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Tesla teases a ‘major’ new product, not a car, to be revealed in April

Tesla will show off a brand new thing on Thursday, April 30, at its Hawthorne Design Studio, CEO Elon Musk tweeted today. Musk promises that this is not a car, but it is a “major” new product line. We’ll have all the news as soon as it’s announced, so check back here on April 30 for the big reveal. Major new Tesla product line — not a car — will be unveiled at our Hawthorne Design Studio on Thurs 8pm, April 30 – Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 30, 2015 Comments Source: @elonmusk

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Tesla teases a ‘major’ new product, not a car, to be revealed in April

Auto-complete blunder leaks passport details of world leaders

Australia has proved that it can hold its own against Hillary Clinton any day when it comes to email blunders . The nation’s immigration department accidentally disclosed the passport numbers and other personal info of every world leader attending last year’s G20 summit, then compounded the problem by hushing it up. Affected leaders include US president Barack Obama, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and British prime minister David Cameron. According to an email obtained by the Guardian , “the cause of the breach was human error… (an immigration employee) failed to check that the autofill function in Microsoft Outlook had entered the correct person’s detail into the email ‘To’ field.” As a result, the world leaders’ info was leaked to organizers of the Asian Cup soccer tournament, likely to their great surprise. The mistake was noticed immediately by the employee, who brought it to the attention of his superiors. However, after determining that it was “unlikely” the email was in the public domain, an immigration officer recommended against sharing the leak with the affected countries. That provoked a strong reaction from Australia’s opposition party, which said “the prime minister (Tony Abbott) must explain this serious incident and the decision not to inform those affected.” Many nations including the US and UK have strict laws requiring that victims of data breaches be informed — especially if they’re in charge of the entire country. [Image credit: Associated Press] Filed under: Internet Comments Source: The Guardian

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Auto-complete blunder leaks passport details of world leaders

Hillary Clinton confirms she wiped her email server

Members of the US House of Representatives hoping to get a look at Hillary Clinton’s personal email server just got a big disappointment. Clinton’s attorney has confirmed to a House committee on Benghazi that, after handing over work-related email to the State Department, the politician both “chose not to keep” personal messages and set a 60-day limit on what the server retains. In short, she effectively wiped it clean. There’s no going back to mail from her Secretary of State days beyond the 30, 490 messages on the record, or roughly half of what the server held during the period. Naturally, both sides are trying to spin the news to suit their own ends. The head of the committee, Rep. Trey Gowdy, is portraying this as an attempt to block anyone from trying to “check behind her analysis” and see if she deleted important conversations. Committee member Rep. Elijah Cummings, meanwhile, calls the server request a “political charade” and wants the on-the-record messages made public as proof that Clinton is squeaky clean. The problem is that there’s no practical way to verify the truth, no matter who’s right — officials have to take it on faith that Clinton followed the letter of the law and delivered all the messages related to her political life. [Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images] Filed under: Internet Comments Via: The Hill Source: House of Representatives (PDF)

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Hillary Clinton confirms she wiped her email server

Vine’s six-second slices of life get a big video-quality bump

Artists and comedians have been doing some truly amazing things with Vine since it launched as a Twitter product two years ago, but those mesmerizing slices of life that eat up your day in six-second increments have never really looked all that great. That’s finally starting to change, according to a blog post by Vine API lead Mike Kaplinskiy — you’ll start seeing vines in 720p (up from the normal, eye-searing 480p) in the team’s iOS and Android apps within the next few days, but some of them can already be spotted embedded around the web. Speaking of apps, there’s just a bit of platform bifurcation going on here (though that’s nothing new). Got an iPhone? The videos you shoot and share on Vine will be available in that higher-quality format now, and there’s nothing you really have to do since the big changes went through on the service’s back end. Alas, videos shot by Android users won’t appear in higher quality for a little while longer, and there’s zero word on whether the company’s languishing Windows Phone app will eventually get the nod (or, you know any kind of update ever again). Anyway, in case you’re absolutely dying to see what these new hi-def Vines look like, here’s a dog playing bongos. Let this endless loop of canine indie rock lull you into the weekend with the gentleness you deserve. Filed under: Mobile Comments Source: Official Vine blog

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Vine’s six-second slices of life get a big video-quality bump

Play Super Mario 64 in your browser now

Take the edge off of a full work week with a bit of Super Mario 64 , available for download or playable right in your browser thanks to ingenious Unity developer Roystan Ross. He calls it Super Mario 64 HD , and it features the original game’s first level, “Bob-Omb Battlefield.” Ross promises that everything is just as players of the 1996 game will remember, with a few exceptions, including no red coins and no Big Bob-Omb. But, it’s still Super Mario 64 in your browser (not your Bowser). Happy Friday, indeed! Filed under: Gaming , HD , Alt Comments Via: Kotaku UK Source: Roystan Ross

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Play Super Mario 64 in your browser now

Microsoft’s next Surface could signal the death of RT

Microsoft hasn’t given up on the idea of a mini-me version of its successful Surface Pro 3 convertible, according to a rumor from WinBeta . But a Surface 3 model won’t follow in the Surface 2’s wobbly footsteps by packing the RT version of Windows. Instead, it will reportedly take a page from the latest Macbook and come with an Intel Atom or Core M fanless CPU and a full version of Windows 8.1, upgradeable to Windows 10 . That means it could hit a lower price point than the Surface Pro while maintaining standard Windows compatibility — the lack of which effectively sunk the Surface 2. As we recently learned , Microsoft appears to be phasing out Windows RT, saying future versions will have, at best, just “some” Windows 10 functionality. It also reportedly killed a Qualcomm-based “mini” RT version of the Surface just days before it was set to launch. So if it pans out, what will this Surface-lite look like, how much will it cost and when will it arrive? We’re not sure about the first two parts, but it’s rumored to be coming in time for Microsoft’s Build conference starting April 29th. Filed under: Laptops , Microsoft Comments Source: Winbeta

