Month: February 2024

Enlarge / Tesla factory in Fremont, California, on September 18, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Justin Sullivan )

Tesla must face a class-action lawsuit from nearly 6,000 Black people who allege that they faced discrimination and harassment while working at the company's Fremont factory, a California judge ruled.

The tentative ruling from Alameda County Superior Court "certifies a class defined as the specific approximately 5,977 persons self-identified as Black/African-American who worked at Tesla during the class period from November 9, 2016, through the date of the entry of this order to prosecute the claims in the complaint."

The tentative ruling was issued Tuesday by Judge Noël Wise. Tesla can contest the ruling at a hearing on Friday, but tentative rulings are generally finalized without major changes.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Any Linux user trying to send the highest-resolution images to a display at the fastest frame rate is out of luck for the foreseeable future, at least when it comes to an HDMI connection.

The licensing group that controls the HDMI standard, the HDMI Forum, has reportedly told AMD that it does not allow an open source implementation of the HDMI 2.1 (or HDMI 2.1+) specification, blocking tools such as AMD's FreeSync from working over HDMI connections at resolution/rate combinations like 4K at 120 Hz, or 5K at 240 Hz.

Linux blog Phoronix noted in January 2021 that the HDMI Forum did not offer public access to the HDMI 2.1 specification. Alex Deucher, an AMD engineer who has long contributed to the company's open source offerings, has kept a related bug thread alive for at least two years, only to deliver the negative outcome yesterday.

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

For the third year running, Microsoft is releasing a batch of small- to medium-sized Windows 11 updates in February. This year's collection of tweaks includes the now-obligatory smattering of generative AI features but also some window-snapping changes, better Android phone integration, and accessibility upgrades, among other things.

Starting with the non-AI features: If you've paired an Android phone with your PC in the Your Phone app, Microsoft says that "soon" you will be able to use the phone's camera as a webcam during video calls. This mirrors a similar Mac-to-iPhone feature that Apple added to macOS a couple of years ago; though most PCs these days are sold with webcams, the camera on any reasonably recent Android phone will be a visual upgrade.

Window snapping is getting some "intelligent suggestions" that Microsoft says will "help you quickly organize open apps based on how you use them." And the Widgets view gets a new "focused" view and subcategories that will let you easily switch between widget boards if you want different widgets for different contexts (one for home and one for work, for example).

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  OnLeak's render of the Z Fold 6. [credit: https://www.smartprix.com/bytes/exclusive-samsung-galaxy-z-fold-6-say-hello-to-boxy-aesthetics/ ]

Samsung has an event coming up in July, which will see the launch of the Galaxy Ring smart ring and new versions of Samsung's foldable phones, the Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip. We're up to version six now! Both foldables have had renders posted recently from OnLeaks and Smartprix. These are usually based on CAD files passed around to accessory makers, so they should be spatially accurate down to the millimeter, with some guesses as to the colors, materials, and a few small details.

First up we have the big foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold 6. This year the device is getting a boxier design with sharper screen and body corners, making it more in line with the S24 Ultra. The dimensions of what a foldable should be is still something no one can seem to agree on, and the report says the Z Fold 6 is "1.4 mm shorter and 2.6 mm wider" than the Fold 5. The body has the same thickness as last year, 6.1 mm when open, but that doesn't say how much thickness the hinge adds. (The Fold 5 is 13.4 mm when folded.)

The flat sides in the render look great, making the Z Fold look even more book-like than normal. There are three cameras on the back, a hole-punch camera on the front cover screen, and an under-screen camera on the inside. What would help the Z Fold keep pace with the competition is a big battery upgrade: The Z Fold 5 was thicker than the competition yet only packed a 4400 mAh battery. The Pixel Fold and Honor Magic V2 both shipped with a 5000 mAh battery.

Enlarge / A gas station displays an out-of-order sign on February 29, 2024 in New Zealand. (credit: Mark Coote/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Today is Leap Day, meaning that for the first time in four years, it's February 29. That's normally a quirky, astronomical factoid (or a very special birthday for some). But that unique calendar date broke gas station payment systems across New Zealand for much of the day.

As reported by numerous international outlets, self-serve pumps in New Zealand were unable to accept card payments due to a problem with the gas pumps' payment processing software. The New Zealand Herald reported that the outage lasted "more than 10 hours." This effectively shuttered some gas stations, while others had to rely on in-store payments. The outage affected suppliers, including Allied Petroleum, BP, Gull, Waitomo, and Z Energy, and has reportedly been fixed.

In-house payment solutions, such as BP fuel cards and the Waitomo app, reportedly still worked during the outage.

Enlarge (credit: paul mansfield photography | Moment)

Last April, Twitter quietly edited its abuse and harassment policy to no longer explicitly ban deadnaming (calling transgender people by a former name) or misgendering (purposely using non-preferred pronouns or gender labels).

Twitter's decision came after Elon Musk suggested that his own tweets might violate the long-standing policy, which was first enacted in 2018. And that seemed to be that—until last month, when the platform, now called X, just as quietly reinstated a version of the old policy.

In a section labeled "Use of Prior Names and Pronouns," X's updated policy confirms that X will "reduce the visibility of posts that purposefully use different pronouns to address someone other than what that person uses for themselves, or that use a previous name that someone no longer goes by as part of their transition."