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Would you commute in Ampere’s low-slung, three-wheeled electric machine? http://ift.tt/2FmsFIF Los Angeles-based startup Ampere Motor is preparing to start production of a small, sporty electric machine named One. It takes the form of a low-slung three-wheeler that reminds us of the aptly named Morgan 3-Wheeler and the Polaris Slingshot. “Electric cars today are either too expensive or a lackluster drive. Ampere’s goal is to share an exhilarating driving experience in electric cars that are affordable and beautiful,” the company said in a statement. That’s a tall order. The company noted that it enlisted the help of world-class designers trained in the same schools as the people who draw modern-day models for the likes of Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and Ferrari. Visually, the One is an impressive machine. Its tear-drop-shaped body hides a lightweight and rigid tubular chassis built with technology gleaned from the world of race cars, according to Ampere. It uses a double wishbone suspension and a carbon-Kevlar belt that drives the lone rear wheel. The company also claims the One is “maintenance-free and almost indestructible” without explaining how. There’s no top, though the interior is waterproof. The company charges about $1,500 for a hard top. Want heat and A/C? That’s another $1,000. Technical details are, for the most part, spectacularly vague. The One offers 100 miles of range in its most basic configuration and recharging the battery takes about three and a half hours when it’s plugged into a regular household outlet. Buyers who plan on taking it on longer trips can ask for a 150-mile upgrade. Regardless of range, the benchmark sprint from zero to 60 mph takes eight seconds flat and top speed checks in at 75 mph. Even though it has two seats, most states classify the One as a motorcycle, so buyers will need the appropriate license to drive it on public roads. Last year, Ampere Ampere said the One is about 90 percent ready for production. Pricing starts at about $10,000 and the first examples will roll off the assembly line before the end of 2018. There’s no word yet on where production will take place. We’ve reached out to the company for clarification, and we’ll update this article as soon as we hear back. Ampere Motor claims it will begin to schedule customer test drives in March. If you’re not one to try before you buy, and if you’re confident Ampere can keep its promises in a timely manner, you can order the young firm’s very first car right now by visiting its official website and sending it a $200 refundable deposit. We’d recommend waiting until you see the car in person, though.
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://ift.tt/2p4eJdC January 26, 2018 at 12:21PM
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New $60 edition of ‘Rainbow Six Siege’ replaces cheaper version on consoles http://ift.tt/2DPsGrv Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege has been a runaway multiplayer hit for Ubisoft, but if you haven’t bought a copy of the game yet on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, you won’t want to wait too much longer. With the launch of the game’s new “Year 3” content comes the introduction of a new $60 “Advanced Edition” that’s replacing the standard edition of the game. The Advanced Edition of the game comes with everything included in the standard edition, including all modes and maps, but also offers 600 Rainbow Six credits and 10 “Outbreak Collection Packs” for the new zombie-focused content. This sounds like a win-win for new players, but it’s priced $20 higher than the standard edition at GameStop right now. Of course, you won’t get all the new goodies with the standard edition. The Outbreak event, which doesn’t appear to have a concrete starting date yet, will run for four weeks and features a three-player cooperative mode that focuses on a “mysterious threat” that involves a quarantine. Though Tom Clancy’s The Division prided itself on not including zombies, it appears that Rainbow Six Siege has no such concerns. Exclusive hazmat cosmetic items will be available during the event, which can be found in the Outbreak Packs included with the Advanced Edition. Additional items can be purchased for 300 Rainbow Six credits. All players who log in during the event will receive an additional four items — if you bought the Advanced Edition, you’ll receive 14 in total. As with the new Battle Crates in Ghost Recon Wildlands, the Rainbow Six Siege Outbreak Packs will not contain any duplicate items. There will be 50 in total to acquire, including outfits, weapon skins, and headgear. On PC, you still have the option of purchasing the “starter edition” of Rainbow Six Siege for just $15, and it includes access to all maps and modes, as well as 600 credits, but the time to unlock new operators is increased compared to the other versions of the game. A $90 “Gold Edition” is also available, containing the Advanced Edition and a Year 3 pass, which offers early access to operators, exclusive uniforms, renown boost, and discounts in the store. If you want to jump in with both feet, the $130 “Complete Edition” includes all content in the Gold Edition and unlocks your Year 1 and Year 2 operators in advance. Rainbow Six Siege is available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://ift.tt/2p4eJdC January 26, 2018 at 12:21PM
