Tesla makes its first Model 3 (update: picture!)

After months of waiting and no shortage of hype , Tesla’s first Model 3 is finally rolling off the production line. Elon Musk has revealed that the initial production unit is ready (not pictured as of this writing) pending a “final checkout.” Musk will get the first car, as he has with earlier models, but he didn’t call dibs — while Ira Ehrenpreis was the first to plunk down a full deposit, he gave that spot to Musk as a birthday present. It’s safe to say that either would be part of an exclusive club given that a mere 30 Model 3s will reach buyers by the end of July. It’s not certain just how much has changed on the Model 3 since it was unveiled back in 2016. You likely won’t get the full scoop on that until a handover party scheduled for July 28th. However, Musk has already hinted that there shouldn’t be any dramatic changes versus the release candidate prototypes that appeared in March. The past few months have largely been spent tweaking and testing components to ensure the Model 3 is ready for the road. It’s a largely symbolic announcement when most Model 3 pre-order customers won’t even get their vehicles until 2018. Production is only slated to ramp up to 20, 000 cars per month by December, which hardly puts a dent in the hundreds of thousands of reservations made since last spring. With that said, you really are looking at the start of Tesla’s next chapter. Musk and crew can now say they’re producing EVs aimed at the mainstream (albeit the higher end), not just a subset of the luxury car crowd. Production unit 1 of Model 3 is now built and going through final checkout. Pics soon. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 9, 2017 Update (7/9): As promised, Musk just tweeted the above picture of the first production Model 3. First Production Model 3 pic.twitter.com/TCa2NSUNI3 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 9, 2017 Source: Elon Musk (Twitter) , (2)

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Tesla makes its first Model 3 (update: picture!)

Ever-changing memory could lead to faster processors

Virtually every central processor in your devices uses a tiered set of memory caches to speed things up by fetching commonly used data. But it’s not very efficient — in trying to accommodate everything, it’s rarely the fastest at anything. MIT’s CSAIL researchers want to fix that. They’ve developed a cache system (appropriately named Jenga ) that creates new cache structures on the spot to optimize for a specific app. As Jenga knows the physical locations of each memory bank, it can calculate how to store data to reduce the travel time (and thus lag) as much as possible, even if that means changing the hierarchy. Whether an app would benefit from multiple cache levels or one gigantic cache, this system would be ready. The gains could be huge. A simulated 36-core chip ran up to 30 percent faster just by adopting Jenga, and could use up to 85 percent less power. You wouldn’t necessarily face a penalty for having many cores in a chip, even in laptops and smartphones where every watt counts. Of course, there’s one major problem: Jenga is just a simulation. It could take a while before you see real-world examples of this cache, and longer still before chip manufacturers adopt it (assuming they like the idea, that is). This also assumes that Jenga scales neatly across different core counts. Will you see similar gains with ‘just’ an 8-core chip? It’s easy to imagine CPU giants like Intel or Qualcomm leaping on this concept, though. Chip makers frequently boost performance by moving to ever-smaller manufacturing processes, but they’re gradually running into physical limits . So long as there’s software to take advantage of it, Jenga could wring extra performance out of chips with relatively little effort. Source: MIT News

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Ever-changing memory could lead to faster processors

Latest Windows 10 preview takes the headache out of high DPI

Because of old legacy programs, using Windows with high-res displays has always been a little tricky , especially if you’re switching between multiple screens. The latest preview build pushed to Insiders helps with that problem by changing the way Windows tells a program what DPI it’s using. With the new build 16237 , if a user changes the resolution of the display by docking/undocking or adjusting a setting, they’ll only need to close and reopen most programs to fix any blurriness, instead of rebooting or logging out. That’s not the only feature getting some love either. Notification action buttons are scaled across the full notification and the first one in each group is expanded so it’s easy to read. Emoji are easier to use now that search in the panel supports the new 5.0 set and it’s ready to describe what each one actually is if you hover the mouse arrow over it. Also, accessibility is improved now that Edge can read out loud on all websites and on PDFs. Sure, Timeline cross-device syncing isn’t ready to use yet , but there are plenty of other tweaks on their way this fall, and preview users can start testing them out now. Source: Windows Blog

