Latest news with #WiliamHunter
Daily Mail
06-07-2025
- Automotive
- Daily Mail
I drove the world's first anti-sickness CAR - and it's the smoothest ride I've ever experienced
If, like me, you suffer from motion sickness, then you know just how quickly a trip down Britain's winding back roads can turn into a nausea-inducing nightmare. But if you struggle to hold on to your lunch as the car starts to lurch, there may soon be a solution. ClearMotion, a Boston-based startup, claims that its latest generation of cutting-edge suspension can 'eliminate motion sickness' for good. So, with anti-nausea tablets in hand, MailOnline's reporter, Wiliam Hunter, took a trip to their Warwickshire testing facility to try it for himself. Installed in the luxury NIO ET9, ClearMotion's suspension acts like a pair of noise-cancelling headphones for the road. With compact motors tucked away above each wheel and a sophisticated onboard computer, the system can push and pull the wheels to cancel out bumps in the road. In theory, that should mean all the swaying and shaking that normally triggers a bout of motion sickness should be removed. And, after a few hours of putting this system through its paces, the future of driving looks like it's going to be a lot more comfortable. How does it work? Unlike the suspension in almost every other car, the ClearMotion suspension system is 'active'. Normal gas and spring-based systems are passive, which means they simply place a buffer between the wheels and the body of the car to dampen the motion. But, no matter how good a passive system might be, it can never completely negate that motion because the spring can't compress and expand fast enough. Active solutions get around this problem by adding outside power to the suspension system. With ClearMotion, when the wheels start to feel an obstacle, such as a speed bump, the compact motors rapidly pull the wheels up so that this movement isn't transferred up to the passengers. This is what ClearMotion CEO Christian Steinmann calls the 'sky hook' approach; the body stays perfectly level while the wheels pump up and down to follow the contours of the road. Drivers can even tailor their performance on the go, dialling in a stiffer sporty feel or cancelling out as much motion as possible. How does ClearMotion work? ClearMotion uses 'active' suspension. This replaces the traditional springs or airbags found in passive suspension with small, powerful motors. When the system detects a bump, it quickly drives the wheel up or down to absorb the impact. This is called the 'sky hook' approach. The car's body remains flat and level, as if anchored to the sky, while the wheels pump up and down to follow the road. The result is a drive so smooth that the NIO ET9 even has an option called 'Champagne Mode'. As long as you don't exceed about 12mph (20km/h), this allows you to drive over speed bumps with a tower of champagne glasses on the bonnet - in case that was something you were planning on doing. How does it feel? Over the course of the afternoon, we put the NIO ET9 equipped with ClearMotion's suspension to the test on everything from winding back roads to a specially designed vehicle test track. After spending the morning learning about the tech, I was excited to feel just how velvety smooth the ride could be. But as we raced along a B road, I was almost a little disappointed. The ride was certainly exceptionally smooth, but there were still a few rumbles and shakes rather than the maglev-like experience I'd been expecting. But then our host suggested turning the active system off for a moment so I could really feel the difference. Suddenly, we were bumping and lurching and rolling around like a ship on a stormy sea. Lumps and divots I had been blissfully ignorant of suddenly seemed to appear out of nowhere. Whereas before I had been blithely making notes on my experience, I could now hardly touch pen to page before being jolted into an illegible scribble. Now I realised just how bad this pothole-ridden track really was, and just how good ClearMotion's system had been. With relief, we switched the active system back on, and it was like floating on a cloud by comparison. Looking at the road ahead, I could see other cars lurching and swaying over the contours of the road while ours remained almost perfectly still. I could still feel the movement of the car and the connection to the road, but it was as if the volume had been turned down from a roar to a murmur. Could it be better? Of course, even the best active system can't create the perfect ride if it's just being reactive. Marco Giovanardi, ClearMotion Technical Fellow, told MailOnline: 'It is like a blind man feeling his way down the road. You can be quick to respond, but you're always responding in the moment.' This becomes a problem when the road contains obstacles which are bigger than what the suspension system can absorb. When the car starts going over an obstacle, it doesn't know whether this is a small bump it can quickly move over or the start of a steep bridge it needs to take slowly. That means any active system will still need to make compromises with its range of motion, so the ride isn't as good as it could be How does RoadMotion map the road? The RoadMotion software combines GPS data with information from the suspension to produce a map of the road. Every movement experienced by the wheels is recorded and sent to ClearMotion's central cloud system. As more journeys are recorded, the map gets more and more detailed until it captures every bump and imperfection. When a car drives on the same road, it compares its GPS location and wheel motion to this map in order to work out where it is. RoadMotion can locate a car with an accuracy of 1 cm to help the active suspension plan its response. 