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ICE to Gain Access to Nationwide License Plate Database http://ift.tt/2DJORjq US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has finalized a contract granting them agency-wide access to a national license plate recognition database, The Verge reported Friday. License plate readers are increasingly common in law enforcement agencies across the US, but this is the first time the agency has gained full access to such a surveillance database to crack down on illegal immigration. In 2014, ICE put out a call for bids from companies to compile a database to capture immigrants with pending warrants. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson cancelled that plan after widespread concern that American citizens would be caught in the dragnet and surveilled as well. As a privacy safeguard in this latest plan, ICE has been granted access to an extant license plate database, but can’t add new data to it, only search what’s available. Advertisement License plate readers are cameras linked to law enforcement databases. Essentially, they take a photo of a license plate, recording details like its location and when it was spotted, and upload that information to a database. Agents can then query the database to find the recent locations of a license plate or see if the owner has been flagged by law enforcement. ICE’s contract was finalized with Vigilant Solutions, which brags of a database containing more than 2 billion license plate photos. The Verge reports that ICE agents would be able to search the database to find everywhere a given plate has been in the past five years. Privacy advocates have voiced concerns here, arguing this information, particularly in heavily policed areas where ICE contact is more frequent, could potentially reveal a lot more than what’s on a person’s driver’s license. Residences, associates, places of employment, potentially even health or pregnancy status (if a car was, say, spotted at a Planned Parenthood or STI testing center) could all be inferred from this data. Additionally, the site reports that users can tag a particular license plate to receive alerts via Vigiliant’s app whenever it’s spotted. ICE agents could add hundreds or even thousands of plates to the “hot list,” as its called, receiving instantaneous updates as plates are sighted ontunnels, bridges, toll booths, or at traffic stops. Advertisement As an ACLU report on license plate readers notes, the overwhelming majority of license plate photos taken are from innocent drivers who aren’t suspected of any crimes. A police department in Rhinebeck, NY registered 164,043 plates between April and June of 2011. Ultimately eight of these plates were on the “hot list.” The report also cites a case of a single car having its location recorded 24 times in a week. Over longer periods of time, it’d be possible to collect extra “intimate” data about a subject—long before they’re made aware of any surveillance. The Trump administration has promised to crack down on immigration and, in turn, step up surveillance along the border with a variety of technological tools, including everything from drones to autonomous surveillance buggies, string ray towers and, of course, a giant wall. As The Verge report notes, by working with private companies protected by proprietary business laws, many of the surveillance tactics will remain obscured. Digital Trends via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com January 26, 2018 at 12:12PM
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MoviePass Cuts Off Some AMC Theaters as Big Picture Plan Comes Into Focus http://ift.tt/2rIMJmv Back in August, MoviePass caused shockwaves in the film industry with its insanely cheap Netflix-for-theaters service. The startup is apparently growing way faster than it expected and its plan to muscle in on theaters’ increased revenue appears to have accelerated. On Thursday, MoviePass cut off some AMC theaters from its service in what amounts to a warning shot. And now the company is opening up more about its larger business model. MoviePass’s strategy seems risky as hell. Customers pay $10 per month and can see a film in theaters every day. MoviePass pays theaters full price for every ticket, which is why it’s largely been welcomed by independent theaters or at least tolerated by the big chains. AMC, America’s