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Microsoft’s next Surface could signal the death of RT

PayPal’s failure to spot sanctioned accounts just cost it $7.7 millon

PayPal has has agreed to pay the US Department of the Treasury $7.7-million, after the financial giant processed transactions for a number of companies and individuals on the US sanctions list. A total of 486 violations of US regulations had apparently been committed by PayPal “for several years” after repeated failures in the firm’s screening process, a reports explains. While the severity of each instance will vary, the Treasury highlighted a number that relate to Turkish national Kursud Zafer Cire — an individual on the list after suspected involvement in the movement of weapons of mass destruction. The Treasury’s report states that Risk Operations Agents at PayPal manually overrode at least four alerts flagging Cire as blacklisted — resulting in transactions totalling over $7, 000. Since 2013, PayPal has introduced a “long term solution” that checks for violations in real time. An investment we imagine that’s a little more cost effective, than predicting future malware . Filed under: Internet Comments Via: Reuters Source: US Dept. Treasury , (2)

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PayPal’s failure to spot sanctioned accounts just cost it $7.7 millon

This $300 cybernetic arm gets its smarts from your cellphone

Iron Man isn’t the only one 3D-printing artificial limbs these days. But unlike the mechanical hand delivered by Robert Downey Jr, this recently unveiled prosthetic from Japanese manufacturer Exiii costs just $300 and leverages your mobile device’s computing power to act just like the real thing. The Ghost in the Shell future we’ve between waiting for came took a step closer to reality. The Handiii bionic limb’s exterior is completely 3D-printed. This not only keeps each unit’s initial production costs low (it’s already dropped $50 since we last saw it at Maker Faire Tokyo ), the technique also makes fabricating replacement parts faster and easier as well. But despite its bargain-basement price, the Handiii is packed with electronics. An EMG sensor detects electrical impulses emanating from the user’s remaining limb stump and converts those impulses into physical movement through a series of servos. What’s more, it connects wirelessly to your cell phone or tablet using the mobile device’s CPU to interpret these signals and initiate movement. Unfortunately, there’s already a waiting list for these handy devices, partly due to a backlog of existing orders. Its creators are also focusing on getting these arms into the hands of academic and industrial researchers — potentially as an open-source platform — before beginning deliveries to the general public. Filed under: Wearables , Science Comments Via: TechCrunch Source: Exiii.jp

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This $300 cybernetic arm gets its smarts from your cellphone

Facebook wants to save you a click by hosting other sites’ content

As if Facebook couldn’t get any bigger , it’s looking like The Social Network wants to start natively hosting content from news organizations. As The New York Times ‘ sources tell it, Zuckerberg and Co. have been in talks with at least six media companies about publishing their content directly on the site — no link-clicking required. The initial round of publications apparently includes The New York Times , Buzzfeed , National Geographic and our sister publication The Huffington Post . The reason? Websites take too long to load, and Facebook says that on mobile, the average eight-second page-load takes too long. The ourfit has a vested interest in mobile , hence it stepping in. Some of that load-time comes from advertisements, of course, which is how publications keep the lights on. From what the NYT says, it doesn’t seem like this pitch is going over too well, and probably for good reason. Facebook hasn’t exactly established much of a revenue (or traffic-data) sharing precedent, and at this stage, the whole deal looks very one-sided: Users stay on Facebook longer while news organizations sacrifice audience info and advertising income in exchange for eyeballs on its content. The argument here is that it could help a story get more views because, like its native video posts , these news stories would gain favor in the social media juggernaut’s curated news feed . Whether that’ll balance out for publications in the long run is anyone’s guess at this point. [Image credit: Alamy] My quote has gone viral but is being stolen by others. Read the original piece here http://t.co/7jrNn8XHcN pic.twitter.com/aO2dO25T55 – Tom Goodwin (@tomfgoodwin) March 21, 2015 Filed under: Internet , Mobile , Facebook Comments Source: The New York TImes

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Facebook wants to save you a click by hosting other sites’ content

Light-emitting fabrics could reinvent your ’90s wardrobe

Researchers who are obviously Saved by the Bell fans have developed clothing fibers that could turn you into a walking neon sign. Rather than OLED or LCD tech, the team exploited polymer light-emitting electrochemical cells (PLECs) that are rugged enough to be used in fabrics. They created a millimeter-sized fiber that’s decidedly high-tech — it consists of a thin steel wire coated with nanoparticles and an electroluminescent polymer, topped by a transparent carbon nanotube outer layer. A prototype fabric glowed for several hours, but so far, the light colors are limited to blue and yellow. However, PLEC tech has a theoretical life span of thousands of hours, and more colors are technically possible. The fibers could feasibly “be woven into light-emitting clothes for the creation of smart fabrics” or used for biomedical applications, according to lead scientist Zhitao Zhang from Shanghai’s Fudan University. However, there are a few hurdles to clear. The fibers are too short to be woven into clothing and, like your old Christmas tree lights, are still too unstable. On the other hand, they require less power than LEDs and are transparent and conductive — meaning they have potential to be used for human- or solar-powered wearables. We could also see them in future invisibility cloaks if combined with tiny cameras. For now, it’s just a rough prototype, but display tech often goes from concept to reality a lot faster than other scientific pipe dreams . Filed under: Wearables , Science , Alt Comments Via: Spectrum IEEE Source: Nature

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Light-emitting fabrics could reinvent your ’90s wardrobe