BMW emissions cheating: (they already have recalls for affected cars - those had Renault engines due to a cooperation, which makes the Renault claims above more valid) https://cleantechnica.com/2017...
You can find articles like this for pretty much EVERY car manufacturer, if you simply google. Funnily, in recent testing, VW Diesels had among the lowest emissions results. Seems they fixed their stuff on newer models after the scandal.
To those who claim that the 60000 Euro price limit for the cars was created specifically against Tesla - nope, it was against luxury cars in general, since everybody who can afford a 60000+ Euro car does not really need a 4000 Euro tax break. Also, the subsidies were not only for pure EV, they were also for hybrid models. So the price limit also excludes models from Porsche (Panamera hybrid), Mercedes (S class hybrid), BMW (7 series eDrive) and other big manufacturers.
Tesla cheated, pure and simple. The rules for the subsidies state "the base model of the car must cost below 60000 Euro", so Tesla created an imaginary Model S without any options which would be normal for any car in that price range (parking sensors etc.) which made it squeak in at just below 60000 Euro. That way, they could point at the price list and say "look, base model is below 60000, so all Model S deserve the tax credit!", safe in the knowledge that no customer would actually order that barebone model. Well, the test buyers for the tax credit actually did, and Tesla told them that you cannot actually order it, because Tesla does not produce any vehicles without parking sensors etc. Tesla salesmen even told the test buyers that this model was only on the price list to allow Tesla customers to get the tax credit (by existing on paper). Tesla clearly committed fraud here, and now the customers might have to pay back the tax credit they received.
Older Macbook Pro have this "feature", too, with their 85W power supply. Happened to me on my 2012 15" Macbook Pro, and it seems I was not the only one. For example, just a simple Google search shows discussions like https://discussions.apple.com/... or https://apple.stackexchange.co...
What was the reason you purchased Smart TV in the first place?
Try buying a 55" TV today which isn't "smart". You won't find one, at least where I live. I would gladly buy a non-smart TV because I only use it as a screen for whatever devices are connected to it, but that is simply not an option.
I use my TV pretty much just as a display for whatever devices I connect to it. Even for the firmware update, the TV does not need internet connectivity (just put the file on a USB stick). I have read too many horror stories about the TV phoning home what channels you watch, what video files you play etc. to use the internal apps of the TV and allow it network access. That, plus the internal apps usually suck.
The issue is that the number buttons in the calculator behave differently from the operator buttons. If you look closely, you will see that if you hit a number button, it will fade out immediately after being clicked. But if you e.g. hit the "+" button, it will STAY highlighted, probably to remind you of what operation you selected (and that you actually HAVE selected something) while thinking about what number to put in next. Only if you then hit a number button, the "+" button will fade out, which takes about half a second, and while it does this, it does not register another click on that specific button. So you could put in 1+2-3, but you cannot put in 1+2+3 without first waiting for the "+" button to fade out completely.
tenkeyless, cherry blue, good build quality. Just has no USB hub (they call it "gaming keyboard", but it does not have any macro functions - all you can adjust is the lighting).
It would have to be some completely new technology. Nothing else we have right now can replace a keyboard because it has a very specific function and is very very good at that.
What else do we have and how does it compare to a keyboard?
- replacing a physical keyboard with one pictured on a touchscreen: horrible for typing long text documents. Ergonomic disaster unless you put the screen right where you would have a physical keyboard (flat on your table). Same for similar stuff like those "project a keyboard on your desk with a laser" solutions, This is pretty much "replacing a keyboard with something which is used the same way, but it is just worse at being a keyboard".
- voice input: gets very tiring after a while (anybody who has a job which involves talking all day long knows this). Slower than just typing, especially if you have to correct something when the computer misunderstands you. Formatting text / putting it where you want on the screen (e.g spreadsheets) is difficult. I can only see this as a good solution when you need to input text but your hands are not free (e.g. dictating a text message while driving your car). Also, who wants to work in an office where everybody is talking all the time. That's just annoying - plus there are the obvious privacy problems. Plus technical issues which need to be solved (voice recognition when there are dozens other people talking at the same time).
- using eye tracking / brain wave stuff (electrodes, whatever): too slow, too inaccurate. Also probably tiring. Why track eye movement when we have ten fingers which can just press a button. Also probably only a niche solution for when you cannot use your hands.
- plugging a cable into your brain and just thinking the text: that's just science fiction and probably at least a hundred years away.
