Tesla Model 3 production on track for July
Model 3. Photo © Tesla.
Elon Musk unveiled a year ago a new electric car Tesla, called Model 3 (after Model S and Model X). This entry-level car will have a range of 345 km and a price of 35,000 USD (45,770 CAD). Its speed can go from 0 to 100 km/h in less than 6 seconds. The Model 3 is essentially a pared-down version of the Model S, which debuted in 2012. Tesla has received almost 400,000 pre-orders for the Model 3. Tesla’s 2016 earning report and letter to shareholders revealed that production for Model 3 is on track to start in July 2017, with volume ramping up by September. The company predicts production will scale to “exceed 5,000 vehicles [per week] at some point in the fourth quarter.” By the end of 2018, Tesla expects to be producing 10,000 cars per week.
⇨ Mashable, “The Tesla Model 3 gets real in July.”
⇨ San Francisco Chronicle, “Tesla posts loss but says Model 3 rollout still on track.”
Apple Park
Steve Jobs Theater. Image © Apple.
Apple’s newest campus, covering 70 hectares, will start welcoming employees in April. Its official name has been announced: Apple Park. The transfer of over 12,000 employees will take all year. The mammoth ring, providing 260,000m2 of “creativity space”, was dreamt up by Steve Jobs, who worked on it until his dying day. The 1,000-seat amphitheatre will be named the Steve Jobs Theatre; it will host town hall meetings and product launch events. All of the campus buildings, designed with architecture firm Foster + Partners, will be 100% renewable energy-powered, in part thanks to an array of 17-megawatt solar panels.
⇨ Ars Technica, “Apple’s new spaceship campus gets a name, lifts off in April.”
OP, a Google SoC
Image © OP/Google.
When he reviewed the new Samsung Chromebook Plus, reporter Dieter Bohn was pleasantly surprised by the very decent performance of its ARM System on a Chip (SoC), especially since the machine cost just US$450. Are ARM processors finally giving Intel a run for its money in the laptop race? Dieter Bohn noted that the processor responsible for this performance was the mysterious OP1, built by a company called Rockchip. Digging a little deeper, he found out that the OP brand is trademarked by none other than Google. We already knew that Google was providing technological support to Chromebook builders, but little did we know that it would lead to the creation of ARM processors specifically optimized for the Chrome OS. Google has been coy about its newest brand of processors; in fact, the OP1 website is anonymous, making no reference whatsoever to Google.
⇨ The Verge, “Solving the mystery behind the OP1 processor in the Chromebook Plus.”
Animal-robot interaction
Wild dog animatronic. Image © John Downer/BBC.
For BBC’s latest animal program, Spy In The Wild, John Downer and his team were tasked with creating animatronic animals convincing enough to live among their wild counterparts. Over 30 hyper-realistic robots were developed and deployed all over the world. These robots make movements and sounds credible enough for them to be accepted by their new families. Naturally, they are equipped with 4K cameras. The video above shows African Wild Dogs discovering a strange pup purporting to be one of them.
⇨ Mashable, “This robot spy dog is like 'Westworld' for animals.”
Scorpion-3, a flying bike
Scorpion-3. Photo © Hoversurf.
Scorpion-3 is an electric quadcopter that rides like a bike. Invented by Alexander Atamanov and developed by russo-californian company Hoversurf, the flying object has stability-control software and, for safety's sake, height and speed limiters (3 meters and 60km/h, respectively). But you can disengage them... Maximum flight time is one hour, which seems like a lot, just like its price, at 50,000$. The media was quick to point out that there are cheaper ways to kill oneself or get an amputation. We're not quite at the level of Star Wars' Speeder bikes.…
⇨ The Verge, Circuit Breaker, “World’s first rideable hoverbike looks cool as hell but will probably kill you.”
