ad Ottawa deploying 'park ambassadors' to clear up confusion on rules in parks By ottawa.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 15:11:00 -0400 The City of Ottawa is launching a “Parks Ambassador Program” to educate residents on the do’s and don’ts in parks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Full Article
ad Garage destroyed in Carp Road fire By ottawa.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Sat, 9 May 2020 10:51:45 -0400 Ottawa Fire says a garage three vehicles were destroyed Saturday morning after a fire broke out on Carp Road. Full Article
ad Gadgets taking inspiration from science fiction By news.bbc.co.uk Published On :: Fri, 19 Oct 2012 10:43:13 GMT Though the watch was invented centuries ago and cars 100 years ago, it has not stopped innovators trying to improve existing gadgets. Full Article Click
ad Five great comics that Martin Scorsese might actually enjoy adapting into ‘cinema’ By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 11:00:16 +0000 The director of "The Irishman" has criticized "comic book movies," but these titles show that such adaptations might be a perfect fit for him. Full Article
ad He wrote a graphic novel about losing his home to a wildfire. Now Kincade is threatening it again. By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Wed, 30 Oct 2019 15:55:14 +0000 Eisner-winning cartoonist Brian Fies faces down another fire two years after losing his Northern California home. "I'm mostly numb," he says. Full Article
ad The 11 superheroes who defined the decade onscreen, from Iron Man to one of the Watchmen By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Tue, 26 Nov 2019 12:00:14 +0000 The past 10 years have shown superheroes in entertainment aren't going anywhere. Full Article
ad ‘Wonder Woman 1984’s’ first trailer: Gal Gadot’s hero lands in Reagan-era Washington By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Mon, 09 Dec 2019 02:11:43 +0000 Fanny packs and Kristen Wiig's Cheetah fill the frame in the teaser to the franchise's first sequel. Full Article
ad The VR experience in ‘The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners’ prevents it from being just a zombie cliche By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 19:23:28 +0000 It's difficult to count the number of video games in which someone is standing around a corner clutching a weapon and waiting for their mortal enemy to pass. But until recently it wasn't possible to physically experience that scenario. Full Article
ad Beautiful visuals and dreamy puzzles make ‘Luna The Shadow Dust’ an unusually enchanting game By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Thu, 27 Feb 2020 15:01:53 +0000 The beautiful hand-drawn visuals, dreamlike puzzles, and mysterious story line of 'Luna The Shadow Dust' -- which unfolds without a word of dialogue -- will draw you in and hold your interest from start to finish. Full Article
ad Bloomberg insulted Trump with a Darth Vader tweet. Here are six other times Star Wars converged with politics. By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Wed, 04 Mar 2020 21:38:39 +0000 From Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" to Mark Hamill battling Ivanka Trump. Full Article
ad ‘Steven Universe’ creator says farewell, knowing her show made young LGBTQ viewers feel seen By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Fri, 27 Mar 2020 10:00:23 +0000 Rebecca Sugar's hit series "Steven Universe" changed the Cartoon Network's policy on same-sex marriage in kids' shows. Full Article
ad ‘Half-Life: Alyx’: The most exhilarating VR adventure game to date By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Fri, 03 Apr 2020 14:50:26 +0000 "Half Life: Alyx" will transport you to an incredibly vivid science fiction world. Full Article
ad Mort Drucker’s legendary Mad magazine caricatures spoofed Hollywood — and Hollywood loved them By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Thu, 09 Apr 2020 21:16:38 +0000 Artist Mort Drucker, who inspired generations of humorists with his Mad magazine film and TV parodies across five decades, passed away Wednesday. Full Article
ad ‘The Incredibles’ director Brad Bird picks what to watch in isolation By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Thu, 23 Apr 2020 10:00:04 +0000 Here's how the new Turner Classic Movies "Essentials" guest — the man behind "The Incredibles" and "Ratatouille" — has been influenced by Hitchcock, '50s sci-fi and James Bond. Full Article
ad News24.com | Madagascar president vows to release journalist critic By www.news24.com Published On :: Mon, 04 May 2020 14:14:55 +0200 Madagascar's President Andry Rajoelina has promised to release a prominent journalist who was detained after criticising his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Full Article
ad News24.com | WATCH | Lesotho's murdered first lady agreed to divorce on day she died - sources By www.news24.com Published On :: Wed, 06 May 2020 06:08:37 +0200 Hours before she was shot dead on the outskirts of the capital, Lesotho's former first lady, Lipolelo Thabane, made a surprising decision. Full Article