The only decent alternative solution is voice recognition, but even that has obvious flaws - the main one being that it is not a good solution for an office setting.
I'm not blind in that eye, but there's a damned good reason why important gauges are put right in front of the driver...
Plus, the instruments usually are recessed, so that the sunlight does not make them unreadable. This tablet is completely unprotected from sunlight and from all the pictures I gather that it's also a glossy display. Seriously, making this the ONLY display for any kind of status information about the car is just a really bad idea. And that's totally ignoring the lack of any real buttons/switches which you can use without looking at them.
The car did not continue driving for half an hour without the driver reacting to the warnings - he DID put his hands on the steering wheel for a couple seconds after the warning, so that the autopilot would not stop working. He just did not pay attention beyond silencing the alarm each time it sounded.
It's a bit more complicated that that, I'll give you an example. Here in Italy, you cannot watch House of Cards on Netflix because Netflix sold its broadcasting rights to Sky before they entered the Italian market. Now, under these new rules, a German Netflix subscriber will expect to see it even if he moves to Italy. If Netflix allows that, it's liable to be sued by Sky, if they don't, it's now liable to be sued by the German subscriber. It's a legal conundrum I frankly don't know how to disentangle.
It is not really a problem - the German Netflix subscriber is still a German Netflix subscriber if he temporarily stays in Italy. So Netflix just needs to give up restricting streaming by IP (country) and instead determine what you are allowed to watch based on the user's account, i.e. they need to ask for your home address and link it to your account. I guess they then just need to find a way to verify that home address, otherwise everybody will just sign up using a fake address from a country which offers the most shows.
While Firefox is not exactly super crash-prone, I noticed over the last 2-3 years that it has a nasty habit of gobbling up memory. When I run my machine non-stop over the weekend, it is totally normal for it to eventually reach about 1.5 GB of memory usage (no matter how many tabs I have open at that point) and then strange things happen - like graphics not loading correctly, GUI elements not showing up anymore, web pages freezing etc. So I can totally understand it if people who use Firefox more than me, e.g. at work, have problems at least once a day. It is simply not stable under heavy usage.
A TI-99/4A which was given to me by my uncle, with a tape deck for saving stuff. Got a bit annoyed because I was the only one around with such a system, so half a year later, I convinced my parents to buy me a C64 for christmas. After that one, Amiga 500, then Amiga 2000, then a 386DX-33 (around 1990). After that (and gathering some experience upgrading the machine), I built my own systems.
This Uber hatred is astonishing. They had a great idea and it's spread across the world quickly and rewritten the rules of getting from a to b.
What "great idea"? Ordering a cab, getting into the cab, getting from A to B and then paying? I think that idea was around already before Uber and I think people called it a "taxi".
So it is normal here to hear something like "he had 0.5 blood alcohol" and everybody knows that this means a slight buzz, because it is "per mille", so the 0.21 (without units) mentioned in the article - to a German - sounds like "she had one beer", when instead it is equivalent to a German 2.1 per mille, which is more like "it's a wonder she was even conscious".
auto = word-forming element meaning "self, one's own, by oneself," from Greek auto- "self, one's own,"
pilot = "one who steers a ship," from Middle French pillote (16c.)
so, "autopilot" = "a device which steers a ship/car on its own". So I'd guess that anybody who knows what "auto/automatic" and "pilot" means but who is NOT a trained pilot and does not know precisely what the autopilot on a plane can and cannot do would immediately guess that a Tesla autopilot CAN steer the car fully on its own.
(btw, as for the plane autopilot - there are enough news stories and videos out there about how modern autopilots can even start and land a plane fully automatically, so why would people NOT think that it can do everything in between fully automatically, too? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... )
I think this might sum up the result even better.... At least you will be able to get some inspiration for your next shopping trip when you can see everybody else's fridge content cam.
The correct way to do this is with a heads-up display. Projecting images on the road will have all sorts of unintended consequences, including but not limited to distracting the drivers of oncoming cars ( those people who are so inconsiderately sharing the road you imagine you "own" ).
While the road projection seems like a dumb idea, some of the other features of these smart lights as shown on their site actually sound really useful, such as intelligently not blinding oncoming traffic by blocking your headlights from projecting light at their faces while still lighting up the rest of the road in front of you.
But that part is not really new, something like that is already in production on many current cars. For example, my VW Golf has "dynamic light assist", which is exactly like that "no blinding" function - the main beam can be left on all the time, and when oncoming traffic is detected via a camera, the main beam is partially masked to avoid blinding: http://en.volkswagen.com/en/in...
