Month: July 2017

Enlarge / Lyndon Rive, right, and Peter Rive, fellow co-founders of SolarCity. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images (credit: Getty Images)

Peter Rive, the co-founder and CTO of solar panel company SolarCity, will leave Tesla to focus on other projects and spend more time with his family, according to the company. His departure comes just eight months after SolarCity was purchased by Tesla for $2.6 billion in stock and two months after Tesla opened up pre-orders for the Solar Roof, which puts solar panel components in glass tiles for a more camouflaged look.

Rive was at SolarCity for 11 years prior to the company’s sale to Tesla, and it eventually became the largest solar panel maker in the US. Prior to SolarCity’s sale, it was in the process of building a solar panel “gigafactory” in Buffalo, New York, much like Tesla’s electric vehicle and battery Gigafactory in Nevada.

Lyndon Rive, Peter’s brother and the other co-founder of SolarCity, also left Tesla in May, reportedly to explore other opportunities in entrepreneurship. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is the cousin of both Rives.

Much of what happens in North Korea remains hidden from the outside world. But commercial satellite imagery and Google Earth mapping software are helping a human-rights organization take inventory of the worst offenses of the North Korean regime and identify sites for future investigation of crimes against humanity.

A new report from the South Korea-based Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG)—a non-governmental organization that tracks human-rights abuses and crimes against humanity by the world's most oppressive regimes—details how the organization's researchers used Google Earth in interviews with defectors from North Korea to identify sites associated with mass killings by the North Korean regime. Google Earth imagery was used to help witnesses to killings and mass burials orient themselves and precisely point out the locations of those events.

Entitled “Mapping Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea: Mass Graves, Killing Sites and Documentary Evidence,” the report does not include the actual locations of what the researchers deemed to be sensitive sites out of concern that the North Korean regime would move evidence from those sites. But it does provide location data of other sites with potential documentary evidence of crimes, including police stations and other government facilities that may have records of atrocities.

Enlarge

Apple released a slew of software updates today for nearly all of its systems; you can now download macOS Sierra 10.12.6, iOS 10.3.3, watchOS 3.2.3, and tvOS 10.2.2 to any of your compatible devices. The updates appear to be minor, as most of them focus on bug fixes.

MacOS Sierra 10.12.6 is the sixth update to this version of Apple's operating system, and it may very well be the last before the introduction of macOS High Sierra. As per Apple's usual refresher schedule, macOS High Sierra should be pushed out to users this fall. According to Apple's information page, macOS Sierra 10.12.6 improves the "security, stability, and compatibility" of Mac systems and tackles three main issues:

• "Resolves an issue that prevents making certain SMB connections from the Finder."
• "Fixes an issue that causes Xsan clients to unexpectedly restart when moving a file within a relation point on a Quantum StorNext File System."
• "Improves the stability of Terminal app."

That's the extent of the details provided for any of these updates. Neither iOS 10.3.3 nor watchOS 3.2.3 lists any new features, but they do mention general "improvements" and "bug fixes." Similarly to macOS, the operating systems for iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches will be totally revamped when iOS 11 and watchOS 4 launch. Both of those updates are expected to come out alongside macOS High Sierra in the fall.

Buick

MILFORD, Mich.—When Buick's invite to witness the unveiling of its new 2018 Regal GS hit our inbox, we didn't have to think long before replying in the affirmative. For one thing, despite a punishing travel schedule of late, the reveal would take place at General Motors' Milford Proving Ground.

Any chance one gets to visit one of these asphalt and concrete automotive playgrounds is an opportunity to be seized; the grounds are normally off-limits to members of the press, as they're home to numerous prototypes being tested away from public glare. For another, Buick is a rather enigmatic automaker. Not as brash or flashy as Cadillac but more refined than the blue-collared Chevrolet, it's ploughing the same ground as Mazda—a small brand with upwardly mobile aspirations.

Enlarge (credit: Gordon Plant)

We wrote on Monday that Microsoft was branding the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update as the "Autumn Creators Update" in countries such as the UK and India, where the season between summer and winter isn't called "fall." Microsoft was using this British English branding on its English-language sites where British English prevails over American English.

The company has informed us today that this was a "mistranslation"—yes, between English and English—and that the update will, in fact, be called the "Fall Creators Update" everywhere. The use of British English branding for British English speakers was a mistake.

Similarly, the update will retain this branding for those living in the southern hemisphere, where it isn't fall or autumn, because it's spring.

Enlarge / SpaceX seems to no longer be planning to land its Dragon spacecraft on Mars. (credit: SpaceX)

In recent weeks, there have been rumors that SpaceX is no longer planning to send an uncrewed version of its Dragon spacecraft to Mars in 2020, or later. Now those rumors about the Red Dragon concept have been largely confirmed.

The company had planned to use the propulsive landing capabilities on the Dragon 2 spacecraft—originally developed for the commercial crew variant to land on Earth—for Mars landings in 2018 or 2020. Previously, it had signed an agreement with NASA to use some of its expertise for such a mission and access its deep-space communications network.

On Tuesday, however, during a House science subcommittee hearing concerning future NASA planetary science missions, Florida Representative Bill Posey asked what the agency was doing to support privately developed planetary science programs. Jim Green, who directs NASA's planetary science division, mentioned several plans about the Moon and asteroids, but he conspicuously did not mention Red Dragon.

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we're back to share a bunch of new deals. Of note are two high-end PCs—now you can get a Dell XPS 8920 tower desktop with a Core i7 processor and 16GB of Optane memory for $714.99. You can also get an HP Omen gaming laptop with a 4K display, Core i7 CPU, GTX 1070 GPU, and a 512GB SSD for just $1,349.99. Both are powerful systems that let you work and play as hard as you want, whenever you want.

Check out the full list of links below.

Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.