Month: December 2022

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Henrik Sorensen)

A leaked email sent by Elon Musk to Twitter staff shows that he threatened to sue employees who leak confidential information to the media.

Musk's emails and other internal communications have repeatedly been leaked to media outlets since he bought the company in late October. The leaked email about leaks said Twitter will aggressively enforce non-disclosure agreements going forward.

"As evidenced by the many detailed leaks of confidential Twitter information, a few people at our company continue to act in a manner contrary to the company's interests and in violation of their NDA," the Musk email said, according to a Twitter thread by journalist Zoë Schiffer of tech news site Platformer.

Enlarge / NASA will need new spacesuits for the Artemis Program. Shown here is Buzz Aldrin, during Apollo 11. (credit: NASA)

With the successful conclusion of the Artemis I mission, NASA has taken a big step toward returning humans to the Moon. But a big rocket and a deep-space capable capsule are only the beginning of the new technologies needed for lunar surface operations.

Most notably, there's the lander. Much attention has been given to this component of the program, especially after NASA selected SpaceX's large Starship vehicle to fulfill that role in April 2021. Starship will rendezvous with the Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit and ferry astronauts down to and up from the Moon. With Orion and the Space Launch System rocket having completed a critical flight test, Starship is now on the clock as NASA works toward a lunar landing later this decade.

But just as astronauts cannot go down to the Moon without Starship, they also cannot go outside on the lunar surface without new spacesuits.

Enlarge / I demand an achievement for my incredible use of eyeshadow. (credit: Ubisoft)

While some Ubisoft games have recently returned to Steam after a years-long absence, not all of the usual features fans expect have come along with them. At least that's the case for the Steam version of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which is missing in-game achievement tracking on Steam.

This omission comes despite the fact that both the Ubisoft Connect version of the game and previous Assassin's Creed titles on Steam included the fan-favorite, platform-level progress-tracking feature. Achievements are also missing from the Epic Games Store version of the game, though that could be because the title was released on that platform before EGS supported achievements at all.

While players noticed this omission as soon as the game was relisted on Steam last month, it was only last week that an Ubisoft representative confirmed that the change was intentional. "Just to officially confirm... Steam achievements are not supported for this title," the rep wrote on the Steam forums for the game. "If there's anything more we can assist with, please let us know!"

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft's Chromium-based Edge browser was an improvement over the initial version of Edge in many ways, including its support for Windows 7 and Windows 8. But the end of the road is coming: Microsoft has announced that Edge will end support for Windows 7 and Windows 8 in mid-January of 2023, shortly after those operating systems stop getting regular security updates. Support will also end for Microsoft Edge Webview2, which can use Edge's rendering engine to embed webpages in non-Edge apps.

The end-of-support date for Edge coincides with the end of security update support for both Windows 7 and Windows 8 on January 10, and the end of Google Chrome support for Windows 7 and 8 in version 110. Because the underlying Chromium engine in both Chrome and Edge is open source, Microsoft could continue supporting Edge in older Windows versions if it wanted, but the company is using both end-of-support dates to justify a clean break for Edge.

If you thought that Windows 7 had already stopped getting security updates, you’re not wrong. Most people stopped receiving general-purpose security updates for Windows 7 back in 2020, around a decade after its original release. But because Windows 7 was so popular with businesses, Microsoft took the unusual step of offering three additional years of optional, paid update support for the operating system. Those updates are ending now, too; a similar program is not being offered for the significantly less popular Windows 8, which is just past its 10-year anniversary.

Enlarge / GM's Ultium batteries are modular. The largest packs are found in the Hummer EV, which carries a hefty 200 kWh. (credit: GMC)

The US Department of Energy announced a big boost to domestic electric vehicle battery production on Monday. It's loaning $2.5 billion to a company called Ultium Cells, a joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution that will build batteries for the automaker's new range of EVs. The funds will help with the construction of three new battery plants in the US—in Lansing, Michigan; Lordstown, Ohio; and Spring Hill, Tennessee—as part of GM's plan to build 1 million EVs a year by 2025.

US battery production is set for massive growth in the coming years. First, the pandemic disrupted shipping, exposing the fragility of global just-in-time supply lines. Then, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 tied an EV's potential tax credit to the domestic content of that EV's battery pack, in terms of raw materials and final assembly. Each year, an escalating proportion of the battery must be domestic in order to qualify for the credits of up to $7,500.

However, it's unlikely that the automakers or their battery suppliers were taken by surprise. Linking EV incentives to local manufacturing was proposed in 2021 by a group of lawmakers in a more ambitious infrastructure bill that would have added an extra credit for vehicles made by unionized workers. (That bill did not survive contact with Senator Joe Manchin.)