Germany approves 30-minute software update fix for cheating Volkswagen diesels

1.2 and 2.0 liter engines require software update, 1.6 liter engine needs new part.

Technical measures for the EA 189 diesel engines affected. Credit: Volkswagen Group.


Today, Volkswagen Group said that German regulators approved its proposed fixes to vehicles with EA 189 engines, the infamous engines that include defeat devices and released illegal amounts of nitrogen oxide (NOx) while VW vehicles were being driven under normal conditions.

The fixes will apply to 1.2 liter, 1.6 liter, and 2.0 liter diesel engines. The 1.2 and 2.0 liter engines will only require a software update that Volkswagen group says should take “under half an hour.” The 1.6 liter engine vehicles require a software update as well as a “flow rectifier” that mechanics will fit in front of the air mass sensor. Volkswagen estimates that labor for that job will take “under an hour.”

Volkswagen says it will send out letters to customers in the European Union as soon as the German Federal Motor Transport Authority gets the company the appropriate addresses. Volkswagen Group says it estimates repairs will start in January 2016.

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Google Nexus 6P is now available for $50 off (Nexus 5X too)

Google Nexus 6P is now available for $50 off (Nexus 5X too)

The Google Nexus 6P is considered by many to be the best Nexus phone to date… at least if you’re comfortable using a phone with a 5.7 inch screen. It has a great camera, decent battery life, a high-resolution display, and a convenient fingerprint scanner. Perhaps the key things the Nexus 6P has going for […]

Google Nexus 6P is now available for $50 off (Nexus 5X too) is a post from: Liliputing

Google Nexus 6P is now available for $50 off (Nexus 5X too)

The Google Nexus 6P is considered by many to be the best Nexus phone to date… at least if you’re comfortable using a phone with a 5.7 inch screen. It has a great camera, decent battery life, a high-resolution display, and a convenient fingerprint scanner. Perhaps the key things the Nexus 6P has going for […]

Google Nexus 6P is now available for $50 off (Nexus 5X too) is a post from: Liliputing

Turing’s Shkreli on drug price-hike: “It gets people talking… that’s what art is”

Embattled CEO fumes over RZA, talks hip hop and musical aspirations with HipHopDX.

Martin Shkreli being photographed for his role as CIO of MSMB Capital Management. (credit: Getty Images)

Regardless of the negative opinions of Martin Shkreli, no one can deny that he has sparked a much-needed discussion about drug pricing and access—and maybe that was his goal?

The founder and CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals has been publicly lambasted for jacking up the price of a life-saving drug—often used to treat AIDS patients and babies—by more than 5,000 percent. But he says in an exclusive interview with HipHopDX that it may all be an elaborate performance:

“To me, what I’m doing right now in the media, raising prices, all this shit, believe what you want, but it’s interesting," he said. "It gets people talking. At the end of the day, that’s what art is.”

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Survey: “Gamers” are poorer, more male, less white than “game players”

Self-described gamers are also more likely to see gaming in a positive light.


Debates over what makes someone a true "gamer" boil up quite frequently in and around the video game industry, especially on certain Internet message boards. Now, a new survey of US adults from the Pew Research Center shows that people who apply the "gamer" label to themselves are quite different from the wider population that plays games, both demographically and in terms of opinions about the medium. Those self-described gamers are much more likely to be young, male, non-white, and poor when compared to "non-gamer" game players.

Pew's survey shows that video games are growing as a mainstream leisure time activity across the country. A full 49 percent of Americans now report that they "ever" play video games on a computer, game console, or portable device like a cell phone. While gaming still isn't nearly as universally enjoyed as more mass-market entertainment like TV and movies, that's a big increase from the medium's generally child-focused niche a couple of decades ago.

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Make your own cloud office suite with LibreOffice, ownCloud, and CODE

Make your own cloud office suite with LibreOffice, ownCloud, and CODE

There’s no shortage of alternatives to Microsoft Office, including desktop software like LibreOffice and web apps like Google Docs. But what if you want to run LibreOffice in the cloud? Now you can do that. It takes a little work though, because right now you essentially have to set up your own server. Collabora has […]

Make your own cloud office suite with LibreOffice, ownCloud, and CODE is a post from: Liliputing

Make your own cloud office suite with LibreOffice, ownCloud, and CODE

There’s no shortage of alternatives to Microsoft Office, including desktop software like LibreOffice and web apps like Google Docs. But what if you want to run LibreOffice in the cloud? Now you can do that. It takes a little work though, because right now you essentially have to set up your own server. Collabora has […]

Make your own cloud office suite with LibreOffice, ownCloud, and CODE is a post from: Liliputing

Self-driving Ford Fusions are coming to California next year

Ford is the 11th company to obtain an autonomous driving permit for the state.

