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Tesla receives permission to continue working on its German Gigafactory
Work on Tesla's German Gigafactory is back on. The company received permission from the Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg to continue clearing 91 hectares of forest in preparation for its fourth factory, where it plans to build batteries, powertrains and vehicles, starting with the Model Y.
SpaceX asks permission to take Starship on a high-altitude test flight
One of the next major steps in SpaceX's plans for true spaceflight will be a 12-mile-high test flight. Sometime between March and September, the company plans to launch its Starship suborbital test vehicle from Boca Chica, Texas. The Starship will travel to an altitude of 12.4 miles, or 20 kilometers. SpaceX will then attempt to land and recover the vehicle.
Facebook privacy overhaul grants better controls for permissions, apps, photos and more
Voting for changes may never be the same on Facebook, but it sure seems as if the company is taking your privacy more seriously than perhaps it has in the past. In a move that signals bold changes on behalf of the user, Facebook has published two posts today outlining a litany of both user and developer tweaks that enable greater control over content. Today's updates include Privacy Shortcuts, an easier-to-use Activity Log, and a new Request and Removal tool for managing multiple photos you're tagged in; it's also adding "new in-product education that makes key concepts around controlling your sharing clearer, such as in-context reminders about how stuff you hide from timeline may still appear in news feed, search, and other places." Over on the dev side, it's introducing a series of updates to the Login dialog to improve the clarity and control of the app permissions process. Notably, much of this is already present in iOS 6, but now it's rolling the tweaks out "more broadly." There's plenty to dive into -- those source links over there just need a little attention.
NYT: Android also lets app developers steal your photos
Earlier this week, a New York Times report detailed how iOS apps can snoop on your photos when you give them access to your location. Now in a follow-up report, Brian X. Chen and Nick Bilton discuss a similar flaw in Android. According to their report, any Android app that has the right to browse the Internet can also access your photos. Not only can the app see your photos without permission, it can upload them to a third-party website, even a public photo-sharing site, without your knowledge or consent. Google acknowledged this flaw and said, "we're taking another look at this and considering adding a permission for apps to access images."
Microsoft loosens up, enables Windows Phone 7 apps to run beneath screen lock
We felt that Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 was a product that would be perpetually evaluated, tweaked and overhauled as time went on, and sure enough, we're already seeing those winds of change blow yonder. Reportedly, Microsoft has now removed the restriction that prevented developers from writing applications that would continue to operate behind a locked screen (without a user's explicit permission, anyway), enabling a whole host of apps to breathe in a manner in which they simply should. Audio apps, for example, will now be able to run in the background without yet another layer of pointless Vista-esque permissions, and Microsoft's Charlie Kindel said in an interview at its Professional Developer Conference that this move "is an example of us continuing to listen to customers." Frankly, it's just more fair -- Microsoft's own ingrained applications could already do this sans user permission (email, Zune playback, downloads, etc.), so it makes sense to give loyal developers that same opportunity. Of course, devs will have to prove that background apps won't burn up an absurd amount of battery life, but that's definitely not an unexpected qualification.
