Author: Sebastian Anthony

Elon Musk has confirmed that the Tesla Model S floats well enough to turn into a boat "for short periods of time," with "thrust via wheel rotation."

Musk's comments were in reaction to a video shared over the weekend (embedded above), which appears to show a man driving a Tesla Model S through a flooded tunnel in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The Model S seems to be unfazed by the metre-deep water: it simply starts floating, then powers past some flooded internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, the water gracefully lapping against the car's bonnet.

While it might seem a little incongruous for an electric car become a boat, it makes some sense if you think about it. Most conventional ICE cars have an exhaust pipe that's low to the ground and quickly becomes flooded if you drive through deep water. Battery-powered vehicles, on the other hand, don't have an exhaust pipe. (I wonder if fuel-cell vehicles, which do have an exhaust, can be used as a boat.)

Sebastian Anthony

The Range Rover Evoque Convertible, roof down, with Wales in the background.

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Land Rover, one of the oldest and most recognisable car brands in the UK, is adventuring off the beaten path with the Range Rover Evoque Convertible. As far as I can tell, it's the world's first convertible compact luxury SUV. And despite the intrinsic engineering tradeoffs from trying to straddle three different automotive segments, I'm surprised to report that it's a rather nice car indeed.

Well, it's a nice car if you have at least $50,000 burning a hole in your pocket and you're looking for a convertible SUV at least.

Engines, storage, rear seats, etc.

Starting at $51,470 and ranging up to about $58,270, the Evoque Convertible is certainly not a cheap acquisition, but you do get quite a lot of car (and technology) for your money. There are only two engines available: a decent 2.0L TD4 diesel that puts out 180hp (134kW) and 317 ft-lbs (430Nm) and a 2.0L petrol engine that puts out 240hp/179kW but only peaks at 250ft-lbs/340Nm of torque. Both engines are attached to a ZF nine-speed automatic gearbox. In theory the diesel does 0-62mph in 10.3 secs; the petrol, 8.6 secs.

Microsoft has announced that it will acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 billion (£18.5 billion) in an all-cash deal. The transaction is expected to close within this calendar year.

The deal will see LinkedIn retain its brand, culture, and independence. Jeff Weiner will remain as CEO of LinkedIn, but report into Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Reid Hoffman, co-founder and controlling shareholder of LinkedIn, and Weiner both support the acquisition.

At $26.2 billion, this is one of the tech industry's largest acquisitions—though it pales in comparison to last year's Dell/EMC merger, which at $67 billion/£43.6 billion was by far the largest tech deal of all time.

The adventurous vervet monkey, sitting on a transformer at Gitaru power station. Little did he know that millions of Kenyans were suffering as a result of his curiosity. (credit: KenGen)

A monkey, falling onto a transformer at the Gitaru hydroelectric power station in Kenya, caused a nationwide blackout on Tuesday.

KenGen, the operator of Gitaru dam and Kenya's largest electricity producer, posted a photo on Facebook of the dastardly monkey still perched atop the transformer. Using our crack zoological skills, it appears to be a vervet monkey, which is native to Kenya.

The monkey climbed onto the roof of the Gitaru power station and then dropped onto a transformer, tripping it. This then caused the other transformers to overload and trip, which in turn caused the whole power station to go offline. The loss of 180MW from the hydro plant was enough to cause a national blackout, according to KenGen.

Firefox, at long last, is going multi-process. Electrolysis (e10s), barring an eleventh-hour mishap, is coming to the masses with Firefox 48. In the words of long-time Mozillan Asa Dotzler, this is the most significant Firefox change the foundation has ever shipped.

Back in July 2015, Firefox's director of engineering Dave Camp said that some major changes were on their way, with the hope of winning back users and developers. Firefox's market share has been flat or declining since 2010, ever since Chrome first started making major inroads. Finally getting e10s out the door (it was first announced in 2009!) was listed as one of Camp's priorities, along with accelerating the retirement of XUL and XBL.

Mozilla has been trialling Electrolysis to small groups of beta users since December 2015. In Firefox 48, which should be entering beta later today, e10s will be available to all users. Then, assuming no game-breaking issues are found, in six weeks (around August 2) the stable build of Firefox 48 will be released to the public with e10s enabled.

Google's DeepMind AI division will face off against humanity's number one Go player, Ke Jie, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua. Ke Jie is currently the top-ranked Go player in the world.

