Category: iT news

The final weekend of the third season of all-electric racing series Formula E is here, and it features a pair of races in Montreal that will decide the winners of two trophies. Renault has almost completely run away with the team championship, so that one’s pretty much settled. But 10 points is all that separates Sebastien Buemi from his challenger in the drivers’ championship fight, Lucas di Grassi. Both races — one on Saturday and one on Sunday — start at 4PM ET.

It’s a similar, if not quite the same, situation as the finale to season two. Last July, di Grassi came into the final weekend actually leading Buemi by one point. But at the start of the second race of that weekend’s double-header, he crashed into Buemi, and di Grassi wound…

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With the release of Tesla’s Model 3 tonight to the first 30 customers (really just Tesla employees, according to multiple reports), it’s easy to lose sight of how far this young automaker has come — and how much impact it’s had on the rest of the industry.

Most of the commentary around the Model 3 is focused on the stakes for Tesla, and many are parsing over every tweet by CEO Elon Musk for clues about the car’s cost, interior, and what sort of options will be available. But how has Tesla changed they way we shop for and drive cars? What realities about the nature of the business has it forced its competitors to face? Let’s examine this more closely:

Autopilot

When Tesla first released Autopilot in October 2015, Musk…

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The Food and Drug Administration announced plans today to delay reviewing e-cigarettes on the market for safety — a big win for e-cig manufacturers. The agency also says it intends to look into cutting the nicotine levels in regular old cigarettes to what it calls non-addictive levels.

The move has left public health experts with mixed feelings: cutting nicotine levels in cigarettes could help curb addiction and save lives. And e-cigarettes, which heat up and vaporize liquids often containing flavors and nicotine, are generally considered less dangerous than cigarettes. But they aren’t harmless. Since vaping is a relatively new phenomenon, we don’t know what its long term effects could be. Leaving e-cigarette makers largely unregulated…

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According to a report at The Wall Street Journal, Sprint chairman Masayoshi Son has proposed a merger with Charter. It’s one of several options that have been on the table for Sprint, which is widely regarded as needing one (the carrier is usually described as troubled, suffering, beleaguered, or some combination of the three).

Under the proposed deal, which the WSJ characterizes as “complex,” SoftBank would control the new company that would result from the merger. Both Sprint and Charter have been tossed around as possible merger or acquisition targets for some time. Merger talks between Sprint and T-Mobile were happening as recently as this past May, for example.

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Tesla’s handover ceremony of the Model 3 tonight was an affecting moment for CEO Elon Musk, whose casual authenticity has emerged as a distinct tech keynote style. The Model 3 is the first mass market electric car Tesla has made so far and 30 were delivered to employees tonight.

Musk quavered a bit when he spoke of the 300,000 people who have put down deposits for the Model 3. “That really matters to us. We really care. We’re going to do everything we possibly can to get you that car as soon as possible,” he said. “We’re going to do right.”

Although Musk joked earlier in his speech about getting rude Twitter mentions demanding a Model 3, he took a more serious tone when discussing the Model 3’s continued production delays and how people…

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Tesla finally delivered the first 30 units of the Model 3 this past evening, and now that the production version of the company’s mass-market electric car is out in the wild, one key detail has finally been confirmed: the interior is going to look unlike anything else on the market. There’s one 15-inch, bezel-free, horizontally-oriented touchscreen panel — and that’s it. No instrument cluster, no heads-up display. The rest of what’s in front of you is just a smooth dashboard and a the windshield.

CEO Elon Musk had warned as much on Twitter in the months between last year’s initial unveiling and tonight’s event that the interior of the production version of the Model 3 would look as spartan as the one we saw in the prototype. And he has…

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Elon Musk wasn’t smiling, when he said, “Welcome to Model 3 handover.” Through a single silver door, a few moments before, he had entered the room, flanked by nearly two dozen employees including an engineer and designer who joined him on stage. Black floor, rich red curtains, and slate grey backdrop and a white Tesla logo. There were no introductions necessary.

At first, Musk’s voice had a breathy quality. He seemed nervous. Nerves were understandable on the precipice of what might be the most substantive moment in the brand’s history, the first stages of the rollout of its mass market car, the Model 3.

He faced a room of about a 50 journalists that Tesla…

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I felt like I was driving in an Eames chair. That was my first impression as I climbed into the driver’s seat of the Tesla Model 3 at the Fremont Factory on Friday afternoon. It took a moment to orient myself — no gauges, no speedometer, no airplane cockpit cues. Instead, one continuous smooth line between myself and the road ahead, offset by natural, unfinished wood. The premium model of the Model 3 caught me off guard. After hearing so much hype about this car, I was surprised that my first reaction was a profound sense of delight. It wasn’t bland, nor sterile, nor cheap feeling. Here was something different. Here was an exercise in minimalism. Here was the car Elon Musk promised to make 14 years ago.

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If you’ve ever been curious enough to look through your system’s root directory, you may have found yourself a little overwhelmed. Most of the three-letter directory names don’t tell you much about what they do, and if you ever needed to make important modifications, it would be tough to know where to look. I’d like to take those of you who haven’t ventured much into your root directory on a brief tour. Before we embark, here are a couple of tools that will allow you to dig through anything interesting you find on your own later.

Microsoft has unveiled an ambitious plan that would use technology found in the television white space spectrum to develop affordable broadband Internet access for at least 2 million consumers. The aim is to bridge the technology gap between urban and rural American communities. The spectrum is a currently unused portion in the 600 Mhz frequency range designated for UHF television bands, which allows wireless signals to travel over hills and through buildings and trees into rural areas.