largest theater chain, has been the exception and it denounced the service immediately following the new price announcement. Because the MoviePass card is just a custom, chip-enabled MasterCard, there was nothing AMC could really do about it aside from ceasing its acceptance of MasterCard. So when MoviePass abruptly shut down its service in ten AMC theaters in major cities, it came as a surprise—especially to customers. Advertisement One MoviePass subscriber tweeted that “About 12 people trying to use MoviePass in the lobby of AMC empire 25 nyc and it claims we’re not 100yards from the theater. WTF.” And it wasn’t just NYC, more Twitter complaints rolled in. One user in Los Angeles tweeted, “No more AMC Century City??? That is truly disappointing. I cancelled my membership because of it.” Others expressed the same sentiment. In an email sent to Gizmodo, MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe’s official statement on the matter read in part, “As of today, you’ll find a small handful of theaters are no longer available on our platform.” He advised “customers to always double check the MoviePass app for the most up-to-date list of participating theaters.” But another part of the statement seemed to broadcast a message to AMC. “Our number one goal as a company is to provide an accessible price-point for people to enjoy films the way they’re meant to be seen: on the big screen,” he wrote. “Many exhibitors have been receptive to this mission, and we’re excited to keep working with theater chains that are closely aligned with our customer service values.” AMC did not answer a request for comment sent by Gizmodo, but has responded on Twitter. Commenting on one complaint from a user, it wrote, “Some of our guests say MoviePass may be blocking the use of their service at a handful of AMC locations. AMC has not restricted MoviePass acceptance at our theatres, nor have we heard from MoviePass about this. MoviePass customers should contact MoviePass for clarification.” Advertisement It seems AMC was blindsided by this decision, so what did it do to warrant designation as a company that isn’t “closely aligned” with MoviePass’s customer service values? Lowe told Wired that the company is getting more aggressive in persuading theaters to start sharing in the increased revenue from concession sales. “We’re spending millions and millions of dollars every week at [the top three chains],” he said. “Those customers are spending on average $13 on popcorn and soda, which is more than double the norm, because they’re not shelling out money for their ticket.” He said that independent theaters have been more open to the idea of making a deal with MoviePass. Has MoviePass reached a point that it has the kind of leverage to bully AMC? By its own account, it’s passed 1.5 million subscribers, it’s currently paying for three percent of tickets sold at the box office, and it claims to be purchasing 10 percent or more of many smaller titles like Call Me By Your Name and The Shape of Water. Lowe claims that, the way things a going, it could wind up driving $135 million in annual profits for AMC, not counting concession sales. Those are healthy-sounding stats at this early stage of MoviePass’s proof-of-concept approach, but the service may be growing so fast that it hasn’t had enough time to fully demonstrate its value. AMC seems to have avoided discussing MoviePass publicly since its initial criticism that the service would depreciate the value of a ticket. According to Deadline, AMC CEO Adam Aron told investors on a November earnings call that the service is happy to accept the $11.88 per ticket that MoviePass is paying them on average, but “it’s also important to make clear that despite claims they’ve made to the contrary, AMC has absolutely no intention, I repeat no intention, of sharing any – I repeat, any, of our admissions revenue or our concessions revenue with MoviePass.” Advertisement Brian Kintsligner, a market analyst for Maxim Group recently estimated that MoviePass only has about seven months worth of cash to keep paying for those tickets, but he still listed the service’s parent company as a good investment based on future projections of growth. Lowe and his colleagues seem to think that the growth will provide the necessary leverage to bring the big theaters to the table. He told Wired that the company is on track to triple its user-base by the end of summer. The MoviePass model has always made some sense, conceptually. People will see more movies and make more adventurous choices when they’re not paying crazy prices. And MoviePass just wants a cut of the extra revenue it provides. The company also has always anticipated that its low-use customers will balance out with the people who go every day, Lowe told us back in August. Advertisement On Thursday, MoviePass also announced its first film acquisition at Sundance. Along with indie studio The