Tesla’s Solar Roof is available for pre-order

Tesla didn’t quite fulfill its promise to start Solar Roof sales in April, but you thankfully haven’t had to wait that much longer to pull the trigger. As of today, you can pre-order Tesla’s stealthy solar power cells in textured or smooth variants ahead of the first US installations in the summer (2018 elsewhere). While the price will vary depending on your home, of course, the company estimates that a “typical” buyer will pay about $21.85 per square foot instead of $24.50 for a regular roof. Not that there will be much mystery regardless of what you pay — Tesla is offering a cost calculator to figure out your real-world expenses.

The tool uses your roof size, local electricity prices and even regional sunlight levels to both gauge the cost of the roof as well as the value of the energy you’d generate. Tesla is convinced you’ll likely save money in the long run, but this gives you a way to find out whether that’s true for your particular abode. Even if you’re skeptical of Tesla’s methods, this should at least tell you whether or not a Solar Roof is viable. You might not want to spring for one if you’re in a perpetually gloomy area.

Whatever you decide, this is definitely one of Tesla’s grander experiments. The company has already dipped into energy through its Powerwall batteries (which come with the Roof) and SolarCity’s existing sales, but it’s another matter entirely to offer cutting-edge solar power directly to customers. There’s a considerably wider audience for solar power than there is for stand-alone batteries, and it’s unclear how many people will take to this versus playing it safe with conventional panels. With that said, Tesla’s name and clever tech might at least get its foot in the door.

Source: Tesla (1), (2)

Beautiful melee MMO ‘Absolver’ lands August 29th

A year after indie studio Sloclap introduced the melee combat-only MMO it’s releasing with publisher Devolver Digital, Absolver, the indie studio has announced its release date for PS4 and PC: August 29th. To tide you over, they’ve also dropped a trailer explaining the combat mechanics for the gunless massively multiplayer game.

Players inhabit Prospects, masked journeyman fighters training to one day join the elite ranks of the titular Absolvers, which keep the peace in the fallen city of Raslan. As we saw in our hands-on preview at E3, the new trailer shows off Absolver’s various forms and stances that players switch through on the fly to land devastating combos — or parry and counter their opponent’s blows. Combat unlocks different moves you can slot in to mix up your moves, but players can also apprentice themselves to NPC mentors and learn their secrets.

The combat system is a novel core to this MMO, but the lush animation style deserves mention, painting the game’s environment in vivid color. Whether Absolver lives up to its promise of easy-to-learn, difficult-to-master fighting and brings players back to the tired MMO genre is something we won’t know til the game lands in August.

Source: PlayStation

Facebook limits News Feed links to scammy ad-filled sites

Facebook regularly tweaks your news feed to make sure you only see “quality” posts and ads. It’s banned fake news sites from using the Facebook ad network, added an easy way to report false news posts, and has even hired third-party fact-checkers. Today, however, the company announced that it would focus its efforts on websites that contain “little substantive content and that is covered in disruptive, shocking or malicious ads.” The news feed update is meant to help reduce the “incentives of financially-motivated spammers.”

There is already a policy in place to prevent these kinds of scammers from advertising on the social network. Facebook intends to enforce it as it focuses on organic News Feed posts. The team uses artificial intelligence trained on “hundreds of thousands” of websites with this kind of ad-farm content to discover posts that link to them. When identified, these posts should show up farther down your feed and they won’t be eligible to become a Facebook ad.

“This is one of the first times we’re actually using information from the experience that people will have once they click something to help inform the ranking in News Feed,” product manager Greg Marra told Recode.

The new system should roll out over the next few months. If you’re publishing high-quality posts from your own Facebook Pages, you may see a small increase in traffic as users see more of your stuff than spammy links to low-quality websites.

Via: Recode

Source: Facebook

Anti-net neutrality bots are swarming the FCC’s comments

It’s not just proponents of net neutrality that are flocking to the FCC’s website — opponents are there as well… in a manner of speaking. Reports from ZDNet and elsewhere have revealed that one or more bots are posting thousands of identical comments (at least 128,000) in favor of the FCC’s proposal to gut net neutrality rules. The automated code cycles alphabetically through a list of real names and addresses, pretending to support the FCC on their behalf. The agency declined to comment on the bot attack citing a policy where it doesn’t discuss specific filings.