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Latest Windows 10 preview takes the headache out of high DPI

Germany Says Cyber Threat Greater Than Expected, More Firms Affected

From a Reuters report, shared by a few readers on Twitter: Germany’s BSI federal cyber agency said on Friday that the threat posed to German firms by recent cyber attacks launched via a Ukrainian auditing software was greater than expected, and some German firms had seen production halted for over a week. Analyses by computer experts showed that waves of attacks had been launched via software updates of the M.E.Doc accounting software since April, the BSI said in a statement. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Germany Says Cyber Threat Greater Than Expected, More Firms Affected

US military will finally start encrypting soldiers’ emails

You’d think the military’s email service mail.mil would be more secure than Gmail and other free alternatives, but that’s apparently not the case. A Motherboard investigation in 2015 revealed that while it does have systems in place to protect classified messages, it doesn’t even use STARTTLS — a 15-year-old encryption technology that prevents emails from being intercepted in transit. That exposes unclassified emails to surveillance and leaves them vulnerable as they make their way to recipients. Now, after getting a lot of flak over the lack of security, Pentagon says it will finally start encrypting soldiers’ emails… but not until July 2018. See, Gizmodo discovered that the military’s email service doesn’t use STARTTLS, because it would prevent the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) from screening each message for malware, phishing attempts and exploits. A letter from DISA, which oversees the military’s emails, says its detection methods developed using national level intelligence “would be rendered ineffective if STARTTLS were enabled.” To be able to implement the technology and make it a default feature, it would have to migrate to a “new email gateway infrastructure, ” and migration won’t be done until July next year. DISA has revealed its plans to migrate the military’s email service in a letter addressed to Senator Ron Wyden, who questioned the agency for not using a “basic, widely used, easily enabled cybersecurity technology.” Wyden said in a statement that the move is definitely a step in the right direction, but he’s also pretty unhappy that it’ll take DISA a year to migrate. “Protecting the communications of American servicemen and women should be a priority, ” he said, “so I hope the agency accelerates its timeline.” Source: Gizmodo , Motherboard

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US military will finally start encrypting soldiers’ emails

Tesla is building world’s largest backup battery in Australia

After blackouts left 1.7 million residents without electricity, Elon Musk famously guaranteed that Tesla could supply 100 megawatts of battery storage in 100 days. The company has announced it will do just that, supplying a Powerpack battery storage system that can run over 30, 000 homes. The 100-megawatt project “will be the highest power battery system in the world by a factor of three, ” tweeted CEO Elon Musk. It will back up the 315 megawatt Hornsdale Wind Farm, charging during low energy usage and providing electricity for peak hours. Though the company seemed destined to get the job, the South Australian government picked it after a “competitive bidding process, ” Tesla said. It added that the size of the system will be enough to cover the 30, 000 or so homes in the region that were affected by blackouts. Tesla’s Powerpack battery storage system (AOL/Roberto Baldwin) Those power outages set off a political conflagration that culminated in a very testy press conference with South Australia’s Premier and the Federal Environment Minister. Shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull unveiled a $1.5 billion plan to expand the power grid to run an additional 500, 000 homes, including backup battery storage. That was when Tesla Energy head Lyndon Rive stepped in and made his “100 megawatts in 100 days” pledge, and (his cousin) Musk upping the ante by promising the system would be free if they didn’t achieve the goal. Musk confirmed that he’d keep the promise, telling Australia’s ABC News that “if South Australia is willing to take a big risk, then so are we.” The 100 day pledge reportedly begins once the grid interconnection agreement is inked, and Musk estimates that it will cost him “probably $50 million or more” if the installation isn’t completed in time. This will be the highest power battery system in the world by a factor of 3. Australia rocks!! https://t.co/c1DD7xtC90 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 7, 2017 Via: Elon Musk (Twitter) Source: Tesla

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Tesla is building world’s largest backup battery in Australia