Apart from the sensor bar on the roof, this Ford Fusion Hybrid looks just like a normal car. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Even more robots are coming to California's roads next year. Yesterday, Ford announced that it will start testing its autonomous Fusion sedans in the state now that it is officially enrolled in the California Autonomous Vehicle Testing Program. The company opened a new R&D center in Palo Alto at the beginning of the year, which among other projects has been working on virtual simulations of autonomous driving as well as sensor fusion to improve the way its cars perceive the world around them.

Ford is the 11th group to obtain a California driving license for its autonomous cars, joining other OEMs (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Nissan, Tesla, and Volkswagen Group), tier one suppliers (Bosch and Delphi), and tech companies (Cruise Automation and Google).

A condition of the self-driving car regulations requires companies to provide California's DMV with a report any time one of their cars is involved in a collision. Since the rules went into effect in September 2014, there have been a total of 10 incidents. The first, in October 2014, involved one of Delphi's test vehicles, although it was being driven by a human at the time. The nine other incidents all involve Google's cars, seven of which were being driven autonomously.

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Trump doesn’t want ISIS “using our Internet”

GOP candidates debate closing the Internet, surveillance, and encryption.

(credit: Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock)

A week after saying the US should disrupt the Islamic terrorist group ISIS' online recruiting by "closing that Internet up in some way," Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was given a chance to clarify what he meant at last night's GOP debate.

"You talk freedom of speech. You talk freedom of anything you want. I don’t want them using our Internet to take our young, impressionable youth," Trump said at the debate. "We should be using our brilliant people, our most brilliant minds to figure a way that ISIS cannot use the Internet."

Trump's "our Internet" phrasing referred to the fact that Americans invented the Internet, but he said he doesn't want to shut down the Internet in the US—only in other countries.

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Deals of the Day (12-16-2015)

Deals of the Day (12-16-2015)

Most Chromebooks tend to be cheap laptops with entry-level hardware such as Intel Celeron or Rockchip RK3288 processors. But a handful of models are available with better specs — and you don’t necessarily need to pay Chromebook Pixel prices to get your hands on one. For example, right now you can pick up a Dell Chromebook […]

Deals of the Day (12-16-2015) is a post from: Liliputing

Deals of the Day (12-16-2015)

Most Chromebooks tend to be cheap laptops with entry-level hardware such as Intel Celeron or Rockchip RK3288 processors. But a handful of models are available with better specs — and you don’t necessarily need to pay Chromebook Pixel prices to get your hands on one. For example, right now you can pick up a Dell Chromebook […]

Deals of the Day (12-16-2015) is a post from: Liliputing

Patentverletzung: Nvidia verliert endgültig gegen Samsung

Die Internationale Handelskommission der USA hat Nvidias Klage gegen Samsung final abgewiesen. Damit hat sich auch das theoretische Importverbot von Smartphone- und Tablet-Chips erledigt. (Patent, Grafikhardware)

Die Internationale Handelskommission der USA hat Nvidias Klage gegen Samsung final abgewiesen. Damit hat sich auch das theoretische Importverbot von Smartphone- und Tablet-Chips erledigt. (Patent, Grafikhardware)

Landesverrat: Im Sommerabgrund

Es roch nach Sommerloch, so schnell schien alles wieder vorbei – doch einer der größten Medienskandale des Jahres wirkt bis heute nach. Wenigstens finanziell haben sich die Ermittlungen gelohnt – für Netzpolitik.org. (Netzpolitik, Internet)

Es roch nach Sommerloch, so schnell schien alles wieder vorbei - doch einer der größten Medienskandale des Jahres wirkt bis heute nach. Wenigstens finanziell haben sich die Ermittlungen gelohnt - für Netzpolitik.org. (Netzpolitik, Internet)