Orchard, its now the proud owner of the distribution rights to American Animals, a film that debuted this week at the festival. So, the bigger strategy is coming together: MoviePass wants to strong-arm uncooperative theaters into sharing revenue when it demonstrates increased sales. It wants to own some films that it acquires based on its user data, and it’ll push those films on its app with the highest priority, and ultimately collect TV and streaming revenue on them. And the company hopes to incorporate businesses that are near theaters and promote deals, in a sort of Groupon-for-movie theaters arrangement. But Lowe added a new dimension to the plan when speaking with Wired. He sees a day when some movies are MoviePass exclusives on their opening weekends, and he hopes to redefine the theater experience to include live sports and other untraditional media. Advertisement Honestly, the MoviePass long game sounds a little scary. A company like it could easily end up with too much power in its hands. But there’s still a lot of hurdles to clear before that time comes. While customers might be claiming that they quit the service because it’s not participating in a certain theater, why the hell would they do that—unless, say, your town only has one option. NYC has a million great theaters and AMC doesn’t rank anywhere near the top of the list. The big chains better be ready to hold out, because their stock’s are getting murdered and MoviePass just keeps bringing in more money to wait them out. Digital Trends via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com January 26, 2018 at 11:54AM
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Comcast Xfinity Home adds new voice commands just in time for the Super Bowl http://ift.tt/2naXwkY Comcast signaled its intent to move further into the smart home market earlier this month when it announced at CES 2018 that 15 million customers currently leasing an Xfinity gateway would soon receive a firmware update to turn it into a smart hub. Now, with the Super Bowl just around the corner, the company has added new voice commands to its recently redesigned X1 voice remote to make your viewing experience during the big game an even better one. The new features aren’t exactly specific to the Super Bowl, but Comcast couldn’t have picked a better time to roll them out. One of the simpler new commands lets fans adjust their lights based on which team they’re rooting for: “Xfinity Home, make lights green” for Philadelphia Eagles fans, or “Xfinity Home, make lights blue” for New England Patriots fans. Another new feature lets you keep an eye out for the pizza guy without ever needing to take your eyes off the game. Saying “Xfinity Home, show me front door camera” will cause a view from your camera to pop up on your screen, meaning you’ll only have to get up from the couch when it’s actually time to grab the pizza. You can now ask questions like “Xfinity Home, what is the temperature?” via the X1 remote as well. Another example would come after everyone goes home for the night, and you want to check the alarm. All you need to do is ask “Xfinity Home, is the alarm on?” Answers to this and any other of the supported questions will be immediately displayed on your TV. So far, six companies have partnered with Comcast via the X1 voice commands database. As mentioned earlier, Philips Hue lights are supported, as are Caseta/Lutron lights, the Sengled Element Touch light bulb, and GE in-wall and plug-in switches and dimmers. Nest and Zen thermostats are also supported. Comcast plans to add more commands and hardware partners moving forward. If this interests you, but you’re not a Comcast customer, be sure to check out our guide to Comcast Xfinity TV to find out everything the service has to offer.
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://ift.tt/2p4eJdC January 26, 2018 at 11:53AM
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Hoodline is trying to fix local news deserts with a new automated news wire http://ift.tt/2Ee4OvA Local news is kind of a mess. While the global platforms have been exploding, making it easier to follow events at a world wide level, local news sources have atrophied. Those two things are, obviously, intertwined. As the news moved online the revenue sources that powered local papers and news stations has taken a hit, resulting in smaller news rooms and outlet closures. What this adds up to is that while it may be easier than ever to figure out what the hell happened in the world today, it’s become much, much harder for me to tell what it was that happened in my neighborhood yesterday. Hoodline has been attempting to bring some granularity to local and neighborhood news since it was founded as a blog about the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco. Now they’re rolling out their first product that helps other news rooms get a boost by fleshing out local coverage