... according to US tests. In European tests, the Tesla Model S is just a standard car. Here are the Euro NCAP best cars of each class: http://www.euroncap.com/de/bew...
Just look at the numbers, e.g. "safety equipment" Volvo 100% to Tesla 71% or "adult passenger safery" Volvo 97% to Tesla 82%. "Safest car in the history of cars" my ass.
It will still be years before any driverless car (note that lvl 5 autonomous driving means "no driver needed", i.e. stuff like "summoning your empty car to wherever you are right now") can handle a situation like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - this is not just about detecting lanes and checking GPS data, the car would need to actually detect that there is a traffic cop actively regulating the traffic and then understand hand signs. Since it would be a bit silly to expect the car to be able to do that, we would need a completely new traffic control infrastructure (i.e. transmitters everywhere - and I mean everywhere, even non main roads) to send information to and from autonomous cars. Or what if this happens and the map data has not been updated yet, will all autonomous cars then drive right into whatever danger lies ahead? http://i.istockimg.com/file_th...
Yup, it shows that Elon Musk apparently is not aware that that "Auto" in "Autobahn" does not mean the same as the "auto" in "autopilot" (German "Auto"="automobile" vs. "auto" as in "automatic"). Just because a word uses the same letters does not mean that, in two different contexts, it means the same thing.
Of course that would have to be done for ALL car manufacturers which cheated during emissions or fuel economy tests (after all, fuel economy=emissions, too).
GM/Opel/Fiat Chrysler/Mercedes/Mitsubishi/Renault and most likely every other car manufacturer on this planet.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, do you even read news?
Renault thought to be cheating at emissions tests for 25 years. (use google translate, German article) https://www.auto-motor-und-spo...
Nissan, too: (use google translate, German article) https://www1.wdr.de/wissen/tec...
Ford accused of cheating: http://www.thedrive.com/sheetm...
Fiat/Chrysler accused of cheating: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
Mercedes emissions cheating: (they already had recalls) https://www.extremetech.com/ex...
BMW emissions cheating: (they already have recalls for affected cars - those had Renault engines due to a cooperation, which makes the Renault claims above more valid) https://cleantechnica.com/2017...
You can find articles like this for pretty much EVERY car manufacturer, if you simply google. Funnily, in recent testing, VW Diesels had among the lowest emissions results. Seems they fixed their stuff on newer models after the scandal.
To those who claim that the 60000 Euro price limit for the cars was created specifically against Tesla - nope, it was against luxury cars in general, since everybody who can afford a 60000+ Euro car does not really need a 4000 Euro tax break. Also, the subsidies were not only for pure EV, they were also for hybrid models. So the price limit also excludes models from Porsche (Panamera hybrid), Mercedes (S class hybrid), BMW (7 series eDrive) and other big manufacturers.
Tesla cheated, pure and simple. The rules for the subsidies state "the base model of the car must cost below 60000 Euro", so Tesla created an imaginary Model S without any options which would be normal for any car in that price range (parking sensors etc.) which made it squeak in at just below 60000 Euro. That way, they could point at the price list and say "look, base model is below 60000, so all Model S deserve the tax credit!", safe in the knowledge that no customer would actually order that barebone model. Well, the test buyers for the tax credit actually did, and Tesla told them that you cannot actually order it, because Tesla does not produce any vehicles without parking sensors etc. Tesla salesmen even told the test buyers that this model was only on the price list to allow Tesla customers to get the tax credit (by existing on paper). Tesla clearly committed fraud here, and now the customers might have to pay back the tax credit they received.
Meh, first link should have been https://discussions.apple.com/...
Older Macbook Pro have this "feature", too, with their 85W power supply. Happened to me on my 2012 15" Macbook Pro, and it seems I was not the only one. For example, just a simple Google search shows discussions like https://discussions.apple.com/... or https://apple.stackexchange.co...
What was the reason you purchased Smart TV in the first place?
Try buying a 55" TV today which isn't "smart". You won't find one, at least where I live. I would gladly buy a non-smart TV because I only use it as a screen for whatever devices are connected to it, but that is simply not an option.
I use my TV pretty much just as a display for whatever devices I connect to it. Even for the firmware update, the TV does not need internet connectivity (just put the file on a USB stick). I have read too many horror stories about the TV phoning home what channels you watch, what video files you play etc. to use the internal apps of the TV and allow it network access. That, plus the internal apps usually suck.
