Web Wednesdays – April Week Two

Welcome to AdFeeder’s web Wednesdays, your weekly dose of the latest news and stories that have caught our eye. From technology news to the latest vehicle releases and everything in between, we aim to bring you a quick run down of what you need to know each week.

We are ploughing through the month of April and there’s plenty of news to get through! This week’s episode features some more news on MINI’s radical new models and that Facebook scandal!

 

Alpine GTA Concept – pro-level fan fiction car design at its best

 

We’ll start off by saying this sadly isn’t a real version by Alpine, but it’s a fan made piece of design that has left the world wanting more. The Alpine has been a welcome addition to the affordable sports car category, offering a fantastic blend of everyday performance with a huge amount of presence on the road. The name alone is rich with history and prowess, Alpine dominated the World Rally Championship with the original A110. 

In fact, having achieved the rally championship, and with Renault money now fully behind them, Alpine had set their sights on a new target. The next aim was to win at Le Mans. Renault had also taken over the Gordini tuning firm and merged the two to form Renault Sport. A number of increasingly successful sports racing cars appeared, culminating in the 1978 Le Mans win with the Renault Alpine A442B. 

But now to the Alpine GTA Concept we mentioned earlier. It was made by Arseny Kostromin, a Russian designer who has gained over a decade’s experience working in the studios of Renault, Volkswagen and the Genesis Advanced Design Studio in Frankfurt. 

‘I created the Alpine GTA project to highlight the modern design processes available using a single piece of 3D modelling software called Autodesk Alias,’ explains Arseny. ‘The finished car is perhaps what could be created if the expertise of the Alpine F1 team met Alpine’s design heritage.’ 

It just shows how incredible the results can be when someone as talented as this can model an entirely new vehicle and show every single intricate detail including the powertrain, interior and evening chassis components all via a 3d modelling software!

 

General Motors announced the launch of Maps+, an in-vehicle, app-based navigation solution, upgrading capabilities for select model year 2018 and newer Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles by the end of 2021.

 

GM rolls out a new cloud-based mapping service for nearly 1 million vehicles

 

We always like to see some friendly competition between rival Maps software. We mentioned the recent partnership between Volvo and Google in a previous Web Wednesdays video, but GM looks set to bring an entirely new piece of software to the cars we drive.

Naturally, being GM it’s mainly for brands like Buick, Cadillac and GMC, so it’s unlikely that we’ll see the software here in the U.K yet, but we felt it was worth talking about today. What sets this software apart is the fact that it is designed for vehicle owners who didn’t purchase the option for in-car navigation when they bought their vehicle. Maps Plus will be offered as part of GM’s OnStar Connected Services subscription service, which starts at $14.99 a month.

Obviously, many car owners use popular services like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto that mirror their phone’s interface on the infotainment screen in their vehicle. But the app’s designer says those services don’t offer the same type of embedded experience that GM is offering with Maps Plus. 

“With an embedded experience that can work with all of the signals of the vehicle, there’s integrations that are possible that we think the customer would find very helpful to have,” Digital Manager for GM Tim Babbitt says. “It’s an end-to-end integrated type of experience.”

 

 

Mini plans Minor revival, new EV hot hatch and larger SUV

 

Again, another topic we’ve covered previously, but as the weeks go by, developments in this story seem to be emerging. It’s no secret that MINI as a brand have matured slightly over the years. We don’t particularly see that as a bad thing, the cars might be bigger but the ethos is still very much the same, to put the fun back into driving. 

The MINI Cooper S E does exactly that, but also offers a stress-free, enjoyable way of owning a fully electric vehicle. This seems to be the way forward for MINI, and they’re set to become fully electric as a brand by 2030. Whilst we mentioned the cars have grown, AutoCar understands that a MINI model will be just that, MINI. The rumours are they will launch a super-compact three-door electric city car just 3.5m long, before capping the new range with a bigger Countryman crossover and a spacious, long-range electric MPV. These last two models are expected to be at least 4.5m long, making them the biggest Minis yet. Today’s 3-Door Hatch and 5-Door Hatch will be replaced, as will be the Convertible and Clubman, Autocar understands.

A step towards becoming a fully electrified brand has been taken with the unveiling of the one-off electric Mini JCW Pacesetter, which will be used as a pace car for Formula E.

According to BMW insiders, a less dramatically styled version of the electric JCW will be launched later this year or in early 2022. The JCW EV will be aimed at establishing the credibility of pure-electric Minis by showcasing the pace and sharp handling that have been a hallmark of the brand’s performance cars for decades, before the all-new fourth-generation Mini hatchback arrives eight to 12 months later.

 

 

Facebook announce the breach that affected 533 million accounts is ‘old news’

 

This topic has been circling almost every news outlet for a while now, but it’s a story with more twists and turns than the final episode of Tiger King. After information from 533 million Facebook users was exposed to hackers, the company has tried to reassure users, saying that the data was leaked years ago and has since been secured.

Naturally, this hasn’t really put people’s minds at ease. The fact is the breach still happened, and regardless of whether it happened last week or in the last few years, some of that information is still very much relevant to a lot of people who have been affected. 

The dataset, first reported by Business Insider, contained information from 106 countries including phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates and email addresses. Even if it did not include passwords, the data is significant because those identifiers don’t often change.

Much like Tiger King, this isn’t likely to be the end of the story, and as the months go by Facebook will be under even more scrutiny and pressure to provide answers on this breach.

Read more Web Wednesday articles here!

 

 

Elliot NewtonWeb Wednesdays – April Week Two