06 November 2024

Honda GB350S - more of what the motorcycle market needs: affordable quality!

Honda has been showing a remarkable ability to undercut the competition with its new motorcycles over the last few years – with machines like the CB750 Hornet, Transalp and the new CB1000 Hornet all surprising with their combination of a low RRP and relatively high specification. The further down the market you more the more difficult it becomes to undercut rivals but Honda’s GB350S is doing its best to repeat the feat by coming in at under the £4k mark at £3949 when it reaches dealers in January 2025.

That puts it as close as makes no difference to its nearest rival, the £3899 Royal Enfield HNTR 350, and substantially undercuts the Enfield Meteor 350 or Classic 350 models. Given the sales success of those machines in recent years, Honda is well placed to cash in.

Well done Honda! We all like new shiny things, but I've been horrified by all the tech and huge price tags attached to bikes these days. We need a dose of realism in motorcycling! If the big manufacturers don't get that message & soon - some folks will get tempted to go to the dark side & buy into Chinese bikes. Yuk!

www.bennetts.co.uk


Another Smart Device SNAFU: air fryers that are more like air spyers!

UK consumer champion Which? wants you to know that your air fryer might be spying on you and sharing your data with third parties for marketing purposes.

The perhaps not-so-surprising findings from the buyer's friend are that smart devices in general are engaged in surveillance of their owners, and that data collection often goes "well beyond" what is necessary for the functioning of the product.

Although Which? is a UK organization – a wholly owned subsidiary of the Consumers' Association – its findings will apply just as much to devices sold in other countries.

Testing out products across four categories, the outfit discovered that all three air fryers it looked at wanted permission to record audio on the user's phone, for no specified reason.

One wanted to know gender and date of birth when setting up an owner account, while the Xiaomi app linked to its air fryer was found to be connected with trackers from Facebook, Pangle (the ad network of TikTok for Business), and Chinese tech giant Tencent.

Air fryers from brands Aigostar and Xiaomi both sent the owner's personal data to servers in China – although this was flagged in the privacy notice, for what it's worth.

This prompts the obvious question: why the heck would you want an air fryer that connects to other devices?

www.theregister.com


01 November 2024

Do you recall "Microsoft Recall"? Well Microsoft has delayed it again. They need to delay it permanently!

Microsoft is once again delaying the roll out of its controversial Recall feature for Copilot Plus PCs. The software giant had planned to start testing Recall, which creates screenshots of mostly everything you see or do on a Copilot Plus PC, with Windows Insiders in October. Now, Microsoft says it needs more time to get the feature ready.

“We are committed to delivering a secure and trusted experience with Recall. To ensure we deliver on these important updates, we’re taking additional time to refine the experience before previewing it with Windows Insiders,” says Brandon LeBlanc, senior product manager of Windows, in a statement to The Verge.” Originally planned for October, Recall will now be available for preview with Windows Insiders on Copilot Plus PCs by December.”

Microsoft was forced to originally hold back Recall after security concerns were raised ahead of its planned debut with Copilot Plus PCs in June. After a delay to the launch, Recall was then supposed to appear for Windows Insiders just a matter of weeks later. Then Microsoft delayed Recall again to October, and now it’s coming by December.

Microsoft’s multiple delays are related to it overhauling Recall’s security, making it an opt-in experience, and allowing Copilot Plus PC owners to fully uninstall it. Microsoft has spent the past few months focused on ensuring its Recall database is fully encrypted and that the only way to get access is to authenticate through Windows Hello.

www.theverge.com


30 October 2024

Russian court fines Google $20 decillion!

A Russian court has ruled that Google owes Russian media stations around $20 decillion ($20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) in fines for blocking their content, and the fines could get bigger.

To put that into perspective, the World Bank estimates global GDP as around $100 trillion, which is peanuts compared to the prospective fine. Google would therefore have to find more money than exists on Earth to pay Moscow - but on Tuesday fell a little short of that mark when it posted $88 billion quarterly revenue.

The bizarre amount has been calculated after a four-year court case that started after YouTube banned the ultra-nationalist Russian channel Tsargrad in 2020 in response to the US sanctions imposed against its owner. Following Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 more channels were added to the banned list and 17 stations are now suing the Chocolate Factory, including Zvezda (a TV channel owned by Putin's Ministry of Defence), according to local media.

