anniversary, and PBS is celebrating the event by broadcasting a space-themed mini-series. The broadcaster will debut the six-episode show entitled Stellar on June 20th, publishing the episodes on its YouTube and Facebook pages. It will feature three of its space-loving hosts: Matt Dowd (astrophysicist and host of Space Time), Dianna Cowern (host of Physics Girl) and Joe Hanson (host of It's Okay to be Smart).
Solar Team Eindhoven crafts solar-powered family car (video)
The solar-powered cars we've seen to date are usually built for just one person -- not very useful when many of us need to carry passengers. TU/e's Solar Team Eindhoven just brought some much-needed realism on that front by unveiling Stella, which it claims is the world's first solar-powered family car. The vehicle's combination of efficient solar cells with lightweight construction allows such radical concepts as back seats and a trunk while maintaining a 373-mile range. The barebones design won't rival most modern cars for luxury, but it's also energy-positive -- in typical use, it can contribute back to the power grid. You may even see it outside of competitions; while Stella is designed with October's World Solar Challenge in mind, Solar Team Eindhoven plans to make the car road-legal. Let's hope we catch it putting around Dutch streets. [Image credit: Bart van Overbeeke]
Subaru yanks concept label, begins testing Stella plug-in EV
Anyone that follows the automobile sector with any semblance of regularity would know that quite a few concepts never make it beyond the drawing board. Thankfully, Subaru's Stella is one of the lucky ones. Fuji Heavy Industries, parent company and maker of Subaru automobiles, has just announced its plans to begin testing prototypes of its Subaru plug-in Stella electric vehicle, which will be introduced in Japan this summer. Furthermore, the company has managed to boost power output from 40kW in the previous iteration to 47kW, and it also stripped away some unnecessary weight and fine-tuned the output management system. There's no mention of a price or expected launch date in North America, but you'll never stop us from hoping the answer to the latter is "soon."
Subaru features STELLA electric car at G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit
With just about every other automaker on the planet champing at the bit to showcase its newest electric prototypes, Subaru's doing its best to hang on to the briskly moving bandwagon. Said company has just recently announced that its plug-in STELLA concept will be showcased at the upcoming G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit, and four of the five on hand will actually be used to "transport government officials and other participants" while the other offers itself up for test drives. The four-seat vehicle in question utilizes the same EV (electric vehicle) system employed in the R1e, suggesting that it can cruise around 80-kilometers (50 miles) on a full charge and hit a top speed of 100km/h (or just over 62mph).[Via AutoblogGreen]
O2 finally getting HTC Kaiser as "Xda Stellar" -- or "Stella" perhaps
Seems like a pretty egregious error on O2's part to throw up a promotional image of its upcoming HTC Kaiser variant with a big, fat typo up top -- but at the same time, we have an easier time believing that they're coining it the "Xda Stellar," not the "Xda Stella." The text below the picture uses the Stellar name, so that's what we're going with for the time being until we hear otherwise. Anyhoo, by all appearances, this is pretty much the same Kaiser everyone else has gotten, and with a projected release window in December, we're a little surprised to see O2 so far behind the curve here. Too little, too late, or is HTC's finest QWERTY device still going to find droves of buyers by the time it finally launches?[Via MoDaCo and Mobiholics]Update: O2's already corrected its mistake, it's officially the Xda Stellar. Makes more sense that way, eh? Thanks, Gears!