ad News24.com | WATCH | Faithful undeterred at Ramadan, even as virus spreads in Somalia By www.news24.com Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 12:52:45 +0200 Adan Abdullahi knows that visiting the mosque for evening prayers is forbidden. There is a curfew in place in the Somali capital, and authorities have pleaded with worshippers to stay home as coronavirus infections rise. Full Article
ad News24.com | Ivorians ready to rock as virus measures lifted By www.news24.com Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 19:34:03 +0200 Ivory Coast on Friday lifted many of its coronavirus containment measures, except in economic capital Abidjan which has the vast majority of the country's cases, as jubilant locals feted the return of the country's vibrant nightlife. Full Article
ad News24.com | Tanzania gets Madagascar's anti-coronavirus drink disputed by WHO By www.news24.com Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 22:00:32 +0200 Tanzania says it has received its first shipment of Madagascar's self-proclaimed, plant-based "cure" for coronavirus, despite warnings from the World Health Organisation that its efficacy is unproven. Full Article
ad Virgin Atlantic puts advisers on standby as industry teeters By news.sky.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 12:34:00 +0100 Virgin Atlantic Airways has put advisers on standby to handle a potential administration as it races to secure a £500m rescue that would enable Sir Richard Branson’s flagship company to survive the coronavirus pandemic. Full Article
ad One leader looks hell-bent on turning COVID-19 into a catastrophe By news.sky.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 14:42:00 +0100 If Belarus was already in the grip of a public health crisis, its president looks hell-bent on turning COVID-19 into a catastrophe for the country. Full Article
ad Walmart has added virtual reality to its assessment of an employee’s potential By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Fri, 12 Jul 2019 20:35:18 +0000 For the past few months, the nation’s largest employer has begun evaluating workers using an experimental tool: virtual reality. Full Article
ad How quickly can AI solve a Rubik’s Cube? In less time than it took you to read this headline. By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Tue, 16 Jul 2019 19:20:59 +0000 The University of California announced that an artificial intelligent system has solved the puzzle in just over a second, besting the human world record by more than two seconds. Full Article
ad The latest tool to help police develop empathy for the public: Virtual reality headsets By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Fri, 20 Sep 2019 15:36:13 +0000 To help law enforcement officers resolve emergency situations, one company has created empathy training based in virtual reality. Full Article
ad Tired of long lines? A Canadian grocery chain debuts Smart Carts with self-checkout. By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 15:57:05 +0000 A Canadian grocery chain says its introducing a fleet of intelligent grocery carts that scan and weigh products as customers place them in the cart. Full Article
ad Notre Dame joins the lead pack for College Football Playoff By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Tue, 02 Oct 2018 15:38:38 +0000 With their win over the Cardinal, the Irish have elevated themselves into the top tier. Full Article
ad NFL Week 6 ATS picks: The Panthers should add to Redskins’ woes By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Thu, 11 Oct 2018 13:46:13 +0000 Cam Newton is 4-0 against the Redskins, with 11 touchdowns (nine passing, two rushing) and zero interceptions for his career. Full Article
ad Waiver wire targets: Add Ito Smith immediately By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:20:55 +0000 Ito Smith is a solid addition for teams seeking backfield depth. Full Article
ad Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes leads a contentious NFL MVP race By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 15:06:47 +0000 Quarterbacks have won 10 of the past 11 MVP awards, and the six rushers who have won over the past 30 years have been historically good, either establishing a record for touchdowns or rushing for more than 2,000 yards in a season. Full Article
ad Fantasy Football start/sit tips Week 9: Adrian Peterson won’t slow down against the Falcons By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Wed, 31 Oct 2018 14:24:19 +0000 Six teams are on a bye this week, giving stars like Saquon Barkley, Odell Beckham Jr., Andrew Luck, Zach Ertz and A.J. Green the week off. Here are three players that could have big games in their stead. Full Article
ad New Coach Mike Budenholzer has the Milwaukee Bucks ahead of schedule By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Tue, 06 Nov 2018 17:23:40 +0000 Milwaukee has embraced the modern NBA. Full Article