'If we had a Donald Duck car with 10-foot suspension, we could just glide over everything and it wouldn't matter, but we only have plus or minus 10 centimetres in most cars,' says Mr Giovanardi. But this is where ClearMotion's technology gets really clever. In addition to their suspension systems, ClearMotion is also preparing to release a piece of software called RoadMotion. RoadMotion collects GPS data and combines this with information coming from the suspension to create a map of the road which captures every bump and imperfection. When you start to drive down that road again, your car feels the motion of the road to work out your location. Mr Giovanardi says that this is like Shazam for the road, but instead of recognising patterns in music, it recognises patterns in potholes. Once a road is fully mapped, RoadMotion is so accurate that it can calculate the car's position within an accuracy of one centimetre, even driving through tunnels without GPS. With that map of the road ahead, the car's suspension system uses AI to plan out its movements so that any motion is reduced to an absolute minimum. Mr Giovanardi says: 'With this proactive control, you can isolate a lot more motion because, by knowing what's coming, you can do the right thing all the time.' ClearMotion predicts that it would take about one week for someone driving to work every day to produce a road map with 90 per cent coverage. Likewise, they estimate that they would only need about six customers to map all 36,600 miles (58,900 km) of roads in Massachusetts. Currently, RoadMotion is only in the prototype stages, so there aren't many UK roads that have been fully mapped. However, one of the few places that has been mapped extensively is the HORIBA MIRA vehicle proving ground. Driving on this maze of slaloms, speed bumps, and vehicles can test everything from their braking distance to how they handle a section of French pavé. But with RoadMotion turned on, I could hardly feel a thing. Swinging around corners, the car remains almost disconcertingly level, feeling more like a rollercoaster than a race car. Even as we accelerated hard enough to pin my head to the seat, there was barely a rumble from the road. But the most impressive moment came as we launched into a set of 'sine-wave' bumps designed to send unwary drivers launching into the air. Hurtling towards the bumps at 50 miles per hour (80 kmph), I braced for impact. Still bracing for the impending impact, I suddenly noticed the obstacles appearing in the rear-view mirror. RoadMotion had neutralised the motion to such an extent that I hadn't noticed a disturbance intended to get most cars airborne at 30 miles per hour (50 kmph). Does it prevent motion sickness? But the big question is not whether ClearMotion feels nice to drive, but rather whether it actually solves motion sickness. Throughout the day, I did everything I could to make myself as nauseous as possible. I sat in the back seat, wrote emails on my phone, read a book, and even closed my eyes as I was driven around and around windy roads. Surprisingly, while that would normally have me reaching for the sick bags, I barely felt anything more than the slightest discomfort. However, I'm still not sure I would feel comfortable spending a long drive working from the back seat as ClearMotion envisions. Despite how much better it was than any car I've ever been in, there was still room for improvement, and CEO Christian Steinmann agrees. 'At the moment we are still in reactive mode,' Mr Steinmann told MailOnline. 'You still have a human in the driver's seat, and we can only react to the demands of the driver.' Mr Steinmann's ultimate vision is that ClearMotion suspension would be used in autonomous vehicles, allowing humans to work or rest in peace while the car makes the ride as smooth as possible. 'As soon as you put the human out of the loop, we know the traffic ahead and so we can calculate acceleration, deceleration and steering manoeuvres - at that moment I can really eliminate motion sickness.' SELF-DRIVING CARS 'SEE' USING LIDAR, CAMERAS AND RADAR Self-driving cars often use a combination of normal two-dimensional cameras and depth-sensing 'LiDAR' units to recognise the world around them. However, others make use of visible light cameras that capture imagery of the roads and streets. They are trained with a wealth of information and vast databases of hundreds of thousands of clips which are processed using artificial intelligence to accurately identify people, signs and hazards. In LiDAR (light detection and ranging) scanning - which is used by Waymo - one or more lasers send out short pulses, which bounce back when they hit an obstacle. These sensors constantly scan the surrounding areas looking for information, acting as the 'eyes' of the car. While the units supply depth information, their low resolution makes it hard to detect small, faraway objects without help from a normal camera linked to it in real time. In November last year Apple revealed details of its driverless car system that uses lasers to detect pedestrians and cyclists from a distance. The Apple researchers said they were able to get 'highly encouraging results' in spotting pedestrians and cyclists with just LiDAR data. They also wrote they were able to beat other approaches for detecting three-dimensional objects that use only LiDAR. Other self-driving cars generally rely on a combination of cameras, sensors and lasers. An example is Volvo's self driving cars that rely on around 28 cameras, sensors and lasers. A network of computers process information, which together with GPS, generates a real-time map of moving and stationary objects in the environment. Twelve ultrasonic sensors around the car are used to identify objects close to the vehicle and support autonomous drive at low speeds. A wave radar and camera placed on the windscreen reads traffic signs and the road's curvature and can detect objects on the road such as other road users. Four radars behind the front and rear bumpers also locate objects. Two long-range radars on the bumper are used to detect fast-moving vehicles approaching from far behind, which is useful on motorways. Four cameras - two on the wing mirrors, one on the grille and one on the rear bumper - monitor objects in close proximity to the vehicle and lane markings.