So who’s behind this astroturfing campaign? It’s unclear, but there was an effort in 2014 where cable companies funded anti-net neutrality groups to make it look like there was more opposition to the regulation than there was in practice. It’d be easy to suspect that telecoms were behind this move as well, especially since the fake statement uses lobbyist-speak like “bipartisan light-touch regulatory consensus.” With that said, a bot would undoubtedly go beyond the pale — it’s one thing to run a fake grassroots campaign, it’s another to impersonate real people.

Whoever’s behind the bot flood, it shows just how intense this battle is getting. Things really got heated after Last Week Tonight host John Oliver rallied support for net neutrality during his May 8th episode, steering people toward a website that makes (legitimate) commenting easy. The FCC’s website buckled soon afterward, but it’s not clear who was responsible. While the FCC maintains that a denial of service attack made it difficult to comment, critics are concerned that this might be a cover to downplay the surge of support for existing net neutrality rules. For all intents and purposes, the FCC’s comments have become a battleground.

Source: ZDNet, FCC (PDF)

Apple Planning $1B Expansion of Reno Data Center [Updated]

Apple is planning a massive expansion of its data center in Reno, Nevada, according to information shared today by Reno-Gazette Journal reporter Anjeanette Damon who covered a Reno City Council meeting Apple attended to discuss the project.

Apple will invest $1 billion in expanding its current data center at the Reno Technology Park, nearly doubling the size of the original project.

Apple’s current Reno data center, via the Reno-Gazette Journal.
Hints of Apple’s plans for a major expansion of its data center first surfaced in February, when building permits surfaced for a new 373,893-square foot data center with a build out of eight clusters plus an administration building, garage, and generator yard. It’s likely that project, dubbed “Project Isabel,” is the expansion being discussed today.

Apple’s first Reno data center, “Project Mills,” was approved in 2012, with construction at the site beginning soon after. Since then, Apple has been expanding at the site. Along with building permits for “Project Isabel,” Apple in 2016 also applied for building permits for “Project Huckleberry,” an addition of several new data center clusters to be built adjacent to Project Mills.

Apple is also seeking to start construction on a $4 million shipping and receiving facility in downtown Reno, with today’s city council meeting also covering those prospective plans.

Apple and the Reno City Council are currently sorting through tax and zoning issues as Apple aims to purchase land for the downtown project. We’ll update this post when the council comes to a decision.

Update: The Reno City Council has approved Apple’s plans to build a warehouse in downtown Reno.
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iWear – an intriguing but unwieldy mobile theater headset (Review)

In theory, on paper, and even sometimes in practice, Vizux’s iWear Video Headphones are fantastic – a stereo headset that sports twin 720p displays, 3D and VR support, and a built-in battery? Sign me up. It sounds a little like a better version of Cardboard, right? It sounds like a headset you’d pack in your bag for those on-the-go gaming sessions when you don’t want to be bothered by those around you – on a bus or flight, for example.

Yeah, I look good.

In practice, though, iWear is slightly…underwhelming. It’s a bit heavy and unwieldy to wear on the head, and as such isn’t quite as mobile friendly as you’d expect. I ran into trouble trying to test iWear on my three different phones; Nexus 6P, OnePlus 3T, and LeEco LeS3 – incidentally, all Type-C USB phones. It worked just fine on my XBox and on my Laptop, though, and as such my testing session consisted of Destiny, Outlast, and Resident Evil 7 on my XBox rather than an Android, as I’d have preferred. Before we get into my personal gripes and wishlist items for iWear, though, let’s dig into what it does well.

Vuzix’s iWear is a solidly performing device, both audially (made that up) and visually; the 720p resolution of the dual screens is crisp and the colors vibrant, and the audio is rich and deep – what you’d expect from any mid-to-high range headphones. While there’s no Dolby Atmos or Surround support, the actual audio quality is quite good.

A slightly more classy look at the headset.

Unfortunately, this is a circumstance where the overall product is not quite as good as its parts would suggest. iWear suffers from being too versatile – a Jack of all Trades – and, to complete the cliche, master of none. It would have been much better-suited specialization, finding a niche and marketing to them, rather than trying to reach as broad an audience as possible. In order for the iWear to be worth its $299.95 price tag, it would have to undergo some pretty serious structural hardware changes.