ad Week 11 waiver wire moves: With six teams on a bye, here’s whom to add By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Sun, 11 Nov 2018 21:21:43 +0000 The Bills, Browns, Patriots, Jets and 49ers all have byes. That leaves a number of holes to plug in your fantasy lineup. Full Article
ad Bryce Harper and Manny Machado are going to get PAID. Machado should get paid more. By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Tue, 27 Nov 2018 14:14:11 +0000 Harper has had one spectacular season — earning him a unanimous MVP award in 2015 — surrounded by some very good but not great years. Machado, on the other hand, projects more favorably and doesn't carry a significant liability. Full Article
ad Offense was supposed to limit the Jazz. Instead, defense is the problem in Utah. By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Fri, 30 Nov 2018 11:00:20 +0000 Last year, defense was the calling card of the Jazz. That's not the case this season. Full Article
ad Week 14 NFL betting tips: The Cowboys' potential surges while the Packers’ fades By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Tue, 04 Dec 2018 16:14:33 +0000 Meanwhile there's not much value left in division title futures, with the Los Angeles Rams (-15000), New Orleans Saints (-3300) and New England Patriots (-5000) are all huge favorites to win their respective divisions. Full Article
ad Fantasy Football start/sit tips Week 15: Starting Aaron Rodgers will lead to disappointment By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Wed, 12 Dec 2018 16:37:58 +0000 It's never easy benching star players who are in less-than-ideal situations but it is often the right thing to do. Full Article
ad The NCAA’s lousy new metric is going to make March Madness even crazier By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Tue, 18 Dec 2018 12:45:56 +0000 The NCAA tournament could be more entertaining than usual, if only because seedings may be less accurate than in past years. Full Article
ad Week 16 NFL betting tips: Chargers and Bears are peaking while Saints and Rams fade By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Tue, 18 Dec 2018 15:42:20 +0000 The Chargers have clinched a playoff spot yet they could start the postseason in two very different ways. Full Article
ad Fantasy Football start/sit tips Week 16: Bench Tom Brady. We know, but just do it. By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Wed, 19 Dec 2018 16:06:23 +0000 The Patriots quarterback has been sensational for years, but with everything on the line for your fantasy season in Week 16, he's a liability. Full Article
ad The office as we knew it is dead By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 09:00:00 -0400 The coronavirus crisis has proved that companies can remain productive over Zoom. Remote work will become more common than ever, which will mean fewer people head to the office. Office designs will change to be centered around collaborative work, and there could be a revival of the suburban office. To read more stories on the future of the office, click here. Coronavirus has changed the office forever. The dense, urban, open-floor plan office has been the defining feature of offices over the last 20 years, with tightly packed flexible-office and coworking locations from companies like WeWork the biggest exemplars of the trend. A recent report by JLL found that up to 70% of all office spaces in the first quarter of 2020 were mostly or partially open floor offices. These sorts of offices are nightmares for the transmission of a virus that feeds on density, and they may end up as artifacts of the pre-pandemic start of the 21st century. Remote work, rumored to be waiting in the wings to kill the traditional office since the invention of the fax machine, has finally had its day. CEOs, like James Gorman at Morgan Stanley and Jes Staley at Barclays, have questioned the need for their pre-virus office square footage. They've had success running their businesses totally remotely, so why not save a couple of bucks on one of their biggest costs. But the office won't die altogether. Instead, as the workplace has countless times before, it will evolve. The evolution will begin with the short-term solutions that will make offices safe before a coronavirus vaccine. These changes will act like a bridge to the future of the workplace: some of these short-term changes will stick and some will eventually look as quaint as this photo of a masked-typist clacking away on a typewriter during the Spanish Influenza epidemic. The long-term evolution of the office will be decided in the coming months and years, as companies rethink their business plans to be flexible and resilient to retain productivity in a crisis. While the loss of life and psychological pain of the pandemic, and the economic crisis following in its wake, are staggering, businesses are seeing it as an opportunity to make foundational changes to how and where they operate. The choices that companies make now will decide what the office looks like in five years. Read more: The coronavirus is a 'nuclear bomb' for companies like WeWork. 