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Audi’s E-Tron Scooter is a skateboard with a handle

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It’s not the most powerful e-scooter between its 12.5MPH top speed and 12.5-mile range, but those should cover a modest commute. It’s not dainty given its 26-pound weight, but you can both fold it up for stowing and, crucially, pull it like a trolley. You won’t have to strain yourself hauling it into a building or across a train station. A Bluetooth connection both allows ride tuning and anti-theft protection.

The e-tron Scooter is billed as a concept, but Audi fully intends to ship this as a product. It should go on sale by the end of 2020 for about €2,000 ($2,235), and it might also be available as an option for e-tron car buyers who could charge it in their car trunks. While that’s not a trivial purchase, it might be justifiable if you regularly find yourself taking short trips — especially if you don’t want to give up some of the thrills of skateboarding to get the stability of a scooter.

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Juul’s app-connected e-cigarette keeps tabs on your vaping

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The product, called the Juul C1, pairs with an Android-only app via Bluetooth and has been launched in the UK after a trial in Canada, as reported by The Financial Times. It records data on when and where it is used and keeps track of how many puffs a users takes, tracking their average smoking habits. It also has connectivity features like a locator to find your vape if you lose it and a device lock to prevent anyone other than you from using your device.

A big part of the push toward tracking is to keep the product out of the hands of teenagers. E-cigarettes carry heath risks like cancer and heart disease, and the FDA is concerned that teens who vape are more likely to start smoking cigarettes. San Francisco has even banned e-cigarettes all together.

The C1 app uses facial recognition and a two-step background check to verify a user’s age, preventing teenagers from using the device. Recent reports suggest Juul is considering introducing geofencing which would prevent its product from being used in certain areas such as in and around schools. While the C1 doesn’t currently do these things, moving vapes towards app connectivity will allow Juul to implement these sort of features down the line.

Of course, there’s nothing to stop teens from avoiding the C1 or other smart vapes and picking up a traditional dumb e-cigarette instead. And that’s not to mention the privacy issues around a product which collects so much data from its users.

According to a Bloomberg report, Juul is planning to release Bluetooth-controlled vapes internationally, so the product could come to the US soon.

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Google Assistant can read out your WhatsApp replies for you

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Attackers reportedly stole records from 6.8 million customers.
StockX confirms it was hacked

Sneaker trading site StockX’s warning of “suspicious activity” appears to have stemmed from a serious data breach. TechCrunch learned through a black-market data seller that a hacker stole 6.8 million records from StockX in May, including names, email addresses and (thankfully hashed) passwords.

It’s continuing a string of outages that have plagued the services.
Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp went down (again)

Facebook is still struggling with outages. Numerous reports yesterday pointed to Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp being unavailable to various degrees over the weekend. The failure doesn’t appear to have been as dramatic as it was in July, when image services were out for several hours (we had at least some success visiting them ourselves). All the services are still up and running.

The message board has been a haven for white nationalists.
Cloudflare cuts off extremist site 8chan after multiple shootings

Cloudflare has announced it will no longer provide security services to the far-right site 8chan, following the deadly mass shooting by a white nationalist in El Paso, Texas. That will open 8chan up to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, starting at midnight PDT, which could permanently disable the site unless it’s able to find a replacement service.

Cloudflare has been reluctant to pull its services from extremist websites, citing free speech issues. It previously ended support for another white extremist site, the Daily Stormer. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said that pulling support doesn’t solve the underlying problem: “While removing 8chan from our network takes heat off of us, it does nothing to address why hateful sites fester online.”

Use a neural network to make a lovely knit hat.
AI knitting system designs and creates garments

If you’ve ever wanted a custom knit hat but your skills aren’t up to par, let the robots do it. Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a computer-aided knitting system that can automate the design and manufacture of knitted garments. Even non-expert knitters can use the system to create individual designs from customizable templates on a computer.

But wait, there’s more…

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Study suggests that e-scooter fleets aren’t as green as they seem

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The researchers looked at not only emissions producing by people riding scooters, but also the environmental impact of the materials used in the manufacture of the vehicles and in the shipping and collection of them as well. The amount of electricity used to recharge the scooters was minimal, but what did use a lot of resources was the components that go into each scooter. In addition, the vehicles that picked up the scooters created significant emissions.

Another way to consider how environmentally friendly e-scooters are is to look at what other transport options people would have used instead if the scooters weren’t available. Almost half of riders said they would have walked or cycled if the scooter wasn’t available, with around one third saying they would have taken a car.

The study showed biking and walking were almost always better for the environment than taking a scooter, even if people were riding e-bikes. Although taking a car was almost always more environmentally damaging than using a scooter, taking a bus was less damaging if the route had high ridership.

Overall, it is not the scooters themselves which are causing environmental damage, but rather the infrastructure which supports them. “There are a lot of factors to consider, but e-scooters are environmentally friendly compared to some modes of transport,” says Jeremiah Johnson, one of the study’s authors. “And there are things that companies and local governments can do to further reduce their impacts. For example, allowing — or encouraging — companies to collect scooters only when they hit a battery depletion threshold would reduce a scooter’s impact, because you wouldn’t be collecting scooters that don’t need re-charging.”

