Month: December 2022

Elon Musk has suspended Kanye West’s (aka Ye) Twitter account after the latter posted antisemitic tweets and violated the platform’s rules. In a reply to Mega founder Kim Dotcom, Musk clarified that Ye’s account was suspended for “incitement to violence” and not because of the music artist posting an “unflattering” picture of the Tesla CEO.

Earlier today, West went on a tweet rampage and tweeted a picture of a Nazi Swastika merged with the Star of David. Soon after that, he posted on Truth Social that his Twitter account was temporarily locked. Later, Musk clarified that he “tried his best” to nudge West to follow Twitter rules, but the rapper still continued to post content that violated the platform’s rule against incitement to violence — resulting in a suspension.

Musk rounded out the saga by Tweeting “FAFO” — fuck around and find out.

This is not West’s first rodeo in terms of breaking Twitter rules. In October, his account was temporarily suspended for posting antisemitic content. But he doesn’t seem to learn the lesson.

West has been the center of the news coverage since last night after appearing on Alex Jones’ Infowars and praising Hitler. Following this appearance, the House Judiciary Republicans account deleted its October 6 tweet saying “Kanye. Elon. Trump”.

Soon after that, social network Parler said that Ye is not buying the company after all.

“Parlement Technologies has confirmed that the company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler,” the statement said. In October, the company and Ye had reached an agreement for the rapper to buy the social network for an undisclosed amount.

Earlier this week, Twitter posted a blog post saying it is committed to healthy conversation under “Twitter 2.0” and the platform hasn’t changed any of its policies. But on the contrary, the company has changed multiple policies about account verification and a cool-off period for new accounts trying to buy a Twitter Blue subscription. Musk also offered a “general amnesty” to previously suspended accounts based on a result of a poll.

When it comes to overall moderation policy, the new Twitter owner promised a “content moderation council” with “widely diverse viewpoints” in October. Post that, there have been no developments on that front. Musk has talked a lot about being a “free-speech absolutist” and making Twitter a “public town square,” but the only policy he has repeatedly talked about is suspending accounts that are inciting violence.

Elon Musk suspends Kanye West’s account for breaking Twitter rules by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

An automated status updater for Slack isn’t the only thing Mozilla acquired this week. On Wednesday, the company announced that it snatched up Active Replica, a Vancouver-based startup developing a “web-based metaverse.”

According to Mozilla SVP Imo Udom, Active Replica will support Mozilla’s ongoing work with Hubs, the latter’s VR chatroom service and open source project. Specifically, he sees the Active Replica team working on personalized subscription tiers, improving the onboarding experience and introducing new interaction capabilities in Hubs.

“Together, we see this as a key opportunity to bring even more innovation and creativity to Hubs than we could alone,” Udom said in a blog post. “We will benefit from their unique experience and ability to create amazing experiences that help organizations use virtual spaces to drive impact. They will benefit from our scale, our talent, and our ability to help bring their innovations to the market faster.”

Active Replica was founded in 2020 by Jacob Ervin and Valerian Denis. Ervin is a software engineer by trade, having held roles at AR/VR startups Metaio, Liminal AR and Occipital. Denis has a history in project management — he worked for VR firms including BackLight, which specializes in location-based and immersive VR experiences for brands.

With Active Replica, Ervin and Denis sought to built a platform for virtual events and meetings built on top of Mozilla’s Hubs project. Active Replica sold virtual event packages that included venue design, event planning, live entertainment and tech support.

Prior to the acquisition, Active Replica hadn’t publicly announced outside funding. Ervin and Denis have assumed new jobs at Mozilla within the past several weeks, now working as senior engineering manager and product lead, respectively.

“Mozilla has long advocated for a healthier internet and has been an inspiration to us in its dedication and contributions to the open web. By joining forces with the Mozilla Hubs team, we’re able to further expand on our mission and inspire a new generation of creators, connectors, and builders,” Ervin and Denis said in a statement. “Active Replica will continue to work with our existing customers, partners and community.”

Mozilla launched Hubs in 2018, which it pitched at the time as an “experiment” in “immersive social experiences.” Hubs provides the dev tools and infrastructure necessary to allow users to visit a portal through any browser and collaborate with others in a VR environment. Adhering to web standards, Hubs supports all the usual headsets and goggles (e.g. Oculus Rift, HTC Vive) while remaining open to those without specialized VR hardware on desktops and smartphones.

Hubs recently expanded with the launch of a $20-per-month service that did away with the previously-free service but introduced account management tools, privacy and security features. According to Mozilla, the plan is to roll out additional tiers and reintroduce a free version in the future, along with kits to create custom spaces, avatar and identity options and integrations with existing collaboration tools.