10 real-estate insiders lay out the future of flex-office, and how employers are preparing now. Remote work is here to stay We're in the midst of the largest work-from-home experiment ever, which will likely be the beginning of a "paradigm shift" towards remote work. Executives and workers alike have seen first hand that business operations can continue online. A recent Colliers survey found that 4 in 5 employees hope to work remotely at least once a week after the coronavirus crisis ends. A Gartner survey this March found that 74% of 317 CFOs, half of which oversee the financials of companies with revenue above $1 billion, plan on shifting some employees to permanent remote work. Some organizations have already changed their remote work guidelines: Zillow's 5,000 employees will be able to work remotely at their discretion through the end of the year. Others, like Refinitiv, Tradeweb, Nationwide, and the aforementioned Barclays and Morgan Stanley, are signaling that their guidelines will also change. "We used to joke about meetings that could have been emails, but now we'll wonder why we can't just do them in our pajamas with our pets on video conference," Nancy Dubuc, Vice Media Group CEO, told Business Insider. "There's a balance of course because some work is actually more productive and better done in person, but it will never need to be 5 days a week, all day every day again." When these companies begin to shift their business models to accommodate remote work, the office will change. They may cut back on individual workspaces and increase investment in collaborative spaces, turning the office into a cultural and training hub. "This (more remote work) means adapting some of the office structure to help this way of working succeed, with even more video facilities and more flexible group spaces for brainstorming sessions," Luke Ellis, CEO of investment manager Man Group, told Business Insider. Most leaders aren't considering going fully remote. Instead, they're going to use office space differently, and could potentially even cut back on space. PR giant BCW Global's CEO Donna Imperato is considering taking less office space as more employees work remotely, for example. "I'm not sure we'll go back to office seating," she said. "We won't need as much real estate because more people will start working from home. That's a cost saving, and they become more productive." Read more: The CEO of the third-biggest PR firm BCW lays out how the company will outperform its peers in a tough year Arnold Levin, director of strategy for the southwest at leading architecture and design firm Gensler, told Business Insider about one health insurance client that had been looking to cut down on their 500,000 square foot office portfolio before the pandemic. Levin produced a plan that utilized desk-hoteling to cut the footprint down to 320,000 square feet, and presented it over a video chat in the midst of the lockdown. The CEO told Levin that their workforce had been so effective at working remotely that they actually would prefer to cut back on an all individual workspace in their offices. They're now planning to operate in one 80,000 square foot office building, using it for training, large meetings, and to entertain clients. Read more: What to expect when you're back in the office: 7 real-estate experts break down what the transition will look like, and why the workplace may never be the same Why remote work won't kill the office completely If every company were to shrink their footprint as drastically as Levin's client, the commercial office market would crumble. This is unlikely to happen for a couple of reasons. For one, if less people came into the office, but offices became less dense to make social distancing possible, companies might still need just as much office space. "We, like everyone else, have dreams of reducing our real estate footprint," MSCI CEO Henry Fernandez told Business Insider. However, that dream is constrained by the realities of social distancing. "The flipside of that is whatever real estate you occupy, you will consume a lot more of it because we have to social distance," Fernandez said. A whitepaper by Michael Colacino, president at office space company SquareFoot, walks through the reasons why he thinks that the reduction in office space likely won't approach the roughly 25% decrease that's estimated by some experts. Executives, already most likely to work remotely before the pandemic, would have to give up their dedicated office space, which is usually much larger than a typical employees. Other employees would have to turn to hot-desks (desks that are on a first-come-first-serve basis) and shared workspaces instead of offices or assigned desks. Hot-desking would lead to an almost-unsolvable coordination problem: how do you make repeatable schedules that prevent the office from getting too crowded while also making sure that the correct people are in the office for any in-person activities, like trainings or meetings? Hot-desking also