Daily Mail
24-05-2025
- Daily Mail
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review: I tested Samsung's thinnest smartphone yet - it has all the best features of the S25 at a fraction of thickness and weight
After months of anticipation, Samsung finally revealed its latest flagship smartphone to the world this month: the Galaxy S25 Edge. At just 5.8 millimetres thick, this is Samsung's thinnest device yet and one of the lightest premium phones on the market. The Galaxy S25 Edge is available in three colours - Titanium Silver, Titanium Jetblack, and Titanium Icyblue - and is available with either 256GB or 512GB of internal storage. Ahead of its release on May 30, Samsung sent MailOnline's Wiliam Hunter the new smartphone to test. Boasting the same Dynamic AMOLED display and Snapdragon 8 Elite chip from the top-of-the-line Samsung S25 Ultra, the S25 Edge promises high-end performance in a slimmed-down format. The S25 Edge also features the same 200-megapixel rear camera as the higher-end model, which looked stunning in our testing. But to pack all of that into an ultra-slim design, Samsung has had to make a few necessary trade-offs, including ditching optical zoom and reducing the battery size. At £1,099-£1,199, the S25 Edge certainly isn't cheap, but if getting the slimmest, lightest phone possible is what matters to you, then it might just be worth it. Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge Our verdict Rating: For someone who wants a versatile phone that they can barely feel in their pocket and doesn't care about the price, this is the device to go for. The S25 Edge packs a superbly sleek design into a minuscule form factor that remains surprisingly comfortable to use. And with a crisp display and plenty of processing power, this device looked sharp and smooth throughout our testing. But the smaller battery life and pared-back camera features could be an issue for anyone who wants the biggest and best features. How we test our phones When we test phones, we make sure to put them through their paces in as many real-world environments as possible. That means seeing how they work at home, in the office, and out in public for all the situations your device needs to handle. We evaluate devices based on their hardware, software, and overall appeal - testing everything from camera quality and battery life to how easy they are to type with. Each phone is tested for at least a week, allowing us to provide an in-depth review to help consumers make an informed decision. Why trust us Wiliam Hunter is a science and technology reporter at MailOnline and has been testing and reviewing products for two years. He completed a Master's degree in Newspaper Journalism at City University London in 2022. Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge Review Design In terms of looks and design, the Galaxy S25 Edge might just be the best smartphone for your money. The S25 Edge has the same sleek, flat titanium frame as the S25 Ultra, which looks fantastic in the thinner format. And, purely in terms of aesthetics, I thought the S25 Edge's 'floating island' camera bump was a huge improvement over the clusters of lenses found on other smartphones. And while the Galaxy S25 Edge's dimensions are impressive on paper, it's hard to get across just how thin and light it really is. Weighing only 165 grams, the S25 Edge is 32 per cent lighter and 34 per cent thinner than the already-slim iPhone 16 Pro Max. That might not sound like a lot, but as soon as you pick this phone up, it is clear just how much difference that 30 per cent makes. With a sizeable 6.7-inch display, the S25 is bigger than either the Google Pixel 9 Pro or iPhone 16 Pro but feels extremely easy to use with one hand. Initially, as someone who normally slaps a case on a phone and forgets about it, I didn't think this would be a big deal. But going back to my old iPhone 15 after a week with the S25 Edge, I genuinely found myself missing how light and easy it was to use. That might not matter for everyone, but if you do want the slimmest, lightest phone possible, then you don't need to look much further than this. Performance Of course, looks aren't everything - especially when it comes to a smartphone. Luckily for Samsung, I was pleasantly surprised by the S25 Edge's performance across a range of different tasks. The S25 Edge has the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy used across the whole S25 lineup and comes with 12 GB of RAM. Running a CPU performance test yielded scores which put the S25 Edge easily on par with the larger iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max in terms of raw computing power. With a sizeable 6.7-inch display, the S25 is bigger than either the Google Pixel 9 Pro or iPhone 16 Pro but feels extremely easy to use with one hand In the Geekbench 6 CPU benchmark, the S25 Edge's scores put it easily on par with the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max in terms of raw computing power Likewise, putting the S25 Edge through its paces with the graphically intense game Genshin Impact, everything ran smoothly and looked sharp even at the highest graphic settings at 60FPS. Although the smaller frame means less room for cooling, Samsung says it has added a larger vapour chamber to help the S25 Edge avoid overheating. During my test, while the back would