Mozilla’s forays into the metaverse have had been met with mixed results. While Hubs is alive and kicking as evidenced by the Active Replica acquisition, Meta shuttered Firefox Reality, its attempt to create a full-featured browser for AR and VR headsets, in February 2022. In explaining why it decided to close up Firefox Reality, Mozilla said that while it does help develop new technologies, like WebVR and WebAR, it doesn’t always continue to host and incubate those technologies long-term.

Mozilla acquires Active Replica to build on its metaverse vision by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

Tesla delivered Thursday evening the first production versions of its long-delayed electric semi truck five years after CEO Elon Musk revealed the commercial vehicle. The first Tesla Semi trucks were handed over to Pepsi at an event at the company gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada.

Pepsi placed an order for 100 trucks back in December 2017, when the Tesla Semi was first revealed. Other high-profile customers-in-waiting include Anheuser-Busch, Walmart and UPS.

Tesla appeared to have at least five Semis at the event, which had PepsiCo and Frito-Lay branding. Pepsi previously shared plans to use at least 15 of the Tesla Semis to turn its Modesto, California Frito-Lay site into a zero-emissions facility.

The big reveal comes a couple of months after Musk tweeted that production on the long-delayed Semi had started, with first deliveries to begin in December 2022.

Musk had originally introduced an electric Class 8 truck prototype in 2017 and planned to start production in December 2019. The trucking program has been plagued by delays. During its second quarter 2021 earnings report, Tesla said it would need to push production out to 2022 due to supply chain challenges and the limited availability of battery cells.

Tesla did not reveal the price of the Semi truck.

Holding Tesla to its 2017 promises

Back in 2017, Tesla said Autopilot, the automaker’s advanced driver assistance system, would be on the Tesla Semi. At Thursday’s event neither Musk nor Dan Priestley, senior manager of Tesla Semi Engineering, mentioned any automated capabilities of the truck, nor discussed the placement of the cameras that would be needed for Autopilot to “see.”

However, Tesla did stay true to several of its other 2017 promises. For example, five years ago, Tesla said its Semi would be able to travel 500 miles on a single battery charge when fully loaded and driving 65 miles per hour. The automaker appears to have delivered on that promise Thursday and even demonstrated with a video showing a Semi drive from Fremont to San Diego. The company did not provide some important stats, however, including the size of the battery pack size.

In the past, Musk had said the Semi will go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 20 seconds when fully loaded, but the executive didn’t mention that capability on Thursday. However, Musk Priestley did tout the power of the Semi to easily pass another truck on a highway while loaded with goods and going up a 6% incline.

The Semi uses the same powertrain as the Plaid Model S and Model X and relies on a “tri-motor system.” Priestley said that means one of the motors is constantly engaged for maximum efficiency and the other two are for torque and acceleration, which could come in handy if a driver was getting onto a loading dock or wanted to pass another vehicle.

“It can basically pull 82,000 pounds at cruise, and the only thing that’s doing it is a tiny little motor on one axle,” said Musk, noting that the motor was about the size of a football but, because of its energy density, was more powerful than a diesel engine. In fact, Priestley said the Semi had three times the power of any diesel truck on the road right now.

Musk said the Semi was fast to accelerate and fast to break. As promised, the Semi is built with regenerative braking, which means the brakes deliver power to the battery when drivers take their foot off the accelerator.

“We get to the bottom of the hill, and we have cold brakes,” said Musk. “That’s like mind blowing in the trucking world.”

Musk also noted that the wheels have better traction — good enough to stop the truck from jackknifing — than a diesel truck because electric motors are more precise than diesel engines.

The inside cab of the truck, as previously advertised, is built with the seat in the middle. Priestley said drivers would be able to stand up and change clothes within the cab, which is built with cargo space for tools, as well as charging ports.

“You’ve got efficiency in every aspect of the vehicle. There’s one touch suspension dump so it gets very easy to attach to the trailer. It saves time and money,” said Musk.

“Really we’re trying to extend the idea of this efficiency from not just while you’re on the road, but into the yard, as well. So before and after the truck has done its job on the road,” said Priestley.

Part of the reason Tesla was able to pull off so much “efficiency” was because it could rely on the learnings from its active car fleet.

“We’re coming off of a great launching pad with everything that’s done in the rest of our products already,” said Priestley. “It’s also enabled because Tesla’s got this whole vertical integration on the software and the hardware side, so the teamsare working together to put all that together into one package. This is a huge win for all of our products, but particularly Semi.”

Tesla will be able to accumulate more data to improve the Semi in the future by putting the trucks into its own fleet and using them to transport goods between Tesla factories and suppliers.

Finally, Tesla has stayed true to its charging vision from five years ago. Semis will be charged with a “megawatt class charger” that feature a next-gen immersive cooling system. These chargers will be similar to Tesla’s supercharger network. The company will also install Megapacks alongside the chargers, which are an energy storage system that prevents peak electricity surges from the grid.

Tesla reveals long-awaited Semi Truck and begins first deliveries by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch