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Most new advancements in cars are related to safety tech. Automakers want to keep us safe on the road, so several new Cadillac models will keep the car centered in the lane automatically, and a recent test of a Ford pick-up revealed how a safety shield protects you from rear-ending another car if you happen to look away from the road for too long.

It’s obviously a good trend, but technology can help us in many other ways.

In a 2020 Range Rover Evoque, there’s a feature designed for pure fun – and maybe a little peace of mind since this stylish SUV costs $42,650 (about £35,000, AU$63,000).

Using a camera mounted under the vehicle, ClearSight Ground View shows a real-time view of the under-carriage so you can look for rocks, tree limbs, and other obstructions. It’s one of those tech features that makes you look twice, realizing it is happening in real-time and that no other vehicle has anything like it (at least that I’ve tested).

Rock star

In my tests, I found a rocky side road near my house. To use the cameras, you press the camera button in the dashboard and then select the viewing angle you want. The Evoque has a few options for camera views.

What’s unique about ClearSight Ground View is that it is really helpful in an all-terrain setting with mud and dirt. I was able to find a tree limb in the road and inched toward it just to see if the under-carriage monitoring is actually helpful.

It is, although we’re not talking about the ability to automatically raise the vehicle or stop if the tree limb will cause damage. I only inched close enough to see it without driving over anything. There’s a good chance it wouldn’t have been a problem, but I wasn’t about to risk that.

If the owner of this vehicle decided to do some light off-roading, the viewing angle is handy because you can look for minors dangers like ruts, limbs, and rocks. I could also see using this in an area where there are potholes, ridges in the road, and other obstacles you’d want to avoid.

Off-road autonomy

That said, I did find think of other ideas for improving ClearSight Ground View. For now, it is only forward facing, but in the future I could see adding more angles looking behind the vehicle and underneath, or to the side to avoid some brush. Someday, the 2020 Evoque will be an actual off-road vehicle people will take on dirt paths and up mountains – say in 2035. It would be cool if the cameras were able to stop obstructions and veer away from them for those future drivers.

That’s the interesting thing about automotive tech to me. This is an innovative feature, one I have never seen before, and but shows Range Rover is trying new things. We all know the time is coming when drivers will want to see every possible angle around the vehicle, including underneath, to the side, above, and possibly even a zoom angle showing other cars.

On The Road is TechRadar’s regular look at the futuristic tech in today’s hottest cars. John Brandon, a journalist who’s been writing about cars for 12 years, puts a new car and its cutting-edge tech through the paces every week. One goal: To find out which new technologies will lead us to fully self-driving cars.

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The Google Play Store is the main hub for Android apps, but spend a few minutes on it and you can easily stumble across malicious apps containing adware or worse. It looks like Google is making it harder for this kind of software to slip through its nets, however, with news that its app approval process will take a lot longer.

This news comes courtesy of a blog post from Choice of Games, a prolific app developer with over 100 apps on Google Play Store, which says that new apps submitted via the Android developer interface now face a three-day approval time, which is a significant increase on previous apps, which were often approved within a day.

Choice of Games’ blog post points to an Android developer support page, which confirms that “for certain developer accounts, we’ll take more time to thoroughly review your app(s) to help better protect users. You’ll receive a notification on your app’s Dashboard about how long this should take.”

It’s not clear what ‘certain developer accounts’ means, although presumably it’s dependent on the developer’s popularity and trust – but since Choice of Games, who have many games, are still seeing this wait period, it seems that the bar would be pretty high.

We’ve reached out to Google for clarification on this point, and will update this article if and when we hear back.

This news has split Android fans – while it should make users safer, it gives Android developers a big hurdle to overcome.

How does this affect Google Play Store users?

Good news for Google Play Store users, is that this change should make downloading apps on the service a lot safer. While the majority of the platform is safe to download from, a small but dangerous number of apps still slip through the cracks on a regular basis.

There’s still an abundance of adware apps and stalker apps on the Google Play Store, as well as apps that can steal your data or details in a range of ways (although in the era of Facebook and other big data companies, does anyone care any more?).

If the Google Play Store screening process now takes a lot longer, it means Google is taking the time to do its due diligence and make sure apps that are posted aren’t going to put users at risk.

How does this affect Android developers?

Some Android developers have hit back at the news, however, for one valid reason – Google didn’t announce this change.

Many app developers work on specific deadlines and schedules like, for example, Choice of Games with its 100-strong Google Play Store collection. However the Android app platform only lets developers know of the three-day approval time change once they’ve submitted the app.

This means many users who were expecting their app to be up in a day are going to have their schedules thrown into disarray. This could be a problem for big companies which use deadlines for financial and workflow reasons, and a huge issue for indie developers that rely on their apps’ success as their source of income.

Google probably should have communicated with developers better to let them know of this change – but in the long run it’s better for developers and app users.

Via XDAdevelopers

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If there’s one thing LG likes to do, it’s innovate, and two new patents point to possible future innovations from the company.

The first of these, spotted by LetsGoDigital, shows a phone that doesn’t appear to have any physical buttons at all. This isn’t a totally new concept – the Meizu Zero for example had the same idea, but there’s no widely available phone that doesn’t have physical buttons.

