Month: March 2016

The image that hacker Jason Hughes found hidden in Tesla's latest Model S firmware. (credit: Jason Hughes)

It seems Tesla is set to bump the battery capacity of its Model S sedan up to a hefty 100kWh some time in the near future. We know this thanks to the work of a white-hat hacker and Tesla P85D owner named Jason Hughes. Hughes—who previously turned the battery pack from a wrecked Tesla into a storage array for his solar panels—was poking around in the latest firmware of his Model S (version 2.13.77) and discovered an image of the new car's badge, the P100D.

Hughes let the world know via a cryptic tweet:

@elonmusk @teslamotors #tesla I know your secret. SHA256 of best part: 5fc38436ec295b0049f186651ebba5fd55e8d7b81eb61cbd00d3f1bf18dd9c81

— Jason Hughes (@wk057) March 4, 2016

That message was soon decrypted by enthusiasts on the Tesla Motors Club forum, at which time Hughes posted a copy of the picture:

(credit: Moyan Brenn)

The pre-pubescent penchant for shenanigans is undeniable. But how our developing brains grow out of letting us make dopey decisions is still up for debate.

Researchers have speculated that the adolescent brain eventually gets better at shoving down those hankerings to commit acts of stupidity. But now a study on primates suggests that the brain may mature by getting better at forming alternate strategies.

By examining patterns of brain activity in male macaque monkeys before and after puberty, researchers found that their adult brains make smart choices not by suppressing foolish urges but by getting better at forming wise, goal-oriented plans. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may provide insight into how to treat patients who struggle with social and mental health problems due to cognitive immaturity, the authors suggest.

This is probably our last chance to ever reuse this image.

Nearly five years after the PlayStation Network was subject to a massive breach that exposed the personal data of tens of millions of users, Sony is finally sending downloadable game codes for PS3 and PSP games to those affected, as required by an earlier out-of-court settlement.

Game Informer's Mike Futter reports that his promised reward as part of the Sony Gaming Networks and Customer Data Security Breach Litigation Settlement was finally processed and e-mailed to him last week. That settlement offer gave most PSN subscribers access to one or two downloadable games from a small selection of PS3 and PSP titles.

This final resolution of the hacking case comes over a year after Sony began accepting claims as part of a $17.75 million class-action settlement, which it officially agreed to in 2014. That settlement only came after over three years of litigation, thanks in part to a 2012 District Court ruling that threw out many of the initial class action claims.

Georgia Tech researchers built the 'Rescue Robot' to determine whether or not building occupants would trust a robot designed to help them evacuate a high-rise in case of fire or other emergency.

Studying people’s trust in robots is an academic field, but it's one that’s growing in relevance as we embrace a future of driverless cars and ever-more-powerful artificial intelligence. If we based our expectations on what we see in science fiction, we might expect that people have a profound mistrust in robots. Instead, research from Georgia Institute of Technology has found that it’s possible that we could face the problem of trusting robots way too much.

The researchers conducted a study that they will be presenting next week at an international conference on robot-human interaction, so the full paper hasn’t yet been published. However, an early press release and preliminary paper give some of the details of the study, which initially set out to find out whether high-rise occupants would be likely to trust a robot’s instructions in an evacuation scenario. The researchers were concerned with what robot behavior would win or lose people's trust.

The 26 participants used in the experiment had no idea what it was about; they were just asked to follow a robot that had the words “Emergency Guide Robot” printed prominently on its side. The first thing the robot was supposed to do was lead them to a room where they would read an article and take part in a survey (all as a distraction from the real task).