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Cloudflare cuts off extremist site 8chan after multiple shootings

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Cloudflare has been reluctant to pull its services from extremist websites, citing free speech issues. One of the few times it has notably done so in the past, it ended support for another white extremist site, the Daily Stormer.

At least 20 people were killed and 24 injured in El Paso attack, which Texas Governor Greg Abbott called “one of the deadliest days in Texas history.” The shooting is the third so far this year that has been linked to 8chan and white nationalist ideology. “Right now, we have a manifesto from this individual [on 8chan] that indicates to some degree, it has a nexus to potential hate crime,” said El Paso police chief Greg Allen.

8chan’s original founder, Fredrick Brennan, who is no longer connected with the site, asked Cloudflare to terminate its services to 8chan. After the announcement, he said on Twitter “They could have prevented this and chose not to … finally this nightmare may have an end.”

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said that pulling support from websites doesn’t solve the underlying problem, though. “While removing 8chan from our network takes heat off of us, it does nothing to address why hateful sites fester online,” he said in a blog post. He noted that “today, the Daily Stormer is still available and still disgusting. They are no longer Cloudflare’s problem, but they remain the Internet’s problem.” As of this writing, 8chan is now unavailable.



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AI knitting system designs and creates garments

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Even non expert knitters can use the system to create individual designs from customizable templates on a computer. The designs are then sent to a knitting machine, which fabricates the designs out of real wool.

The advantage of templates is that common shapes such as hats or gloves are easy to recreate, and users can apply texture and patterns to the objects as well. More ambitious users can create their own patterns from scratch, and there’s a neural network system which will generate more panels from an existing pattern.

In a test, even users who had never knitted before were able to use the system to create knitted hats and gloves, some with intricate patterns.

While it’s certainly an impressive system, it does seem to miss out on some of the tactile creativity of knitting by hand. The researchers say they want to make it easy for new knitters to begin creating items, and that the system can also make manufacturing more efficient by eliminating waste.

“Whether it’s for the everyday user who wants to mimic a friend’s beanie hat, or a subset of the public who might benefit from using this tool in a manufacturing setting, we’re aiming to make the process more accessible for personal customization,” says Alexandre Kaspar, lead author of the paper about the new system.

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Picard’ will have its own prequel comic and novel

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A novel, Uma McCormack’s The Last Best Hope, will follow in February 2020. It’ll be published by Simon & Schuster and introduce some of the new characters you’ll see in Picard. You may want to read up, then, especially if you aren’t a die-hard fan.

It’s far too soon to tell whether or not you’ll feel somewhat left out by skipping the books. With that said, the very existence of the titles shows how much trust CBS is placing in Picard. It’s betting that there’s pent-up demand for a TV show continuing Jean-Luc’s story, and it’s willing to back side projects that could further fuel the hype.

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Google Assistant now reads replies from third-party messaging apps

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The feature might not be widely available as of this writing, so don’t be surprised if Assistant scratches its head when you ask for an answer. This could be a huge upgrade for some people whenever it does arrive, though. The read-aloud feature is particularly useful when you’re driving, cooking or otherwise have your hands full. You might not have to touch the phone just to find out if a Telegram message needed an immediate response.

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Meteor impact may have started a ‘mega-tsunami’ on early Mars

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There appears to be stronger evidence of a possible ocean on ancient Mars. A recent study indicates that the meteor that created the 75-mile Lomonosov crater may have produced a “mega-tsunami” that left its mark on the planet. Its rim is the same height as the estimated depth of the ocean and resembles marine craters on Earth. Also, a hole in the southern lip of the crater could have been the result of the ocean roaring back from that direction. Earlier evidence had hinted the ocean’s shores were shaped by at least one impact in the same general area as the Lomonosov crater — this latest study, however, has narrowed things down to a specific impact site.

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Boeing may use two computers to fix 737 Max’s latest flaw

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The scoops also indicate just what the June flaw apparently entails. Reportedly, a microprocessor in the 737 Max wasn’t sufficiently protected against the consequences of random bit flips (a 0 changing to a 1, for instance). While this would be extremely unlikely — it’d be the result of cosmic rays hitting the chip — it supposedly took too long for pilots to recover under realistic conditions. The update would require both flight computers to fail at once for these bit flips to lead to catastrophe.

Boeing wouldn’t confirm or deny the reports in a statement to the AP, instead repeating the message that it’s working with the FAA and other regulators to fix the June flaw. It still intends to offer the fixed software for testing in September, and hopes to return to the air as soon as October.

Whether or not that happens isn’t certain. Boeing was maintaining its “summer” goal mere hours before the June flaw was made public. There’s no guarantee regulators will give the 737 Max a clean bill of health, and a resumption of flights will still depend on smooth real-world testing as well as regulator approval everywhere the aircraft will fly. It could take a long while before the airliner fully resumes normal flights.

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