Struggling for survival, SoundCloud closes San Francisco, London offices

Enlarge / Alexander Ljung, CEO and co-founder of SoundCloud, seen here in 2013. (credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images) SoundCloud announced Thursday that it would be closing its San Francisco and London offices—firing 173 employees, or around 40 percent of its staff. The Berlin-based company has been struggling for years: it reported losses of over €51 million ($58.1 million) in 2015 —losses that  have steadily grown since 2010. In January 2017 financial statements, the company said the losses “give rise to a material uncertainty about the Group’s ability to continue as a going concern.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Struggling for survival, SoundCloud closes San Francisco, London offices

Researcher uses Game Boy Camera to capture 2-bit photos of space

The Game Boy Camera, released in 1998, wasn’t even close to the weirdest peripheral for Nintendo’s classic handheld console and even earned a Guinness World Record for the smallest digital camera in the world. Its 2-bit, 128 x 128 pixel CMOS sensor managed very grainy black-and-white shots, making it far more fun than technically impressive. And yet, a Dutch researcher and tinkerer just used one to catch some charmingly blocky photos of the moon and Jupiter. Astrogphrapher Alexander Pietrow used a universal cell phone mount to strap one of the 29-year-old monochrome workhorses to an appropriately old telescope (built in 1838) in Leiden University’s Old Observatory and aimed at at the stellar bodies. The resulting photos are barely detailed — Jupiter is half a dozen pixels wide — but they’re blocky in a charming throwback to the original Game Boy’s 8-bit graphical style. Pietrow even managed to pick out three of the gas giant’s moons, singular pixels in a field of star dots. (Note that the image below has been blown up 400 percent to make it visible, since the Game Boy Camera takes photos at a whopping 112 x 128 pixel resolution.) Maybe it doesn’t do much for astronomy as a field, but it’s a lovely reminder that space still fascinates at any resolution — that we still find meaning when stretching for the cosmos with the crudest of tools. Via: PetaPixel Source: Alexander Pietrow

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Researcher uses Game Boy Camera to capture 2-bit photos of space

Samsung expects its record-breaking profits in 2017 will continue

After stumbling in 2016 Samsung appears to be back on track in 2017, as it just announced projected earnings for the second quarter that would show its highest operating profit ever. The company won’t provide a detailed breakdown for a few more weeks, but it’s estimating an operating profit of 14 trillion Korean won ($12.11 billion US). Analysts cited by Bloomberg and Reuters believe the figures got a boost from the well-received Galaxy S8 , as well as the RAM, processors and display components Samsung makes. This means the company is likely to continue the record-breaking streak from Q1 , and that’s before it launches the Galaxy Note 8 later this year. Plus, it could be in line to build OLED screens for a new iPhone, which could be a lucrative endeavor. If things keep going like this, we may have to pull an old image out of the archives . Source: Samsung

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Samsung expects its record-breaking profits in 2017 will continue

OneDrive has stopped working on non-NTFS drives

Enlarge OneDrive users around the world have been upset to discover that with its latest update, Microsoft’s cloud file syncing and storage system no longer works with anything other than disks formatted with the NTFS file system. Both older file systems, such as FAT32 and exFAT, and newer ones, such as ReFS, will now provoke an error message when OneDrive starts up. To continue to use the software, files will have to be stored on an NTFS volume. While FAT disks can be converted, ReFS volumes must be reformatted and wiped. This has left various OneDrive users unhappy. While NTFS is the default file system in Windows, people using SD cards to extend the storage on small laptops and tablets will typically use exFAT. Similarly, people using Storage Spaces to manage large, redundant storage volumes will often use ReFS. The new policy doesn’t change anything for most Windows users, but those at the margins will feel hard done by. In a rather odd statement made to OnMSFT , Microsoft said that it “discovered a warning message that should have existed was missing when a user attempted to store their OneDrive folder on a non-NTFS filesystem—which was immediately remedied.” The company’s position, apparently, is that OneDrive should always have warned about these usage scenarios and that it’s only a bug or an oversight that allowed non-NTFS volumes to work. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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OneDrive has stopped working on non-NTFS drives