The Morning After: Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

The short holiday week is almost over, but first let’s take a look at a Tesla-powered island, Xbox One’s VR ambitions and the roundest star we’ve ever seen.

SolarIslandTesla’s solar cells and batteries are powering an entire island

Now that Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity is complete, the two are showing off what they can achieve together. Enter the island of Ta’u in American Samoa, which is home to a microgrid of cells and battery packs that can supply “nearly 100%” of the island’s power needs. Looks like it’s time for a vacation research trip.

Cord cutting and cord keeping all at the same time
Sling TV is coming to Comcast

Yeah, you read that correctly. After Comcast opened up its X1 set-top boxes to Netflix, the next streaming service to join up is Dish Networks’ Sling TV. Sure, it’s usually pitched as a reason to ditch cable entirely, but the two are pitching it as a way for Comcast customers to access Sling TV’s hundreds of multicultural channels. There’s no word yet on when the service will be available on cable boxes.

Xbox One VR is almost hereXbox One game streaming comes to Oculus December 12th

It’s not going to compete with PlayStation’s VR experiences, but we’re just a couple of weeks away from playing Xbox One in a headset. On December 12th, an Oculus Rift app will enable game streaming to your choice of three virtual environments: Citadel, Retreat or Dome.

It’s almost perfectKepler 11145123 is the “most spherical natural object ever measured”

As you probably already knew, our sun, and most stars, aren’t quite round. Now, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the University of Göttingen found this one that’s just 3 kilometers wider at its equator than its poles. You can check out (near) perfection for yourself, if you can just figure out how to make the 5,000 light-year trip.

Decisions, decisionsUsing VR to simulate dangerous driving

Now that VR is a thing, everyone is trying to create an experience for it. Unfortunately, we found the drunk driving simulator produced by Johnny Walker wasn’t immersive enough to have much impact. That’s mostly because instead of putting us in the driver’s seat, you’re relegated to the position of observer, watching someone else’s bad decisions. Meanwhile AT&T’s “It Can Wait” experience is more interactive and more subtle, reminding us to keep our eyes on the road at all times.

How do you think we write this newsletter?
“Mechanical Turk” workers are churning out fake news articles

“Fake news” is the hot topic of the day, and if you were wondering where it comes from, one explanation is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program. There, internet surfers pick up online odd jobs for a few cents or a few bucks at a time. Unfortunately, those odd jobs can include cranking out racist propaganda, and it’s hard to tell if Amazon is interested in doing anything to clean it up.

At least you don’t need NFC for this one?Chase Pay launches with some major limitations

A year after it was originally announced, Chase has launched a mobile payments-focused app. Chase Pay eschews the NFC technology of Android Pay and Apple Pay, using QR codes to play the credit card middleman on your phone. That means it works on more phones and keeps retailers happy, but so far, only Best Buy and Starbucks are ready for it.

But wait, there’s more…

• This “proof of concept” graphene battery tech could charge in seconds and last in your phone for a week
• Scientists’ realistic lab-grown gut tissue thrives in mice
• Steam Workshop support should bring crazy custom levels to “Rocket League”