Sure, all of the excitement is around Tesla's $35k+ Model 3, but what about the Model X SUV? It's slowly starting to hit the road, and CEO Elon Musk claimed (in a since deleted tweet) that the SUV's configurator will open to all on Monday.
Technical
NASA starts drop testing Orion with a dummy crew on board
The Orion capsule's first manned mission isn't scheduled to take off until 2023 at the earliest. NASA is already preparing for it, though, and has begun a series of water impact tests using a mockup of the spacecraft with a dummy crew on board. Engin…
Barnes and Noble farms out some Nook tech services
The slow retirement of the Barnes and Noble e-reader continues. After shedding its deal with Microsoft (and closing services outside of the UK and US), the bookseller is looking to save money by outsourcing dev support and cloud services to Bahwan Cy…
Hackers hijack radio stations to air a furry podcast
In the kind of story we should probably get used to hearing, Ars Technica digs into an incident Tuesday morning where someone redirected multiple radio stations including KIFT and KXAX to broadcast an archived episode of a NSFW podcast for the furry…
Basis Peak gets smarter with music control and activity editing
The Basis Peak fitness tracker just got an update that controls the music playing on an Android or iOS device and lets users manually enter the type and duration of a workout. Good news for music fans that get in shape with activities that might nece…
Video game clip-sharing service Plays.tv has 10 million users.
Plays.tv, a video-sharing platform for gamers, today revealed a major milestone: 10 million active users per month. That's an astonishing number on its own, but it's particularly notable considering the service has only been around for about three mo…
Chromecast in a ’70s TV is wonderful and weird
You've no doubt seen some interesting attempts at melding vintage tech with the modern world, but few of them are likely to be as fun (and vaguely practical) as this. Gadget tweaker Dr. Moddnstine has modified a 1978 General Electric portable TV to…
Nest has ‘case-by-case’ help for abandoned Revolv owners
Next month Nest shutting is down its service that powers Revolv smart home hubs, and now the Google-owned company says it's trying to help owners of the devices. Nest bought Revolv back in 2014 but no longer sells the hardware, and yesterday word cam…
Android Auto reaches cars in 18 more countries
Android Auto isn't just available in a handful of countries anymore. Google has expanded its phone-as-infotainment integration to 18 more countries, as well as Puerto Rico. Most of the coverage revolves around Europe and Latin American nations (inc…
What’s on your HDTV: ‘Star Wars’ Blu-ray, ‘Fantastic Contraption’
Now that The Walking Dead has wrapped up its season with an annoying cliffhanger, it's time for Fear the Walking Dead to step in on AMC. Of course, neither show matches up to the Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which arrives this week on Blu-ray after…
Music industry pushes for digital copyright law reform
Think the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is broken, leading to all kinds of abuse? So does the American music industry… just not for the same reasons. The RIAA and other groups have responded to a US Copyright Office request for comment on the…
Blue Origin posts video of its rocket’s third flight
Another day, another suborbital spaceflight for Blue Origin's BE-3 rocket booster. The New Shepard reached an altitude of 103km during its third flight yesterday, before the capsule came home via parachute and its engine landed while restarting at ab…
Oculus Rift and HTC Vive buyers face shipping headaches
Your gleaming vision of a virtual reality future may have to wait a while. Both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive buyers are facing delays and other headaches that are preventing them from getting their VR headsets as quickly as expected. In the case of the R…
Tesla seriously underestimated Model 3 demand
It won't shock you to hear that Tesla low-balled demand for the Model 3, but by how much? Er… quite a bit, actually. Elon Musk has revealed that his company expected "1/4 to 1/2" of the pre-orders it got (252,000 worldwide as of this writing) for…
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin will launch its rocket a third time
Jeff Bezos' rocket company has already shown its product is reusable, but if it's going to launch "space" tourism, it will have to fly many times. As such, Blue Origin is working fly the New Shepard rocket for the third time on Saturday. According to…