"Google was called by a Russian court to administrative liability under Art. 13.41 of the Administrative Offenses Code for removing channels on the YouTube platform. The court ordered the company to restore these channels," lawyer Ivan Morozov told state media outlet TASS.

www.theregister.com


26 October 2024

Remembering the courage of 1944

This year marks the 80th anniversaries of momentous battles and turning points of the Second World War.

The D-Day landings of 6th June – the largest seaborne invasion in history – marked the beginning of the liberation of western Europe.

Elsewhere on the globe exceptionally hard-fought battles were also turning the tide of the war. The Battle of Monte Cassino was the bloodiest of the Italian Campaign and in India Outnumbered British and Indian forces withstood weeks of siege and brutal fighting at the Battles of Kohima and Imphal.

The Royal British Legion remembers the service and sacrifice of British and Commonwealth armed forces in these and other battles. The vital contribution of men and women from South Asia is also explored in our pages for South Asian Heritage Month.

Your Poppy shows you care. Your donation can do something no military equipment can - help those who have served to cope with trauma and live the full and rewarding lives they deserve. Please give generously.

www.britishlegion.org.uk


25 October 2024

Concerns mount as more major motorcycle dealership chains enter administration amid sales shortfall

Three major dealership chains across the UK have recently entered administration, with slow sales and rising costs cited as some of the reasons for decline.

New bike registration data released by the Motorcycle Industry Association (MCIA) for the first nine months of the year revealed a 3.8% decline across motorbikes of all engine capacities when compared with the same period in 2023.

Year-to-date figures also showed larger-capacity machinery to be in particular difficulty, with 751-1000cc two-wheelers down by 8.7% at 15,583 units, and the biggest 1000cc+ models dropping by 10.6% to 14,219 overall.

In fact, when looking at conventional petrol power, only the 126-500cc category showed YTD growth – raising by 20.4% across the year so far. This is likely due to the arrival of popular models including Triumph’s Scrambler 400 X and Speed 400.

Despite the concerns, MCIA CEO, Tony Campbell remains positive, telling MCN: “Even if you took out the distortions from this year, we’re still going to sell more bikes than we did in 2019.

“We lose sight of the fact that the market has been really quite robust,” he continued.

“This sector has been through this before, it’s seen it before, and it’s survived before, but there are lots of smaller things – such as insurance. I think there’s a real combination of things that are triggering these changes.”

Other factors to consider include the fluctuation of energy and fuel prices, the threat of conflict across nations, a change of Government, the perception of motorcycle theft (although currently on the decline across the UK), and more.

KTM parent group Pierer Mobility AG are also in financial difficulty, recently cutting their executive board from six to two members and announcing more than 500 redundancies across the year so far. Not only do these factors impact the dealers themselves but could also have an effect on buyer confidence.

One of the most recent dealership chains to fall into difficulty is Pidcock Motorcycles Limited, which was placed into administration on October 21.

A BMW retailer since 1977, both their Ducati and Triumph sites have now been permanently closed, with 18 employees made redundant. Interest from prospective buyers is currently being considered for their BMW premises in Nottingham.

“Pidcock is not the first retailer to struggle in challenging market conditions over the past year. The company is a reputable seller, partnered with some of the world’s best-known bike brands, and we’re not surprised that there has been interest from prospective buyers,” Nathan Jones, joint administrator and partner at FRP Advisory said. 

“While it’s unfortunate that a viable route forward for all three sites hasn’t been possible, we’re hopeful of a positive outcome for the company’s BMW outlet. Securing that, as well as supporting employees affected by the closures, is our focus now.” 

In Scotland, Saltire Motorcycles of Edinburgh entered administration in early September, leaving uncertainty for their seven franchises including KTM, BSA, Royal Enfield, and Indian Motorcycle.

Completely Motorbikes met a similar fate in mid-October, with administrators now urging interested parties to come forward and rescue the business which had collectively housed over 1500 bikes across 21 showrooms. “The group has encountered financial difficulties after a poor summer sales period,” Joint Administrator Jonathan Amor of Azets said at the time.

www.motorcyclenews.com


21 October 2024

C.S. Lewis: on love & loss

 

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket of coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

Dedicated to our beloved Calli x