requires a large amount of cleaning to prevent spread of the coronavirus. Without workers going remote full-time, the office space won't be able to shrink much. Colacino's model predicts that space demand will shrink about 5%. Given the long length of leases and the high costs associated with breaking a lease or finding a subletter, this shrinkage will happen over a horizon of years, blunting the impact. Read more: Major tenants are delaying big leases in as they re-think their office space needs for the post-coronavirus world How do we make offices safe? Before the advent of a coronavirus vaccine, the near-term return to the office will require lots of operational and technological changes to prevent spread of the virus. The psychological effects of the crisis, and the reality that global catastrophic events are likely to become more common as a result of climate change, means that these changes won't disappear once the virus becomes a distant memory. "What is going to be the long-term imprint psychologically on any of us?" Levin from Gensler said. "We wake up in the morning, we hear about the virus and we hear about the death tolls. We go to bed, we hear about the death tolls." Offices may not feel safe even after a vaccine, and it will be up to companies to make employees feel safe. After 9/11, office buildings in major cities began to add turnstiles and security desks to prevent potential terrorist attacks, and surveillance increased in pretty much every public space. This sacrifice of privacy for security will happen in the office after coronavirus. Surveillance in a pre-coronavirus office largely meant the watchful eye of a manager trying to see who is scrolling Instagram at their desk or watching a daytime baseball game in the corner of their computer monitor. After coronavirus, surveillance will include everything from temperature checks at a building entrance to the mandatory installation of contract-tracing applications on an employee's smartphone, all of which are allowed under legal guidance offered by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Center for Disease Control, according to a Goodwin Procter legal analysis. In China, 80% of Class A office buildings are requiring temperature checks at the entrance to the building to prevent the spread of the virus, according to a JLL report. Artificial intelligence company Landing AI has developed demo software that uses video to flag inadequate social distancing in the workplace in real time. AI-enabled video surveillance and utilization monitoring sensors are likely to become much more common. The limiting factor for a lot of these changes is their cost, magnified by the economic tightening underway right now. "(The costs) add insult to injury within the environment we're operating in," Andrew Sucoff, chair of Goodwin Procter's Boston real estate practice. Read more: Mandatory temperature-taking is largely seen as a critical way to return workers to offices. But some big NYC landlords are worried about its effectiveness. The return of the suburban office Some businesses are considering alternating desks or erecting temporary barriers in the short-term. In the long-term, companies are considering everything from erecting walled, private offices to moving to suburban office spaces. A forthcoming report by Dr. Victor Calanog, head of commercial real estate economics for Moody's Analytics REIS traces the last time the suburban office came into, and out of vogue. In the 1980s, with crime at approaching record highs and federal and state aid to city budgets shrinking, there was a professional-class exodus from the city to the suburbs. Corporations followed suit on a slightly delayed time scale, given the length of typical office leases: from 1989 to 1997, suburban market inventory expanded 1.7 times faster than inventory in cities's central business districts. By 1997, suburban office vacancies were 1.8% lower than central business district vacancies, and by 1998, the Building Owners and Managers Association said that the suburban office will be the top real estate investment of the next five to ten years. That did not come to pass. City budgets increased, crime fell, and professional workers began to move back to the city. Simultaneously, internet technology and increasing office density lowered demand for office space. The city became the ideal location for office space once again. This cycle may repeat itself, with the pandemic replacing crime and budgetary constraints. After 9/11, Morgan Stanley moved employees to offices in Westchester County, New York a suburb outside Manhattan. Before the total coronavirus lockdown, Morgan Stanley moved traders back to the same office again. Why is this time different? The death of the office has been foretold for a while now, but hasn't come to pass. Dr. Calanog told Business Insider that people have been theorizing the death of the office since the arrivals of the fax machine and the internet. Levin, from Gensler, told Business Insider that consultants thought the Great Recession