Month: October 2018

Enlarge / Tesla's stock plunged in after hours trading on Thursday, then soared after Saturday's settlement. (credit: Barchart.com)

Tesla's stock is up by more than 16 percent in early Monday trading after Elon Musk signed a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the weekend. Monday's gains erased Friday's 14 percent plunge after the SEC filed its lawsuit late on Thursday.

Musk's dispute with the SEC arose from an August 7 tweet in which Musk claimed to have "funding secured" to take the company private at $420 per share. But it quickly became clear that Musk's funding commitment—supposedly from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund—was informal at best. The SEC eventually sued Musk for securities fraud on Thursday. Musk initially vowed to fight the charges, but after Tesla's stock cratered on Friday, Musk backtracked and settled the case on Saturday.

While Musk technically capitulated to the SEC over the weekend, he signaled Monday morning that he has no intention of behaving himself in the future:

HP

HP has made a new name for itself in recent years with the Spectre family of premium devices. Today, the company announced a new convertible in the line—the Spectre Folio—that doesn't fit the traditional two-in-one mold. Combining the versatility of a detachable in the form of a convertible, the Spectre Folio uses both metal and leather to achieve a new type of design that may appeal to those who want something different than a standard PC.

The Spectre Folio may look like a convertible that's covered in leather, but it's not that simple. The leather is actually built into the PC—you can't remove it, and HP doesn't want you to. The leather soft chassis adheres to the magnesium and aluminum hard chassis in a construction that you won't be able to see with your own eyes—it's all under the surface.

GroveStreetHomie

Google's big October 9 hardware event is fast approaching, and that means we're deep into leak season for upcoming products. The headline announcement is expected to be the Pixel 3 smartphone, but Google usually announces around five different products at these events. Besides the phone, we're expecting a flagship Chrome OS tablet that doubles as a Pixelbook sequel, a "Google Home Hub" smart display, and now, how about a new Chromecast?

It appears the new "3rd gen" Chromecast is coming, and Reddit user GroveStreetHomie managed to actually buy one at a local Best Buy. Pictures posted by the user show the usual Chromecast hockey puck form factor with a new design—one that replaces the glossy body and Chrome logo with a matte body and a "G" logo. GroveStreetHomie claims that Best Buy's system correctly flagged the product with a street date of October 9, but the cashier rang the product up as a second gen Chromecast and allowed the customer to walk out the door with it. Apparently the new Chromecast can't even be activated yet since it depends on a newer version of the Google Home app, which isn't out yet.

Enlarge / John Krafcik on November 7, 2017—the day Waymo began testing fully driverless cars with no one behind the wheel. (credit: Horacio Villalobos - Corbis/Getty Images)

Waymo, Google's self-driving car project, is planning to launch a driverless taxi service in the Phoenix area in the next three months. It won't be a pilot project or a publicity stunt, either. Waymo is planning to launch a public, commercial service—without anyone in the driver's seat.

And to date, Waymo's technology has gotten remarkably little oversight from government officials in either Phoenix or Washington, DC.

If a company wants to sell a new airplane or medical device, it must undergo an extensive process to prove to federal regulators that it's safe. Currently, there's no comparable requirement for self-driving cars. Federal and state laws allow Waymo to introduce fully self-driving cars onto public streets in Arizona without any formal approval process.