First, for mobile devices; while Vuzix advertises the iWear as being compatible with phones and tablets, it’s not exactly…mobile-friendly. The thick, all-in-one cable that’s built-in to the headset is entirely too unwieldy to be used while connected to a phone.

Dual-screens, oversized earcups.

Ideally, the headset would be entirely wire-optional, making use of Wireless Direct broadcast the screen rather than HDMI; further, there should have been a USB port on the headset, rather than a built-in cable.

Second, for desktop and console gaming; in order to be a true option here, the iWear needs to have a microphone built-in to communicate in online games. Voice chat is a staple in gaming these days, and I personally feel naked without it.

At $300, the iWear is a bit steeply priced, but in specific situations, it can be well worth it. In setups where space and audio are at a premium – such as playing late at night or when you don’t want to bother other people – it’s a great option.

Purchase Vuzix’s iWear either from Amazon or from Vuzix itself.

NVIDIA’s first Volta-powered GPU sits in a $149k supercomputer

If you’ve been waiting for NVIDIA to finally take the lid off of Volta, the next generation of its GPU technology, your day has finally come. Today at its GPU Technology Conference, the company announced the NVIDIA Tesla V100 data center GPU, the first processor to use its seventh-generation architecture. Like the Tesla P100 the processor is replacing, the Volta-powered GPU is designed specifically to power artificial intelligence and deep learning so, naturally, it’s flush with power. Built on a 12nm process, the V100 boasts 5,120 CUDA Cores, 16GB of HBM2 memory, an updated NVLink 2.0 interface and is capable of a staggering 15 teraflops of computational power. Naturally, it’s also the GPU that drives the company’s updated DGX-1 supercomputer, too.

The new Volta-powered deep-learning machine is a lot like it’s predecessor — staggeringly powerful, surprisingly compact and built specifically to train artificial intelligence — it’s just that the new DGX-1V is a lot more powerful. NVIDIA CEO and Founder Jensen Huang says the DGX-1V is powerful enough to replace 400 servers, and has enough oomph to do a week’s work of computations in a single shift. That’s probably because it has eight of the company’s new Tesla V100 chips pulsing at its core lending it 960 TFLOPs of power spread over 40,960 CUDA cores.

That AI powerhouse is available for $149,000, starting today — but developers eager to jump into deep learning on a smaller budget are in luck. NVIDIA also announced what it’s calling a “personal AI supercomputer” called the DGX Station. Basically, this $69,000 is a small, watercooled tower with four Tesla V100 GPUs — giving it about half the power of the company’s regular DGX-1V. If buying hardware simply isn’t an option, NVIDIA offers one more option: the cloud. The company’s new GPU Cloud Deep Learning Stack promises to let AI developers offload their neural network machine learning tasks to an online catalog of integrated and optimized deep learning frameworks running on Titan Xp, GTX 1080 Ti or DGX systems in the cloud.

That’s a lot of supercomputer news to drop in one day, but it’s fitting keynote for this year’s GTC. The conference is flush with companies showing off the fruits of deep learning AI — from facial recognition software to farming equipment that automatically sorts crops from weeds while spraying herbicide. “Machine learning is one of the most important revolutions ever,” CEO Jensen told attendees. “Now algorithms write algorithms. Software writes software. Computers are learning by themselves. It’s the era of machine learning.”

Watch Microsoft’s Build keynote in under 14 minutes

Thousands of analysts, journalists and developers came to the Washington State Conference Center in Seattle today to see what Microsoft had to unveil at its three-hour-long Build conference. As it turns out, there wasn’t a lot of interesting news for non-developers. In other words, if you had played a drinking game with the trigger words being “Azure,” “Microsoft Graph” and “Visual Studio,” you would have needed two kegs of liquor. To be fair though, Build is an event for developers.

Still, there were updates around new Cortana skills, artificial intelligence for the workplace and a PowerPoint translator tool that may have useful applications for consumers. We’ve distilled the highlights for you in the 13-and-a-half-minute video above, so you don’t have to sit through an excruciatingly long recap. Be sure to come back tomorrow for our coverage of the second-day keynote, which we’re expecting to be far more exciting for consumers.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from Microsoft’s Build 2017.

No more wrinkled suits on the road — this garment bag folds to laptop-case size

Why it matters to you

If you want to travel comfortably but still look sharp for business or formal events, this bag might do the trick.

