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Slate Auto says its stripped-down electric pickup will start at $24,950 before fees, with the base model's estimated range increased from 150 to about 205 miles. The company has started taking preorders on Wednesday. "The aggressive pricing -- half the average cost of a new car in the United States -- puts Slate in position to capture a share of the lowest end of the new car market, which has few gas and fewer electric options these days," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The price reveal comes more than a year after Slate Auto emerged from stealth. Since then, the company has been steadily detailing the extremely basic, transforming EV, which starts as a two-seater pickup truck, but can be modified into a five-seater SUV. The SUV version will start at $29,950, Slate said Wednesday. Slate has said the conversion can be done by professionals or by owners themselves. On Wednesday, it finally showed off some of the first of its "Slate University" how-to videos, which guide people through the steps for doing everything from the SUV conversion to adding headlight covers.
Everything else about the truck is bare, though it's customizable. It has hand-crank windows, lacks an infotainment system, and all orders start with the same gray composite material, with no paint options, as Slate plans to let buyers order customizable wraps for the vehicle. That likely helps cut out a major cost center, as factory paint shops can run in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The company did not offer more details about the buying process. Slate has said it "won't have traditional dealerships," and plans to sell directly to customers, similar to other EV companies like Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid Motors.
Everything else about the truck is bare, though it's customizable. It has hand-crank windows, lacks an infotainment system, and all orders start with the same gray composite material, with no paint options, as Slate plans to let buyers order customizable wraps for the vehicle. That likely helps cut out a major cost center, as factory paint shops can run in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The company did not offer more details about the buying process. Slate has said it "won't have traditional dealerships," and plans to sell directly to customers, similar to other EV companies like Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid Motors.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Meta has paused its Model Compatibility Initiative that tracked employee mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and screen content to train AI agents, after some of its collected data became accessible to more employees than intended. Meta says it has no evidence the information was improperly accessed and will not restart the program until it is confident in its safeguards. Wired reports: Meta rolled out the Model Compatibility Initiative (MCI) tool in April to US employees. The tool "collects computer inputs such as mouse movements, click locations and keystrokes, as well as screen content," according to workers who have been petitioning against it over privacy, security, and personal liberty concerns. When MCI launched, employees couldn't opt out, but that changed to a limited degree after workers protested. Meta executives have repeatedly defended the data-gathering project, saying it was necessary to train AI systems to operate computer software the way humans do and that employees were the best examples for the artificial intelligence to learn from.
On Monday, a Meta engineer issued an internal security notice stating that databases filled with information gathered by MCI had been exposed to anyone inside the company. A former employee actively involved in pushing back against MCI describes the lapse as "a mess" -- and one that employees had expected would occur. "When workers raised concerns, leadership doubled down and failed to acknowledge the risks workers raised about the safety and privacy of worker and customer data," the person says. "Leadership has clearly created an authoritarian environment where workers are no longer respected or heard."
But after critical comments poured into internal forums on Monday expressing frustration about the security issue, Meta shocked some of its staff by pausing MCI altogether, telling WIRED about the development several hours before announcing it to employees. A few workers told WIRED they were confused in the meantime because the tool was continuing to run on their laptops. Late on Monday, Stephane Kasriel, a Meta vice president overseeing AI research, announced the pause and told staff that the security issue had been discovered on June 18 and addressed within four hours. But the initial fix didn't stick and access to the data had to be further locked down. The issue made "some MCI-derived data" accessible to more people than intended, he wrote, without elaborating.
On Monday, a Meta engineer issued an internal security notice stating that databases filled with information gathered by MCI had been exposed to anyone inside the company. A former employee actively involved in pushing back against MCI describes the lapse as "a mess" -- and one that employees had expected would occur. "When workers raised concerns, leadership doubled down and failed to acknowledge the risks workers raised about the safety and privacy of worker and customer data," the person says. "Leadership has clearly created an authoritarian environment where workers are no longer respected or heard."
But after critical comments poured into internal forums on Monday expressing frustration about the security issue, Meta shocked some of its staff by pausing MCI altogether, telling WIRED about the development several hours before announcing it to employees. A few workers told WIRED they were confused in the meantime because the tool was continuing to run on their laptops. Late on Monday, Stephane Kasriel, a Meta vice president overseeing AI research, announced the pause and told staff that the security issue had been discovered on June 18 and addressed within four hours. But the initial fix didn't stick and access to the data had to be further locked down. The issue made "some MCI-derived data" accessible to more people than intended, he wrote, without elaborating.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Two powerful earthquakes – with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 – sent residents running into the streets as buildings shook and collapsed
One of the worst hit areas appears to have been La Guaira, a port city just north of Caracas on Venezuela’s Caribbean coast.
La Guaira is home to Venezuela’s main international airport, the Simón Bolívar International Airport, and is also close to some of the hillside communities that came under attack by US forces, when Donald Trump ordered the 3 January attack on Venezuela this year to abduct its president Nicolás Maduro.
Continue reading...Morocco confirmed their progress to the World Cup last 32 but twice had to come from behind to get the better of plucky Haiti 4-2 in an action-packed game on Wednesday, and fell short of topping Brazil in the Group C standings.
Morocco finished level on seven points with the five-time world champions, who beat Scotland 3-0, but are runners-up on goal difference and will play the Group F winners – either Japan, the Netherlands or Sweden – on Monday in the first knockout round.
Continue reading...Scotland will now play the waiting game. The trouble is, as they hang around to discover whether a place in the last 32 can be secured as among the leading eight third placed teams in this World Cup, it is legitimate to question the point of it all. Scotland’s on field contribution to this tournament has been pitiful.
Defeat to Brazil can and should happen. The ragged nature of Scotland’s output in Miami, the utterly punchless nature of their play – again – until desperation set in means they should enter the knockout phase with red faces should that come to pass. Steve Clarke’s men have been outscored by Haiti in Group C plus New Zealand, Iran and Cape Verde elsewhere.
Continue reading...WILLEMSTAD (ANP) - De Meteorologische Dienst op Curaçao heeft woensdagavond (lokale tijd) bevestigd dat de aardbeving die plaatsvond voor de kust van Venezuela, ook te voelen was op Curaçao. De beving had een kracht van 7.1. Er is een code geel afgegeven op het eiland. De weerdienst laat weten dat er geen kans op een tsunami bestaat.
Het US Tsunami Warning System gaf kort na de beving een tsunamiwaarschuwing af voor Puerto Rico en de Amerikaanse en Britse Maagdeneilanden. De Meteo op Curaçao laat naar aanleiding daarvan weten dat een aardbeving heeft plaatsgevonden, maar er voor Curaçao geen gevaar is op hoge golven.
De schok werd op sommige delen van het eiland duidelijk gevoeld. Zo zou ten tijde van de aardbeving "alles zijn gaan trillen" in het CMC-ziekenhuis in Willemstad, aldus een ooggetuige tegenover het ANP. Het epicentrum van de beving bevond zich in zee, 53 kilometer ten westen van Puerto Cabello in Venezuela.
„No Scotland, no party!”, zingen de duizenden Schotse fans woensdagavond aan het begin van hun wedstrijd tegen Brazilië in het Miami Stadium op het ritme van Seven nation army.
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