that they lack the resources to tackle. Hoodline’s current Editor-in-Chief, Eric Eldon, used to co-edit this blog. He left to join Hoodline to figure out how to improve local news and it was acquired in 2016 by Ripple. So as not to bury the lede too deeply here, the product is an automated wire service that packages data and editorial content together for local newsrooms about local topics. Think less pure breaking news and more data-driven trend pieces that highlight things that you’d only care about if you live here vs. anywhere else. Hoodline’s local API will serve up these stories ready made to local news organizations. Think, top seafood places in your area or hot new neighborhoods for new homeowners. Primary data sources include Yelp, Zumper and others that Hoodline crunches through its platform to come up with items of value to truly local audiences. This grew out of Hoodline’s initial thesis that it could use public data sets put out by .govs to break stories. Those data sets have their own problems though, largely stemming from the fact that they’re in many cases obligatory and taped together by hacks and personally motivated parties. Ask anyone who has ever built a transit or transport app using city data and they’ll tell you it’s typically a mess. So Hoodline expanded to company partnerships that gave them access to private data stores that are maintained by people with a solid motivation: they make more money when the data is clean and relevant. The data comes from places like Yelp, Zumper, Groupon, Apartment List and ZipRecruiter. Now, it’s rolling out its first product that uses that data to make something it can offer to other organizations. Hoodline’s been in the Disney Accelerator and working with ABC to pipe these stories out to their news teams, as well as other local news conglomerates like Digital First Media and Hearst. If you live in a bigger city, a lot of this may sound like: so what? If you live in Fresno, one of the pilot areas for Hoodline’s news pieces by the way, then it makes a lot of sense. I live here and I can tell you that it usually takes a murder, a chance encounter between a great burrito and a local reporter or a paid partnership to get coverage of a local food place here. This isn’t for purely cynical reasons. The local orgs are hurting for person-power, big time, and simply don’t have the resources to dedicate to crunching the data to figure out which new local joints (or old standards) are surging in popularity or on the brink of becoming so. Hoodline could theoretically use one of its news templates to create a hot new restaurants piece that would get packaged and sent to a local news org as a ready-to-ship article. The local org can then choose to put it out as received or to add on-site video coverage or supplement it with additional reporting.
Hoodline CEO Razmig Hovaghimian says that there are basically two halves to Hoodline’s business when it comes to this first ‘news wire’ product and other products that it will ship based on the data platform it has built. First, the data sets coming in and their ability to turn them into usable news stories, and then the second side which is taking it to market with various endpoints that could include things like this wire service as well as direct integrations with tech companies. Currently, the wire service is in 40 cities, and COO Jes Wolfe says that there has been solid response so far, with click through rates that hover in the 15% range, proving that there is solid perceived value in the stories for local readers. Multiple streams of revenue like advertising, monetized links and more can be woven in as well. The advantage to the partners is of course deep links directly to the content sources, providing traffic and driving growth back to the source. This, says Hovaghimian, is high intent traffic that is more valuable than a generic search-based visit. Higher quality leads means better conversions and more time on site for the local news org and the data provider. In a city like Fresno, Eldon says, Hoodline will be immediately providing things like business coverage where there is a long tail of un-covered local establishments, as well as real-estate coverage. Robot-written news stories are already, as they say, a thing. The AP has been shipping these for a while via Automated Insights. But pairing these kinds of automatically crunched news stories with granular local data is a new spin on it that Hoodline has been working on for a while. Participation in the Disney Accelerator last year gave it access to an ABC partnership that allowed it to test its theses and launch a location data platform that applies geofencing to local data sources, grouping them at the neighborhood level. The wire service is only the first major product to launch off of that, but it has already been adapted for other cases like presenting more relevant local search results.