would be the catalyst for the future of the office, where "everyone will be like Google." The mood at the time is best summed up by a Rahm Emmanuel catchphrase from 2009, by way of Macchiavelli and a pit stop with Naomi Klein: "Never let a crisis go to waste." "People had short-lived memories," Levin said. "Some changed, but a vast majority went back to cramming as many people into a space as possible." This time is different, says Dr. Calanog, because of the international scope of the change and the duration of the shock, which still has no obvious end date. Levin said that, instead of focusing on tactical changes or the ideal model for the future office, he's asking clients deep questions about their goals and principles and the threats to their current business model. "The best thing is to avoid clever trends and quick fixes, and have organizations face this new reality," Levin said. Levin said the organizations that are using this time to realign their business model to be more adaptable will be the most successful going forward. Any changes they make to their office and workplace should flow from that realignment. "I think organizations are going to see more of a connection with a need to change their business models and how the workplace connects to that for the first time."SEE ALSO: What to expect when you're back in the office: 7 real-estate experts break down what the transition will look like, and why the workplace may never be the same SEE ALSO: Mandatory temperature-taking is largely seen as a critical way to return workers to offices. But some big NYC landlords are worried about its effectiveness. SEE ALSO: 'We should be prepared for a new normal': 3 real estate experts on how the coronavirus is transforming offices and accelerating the rise of industrial property Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Why Pikes Peak is the most dangerous racetrack in America Full Article
ad All the coolest features of every Tesla vehicle ever made or unveiled, ranked (TSLA) By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 09:04:00 -0400 Tesla's vehicles are and always have been crammed with great ideas. These range from touchscreen interfaces to innovative battery designs to staggering acceleration. I've driven or experienced every vehicle Tesla has ever sold or intends to sell in the future. Here are all my favorite features, ranked. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. In about two decades, Tesla has done what everyone in the auto industry thought was impossible: create an all-electric brand that could sell hundreds of thousands of vehicles. Tesla could have done that in a boring or modest way, developing the equivalent of an electric VW Beetle. Instead, Tesla made fantastically compelling cars that are fast, look amazing, and are packed with features. Here's a rundown of all my favorites, ranked from bottom to top:FOLLOW US: On Facebook for more car and transportation content! Tesla has been in business for 17 years. In that period of time, it's consistently captivated the world not just because it makes all-electric cars, but because those cars have always been packed with cool features. "Easter eggs" — frivolous little extras that Tesla throws in whenever it does software updates. Owners enjoy finding them. The Model X's falcon-wing doors. Dramatic, slightly impractical, and a nightmare to manufacture. But Tesla has the only SUV on the road with such an exotic feature. Bioweapon Defense Mode uses a powerful filtration system to render the interior air quality of the Model X or Model S "hospital grade," according to Tesla. The Model X's 5,000-pound towing capacity. Nobody ever talks about it, but the Model X can tow a goodly amount for an electric SUV. It's very competitive with gas-powered SUVs that tout their capabilities. The large, central portrait touchscreen on the Model S and Model X. This mega-tablet interface was a revelation when Tesla first introduced it on the Model S in 2012, but it's now emulated throughout the auto industry. It's actually canted slightly toward the driver. Aero Wheels on the Model 3. The proprietary design is standard on the vehicle, enhancing airflow, reducing drag, and improving range. Ludicrous Mode. The acceleration feature — which followed Insane Mode, first rolled for the all-wheel-drive Model S — enables Teslas to cover the 0-60 mph sprint at supercar-like velocities. Frunks! All Teslas currently on sale have front trunks, expanding their cargo capacities. Having no gas engine helps to free up space. Trunks! Teslas are commendable cargo haulers because they're effectively boxes on top of battery packs, creating ample space for luggage, groceries, of gear. Quiet. In operation, Teslas are notably quiet and smooth, thanks to the optimization of airflow, solid build quality, and mostly silent electric motors. The Tesla smartphone app. I've actually tested a number of these from assorted manufacturers, but Tesla's is the only one that's truly useful. For the Model 3, it replaces the traditional key fob. The