The issue is that the number buttons in the calculator behave differently from the operator buttons. If you look closely, you will see that if you hit a number button, it will fade out immediately after being clicked. But if you e.g. hit the "+" button, it will STAY highlighted, probably to remind you of what operation you selected (and that you actually HAVE selected something) while thinking about what number to put in next. Only if you then hit a number button, the "+" button will fade out, which takes about half a second, and while it does this, it does not register another click on that specific button. So you could put in 1+2-3, but you cannot put in 1+2+3 without first waiting for the "+" button to fade out completely.
I got this here: https://www.lioncast.com/en/lk...
tenkeyless, cherry blue, good build quality. Just has no USB hub (they call it "gaming keyboard", but it does not have any macro functions - all you can adjust is the lighting).
It would have to be some completely new technology. Nothing else we have right now can replace a keyboard because it has a very specific function and is very very good at that.
What else do we have and how does it compare to a keyboard?
- replacing a physical keyboard with one pictured on a touchscreen: horrible for typing long text documents. Ergonomic disaster unless you put the screen right where you would have a physical keyboard (flat on your table). Same for similar stuff like those "project a keyboard on your desk with a laser" solutions, This is pretty much "replacing a keyboard with something which is used the same way, but it is just worse at being a keyboard".
- voice input: gets very tiring after a while (anybody who has a job which involves talking all day long knows this). Slower than just typing, especially if you have to correct something when the computer misunderstands you. Formatting text / putting it where you want on the screen (e.g spreadsheets) is difficult. I can only see this as a good solution when you need to input text but your hands are not free (e.g. dictating a text message while driving your car). Also, who wants to work in an office where everybody is talking all the time. That's just annoying - plus there are the obvious privacy problems. Plus technical issues which need to be solved (voice recognition when there are dozens other people talking at the same time).
- using eye tracking / brain wave stuff (electrodes, whatever): too slow, too inaccurate. Also probably tiring. Why track eye movement when we have ten fingers which can just press a button. Also probably only a niche solution for when you cannot use your hands.
- plugging a cable into your brain and just thinking the text: that's just science fiction and probably at least a hundred years away.
The only decent alternative solution is voice recognition, but even that has obvious flaws - the main one being that it is not a good solution for an office setting.
I'm not blind in that eye, but there's a damned good reason why important gauges are put right in front of the driver...
Plus, the instruments usually are recessed, so that the sunlight does not make them unreadable. This tablet is completely unprotected from sunlight and from all the pictures I gather that it's also a glossy display. Seriously, making this the ONLY display for any kind of status information about the car is just a really bad idea. And that's totally ignoring the lack of any real buttons/switches which you can use without looking at them.
The car did not continue driving for half an hour without the driver reacting to the warnings - he DID put his hands on the steering wheel for a couple seconds after the warning, so that the autopilot would not stop working. He just did not pay attention beyond silencing the alarm each time it sounded.
It's a bit more complicated that that, I'll give you an example.
Here in Italy, you cannot watch House of Cards on Netflix because Netflix sold its broadcasting rights to Sky before they entered the Italian market. Now, under these new rules, a German Netflix subscriber will expect to see it even if he moves to Italy. If Netflix allows that, it's liable to be sued by Sky, if they don't, it's now liable to be sued by the German subscriber. It's a legal conundrum I frankly don't know how to disentangle.
It is not really a problem - the German Netflix subscriber is still a German Netflix subscriber if he temporarily stays in Italy. So Netflix just needs to give up restricting streaming by IP (country) and instead determine what you are allowed to watch based on the user's account, i.e. they need to ask for your home address and link it to your account. I guess they then just need to find a way to verify that home address, otherwise everybody will just sign up using a fake address from a country which offers the most shows.
While Firefox is not exactly super crash-prone, I noticed over the last 2-3 years that it has a nasty habit of gobbling up memory. When I run my machine non-stop over the weekend, it is totally normal for it to eventually reach about 1.5 GB of memory usage (no matter how many tabs I have open at that point) and then strange things happen - like graphics not loading correctly, GUI elements not showing up anymore, web pages freezing etc. So I can totally understand it if people who use Firefox more than me, e.g. at work, have problems at least once a day. It is simply not stable under heavy usage.
