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Democrats have just made significant progress in restoring net neutrality rules in the US. The "Save the Internet Act" unveiled last month has now been approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which means it can now be considered by the f…
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Tesla sales drop off sharply following record holiday season
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The 77,100 vehicles the automaker manufacturer are composed of 62,950 Model 3 and 14,150 Model S and X cars. Among those, Tesla was able to deliver 50,900 Model 3 and 12,100 Model S and X vehicles. In its announcement, Tesla admits that it expects its income for the quarter to be negatively impacted by the lower-than-expected delivery volumes. The recent price adjustments it implement would affect its numbers, as well. Tesla slashed the prices of its cars in recent months — in Model 3’s case, it now costs $35,000 after incentives.
Although there are apparently deepening concerns about a drop in demand for its EVs, there are other several explanations for the company’s lackluster quarter. To start with, it rushed to deliver Model 3 cars last year to enable buyers to take advantage of its $7,500 tax credit, thereby beefing up its numbers for the last period of the year. And then there’s the fact that Tesla has only just started selling cars in China and Europe. It apparently encountered new challenges that come with delivering orders overseas.
Tesla seems optimistic for the second quarter and the rest of 2019, however. It says “a large number of vehicle deliveries [will] shift to the second quarter” due to delays during the first. Also, it still expects to fulfill 360,000 to 400,000 vehicle deliveries this year, revealing that “US orders for Model 3 vehicles significantly outpaced what [it was] able to deliver” in the first three months of the year.
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‘Apex Legends’ fix restores the progression you lost
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If you fired up Apex Legends after the 1.1 patch on April 2nd only to panic as all your progression was nowhere to be seen, don’t panic — it’s back. Respawn has fixed a mistake on its end that moved players to servers that didn’t have their persistence, making it look as if all their progress had been erased. Everything you did up until the moment 1.1 went live should be intact, and any currency will revert back to the pre-fix state.
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Australia’s new law threatens social media companies with jail, fines
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If the companies fail to remove violent content in time, they could face fines up to 10 percent of their annual profit. The law could even slap individuals running hosting services with a $2.1 million fine or send them to prison for up to three years. Christian Porter, Australia’s attorney general, called the law a “world-first” and said companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter “do not seem to take their responsibility to not show the most abhorrently violent material seriously.”
Tech giants and media companies warn that the law could lead to the censorship of legitimate speech, since they might be forced to take down posts before they’re thoroughly vetted just to comply with it. Apparently, the bill was rushed and written without input from them or industry experts. Sunita Bose, the managing director of Digital Industry Group, which represents Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon and Verizon in Australia, told The New York Times:
“This law, which was conceived and passed in five days without any meaningful consultation, does nothing to address hate speech, which was the fundamental motivation for the tragic Christchurch terrorist attacks…
With the vast volumes of content uploaded to the internet every second, this is a highly complex problem that requires discussion with the technology industry, legal experts, the media and civil society to get the solution right — that didn’t happen this week.”
The lawmakers rushed so much that it’s not even clear if their government will be able to penalize tech giants, such as Google and Facebook, not based in their country. They also didn’t even define what’s an acceptable “expeditious” timeframe. According to The Guardian, Porter previously told reporters that it would be up to a jury to decide, which could lead to lengthy court battles in the future. He added, however, that “every Australian would agree” that it’s unreasonable for violent content to be up on online platforms “for well over an hour without them taking any action whatsoever.”
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House Judiciary panel to grill Google and Facebook on hate speech
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The Committee’s announcement calls social media platforms “world-wide conduits to spread vitriolic hate messages into every home and country.” During its hearing on the 9th, it’s hoping to examine hate crimes, the spread of white identity ideology and the impact of white nationalist groups on communities. It’s also hoping to conjure up and foster ideas on what the platforms can do to squash white nationalist propaganda.
The role online platforms play in aiding the spread of hateful views was put into the spotlight after it became clear that the New Zealand mass shooter made efforts to ensure his attack would go viral. While Facebook and Google acted quickly to take down videos of the attack, various versions of the footage still got out. In Facebook’s case, it was due to bad actors finding ways to dupe its AI, which it vows to beef up in the future.
Facebook might also discuss how it plans to enforce its new policy changes that officially ban white nationalism and separatism at the hearing. The social network has long been criticized for having loopholes in its rules that prohibit outright white supremacy, but not white nationalism and separatism. As The Washington Post notes, a group that identifies as white nationalists used the platform to organize the Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right’ rally, which turned violent and left three people dead.
According to WP, Facebook public policy director Neil Potts will represent the social network, while Alexandria Walden, who works as a counsel for free expression and human rights at Google, will testify for the tech giant. A representative for the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law will also testify, since the group was one of the organizations that pushed Facebook to patch up its loopholes and update its policy.