The platform is especially interesting in that there are large tech companies with huge data sets like Twitter and Facebook that have struggled incredibly with local content. Either it’s too bland or not relevant or they just plain ignore it and then fart out a half-assed attempt at local (unless you’re an advertiser). The challenge with this whole thing will be to provide attractive enough economics for local news orgs that are already hurting for budget. The proof will be in demonstrable returns in the form of raw traffic or revenue based on affiliate programs or conversions to subscriptions. I’m also interested in how far Hoodline can take the reciprocity factor of its data gathering. Hovaghimian says that Hoodline is looking to hire two data scientists for every editor that works on its platform, which seems like a good ratio. Once the spice begins to flow between the platform, hyperlocal sites and the data platform partners, this could begin to form a pool of data that is unique among all three. And unique data sets are valuable. Just ask Foursquare, which has finally begun to realize the power of its data pool beyond finding you a great taco in Temecula. Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com January 26, 2018 at 11:44AM DeadspinRussell Westbrook Mistakenly Thought He Was Picked Last In The All-Star Draft So He Went O1/26/2018 Deadspin Russell Westbrook Mistakenly Thought He Was Picked Last In The All-Star Draft, So He Went O http://ift.tt/2naylyT Deadspin Russell Westbrook Mistakenly Thought He Was Picked Last In The All-Star Draft, So He Went Out And Scored 46 Points | Splinter Sean Hannity Forced Into a Spectacularly Humiliating Retreat Over NYT Trump-Mueller Story | Jezebel Brock Turner Victim No Longer Involved in Memorial Plaque After Stanford Reportedly Ignored Her Suggestions | The Root White Candidate for Georgia Governor Basically Does MLK Blackface | Earther The Weather Channel Homepage Is Out Here Reminding Everyone Climate Change is Real | Digital Trends via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com January 26, 2018 at 11:30AM
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Report: More startup lawyers are accepting cryptocurrencies as payment http://ift.tt/2EdG8Dd A growing number of law firms working with startups are beginning to accept their payment in cryptocurrencies, according to a new report by the trade-focused outlet Law.com. Some of the attorneys surveyed in the story say they’re perfectly happy with the development. Others worry about the cryptocurrencies’ volatility. Either way, the lawyers suggest that they increasingly have no choice. In order to land the growing number of businesses launched by cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, they have to show that they’re invested in what their clients are building. Often, too, the founders’ wealth has been accumulated in bitcoin, which makes it unavoidable. It’s an interesting shift, and one that’s very reminiscent of service providers who were paid in equity during the go-go dot.com days of the late ’90s, a move that paid off hugely for some and far less profitably for others. A practitioner who was paid in Bitcoin, for example, would have seen the value of that payment bounce all over the place in recent months. It isn’t just solo practitioners, either, says the report. The international law firm Perkins Coie has apparently been accepting bitcoin payments since 2013. Other firms to accept cryptocurrency include Steptoe & Johnson and Frost Brown Todd. Of course, beyond the risk the move represents for the law firms, accepting cryptocurrency is, in some ways, trickier than accepting equity in lieu of traditional payment. For example, as the story notes, accepting bitcoin can involve having to trace it to ensure it hasn’t come from illegal activity. “I like the anonymity of it,” criminal defense attorney Jay Cohen tells Law.com. “But at the same time, I had to decline to represent people who wanted to do it because I don’t want to be investigated by anyone.” The story is worth reading in its entirety. Note that it’s for subscribers only. Featured Image: Li-Anne Dias Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com January 26, 2018 at 11:28AM
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Did Design Really Cause Hawaii's 'BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT' False Alarm http://ift.tt/2GjRE0p When Hawaii accidentally terrified residents earlier this month with a push notification about an imminent “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT,” the Internet seemed to cry out in unison: Okay, who pushed the wrong button? An employee at Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency was apparently responsible for the error. Intending only to test the state’s missile alert system internally, the employee clicked a wrong button or link by mistake and sounded a very real alarm, leaving people uncertain about whether their very lives were at stake. The agency only recently restarted internal drills for the Cold War-era system. Advertisement Yet when the Honolulu Civil Beat published an alleged photo of the alarm system’s interface, it seemed clear—at least to many designers—that the employee was not entirely at fault. As many outlets have pointed out, it was a design problem, because the interface looked like it had been made to deliberately confuse whoever had the sorry responsibility of actually using it.