occasionally become warm, it was nothing unusual and certainly not uncomfortable. The biggest concern with the S25 Edge being so slim is that Samsung has had to make the battery smaller to fit the frame. That means you get a 3,900 mAh battery, compared with the 5,000 mAh battery in the S25 Ultra or the 5,100 mAh battery on the Google Pixel 9a. Compared to Android devices with a similar display and processing power, this means you are going to get an unavoidable reduction in battery life. But that's not to say that battery is going to be a problem for most users. In my tests, the phone only dipped to about 45 per cent after being used from 7am to 11:30pm and charged fully once depleted in around an hour and a half. Samsung says it uses its processor to 'optimise' the battery to get more out of a smaller storage capacity, and, so far, that claim seems to hold up. Camera The S25 Edge has the same brilliant 200-megapixel rear camera from the S25 Ultra alongside a versatile 12-megapixel ultrawide camera. In my tests, the photos taken with the main camera came out looking sharp and vibrant with good colours and nice contrast. The photos also came out looking good under most lighting conditions, including darker environments. Likewise, the 12-megapixel front camera is very solid, and Samsung's built-in photo editing tools include a lot of fun options to play around with. However, where the S25 Edge falls down is with the lack of optical zoom. Due to size constraints, the S25 Edge simply can't fit the dedicated telephoto camera found on models like the iPhone 16 or Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. Where the S25 Edge misses out is the lack of an optical zoom. The main camera still has 10x optical zoom (right) which works for most cases but will be a disappointment for die-hard photography enthusiasts Samsung claims the S25 Edge offers 10 times digital zoom with its main camera, compared to the 100 times zoom possible on the S25 Ultra thanks to its optical zoom. For phone camera fanatics, you are going to have a much less versatile set of tools than you could get on other flagship smartphones. Like with most things on the S25 Edge, what it offers is more than good enough for most users. But if having the best camera possible is what matters most to you in a phone, then that could be a problem. Display The S25 Edge's 6.7-inch display is an AMOLED screen with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. In terms of numbers, that makes it very similar to all of the leading phones on the market, including the iPhone 16 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro. During testing, the screen was more than bright enough to be crisp and clear in most light levels. Streaming TV shows or playing games, the colours looked great, and the S25 Edge's screen had contrast. While scrolling social media or reading articles, everything was exceptionally crisp and clear, with that high refresh rate providing a smooth experience. Software Like Samsung's other devices, the S25 Edge runs Android 15 alongside Samsung's One UI 7. Mostly, this means you get exactly what you would expect from most Android phones with a few bonus features. Samsung gives users access to both Google Gemini AI and Samsung's AI assistant, Bixby. One of the most impressive features is that these two systems allow for complex cross-app tasks. For example, I asked Gemini to 'plan a healthy meal list for the next two days and send a shopping list to Lesley'. I asked the AI to make a shopping list and send it to someone in my contacts, which it was able to do easily. The message could then be sent by just pressing one button The AI searched my contact list for the right person and prepared a message with ingredients that I could send with a press of a button. My only minor gripe with the S25 Edge has to do with its biometric security options. The S25 Edge has both facial recognition and an ultrasonic under-display fingerprint sensor that works really well for the most secure apps. However, facial recognition isn't available for apps with banking-level security, as it is on the iPhone. That means you'll need to enter your PIN every time you want to pay for something from the lock screen with Samsung Pay, which makes tasks like paying while wearing gloves a bit of hassle. Price Starting at £1,099, the Galaxy S25 Edge is not cheap by any standard, but neither is the most expensive phone out there. Samsung has tried to position the S25 Edge between the £1,249 Galaxy S25 Ultra and the significantly cheaper £799 Galaxy S25. But for most buyers, that presents a bit of a dilemma. You could either save £200 and still get most of the same features by dropping down to the standard Galaxy S25. Or you could spend £150 more to get a better camera, better battery life, and a bigger screen with the S25 Ultra. In comparison to some smartphones, the S25 Edge is also at the high end of the price scale. Even with the smallest storage option, the S25 Edge is double the cost of a Google Pixel 9a at just £449 and £200 more than a basic iPhone 16 at £799. However, the S25 Edge is still £200 cheaper than an iPhone 16 Plus with the same amount of storage and the same price as a Google Pixel 9 Pro. Given that the S25 Edge holds up against these competitors in most areas and is significantly thinner, that might not be such a bad deal.