glass roof of the Model 3. It creates a stunning silhouette and floods the cabin with natural light. The space-age operators' platform in the cab of the Tesla Semi. This space — clearly anticipating a time when semi-trucks drive themselves — is the most futuristic thing Tesla has ever designed. Roadsters in space. CEO Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster was launched atop the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in 2017, as a test payload. Piloted by "Starman," it set a new standard for automotive marketing. Tesla's in-house audio system. Most luxury brands partner with a big-name audio company for premium sound systems, but Tesla developed its own — and it sounds absolutely fantastic. Charge monitoring and mapping. Charging is among the most important things Tesla has to think about, so the company has made it a priority to track it in the vehicle and via the app, as well as to plot road-trip courses that use GPS navigation to permit island-hopping from charging location to charging location. Navigate on Autopilot combines Tesla's GPS mapping system with Autopilot's ability to execute lane changes and freeway on- and off-ramping maneuvers. The new Roadster's staggering performance specs. The all-new machine has a claimed 0-60 mph time of 1.9 seconds, making it the fastest production vehicle in the world. The Model 3's consolidated vehicle-management system and central landscape touchscreen. Almost every aspect of the Model 3 is controlled here, and the traditional instrument cluster has been moved to the left side of the screen, and streamlined. The radical design of the Cybertruck. In late 2019, Tesla had fallen into a design rut. The otherworldly, stainless-steel Cybertruck changed all that. Controversial to be sure, but also thrilling. Read about the Cybertrucks' rad design. Manufacturing simplicity. Electric cars are less complicated to build than gas-powered ones. Tesla has designed its factory in China to optimize this aspect of production, which could support and enviable profit margin for Tesla in the 20-30% range. The white interior. It's an extra, but a very popular one. I was initially skeptical, but I'm now a fan. After all, it survived a 700-plus-mile family road trip! Read about the road trip. Over-the-air software updates. Just like smartphones, Teslas can be routinely upgraded while sitting in owners' driveways. This means that an older Tesla can acquire new features quite literally overnight. The Supercharger network. Access to DC fast-charging used to be a lifetime perk for Tesla owners, but Tesla has begun to bill for the service. Still, it enables longer road trips and is completely integrated with each Tesla vehicle's systems. Tesla's design philosophy. Head designer Franz von Holzhausen and Elon Musk argue that it doesn't cost anymore to make Teslas beautiful. But von Holzhausen has also exercised tasteful restraint, ensuring that Tesla's vehicles have a long market life. Read about Franz's design influence. Performance! Tesla vehicles have always combined electric virtuosity with industry-leading performance. Owners can usually expect to be driving one of the fastest cars on the road. Battery design. Tesla has taken a complicated, multi-cell concept — thousands are wired together in packs — and perfected it, yielding impressive range and performance. The company also manufactures its own packs, in partnership with Panasonic. The Model 3's minimalist driving experience. With the clean dashboard, you can focus on the road ahead. It's a blissful thing and my top Tesla feature. The bottom line is that while plenty of other automakers put cool features in their cars, Teslas are crammed with ideas, ideas, and more ideas. Full Article
ad Facebook's fight against coronavirus misinformation could boost pressure on the company to get more aggressive in removing other falsehoods spreading across the social network (FB) By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 09:12:00 -0400 Facebook is taking a harder line on misinformation related to coronavirus than it has on other health topics in the past. This decision may increase the pressure on the company to act more decisively against other forms of harmful falsehoods that spread on its social networks. Facebook is banning events that promote flouting lockdown protests, and is removing the conspiracy theory video "Plandemic." But false claims that vaccines are dangerous still proliferate on Facebook — even though they contribute to the deaths of children. Amid the pandemic, Facebook is taking a harder line on misinformation than it has in the past. That decision may come back to haunt it. As coronavirus has wreaked havoc across the globe, forcing lockdowns and disrupting economies, false information and hoaxes have spread like wildfire on social media. Miracle cures, intentional disinformation about government policies, and wild claims that Bill Gates orchestrated the entire health crisis abound. In the past, Facebook has been heavily criticised for failing to take action to