DeepMind's Go-playing program AlphaGo played against Go grandmaster Lee Se-dol in March. Lee lost to the computer 4-1. Although Lee was the world's top-rated Go player between 2007 and 2011 and is widely considered to be one of the greatest Go players the world has ever seen, he was only ranked number four in the world when he played against AlphaGo.

For the last couple of years the world's best Go player (by Elo score) has been Ke Jie, a Chinese child prodigy. Back in March, after AlphaGo had won the first game of the match with Lee, Ke said that “I don’t want to compete with AlphaGo because judging from its matches with Lee, AlphaGo is weaker than me. I don’t want AlphaGo to copy my style." He did some bragging on his Weibo account, too: “Even if AlphaGo can defeat Lee Se-dol, it can’t beat me."

(credit: Hayes Davidson / Sebastian Anthony)

Ars Technica is looking for an Engagement Coordinator to join its London-based team. As the job title implies, this position does not involve writing on the site, though it does report directly to the editor (me). This is a role that will be mostly focused with social media, investigating new platforms and technologies, SEO, analytics and statistics, and other stuff that helps increase the impact and reach of Ars Technica UK's superb and sometimes dauntingly awesome editorial output.

Ars Technica UK had a very successful first year: we were profitable (I'm told this is very rare for a new publication), and we tripled both our headcount and readership. Editorial-wise, we are doing well. But there is another challenge that we need to crack: think about those millions of science, tech, policy, and car nerds out there who aren't currently reading Ars Technica... but should be. I want to hire someone who can reel those new readers in.

The ideal candidate would be based in London. You will have to be present at our swanky new office on Hanover Square, just off Oxford Circus most of the time (but you can work from home occasionally). Ideally you would be proficient with traffic analysis and reporting tools such as Google Analytics and Hitwise, and be able to process that data in such a way so as to help me make decisions. Ideally you would have professional experience as an SEO specialist, social media guru, marketing bod, or some other similarly nu-digital-mediaesque role.

(credit: Jenna)

For the first 16 years of my life, I was an actor. Not a big-time actor, of course: I starred in school plays and local amateur productions, usually as the lanky comic sidekick or later as sonorous historical figures. Playing Osiris in a school play about the Egyptian gods was probably the peak of my thespian career.

I saw a lot of weird things over the years, backstage and in dressing rooms, but unless you're interested in men in tights or pranks involving oil-based makeup, most of them wouldn't make any sense to recount on a technology website. One story involving a six-inch iron nail is definitely worth sharing, though.

It is safe to say that my school, if it had ever been inspected properly, would've failed almost every electrical safety check. The building was about 200 years old, and over the decades had been the victim of many hodgepodge extensions, electrification retrofits, and "ooh, all we need is a bit of electrical tape" fixes by handymen and groundskeepers.

Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond have announced that their new Amazon motoring show will be called The Grand Tour, or GT for short. Amazon still hasn't confirmed when the show will be aired; all we have to go on is "Autumn 2016."

Clarkson took to Twitter to explain the naming of his new show: "The Grand Tour (GT for short) will come from a tent, which we will put up in a different location every week." Hammond provided a little more information, saying that "We've got a MASSIVE tent as our studio. Same tent, different view, different crowd every week."

James May, however, appears to be a bit pissed off about the chosen name: "I'm sorry if your name wasn't used for our new show. But neither were any of mine... I still think 'Nigel' was a better name."

Sebastian Anthony

The Elizabeth line platforms are massive. This photo wasn't even taken from the end of the platform!

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I'll let you in on a secret: I love big things. Big holes, big houses, big bridges, big cars. I suspect it has something to do with being very large myself. After spending most of my formative years living in old, low-ceilinged British houses, and developing a hunchback, I now find expansive spaces rather comforting. Which is why I recently paid a visit to the new Elizabeth line (née Crossrail) tunnels near Bond Street, London.

It's funny. If you've ever been on the London Underground, I doubt you'd ever describe it with words like "spacious" or "airy." More like "claustrophobic" and "ooh, look at that big rat!"

As the elevator juddered its way down the giant access hole at the new Bond Street station on London's Hanover Square, though, the only word that came to mind was "whoa." The Elizabeth line ticket halls, walkways, and train tunnels are really quite big.