This image drove UX designers into a state of rage and sent commentators into action, who explored the usability of warfare and compared the design to Mailchimp’s far more ominous-looking deletion alert. And now there is even an independently run contest on design crowdsourcing site Freelancer, which is seeking entries for a better design. The site itself is funding the contest and will reward $150 to the winner. There are 146 submissions to date, many of which are hideous and none of which will probably wind up changing how HEMA thinks about design. Advertisement But to be fair, this also isn’t a competition over aesthetics. It’s possible to create a very ugly design that’s simultaneously easy to use, just as it’s possible to create something attractive and trendy that’s a confusing nightmare. Here’s a handful of the entries: The story surrounding the graphic, it turns out, is more complicated than it originally seemed. The Civil Beat later reported that the photo it published did not actually depict the interface that was used to trigger the alarm. Advertisement The distributed image was apparently just a mockup. “[The] State of Hawaii is saying the original screenshot shared with the media is merely an example and has shared a second image saying it is another example of the user interface. Neither screenshot shows the actual interface used by the operator,” reported the Civil Beat. The agency apparently “can’t publicize the actual screen because of security concerns.” Right. So let’s see the agency’s best approximation of the interface. Neither HEMA graphics conjure up, say, the sort of image you might have imaged would be present in a missile alert system—like, say, some sort of big red or green button? Simply because there are fewer options present, this interface is a lot easier to read. But could better design really have prevented the error, and going forward, prevent future false alarms? Advertisement At this point, it may not be possible to reach a verdict without seeing the actual design, and the missing context surrounding these options further muddies the situation. What designs proceed the interface above? What do other, comparable alert interfaces look like? This information isn’t readily available. An entirely different kind of solution may come to fruition. Yesterday Senator Brian Schatz called for a law that would ban state and local governments from issuing missile alerts, Reuters reported. Both the House of Representatives and Senate have additional hearings planned on the matter. The FCC is also investigating the matter. The employee responsible for the alert is apparently “refusing to cooperate” with the FCC’s investigation, according to the agency’s public safety head, Lisa M. Fowlkes. It’s not clear why this anonymous government employee is allegedly avoiding the FCC, but at least they can rest easy at night knowing that designers on the internet genuinely don’t believe they are entirely at fault. Digital Trends via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com January 26, 2018 at 11:18AM
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Former employees warn Model 3 battery could catch fire; Tesla denies claims http://ift.tt/2EcuHfa Starting mass production of the long-awaited Model 3 has proved problematic for Tesla. The company is, by its founder and CEO’s own admission, stuck deep in production hell. Current and former employees warn that the situation won’t improve in the foreseeable future because the problems are much worse than the company admits. The employees (who asked to remain anonymous) claim Tesla’s Gigafactory still made battery packs for the Model 3 partly by hand in mid-December. They add the company had to “borrow” employees from Panasonic, the firm that supplies battery cells, to speed up production. The process is supposed to be entirely automated, with humans on-site to supervise it, but not intervene on a regular basis. The artisanal production process spawns safety concerns, according to two engineers who spoke to CNBC. They claim some workers, who lack training, routinely install the lithium-ion cells in the pack too close to each other, which could cause the battery to short out or catch fire. If true, that’s a serious allegation that would compromise Tesla’s reputation for building safe cars like the Model X and the Model S. It might not be that simple, though. Tesla disagrees with everything its former employees told CNBC. The company sent Digital Trends an email to give its side of the story. “This is an extremely misinformed and misleading article. To be absolutely clear, we are on track with the previous projections for achieving increased Model 3 production rates that we provided earlier this month,” a spokesperson told us via email. “The implication that Tesla would ever deliver a car with a hazardous battery is absolutely inaccurate, contrary to all evidence, and detached from reality. Hypothetically, even if two cells of the same voltage potential were touching, there would be absolutely zero impact, safety or otherwise — it would be as if two neutral pieces of metal touched,” it added. The bold predictions made by company founder and CEO Elon Musk have, so far, been wide of the mark. In July, when he delivered the first examples, he predicted Tesla would build 100 examples of the Model 3 in August, make 1,500 cars in September, and produce 20,000 cars per month in December. The company only manufactured 260 cars through October, and it admitted that reaching the 5,000-car threshold wouldn’t be possible until March of this year at the earliest.
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://ift.tt/2p4eJdC January 26, 2018 at 11:17AM |
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