stop its platform being used to facilitate the spread of misinformation. To be sure, coronavirus falsehoods are still easily found on Facebook — but the company has taken more decisive action than in previous years: For starters, Facebook is now displaying warning messages to people who have shared false information about COVID-19. They're imperfect — Stat reported that they may be too vague in their wording to have a major impact — but it's a step further than Facebook has taken on misinformation in the past. The company is also taking down event pages for events that reject mainstream science on coronavirus by calling on people to flout lockdown rules. And it is banning "Plandemic," a conspiratorial video about coronavirus that has been going viral on social media and contains numerous falsehoods. But Facebook's actions to combat COVID-19 misinformation may backfire — in the sense that it has the potential to dramatically increase pressure on the company to take stronger action against other forms of misinformation. The company has long struggled with how to handle fake news and hoaxes; historically, its approach is not to delete them, but to try to artificially stifle their reach via algorithmic tweaks. Despite this, pseudoscience, anti-government conspiracy theories, and other falsehoods still abound on the social network. Facebook has now demonstrated that it is willing to take more decisive action on misinformation, when the stakes are high enough. Its critics may subsequently ask why it is so reticent to combat the issue when it causes harm in other areas — particularly around other medical misinformation. One expected defence for Facebook? That it is focused on taking down content that causes "imminent harm," and while COVID-19 misinformation falls into that category, lots of other sorts of falsehoods don't. However, using "imminence" as the barometer of acceptability is dubious: Vaccine denialism directly results in the deaths of babies and children. That this harm isn't "imminent" doesn't make it any less dangerous — but, for now, such material is freely posted on Facebook. Far-right conspiracy theories like Pizzagate, and more recent, Qanon, have also spread on Facebook — stoking baseless fears of shadowy cabals secretly controlling the government. These theories don't intrinsically incite harm, but have been linked to multiple acts of violence, from a Pizzagate believer firing his weapon in a pizza parlour to the Qanon-linked killing of a Gambino crime boss. (Earlier this week, Facebook did take down some popular QAnon pages — but for breaking its rules on fake profiles, rather than disinformation.) And Facebook is still full of groups rallying against 5G technology, making evidence-free claims about its health effects (and now, sometimes linking it to coronavirus in a messy web). These posts exist on a continuum, with believers at the extreme end attempting to burn down radio towers and assault technicians; Facebook does take down such incitements to violence, but the more general fearmongering that can act as a gateway to more extreme action remains. This week, Facebook announced the first 20 members of its Oversight Board — a "Supreme Court"-style entity that will review reports from users make rulings as to what objectionable content is and isn't allowed on Facebook and Instagram, with — in theory — the power to overrule the company. It remains to be seen whether its decisions may affect the company's approach for misinformation, and it still needs to appoint the rest of its members and get up and running. For now, limits remain in place as to what Facebook will countenance in its fight against coronavirus-specific misinformation. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would immediately take down posts advertising dangerous false cures to COVID-19, like drinking bleach. It is "obviously going to create imminent harm," he said in March. "That is just in a completely different class of content than the back-and-forth accusations a candidate might make in an election." But in April, President Donald Trump suggested that people might try injecting a "disinfectant" as a cure, which both has the potential to be extremely harmful, and will not cure coronavirus. Facebook is not taking down video of his comments. Do you work at Facebook? Contact Business Insider reporter Rob Price via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 650-636-6268), encrypted email (robaeprice@protonmail.com), standard email (rprice@businessinsider.com), Telegram/Wickr/WeChat (robaeprice), or Twitter DM (@robaeprice). We can keep sources anonymous. Use a non-work device to reach out. PR pitches by standard email only, please.SEE ALSO: Facebook announced the first 20 members of its oversight board that will decide what controversial content is allowed on Facebook and Instagram Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: A cleaning expert reveals her 3-step method for cleaning your entire home quickly Full Article
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