The Morning After: Tesla's new Autopilot feature rolls out
And there's bad news for Boba Fett.
Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.
Welcome to your weekend! Tesla owners with Autopilot equipped may have a new update to check out -- after making sure their car is secure wherever it's parked. We'll also take a look back at several reviews this week for the iPhone XR, Galaxy Book 2, Google Home Hub and Red Dead Redemption 2.
Tesla's 'Navigate on Autopilot' rolls out across North America
When Tesla rolled out its 9.0 software to vehicles earlier this month, it held back one feature for some additional testing: Navigate on Autopilot. CEO Elon Musk tweeted that a beta test of the feature would begin rolling out Friday night. In a move that Musk has previously described as a time when "we will begin to enable full self-driving features," it gives more control over to the car from highway on-ramp to off-ramp.
Drivers will need to enable the feature in their Autopilot menu, and it has four settings for speed based lane changes (Disabled, Mild, Average, or Mad Max) that the car will perform after suggesting a move to the driver and receiving confirmation.
Thieves steal a Tesla Model S by hacking the entry fob
A Tesla owner who recorded thieves stealing his Model S by hacking the passive entry system has published the video on YouTube, so we can all watch and learn. It shows the crooks using a tablet to apparently capture the passive signal from his keyfob, then using the data to open the vehicle. The problem? The owner never activated a PIN-to-drive feature that would have required a code to get the vehicle going.
From the perspective of Apple SVP Phil Schiller, "If we're going to push the upper boundaries with XS and XS Max to make something the best, how do we make something that's more affordable for a larger audience?" If you ask Chris Velazco, this other iPhone X is the best one for most people, with a battery life that outlasts its more expensive brethren and the same A12 Bionic chipset inside. Buying an iPhone XR means going without the benefits of a dual-camera setup and higher-res display, but there's a lot here to love and it costs less than $1,000.
Samsung's Galaxy Book 2 looks like the ultimate Surface Pro rival, thanks to its crisp, vibrant display and handy new kickstand. But its Snapdragon 850 CPU causes some programs to perform slowly and limits app compatibility. For $999 with a keyboard and S Pen, the Galaxy Book 2 is a reasonable deal, but only if you often travel for long distances.
NASA fixes Hubble gyroscope by turning it off and on again
One of the Hubble telescope's gyroscopes conked out in early October, and while there was a backup, it didn't work as expected -- rotating too fast and generally screwing things up. NASA has since been able to fix its issues by implementing an age-old fix for malfunctioning electronics: turning it off and on again. Well, it was slightly more complicated than that, but the good news is that it's up and running again.
But wait, there's more...
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Take a trip to the depths of the world's biggest underwater sinkhole
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