Why get rid of buttons? Well, the mechanisms take up internal space which could be used for other things, or freed up to make the phone smaller or thinner. Buttons can also slightly spoil the lines of a phone, so getting rid of them could improve the appearance.

The design in this patent also shows a quad-lens rear camera, which is less unusual but would be a first for LG, and the screen appears to be almost completely bezel-free, with just a small notch housing a single-lens camera on the front. The lack of buttons or any visible fingerprint scanner suggests this would be built into the screen.

(Image credit: LG Electronics / LetsGoDigital)

In another patent, LG shows a phone with a single-lens rear camera that has a ring around it. It’s not clear what purpose the ring serves, but this looks like a high-end handset as the bezels are minimal, so perhaps it’s a zoom lens.

Certainly, it seems the camera is the focus on this phone, as there’s also a button near the bottom of the right edge which we suspect is a dedicated shutter key given its position.

However, none of this is certain, and as with all patents we can’t be sure if or when these designs will become actual phones. So don’t count on the LG V60 ThinQ or LG G9 being buttonless.

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Would you rent a solar panel? That’s the new business strategy that Tesla – through its subsidiary SolarCity – is using to target consumers after some sweet, renewable energy, with a push in the US before a Europe launch planned for 2020.

While SolarCity was one of the largest providers of solar energy in the US only a few years ago, its seen its share of the market decline since Tesla’s acquisition back in 2016. Other providers now lead the way, with Tesla installing only 29 megawatts worth of solar panel technology in the three months it took competitor SunRun to install 103 megawatts.

One click to order solar & save ~$500/year in utility bills with no long-term contract (cancel anytime)August 18, 2019

Renting starts at $50 per month in the states of Arizona, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New Mexico – with an uptick to $65 in California.

Price-wise, it still makes sense to buy a solar panel outright rather than renting every year – especially given the $1,500 (around £1,230 / AU$2,210) cost of removing those panels if you do choose to stop renting. SolarCity’s cheapest solar panel array costs upwards of $7,000 (around £5,700 / AU$10,300) with tax incentives, which you would reach after roughly 12 years of renting at the above rate.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk also took to Twitter to say that “it’s like having a money printer on your roof” – if you’re in an area or state with high electricity costs.

Too much i’ the sun

Solar power has got more of the limelight (sunlight?) in recent years, as governments look to renewable energy sources to help run national power grids, and as individual home owners find ever more methods of reducing their carbon footprint.

Sure, installing a solar panel might seem like a large expense now, but given the amount of energy it generates for you, the purchase becomes more cost-effective the longer you use it – if your roof actually gets any sun, that is.

If you live in the shadow of a high-rise building, we probably don’t recommend it – but for those of you in the UK, the E.ON website has a handy tool for sussing out whether your home is suitable.

Via TechCrunch

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After years of user requests, Google Drive is finally getting a much-needed feature: shortcuts that point to files stored in another location.

If you use Google Drive frequently, you’ll know how frustrating it can be trying to find a single file in a jumble of folders. Yes, you can search for its name, but the new shortcuts feature could make your life much easier.

You’ll be able to create shortcuts pointing to files in other folders, or on shared Drives, without changing the original file’s location.

Quick clicks

Unfortunately you won’t be able to create a shortcut to any old file – you’re limited to Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, PDFs, JPGs, Microsoft Office files and folders. No creating shortcuts to your amusing cat GIFs, then.

The feature will arrive for paying G Suite users in the coming weeks (admins can now sign up for the beta program to get it early) and we anticipate it trickling down to personal Google Drive users later in the year.

Via Ars Technica

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E-scooters and e-skateboards have been riding around many of the world’s city streets.

But while some countries have welcomed them, they are illegal to ride on public roads and pavements in the UK.

Some riders are now calling for regulation rather than an outright ban.

BBC Click finds out more.

See more at Click’s website and @BBCClick

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Xiaomi is going to announce the Redmi Note 8 alongside its 70-inch Redmi TV in an event scheduled on August 29 in China. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun took to Weibo and revealed a poster for the upcoming Redmi TV 70-inch. 

A user seems to have asked him in the comments section whether we can expect to see the Note 8 on the same day, to which Jun had replied with a thumbs-up emoji.

While that’s not an official confirmation, its most definitely a hint at the Redmi Note 8 series that has been said to be in development. Lei Jun has previously teased some of the key areas the company is working on the successor to the Redmi Note 7 series. These include advanced cameras, efficient battery performance and more screen estate to play around.

Xiaomi has also revealed earlier that they plan on bringing phones with 64MP camera sensor, so we could see that on one of the Redmi Note 8 phones.

Coming to the Redmi TV, we know through the details on the poster that it is going to feature a humongous 70-inch display. While it is still unknown, the TV would have to be 4K considering its size and will be powered by the PatchWall OS like other Xiaomi TVs. There are also rumours about a 40-inch Redmi TV, so we could also see that during the event on August 29.

We’ll keep an eye out on the developments in this area and let you know as we head closer to the launch day.

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