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Researchers trick radiologists with malware-created cancer nodes
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To test out how effective the attack could be, the researchers conducted a blind study that asked radiologists to diagnose conditions based on CT lung scans—some of which were altered using the malware. When presented with scans that featured fake cancers nodules, the radiologists came back with a cancer diagnosis 99 percent of the time. When the malware was used to hide real cancer nodules, radiologists issued a clean bill of health 94 percent of the time.
Even when the radiologists were made aware that the scans were being altered, they still struggled to make a correct diagnosis. When they were given a second set of images with a warning that some had been changed, the medical professionals were still tricked into thinking computer-generated nodules were real 60 percent of the time. When the malware was used to remove nodules, 87 percent of the readings incorrectly determined the patient was healthy. The humans put through the test shouldn’t feel too bad, though—screening software used to confirm diagnoses fell for the malware’s tricks every single time.
The good news is the malware was created by security researchers and not malicious actors, so this particular tool isn’t likely to appear in the wild. But it should raise some red flags for medical professionals. Hospitals have been a target of cyber attacks before, but the stakes are usually more immediate: Ransomware locks up systems until a fee is paid. An attack like the one laid out by the researchers would be more insidious and could create distrust in essential systems.
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SpaceX’s ‘Starhopper’ test vehicle takes a short Raptor-powered trip
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As SpaceX proceeds with development of its Starship vehicle, it’s first testing out the spacecraft’s Raptor engines. Today a stubby Starhopper test vehicle mounted with a single engine — as opposed to the more advanced Phase 2 version shown above — completed its first tethered hop of just a few inches at the Texas launch site, as spotted by nearby observers. Elon Musk tweeted “All systems green” after the test, which may not have gone far but recalls the early days of Grasshopper rocket tests before we got used to the sight of Falcon 9 rocket engines returning to Earth after successful launches.
Musk previously said that suborbital test flights would require three of the engines — the final version of Starship f.k.a BFR will have more — and we’ll be waiting to see when that happens.
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Mystery Motorola phone could pack four rear cameras
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There aren’t many more details at this stage, but there would be a 6.2-inch display with a teardrop notch for the front camera (no hole-punch display this time around) as well as an in-screen fingerprint reader. It’s not going to be a budget phone, then, even though it might not cost as much as the most expensive handsets on the market.
Performance, availability and just about everything else are unknowns, and that’s assuming the mystery Moto comes out in the first place. We wouldn’t be shocked if it did. Three-plus cameras are increasingly the norm on high-end phones, and that leaves Motorola’s existing lineup feeling somewhat dated. This quad-cam phone may be just what the company needs to stay in the game, particularly if it has high-end processing power to match its camera chops.
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Tesla’s Navigate on Autopilot won’t need to confirm every lane change
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If you want to cancel a lane change before it starts, you can either use the turn signal or press the notification pop-up on the touchscreen. And no, this isn’t an opportunity to go AWOL while you’re on the highway — the car won’t change lanes unless your hands are on the wheel.
The update also lets you enable Navigate on Autopilot at the start of every trip. If you do, it’ll kick in every time you enter a navigation route and reach the highway.
You’ll still need to have purchased an Enhanced Autopilot or Full Self-Driving Capability pack to use the feature. It’s only available in the US for now, but it should come to other countries once Tesla has received the all-clear.
It’s a significant change for Tesla. The turn stalk requirement came into place to make clear that drivers were still liable for what happened on the road. Clearly, it believes that the combination of the option and notifications fits that bill while reducing the demand from the driver — you know exactly what you’re getting into, even if you’re not using a physical toggle every time. While fully autonomous driving is still some distance away, the update gets you closer to that goal.
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Toyota will share its patented hybrid vehicle tech for free
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The 23,740 patents reach back 20 years and cover fuel cells, electric motors, power control units (PCU), system controls, engine transaxles and chargers. Toyota will begin sharing this proprietary information immediately and will continue to do so through 2030. The company will also provide fee-based tech support to manufacturers who use its motors, batteries, PCUs, electric control units and other vehicle electrification technologies in their powertrains.
This could also be an attempt to encourage hybrid technology as the industry shifts its focus to fully electric cars and trucks. According to Reuters, hybrids account for three percent of all vehicles sold globally, and fully electric EVs make up 1.5 percent. Toyota says the technology can be used in a variety of electrified vehicles, including fuel cell EVs and plug-in hybrid models. Tesla took a similar approach in 2014, when it shared its Supercharger patents in order to boost electric car adoption. As far as we can tell, no manufactures have put that to use. We’ll see if Toyota has better luck.
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