Gadgets
Chevrolet Silverado 2022 Models Get Tech Upgrades: All Details
Catching up with rival trucks from Stellantis NV and Ford Motor, most 2022 Silverado models will get larger dashboard screens and new connectivity technology featuring built-in Google voice commands and software.
Chevrolet also will add a 420-horsepower Silverado ZR2 designed for rugged off-road adventures – or to give the appearance that the owner would have them. The Silverado ZR2 will chase Ford’s F-series Raptor and the Ram TRX from Stellantis, which are attention-getting performance models for those brands.
The current Silverado, launched in early 2019, has been outflanked in sales by rival Stellantis NV’s Ram pickup. The Ram in 2018 got a makeover with a more refined interior and a 12-inch (30.5 cm) dashboard screen that was closer in style to a Tesla Model S sedan than a conventional pickup truck.
The Fiat Chrysler unit of what is now Stellantis also expanded production capacity for Ram pickups in North America, gunning to displace the Chevy Silverado as the No. 2 brand in the North American pickup segment.
That strategy – led by Mike Manley, now head of Stellantis North America – worked. Through the first half of 2021, Ram’s pickups have outsold the Silverado and are now in second place behind Ford’s F-series trucks, the best-selling model line in the United States for more than 40 years, according to sales data compiled by Automotive News.
Smartphone-like experience
Steve Carlisle, head of GM’s North American operations, told Reuters GM has learned from the challenge from Ram. “You have to be very agile and react,” he said. “And maybe ask different types of questions.”
Going forward, Carlisle said GM sees the market moving from “bigger is better” when it comes to dashboard displays to more emphasis on improving the user experience.
Carlisle said his goal for the revamped Silverado is to knock Ford out of the top spot in the segment.
“We will not rest until that happens,” he said, though he added, “we are going to do the right thing from a brand point of view.”
Ram and Ford have their own upgrades coming for 2022. Ram trucks will get enhanced infotainment systems. Ford is touting a hybrid system available on the F-150 pickup that can power a house, and promoting its all-electric F-150 Lightning coming next spring.
The new Silverados will get other new technology. The redesigned trucks will be the largest-scale application of GM’s partnership with Alphabet’s Google to create a more smartphone-like experience in cars. And top-of-the-line Silverados will offer GM’s Super Cruise system as an option to enable hands-free driving on more than 200,000 miles (321,869km) of roads in Canada and the United States.
The Silverado ZR2 responds to a more traditional form of automotive competition. Powerful pickup trucks equipped with tall, beefy suspensions, and other modifications to handle racing over rough desert or leaping sand dunes have become the 21st century answer to Detroit’s 1960s muscle cars. Ford and Ram had models designed for extreme off-road enthusiasts. Chevy did not. Now it will.
Carlisle said 60 percent of Chevrolet Silverados sold now are “lifted trucks” with tall suspensions. The Silverado ZR2 will add a 420-horsepower, eight-cylinder gasoline engine to the formula. Carlisle said the ZR2 could account for more than 10 percent of Silverado sales.
Ford’s Raptor has a starting price of nearly $66,000 (roughly Rs. 48.4 lakhs). Carlisle said Chevrolet’s ZR2 will be more “accessible” with a lower starting price.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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