Business travel can be exciting and fun … the first trip. Subsequent trips rapidly lose their luster, particularly with air travel’s increasingly draconian carry-on luggage rules enforcement. In an effort to save money on baggage charges and avoid the delays and too-frequent suspense of checked luggage, we stuff our business clothing into the teeniest bags possible. When we finally reach our destination, however, our business suits and dresses are often rumpled and wrinkled — not a great look for meeting with clients.

British business writer Patrick Tatham founded Pliqo in 2015. Because of his own frustrations with business travel and its affect on his comfort and clothing, Tatham started the company specifically to develop travel goods for frequent flyers and commuters.

The company’s first product is the Pliqo Bag, which Tatham calls “the smartest garment bag in the world.” Pliqo launched a Kickstarter campaign promising bag deliveries to backers in October 2017.

According to Tatham, the fully open 49-inch by 42-inch garment bag folds to a 16 x 12 x 3-inch laptop bag-sized “personal item.” Tatham says the bag can be carried into cabins of most major airlines in addition to a conventional carry-on.

Even if you’re not traveling by plane, the company claims the folded Pliqo bag will fit into many motorcycle and bicycle panniers, backpacks, messenger bags, and even briefcases to protect business apparel or formal wear while you travel in more comfortable clothing.

The Pliqo Bag has an organizer pocket, lateral compression straps, and a detachable shoulder strap. The bag includes a folding garment hanger and a trouser hanger and weighs a little more than two pounds (37 ounces) without any clothing packed. The outer material is coated polyester trimmed with leather and nylon webbing. The zippers and fast-release buckles are made by YKK.

Touting his bag as having a footprint smaller than a weekend newspaper, Tatham sums up his reasons for starting Pliqo and designing the bag, “I want to be relaxed when I’m on the move, not worrying that I will appear in a crumpled suit at the start of my meetings. The Pliqo bag is the solution.”

Cryonic freezing is the coolest employee perk in Silicon Valley — literally

Why it matters to you

If free lunches and a foosball table aren’t enticing work perks, this AI-powered hedge fund is offering new recruits a chance to live forever.

Generous employee perks are as much a part of the tech industry as long work hours, office Nerf gun battles, and people overusing the word “disruption.” But while most firms only go so far as free meals, on-site yoga classes, and maybe the occasional indoor climbing wall, an artificial intelligence-driven hedge fund is taking things to the next level.

The good news? Numerai‘s new employee benefit is — quite literally — the coolest one we have heard about. The bad news? You won’t be able to enjoy it until you’re dead.

“We are allowing employees cryonic body preservation as a benefit,” Richard Craib, founder of Numerai, told Digital Trends. “Employees sign up through a life insurance policy and upon legal death, the life insurance claim is handed over to cryonics provider Alcor.”

While the idea of “whole-body preservation cryonics” being a benefit isn’t necessarily going to appeal to everyone, the hope is that it will appeal to the right kind of people, who will have something to bring to Numerai. That means folks with an interest (and, preferably, plenty of impressive qualifications) in artificial intelligence. “Strong education backgrounds in mathematics and statistics are also advantageous,” Craib continued.

The company is clearly doing something right in this department because it already includes former employees from Apple and Google DeepMind among its (soon to be frozen) ranks.

As to how long successful candidates will be frozen for … well, that depends on a whole lot on scientific advances. According to Alcor’s website, “Revival of today’s cryonics patients will require future repair by highly advanced future technology, such as molecular nanotechnology. Technology that is advanced enough to repair a cryopreserved brain would by its nature also be able to regrow new tissues, organs, and a healthy body for the revived person.”

Don’t expect too much free time to explore your new futuristic home when you are thawed, though, because Craib is joining employees in the cryonics process. The only worse thing than being reanimated years in the future, to find that all your friends and family are long-since dead and you’re a living fossil with outdated 21st-century views? Waking up in the aforementioned scenario, only to immediately be put back to work by your boss.

“I personally signed up for Alcor recently,” he explained. “Many of the other Numerai employees were intrigued as to why and generally agree with the argument that a small chance of eternal life is worth the risk of an unconventional post-death experience. After discussing the idea on “This Week In Startups,” we decided to offer it to all employees.”