A TI-99/4A which was given to me by my uncle, with a tape deck for saving stuff. Got a bit annoyed because I was the only one around with such a system, so half a year later, I convinced my parents to buy me a C64 for christmas. After that one, Amiga 500, then Amiga 2000, then a 386DX-33 (around 1990). After that (and gathering some experience upgrading the machine), I built my own systems.
Well, then enforcement would be pretty easy. Just order a cab and arrest whoever arrives.
Fuck taxi companies
This Uber hatred is astonishing. They had a great idea and it's spread across the world quickly and rewritten the rules of getting from a to b.
What "great idea"? Ordering a cab, getting into the cab, getting from A to B and then paying? I think that idea was around already before Uber and I think people called it a "taxi".
It's a misunderstanding of the units used. In Germany, we measure blood alcohol in "per mille": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So it is normal here to hear something like "he had 0.5 blood alcohol" and everybody knows that this means a slight buzz, because it is "per mille", so the 0.21 (without units) mentioned in the article - to a German - sounds like "she had one beer", when instead it is equivalent to a German 2.1 per mille, which is more like "it's a wonder she was even conscious".
Yes, every word has its origin:
auto = word-forming element meaning "self, one's own, by oneself," from Greek auto- "self, one's own,"
pilot = "one who steers a ship," from Middle French pillote (16c.)
so, "autopilot" = "a device which steers a ship/car on its own". So I'd guess that anybody who knows what "auto/automatic" and "pilot" means but who is NOT a trained pilot and does not know precisely what the autopilot on a plane can and cannot do would immediately guess that a Tesla autopilot CAN steer the car fully on its own.
(btw, as for the plane autopilot - there are enough news stories and videos out there about how modern autopilots can even start and land a plane fully automatically, so why would people NOT think that it can do everything in between fully automatically, too? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... )
I think this might sum up the result even better .... At least you will be able to get some inspiration for your next shopping trip when you can see everybody else's fridge content cam.
The correct way to do this is with a heads-up display. Projecting images on the road will have all sorts of unintended consequences,
including but not limited to distracting the drivers of oncoming cars ( those people who are so inconsiderately sharing the road
you imagine you "own" ).
While the road projection seems like a dumb idea, some of the other features of these smart lights as shown on their site actually sound really useful, such as intelligently not blinding oncoming traffic by blocking your headlights from projecting light at their faces while still lighting up the rest of the road in front of you.
But that part is not really new, something like that is already in production on many current cars. For example, my VW Golf has "dynamic light assist", which is exactly like that "no blinding" function - the main beam can be left on all the time, and when oncoming traffic is detected via a camera, the main beam is partially masked to avoid blinding: http://en.volkswagen.com/en/in...
... according to US tests. In European tests, the Tesla Model S is just a standard car. Here are the Euro NCAP best cars of each class: http://www.euroncap.com/de/bew...
For comparison, here are the numbers for the Model S: http://www.euroncap.com/de/res... and here are the numbers for e.g. a Volvo XC90. http://www.euroncap.com/de/res...
Just look at the numbers, e.g. "safety equipment" Volvo 100% to Tesla 71% or "adult passenger safery" Volvo 97% to Tesla 82%. "Safest car in the history of cars" my ass.
It will still be years before any driverless car (note that lvl 5 autonomous driving means "no driver needed", i.e. stuff like "summoning your empty car to wherever you are right now") can handle a situation like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - this is not just about detecting lanes and checking GPS data, the car would need to actually detect that there is a traffic cop actively regulating the traffic and then understand hand signs. Since it would be a bit silly to expect the car to be able to do that, we would need a completely new traffic control infrastructure (i.e. transmitters everywhere - and I mean everywhere, even non main roads) to send information to and from autonomous cars. Or what if this happens and the map data has not been updated yet, will all autonomous cars then drive right into whatever danger lies ahead? http://i.istockimg.com/file_th...
Yup, it shows that Elon Musk apparently is not aware that that "Auto" in "Autobahn" does not mean the same as the "auto" in "autopilot" (German "Auto"="automobile" vs. "auto" as in "automatic"). Just because a word uses the same letters does not mean that, in two different contexts, it means the same thing.
Flywheels sometimes ARE used in hybrid sports cars ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ), but certainly not in anything for everyday road use.
Of course that would have to be done for ALL car manufacturers which cheated during emissions or fuel economy tests (after all, fuel economy=emissions, too).
GM/Opel/Fiat Chrysler/Mercedes/Mitsubishi/Renault and most likely every other car manufacturer on this planet.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fac...