Lifeboat Foundation

Buying a car is a hellish process. The reward for spending hours researching the right one is a trip to a local dealership — an experience that assaults the nerves in such a way that it’s only rivaled by appointments with the dentist. But what if buying a car was easier than that? What if it was as easy as, say, a vending machine?

A few years ago, a company called Carvana followed in the footsteps of companies like CarMax by trying to move the car buying experience completely online. The process of purchasing a car on Carvana’s website includes all the steps that normally take place at a dealership: getting approved for and selecting financing, selecting a warranty, and signing the contract. It’s a process that, in an interview with The Verge, Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia is quick to point out takes many Carvana customers 20 minutes or less.

This left customers with just one dealership interaction: choosing pickup or delivery. And Garcia says that, more often than not, Carvana customers were choosing pickup — so much so that a subsequent pickup store in Atlanta was a rousing success. Now, though, Carvana is adding some spice to that experience.

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Taiwanese PC manufacturer Asus says it’s building an augmented reality device and aims to release it next year. According to a report from CNET, Asus CEO Jerry Shen confirmed the plans during an earnings call on Wednesday, arguing that augmented reality or AR will be more useful than virtual reality. “You can make a real setting meld together with yourself and the AR portion,” said Shen. “Internally, we are talking about how to prepare.”

Unlike VR, augmented reality doesn’t show you a completely fabricated view, but instead overlays digital elements onto the real world. The current frontrunner in this nascent field is Microsoft’s HoloLens, which the company has shown off in a range of impressive demos. However, the HoloLens is hampered by a number of problems, including bulkiness, constrained viewing angles, and a high price tag, with Microsoft releasing a $3,000 HoloLens developer kit in the first quarter of 2016. (By comparison, Samsung’s Gear VR, a virtual reality headset powered by the company’s smartphones, became available for preorder this week for just $99.) Asus has previously hinted that it might build its own version of the HoloLens, but as a company best known for its budget laptops, tablets, and smartphones, we wouldn’t expect it to match Microsoft’s price.

Despite the lack of unknowns surrounding Asus’s announcement, it’s still interesting to see a company align itself with augmented, rather than virtual, reality. The Verge’s Adi Robertson has argued that the complete immersion of VR makes it difficult for multitasking, and that augmented reality, by comparison, is more practical. Asus apparently agrees. “We think AR will be very important for people’s lives,” said Shen according to CNET. “It should be next year when we come out with a product.”

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It might not be too long before a trip to the grocery store involves dodging Tally, a new robot designed to tootle from aisle to aisle while taking note of stock levels.

Tally’s Silicon Valley creators, Simbe Robotics, point out that most retailers currently rely on IT systems and manual labor to manage inventory, but call this method “costly and inaccurate.” Tally can apparently do full-store audits in a fraction of the usual time, keeping staff up to date on what items are running low so that shelves can be quickly refilled.

Simbie says Tally’s ability to carry out such “repetitive and laborious” auditing tasks means human staff can get on with serving customers directly.

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Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.

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Scientists at Queen’s University Belfast have made a major breakthrough by making a porous liquid — with the potential for a massive range of new technologies including ‘carbon capture’.

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VIDEO: Not a question of if, but where?

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We’ve said it before: Mars’ moon Phobos is doomed. But a new study indicates it might be worse than we thought.

One of the most striking features we see on images of Phobos is the parallel sets of grooves on the moon’s surface.

They were originally thought to be fractures caused by an impact long ago. But scientists now say the grooves are early signs of the structural failure that will ultimately destroy this moon.

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Yes, conceivably. And if/when we achieve the levels of technology necessary for simulation, the universe will become our playground. Eagleman’s latest book is “The Brain: The Story of You” (http://goo.gl/2IgDRb).

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